 Time travel has been a topic of urban legends and Hollywood movies for as long as I remember. In fact, it appears that the possibility to travel through time, either into the future or into the past, has appealed to the imagination of mankind for centuries. While many may think it absurd to believe that we could travel back or forwards in time, some of the world's most brilliant minds have investigated whether it could already be a reality. From ancient India to ancient China and Egypt, there are countless accounts where the people involved have slipped years, sometimes hundreds of years, into the future. We have looked into ancient texts where we found a number of references to time traveling. You are about to witness some of these stories, so please sit back, open your mind and enjoy the possibilities that we have uncovered. The first story is of the Seven Sleepers. One of the first reports of time travel still has no real explanation and remains an authentic unexplained mystery. The story gives evidence that ancient civilizations may have had some knowledge of time travel. The story alleges that during the persecutions by Roman Emperor Deceus around 250 AD, seven young men were accused of following Christianity. They were given some time to recant their faith but chose instead to give their worldly goods to the poor and retire to a mountain cave to pray where they fell asleep. The emperor, seeing that their attitude toward paganism had not improved, ordered the mouth of the cave to be sealed. Deceus died in 251 and many years passed during which Christianity went from being persecuted to being the state religion of the Roman Empire. At some later time, usually given as during the reign of Theodosius II, 200 years later, the landowner decided to open up the sealed mouth of the cave thinking to use it as a cattle pen. He opened it and found the sleepers inside. They awoke, imagining that they had slept for only one day and sent one of their number to Ephesus to buy food with instructions to be careful lest the pagans recognize and seize him. Upon arriving in the city, this person was astonished to find buildings with crosses attached. The townspeople for their part were astounded to find a man trying to spend old coins from the reign of Deceus. The bishop was summoned to interview the sleepers. They told him their miracle story. When Emperor Theodosius II heard about the incident, he accepted it as evidence of resurrection and claimed the seven sleepers had in fact been dead the past 200 years. As the earliest versions of the legend spread from Ephesus, an early Christian catatum came to be associated with it, attracting scores of pilgrims. On the slopes of Mount Pion near Ephesus, the grotto of the seven sleepers with the ruins of the church built over it was excavated in 1927 to 1928. The excavation brought to light several hundred graves dated to the 5th and 6th centuries. Inscriptions dedicated to the seven sleepers were found on the walls of the church and in the graves. This grotto is still shown to tourists. The next authentic story of time travel is the story of Kakudmi, King of Kusastali. Kakudmi's daughter, Revati, was so beautiful and so accomplished that when she reached a marriageable age, Kakudmi, thinking no one upon earth was worthy of her, went to the creator himself, Lord Brahma, to seek his advice about a suitable husband for his daughter. When they arrived, Brahma was listening to a musical performance by the Gandavas, so they waited patiently until the performance was finished. Then Kakudmi bowed humbly, made his request and presented a short list of candidates. Brahma laughed loudly and explained that time runs differently on different planes of existence and that during the short time they had waited in Brahma Loka to see him, 27 Kaktura Yugas, a cycle of 4 Yugas, totaling 108 Yugas, had passed on earth. Brahma said to Kakudmi, O King, all those whom you may have decided within the core of your heart to accept as your son-in-law have died in the course of time. 27 Kaktura Yugas have already passed. Those upon whom you may have already decided are now gone and so are their sons, grandsons, and other descendants. You cannot even hear about their names. You must therefore bestow this virgin gem upon some other husband, for you are now alone and your friends, your ministers, servants, wives, kinsmen, armies, and treasuries have long since been swept away by the hand of time. King Kakudmi was overcome with astonishment and alarm at hearing this news. However, Brahma comforted him and added that Vishnu, the preserver, was currently incarnate on earth in the forms of Krishna and Balarama, and he recommended Balarama as a worthy husband for Revati. Kakudmi and Revati then returned to earth, which they regarded as having left only just a short while ago. They were shocked by the changes that had taken place. Not only had the landscape and environment changed, but over the intervening 27 Chachayugas and the cycles of human spiritual and cultural revolution, mankind was at a lower level of development than in their own time. The Bhagavata Purana describes that they found the race of men had become dwindled in stature, reduced in vigor, and enfeebled in intellect. Daughter and father found Balarama and proposed the marriage which was accepted. The marriage was then duly celebrated. These slips in time seemed very commonplace in the ancient world. I sometimes wonder that the ancient stories which we arrogantly classed as fantasy were part of a higher being which was present here on earth in the very distant past. I sometimes wonder if they would ever return or have they ever went away. One of Buddha's chief disciples, Kamura Kasapa, explains in the skeptic payasi that in the heaven of the 33 Devas, time passes at a different pace and people live much longer. In the period of our century, 100 years, only a single day, 24 hours, would have passed for them, he said. Another story comes from the Japanese legend of Orashima Daoro. One day, a young fisherman named Orashima Daoro is fishing when he notices a group of children torturing a small turtle. Daoro saves it and lets it go back to the sea. The next day, a huge turtle approaches him and tells him the small turtle he had saved is the daughter of the emperor of the sea, Ryuji, who wants to see him to thank him. The turtle magically gives Daoro gills and brings him to the bottom of the sea to the palace of the dragon god. There he meets the emperor and the small turtle, who is now a lovely princess. Her name was Otohime. On each of the four sides of the palace, it is a different season. Daoro stays there with Otohime for three days but soon wants to go back to his village and see his aging mother so he requests permission to leave. The princess says she is sorry to see him go but wishes him well and gives him a mysterious box called Tamatebako which will protect him from harm but which she tells him never to open. Daoro grabs the box, jumps on the back of the same turtle that had brought him here and soon is at the seashore. When he goes home, everything has changed. His home is gone, his mother has vanished and the people he knew are nowhere to be seen. He asks if anybody knows a man called Urashima Daoro. They answered that they had heard someone of that name had vanished at sea long ago. He discovers that 300 years have passed since the day he left for the bottom of the sea. Struck by grief, he absentmindedly opens the box the princess had given him from which bursts forth a cloud of white smoke. He is suddenly aged, his beard long and white and his back bent from the sea comes the sad sweet voice of the princess. I told you not to open that box and it was your old age. A shrine on the western coast of Tango Peninsula in northern Kyoto prefecture named Urashima Jinja contains an old document describing a man Urashimako who left his land in 478 AD and visited a land where people never die. He returned in 825 AD with a Tamatebako. Ten days later, he opened the box and a cloud of white smoke was released turning Urashimako into an old man. Later that year, upon hearing the story, Emperor Juna ordered Ono no Takamura to build a shrine to commemorate Urashimako's strange voyage and to house the Tamatebako and the spirit of Urashimako. Today, a statue of Urashimataro stands in Mitoyo Tagawa. Are these stories true interpretation of time travel? Albert Einstein concluded in his later years that the past, present and future all exist simultaneously and most are familiar with his well-known concept of relativity. That is, that time is relative and not absolute as Newton claimed. With the proper technology, such as a very fast spaceship, one person is able to experience several days while another person simultaneously experiences only a few hours or minutes. Yet the wisdom of Einstein's convictions had very little impact on cosmology or science in general. The majority of physicists have been slow to give up the ordinary assumptions we make about time. As Stephen Hawking once said, even if it turns out that time travel is impossible, it is important that we understand why it is impossible. We hope you enjoyed the video. Please thumbs up, share and check back in a few days for more from Kepler Telescope Channel. Thanks for watching.