Ancient Wisdom and Modern Science

V.S. Kalyanraman
(June 2003)

Rahu, Ketu and Eclipses
In her erudite editorial for August 1999, our Editor Mrs. Gayatri Devi Vasudev, commenting on the wealth of vast scientific information contained in Vedic literature and other scriptural works, observed thus :
For the simple minded and uninitiated, these works carried stories of gods and demons and their mystical significance that was seldom understood, but nevertheless preserved and carefully carried from generation to generation by word of mouth for thousands of years. But to the trained mathematical thinking brain, these works were a repository of knowledge — spiritual and scientific. They were a mine of astronomical information, the key to which lay only in an extensive study of mathematics and related disciplines."
How true and apt these observations are ! Even today our children at school are told that our ancients believed that two celestial dragons Rahu and Ketu caused eclipses when they swallowed the Sun and the Moon. Such descriptions found in mythology are only the imaginative interpretations of an event. It is not that such legends were not prevalent in other parts of the world. The ancient Chinese thought that eclipses were caused when the Sun was swallowed by a huge dragon and the whole population joined, during eclipses, to make as much noise as possible by beating drums and the like to scare away the dragon and believed they finally succeeded when the Sun was free of the shadow again. Was not Aristotle branded as the misfortune of mankind for his false medical notions? They why alone is India singled out and ridiculed for superstitious beliefs, which are not quite uncommon throughout the world ?
Our ancients christened the points of intersection of the path of the Moon with the ecliptic as Rahu and Ketu. For astrological purposes they were considered and counted as planets. They were called Chayagrahas or shadowy planets. Can anyone deny the fact that as the points determining the eclipses these Nodes are responsible for their occurence in mathematical parlance ? If our ancients were not fully conversant with the astronomical implications for the accurate computations of the eclipses and the causes for such celestial phenomena, how could they have formulated such infallible rules for their computations? Do not the various Siddhantas stand testimony to this ?
What makes one sad is the fact that those in charge of framing the educational policy of independent India are quite oblivious to such valid facts mentioned in the famous Brihat Samhita of the renowned astronomer and astrologer Varahamihira. Is not the lament of the distinguished Tamil poet and patriot Subramanya Bharati, over the state of affairs of Indian education during the imperial regime, valid even today ?
The great patriot that he was, Subramanya Bharati sang :
Of the fact that there lived a man called Kamban
and of Kalidasa who composed poems,
or of the might of Bhaskara, who met and measured
the planets and stars of those lofty skies,....
ignorant of such antecedents
and the ancient glory of the land ....
Rushing to the dens of Anglican tutelage....
The rulers of our land have neither the time nor the intention to reconstruct the true history of ancient Bharat to help our younger generation understand and appreciate the heritage of this mighty land and the achievements of our ancients. Such an effort will at least help to dispel some of those myths, current even today, created by the colonial rule. Even inspite of numerous reports appearing in the media about the scientific background found in some ancient thoughts, neither the scientific community nor the clergy has the time to collate and publicize them to resolve many of the prevalent misconceptions.
Trisanku Allegory
All of us know the story of Trisanku. This king wished to reach Swarga or heaven with his body. Despite the advice and curse of his family Guru Vasishta, he persisted in his efforts to find a saviour in Viswamitra. When Viswamitra found a great Yajna not succeeding, he sent the king to Swarga, with his tapobala or spiritual power. With Vasishta’s curse already over his head the king was hurled back, head downwards to earth after being denied entry into the heavens. Midway down his trail, he appealed to Viswamitra for help, when the sage held him in mid-space and created a heaven there for him — a Trisanku Swarga an in-between Swarga, in the middle of space between the earth and the real Swarga. Though the story is appealing to the devout, a student of astronomy can see beyond it astronomical information.
We know that the nearest star to our solar system is Proxima Centauri, a member of the Alpha Centauri system. The two bright components of Alpha Centauri are only slightly farther away, all of them about 4.3 light years from us. Is it not that Trisanku, or Alpha Centaurus is just half way to the nearest bright star Sirius which is 8.7 light years away ? In between, in space, we do not have any other star, save Barnard’s star at 5.8 light years, and Wolf 359 and Lalande 21185 which are closer to Sirius where from the real heavens can be deemed to commence. Is this not sufficient to explain what Trisanku is?

Agastyachara
The story of Agastya curbing the arrogance of the Vindhyas holds the astronomical fact of the rising of the star Canopus over those mountains. Can the story of Agastya’s drinking the oceans in one gulp suggest an event of larger areas becoming visible ? Can it then be the period of occurrence of visibility of more stars of the Southern Hemisphere to those in the North ? Can we rule out astronomical clues to the Precession of Equinoxes camouflaged in such mythical fables and Brihat Samhita’s Agastyachara ?
Krittika’s Extreme Heat
Krittika or Pleiades is according to Hindu faith presided over by Agni or fire. The Sun’s sojourn over this group is the season of extreme heat. Does not the legend of the birth of Subrahmanya, have something to say about Pleiades as a heat-generating group of stars, as considered since Vedic times, only to be now confirmed by modern discoveries ?

Sravana for the Preserver
Sravana Nakshatra is deemed to be the birth star of Vishnu, the preserving and protecting force, according to the scriptures. Has this any significance to the centre of our galaxy as established by modern astronomy ? Radio observations have identified this centre in Sagittarius a as it lies in the direction of Sagittarius star clouds, near Altair in Aquilla. Is it that our ancients stumbled upon this star for Vishnu by accident or by intent ?
Prof. Subash Kak, professor of electrical and computer engineering in the Louisiana State University in the United States, says that some of the techniques developed by Aryabhata are precisely the ones used in solving problems with modern computers. According to the American computer engineer Dr. Rick Briggs, ancient Indians developed a method for paraphrasing Sanskrit "in a manner that is identical not only in essence but also in form with the current work of artificial intelligence."
Fritj of Capra quotes Robert Oppenheimer to define the behaviour of the atom : "If we ask for instance whether the position of the electron remains the same, we must say no; if we ask whether the electron’s position changes with time we must say no; if we ask whether the electron is at rest we must sayno; if we ask whether it is in motion we must say no. He compares it to what Isavasya Upanishad has to say about the Atman.
"It moves, it moves not,
It is far and it is near,
It is within all this,
And it is outside of all this"
And between the Atom and Atman — is it that science echoes the words of the Upanishads or is it the other way round ? l 146.99

Ancient Wisdom and Modern Science - II
V. S. Kalyanraman
(December 2003)
The story in Devi Bhagavatam, is that Chandra (the Moon) took the twenty-seven daughters of Daksha as his wives. The Mahabharata says that Chandra circumam- bulates Mahameru along with his twenty-seven wives. Is it not a poetic allegory to describe the path of the Moon among the constellations and his association with each Nakshatra for a day ? Of these twenty-seven wives it is stated that Rohini was most loved by Chandra earning him the name Rohinipriya. Rohini, the brightest star in Taurus, Alpha Tauri is Aldeberan, with a visual magnitude of 0.85 and is a red and lovely orange star. It lies within 50 of the ecliptic and is therefore periodically occulted by the Moon. Perhaps this is why it is said that Rohini is loved most !
Varahamihira’s claim that the Rohini Yoga occuring when the Moon is in contact with Rohini in the dark fortnight of the lunar month of Ashada determines the agricultural prospects for the year deserves intensive study by meteorologists.
Antares, the glowing red heart of the Scorpion or Vrischika, is approximately comparable with the great Betelgeuse in the Orion. With a diameter of about 600 million miles, Antares has a color index of + 1.83, slightly less red than Betelgeuse. The redness indicates the advanced evolutionary stage of a super-giant. Is it by intent or accident our ancestors called Antares as Jyeshta or the oldest ?
Among Hindus, there is a custom during the marriage of the bridegroom showing the bride the star Arundhati symbolising the consort of the sage Vashista, to highlight her chastity and also Dhruva to show steadfastness. Vashista or Mizar is the centre star in the Great Bear’s tail, Zeta Ursae Majoris.Very near Mizar is 80 Ursae Majoris, Alcor or Arundhati. They are 11' 48" apart and have nearly identical proper motion. Some think that they may be in mutual revolution, although they are far away from each other and physically not associated. It is not known whether the selection ofthese two stars for the ritual was based on this unique property. But it is a fact that these two together served as a test star, as a visual binary, Alcor being fainter of the 5th magnitude against its brighter visual companion. They were used to test one’s eyesight, not only in India but also in Persia for the selection of soldiers for the army of the Sultan. The pair has lost the status, now, because the fainter one has moved farther making their visual recognition difficult.
Manu Svayambhuva, the son of Brahma, had two sons Priyavrata and Uttanapada. Uttanapada had two wives Suruchi and Suniti, mothers of Uttama and Dhruva respectively. Dhruva, pained over the denial of paternal love, did penance and got a place higher than all the stars, the Saptarishis and the Devas
and was given the boon remain as the Pole Star till the end of the Kalpa. The story of Dhruva, read against the background of the terms employed in the ancient Kalagnana or time reckoning, may perhaps suggest the fact of the change of the status of pole star to Alpha Ursa Minor from Vega. Brown avers that more than fourteen millenniums have passed since Vega occupied the position of the Pole Star.
Can the Rig Vedic mention of the Saptarasmi of the Sun be taken as a casual observation ? Can the allegoric mention of the Sun riding a chariot drawn by seven horses of different hues be taken likewise ? If these are deemed to be conjectures or imaginative conclusions could they not have been either Shadrasmi and eight or even ten horses ?
Whether the Pauranic churning of the Milky Ocean is in anyway suggestive of the astronomical theory of a large mass of gas which underwent a spinning motion, akin to churning, before the stars were formed in the Milky Way and whether the revolving Sudarshana disc in the forefinger of the God Almighty is suggestive of the spiral galaxy, which also is swirling, is for scholars to probe and prove.
The concept of the Brahmananda can differ from person to person. For the gourmet it can mean his state of mind, tasting the best of his palate or for a connoisseur of music, it can be the state of bliss hearing a divine musical treat. The Ananda scale enunciated in the Taittareeya Upanishad placing Brahmananda at the close can mean the numerical value of 1020 or ten followed by twenty zeroes for any mathematician.
It has been reported that experiments confirm that the human foetus responds to sounds, especially musical from the fifth month. Dr. Balamuralikrishna, the famous musician is reported to have said that his mother used to play the Veena for long hours, regularly everyday, when she was carrying him. It is reported that Dr. F. Rene Van de Carr’s Prenatal University, near Hayward, California gives simple techniques to give the unborn children, a head start on communications which can enable them to pick up speech more quickly than others. Does this remind us of the story of the unborn Abhimanyu, yet in the womb of his mother, who is said to have heard his uncle explaining the method of entering the Chakravyuha ?
A team of renowned Soviet scientists visited India in 1971 to explore whether there was any scientific basis for some of the customary practices followed in the country so far as the worship of cows was considered. The findings were :
1) Cow’s milk has more power to prevent the harmful effects of radioactivity than anything else.
2) Houses where cowdung is used for customary cleaning of the floors were found less susceptible to the effects of radioactivity.
3) The smoke generated by the use of cow’s ghee in the religious Havanas or Homas has the power to control the effects of radiation in the atmosphere.
This can only mean that some of the religious rituals were designed to maintain the ecological balance.
According to Mr. Lipvacak Bojan, a meteorologist from Yugoslavia, the farmers of his land used to fire rockets into the atmosphere to seed the potential rainclouds to bring rains4. Any smoke, not necessarily silver oxide vapour, when released into the atmosphere, can act as nuclei around which the water vapour in the air can cling to form raindrops. Have we not heard and even witnessed the downpour soon after the Vedic ritual of Athiratram is performed and the Vedic hut set ablaze ? Readers may remember this attracted a foreign team, headed by Dr. Frits Stall, Professor of Sanskrit and Philosophy, University of California to India and which monitored and filmed the entire ritual when it was last performed in Panjal and Kundur villages in Kerala during 1975 and 1990. This Holland born American citizen has much to say about the science behind this ritual and its effects on nature, human beings, animals and plants.
Does the use of camphor for performing arati in temples have any significance ? Camphor, which is a terepene group of hydrocarbons, when burned, can release some amount of electrophilic free carbon. This is more than any cracker smoke which can form a nucleus to water vapour to coalesc into raindrops. Is this not a custom-oriented science, designed to activate the rain-bearing clouds to take a chance as and when they occur ?
Dr. S. R. Saxena, of the Queen Elizabeth Children’s hospital at London, speaking at a paediatric meet in Delhi, says that the ritual of winding the sacred thread around the ear prior to defecation, observed by Brahmins has a scientific basis. According to him this manoeuvre stimulates a branch of the vagus nerves around the ear and helps movement of bowels.
For a harmonic development of any human, there should be a dynamic equilibrium between the two parts of his psyche, namely the mystic, the irrational, and the empirical or the rational. Complete rationality can be as abhorrent as complete irrationality. It will be ideal if scientific temper and mystic vision join hands in the pursuit of Truth that is eternal and everlasting. l 209.99