Other faiths have different ideas of 2000

By this time next year, the consequences of Y2K will become known, the Catholic celebration of Jubilee Year 2000 will be underway and a new millennium will have begun.

For non-Christians, however, talk of 2000 and a new millennium has slightly different religious ramifications, according to members of the Jewish, Hindu and Buddhist communities who spoke with The Evangelist.

JUDAISM

Dr. Peter Zaas, director of the Institute for Jewish-Christian Studies at Siena College in Loudonville, said that while there is a millennial notion in Jewish history that divides time into 1,000-year periods, the concept of a new millennium in 2000 is unique to Christianity.

"The millennium is a Christian notion, the millennium of the Gregorian calendar," he said. "I don't think there is a Jewish way of looking at the approaching millennium, except that Jews have to pay attention to what Christians think and do."

Jews may follow the Gregorian calendar in daily life, Dr. Zaas pointed out; but for religious purposes, they go by the Jewish calendar, which begins with creation. Under that calendar, the current year is 5759.

"One of the things the Bible is is a calendar, both an annual calendar of when festivals fall and a historical calendar of how much time has elapsed since important events," he said.

Siena students and faculty have been discussing the implications of a new millennium through a colloquium, "Reinterpreting the Millennium" and through a seminar conducted by Dr. Zaas last semester, titled "Signs of the Millennium." The seminar gave students interested in the Catholic approach to the millennium and Jubilee Year 2000 a chance to study how popular culture, films and the internet shape people's views.

Just as people in modern times wonder what the coming millennium will bring, so, too, were the early Christians curious about the future, Dr. Zaas noted.

"These are the kinds of issues that were of interest to the first followers of Jesus: what's happening, and when and what are the signs that it will happen?" he explained. "People are still asking these questions, and the answers are no more definite than they were 2,000 years ago."

HINDUISM

Dr. Vasantha Narasimhan, from the Hindu Temple Society in Albany, said that the start of a new millennium should represent a shift in people's priorities.

"Most of the Hindu gurus have found this millennium, this century, to be focused more on materialism. They are predicting the materialism will peak in the first decade of the next millennium and then will shift to spiritualism," she said.

Hindus believe that human life progresses from an infant stage to self-learning, practicing and reaching toward higher goals. With the new millennium, humanity is on the verge of aspiring to become great, Dr. Narasimhan noted.

"The world has matured, learned, practiced all these benefits from learning and is going to look into where is it going to lead us," she said.

Such awareness should foster interreligious dialogue and promote understanding among Christian and non-Christian leaders on metaphysical issues. "In the next millennium, there will be a congeniality between religions, and people will be more interested in knowing where it all ends," Dr. Narasimhan said. "I believe that's an optimistic expectation for the millennium."

For Hindus, the new millennium has more practical and social significance than religious significance. The government of India follows the western calendar, but constitutional bills take both the solar-based calendar of northern India and the lunar-based calendar of southern India into account. Locally, the Hindu Temple Society follows the lunar-based calendar, which begins in March, for its religious celebrations.

BUDDHISM

Buddhists believe that the new millennium marks the junction of the fifth and sixth 500-year periods into which time is divided, according to Dr. Willard Roth of the Karma Thegsum Choling Buddhist Meditation and Study Center in Niskayuna.

Having begun in 500 B.C., Buddhism was in an age of spiritual attainment for its first three 500-year periods; currently, Buddhism is in its second span of three 500-year periods, which has been a time of spiritual practice.

Since Buddhism follows the Chinese calendar for religious practice and goes in 12-year cycles beginning in February, 2000 has meaning "only in view of the fact that we are particularly honoring and revere all of the great philosophical teachings," Dr. Roth noted. "The Christian teachings are particularly close to Buddhists in some ways."

Any recognition of the new millennium by Buddhists, he added, simply would be a sign of interfaith civility.

"The Buddhists, even eastern Buddhists, rely on our western calendar, but it is a practical matter," he said. "Individual Buddhists may do something to honor [the millennium], primarily out of respect for Christianity."