2012: not the end of the world: the mayan theory debunked

The thought which is unifying humanity worldwide, the year which gets the adrenaline pumping, the notion which tests all the religious legacies, doomsday, apocalypse, the end of our civilization, the year 2012 and the date 21^st December, coincidentally the winter solstice. Why has this date gained so much of momentum while prophecies of such great disasters have been made from time to time and none of them has actually come true? Well the sole explanation is that this time its not one myth but several full fledged destruction manuals pointing towards the same time frame. I will here comprehend mayan theory with the most convincing facts amongst the plethora of nonsense stuff floating on the web and then we can collectively judge if really we are running out of time.

The End of the Maya Calendar Cycle

This is where it all begins. The Maya Long Count calendar comes to the end of a 5,126 year cycle soon—here is how the calendar is devised and it is decoded. The base year for the Mayan Long Count starts at “0.0.0.0.0″. Each zero goes from 0-19 and each represent a tally of Mayan days. So, for example, the first day in the Long Count is denoted as 0.0.0.0.1. On the 19th day we’ll have 0.0.0.0.19, on the 20th day it goes up one level and we’ll have 0.0.0.1.0. This count continues until 0.0.1.0.0 (about one year), 0.1.0.0.0 (about 20 years) and 1.0.0.0.0 (about 400 years) which marks one baktun in the Mayan language. It is pretty much like the decimal to binary, octal or hexadecimal conversions. So if we pick an arbitrary date of 2.10.12.7.1, this represents the Mayan date of approximately 1012 years, 7 months and 1 day.

This is all very interesting, but what has this got to do with the end of the world? The Mayan Prophecy is wholly based on the assumption that something bad is going to happen when the Mayan Long Count calendar runs out. Experts are divided as to when the Long Count ends, but as the Maya used the numbers of 13 and 20 at the root of their numerical systems, the last day could occur on 13.0.0.0.0. When does this happen? Well, 13.0.0.0.0 represents 5126 years and the Long Count started on 0.0.0.0.0, which corresponds to the modern date of August 11th 3114 BC. Have you seen the problem yet? The Mayan Long Count ends 5126 years later on December 21st, 2012.

Now one possible explanation as to why this end calendar date is recorded in ancient Mayan monuments like Tortuguero and Chilam Balam. The inscriptions bear:

Tzuhtz-(a)j-oom u(y)-uxlajuun pik

The Thirteenth [b'ak'tun] will end

(ta) Chan Ajaw ux(-te’) Uniiw.

(on) 4 Ajaw, the 3rd of Uniiw [3 K'ank'in].

Uht-oom Ek’-…

Black … will occur.

Y-em(al) … Bolon Yookte’ K’uh ta-chak-ma…

(It will be) the descent(?) of Bolon Yookte’ K’uh to the great (or red?)

Now the most convincing of the Mayan legacy, as is clear from the above mentioned inscription, marks night at the end of 13^th Baktun. People believe that there will be no sun after the night of Dec, 21, 2012 for about 60-70 hours and there are pretty many possible explanations of the hypothesis. One of them is that the Earth will align with the galactic centre which is precisely our next theory. Another of The Mayan beliefs comes from a graphic—though undated—which predicts end-of-the-world scenario, described on the final page of a circa-1100 text known as the Dresden Codex. The document describes a world destroyed by flood, a scenario imagined in many cultures and probably experienced, on a less apocalyptic scale, by ancient people.

Mayans never said that the world would end, my perspective through an Astronomical Explanation

In astronomy, axial precession is a gravity-induced, slow and continuous change in the orientation of an astronomical body’s rotational axis. In particular, it refers to the gradual shift in the orientation of Earth’s axis of rotation, which, like a wobbling top, traces out a cone in a cycle of approximately 26,000 years (called a Great or Platonic year in astrology). In the solar system, the planets and the Sun share roughly the same plane of orbit, known as the plane of the ecliptic. From our perspective on Earth, due to the wobbling effect, the Zodiacal constellations move along or near the ecliptic, and over time, appear to recede counter clockwise by one degree every 72 years.  As a result, approximately every 2160 years, the constellation visible on the early morning of the spring equinox changes. After a lengthy period of 26,000 years, this astrological cycle repeats itself.

Relationship between this celestial phenomenon and Mayan terminology: As already mentioned, the cycle that ends in A.D. 2012 is a period of 13 baktuns. A baktun is the fifth-place value in the base-twenty Long Count calendar, and it equals 144,000 days. Thirteen of these baktuns equal a 5,125-year “Great Cycle.” Mayan and Aztec documents relate a belief in four or five World Ages, and we currently live in the last one. Amazingly, five Great Cycles equal one precession cycle (about 26, 000 years). Also ancient Maya astronomers looked at the heavens differently than their Western counterparts as like in Greece. They used thirteen constellations rather than twelve. So the end of 13 baktuns points to the end of one great precession cycle and also of the five age world of Mayans.

5 great cycles of Mayan = one precession cycle of earth

The result is that the equinox sun will soon be rising in the constellation of Aquarius rather than in Pisces, as it has for the past 2,000 years. Thus, we are moving out of the Age of Pisces and into the Age of Aquarius. So the current age that we are in for the past 20 centuries is the age of Pieces and with the winter solstice of 2012, we would enter the age of Aquarius. Now Aquarius (water carrier) is often demonstrated as someone with pitcher full of water which may point to the floods (entering of water) as a misinterpretation of the Dresden Codex. So perhaps it is not the end of the world but by waters but shift of the age of pieces due to entering of aquarius, the water. Though there are a couple of centuries now pending for this shift of age to take place but it can be due to calculation error pertaining to the spreading of universe phenomenon which was not known by Mayans pretty well at that time.

So its just the end of a great calendar but the next day is bound to start afresh as is the day of 1^st January every year. As we have solved the mystery of floods and Dresden Codex, what still pertains is the mentioning of darkness in the inscriptions.

Galactic Alignment:

In the galactic alignment, the winter solstice sun will line up perfectly with the galactic equator, an invisible line that denotes the centre of the Milky Way galaxy. According to researcher John Major Jenkins, this precise alignment only occurs once every 26,000 years—and the next one is scheduled to take place by 2012. Jenkins asserts that rather than doomsday, the galactic alignment will bring about a shift in the human psyche toward a more conscious state. In this scenario, the path of the sun in the sky would appear to cross through what, from Earth, looks to be the midpoint of our galaxy, the Milky Way, which in good viewing conditions appears as a cloudy stripe across the night sky. Some fear that the line up will somehow expose Earth to powerful unknown galactic forces that will hasten its doom—perhaps through a “pole shift” or the stirring of the super massive black hole at our galaxy’s heart. Jenkins suggests that the Maya based their calendar on observations of the Great Rift, a band of dark dust clouds in the Milky Way, which the Maya called the Xibalba be or “Black Road.” Jenkins claims that the Maya were aware of where the ecliptic intersected the Black Road and gave this position in the sky a special significance in their cosmology. This may possibly be the 60-70 years of darkness we just discussed. According to the hypothesis, the Sun precisely aligns with this intersection point at the winter solstice of 2012 and also Mayans anticipated this conjunction and celebrated it as the harbinger of a profound spiritual transition for mankind. Others see the purported event in a positive light, as heralding the dawn of a new era in human consciousness.

An altogether false theory to cater to Mayan Doomsday

But according to Wikipedia, the alignment in question is not exclusive to 2012 but takes place over a 36-year period, corresponding to the diameter of the Sun, with the most precise convergence having already occurred in 1998. Also NASA’s Morrison quoted in Nat Geo “There is no ‘galactic alignment’ in 2012,” he said, “or at least nothing out of the ordinary.” He explained that a certain (not galactic) type of “alignment” occurs during every winter solstice, when the sun, as seen from Earth, appears in the sky near what looks to be the midpoint of the Milky Way. “The reality is that alignments are of no interest to science. They mean nothing,” he said. They create no changes in gravitational pull, solar radiation, planetary orbits, or anything else that would impact life on Earth.

So even if Mayans were talking about alignment of sun with the galactic equator for which they referred to as long night, they missed out on just 14 (2012-1998) years of calculations but they would have been happy to know that human race still exists despite of petty problems like famine, wars, terrorism, tsunamis etc.

I guess we might just stop worrying about the end and start living to the fullest.

Saamir Gupta

Hello Friends !

After 3.5 years of murky hostel life, one moment really ticked on the bomb as if it was the instant at which enlightenment was imparted. Maybe enlightenment is too heavy word for the flash of thought in mind (in my vocabulary enlightenment = Buddha+43 days under bodhi tree). But after this jiffy, the heavy physique of mine, that to with an empty head (the icing on the cake) came to realize that petite voice of the tiny soul within me (tiny is actually when it is compared to my HUGE body) can sometimes make a point so valid that it can be woven into words for others to ponder on (my dumbness).

So here’s the moment, instant, flash, jiffy [no not the thesaurus] the event which led me to a reason to start this blog. Well my room like any other hostel room goes uncleaned, undusted, unswept for months (read ages) and its not usually till the end of days (spiders and lizards attacking on my pillows) that I tend to spare a thought to clean it. But this time I had to get it done because I had my parents visiting me in 5 hours. Hurriedly I located the sweeper of the corridor and gave him the offer of his life (perhaps my). “Rs. 50 for a room and balcony but you will have to sweep it up and then wash it up with phenyl”, I said in hurry still worrying if any of the termite colony had made holes in some of my clothes. He seemed way too happy and readily did what I had asked for. He also told me to keep him calling on weekly basis (maybe it is much more difficult to remove eons old dirt and dust which settles down as an integral part of the room, without which room looks more spacious and lively or maybe it would save him the cost of sandpaper he had to use to wipe off the artifacts of dead brave mosquitoes and flies who tried to sneak in my kingdom). Accepting his request I handed him the decided amount which I had kept in my pocket while he was working (too bad I forgot to flaunt my Gucci wallet in front of him).

Since then week after week, I would gather a couple of ten or twenty rupee notes in pocket (whatever would be the appropriate change available) and hand him over after he was done over with the room. It was interesting for me to note his face expressions while he counted the money he earned from me. The element of uncertainty attached to it was the prime reason that the situation would be worth studying. Sometimes his face would light up as if he had got what he desired and other times it would be like ‘I should not have wasted my time in this brat’s room’. I knew he would secretly wish to know what would be there in my pocket when I would call him for room cleaning, so that he could respond or act accordingly. 7-8 weeks had already passed by in this exercise and the wage he would earn was not by any means in proportion to the amount of dedication he would show while work or the trash he would generate out of the room but only to the left change notes in my wallet. This week, as was evident he had suspected a less wage, he rather came with a sad and bad mood, quietly and less enthusiastically did his work. I had two twenty rupee notes this time in the pocket but his half hearted attempt made me fish out just one of them for him. Was this his anticipation which made him loose another 20 bucks? Even if he had done his work as he did before would not he have got much happier?

This made me realize the importance of thoughts, what we think and how that affects our lives. No one knows how or with what one will be rewarded by what action of his. Only thing that matters is performing one’s obligations with utmost sincerity and honesty, dedication and dexterousness, patience and perseverance (and the list goes on… reason why Oxford has such long list of words) in other words to the best of one’s capabilities in whatever situation he may be in. If we presume that the actions will yield bad results, level of our output is bound to fall and we land up with the outcomes which we expected. Whereas if we put in our mind that we will get good results, then we actually are molding our actions in a positive direction. So saluting this great power of thoughts (though creepy it may sound but it is karmanyavaadhikarastey maafaleshukadachana coming from land of Kurukshetra in one form or the other) lets constructively design our thoughts for the benefit of humanity. After all philanthropy is the sweetest sin of all.

Saamir Gupta