Svarūpa Dāmodara: The age of the rocks, by determining by scientific techniques, find how old the rock (indistinct) is, and how correct it is. So I asked (indistinct) of this department, Professor Roland, and he told me that (indistinct) such and such, I mean the rocks coming from the moon, brought by astronauts. They calculate that by this (indistinct) technique, they find that they are about three to fourteen million years old, these rocks from the moon, the moon samples. But that does not give the real age of the rocks. He told me that what you call the age means how long that crystal... For example they tried to find out the crystals like iridium and strontium crystals, that the method that they use is strontium iridium technique and so he told me that the age, this age, about three times three billion years old, that means that crystal containing that iridium model has crystallized for that long year, that gives the age. They do not know how long it has been there
Śyāmasundara: The rock is at least three billion years; maybe it's older.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes, maybe older, but it does not give the exact age. We do not know.
Śyāmasundara: But the point is that they have determined that there are rock structures in the earth very, very, very, very old and that these contain no evidence of any complex forms of life. So that if there is a statement that there were higher forms of life millions of years ago existing on this planet, there has been no evidence ever found of that.
Prabhupāda: So why they're trying to find out evidence from the rocks, not from any other source?
Śyāmasundara: Well as civilizations come and go, they leave remains, evidence behind of their...
Prabhupāda: "Civilization goes" means? Where goes?
Śyāmasundara: Well, if people come and they...
Prabhupāda: Do they come, and they are still living? They are still there? Just like my great-grand..., great-grandfather was living. So I am his descendant.
Śyāmasundara: But where is he?
Prabhupāda: Where is he? You want to see him? Therefore you (indistinct).
Śyāmasundara: No. I want to find his remains.
Prabhupāda: You want to see my great-great-great-great-grandfather?
Śyāmasundara: But he must have left some remains.
Prabhupāda: I am the remaining. I am his descendant.
Śyāmasundara: But he made no tools, or he had no house?
Prabhupāda: Who said? You said. You said that there may not, but because my fore... I can make tools; naturally, my grandfather, he can make too. And what is there making tools?
Śyāmasundara: No. But why weren't there any tools left behind for us to find, remnants?
Prabhupāda: What?
Śyāmasundara: Why no remains of tools or other evidence of other men.
Prabhupāda: What is the use of tools? Tools are used for the carpenters, and we are not carpenters.
Śyāmasundara: But if there were high forms of men living...
Prabhupāda: Then he's (indistinct) with the carpenters, not the philosophers.
Śyāmasundara: ...they must have lived in cities.
Prabhupāda: My forefathers were philosophers. They did not require any tools.
Śyāmasundara: They required no houses?
Prabhupāda: No. Even they required, they called some carpenter and they did it.
Śyāmasundara: Yes. My point is that there...
Prabhupāda:Because there is no tools, therefore there is no civilization?
Śyāmasundara: But tools, not... Houses or anything that men have to use, there should be some remains left behind when their civilization...
Prabhupāda: What is remains? Remains means just like the coal, that is the remains.
Śyāmasundara: Coal.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Śyāmasundara: Coal is the remains of trees, plants...
Prabhupāda: Yes. This is the remains.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Coal, oil, petroleum.
Śyāmasundara: That means there was some evidence that there were... If we look in coal beds we find remains of trees that were very simple, no complex forms of trees. Now trees are much more complex.
Prabhupāda: Complex or simple, it doesn't matter. There were trees.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Actually, the coal doesn't say whether the tree was complex or not.
Śyāmasundara: No, but they find impressions from leaves and the carboniferous age, they find that the remains of trees, plants, twigs, all very simple forms like our (indistinct). Today they're more...
Prabhupāda: Our evidence is intelligence, not with tools and (indistinct). Our evidence is intelligence. We find, we get Vedic information by disciplic succession-highly intelligent. So that is our evidence. Not the tools.
Śyāmasundara: The Scripture. The evidence which is written and spoken in...
Prabhupāda: Yes. And that is coming by śruti, by hearing. Just like Vyāsadeva heard from Nārada, Nārada heard from Brahmā, millions and millions of years ago. If you take, according to our calculation, Brahmā's age, Brahmā's one day we cannot calculate. It is now some, so many millions of years past, and still it is not even Brahmā's one day. So many millions of years. Because in Brahmā's one day seventy-two..., fourteen, fourteen Manus come and go. And each Manu's age is seventy-two millennium. One millennium means 4,300,000's of years. So such seventy-two millennium makes complete one Manu's life, and there are fourteen Manus in Brahmā's one day. So millions and trillions and billions of years, that is not very astonishing to us, because it is not even one day of Brahmā. That Brahmā was born, and intelligent philosophy is still existing from the date of Brahmā's birth. Brahmā was first educated by God. That is our calculation. So we get in the Vedas such intelligent information; therefore we understand that our forefather was very, very learned(?).
Śyāmasundara: For instance, the Sanskrit language was so perfect...
Prabhupāda: Yes, Sanskrit language, everything, wonderful. So we are not carpenters, that we have to find out tools. We are brāhmaṇas.