Who wrote the first time travel story? What modern science fiction – science fiction – writer? no.
It is the great sage Veda Vyasa who wrote the 18 great Hindu epics and wrote the first time travel story.
Vyasa is glorified as the great one with a gigantic brain. There is nothing in the world that he has not touched. I returned! In the Devi Bhagavatham, we come across the Revata story.
The great king by name, Ravata, was the ruler of Kausathali. He was the son of King Anartha and grandson of Emperor Saryati. He had a hundred sons and one daughter by the name of Rafathi.
When the time came for Revathi’s marriage, he was unable to find out a suitable groom for his daughter. So consider meeting the creator Brahma who created Revathi. Revathi also accompanied his father to Brahamaloka, the Brahama realm.
When they entered Brahams place there was some Yaga going on. He worshiped Ravata Brahma with respect. Seeing him, Brahma just fell into a hold. Yaga completed and Brahma asked Revata about the purpose of his visit.
Rivata explained that he had come to take his advice in finding a suitable groom.
Braham said to him, “Oh! The time in Brahma-loka and the time on Earth are different. Although you think you have waited here for a few minutes. Thousands of years have passed in Earth. Look at the people on Earth. They are all comparatively much shorter because one Yoga has been completed, while the beautiful Revathi is much taller than earthly men.”
Hearing this, Revata was very happy and returned to earth with Revathi and met Appadharrama. Balabadrarama took his shovel and with that pressed Revathi’s head. Immediately Revathi is shortened and attains a proper natural height like other worldly women, and the marriage takes place successfully.
Thus the Vedas Vyasa narrates very beautifully the theory of time dilation, i.e. the difference in time when you travel in space a greater distance.
Now let’s compare this with the data presented in Myers’ Handbook of Space.
The Myers table gives you ranges for the time dilation between the crew of a spaceship rocket in interflight and the population of a rocket launch station on Earth.
The following table shows the rocket crew years and the equivalent years for the inhabitants of the launch station, in this case, the humans of our Earth.
Years of rocket launches over years from the launch site on Earth
1 1
2 2.1
5 6.5
10 24
20270
30 3100
40 36,000
50 4,20,000
4,20,000 years is roughly equivalent to the duration of one Kali Yuga. This is what Brahma-Rivata told that one yoga has transcended.
With a wonderful story Vyasa told the theory of time dilation in a beautiful way.
All the great scientific theories are hidden in the Hindu Puranas. With the progress of science we came to know the truths hidden in the epics and became amazed.