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World-Age Cycles & Catastrophism

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CM-308

World-Age Cycles

World-age cycles are recurring models of time in which the world moves through stages, often from an original golden age into decline, crisis, destruction, and renewal. The pattern appears in Greek Ages of Man, Hindu yuga cycles, Mesoamerican suns and calendar cycles, Iranian and Abrahamic age schemes, Norse apocalypse and renewal, esoteric cycles, and modern New Age or catastrophe theories. The strongest evidence is textual and cultural: many traditions really do organize time through age sequences and renewal motifs. The weaker claim is that these cycles encode a single literal prehistoric global catastrophe, a precise astronomical clock, a hidden lost civilization timeline, or an accurate future prediction. Some cycles include astronomy or calendrical mathematics, but symbolic cycle systems should not be turned into scientific timelines without independent evidence.

Open topic

CM-310

Maya 2012 Cycle

The Maya 2012 Cycle refers to the completion of 13 b'ak'tuns in the Maya Long Count calendar, commonly correlated with December 21, 2012. A b'ak'tun is 144,000 days, and 13 b'ak'tuns is a major calendrical interval. The date was meaningful as a cycle completion, but it was not a proven ancient Maya doomsday prophecy. Only a small number of known ancient Maya inscriptions refer directly to the 13th b'ak'tun completion, especially Tortuguero Monument 6 and a text from La Corona. These texts do not support the popular claim that the Maya predicted the end of the world. They are better read as elite historical, ritual, and political uses of long-range calendar symbolism.

Open topic

CM-309

Yuga Cycles

Yuga Cycles are best understood first as a Hindu cosmological time system. The classic scheme divides a mahayuga into four ages: Satya or Krita Yuga, Treta Yuga, Dvapara Yuga, and Kali Yuga. These ages decline in moral and spiritual quality, often using the image of dharma standing on four legs in the first age and losing one leg in each later age. A widespread classical four-yuga scheme, explicitly set out in Manu 1.69–71 and elaborated in epic and Puranic traditions, assigns declining age lengths in a 4:3:2:1 ratio once each age's dawn and twilight are included. Specify the text and passage rather than treating all dharmashastra and Puranic witnesses as one uniform model.

Open topic