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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 | 105 (Beginning of Kaliyuga)) 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. According to the Epic Mahabharata , the character of Lord Kirshna first appears at the time of Draupadi’s wedding and his departure is exactly 36 years after the war. No information about his birth is available in the Epic itself, although there is information about his departure. Lord Kirshna observes omens3645 similar to the ones seen at the time of the Mahabharata war, now indicating the total destruction of the Yadavas. Simulations show that in the year 3031 BCE, thirty-six years later than 3067 BCE, there was an eclipse season with three eclipses. A lunar eclipse on October 20 was followed by an annular solar eclipse on November 5, followed by a penumbral lunar eclipse on November 19, within an interval of 14 days and at an ‘aparvani’ time. Thus the date of departure of Lord Kirshna is consistent with the popular tradition that he passed away after 36 years after the war. The information about his birth can be gathered from Harivamsa and Bhagavata Purana., according to which he was born in krsna paksa astami with rohini naksatra, but there is an uncertainty about how long he actually lived. Some believe that he lived for 125 years, while others take his life span to be only 105 years. Raghavan assigns only 81 years. The date of birth of Lord Kirshna is calculated, apparently by extrapolation from the date of departure and so also are the several ‘horoscope’s of Lord Kirshna. Simulations based on the dates yield results which only go to show whether the calculations had been done accurately and correctly by those who give such ‘horoscope’s. As there is no clearly independent piece of information, in the Epic, which can be used for distinguishing the dates, one may accept that date which suits the tradition of choice. It should be understood, however, that the date of his departure from this world can be established on the basis of information in the Epic and demonstrated by the simulations. Consistency with the dates of other Vedic texts: It will be interesting to verify astronomical information contained in other Vedic texts and determine the dates based on simulations using planetarium software and to see if these dates are consistent with the date of Mahabharata . For example, based on the astronomical information from Rigveda, Sengupta inferred a solar eclipse on July 26, 3928 BCE. Figure 10 shows the star map for this date. As verified by the software RedShift, it is a central solar eclipse, which occurred two days after the summer solstice that year, as per Sengupta’s conjecture. However, some caution must be exercised. As has been discussed in detail by the author in the planetarium software, the positions of the planets and the stars are computed using the latest theories and information available and they are highly reliable. However, there is uncertainty when it comes to determining eclipses on dates extrapolated to 4000 BCE. These uncertainty which may amount to about 15 minutes when extrapolated to dates around 1000 CE, jumps to more than 12 hours for the time of the occurrence of the eclipse when extrapolated to 3000 BCE, and even more when taken to 4000 BCE. The exact location of the eclipse and the exact time of visibility are uncertain, but the occurrence of the eclipse itself is certain. As a consequence, determining the date on the basis of eclipse data alone is risky. However, the eclipse data can be used as secondary information to confirm that it occurred on a particular date. However, there are other astronomical data available in the brahmana texts. For example, satapatha brahmana refers to krttika’s rising exactly in the east. On the basis of simulations using the planetarium software, the date of the event referred to has been shown to be 2925 +/- 100 BCE, quite in agreement with Dikshit. Considering that this text is attributed to Yajnavalka, a disciple of Vaisampayana, who is an important narrator of the epic, the date of 3067 BCE for the war is consistent with the date of satapatha brahmana. The author has shown (also on the basis of simulations using the planetarium software) that Lagadha’s vedanga jyotisa should be dated to be about n1800 BCE. The astronomy followed at the time of the Mahabharata war is vedanga jyotisa, but is very much pre-Lagadha. The date of Lagadha’ s vedanga jyotisa is also consistent with the date of the war. It may be noted in passing that satapatha brahmana mentions both Pariksit and Janamejaya. This is an independent check on the date of the war. A passage in the pancavimsa brahmana (XXV. 15.3) connects Janamejaya with the sarpayaga and has been referred to by Raychaudhur. The date of a solar eclipse mentioned in this brahmana text has been determined by Sengupta4523 to be September 14, 2451 BCE. Figure shown below shows the star map for this day confirming the calculations of Sengupta. This date, which is about 600 years later, is consistent with the date of the war and the date of the other brahmana texts. Janamejaya’s Inscriptions: Several copper plate inscriptions declaring grants of land and other gifts made at the time of sarpa yaga of Janamejaya have been discovered. While there are questions about the authenticity of these plates, it will be interesting to see if the simulations based on planetarium software are consistent with the dates. Inscription I: In one of the inscriptions, it is declared that in the […]
Mathomathis would like to present an article on A Bird’s Eye View of DHATU SAMYATA | Review Article by Singh Ravinder Kumar et al / Int. J. Res. Ayurveda Pharm. 8 (4), 2017 | DOI: 10.7897/2277-4343.084226 The term Dhatu Samyata is regarded as health (Arogyata) as described in Charaka Samhita. Commonly the term Dhatu is applied for Sapta Dhatus i.e. Rasa Dhatu, Rakta Dhatu etc. Dhatu term has broad meaning. The term has been clarified with respect to the concept of Dhatu and Dhatu Samyata. Acharya Charak has described that Dhatu term is applied in various meanings i.e. Chetana Dhatu, Shat Dhatu, ChaturvimshatiDhatu and Prakriti Cha Astdhatuki and Panchamhabuta are also considered as Dhatu. Here all components or factors which are responsible for sustenance of body to continue the life are considered as Dhatus. The term Dhatu Samyata has a meaning of total health and primary stage of absolute health keeping both views of existing and beyond life which is the aim of Ayurveda. Commonly Ayurveda is regarded as a medical System which has bi-dimensional aim i.e. prevention of health and cure of diseases from beginning to till now, Ayurveda is standing on some of its own principles and theories. “Dhatusamyata” theory is one of them. In current days “Dhatu Samyata” term is applied in meaning of Dosha Samyata, from applied and clinical point of view. Both terms have one approach i.e. to prevent the health and cure diseases. Dhatu Samyata is regarded as health (Arogyata) described by Charaka, but Vagbhatta has told that Dosha Samyata is Arogyata. Dhatu term has been applied in sense of the content which sustains the physical body anatomically that is Ras Dhatu, Rakta Dhatu, Mamsa Dhatu etc. are seven Dhatus and the biological unit Vata, Pitta and Kapha which are known as Dosha. These Doshas are also regarded as Dhatu up to some extent when they are biologically functioning normally but the Dhatu term is commonly applied in sense of Sapta Dhatu. Author in his presentation discussion will be mainly oriented towards Dhatu Samayata. The right meaning of state of equilibrium etc. will be discussed on the basis of materials from different Ayurvedic classic and it will be clarified that which term is better for health, whether Dhatu Samyata or Dosha Samyata? The aim of the study/article is to clarify the basic understanding of dhatu samyata which is used in different location. So that it may help the Ayurvedic physician to take proper care of patient. It is thus necessary to highlight concept of dhatu samyata. Ayurveda stands on some own principles. According to Ayurveda body is composed of Dosha, Dhatu and Malas. Different Understanding of Dhatu:- • Dhatu term has broad meaning but commonly Ras, Rakta etc Sapta Dhatu are regarded as Dhatus. In the reference of this paper Dhatu is considered in different views. • “Vikarodhatuvaisamyam” here the Dhatu term is applied in meaning of Dosha as so along with SaptaDhatu. • In Charak Samhita Dhatu term is applied in various meanings i.e. Chetana Dhatu, Shat Dhatu, Chaturvinshati Dhatu and Prakrti cha Astdhatuki. Here all components or factors which are responsible to sustain the body for continuation of the life are considered as Dhatus. • Single Aatman is also regarded as Dhatu described in reference of composition of Purusha. • In reference of sadadhatuja purusha Panchmahabutas are also regarded as Dhatu. • In reference of chaturvinshati dhatu–Avyakt,mahana ,ahankar, panchmahabhuta and Ekadasindriya etc are also regarded as dhatus. • Avyakta, Mahana, Ahankar, Panchamahabhuta are regard as prakrti cha astdhatuki. In reference of Dhatu samyata commonly Dosha samyata is considered. According to Vagbhatta doshas in normal state are also considered as Dhatu and is it is considered as Dosha according to its Pathogenic nature, when it is accumulated then presentation in clinical form of different diseases are known as Malas. In reference of structural Sapta dhatu and in sense of functional Dhatu, Tridosa has been considered. Normally “dhatu Samyata” is clinically assessed by clinical features where as its parametric measurement can be assessed by quantitative measures i.e. pramana of different dhatus. Since Ayurveda is based on Dravya, Guna, Karma and thus through the available content of its guna and karma, a way to understand Dhatu Samyata based on the dimension has been presented through this table. DHATU PRAMANA (Quantity) GUNAS (Qualities) STHANA (PLACES /SEATS) KARMAS (FUNCTION) RAS DHATU Nine anjalis • Drava (liquid) • Snigdha(unctous) • Sara(mobile) • Manda(slow) • Sweta(white) • Apyagunas(properties of water) • Amasaya(stomach) • Hridaya(heart) • Dhamanis(arteries,vein and lymphatics) • Twak(skin) • Prinana(nourishing) • Tusti(satisfying satiation) • Raktapusti(nourishing) RAKTA DHATU Eight anjalis • Usna(warm) • Tiksna(penetrating) • Viras(bad smell) • Sara(mobile) • Drava(fluid) • Laghu(light) • Spandana(pulsating) • Raga(red colour) • Isatlavana(slightysalty) • Agneyagunas. • Yakrt(liver) • Pliha(spleen) • Dhamanis(blood vessels) • Mamsa(muscles) • Jivana(supporting life) • Usmakara(responsible for body temparature) • Varnakara(responsible for red color all over the body) • Mamsapustikara(nourishing the next dhatu) MAMSA DHATU Not mentioned in Ayurvedic text • Sthula(gross) • Sthira(static) • Guru(heavy) • Snigdha(unctous) • Picchila(slimy) • Bahya(externally adhering to the bone) • Abhyantra(internalling forming the Avayavas i.e. organs) • Dehalepa(covering over the body forming the contour) • Cestakara(responsible for all movement) • Medaspustikara(nourishment of fat the next tissue.) MEDA DHATU Two anjalis • Snigdha(unctous) • Slaksna(smooth) • Guru(heavy) • Sandra(thick liquid) • Mrdu(soft) • Pita(yellow) • Apya and Parthiva properties • Sphik(buttocks) • Udara(inside and outside the abdomen) • Vapavahana(omentum) • Vrkkas(kidney) • Asthis(bone) • Snigdha (lubrication to the body) • Dardhya (stability and plumpiness) • Asthipusti (nourishment to astidhatu) ASTHI DHATU Not mentioned in Ayurvedic text • Guru(heavy) • Sthira(stable) • Khara(rough) • Kathina(hard) • Sweta(white) • Parthiva properties • Sakhas(extremities) • Kati(waist) • Jaghana(pelvis) • Prsta(back) • Uras(chest) • Siras(head) • Dharana (supporting the body by providing the erect posture) • Majjapustikara (nourishment the majjadhatu) MAJJA DHATU One anjalis • Sandradrava(thick liquid ) • Snigdha(unctous) • Slaksna(smooth) • Mrdu(soft) • Pita (yellow) • Sarakta(slight red) • Asthiabhyantra(inside the cavity of the bone ) • Asthipurana (filling the cavity of bone) […]
Year 1985 – The AI Magazine Mathomathis would like to present an article on: Sanskrit and Artificial Intelligence by Rick Brigs | RIACS, NASA Ames Research Centeu, Moffet Field, California 94305. In the past twenty years, much time, effort, and money has been expended on designing an unambiguous representation of natural languages to make them accessible to computer processing These efforts have centered around creating schemata designed to parallel logical relations with relations expressed by the syntax and semantics of natural languages, which are clearly cumbersome and ambiguous in their function as vehicles for the transmission of logical data. Understandably, there is a widespread belief that natural languages arc unsuitable for the transmission of many ideas that artificial languages can render with great precision and mathematical rigor. But this dichotomy, which has served as a premise underlying much work in the areas of linguistics and artificial intelligence, is a false one There is at least one language, Sanskrit, which for the duration of almost more than 5000+ years was a living spoken language with a considerable literature of its own Besides works of literary value, there was a long philosophical and grammatical tradition that has continued to exist with undiminished vigor until the present century. Among the accomplishments of the grammarians can be reckoned a method for paraphrasing Sanskrit in a manner that is identical not only in essence but in form with current work in Artificial Intelligence This article demonstrates that a natural language can serve as an artificial language also, and that much work in AI has been reinventing a wheel millenia old First, a typical Knowledge Representation Scheme (using Semantic Nets) will be laid out, followed by an outline of the method used by the ancient Indian Grammarians to analyze sentences unambiguously. Finally, the clear parallelism between the two will be demonstrated, and the theoretical implications of this equivalence will be given. For the sake of comparison, a brief overview of semantic nets will be given, and examples will be included that will be compared to the Indian approach. After early attempts at machine translation (which were based to a large extent on simple dictionary look-up) failed in their effort to teach a computer to understand natural language, work in AI turned to Knowledge Representation. Since translation is not simply a map from lexical item to lexical item, and since ambiguity is inherent in a large number of utterances, some means is required to encode what the actual meaning of a sentence is. Clearly, there must be a representation of meaning independent of words used. Another problem is the interference of syntax. In some sentences (for example active/passive) syntax is, for all intents and purposes, independent of meaning. Here one would like to eliminate considerations of syntax. In other sentences the syntax contributes to the meaning and here one wishes to extract it. Author considers a “prototypical” semantic net system similar to that of Lindsay, Norman, and Rumelhart in the hopes that it is fairly representative of basic semantic net theory. Taking a simple example first, one would represent “John gave the ball to Mary” as in Figure 1. Here five nodes connected by four labeled arcs capture the entire meaning of the sentence. This information can be stored as a series of “triples”: give, agent, John give, object, ball give, recipient, Mary give, time, past. Note that grammatical information has been transformed into an arc and a node (past tense). A more complicated example will illustrate embedded sentences and changes of state: “John told Mary that the train moved out of the station at 3 o’clock.” As shown in Figure 2, there was a change in state in which the train moved to some unspecified location from the station. It went to the former at 3:00 and from the latter at 3:O0. Now one can routinely convert the net to triples as before. The verb is given central significance in this scheme and is considered the focus and distinguishing aspect of the sentence. However, there are other sentence types which differ fundamentally from the above examples. Figure 3 illustrates a sentence that is one of “state” rather than of “event .” Other nets could represent statements of time, location or more complicated structures. A verb, say, “give,” has been taken as primitive, but what is the meaning of “give” itself? Is it only definable in terms of the structure it generates? Clearly two verbs can generate the same structure. One can take a set-theoretic approach and a particular give as an element of “giving events” itself a subset of ALL-EVENTS. An example of this approach is given in Figure 4 (“John, a programmer living at Maple St., gives a book to Mary, who is a lawyer”). If one were to “read” this semantic net, one would have a very long text of awkward English: “There is a John” who is an element of the “Persons” set and who is the person who lives at ADR1, where ADR1 is a subset of ADDRESS-EVENTS, itself a subset of ‘ALL EVENTS’, and has location ‘37 Maple St.‘, an element of Addresses; and who is a “worker” of ‘occupation 1’. . .etc.” The degree to which a semantic net (or any unambiguous, nonsyntactic representation) is cumbersome and odd-sounding in a natural language is the degree to which that language is “natural” and deviates from the precise or “artificial.” As we shall see, there was a language spoken among an ancient scientific community that has a deviation of zero. The hierarchical structure of the above net and the explicit descriptions of set-relations are essential to really capture the meaning of the sentence and to facilitate inference. It is believed by most in the AI and general linguistic community that natural languages do not make such seemingly trivial hierarchies explicit. Below is a description of a natural language, Shastric Sanskrit, where for the past millenia successful attempts have been made to encode such information. Shastric Sanskrit The sentence: (1) “Caitra goes […]
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 […]
Mathomathis would like to present an article on: Vedic Glossary documented by Indic Cosmology, Kosla Vepa (INDIC STUDIES FOUNDATION), on the context of: THE STORY OF THE INDIC COSMOLOGY AND THE CELESTIAL TIME KEEPERS. The article would consists of pictorial presentation of the Maps