Velikovsky: 7 Suns Were Changes in the Sun's Appearance, Not 7 World Epochs

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The World Ages
From Worlds in Collision, by Immanuel Velikovsky

"A conception of ages that were brought to their end by violent changes in nature is common all over the world, The number of ages differs from people to people and from tradition to tradition. The difference depends on the number of catastrophes tha tthe particular people retained in its memory, or in the way it reckoned the end of an age.

In the annals of ancient Etruria, according to Varro, were records of seven elapsed ages. Censorinus, and author of the third Christian century and compiler of Varro, wrote that 'men thought that different prodigies appeared by means of which the gods notified mortals at the end of each age. The Etruscans were versed in the science of the stars, and after having observed the prodigies with attention, they recorded these observations in their books.'

The Greeks had similar traditions. 'There is a period,' wrote Censorinus, 'called "the supreme year" by Aristotle, at the end of which the sun, moon, and all the planets return to their original position. This 'supreme year' has a great winter, called by the Greeks kataklysmos, which means deluge, and a great summer, called by the Greeks ekpyrosis, or combustion of the world. The world, actually, seems to be inundated and burned alternately in each of these epochs.'

Anaximenes and Anaximander in the sixth pre-Christian century, and Diogenes of Apollonia in the fifth century, assumed the destruction of the world with subsequent recreation.

Heraclitus (-540 to -475) taught that the world is destroyed in conflagration after every period of 10,800 years. Aristarchus of Samos in the third century before the present era taught that in a period of 2,484 years the earth undergoes two destructions -- of combustion and deluge. The Stoics generally believed in periodic conflagrations by which the world was consumed, to be shaped anew. 'This is due to the forces of ever-active fire which exists in things and in the course of long cycles of time resolves everything into itself and out of it is constructed a reborn world' -- so Philo presented the notion of the Stoics that our world is refashioned in periodic conflagrations.

In one such catastrophe the world will meet its ultimate destruction; colliding with another world, it will fall apart into atoms out of which, in a long process, a new earth will be created somewhere in the universe.

'Democritus and Epicurus,' explained Philo, 'postulate many worlds, the origin of which they ascribe to the mugual impacts and interlacing of atoms, and their destruction to the counterblows and ccollisions by the bodies so formed.' As this earth goes to its ultimate destruction, it passes through recurring cosmic catastrophes and is re-formed with all that lives on it. (cont'd) "

[Brigit]

The World Ages
From Worlds in Collision, by Immanuel Velikovsky

cont'd

"Hesiod, one of the earliest Geek authors, wrote about four ages and four generations of men that were destroyed bythe wrath of the planetary gods. The Third Age was the age of bronze; when it was destroyed by Zeus, a new generation repeopled the earth, and using bronze for arms and tools, they began to use iron too. The heroes of the Trojan War were f this fourth generation. Then a new destruction was decreed, and after that came 'yet another generation, the fifth, of men who are upon the bounteous earth' -- the generation of iron.

In another work of his, Hesiod described the end of one of the ages.

• 'The life-giving earth crashed around burning...all the land seethed, and the Ocean's streams...
  it seemed even as if the Earth and wide Heaven above came together; for such a mighty crash
  would have arisen if Earth were being hurled to ruin, and Heaven from on high were hurling
  her down.'

Analogous tradition of four expired ages persist on the shores of the Bengal Sea and in the highland of Tibet -- the present age is the fifth.

The sacred Hindu book Bhagavata Purana tells of four ages and of pralayas or cataclysms in which, in various epochs, mankind was nearly destroyed; the fifth age is that of the present. The world ages are called Kalpas or Yugas. Each world age met its destruction in catastrophes of conflagration, flood, and hurricane.

Ezour Vedam and Baga Vedam, sacred Hindu books, keeping to the scheme of four expired ages, differ only in the nuber ascribed to each. In the chapter, 'World Cycles,' in Visuddhi-Magga, it is said that 'there are three destructions: the destruction by water, the destruction by fire, the destruction by wind,' but that there are seen ages, each of whi is separated from the previous one by a world catastrophe.

Reference to ages and catastrophes is found in Avesta (Zend-Avesta), the sacred scriptures of Mazdaism, the ancient religion of the Persians. 'Bahman Yast,' one of the books of Avesta, counts seven world ages or millennia. Zarathustra (Zoroaster), the prophet of Mazdaism, speaks of 'the signs, wonders, and perplexity which are manifested in the world at the end of each millennium.'

The Chinese call the perished ages kis and number ten kis from the beginning of the world until Confucius. In the Ancient Chinese encyclopedia, Sin-li-ta-tsiuen-chou, the general convulsion of nature are discussed. Because of the periodicity of these convulsions, the span of time between two catastrophes is regarded as 'a great year.' As during a year, so during a world age, the cosmic mechanism winds itself up and 'in a general convulsion of nature, the sea is carried out of its bed, mountains spring out of the ground, rivers change their course, human beings and everything are ruined, and the ancient traces effaced.'

An old tradition, and a very persistent one, of world ages that went down in cosmic catastrophes was found in the Americas among the Incas, the Aztecs, and the Mayas. A major part of stone inscriptions found in Yucatan refer to world catastrophes.

• 'The most ancient of these fragments [katuns or calendar stones of Yucatan] refer, in general, to great catastrophes which, at intervals and repeatedly, convulsed the American continent, and of which all nations of this continent have perserved a more of less distinct memory.'

Codices of Mexico and Indian authors who composed the annals of their past give a prominent place to the tradition of world catastrophes that decimated humankind and changed the face of the earth.

In the chronicles of the Mexican kingdom it is said: '

• The ancients knew that before the present sky and earth were formed, man was already created and life had manifested itself four times.'

A tradition of successive creations and catastrophes is found in the Pacific-- on Hawaii and on the islands of Polynesia: there were nine ages and in each age a different sky was above the earth.

Icelanders, too, believed that nine worlds went down in a succession of ages, a tradition that is contained in the Edda.

The rabbinical conception of ages crystallized in the post-Exilic period. Already before the birth of our earth, worlds had been shaped and brought into existence, only to be destroyed in time. 'He made several worlds before ours, but He destroyed them all.' This earth, too, was not created at the beginning to satisfy the Divine Plan. It underwent reshaping, six consecutive remoldings. New conditions were created after each of the catastrophes. On the fourth earth lived the generation of the Tower of Babel; we belong to the seventh age. Each of the ages or 'earths' has a name.

Seven heavens were created and seven earths were created: the most removed, the seventh, Eretz; the sixth, Adamah; the fifth, Arka; the fourth, Harabah; the third, Yabbashah; the second, Tevel; and 'our own land called Heled, and like the others, it is separated from the forgoing by abyss, chaos, and water.' Great catastrophes changed the face of the earth. 'Some perished by deluge, others were consumed by conflagration,' wrote the Jewish philosopher Philo.

According to the rabbinical authority Rashi, ancient tradition knows of periodic collapses of the firmament, one of which occurred in the days of the Deluge, and which repeated themselves at intervals of 1,656 years. The duration of the world ages varies in Armenian and Arabic traditions. (cont'd)"


The next segment is entitled, The Sun Ages.

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The Sun Ages
from Worlds in Collision, by Immanuel Velikovsky

"An oft-repeated occurrence in the traditions of the world ages is the advent of a new sun in the sky at the beginning of every age. The word 'sun' is substituted for the word 'age' in the cosmogonical traditions of many peoples all over the world.

The Mayas counted their ages by the names of consecutive suns. These were called Water Sun, Earthquake Sun, Hurricane Sun, Fire Sun. 'These suns mark the epochs to which are attributed the various catastrophes the world has suffered.'"



cont'd

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• The Sun Ages
  by Immanuel Velikovsky
  cont'd
  
  
  "Ixtililxochil (circa 1568-1648), the native Indian scholar, in his annals of the kings of Tezcuco, described the world ages by the names of 'suns.' The Water Sun (or Sun of Waters) was the first age, terminated by a deluge in which almost all creatures perished; the Earthquake Sun or age perished in a terrific earthquake when the earth brokein many places and the mountains fell. The world age of the Hurricane Sun came to its destruction in a cosmic hurricane. The Fire Sun was the world age that went down in a rain of fire.
  
  'The nations of Culhua or Mexico,' Humboldt quoted Gomara, the Spanish writer of the sixteenth century, 'believe according to their hieroglyphic paintings, that, previous to the sun which now enlightens them, four had already been successively extinguished. These four suns are as many ages, in which our species has been annihilated by inundations, by earthquakes, by a general conflagration, and by the effect of destroying tempests.' Every one of the four elements participated in each of the catastrophes; deluge, hurricane, earthquake, and fire gave their names to the catastrophes because of the predominance of one of them in the upheavals. Symbols of the successive suns are painted on the pre-Columbian literary documents of Mexico.
  
  'Cinco soles que son edades,' or 'five suns that are epochs,' wrote Gomara in his description of the conquest of Mexico. An analogy to this sentence of Gomara may be found in Lucus Ampelius, a Roman author, who, in his book Liber memorialis, wrote: 'Soles fuere quinque' (There were five suns): It is the same belief that Gomara found in the New World.
  
  The Mexican Annals of Cuauhtitlan, written in Nahua-Indian (circa 1570) and based on ancient sources, contains the tradition of seven sun epochs. Chicon-Tonatiuh or 'the Seven Suns' is the designation for the world cycles or acts in the cosmic drama."

I would like to comment that when I finish transcribing this section of Velikovsky, I want to share some passages from original texts that show that pre-Columbian people did not consider these changes in Suns to be epochs at all. They gave the duration of each of the Suns in days. Velikovsky, in this worldwide survey of "The World Ages" and "The Sun Ages," is leading up to the following question at the end of this chapter:

• "Did the reason for the substitution of the word 'sun' for 'epoch' by the peoples of both hemispheres lie in the changed appearance of the luminary and in its changed path across the sky in each world age?"

emphasis added

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The Sun Ages
by Immanuel Velikovsky
cont'd

• "The Buddhist sacred book of Visuddhi-Magga contains a chapter on 'World Cycles.' 'There are three destructions: the destruction by water, the destruction by fire, the destruction by fire, the destruction by wind.' After the catastrophe of the deluge, 'when now a lng period has elapsed from the cessation of the rains, a second sun appeared.'
  
  In the interim the world was enveloped in a gloom. 'When this second sun appears, there is no distinction of day and night,' but 'an incessant heat beats upon the world.' When the fifth sun appeared, the ocean gradually dried up; when the sixth sun appeared, 'the whole wold became filled with smoke.' 'After the lapse of another long period, a seventh sun appears, and the wholde world breaks into flames.' This Buddhist book refers also to a ore ancient 'Discourse on the Seven Suns.'
  
  The Brahmans called the epochs between two destructions 'the great days.'
  
  The Sibylline books recite the ages in which the world underwent destruction and regeneration. 'The Sybyl told as follows: "The nine suns are nine ages....Now is the seventh sun."' The Sibyl prophesied two ages yet to come--that of the eighth and the ninth sun.
  
  The aborigines of British North Borneo, even today, declare that the sky was originally low, and that six suns perished, and at present the world is illuminated by the seventh sun.
  
  Seven solar ages are referred to in Mayan manuscripts, in Buddhist sacred books, in the books of the Sibyl. In all quoted sources the 'suns' are explained (by the sources themselves) as signifying consecutive epochs, each of which went down in a great, general destruction.
  
  Did the reason for the substitution of the word 'sun' for 'epoch' by the peoples of both hemispheres lie in the changed appearance of the luminary and in its changed path across the sky in each world age?"

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A really beautiful set of traditions and myths from the Navaho Indian Tribe comes to mind, and that is the legend of the Four Worlds. The Four Worlds are the Black World, the White World, the Turquoise World, and the (future) Yellow World. The ancient people, in these traditional stories, were escaping disasters in each previous world and were being pursued by monsters into the next. Some of those monsters were killed by the Twins Sons of Changing Woman with their powerful lightning bolts and turned to stone, but some of the monsters survived in the present world. The Beauty Way Path is the life of integrity and respectfulness that leads into the final, Yellow World.


This seems to share some of the elements of "The World Ages" and "The Sun Ages" that Velikovsky has gathered from traditions all over the world.

Here are two examples of the sand paintings that appear to represent some aspect of the Navajo changes of worlds--

• https://ibb.co/7dKzvqLg
  Image: Navajo sand painting "Eagle and Sun"

• https://ibb.co/bhn2W5V
  image: Navaho sand painting

In these sand paintings, and many like them, some or all of the four colors are included as rays shining out from the sun. The center of the sun often has a Squatterman-type figure.

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In "The Sun Ages"
from Worlds in Collision Immanuel Velikovsky writes,

• "An oft-repeated occurrence in the traditions of the world ages is the advent of a new sun in the sky at the beginning of every age. The word 'sun' is substituted for the word 'age' in the cosmogonical traditions of many peoples all over the world.
  
  The Mayas counted their ages by the names of consecutive suns. These were called Water Sun, Earthquake Sun, Hurricane Sun, Fire Sun. 'These suns mark the epochs to which are attributed the various catastrophes the world has suffered.'"

As we actually already talked about on a previous topic, the Leyenda de los Soles. or The Legend of the Suns is a document that went missing sometime around the mid-century, when Velikovsky was writing. He does not seem to be aware that the Suns, as they are depicted in one of the very few genuine accounts of Aztec creation, gives the duration of each one of the changing Suns. It is only a matter of decades between the changes of Suns, or between the great cataclysms.



**I'm sorry I said days, instead of decades, earlier. I should have said years. Big mistake, but it's certainly not thousands of years.