These days there is lot of hue and cry from every part of the globe regarding the commencement of 21st century. Lot many speculations and conjectures are being made regarding the prospects of life in the 21st century, as to whether the life will face pollution hazards, or ecological crisis, whether humans will be able to maintain peace and harmony or some new settlements will come up on the neighbouring planets like Moon or Mars. Thus everybody is talking of 21st century. Here it would be pertinent to point out that the calculations of 21st century are not based on any scientific principles, but merely reflect the short-lived memory or awakening to the measurements of time of a particular class of humans on the globe. This class of humans had no existence of their own before 1997 years except a few vague references of their possible remains before this period as gathered from old Testament or alike. That is why Archbishop Usher declared vehemently and openly without giving any thought to the possible repercussions of his statement that the earth originated on 26 February, 4004 years before Christ at 9 a.m. All this points out that this type of baseless statements were issued by the persons who were not able to see the dawn of civilisation before 2000 years, who had no knowledge of the things like chronology or eras. It was only their contact with some civilised races of humans that could enable them to conceive the idea of chronology or what we call as Kalaganana. In fact it was Jesus Christ who learnt some facts on morality, ethics and philosophy from the then Buddhists of the east and tried to teach the lessons on the same lines to the brutes of his country, but instead of learning some lessons the brutes brutally crucified their mentor, their preacher, the torch bearer.

After brutal assassination some sense of sympathy prevailed upon some of them and they tried to preserve some historicity regarding their saviour, savant and prophet and thus the notion of Kalaganana prevailed upon them. Since then all the events were seen by them either after or before the birth of Christ. Fortunately or unfortunately they had their hey day to rule the maximum part of the globe with the help of their tricky tactics and had a chance to make a maximum onslaught on the people the world over in order to bring them to their fold. Politically dominating as they were, they could introduce their sect, their language and their era owing to tactics of force and enticement. It was not the fact that there was no era prevalent earlier than theirs. Even among the most recent, Greek (3569) and Roman (2746) eras are much older than the Christian. Latest Chinese and Turkish eras commenced 4353 and 4287 years before. What to say of old Turkish (7603), Irani (6001) and Jewish (5757) eras. We also meet with enormously old eras like Egyptian (28660), Parasi (189964), Hittite (88383567) and Chinese (96002294), Indian era being the oldest in the world, i.e.

1972949099 years old. Inspite of the currency of so many older eras, it was the political urge that brought the shortest era (Christian) into offing. Now the latest researches in Geology and Biosciences have outrightly rejected Usher's views and have brought the phenomenon of the origin of Earth and other life on it very much closer to that of Hindu view. The Christian era remains no longer to be relevant as it has no capcity to record the events which took place before Christ. Christ was not the sheet anchor or basic source of the origin of history of humans or nature. In fact, he was also the part and parcel of history. So history cannot be studied from the point of Christ, rather the Christ may be studied in historical perspectives. Now it has also been found proven that with the help of Christian era political or social events of around 4000-5000 year old may be handled easily, but the scientific calculations dealing with crores of years cannot be handled with this era. This is why geologists have framed their own geological periods to define the geological events ranging from crores of years down. Under the facts and circumstances cited above, a scientific mind must reject this shortest era of the world to handle the events of remotest past and go ahead in search of an era which is most perfectly designed to encompass all events whether of political, social or scientific arena ranging from the shortest period to longest possible period. If a genuine thought is given to this point without any prejudice to race, region or sect, only Hindu era would be able to stand the test of suitability. The Hindu era, as stated earlier, was started 197 crore years ago and today it is entering into 52nd century of Kali era of twenty-eighth Mahayuga of Vaivasvata Manu. Next year (5100 Kali era), we shall witness the commencement of the 52nd century of this historical era of the world which is based purely on astronomical calculations.

Thus ours will be the 52nd century while the rest of the world will be celebrating the 21st century as the 21st brith centenary of the Christ. A scientific mind would naturally wonder why the 21st birth centenary of Christ be taken as the 21st century of the world. Kalaganana is a phenomenon purely based on astronomical calculations. Kala or Time in fact is the eternal phenomenon, its calculation or measurement could be possible only when the heavenly bodies like stars and planets came into being and started their movements. Time cannot be measured by the birth of an individual whosoever he may be. The birth of individuals can be studied from the point of time or Kala as the whole world is doing till now. But to study the Kala or Time from the point of an individual is really a very unscientific idea. So let us take one more step forward to shun what is unscientific in the realm of scientific era of Kala and accept the oldest ever Kalaganana which does not follow any individual or event but based upon the astronomical facts only, so that we may be bale to record or encompass the maximum period in our history of science and mankind. This Kalaganana belongs to none others, but to the Hindus who were the first ever custodians of the laws of, Spirituality, Astronomy, Geology and Physics. (The author is Lekhak Pramukh, Bharatiya Itihasa Sankalan Yojana, Delhi.)