How do we explain dinosaurs, Neanderthals', etc. according to the Vedas?

Taking into consideration the explanations we get from the Vedas, how could we explain the existence of dinosaurs, as well as Neanderthals and other less-evolved species of human beings?

Taking into consideration the historical view of the world that we get from the Vedas and more specifically from the Puranas, how could we explain the existence of dinosaurs, as well as Neanderthals and other less-evolved species of human beings?

Often we may think that the universe was created the exact way it is now and that it hasn't changed since, that the way things are now is the way they were since the beginning, with all animals looking the same, and so on. This idea, however, is incorrect and is not at all supported in the Vedic scriptures. It can make it quite hard for us to understand the world around us.

So, what does the Vedas say?

The Vedas agree that the universe is populating from the most advanced to the least advanced:

a) Garbodakasayi Vishnu creates Brahma

b) Brahma in turn creates his mental sons, including Daksa and Swayabhuva Manu, who populate the universe with different species.

c) Once created, each species continues to reproduce by sexual union, and the population grows over time.

d) Instead of evolving, the species tend to devolve over time, becoming degraded. Eventually, there is a cycle of destruction and they are repopulated starting from higher beings.

In this way, creation starts with the Lord Himself, the most advanced being, passing through the creation of Brahma and them the Prajapatis, who are lesser than Him, and culminates with the creation of the other species, down to plants and beasts.

The Vedas describe a total of 8,400,000 species of life in this universe, including 400,000 species of intelligent life, so there is a lot to do. On the other hand, the Puranas explain that the maintenance of the universe is far from being automatic. Different types of cycles of destruction happen successively, and the universe has to be constantly repopulated. The physical forms of different species change over time, human beings and other animals degrade, becoming smaller and lower in consciousness as the cycles of four ages (Satya, Treta, Dvapara, Kali) progress, and so on.

When we speak about human beings, the Vedas explain that Earth has been populated with human beings since the reign of Swambhuva Manu, billions of years ago. How can we reconcile these ideas with modern studies that conclude that evolved human beings appeared about 360,000 years ago or so? And what about dinosaurs, the different geological ages our planet went through, the theory of the snowball earth, and so on?

The first point is that when we hear the description of creation in the Puranas, we must avoid the conclusion that everything exists in the same way it has now since the beginning. This is an idea that can be easily disproved since it is very easy to observe that different species of plants and animals change their forms over time according to different changes in the environment. One of the easiest examples to grasp are dogs: all modern dogs came from a single species that was domesticated a few thousand years ago. However, due to breeding and selection, this single species was subdivided into the thousand different races of dogs we have nowadays. Darwin noticed this phenomenon and created his theory of evolution, concluding that life came from matter. His conclusion is incorrect of course, but the basis of his theory is just the observation of this natural phenomenon.

It is not hard to understand how, during the billion years of the existence of our planet, the environment changed many times and the forms of different species changed accordingly. Dinosaurs are nothing more than birds and reptiles adapted to live in the environment that existed at the time, with higher temperatures, higher content of oxygen in the atmosphere, and so on.

The Vedas explain that life in the universe is not something easy to maintain. There are frequent cycles of destruction (at the end of each Kali-Yuga, at the end of each Manvantara, etc.), as well as other cosmic cataclysms. Different planets need to be constantly repopulated by the different Manus and their descendants. Whole species are frequently wiped out and later reestablished, in ways we don't fully understand. In this way, it is not only in modern science that is believed that our planet has a convoluted history; the Vedas give a similar view.

Another point is that the universe described in the Vedas is multidimensional and events described in the Puranas, such as the devastations that happen at the end of the reigns of the Manu may thus affect different dimensions in different ways. In certain dimensions, the devastation may be more complete than in others. There is no indication that life ever stopped completely on our planet, for example. When we check the dates, we can see that there is a strong correlation between cycles of extinction detected by modern studies and the dates given in the Vedas, but it appears that these cycles of extinction affect different dimensions to different degrees.

What about human beings? Why there is no evidence of evolved human beings living on our planet in the past? Actually, this is a myth. Drutakarma Prabhu (Michael Cremo) wrote several books calling our attention to the fact that there are many artifacts that suggest that human beings were living on our planet much earlier than believed in modern paleontology (up to two billion years ago!) the problem is just that artifacts that don't fit in the dominating theory tend to not be forgotten or labeled as frauds.

Another point is that Vedic societies that existed in the past would not leave much behind, to begin with. By descriptions from the scriptures, we understand that all bodies were cremated, practically all tools were made out of valuable metals, like gold, silver, and copper, and would thus be recycled indefinitely. Most houses and other constructions would be made out of wood and stone, and most of the material would also be re-utilized in new constructions over time. In this way, conditions necessary for the preservation of bodies and tools (like burial grounds) would not be available. Conversely, aboriginal tribes that used stone tools and would not treat the dead with such care would leave a lot behind, and that's what modern paleontologists find.

It is not difficult to imagine that highly evolved human beings could live simultaneously with Neanderthals and cavemen, just like we have modern cities and aboriginal tribes existing simultaneously today. The Vedas offer evidence of this in the race of monkeys that helped Lord Rama, as well as other stories.

Another point is that there are strong indications that our planet exists simultaneously in several dimensions at once, and thus human beings from different eras live in different levels of reality. Do you really think that people in Satya-Yuga could live for 100,000 years and beget children with demigods with bodies like the ones we have now? Quite improbable. It makes much more sense if we acknowledge that they should have more refined (subtle) bodies that fit their level of consciousness. Such refined bodies would also allow them to live in a more refined level of reality, or in other words, in a different dimension.

In this way, people from Treta-Yuga had less refined bodies and thus lived in a lower level. People in Dvapara-Yuga had still less refined bodies and thus lived in a progressively lower level, and we, inhabitants of Kali-Yuga, having the lowest level of consciousness of all, live in the grossest dimension and have the grossest type of body. Because we don't have access to higher dimensions, everything we find when we dig the ground is bones and stone artifacts left by other similarly lower human beings.

These different dimensions exist simultaneously, but due to our state of consciousness, we can't access levels of reality higher than our own. There are descriptions that Vyasadeva, as well as Nara-Narayana Rsi and other great sages, are still living in Badarikashrama, but only certain elevated people can contact them, like in the case of Madhvacarya. They live in a higher reality that is inaccessible to regular people. As expected, it seems that people from higher levels have access to all lower levels, but people from the lower levels can't access what is higher, just like we can understand ants, but ants can't understand us.

Another important point to understand in this context is that the concept of species in the Vedas is very different from the modern definition. The Vedas classify species according to their level of consciousness, while modern zoology classifies them according to their forms. What the Vedas call "dog" for example, is a certain state of consciousness, that may apply to animals with different forms of bodies and even from different planets. Different animals and plants are constantly fighting for survival, adapting their behavior and even the forms of their bodies according to the environment. As the environment changes, following the different periods our planet goes through, so do the forms of different animals and human beings who live in it.

When the Puranas explain that human beings have been living on our planet practically since the beginning, this doesn't mean they had the same forms, or that they were living in the same dimension we live in. It appears that during the course of the eras most of humanity swifts between dimensions, going progressively down in the grossest levels and later being elevated back when the planet is repopulated by higher beings at the start of the next Satya-Yuga.

In this way, the human beings in each Satya-yuga always have a very high level of consciousness (and thus live in a refined dimension) and gradually humanity collectively degrades down to the lower dimensions. There is also the possibility that aborigine human beings may constantly live in the gross dimension we live in. All these possibilities find support in the descriptions of the Puranas.

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