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I think it was Ven. Moggallana who was trying to remove microorganisms from the water before drinking, but the Buddha said that it’s impossible to live in this Sansara without harming others.
Do you know where this is mentioned in Tipitaka?
This is likely false as experts argue that this temple was renovated about 100 years ago: Was a Carving of a Modern Bicycle Found Inside an Ancient Temple?
But I remember watching a YouTube video by Praveen Mohan where he showed dinosaur depictions in various temples. For humans to do that, they must have seen dinosaurs.
Are you joking? If humans saw Dinosaurs and put them in temples that would mean those temples have been there for more than 50 millions years and withstood a comet strike which is not possible.
“Praveen Mohan” is a Hindu conspiracy theorist that has been exposed multiple times for spreading misinformation. I did watch a couple of his videos pertaining to “Dinosaurs crafted in temples” and they looked more like camel and rhyno (with leaves around it) than literal dinosaurs. Here’s an Electrical Engineer exposing him, How Many ERRORS Can You Fit in a Video?!
Of course, our primary focus should be on the teachings but there is value in making such investigations too. If humans existed for more than 7 million years, there should be human fossils that date back even further. I’m just being a skeptic because I don’t want to blindly believe in stuff.Thus, it is logical to assume that there have been civilizations that peaked at even higher levels than ours. They can be destroyed by worldwide cataclysms such as a comet impact (we know of one that happened 60 million years ago).
But we have dinosaur fossils which date back to that time with geological dating. If humans existed during that time, would we not expect to find human fossils that are as old?
Thank you, Gad and Dr.Lal! Speaking of Iddhi powers, my understanding is that the javana citta of Brahmas or a human with similar Jhanas can generate significant amount of matter. I believe this is what happens during the (re)formation phase of a chakkavala where uncountable Brahmas generate immense matter via javana citta which involves abhisankhara. Greed and Hate are generally inactive in their minds so is it the raga and moha that involves javana cittas in this case? Also, an arahant/buddha doesn’t have abhisankhara so how do they use iddhi powers?
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Right, so Buddha put them all in the category of “humans” due to their manussa gati. I would assume that Neanderthals had the same type of gati so I wonder how they lived and co-existed with Homo Sapiens 40,000+ years ago.
The above website says, “There is evidence that Neanderthals deliberately buried their dead and occasionally even marked their graves with offerings, such as flowers. No other primates, and no earlier human species, had ever practiced this sophisticated and symbolic behavior.
The last sentence is questionable but this is a remarkable discovery in my opinion. Even nowadays we see many diversity among humans but it is surprising for me to know that Neanderthals were the ones to become extinct considering they were bigger and stronger. But I guess the changing conditions of the Earth favored the smaller modern humans of today.
Good post, Gad. But how can a deva (Mara) have sex with a human? Aren’t devas’ bodies too thin for that?
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Thank you, Waisaka and Gad. The only thing I will add is that we should not confuse a solar system with a universe. The cosmos is very complex indeed. But since this thread is about Evolution, I was wondering how the discovery of fossils of hominid species could be reconciled with Dhamma.
The Human Family Tree contains the summary of scientific discoveries of hominid fossils and current understanding of their correlations. Modern Humans are considered Homo Sapiens and belong to the Homo group along with 6 other Homo species. There are 3 other branches with groups of Paranthropus, Australopithecus, and Ardipithecus. Scientists believe we evolved from other apes, from Ardipithecus to Homo in the family tree over a span of about 7 million years. This is not consistent with Buddha Dhamma.
P.S. The cranial features of Homo Neanderthalensis (believed to be our closest extinct human relative) are quite similar yet different from that of modern humans:
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“I don’t understand why intelligent scientists keep asking why we have not heard from “aliens.” How do they expect any aliens to get here?”
I think this is based on the assumption that there could be civilizations that are billions of years more advanced than ours. But as per Dhamma, humans have been in this planet for billions of years too but there have been many ups and downs.
I used to wonder why Buddha spoke about the cosmos when his message is entirely based on the mind. My educated guess is that he wanted to provide the bigger picture of the “anicca” nature of the universe. That’s why he talked about the destructions and re-formations of world systems. I am grateful to the work of scientists like Galileo and others that have helped us visualize the unstable nature of the cosmos, thus verifying this aspect of the Dhamma.
Good stuff, I think these discussions are quite useful because it helps one build faith in Dhamma.
“Of course. He taught that the universe has uncountable populated planetary systems like our Solar system (cakkavāla).”
I wonder why we haven’t and if we will ever encounter highly advanced humans from other solar systems.
The usage of the word “chakkavāla” by Buddha is quite interesting too. Correct me if I’m wrong but “chakka” has to do with something spinning or circular. Planets revolve around sun in circular/elliptical orbits. It seems intentional.
“Some suttas compare the light from the Sun to that of the Moon (weak.)”
I don’t remember the sutta but I think I’ve read that the light from a sun can only light up one chakkavāla but a Tathagata can light up the entire “dasa sahassi loka dhatu“.
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From the above, it is evident that the Buddha could see the other planets associated with our Solar system. Also, he could travel to any of the other “star systems” or cakkavāla within our “dasa sahassi loka dhatu,” which contains thousands of “star systems.”
OK then Buddha knew about aliens too.
Regarding other “star systems,” he mentioned that they also had their own Sun and Moon.
Did he say that the stars of the night sky represent chakkavalas? In most ancient texts, stars are described like small light bulbs in the sky, kinda like “twinkle twinkle little star”. Of course Science has proven that a star is a giant burning nuclear furnace.
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Ok so the DNA has the genes but how they will be read and what type of proteins will be produced leading to the physical features are determined by kammic energy (or gati). Human DNA is utterly identical to that of higher animals but a human zygote always leads to a human body and not chimpanzee (for example). There are variations of the physical features amongst humans too. This would mean that the blueprint of the physical body is in the gandhabba.
I remember reading the research done by Prof. Ian Stevenson (which is now led by Prof. Jim Tucker) at University of Virginia where some of the rebirth cases involved physical resemblances of injuries in the previous lives. They suggested that these causes are in the mind which got affected by the trauma brought by the injuries that got transferred over to next lives.
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I also want to take this opportunity to talk about cakkavāla. If this refers to a planetary system, it would be insane for someone to know this 2500 years ago without a telescope. But does it actually refer to a planetary system? The suttas that I’ve read which discuss the cosmos say that our sun, earth and the moon make up a cakkavāla. Then there are categorizations of a 1000 such systems, 10,000, million and even billions of cakkavāla. This can be interpreted as a collection of planetary systems but the suttas do not mention other planets.
This thought came to me after I saw many religious zealots on the internet claiming that their religious texts contain scientific facts that modern science is only just discovering. For example, many Muslims claim that the Quran accurately describes the formation of human embryo. But if you analyze the details, the similarities are only superficial. The bones form way later than the Quran claims as described by embryogenesis. I noticed similar issues with Hinduism. Some Hindus told me that the Vedas describes the distance of the earth to the sun and even the speed of light, but I found out that these people lie and make up numbers for the term “yojana” to make it consistent with the discoveries of Science. Just left this input here because I think we should not be like these people.
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I don’t have time to watch dosakkhayo’s video right now but will watch it later. Thanks!
Meanwhile, Dr. Lal wrote: “The gandhabba and the physical body are BOTH created by kammic energy to “embed” the “distorted sanna” that the lifestream craved. A human existence is grasped because of a “janaka kamma” (a strong kamma that can give rise to human existence.)”
The physical body’s map is provided by mother and father in the form of zygote, isn’t it? That’s why we observe many similarities between the parents and the offsprings. In some cases, even the traits from grandparents can appear when the part of genetic code supressed in parents get expressed in the offspring. So how can we say that the physical body is created by kammic energy?
