Decoding the Mayan Calendar: Why the world did not end today - December 21, 2012

By Syed Akbar
Hyderabad, Dec 20: For sure, the world will not end on December 21.
This is for the simple reason that major communities and groups in the
world have their own calendar, and the end or beginning of a
particular calendar will not spell doom for the world.

Some calendars are perpetual without an end, while others are cyclic,
repeating at a particular interval. For instance, the Telugu calendar
is sexageneric, repeating every 60 years. Then there are calendars
purely based on the moon phases (lunar), sun (solar) and based on both
moon and sun (luni-solar). A few calendars follow the planet Venus.

“The Hindu calendar is still long way to end. The Kaliyuga, the last
epoch of the universe, began only recently if we consider the total
age of the earth. There are many millennia left for the Kaliyuga to
end. How can there be a doomsday without the end of Kaliyuga. There
cannot be an abrupt end,” points out Mudigonda Gopi Krishna of MGK
Numerology and Research Centre.

According to senior astro-psychologist Dr SV Nagnath, the end of the
calendar of some community or group will not have any impact on other
communities. “A calendar is meant for counting days, months and years.
In fact, the Mayan calendar will not end on December 21. Like the
Telugu calendar they have a periodicity, but with a longer cycle of
more than 5000 years. One such cycle ends now and a new cycle begins
for the Mayans,” he clarified.

Muslim scholars too do not believe that the world will end with the
conclusion of the Mayan calendar. “No doubt, Muslims believe in the
doomsday. But we do not know when it comes. Only God has the knowledge
of the doomsday. We cannot predict or guess it,” clarifies Islamic
scholar Hafiz Syed Shujath Hussain.

Dr John Carlson, director of the Centre for Archaeoastronomy, USA,
refutes the stories about the Mayan prophecies. A NASA statement
quotes Dr John saying, “The whole thing was a misconception from the
very beginning. The Maya calendar did not end on December. 21, 2012,
and there were no Maya prophecies foretelling the end of the world on
that date."

The Mayan civilisation once flourished in the rain forests of the
present day Mesoamerica. According to Maya theology, the world was
created 5125 years ago, on a date, modern people would write "August
11, 3114  BC."  At the time, the Maya calendar looked like this:
13.0.0.0.0. On December 21, 2012, it is exactly the same: 13.0.0.0.0,
the NASA statement said, adding in the language of Maya scholars, 13
Bak'tuns or 13 times 144,000 days elapsed between the two dates.