We all know that the Vedas and Puranas date back to several thousand years B.C.

when these were

passed on from generation to generation orally. Out of all the puranas, Bhagawat Purana was put
into written form around 9 th-11th AD. Recently I finished reading the English translation by
Mr.Ramesh Menon. It is a massive volume of more than 1440 pages and took me 9 months to
complete.

While reading the book, what struck me most were several facts of science which according to
current thinking of scholars would never have been possible to comprehend several thousand years
BC. It is startling to imagine how in such prehistoric time the sages and saints were able to refer to
scientific facts which our current crop of scientists is still groping to solve. I have reproduced some
excerpts from Bhagawat Purana in italics below.

 “Wondrous Alaka, city of the king of the yakshas and guhyakas, lord of the nine treasures,
one of the Lokpalas, the masters of the earth, fairly swarms with vimanas which look like
immense flying jewels, cut like faceted disks, which fly more quickly than light or time”.

In above excerpt the authors/sages were aware of flying saucers. It points to the fact that
recent frequent claims of spotting flying saucers in the sky and related incidents might well
be true. The second aspect of the excerpt was the reference to these flying saucers being
quicker than light. This demonstrates that the learned ones at that time also recognised that
speed of light was the fastest in material existence, something which Einstein proved as late
as in the twentieth century. Throughout the scripture of Bhagwat Purana, there were many
references of inter planetary or inter galactic travel. So it might have been possible that the
Devas from heaven that we frequently refer to, indeed visited earth time to time.

 “Surya Deva’s chariot range, circling Mount Meru, uttarayana and dakshinayana (the
northern and southern migrations) in one year which is one day and night for the devas.

When the Sun crosses the signs of Aries and Libra, the rashi Mesha and Thula, day and night
are of equal length. When he is in the five signs from Virshabha to Kanya, Taurus to Virgo,
the day lengthens and the night decreases by a ghatika which is equivalent to 24 minutes
every month. When he moves through the rashis Vrischika to Meena, Scorpio and Pisces, the
reverse happens i.e. the days are shorter in the northern hemisphere and the night longer.”

Above passage clearly shows that our learned forefathers found out the fact that it was the
movement of Sun which caused lengthening and shortening of days and nights. Isn’t it mind
boggling?

 Our ancestors were also aware of the process of pregnancy and development of the foetus. I
had read elsewhere that yogis/rishis through their power of meditation could exactly describe
the development of foetus week by week i.e. when the hands and legs develop, when the
fingers come out etc. Below excerpt is one such example which states the position of the baby
inside womb. Keep in mind, in those times there was no sonography or any other means to
determine this. “ Being born in this world is the first torment – the confinement in the darkness
of mother’s womb. Before being born, the jiva (soul) remembers the sins of his last hundred
births, not able to cry or even sigh, he suffers for them, crouched there inside his mother, next to
her faeces and her urine, praying silently to God to be delivered.”

 There are several examples in the Bhagwat Purana where upcoming events of futures were
foretold accurately. It was predicted that God Vishnu will reincarnate as the Buddha. It was
also foretold about Nanda dynasty that it would rule for about 100 years. Then about
Chanakya it was narrated, “ A Brahmin called Chanakya will exterminate this dynasty and
then the Mauryas will enjoy the land of Bharata. The Brahmin Chanakya will crown
Chandragupta Maurya as king.”

 There is so much knowledge about the universe, stars and galaxies in the entire book that it
really made my mind imagine that perhaps such knowledge would not have been possible to
gather by people from earth without interaction with higher beings from other planets who
they perhaps called the devas and asuras.

“Indra felt the power of the Lord suffuse his being, flow in his limb of light. He mounted the
white elephant and flew at asura Vritra. A duel ensured between them that shook the
galaxies. Stars spun from their ellipses through infinity”. Reading this passage, I wondered
how was it possible that several thousand years back our learned ones were aware of the
fact that there are several galaxies in the universe and more surprising was how did they
know that the stars travelled in ellipse, a fact that we modern age people can know very
recently. Not only that, read the other excerpt, “The universe is wrapped in 7 sheaths. There
are millions of such universes.”. We know that some scientists are hypothecating that there
may be several universes in probably different dimensions in existence.

 While reading the chapter on Vishnu’s Maytsa avatar, I was thrilled to read the paragraph,
“God in the avatara of Maytsa (fishi) told King Satyavrata, ‘ O Raja, on the seventh day from
today, Swarga, Bhumi and Patala shall drown in waters of the Nimittika Pralay. When the
earth is submerged, I will send you a ship. You must board the craft with the seeds of all the
trees and plants that you can gather, with a pair of every species of animal and bird and with
the Saptarshis............... When the most violent waves and winds rock your ship, I will appear
at its prow and you can moor you vessel to my fin. I will guide your ship through the waters
of deluge until a new day begins and so is a fresh creation.’ Think about the great similarity
between this great deluge and Bible’s story of the great flood, the boat of king Satyavrata
and Noah’s ark. Two great scriptures from two great religions referring to an ancient event
in similar fashion. Is it possible that such great deluge had in fact come?

 The most surprising reference to me was reference to inter galactic travel and resulting
stretchability of time. Though not well upto speed, I have read earlier in several occasions
that when one can travel in space outside the solar system and at near the speed of time,
one day in such travel will actually be several hundreds or thousands of years on earth. Now
read the excerpt where the king performs galactic travel with his daughter to meet Brahma,
“ King Kakudmi took his daughter Revati to Brahma’s sabha to ask the Creator to who he
should give his daughter for marriage. Brahma laughed softly, ‘Kshatriya, all the suitors you
had in mind for Revati are long since dead and gone! Why, even their great grandchildren’s
very names have been forgotten in the world, they have been so long dead.” Kakudmi stared
 uncomprehendingly at the Creator who continued gently, ‘Child, twenty seven chatur-
yugas have passed since you entered my sabha, for time in my realm is very different from
on the earth.’”

What do you think? Such references and knowledge in our scriptures dating back to several
thousand of years cannot simply be mere work of few imaginative minds. It was perhaps possible
that there existed a civilization in India that was far more advanced that the current mankind and all
such knowledge may have got lost gradually over time and reached such a stage where mankind in
this world had to start all over again! May be this is what nature’s cycle is!!