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Mathomathis would like to present article on Indian Astronomy | Astronomical Dating of Events | 103 by the author Kosla Vepa Published by Indic Studies Foundation, 948 Happy Valley Rd., Pleasanton, Ca 94566, USA. Previous article can be found here (Indian Astronomy | Astronomical Dating of Events | 108 (Vikrama Samvat | Saptarsi Tradition)) Their website can be located Indicstudies.us. The studies is also conducted by N.S. Rajaram PhD. Author’s in the volume 1 of their research start their discussion on a topic called Why are History and the Chronology Important by Kosla Vepa PhD. The Western historians have tried to identify Kanishka era with 78 CE in their attempt to deny historicity of the Salivahana saka. Professor Sengupta had considered astronomical information from two kharosthi inscriptions which refer to regnal years of Kanishka , but could not match with the 78 CE date and so he proposed his own date for the starting of the Kanishka era. The inscriptions in question are no.26 and no. 35 in the Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum Vol. II. edited by Sten Konow. According to the inscriptions, in the eleventh year of reign of king Kanishka, on the 20th day of Asadha, it was uttaraphalguni naksatra. In the year 61, on the 8th day of caitra, the naksatra was purvasadha. Know had concluded that the full moon day was the first day of the month in these inscriptions. Sengupta correctly pointed out that there is no such Indian system in which the first day of the month is the full moon day. The months are full moon ending months and the 20th day of Asadha of the inscription would correspond to sravana sukla panchami and 8th day of caitra would correspond to caitra krsna astami. With these calendrical data, when Sengupta tried to calculate the dates based on the 78 CE as the beginning of Kanishka era, he could not quite match the data from the inscriptions. So he proposed that the Kanishka era be started from December 25 of 79 CE, nearly two years after the Salivahana saka. But, based on the list from Rajataragini, Kanishka’s date would be 1298 BCE. The eleventh and sixty-first years would be 1287 BCE and 1237 BCE respectively. Figure A shows the star map for June 23, 1287 BCE, it is sravana sukla pancami uttaraphalguni, an exact match to the inscription. Figure B shows the star map for March 1, 1237 BCE, caitra krsna astami, also an exact match to inscription no. This clearly establishes the consistency of the record in rajatarangini with the kharosthi inscriptions and hence the miss-identification of Kanishka era by the Western historians. Author Concludes as following: The real history of Bharata is preserved in its itihasa and purana texts. The Chronology is comprehensive and cogent. Simulations of the astronomical data preserved in these texts, using modern planetarium software, have attested the coherence of the chronology. From the date of the Mahabharata war, the sarpa yaga of Janamejaya, the date of Buddha, Asoka Maurya, Kanishka, Adi Sankara, the Gupta period, through the Vikrama and Salivahana sakas, the chronology exhibits a continuous flow which has been convincingly demonstrated by the simulations using planetarium software. The consistency is staggering. Many of the sticky points with ‘traditional chronology’ of the historians is simply resolved with these stimulations. There is still a large body of inscriptional data awaiting validation by simulations using the planetarium software.
Mathomathis would like to present an article on The Speed of Light by author Subhash Kak, Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering Louisiana State University Baton Rouge, LA 70803-5901, USA Given the nature of the analogy, one would expect that this speed was considered finite. The Puranas as speak of the moving jyotiscakra, “the circle of light.” This analogy or that of the swift arrow let loose from the bow in these accounts leaves ambiguous whether the circle of light is the Sun or its speeding rays. We get a specific number that could refer to the speed of light in a medieval text by Sayana (c. 1315-1387), prime minister in the court of Emperors Bukka I and his successors of the Vijayanagar Empire and Vedic scholar. In his commentary on the fourth verse of the hymn 1.50 of the Rigveda on the Sun, he says: tatha ca smaryate yojananam. sahasre dve dve sate dve ca yojane ekena nimisardhena kramamana Thus it is remembered: [O Sun] you who traverse 2,202 yojanas in half a nimesa. The same statement occurs in the commentary on the Taittiriya Brahmana by Bhatta Bhaskara (10th century), where it is said to be an old Puranic tradition. The figure could refer to the actual motion of the Sun but, as we will see shortly, that is impossible. Is it an old tradition related to the speed of [sun]light that Sayana appears to suggest? We would like to know if that supposition is true by examining parallels in the Puranic literature. The units of yojana and nimesa are well known. The usual meaning of yojana is about 9 miles as in the Arthasastra where it is defined as being equal to 8,000 dhanu or “bow,” where each dhanu is taken to be about 6 feet. Aryabhata, Brahmagupta and other astronomers used smaller yojanas but such exceptional usage was confined to the astronomers; we will show that the Puranas also use a non-standard measure of yojana. As a scholar of the Vedas and a non-astronomer, Sayana would be expected to use the “standard” Arthasastra units. The measures of time are thus defined in the Puranas: 15 nimesa 1 kastha 30 kastha 1 kala 30 kala 1 muhurta 30 muhurta 1 day and night A nimesa is therefore equal to 16/75 seconds. De and Vartak have in one of the books argued that this statement refers to the speed of light. Converted into modern units, it does come very close to the correct figure of 186,000 miles per second! Such an early knowledge of this number doesn’t sound credible because the speed of light was determined only in 1675 by Roemer who looked at the difference in the times that light from Io, one of the moons of Jupiter, takes to reach Earth based on whether it is on the near side of Jupiter or the far side. Until then light was taken to travel with infinite velocity. There is no record of any optical experiments that could have been performed in India before the modern period to measure the speed of light. Maybe Sayana’s figure refers to the speed of the Sun in its supposed orbit around the Earth. But that places the orbit of the Sun at a distance of over 2,550 million miles. The correct value is only 93 million miles and until the time of Roemer the distance to the Sun used to be taken to be less than 4 million miles. This interpretation takes us nowhere. The Indian astronomical texts place the Sun only about half a million yojanas from the Earth. What about the possibility of fraud? Sayana’s statement was printed in 1890 in the famous edition of Rigveda edited by Max Muller, the German Sanskritist. He claimed to have used several three or four hundred year old manuscripts of Sayana’s commentary, written much before the time of Roemer. Is it possible that Muller was duped by an Indian correspondent who slipped in the line about the speed? Unlikely, because Sayana’s commentary is so well known that an interpolation would have been long discovered. And soon after Muller’s “Rigveda” was published, someone would have claimed that it contained this particular “secret” knowledge. Besides, a copy of Sayana’s commentary, dated 1395, is preserved in the Central Library, Vadodara. One can dismiss Sayana’s number as a meaningless coincidence. But that would be a mistake if there exists a framework of ideas—an old physics—in which this number makes sense. We explore the prehistory of this number by considering early textual references. We will show that these references in the Puranas and other texts indicate that Sayana’s speed is connected, numerically, to very ancient ideas. This helps us understand the framework of ideas regarding the universe that led to this figure. Physical ideas in the Indian literature The Vedas take the universe to be infinite in size. The universe was visualized in the image of the cosmic egg, Brahmanda. Beyond our own universe lie other universes. The Pancavimsa Brahmana 16.8.6 states that the heavens are 1000 earth diameters away from the Earth. The Sun was taken to be halfway to the heavens, so this suggests a distance to the Sun to be about 500 earth diameters from the Earth, which is about 0.4375 million yojanas. Yajurveda, in the mystic hymn 17, dealing with the nature of the universe, counts numbers in powers of ten upto 1012. It has been suggested that this is an estimate of the size of the universe in yojanas. The philosophical schools of Samkhya and Vaisesika tell us about the old ideas on light. According to Samkhya, light is one of the five fundamental “subtle” elements (tanmatra) out of which emerge the gross elements. The atomicity of these elements is not specifically mentioned and it appears that they were actually taken to be continuous. On the other hand, Vaisesika is an atomic theory of the physical world on the nonatomic ground of ether, space and time. The basic atoms are those of […]
Mathomathis would like to present an article on Amrita Bindu Upanishad Translated by Swami Madhavananda which is later Published by Advaita Ashram, Kolkatta. In the article we would like to present only the points that are categorized under the sector of Amrita Bindu Upanishad Om! May He protect us both together; may He nourish us both together; May we work conjointly with great energy, May our study be vigorous and effective; May we not mutually dispute (or may we not hate any). Om! Let there be Peace in me! Let there be Peace in my environment! Let there be Peace in the forces that act on me! The mind is chiefly spoken of as of two kinds, pure and impure. The impure mind is that which is possessed of desire, and the pure is that which is devoid of desire. It is indeed the mind that is the cause of men’s bondage and liberation. The mind that is attached to sense-objects leads to bondage, while dissociated from sense-objects it tends to lead to liberation. So they think. Since liberation is predicated of the mind devoid of desire for sense objects, therefore, the mind should always be made free of such desire, by the seeker after liberation. When the mind, with its attachment for sense-objects annihilated, is fully controlled within the heart and thus realises its own essence, then that Supreme State (is gained). The mind should be controlled to that extent in which it gets merged in the heart. This is Jnana (realisation) and this is Dhyana (meditation) also, all else is argumentation and verbiage. (The Supreme State) is neither to be thought of (as being something external and pleasing to the mind), nor unworthy to be thought of (as something unpleasant to the mind); nor is It to be thought of (as being of the form of sense-pleasure), but to be thought of (as the essence of the ever-manifest, eternal, supreme Bliss Itself); that Brahman which is free from all partiality is attained in that state. One should duly practise concentration on Om (first) through the means of its letters, then meditate on Om without regard to its letters. Finally on the realisation with this latter form of meditation on Om, the idea of the non-entity is attained as entity. That alone is Brahman, without component parts, without doubt and without taint. Realizing “I am that Brahman” one becomes the immutable Brahman. (Brahman is) without doubt, endless, beyond reason and analogy, beyond all proofs and causeless knowing which the wise one becomes free. The highest Truth is that (pure consciousness) which realizes, “There is neither control of the mind, nor its coming into play”, “Neither am I bound, nor am I a worshipper, neither am I a seeker after liberation, nor one-who has attained liberation”. Verily the Atman should be known as being the same in Its states of wakefulness, dreaming, and dreamless sleep. For him who has transcended the three states there is no more rebirth. Being the one, the universal Soul is present in all beings. Though one, It is seen as many, like the moon in the water. Just as it is the jar which being removed (from one place to another) changes places and not the Akasa enclosed in the jar – so is the Jiva which resembles the Akasa. When various forms like the jar are broken again and again the Akasa does not know them to be broken, but He knows perfectly. Being covered by Maya, which is a mere sound, It does not, through darkness, know the Akasa (the Blissful one). When ignorance is rent asunder, It being then Itself only sees the unity. The Om as Word is (first looked upon as) the Supreme Brahman. After that (word-idea) has vanished, that imperishable Brahman (remains). The wise one should meditate on that imperishable Brahman, if he desires the peace of his soul. Supreme Brahman. One having mastered the Word-Brahman attains to the Highest Brahman. After studying the Vedas the intelligent one who is solely intent on acquiring knowledge and realisation, should discard the Vedas altogether, as the man who seeks to obtain rice discards the husk. Of cows which are of diverse colours the milk is of the same colour. (the intelligent one) regards Jnana as the milk, and the many-branched Vedas as the cows. Like the butter hidden in milk, the Pure Consciousness resides in every being. That ought to be constantly churned out by the churning rod of the mind. Taking hold of the rope of knowledge, one should bring out, like fire, the Supreme Brahman. I am that Brahman indivisible, immutable, and calm, thus it is thought of. In Whom reside all beings, and Who resides in all beings by virtue of His being the giver of grace to all – I am that Soul of the Universe, the Supreme Being, I am that Soul of the Universe, the Supreme Being. Om! May He protect us both together; may He nourish us both together; May we work conjointly with great energy, May our study be vigorous and effective; May we not mutually dispute (or may we not hate any). Om! Let there be Peace in me! Let there be Peace in my environment ! Let there be Peace in the forces that act on me! Here it concludes the Amritabindupanishad, as contained in the Krishna-Yajur- Veda.
Hindu Scriptures & Sanskrit Literature | Mathomathis would like to present an article on Root By Kadambi Srinivasan | Published by | Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams | Tirupati 2019. The following article would focus on Hindu Scriptures & Sanskrit Literature. Three religions are regarded as the oldest having come down to us from prehistoric times. They are Hinduism, Zoroastrianism and Judaism. Sanskrit, as defined by Panini, is the classical Sanskrit which evolved from the earlier Vedic Sanskrit. Vedic Sanskrit is the language of the Vedas consisting of Samhitas, Brahmanas and Upanishads. The metrical hymns of the Rig Veda Samhita are regarded as the earliest composed by man. Prof. Max Muller while recording the first voice on a Gramophone chose the first Sloka of Rig Veda “Agni Meele Purohitam”. He proceeded to explain the reason for his choice – “Vedas are the oldest text of the human race. And Agni Meele Purohitam is the first verse of Rig Veda. In the most primordial time, when the people did not know how even to cover their bodies and lived by hunting and housed in caves, Indians had attained high civilization and they gave the world universal philosophies in the form of the Vedas.” There are two important aspects about the Vedas – (a) Hindus regard that the Vedas have been received through revelation. It was not written by any man (Apaurusheya); and (b) The Vedas are without a beginning and end. How is it possible? Swami Vivekananda explains. “By the Vedas no books are meant. They mean the accumulated treasury of spiritual laws discovered by different persons at different times. Just as the law of gravitation existed before its discovery, and would exist if all humanity forgot it, so is it with the laws that govern the spiritual world. The moral, ethical, and spiritual relations between soul and soul and between individual spirits and the Father of all spirits, were there before their discovery, and would remain even if we forgot them”. The name given to the discoverers of these laws was” Kavi”. The Vedas described them as kavayah satyasrutah meaning seers who were the hearers of the truth. The Veda itself was called Shruti meaning revealed scripture. The sage who had a direct intuitional perception is called Sakshath Krutha Rishi. The sage who heard it from his Guru and remembered it is called Shrutha Rishi. Veda have been divided into Karma Kanda (section of works and rituals) and Jnana Kanda (section of knowledge) the former associated with the hymns and the later with the Upanishads. European scholars took up the ritualistic tradition and went on to make their own etymological explanation of the words resulting in arbitrary meaning for Vedic verses. In fact, what they were looking for in Veda was the early history of India, its society, institutions – in short a picture of the times. They then invented the theory (based on the difference of languages) of an Aryan invasion from the north, and an invasion of the Dravidian India. The Indians themselves had no memory of such invasions and there were no records of such events in their classical literature. Yet, this appears to have persuaded the minds of some Indians in favour of this view. All this resulted in a chaos and a mutilation of dates of historical events. As Aurobindo puts it “the Vedic religion was on this account only a worship of Nature-Gods full of solar myths and consecrated sacrifices and a sacrificial liturgy primitive enough in its ideas and contents, and it is barbaric prayers that are the much vaunted, haloed and apotheosized Veda”. And we were left to trace our civilization and ancestors from among the ruins at Mohenjo Daro and Harappa. In recent years, Indian scholars have started work on the scientific dating of various events described in our Puranas. The Rishis, the poet seers of Veda, were men with a great spiritual and occult knowledge not shared by ordinary men. Among this enlightened group, there are a number of Rishikas (female Rishis) as well. Still the task is unfinished. To be revealed is one thing, to preserve it and pass it on is quite another thing. The mantras acquire their powers by virtue of their acoustic energy of the syllables (Shabda). In addition, correct sequence of words, purity of the language, exact pronunciation of the words, precise stress on syllables, measured pause between syllables, appropriate tone, accent, modulation and pitch of recitation, proper breath control etc are very critical. In the case of written texts comparisons may be carried out much more easily. How can you devise a system to control the requirements of Vedic texts? In addition the requirement for memorising the entire Vedic texts existed. The Ashrams of the Rishis served as the learning centres and they were located in forests. And maintaining large libraries was impracticable. Oral Tradition Systems have been devised to meet this challenge. It is astounding that large volumes of Vedic texts were preserved by oral tradition for over thousands of years, safeguarding their purity and entirety. Svaadhyaya, the oral tradition, by which Vedas have been preserved, emphasizes the preservation of actual sound of the Vedas over their meaning and interpretation! Careful thought and planning have gone into devising methods to achieve the desired results. Oral methods have been around in other parts of the world as well but rarely has any other oral tradition been so venerated and so well preserved as the Vedic tradition. Rishi Veda Vyasa categorised and compiled four Vedas so that they are more amenable to study and memorise. The task of preserving and perpetuating each branch of Veda in its entirety and purity was assigned to a specified Shakha (branch). The followers of each Shakha, identified as Shakhins of that particular Vedic school, were responsible for preserving their assigned part of Veda. Followers of each Shakha would learn and preserve one of the four Samhitas along with their associated Brahmana, Aranyaka, Upanishads and the Sutras such as Grihya Sutra […]
Mathomathis would like to present an article on Vimana Shastras or Vymanika Shastras written by the author 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 presented in mathomathis was adopted from the website In the following materials, we would constantly using the word author and readers needs to be aware off that author in the following context would be Josyer. Author describes the book is as follows: Sometime in the period just before World War I, a Brahmana named Pandit Subbaraya Sastry began to dictate previously unknown texts in Sanskrit which purported to contain ancient Indian technological knowledge. He in turn, credited a Vedic sage named Maharshi Bharadwaja, as well as other Rishis who appear in legitimate Hindu texts. One of these ‘channeled’ texts was, on its face, a technical manual for the construction and use of ‘vimanas,’ the flying machines of the Vedic sagas. It is unclear as to whether any part of the present work was actually published in print at that time, even though it is implied in the introduction, so it is unclear whether it was published (in the legal sense) prior to 1923. The Sanskrit manuscript of the VS lay unpublished for over fifty years. In 1973, this text was published in a very limited edition by G.R. Josyer, along with a translation which he had produced over a twenty year period. In 1991, the English portion and the illustrations from the Josyer book were reprinted in the above-mentioned Vimana Aircraft of Ancient India & Atlantis. It as if someone in the early 20th century wrote a 100 page book on ancient aircraft in Biblical Hebrew and attributed it to Moses and other prophets. However, the fact that the book was originally written in Sanskrit, while very impressive, isn’t any indication of authenticity. Sanskrit is to some extent still a living language, used everyday in Vedic ritual. It is plausible that a well-educated high-caste Brahmins from that period would be able to compose a Sanskrit text of this length given enough time. If you are looking for an ancient manuscript on this fascinating topic, you’ll need to keep on looking. The Vymanika Shastra was first committed to writing between 1918 and 1923, and nobody is claiming that it came from some mysterious antique manuscript. The fact is, there are no manuscripts of this text prior to 1918, and nobody is claiming that there are. So on one level, this is not a hoax. You just have to buy into the assumption that ‘channeling’ works. On the other hand, there is no exposition of the theory of aviation (let alone antigravity). In plain terms, the VS never directly explains how vimanas get up in the air. The text is top-heavy with long lists of often bizarre ingredients used to construct various subsystems. This includes items such as monkey skin, eagle bones, sea-foam, and many that are only named in Sanskrit. Often the recipes are a mix of plant, animal and mineral ingredients, and involve mixing these ingredients and cooking them at high temperature in a furnace shaped like an animal, such as a frog. One wonders whether we are talking about metallurgy here, or some kind of alchemy. Most of the systems are described as mechanical devices, powered by steam, electricity or even solar power; a number literally involve smoke and mirrors. Vimanas are widely described in the genuine ancient texts such as the Ramayana and Mahabharata, as well as other later texts such as the dramas of Kalidasa. They are not metaphors or hyperbole, nor do you have to be a god to own or ride one as in other mythologies. [Source: wikipedia] The Sanskrit word vi-māna (विमान) literally means “measuring out, traversing” or “having been measured out”. Monier Monier-Williams defines Vimana as “a car or a chariot of the gods, any self-moving aerial car sometimes serving as a seat or throne, sometimes self-moving and carrying its occupant through the air; other descriptions make the Vimana more like a house or palace, and one kind is said to be seven stories high”, and quotes the Pushpaka Vimana of Ravana as an example. It may denote any car or vehicle, especially a bier or a ship as well as a palace of an emperor, especially with seven stories. In some Indian languages like Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu, and Hindi, vimana or vimanam means “aircraft”, for example in the town name Vimanapura (a suburb of Bangalore) and Vimannagar, a town in Pune. In another context, Vimana is a feature in Hindu temple architecture. [Source: wikipedia] Either the way, in the following article, we would describe vimanas as: “aircrafts”, flying vehicles. The pictures shown below are some of the types of vimanas G. R. JOSYER Hon. Director, International Academy of Sanskrit Research writes the following lines (Note: None of the words have been edited). On 25-8-1952 the Mysore representative of the Press Trust of India, Sri N. N. Sastry, sent up the following report which was published in all the leading dailies of India, and was taken up by Reuter and other World Press News Services: “Mr. G. R. Josyer, Director of the International Academy of Sanskrit Research in Mysore, in the course of an interview, showed some very ancient manuscripts which the Academy had collected. He claimed that the manuscripts were several thousands of years old, compiled by ancient rishis, Bharadwaja, Narada and others, dealing, not with the mysticism of ancient Hindu philosophy of Atman or Brahman, but with more mundane things vital for the existence of man and progress of nations both in times of peace and war. “Mr. Josyer’s manuscripts dealt in elaborate detail about food processing from various indigenous materials like grass, vegetables and leaves for human consumption, particularly during times of famine. “One manuscript dealt with Aeronautics, construction of various types of aircraft for civil aviation and for warfare. He showed me plans prepared according to directions contained in the manuscript on Aeronautics of three types of aircraft or […]