Dwapara Yuga: Ancient Technologies

Since the Yugas are cyclical with ascending arcs following descending ones and we are only just at the second of four ascending ages (Dwapara Yuga), we should look forward to future ascent and also see evidence of superior capabilities in the past.

The forward progress has been well-documented in entries in this blog.

However, there are a number problems with the perspective into the past:

1) knowledge was lost as we descended in the previous arc, with deliberate obliteration of documents and artifacts in the lows of Kali Yuga

2) those spiritual documents and artifacts that do survive are open to many interpretations e.g. descriptions of flight might be metaphorical and an object that appears to be a model plane might be a stylized model bird, say

3) our perceptions should give us insight into Descending Dwapara and Kali Yugas but we might not be in a position to recognize or comprehend knowledge from Descending Satya and Treta Yugas, for example, in the correct interpretations of ancient scriptures

Ancient technology is fascinating but largely absent from this blog since it's so hard to separate verifiable facts from potential pseudo archeology and arguments of the type 'x could have been for y and therefore it was' such as the 'helicopter hyeroglyph' pictured isn't forcibly a helicopter just because it looks like one.

Over time, the proof should build up in the way that say analysis of the comparatively recent Antikythera Mechanism has and the author respects all such efforts and the fundamental creativity and insight that they represent.

Ancient stories and legends such as the Nine Unknown Men of Ashoka are, for the moment, best enjoyed in fiction from that of the Theosophists to today's Heroes TV show.

For the record, the author does not believe that the end of the world will be in 2012 (Mayan) or whenever, rather that ages are cyclical, with upheavals, plagues and war at periods and the Christian 'second coming' is rather a personal, spiritual event rather than some literalist armageddon.

I must admit that so-called fringe or radical books are often the most interesting in that they implicitly challenge the status quo. Where would the world be if Galileo, or Einstein, or Luther had been suppressed, or worse, available only in bowdlerized, emasculated 'authorized' editions representing not their views but rather those with vested interests in controlling information?

In science and religion, it is often the mavericks and critics that shed the most light not the tamest of the tame editors who hide away information that does not fit their small, bigoted world views. Reading experts in scientific methodology such as Paul Feyerabend is quite instructive for lay readers who might naively believe that religion, politics, psychology and sociology do not intrude in the pristine world of science where many areas of research lay dormant today for fear of ridicule.