Were there advanced human beings in past Kali-yugas?

Building on the previous article, another question is the existence of human beings in past Kali-yugas. Were they like us? Can we find evidence of their civilization?

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Building on the previous article, another question is the existence of human beings in past Kali-yugas. Were they like us? Can we find evidence of their civilization?

According to the chronology given in the Vedas, the last Kali-yuga started about 4.32 million years ago. In his book The Big Bang and the Sages, Siddhartha Prabhu makes the point that time on our planet goes at a rate of two per one compared to the time in Bhū-Mandala; therefore, the 4.32 million years should be multiplied by two to get the geological dates on our planet. Therefore, taking this factor of two into account, we can calculate that the last Kali-yuga started about 8.64 million years ago, according to our local time.

This implies that there should be no artifacts from advanced human civilizations before this period, since the advanced human beings from Satya-yuga up to Dvāpara-yuga were living in more refined dimensions and would probably not leave any artifacts that could be found in our reality. Human beings who would be living in the same dimension as us during this period would be aborigines or other less evolved humans. This is consistent with the simple stone and metal artifacts modern archaeologists find.

However, what about the previous Kali-yuga? Our premise is that human beings of previous ages had bodies composed of subtle forms of matter and were thus living in a higher dimension. They would thus not leave artifacts that would be discoverable by us. Human beings from the past Kali-yuga, however, are a different story.

Post-industrial civilizations from this period would be living in the same dimension as us, and they should have left plenty of artifacts we could recognize, such as plastics, concrete, advanced metal alloys, and so on. If their civilization were similar to ours, there would be a whole archaeological layer around most of the globe.

Why don’t archaeologists find artifacts from technologically advanced civilizations dated from 8.64 million years ago, as well as artifacts from other past Kali-yugas, which started 17.29 million years ago, 25.93 million years ago, and so on? We are currently in the 28th Kali-yuga of the 7th manvantara, of the first day of the 51st year of the life of Brahma. This means there were 453 Kali-yugas before our age in the current cycle of creation.

First of all, there is no indication that things go the same way in all Kali-yugas. The main factor, the moral degradation and the spread of sinful activities, falsity, atheism, and so on, always go on, but there is no indication that human beings always develop their civilization in the same way we did.

In SB 2.7.37, for example, it’s described that in some past Kali-yuga, human beings were able to travel in space and attack other planets until the advent of an incarnation of Lord Buddha (different from the Buddha from our time), who taught the principles of ahiṁsā (non-violence), convincing them to stop harming others.

The verse reads, “When the atheists, after being well versed in the Vedic scientific knowledge, annihilate inhabitants of different planets, flying unseen in the sky on well-built rockets prepared by the great scientist Maya, the Lord will bewilder their minds by dressing Himself attractively as Buddha and will preach on subreligious principles.”

This verse was spoken by Brahmā at the beginning of his current day. He speaks in the future because it is the future from his perspective, but these are events that have already happened. Śrila Jīva Goswami confirms that this event happened in some past Kali-yuga on our planet. We can see that at this time, human beings were able to establish contact with the asuras in the lower planetary systems and somehow got advanced Vedic technologies that allowed them to build spaceships and mystic weapons that they used to attack other planets around the universe. These weapons were powered by mantra rather than by some mechanical or electronic arrangement, and thus they would probably not be recognized as advanced technology if found underground. Since these human beings were able to interact with the asuras and other inhabitants of Bhū-Mandala, it is also questionable if they were living in the same gross dimension as we are. It’s more plausible that they could somehow still be living in a more subtle dimension, just as the inhabitants of Dvāpara-yuga. We could presume that, although atheists, they were still following Vedic culture and were able to use subtle mantras, just as inhabitants of past ages did.

We can see, however, that this was an isolated incident. It is described exactly because it was something uncommon. There are no descriptions of human beings mastering such Vedic technologies in other Kali-yugas.

What about technological civilizations as we have now? There is no evidence of it either, since technological civilizations, as we have now, would imply the massive use of fossil fuels and nuclear energy. It’s not possible to create an industrial revolution without the large use of coal and oil, and as it advanced, nuclear power would eventually be discovered. However, there is nothing to suggest that this was the case because the reserves of oil, coal, and uranium on our planet appear to have been intact at the time of the beginning of our industrial revolution. This suggests that human beings in other Kali-yugas probably never passed the medieval stage. We can see that, in his work, Michael Cremo mentions some metal and stone artifacts from periods that coincide with past Kali-yugas, but nothing that could be described as technologically advanced. This supports this theory.

What about the appearance of human beings in past Kali-yugas? There is no evidence to support that they always look the same, either. Even nowadays, there is a great variation in the appearance of human beings from different areas (just compare the appearance of someone from West Africa and someone from Denmark, for example). The human lineage is restarted at the beginning of every Satya-yuga when advanced beings repopulate our planet after the devastation caused by Kalki. Human beings are created in a very elevated stage, and humanity goes through a long process of devolution during the course of the yugas. This is a long process that takes millions of years and creates many different possibilities. In this way, human beings in different Kali-yugas may look quite different, as well as have different languages and different cultures. Bones from humans from past Kali-yugas, if found, could thus look different from bones from contemporaneous human beings and thus end up being classified as different species of hominids.

Again, we can see that artifacts found by modern archaeology and paleontology actually support the historical accounts given in the Vedas, instead of the opposite.

Why is it that the development of advanced technology appears to have happened only in the Kali-yuga we are living in? What would be the logical explanation for it?

It may have something to do with the Saṅkīrtana movement of Mahāprabhu. In every Kali-yuga, an incarnation of Viṣnu comes as the Golden avatāra to bring the dharma for the age: the chanting of the holy names. In these other Kali-yugas, the degradation happens more slowly, and remnants from the Vedic civilization from Dvāpara-yuga continue for more time. Everything happens more slowly and predictably.

Once in a day of Brahma, however, Kṛṣṇa appears in His original form and later comes again as Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu to reveal the maximum extent of love of Godhead, something that is only partially manifested in the other Kali-yugas. When this happens, the events are much more dramatic. All the powerful demons of the universe take birth in Dvāpara-yuga and are killed by the Lord, and the demons who are not fortunate enough to be killed by Him take birth in brāhmana families at the beginning of Kali-yuga and accelerate the degradation, destroying Vedic culture from the inside. We can observe that during the Middle Ages, humanity degraded to a level close to what is described for the end of Kali-yuga, with starving people working for a piece of bread (like slaves and serfs in many parts of the world), and life expectancy at birth often falling as low as thirty years. After the advent of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu and the start of His saṅkīrtana movement, technical advancements created the conditions for it to spread over the world, including fast means of transportation and communication, such as planes and the Internet. It seems the appearance of such tools in just this particular Kali-yuga is not accidental but part of a higher plan.

Hindu scholars from the past centuries frequently had the idea that the Puranas are not historical accounts, transmitting stories that have spiritual significance but little practical meaning. Śrīla Prabhupāda, however, insisted that the descriptions from the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam as well as other Puranas should be accepted literally, as concrete historical facts. Interestingly enough, modern branches of science, like astronomy and even paleontology and archaeology, are producing data that allow us to verify and support some of the historical claims made in the Puranas, making the point that although very difficult to understand, the descriptions given in the Puranas are actually the key to better understanding the history of our planet and the universe at large.

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