2012 And All That – Part Six
The idea that the earth has undergone a succession of catastrophic upheavals associated with cosmic encounters did not originate with the Maya. Legends, myths and stories of these devastating events can also be found throughout the ancient world. They tell of times when dwellings were destroyed and the earth was convulsed by natural disasters which had their source in space.
While these stories vary in the number of ages that have come and gone, they agree that there have been, at periodic intervals, various disasters that have assailed the earth causing widespread destruction. The agents of this destruction have been earthquake, fire, wind and flood. But these stories go further. They claim that as a result of these encounters, our world has repeatedly changed its axis, as well as its orbit around the sun.
The Chinese called these vanished ages Kis, and recorded that ten ages had passed from the beginning of the world up to the time of Confucius.The ancient Chinese encyclopedia Sing-li-ta-tsiuen-chou described these past eras in the following words: “In a general convulsion of nature, the sea is carried out of its bed, mountains spring out of the ground, rivers change their course, human beings and everything are ruined, and the ancient traces effaced.”
The sacred Hindu book Bhagavata Purana called these past ages Kalpas or Yugas, and referred to four previous ages that had terminated through different catastrophes. The Buddhist scripture Visuddhi-Magga, written about 430 BC, contains a chapter on “World Cycles” declaring that: “There are three destructions: the destruction by water, the destruction by fire, the destruction by wind”. Each of these ages is separated from its previous one by a world catastrophe.
Similar references can be found in the Zend-Avesta, the sacred book of the Persians. The Pahlavi Texts quote the prophet Zarathustra referring to “the signs, wonders, and perplexty which are manifested in the world at the end of each millennium.” One of the books of the Avesta, the Bahman Yast, numbers seven world ages or millennia that have preceded the present age.
The Greek philosophers Anaximenes and Anaximander both referred to past world ages in their writings, as did Diogenes of Apollonia in the fifth century BC. Heraclitus (540-475 BC) taught that the world was destroyed by fire at regular intervals, while Aristarchus of Samos claimed that in every period of 2,484 years, the earth underwent various destructions, some by flood and some by fire.
In his work Theogony, the Greek poet Hesiod described the end of one of these ages. “The life-giving earth crashed around in burning . . . all the land seethed, and the Ocean’s streams . . . it seemed even as if earth and wide Heaven above came together; for such a mighty crash would have arisen if Earth were being hurled to ruin, and Heaven from on high were hurling her down.”
Among the peoples of Meso-America, persistent traditions of cosmic catastrophes can be found among the Incas, the Aztecs and the Maya. The Maya referred to these past ages by the names of their “suns”, such as Water Sun, Earthquake Sun, Hurricane Sun and Fire Sun. They substituted the word “sun” for “world age” in order to define a time characterised by a specific orbit of the earth around the Sun.
As H. B. Alexander wrote in his epic Latin American Mythology published in 1920: “The Water Sun (or Sun of Waters) was the first age, terminated by a deluge in which almost all creatures perished; the Earthquake Sun or age perished in a terrific earthquake when the earth broke in many places and mountains fell. The world age of the Hurricane Sun came to its destruction in a cosmic hurricane. The Fire Sun was the world age that went down in a rain of fire.”
The Maya did not record the date of the last cosmic disturbance that led to a change in the orbit of the earth. They did however alter their calendar to match this change, by putting aside the former Long Count calendar, and instituting in its place the 52 year cycle known as the Calendar Round. However another nation, also known for its meticulous record of historical events, has left us with a written record of this event.
When the Assyrians descended on the Jews like “the wolf on the fold”, the Old Testament prophet Isaiah predicted that Jerusalem would not fall into the hands of the enemy, and that their leader Sennacherib who had blasphemed against the Lord would be killed by a “blast” sent by the Lord. (Isaiah 37:7) Isaiah went on to tell king Hezekiah that the Lord would send a sign of this deliverance. As we read:
“And I will defend thee and this city out of the hand of Assyria; and I will defend this city. And this shall be a sign unto thee from the Lord, that the Lord will do this thing that he hath spoken; Behold, I will bring again the shadow of the degrees, which is gone down in the sun dial of Ahaz, ten degrees backward. So the sun returned ten degrees, by which degrees it was gone down.” (Isaiah 38:6-8)
“And it came to pass that night, that the angel of the Lord went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred four-score and five thousand; and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses.” (II Kings 19:35)
In his book Worlds in Collision, Immanuel Velikovsky writes: “The rabbinical sources state in a definite manner that the disturbance in the movement of the sun happened on the evening of the destruction of Sennacherib’s army by a devouring blast.”
Velikovsky also quotes from the work of French scholar Edouard Biot: “The year 687 BC, in the summer, in the fourth moon, in the day sin mao (23rd of March) during the night, the fixed stars did not appear, though the night was clear (cloudless). In the middle of the night stars fell like a rain.”
Although the Maya no longer place any prophetic value on the Long Count calendar, and certainly not on the supposed end date of December 21, 2012, they do believe that the current world age has almost run its course. As with other cultures and all the major religions of our time, they believe that our world will be afflicted by a series of catastrophes that will originate in space and will rain down on the earth with sudden ferocity, as we shall see in the next instalment.
