The Mayans, one of the tribes of the ancient people of Mesoamerica, had three different Calendar systems to measure time the 365 day Solar year, the 260 day Ritual year and the 5126 years of World Time calendar. Of these, the first two were known as Short Count calendar and the last one was known as the Long Count calendar. The latter Mayan calendar ends on the Gregorian calendar date of December 21, 2012, which most people believe is the end of civilization as we know it. Many theories have sprung up about this end-date, popularly called Doomsday, ranging from the religious to the scientific, to the natural to the astronomical.

The majority of the Doomsday theories have religious backgrounds. The Bible talks of the Judgment Day, which will occur as a result of wrath of God. The Apostle John, the last of the Jesus’ original 12 disciples, has written in the Book of Revelations (New Testament) about the end of the world. The Book of Revelations is a divinely inspired prophecy, predominantly concerned with events preceding the second coming of Jesus Christ. John’s vision reveals that before Christ returns, humanity will suffer devastating wars, disease, pandemics, religious strife and famine on a global scale.

Perhaps taking a cue from Apostle John, the16th Century’s seer Nostradamus predicted the rise of Anti-christ in July 1999, followed by a period of bloody wars that will decimate the Earth. According to Nostradamus, this Anti-christ will rise from the Middle East and his first triumph would be over New York, ultimately leading to World War III. Many people may be inclined to believe that Nostrtadamus’s prediction has come to be true after 9/11, when Twin Towers of World Trade Centre in New York were destroyed in terrorist attack on 11 September 2001. But has the World War III started? The answer is a clearly No. However, the prophesies of Nostradamus have led to a flurry of Doomsday predictions, ostensibly because a media hype has been created about his predictions, especially the belief that almost all his predictions have come true.

Next, we will see what is Islam’s take on this. Like Christianity, Islam also believes in Doomsday or Qayamat. When qayamat comes, “Mountains will be razed to the ground, floods shall engulf the planet. All of humanity including the dead, will be called forth. The good shall go to Jannat (heaven) and the evil to Jahannum (hell). Earth will be no more”, according to a Islamic scholar. At this time, the Muslim’s “Last Prophet” will appear to lead all the Faithful in a thirty-year battle against Satan’s army, according to another Islamic scholar.

According to Hinduism also, there will be some big devastation at the end of the Kali-yuga and the world will witness the emergence of 10^th incarnation of Vishnu (one of the Trinity that rules the Hindu pantheon of gods):Kalki, the ruthless decimator of evil. Thus we see that all major religions of the world are nearly unanimous that this world will come to an end at some point of time or the other and there will emerge some Messiah sent by God, who will redeem humanity of its sins. However, there is no unanimity among them, regarding timing of this cataclysmic event. Let us see their view points in this regard.

Although Christians believe in the Theory of Doomsday, but the Bible clearly warns of the groundlessness of the specific predictions, as they are contrary to Biblical Canon because, “No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the son, but only the Father” (Mathew 24:36). Similarly, Islam believes in Qayamat but so far as timing is concerned, it would like to refrain from putting a specific date. “We do not try to predict any date for qayamat. Only Allah is aware of that time”, according to a Delhi based Islamic scholar. According to Vedic scriptures of the Hindus, the world goes through over and over again in different cycles. These cycles repeat, just like every year we have four seasons. The cycles of seasons repeat over and over again. Similarly the cycle of the four Yugas also repeats over and over again.

These four Yugas are:

• Satya Yuga : the Golden Age, lasting 1,728,000 years.
• Treta Yuga : the Silver Age, lasting 1,296,000 years.
• Dvapara Yuga : the Bronze Age, lasting 864,000 years; and finally
• Kali Yuga : Kali Yuga-the Iron Age of machines lasting 432,000 years.

But we have just started the Kali Yuga and so far we have only passed 5,000 years of it. This means that Kali Yuga still has another 427,000 years to run.

Some have also predicted that massive natural upheavals such as earthquakes, hurricane, volcanic eruptions, flood, draughts and the like will occur, resulting in destruction of a major part of life on the Earth. It would appear that prophecies of natural disasters have perhaps the strongest factual back-up. According to a writer, “Every year, about half a million earthquakes rattle the Earth. The majority of these are rarely felt, but when a major quake hits, entire cities and hundreds of thousands of lives may hang in balance”. We have seen it happening in our times with greater frequencies.

Astronomers believe that life on the Earth may come to an end, because of some adverse planetary alignments, which will cause a gravitational pull on the Sun and the Earth, leading to tidal changes, floods, earthquakes and perhaps shifting of the planet’s axis. And in a matter of hours, the Alps, Andes, Rockies and Himalayas may vanish from the map of the world. Some prophets of doomsday in 2012 claim that a planet called Planet X will collide with or pass by Earth in that year. This idea has appeared in various forms since1995, but the Earth is still safe!

Some other theories behind the supposed doomsday in 2012 :
Earth being hit by an asteroid, as it probably happened some 65 million years ago, resulting in extinction of dinosaurs from the Earth; a high intensity radiation affecting life on Earth caused by a Super Solar flare; invasion by aliens from the outer space; a nuclear holocaust happening in the event of a nuclear war etc. Some disaster and horror films have also been made based on the Doomsday in 2012 phenomenon, which may have made inroads in the minds of commonplace people and generated a sort of fear psychosis among them.

Coming back to the Mayan Calendar again. The Mayans, as already stated in the beginning, had three different Calendar systems to measure time- the Solar year, the Ritual year and the World Time calendar. The Mayans also believed, as did the others, in cyclic nature of time i.e. when one Solar Year calendar ended, another started; similarly for the Ritual Year calendar. However, the Long Count calendar of 5126 years meant for measuring world events must have appeared to the ancient Mayans too long a period to feel any necessity to go beyond this. This does not mean the world will come to an end on Dec 21, 2012, as Doomsday prophets would like us to believe. This simply means that another cycle of Long Count Calendar will start, as happens in the case of Mayans Short Count calendars.

Having discussed the numerous theories behind the Doomsday Prophecy in 2012, now we will examine the astrological factors to reach any meaningful conclusion. Planetary position on this day at GMT has been shown in the chart below: The Lagna is Virgo, an Earthy sign, its lord Mercury is in the 3^rd house in the Watery sign Scorpio with malefic Rahu aspected by Ketu, another malefic planet. As many as four planets- Moon, Mercury, Venus, and Rahu are in watery signs. Three planets-Mars, Jupiter and Ketu are in Earthy signs. Jupiter is retrograde and is in enemy camp, house of Venus and is with Ketu. 9^th lord Venus is in the 3^rd, again in inimical sign Scorpio ruled by Mars. Luminaries, the Sun and the Moon are getting malefic aspects of Saturn and Rahu respectively. The Sun in the 4^th gets aspected by its staunch enemy Saturn (3^rd aspect), indicating peace on Earth might get disturbed, because of some turbulent events. Another point worth noticing is that there have occurred six eclipses in the year 2011-four Solar and two Lunar. This is a rare phenomenon. The impact of these Solar eclipses will continue to be felt in the years to come. Also, the last Solar eclipse of 2012 will fall on 13 November 2012 in Libra, a Airy sign and the last Lunar eclipse will occur on 28 November 2012 in Earthy sign Taurus. Thus the combined effect of these eclipses may come before the world in the form of massive earthquakes, floods, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, wild forest-fires and other earth-shaking events, resulting in loss of lives on the Earth on a large scale. Thus there is a possibility that some catastrophic events might take place on or around 21 Dec 2012 in some parts of the world. But does that mean that the world will come to an end?