Category Posts
Mathomathis would like to present an article on Oceans in Hindu Mythology by author R.L.S. Sikarwar Arogyadham (J.R.D. Tata Foundation for Reseach in Ayurveda & Yoga Sciences), Deendayal Research Institute, Chitrakoot, Dist. Satna (M.P.)-485 331. Since antiquity the oceans have played a significant role in Hindu religion and its greatness has been profusely illustrated in Holy Scriptures. The ocean has several Hindi and Sanskrit names and synonyms such as Samudra, Sagara, Sindhu, Jaladhi, Neernidhi, Bannidhi, Barees, Udadhi, Payodhi, Nadees, Toynidhi, Kampati, Makaralaya, Varunalaya, Mahodadhi etc. The ten synonyms of the ocean have been given in Ramcharitmanasa. Out of 10 different incarnations (Dasavatara) of Shrihari Vishnu, three avatars such as Matsya Avatar, Kurma Avatar and Varaha Avatar are directly associated with the oceans. In Rama Avatar, the bridge was constructed as per the desire of oceans and helped Lord Rama in various ways. As when the Ravana, the king of Lanka heard the news about the construction of bridge on the ocean by Lord Rama’s army led by engineers Nal & Neel, he astonished and said- “What! Has he really bridged the waves, the billows, the sea, the ocean, the floods, the deep, the main, the brine deep, the home of springs, the Lord of rivers?” The Origin of Oceans: Lord Ram’s ancestor Sagara whose sixty thousand sons dug out the bed of the ocean that is why ocean is called Sagar , the son of Sagara. Therefore, When Lord Rama asked Vibhishana, how we should cross the vast ocean? Vibhishana suggested “for being an older in your family, ocean, My Lord, will think out and suggest a plan. The whole host of bears and monkeys will thus be able to cross the sea without an effort“. The same thing is mentioned in Valmiki Ramayana as Vibhishana suggested this immeasurable ocean was dugout by King Sagara and Lord Rama is the descendant of Sagara. Therefore, the ocean must help him. The origin of Seven Oceans and Continents: It is mentioned in Shrimad Bhagwata’s Canto-5, first chapter, the seven oceans and continents were created by the movement of chariot of the king Priyabrata, the son of Swayambhuva Manu. After Swayambhuva Manu’s son was trained in the renounced order (Priyavrata) thus became the master of the universe where he endowed with powerful arms of command together with them pulled the bowstring loudly to defeat all who opposed the dharma. Without interruption for 110 million years there was the rule of the great soul who with the daily increasing amiability, femininity, shyness, laughs, glances and exchanges of love [in his repeated births] with his wife Barhishmati enjoyed a life of pleasure, but confounded and defeated by it he lost his power of discernment. Not appreciating that the sun god, as long as he circumambulated mount Meru, lit up one side of the earth and left the other half in the dark, he who in his worship of the Fortunate One was of a supernatural power then said: ‘I’ll make the night as brilliant as the day’, and to enforce that he followed the orbit of the sun in a chariot, exactly seven times and with the same speed, like he was a second sun. Thus proceeding with the wheels of his chariot that created trenches with their rims, the seven oceans came about which divided the earth (Bhu-mandala) into the seven dvipas (the continents or islands). Known as Jambu (related to Syzygium cumini), Plaksha (related to Ficus virens), Salmali (related to Bombax ceiba), Kusa (related to Desmostchya bipinnata), Kraunca, Saka and Pushkara each of them is twice the size of the preceding ocean in the beyond of which it all around is situated. Those seven oceans consisting of salt water, sugarcane juice, liquor, clarified butter, milk, fluid yogurt and sweet water are of the same size as the islands they as the trenches (of his wheels) one after the other consecutively fully enclose. For each of the dvipas separately the husband of Barhishmati beginning with Jambudvipa, placed one of his faithful sons named Agnidhra, Idhmajihva, Yajnabahu, Hiranyareta, Ghritaprishthha, Medhatithi and Vîtihotra as their king. It is mentioned in Ramcharitmanas that the great king Pratapbhanu and Lord Rama ruled over on all seven continents. By the might of his arm he subdued all the seven continents and let their princes go on payment of tribute. Now Pratapbhanu became the undisputed monarch of the whole the world. Undisputed sovereign of the entire globe girdled by the seven seas was Raghunatha, the Lord of Koshala. This lordship (of entire globe) was nothing great for him, each of whose several hairs contained many a sphere of creation. Salinity of Oceans: There are two mythological legends associated with the salinity of oceans in Holy Scriptures. 1. It is mentioned in Ramacharitmanas Lanka Kanda, that the son of wind – Lord Hanuman said, “My Lord’s might take the fierce fire beneath the sea, had before now dried up the waters of the ocean. But then it was filled up again by the floods of tears shed by your enemies weeping wives, and that is what makes saline”. 2. It is also mentioned in Epics and Puranas that once a bird gave the birth of 3 babies on the sea shore. A large ocean wave came and washed away the baby birds. To teach the lesson to the ocean, the bird started to removing off water of ocean with her beak so as to dry it gradually. The great sage Agastya asked the purpose. The bird told the story how the cruel ocean had washed away her babies. The compassionate sage Agastya said “I will punish the merciless ocean for his mistake” and went away. One day when sage Agastya was performing his worship and muttering of prayers on sea shore, a large ocean wave washed away all his worship material. The Agastya was very angry and remembered what the bird had complained. He absorbed whole Ocean in three Anjali (the hollow formed by joining both hands). The ocean dried up. Then the […]
Mathomathis would like to present an article on Sushruta Samhita | Medical treatment of inflamed ulcers based on the book Sushruta Samhita, volume 4: Chikitsasthana by Kaviraj Kunja Lal Bhishagratna | 1911 | 123,229 words. The article was adopted from the website: https://www.wisdomlib.org/, a detailed explanation is available on the website. Shvetavalguja-Rasayana:— The fruit (seeds) of the white Avalguja should be dried in the sun and then reduced to a fine powder. This powder should be stirred with (an adequate quantity of) treacle and placed in an earthen pitcher which previously contained clarified butter (Sneha-kumbha). The pitcher should then be kept buried in a heap of paddy for seven days after which it should be taken out and its contents given in convenient doses every morning before sunrise to a person, seeking improvement of memory and longevity, after his system has been thoroughly cleansed (with proper emetics and purgatives, etc.). Hot water should then be drunk. After taking the medicine, the patient should enter his room in accordance with the rules laid down in connection with the Bhallataka-Vidhana. After the digestion of the medicine, the patient should be advised to take a cold bith and to partake in the evening of a meal of well-cooked Shali or Shashtika rice with (boiled) milk sweetened with sugar. This medicine continuously taken in this manner for six months would make the life of its user sinless, and extend it in the full glow of health and vigour and in the sound enjoyment of a vigorous memory and of all his intellectual faculties to a hundred green summers. In cases of Kushtha, jaundice and abdominal dropsy (Udara), the medicine should be prepared by stirring (the powdered seeds of) the Krishna (black Avalguja) with the urine of a cow (instead of with treacle) and given to the patient in doses of half a Pala weight every morning after the sun has ceased to look red. In the afternoon the patient should be made to partake of a meal of boiled rice with clarified butter and unsalted Amalaka soup. A continuous use of this medicine in the aforesaid manner for a month would improve the memory and intellectual faculties of the user, and enable him to witness a hundred summers on earth in the full enjoyment of sound health. Citraka roots and Rajani (turmeric) may be used in the same manner and for similar purposes with this distinction that the dose of the Citraka -root preparation should be two Pala measures (instead of half a Pala as laid down in regard to the foregoing compounds). The rest are identical with the above. Manduka-parni Rasayana:— The Doshas of the system of a person should be first thoroughly cleansed (with the help of proper emetics and purgatives, etc.), and he should be advised to undergo the prescribed diet of (Peya, Yavagu, etc, in their proper order) He should be further advised to enter his chamber in the prescribed manner (and to remain there during the entire course of the treatment). An adequate dose of the expressed juice of the Manduka-parni should then be stirred with milk, and should be taken after consecrating it by reciting the proper Mantras a thousand times. A potion of milk may then be taken immediately after. After it had been fully digested a meal of cooked barley grains with milk should then be partaken of; or (the expressed juice of Manduka-parni) with an admixture of sesamum seeds followed by a potion of milk. A meal of boiled rice with milk and clarified butter should then be taken after the digestion of the medicine and should be continued for three months in succession. This would ensure a long life of a hundred years in the full vigour of retentive memory and intellectual faculties, and would impart a god-like effulgence to the complexion. As an alternative, the patient should fast three days and take only the expressed juice of Manduka-parni for these three days. After this period he should live on milk and clarified butter only, or he should be made to take a Vilva measure (of the paste of Manduka-parni) stirred with milk for ten consecutive days which would ensure a life of a hundred years in the full enjoyment of his intellectual faculties. Brahmi Rasayana:— Having had the Doshas of the system duly cleansed (with proper emetics and purgatives, etc.), a person (wishing to undergo a treatment of Rasayana) should be advised to take the prescribed diet of (Peya, Yavagu, etc., in their proper order), and should be made to enter his room (Agara). He should then take the expressed juice of the Brahmi in an adequate dose after consecrating the juice a thousand times with the proper Mantras. After the medicine had been fully digested he should be advised to take in the evening Yavagu (gruel) without any salt; or with boiled milk in the event of his being habituated to its use. A continuous use of the medicine for a week improves the memory, leads to the expansion of the intellectual faculties and imparts a celestical glow to the complexion. In the second week of its course it revives old and forgotten memories in the user and adds to his proficiency in the writing out of any book to be written. In the third week it enables a man to reproduce from memory as many as one hundred words if twice heard or read (at a single sitting). In the same manner a (further) use of the drug for twenty-one days removes all inauspicious features whether of the body or of the mind, the goddess of learning appears in an embodied form to the (mind of the) user, and all kinds of knowledge come rushing into his memory. A single hearing is enough to make him reproduce (verbatim from memory a discourse however lengthy), and he is enabled to live for five hundred years. Brahmi Ghrita:— Two Prastha measures of the expressed juice of tho Brahmi and one Prastha measure […]
Mathomathis would like to present an article on Cosmo Graphical Mapping by JOSEPH E. SCHWARTZBERG. The following article would start a conversation on a topic called as: INDO – ISLAMIC COSMOGRAPHY. The following article presents a number of ways Muslims have attempted to portray the cosmos The Islamic penetration of India commenced with the Arab conquest of Sind in A.D. 711-12. Thereafter, for more than a millennium, numerous Muslim dynasties ruled over large parts of the subcontinent. In most areas, however, Muslims formed a relatively small part of the total population. Given the duration of the Muslim presence and the strength of the indigenous culture, some conjoining of religious traditions was inevitable, and with it came the diffusion of cosmological concepts. Since author have not explored in depth the dissemination of cosmological ideas within and among the several faiths of India, the discussion of Indo-Islamic cosmography that follows is intended to do no more than mention a number of themes that, in author’s view, warrant further research. As far as author is aware, the earliest important instance of an Indian ruler’s adopting indigenous Indian artifacts as cosmological symbols dates from the reign of the powerful and ostensibly zealously anti-Hindu Tughluq monarch Flruz Shah. In the year 1360 he went to immense pains to dismantle and transport to his fort in Delhi three colossal monolithic pillars of the great Mauryan emperor Asoka. Although all three pillars were reerected there, only one, known as the Topra pillar, still stands at that site. All three appear to have been placed by Firuz. Two centuries after Flriiz, the mighty Mughal emperor Akbar (r. 1556-1605) also attempted, unsuccessfully, to transport to his intended but never-completed capital, Fathpur Sikri, another of the giant columns of Asoka. Akbar’s wide-ranging religious interests, his heretical religious practices, including sun worship, and in the years following 1575 his attempt to establish a new eclectic religious movement (later to be called the Din-i-llahi [Divine Faith]), which he hoped would unite all Indians, are well documented. “But far less is known,” observes Irwin, “about his interest in pillar worship and, in particular, his interest in cosmogonic myth, of which his socalled ‘sun-worship’ should be seen as a secondary aspect.” Another pillar that particularly fascinated Akbar was the pre-Asokan “bull pillar” at the sacred site of Allahabad (ancient Prayaga), at the confluence of the Ganga, Yamuna, and mythical Sarasvati rivers, which has been interpreted as the” ‘Place of Creation’… the mystical spot at which Heaven and Earth were initially separated…. [hence] the Navel of the Earth … [and] Center of the Universe.” Although Akbar did not attempt to transport this pillar to his capital, he did construct in the Diwan-i-Khass, the hall of audience at Fathpur Sikri, the central throne pillar that epitomizes in spirit the symbolic role of the axis mundi. In this, in the design of his thrones, and in other respects, Akbar sought to project himself as occupying the mystic center of the universe. Not surprisingly, therefore, one reads on the gateway to the gardens where his tomb was built the words: “These are the gardens of Eden, enter them to live for ever.” Gardens were often seen metaphorically in the Muslim world as a re-creation of Eden, widely regarded as the seventh and highest level of the Muslim paradise, or, more generally, of paradise as a whole. But for Akbar’s grandson Shah Jahan, gardens were arguably more than a mere metaphor. In an abundantly and meticulously documented article, Begley seeks to demonstrate that the monarch, in his overweening pride, saw himself as God’s agent on earth and the symbolic center of the world, and that he regarded the gardens he had built, especially that of his most sublime architectural monument the Taj Mahal, literally as re-creations-along with the Taj itself-of paradise. Each sector of the garden, he argues, each waterway and fountain, each gate, each basic component of the mausoleum and of the related buildings has its precise analogue in the textual representations of paradise and of the throne of God that form an important part of the Islamic religious tradition; and the calligraphy of the Taj complex, setting forth apposite suras of the Koran, reinforces that message.139 The cosmographic symbolism of the Islamic garden-and incidentally of the “garden rugs” into which the plans of gardens are woven-has been the focus of considerable literature, much of which Begley cites. In one particularly relevant essay, Schimmel observes that In his study of the Taj, Begley notes the existence of various Islamic graphic representations of the heavenly regions that support the correspondences he has pointed out. Although most of the plans are of Middle Eastern provenance, Begley reproduces one depiction of paradise from an early eighteenth-century Indian manuscript, at present in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. How many other such works may once have existed in India cannot be determined; but we know that Jahangir, the father of Shah Jahan, possessed a copy of an important manuscript containing a diagram of the Plain of Assembly, in which Begley sees a close “iconographic parallel to the Taj’s allegorical conception.” In the discussion of world maps in the chapter on South Asian geographical mapping below, author call attention to a substantial number of paintings in which Shah Jahan is portrayed either standing upon or holding a globe. In itself this would have no more cosmographic significance than do comparable paintings of Queen Elizabeth. But it is in order to point out here, as does Begley, that this exalted representation of the Mughal emperor was entirely in keeping with Shah Jahan’s inflated self-perception as the “vice-regent of God on earth” and, to employ the epithets of certain Sufi cosmological doctrines, “the embodiment of the Divine Pen,” the ” ‘Shadow’ of God’s essence,” the “Perfect Man.” Thus, as for Akbar, a part of his cosmological preoccupation was with the throne, the analogue of the Koranic Divine Throne, and it is not surprising that his no longer extant Peacock Throne in the Red Fort palace in Delhi […]
In the following article, team mathomathis would showcase an information about Hopi Vedic Parallels by Prash Trivedi and understand the message of the author in the following article. Though a number of indigenous people and tribes exist all across the globe, it can be safely said that none of them have as deep an insight into the condition of Mother Earth and the wisdom to deal with it as our Hopi brothers. They are the chosen ones of the Creator as they were granted permission to hold in trust all land and life for the great Spirit at the time of emergence of the Fourth world, of the Hopis or the present age. This conclusion about the Hopi people has not been reached in haste. It has been borne out of the wisdom of ancient Indian philosophy which transcends even the starting of time and boundaries of our present Universe. According to the ancient Indian scriptures the creator “Param Brahma or Adi Purusha” created the Universe through his creative power “Adi Shakti” in a plan which comprised of three axes and several vibratory centers along these axes. Everything in the visible Universe from the smallest to biggest is made on the basis of this plan. These seven centers also exist inside the body of man as man is made in the image of the creator. The central axis in man lies along his backbone. The primordial power “Kundalini Shakti” lies in the acrum bone at the base of the spine. The awakening of this power and its journey through the seven centers is the first step in the process of self realization. Through this realization comes the wisdom to exist in harmony with Mother Nature and the capacity to realize the action-less, omnipresent, and eternal Creator. These vibratory centers also exist in the Mother earth. The Hopis also have a similar perception of the creation of the universe by the Ultimate Creator “Taiowa”. There is an idea of Mother Nature as a Spiderwoman who is responsible for the creation of these vibratory centers which echo the sound of the creator. The Hopi wisdom is also aware of the central axis and man’s axis being the backbone which controls the equilibrium of his movements and functions. The Hopi legend also talks about “Palatkwapi” or the Red House located somewhere in Central America having four stories and on the top storey there is learning of planets and stars. In this story man also learnt about the “Open Door” in the top of their heads, how to keep it open and converse with the Creator. This “Open Door” of Hopi mythology is the same as the seventh center on the central axis, and is called “Sahasrara” – the thousand petaled lotus in the Hindu scriptures. When the primordial power or the “Kundalini” is able to pass through the last center one can commune with the Creator. With time, detailed knowledge about these centers were lost among the Hopi people, but it can still be found in the holy land of India. India has time and again seen the incarnations of the Great Spirit, who have kept alive this knowledge throughout the ages. Knowledge of the ancient Indian scriptures strongly indicates that the area known as the “Four Corners”, where the Hopis have settled is an important vibratory center which will cause the emergence of the new age which is known as the Fifth World by the Hopi people. Let’s consider some facts: The Hopi believe the Creator of Man is a woman. The Sumerians believed the Creator of Man was a woman. Vedic tradition and most of the other ancient civilization believe in the feminine aspect of the creator. Vedic tradition calls her as Prakriti (Mother Nature) or Shakti (creative force responsible for weaving the web of life). Interestingly, the Hopi regard her as Spiderwoman, i.e. the one who has woven the web of life. This was the predominant thinking of most of the civilizations during the Age of Cancer, the mother sign, which lasted from around 8000B.C to 6000B.C. The Hopi believe the Father Creator is KA. The Sumerians believed the Father Essence was KA. The Vedic tradition also believes that the root of the father essence is ‘KA’ which is the first alphabet of Sanskrit, the primary language of the Vedic tradition. The Hopi believe Taiowa, the Sun God, is the Creator of the Earth. The Sumerians believe TA.EA was the Creator. The Vedic tradition also believes that the earth was born out of the Sun and has been nourished by it ever since. The Sun is seen and worshiped as the material representation of the one true God, the eternal creator provider and destroyer, in both the cultures. The Hopi believe two brothers had guardianship of the Earth. The Sumerians believed two brothers had dominion over the Earth. Almost all the cultures including the Egyptians, Mayans, Assyrians, Phoenicians, and the Jews have this concept of twin gods or brothers presiding over the affairs of the earth. This concept arises from the dual nature of the world we live in symbolized by Gemini, the sign of the twins, and worship of these twin gods was at its peak in the Age of Gemini ranging from around 4000 B.C to 2000 B.C. The Hopi believe Akush to be the Dawn Katsina. The Sumerians believed AK.U to be Beings of light. The Sanskrit word for sky, most preferably for the dawntime which is considered the most sacred time, is ‘Akash’. The Hopi name for the Pleaides is ChooChookam. The Sumerians believed SHU. SHU.KHEM were the supreme stars. Though Pleiades are significant to the Hopi people ethereal significance is given to the Great Bear or the Seven Sisters constellation. Hopi believe that they came to earth from one of the stars in the Great Bear in a big spaceship and the Vedic scriptures have detailed mythology regarding this constellation and the beings that reside there. The Hopi believe Pahana was the Lost Brother […]
Year 1985 – The AI Magazine – Equivalence Mathomathis would like to present an article on: Sanskrit and Artificial Intelligence by Rick Brigs | RIACS, NASA Ames Research Centeu, Moffet Field, California 94305. The following article is a continuation from the previous article: Sanskrit and Artificial Intelligence | 101 A comparison of the theories discussed in the previous article with the Indian theories of sentence analysis in the second section shows at once a few striking similarities. Both theories take extreme care to define minute details with which a language describes the relations between events in the natural world. In both instances, the analysis itself is a map of the relations between events in the universe described. In the case of the computer-oriented analysis, this mapping is a necessary prerequisite for making the speaker’s natural language digestible for the artificial processor; in the case of Sanskrit, the motivation is more elusive and probably has to do with an age-old Indo-Aryan preoccupation to discover the nature of the reality behind the the impressions we human beings receive through the operation of our sense organs. Be it as it may, it is a matter of surprise to discover that the outcome of both trends of thinking-so removed in time, space, and culture-have arrived at a representation of linguistic events that is not only theoretically equivalent but close in form as well. The one superficial difference is that the Indian tradition was on the whole, unfamiliar with the facility of diagrammatic representation, and attempted instead to formulate all abstract notions in grammatical sentences. In the following paragraphs a number of the parallelisms of the two analyses will be pointed out to illustrate the equivalence of the two systems. Consider the sentence: “John is going.” The Sanskrit paraphrase would be “An Act of going is taking place in which the Agent is ‘John’ specified by singularity and masculinity.” If we now turn to the analysis in semantic nets, the event portrayed by a set of triples is the following: 1. “going events, instance, go (this specific going event)” 2. “go, agent, John” 3. “go, time, present.” The first equivalence to be observed is that the basic framework for inference is the same. John must be a semantic primitive, or it must have a dictionary entry, or it must be further represented (i.e. “John, number, 1” etc.) if further processing requires more detail (e.g. “HOW many people are going?“). Similarly, in the Indian analysis, the detail required in one case is not necessarily required in another case, although it can bc produced on demand (ifneeded). The point to be made is that in both systems, an extensive degree of specification is crucial in understanding the real meaning of the sentence to the extent that it will allow inferences to be made about the facts not explicitly stated in the sentence The basic crux of the equivalence can be illustrated by a careful look at sentence “Out of friendship, Maitra cooks rice for Devadatta in a pot over a fire ” The semantic net is supplied in Figure 5 (below). The triples corresponding to the net are: cause, event, friendship friendship, objectl, Devadatta friendship, object2, Maitra cause, result cook cook, agent, Maitra cook, recipient, Devadatta cook, instrument, fire cook, object, rice cook, on-lot, pot. The sentence in the Indian analysis is rendered as follows: The Agent is represented by Maitra, the Object by “rice,” the Instrument by “fire,” the Recipient by “Devadatta,” the Point of Departure (or cause) by “friendship” (between Maitra and Devadatta), the Locality by “pot.” Since all of these syntactic structures represent actions auxiliary to the action “cook,” let us write cook” next to each karaka and its sentence representation: cook, agent, Maitra cook, object, rice cook, instrument, fire cook, recipient, Devadatta cook, because-of, friendship friendship, Maitra, Devadatta cook, locality, pot. The comparison of the analyses shows that the Sanskrit sentence when rendered into triples matches the analysis arrived at through the application of computer processing. That is surprising, because the form of the Sanskrit sentence is radically different from that of the English. For comparison, the Sanskrit sentence is given here: Maitrah: sauhardyat Devadattaya odanam ghate agnina pacati. Here the stem forms of the nouns are: Maitra-sauhardya-“friendship,” Devadatta -, odana- “gruel,” ghatu- “pot,” agni- “fire” and the verb stem is paca- “cook”. The deviations of the stem forms occurring at the end of each word represent the change dictated by the word’s semantic and syntactic position. It should also be noted that the Indian analysis calls for the specification of even a greater amount of grammatical and semantic detail: Maitra, Devadatta, the pot, and fire would all be said to be qualified by “singularity” and “masculinity” and the act of cooking can optionally be expanded into a number of successive perceivable activities. Also note that the phrase “over a fire” on the face of it sounds like a locative of the same form as “in a pot.” However, the context indicates that the prepositional phrase describes the instrument through which the heating of the rice takes place and, therefore, is best regarded as an instrument semantically. Of course, many versions of semantic nets have been proposed, some of which match the Indian system better than others do in terms of specific concepts and structure. The important point is that the same ideas are present in both traditions and that in the case of many proposed semantic net systems it is the Indian analysis which is more specific. A third important similarity between the two treatments of the sentence is its focal point which in both cases is the verb. The Sanskrit here is more specific by rendering the activity as a “going-event”, rather than “going.” This procedure introduces a new necessary level of abstraction, for in order to keep the analysis properly structured, the focal point ought to be phrased: “there is an event taking place which is one of cooking,” rather than “there is cooking taking place”, in order for the […]