One of the aspects of "speculative history" that I find most interesting is the cycles of time, such as the Hindu Yugas and precessional/zodiacal ages. While doing some research I came across a rather interesting correlation. I'm wondering if anyone has stumbled across this or if this is already part of some esoterica schema that I'm not aware of?
Anyhow, this is what I came across. The "Great Year" or precessional cycle is traditionally said to be 25,920 years, or 12 zodiacal ages of about 2160 years each. Sri Yukteswar and the folks at the Binary Star Institute believe that precession is closer to 24,000 years, and according to Britannica it is 25,772 years. The exact number isn't important in this context, but we'll stick with 25,920 years, assuming that there's some significance to the traditional number (we could imagine it as the "archetype," just as 360 is the "archetypal" number of days, and some think the numbers of days in the distant past before some cosmic event lengthened the year to 365.24 days).
What I was curious about is whether there is any connection between the Great Year--a term which some hold to be half a precessional cycle, although I'm using the term for the entire cycle--and the "Galactic Year," or the time it takes for the solar system to move once around the galactic core. So we have:
"Galactic Year" = 225-250 million terrestrial years.
Precession or Zodiacal Year = 25,920 years.
Now imagine that the Galactic Year is divided into "Galactic Days", so 225 million divided by 360 (using the degrees of a circle, the traditional number of days). That means:
"Galactic Day" = 625,000 years.
Now let's divide the Galactic Day into 24 hours:
Galactic Hour = 26,041 years (!)
That is strikingly close to the traditional precession number. When we account for the fact that precession is not exact and/or may be variable, and the Galactic Year is even less exact, it makes things rather interesting.
We could also divide the Galactic Year of 225 million years by 365.24 days and get 616,033 years, which if we divide by 24 we get a Galactic Day of...wait for it...25,668 years, which is very close to the precession number and almost exactly the "scientific" number.
Or we could go backwards:
25,920 x 24 = 622,080 (Galactic Day) x 360 = 223,948,800 years (Galactic Year).
The point being, the Precession of the Equinoxes is to the Galactic Year what an hour is to the terrestrial year. The ratio is pretty much exactly the same.
I don't know why I never noticed this before, but it seems highly significant. Even if use the larger number in the range for the Galactic Year, 250 million years, we still get 28,935 years...which is a bit further away from the traditional number, but not so far as to make the correlation still rather uncanny.
We can go the other way and imagine what the "life" of the galaxy would look like. I would suggest two numbers to consider, the traditional and esoteric 72 and the more whole 100.
72 x 225MM = 16.2 billion.
100 x 225MM = 22.5 billion.
The Milky Way is believed to be about 13.6B years, or a bit younger than the universe. That would mean it is either three-quarters through its life, or a bit more than half.
ADDENDUM: THE GALACTIC CLOCK
One could imagine, then, a great cosmic clock in which a year of the galaxy is 225MM years or so, with a "day" of about 622K years, and the day marked by 24 "hours" of precessional cycles. Or to extrapolate it further, here are calculations using the base of 25,920 for various "Galactic" time periods:
Galactic Second = 7.2 years
Galactic Minute = 432 years
Galactic Hour = 25,920 years
Galactic Day = 622,080 years
Galactic Year (360 days) = 223,948,800 years
Galactic Year (365.24 days = 227,208,499 years
Galactic Century (or "full human life") = 22.4 to 22.7 billion years
Note also that in some esoteric systems, 7 years is the length of time of a major life phase. 432 is 4 x 108, which should be recognizable to most reading this as a very sacred number in Hinduism as well as other traditions (the number of beads on a rosary). The traditional Hindu Kali Yuga is supposedly 432,000 years, although some speculate those numbers are more symbolic than literal.
This would also mean that a zodiacal age of 2160 years (give or take, depending upon the constellation) is "five galactic minutes."
Anyhow, I'm guessing some has figured all of this out before, and if any of you are aware of a source, please let me know! It makes me wonder if our somewhat arbitrary system of time--60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, 24 hours in a day--was modeled after cosmic processes, and part of the ancient view of the human being as the microcosm of the cosmos (or galaxy).
Anyhow, this is what I came across. The "Great Year" or precessional cycle is traditionally said to be 25,920 years, or 12 zodiacal ages of about 2160 years each. Sri Yukteswar and the folks at the Binary Star Institute believe that precession is closer to 24,000 years, and according to Britannica it is 25,772 years. The exact number isn't important in this context, but we'll stick with 25,920 years, assuming that there's some significance to the traditional number (we could imagine it as the "archetype," just as 360 is the "archetypal" number of days, and some think the numbers of days in the distant past before some cosmic event lengthened the year to 365.24 days).
What I was curious about is whether there is any connection between the Great Year--a term which some hold to be half a precessional cycle, although I'm using the term for the entire cycle--and the "Galactic Year," or the time it takes for the solar system to move once around the galactic core. So we have:
"Galactic Year" = 225-250 million terrestrial years.
Precession or Zodiacal Year = 25,920 years.
Now imagine that the Galactic Year is divided into "Galactic Days", so 225 million divided by 360 (using the degrees of a circle, the traditional number of days). That means:
"Galactic Day" = 625,000 years.
Now let's divide the Galactic Day into 24 hours:
Galactic Hour = 26,041 years (!)
That is strikingly close to the traditional precession number. When we account for the fact that precession is not exact and/or may be variable, and the Galactic Year is even less exact, it makes things rather interesting.
We could also divide the Galactic Year of 225 million years by 365.24 days and get 616,033 years, which if we divide by 24 we get a Galactic Day of...wait for it...25,668 years, which is very close to the precession number and almost exactly the "scientific" number.
Or we could go backwards:
25,920 x 24 = 622,080 (Galactic Day) x 360 = 223,948,800 years (Galactic Year).
The point being, the Precession of the Equinoxes is to the Galactic Year what an hour is to the terrestrial year. The ratio is pretty much exactly the same.
I don't know why I never noticed this before, but it seems highly significant. Even if use the larger number in the range for the Galactic Year, 250 million years, we still get 28,935 years...which is a bit further away from the traditional number, but not so far as to make the correlation still rather uncanny.
We can go the other way and imagine what the "life" of the galaxy would look like. I would suggest two numbers to consider, the traditional and esoteric 72 and the more whole 100.
72 x 225MM = 16.2 billion.
100 x 225MM = 22.5 billion.
The Milky Way is believed to be about 13.6B years, or a bit younger than the universe. That would mean it is either three-quarters through its life, or a bit more than half.
ADDENDUM: THE GALACTIC CLOCK
One could imagine, then, a great cosmic clock in which a year of the galaxy is 225MM years or so, with a "day" of about 622K years, and the day marked by 24 "hours" of precessional cycles. Or to extrapolate it further, here are calculations using the base of 25,920 for various "Galactic" time periods:
Galactic Second = 7.2 years
Galactic Minute = 432 years
Galactic Hour = 25,920 years
Galactic Day = 622,080 years
Galactic Year (360 days) = 223,948,800 years
Galactic Year (365.24 days = 227,208,499 years
Galactic Century (or "full human life") = 22.4 to 22.7 billion years
Note also that in some esoteric systems, 7 years is the length of time of a major life phase. 432 is 4 x 108, which should be recognizable to most reading this as a very sacred number in Hinduism as well as other traditions (the number of beads on a rosary). The traditional Hindu Kali Yuga is supposedly 432,000 years, although some speculate those numbers are more symbolic than literal.
This would also mean that a zodiacal age of 2160 years (give or take, depending upon the constellation) is "five galactic minutes."
Anyhow, I'm guessing some has figured all of this out before, and if any of you are aware of a source, please let me know! It makes me wonder if our somewhat arbitrary system of time--60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, 24 hours in a day--was modeled after cosmic processes, and part of the ancient view of the human being as the microcosm of the cosmos (or galaxy).