1844AD. PINPOINT TARGET OF ALL FAITHS
by DR H.M. MUNJE
Baha'i Publishing Trust New Delhi Published by BA.HA.'~PUBLISHING TRUST oflndia Baha'f House, 6 Canning Road, New Delhi I 10001, India
Copyright© Dr. RM Munje 1982
Originally published in 1982in Malaysia by the Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of Malaysia .
This First Indian 1987 edition is published with the per- mission of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of Malaysia .
ISBN 81-85091-26-9
Printed in India by Unicom Iteroational THE GREATNESS OF THIS DAY
Baha'u' llah says :
"The time fore-ordained unto the peoples and kindreds of the earth is now come. The promises of God, as recorded in the Holy Scriptures, have all beenfulfilled. "This is the Day which the Pen of the Most High hath glorified in all the Scriptures. " - Gleanings, X
"There hath appeared in this Revelation what hath never appeared before. " - Gleanings, LXVII
"This New World Order... this wondrous system - the like of which mortal eyes have never witnessed. Immerse yourselves in the ocean of My words, that ye may unravel its secrets,and discover all the pearls of wisdom that lie hid in its depths. " -Gleanings, LXX
"Canst thou discover any one but Me, 0 Pen, in this Day? What hath become of the creation and the manifes- tations thereof? What of the names and their kingdoms ? Whither are gone all created things, whether seen or unseen ? What of the hidden secrets of the universe and its revelations? Lo, the entire creation hath passed away. Nothing remaineth except My Face, the Ever-abiding, the Resplendent, the All- Glorious." - Gleanings, XIV
''/ beseech Thee, 0 my God, by that Letter which, as soon as it proceeded out of the mouth of Thy will, hath caused the oceans to surge, and the winds to blow, and the fruits to be revealed, and the trees to springforth, and all past traces to vanish, and all veils to be rent asunder, and them who are devoted to Thee to hasten unto the light of the Countenanceof their Lord, the Unconstrained, to make known unto me what lay hid in the treasuries of Thy Knowledge and concealed within the repositories of Thy wisdom. " - Prayers and Meditations, CLXXVII
"I testify that no scionerhad the First Word proceeded, through the potency of Thy will and purpose, out of His mouth , and the First Call gone forth from His lips that the whole creation was revolutionized, and all that are in the heavens and all that are on earth were stirred to the depths. Through that Word the realities of the created things were shaken , were divided, separated, scattered, combined and reunited, disclosing, in both the contingent world and the heavenly kingdom, entities of a new creation, and revealing, in the unseen realms, the signs and tokens of Thy unity and oneness. Through that Call Thou didst announce unto all Thy servants the advent of Thy Most Great Revelation and the appearance of Thy Most Pe,ject Cause." - Prayers and Meditations, CLXXVIII
"This is the Day wherein naught can be seen except the splendorsof the Light that shinethfrom the Face of Thy Lord, the Gracious, the Most Bountiful. Verily, We have caused every soul to expire by virtue of our i"esistible and all subdu- ing sovereignty. We have, then , called unto being a new crea- tion , as a token of Our grace unto men . I am, verily, the All-Bountiful, the Ancient of Days." - Gleanings.,XIV
"This is a matchless Day ... the Desireof all nations .... The whole human race hath longedfor this Day ... The allusions made in the Scriptures have been unfolded, and the signs recordedtherein have been revealed..." - Gleanings, XV
"The promise is fulfilled, that which had been announced in the Holy Writ of God, the Most Exalted, the Almighty, the Most Beloved, is made manifest." - Gleanings, CV
"Say: 0 people: The Day, promised unto you in all the Scriptures, is now come. " - Gleanings, CXLIV
"Neither Sun nor Moon hath witnessed a day such as this."
Baha'u'llah declared this truth over a hundred years ago and , it has been literally proved and made manifest in many respects . Moon had never in the past seen a day in which a man from this earth could have gone onto the moon , and , after digging out a specimen from its ground , would have brought it back to this earth for chemical analysis . Sun also , from an immensity of space- distance must have been astonished, musing within itself. While looking at such an unprecedented and even unbelievable event in the universe as a whole .
Baha'u'llah has rightly said : "In the days to come, ye will verily, behold things of which ye have never heard before . Thus hath it been decreed in the Tablets of God , and none can comprehend it except they whose sight is sharp."
1844 But, now, everybody can see them because promised events have actually and openly taken place and results thereof are manifest .
Similarly, the pinpoint target year, viz. 1844 A.D. had been prophesied in the Holy Books of each and all the Religions of the past, including the Hindu Faith , Jewish Faith , Zoroastrian Faith , Buddhist Faith , Chris- tianity and Islam .
The period of arrangement while well establishing Islam, even in the West was 260 years A.H., and in that same year, 11th Imam, }Jasan 'Askari who was the last Imam , ascended to paradise , and thereafter, one thou- sand years, as per prophecy in the Holy Qur'an in the Surih of Sijdih, Verse 1, when the Command of God ascended back unto God. This took place in 1260 A .H . when the Bab declared Himself as the long awaited Imam, Mihdi, and terminated "Duru's-satr", the Age of Hiding, "and inaugurated" the New Cycle of Discoveries, "Duru'l Kashr:
Jesus Christ promised His Second Coming and de- scribed many signs attending His Second appearance in this world , including the renovation of the sanctuary. When asked about the time , he referred His disciples to Daniel the Jewish Prophet, who had symbolically prophesied the time of Renovation at the completion of 2300 days and , according to the Book of "Numbers" in the Old Testament a day is equal to a year. Now, this sanctuary was built up by the Jewish Prophet Ezra in 456 B .C. So, by deducting this period of 456 B .C. from 2300 years, the exact year 1844 A .D. comes, when, actually the Bab declared. The Renewal , and a New Baha'i Cycle started. This had fulfilled both the Jewish and the Chris- tian prophecies indeed.
Nearly 2000 years ago , Jesus Christ appeared and pro- mised His second coming , describing many signs attend- ing His second appearance in this world . One important sample of these promises is found in Thief in the Night by William Sears, and the reader can refer to that book for details . Our treatment here will be brief. One promise that Jesus Christ made about His return was recorded in the New Testament of the Bible in the book of Matthew, Chapter 24. In verse 3 we find, "And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came upto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? And what shall be the sign of thy coming?" Jesus Christ then foretold that "iniquity shall abound" in that day and the "love of many shall wax cold" and followed with His pro- mise in verse 15: "When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation , spoken of by Daniel the pro- phet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand.)" Chapters 8-12 of the Old Testament book of Daniel deal with this subject. Specifically, in Daniel, Chapter 8, verses 13-14, we read," How long shall be the vision concerning the daily sacrifice , and the abomina- tion of desolation , to give the sanctuary and the host to be trodden under foot? And he said upto me, Unto two thousand and three hundred days : then shall the sanctuary be cleansed." Now, Biblical scholars have noted that in the Bible a "day" becomes a "year" when calculating the passing of time. For instance, in the book of Numbers 14: 34 it is stated, "Even forty days, each day for a year." Therefore, 2300 years were to pass before the sanctuary would be cleansed . Some Biblical scholars prior to 1844 felt that this referred to one of four decrees mentioned in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah to rebuild Jerusalem, with the third decree, mentioned in the 7th chapter of Ezra , most generally accepted as the correct one. This was issued by Artaxerxes in the year 457 B .C. "Some scholars pointed out that from the issuing of the decree in 457 until the birth of Christ there were 456 years , not 457 ; therefore, it was necessary to subtract 456 from 2300. This left the year 1844."
In "D asatir-1-~mam ' ' • " - ' '" th e "Book of H eaven 1y Com- mandments" of the Zoroastrian Faith , the exact time is indicated in this way : "When the people of Iran will become wicked and do evils ... at that time a Man shall rise up from the Arabs , through whose disciples they will loose the crown , the throne , the land , and their religion , and be destroyed ... By the lapse of one thousand years , after the establishment of that Arabic Religion, His followers will have already spoiled their Faith so much by splitting up themselves into sects that, were it to be pre- sented to its Founder, He would not recognise the same . Thus shalt thou see the Iranians that they shall not listen to any Wise Man. Were some one to say the Truth, they shall feel ill , and, instead of responding wisely they shall come out with weapons to fight with Him . The worst among the evil deeds of Iranians is that they have killed the One Who , though from amongst themselves , was the Sovereign Lord of all the Angelic Attributes."
The above prophecy foretells the coming of Islam in Iran , and then , when the establishment of Islam will be completed, that is to say that, from the year of the ascen- sion of the 11th Imam l;Iasan 'Askari in 260 A.H. one thousand years more will pass , and, exactly in the year 1260 A.H. i.e. 1844 A .D. a New Era will start. Also the Martyrdom of the Bab , "the Sovereign Lord of all the Angelic Attributes" is already foretold in this prophecy.
Now, we shall see clearly the ancient most prophecies for the pinpoint year - 1844 A .D. in the Hindu Holy Books:
"Manu Smriti", "the Memorandum of Manu" , the Divine Law-Giver to mankind , described the life span of the Universe which is merely a speck in the Creation of God . He also specified calculations of the eternally cyclic life span of Brahma . The Divine Agency of the Creative Attribute of God , large and minor Religious Cycles of Virtues comprising of various aeons , ages , epocs and their linking periods , His book is known as the Source of all laws , or "Law-Codes of Manu" , also "Yug-Shastra" means "the Book of Yug ," in which Manu has declared the beginning of a long big cycle of 12000years containing within itself 4 minor and uneven periodic cycles , at the termination of which the beginning of a new "Krit Yug" which means the "Cycle of Truth in Deeds" will start .
"Manu-smriti" or "Manava Dharma-sastra" the Code or Institutes of Manu . A collection of laws based on custom and precedent and the teaching of the Vedas . It is traditionally attributed to the mythical first Manu, Svayambhuva, but it is obviously the work of many hands . Buhler suggests that is was probably based on 'manuals written by the teachers of the Vedic schools for the guidance of their pupils . . . and only later ack- nowledged as sources of sacred law applicable to all Aryas' . (Laws of Manu, SBE Sacred Books of the East, pp . XIF; V. also CHI The Cambridge History of India, I, p . 278 .) Thus they represent 'the sum of the conditions of social co-existence with regard to the activity of the com- munity and of the individual' (R . Pal , History of Indian lAw, p . 2) in India during almost the whole of the first millennium B .C. . ...
Divine revelation (sruti) and empirical knowledge (smrti) are drawn upon to define the Law of Conduct and to apply it, though not always impartially, to all classes of the community.
As per the calculations given in Manu Smriti , Chapter I, Verses 68 to 72: that long cycle was to end exactly in 1844 A .D. and the New Era was to begin, which Most Great Event has already taken place at the moment when the Bab declared himself.
The exact calculation is as follows : NameofYug Prelink Duration Post- Full Link Period
SatYug 100 +1000 +100 =1200 Treta Yug 200 +2000 +200 =2400 DwaparYug 300 +3000 +300 =3600 Kali Yug 400 +4000 +400 =4800
Grand Total years = 12000
In India we have roughly the history of 5000 years , or a little more. We have no records of the pre-historic Yugas and their prelink and postlink periods . Of course , we have all legendary records about Sat Yug, Treta Yug and Dwapar Yug, along with Manifestations of God Who appeared in succession , one after the other, during those three Yugas and even those before Manu. Rig Ved was revealed by Agni Rishi, Yajur Ved by Vayu Rishi, Sam Ved by Aditya Rishi and Atharva Ved by Angira Rishi. "Rishi" means "a Divine Sage" or a "Sage having Divine Authority" .
Manu , like Moses , confirmed all the four previous Holy Revelations and the Divine Revealers thereof and gave ten commandments, and many codes of laws, de- scribed Genesis of this world , Cycles of previous Manus and prophesied future aeons , cycles and ages .
What we can now calculate with historic accuracies is the period of little more than 5000 years , viz . from the time of Bhagwan Shri Krishna, The Divine Revealer of the Holy Gita, Who was born 5207 years ago from now i.e . 1982 A .D. In those days Solar System of almanac was not known, and a calendar showing Lunar years was prevailing. After about 3000 years from Bhagwan Shri Krishna there was a noble king Vikramaditya who in 56 B .C. in-augurated the Solar Calendar, using the same names of the months but adding one duplicate month "Adhik Mas" in every third year. which became a leap year, and also adjusting some duplicate dates "Adhik Tithies" in various months . This Vikram Samvat is now running its 2039th year. But, Shri Krishna Samvat is also simultaneously running 5207th year because Shri Krishna's devotees are observing their religious rites and sacred duties according to Shri Krishna Samvat Calen- dar. Vikram Samvat has always been, and even now is , 56 years ahead of the Christian Calendar which runs on the Gregorian Solar System .
Shri Krishna Calendar has 355 days in each year, and hence 10¼ days less than the Christian Calendar year. We have therefore to add 10¼ days per year to Shri Krishna Samvat which is now 5207 .
From Vishnu Puran, Part IV, Chapter 24, Verses 109 and 113 , we learn that "on the day Bhagwan Krishna ascended to His Holy Abode, at his age of 126 years according to Shri Krishna Samvat Calendar, Kali Yug did put its first foot on earth". "Kali" literally means "a bud ; a petal of the flower; then , strifes , clash , quarrel; wars; one side of die;" (Refer to "Amar-Koshi" Sanskrit Dictionary) . In Vishnu Puran it is also stated that so long as Bhagwan Shri Krishna was touching this earth with His wtus Feet, Kali Yug could not put its foot on earth . The word "Kali" has a dual meaning, which depicts that a beautiful bud and a fragrant rose also, ultimately decays, dries up and dies out. Hence, there are clear-cut proph- ecies in the Hindu Scriptures about the bad events to come and evil occurrances to happen at the end part of Kali Yug - "Kaliyugantey". Usually Hindus and also the generality of the people think that Kali Yug as a whole is an evil age , which it is not . Because it is God's open and loudest declaration that whenever a God-Man, Manifes- tation of Divinity, appears on earth He most assuredly brings once again and establishes Religion, and an age of Righteousness in the world of Humanity is renewed. The same thing was exactly done by Shri Krishna . He did establish a beautifully budding civilisation, a spiritualised nobility flourishing like the opening of a petal - "Kali" - of a fragrant rose . He specially claims : ' I am the flowery Spring Season" "Aham Rutuna Kusumakarah" , Gita X. So Kali was a budding age of goodness, which, at the last end, during its "Sandhayansh" the twilight point of 400 years , decayed and became worse and worse and finally died in 1844 A .D. which was the 5065th year of Shri Krishna Samvat.
From these 5065 years of Shri Krishna Samvat we deduct 126 years of Shri Krishna's life on earth, what remained is 4939 years of 355 days each . Converting them into Solar years of 365 .25 days each : 4939 X 355 = 1753345 + 365 .25 = 4800 .3969 years . The year 1844 A .D . synchronizes with this year 4800 .3969 . The fraction 0 .3969 depicts 4 months , 24 days , 23 hours , 13 minutes and 31 .008 seconds of the year 1844 A .D. or the year 4800 of the expiry of Kali Yug. The prophecy says that Kali Yug will end at this particular year, and by the end of the age there will appear a Manifestation of God Who will inaugurate a New "Krityug" which means "the Age of Deeds" . This is exactly what the Bab had done on the 23rd of May 1844 A .D. 2 hours and 11 minutes after sun- set, and fulfilled the great and long-standing prophecy.
There is a definite method of God usually found in all the prophetic Books , that prophecies and predictions for the remote future events are always made in the form of riddles and allegories , so that they remain concealed and locked up in the safe custodies of the knowledge of God and His Saints and the possessors of spiritual insight only till the actual happenings and events take place and the Promised One from God appears and unlocks mysteries with His Master Key . This Divine arrangement is a very wise system meant for just safeguarding the real truth seekers and devotees of God from false claimants and pseudo prophets who generally try to misguide the peo- ple , though themselves know nothing about the mysteries and are ignorant of the realities of the Divine prophecies . saints and holy persons make significant prophecies and indicate hidden mysteries. In the year 1565 A .D. saint Surdas straightaway made an exact pinpoint prophecy for the target year 1844 A .D. in unambiguous and very emphatic terms . Surdas was a blind saint who lived in Parsavli village , near Mathura , the birth-place of Shri Krishna in Uttar Pradesh, India. In the year 1587 he passed away at the age of 94 years . At that time Vikram Samvat was prevailing in India and the Gregorian Solar Calendar throughout the world .
Manu in His Divine wisdom, knew that by the time Kali Yug will end there shall be Solar System of all the Calendars prevailing universally. And hence , he gave all calculations in His prophecy in Solar Years .
Brief but poignant prophecy of saint Surdas is as follows:
0 Mind! Why dost thou not have patience ? None can put back the destined march of events.
Meghnath - the son of Ravana shall take birth again .
One thousand nine hundred and above, such event shall occur that a cycle of Truth shall prevail for a thousand years to come and the creeperof Religion shall start rising high.
The Golden Flower shall bloom on earth , and then alone the condition of the World shall take a tum . 0 Surdas ! This is the Mysterious Play of God, which cannot be averted.
In the above prophecies saint Surdas begins and ends with strong and firm and unambiguous notes of assertion that whatever he has said shall inevitably come to pass and none can resist it, or put it back.
He says that there shall be the return of "Meghnath" who was a monstrous king and the enemy of Rama - the Manifestation of God. Also Meghnath was the son of "Ravana" who was also a king and the enemy of Rama. This has actually taken place : King Muhammad Shah was the enemy of the Bab , and after Muhammad Shah came his son Na{>iru'd-DinShah, by whose order the Bab -was martyred , thousands of His followers were killed , butchered , burnt alive and tyranized in the most horrible fashions in the history of human beings . Also N.i&iru'd- Din Shah imprisoned Baha'u'llah, 'Abdu'l-Baha, and the whole Holy Family, and banished them to 'Akka, in league with the Turkish government, and thirty thousand Baha'1s were most cruelly martyred, men, women and children, and even suckling babes in the unprecedented demonical manner . Then saint Surdas says that one thou- sand nine hundred and above , such an event shall occur that the cycle of Truth shall prevail for a thousand years to come and religion shall start rising high slowly like a creeper.
As we already know that this Hindu Vikram Samvat runs 56 years ahead of the Christian calendar , 1900 Vikram Samvat was therefore exactly in 1844A.D. to wit: 1900 - 56=1844. And saint Surdas says "1900 and above; this "above" means not one full-year but a fraction more than 1900. And that also was fulfilled , because the Bab declared in the month of May on the 22nd, 2 hours and 11 minutes after sunset to be exact 4 months , 22 days 2 hours and 11 minutes above 1900Vikram Samvat.
The Baha'i Era started in 1844 A.D. and the Baha'i Faith shall run its first course for not less than one thou- sand years as no Manifestation of God, according to Baha'u'llah , shall appear before the completion of one full thousand years . According to saint Surdas the Baha'i Faith is now growing like a creeper , and a time will surely come when the Golden Age of the Cause of Baha'u'llah shall certainly come, when "the golden flower" shall bloom on earth and the condition of the world shall be changed and "Heaven on earth" or "Ramrajya" i.e. "the Kingdom of God" shall be firmly established on earth.
Of course, this shall come to pass and "none shall have the power to resist or avert it" .
ONE UNIVERSAL SOURCE
Baha'u'llah says :
"Soon will the present day order be rolled up and a New One spread out in its stead. Verily, Thy Lord speaketh the Truth and is the Knower of things unseen. " "When the moon, the Sun, similarly the Heavenly Archer Jupiter, the Master - shall come evenly in one Zodiacal sign then the Krit Yug - the Cycle of Truth shall be." Vishnu Puran - W, Chapter24, Verse102.
"When the prevailingcycleshall be coming to naught there shall be tumultous upheavals and clashes. When the Moon, the Sun . as also the Heavenly Archer Jupiter - the Master - shall come in a single Zodiacal sign , it is then that the Age of Action - the Krit Yug - shall come " - Mahabharat. Vana Parva, Chapter1 , Verse90.
This prophecy is symbolical; like that of the Qur'an, where also , the Sun and the Moon are foretold as coming together and the moon to be eclipsed , means Baha'u'llah and Bab together and the Bab to be martyred .
In this Hindu Prophecy : Moon - the Bab , Sun - Baha'u'llah and the Master, 'Abdu'l-Baha, all the three are prophesied as coming together, at that appointed time , in 1844 A .D . and , Lo , when the Bab declared Himself as the Forerunner of a Mightier Manifestation of God, Baha'u'llah - Who was hidden behind the Veils of Glory and at whose indications the Bab Himself was mov- ing and speaking , 'Abdu'l- Baha - "the Master" also was born on that same date, viz., 23rd May 1844 A .D. Hence, this prophecy was also fulfilled completely and the Promised Krit Yug - the Cycle of Truth indeed - started.
From all the above references of the prophecies from the Holy Books of all religions - some revealed as far back as 12000 years ago in Sanskrit in India, some 500 years ago in Hindi over here, some more than 3000 and 2000 years ago in Semetic series of religions in Hebrew and ancient Greek languages , some 3500 years ago in Zend-Avastha in Iran; and some about 1300 years ago in Qur'an in Arabic - it is proved beyond even a shadow of doubt, that the original source of all these prophecies is One and the only One - God Himself has so accurately fulfilled all these promises through Manifestations, the Bab, Baha'u'llah and also 'Abdu'l-Baha on that PIN- POINT TARGET YEAR 1844A .D.
Prophecies were made in various lands thousands and thousands of miles away from each other , and in widely different ages , being thousands and thousands of years apart from one another , and in completely different languages unknown to one another, and , that too , during the ages in which there was no international transporta- tion and no means of communication at all .
Had there not been one universal source , all these prophecies could not have one common target . On the other hand, had the Bab not declared His Divine Mission on that very date and at that very time , all these and innumerable other various prophecies would have been proved wrong, and those Holy Souls Who had made these prophecies could have been known, God forbid, as false.
But , praise be to God , Who is the All-Prevailing Lord, the Omnipresent both in time and in space, the All-Knowing, the Omnipotent, the All-Wise , the Ruler and Protector of all , the Source of all Truth, the All- Merciful , the All-Bountiful , the Loving and the only one Beloved of all .
It is for this reason that Baha'u'llah has rightly said :
"This is that Most Great Beauty foretold in the books of the Messengers, through Whom Truth shall be distinguishedfrom e"or and the wisdom of every command shall be tested. Veri- ly, He is the Tree of Life that bringethforth the fruits of God, the Exalted, the Powe,ful, the Great. "
"Be thou assured in thyself that, Verily, he who turns away from this Beauty hath also turned away from the Messengers of the past and showeth pride towards God from all eternity to all eternity. "
"O people! If ye deny these verses, by what proof have ye believed in God? Produce it, 0 assemblage of the false ones! Nay, by the one in Whose Hand in My Soul, they are not and never shall be able to do this, even should they combine to assist one another. "
"Thus doth the Nightingale utter His Call unto you from this prison, He hath but to deliver this clear Message, who- soever desireth let him tum aside from this counsel, and whosoeverdesireth let him choose the Path to His Lord. "