In paleontology, it’s believed that life on Earth started at about 3.5 billion years ago (with some studies putting the date earlier, up to 4.4 billion years ago), with the first multicellular animals (Metazoa) appearing about 800 million years ago. Of course, modern scholars attribute this to evolution and the shaping of the environment by Volcanic activity and other factors but the Srimad Bhagavatam offers another explanation that is quite interesting.
In the 4th canto of Srimad Bhagavatam, we hear the story of Daksa being killed by Virbhadra as a result of his offenses to Lord Shiva. Often we just take it as a pastime and don’t bother to check the dates, but when we do that we find it actually provides a fascinating explanation of how life appeared on our planet.
According to Srimad Bhagavatam, Daksa appeared during the reign of Svayambhuva Manu. The Bhagavatam explains that there are 14 manus in a day of Brahma, and I found that this sequence of Manus is the key to being able to understand the chronology of the different events being discussed.
Svayambhuva Manu is the first of the 14 manus, and his reign corresponds to the early history of our planet. When he took charge, Bhu-Mandala was still submerged in the water of the causal ocean, and white Lord Varaha had to appear to rescue it. The dates for these pastimes roughly correspond to what modern astronomers give for the formation of the planets in our solar system.
According to the Srimad Bhagavatam, Daksa started his work of populating Bhu-Mandala shortly after that. However, his work was interrupted when he offended Lord Shiva and was a result killed by Virabhadra, the gigantic black created by him after the death of his wife Sati. Virabhadra cut his head and threw it into the fire, but after the demigods prayed to Lord Shiva he was resurrected with the head of a goat.
Daksa briefly used this body to conclude the sacrifice, but due to shame he later left it, being reborn only much later, during the reign of Caksusa Manu (the 6th in the sequence). During this period, his post remained vacant, and it seems there was not much done in terms of populating Bhu-Mandala, although Kasyapa and other Prajapatis are described as creating demigods, demons, nagas and other living beings that populated the higher and lower planetary systems.
This is confirmed by Srila Prabhupada on his purport to SB 6.4.17:
“Dakṣa was first born during the reign of Svāyambhuva Manu, but because of offending Lord Śiva he was punished by having the head of a goat substituted for his own head. Thus insulted, he had to give up that body, and in the sixth manvantara, called the Cākṣuṣa manvantara, he was born of the womb of Māriṣā as Dakṣa. In this connection Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura quotes this verse:
cākṣuṣe tv antare prāpte prāk-sarge kāla-vidrute
yaḥ sasarja prajā iṣṭāḥ sa dakṣo daiva-coditaḥ
“His previous body had been destroyed, but he, the same Dakṣa, inspired by the supreme will, created all the desired living entities in the Cākṣuṣa manvantara.” (Bhāg. 4.30.49) Thus Dakṣa regained his previous opulence and again begot thousands and millions of children to fill the three worlds.”
Madhavendra Puri and Siddharth Chhabra Prabhus put the date for the start of the Caksusa Manvantara at 858 million years ago (for the process of relating the puranic dates to the modern chronology check their book The Big Bang and the Sages, or my previous posts on this connection).
From this explanation, we can see that life on our planet started at the beginning of the reign of Svayambhuva Manu (about 4.5 billion years ago), but most of the work was done starting about 800 million years ago, when Daksa resumed his work of creation in his new body.
From this chronology, it appears that the modern studies that put the appearance of the first life forms on our planet at about 4.4 billion years ago may be correct after all, since this fits well into the chronology given in the Puranas.
Fossils from these earlier periods suggest that life remained very primitive until about 800 million years ago when the first multicellular animals appeared, with a boom in terms of variety of lifeforms happening about 600 million years ago, after the climatic conditions in our planet became more favorable.
We can see that these dates match almost perfectly the description of Srimad Bhagavatam, with the work of populating Bhu-Mandala being abruptly interrupted in its early stages by the death of Daksa in the Svayambhuva manvantara, and being resumed only about 800 million years ago with the rebirth of Daksa and the resumption of his work of creation, leading to the creation of more advanced lifeforms and the adjustment of the climate of our planet to something more suitable for them. By these descriptions, the hiatus of about 3 billion years in the evolution of life on our planet is explained.
Since there is no mention of the killing of Daksa being a regular occurrence, this description also suggests that things may happen differently on other days of Brahma, with evolved life forms (including human beings) appearing much sooner in the cycle of creation.
All of this also helps us to understand the nature of creation as explained in the Vedas. Scriptures like the Bible mention the creation of the Universe and all life forms as something that happened suddenly, but the Vedas narrate a slower and difficult struggle on the part of Brahma and the Prajapatis, in a process that is not only much slower but happens repeatedly over the course of each cycle of creation, with life going through repeated cycles of creation and destruction on each manvantara, and unexpected events, like the premature death of Daksa playing important roles. The explanation for the appearance of life according to the Vedas can be thus verified through experimental evidence, which proves the veracity and accuracy of these narrations.
From these descriptions, we can see that the stories described in the Srimad Bhagavatam are not just a set of allegories, but actually a detailed description of the history of our universe, descriptions that were originally registered by great sages and demigods who personally witnessed these events, and reached us by the process of disciplic succession.