[Damithu]

Hello everyone,

Recently I was studying the Buddha’s teachings on Mahakalpas, or great aeons. I learned that a mahakalpa is divided into 4 phases or kalpas:

• Creation Kalpa(Vivartakalpa)
  • Beings from higher realms (Abhasvara worlds?) populate the Earth and eventually develop into more coarse forms of existence, through craving for physical nutriment.
  • As greed, theft, and violence increase, a king is elected by the people (Mahasammata).
• Duration Kalpa(Vivartasthāyikalpa)
  • Start is signified by the first sentient being to enter hell.
  • Consists of 20 antarakalpas, where human lifespan descends from 80000 years to 10 years, then back up to 80000.
  • This cycle repeats 18 times(first time is only a descent, last time is only a ascent).
• Dissolution Kalpa(Samvartakalpa)
  • Hells are gradually emptied, then animals, humans, and up to the heavenly realms.
  • Being travel to form realms (rupa dhatu), and a destruction of fire occurs.
  • After 7 fire destructions, a destruction of water occurs; after 64 fire/water destructions (56 by fire, 7 by water), a destruction by wind occurs.
• Empty Kalpa(Saṃvartasthāyikalpa)
  • After the dissolution kalpa the world remains dissolved for a long time.
  • Universe remains in state of emptiness

My issue is with the first kalpa, the creation kalpa. According this, the earth is populated by abhasvara devas, who eventually develop more solidified bodies, as well as gender distinctions due to the arising of craving. However, don’t we have evidence that humans evolved from animals (apes), and not celestial beings?

Namo Buddhaya!

[Lal]

Damithu asked: “However, don’t we have evidence that humans evolved from animals (apes), and not celestial beings?”

Good question. 

Yes. That is what is taught in schools, based on scientists’ investigations. However, they have limited resources to trace the history of our planet and the living beings in it. 

• Most such deductions are based on radiocarbon dating of organic material left over from the bones of various animal species. 
•  However, radiocarbon dating is accurate for organic materials up to about 50,000 years old, beyond which the remaining carbon-14 is too small to measure reliably. Our Earth is over 4.5 billion years old. Thus, the scientists can investigate only a tiny fraction of Earth’s history.
• Furthermore, essentially any material (including hard materials like steel) is totally decayed well within a million years.
• Thus, science cannot trace the proposed theory of evolution far enough to verify that theory.

Some of these issues have been discussed in the forum: “Post on ‘Buddhism and Evolution – Aggañña Sutta (DN 27)’“

• This reply was modified 4 days ago by Lal.

[Damithu]

I see, I did not know that radiocarbon datings were accurate for up to 50000 years. Thank you for clarifying this sir!

[Lal]

There is another way that scientists gain knowledge about animals that lived long ago without using radiocarbon dating. Scientists determined that dinosaurs lived tens of millions of years ago, not by radiocarbon dating but by other radiometric dating methods and geological context that operate on much older timescales using fossilized bones.

1. Why Fossils Last, but Steel Doesn’t

Steel is a manufactured metal that corrodes rapidly when exposed to water, oxygen, salts, and soil chemistry. It’s chemically unstable in natural environments.

Bones, on the other hand, don’t survive millions of years either—not as bone. Instead, they undergo:

Mineralization (permineralization):

• Groundwater carrying dissolved minerals flows through buried bone.

• The original organic material decays.

• Minerals (silica, calcite, iron, etc.) fill the pores or replace the bone molecule by molecule.

• Over thousands to millions of years, the bone becomes stone.

So a fossilized dinosaur “bone” is actually a rock shaped like a bone, not a preserved biological structure.

This is why fossils can last hundreds of millions of years while steel rusts away in tens of thousands of years.

2. Radiometric dating of igneous rocks

When molten rock cools into igneous rock, radioactive atoms become locked into the crystal structure. Over time, they decay at predictable rates. By measuring the ratio of parent isotopes to daughter isotopes, scientists calculate how long the decay has been happening.

Common isotope systems include:

• Uranium‑238 → Lead‑206

• Potassium‑40 → Argon‑40

• Rubidium‑87 → Strontium‑87

These isotopes have half‑lives from millions to billions of years, making them ideal for dating ancient rocks. Thus, the age of a fossilized bone is determined by the age of the rock that it is embedded in.

• This is how we know, for example, that the rock layers containing T. rex fossils are about 66–68 million years old, even though the fossils themselves can’t be carbon‑dated.

3. Most species never Fossilize

Fossilization is extremely rare. It requires:

• rapid burial

• low oxygen

• the right minerals

• stable geological conditions

• no erosion or destruction for millions of years

Most organisms die, decay, and disappear without leaving a trace.

Estimated numbers:

• Total species that have ever lived: ~1–4 billion

• Species known from fossils: ~300,000

• That’s less than 0.1% of all species in Earth’s history

So the fossil record is impressive, but it’s also incomplete by nature.

____________

I hope the above description provides a bit more information. It is good to get a general idea. But I don’t spend much time going into depth.

[Author]

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