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The desire to know is the desire to experience, to realize, to become, or to create, as explained in the first part of “Aitareya Upanishad”. In Bible, the first episode of Adam in tasting the forbidden fruit is an offence attributable to the outburst of the creative force. The divine command was conservation of force, which was condition of being. Ingrained into the fancy for the forbidden, lies the assumed awareness of an ideal, and the impairment of the ideal is actual impulse of the dynamicity concentrated in reality. The awareness of the ideal and the aberration for the breach of it, are the two opposites only of a single structural whole, which is real. The real polarizes itself into the ideal and the actual is quaking motion of it. The actual is a strivance for reversal of the ideal of breach thereof. The breach sustains the actual but sanctifies the ideal. If is the possibility of the breach that sustains the ideal and keeps the actual sustainable. The process of breach implicates both the ideal and the actual. There is a breach because of the ideal. The force or the “shakti” breaks its bounds, and it is through the breach that the force becomes intelligible. The breach is basically a device for vindication of the ideal. The breach is real, because it synthesizes, in a dialectical sense, both the ideal and the actual. Each phase of becoming is revelation of the creative force of being and the scheme of becoming synthesizes the ideal and the actual and points the way in which the force is put to test or becomes tested. The force of “shakti” is inherent limitation of the indefinite. It is with accessories of limitations that the infinite reveals itself and becomes finite. In its revelation alone the infinite is apprehended. The limitations are aids to revelation. The limitation is standardized modality of the finite, since the force persists in the revelation of the infinite through finite means. It is in this revelation that the infinite chooses to put its vitality to test. The entire process is an experiment and the creative force is the tested reality, nay the continual testing of hat which is ultimately real. The genesis in the bible, is testimony of the elan of creative energy. It is elan vital in Bergson’s terminology. The fall of Adam is rhetoric revolt against dormancy of the creative force. The divine command depicts the poised rectitude of force. The divine is slumbering state of force which transcends the creative process. The fall of Adam furnishes the restive passion for creation. The fruit which is forbidden is humanity prior to procreation. The deep slumbering pose of the infinite is averse to creation. The divine command is the first awareness instilled in the being as readiness for creation. The divine command was Adam’s anthropomorphy of the infinite withholding its creative power. It was a stage of forbearance, a stage where procreation had to be forsaken. It was a pint of transition in the creative force for its transformation into tire procreative power. The fall of Adam is rhapsodic imagery of a discourse between the creator and the creature. The imbroglio of force was premeditated. The creator was aware of the forbidden, and the creature was made aware of that which was forbidden. The difference is not without meaning. The awareness of God was creative energy, that of Adam was procreative power. God is name for creative agency in nature. Adam is creature or product of nature. The character of God or Adam may be legends, and the episode may be phantasy, but the moral is correct to bear evidence that the reality in its mystery of creation carries the burden of some primaeval force. The procreative pleasure of the creature is accountable to a later formality of the operation of this force. It is this force which throughout persists prior to, or even after, the fleeting flux of the world. It is “Lebnitz” knew this by the name of “conatus” the same what Hindus know by the name of “shakti”. The desire to know as well as the knowledge derived, both refer to this force. The Knowledge Gained The desire to know, in the creature, as instanced by the character of Adam starts from the first-hand information of the forbidden, and the forbidden, in relation to the desire to know, is mere admission of the unknown. The unknown is one which eludes perception. Knowledge is the facultative art of breaking through the barriers of perception and thereby apprehending the casual nucleus of that which is perceived. Infonnation leads to intelligence, intelligence to understanding, understanding leads to learning, learning to wisdom and wisdom to knowledge; and all this, from first to the last, is a gap filed by a process of transfusion of precepts into concepts. The percept of the tree can never become knowledge of the tree without the corresponding concept of seed. The seed is cause of the tree but in knowing the seed as cause of the tree, the knower knows of the latent force in which the tree potentially exists; and what is true of the origin of tree is true of the origin of the entire universe ‘which at one stage lay dormant in a reservoir of force omnipotent. The conatus of Leibnitz, the elan vital of Bergson, the shakti of the Hindus, the forbidden fruit of the genesis, the prakrati of the samkhya, or the Maya of Vedanta, stand all as synonyms of this potential force. Knowledge, leaping back from one posterior phenomenon of force to its prior, that is, from one perceptual event to its antecedent casual potentiality, stabilizes itself in the comprehension of the first cause, which implicates in itself the vision of the law. d Vision of Law the knowledge of this potential force is knowledge of the first cause. Law is but the ingrained tendency of this force. The law of the tree is ingrained in the force […]
Mathomathis would like to present the article on the Vaimanika Shastras – Vimana Shastras by Maharshi Bharadwaaja Propounded by Venerable SUBBARAYA SHASTRY Translated into English and Edited, Printed and Published by G.R. JOSYER SCHOLAR, HISTORIAN, ESSAYIST, SANSKRITIST Printed at CORONATION PRESS, MYSORE-4, INDIA. The following article would be presented on Types of Vimanas, i.e. different type of flying vehicles or aircrafts or aeroplanes depicted in the Vimana Shastra’s Maharshi Bharadwaaja Sutra 1: Jaati tryvidhyam Yugabhedaad Vimaanaanaam | “Three types according to changing Yugas.” Bodhaananda Vritti: The sootra indicates that there are different types of planes, and that they are of 3 types. In the Krita Yuga, Dharma or Righteousness was four-footed, that is, it was four-square, fully established, all paramount, and it was adhered to implicitly by men. The men were inherently noble-born and were possessed of remarkable powers. Without needing to go through yogic discipline to attain special powers, or practice mantras which secured extraordinary results, the men of that yuga, merely by their devotion to dharma, became Siddhapurushaas or gifted with superhuman powers. They were virtuous men and men of learning and wisdom. Going in the sky with the speed of wind by their own volition was natural to them. The eight super-sensory, and now superhuman, attainments, known as animaa, mahimaa, garimaa, laghimaa, praaptih, praakaamya, eeshatwa, and vashitwa, were all possessed by them; That is: Animaa is assumption of infinitesimal shape; Mahimaa is growing into gigantic shape; Garimaa is becoming astonishingly heavy; Laghimaa is becoming weightless; Praaptih is securing any desired thing; Praakaamyam is becoming rid of desires; Eeshatwa is attaining paramountcy; and Vashitwa is becoming extremely pliant. The age of Krita yuga = 1.728.000 years, Threthaa yuga–1.296.000 years, Dwaapara yuga–864.000 years and Kaliyuga–432.000 years. Therefore in Krita Yuga, or first epoch, the ancients say, there were none of the three classes of Vimaanas. Krita Yuga passed; and Tretaa Yuga commenced. In Tretaa Yuga: Dharma then became limp of one foot. It served with 3 feet only, and grew gradually less efficient. So men’s minds became dense, and the conception of Vedic truths, and anima and other super-sensory powers, became scarcer. Therefore, by the corrosion of Dharma or righteousness, men lost the power of flying in the sky with the speed of wind. Perceiving this, God Mahadeva, desiring to confer the power of understanding the Vedas properly on the Dwijas, or brahmins, kshatriyas, and vysyas, graciously descended on earth in the form of Dakshinaamurthy, and through the instrumentality of Sanaka and other anointed sages, classified the Veda mantras, and then bestowing his benedictory glance on the worshiping Munis or ascetics, he blessed them with the gift of Vedic perception. And then to ensure that they were properly receptive, he embraced them and entered their hearts and illuminated their memories. The munis, overwhelmed by the Divine grace, aglow with horripilation, with voice choked with emotion, praised the Supreme with shata-rudreeya and other hymns, and manifested profound devotion. Pleased with their receptiveness, divine Dakshinaamurthy, favoring them with a benign glance, and with smile on his face, said to them, “Till now you have been known as “Munis” or ascetics. Henceforth, having by my grace attained insight into the Vedas, you shall be known as “Rishis” or seers. You will cultivate the Vedic mantras, and practicing celibacy, you will adore the divine Goddess of the Vedas, and winning her favor, and approaching the Great God Easwara by Yogic Samadhi, ascertain His mind, and by His and my grace, rising to the pinnacle of intellectual vision, become adepts in the meaning and purport of the Vedas; and confirming by them your own experiences and meditative introspection, you will create the Dharmashaastras or moral codes, Puranas and Itihaasas, and physical and material sciences, in conformity to the truths of the Vedas, for the benefit of mankind. And for travelling in the sky, propagate the art of manufacturing Vimaanas, and for attaining wind-speed, evolve Ghutica and Paadukaa methods through Kalpashaastras or scientific treatises.” Then those munis or seers, enshrining in their hearts God Mahadeva in the form of Dakshinaamurthy, produced the Dharmashaastras or ethical codes, epics, chronicles, manuals on rituals, treatises on the arts and sciences, ritualistic and sacrificial codes, in conformity to the Vedas, and propagated them among men. Amongst them it is said that there are six treatises bearing on the manufacture of Vimaanas produced by the ancient seers. In them are described three classes of vimaanas, known as maantrikaas, taantrikaas, and kritakaas, capable of flying everywhere. It is said in Vimaana Chandrika, “I shall indicate the different kinds of vimaanas. In Tretaa yuga as men were adepts in mantras or potent hymns, the vimaanas used to be produced by means of maantric knowledge. In Dwaapara yuga as men had developed considerable tantric knowledge, vimaanas were manufactured by means of tantric knowledge. As, both mantra and tantra are deficient in Kaliyuga, the vimaanas are known as kritaka or artificial. Thus, owing to changes in dharma during the yugas, the ancient seers have classified the vimaanas of the 3 yugas as of 3 different types.” Vyomayaana Tantra” also says: “By the influence of mantras in Tretaa, vimaanas are of maantrika type. Owing to the prevalence of tantras in Dwaapara, the vimaanas are of taantrika type. Owing to decadence of both mantra and tantra in Kaliyuga, the vimaanas are of artificial type.” Thus 3 classes of vimaanas are mentioned in shaastras by ancient seers. In “Yantra Kalpa” also: “Vimaanas are classified into mantra and other varieties by experts according to differences in yugas. They are defined as maantrika, taantrika, and kritaka.” The same is expressed in “Kheta yaana pradeepika,” and also “Vyoma Yaana Arkaprakaashikaa.” Thus according to shaastras vimaanas are divided into 3 classes, on the basis of differences in the modes of their manufacture. Maharshi Bharadwaaja Sutra 2: “Pancha-vimshan Maantrikaaha Pushpakaadi Prabhedena” | “Maantrika Vimaanas are of Pushpaka and other 25 Varieties.” Bodhaananda Vritti: In the previous Sutra vimaanas were specified as of 3 types owing to differences in the 3 yugas. […]
Mathomathis would like to present an article on Indic Cosmology and Time Keepers by Kosla Vepa – Indic Studies Foundation. The articles would be broken down into various sections. The following article would represent the basics of the Indic Cosmology and its background, followed by explanation of times and its divisions in subsequent articles In order to understand the Indic approach to history, one must understand the cosmology and the calendar of the Hindu. The calendar and the cosmos have always played a large part in the consciousness or weltanschuung of the Hindu and he spent a large portion of his observational powers in deciphering the universe around him. In this he was not alone, as we know now that other ancient civilizations, such as the Babylonian, the Egyptian and the Chinese had similar interests and a curiosity about the heavens. But the answers the Indic came up with were quite prescient for his time and the resulting numbers were far more accurate than the European world realized or knew, even millennia after the Indic discovered these periodicities. The extraordinary allergy that the Occidentals, with a few notable exceptions, have exhibited to the study of the Indic mathematical tradition, and when they have done so, the vehemence with which they have denied the autochthonous origin of the Indic intellectual traditions, is astonishing to say the least. The consistency with which the Occidental denied the Indic contributions is exemplified in the writings of various Indologists such as Whitney, Bentley Moriz Winternitz Albrecht Weber, W W Rouse Ball, G R Kaye, Thibaut and continues on till today in the works of David Pingree . As we have emphasized, there were exceptions such as Brennand, Playfair, Colebrooke, and Bailly. TH RELUCTANCE OF INDOLOGISTS IN THE OCCIDENT TO ACKNOWLEDGE THE VEDIC EPISTEME:- The resulting illiteracy on the part of the western scholar on matters pertaining to India was lethal to the understanding of their own history and leaves Occidental historians, the task of explaining why there was no progress in Europe between the time of the Greek contribution to the mathematical sciences and the flowering of the renaissance resulting in the Keplerian paradigm shift, a period exceeding 1600 years. We are compelled to remark that the sudden explosion of knowledge that took place during the renaissance, occurred shortly after the Jesuits sent 70 scholars to Malabar in the 1500’s . When it came to reconciling himself with the obvious depth of knowledge of the ancient indic ,the occidental had no hesitation in coming to the conclusion that the Indic had borrowed everything form Greece. But he is more than reluctant to accept that a massive transfer of knowledge took place from India to Europe, even though the evidence is far more compelling The conventional wisdom in the West was that the Jesuits were sent to convert the Indics to the Christian faith and as a byproduct teach them the finer points of the occidental civilization. In reality it turns out, they were sent to learn a whole host of topics such as navigation, mathematical techniques including trigonometry, and the Indian approach to calendrical astronomy. In short the Jesuits embarked on a systematic study of the Indic episteme, since it was obvious that the Indics had made considerable advances, which the Jesuits were quick to realize were far advance of their own that. We are in the process of chronicling the study of those individuals who in turn studied India or studied subjects in which the Indics had great proficiency, beginning with ancient Babylon to the British, to understand the role that India and the Indic episteme played in the renaissance of Europe. While there is nothing here that can be considered to be morally reprehensible, one wonders why there was the extreme reluctance to admit that they learned from others too. In this one has to concede that the scholar during the heyday of Islam observed a higher degree of ethics than his brethren in the Occident, because he never exhibited the slightest hesitation in attributing to the Indic the episteme that he had learned from him. Author view’s the study of history and philosophy of science as central to the understanding of any civilization and its ethos. And hence we make no apology for the emphasis on science, and especially on Astronomy in our study of history. The Ancient Vedics seemed to have an obsession for precision as well as a fascination for large numbers. They also subscribed to the notion that the planet earth and the solar system were of immense antiquity without a beginning, in contrast to the creationist theories propounded by many in the west till recently. A combination such as this makes an excellent prerequisite for time keeping and for devising a useful and practical calendar. So, they turned to the sky and began to decipher the meaning behind the various cycles and periodicities that they observed, in order to help them plan their activities, such as the planting of their crops Let us see how they went about developing a calendar that would convey a lot of information merely by knowing the day of the month, after constant observation of the sky both during the day and the night over centuries. The result was a highly efficient and accurate calendar. The added bonus of such a system is the usefulness of the recordings of ancient astronomy to decipher the age at which various events took place, and the development of methods now known collectively as Archaeo-astronomy. The basic information they used for purposes of time keeping were the motions of the sun and the moon relative to the earth. So far nothing unusual, as did all the other ancients. The cycles they used including the day, the week, the fortnight and the month are shown in Table 1. 60 ghatikas (or 30 muhurtas or 8 praharas) in a 24-hour period (ahoratra) 15 tithi in a paksha or a fortnight, 15th is Poornima or amavasya The Lunar Month […]
Metaphysics is branch of philosophy that concerns with ultimate reality sustaining the apparent world of flux in which life and matter have become cosharers in the space-time continum. Mind is consciousness of life and matter, availing both in the terrestrial process. The space-time continum rolls on these two actualities of life and matter. HENRY BERGSON, in his “Creative Evolution”, accepts this dualism of life and matter. In BERGSON’s philosophy, the world “is divided into two disparate portions, on the one hand life; on the other hand, that inert something which the intellect views as matter. The whole universe is the clash and conflict of two opposite motions; life which climbs upward, and matter, which falls downward. Life is one great force, one vast vital impulse, given once for all from the beginning of the world, meeting the resistance of matter, straggling to break a way through matter, learning gradually to use matter by means of organization; divided by the obstacles, it encounters into diverging currents, like the wind at a street comer; partly subdued by matter through the very adaptations which matter forces upon it; retaining always its capacity for free activity, straggling always to find new outlets, seeking always for grater liberty of movement a mid the opposing walls of matter. The question is two-fold one : one, the process how and second, the principle why life should seek to break through the matter. The chemical evolution has taken water to be the primal matter which the life, at its inception, has broken through. The chemical evolution conceives life as a singular, continuous, uniform phenomenon, though compounds of creation have shared it on gradually ascending orders, having made provision for due completion among the preceding orders. The difference in biological or psychological levels among classes of created beings, is an upgrading of life on planes one higher than the other. Each power order is an incentive for onward progression which marks that there has been continuous stream of life in an uprising course. The natural selection or the survival of the fittest bespeaks of the progression of the simple compounds of the elements of nature into the creation of organic compounds. The data collected by the chemical evolution theory is a recorder of the strides taken by life for its emancipation from the initial appetitive stage for an elevation to the meditative stage. The origin of life, in the chemical evolution theory, has been traced to the alchemy of lighter compounds, diffused freely in nature, in the substantive forms of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen, combining with each other and resulting into the formation of the basal compounds of water, ammonia and methane. The trans-combination of these simple compounds went into the formation of more sophisticated compounds like glucose, glycerine and the fatty acids, and the process continued until the creation of virus considered to be the first representative of embodied life. Composed only- of nuclic acid, the virus reacted upon another compound of protein and a combination of the two brought about the origin of the nucleo-protein endowed with the faculty of reproduction. The first step towards evolution of animate existence was the origin of appetitive life, possessing nothing more than the mere appetite of reproduction. The fermentation of life came to soon discover that this very crude appetence could not be sustained without being energized from another material source. The primal life assessed in the chrysalis of a single cell, therefore, aspired to come into contact with a source of energy. The Sun has been the single source of energy in the universe. The cellular life came in communion with the Sun. The Sun is the nucleus of the universe, and since a communion could be possible only from nucleus to nucleus, the cellular life, so far not endowed with a nucleus, had to emerge one for generation into it of a substance known as the chlorophyll, meant as an absorbent of solar energy by use of which the appetitive life evolves into the vegetative life. The Sun as a centre of the universe, became also the sustainer of life. The vedic term “Vishnu” understood as the sustainer of all life on earth, is a synonym of the solar energy. This proves the sustenance of life as a singular, continuous, uniform phenomenon making it possible for the components of creation to share life on unlike but gradually ascending orders. In the ascending order of creation, the vegetative life evolved into the animal or the instinctive life which culminated finally into the meditative life, fee life of fee homo-sapien. The advent of the horao-sapien is the apex evaluation of life. It is the homosapien which values life most, and the homo-sapien differs from the lower order only in terms of his power of meditation. The emergence of the meditative life is end of alchemy of evolution. Having created in life the requisite consciousness for higher phases of human existence, the biological evolution has culminated its purpose, leaving the species as they are, without resurrection of those which have become extinct in the struggle for existence and without elevation of all total lower species into homo-sapiens. Such arrival of the meditative life, the biological evolution has come to a stand-still and tire evolutionary process has thereafter rested with reproduction of life on the biological level. Evolution advances, thenceforth, in the meditative life of the homo-sapien. Meditation is an order of thought towards progression. The evolution of meditative life aspires for attainment of values to human life. The meditative evolution is a process of regeneration of values. The “upanishad” has summarized this evolutionary process of life in a terse statement that earth is the sap or essence of the elemental forces of nature, that water is the sap of earth; that the sap of human is vegetation; that sap of vegetation is human life; that sap of human life is mediation, which is “vak” or the reflective sense of speech; that the sap of reflective speech is “rik” or […]
In the following article, Mathomathis would like to present the technical aspects of the Gotra system followed in the vedic tradition. In Vedanta dharma, the term gotra means clan. It broadly refers to people who are descendants in an unbroken male line from a common male ancestor. However, all families having same gotra need not be cousins. They can be descendants of sons or disciples or even adopted sons of the Rishi(Seer), who is the root and whose name is used as Gotra. For example if a person says that he belongs to the Kutsa Gotra then it means that he traces back his male ancestry to the ancient Rishi (Saint or Seer) Kutsa. Gotra means cowshed (Go=Cow, tra=shed) in Sanskrit. Paini defines gotra for grammatical purposes as apatyam pautraprabhrti gotram (IV. 1. 162), which means the word gotra denotes the progeny (of a sage) beginning with the son’s son. This system was started among Brahmins, with a purpose to classify and identify the families in the community. Vedic/vedanata Brahmins identify their male lineage by considering themselves to be the descendants of the 8 great Rishis i.e Saptarishis (The Seven Sacred Saints) + Bharadwaja Rishi. So the list of root Brahmin Gotras is as follows : Angirasa Atri Gautam Kashyapa Bhrigu Vasistha Kutsa Bharadwaja The offspring (apatya) of these eight are gotras and others than these are called as gotravayava. These eight sages are called gotrakarins from whom all the 49 gotras (especially of the Brahmins) have evolved. For instance, from Atri sprang the Atreya and Gavisthiras gotras.In almost all Hindu families, marriage within the same gotra is prohibited, since people with same gotra are considered to be siblings. But the hidden reason behind this practice is the ‘Y’ Chromosome which is expected to be common among all male in same gotra. So, the woman too carries similar ‘X’ Chromosome and if married, their offspring may be born with birth defects. Few families even maintain their Pravara which is a list of all seers through which their Gotra was derived. It connects to the root Seer. Gotra is always passed on from father to children among most Hindus, just like lastname(surname) is passed on worldwide. However, among Malayalis and Tulu’s its passed on from mother to children. Additional rule in the Gotra system is that, even if the Bride and Bridegroom belong to different Gotras, they still cannot get married even if just one of their Gotra Pravara matches. Now, why only male carries fixed lastname and gotra and why female can change her last name, gotra after marriage? Genes and Chromosomes Among Humans Humans have 23 pairs of Chromosomes and in each pair one Chromosome comes from the father and the other comes from the mother. So in all we have 46 Chromosomes in every cell, of which 23 come from the mother and 23 from the father. Of these 23 pairs, there is one pair called the Sex Chromosomes which decide the gender of the person. During conception, if the resultant cell has XX sex chromosomes then the child will be a girl and if it is XY then the child will be a boy. X chromosome decides the female attributes of a person and Y Chromosome decides the male attributes of a person. When the initial embryonic cell has XY chromosome, the female attributes get suppressed by the genes in the Y Chromosome and the embryo develops into a male child. Since only men have Y Chromosomes, son always gets his Y Chromosome from his father and the X Chromosome from his mother. On the other hand daughters always get their X Chromosomes, one each from both father and mother. So the Y Chromosome is always preserved throughout a male lineage (Father – Son – Grandson etc) because a Son always gets it from his father, while the X Chromosome is not preserved in the female lineage (Mother, Daughter, Grand Daughter etc) because it comes from both father and mother. A mother will pass either her mother’s X Chromosome to her Children or her father’s X Chromosome to her children or a combination of both because of both her X Chromosomes getting mixed (called as Crossover). On the other hand, a Son always gets his father’s Y Chromosome and that too almost intact without any changes because there is no corresponding another Y chromosome in his cells to do any mixing as his combination is XY, while that of females is XX which hence allows for mixing as both are X Chromosomes. Women never get this Y Chromosome in their body. And hence Y Chromosome plays a crucial role in modern genetics in identifying the Genealogy ie male ancestry of a person. And the Gotra system was designed to track down the root Y Chromosome of a person quite easily. If a person belongs to Angirasa Gotra then it means that his Y Chromosome came all the way down over thousands of years of timespan from the Rishi Angirasa. And if a person belongs to a Gotra (say Bharadwaja) with Pravaras (Angirasa, Bhaarhaspatya, Bharadwaja), then it means that the person’s Y Chromosome came all the way down from Angirasa to Bhaarhaspatya to Bharadwaja to the person. This also makes it clear why females are said to belong to the Gotra of their husbands after marriage. That is because women do not carry Y Chromosome, and their Sons will carry the Y Chromosome of the Father and hence the Gotra of a woman is said to be that of her husband after marriage. Y is the only Chromosome which does not have a similar pair in the human body. The pair of the Y Chromosome in humans is X Chromosome which is significantly different from Y Chromosome. Even the size of the Y Chromosome is just about one third the size of the X Chromosome. In other words throughout evolution the size of the Y Chromosome has been decreasing and it has lost most of its genes […]