Just thought of creating a new label called "Manthras and Meanings" in my blog, with an intention to learn/know the meanings of the verses. that we use either in our everyday life or during Pooja and Rituals. Often we use them without knowing their meanings at all. Understanding the meanings will really be thought-provoking. It will aid in better reasoning by creating a deeper insight about the Manthras. So here we go with our first Manthra, the Gayathri Manthra.
QUICK VIEW :
About Gayathri Manthra, its importance and meaning.
Introduction :
This Manthra is a verse from the hymn of Rig Veda (3.62.10) and is dedicated to "Savitur" - The source behind all creations, that which gives birth. (connotatively, the Sun God). Hence it is also called the Savitri Manthra. Gayathri is the name of the "vedic meter" in which the verse is composed. Studying vedic meter is called Chandas and it is one of the six vedanga disciplines. Gayatri is a vedic meter which has 3 padas of 8 syllables containing 24 syllables in each stanza. In this sense, it is personified as the Goddess Gayatri. Several ancient classical texts like Manusmrithi, Harivamsa and the Bhagavad Gita praises this Manthra. The greatness of this Manthra is revealed by the saying of Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita. He says, "Of all the hymns, I am the Gayathri".
The Manthra :
"Aum Bhur Bhuvah Svaha Tat Savitur Varenyum
Bhargo Dhevasya Dhimahi Dhiyo Yo Nah Prachodayath"
Meaning :
Translations by Scholars :
"We meditate on the adorable glory of the radiant Sun. May he inspire our minds" - S.Radhakrishnan.
"We meditate on the glory of that being who has produced this Universe. May he enlighten our minds. - Swami Vivekananda.
"Let us adore the supremacy of that divine Sun, the god-head who illuminates all, who recreates all, from whom all proceed, to whom all must return, whom we invoke to direct our understandings aright in our progress towards his holy seat." - Sir William Jones
"May we attain the excellent glory of Savitar the God. So may he stimulate our prayers." - Ralph T.H. Griffith
Detailed Meaning :
Aum, Bhur, Bhuva, Svaha : The Terrestrial (Bhoo), The Celestial (Svah) and The World connecting the Terrestrial and Celestial (Bhuvar). These are the names of the first three (from the lower order) of the seven higher worlds in the Hindu Cosmology. From the meditation point of view, these syllables are interpreted as the three degrees of meditation, Conscious, Semi-Conscious and Unconscious.
These three words, Bhur, Bhuva and Svaha are collectively called the "mahavyahrti". The prefixing of this Manthra is described in Taittriya Aranyaka, which states the scriptural recitations should always begin with "Aum" followed by the three vyahrtis and then the Gayathri verse.
Tat Savitur Varenyum : That (Tat) which is the source of all creation, supreme reality, divine illumination (Savitur) all inspiring and the one fit to be worshiped (Varenyum).
That all inspiring supreme reality which is the source of all creation and the one which is fit to be worshiped.
Bhargo Dhevasya Dhimahi : Self luminous, radiant, one who illuminates all (Bhargo) divine, godly, virtuous and joyous (Dhevasya) We meditate upon thee (Dhimahi).
I meditate upon you, the divine power who is radiant and self luminous.
Dhiyo Yo Nah Prachodayath : Intellect, activities and properties, reasoning faculty which is the tool for attaining higher wisdom (Dhiyo), one who/which is being prayed, (Yo), our, us (Nah), stimulate, inspire, drive towards the higher reality (Prachodayath).
You, the intellect, stimulate my mind and enlighten me.
I wanted to publish a quick post for today and hence I chose this topic "Gravity". In this post, I will briefly summarize the law of gravitation as given in modern science as well as what our ancient scriptures say about it.
Going forward, I will be adding an ultra short version called as "Quick View" in all my posts. It is for those people who do not have time to read the entire post. This is based on the feed back of few readers. Many thanks to them for suggesting this idea....
QUICK VIEW :
Key concept
Law of Gravitation
Modern scientific version
Sir Isaac Newton
References from ancient scriptures
Rig Veda, Prasnopanishad,
Surya Siddantha, Works of
Brahmagupta and Varahamihira
We all know the famous law of gravitation as given by Sir.Isaac Newton. His law states that "any two bodies in the Universe attract each other with a force that is directly proportional to their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between the two bodies". There is a popular story which states that Newton was sitting under an apple tree and when he saw an apple falling from the tree, he got a thought about the law of gravitation. In layman's understanding, law of gravity is nothing but the pull force of Earth. The one which goes up, comes down due to this pull. But this is not limited to Earth alone. It is actually gravity which holds the Moon in orbit around the Earth, Earth around the Sun and Sun in its place in the Milky Way Galaxy.
Since we already know about this scientific version of gravity, let us move on to the theories as per our scriptures now...... The Sanskrit term for gravity/attraction is Gurutvaakarshan, (Guru + tva + aakarshan) which means to be attracted by something big (Guru = Master)
Meaning - The Sun has tied Earth and other Planets through attraction and moves them around itself as if a trainer moves newly trained horses around holding their reins"
Prasnopanishad (3.8)
"Adityo ha vai bahyah prana udayatyesa hyenam caksusam pranamanugrhnanah prthivyam ya devata saisa purusasyapanama vastabhyantara yadakasah sa samano, vayur-vyanah"
Adi Sankara's commentary about the above - "Aakarshana Sakthi is the power of drawing or pulling something, The breath called Prana (which we inhale) goes up (in the body) and Apana (which we exhale) pulls it down (out of the body). The force which pulls something down is Apana. Earth has Apana sakthi. The deity of the Earth inspires the human body with Apana."
Meaning - In the midst of Universe, the spherical Earth stands firm in its space without falling away, because of the Dharanatmika Sakthi"
"Akrsta saktisca mahi taya yat svastham guru svabhimukham svasaktya akrsyate tatpatativa bhati same samantat kva patatviyam khe"
Meaning - Objects fall on Earth due to a force of attraction by Earth. Earth, Planets, Constelations, Moon and Sun are held in Orbit due to this force.
The energy within the ball of Earth is Aakrushti sakthi (attraction). Because of this, Earth pulls a piece of anything in/on her (svastham) towards herself and this power is her own and natural to her. Because of this pull, every object on this Earth appears to be falling down.
This is a text written by Brahmagupta (a mathematician) in 628 C E. He states that "Bodies fall towards the Earth as it is in the nature of the Earth to attract bodies, just as it is in the nature of water to flow".
Varahamihira - an astronomer of 6th Century A D "
The ball of the Earth which is made up of five fundamental elements, is placed in the center of a cage
which is made up of the Stars of the Galaxy and hence it is hanging in the sky, like an iron ball in the center of a cage of magnetic balls.
It is no wonder that Dick Teresi, an American writer, wrote in his book "Lost Discoveries - The Ancient Roots of Modern Science" as follows :
The Indians came closest to the modern ideas of atomism, quantum physics and other current theories.
Two thousand years before Pythagoras, philosophers in India had understood that gravitation held the Solar System together, and that therefore the Sun, the most massive object had to be at its center. Twenty-four centuries before Isaac Newton, The Hindu Rig-Veda asserted that gravitation held the Universe together. The Sanskrit speaking Aryans subscribed to the idea of a Spherical Earth in an era when the Greeks believed in a flat one. The Indians of the fifth century A.D. calculated the age of Earth as 4.3 billion years where Scientists in 19th Century England were convinced it was 100 million years.
This is one of my favorite topics. I have been searching for resources all the way to add validity to the subject matter, "Is Kurukshethra war a nuclear one?" and finally have some details to share with you. The posts I write in this blog are primarily to establish a connection between mythology and science. In that perspective, this particular post will really make you think about our mythology in a very different way.
Basically, there are few different ways to look into mythological stories. To believe everything told in them is one way. This is what our ancestors did till couple of generations ago. This view made them morally good but they were not able to provide logical reasoning . Hearing the stories but treating them just as fiction is the second way. This view deteriorates the moral perspective also. Why because, mind believes that they are not real and just a fiction. We generally do not follow what we do not believe, Isn't it? The third view is trying to analyse the stories with questions.... why are they told in this way? Are there any reason behind them? This is the perception needed to interpret them correctly. This kind of approach will clearly make you understand the many good reasons viz... ethical, moral, scientific, health, environmental, political etc etc... behind such stories. My approach is always the third one and I like to basically raise questions till I am completely convinced. One such question is about the Mahabaratha war.
I always had a passion for this particular epic, compared to Ramayana. When we measure in terms of aggressiveness, Mahabaratha weighs more than that of Ramayana. It has almost touched all dimensions of life, possession, greed, sacrifice, cheating, bravery, cowardness, trust, suspicion, anger, jealousy, vengeance, patience, dedication, friendship, relationship.... and the list goes on. No wonder it still creates an impression even today. But approaching this epic with technology point of view is somewhat rare but it has many such aspects in the technology perspective too. I have mentioned a few in my introduction (first) post but will quickly summarize them here for a better understanding.
The birth of Dhuryothana and his brothers - In-vitro fertilization/test tube baby
Sanjaya narrating the story of warfield to Drithirashtra - Live telecasting
The asthras used in the war - missiles or nuclear weapons (not everything -will explain)
For this post, let us take the Kurukshethra war and analyze the feasibility of it being a nuclear war. As told before, not all the weapons (asthras) were nuclear in nature. When you recollect the Epic, you can note that only few people were allowed or eligible to get such weapons. The Guru (teacher) also did not grant the techniques (using the weapons) to all the students. The secrets were passed on only to those who had the mind maturity to use them judiciously. This is the reason why Drona selected only Arjuna among all his disciples to grant the knowledge of such great weapons. Karna, on the other hand, learnt the same from Parasurama, but due to his association with ill-natured Duryothana, was not allowed to launch those weapons. The story states that he got a curse from Parasurama that Karna will forget the launching of weapons at the most needed/right time. (selective amnesia, may be). We can take it in this way. Parasurama might have had a foresight that Karna will associate with Duryodhana in future and hence cursed him like that. Aswathama, the son of Drona, also had knowledge about such techniques. But he served as a good example of why such techniques should not be taught to everyone as he used it for destruction even when advised not to do so.... Aswathama, on the death of his father, got so very angry and launched this weapon against the Pandavas. For the sake of stopping the weapon, Arjuna also launched the same weapon. But due to the catastrophic effects, they both were advised to pull back the weapons. Arjuna knew the technique to do so and hence did the same. But Aswathama did not know the secret of getting it back. The nature of this weapon is that if there is no target, it will demolish the person who launched it. Aswathama, forced by the situation, quickly pointed another target for the weapon by asking it to destroy all the babies in womb in the Pandavas' and their sons' wive. Krishna requested not to destroy Uthara's baby but he did not listen and hence got a curse from him. That baby who was protected in the womb by Krishna was named as Parikshit and became the next king after the Pandavas.
Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1967) was a supervising scientist of the Manhattan Project and a developer of the atomic bomb. He quoted Mahabaratha and Bagavat Gita in his lecture seven years later the first atom bomb explosion. I encourage you to watch this history channel video fully before analyzing further :
Now back to the topic, there were many kinds of asthras in the Mahabaratha war. But the one we consider for discussion here is the Brahmasthra. It is mentioned many times in the Mahabaratha war. Please take a look into the description of this weapon as given in wikipedia.
Could Brahmastra be a Nuclear Weapon? or something even more than that?
This question is debatable. As usual, there are many controversies going around. Some agree to the concept and some others dis agree. I have briefly summarized the arguments from both sides and here they are....
The arguments of those who agree are the following :
1. The description of Brahmasthra and the way it was not allowed to be used by everybody, proves that it was of some deadly destructive weapon.
2. Once Mahabaratha itself was believed to be a fiction. But later many evidences came to prove that it actually happened in the past like archaeologists finding the submerged city Dwaraka, identification of Saraswathi river etc.
3. Many other mythological concepts related to other fields like astronomy, medicine etc are proved correct now. They were also once pin pointed as fiction and imagination only.
The arguments of those who do not agree are mainly the following :
1. The war used bow and arrow as the main weapon. Nuclear weapons need some sort of shooting technique and that was not possible with bow....
2. It is purely pseudoscience and hence not true.
3. Fiction stories like star wars also anticipate the future and advanced technologies. But can we take them as present happenings?
My perspective is quite simple here. Since we know something about modern day nuclear weapon, we are trying to equate Brahmasthra with that. But what if nuclear weapons were not invented at all? What would be our judgement about Brahmasthra in that case? We would have totally neglected the concept stating that it is highly mythical. But with the invention of nuclear weapons, we are able to find some similarities now. Like wise, in future, when science gets more and more advanced, we might get more clarity in such concepts. More over the technology prevailing now might not prevail after 5000 or 6000 years later because world is always changing. But if the future generation claim that the technology we are using now as pseudo science, will that be correct? When we foresee the present world so many years ahead in the future who knows what will be waiting for us there? Same applies to the past also. We are getting traces of history here and there with which we are trying to establish the past happenings. That is the limitation of science. It can only go to a certain extent before and after in time. But what is mentioned in mythology does not change at all. It is very clear in its calculations, time lines, events and happenings. There is no confusion behind it. Of course, there could be many manupulations due to the people trying to interpret them, but the very essence does not change at all. Hence, there is every reason to believe that Brahmasthra was an advanced destructive weapon which was once used.
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