A scientist may say that stars in the universe are up to 14 billion years old, whereas medium size stars could be 8 to 12 billion years old, and the age of the universe could be 15 to 20 billion years old. But, is it the age of the total universe? No, because the universe also contains black holes and the neutron stars whose age is not added to it. Paul Davies in his book “The Last Three Minutes” (published 1994 by Basic Books, Harpers Collins, New York), describes about astronomers’ understanding of the fate of the stars. He says,
“Nobody knows how many stars have already succumbed in this manner, but the Milky Way alone could contain billions of these stellar corpses… A dwarf star at the bottom end of the stellar-mass range may shine steadily for a trillion years.” (p. 46)
Taking this view of a dwarf star’s life into consideration, the actual age of the universe jumps from the range of billions of years to trillions of years. Again, think of a dwarf star changing to a neutron star, and a neutron star turning into a black hole. It may easily come to several trillion years. And then, how long these black holes have been in existence, no one knows. Thus, it could be reasonably believed that the universe must have been existing for hundreds of trillions of years.
It could be further believed that when these black holes were in the shape of the stars, the configuration of the clusters and galaxies of the universe of that period may have been different than it is observed today.
Again, if you consider the universe of that period (when the existing black holes of that period were the stars) there must also have been black holes in the cosmos of that period, because the existence of the black holes is the procedural factor of cosmic-mechanics.
In this way, going backward and backward, you will find that the true life of the universe comes to uncountable trillions of years, and it is a fact that, according to this procedure, the configuration of the cosmos would have perpetually kept on changing from one black hole period to another black hole period which was always in the range of trillions of years. Thus, considering uncountable trillions of years as the total age of the universe, the figure of 155.52 trillion years as the total age of our earth planet and the sun is not very much.
Critics can’t be appeased.
One thing you must understand is that you can never satisfy a critic because he can’t leave his critical nature, and you can never convince an obstinate or a non-godly person because he wouldn't accept your statements. Explanations and evidences are for gentlemen and for open-minded people who are willing to correct their mistakes and are ready to accept the right path and the honest statement. Bhagwan Krishn Himself went to the wicked Duryodhan to convince him that he should be reasonable and compromise with Arjun, but he did not; and Shishupal criticized all-great and all-loved Krishn to the last bit of his wits without any reason. So, some people have a critical nature and a leaning towards non-Godliness which is the sign of the impiousness of their heart and the biased structure of their mind. It is the nature of such people that they cannot tolerate to read or hear about the authentic and eternal Divineness of Bhartiya religion and Bhartiya history which is described in the Puranas especially in the Bhagwatam. It is thus wise to leave them to live with their own beliefs and don’t try to unnecessarily argue with them to accept the right thing. As regards the evidences, the criteria of evidence has already been discussed in Article 4. On this earth planet, Bhagwan Ram was about 18 million years ago and Bhagwan Krishn was about 5,000 years ago. Buildings don’t survive that long and coins are coincidental to find, whereas the bed of the river Jamuna would have risen and changed quite significantly. So, digging the entire district of Mathura to find a tiny gold coin of the period of the demon king Kans is not feasible.
The most reliable reaffirmations of the authenticity of the unbroken continuity of the Hindu civilization of 1,900 million years from the period of the first Manu to the period of Krishn, are the commentaries on the Bhagwatam by the great Masters and the acharyas that reconfirm every statement of the Bhagwatam. The Bhagwatam explains the entire procedure of the creation of the universe and the brahmandas (governed by Brahma) and tells the entire history since the creation of this brahmand, from 155.52 trillion years ago and up to the period of Krishn. A major part of the Bhagwatam contains the descriptions of the prime events of the last 1,900 million years.
The acharyas like Roop Goswami, Jeev Goswami, Vallabhacharya, Vishvanath Chakrvarti and Shridhar Swami etc., wrote their commentaries on the Bhagwatam, revealing the greatness of its descriptions and explaining the inherent meanings of the verses of the Bhagwatam. It is mentioned in The True History and the Religion of India that Shridhar Swami found a minor copying error in the existing copy of the Bhagwatam in his time, so he corrected it in his commentaries. It shows how careful our great Masters were in maintaining the authenticity of our scriptures. So, arguing about the proven facts of the Bhartiya history (which are re-authenticated by our great Masters) by a worldly person (even if he is a higher degree holder) who is attached to his intellectual, emotional and sensual enjoyments of a pure worldly nature, is like a kid, who has read some science fiction stories, happens to visit NASA Research Institute, unauthoritatively sneaks into the research chamber and starts telling the scientists how wrong they are. But, this is the age of the freedom of speech, anyone could say anything; still the fact remains the fact and the fiction remains the fiction.
