The Bible and the Gita

I was reading this wonderful fictional work The Testaments by Margaret Atwood, where I came across this passage from the Bible that the author quoted through one of her fictional characters, Becka:

From 'The Testaments', fictional work by Margaret Atwood

The biblical quote

'For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past . . . In the morning it flourisheth, and groweth up; in the evening it is cut down, and withereth '

is so profoundly similar to musings in the Bhagavad Gita that I could not help but wonder about the eerie similarities between the two prophesies. The below are original quotations from the Bhagavad Gita, where the transcendental godly being Krishna is imparting knowledge about the supreme reality to worldly warrior Arjuna:

Chapter 8, verses 17 thru 19 from the Bhagavad Gita

Roughly translated, the Gita through the instruction of Krishna says that

One day of Brahma (creation) lasts a thousand cycles of the four ages and his night also extends for the same span of time.

At the advent of Brahma’s day, all living beings emanate from the unmanifest source, and at night, all embodied beings again merge into their unmanifest source.

The multitudes of beings repeatedly take birth with the advent of Brahma’s day, and are reabsorbed on the arrival of the cosmic night, to manifest again automatically on the advent of the next cosmic day.

Notice the two scriptures converging on one thousand days of creation, with each day and night harboring life, death and re-birth !

Eminent scholars can probably debate as to which of the scriptures borrowed this concept from the other, but the harmony in prophesizing a cyclical creation spanning over one thousand units of time is verily uncanny, astounding, and truly refreshing!


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