Jainism Eternal and Universal Path for Enlightenment

Author(s): Narendra Bhandari
Publisher: Research Institute of Scientific Secrets from Indian Oriental Scriptures Ahmedabad

Page 102

very large, and some estimates indicate that 1 KK Sagaropams is equal to 1014 years, which is difficult to rationalise because the age of the Universe, determined based on Big Bang theory, is only 14x10 years. Alternatively, this would imply that Jain cosmology goes much beyond the Big Bang, and Big Bang Universe is only the current state within a larger cycle in the eternal Steady State Universe. Each of these Utsarpini and Avsarpini are further divided in to 6 epochs or eras each, called r: The period of 1 r 1 is 4 KK Sagaropams, 2nd is 3 KK Sagaropams, 3rd is 2 KK Sagaropams, 4th, 5th and 6th together is 1 KK Sagaropams. The 5th and 6th ris are equal to 21000 years each. The Utsarpini likewise have six ris with periods in reverse order, beginning with the smallest period of 21000 years. The names of various ris have been styled after degree of happiness”, which may imply favourable or unfavourable climatic conditions. The ris are not cycles in the sense that they are not repetative in contrast to climatic, geologic or astronomical cycles which go on repeating over and over again.
The period of the smallestri of 21000 years agrees with one of the Milankovitch solar insolation climatic cycles, as discussed below. Modern climatic changes occur cyclically on several time scales. If we consider cycles which affect life on the earth, then there are cycles which can be classified as climatic cycles, geological cycles and astronomical cycles with increasing periods. Considering only the important ones, there is diurnal cycle, monthly lunar cycle and annual solar cycle. The climate of the earth depends on solar irradiance received by the Earth. Milankovitch found that the solar irradiance depends on three cycles, the precession of equinoxes (which changes inclination of the spin axis of the earth) with a period of 21000 years (19 and 23 thousand years respectively when, at aphelion, the northern hemisphere is tilted away from the sun and towards the sun), obliquity of the earth, which again depends on the inclination of earth's axis to the ecliptic (the plane in which earth moves around the sun in its orbit) which changes with 41000 years period and change of eccentricity of the earth's orbit (which changes the distance of earth from the sun) which varies with a period of 100,000 years. All these cycles have been experimentally confirmed by climate markers (isotopic fractionation records) preserved in the deep sea sediments. It is difficult to say if the jain cycles are climatic cycles, because their names are related to “happiness and unhappiness" and it may just be a coincidence that the two of the Milankovitch cycles agree with the period of 5th and 6th ri. The 100,000 year