One of the most fascinating phenomena described in mythologies of great antiquity is that time appears to flow more slowly or more quickly on worlds other than our own. These myths originated thousands of years before Albert Einstein was even born and, therefore, they appear to foreshadow Einstein's general theory of relativity. In retrospect, it seems quite incredible that our ancient ancestors had some awareness of the relative (and indeed, illusory) nature of time. Time dilation seems to be a highly prominent theme in both Indian and Celtic mythologies. I'll be mentioning three tales in this thread that relate to the issue of time dilation. The first will be a Vedic/Indian one; the second, Celtic and the third, Chinese.
Brahmaloka's Scale Of Time
In the ancient Sanskrit writings known as Srimad-Bhagavatam, there is a story about a King who was once a righteous ruler on Earth. His name was Kakudmi and he travelled in a vimana (celestial aeroplane) to Brahmaloka, a subtle higher-dimensional world. Brahmaloka is described as the planet on which Lord Brahma lives, the creator or manifestor of our universe. It is said to be the topmost planet in a precise cosmic hierarchy of worlds. Returning to this story, Kakudmi took his daughter Revati to Brahmaloka to ask Brahma who would be a worthy and ideal husband for her to marry. When Kakudmi made his way to Brahmaloka, Brahma was engrossed in a musical concert being performed for him by gandharvas (a species of angelic singers) and told him to patiently wait for a while. Thus, Kakudmi waited and at the end of the musical performances, he bowed to Brahma and submitted his request to him. "What may I do for you?", Brahma inquired. Upon hearing Kakudmi's request, Brahma roared with laughter. "O King, all those whom you have decided within the core of your heart to accept as your son-in-law have passed away in the course of time. Twenty seven chatur-yugas have already elapsed. Those upon whom you desired as your daughter's husband are now gone, and so are their sons, grandsons, great-grandsons and other descendants. Even their names have been forgotten".
One chatur-yuga lasts 4.32 million Earth years. With this information, the rate of time dilation on Brahmaloka can be roughly estimated. If the concert given by the gandharvas took about one hour according to Brahma's time scale, then that hour must correspond to 27 times 4.32 million years. Thus, a total of 116,640,000 Earth years had passed! It is interesting to note that this estimate closely matches one for time dilation in another account involving Brahma and his scale of time, thus providing additional consistency to these so-called 'myths'. In Brahma's scale of time, King Kakudmi's visit lasted a mere 3,456 seconds (or just under an hour). Indeed, to King Kakudmi, it felt as though merely an hour had gone by. This suggests that not only is the supposedly 'objective' reality of time completely relative, but that our subjective EXPERIENCE of time is completely relative as well.
The Land Of Youthfulness
In Celtic mythology, there is a tale of a man known as Ossian who was enticed into Tir Na Nog (Land Of Youthfulness) by a beautiful Sidhe princess (a type of fairy). They fell in love with each other, got married and lived together for 300 years in her world. Finally, however, Ossian felt an overwhelming desire to return to Ireland again and participate in the counsels of the Fenian Brotherhood.
He set out on the same white horse that had taken him to that otherworld and his fairy wife warned him not to lay his foot on the level ground (of Earth, which was at a greatly accelerated time stream because of its greater gravity and thus faster time).
On reaching Ireland, he searched for the Brotherhood but found that all of his old companions had passed away and the country was quite changed. Only then did he realise how long he had truly been away. Unfortunately, at a certain point some incident caused him to dismount and on touching Earth's surface, he immediately turned into a feeble, blind old man.
Chinese Cave Heavens
If we turn our attention to Chinese folklore, tales involving time lapses of hundreds of years can be found. There is a book entitled 'The Report Concerning The Cave Heavens And Lands Of Happiness In Famous Mountains' by Tu Kuang-t'ing, who lived from 850 to 933 AD. This book lists ten 'cave heavens' and thirty-six 'small cave heavens' that were supposed to exist beneath the mountains in China.
Here are the reported experiences of a man who entered a passageway leading to one of these cave heavens:
"After walking ten miles, he suddenly found himself in a beautiful land 'with a clear blue sky, shining pinkish clouds, fragrant flowers, densely growing willows, towers the color of cinnabar, pavilions of red jade, and far flung palaces'. He was met by a group of lovely, seductive women, who brought him to a house of jasper, and played him beautiful music while he drank 'a ruby-red drink and a jade-colored
juice.' Just as he felt the urge to let himself be seduced, he remembered his family and returned to the passageway. Led by a strange light that danced before him, he walked back through the cave to the outer world; but when he reached his home village, he did not recognise anyone he saw, and when he arrived at his house, he met his own descendants of nine generations hence. They told him that one of their ancestors had disappeared into a cavern three hundred years before and had never been seen again."
How can a physics concept as advanced and seemingly modern as the relativity of time be grasped by our distant ancestors if they didn't have an adequate grasp of scientific knowledge pertaining perhaps not only to physical worlds, but also to purely spiritual worlds as well?
"HEY! Do you know what time it is?
GET BACK IN THE HOUSE!!!"
Relativity AND the twin paradox ftw
I am a nerd for understanding this and finding it funny
oh and to respond to your question Rishi, it deals with dumb luck. Wells guessed at time travel (although not exactly true, science says we can't go back in time before the time we make the machine).
There is an extremely popular legend in Japan involving time dilation. This legend involves a man who is known as 'Urashima Tarô'. Here is the story of that man (thanks to this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urashima_Tar%C5%8D ):
"One day a young fisherman named Urashima Tarô was fishing when he noticed a small turtle being tormented by some children. Tarô saved it and let it go back to the sea. The day after a huge turtle approached him and told him that the small turtle he had saved was the daughter of the Emperor of the Sea, who wanted to see him to thank him. The turtle magically gave Tarô gills and brought him to the bottom of the sea, to the Palace of the Dragon (Ryûgû-jô). There he met the Emperor and the small turtle, who was now a lovely princess.
Tarô stayed there with her for a few days, then he was caught by the desire to go back to his village and see his aging mother, so he asked her permission to leave. The princess said she was sorry to see him go, but wished him well and gave him a mysterious box which she told him never to open, for whatever reason. Tarô grabbed the box, jumped on the back of the same turtle that had brought him to the Palace, and soon was home.
But everything had changed. His home was gone, his mother had vanished, the people he knew were nowhere to be seen. He asked if anybody knew a man called Urashima Tarô. They answered that they had heard someone of that name had vanished at sea long ago. He discovered that 300 years had passed since the day he had left for the bottom of the sea. Struck by grief, he absent-mindedly opened the box the princess had given him. Out of it came a cloud of white smoke. He suddenly aged, his beard grew long and white, and his back bent. He was now a very old man. And from the sea came the sad, sweet voice of the princess: "I told you not to open that box. In it was your old age ..."
As always with folklore, there are many different versions of this extremely famous story."
I find it very intriguing indeed that King Kakudmi and his daughter Revati are inhabitants of Kusasthali, which is a kingdom beneath the ocean. Note the similarity of the reference to the Dragon King and his daughter, who inhabit the Palace Of The Dragon (Ryûgû-jô), also located beneath the ocean. The similarity between the ancient Indian story of King Kakudmi and the ancient Japanese story of Urashima Tarô fascinates me.
Two things, both ironically enough from the Book of Mormon.
According to the people in the Book of Mormon, they already figured out the whole astronomy thing. They knew the Earth revolved around the Sun, not the other way around. This is correlated by various Native American cultures that had advanced concepts of math and astrology. Just because they didn't have access to our modern-day instruments doesn't mean they weren't competent at figuring out that there were other planets.
Also, at the time of Christ's birth, to the Book of Mormon peoples they were given a sign in which there was a day and a night and a day as if it were one day - the sun went down at "night" but it was still perfectly light outside as if it were still daytime.
Just some input of my own on this concept.
Two things, both ironically enough from the Book of Mormon.
According to the people in the Book of Mormon, they already figured out the whole astronomy thing. They knew the Earth revolved around the Sun, not the other way around. This is correlated by various Native American cultures that had advanced concepts of math and astrology. Just because they didn't have access to our modern-day instruments doesn't mean they weren't competent at figuring out that there were other planets.
Also, at the time of Christ's birth, to the Book of Mormon peoples they were given a sign in which there was a day and a night and a day as if it were one day - the sun went down at "night" but it was still perfectly light outside as if it were still daytime.
Just some input of my own on this concept.
The swapping of the poles, maybe?
If you mean geomagnetic reversal, the last time that happened according to scientists was apparently within millions of years ago. The Book of Mormon record starts sometime around 600BC and ends about 421 AD.
I see. So, what's your thoughts on the matter?
I'm pretty much saying that there are precedents in my own religion for "time dilation" - there is even a scripture that talks about how one thousand years for us is a day for a particular star known as "Kolob."
I'm not claiming to know or even guess at what scientific reasons happened behind what I've mentioned from the Book of Mormon. I'm sure someday there will be an understanding of what exactly happened, in both a scientific and spiritual way, but I don't know when that will be.
Granted, my interpretation of time dilation is different than what has been set forth by Rishi thus far, apart from what I just mentioned in this post.
... I was just curious as to what you thought about the whole thing... I didn't mean to offend if I did. Personally, I don't know how to take the whole thing. It all seems a bit strange to me, but I suppose it's possible. Age is a form of decay after all. There are things that can stop decay.
No offense taken. You were just curious, or so it sounded.
Ok, thanks. I'm told I have a way of typing things in a manner that tend to offend.
I'm pretty much saying that there are precedents in my own religion for "time dilation" - there is even a scripture that talks about how one thousand years for us is a day for a particular star known as "Kolob."
I've heard about these Mormon ideas before, but thanks for sharing them with everyone in this thread. This Mormon idea of 1,000 Earth years being a day on a star known as 'Kolob' is actually echoed in the ancient Sanskrit writings of India which state that 1 Earth year is approximately equal to a mere day and night for the world system of the devas (a word often translated as 'gods', though in my opinion referring to them as angelic 'cosmic administrators' is a much more accurate translation). Interesting, isn't it?
From a scientifc means, there is also the fact that some planets rotate slower or faster than Earth, as well as some that rotate in a maner that there is no change from day and night.
From a scientifc means, there is also the fact that some planets rotate slower or faster than Earth, as well as some that rotate in a maner that there is no change from day and night.
Not to mention some planets which revolve around their star more quickly than they rotate (like Mercury) and some planets which rotate backwards in comparison to our own planet (like Venus).
