Helix planetary nebula nicknamed "Eye of God" (NASA)
The Sound of Silence
Some Hindus believe that with the pranava mantra -- the AUM sound, or the "Word" in the "Beginning" -- the Universe was started. This is similar to the Big Bang theory. Omkara, the sound of ohm, is posited as the means of creation.
Capra, in his popular book The Tao of Physics, writes that:
Buddhist View
The Buddhist view of the universe (cosmology) can be found in a Buddhist scripture called the Agganchcha (Pali, Aganna) Sutra. According to Buddhism, as with everything within it, the universe itself is subject to radical imperma-nence. It is in a perpetual state of becoming (rather than "being) and while no discernible beginning is declared, there is also no definitive end. There are instead many beginnings and ends, cyclical ages (aeons) and epochs, and countless other universes (world systems) in all directions.
When the existing universe or world system dies, it goes into a state of undifferentiated chaos. It emerges again due in part to its own nature and partly as a result of karma. At that time, living beings are mostly reborn into a Brahma world (abhassara-brahma-loka). There they subsist on "joy" and fly about.
Billions of years later (immeasurable cycles of time, aeons), an empty space emerges as a result of karma. There a first being, who thus earns the title Maha Brahma (great divinity), is said to be reborn alone. Soon after, other beings (brahmas) are reborn. Often this leads the Great Brahma to imagine that It called them into existence. Later It may say, "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first, the last, the always, the creator, the sustainer, the destroyer. As I will it, so it becomes" and other similarly faulty deductions and declarations.
However, the state of Brahmas are only for beings with a store of high caliber karma (merit). Their mental state is such that they are not attached to sensual pleasures. They are neither male nor female but neuter. Other beings, habitually desiring the enjoyment of less refined pleasures, take rebirth in denser worlds.
As a result of their "karma" (those actions previously willed, carried out, and accumulated coming to fruition) appropriate worlds emerge. These worlds are appropriate to the fruition of various actions. This coming into being can take place as the undifferentiated chaos organizes itself into order -- a Big Bang? The universe gradually evolves from entropy into a state where (carbon or physically based) life emerges -- again, largely as a result of karmic-force.
Beings' craving for sensual pleasure forms part of a process known as Dependent Origination (paticca-samuppada). Rebirth takes place based on this principle. Nothing emerges from one thing or cause, but by a confluence of factors. (These are summed up and explained in detail in the Abhidharma or Buddhism's Higher Teachings).
The cycle of Dependent Origination completes itself and repeats until one or more of its factors are weakened and eliminated (e.g., ignorance, craving, etc.). Otherwise, the process cycles and cycles -- marked by impermanently, unsatisfactorily, and (above all) impersonally. The time it takes between the rise and fall of worlds is called a maha kalpa (great age). It is difficult to reckon; therefore, the Buddha described it by way of a staggering analogy. If there were a solid mass of granite a mile high and a mile wide, unbroken, and a tiny bird were to come and whet its beak with a silk cloth only every century...that entire mass of granite would be worn down before a maha kalpa were finished.
The Buddhist view of the universe (cosmology) can be found in a Buddhist scripture called the Agganchcha (Pali, Aganna) Sutra. According to Buddhism, as with everything within it, the universe itself is subject to radical imperma-nence. It is in a perpetual state of becoming (rather than "being) and while no discernible beginning is declared, there is also no definitive end. There are instead many beginnings and ends, cyclical ages (aeons) and epochs, and countless other universes (world systems) in all directions.
When the existing universe or world system dies, it goes into a state of undifferentiated chaos. It emerges again due in part to its own nature and partly as a result of karma. At that time, living beings are mostly reborn into a Brahma world (abhassara-brahma-loka). There they subsist on "joy" and fly about.Billions of years later (immeasurable cycles of time, aeons), an empty space emerges as a result of karma. There a first being, who thus earns the title Maha Brahma (great divinity), is said to be reborn alone. Soon after, other beings (brahmas) are reborn. Often this leads the Great Brahma to imagine that It called them into existence. Later It may say, "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first, the last, the always, the creator, the sustainer, the destroyer. As I will it, so it becomes" and other similarly faulty deductions and declarations.
However, the state of Brahmas are only for beings with a store of high caliber karma (merit). Their mental state is such that they are not attached to sensual pleasures. They are neither male nor female but neuter. Other beings, habitually desiring the enjoyment of less refined pleasures, take rebirth in denser worlds.As a result of their "karma" (those actions previously willed, carried out, and accumulated coming to fruition) appropriate worlds emerge. These worlds are appropriate to the fruition of various actions. This coming into being can take place as the undifferentiated chaos organizes itself into order -- a Big Bang? The universe gradually evolves from entropy into a state where (carbon or physically based) life emerges -- again, largely as a result of karmic-force.
Beings' craving for sensual pleasure forms part of a process known as Dependent Origination (paticca-samuppada). Rebirth takes place based on this principle. Nothing emerges from one thing or cause, but by a confluence of factors. (These are summed up and explained in detail in the Abhidharma or Buddhism's Higher Teachings).
The cycle of Dependent Origination completes itself and repeats until one or more of its factors are weakened and eliminated (e.g., ignorance, craving, etc.). Otherwise, the process cycles and cycles -- marked by impermanently, unsatisfactorily, and (above all) impersonally. The time it takes between the rise and fall of worlds is called a maha kalpa (great age). It is difficult to reckon; therefore, the Buddha described it by way of a staggering analogy. If there were a solid mass of granite a mile high and a mile wide, unbroken, and a tiny bird were to come and whet its beak with a silk cloth only every century...that entire mass of granite would be worn down before a maha kalpa were finished. 
Hindu view
Science writers Carl Sagan and Fritjof Capra have pointed out similarities between what they consider the latest scientific understanding of the age of the universe and Hinduism's (more technically Brahmanism's) concept of a "day and night of Brahma." This is much closer to the current known age of the universe than other creation myths (when taken literally).
The days and nights of Brahma posit a view of the universe that is divinely created. Like Buddhism and other "Eastern philosophical" view, it is not strictly evolutionary. Instead, it is an ongoing cycle of birth, death, rebirth, and redeath for the universe. According to Sagan:
"The Hindu religion is the only one of the world's great faiths dedicated to the idea that the Cosmos itself undergoes an immense, indeed an infinite, number of deaths and rebirths. It is the only religion in which time scales correspond, no doubt by accident, to those of modern scientific cosmology. Its cycles run from our ordinary day and night to a day and night of Brahma, 8.64 billion years long, longer than the age of the Earth or the Sun and about half the time since the Big Bang. And there are much longer time scales still.[Ref]
Science writers Carl Sagan and Fritjof Capra have pointed out similarities between what they consider the latest scientific understanding of the age of the universe and Hinduism's (more technically Brahmanism's) concept of a "day and night of Brahma." This is much closer to the current known age of the universe than other creation myths (when taken literally).
The days and nights of Brahma posit a view of the universe that is divinely created. Like Buddhism and other "Eastern philosophical" view, it is not strictly evolutionary. Instead, it is an ongoing cycle of birth, death, rebirth, and redeath for the universe. According to Sagan:
"The Hindu religion is the only one of the world's great faiths dedicated to the idea that the Cosmos itself undergoes an immense, indeed an infinite, number of deaths and rebirths. It is the only religion in which time scales correspond, no doubt by accident, to those of modern scientific cosmology. Its cycles run from our ordinary day and night to a day and night of Brahma, 8.64 billion years long, longer than the age of the Earth or the Sun and about half the time since the Big Bang. And there are much longer time scales still.[Ref]
The Sound of Silence
Some Hindus believe that with the pranava mantra -- the AUM sound, or the "Word" in the "Beginning" -- the Universe was started. This is similar to the Big Bang theory. Omkara, the sound of ohm, is posited as the means of creation.Capra, in his popular book The Tao of Physics, writes that:
"This idea of a periodically expanding and contracting universe, which involves a scale of time and space of vast proportions, has arisen not only in modern cosmology, but also in ancient Indian mythology. Experiencing the universe as an organic and rhythmically moving cosmos, the Hindus were able to develop evolutionary cosmologies which come very close to our modern scientific models. One of these cosmologies is based on the Hindu myth of lila — the divine play — in which Brahman transforms himself into the world.[Ref]
The Hindu cosmological view of a cyclic universe has received further support from recent activity in loop quantum gravity theories [Bojowald 2007; Corichi and Singh 2008] that postulate that the existing universe is identical in terms of its physical laws to a previously contracting universe across the Big Bang window.
Taoist view
There may also be a suggestion of a Big Bang to be found in Taoism, a branch of Chinese philosophy. The first verse of the Tao Te Ching ("Book of Changes") is:
The Hindu cosmological view of a cyclic universe has received further support from recent activity in loop quantum gravity theories [Bojowald 2007; Corichi and Singh 2008] that postulate that the existing universe is identical in terms of its physical laws to a previously contracting universe across the Big Bang window.
Taoist view
There may also be a suggestion of a Big Bang to be found in Taoism, a branch of Chinese philosophy. The first verse of the Tao Te Ching ("Book of Changes") is:"…It was from the Nameless that Heaven and Earth sprang; the named is but the mother that rears the ten thousand creatures, each after its kind."[Ref]
- PHOTOS: 1) Spitzer space telescope, artist conception (NASA); Hammurabi (Indian, Manu) receiving the Code of Laws from Surya, the sun deva (ranajitpal.com); image taken by the Kepler telescope, released by NASA on 4/16/09, shows an expansive, 100-square-degree patch of sky in the Milky Way galaxy where it hopes to find Earth-like planets. (AP/NASA/JPL CalTech); Shiva (the destructive face of Brahman, the godhead (astromandir.com); aum (om) symbol, a letter and sound in the sacred Sanskrit language of the Vedas;
Kepler: New Space Photos
PASADENA, Calif. – NASA's new planet-hunting telescope has beamed back the first images of a patch of faraway sky in the Milky Way galaxy where it hopes to find Earth-like planets. NASA on Thursday released several images snapped by Kepler earlier this month, including a view of a distant part of our galaxy containing some 14 million stars. Scientists say more than 100,000 of those stars are potential candidates for research. More>>
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