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Graham Hancock – FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS
and all that it contains will be burnt up. 46
The Bible, therefore, envisages two ages of the world, our own being the
second and last. Elsewhere, in other cultures, different numbers of
creations and destructions are recorded. In China, for instance, the
perished ages are called kis, ten of which are said to have elapsed from
the beginning of time until Confucius. At the end of each kis, ‘in a
general convulsion of nature, the sea is carried out of its bed, mountains
spring up out of the ground, rivers change their course, human beings
and everything are ruined, and the ancient traces effaced ...’ 47
Buddhist scriptures speak of ‘Seven Suns’, each brought to an end by
water, fire or wind. 48 At the end of the Seventh Sun, the current ‘world
cycle’, it is expected that the ‘earth will break into flames’. 49 Aboriginal
traditions of Sarawak and Sabah recall that the sky was once ‘low’ and tell
us that ‘six Suns perished ... at present the world is illuminated by the
seventh Sun’. 50 Similarly, the Sibylline Books speak of nine Suns that are
nine ages’ and prophesy two ages yet to come—those of the eighth and
the ninth Sun.’ 51
On the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, the Hopi Indians of Arizona
(who are distant relatives of the Aztecs 52 ) record three previous Suns,
each culminating in a great annihilation followed by the gradual reemergence
of mankind. In Aztec cosmology, of course, there were four
Suns prior to our own. Such minor differences concerning the precise
number of destructions and creations envisaged in this or that mythology
should not distract us from the remarkable convergence of ancient
traditions evident here. All over the world these traditions appear to
commemorate a widespread series of catastrophes. In many cases the
character of each successive cataclysm is obscured by the use of poetic
language and the piling up of metaphor and symbols. Quite frequently,
also, at least two different kinds of disaster may be portrayed as having
occurred simultaneously (most frequently floods and earthquakes, but
sometimes fire and a terrifying darkness).
All this contributes to the creation of a confused and jumbled picture.
The myths of the Hopi, however, stand out for their straightforwardness
and simplicity. What they tell us is this:
The first world was destroyed, as a punishment for human misdemeanours, by an
all-consuming fire that came from above and below. The second world ended
when the terrestrial globe toppled from its axis and everything was covered with
46 2 Peter 3:3-10.
47 See H. Murray, J. Crawford et al., An Historical and Descriptive Account of China, 2nd
edition, 1836, volume I, p. 40. See also G. Schlegel, Uranographie chinoise, 1875, p.
740.
48 Warren, Buddhism in Translations, p. 322.
49 Ibid.
50 Dixon, Oceanic Mythology, p. 178.
51 Worlds in Collision, p. 35.
52 Encyclopaedia Britannica, 6:53.
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