The Hindu religion is the only one of the world's great faiths dedicated to the idea that the Cosmos itself undergoes an immense, indeed an infinite, number of deaths and rebirths. It is the only religion in which the time scales correspond, to those of modern scientific cosmology. Its cycles run from our ordinary day and night to a day and night of Brahma, 8.64 billion years long. Longer than the age of the Earth or the Sun and about half the time since the Big Bang. And there are much longer time scales still. There is the deep and appealing notion that the universe is but the dream of the god who, after a Brahma years, dissolves himself into a dreamless sleep. The universe dissolves with him - until, after another Brahma century, he stirs, recomposes himself and begins again to dream the great cosmic dream. The most elegant and sublime of these is a representation of the creation of the universe at the beginning of each cosmic cycle, a motif known as the cosmic dance of Lord Shiva. The god, called in this manifestation Nataraja, the Dance King. In the upper right hand is a drum whose sound is the sound of creation. In the upper left hand is a tongue of flame, a reminder that the universe, now newly created, with billions of years from now will be utterly destroyed. ... A millennium before Europeans were wiling to divest themselves of the Biblical idea that the world was a few thousand years old, the Mayans were thinking of millions and the Hindus billions. From Cosmos by Dr Carl Sagan --------------------------------------------- After watching the whole series I was awestruck by the precision and explanation of the Hindu faith's reasons behind the cosmos. Also to note the Hindu faith has survived christian and muslim invasions and their attempts to erase it. The muslims however did achieve in erasing Buddhism from India as is evident by the 4-5% of buddhist in India currently. Another thought I would offer is peacefullness and clean history of Hindu people. Though in recent times things have gotten out of hand with a small group of hindu extremists (which is an oxymoron in itself)
