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> What do Hindus believe regarding the creation of the earth and life upon
> it? I heard (somewhere) that of the world's major religions, the Hindu
> creation story was the only one that gave an age for the earth close to
> the current scientifically accepted age. The number I vaguely remember
> was some tens of millions of years. Is my memory correct? Could you
> point me toward any books that might help? I would also be interested in
> hearing whether you see any conflict between your creation story and
> modern scientific theories, in particularly the "Big Bang" and
> evolution.
i grew up in very religious hindu home and we had many gurus and swamis
visit us, and many ceremonies. and those questions are for sure
fascinating, but in hinduism, how universe and earth and life came is not
much of an issue. the creation story (manu (which means "man") would be
the equivalent of adam, and same rib thing, Woman comes from Man's rib),
the creation story is
quite off-center in the religion and very few people have really gone out
of way to read it. if it is true that other mammals have female and male
and that the
female has mammary glands (which i reckon so!!), then yes, the story is
clearly false, woman was not created after man to serve him! female
already existed.so more than a conflict.
my astronomy prof. was all multiculturally sensitive and so i
figure perhaps this partly why (and maybe also cuz she knew i'm hindu) she
says Big Bang is what it says in hinduism for beginning of universe. but
the way the hindu story is worded, any possible beginning would fit if you
just read it how you want to read it. but then these stories have next to
nothing to do with hinduism in real belief and practice.
other possible springboards for your studies: Zoroaster in persia
(Zarathusthra?) wrote in the exact same language as earliest hindu
writings- that might be
another place to look. zoroaster thought to have heavy influence on
abrahamic religions. the language of
elam in ancient persia is the only language besides hungarian (who a
serbian friend once told me, are asian in origin, (attila?)) that
linguists find similar to Tamil in south india.
Bali in indonesia is mostly hindu, and even java
(island of jakarta) has some native hindus and many hindu names-- homo
erectus emerged in either java or lake turkana (kenya-uganda) or both, and
probably migrated along the coast for access to ocean (which means
Malaysia, then thailand, burma, bengal- ganga/ganges shows up for inland
movement- but coast
would go south around india, indus river in pakistan, persia,maybe
branching to hungary or through to kenya- or maybe all this
opposite--"iran"="aryan") One anthro book i read, "The First Men",
suggests homoerectus evolved into sapien while traveling across
nepal/ central-north of India. who knows?
> I'm curious because I've been spending some time at the talk.origins
> newsgroup which is devoted to debating the fundamentalist Christian
> (6000 year old earth) vs. the modern scientific view (4.5 billion year
> old earth) of creation. I'm a chemistry/physics major and very
> interested in the relationship between science and religion in different
> cultures.
>
> Any feedback would be greatly appreciated!
>
> Thanks-DMC-------------------------------------------------------------------
> Mail posts to: ghen@netcom.com : http://www.hindunet.org/srh_home/
>
>
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