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Sunday, February 4, 2024

History of Sanatana Dharma & the Hegelian End of History

The history of Sanatana Dharma (Hinduism) is a history of maya. It is the history of Vedas, Upanishads and Puranas. It is the history of myths, metaphors and metonymies. It is the history of real events which are inseparable from the maya or matrix. 

It is the history of Yugas, Manvantaras and Kalpas which represent overwhelmingly large time spans. A kalpa is a day in the life of Brahma, but it represents the entire period of the endurance of the solar system. A kalpa is equal to 12,000 years of the devas, or 4,320,000,000 earth-years. The day of Brahma is also divided into fourteen manvantaras and 1000 yuga-cycles. 

This history does not move linearly. It operates in a quantum world, where things are in flux and the major events defy definition in terms of geography and time. It is hard to comprehend the correlation between cause and effect in this history.  

Hegel could philosophize about the End of History because his focus was only Western history, which has been interpreted by the Western historians in such a way that it appears to move linearly, while following the principles of cause and effect. But what happens to the West after the Hegelian End of History? It is not clear. 

The question of what happens after the End of History cannot arise in context of Sanatana Dharma, where history is not linear; where history is driven by myths, metaphors and metonymies; where Yugas, Manvantaras and Kalpas represent the timescale of history. In Sanatana Dharma, there is no beginning, no middle and no end to history.

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