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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 continue on Upanishads and Quantum Philosophy Compared , 102. Readers can find the previous article by navigating to the link Upanishads and Quantum Philosophy Compared | 101 Chandogya Upanishad refers to the origin of world from akasha, the space-time continuum. Thus the Upanishad says: Where from do all these worlds come? They came from akasha and into akasha they return. akasha is indeed their beginning and akasha is the final end. Taittiriya Upanishad refers to akasha or space as the first evolute. The field of modern science can be compared to this akasha . The Upanishads speaks of apah, prana and akasha in decreasing order of subtlety. Here akasha is said to have come from prana. These three are active and things are produced from them and into them they return. This is the similar to the concept of the particles appearing from nowhere which again is the field. Thus apah, prana and akasha can together be compared to the field of the quantum thinkers. Manifestation of the world begins with its first step, the appearance of the space time continuum. Consciousness draws the picture of the manifested world in the canvas of space-time continuum. An object is only a pattern in the field of consciousness. The field is enveloped by space time, the first fictitious creation of the consciousness force. In the state of pralaya the space-time is engulfed into the Absolute consciousness. Thus says the lore of India: From atman-Brahman in the beginning came akahsa. From akasha came air, from air the fire, from fire the water. From water came solid earth. From earth came living plants. From plants food and seed; and from seed and food came a living being, man. This is akin to quantum inter-connectedness which Wheeler refers to as quantum foam. Thus writes John Gribbin: Quantum fluctuations in the geometry of space are completely negligible at the scale of atoms, or even elementary particles, but at this very fundamental level space itself can be thought of as a foam of quantum fluctuations – John Wheeler, who developed this idea, makes the comparison between an ocean that seems flat to an aviator flying high above it, but that seems anything but to the occupants of a lifeboat tossing about it on its stormy, ever-changing surface. Sir James Jeans, the British psychologist points to the relative nature of space and time which according to him do not have separate existence in nature. He opines, …nature knows as nothing of space and time separately, being concerned only with the four dimensional continuum in which space and time are inseparably welded together into the product we may designate as “space-time.” Our human spectacles divide this into space and time, and introduce a spurious differentiation between them; just as an astigmatic pair of spectacles divides the field of vision of a normal man into horizontal and vertical, and introduces a spurious differentiation between these directions. With astigmatic spectacles on, we incline our head and see the scene in front of us rearrange itself. Yet we know that nothing spectacles is subjective. Einstein’s world view which he formulated before his death is worth quoting. “Space has devoured ether and time; it seems to be on the point of swallowing up also the field and the corpuscles, so that it alone remains as the vehicle of reality”. Scientists studying space and field have ruled out the pluralistic picture of the universe since they accept the space or field as a single continuous entity which is the basis of the pluralistic manifestation of the world. The new generation quantum thinkers realized the role of space in the creation and dissolution of particles. Particles come from and vanish into space. Space, time, and motion (matter) are the three principles in the world of ordinary experience. Like space matter also has a relative appearance, both scientists as well as upanishadic seers opine. The study of the microscopic world by the quantum physicists has proved the bizarre nature of matter. Determinacy and causality upheld by the classical physics gave way to the theories of indeterminacy and complementarity. Objective reality became an illusion or something subjective. The behavior of an atom or sub-atomic particle was found to be ghost-like. Marcus Chown’s humorous illustration of the ‘red Ferrari’ cited earlier in this work brings out the process of tunneling by particles. Being a wave and a particle, an atom is said to be present everywhere and would materialize when the consciousness desires to observe it. The ‘double slit experiment’ of Young is an excellent demonstration of uncertainty and tunneling of particles. The waves are in superposition. This is no theoretical fantasy. Experiments describe it possible to observe the presence of an atom at two places simultaneously just like a fairy tale character appearing simultaneously at many places. But this was not a matter of fancy to the ancient Seers according to whom ‘it’ moves, ‘it’ moves not, ‘it’ is far, ‘it’ is near, ‘it’ is within all this, and ‘it’ is outside of all this. (Isho upanishad). Individual consciousness is identical with the Universal or Absolute consciousness. The ultimate consciousness in its becoming decohered binds itself with ignorance or illusion and chooses for it one out of the innumerable possibilities. It thus becomes a part of the world of imperfection and limitation and forgets the unity it is the part of. While scientists call this collapse of consciousness, a Seer like Sri. Aurobindo calls it the involution of consciousness. Universal Consciousness is thus everywhere, become any thing with its bizarre nature. Aitareya Upanishad describes atman as got entangled in all cosmic phenomena. (He) whereby one sees, or whereby one hears, or whereby one smells odours, or whereby one articulates speech, or whereby one discriminates the sweet and the unsweet; that which is heart(hrdaya) and mind (manas) – that is consciousness (samjnana) perception (ajnana), discrimination (vijnana), intelligence (prajnana), wisdom (medha), insight (drishti), steadfastness (dhrti), thought (mati), thoughtfulness (manisha), impulse (juti), memory (smriti), conception (samkalpa), purpose […]
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 […]
Mathomathis would like to present an article on Time-Frequency Analysis of Chanting Sanskrit Universal Sound “OM” Mantra by author:- Ajay Anil Gurjar and Siddharth A. Ladhake | Sipna’s College of Engineering & Technology, Amravati University, Maharashtra, India To incorporate spiritual welfare in step with our substance welfare, meditation provides as a way. Highly sensitive expressive experienced people are more probable to be satisfied and efficient in their life in recent days. It turns out that simultaneously they cannot give concentration and think discursively. Whether in the medical or technological or social spheres, to develop our excellence of life, human venture has sought all down the ages. Promoting the quality of our mind together with our material standard of living is essential to improve our quality of life. To deal with the increasing stress of modern standard of living, Humanity is progressively turning in the direction of different meditative practices. People have been heading for their gawk inwards in propose to attain peace of mind, since they are not capable to locate steadiness in the external world. Modern psychotherapists have begun to discover various therapeutic benefits of meditation practices. Meditation induces the state of relaxation and the altered state of consciousness. They are particularly efficient in psychotherapy. However, for inculcating a more positive attitude in the direction of life at large, meditation is being utilized as a personal growth device over everything else recently. For psychological stress, Speech signal is uttered to be a considerable indicator. The speech signal expresses the information enclosed in the vocal word. As with several real-world signals, Speech signals are non-stationary. Hence the frequency contents changes diagonally the time; Fourier analysis is unconvincing. Speech signal processing refers to the acquisition, manipulation, storage, transfer and output of human utterances by a computer. The main goals are the recognition, synthesis and compression of human speech. Speech signals are including the features such as temper, physical characteristics and added pragmatic information. Most of these characteristics are audible as well. Concerning 25% of information enclosed in a clean speech signal refers the speaker. Through abstract psychological procedures speech production initiates the aspiration to communicate and the thought that is to be communicated. There are quantities of human verbal communications that are effectively non-linguistic, even if speech is an oral action which is greatly verbal. Tone of voice excellence, prosody, rhythm and pausing are the non-verbal characteristics. For a non-verbal signaling system, these phenomena stand which interweave with the verbal or linguistic system. In the midst of supplementary things, information about the physiological and psychological condition of the speaker is carried by the non-verbal content of the voice. Since, undoubtedly perceptible (nonverbal) action typifies human beings; they are capable of identifying dissimilar states. Our mind is entirely permitted to focus and give attention extra on sound by the repetition of Mantra i.e. chanting. The additional features that distract our energies for instance other thoughts, sensations and interruptions are too cleaned away by the repetition of mantra. As the mind clears away the mess of unnecessary internal discourse, our senses become more heightened and mind becomes sharper and perspective. The theory in using mantras or chanting is that the body and mind begin to resonate with the frequency of the voice, helping to organize thoughts and consciousness. Reciting a mantra continuously “purifies the speech and ‘protests the mind’ by maintaining a constant spiritual connection; and of course it helps disperse mental chatter”. If there is no religious preference then the sound vibration ‘OM’ is a universally recognized mantra .The sound of OM is also called Pranava, meaning that it sustains life and runs through Prana or breathes. The OM is composed of three letters, A, U, and M. These symbolize the practitioner’s impure body, speech, and mind Chanting OM (AUM) will bring us to a state of purity in body mind and soul. The chanting of ‘OM’ mantra drives away all worldly thoughts and removes distraction and infuses new vigor in the body. Modern science has to reaffirm that OM mantra chanting allows our mind to focus and clear away unnecessary thoughts, sensations and distractions which divert our energies. In this paper, by utilizing signal processing techniques OM mantra chant signal is analyzed to endorse its effects on consciousness and steadiness of mind. The Time-Frequency analysis is performed on the OM chant signal using wavelet transforms. Our analysis results confirm that the chanting of OM mantra will improve our consciousness and give steadiness to mind by clearing all worldly thoughts. Mantra:- Mantra is intrinsically related to sound and sound is reverberating in everything in this universe. A Mantra is a sound repeated over and over until it integrates into our consciousness – frees the mind from its constant doing, and elevates us to an altered state of awareness. In this state, we can connect with our soul at its most profound level, achieving a state of universal consciousness. Mantras have some features in common with spells, in that they are a translation of the human will or desire into a form of action. As symbols, sounds are seen to effect what they symbolize. Mantra has been called the sound-body of God: It is God in the form of sound. Mantra helps to quieten the mind. It works because it actively chases away our errant thoughts. Mantra helps to clear our mind and purify our inner being. This purification is essential to good meditation. OM Mantra:- The basic mantra is OM or ‘Aum’, which in Vedic dharma is known as the ‘pranava mantra,’ the source of all mantras. If there is no religious preference then the sound vibration ‘OM’ is a universally recognized mantra. It is the representation of the Supreme Being. The past, present and the future are all included in this one sound. Meditation on this sacred syllable is said to satisfy every need and leads to liberation. The power of chanting the OM mantra is as follows: The chanting of OM drives away all worldly thoughts and removes distraction […]
Mathomathis would like to present an article on: A genuine approach on Ancient Indian Science by author Prof. K.D.Abhyankar, F.N.A,F.A.Sc, F.N.A.Sc,A.R.A.S | Fellow , Indian National Science Academy (INSA), Hyderabad There are two opposite views about ancient Indian science. According to one conservative Indian view all knowledge is contained in the Vedas and one has to discover it by proper decoding of its contents. On the other hand western oriented people say that Indians were ignorant of science before they came into contact with the foreigners. Both these views are extreme and wrong. Knowledge grows exponentially with time like a nyagrodha i.e. banyan tree. The father learns something by experience. He transmits his knowledge to his son. The son in turn adds to it his mew experience and conveys it to the grandson, and so on. The present day knowledge is the result of such accumulation over thousands of generations. So it is not correct to say that every thing was known in the beginning itself. But surely there was an earlier simpler beginning and it should be our aim to discover the seed of nyagrodha tree of knowledge, which was sown in ancient times. The ancient knowledge need not be as complex as modern one. Same thing applies to technology. It would certainly take a long time to graduate from a potter’s wheel to an aeroplane. Hence one need not claim that the ancients were familiar with radio, television, air travel, theory of relativity and atom bombs. Of course they were intelligent enough like us to speculate about such things. In astronomy also we have to remember that there were no telescopes at that time. So there was no knowledge about galaxies and the expansion of the universe. However the ancients made good use of their eyes and simple devices like shanku (gnomon) and ghatikapatra (water clock) for discovering some basic facts about the heavens. And we endeavor to search them. Sense of History:- Secondly one has to have a proper historical perspective about Indian history. Here also there are two extreme views. According to one school Aryans, who spoke Sanskrit and produced the Vedic literature, came into India from outside around 1500 BC. So they would compress Vedic knowledge within this period. On the other hand traditionalists will vouch for several mahayugas of Indian history. Let us first look at the Aryan influx theory. It is based on two premises. One is the close affinity between Sanskrit and European languages. The other id the existence of 500 years old Indus valley civilization which is said to have been destroyed by the incoming Aryans, who were nomads. So Vedic knowledge cannot to be older then 1500 BC. However Malti Shndge of Pune has shown that there is a closer affinity of Sanskrit with the Sumerian and Akkadian languages of Mesopotamia. So it is more likely that these and European languages are offshoots of Sanskrit which is definitely Indian origin. Further Vedas do not talk about an earlier home of Aryans like Arianavayo of Parsis. In fact they praise the mighty Saraswati river of India with fondness and reverence. In older times saraswati was joined by yamuna in the east and Satadru (satlaj) in the west. Due to technonic movements of the earth they were diverted to Ganga and Sindhu, respectively and saraswati dried around 200 BC. Satellite photographs clearly show the dry bed of saraswati river in Rajastan. So Vedic people were living in India before that time and the so called Indus valley civilization. Most archeological sites of that civilization are found near the banks of old Saraswati. Now how far back can we go in time. It is now known that before 1000 BC the earth was passing through an ice age for a long time. Large parts of the earth were covered with the thick ice and people had to live in caves. The ice melted around 1000 BC and it was possible for men to inhabit land in river basins and take up agriculture. So one cannot go beyond 1000 BC. Our study of Vedic calendar takes us back to 7000 BC. Evolution of Vedic calendar:- Our present calendar i.e. Panchanga, is developed during the Siddhantic period of Indian astronomy starting from the beginning of Saka/Samvat eras. It is advanced by many famous astronomers from Arybhatta of 5th century to Samant Chandarashekhar of 20th century. Siddhantic astronomy makes use of the Greek methods of deferent’s and epicycles for computing the position of the sun, moon and taragrahas. So it is claimed that Indians borrowed all astronomical knowledge from them. It is even asserted that Vedanga Jyotish was borrowed from the Babylonians, although it is quite clear that Vedanga Jyotish belongs to 1400 BC while Babylonian astronomy thrived in 5th century BC. They forget that the concepts of tithis and nakshatras, which form an important element in our panchangas, were clearly defined in Vedangas Jyotish and represent the link between Siddhantic and earlier Vedic astronomy. As Siddhantic astronomy has already been studied extensively by many scholars we have concentrated on the study of Vedic astronomy with our genuine approach outlined here. India has a hoary astronomical tradition, but it is difficult to trace its development from the earliest epoch due to the lack of any systematic historical records. So one has to interpret the stray astronomical references in the Vedic literature, which covers a long period of time (700 BC to 500 BC) by logical reasoning. From times immemorial the sun, moon and stars have served as directional guides to travelers on land and sea, and now even to astronauts in space. They have also helped him in the measurement of time. When man learned civilization and settled down on land he found that the groups of stars known as Nakshatras (asterisms), which are seen before sunrise or after sunset and near the full moon, changed during the course of the year. It was discovered that the seasons of spring, summer, rains etc were closely […]