Shocking scientific inventions by ancient saints!

Shocking scientific inventions by ancient saints!

1. 1. Shocking Scientific Inventions by Ancient Saints! Our Rich Heritage !!!
2. 2. Indian Scriptures have answers that modern science needs?  During the growth of the ancient civilizations, ancient technology was the result of incredible advances in engineering in ancient times.  These advances in the history of technology stimulated societies to adopt new ways of living and governance.  However, many ancient inventions were forgotten, lost to the pages of history, only to be re-invented millennia later.  Here are the best examples of ancient technology and inventions that demonstrate the ingenuity of our ancient ancestors.  So, get ready to be awed...
3. 3. Saints or scientists?  The land of India is known to be the land of saints and Gods. It is filled with various types of unexplainable things.  In ancient times, various saints after doing years of hard meditation, their work and with their patience found the secrets hidden in the Vedas 1,000 years ago.  These inventions later came to be known as modern science.  Some of the saints came out with such amazing inventions that shocked the kings of those times as well.  Click on to know…
4. 4. The Indian Sage who developed Atomic Theory 2,600 years ago  John Dalton (1766 – 1844), an English chemist and physicist, is the man credited today with the development of atomic theory.  However, a theory of atoms was actually formulated 2,500 years before Dalton by an Indian sage and philosopher, known as Acharya Kanad.  Acharya Kanad was born in 600 BC in Prabhas Kshetra (near Dwaraka) in Gujarat, India. His real name was Kashyap. It was Kanada who originated the idea that anu (atom) was an indestructible particle of matter.
5. 5. The Indian Sage who developed Atomic Theory 2,600 years ago II  An interesting story states that this theory occurred to him while he was walking with food in his hand.  As he nibbled at the food in his hand, throwing away the small particles, it occurred to him that he could not divide the food into further parts and thus the idea of a matter which cannot be divided further came into existence.  He called that indivisible matter anu, i.e. molecule, which was misinterpreted as atom.  He also stated that anu can have two states - Absolute rest and a State of motion.
6. 6. Newton’s Law… 1200 Years before Newton  “Objects fall on the earth due to a force of attraction by the earth. Therefore, the earth, planets, constellations, moon and sun are held in orbit due to this attraction.”  The meaning of these lines is parallel to that of Newton’s Law of Gravity.  But these lines are not said by the European scientist. They are said by an Indian - in Surya Siddhanta, dated 400-500 AD, the ancient Hindu astronomer Bhaskaracharya states these lines.  Approximately 1200 years later (1687 AD), Sir Isaac Newton rediscovered this phenomenon and called it the Law of Gravity.
7. 7. Acharya Charak: Father of Medicine  Acharya Charak has been crowned as the Father of Medicine. His renowned work, the "Charak Samhita," is considered as an encyclopedia of Ayurveda.  His principles, diagnoses, and cures retain their potency and truth even after a couple of millennium.  When the science of anatomy was confused with different theories in Europe, Acharya Charak revealed through his innate genius and inquires the facts on human anatomy, embryology, pharmacology, blood circulation and diseases like diabetes, tuberculosis, heart disease, etc.
8. 8. Charak Samhita  In the "Charak Samhita" he has described the medicinal qualities and functions of 100,000 herbal plants.  He has emphasized the influence of diet and activity on mind and body.  He has proved the correlation of spirituality and physical health contributed greatly to diagnostic and curative sciences.  He has also prescribed and ethical charter for medical practitioners two centuries prior to the Oath.  Through his genius and intuition, Acharya Charak forever remains etched in the annals of history as one of the greatest and noblest of rishi-scientists.
9. 9. Sage Bharadwaj  In 1875, the Vymaanika- Shaastra, a fourth century BC text written by Maharshi Bhardwaj, was discovered in a temple in India.  The book dealt with the operation of ancient vimanas and included information on steering, precautions for long flights, protection of the airships from storms and lightning, and how to switch the drive to solar energy, or some other “free energy” source. Vimanas were said to take off vertically or dirigible.  Bharadwaj the Wise refers to no less than 70 authorities and 10 experts of air travel in antiquity.
10. 10. Rishi Kanva  The science of wind has been explained by Sage Kanva in Rigveda sections 8/41/6 in Jagati meter of God wind.  Sage Kashyapa has described the features and properties of this substance in Rigveda 9/64/26 in the hymns of God Pavamana Soma in meter Gayatri.  Kanva was a great Rishi, a descendent of Sage Angirasa.  He looked after Shakuntala when she was abandoned by her mother and father (rishi vishwamitra). Bharat, the son of Shakuntala was also brought up by him.
11. 11. Sage Kapil Muni: Author of the Sankhya Darshan  Kapil muni was born equipped with rare intellect, dispassion and spiritual powers.  He authored Sankhya Darshan that defined the term "Dhyaan or Meditation" as “the state of mind when remains without any subjectivity / objectivity i.e. without any thought (when the mind is away from worldly objects), is called the "Dhyaan or Meditation”.  He teaches that there is an unbroken continuity from the lowest inorganic to the highest organic forms.  The source of world according to him is Prakriti (fundamental nature).
12. 12. Kapil Muni: Finding how the Universe was created  According to Kapil Muni, there are twenty-five principles responsible for the manifestation of the Creation (Samasara), out of which Purusha and Prakriti are eternal and independent of each other.  Kapila is not concerned to deny the reality of personal God or Maheshwara. Yet his assertion is that, no arguments can irrefutably establish God's reality.  Therefore, in his model of creation the Purusha (Spirit) and Prakrity (matter) are held solely responsible for creation, without acknowledging an Almighty and intelligent Creator, the God.
13. 13. Patanjali: The Father of Yoga  The Science of Yoga is one of several unique contributions of India to the world.  It seeks to discover and realize the ultimate Reality through yogic practices.  Acharya Patanjali, prescribed the control of prana (life breath) as the means to control the body, mind and soul.  This subsequently rewards one with good health and inner happiness.  His 84 yogic postures effectively enhance the efficiency of the respiratory, circulatory, nervous, digestive and endocrine systems and many other organs of the body.
14. 14. Aryabhatt  He was a master Astronomer and Mathematician, born in 476 CE in Kusumpur (Bihar).  In 499 CE, he wrote a text on astronomy and an unparallel treatise on mathematics called "Aryabhatiyam"  He formulated the process of calculating the motion of planets and the time of eclipses.  Aryabhatt was the first to proclaim that the earth is round, it rotates on its axis, orbits the sun and is suspended in space - 1,000 years before Copernicus published his heliocentric theory.
15. 15. Sushruta  Born to sage Vishwamitra, Sushruta is the father of surgery.  2600 years ago, he and health scientists of his time conducted complicated surgeries like cesareans, cataract, artificial limbs, Rhinoplasty (restoration of a damaged nose), 12 types of fractures, 6 types of dislocations, urinary stones and even plastic surgery and brain surgery.  Usage of anesthesia was well known in ancient India.  He is the author of the book "Sushruta Samhita", in which he describes over 300 surgical procedures and 125 surgical instruments.
16. 16. Bhaskaracharya  He calculated the time taken by the earth to orbit the sun hundreds of years before the astronomer Smart;  Time taken by earth to orbit the sun: (5th century) 365.258756484 days.  Born in the obscure village of Vijjadit (Jalgaon) in Maharastra, Bhaskaracharya's mathematical works called "Lilavati" and "Bijaganita" are considered to be unparalleled.  In his treatise "Siddhant Shiromani" he writes on planetary positions, eclipses, cosmography, mathematical techniques and astronomical equipment.  In the "Surya Siddhant" he makes a note on the force of gravity.
17. 17. Varahamihira  Varahamihir's book "panch siddhant", noted that the moon and planets are lustrous not because of their own light but due to sunlight.  In the "Bruhad Samhita" and "Bruhad Jatak", he has revealed his discoveries in the domains of geography, constellation, science, botany and animal science.  In his treatise on botanical science, Varahamihir presents cures for various diseases afflicting plants and trees.
18. 18. The galaxy is oval, Earth is spherical  Yajur Vedic verse: "Brahmaanda vyapta deha bhasitha himaruja..." describing Shiva as the one who is spread out in Brahmaanda.  Anda means an egg depicting the shape of the galaxy.  It was the middle east Europians and Greeks who wrongly believed that earth was flat.  But Indians, since long have always known that it was spherical.  In many scriptures, the word Bhoogola is used, Gola meaning round.
19. 19. Existence of Atomic and Sub atomic particles  The world accounts discovery of atoms and sub atomic particles to Western scientists who coined these words and theories only in the early 17th century.  An excerpt from Lalitha Sahasranama, told by Hayagreeva to Agasthya muni, dating back to the distant ages of the past,describes the Goddess as the super consciousness/Brahman that pervades even the sub atomic particles within matter.  "Paranjyotih parandhamah paramanuh paratpara". The word "anuvu" means atom.  Paramanu is sub-atomic particle, finer than the finest of atom, meaning electrons and the others.
20. 20. Ancient times and nuclear weapons  Radiation still so intense, the area is highly dangerous!  A heavy layer of radioactive ash in Rajasthan, India, covers a three-square mile area, ten miles west of Jodhpur.  For some time it has been established that there is a very high rate of birth defects and cancer in the area under construction.  Scientists have unearthed an ancient city where evidence shows an atomic blast dating back thousands of years, from 8,000 to 12,000 years, destroying everything most of the buildings and probably a half-million people.
21. 21. Ancient times and nuclear weapons II  The Mahabharata clearly describes a catastrophic blast that rocked the continent.  "A single projectile charged with all the power in the Universe...An incandescent column of smoke and flame as bright as 10,000 suns, rose in all its splendor...  it was an unknown weapon, an iron thunderbolt, a gigantic messenger of death which reduced to ashes an entire race.”  Historian Kisori Mohan Ganguli says that Indian sacred writings are full of such descriptions.
22. 22. Ancient ultrasound machines?  Using a variety of complicated instruments, gynecologists have gradually come to know how the embryo grows during the period of pregnancy.  But the Shrimad Bhagavatam, 3rd canto, 30th chapter, gives a vivid description of the growth of the embryo in the mother's womb.  If we compare the information given therein with the information given in a standard textbook such as the embryology section of Gray's Anatomy, there are striking similarities in the information obtained from the two sources.
23. 23. Ancient science knows more than modern science?  The Vedas claim that there are living entities everywhere - even in fire.  Modern science, however, presumed that no life could exist in fire.  This presumption is in fact the basis for the process of sterilization.  But recent advancements in the field of medicine have shown that microbes called 'fire bacteria' survive even in fire.
24. 24. The incredible powers of the ancient Siddharshi!  Siddharshi are a type of saint in India who are said to have had many powers and achieved a ‘god-like’ state through specific secret practices that were known only to them.  These powers spanned from controlling time and space, to transforming the body, manipulating matter at the molecular level and achieving immortality.  The Siddharshi were followers of the God Shiva and according to different texts there were 18 of them.  Their teachings and findings were written in the form of poems in the Tamil language.
25. 25. Who were Siddharshi?  There is a debate as to who was the first Siddharshi.  Some legends talk about Sri Pathanjali, who was considered to be an incarnation of Adiseshan, the celestial five-headed snake associated with God Vishnu.  But the prevailing tradition refers to Agasthya (or Agasthyar) as the first Siddharshi, one of the seven sages (or Saptarshis) as mentioned in the Vedic texts, and he was the son of the god Brahma of the Hindu creation story.
26. 26. Siddhas or scientists?  Agathiyar is considered to be the author of a lot of the first Siddha literature and he was supposed to have lived in the 7th century BC.  About 96 books are attributed to him and that includes writings in alchemy, medicine and spirituality.  Apart from the legends that exist, the beginnings of the Siddhars’ are lost in time.
27. 27. Ashta Siddhis of Siddhas  The powers that the Siddhars possessed were separated in categories.  The main category included 8 powers called ashta siddhis:  To become tiny as the atom within the atom (Anima);  To become big in unshakeable proportions (Mahima);  To become as light as vapour in levitation (Laghima);  To become as heavy as the mountain (Garima);  To enter into other bodies in transmigration (Prapti);  To be in all things, omni-pervasive (Prakamya);  To be lord of all creation in omnipotence (Isatvam);  To be everywhere in omnipresence (Vasitvam)
28. 28. Ten Siddhis of Siddhas  There are ten secondary siddhis as described in Bhagavata Purana that include the following:  Being undisturbed by hunger, thirst, and other bodily appetites;  Hearing things far away;  Seeing things far away;  Moving the body wherever thought goes (teleportation/astral projection);  Assuming any form desired;  Entering the bodies of others;  Dying when one desires;  Witnessing and participating in the past times of the gods;  Perfect accomplishment of one's determination;  Orders or commands being unimpeded
29. 29. Ancient science and Siddhas  A famous Siddha was Tirumular, who was a Tamil mystic and writer of 6th century AD and was also one of the 18 Siddhas according to the Tamil Siddha tradition.  His main work is named “Tirumantiram”, a 3,000 verse text, which is the foundation of the Southern Shaiva Siddharta School of philosophy.  Another Siddha, Bhogar (Bhoganathar), who lived between the 3rd and 5th century AD is said to have discovered the elixir of immortality – one his main works is the Pharmacognosy.
30. 30. The mystery remains…!  Due to the closely-guarded nature of the Siddhar records, the original knowledge of this enigmatic group of saints has remained shrouded in secrecy.  The question remains whether their powers were real and, if so, how they managed to attain them.  Manipulating space, time and matter would require knowledge far beyond what we have today.
31. 31. Be Proud To Be An Indian Jai Bharatvarsh!!!

Ancient Indian Astrophysics and Time

"Temporal notions in Europe were overturned by an India rooted in eternity. The Bible had been the yardstick for measuring time, but the infinitely vast time cycles of India suggested that the world was much older than anything the Bible spoke of. It seem as if the Indian mind was better prepared for the chronological mutations of Darwinian evolution and astrophysics." 

He has commented on the wise division of life in India: "Here is a philosophy far removed from the grotesque refusal to grow old in the West, where wisdom has been replaced by cosmetic surgery and psychiatric help."

"The Indian tradition, on the other hand, is that men submit to nature and form part of it, there nature preserves its sacredness, lost in the West since the Industrial Revolution." He further states that the idea of feminism and ecology came from the 1968 movement, from the meeting between India and the West. He says: "There is hardly anything in European thought to predispose the West to reject virility, the respect for authority, the mastery over nature. India too has a warrior (khastriya) tradition of virility as exemplified in the Mahabharata, only it is secondary. First, comes the veneration of thousands of goddesses - for the Indians, India is above all Mother India. India's femininity and sexual ambiguity, is the very antithesis of Western virility. For example, when the British scaled earth's highest peak, the exploit was widely hailed as the "conquest of the Everest." It was not realized and is often not realized still, that the word "conquest" was totally out of place in the context of the peak which is considered an object of reverence by many.

"The Brahmins attached to knowledge and learning is what has helped the Indian civilization endure and allowed the arts to flourish. If comparisons have to be made, it may be said that the endurance of the Brahmins in India has kept her elite intact, whereas in neighboring China the anti-intellectualism of communist peasants has completely wiped out the intelligentsia of that country. The Brahmins kept knowledge and art alive in India, preserving not only their savant but also their popular forms. The Brahmin elite is perhaps egoistical and domineering, nonetheless it has preserved a sense of dignity and beauty that has disappeared from China where all that remains is vulgarity and crass ignorance."

"The more decentralized, diversified and ritualized a religion is the better it can withstand the onslaught of rationalist thought. Hinduism, derives its strength from the fact that it is not a single unified religion but the sum total of thousands of local faiths. Every village has its own cult, rooted in the local culture without any universalistic pretensions."

"India is a marvelous example of the art of living together at a time when Westerners are apprehensive about the future of their society."

"You cannot be a Hindu fundamentalist. It does not mean anything...The concept of fundamentalism does not exist in Hinduism." No one man embodies the spirit of universalism, it runs through the whole of India and there is a place for all religious groups and communities. The spiritual message of India is her capacity to let so many divergent practices coexist. The Enlightenment philosophers seemed to have grasped this profound originality...This the real message of India."

He says, "India has a strong cultural image in the west; unfortunately, it is not being commercially exploited." This should sink into the heads of those of us who are happy to be third-rate imitators of the US.

Sorman asserts that India is not a rogue state when he talks of the nuclear option. But there seem to be some Indians who are not so sure of their own country. He points out that "Nobody knows what is right. Each civilization...has its sense of the right. No one can impose his perception of right over others."

"Each Indian looks for God in his own way and worships one or several of the millions of deities who are the supposed reincarnation or expression of God, a Spirit or a Force. This has never led to a religious war. There have been communal clashes, but India has never had to face religious wars or crusades save those that were thrust on it from outside. The multiple revelation of the East has proved to be in many ways more advantageous than the single revelation of the West."

(source: The Genius of India - By Guy Sorman (Le Genie de l'Inde) Macmillan India Ltd. 2001. ISBN 0333 93600 0 p.195 , 122).

Hindu cosmology & Astronomy -Part 3

`Veda' means knowledge. And Yoga-
Patanjali Yoga Sutra 1:2
Yogas chitta vritti nirodhah
Yoga is the mastery of fluctuations of the mind.

For quite some time scholars believed that this knowledge amounted to no

more than speculations regarding the self; this is what we are still told in some schoolbook

accounts. New insights in archaeology, astronomy, history of science and Vedic scholarship

have shown that such a view is wrong. We now know that Vedic knowledge embraced physics,

mathematics, astronomy, logic, cognition and other disciplines. We find that Vedic science

is the earliest science that has come down to us.

Briefly, the Vedic texts present a tripartite and recursive world view. The universe is

viewed as three regions of earth, space, and sky with the corresponding entities of Agni,

Indra, and Vishve Devah (all gods).

Vedic Rishi and old education institutes alse read modern science but name was different.

These were Vedic science-

logic (nyaya) and physics (vaisheshika), cosmology (sankhya) and psychology

(yoga), and language (mimamsa) and reality (vedanta).

The Five Levels

In the Taittiriya Upanishad, the individual is represented in 5 levels that enclose the individual's self. These levels, shown in an ascending order, are:

The physical body (annamaya kosha)

Energy sheath (pranamaya kosha)

Mental sheath (manomaya kosha)

Intellect sheath (vijnanamaya kosha)

Emotion sheath (anandamaya kosha )

The emotion sheath, is innermost .

This is a recognition of the fact that eventually meaning is communicated by associations

The energy that underlies physical and mental processes is called prana.


Further description of above-

According to yogic theory & philosophy, a human being is comprised of 5 layers. These layers are called koshas, or sheath. Each layer is more subtle than the other.

The first is annamaya kosha, or literally mean ‘food sheath’ – it is the physical body: the bones, muscles, tissues, organs, bloods, etc. The grossest of the layers. It is made of the elements: earth, water, fire, air, and space. It is on this layer the gateway to the external world, the five receiving senses and the five action sense are located, so it is through this layer that one is experiencing life.

The second is pranamaya kosha, or the energy body, the prana layer. More subtle than the physical body, this layer not visible to the naked eye, but one can feel it. The chakras, or energy centers, are within this layer. Without prana, there is no life.

The third is manomaya kosha, the mind body. This is the mind that interacts with the inputs from the senses, carry out day to day operation of keeping oneself alive and well – eg if there’s a danger, move away – if there’s a reward, come closer. Manomaya kosha is full of emotions – a reaction to the input from the senses. It is key for survival.

The fourth is vijnanamaya kosha, sometimes called the higher mind. Also referred to as the ‘wisdom body’ – this is where awareness, insight, discernment, and consciousness located. Without awareness, one will be only reacting to whatever comes one’s way. With awareness, one can stop to only reacting and choose to response with intention.

The fifth is called anandamaya kosha, the bliss body. Sometimes also called the causal body. This is the innermost layer covering the essence – the soul, or spirit, or self, or atman. The unchanging eternal reality.

Using a computer as analogy, annamaya kosha is like the hardware. The receiving sense organs are keyboards, mouse, touchscreen, microphone. The action sense organs are the monitor, speaker, printer. Pranamaya kosha is like the electricity powering the computer – without plugging it into the electricity the computer can’t turn on. It’s the current that goes through the hardwares. Manomaya kosha is like the operating system – basic operation of the computer is controlled from here. Vijnanamaya kosha is like the more advanced software, with which the computer can interact in a more useful way, be productive, be of service. I can’t think yet of the parallel for anandamaya kosha in a computer… can you think of one? Although not yet complete, I think this computer analogy helps me understand more about the koshas.

The Structure of the Mind

The Sankhya system takes the mind as consisting of ¯ve components: manas, ahankara,

chitta(MEMORY BANK) buddhi, and atman. Again these categories parallel those of Figure ABOVE.

This mental complex surrounds the innermost aspect of consciousness which is called

atman, the self, brahman, or jiva.

In his famous paper on the origin of mathematics, Seidenberg (1978) concluded: Old-

Babylonia [1700 BC] got the theorem of Pythagoras from India.

Barend van Nooten (1993) has shown that binary numbers were known at the time of

Pingala's Chhandahshastra. Pingala, who lived around the early Frst century B.C.E., used

binary numbers to calssify Vedic Mantras.

The Puranas speak of countless universes, time  owing at different rates for different observers and so on.

Advanced Ancient Indian Science-

The Mahabharata speaks of an embryo being divided into one hundred parts each becoming, after maturation in a separate pot, a healthy baby; this is how the Kaurava brothers are born. There is also mention of an embryo, conceived in one womb, being transferred to the womb of another woman from where it is born; the transferred embryo is Balarama and this is how he is a brother to Krishna although he was born to Rohini and not to Devaki.

There is an ancient mention of space travellers wearing airtight suits in the epic Mahabharata which may be classi¯ed as an early form of science ¯ction. According to the well-known Sanskritist J.A.B. van Buitenen, in the accounts in Book 3 called The Razing of Saubha" and The War of the Yakshas":

the aerial city is nothing but an armed camp with fame-throwers and thundering cannon, no doubt a spaceship. The name of the demons is also revealing: they were Niv¹atakavacas, clad in airtight armor," which can hardly be anything but space suits. (van Buitenen, 1975, page 202)
Universes de¯ned recursively are described in the famous episode of Indra and the ants
in Brahmavaivarta Purana. Here Vishnu, in the guise of a boy, explains to Indra that
the ants he sees walking on the ground have all been Indras in their own solar systems in
different times! These Fights of imagination are to be traced to more than a straightforward
generalization of the motions of the planets into a cyclic universe.


Aryabhata

Aryabhata is the author of the first of the later siddhantas called Aryabhatiyam which

sketches his mathematical, planetary, and cosmic theories. This book is divided into four
chapters: (i) the astronomical constants and the sine table, (ii) mathematics required for
computations, (iii) division of time and rules for computing the longitudes of planets using
eccentrics and epicycles, (iv) the armillary sphere, rules relating to problems of trigonometry
and the computation of eclipses.
The parameters of Aryabhatiyam have, as their origin, the commencement of Kaliyuga
on Friday, 18th February, 3102 B.C.E. He wrote another book where the epoch is a bit
different.

Aryabhata took the earth to spin on its axis; this idea appears to have been his innovation.

He also considered the heavenly motions to go through a cycle of 4.32 billion years; here he
went with an older tradition, but he introduced a new scheme of subdivisions within this
great cycle. According to the historian Hugh Thurston, \Not only did Aryabhata believe
that the earth rotates, but there are glimmerings in his system (and other similar systems)
of a possible underlying theory in which the earth (and the planets) orbits the sun, rather
than the sun orbiting the earth. The evidence is that the basic planetary periods are relative
to the sun."

That Aryabhata was aware of the relativity of motion is clear from this passage in his

book,Just as a man in a boat sees the trees on the bank move in the opposite direction, so
an observer on the equator sees the stationary stars as moving precisely toward the west."

Varahamihira

Varahamihira (died 587) lived in Ujjain and he wrote three important books: Panchasiddhan-

tika, Brihat Samhita, and Brihat Jataka. The ¯rst is a summary of  five early astronomical
systems including the Surya Siddhanta. (Incidently, the modern Surya Siddhanta is different
in many details from this ancient one.) Another system described by him, the Paitamaha
Siddhanta, appears to have many similarities with the ancient Vedanga Jyotisha of Lagadha.
Brihat Samhita is a compilataion of an assortment of topics that provides interesting
details of the beliefs of those times. Brihat Jataka is a book on astrology which appears to
be considerably influenced by Greek astrology.

Brahmagupta

Brahmagupta of Bhilamala in Rajasthan, who was born in 598, wrote his masterpiece,

Brahmasphuta Siddhanta, in 628. His school, which was a rival to that of Aryabhata, has
been very influential in western and northern India. Brahmagupta's work was translated into
Arabic in 771 or 773 at Baghdad and it became famous in the Arabic world as Sindhind.
One of Brahmagupta's chief contributions is the solution of a certain second order inde-
terminate equation which is of great significance in number theory.
Another of his books, the Khandakhadyaka, remained a popular handbook for astronomical computations for centuries.

Bhaskara

Bhaskara (born 1114), who was from the Karnataka region, was an outstanding mathemati-

cian and astronomer. Amongst his mathematical contributions is the concept of di®erentials.

He was the author of Siddhanta Shiromani, a book in four parts: (i) Lilavati on arithmetic,

(ii) Bijaganita on algebra, (iii) Ganitadhyaya, (iv) Goladhyaya on astronomy. He epicyclic-

eccentric theories of planetary motions are more developed than in the earlier siddhantas.

Subsequent to Bhaskara we see a °ourishing tradition of mathematics and astronomy

in Kerala which saw itself as a successor to the school of Aryabhata.

Madhava

Madhava (c. 1340-1425) developed a procedure to determine the positions of the moon every

36 minutes. He also provided methods to estimate the motions of the planets. He gave power
series expansions for trigonometric functions, and for pi correct to eleven decimal places.

Nilakantha Somayaji

Nilakantha (c. 1444-1545) was a very prolific scholar who wrote several works on astronomy.

It appears that Nilakantha found the correct formulation for the equation of the center of
the planets and his model must be considered a true heliocentric model of the solar system.
He also improved upon the power series techniques of Madhava.

The methods developed by the Kerala mathematicians were far ahead of the European

mathematics of the day.

7 Concepts of space, time, and matter

Yoga-Vasishtha (YV) is an ancient Indian text, over 29,000 verses long, traditionally attributed to Valmiki, author of the epic Ramayana- Of which some random translations are given here from

book done by Venkatesananda (1984).

Time

² Time cannot be analyzed... Time uses two balls known as the sun and the moon for

its pastime. [16]

² The world is like a potter's wheel: the wheel looks as if it stands still, though it revolves

at a terrific speed. [18]

² Just as space does not have a fixed span, time does not have a fixed span either. Just

as the world and its creation are mere appearances, a moment and an epoch are also

imaginary. [55]

² Infinite consciousness held in itself the notion of a unit of time equal to one-millionth

of the twinkling of an eye: and from this evolved the time-scale right up to an epoch

consisting of several revolutions of the four ages, which is the life-span of one cosmic

creation. Infinite consciousness itself is uninvolved in these, for it is devoid of rising

and setting (which are essential to all time-scales), and it devoid of a beginning, middle

and end. [72]

Space

² There are three types of space|the psychological space, the physical space and the

in¯nite space of consciousness. [52]

The in¯nite space of individed consciousness is that which exists in all, inside and

outside... The ¯nite space of divided consciousness is that which created divisions of

time, which pervades all beings... The physical space is that in which the elements

exist. The latter two are not independent of the ¯rst. [96]

² Other universes. On the slopes of a far-distant mountain range there is a solid rock

within which I dwell. The world within this rock is just like yours: it has its own

inhabitants, ...the sun and the moon and all the rest of it. I have been in it for

countless aeons. [402]

² The entire universe is contained in a subatomic partice, and the three worlds exist

within one strand of hair. [404]

Matter

² In every atom there are worlds within worlds. [55]

² (There are) countless universes, diverse in composition and space-time structure... In

every one of them there are continents and mountains, villages and cities inhabited by

people who have their time-space and life-span. [401-2]

Experience

² Direct experience alone is the basis for all proofs... That substratum is the experiencing

intelligence which itself becomes the experiencer, the act of experiencing, and the

experience. [36]

² Everyone has two bodies, the one physical and the other mental. The physical body

is insentient and seeks its own destruction; the mind is ¯nite but orderly. [124]

² I have carefully investigated, I have observed everything from the tips of my toes to the

top of my head, and I have not found anything of which I could say, `This I am.' Who

is `I'? I am the all-pervading consciousness which is itself not an object of knowledge or

knowing and is free from self-hood. I am that which is indivisible, which has no name,

which does not undergo change, which is beyond all concepts of unity and diversity,

which is beyond measure. [214]

² I remember that once upon a time there was nothing on this earth, neither trees and

plants, nor even mountains. For a period of eleven thousand years the earth was

covered by lava. In those days there was neither day nor night below the polar region:

for in the rest of the earth neither the sun nor the moon shone. Only one half of the

polar region was illumined.

Then demons ruled the earth. They were deluded, powerful and prosperous, and the

earth was their playground.

Apart from the polar region the rest of the earth was covered with water. And then

for a very long time the whole earth was covered with forests, except the polar region.

Then there arose great mountains, but without any human inhabitants. For a period

of ten thousand years the earth was covered with the corpses of the demons. [280]

Mind

² The same in¯nite self conceives within itself the duality of oneself and the other. [39]

² Thought is mind, there is no distinction between the two. [41]

² The body can neither enjoy nor su®er. It is the mind alone that experiences. [109-110]

² The mind has no body, no support and no form; yet by this mind is everything con-

sumed in this world. This is indeed a great mystery. He who says that he is destroyed

by the mind which has no substantiality at all, says in e®ect that his head was smashed

by the lotus petal... The hero who is able to destroy a real enemy standing in front of

him is himself destroyed by this mind which is [non-material].

² The intelligence which is other than self-knowledge is what constitutes the mind. [175]

Complementarity

² The absolute alone exists now and for ever. When one thinks of it as a void, it is

because of the feeling one has that it is not void; when one thinks of it as not-void, it

is because there is a feeling that it is void. [46]

² All fundamental elements continued to act on one another|as experiencer and experience|

and the entire creation came into being like ripples on the surface of the ocean. And,

they are interwoven and mixed up so e®ectively that they cannot be extricated from

one another till the cosmic dissolution. [48]

Consciousness

² The entire universe is forever the same as the consciousness that dwells in every atom.

[41]

² The ¯ve elements are the seed fo which the world is the tree; and the eternal conscious-

ness if the seed of the elements. [48]

² Cosmic consciousness alone exists now and ever; in it are no worlds, no created beings.

That consciousness re°ected in itself appears to be creation. [49]

² This consciousness is not knowable: when it wishes to become the knowable, it is known

as the universe. Mind, intellect, egotism, the ¯ve great elements, and the world|all

these innumerable names and forms are all consciousness alone. [50]

² The world exists because consciousness is, and the world is the body of consciousness.

There is no division, no di®erence, no distinction. Hence the universe can be said

to be both real and unreal: real because of the reality of consciousness which is its

own reality, and unreal because the universe does not exist as universe, independent of

consciousness. [50]

² Consciousness is pure, eternal and in¯nite: it does not arise nor cease to be. It is ever

there in the moving and unmoving creatures, in the sky, on the mountain and in ¯re

and air. [67]

² Millions of universes appear in the in¯nite consciousness like specks of dust in a beam

of light. In one small atom all the three worlds appear to be, with all their components

like space, time, action, substance, day and night. [120]

² The universe exists in in¯nte consciousness. In¯nite consciousness is unmanifest,

though omnipresent, even as space, though existing everywhere, is manifest. [141]

² The manifestation of the omnipotence of in¯nite consciousness enters into an alliance

with time, space and causation. Thence arise in¯nite names and forms. [145]

² The Lord who is in¯nite consciousness is the silent but alert witness of this cosmic

dance. He is not di®erent from the dancer (the cosmic natural order) and the dance

(the happenings). [296]

Might then one accept the claim of Srinivasa Ramanujan that his theorems were revealed to him in his dreams by the goddess Namagiri? This claim, so persistently made by Ramanujan, has generally been dismissed by his biographers (see, for example, Kanigel, 1991). Were Ramanujan's astonishing discoveries instrumented by the autonomously creative potential of consciousness, represented by him by the image of Namagiri? If that be the case then the marvellous imagination shown in Yoga-Vasishtha and other Indian texts becomes easier to comprehend.

Is nature and animals, human all are molecule- Yes partly with consciousness.

	H		H2O	[C10H16O13N5P2]N	CE10HE10OE10NE9PE8 SE8CaE8KE6ClE6NaE6MgE6FeE5SiE4MnE2CoE2		CE27HE27OE27NE26PE25SE24CaE25KE24ClE24NaE24MgE24FeE23FE23ZnE22SiE22CuE21 BE21IE20SnE20MnE20SeE20 CrE20NiE20MoE19CoE19VE18
13.7 BYA	Seconds after Bang	13.2 BYA	4.4 BYA	4.1 BYA	3.9 BYA	45 MYA	150,000 Year Ago

References

Sarma, K.V. 1985. A survey of source materials. Indian Journal of History of Science

20.1-20.

Staal, F. 1988. Universals. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Venkatesananda, S. (tr.), 1984. The Concise Yoga V¹asis. t.ha. Albany: State University of

New York Press.

Barrow, J. 1992. Pi in the Sky. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Brown, J.W. 1994. Morphogenesis and mental process. Development and Psychopathology.

6.551-563.

van Buitenen, J.A.B. 1975. The Mah¹abh¹arata, vol. 2. Chicago: University of Chicago

Press.

Chapple, C. 1984. Introduction and bibliography in Venkatesananda (1984).

Dasgupta, S. 1975 (1932). A History of Indian Philosophy. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.

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Wheaton: Quest Books.

Filliozat, J. 1970. The expansion of Indian medicine abroad. In Lokesh Chandra (ed.)

India's Contributions to World Thought and Culture. Madras: Vivekananda Memorial

Committee. 67-70.

Francfort, H.-P. 1992. Evidence for Harappan irrigation system in Haryana and Rajasthan.

Eastern Anthropologist. 45.87-103.

Frawley, D. 1994. Planets in the Vedic literature. Indian Journal of History of Science.

29.495-506.

Kak, S. 1986. The Nature of Physical Reality. New York: Peter Lang.

1987. The Paninian approach to natural language processing. Intl. Journal of

Approximate Reasoning. 1.117-130.

1990. Kalidasa and the Agnimitra problem. Journal of the Oriental Institute 40.51-

54.

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gveda. New Delhi: Aditya.

1994b. The evolution of writing in India. Indian Journal of History of Science.

28.375-388.

1994c. India at Century's End. New Delhi: VOI.

1995a. The astronomy of the age of geometric altars. Quarterly Journal of the Royal

Astronomical Society. 36.385-396.

1995b. From Vedic science to Ved¹anta. The Adyar Library Bulletin. 59.1-36.

1996a. Knowledge of planets in the third millennium B.C. Quarterly Journal of the

Royal Astronomical Society. 37.709-715.

1996b. Re°ections in clouded mirrors: selfhood in animals and machines. In Pri-

bram, K.H. and J. King (eds.) Learning as Self-Organization. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence

Erlbaum.

Kanigel, R. 1991. The Man Who Knew In¯nity: A Life of the Mathematical Genius,

Ramanujan. New York: C. Scribner's.

Kulaichev, A.P. 1984. µSriyantra and its mathematical properties. Indian Journal of History

of Science 19.279-292.

McClain, E.G. 1978. The Myth of Invariance. Boulder: Shambhala.

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20.1-20.

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New York Press.

Hindu Cosmology -Part 2

Hindu Cosmology upholds the idea that creation is timeless, having no beginning in time. Each creation is preceded by dissolution and each dissolution is followed by creation. The whole cosmos exists in two states - the unmanifested or undifferentiated state and the manifested or differentiated state. This has been going on eternally. There are many universes - all follow the same rhythm, creation and dissolution (the systole and diastole of the cosmic heart). According to the Bhagavad Gita this srishti (creation) and pralaya (dissolution) recur at a period of 1,000 mahayuga or 4.32 billion years or 4,320 million years:

For a thousand ages lasts One day of Brahma, And for a thousand ages one such night;
This knowing, men will know (what is meant by) day and night.
At the day's dawning all things manifest; Spring forth from the Unmanifest;
And then at nightfall they dissolve again, In (that same mystery) surnamed "Unmanifest."

Introduction

The Rig Veda describes the origin of the universe as:

"Then was not non-existence nor existence: there was no realm of air, no sky beyond it. What covered in, and where? and what gave shelter? Was water there, unfathomed depth of water? Death was not then, nor was there aught immortal: no sign was there, the day's and night's divider. That One Thing, breathless, breathed by its own nature: apart from it was nothing whatsoever. Darkness there was at first concealed in darkness this. All was indiscriminated chaos. All that existed then was void and form less: by the great power of Warmth was born that Unit. Thereafter rose Desire in the beginning, Desire, the primal seed and germ of Spirit. Sages who searched with their heart's thought discovered the existent's kinship in the non-existent. Transversely was their severing line extended: what was above it then, and what below it? There were begetters, there were mighty forces, free action here and energy up yonder. Who verily knows and who can here declare it, whence it was born and whence comes this creation? The devas are later than this world's production. Who knows then whence it first came into being? He, the first origin of this creation, whether he formed it all or did not form it, Whose eye controls this world in highest heaven, he verily knows it, or perhaps he knows not" - (Rig Veda 10.129.1-7)

Structure of the universe

The Yugas

• Satya or Krta (1,728,000 years): Satya means "truth"; the age is also known as Krta, "action," i.e., the age in which the people did unquestioningly what their benevolent elders told them.

• Treta (1,296,000 years): Treta means "three," the third age, counting backwards from the present: also the age in which the feelings and forces of good are as three parts, and those of evil as one; also the age in which people were specially "protected," trayate, by their elders.

• Dva-para (864,000 years): Dva-para means "two-sided," hence doubt also.

• Kali (432,000 years) which rotates in succession. Kali means "discord," "struggle".

And all of these add to 4,320,000 years. Now, these four yugas, taken together, constitute one Mahayuga. One thousand Mahayugas are one day of Brahma. Brahma's one day is one Kalpa. So one day of Brahma will be 432 crores or 4,320 million years or 4.32 billion years. A similar expanse of time will make His one night, and that is another Kalpa. Our wildest imagination staggers in conceiving Brahma's life-span. This is the expansive view of time. No other culture had this unique vision of the infinity of time as well as the infinity of space.
From  veda.wikidot.com
vedic mathematics