Page 260 - Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock

Graham Hancock – FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS

ordinary years, again supplying the digits for basic precessional
29
calculations. Separately there are Manvantaras (periods of Manu) of which
we are told in the scriptures that ‘about 71 systems of four Yugas elapse
during each Manvantara.’ The reader will recall that one degree of
30
precessional motion along the ecliptic requires 71.6 years to complete, a
number that can be rounded down to ‘about 71’ in India just as easily as
it was rounded up to 72 in Ancient Egypt.
The Kali Yuga, with a duration of 432,000 mortal years, is, by the way,
our own. ‘In the Kali Age,’ the scriptures say, ‘shall decay flourish, until
the human race approaches annihilation.’
31

Dogs, uncles and revenge

It was a dog that brought us to these decaying times.
We came here by way of Sirius, the Dog Star, who stands at the heel of
the giant constellation of Orion where it towers in the sky above Egypt. In
that land, as we have seen, Orion is Osiris, the god of death and
resurrection, whose numbers—perhaps by chance—are 12, 30, 72, and
360. But can chance account for the fact that these and other prime
integers of precession keep cropping up in supposedly unrelated
mythologies from all over the world, and in such stolid but enduring
vehicles as calendar systems and works of architecture?
Santillana and von Dechend, Jane Sellers and a growing body of other
scholars rule out chance, arguing that the persistence of detail is
indicative of a guiding hand.
If they are wrong, we need to find some other explanation for how such
specific and inter-related numbers (the only obvious function of which is
to calculate precession) could by accident have got themselves so widely
imprinted on human culture.
But suppose they are not wrong? Suppose that a guiding hand really
was at work behind the scenes?
Sometimes, when you slip into Santillana’s and von Dechend’s world of
myth and mystery, you can almost feel the influence of that hand ... Take
the business of the dog ... or jackal, or wolf, or fox. The subtle way this
shadowy canine slinks from myth to myth is peculiar—stimulating, then
baffling you, always luring you onwards.
Indeed, it was this lure we followed from the Mill of Amlodhi to the
myth of Osiris in Egypt. Along the way, according to the design of the
ancient sages (if Sellers, Santillana and von Dechend are right) we were
first encouraged to build a clear mental picture of the celestial sphere.
Second, we were provided with a mechanistic model so that we could

Ibid., pp. 353-4.
29
30 Ibid., p. 354.
31 Ibid., p. 247.

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