“Since major cosmic disasters have, in all probability, destroyed Man and his putative civilisations more than once, the Great Deluge (the last universal flood as attested to by a whole raft of prevailing myths from all over the world) may have destroyed all evidence relating to the alleged giants who apparently lived incredibly long lives on Earth. If they had inter¬bred with the humans they had created using homo erectus, unavoidable mutation may have shrunk them to become an integrated part of current humanity.
If the Sumerian clay tablets are to be believed, our knowledge of the formation of Earth, of the origin of modern man, of the history of human civilisations, of cosmic impacts, of geological upheavals, of the transmission of knowledge, and the probable loss of previously advanced cultures is open to substantial revision – assuming that we do not enter an Age of the Fifth Sun through yet another annihilation of most of mankind. The clairvoyant Edgar Cayce’s stories (which were uttered while indubitably asleep) about Atlantis (in the Atlantic Ocean) and Lemuria (in the Pacific Ocean), and the Inca culture’s ‘end of time’ prognostication do not offer much hope for the continuity of modern ‘civilisation.’ Yet, the search for understanding the Cosmos and our place in it must continue.
It is surely significant that Man’s Cosmos is now seemingly assumed by some cosmologists to be ever-lasting, always renewed after a cycle of growth and shrinkage. But I do wonder: in terms of the ‘Big Bang’ framework, would the Cosmos need to shrink to a dot before it expands once more? In any event, how plausible is a ‘Big Crunch’? … …
Harking back to the Hubble Telescope’s observations, what if this movement away of every visible object from every other visible object is on such a small scale as to be insignificant on a wider screen? What if other matter, invisible matter, is filling the spaces left vacant? Are we trying to describe an elephant by looking only at its feet? If so, does not the leading foot move away from the other feet repeatedly as the animal walks?”
(These extracts from ‘Musings at death’s door’ offer little hope of mankind knowing for certain as to what happened in pre-historic times. One thing is certain – the probability of cosmic clashes with Earth, resulting in convulsions of the ground in the form of earthquakes and tsunamis, and the consequential torrential rains. Our known history is too short for any confidence to be placed in available writings, myths, and beliefs.
In the meantime, vast research continues. But, how much illumination has been provided to understand our origins and subsequent history? For example, what if (for example) the Hubble Telescope’s screen is as wide of my thumbnail against the totality of all the space on the surface of Earth? What can we ever hope to learn through our technology?)
RAJA ARASA RATNAM 