1. The Brahmo Samaj

2. Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar

3. Keshab Chandra Sen

4. Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay

5. Bande Mataram

6. Kalighat Temple and the name Kolkata

7. Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa

8. Swami Vivekananda

9. Sri Aurobindo

10. Sri Aurobindo 2

11. Rabindranath Tagore

12. On Gitanjali

13. Ashutosh Mukherjee

14. Subhash Chandra Bose

15. On Rabindra Sangeet

16. Nirad C. Choudhury

17. The Rishis of Indic Tradition

18. Saptarishi

19. Atri Rishi

20. Pulastya Rishi and his progeny

21. Kashyapa

22. On Liberty

23. Astral Connections, Death & Cremations

24. Inner Worlds and its Occupants

25. Durvasa Rishi

26. Narada

27. Jamadagni Rishi and Parashurama

28. Vasishtha

29. Vishvamitra Rishi

30. Patanjali

31. More On Patanjali

32. On Patanjali and Meditation

33. Yajnavalkya

34. Science in Indic tradition

35. Sushruta

36. Caraka

37. Aryabhata I

38. Varahamihira

39. Brahmagupta

40. Vedas, Soul of India

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The Brahmo Samaj

The transition of a society from ancientness to modernity is a slow and
complex process. It takes many twists and turns, and comes about from the
relentless attempts of dedicated workers. There is often a tug between an
orthodoxy that tries to hold back meaningful changes and revolutionaries who
want to uproot everything of the past.

Sometimes, however, changes are brought about through new branches of
traditional religions. One tries to preserve what is best in them and
discard their unacceptable features. In 1828, Raja Ram Mohun Roy made such
an attempt by founding the Brahmo Sabha. This was not a new religion, but a
new movement (a sort of navyashastra) to re-formulate Hinduism with
enlightened values. It proclaimed the immanent unity of an omniscient God,
emphasizing the monotheistic side of Hinduism. It spoke of the soul's
immortality and its responsibility towards the Almighty. It stated that the
goal of religion is not only to worship God but also to seek truth. Most of
all, it taught, in the words of Ram Mohun Roy, that "the true way of serving
God is to do good to man." Brahmo Samaj also explicitly rejected puranic
tales and murthi worship, as well as caste hierarchy. It preached against
child-marriage, female infanticide, and the inhuman horror of sati: all
prevalent in his days.

When Ram Mohun Roy went to Europe, he entrusted the leadership of the new
movement to Debendranath Tagore. This Bengali aristocrat created an elite
fraternity who read and analyzed selections from the Upanishads, not unlike
Christian Bible study groups. Four decades later, in 1868, the institution
changed its name to Brahmo Samaj.

Debendranath Tagore was more than a scholar and thinker. He was also a
spiritually inclined person. He used to go to a village near Bolpur, there
to meditate in the shade of a Chattim (Salstonia scholari) tree, like what
the Buddha did under the bodhi tree. Crowds began to come and sit around
him, as in the days of the Upanishads. He would talk to them about life and
meaning, about religion and morals. He analyzed passages from Hindu sacred
books, but also from the Bible and the Qur'an.

This was revolutionary: reflections on the scriptures of different faiths
under the same roof, done with sensitivity. This reveals a breadth of vision
that comes naturally to the Hindu spirit. Unfortunately, there are trends
in our own times to counter such perspectives. Proclamations of one's own
superiority and invectives directed to other faiths, not uncommon in
Christian and Islamic traditions, is inching its way into the Hindu world
too, instigated by the not unreasonable thesis that tolerance is what let
inimical forces come into and take over India. One may still hope that the
spirit of religious tolerance which is at the Hindu core will never be
stifled, for that is probably the greatest strength of Hinduism, and could
be its most valuable contribution to a multicultural world, often tossed by
doctrinal conflicts.

Debendranath Tagore had a magnificent worship-hall built for the Samaj. With
its glass walls, it has been compared to London's Crystal Palace.

When Keshab Chandra Sen succeeded Debendranath Tagore, he went a step
further, and modeled the organization after the Unitarian Church in the
Christian world. Ironically, he called it Nabo-Bidhan Samaj (new
Dispensation Society), transforming it from a Pan-Hindu to a Bengali name.
It became a splinter group. Then there was a move to unite these into a
Sadharan (Common) Brahmo Samaj. In 1897, the Brahmo Sammilan Samaj was
established.

Brahmo Samaj established the first Hindu worship center where the symbol of
Aum, rather than a murthi was the focus at the alter. It was, and still is,
an elite organization with which the masses did/do not resonate, not only
because its adherents were/are often intellectually and analytically
inclined, but also because it lacks the colorfulness of festivities and the
poetry of traditional rituals. Nevertheless, it had a great impact on the
evolution of Indian society. For one thing, through its use of English, it
became one of the first enlightened movements in modern India to bring
together Hindus from different parts of the subcontinent. In infused a sense
of commonness among 19th century Hindus, and made them aware of the
philosophical dimensions of their scriptures.

Then again, Brahmo Samaj served as a model for other pan-Indian
organizations. Arya Samaj came next, though this one had a belligerent
undercurrent which Brahmo Samaj did not have: the latter's goal was to
cleanse and enrich Hinduism more than to combat Islam or resist
Christianity. It has been said that the Indian National Congress which
fought for and ultimately won India's political independence from Britain,
was inspired by the Brahmo Samaj in its formation.

A small school was established on a piece of land in the village near
Bolpur. From this grew the world-renowned Shantiniketan (House of Peace). In
this idyllic niche in Bengal a major university would be established. It is
remarkable that the impetus to bring about social changes led to the
founding of a great university: What a wonderful evolution!

V. V. Raman
August 1, 2005

Ishwar Chandra Bandopadhay was an eminent scholar and social reformer of
19th century Bengal. He came from a family of modest means. He went to the
village school where everything was taught in Bengali. When he was still a
lad, his father took him to Calcutta. Here he was to join a local patashala
to learn more Sanskrit. A family friend advised the father to send the boy
to a school where he could learn English, because a knowledge of English
used to get one a well-paying job. That fact hasn't changed since.
So Ishwar Chandra joined a Calcutta school where they taught English. One
commentator says: ". this decision was a small turning point in the life of
one man, but a giant leap in the history of Bengal." It enabled Ishwar
Chandra to get a law degree. In the meanwhile, he mastered Sanskrit and a
host of other subjects, earning for himself the honorific: Vidyasagar
(Bidyasagor): Ocean of Learning.

Vidyasagar became a lecturer at Fort William College (established in 1800)
when he was in his early twenties. He taught brilliantly, and proposed to
improve the curriculum there. Such boldness did not sit well with a senior
(fellow Hindu) professor. Unpleasantness ensued, Vidyasagar resigned as
lecturer, and took on a clerical job.

Later on, he joined the famous Sanskrit College, and soon became its
principal. He argued against superstitions and casteism, and ate freely with
the so-called untouchables. He opened the doors of this exclusive college to
non-dwijas. This had never been done before in a Sanskrit school. To us
such things may not seem extraordinary, but in his days, these were
revolutionary steps, and they annoyed the guardians of tradition.
Vidyasagar dedicated himself to innovations in education. He pleaded for
English as medium of instruction. He wrote: "Leave me to teach Sanskrit for
the leading purpose of thoroughly mastering the Vernacular and let me
superadd to it the acquisition of sound knowledge through the medium of
English and you may rest assured that before a few years are over I shall be
enabled if supported and encouraged by the Council to furnish with you a
body of young men who will be better qualified by their writings and
teachings to disseminate widely among the people sound information than it
has hitherto been possible to accomplish through the instrumentality of the
Educated clever of any of your Colleges whether English or oriental." This
may not be perfect sentence construction, but if great scientists and
intellects emerged in Bengal in the first half of the 20th century, the
explanation is in Vidyasagar's efforts to promote English as much as
elsewhere, no matter what English-bashers say.

And yet, Vidyasagar did not ignore his own beautiful Bangla. He introduced
students to the curviform alphabet of his language with a simple book (Borno
Porichoi) which is as popular today as when it was first published 150 years
ago (in 1855). His simple and elegant writings are said to have served as a
model for later Bengali prose.

India must remember Vidyasagar most of all for his untiring dedication to
abolish polygamy and to eradicate the dehumanization of widows in Hindu
society. Contrary to the belief of some Neo-Hindus, polygamy was not
uncommon in parts of India in the 19th century. Vidyasagar published a list
of the names of men in Bengal who had married several times, often under-age
girls at that.

Not so long ago, everyone could recognize a Hindu widow: She wore only
white saree and no blouse, nothing around her neck. Her head was clean
shaven. She sat secluded in gatherings, was carefully avoided in happy
ceremonies. She wasn't allowed to eat onions, taste honey, smell flowers or
see beautiful pictures. Society tried to numb her senses. Thinkers and
saints have spoken out against the ill-treatment of the lower castes, but
not many in the tradition had been as outraged on the matter of attitudes to
widows, perhaps because the very mention of the word widow was/is considered
inauspicious.

Vidyasagar spoke out for the rights of widows. Orthodoxy rebuked him for
this. He quoted from the shastras to show there never was any injunction
against widows remarrying, or for men marrying again and again while they
had a wife. His treatises on bidhobabivah (widow marriage), bahubivah
(polygamy) and balyabivah (child marriage) provoked threatening letters: the
recourse of the morally weak and the intellectually impoverished defenders
of mindless doctrines. As with casteism, widows' rights are in law books,
but the treatment of widows in Hindu society has not changed to the extent
most enlightened Hindus hope for. [Recently, a Hindu patriot said she would
dehumanize herself like a Hindu widow if Sonia Gandhi became Prime
Minister.]

Frustrated by the reactions to his efforts, Vidyasagar lived his last years
among tribals. As Bob Dylan would sing,
"How many thinkers must condemn these things, before we wake up to these?
The answer, my friends, is: God alone knows; the answer is: God alone
knows.."

Keshab Chandra Sen was another star in the intellectual firmament of 19th
century Bengal. He was a keen thinker and social activist who was torn between
two worldviews - the traditional and the modern - which he tried to bridge like
some of his fellow-countrymen of that momentous period. It was a period in
India's long history when the minds of its leaders were being slowly
metamorphosed into a rich blend of the old and the new. They were profoundly
touched by Western thought and attitudes in social and religious matters.

Sen was born a Hindu, but was not moved by the worship of God in clay or brass.
He was born in an upper caste, but repudiated the inhumanity inherent in caste
hierarchy. He was raised a Bengali, but found Durga puja meaningless. All this
was not unrelated to the fact that he had read William Hamilton, Victor Cousin,
and Ralph Waldo Emerson. "English education unsettled my mind and left a void,"
he wrote, "I had given up idolatry, but had received no positive system of faith
to replace it. How could one live on earth without a system of positive
religion?... A small publication of the Calcutta Brahmo Samaj fell into my
hands, and as I read the chapter on "What is Brahmoism?" I found that it
corresponded exactly with the inner conviction of my heart, the voice of God in
the soul."

Keshab Sen joined the Brajmo Samaj, of which he became an Acharya. He did much
to propagate an anti-caste society through the many branches he established. But
some of his views on social reforms were too radical, even for Debendranath
Tagore. He broke away and founded his own version of it. He was more interested
in social and ethical questions than in debates on religion and metaphysics.

He was drawn to the practical and humanistic sides of Christianity. His
favorable writings on the progressive aspects of that faith won him the
attention and esteem of Unitarians. At the same time, he was becoming even more
suspect in the eyes of orthodox Hindus who feared he was sliding along the path
to conversion.

Keshab Chandra Sen spoke out strongly against casteism, widow-burning,
child-marriage. He was very much against rituals. He condemned costly wedding
ceremonies of the Hindu variety. With all that, he gave away his daughter in
marriage before she turned fourteen: to a prince as a kanya dana with the
customary pomp and circumstance of ancient rituals. It is not always easy to
practice fully what one preaches.

In Sen's religion the Universe was the Temple, and Truth the scripture. He
stressed the importance of love, and noted that selfishness was the obstacle to
spiritual growth. Most of all, he reminded people of the ancient, but
oft-ignored, truth that there can be no serious religion without social service.
Indeed, it is fair to say that this was the recurring doctrine of the new
Hinduism that was emerging in 19th century Bengal. It still needs to be dinned
into the ears of many avid practitioners of our faith.

In the 1860s, Keshab Chandra Sen gave a lecture entitled, "Jesus Christ, Europe,
and Asia." In 1870, he was invited to England by a group of Christian churches.
Perhaps they saw in him a powerful instrument for the propagation of
Christianity in India. He was received by Queen Victoria. He spoke in dozens of
organizations in England, in public halls and in churches. But this visit did
not draw him closer to Christianity. Rather than be seduced by its charms, he
became aware of the doctrinal constraints in Christianity. He was also slightly
shocked by what struck him as the materialism of the West. It made him realize
that deep in his heart he was very much a Hindu. "I can here (to England) as an
Indian," he is reported to have told some English friends, "I go back a
confirmed Indian."

In 1881, Keshab Chandra Sen initiated his Noba Bibhana or Church of New
Dispensation. As with the Unitarian Church, its goal was to bring together what
is best in all religions. He drew up a banner with a cross (Christianity), a
crescent (Islam), and a trident (Hinduism). He envisioned that church to be one
that "is the depository of all ancient wisdom and the school of modern thought,
which recognizes in all prophets a harmony, in all scriptures a unity, and
through all dispensations a continuity, which abjures all that separates and
divides, and always magnifies brotherhood and peace, which seeks truth in
freedom, justice in love, and individual discipline in social dutu; and which
shall make all sects, classes, nations, and races one fellowship of men."

By now his inherited tradition was beckoning Keshab Chandra Sen back to its
bosom. The Noba Vidhana began to speak of the God Mother (Kali), introduced the
worship of fire, and reinstated arati as a ritual. The devotional songs of Shri
Choytanya became routine in his church. Now he began to accept idolatry as
readily as he had rejected it in his youthful days. Such is the power of the
ancient Hindu spirit. Its hold on its children, for good and for bad, is far too
strong to be shaken away.

In his later years, Sen was drawn to mysticism. He became a recluse and died
before he was fifty, criticized by many and admired by others. He is a proud
possession in the memory of Bengal. The cultural history of India cannot ignore
his appearance either.

V. V. Raman
Somerset, NJ
August 12, 2005

Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay (Chatterjee) was, without a doubt, a trail-blazer
in the realm of modern Indian literature. In the view of some, he was the
greatest Indian novelist of the 19th century. He wrote primarily in Bengali, and
in the process, he brought out all the subtle and sublime potential of the
language. Many great writers have followed him in that creative stream, but in
the view of some knowledgeable critics, none - not even Rabindranath Tagore -
surpassed him in excellence. There can be no greater praise for a writer in
Bangla.

What was the background of this extraordinary genius in the world of imaginative
narratives? He was certainly one of the first products of early English
education. He studied at Hoogli College, then at the famed Presidency College in
Calcutta. Indeed, he was the first one to receive a bachelor's degree from
Calcutta University (1858). I am not sure any other university remembers, let
alone with such pride, its very first graduate.

Armed with this degree, he became a loyal employee of the British government:
this, after all, was the primary purpose of British schools in India. Chatterjee
served as deputy magistrate in various districts in Bengal. The appreciative
government showered on him titles like Rai Bahadhur and C.I.E. (Companion of the
Order of the Indian Empire). While doing his job as a government official,
Bankim Chandra read voraciously: not only Scott, Dickens and De Quincy, but also
Darwin, Spencer and John Stuart Mill.

While still in the midst of his professional exertions (as Mr. Micawber would
say), Bankim Chandra created an impressive corpus of stories and essays, social
and historical novels, literary criticisms and philosophical reflections. He
began with a short story in English, entitled Raj Mohan's Wife, but wisely
switched to his mother tongue. For more than two decades he produced works that
were surely the most widely read in Bengal. His writings continue to enjoy the
same popularity in our own times.

His first novel, Durgeshanandi (The Chieftain's Daughter) was based on a
historical episode during the Mogul emperor Akbar's time. Some have seen in its
beginning - a horseman galloping on a highway - the image of Bankim Chandra
leading future novelists along the grand path he was forging. There is war and
love here as in Walter Scott's creation, even a slight echo of Rebecca in
Ayesha: though the author had written his story before reading Ivanhoe, they
say.

Bankim Chandra produced story after story, created characters by the dozens,
painted scenes familiar and of the past, always capturing the reader's rapt
attention. He treated such topics as widow marriage, the impact of the British,
and even, like Gustave Flaubert, adultery. He was influenced by Western
literature for sure, but he didn't reject the world-views to which he was heir.
The recurring theme in his writings is self-control. He had little fascination
for the Unitarianism that appealed to some his compatriots.

Many author's have their own masterpiece. For Bankim Chandra, it is Ananda Math
(1882). The book is available in English as The Sacred Brotherhood. [I will
confess that I have read his works only in English translations. This historical
fiction centers around an imaginary rebellion of the members of a Hindu
religious order in the 18th century. The rebellion was provoked by the infamous
famine that ravaged Bengal in 1770s. The combined might of British and Muslim
army could not quell the fury of Hindu nationalists. But a mystical physician,
apparently a spokesman for a Divine voice, counsels Satyananda, the leader of
"the children of the Mother" not to continue with the uprising. The reason he
gives is interesting: India was destined to go through a painful period of
British domination: this, because empty speculations and obscurantism had
brought her people down from the pedestal of glory, and it was now left to the
British to wake them up to the scientific age. This theme occupied many
intellectuals of his time, and Bankim Chandra explored it again in Dharmatattva,
a non-fiction.

The 19th century Renaissance of India was not only in religion and political
awareness, and yes, in religious reforms. It was no less in art and music, in
literature and historical analysis. Little by little, through magazines and
newspapers, pamphlets and books, a new spirit of creativity was emerging. A
whole new class of thinkers and intellectuals was shaped who, while not losing
their grip on the legacy of their ancestors, did more than simply repeat by rote
the lore of their tradition. They realized the importance and excitement there
is in exploring new paths, and in formulating new visions. Indeed, every
generation has to do this for a culture to be dynamic.. In this grand
re-affirmation of an ancient civilization, Bengal played a leading role. Here,
Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay was a pioneer whose works have gained permanence
not only among those of his tradition, but also in the history of Indian
literature at large.

V. V. Raman
Somerset, NJ
August 10, 2005

Few poems in all of history have had as great an impact on the politics and
patriotism of a people as Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay's Bande Mataram. I
remember hearing it as a schoolboy, back in my days in Calcutta, when the air
reverberated with Jai Hind and Netaji ki Jai. When this Sanskrit-Bengali hymn to
Mother India was sung in the Mallar-Kowabi-Tal, it used to stir our hearts with
a robust love for Mother India. It infused us with the conviction that before
long India would become a free and proud nation in the world, contributing to
humanity's well-being and advancement.

Bande Mataram is part of Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay's Ananda Math. What a
clever scheme the writer had hatched to instigate his fellow-countrymen to take
up arms against a sea of sahibs! It was sneaked into a novel as an innocuous
diversion from a story set in a distant past. It was a hymn to one's country
hailed as Mother, describing her natural beauty and material bounty. But there
was a subtle message here for revolt, with a reference to people-power. For, as
Sri Aurobindo put it, "The Mother of his (Bankim Chandara's) vision held
trenchant steel in her twice seventy million hands, and not the bowl of the
mendicant."

The song was first sung by Rabindranath Tagore in 1896 at a session of the All
India Congress. It was also chanted in public by an angry crowd in Barisal when
Bengal was partitioned in 1904. In that context, Viceroy Curzon was burnt in
effigy, the police responded with force, but patriotic voices could not be
subdued. The song spread all over Bengal, and spilled into other provinces as
well. Such was the power of Bande Mataram which sounds like a mystical mantra
set to melodious music.

There are at least two versions of how Bande Mataram came to be composed.
According to one, given by an eminent Bengali of the time, perhaps intended to
assuage the British who were becoming nervous about its impact, the poem was no
more than a harmless piece written "in a fit of patriotic excitement after a
good hearty dinner, which he (the author) always enjoyed." According to another,
Bankim Chandra penned his powerful lines during a train trip in 1875 when he saw
through the window rich fields, trees with colorful flowers, gentle streams and
peaceful lakes. Moved by the majesty of Nature, he pictured the scene before his
eyes as Mother India in all her splendor. And he wrote the immortal poem. Here
are its first few lines:

BandÙw?ram!
Sujal?suphal? malayaja sh?l?
Shasya-shy?l? M?ram!
Shubhra-jy?a pulakita-y?n?
Phulla-kusumita drumadala sh?n?
Su-h?n? su-madhura bhashin?
Sukhad? barad? M?ram!

Oh Mother, we offer our salutations to You!
Sweet are Your waters, sweet Your fruits too.
Fragrant and cool from the south blows the breeze,
Like scent from the tree of sandal wood is.
Green are Your cornfields, joyous Your night
When brightened, oh Mother, by Moon's silvery light.
Your trees are adorned with blossoming flowers
Sweet smile and sweet speech are surely both Yours.
You give us, oh Mother, happiness and boons!

I am aware that my feeble translation does no justice to a song like no other.
It has stirred more hearts than the Marseillaise, God Save our Gracious King,
and Deutschland ?er Alles put together. Patriots have sung it in prisons and at
the gallows. Magazines were started with Vande Mataram as name. Vande Mataram
became a form of greeting for nationalist Indians in India and America, in
Canada, Europe, and South Africa. At the beginning of their meetings, the Indian
National Congress used to sing it year after year. When Muslims objected to this
practice, they also sang Iqbal's Sar?ah?s?cch?industhan ham?. Vande
Mataram was ideal as national anthem for free India, but Muslims protested on
the grounds that it evokes a Goddess - this was a no-no for Islam. So it was
agreed to use only the first few lines where there is no mention of Saraswati or
Durga. Still, objections persisted. It was said that the poem could not be cast
to orchestral music, and this was proved wrong. Finally, one gave up, and
adopted Jana-gana-mana as the national anthem of the Indian Republic.

Nevertheless, the song continues to evoke love and reverence for India in the
hearts of millions of people of Indic heritage all over the world. Perhaps this
is better, for it is a song of love and reverence more than of nationalistic
pride. Hindus all over the world, every time they hear it, are still moved, even
if they are not citizens of India.

V. V. Raman
August 12, 2005

There are, they say, 15th century references to a place of worship exactly
where the temple of Kali is now in South Kolkata, but the present structure
was erected from the munificence of a certain Roy Chowdhury family by the
end of the 18th century.

This region was almost a jungle in those days. One day, a pious individual
is said to have witnessed a mysterious light emanating from a nearby water
bed. His curiosity led him to the source, and there he is said to have found
a stone that resembled a toe and another that was surely a lingam of Shiva.

Puranic lore tells us that at one time the body parts of Shakti were
scattered in fifty plus places all over India when the Lord Shiva performed
his Cosmic Dance (tandava). The toe-like stone that was discovered was taken
to be Shakti's toe. This was the mythic inspiration for the Kalighat temple.

There is a section of this temple, dating back the 1880s, which is
consecrated to certain goddesses (Sosthi, Sitola and Mongol Chandi - Mongol
is Bengali for Mangal) where women function as priests. This is the tantric
wing of Hinduism. There was a time when intoxicants (k?n b?) were given
to the deity. I recall that I was often jolted in this temple by the
so-called hartkath tala where there used to be (maybe still are) periodic
sacrifices of animals. In fact, there were two of these, one for goats and
one for buffalos. Perhaps these practices are no longer in vogue, but I don'
t know. Once I heard a guide at the temple explain to some foreign visitors
that the heads of the sacrificial animals were severed in a single stroke -
without any cruelty, he emphasized - adding that it was quite unlike
slaughter-houses in Western countries. This little note on comparative
cultures is the kind of innuendo which makes some Hindus feel that ours is a
superior religion.

Within this temple there is also a section dedicated to Radha-Krishna. Here,
the prasad (bhog) is strictly vegetarian. It is in such diversity and
multi-modes that the richness and breadth of vision of Hinduism is to be
seen, rather than in its one-stroke animal sacrifice. Indeed, there are not
too many Hindu temples, even within India, where meat-eaters and
meat-shunners pray with non-judgmental mutual respect as at the Kalighat
Temple in Calcutta. The secret to a harmonious world lies precisely in how
well groups can exercise their religious convictions without mutual
recriminations.

Like most temples, there is a sacred pool attached to the Kalighat temple.
Tradition has it that it was in this tank that Shakti's toe was discovered,
which makes its water particularly sacred. But, of course, the temple itself
is also close to a Hoogli stream, which is a tributary of the holy Ganga.
This brings to mind a meaningful experience I used to have at the Himalayan
waters flowing near the Kalighat temple. In an old hall on its banks,
bare-bodied and bare-footed, I have walked a few times on moss-covered
stones, a brass tumbler and spoon in hand, sat in front of a mini-altar lit
with twigs and sundry scraps to invoke agni, and chanted with the assembled
crowd the annual mantras for renewing my sacred thread.

I also recall visiting the temple once with a couple of Swiss tourists. As
we walked on Kali Temple Road, we were surrounded by beggars with various
kinds and levels of disabilities. I tried to shove les misarables de
Calcutta away, as if they were annoying flies hovering over a pot of
payodhi. Heartlessly ignoring their earnest appeals, I tried to explain to
the curious visitors the significance of Shakti and its manifestation as
Kali. I went on to elaborate on Durga and the forces of Evil, hoping that
the aliens would be impressed, if not enlightened, by these profound
concepts. Perhaps because of my limited vocabulary in Swiss German, or maybe
due to the inadequacy of my explication of subtle metaphysics, the duo from
Zurich showed no interest whatever in what I was trying to say, and they
kept clicking their cameras at every opportunity.

Years later, I realized how callous I had been to the hungry mendicants, and
how irrelevant my dissertations had been in that social context. It
occurred to me that if Hindu thinkers (myself included) spent a little more
time serving the destitute in India instead of speaking and writing on
Vedanta and the Gita, they might be better practitioners of their religion.
I am sure some good Hindus must be doing this.

The Kalighat temple is one of several such temples in Bengal where the Kali
principle has inspired musicians, politicians, poets and countless common
people. The older name Calcutta was the anglicized version of Kaali-ghaata.
And here is a linguistic irony: In Bengali, short a is pronounced as o; thus
Calcutta was pronounced as Kol-kata. Now, in their enthusiasm to revert to
pre-British names, they have changed Calcutta to Kolkata. This strikes me as
an unfortunate form of re-naming: If we wish to be faithful to the original
name, we should have reverted to Kaali-ghaata. By using Kol for Kali, and
kata for ghata, we have perpetuated the English Cal for Kaali and recognized
the absence of gha in English. Kaali is not pronounce as Koli in Bangla.

V. V. Raman
August 15, 2005

Another important Kali Temple, not far from Calcutta, is the one at
Dakshineswar. Here, more than a century ago, there was a pujari by the name
of Ramkumar Chatterjee whose brother was so fascinated by saintly men in
ochre robes that he decided to serve as an assistant in the precincts of the
Dakshineswar temple. The name of this brother was Gadadhar Chatterjee. In
due course he became the priest in Daskineswar himself.

But Gadadhar was unlike any other priest in a temple. He did not pray or
chant just ritualistically. He took the icon in the temple to be the real
Kali. He longed to see her manifest herself in all her dynamism. When he was
alone, he would implore the Goddess to appear before his eyes to reveal her
divine splendor. Sometimes he would cry.

His appeals and entreaties proved to be of no avail. In his frustration, he
decided to put an end to himself. Just when he was about to thrust a
sharpened machete into his body, something remarkable is said to have
happened. In his own words: "House, walls, doors, the temple, all
disappeared into nothingness." He witnessed "an ocean of light, limitless,
living, conscious, blissful." Dazzling light and roaring sounds rushed
towards him. Gadadhar Chatterjee lost consciousness of the physical world.
Reports of such experiences caused some worry in the family, and the
relatives wanted him married. He readily agreed, and even named the village
where they would find the bride. Thus he was married to a six year old lass
named Sarada Devi.

He began to worship her, and treat her as the Universal Mother. Indeed he
experimented with the Tantric tradition, deriving spiritual ecstasies from
this. Aside from his experiences in the Shakta framework, Ramakrishna was
also in the Vaishnava mode. He worshiped Rama and Krishna. And now he took
on the names of these major avatars of Vishnu. Thus, he came to be known as
Ramakrishna: a name which his father is said to have given him also.

Ramakrishna took his devotion to the Divine very seriously. Recalling that
Hanuman was the most devout follower of Rama, in his unusual modes of
devotion, Ramakrishna imitated that simian sishya by living on nuts and
resting on trees. Likewise, remembering that Radha loved Krishna with all
her heart, he dressed himself as a woman and fantasized being Radha so as to
invoke in himself amorous intensities towards Krishna.
But is God there only as Kali, Rama, and Krishna? To answer this, the mystic
explored Islamic mysticism and experienced God as a the Muslim would. Then
he went on to Christianity, not as a convert, but as an aspirant for
communion with Jesus. Ordinary human love can turn people's heads. Normal
people are known to have behaved erratically in the throes of passing
infatuation. What to say when the passion is for the Cosmic Principle! In
Ramakrishna bhakti reached its pinnacle. His love for the Supreme was
mindless and magnificent. Psychologists may analyze the saint's moods and
methods, but they cannot diminish the spotless bliss that this
extraordinarily complex Hindu saint experienced and conveyed.
There is a popular belief that from a mixture of milk and water, the swan
can drink the milk component alone. So too, it is said poetically that the
true yogi has the capacity to discard the non-essential and drink deep of
ultimate Reality. Hence Ramakrishna came to be called Paramahamsa (The Great
Swan).

Ramakrishna Paramahamsa was a simple, unschooled god-man who absorbed the
nectar of spiritual ecstasy from various religions even as a bee sucks honey
from flower to flower. His thoughts were incessantly with the Divine
(nirvikalpa samadhi).

In his proclamation that there is no difference between the Gods of
different sects and religions, he was a living example of what some Vedic
rishis had uttered. Simpletons and scholars, housewives and pundits, all
recognized the sincerity and intensity of his mystic experiences.
There was perhaps nothing highly original in what this extraordinary saint
said: That there is but one God, called by different names, is ancient
wisdom. That Christ and Allah are as worthy of our reverence as Rama and
Krishna - though unpalatable to some Hindus - is no less an element of Hindu
spiritual vision. We remember and revere this saint, not for what he
preached and practiced, but for the source of his convictions. He did not
gather his perspectives by carefully combing through the Vedas and the
Upanishads. He neither read nor wrote commentaries on the scriptures. But
his assertions had all the authority and authenticity of a scientist who had
done the experiments and calculations herself. Any talk of god based on
analysis and reason would be shallow compared to pronouncements that flow
from psychedelic experiences of the mystic. Through the mission that his
most illustrious disciple established, his name will always be remembered.

V. V. Raman
Aug 17, 2005

Narendra Nath Datta began to wonder about God and such matters from a very
early age. He was attracted to the Brahmo Samaj, but no scholars of that
movement could affirm that God had made His existence clear to them beyond a
reasonable doubt. On the other hand, Ramakrishna Paramahamsa did not have the
slightest doubt on the matter. Unlike the Brahmo philosophers, the saint had
seen God himself. His deep inner conviction appealed to young Narendra, and he
adopted him as his guru. Narendra Nath Dutta was destined to become Swami
Vivekananda and messenger of Hindu insights to the Western world.

Interestingly enough, he had little respect - indeed, much aversion - for the
Tantric tradition of his guru. He preferred to base his spirituality onthe Gita
and the Upanishads rather than on the Puranas or Tantric modes. Nurtured by the
writings of Western thinkers, and with an in-born eloquence, Vivekananda set out
to preach to the world. He attended the Parliament of World Religions, held in
Chicago in 1893, as an exponent of Hindu visions. Here he made such an impact
that one newspaper wrote: "After hearing him, we feel how foolish it is to send
missionaries to this learned nation." He was called "an orator of divine light,"
and declared as "the greatest figure in the Parliament of Religions." While
Hindus take just pride in such encomiums, some credit is also due to America for
organizing a Parliament of World Religions, and for being so hearty in
applauding a speaker bearing messages from an alien faith. Vivekananda went from
the U.S. to England and spoke there on Hinduism and Vedantic philosophy. During
this trip, Margaret Noble became his disciple as Sister Nivedita.

Vivekananda was elated by India's spiritual glories. But he was aware of her
material backwardness vis-a-vis the West. As he saw, the West lacked spiritual
sensitivity, but India could benefit from the scientific advances of Europe.
Unlike some patriotic Hindus, Vivekananda deeply felt of the gaping chasm
between the spiritual ideals in the Hindu world and some of its appalling
practices. Hinduism had attained Himalayan heights in spirituality, but it was
also mired in the muck of some outworn unconscionable collective ethics.

The swami was also against the wholesale adoption of Western values: not only
because that would uproot and destroy India's own rich and ancient culture, but
also because there is enough wisdom and insight within the Hindu framework to
bring about the direly needed changes. Vivekananda was totally against casteism,
especially dehumanization and the exploitation of the lowest strata of society.

He declared like other reformers that there was nothing in the scriptures to ban
the lower castes from reciting Vedic mantras, nothing that sanctioned
untouchablility. "In spite of all the ravings of the priests, caste is simply a
crystallized social institution, which after doing its service is now filling
the atmosphere of India with its stench." He wrote this more than a century ago, but it is unfortunately no less true today:

Vivekananda had a caste-theory on Indian history: First there was rule by
Brahmins in Vedic times. Then the Khatriyas (rajas) took over. This was followed
by Vaishya rule, through British merchants and their agents. In the next phase
he foresaw rule by the Shudras or laboring class. Though he did not express it
as such, this last could correspond to Communist rule by the proletariat.
Vivekananda never lost sight of India's perennial spiritual yearnings. He wrote
and spoke on Vedanta philosophy, on the immortality of the soul, and on Brahman.
"India is immortal if she persists in her search for God," he said.

Commentators of later generations have criticized Vivekananda's interpretations
of Vedanta, his lack of Sanskrit scholarship, and his facile generalizations on
Hinduism. But they have not accomplished anything like what Vivekananda did for
the face-lifting and furtherance of Hinduism; most of all, his establishment of
the Ramakrishna Mission in 1897 for the
propagation of Hindu Dharma all over the world.

Monks of this movement undergo training in philosophy and practice. They have to
do social service. Vivekananda insisted that serving the needy
(doridra-nar?na) is the most important goal of the Mission which is also
engaged in education, medical assistance, and the like. "Your duty is to serve
the poor and the distressed, without distinction of caste or creed,"
he thundered. This was new to the Hindu mind of his days.

Vivekananda described Hinduism as an all-embracing system in which
bhajan-singing bhaktas as well as skeptical agnostics had a place, where thought
and action, doubt and faith, all would be accommodated. It is remarkable how the
spirit of history sponsors in subtle ways individuals as instruments to forge
its goals. Had there not been Vivekananda and Macaulay's English, Hindu visions
would have seeped into the West through entirely different, but perhaps far less
effective, channels.

V. V. Raman
Ames, Iowa
August 19, 2005

I had a very dear elderly friend (PKD) back in my college days in Calcutta.
His hero was Sri Aurobindo. He used to say that Aurobindo was the greatest
soul that ever walked on our planet, and that he was an incarnation of
Gautama Buddha.

Thanks to PKD, I got to read some of Sri Aurobindo's writings. One day, as
I took leave of him after a two-hour discussion during which he elaborated
on the idea that the Big Bang cosmology of current science is implicit in
Vedantic thought, he placed in my hands with great affection Sri Aurobindo's
Savitri, saying, "This will be a challenge to you, but I know that it will
bring you true light." Challenge it surely was. It tougher than the
Schr?ger equation which I had to decipher for a course at the time.

Unfortunately, I was neither ready nor eager for true light of the kind PKD
had in my mind. [I seriously doubt that I am capable of receiving it even
this late stage in my life.] Nevertheless, out of respect for my friend, I
began reading Canto One that night: The Symbol. I was fascinated by the
poetry. I learned the first few lines by heart:

It was the hour before the Gods awoke.
Across the path of the divine Event.
The huge foreboding mind of Night, alone
In her unit temple of eternity,
Lay stretched immobile upon Silence's marge.

It is a very difficult book, dense and obscure: probably the most difficult
literary work I have read in all my life. It is a magnificent poem of epic
proportions, based on an ancient Hindu myth. It explores in complex
symbolism the complex web of life and death and spiritual yearning and
immortality. Its esoteric meaning is not easy to fathom, but if one makes an
effort one can be transported to lofty reflective realms. The work speaks of
the soul of the earth as rising and instigating the divine to come down here
below, of life as a tree growing towards heaven, and such.

PKD also urged me to read the more than thousand pages of Aurobindo's The
Life Divine. I was enchanted by this too, with precious insights like: ". .

. all problems of existence are essentially problems of harmony. They arise
from the perception of an unsolved discord and the instinct of an
undiscovered agreement or unity. . . . This is the monstrous thing, the
terrible and pitiless miracle of the material universe that out of this
no-Mind a mind, or, at least, minds emerge and find themselves struggling
feebly for light, helpless individually, only less helpless when in
self-defense they associate their individual feebleness in the midst of the
giant Ignorance which is the law of the universe . . . But what, after all,
behind appearances, is this seeming mystery? We can see that it is the
Consciousness which had lost itself returning again to itself, emerging out
of its giant self-forgetfulness, slowly, painfully, as a Life that is
would-be sentient, half-sentient, dimly sentient, wholly sentient and
finally struggles to be more than sentient, to be again divinely
self-conscious, free, infinite, immortal. . . ."

I re-read these lines several times. In this passage Sri Aurobindo is
essentially reminding us about the Upanishadic vision that we have forgotten
our cosmic origins, and that in the ignorance of our roots, we are
struggling like pitiful creatures. There is deep wisdom here, and beautiful
poetry also. Very much inspired by the thought, I wrote down in my journal
that "we are like insubstantial rays of light from the brilliant sun that
know not that such is their glorious source."

At that searching stage in my youth I had neither the time nor the interest,
let alone the wisdom, to fully understand the spiritual depths in Sri
Aurobindo's books. Many years later, I tried to go back to them. By then,
however, I had matured along different paths. The crass rationality of
science had blunted considerably my sensitivity for matters mystical and
metaphysical. Therefore, while I have always enjoyed Sri Aurobindo's
erudite language and metaphors, and though I regard him as one of the most
original thinkers of modern India, indeed of the 20th century, I was seldom
awakened to new spiritual experiences by his writings.

From whatever I read
of him, he struck me as an unusually gifted sage, endowed with extraordinary
poetic gifts, who was inspired and elevated to lofty heights from his
readings and reflections on ancient Hindu visions.
Sri Aurobindo is one of the few modern Indian thinkers I am aware of who was
not constrained in his meditations by the weight and wisdom of our ancient
heritage. He forged new visions while being rooted in his ancestral
revelations. I have always felt that in the context of a people's culture
too, ancient world-views and wisdom will have to be re-thought and
re-formulated with every new age. It is here that Sri Aurobindo was a giant
among thinkers. Indeed, his refreshed articulations have inspired thoughtful
people in many parts of the world. Philosophers, mystics, and even
scientific thinkers have seen pearls of wisdom in his teachings.

V. V. Raman
Aug 22, 2005

Sri Aurobindo Ghose was an extraordinary thinker who moved from metaphysics
to meditation, and from poetry to politics with incredible ease. His early
formation was in schools in England where he absorbed the best in Western
thought and literature. He acquired a decent knowledge of Greek and Latin,
and competed for the Indian Civil Service (ICS), in which he persistently
flunked horse-riding four times.

Upon returning to India, he taught English for a while. Then he became a
freedom fighter, for which he had to serve a prison term. He experienced a
mystic vision during his stay in the Alipore Jail in Calcutta. In a letter
to his wife he confessed to what he called three madnesses: first, the
conviction that it was his bounden duty to share with others the knowledge
he was blessed with; second, that he must realize Divinity in this birth;
and third, that his country was not just a land with rivers and mountains,
but a living mother who was to be worshiped, adored, and served.

After coming out of jail he retired to the (then) French possession of
Pondicherry near Madras where he founded an ashram. Here he set out to
discover the life divine. This hermitage, in which Mira Richard (a French
lady who came to be called the Mother) collaborated, continues to be a
dynamic spiritual center to this day.

Sri Aurobindo began to write grandly from this center on themes ranging from
the Vedas and the Gita to Yoga, literary criticism , and philosophy. These
writings started appearing in 1914 in a monthly journal called Arya, and
continued for many years. It was thus that Sri Aurobindo's masterpieces,
such as The Life Divine, A Defense of Indian Culture, Essays on the Gita,
etc. were published. His writings are invariably of a very high caliber,
often intelligible only to the intellectually sophisticated or the
spiritually awakened.

Sri Aurobindo stated that his study of the Gita "will not be as a scholastic
or academic scrutiny of its thought, nor to place it in the history of metap
hysical speculation," but "for help and light." Unfortunately, the level of
his discussions in this work are not within easy reach of the average reader
following the bhakti marga.

Then came the great epic Savitri which runs to 24,000 lines. Eat you heart
out, Macaulay, this work by a Bengali is the longest epic in your language!
The ancient story of the devoted wife who fights with the God of Death for
her husband's life is symbol for a deeper truth, too complex to be told in a
paragraph or two. Savitri is "the incarnation of the Divine Mother. She is
equally the Mother of Sorrows and the Mother of Light."

In many ways Sri Aurobindo was like an ancient rishi, immersed in deep
thought, his spiritual experiences finding expression in lofty poetry and
sublime philosophy. He saw the Divine in the universe at large, and spoke of
the merger of Man with the Cosmic Spirit. He theorized that the Supreme
became a supermind, which in turn descended to become mind and matter; and
that now a process of ascent is underway, whereby matter has become mind,
and will evolve into a supermind before being transformed into the Supreme
once again. "The past must be sacred to us," he wrote, "but the future must
be still more sacred." As he declared in Savitri:
"A mightier race shall inhabit the world.
On Nature's luminous tops, on the Spirit's ground,
The Supreme shall reign as a king of life,
Make earth almost as the mate and the peer of heaven."

This interpretation of evolution foresees even higher stages of human
consciousness in ages to come. The supermind state, he went on to say, would
be attained by the practice of what he called integral yoga (Purna yoga).

Sri Aurobindo rejected the notion that the practice of yoga calls for
renunciation, or that the world is an illusion. His ideas and writings
inspired some of Sri Aurobindo's followers to look upon him as the prophet
of a new age.

Though he was deeply versed in Western thought, like many ardent lovers of
India's heritage, he was convinced that Vedic wisdom embodies practically
everything of significance that is worth knowing, including some facts and
insights of modern science. He felt that there was something unique in
India's capacity for spirituality, and that Hinduism would answer to the
spiritual needs of the whole world. His ideal for India's future was not of
a country of "Anglicized oriental people, docile pupils of the west and
doomed to repeat the cycle of the occident's success and failure, but still
the ancient memorable Shakti recovering her deepest self, lifting her head
higher towards the supreme source of light and strength and turning to
discover the complete meaning and a vaster form of her Dharma."

Such was this saintly savant of 20th century India who was described by
Romain Rolland as "the completest syththesis that has been realized of the
genius of Asia and of Europe." No visionary of modern times can afford to be
mono-cultural.

V. V. Raman
August 24, 2005

In the course of history, some families have given more than one illustrious
personage to the world. Such were the Bachs and the Bernoullis, the Darwins and
the Huxleys. Such was also the Tagore family of Bengal which produced several
famous men, and dominated Bengal's cultural, political, and economic fronts for
well over a century. The Tagores bore such names Dwarakanath, Debendranath,
Dwijendranath, Surendranath, and Rabindranath.

Rabindranath is, of course, the most famous of them all. He came to the world as
the seventh child in the distinguished family. He showed early signs of literary
genius. It is said that when barely thirteen he made an impressive translation
into Bengali of a scene from Macbeth. This effort was symbolic in that
eventually he became an author of whom all India has heard, and much of the
world beyond.

Tagore was sent to England (along with his brother) when he was seventeen. There
he drank deep of English literature, and wrote a play or two. Upon his return
home, he began publishing poems, plays, novels and criticisms that soon made him
the best and the best-known writer in Bengal. In an age when Indians were more
generous and less insecure in their recognition of their enrichment from
contacts with the West, Buddhadeva Bose wrote that Tagore "has made the rich red
blood of young Europe flow through the veins of our literature, through our life
and thought, and our ancient strifeless world."

In the early years of this century most thinkers in India were touched by the
freedom movement. Tagore too was for some time an active spokesperson for the
cause. In 1911, his composition Jana gana mana adhinayaka jaya hey was sung at
the meeting of the Indian National Congress: a song that was to become free
India's national anthem.

Tagore had a special fascination for the United States: a country he visited
several times, and where he lectured and made many friends. It was to the U.S.
that he sent his son for a degree in agriculture. It was in Urbana, IL, that his
famous Sadhana was written. He looked upon America as destined to fulfill "the
hope of Man and God."

In 1901, Rabindranath Tagore transformed his father's ashram in Santiniketan
(Abode of Peace) into what became Vishva Bharati University. It is an ideal and
idyllic place of learning, away from the hustle of noisy cities, where education
was to mean more than book-learning and crass technology. The highest
expressions of the human spirit would be taught and universal brotherhood would
be recognized here, sometimes in the shade of sprawling trees.

In mind and spirit Rabindranath Tagore was eminently a child of Mother India,
but he was no narrow nationalist when it came to recognizing the blatant evils
in his society. After all, he belonged to the Brahmo tradition. He condemned
casteism openly, and acknowledged the value of Western science and industry. He
had some serious differences with the Indian political leaders of the time on
the latter matter.

Tagore's creative output was prodigious: 40 plays, more than a 100 books of
poems, some 50 novels and short stories. Add to this his impact on Bengali
language and style, and it is easy to understand his stupendous stature in
Bengali literature.

Tagore was also a musical composer of prime quality. A whole range of music,
bearing his name, touches the soul of every Bengali, from peasant to professor
and all in between, whether Hindu, Muslim, or Christian. His themes and tunes
touch every emotional chord. Recitals of Rabindra Sangeet are regular in
Kolikata's cultural scene.

As if all this is not enough, when he was past sixty, Tagore took to painting.
He produced works of art that rank high in the appraisal of competent critics.
They are on display at his home in Kolkata which is now a museum.

Tagore's worldview had its roots in Upanishadic insights. He saw Divinity
pervading the entire world. But this vision did not lead him to penitence for
soul-liberation, or to the ecstasies of the bhakti mode. Rather, he was inspired
to a love of life and song, and to transcendental reflections on the meaning of
life and existence. He reflected in his Gitanjali: "The same stream of life that
runs through my veins night and day runs through the world and dances in
rhythmic measures. It is the same life that shoots in joy the dust of the earth
in numberless blades of grass and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and
flowers. It is the same life that is rocked in the ocean-cradle of birth and
death, in ebb and flow."

No poet is as widely read and no writer is as deeply venerated as Robi Takoor.
Internationally recognized with the coveted Nobel Prize in literature, he has
yet another unique honor which no one else in all of history has received: Two
countries (India and Bangladesh) have adopted his songs as their national
anthems. There is not another son of Bengal who has brought greater joy to the
hearts of all Bengalis. I recall witnessing Tagore's funeral procession passing
through Rash Behary Avenue in Kolkata. My 9 year old friend exclaimed with tears
in his eyes: "I am proud to be a Bengali!"

V. V. Raman
August 26, 2005

Tagore was a poet par excellence, gifted through some mysterious genetic
coding with rhyme and rhythm, with inner melody and exuberant creativity.
Through words and music his poetic vision struck resonant chords with nature's
beauty and to the pangs of love. He would fly to ro-mantic heights and words
flowed through his pen to express his robust passion and intense sensuousness.

But Tagore was also a sensitive thinker who wondered about the universe and the
meaning of life. The blood that coursed in his veins was of ancient vintage: he
was a reflective spirit that had emerged from the mystical tradition of a very
old civilization.

So it was that already in his Naibedya (Offerings) Tagore reflected on
the inner essence of Reality, though many po-ems in that collection also have a
patriotic ring. It is here that his famous lines first appeared (no. 72):

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;

Where knowledge is free;

Where the world has not been broken up into fragments

by narrow domestic walls ....

Into that Heaven wake this Indian land!

It is said that between 1907 and 1910 he used to wander in moonlit mango
groves in Santiniketan, sleeping barely three or four hours a night, often
waking up at four in the morning. It was during his seclusion from the political
turmoil rocking the land, a period when by his own admission he was "very
restless" and "was anxious to know the world," when his "restlessness was
becoming intolerable," that he wrote Gitanjali.

Gitanjali turned out to be the most important book the poet ever published. It
reveals him as one who, in intimate harmony with nature, feels its innermost
essence. In this work, Tagore speaks like an ancient sage-poet who is deeply
touched by the color and beauty, the rhythms and sounds of the wondrous world
around him. There is a touch of the somber in the work, few explicit expressions
of joy. Yet, we can feel nature as a heart-throb of love, out there blessing
the sensitive human soul with bliss. Then, of course, there is God in the
glorious sense of the world, immanent and revealing, the light that illumines
human experience.

Many reflections in the Gitanjali are on the outdoors and on the
countryside: There are references to dark clouds and downpours, to gushing
winds and swelling rivers, to serene boatmen and temples, to the flute and the
string.

But in all the chiseling of nature's beauty with words and music, there is
also an undercurrent of mystical recognition. For, as Sri Aurobindo noted, the word of a poet is inspired word. It gives utterance to the divine rhythms in the
world, and ex-presses magically the infinite suggestion that wells up di-rectly
from the fountain-head of the spirit within us. Listen to how the poet sees love
and joy of God in Nature's beauty:

Lo! there streams your nectar so pure,

Flooding all heaven and earth in love, with life.

It bursts into song and fragrance, into light and rapture.

My life, drunk with that nectar,

is full to the brim.

It blossoms like the lotus in ravishing joy.

Here is your love, O beguiler of souls.

Here it dances on the sun-kissed leaves, golden-hued. (No. 6)

If God and soul, rivers and flowers lurk in the lines of Gitanjali, so do
the grandeur and shame of humanity. If Tagore was profoundly moved by the
glorious insights of Upanishadic seers, he was no less appalled and pained by
the inhumanity of casteism and the mindless muttering of heartless orthodoxy:

Leave this chanting and signing and telling of beads!...

He is there where the tiller is tilling the hard ground,

where the path-maker is breaking stones. (No. 11)

But ultimately, the longings of ancient rishis find ex-pression again in
Tagore:

Let all the strains of joy mingle in my last song: the joy that makes the
earth flow over in the riotous excess of the grass, the joy that sets the twin
brothers, life and death, dancing over the wide world, the joy that sweeps in
with the tempest, shaking and waking all life with laughter, the joy that sits
still with its tears on the open red lotus of pain, and the joy that throws
everything it has upon the dust, and knows not a word. (No. 58)

And the perennial prayer of ancient India, the vibrant theme that has
echoed over and over again all through Indian history, is given due place in
Gitanjali, for the poet pleads:

Oh grant me my prayer that I may never lose the bliss of the touch of the One in
the play of the many. (No. 63).

One can go on and on, reflecting on Gitanjali, this magnifi-cent garland
of thoughts set to the wizardry of words and moving music. In the centuries to
come, for as long as the lan-guage of Bengal is uttered and cherished, for as
long as civiliza-tion prizes art and rhythm, for as long as music and melody
enthrall the human ear and the beauty of words brings joy to the sensitive ear,
Rabindranath Tagore will be remembered and celebrated, his songs and verses will
be re-cited and enjoyed. And in all of these, Gitanjali will always hold a
special and honored place.

English renderings of the poet's native creations opened the flood gates
for world recognition, culminating in the coveted Nobel, a material symbol of
transcontinental appreciation. Since then, not only Bernard Shah, Bertrand
Russell and Albert Einstein, but scores of other intellectuals, and millions of
the common folk too have been touched and inspired in by this gentle and
melodious poet and sage of Bengal.

In the second half of the 19th century there were not many universities (in
the modern sense of the word) in Asia or Africa. Of the few there were, most
were in India. The Calcutta University was the first of these to be
established in the 1850s, but the credit for transforming it into one of the
foremost educational institutions in Asia goes to a gentleman by the name of
Ashutosh Mukherjee. A man of great learning, foresight, and determination,
he served as Vice Chancellor of that University for almost two decades
(1906 - 1924), and during this period a modest educational center became one
of the most prestigious universities in Asia.

Ashutosh was a brilliant student, winning prizes and medals in the exams.
The famous Hindu College of Calcutta which had nurtured quite a few scholars
since its founding a few decades earlier had become Presidency College,
thereby opening its doors to non-Hindu students as well. And it was
affiliated to the University of Calcutta. It was here that Ashutosh studied.
Among the other very bright students who were his classmates there at the
time, we may recall the future great chemist Prafulla Chandra Ray and the
future dynamic religious leader Swami Vivekananda.

After getting a master's degree in mathematics - which enabled him to
lecture at the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science - Ashutosh
Mukherjee studied for a law degree. This enabled him to become a high court
judge.

In 1906 Ashutosh Mukherjee became the second Indian Vice-Chancellor of
Calcutta University. That same year he established a technical institute in
Calcutta, which was one of the first of its kind in India, and the
great-grandfather of the IIT's of which India is justly proud today.

Mukherjee wanted to have at his university students and faculty from
different parts of India. He had a breadth of vision that was pan-Indian.
Of no less importance for the future development of India, Ashutosh
Mukherjee established in 1914 the College of Science as part of Calcutta
University. This again was the first of its kind in India. Many illustrious
future scientists of India were formed in the College of Science. It
enshrines considerable science history in its halls. It was here that the
famous Raman Effect, which brought to India her first Nobel Prize in
Physics, was discovered.

Meghnath Saha, remembered for his ionization-equation in astrophysics, and
Satyendranath Basu, whose name is associated with Einstein's through the
quantum statistics he developed and with the ultimate units of light
(photons are bosons) were among the illustrious scientists who taught at
Calcutta University. P. C. Mahalanabish, who founded the Indian Statistical
Institute, was a professor of physics there.

In 1916 Ashutosh Mukherjee established another small college in South
Calcutta for the benefit of young men who could not travel all the way to
Presidency College. Known as South Suburban College, it was in an
inexpensive building when inaugurated. In due course it grew larger and
larger, and has become one of the premier colleges in Calcutta which has a
great many more of its kind today.
In our own times, when there are so many colleges and universities in India,
we take higher and technical education for granted, and do not always
remember the pioneers who laid down the paths for these. It is to be noted
that the early leaders of modern science in India had no cultural hang-ups
about embracing the so-called Western science, for they understood much more
than some modern cultural chauvinists do that unlike art and music, poetry
and philosophy, science is a transnational and transcultural enterprise
which you either adopt and contribute to the furtherance of human knowledge
about the natural world, or reject and pursue ancient modes of interpreting
the world. When modern India's history is written in less emotional terms,
the likes of Mahendra Lal Sircar and Ashutosh Mukherjee will be recognized
with greater gratitude. Just as the political leaders of the time fought
with great commitment for Indian independence, there were also enlightened
visionaries who saw the value of science and secular education from
transforming India into a modern nation that would command international
respect, a nation that would be creative in science and productive in
technology.

For his services to country and scholarship, Ashutosh Mukherjee was
recognized in many ways. He was knighted by the British government so that
he became Sir Ashutosh. Soon after he died, the institution he had
established in south Calcutta was named after him as Ashutosh College. Aside
from his doctoral and law degrees, he received the honorific title of
Sahasravachaspati. Because of his relentless demands of the British
government he came to be called Banglar bagh or the Tiger of Bengal.
Ashutosh was rightly counted among the makers of Modern India.

Subhash Chandra Bose was one of the last of the brilliant Bengalis born in
the 19th century. He was a fiery patriot who fought the British in
unconventional ways and with extraordinary valor in his revolutionary
attempts to eject the intruders from Indian soil.

He grew up in a period when the worldly-wise thing to do for an ambitious
student was to pass the appropriate exams and secure a promising position
with the (British) government. His own father wished very much that his son
would climb the ladder of increasing job security. Subhash, though a rebel
right from his college days, sailed to Cambridge to master the materials to
become an Indian Civil Service officer.

But the urge to serve his motherland in different ways made him disdain the
high position in the British government which was now within grasp. He cast
the ICS title aside and joined the Indian National Congress. Thus, he threw
his lot with those of his countrymen who were determined to break off their
shackles to the British Empire. When the Prince of Wales made a pompous
visit to India in 1921 where his subjects would receive the royal personage
with great respect, Subhash Bose, a mere 24 year old, organized a boycott of
the event. His effective leadership here earned him the first of many
confinements in British prisons.

Another agitation and seditious oratory caused his exile to Mandalay. Here
he took a vow of celibacy until India became free. When he came out, he
reverted in full swing, attacking the British and demanding full and
immediate freedom for his people.

In 1932 Subhash went to Vienna for medical reasons: it was feared that he
had tuberculosis. There he came in contact with fellow patriots as well a
Viennese damsel who bore him a daughter. He was convinced that in order to
shake off the British yoke, one should look for the assistance of other
countries, preferably some enemies of Britain. With fellow Indians he
brought out a manifesto which concluded with the statement: "Non-cooperation
cannot be given up, but the form of con-cooperation will have to be changed
into a more militant one, and the fight for freedom to be waged on all
fronts."

In 1938, and then in 1939, Subhash Bose was elected president of the Indian
National Congress. His great fervor, not to say impatience for independence,
promoted him to take positions which struck others as extremist or
unrealistic. He wanted to give the British an ultimatum that unless they
quit India in six months there would be disturbances all over India causing
disruptions of the government. When other Congress leaders, including
Gandhi, showed gave no support for such drastic steps, Subhash Bose resigned
from the presidency of the party. Yet, Gandhi called him the patriot of
patriots.

By now World War II erupted. Subhash Bose wanted India to seize this
opportunity to rise up against the British, and join Germany and Japan. He
formed what he called the Forward Bloc, made up of the more radical members
of the Congress. Agitations against the government began in right earnest.

In July 1940, the government threw Subhash Bose and his followers in jail.
Subhash Bose went on a hunger stroke. Fearing dire consequences if he should
die, he was moved from prison and placed in house arrest. In January 1941 he
disappeared, and eventually reached Nazi Germany by land. The people of
India were surprised to hear his voice beaming from the Azad Hind (Free
India) Radio in Berlin after more than a year.

Voyaging in a German submarine, Subhash Bose reached Singapore where he
formed his famous India National Army (INA). On October 21, 1943 he
proclaimed a Provisional Government (in exile) of India which adopted
Tagore's jana gana mana as its national anthem. This government was
recognized by Germany, Italy, Japan, Thailand, and Manchuria. With a
well-trained Free India Army (Azad Hind Fauz) made up largely of Indian
soldiers (of the British army) who had surrendered to the Japanese, he
advanced as far as Burma. After Japan's defeat, there was little hope for
his efforts.

Some have questioned Subhash's morality in joining hands with the Nazis and
seeking help from the Fascists. Although he once stated that "the enemies of
British imperialism (the Germans and the Japanese) are our friends and
allies," he was actually working on the principle that the enemy of my enemy
will more readily help me defeat my enemy. According to an announcement from
Tokyo Radio, Subhash Bose is said to have died in an air crash in Formosa on
August 18, 1945. Until well into the 1960s many believed he would return to
India some day.

Such was the life of this patriot who came to be called Netaji. He did not
live to see his dream of a free India come true, but he is more honored
today than most others. Each year his birthday is celebrated in Kalona with
great warmth, his grand statue is garlanded with great reverence. The
airport in Kalona bears his name. There is perhaps none other than Tagore
who commands as much affection from the people of Bengal.

Rabindranath Tagore was poet, philosopher and painter; and he was also a
great composer. He has left behind more than a couple of thousand songs, and
this is no mean accomplishment. Like Arunagirinathar in the Tamil tradition,
Mira Bai in the Rajasthani tradition, and Thyagaraja in the Telugu/Carnatic
tradition, Tagore created a whole institution of musical compositions
bearing his name.

Rabindra Sangeet, as this musical corpus is called, is different from the
compositions of the saintly composers of India in that not all the songs in
it are God-directed. Tagore's originality lies in moving away from the
canonical ragas, and inventing new ones by blending some ragas to harmonize
more beautifully with his poetic compositions.

There is often a spiritual undercurrent in Rabindra Sangeet, but many themes
are also non-religious. There is a touch of sadness in many Tagore songs.
The power of music to soothe sorrow is expressed in a song (jokhon tumi
bandhcchile taar) in which the minstrel sings to his beloved that while she
was tuning the strings he experienced pain, and when she started playing the
instrument his sorrow disappeared. This reminds us that disharmony is
painful, while harmony is a source of joy.

In another song (eto din je
boshechchilem) he speaks of the many days he was waiting for her; now in the
spring he sees her, and she is like a warrior who has conquered him. A
fulfilled wish need not be a fulfilling one.

In one song (ami keboli
shapano) the poet laments that his hopes and dreams are gone, and that he is
left with only ashes. In another love song (kachche theke duro chilo) he
complains that even when his beloved was near him, she was distant, there
was a strange kind of separation even in proximity. We are reminded here of
something that is not uncommon in human interactions, even between people in
love. In all this we see the poet's gift: to convey through simple and
moving words profound truths about the human condition. One can go on and
on, but to experience their beauty, one has to listen to the songs.

I am thankful to Thomas Edison and Marconi whose inventions enabled music
to be reproduced and broadcast. Even while appreciating the artistic
creators, we shouldn't forget the scientific inventors who have contributed
immensely to the propagation of art and music. Many decades ago I used to
listen to Pankaj Mallik, Suchitra Mitra and others on the radio. Many
artistes are recognized as authentic singers of Rabindra Sangeet. I say
authentic because until the end of 2001 all of Tagore's work was copyrighted
by Visvabharati whose Music Board had to give its stamp of approval before
a cassette or CD of any Tagore music could be released. No other composer's
work, in all of history, was copyrighted by a university which he had
himself founded. Then again, Sullivan had Gilbert, and Schubert had Schiller
and Heine for lyrics, but Tagore's music grew from his own poems. His poems
without music would be, he said, butterflies without wings.

Tagore is the most cherished poet-composer in two different countries: India
and Bangladesh. His works were stifled in East Pakistan where his name was
removed from text-books. When rebellion ignited against West Pakistan,
Rabindra Sangeet became a battle-cry and Tagore's amar sonar Bangla (Our
golden Bengal) became the new country's national anthem. The poet's birthday
is celebrated there every year.
After Tagore's demise, the Visvabharati establishment became very strict
about who could sing Tagore's songs, and who could not. When an eminent
Bengali musician suggested something to the effect that Tagore's songs
should be cast in classical ragas, Visvabharati would not allow such
experimentation. But it did grant permission to "picturise" Tagore songs in
a movie.

Soon after the expiry of Visvabharati's copyright, some composers began to
take liberties. A famous example of this was a certain Kumarjit who
transformed a well-known Tagore song (ekla cholo re) into what he called a
modern Bengali music (ekla cholte hoy). This caused profound unhappiness and
annoyance to Tagore orthodoxy. At the same time someone in Bangladesh begins
a jazz version of some Tagore's songs, and another puts Tagore music in an
orchestral mode.

People have argued as to whether Tagore belongs to Shantiniketan or to
Bengal, or to the whole world, and what rights ordinary mortals have when it
comes to interfering with Gurudev's work. Is Kumarjit's tinkering comparable
to Rachmaninoff's Variation on Chopin, or is it something altogether
blasphemous? Opinions are divided.

I suspect that in the years to come Rabindra Sangeet mutants will show up
now and again. The pristine RS will always be there as the central river
from which tributaries will emerge. These will enrich, not diminish Bengali
culture. As with shastras and mantras some will contend it is sinful to
alter sacred writings, and others will argue that even the greatest works
can be modified and even improved upon. Such is cultural evolution.

Every culture has its rebels who act or speak out in ways that upset and
offend the guardians of tradition. Bengal too had an enfant terrible. His
name was Nirad C. Choudhury, one of the great controversial Indian thinkers
of the 20th century.

NCC was born in Kishorganj in what used to be East Bengal. He came to
Calcutta where he studied at the Scottish Church College. From early on, he
developed great love for the English language, as many of his generation
did. But he was also inspired to an unusual love for the British, which was
rare in India in those days. He kept saying that the best thing that
happened to India was being colonized by Britain. This was a very unpleasant
thing to say, and nobody liked him for saying it. In his early fifties when
he was a relatively unknown Indian he published the first volume of his
autobiography which he unabashedly dedicated to "the memory of the British
Empire in India .. because all that was good and living within us (Indians)
was made, shaped, and quickened by .. British rule."

In spite of this
self-demeaning dedication, this is an interesting book with fascinating
accounts of life in Bengal in early 20th century, and many perceptive
observations. NCC had little respect for Indian leaders, and he wrote that
the "degradation of Bengal" was "part of the larger process of the
rebarbarization of the whole of India in the last twenty years." He
regretted the passing away of the Anglicized Bengali. When this book was
published, All India Radio, where he had a job, fired him. In one of his
Bengali novels he described the Bengali as suicidal (atmoghaati).

His love of England grew even more when he made a brief visit to England in
1955 at the invitation of the British Council. Upon his return he lavished
praise on his hosts with a book entitled A Passage to England, reminiscent
of E. M. Forster's title A Passage to India. British reviewers raved about
this book, and it topped the list of best-sellers: the first to do so by an
Indian author. Nirad Babu was very pleased. But Indian critics were harsh.
This infuriated him so much that he told a friend he felt like giving those
"yapping curs" (the Indian reviewers) "a shoe-beating with my chappal." As
we can see from this episode, the great writer had a touch of temper. He
felt that he had not been treated well by his countrymen for most of whom,
reciprocally, he had a very low esteem. He did not recognize which was the
cause and which the effect.

In 1966 NCC published "An essay on the peoples of India" and called the book
Continent of Circe. Like grandiloquent Macaulay, Nirad Babu was fond of
arcane allusions, as if to taunt his readers about their ignorance. Not one
in a thousand of his readers would have even heard of Circe of Greek
mythology who was a witch. She was exiled to an island for murdering her
husband. Here she enticed visitors (sailors) and gave them a potion that
turned them into beasts. NCC suggested with this uncomplimentary metaphor
that this was what India had been doing for ages. Some angry Indians
attribute such theses to British prompting, as if the man had no mind of his
own.

This brilliant thinker who was a cynic when it came to his native land,
wrote many good books, in Bengali and in English: a language of which he had
uncommon command. His book on Hinduism, subtitled a religion to live by, is
replete with little known facts about the well-known religion. He says in
passing that "discussion on Hinduism is not marked by a very strict regard
to intellectual honesty." He is witty about Hindu meat-eating habits, and
blunt about Hindu erotic literature and practice. Speaking of Hinduism's
vitality in the absence of institutional hierarchy, he observed: "Hinduism
has shown that anarchy can be as authoritarian as any totalitarian state."
In this book he also gave a series of arguments to show that the Vedas are
not as ancient as they are claimed to be.

NCC wrote an erudite biography of Max Mueller whom he called scholar
extraordinaire and described as "the most influential, sympathetic, and at
the same time the most level-headed scholarly expounder" of Hinduism.

This sparkling mind, rich in its sweep, original in its insights, and vast
in knowledge, was vibrant and writing even in its last decade, as none other
has been. Many sensitive Western thinkers have written appreciatively about
India's wisdom and culture; NCC is one of the few Indians who genuinely
wrote things positive about the West. Unfortunately he not only extolled the
English but also belittled Indians. England offered him a home, honorific
titles, and a pension though he was not a British citizen. India honored him
on his 100th birthday, though he had moved away to distant Oxford. This was
because both England and India respected him for his intellect, scholarship,
and literary genius, and both felt they could claim him. Nirad Babu was an
exceptional Indian who had no complexes about recognizing the good that came
to India from an England that was more than a nation of shopkeepers.

But in his last years he became a pessimist about the world. He was
disillusioned with both India and England. As he saw them, both were fast
declining and decaying.

V. V. Raman
September 9, 2005

Since remote times in India, sages in India have been speaking on life and
existence, on death and after-life, on soul and god. Some of them acquired
insights from years of reflection and meditation. They undertook
austerities in their efforts to obtain answers to the mysteries that torment
inquiring minds. These pioneers were the rishis of India.

Rishis were scholars, philosophers, sages and poets. And they were more.
They were practitioners of techniques by which they seem to have gained
glimpses of a loftier reality behind the phenomenal world. They spoke with
exuberance about the nature of truth and supreme knowledge. The traditional
view is that they broke through the veil of ignorance that keeps ordinary
mortals in a state of confusion and misunderstanding about the surrounding
mystery. In the next few essays I propose to reflect on some eminent rishis.

Rishis were extraordinary individuals who explored the human potential for
spiritual experience. They were serene personages at peace with themselves
and the world. They were inspired seers who uttered wisdom through aphorisms
and poetry. They composed hymns to the powers of the universe, framed rules
and laws for society, discoursed on philosophy, counseled kings, and
initiated the young. Individually and collectively, the ancient rishis laid
the foundations for the complex culture, sophisticated civilization, and
colorful religious tradition that we call Hindu.

Indian sacred history is replete with the names of many rishis whose
achievements rendered them superhuman in the estimate of the people.
Fantastic stories and incredible time spans came to be associated with the
deeds and dates of rishis: One was born of Brahma's thumb, another had a
hundred sons, one fathered a bird, another did penance for a thousand years;
one pulverized an army by staring in anger, another made a mountain
prostrate in submission, and such. They seem reasonable when one accepts
that rishis were a species beyond the human. However, minds molded or
corrupted by the perspectives of the scientific age may find it difficult to
imagine all this to be true. But a good many Hindus, like their counterparts
in other traditions, are not in this quandary: It is difficult to be
untouched by the events and episodes we read about rishis. These stories are
etched in Hindu collective memory, and have become indelible patches in the
quilt of Indic lore. There are similar anecdotes in the Bible and the
Qu'ran too, and the devout of those traditions also believe that their own
puranas are also literally true.

We know but little of historical validity about the remarkable rishis who
once walked on the land and dipped in the sacred waters of India, who first
recited magnificent mantras and performed magical sacrifices. But we do know
that the Ramayana and the Mahabharata are major literary works authored by
rishis. The Vedas, the Brahmanas and the Upanishads: all these and more are
attributed to rishis. The Narada Purana is named after a rishi, as also the
Markandeya Purana. These are among the ever-lasting legacies of rishis.
In ancient India, as also in our own times, rishi was also an honorific: a
title for great thinkers and spiritual leaders. The texts mention various
kinds of rishis, depending on their qualities or function, as in Brahmarishi
and Rajarishi; sometimes, on the spiritual level, as in Devarishi,
Maharishi, and Paramarishi; some were called Shrutarishi, meaning that they
had heard esoteric wisdom. Brahmarishis are believed to have been created
directly by Brahma Himself. They are among the initiators of various gotras,
and are invoked in the daily prayers of dvijas who belong to their spiritual
lineage. They include such names as Kanva, Bharadvaja, and Kashyapa. The
names of some rishis are well known, such as Vishvamitra, Vasishtha, and
Agastya. Others, like Marichi, Kardama, and Gritsamada, are not as widely
recognized.

Every great religious tradition has at its roots profound thinkers.
Sometimes they appeared as prophets carrying a spiritual message:
revelations from Beyond. And they take their people along new paths. Thales
of ancient Greece, Gautama Buddha, Vartamana Mahavira, Moses, Jesus Christ,
Mohammed, and Guru Nanak were all such exceptional men, endowed with
inscrutable charisma. What is unusual about Hinduism as a religion - perhaps
unique in history - is that it emerged in an uncertain age from the
utterances of exceptional sage-poets: rishis who came from a variety of
social and cultural backgrounds. That is why it may be said that Hinduism
has not one, but many founders. Not all rishis always agreed on everything
among themselves. This accounts for the ancientness as well as the richness
of the tradition. This has also resulted in unsurpassed diversity in the
Hindu world. This may also account for the doctrinal tolerance that is, in
principle, an intrinsic feature of Hindu visions.

V. V. Raman
September 14, 2005

Of the scores of rishis who grace the Hindu world, seven are preeminent.
They are known as saptarishayah or saptarishi (seven rishis). We recall that
the Greeks too had seven wise men (hoi hepta sophoi): Thales, Cleobulos,
Bias, Pittacos, Solon, Periandros and Chilon. As in the Greek tradition, not
all ancient works list the same names for the big seven. Thus, according to
the Satapatha Brahmana, the saptarishi were: Gautama, Bharadvaja,
Vishvamitra, Jamadagni, Vasishtha, Kashyapa, and Atri. These rishis are the
ones who are said to have received the Vedas. According to the Mahabharata,
the saptarishi were Marichi, Atri, Angiras, Pulastya, Pulaha, Kratu, and
Marichi's son Kashyapa. The Vishnu Purana adds Daksha and Bhrigu to the
list. These original rishis are considered to be the progenitors of
humankind: the prajapatis.

The saptarishi are regarded in many contexts not as ordinary humans, or as
gods, but as cosmic principles. It is clear from their names that they are
symbols, rather than individuals. At the same time, they also have many
personified aspects. We read about these in the epics and in the puranas.
The transformation symbols, concepts, and truths about the human condition
into tangible names, forms and persons is mythopoesy.

Consider Angiras Rishi. He is said to have arisen from Brahma's mouth. His
name appears in the very first hymn of the Rig Veda in which Agni (as the
household priest and sacrificial god) is invoked. We read here that whatever
blessing Agni bestows upon whosoever worships him materializes through
Angiras. The Anukkramani, which is a kind of index for the Vedas, ascribes
scores of Vedic hymns to this rishi
Angiras is a personification of Fire (Agni). In Vedic vision, Agni is not
simply a raging fire or the slender flame in a lamp. Rather, it stands for
force and strength, for energy and passion and life itself: indeed it is the
root of all that is dynamic and vivifying in the world. Agni is eternal
while the heat and light of even the sun and the stars will fade away some
day. It also stands for esoteric knowledge, for the hidden wisdom behind the
passing panorama of things. In the Yajur Veda, we encounter again and again
the phrase, "I take thee, in the manner of Angiras." Angiras is also
regarded as one of the rishis to whom the Atharva Veda was revealed.

The lore ascribes to Angiras two principal wives, and several others.
Angiras is said to have had four sons and four daughters. The names of his
wives are symbolic too. Thus, his two principal wives are known as Shraddha(Devotion) and Smriti (Tradition). Perhaps it is suggested through these
names that in the ritual mode, tradition and devotion go hand in hand with
the sacrificial fire.

Ursa Major (the Great Bear) is perhaps the best known constellation in the
(northern hemisphere) sky. Every ancient culture has a mythology about it.
In Hindu mythology, the seven stars of Ursa Major are the celestial presence
of the saptarishi. That is to say, the seven great rishis were transformed
into the stars of that constellation in the heavens. This translation of
the saptarishi into the firmament was the basis for a chronological system
that prevailed for long in some parts of northern India. It arose from the
idea that an important astronomical event occurred in 3076 B.C.E. and that
the constellation of Ursa Major moves around each of the 27 nakshatras
(lunar asterisms) once every hundred years. This led to a 2700 year cycle
which was taken as a theoretical unit of time in the saptarishi chronology.

We may note a peculiar circumstance of sounds and words that probably gave
rise to the name of Ursa Major (Great Bear) in the Western world, or perhaps
to the stellar saptarishi in the Hindu world. A Sanskrit word for star is
riksha (neuter noun). But riksha (masculine noun) also means a bear. It is
quite possible that in India the word sapta riksha (seven stars) became
saptarishi. On the other hand riksha was probably translated as ursa (bear)
into the Greco-Latin languages. This is not the only instance of word
confusion leading to conceptual changes.

In the jargon of modern astronomy, the association of the seven visible
stars of Ursa Major to the saptarishi is as follows: Alpha Ursa Majoris:
Kratu; Beta Ursa Majoris: Pulaha; Gamma Ursa Majoris: Pulastya; Delta Ursa
Majoris: Atri; Epsilon Ursa Majoris: Angiras; Zeta Ursa Majoris: Vasishtha;
Ita Ursa Majoris: Marichi.
The spouses of the rishis have also found places in the sky as stars in
constellations. Thus, for example, the star Alcyon in the constellation
Pleiades (sometimes, Alcor, the companion star of Zeta Ursa Major:
Vasishtha) is identified as Arundhati, Vasishtha's wife. As part of the
marriage ritual, the bridegroom points this star to his bride to remind her
of Arundhati's devotedness to her husband. Some say that this is a vestige
of the practice in olden times by which the groom would slowly gain intimacy
with his bride by showing her a faint star at night, getting gradually
closer to her.

V. V. Raman
September 16, 2005

Atri Rishi is another prajapati. He is said to have emerged from Brahma's
eyes. But then, when Brahma's sons were killed by a curse from Shiva, and
Brahma performed a sacrifice, Atri came again from the fires of this
sacrifice. In this way, he is said to have had two incarnations. In the
first of these, he had three sons. One of these is said to be Soma: the
Moon. And in the second he had a son and a daughter. The son's name was
Aryam? The daughter was called Anal? Such are his puranic biographies.

There are hymns in the Rig Veda (I:112, 7) which describe how Atri was
rescued from a fiery pit into which he had been thrown. This probably
referred to the treatment that some of the so-called Tribals of India gave
to the leaders of the early Vedic culture. It is difficult to re-construct
the history of events that occurred more than 3500 years ago, especially
when those events are couched in mytho-symbolism. In another hymn in the Rig
Veda (V: 40) we read that when the sun was attacked, Atri performed the
necessary rituals for the protection of the gods. The reference is probably
to early reactions with magical incantations when eclipses came to pass.

In the Mahabharata (Anusasana Parva: 156) this Rig Vedic reference is
embellished into a story that Bhishma tells Arjuna: During one of the
periodic conflicts between the gods (devas) and the demons (danavas/asuras) Rahu pierced Surya(the sun) and Soma (the moon) with his powerful arrows, plunging the universe in utter darkness. The gods went to Atri Rishi and
appealed to him for help. The Rishi wondered how he could be of any
assistance. The gods suggested that he should become the sun and the moon
himself. Atri did just that: This ascetic Brahmin who was clad in deer skin
and who subsisted only on fruits, it says, assumed the aspects of the sun
and the moon and illumined the entire universe. He also pulverized the evil
ones, and restored order in the world. He cast the appropriate spells to
root out the demon which was haunting the sun. The echo of this episode
still reverberates in India.

Atri is also mentioned in various puranas. We read about him in the Padma
Purana (Sarga Khanda) where it says that this rishi practiced austerities
for three thousand years. In the course of this penance, his semen slowly
inched upwards, reached his head, was transformed into immortalizing amrita,
and then it was ejected from his eyes. This then split into ten portions
which illuminated the ten corners of space. So the sun and the moon were
born. Not many myths can match this in its sweep of the universe from the
human body.

In the Ramayana Atri becomes very much a normal human rishi. Here we read
(Ayodhya Kanda: 117) that Rama, Sita, and Lakshmana, after leaving Chitrakoota
in their exploration of the forest, went to the hermitage of Atri Rishi.
The sage was dwelling peacefully with his wife Anasuya (Anas?). Her name
means: one who is uncomplaining, who bears no spite. Anasuya gives a little
talk to Sita on the glory and responsibilities of a chaste wife. In the
course of this sermon she says: "For women blessed with noble character,
husband is the highest deity, irrespective of whether he misbehaves, is
licentious, or is without any riches." This innocuous statement may refer to
an episode in Markandeya Purana (XI): A man named Kaushika is said to have
expressed a desire to enjoy another woman. Because Kaushika was too weak to walk to his pleasure-lady's house, his faithful wife Shandili carried him on her shoulders to his desired destination. On the way, by accident, she
stepped on a holy man named Mandavya. The angry sage cursed the couple to
be dead before dawn. Shandili, in turn, prayed that the sun may never rise
again. The godly beings were frightened, and they approached Anusuya for
help. Anusuya persuaded Shandili to retract with the promise that Mandavya's
curse wouldn't materialize. For this, the gods offered Anusuya three boons.
She responded by asking for the moksha (liberation) of herself and her
husband. As a third boon she wanted the Trimurti (Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva) to
become her sons. This was granted in a mystical way: From Atri Rishi's eyes
shot a radiant energy which served as the seeds for three incarnations of
the Trimurti as Soma, Durvasa, and Dutta.

Another version of this legend is no less interesting: At one time, the
gossip-mongering prankster rishi Narada went to the three great Shaktis:
Saraswati, Lakshmi, and Parvati, and spoke to them very highly about the
chastity and loyalty of Anusuya towards her husband Atri. The goddesses grew
envious, and dispatched their spouses to tempt Anusuya. Disguised as
mendicants, they came to the lady and begged for food, but on one condition:
they wanted her to serve them in the nude. Anusuya retreated into the
kitchen, prayed to her husband, disrobed herself, and came with some food,
clad only in air. The guests had turned into babies. She embraced the
infants and fed them milk from her breasts. Atri Rishi returned home and was very pleased for he knew that these babies were Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva.
He took them all in his arms, and they became one. As it was a gift, the
child was named Dattattreaya (Given to Atri).

V. V. Raman
September 19, 2005

In the biological world with which we are familiar there are many birds and
beasts, insects and mammals, and so on. These are different species of life
forms. In the Hindu mythic world, there are also special types of creatures.
Some of these are anthropomorphic and don't belong to any of the commonly
known species. How did they come about?

In the Puranic framework they had supernatural origins. Consider at least
four such classes of beings: yakshas, vanaras, rakshasas, and kinnaras.

Yakshas are creatures that live in forests. They are fond of trees that are
held sacred. Some yakshas are good, and some are bad. These are believed to
be real creatures, but invisible to ordinary mortals; therefore, they have
to be feared, and they are sometimes worshiped. Some yakshas have attained
reputation as important characters in the epics. Perhaps the most widely
known of them is Kubera, the god of wealth.

Then there are the rakshasas. The term is related to the root, raksh: to
guard. It is believed that they were created to watch over the elements when
they were first formed. In the mythologies, rakshasas are superhuman beings
with subhuman qualities. In other words, they have enormous physical and
even mental capacities, but generally speaking, they are evil in
inclinations and prone to destruction. The puranas trace their origins in
different ways. One view is that it was Pulastya Rishi who gave rise to
them. Elsewhere Kashyapa Rishi is credited with their genesis. According to
another purana, they arose from Brahms's toenail.

Rakshasas appear in all shapes and shades. Some are grotesque and ugly: some fair and friendly. Some are huge and monstrous; others are less frightening.

Many are cruel and bloodthirsty, but some are also calm and peaceful. Some
are fat and some lean, some are dwarfs and others gargantuan. In the
Ramayana we read that Hanuman saw all kinds of raskshasas, some with just
one eye, some with pendulous breasts, some with huge protruding teeth, some
with crooked thighs, etc. Such variety and numbers of Rakshasas in Sri Lanka
is no surprise since Ravana, its ruler, was their chief.

Then we have the Vanaras or forest-denizens, represented with
tails and monkey faces. Hanuman is the best known of them. Historically
speaking, they could well have referred to another aboriginal tribe that
lived in the southern regions.

Finally, there are the kinnaras of Hindu mythology, corresponding to the
Greek centaurs. These are beings with human-like bodies and horse-like
heads. Again, it has been suggested that the reference was probably to some
aboriginal people who used horse masks in their festivities.

In the puranic worldview it was the prajapati Pulastya who engendered
yakshas, rakshasas, vanaras, and kinnaras. From this perspective, the battle
between Ravana and the vanaras in the Ramayana was actually a confrontation
between two families of half-brothers.
It is said that once Bhishma, the grand-sire in the Mahabharata, did many
years of austerities at the end of which Pulastya appeared before him and
promised him any boon of his choice. There is a long chapter in the
Mahabharata (Vane Parva: 82) in which Pulastya explains to Bhishma the
importance and benefits of making pilgrimage. Specifically, he explains,
whereas it requires considerable wealth to perform great sacrifices which,
therefore, can be done only by kings and other rich people, even the very
poor can go to a tirtha (place of pilgrimage with a sacred river or pond)
and achieve the same benefits as from a sacrifice.

Pulastya is said to have had three wives and several sons. The oldest of his
sons was the great Vishrava. In the Uttara Kanda of the Ramayana (Sarga II),
Agastya speaks about the austerities of Pulastya whom he describes as a
renowned and mighty Brahmarishi, very much like Brahma himself, of whom he
was born (praj?teh putra). Pulastya went to the ashrama of Trinabindu
which was on Mount Meru, and stayed there, performing many austerities. It
was a wonderful place graced by maidens and nymphs who sang and danced joyfully, but they distracted the rishi. Pulastya was angry and warned them they would become pregnant if they showed up there again. So they all
disappeared, but Trinabindu's daughter strayed in the rishi's presence by
mistake, and promptly became with child. Now her father married her to
Pulastya.

It is thus that Vishrava was born. He married Devavarnini, a daughter of
Rishi Bharadvaja, but through a series of circumstances he also begot
children through his other wives. Vishrava is remembered in the tradition as
the father of many major characters in the Ramayana. These include
personages like Ravana, Kumbhakarna, Vibhishana, Kubera, and Shurpanakha:
all members of the Sri Lankan royal family.

Such are the stories related to Pulastya Rishi. They are part of Hindu
sacred history.

V. V. Raman
September 21, 2005

In the midst of all the turmoil tarnishing Kashmir, one sometimes forgets
that the name of that idyllic valley enshrines one of the prajapatis:
Kashyapa. Scholars have reminded us that according to the Nilmat Purana,
which honors King Nila, once a ruler of Kashmir, there was a huge lake
(mira) there, whence Kashyapa-mira became Kashmir.

Etymologists have argued about Kashyapa's name. It means, among other
things, a kind of deer and also tortoise. In the Atharva Veda the name
refers to beings that regulate the sun's course. In the Satapata Brahmana it
is a rishi's name. According to the Vishnu Purana, Kashyapa is Vishnu in the
K?Avatara, who instigated the creation of humankind. Then again, we read
elsewhere that Vishnu incarnated as the son of Kashyapa and his wife Aditi
in the Vamana Avatara.

Unlike other prajapatis, Kashyapa was not directly born of Brahma, but was
his grandson, through Mar?i. In Upanishadic symbolism, Mar?i is light,
and Kashyapa is Vision: God created light which bestowed vision on human
beings.

In the Ramayana (Aranya Kanda: 14) we read about Kashyapa's mythological
aspect: He married eight daughters of Daksha, of whom Aditi, D?, Danu, and
K?k?ere closest to him. Through Aditi he gave rise to 12 Adityas, 8
Vasus, 11 Rudras, and 2 Ashwins. Through Diti he was responsible for the
Daityas, through Danu came the Danavas, and so on. And we read a list of
species from the various wives: including birds like owls, hawks, vultures,
and swans; mammals like antelopes, elephants, cattle and horses; and so on.

Jat?, the leader of the vultures, was the grandson of Kashyapa through his
son Aruna whose mother was Vinat? The puranas say that Kashyapa married
thirteen daughters of Daksha, and that through them he generated every kind
of being, from ordinary people to awesome ogres. Nagas, rishis, gandharvas:
all had their origin in Kashyapa. One cannot but be amazed by the zoological
sweep in such narratives, showing the wealth of knowledge and imagination of
the poet who composed them. One might say that in the ancient framework,
Kashyapa stands for a primordial cell from which all beings arose.

In the Mahabharata (Adi Parva: 14), there is the story of Kashyapa's two
wives who were daughters of Brahma. They were called Kadru and Vinat?a
shyapa was so pleased with them that he offered them boons of their
choice. Kadru wanted a thousand splendid snakes as her sons, whereas Vinat?
shed for only two sons who would surpass those of her co-wife in splendor.
It was thus that the Nagas were born to Kadru, including Sesha and V?ki.

One of Vinat? sons was Garuda, the lord of the eagles. In the lore,
legends abound about Garuda, whose name and images have gone beyond the
shores of India: to China, Japan, and Korea. The Indonesian Airlines is
named after him.

The blurring of symbolic entities bearing specific names with
anthropomorphic beings bearing the same names occurs in puranic and epic
works. In the case of Kashyapa we must distinguish between the prajapati and
other personages who bear his name. The latter are known as K?yapa (long
a). Thus, in Valmiki's Ramayana (Bala Kanda: 8), K?yapa is listed as one
of the four principal preceptors of King Dasaratha.

Another such rishi is mentioned in the Mahabharata. He had magical powers.
In one story (Adi Parva: 43), when he was on his way to save Parikshit, he
was distracted by the serpent king Takshaka who challenged him to revive a
banyan tree which the serpent bit and turned to ashes. K?yapa, by his
prowess, brought the tree back to full life.

In another passage in the epic (Vana Parva: 21) we read about K?yapa's
discourse on forgiveness (kshama), reminding us of Portia's words in
Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice to the effect that mercy "is an attribute
to God himself." For he says, "Forgiveness is dharma, forgiveness is Vedas,
forgiveness is shruti. One who knows this can forgive anything. Forgiveness
is Brahma, forgiveness is satya; forgiveness is the punya that comes from
tapas. Forgiveness is sannyasa; forgiveness is holiness. The whole universe
is held together by forgiveness. It is the might of the mighty, it is yaj?d
peace of mind. The man of wisdom should always forgive, for then he
attains Brahma. The world belongs to those who are forgiving.. Forgiveness
and gentleness represent eternal virtues." Such passages reveal the ethical
ideals in the Hindu framework. We may recall in this context the Sermon on
the Mount in the New Testament (Matthew: V.39) where Jesus says: ".
whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also."

One of the six classical schools of Hindu philosophy is the Vaisheshika
system. Scholars date it back to 700 - 600 BCE. Here we find one of the
earliest articulations of Indic atomic theory. Its originator is a certain
Kanada: also referred to as a K?yapa.

With so many accounts and legends, it is difficult to be sure about when and
where Kashyapa and K?yapa lived. But they have been very influential in
Indic culture.

V. V. Raman 13, 2005

On Liberty

It was inspiring to read that bakti poem by Appar, Dr. Loga. I
missed that in the past. That para could be the defining socio-
political and religious identity of Hindus, and it would free us of
many of the social shackles today, and unite us as one, and with
the Lord. It could be a cry to unite Hindus, freed from shastras.
As you say there is nothing like that in any other writings. Too bad so many tamil gems go unnoticed.

You may have missed the word 'veedu' which also
encompasses all sorts of liberties; physical, mental, emotional,
poltical, freedom of speech, association, etc., and freedom from
rebirth too.

Regards.

Pathma

There is , I believe, nothing exactly similar to the Western notion of 'Liberty" which remains essentially political and non-metaphysical. The Indian thinking on Human Freedom has been metaphysical and they have used the Term Moksa as meaning not simly political liberation but metaphysical liberation that also includes the political economic and so forth.. And each Darsana has given different meanings to it and I understand that there are about 32 different concepts of Moksa.
 
Noe let me also mention that the term Moksa and Mu-muksu ( the who who desires for Moksa and nothing else ) are possibly SumroTamil where :mu' means a person and 'musu" means to depart, to fly away and so forth,.  So musa as Moksa means to become free from historicity - being thrown into a cycle of birth and death. This is said as Miindum PiRavaamai: not being thrown into physical embodiment, a notion of metaphysical liberation that is quite universal in Tevaram Corpus( 5th cnet AD to 9th cent AD)
 
The word 'dharma' ( Ta. taruman') is again SumeroTamil "nam-tar-ra" where 'tar' is Ta. taru : the givenness.  Thus dharma means something all creatures are blessed with and which they all can gain and enjoy. To live according to Dharma does not mean living according to certain principles as laid down by some Sastras but living a life in which the natural givennes in the cosmic processes are enjoyed.
 
Now having said this I must also mention that there is a very powerful phrase in Appar's Patikam " Naam Yaarkkum Kudi Allaom" ( we are not subject to anyone) which also touches on political freedom of individuals. It should be noted that such concept of Human Freedom is possible only within the Fundamental Ontology of Triadism where the human soul is a substantial entity just as anati as BEING a notion that is NOT available in all streams of Vedanta.
 
Please read : the following verse of Appar , equivalent to which I have not come across anywhere. The full Patikam with commentary is available at :
 
http://arutkural.tripod.com/tmcampus/appar-1.htm
 
 
 
naamaarkkung kudiyalloom namanai yanjcoom
    narakattil idarpadoom nadalai illoom
eemaappoom piNiyaRiyoom paNivoo malloom
    inbamee yennaaLun tunba millai
taamaarkkung kudiyallaat tanmai yaana
    cangkaran cangkaveN kuzaiyoor kaatiR
koomaaRkkee naamenRum miiLaa aaLaayk
    koymmlarcee vadi iNaiyee kuRukinoomee
 
 
No one is subject to anyone and we shall NOT fear the God of death
    We shall not suffer fire of Hell and any kind misfortunes
Forever in self dignity and free of ailments , we shall NOT submit to anyone
    There is only happiness and no sufferings at all for
We have become totally people of unredeemable  servitude to the King of Supreme Autonomy
    Who wearing in one ear the brilliant white conch,  appears as the Sangkaran, the redeemer of all
And have submitted ourselves to  His FEET of fresh blossoms
 

naamaarkkung kudiyalloom: No one is subject to anyone
 
namanai yanjcoom: we shall not fear  even the God of Death
 
 narakattil idarpadoom : We shall NOT suffer fire of Hell
 
nadalai illoom: we are free also from any kind of misfortunes
 
eemaappoom piNiyaRiyoom:  forever in self dignity and free of ailments
 
paNivoo malloom : and we shall NOT submit to anyone
 
inbamee yennaaLun tunba millai: there is only happiness and no sufferings at all
 
taamaarkkung kudiyallaath tanmai yaana : Being who as the KING is supremely autonomous
 
cangkaran cangkaveN kuzaiyoor kaatiR: The Sangkaran , the redeemer of all wearing a brilliant white conch in one of ears
 
koomaaRkkee naamenRum miiLaa aaLaayk: to this KING we have become totally people of unredeemable servitude
 
koymalar ceevadi iNaiyee kuRukinoomee : have submitted ourselves to His FEET of fresh blossoms
 
Loga

Here is an informative and inspiring hymn. (italics mine)

The spirit of man has two dwellings: this world (bhuloka) and the world beyond (sivaloka).
There is also a third dwelling place: the land of sleep and dreams (antarloka).
Resting in this borderland (antarloka, on death but occasionally in sleep too), the spirit of man can behold (ability to see) his dwelling in this world (bhuloka) and in the other world afar (sivaloka);
and wandering (travelling) in this borderland, he beholds behind him the sorrows of this world, and in front of him he sees the joys of beyond.

Sukla Yajur Veda, BU, 4.3.9

The 5 bodies we have, the ida, pingala and sushumna currents,
the 21 chakras (yes, 21), the colors and sounds of their
vibrations, and how these all relate to the 3 worlds of existence,
and our sojourns between 2 of these worlds, and the pretaloka
where ghosts linger, and how these all impinge on birth and
death and the reasons for cremation and burials - these things
are not widely known, even though there are a few tantra
passages on it, here and there. Most of these knowledge is not
written down but are available to many accomplished yogis,
mystics and seers in the sahasra where all information is
stored, indeed the entire Hindu library, vastly larger and superior
than the entire corpus of Hindu literature that we have today. And
some also found in a few monasteries as their guidelines.

Everyone speaks about the physical body not realising how
much more advanced and complex the other 4 bodies are. And
how much more it affects us directly than the physical body.
Imagine you sitting in a car. Surely you would be more important
to yourself and you would be directing the car which is your 'outer
physical body'. Thats how the soul and the other 3 bodies occupy
and direct the physical body. And how much more complex the
'you' is, compared to the car.

Yes, there is a tubular umblical like cord, about 6-12 inches in
diameter connecting both parents together, and to their children
at their muladhara chakras. As they are astral (manomaya), it
defies space and perhaps even time from our point of view, and
can easily stretch thousands of miles. Distance and travel in that
borderland is in thought.

A better perspective of Hinduism is to view it has having inner
esoteric knowledge and outer exoteric knowledge. The latter
would be the vedas and all sastras, just the skin and shell of
Hinduism and accounts for perhaps one tenth of our full library
and explains the 'what'.

And that the unwritten esoteric knowledge is the higher
explaining the how and why for its rituals and practices. This is
the real Hindu library. It is in the sahasra. When this is known,
everything in Hindusim is fully explanatory and fully justified and
nothing is amiss. Icon worship, homa, rituals, cremations are
fully understood and appreciated. Only here can we see the truth
of advaita, as well as the truth of dvaita, and the oneness and
differences between the gods. But all this is not there in the
books, apart from words, without the 'how'. Those searching for
this knowledge in the sastras are lost. To read this knowledge,
one has to 'close the eyes' literally, in meditation.

Be that as it may, cords and tubes or not, didn't it convincingly
explain in a flash, in a firm equation, the Hindu reasons of why
we sometimes cremate and sometimes bury - 'whether celibate
or not determines whether we cremate or bury'.

Regards.

Pathma

The information in these cremation posts are from several
sources including HT publications, sanskrit lexicons already
available on the net, Iskcon literature as well as books on
kundalini yoga. Therefore difficult to give a line by line reference.
A look at the bibliography of these publications shows over 200
scholars and papers involved, including Benaras Hindu
University, Sringeri, Kasi Mutt and Dharmapuram Aadheenam.
Some are personal experiences mystics have shared with me.

Pitriloka:
'World of ancestors', the upper region of the bhuvarloka (aka
antarloka).

Pretaloka:
'World of the departed', the realm of the earthbound souls. The
lower region of the bhuvarloka. This lower region is an astral
duplicate of the physical world (bhuloka).

This fine differenciation means that the middle astral region, the
bhuvarloka (antarloka) is itself divided into many parts; the
higher, where the ancestors roam for decades and centuries,
and the lower, where the earth bound souls, also ancestors, wait
for their turn to take birth, usually within 12 years.

Sivaloka:
Also called causal plane, Karana loka or Brahma loka. Itself
divided into 3 parts; the Janaloka or creative plane, Tapoloka or
plane of austerity, and Satyaloka or plane of reality.

18 Classes of Ganas:
The eighteen Ganas as per Hindu cosmology quoting from the puranas are:
Devas, Siddhas, Asuras, Daityas, Garudas, Kinnaras, Nirutas,
Kimpurushas, Gandharvas, Yakshas, Vinjayas, Bhutas,
Pisachas, Antharas, Munivas, Uragas, Akashavasis and Bhoga
Bumidars.

These 18 classes of ganas all reside in the antarloka, but their
physical representative bodies, eg., trees, rivers, mountains,
landscape, etc all exist in the bhuloka. In a way the bhuloka and
the antarloka are two sides of a coin/dimension - one where the
physical body is seen and another where the spirit lives.

My take is that seriously karmic non-celibates who are buried,
reside in the pretaloka, hanging loose, fooling around,
terrorising babies, possessing mediums and virgin girls, get
involved in channelling, speaking in tongues, allying with the 18
different classes of bhutas (see ganas above) and posing as
'Little Dieties' or Siru Deivams, for years and decades until
someone, like Lord Ganesha or Hanuman, knocks sense into
them.

So a prayer for muslims and christians who bury.

There are other parts in the bhuvarloka, eg. the devaloka where
the devas reside and the narakaloka where the asuras reside.
Its like so many different continents on a one plane/planet with
different kinds of beings inhabiting it.

Accident and murdered victims, war and tsunami victims, etc as
well as those with heavy karmas go to the pretaloka to take birth
soon within 12 years or so. Those with heavy karmas and great
attachment to loved ones here and who are buried, or refuse to
accept that they are dead and refuse to go to the pretaloka are
the ghosts who linger on earth. These are the ones who disturb
or try and communicate with people here as I mentioned before.

In the case of abortions, allotted births are disrupted and the
disappointed soul is usually rushed to the next available birth
which may not be too suitable for the allotted prarabda karmas.
These are the ones who also may die early in life as there is
nothing more for them to accomplish in that misallotted birth.

Deceased persons with good karmas go the pitriloka for long
periods and from there to the devaloka to exhaust their good
karmas. Actually good karmas too tie us down and serves as
large resting breaks between births, thereby prolonging striving
for moksha, which can only be done in the bhuloka.

Nothing much happens in the pretaloka: mystics have seen
souls with astral bodies that looks like our physical bodies but
draped in a black cloth from the head down, lined up in rows and
columns, millions of them, not moving, but just waiting to take
birth. Then those in the front rows just slide into new born babies
at birth. Its an assembly line, folks.

In the pitriloka, souls do the same thing they did here on earth.
Those fond of sewing here will be sewing there, endlessly
without sleep as there is no need for sleep in that world and no
sun rise. Scholars and avid readers here will find a vast library
there and will be reading most of the time for decades and
centuries until such time the numbers come up, they are
summoned, then go the pretaloka, then take birth in the bhuloka.
Really these places are a waste of time. Better to strive for
moksha right away.

The devaloka where the devas live and work is our heaven.
Souls with good karmas go there and get what they want. All the
food you want, all the women you want and all the men you want,
etc. Endlessly for centuries or even milleniums.

The narakaloka is where the asuras live and here too there are
different areas. Critical people go to an area full of other people
of the same consciousness and everbody criticises each other.
Murderers go to a place where everyone else is a murderer and
its a murderfest everday. Once they tire of it, the karma has been
settled and they slip into pretaloka and join the long queue.

Q. Are the Devas the highest among all the ganas? If so, why?

Its yes and no. If we grade the bhuloka and antarloka according
to degrees of refinement, then yes, the devaloka is the most
refined area in these two worlds, and therefore the devas are the
most refined beings among the 18 classes of ganas. They are
also servants of the 33 gods. But they also have the easiest work
to do. The other classes of ganas have more work to do, dealing
with more difficult souls and therefore have more duties and
power.

Its also no because 18 types of ganas are all just different with
different duties, and therefore not one more important than the
other. Its like the different races on earth as well as the plant and
animal kingdom - all are different and all are important, each
playing their part.

Another way to look at it is that all these 18 classes of ganas,
occupants of the antarloka and bhuloka, are under the Lord
Ganapati and do his work in guiding souls in these two worlds.
From His point of view they are all the same.

As regards evolution, not all the classes of ganas evolve into
moksha (there is some disagreement here). Some are non
evolutionary, created just for the purpose of fulfilling their job.
Once their job is done they merge into the Lord at pralaya.
Whereas other ganas like the devas are evolutionary. Eventually
they take birth and strive for moksha. In this sense, they are even
lower than souls.

People have seen these devas and bhutas in dreams and
visions. Interestingly, devas look like brahmin priests. (Well, its
the other way around; brahmins fashioned themselves after the
devas.) Devas have tonsured heads, with a tuft, sacred thread
and dhoti. Bhutas have been seen to be huge and muscular, 7-8
feet tall, fair skinned like white folks, angry and fierce looking
monstrous ace and dash around doing work faster than the eye
could see. You wouldn't want to mess with them. They are also
the city hall and public utilities workers of their antarloka. Yes, the
natarloka looks just like this bhuloka with villages, cities and
buildings, etc.

As to the hierarchy of these beings:

The antarloka and the bhuloka is populated with these 18
classes of ganas, as well as the souls only. But souls are
travellers, going back and forth between these two worlds, and
during sleep each night. Among these 19 classes of ganas and
souls, its the souls that are the highest in a hierarchy, if there is
one, as its souls that are constantly attaining moksha and
proceeding into the sivaloka. No one else is. So its souls first,
then comes the 18 gana classses in no particular order.

>2. According to Hindu cosmology, there are both pralayas and
>maha pralayas. If I understand it correctly, pralaya following
>what is figuratively termed the "day of Brahma" leads to a
>dissolution of the physical world (bhuloka) and the astral world
>(bhuvaloka) only. However, the mahapralaya following the
>"lifetime of Brahma" leads to the dissolution of all three worlds
>of existence. Is this accurate?

Pralaya is also called samhaara. Apart from Mahapralaya, there
are two other kinds of pralaya: 'laya' at the end of a mahayuga
where only the bhuloka is destroyed, and 'pralaya' at the end of a
kalpa when both the bhuloka and antarloka is destroyed.

But there are other views. Some say that some parts of the
sivaloka (brahmaloka) too is reabsorbed in the pralayas,
including some gods. They say this to explain that in one
recreation Brahma is the creator, in the next its Vishnu who is the
creator, and in the next is Rudra's turn. They say this because
there are passages in the vedas attributing creation to all three
of these gods, as well as dissolution of Brahma and Vishnu too.
Any other views on this, anyone?

Also the mentioned time scales of 4.32 billion years for a kalpa
cannot be correct. I think the time scales are puranic figures.
Time in all the 3 worlds are different, and time is not linear.
Some say we are only 5,100 years into the kaliyuga of 432,000
years. This doesn't jell. I think the kaliyuga is over and the satya
yuga is here but this being a transition period and the effects of
both are felt. I think these puranic time scales referes to
antarloka time, not ours.

Regards and aum.

Pathma

Different rishis were known for their different peculiarities. But this much
was common to all of them: they were men of high principles and standards,
and they would not easily brook disrespect. This trait may be seen even in
some globe-trotting swamis of our own times. In spite of their enormous
learning and Vedic wisdom, quite a few rishis were rather short tempered.
But few of them equaled, let alone surpassed, Durvasa Rishi in the quickness
and severity of his curses when he was annoyed. He is described in the
Mahabharata as "the terrible Brahmana of rigid vows."

Durvasa Rishi is sometimes mentioned as a son of Atri, one of the Sapta
Rishi. Some puranic sources also speak of him as having arisen directly from
Shiva. The Vishnu Purana calls him a descendent of Mahadeva. In the
Mahabharata there is an episode in which Krishna says that the Brahmana
Durvasa stayed with him for sometime. Krishna described his complexion as
green and tawny. He was clothed in rags, and carried a stick from a bilva
tree. He was taller than anyone on earth. Durvasa is said to have exclaimed:
"Who is there that would host the Brahmans Durvasa? He gets into a rage when
he sees the slightest transgression in the hospitality towards him.." Let us
recall three events where the wrath of this rishi was let loose.

First, there was the incident at Kanva Rishi's hermitage. A version of the
incident is narrated in Kalidasa's play Shakuntala. Durvasa once paid a
visit there while Kanva was away. He asks: "Does anyone hear me?"

Shakuntala's friend Anasuya informs her that there was a guest. But
Shakuntala's mind is elsewhere: She is thinking of her recent bridegroom
King Dushyanta who has gone to the capital. Durvasa becomes furious. "This
is an insult," he screams, and curses that whoever was in Shakuntala's mind,
that person will not remember her even when reminded, even as a drunkard
cannot remember his own words when he becomes sober."

The Vishnu Purana narrates how Durvasa was responsible for the memorable
episode of the churning of the ocean: It is said that once while taking a
stroll, Durvasa saw a pretty woman with a beautiful garland. He wanted it,
and she gave it to him. As he walked further, he encountered Indra riding on
his magical elephant Airavata. Durvasa flung the garland to Indra as a gift.
The latter found it to be so beautiful that he placed it on the elephant's
head. The elephant wanted to experience the fragrance, and curled his trunk
to the head. In the process, the garland fell to the ground. Durvasa became
furious, and hurled a curse on Indra to the effect that Lakshmi would quit
his realm. And she did. This led to such disasters that the evil ones
(asuras) began to assault the good ones (devas). The latter appealed to
Vishnu for help. It was then that the plan for the churning of the ocean was
hatched, using Mount Mandara and the snake Vasuki.

In the Shakuntala story Durvasa went for a visit; and in the Indra story he
was paying his respects. In a third episode, he was himself the honored
guest. Lord Krishna once invited the Rishi for a hearty meal. The rishi was
treated to a sumptuous dinner with great regard and reverence. However, some
grains of rice were not appropriately cleared after the meal, and Durvasa's
rage came to the fore on account of this omission. He spelled out another of
his memorable curses: that Krishna be killed by his enemy.

Durvasa also appears in the Ramayana. In the Uttara Kanda he becomes furious
with Lakshmana because the latter did not give him immediate entry to see
Rama. He said, "I will curse you, this kingdom, Bharata and the descendants
of Rama. I cannot withhold my anger any further." Rama heard this threat,
and he came out immediately. He asked the rishi what he wanted. Durvasa
Rishi spoke respectfully to Rama and said that his thousand years of fasting
was coming to an end that day. Therefore he wanted some food to eat.
Thereupon the rishi was given a sumptuous feast. He ate to his satisfaction
and moved away from the scene.

It may be difficult for us, in this day and age, to understand the
significance of such extreme reactions to relatively innocuous behavior.
Perhaps these episodes suggest an important aspect of the mores of the time.

Spiritual wisdom and asceticism were always held in the highest esteem.
Ritualistic subservience and reverential gestures towards the sages were
mandatory codes of behavior. The rishis came to expect these from everybody,
including even the gods. Stories such as these served to bring home this
point to the common folk in no uncertain terms. By portraying characters
like Durvasa in the popular literature, the ascetics ensured for themselves
the trembling prostration from the common people: an attitude and behavior
that persist to this day in the Hindu world.

On the other hand, Durvasa Rishi was also generous to people who treated him
with respect. One such beneficiary was Kunti. He taught her the mantra by
which she could summon any of the celestials to bear her a child.

V. V. Raman
September 29, 2005

Narada is a most interesting rishi in Hindu sacred history. The puranas give
different accounts of his genesis. According to the Narada Pancha Ratra,
Narada was born of Brahma. The Vishnu Purana says that he was one of
Kashyapa's progeny. The Bhagavata Purana regards him as Vishnu incarnate.
Many stories are told about him.

Narada may be looked upon as perhaps the first jet-setter in history, for he
traveled widely: not just all over this planet of ours, but to heaven and
hell as well. For this reason he is known as triloka sanchri: a traveler of
three worlds. But he was no passive tourist. In epic and puranic literature,
Narada is often described as a messenger. In this capacity he often fed
secret information which led to quarrels and misunderstandings among
friends. This won him the unfavorable epithets of Kalikarana: strife-maker
and kalahapriya: one who likes misunderstandings. In the Hindu world, a
person who gossips with the intention of provoking misunderstandings is
sometimes called Narad-muni.

Brahma once advised Narada to get married and settle down. Narada said
Brahma was no good as a teacher since devotion to Krishna was the path to
felicity. Brahma cursed Narada to get addicted to erotic delights. Narada
first wept at Brahma's severe curse; and when he gained his composure, he
cursed in turn that Brahma become incestuous with his own daughter, adding,
"You will not be worshipped for three yugas," and tempered by saying, "after
that, you will be worshipped for you are worthy of it ."

In the Vayu Purana Narada tells the sons of Daksha (who were about to
multiply) that they were foolish to undertake this without even knowing how
big or small the earth is, for without this knowledge how would they
determine if they were overpopulating or underpopulating the world? Daksha
cursed Narada for this.

In the Mahabharata, there are several references to Narada. In one episode,
he explains the origin of death: When Brahma created the universe and all
beings in it, he soon recognized that they would be everlasting. This might
not be good, he thought, and became very angry. His anger expressed itself
as a universal conflagration which destroyed everything. At this Rudra
advised him that he should not destroy everything at once. So, Brahma
created the personification of Death who would destroy individual lives at
various time, rather than all at once. That is why not everybody dies at the
same time.

In another episode of the Mahabharata, Narada is reported to have told a
story whose thrust was to preach ahimsa. In that story Dharma, who had
disguised himself as a deer about to be sacrificed by a Brahmin in a yaj?ay
s: "The slaughter of creatures does not conform to the ordinances of
yaj? Injury to animals is no part of yaj? We also read here that a
full-fledged religion is one which abstains from doing harm (himsa). This is
interesting in that the Mahabharata was before Mahavira of Jainism.

Narada was scholar, and also a great lover of music. He is said to have
invented the veena. He is also remembered as the one who initiated the art
of dancing.

This great rishi was not always modest. Once he told the Divine principle
(Narayana): "I always respect my elders, I have never spoken to others about
secrets, I have read the Vedas studiously, I have practiced severe
austerities, I have never uttered untruth, I have always been virtuous, I
have always treated both friends and foes alike, I always adore the Divine."
By these, he claimed his right to see the Divine in person.

Valmiki's Balakanda begins with the poet asking some questions to Narada:
"Is there anyone who merits to be called a perfectly virtuous man? Is there
anyone who understands fully the power of ethical comportment? Who is there
that fully realizes the value of selfless service, who always speaks the
truth, and is also firm in his resolutions?..." Narada answered by saying,
"Yes, indeed, I do know of such a hero, one who has all the noble qualities
which you have mentioned." He then went on to narrate the saga of the great
Rama which Valmiki wrote for us all to read.
This inspired one saintly personage of our own times to write: "In Brahma
loka Ramayana has 100 crores (10 billion) of shlokas and Chathurmukha Brahma
wanted to introduce it to Bhooloka. He searched for a good narrator and He
found in Narada. an eligible candidate." Such exaggerations are not unusual
in the Hindu world when it comes to lauding great works.

It seems to me that the choice of Narada for telling the Ramayana is
appropriate: Narada was scholar, minstrel, spiritual soul, and traveler.
The Ramayana too has scholarly and musical components. Like Narada, it has
a spiritual dimension. Like Narada, the Ramayana has traveled to distant
lands through translations in many languages.

Some hymns of the Vedas are attributed to Narada. A treatise on law, the
Naradiya Dharma Shastra, is believed to have been written by Narada.

From the Mahabharata we gather that Narada was also a close friend of the
Pandavas whom he advised and to whom he would narrate stories.

V. V. Raman
September 26, 2005

PS
Re: Narada Bhakti Sutra

Indeed, there is a work by this name.
It is not clear that it was authored by the Vedic/puranic Narada.
The work has been translated by some people in the Bhakti Vedanta Society.
Like the Brahma Sutras, it begins with the line:
"athato bhaktim vyakhyasyamah:
Now, therefore, I will try to explain the
process of bhakti."

It also describes the changes that occur in a human body when one is engaged
in the bhakti mode which may range from doing puja and singing bhajans to
meditation and yoga practice.

The world of the puranas is filled with magic and wonder. It has beings not
of this world and rishis with complex genealogies. So it was with the one
named Jamadagni, born to Satyavati, wife of the Brahmin Richika who was none
other than the son of the great Bhrigu whose descendents are said to be the
Bhargavas of today.

It is said that Bhrigu presented Satyavati with a magical potion in two
pots, and asked her to share one of them with her mother. The two ladies
were instructed to take them, each one after embracing a different tree:
the mother was to embrace a peepal and the daughter, a fig tree. As happens
in stories of mistaken identities, the ladies confused their respective
assignments, and drank from the wrong cups too. So this became, not a
comedy, but a birth-trait of errors. For, as a result of the mistake,
Satyavati was to give birth to a Brahmin child with Kshatriya disposition,
and her mother was to bear a Kshatriya child with Brahminical longings.
Satyavati begged of Bhrigu not to let this happen to her son; she would let
her grandson be such. Bhrigu granted this wish.

The child thus born to Satyavati was named Jamadagni. Jamadagni dedicated
his life to a study of the Vedas. He led an ethical life, and at one point
decided to get married. He found in Renuka, the daughter of King Prasenajit,
a suitable bride. In due course the couple had five sons: Rumanvan, Sushena,
Vasu, Vishvavasu, and Rama.

At one time, Jamadagni milked his cow and kept the milk safe in a new
vessel, with the intention of using it in a ritual. The deities Dharma came
in disguise and spoiled the milk. Jamadagni remained unperturbed. Then
Dharma took on the form of a Brahmin woman who presented herself to
Jamadagni. The rishi was calm and collected, whereupon Dharma revealed
himself and said that Jamadagni had given the lie to the common saying that
Bhargavas were generally wrathful people.

One day when Renuka was returning from her bath in the river, she happened
to see the handsome prince Chitraratha, barely clad, sporting in the waters
with his lovely wives. This planted desires of a sexual nature in the heart
of the Rishi's wife. [The original text describes the effect on her explicit
terms.] When she returned to the hermitage, guilt-ridden, the rishi detected
that the luster of chastity had left her. Enraged in true rishi-fashion, he
wanted her to die. When his sons came home, he ordered them to execute their
mother, but all the first four shuddered at the thought of doing such a
thing. For their disobedient inaction Jamadagni cursed every one of them to
loose their mental faculties. But Rama, the fifth, obeyed his father without
a question. With his axe (parashu) he promptly severed Renuka's head. Highly
pleased, the spiritual Jamadagni was now ready to grant this Parashurama
anything and everything he would wish. The young man's first request was to
get his mother back to life. Then he wanted his mind to forget for ever the
cruel act he had committed, and to be forgiven for the horrendous sin of
matricide. He wanted his brothers restituted too. Jamadagni granted all
these wishes.

Arjuna, not the Pandavas, but son of a king by the name of Kartavirya,
stopped at Jamadagni's hermitage. Here he was well received, and his
entourage was well fed. But the greedy prince wanted the principal cow in
the shed. When this was refused, he and his men carried away the cow by
force. When Parashurama discovered this he became enraged beyond control,
and in his fury he summarily killed this plundering prince and his whole
battalion. Angered by this, other men of Arjuna's army came to Jamadagni's
hermitage and slaughtered the helpless rishi.

Parashu Rama took an extraordinary revenge for this terrible act. He swore
to exterminate all Kshatriyas on earth; indeed, he is said to have
accomplished this several times over. In Valmiki's Ramayana, however, when
he challenges Rama and his party after the royal weddings, Parashurama is
made to look small by the glorious Rama.

In Tulasi Das's version, Parashurama appears in Janaka's court to compete
for Sita's hand. His angry look frightens everybody. To use Shakespeare's
lines, he displayed
The flash and outbreak of a fiery mind
A savageness in unreclaimed blood.

In Tulsi Das's version, Parashurama addressed Sita's father as stupid Janaka
and asked him who it was that broke Shiva's bow (269:3): kahu jada janak
dhanush kai tor? That person would be Parashu Rama's enemy. Sita's mother
was terrified. To the frightened Sita, a mere half instant seemed like an
eon: aradh nimish kalpasama b?.

In historical terms, it is quite possible that the Brahmin Parashurama was
one of the older, highly skilled and valiant contenders for Sita's hand who
felt intensely jealous that young Rama had so easily won the contest. To
satisfy his ego or to recuperate the honor he had lost by his defeat, he
probably challenged Rama to another feat. There are glimmers of true history
hidden beneath the lines of our epics and puranas.

Another illustrious author of the Vedas and a member of the Saptarishi
constellation is Vasishtha, undoubtedly one of the greatest of the classical
rishis. His life and exploits suggest that he played a major role in
establishing the superiority of Brahmanas in the Hindu social structure. As
per Rig Vedic mythic visions (VII.33) he was born of the Vedic deities
Varuna and Mitra when they were aroused by the sight of the apsara Urvashi.

Many monarchs performed important sacrifices with him as their family
priest. The Vishnu Purana explains that King Nimi once requested Vasishtha
to be chief priest at a sacrifice he was planning. The event was to last a
thousand years. Vasishtha told the king he regretted he had prior
commitments for the next five hundred years, but that he would come back
after that to serve in the king's undertaking. But upon his return he
discovered, to his surprise and disappointment, that Nimi had offered the
position of chief priest to Rishi Gautama. Vasishtha took this as a severe
slap on the face, and promptly cursed the king to become disembodied. Nimi,
who possessed imprecating powers himself, retorted with the same curse. Upon
losing his physical frame, Vasishtha entered the Vedic gods Mitra and
Varuna, only to regain corporeality via Urvashi.

The Mahabharata (I: 176) describes Vasishtha as a mind-born son of Brahma
and husband of Arundhati. He is perhaps the only great personage to be
introduced through the wife's name.

We also read the strange episode in which Vasishtha goes to Ayodhya [not of
Dasaratha times], a city full of happy and healthy people. After the rishi
came into the palace the queen, at the command of the king, united with the
rishi. After this he returned to his hermitage. Twelve years after
conception, a child was born to the queen. He was Asmaka who founded the
city of Paudanya.

It is said that Vasishtha had another hundred sons, the oldest of whom was
called Sakri. One day while Sakri was walking along a path King Kalmashapada
came from the opposite direction. The king ordered the eminent rishi's son
to move out of his way. Sakri said it was against the dharmashastra for a
Brahmana to give way to a Kshatriya. An argument ensued as to who had the
right of way. The king claimed priority on the basis of his power, the
rishi's son on the basis of principle.
The angry king whipped Sakri. And Sakri cursed the arrogant king to become a
cannibalistic rakshasa. When the curse took effect, not one, but all of the
hundred sons of Vasishtha were devoured by the king-turned-cannibal.

Vasishtha had conquered Ire and Desire: sign of great spiritual attainment
in the Hindu framework. Generally, he kept his cool under the most trying
circumstances. But this was terrible news which even the great Rishi could
not accept with equanimity. He decided to commit suicide. He climbed to the
top of Mount Meru, and took a headlong plunge from there to the hard ground
below. But the rocks on which his head struck had become soft as cotton
cushions. Then the rishi went through a forest that was ablaze, only to
emerge unscathed by his passage through the flames. In great frustration he
bound his limbs with a sturdy rope and plunged into a swelling river, but
the torrents flung him back to the bank. Next he repeated this attempt at
suicide by leaping into waters infested with alligators. But the waves threw
the rishi back again on terra firma. That was the end of Vasishtha's
attempts to put an end to himself.

It is difficult to fathom the significance of such episodes. Could it be to
say that in spite of attempts to eradicate Brahminical power by others, and
even when the Brahmins themselves tried to recede from their dominance in
society, they have always continued to play a major role there, i.e. they
could not be erased from Hindu society?

Every Hindu regards the cow as sacred. If we inquire into where in Hindu
literature this sacredness is declared, there is the Rig Veda where
Bharadvaja Rishi has a hymn of the sacredness of the cow. Then again, in the
Mahabharata there are some chapters (Anusasana Parva) where Vasishtha gives
a long discourse on the qualities and significance of that gentle animal. He
describes the cow as being always fragrant. They are the very source of all
prosperity. They constitute the highest food. They are the best oblation for
the deities. He recommends the recitation of the cow's name in morning and
evening. He says that one should never feel repugnance for the cow's urine
or dung. He assures us that great merit would follow those who generously
give cattle as gifts. The sacred cow is very ancient in Hindu culture.

The Puranas are not unanimous regarding the identity of Vasishtha's spouse.
The Vishnu Purana says it was Urja, a daughter of Daksha. The Rishi is said
to have had seven sons through her. On the other hand, the Bhagavada Purana
informs us that it was Arundhati who was Vasishtha's wife. According to a
story in the Mahabharata, six of the Sapta Rishi once abandoned their wives,
all except Vasishtha. One of the stars of the Pleiades is referred to as
Arundhati.

V. V. Raman
October 3, 2005

This is from Sir S .Radhakrishnan's book THE HINDU VIEW OF LIFE. PAGE 86,

"Vasishta was born of a prostitute, Vyasa of a fisherwoman, Parasara of a
Chandala girl."

PKR.

Indeed, and S.R. quotes:

gaNikAgarbhasmbhUo Vasishtha...

Visishtha came into being from the womb of a GaNikA (harlot).

V. V. Raman
October 3, 2005

Thank you again Dr. Raman for that presentation on Vasishta which presumably
is taken from the puranas and itihasas.

But there is another reason why this piece must be separately eulogised, and I
wish to comment on. It possibly is also a reason why Dr. Raman wrote this, and
on the sapta rishis, without quite saying so, but leaving it to the realisation
and imagination of the reader.

This piece shows clearly the sheer absurdity of the puranashastras if taken
literally, which is what most hundreds of millions of Hindus do. Anyone
believing this, as it is, has been taken for a major ride, the Big Dipper! Now imagine
millions of daft people do. Many even have taken to memorise sutras from these
shastras and quote freely to support orthodoxy or their pet beliefs, even well
known acharyas! See how far all this is from Hindu spirituality.

But if the puranashastras - the theatre of the absurd, is taken as parables, or
as metaphysical knowledge then there is some truth in this, and which is quite
different from its face value.

The Big Dipper was named after some prominent rishis whose name and some
geneology only is known. We know the Big Dipper is in the constellation
Pleadeis,known in sanskrit as Kritika. We also know that the 'God' of the Pleadeis is
Kartikka or Lord Muruga. And we can surmise that the sapta rishi stars points to

'that Lord' as the overlord of the 7 rishis, nay all of them, and as overlord of

knowledge and spiritual striving as that is what the rishis represent. More
information along these lines can be obtained from what actually Vasishtha
taught in the vedas. (Surely no one believes that these stories are what
Vasishtha actually wrote.) Even more so for the meditator who will 'see' the
soul body and its currents as 'stars of a constellation', which will then direct the
meditator towards 'that Lord'.

But nothing more should be read from this. The song and dance of these stories
was simply written to entertain, inspire and even delude the people, to separate

the wheat from the chaff. Anyone holding on to these stories is a lost soul
trapped in shastra, and further from Hindu spirituality than anything.

Knowingly or unknowingly this piece has established that. It is for this reason
that I eulogise, and we are grateful.

Regards.

Pathma

I stand corrected on the constellations, the Big Dipper is not in the constellation Pleiades.

It appears that there were several Vasisthas. Here is some additional info below from various sources on Vasishtha. Incidentally my gotra is Nandinatha, as is Vasishtha's. There is no need for despair too as Vishvamitra eventually equalled Vasistha and became the guru to Lord Rama, thereby insinuating brahmanism will be ended.

It is true that there are no great Indian leaders like in the past, but it is also equally true that there are a great many capable people like Kalam, Vaypayee
and Manmohan. Greatness has been spread around a larger group of people.

Since the bakti period there has been no one like Subramuniyaswami, Prabhupada, Pramukh Swami, Mata Amritanandamayi, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, and
why, even Sai Baba. No one does social welfare work like him. And there is Master Ching Hai with a million meditating disciples, and she is reaching out to the
far easterners, reviving Hindu-Buddhist teachings like never before since Bodhidharma, Bhogadeva and Markandeya. There has never been anyone like
these personages in a thousand years. China and Indonesia will be the next great Hindu-Yoga-Buddhist nations. Even around me in Kuala Lumpur, I see thousands of people meditating several hours at a stretch, and now and then a few bursting
into parasiva. Thousands mind you just in Kuala Lumpur only. There was nothing like this in the 60s, 70s or 80s.

People complain about India, but I tell them what more can they ask for. India is the fastest growing nation, 8.1% growth in the last quarter, soon to eclipse the US in 2035 and China in 2045. The chinese themselves admit and accept this. This is the light at the end of the tunnel. What more can Indians ask for?

But for sure the puranashastra's days are numbered as Hindu theological texts as it has served it purpose in the past, now an albatross around the Hindu's neck. It may remain as 'Vyasa's Fables from the East', but totally disconnected
from Hinduism. We want it out. Not one of the great personages mentioned above has promoted it.

Regards.

Pathma

VASISTHA: (Sanskrit) Disciple of Maharishi Nandikeshvara (Nandinatha) (ca 250 bce) along with Patanjali and Vyaghrapada (as recorded in Panini's book of grammar) and Tirumular as well as the Sanatkumaras (as per the Tirumantiram). Also the name of several other famous sages, including the rishi attributed with composing the hymns of the Rig Veda's seventh mandala, another who plays a
central role in the epics and certain Puranas and Upanishads, and a third who expounds the ancient yogic wisdom to Lord Rama in the 29,000-verse Yoga Vasishtha.

VASISHTHA. [Source: Dowson's Classical Dictionary of Hindu Mythology] 'Most wealthy.' A celebrated Vedic sage to whom many hymns are ascribed. According to Manu he was one of the seven great Rishis and of the ten Prajapatis.
Vasishtha was the possessor of a "cow of plenty," called Nandini, who had the power of granting him all things (vasu) he desired, hence his name. A law-book is attributed to him, or to another of the same name. Vashistha's teachings in the Yoga Vashistha is similar to Kashmir Saivism, not particularly unusual, as his co-disciples as mentioned above are all great yogis who authored
their own books on yoga.

Agastya and Vasishtha are siblings as per the Rig, and Visvamitra a competitive contemporary.

Though Vasishtha is classed among the Prajapatis who sprang from Brahma, a hymn in the Rigveda and other commentaries thereon assign him a different
origin, or rather a second birth, and represent him and the sage Agastya to have sprung from Mitra and Varuna. The hymn says, "Thou, O Vasishtha, are a son of Mitra and Varuna, born a Brahman from the soul of Urvasi. All the gods placed in the vessel thee the drop which had fallen through divine contemplation." The comment on this hymn says, "When these two Adityas (Mitra and Varuna) beheld
the Apsaras Urvasi at a sacrifice their seed fell from them. It fell on many places, into a jar, into water, and on the ground. The Muni Vasishtha was
produced on the ground, while Agastya was born in the jar."

There is a peculiar hymn attributed to Vasishtha in the Rigveda (Wilson , iv.121), beginning "Protector of the dwelling," which the commentators explain as
having been addressed by him to a house-dog which barked as he entered the house of Varuna by night to obtain food after a three days' fast. By it the dog was appeased and put to sleep, "wherefore these verses are to be recited on similar occasions by thieves and burglars."

VISVAMITRA (Sanskrit) Friend of all; a celebrated rishi (sage), famed for his contests with the sage Vasishtha. By birth a Kshattriya of the lineage of Pururavas of the lunar dynasty, he was employed at the court of Raja Sudas of the Tritsus, as was Vasishtha. Visvamitra was constantly worsted in his struggles for supremacy over the great Brahmin Vasishtha, and determined to
elevate himself to the rank of a Brahmin, which he succeeded in doing after many strenuous austerities. Many verses of the Rig-Veda are said to have been written by him, and he is also credited with authorship of a law book. In the Ramayana, Visvamitra is stated to be a counselor of Ramachandra.

YOGA VASISTHA: (Sanskrit) Poetic work of over 29,000 verses attributed to Valmiki. It is a dialog between Prince Rama and his teacher, Sage Vasishtha, in the form of 50 intriguing stories which present advaita and the concepts and
ideals of yoga in elegant Sanskrit. (Variously dated between 500 and 1000 ce.)

This book is also known as the Maharamayana. It is an unusual scripture in that it purports to record the words of a human (Vasishtha) while he is expounding universal truths to God (Rama). The foreword to the book does not indicate this
scripture's age other than noting that it has been a "favorite book of spiritual seekers in India these several centuries." The viewpoint embraced by Vasishtha's Yoga is very similar to Kashmir Shaivism, which teaches that Consciousness
alone exists and that the universe is nothing but the self-expression of this Consciousness.

Here's what the book has to say about itself: “In this scripture there is nothing new; but the truth has been presented in a pleasant fashion with a number of stories. It is the truth that is proclaimed in this scripture that is important; not the one who has declared the truth or composed the scripture.”

There is hardly another mantra in Hinduism that is better known or held in
greater reverence than the Gayatri. It occurs in the Rig Veda, reminding us
that the roots of the tradition lie deep in those sacred hymns. This mantra
is one of the earliest recognitions of the relevance and importance of the
sun, not just for physical life, but also for human intelligence and
awareness. The sage-poet who articulated this was surely one of the keenest
minds in the history of conscious reflection. The authorship of the
Gayatri - the jewel of the Brahmins to which every dvija is initiated early
in life - is attributed to the illustrious sage Vishvamitra. The cultural
complex we call Hinduism is rich in ironies: One scholar has suggested that
this rishi was a Shudra. But this is not so according to the lore.

Vishvamitra - whether historical or mythological - was a most extraordinary
personage. He has been described as the Rishi of Rishis. Indeed, his life,
as told in the epics and the puranas, embodies everything we may expect of
an eminent rishi: He was a man of great self-discipline, austere and given
to long periods of penance, yet virile and susceptible to feminine charms.

He was demanding, impatient, adamant, and quick to anger. Most of all, he
was a scholar, poet, and deeply versed in sacred history.

Vishvamitra's sacred sacrifices were once interrupted by some demonic
beings: perhaps by some tribal people who found it all to be exotic. He went
to King Dasaratha and asked for Rama's assistance to rid himself of the
intruders. The king hesitated, and the Rishi was furious. Vasishtha,
Dasaratha's spiritual counselor, advised the king to consent to the request.

Rama and Lakshmana then went on to exterminate the miscreants. During this
expedition, Vishvamitra taught the two brothers many things of local
history.

Often Vishvamitra appears as Vasishtha's rival, because the latter was a
Brahmin, and Vishvamitra had a Kshatriya lineage. His Kshatriya birth
happened because of an error. Satyavati (see Vasishtha) had mistakenly
exchanged with her mother the magic potion that was to bring forth a Brahmin
child. The mother was married to Gadhi who was a Kshatriya. It was
thus that Vishvamitra became a Kshatriya since, in practice, caste is
patrilineal.

Vishvamitra's Non-Brahminhood tormented him for millennia of his incredibly
long life. This tension reflects a profound truth. In any society, those who
are regarded as inferior - by law, convention, color of skin, or whatever -
will always harbor deep resentment towards those who have a higher status.
The resentment sometimes finds expression in acute ways, often by affirming
one's own strength in whatever manner vis-a-vis the more powerful one.
Consider the momentous episode in which, at a time when he was a powerful
king, Vishvamitra paid a visit to Vasishtha. He was received with respect
and hospitality. His entire retinue was treated to a sumptuous feast at
Vasishtha's hermitage. The rich food came from the wondrous cow Sabala
(a.k.a. Kamadhenu) which was a cornucopia of limitless nourishment.

Vishvamitra wanted the animal, promising any price for it. But Vasishtha
refused. Whereupon Vishvamitra used the might of his army, summoning his
hundred sons to cownap Kamadhenu. The magical animal engendered its own
army. There was a brutal battle, at the end of which Vishvamitra's men were
burnt to thin ash. The moral of the story: Material might is no match for
spiritual power.

In the Markandeya Purana version of the Harischandra episode, Vasishtha
cursed Vishvamitra to become a crane, and the latter was quick to retort
with a similar curse. The two ornithoid rishis went at each other with
earth-shaking fury until Brahma intervened and brought them back to human
forms.

By intense penance, after centuries of silence, prolonged standing on one
foot, months of fasting during which his body became like a strip of rotten
wood, the sage finally attained the much-coveted status of Brahma Rishi.

It was in the course of these awesome austerities that he chanced to see one
day the Apsara Menaka wading in the Pushcart Lake. Enchanted by her physical
beauty, he welcomed her to his hermitage and asked her to stay with him.
Menaka agreed and subtly hindered his spiritual efforts. He spent ten years,
enthralled by Menaka's company, before realizing what an impediment she had
been to his greater glories. The episode is to remind us that all the
rock-like rigidity acquired by thousand austere years can melt away when the
raw fire of lust is lit. In the meanwhile, to Menaka was born Shakuntala,
another beautiful heroine of Hindu lore. She was the mother of Bharata whose
name is etched in the great epic and in modern India's name. Who can erase
this link!

The Ramayana and the Mahabharata, the Vedas, the Brahmanda Purana, the
Kalika Purana and more, all refer to this great Rishi, known as much for his
wisdom and enormous learning as for his austerities and quick temper, Here
was a hero of Vedic and Puranic lore, a pillar of the Hindu world, a
majestic representative of ancient Vedic culture, a rishi and a name that
will live for ever in the cultural-spiritual core of the Hindu world.

V. V. Raman
September 5, 2005

Question: <'Vashistar vAyAl Brahmarishi' (From Vasishtha's
mouth a Brahmarishi) Isn't that proverb related to Sage Vashista and Sage
Vishwamitra? I remember seeing a Tamil Film starring Sivaji Ganeshan as
Vishwamitra who finally is called as Brahmarishi by Sage Vashista.>

Answer:
This is how the transformation is said to have occurred, as narrated by
SatAnanda, to the Balakanda (From my book: Balakanda as Literature and
Cultural History):

"The great muni now left the Himalayan regions and proceeded to the eastern
quarter, there to do his penances. With his vow of total silence he began a
most difficult and unprecedented series of austerities. Even after a
thousand years he remained calm, unaffected by any anger. His body had
grown stiff as wood because it had given up everything. At the and of this
millennium he began to eat a little.

"Just at that moment, Indra appeared as a mendicant Brahmin and begged
for some food. The illustrious ascetic gave the Brahmin all his meal, and
spoke not a word to him, still maintaining his vow of silence. He also
began to hold his breath once again. So it has been said.

"Vishvamitra did not breathe for another thousand years. While he was in
this breathless state, there emanated from his head a smoke that caused
chaos and heating all over the three worlds. Totally confused and surpassed
in their glory, the devas, rishis, and gandharvas, not to mention the
N?s, serpents and demons, all went to Pitamaha in anguish and pleaded
with him thus: 'Oh Lord, though he has been tempted and provoked into anger
many times, Vishv?tra has resisted it all and risen to ever greater
heights of asceticism. There is not the slightest blemish in him. Now if he
does not receive what he is seeking, there is no doubt but that he will
annihilate the three worlds, including their animate and inanimate
components, all by the power of his tapas. At this very moment every corner
of the world is plunged into total darkness, nothing can be clearly seen.
The seas are in turmoil, the mountains are cleaving, the earth is trembling,
and the winds are raging in fury. We know not how to stop all this. Like
n?ikas, people are forsaking their religious rites, and there is
puzzlement in all the worlds. Even the sun is eclipsed by the power of this
illustrious rishi. The great rishi, the very embodiment of tejas,
incomparable as he is in splendor, must be satisfied before he resolves to
destroy everything there is. The three worlds, as once they were consumed by
the universal conflagration, will again suffer the same fate because of
him. May he therefore be given the boons he is seeking with such
persistence, even if he wants to have control over the devas!'

"Then the host of suras with Pitamaha in the lead appeared before the
illustrious Vishvamitra and spoke sweetly to him thus: 'Sv?tam, oh Brahma
Rishi! We are greatly impressed with your penances. Oh Kaushika, you have
achieved Brahminhood by dint of your austerities. Oh holy Brahmin, we grant
you longevity. May you be blessed! You may leave when you wish. May all be
well with you!'

"Delighted with this boon of Brahma, and saluting the heavenly
inhabitants, the illustrious rishi said, 'If I have achieved Brahminhood
and longevity, let Om and Vashat and the Vedas all come looking for me! Let
Vasishtha, Brahma's son, the greatest in archery and in Brahminic learning,
address me as a Brahmin. If these fervent wishes of mine are also granted,
oh gods, then may you all leave!'

"Thereupon, the Brahmarishi Vasishtha appeared and said, 'So be it!' And
the gods said, 'You are without question a Brahmarishi. All your wishes are
now fulfilled.' Then they left.

"Having achieved this supreme status of Brahminhood, Vishvamitra paid his
respects to Vasishtha, the foremost among Brahmarishis. After achieving
this goal, Vishvamitra went all around the world.

"It was in this way, oh R?, that the noble Vishvamitra became a Brahmin.
He is the greatest of all rishis, the very personification of asceticism,
the supreme source of spiritual powers."

V. V. Raman
Sept 5, 2005

The Hindu world has contributed much of significance to humanity's cultural,
spiritual, and intellectual heritage. Aside from the insightful recognition
of zero in computational analysis, the scientific study of human speech and
syntax, inspiring hymns and grand poetry, Hindus were perhaps the first to
elaborate the grand view of human consciousness as a spark of a Cosmic
substratum. This is a lofty and liberating vision in itself. What is more,
it was not formulated simply as a speculative hypothesis or metaphorical
musing, but as an empirically verifiable aspect of Man-Universe
relationship. That empirical component of the spirituality-thesis is what
constitutes yoga system of the Hindu world.
The yoga system is the fruit of what is perhaps the most ancient exploration
of inquiring humans into mind and consciousness. The epoch and place of its
discovery are lost, like much of our precious past, in the mist of
unrecorded events. But we have a work, attributed to an ancient rishi, which
consists of succinct aphorisms on the underlying concepts of yoga. The name
of that rishi is Patanjali, and his work is called Yoga Sutra.

The term yoga already occurs in the Rig Veda, meaning such things as yoking,
harnessing, achieving the unachieved, and connection. Already in Vedic times
austerities and celibacy, especially at certain stages in life, came to be
regarded as virtues worth cultivating. The comparison of the senses to
horses that need to be controlled by the horseman to reach a destination
gained currency in ancient India. After the philosophical system of Samkhya
was formulated, the yoga system became its empirical wing.

In the Samkhya worldview, the way to overcome sorrow would be through the
acquisition of knowledge of the Ultimate. It was believed, as in much of the
ancient world, that pain and suffering resulted from several factors of
which some are recognizable, and some are invisible. To the former category
belong other people, animals, things, and even ourselves. And to the latter
belong evil spirits (asuras) and powerful beings (devas).

As to remedies, physical pain could be alleviated or eliminated by herbs and
medicaments. But to gain release from mental anguish, frustrations,
suffering, and emotional turmoil, and above all, for ultimate peace and
bliss, one needed discriminating knowledge.

Without going into the details of the theory of yoga, we may say this: By
following certain exercises, generally under the guidance of a spiritual
master, it is possible to attain significant control over the physical body
and reach higher levels of consciousness. The physical exercises, as
elaborated in texts and by practitioners of later eras, range from simple
cross-legged squatting to contortions of limbs and control of the abdomen in
incredible ways. The associated spiritual exercises vary from mental
repetition of specific mantras to concentration and meditation of the most
sophisticated kinds.

Patanjali's work is a slender volume, consisting of some 194 terse
statements, distributed over three principal chapters and a fourth one that
seems to be appended to the three. It reads like a handbook for
practitioners rather than a philosophical treatise or prescriptive manual.
The first chapter deals with deep meditation (sam?i). The second explores
the technique of yoga (s?ana). The third deals with the powers one obtains
from yogic practice (vibh?) And the last appended chapter deals with
spiritual liberation (kaivalya). It also contains some criticisms of the
Buddhist school.

Like other major works of the tradition, the Yoga Sutras has received many
canonical commentaries, of which the one by the great Vyasa is the most
prestigious. This author again is semi-legendary in that the Brahmasutras,
all the Puranas and Upapuranas, as well as the Mahabharata are attributed to
him.

Patanjali's Yogasutra is one of the most influential works in all of human
history, though it is seldom recognized as such. It has inspired countless
gurus all over India and beyond over many generations, and its fundamental
theses have been expounded and elaborated by thousands of preachers and
practitioners. Some of the yoga that permeated the world through marketing
efforts is genuine, and some of it is spurious, some simple and others
complex. But invariably, yoga has been found to be useful, powerful, and
elevating to young students and adults, to royalty and rishis, to
sports-people and housewives, and to many more. That it is efficacious is of
little doubt, and its effectiveness is still a matter for scientific
investigation.

It should be recalled that in Hindu cultural legacy there are at least two
major Patanjalis, though some scholars have maintained the two to be one and
the same. The Patanjali of Yogasutra is believed to have lived in the
second century C.E. The other Patanjali, probably much more ancient, is
remembered for his great commentaries (Mahabhashya) on Panini's grammatical
treatise. Legend has it that he fell (pata) as a serpent in the palm
(a?i) of the great grammarian himself, and thus acquired his name. Oh
those ancient punsters!

V. V. Raman
October 12, 2005

Patanjali's raja yoga just suggested simple padmasana or sukhasana to commence meditation. One can do meditation even lying down. Thats what I do, or slouch on an armchair. The hatha yoga contortionists as well as mantra yoga you mentioned were of different margas and yoga methods, not raja yoga. And it is useful for physical and mental well being but not a condition for commencing meditation. It is this wrong notion that puts off people by assuming yoga and meditation is something hard to do. Meditation is the simplest thing to do, easier than sleeping even. Everyone meditates, but they just don't realise they are
doing it.

Yoga preceded samkhya and every other school but this is not well known or mentioned. The yoga school just found a convenient base in samkhya and latched on to it later.

I thought I'd share something extra below.

Looks like there were several more Patanjalis'.

Patanjali (1300 B.C.) Ancient Indian astronomer who studied space and identified the Northstar (Dhruva). (not sure about this one).

There is also a Patanjali who is also recognised as a truly great dancer. To this day dancers in India working in the classical traditions invoke him and pay him their respects. Patañjali, therefore, is effectively the patron saint of dance.

As is stated in Mahabharata the originator of the science of the Yoga is Hiranyagarbha. The tradition of Agamas says that the author of this science of
Yoga is Adinatha or Shiva or Shankara. Almost all these Agamas are written in the form of conversation between Parvati and Shankara. Patanjali is following the tradition of Upanishads. We get references of Astanga Yoga in a number of
Upanishads such as Chandogya Upanishad, Sandilya Upanishad etc. Yajnavalkya explains this Yoga Philosophy to Gargi and other disciples exactly on the same lines as Patanjali does. Yajnavalkya further states that this philosophy of Astanga Yoga was being learnt by him from his masters. This is an indication of the fact that the philosophy of Astanga Yoga is very ancient and was already in
practice before Patanjali. This indicates that yoga was passed on in an oral tradition until Patanjali codified it. Tirumular mentions many margas and yogas including raja-yoga which Patanjali elaborated in 194 sutras.

While Patanjali's raja yoga is known worldwide, not so the agama/tantra philosophies and yogas which is more difficult to understand and practise.

In Indian iconography Patanjali is often depicted as half human and half serpent, the man's torso extruding from a base of serpent coils. His hands are usually shown in namaste, indicating a meditative state and suggesting that he is greeting and blessing us in our yoga practice. Two additional hands hold a conch that calls the student to practice, and a disc that represents the wheel of time and the law of cause and effect.

Some quotes from the Yoga-Sutras that I like:

3:1 One-pointedness is steadfastness of the mind.

3:2 Unbroken continuation of that mental ability is meditation.

3:3 That same meditation when there is only consciousness of the object of meditation and not of the mind is realization.

3:4 The three appearing together are self-control.

3:31 By self-control on the light in the head one envisions perfected beings.

Pathma

.

You may recall what I said: "The yoga system is the fruit of what is perhaps the most ancient exploration of inquiring humans into mind and
consciousness. The epoch and place of its discovery are lost, like much of our precious past, in the mist of unrecorded events."

Let me explain with some background. Patanjali taught meditation. Yoga means meditation and meditation is yoga. There is no other yoga. Yoga Sutras means 'Meditation Sutras'. Meditation is right there in page one of the rig veda. All our rishis were meditators. Thats how they received the vedas; they saw the words and heard it too during their meditations. Meditation is therefore the first and oldest form of worship or practice, and the oldest school or philosophy. No doubt about that.

There are many methods of meditation; Tirumular listed most of it. Patanjali's method was called 'Raja-Yoga', which some call as 'ashtanga-yoga'. Thats because he enumerated in a road map the 8 steps to samadhi. Hatha yoga is the physical preparation for meditation, as well as for physical well being and emotional and mental stability. A few simple asanas will do. I only do the headstand once or twice a week (for my back ache too) and thats enough. There is no need for any asanas before starting meditation each time other than a simple stretching. Some schools have taken hatha yoga to the extremes in contortionism, but this is not necessary for meditation, though its great for physical well being. Patanjali just suggests a simple half lotus or just crosslegged (sukasana) and sitting erect to start meditation.

The general notion is that meditation requires strenuous asana postures for long periods of time. This puts off people from meditating, as well as the fears that chanting mantras wrongly may cause some physical or mental problems. Let us dispel all that. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Everytime you close your eyes, you are meditating. Everyone is a meditator, but they just dont realise it. Everyone is seeing something when they close their eyes, but they just dont know what they are seeing. You can meditate while lying in bed before sleeping off. Thats what I do; just lie in bed, close my eyes, and WATCH the big black screen inside, look at the inside of the cranium, explore by squinting the eyes for some moments, looking at the tip of the nose, at the top of the head or 'look afar'. Then I go to sleep after the inner movie! I do the same thing on waking up. Thats the best time for inner sights. I would lie in bed or sit for hours watching the inner sights before getting out of bed. At other times while surfing or scanning the forums, I just slouch on the chair, close my eyes and look inside for ten, fifteen minutes.

But most other time, I just sit on my bed, one leg crossed and the other stretched out, hands on my knees, like the Dakshinamurthi pose, and meditate for a while. This works best for me. Every meditator will find the position most suitable for him, and will stay with that.

The point is, in meditating one should be comfortable. And its okay to change positions or stretch while sitting in meditation, or scratch. Its even okay to stand and meditate. Many old people do that after some time of sitting, then sit back again. Other old or big sized people sit erect on a chair and meditate. Its even okay to lean or lie on an armchair and meditate, except only that that meditation would be a short one. But its not okay to open the eyes, that cuts the flow.

After some months of practise, the posture changes, the stretching and the scratching automatically becomes fewer, and the periods of meditation becomes longer, the limbs go numb and its not uncomfortable. At this stage, you have reached a postion of a basic asana, motionless and erect - just what Patanjali suggested. At this stage, the breath has automatically slowed without any effort and pranayama as been achieved. At this stage there is no need to chant any mantras, but just watch and observe the inner light.

People have portrayed meditation as something very difficult when actually its simpler than sleeping! Summa iru! Just stay still! Dont move! Dont chant! Just observe the inside of your head with eyes closed. Look at the forehead, the third eye area from the inside out. Place you thumb at the tip of your nose and the index finger at the top of the forehead at the hairline. Now close your eyes and look there! Ten minutes would do.

Inorder to demystify meditation, I would go further in saying that meditation is watching TV on the inner big screen on the inside of the cranium and forehead. And listening to the inner radio in the inside of our head. Yup, you'll hear the sounds too.

All our rishis were meditators. Their followers, the Hindus, should all also be meditators, without exception.

Regards.

Pathma

Rig Vedic rishis were not the only ones to receive esoteric revelation. The
Shatapatha Brahmana, for example, was revealed to Rishi Yajnavalkya. This
work is appended to what is known as Shukla Yajus (White Yajur Veda). The
Yajur Veda contains the rules and rites of rituals, and continues to play a
role in Hindu sacraments. The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, which is considered
to be the most important Upanishad, is part of Shatapatha Brahmana, and thus
owes its origins to Yajnavalkya also. Indeed, its middle section is known
as Yajnavalkya.

In this part there is a dialogue between Yajnavalkya and Maitreyi one of
his two wives. This exchange is a classic passage in Hindu philosophical
literature. When he offers half his estate to this wife before retiring to
the forest, the keen Maitreyi asks her husband if she would attain
immortality were she to possess all the wealth in the entire world. "No,"
replies the wise man, "there is no hope of immortality through wealth,"
reminding us of the Biblical line (Matthew: 19:24): "It is easier for a
camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the
kingdom of heaven." Now the wife asks the sage to talk to her about
immortality, and he is immensely pleased by this request. Then follows a
discourse on the psychology of desire and its relation to the spiritual
quest. Essentially the rishi says that whatever is dear to us, be it husband
or wife or children, wealth or brahminhood or khatriyahood, the worlds or
the gods or other beings, it is dear only for the sake of the atman (Self).

For this reason it is important to understand what that atman is. That is
why spiritual pursuit becomes primary in human life. Aside from the
metaphysical/psychological question explored, this is a beautiful example of
a healthy conversation between husband and wife.

Yajnavalkya is said to have served as high-priest at a sacrifice conducted
by King Janaka (father of Sita). Once he went to visit Janaka, and the king
asked if the learned man had come there to get cows as gifts or to explore
subtle matters. The rishi said, "For both, Oh King!" Then followed a series
of questions and answers on the nature of Brahman, as taught by a previous
teacher, and as modified by Yajnavalkya. They talked about speech and breath
and sight and truth and more. The importance of speech in the oral tradition
is beautifully expressed by Yajnavalkya thus: "It is through speech (uttered
words) that one recognizes a friend, that one comes to know about anything:
Vedas, history, lore, arts, esoteric knowledge, poetry, aphorisms,
explanations, sacrifices, oblations, food, drink, this world and
everything."

It is during this exchange that the Upanishadic neti-neti: not this, not
that about the Divine is uttered. For, explains Yajnavalkya here, Brahman is
inscrutable, imperishable, unattached, unchained, and immune to pain and
injury. Some of the most fundamental doctrines of the Hindu world are
uttered by Yajnavalkya in the Upanishads.

Uddalaka runi was another major thinker in the Upanishadic age. We learn
from the Bhrihadaranyaka Upanishad that Yajnavalkya was his student.

In another passage of this Upanishad, Gargi, an illustrious woman
philosopher, poses two questions about Ultimate Reality to the sage, to
which he gives profound answers. In this context he says: "That which is
above the sky, beneath the earth, between these two, which people call the
past, the present, and the future, across space is that which is woven like
warp and woof. That is aksharam: the imperishable." This passage is
remarkable in that here, as nowhere else in ancient thought, we find an
intermingling of space and time into a single structure, such as we find
only in twentieth century (Einsteinian) physics. Furthermore, he describes
this space-time continuum as imperishable: Brahman.

We know about this great scholar-mystic-sage also from the Mahabharata
(Shanti Parva) where he recounts his own experiences in which deities like
Siva and Sarasvati appeared before him and gave him supreme knowledge.
Yajnavalkya is known to have been unsympathetic to Brahminical rituals and
fee-mongering. Rather than pray for gold and cow, they should be asking for
light, he is said to have remarked. The great seer once quarreled with his
master Vaisampayana who demanded that he return the knowledge which he had
gathered from him. Thereupon Yajnavalkya is said to have spit out that
knowledge. It was then that he did the austerities for which Siva and
Sarasvati blessed him with the knowledge of the White Yajus.

In one of his many speeches, Yajnavalkya declared: "Liberation comes from
knowledge.. Obtaining knowledge from a Brahmin or a Kshatriya or a Vaishya
or even a Shudra, a person with faith must always show reverence for
knowledge.. All orders of men as Brahmins. All have sprung from Brahma.
Everyone utters his name.. Everyone should seek to acquire knowledge..
Everyone is entitled to strive for its acquisition."
Yajnavalkya was clearly one of the enlightened thinkers in a caste-framed
society!

V. V. Raman
October 114, 2005

./

Yajnavalkya: Spiritual - Theosophy Dictionary on Yoga

Yoga (Sanskrit) Union; one of the six Darsanas or schools of philosophy of India, founded by Patanjali, but said to have existed as a distinct teaching and system of life before that sage. Yajnavalkya, a famous and very ancient sage of pre-Mahabharatan times, to whom the White Yajur-Veda, the Satapatha-Brahmana, and the Brihadaranyaka are attributed, is credited with inculcating the positive duty of religious meditation and retirement into the forests, and therefore is believed to have originated the yoga doctrine. Patanjali's yoga, however, is more definite and precise as a philosophy, and imbodies more of the occult sciences than any of the extant works attributed to Yajnavalkya.

All dynamic civilizations have pondered over questions of life and death.
They have also wondered about the nature of matter and motion, gazed at the
moon and the stars, developed methods of counting and computing, forged
instruments for action and medicaments for cure. Thus arose science in the
ancient world.

In the course of her long and rich history, thanks to countless thinkers and
curious investigators, to her keen minds and ingenious craftsmen, India too
had her scientists and inventors in classical times. Science consists as
much in the motivations of the quest as in the finality of its results. In
many fields of sustained search, in mathematics and physics, in astronomy,
alchemy and medicine, ancient Hindus observed, speculated, theorized, and
wrote, leaving much for us to admire and a few things to learn from. In all
these fields investigators have been active in the Indian subcontinent since
time immemorial.

Vedic literature prescribing rules and regulations for the construction of
altars imply knowledge of more than basic mathematics. The skills for these
included the fundamental operations of arithmetic and mensuration, as also
abstract mathematical thought. Mathematics was held in very high esteem in
Vedic times. An aphorism, at least three thousand years old, compares the
subject to "the crests on the head of the peacock" and to "gems on the hoods
of snakes." Ancient Hindu mathematicians had uncanny skill in computational
arithmetic, and a genius for developing clever methods of calculations. Few
other cultures developed multiplication tables for fractional numbers, as
Hindus did.

It is well known that ancient Indians were among the first to use the place
value system of numeration. In Indian writings of the first centuries C.E.,
there are references to the writing of numbers as we do today.

There surely were exchanges and interactions with contemporaneous science in
other parts of the world, notably with China, Greece, and (later) the Arab
world, beginning probably with Babylonia in more distant periods.

Astronomy was cultivated with meticulous care, but astrological assumptions
were quite dominant; sometimes to the neglect observational data.

As elsewhere in the ancient world, the Indian scientific mind did not always
distinguish the natural from the supernatural. Often, imagination
influenced scientific thinkers in the formulation of some of their theories.
Here too, speculations dominated over careful observations, and qualitative
descriptions rather than quantitative measurements formed the backbone of
the sciences. Not all the fruits of ancient Indic inquiries qualify as
scientific results in the modern world, but then, this has been the fate of
practically all past efforts in other parts of the world as well. Some
concepts of seventeenth century chemistry, eighteenth century biology and
nineteenth century physics, for example, are as invalid today as ancient
Chinese, Hindu, or Greek science. But they were no less respectable
scientific endeavors.

Metaphysical speculations, intent upon seeking liberation (moksha) for the
jivatman, were frequently linked up with physical theories. All this did not
deter serious investigations and discussions, competing worldviews and
theories, albeit within cultural constraints. Mantras and mysticism were
part of alchemy and medicine; yet, interesting experiments were carried out
in carefully constructed laboratories in this framework. At the same time,
many technologies also thrived in ancient India: metallurgy, silk, textile,
pottery, distillery, and architecture, to name a few. In surgery and in
medical theories, some ancient Hindu investigators excelled many others.

Historians have often wondered how such an intellectually alert people fell
behind in scientific progress? Why did not Hindus bring about the Scientific
and the Industrial Revolutions which first occurred in the West? Indeed, the
same questions have been raised with respect to Egypt, Babylon, China and
ancient Greece. The factors which gave rise to modern science are complex
and often intractable.

All we can say is that in practically all instances external and/or internal
causes arose, overtly or subtly, to stifle the vitality of a people after a
longtime span of robust activity. In India, on the one hand inordinate
reverence for ancient writings because of their association with religion
carried over to scientific matters as well. This tended to deter independent
thought and the spirit of questioning. One often felt intimidated to call in
question ancient authorities whose ideas are enshrined in sacred writings.

Invaders put the people on the defensive. Foreign cultural aggression pushes
us ardently to whatever we claim as our own. Than again, for science in the
modern sense to emerge and flourish, knowledge must be disseminated, not
confined to a handful of pundits. This could not be achieved before the
invention of printing and other social changes.

In the next few essays I will reflect on some scientific thinkers from Hindu
world.

V. V. Raman
October 17, 2005

Some of us have been subjected to surgical instruments. But not many may
have wondered about who it was that first began to cut open any part of the
human body to rid it of an abscess or an ailment. Historians say the
practice is millennia old. In the Indic tradition a personage by the name of
Sushruta is reckoned as the first surgeon.

We are able to talk about Sushruta today because of Nagarjuna (of uncertain
identity) who redacted a treatise known as Sushruta Samhita. The work is a
rich source of ancient Hindu medical theories and practices. It reveals the
spirit of inquiry and practical science that was prevalent in ancient India.

This work on medicine presents myriad aspects of health and disease, with
particular emphasis on surgery of which the author was an unsurpassed
master. It talks about drugs and herbs, and also about the philosophy of
physicians in those days. Aside from hygiene and public health, there are
discussions on the relevance of seasons and the nature of the self. We also
find here detailed references to the organs in the body. The
chemist-historian P. C. Ray remarked that "According to Sushruta, the
dissection of dead bodies is a sine qua non to the student of surgery."
Moreover, Sushruta stresses "the knowledge gained from experiment and
observation." Sushruta Samhita might have been lost to the world were it not
for J. F. Royle's 1837 book in English: Antiquity of Hindoo Medicine.

Sushruta Samhita presents Ayurveda as a subsection of the Atharva Veda which
was composed by Brahma "even before the creation of mankind." The 184
chapters of its 1700 pages deal with surgery, general diseases, ailments
resulting from evil forces, child rearing, antidotes to poisons,
rejuvenation, and secrets of enhancing sexual potency. It refers to hundreds
of drugs and plant substances, and scores of minerals and animal substances
with medicinal properties. One of the most impressive features of
Sushruta's work is the long list of surgical instruments it mentions.
Careful instructions are given on managing wounds and nursing ulcers. The
author speaks about forceps, tongs, syringes, razors, pincers, and hooks of
many kinds, and explains the techniques of incision, excision,
scarification, etc. In contrast to another important medical treatise,
Sushruta Samhita declares that people of all the four castes are eligible to
become physicians.

The book asserts that "it contains all that can be found in the other
branches of medicine." It contains discussions on diseases of practically
every part of the body, from nose, throat, and eye to ear, skin and
generative organs. It notes the symptoms of various ailments, and prescribes
medicine and food for the patient. At the same time, one can discern in the
work some ancient worldviews: such as that "the diseases of infancy are due
to the influences of malignant stars or demons..;" that a concoction of
gold, lotus seed, milk and honey "gives a favorable turn to one's fortune;"
or that if a man lubricates his sole with "clarified butter boiled with eggs
or the testes of alligators ... he would be able to visit a woman with
undiminished vigor so long as he does not touch the ground with his feet."

Sushruta extols surgery by saying that it "is a source of infinite piety,
imparts fame and opens the gates of heaven to its votaries, prolongs the
duration of human existence..., etc."
Scholars who have investigated the book that bears Sushruta's name are of
divided in their opinion as to his era and place of work. Some have
suggested, as with Hippocrates of Cos in the Greek tradition, that Sushruta
was perhaps the name of a school of physicians, rather than a particular
individual. But tradition refers to him as a son of Rishi Vishvamitra, which
does not help locate him in history. Some have maintained that he lived in
the 3rd century B.C.E., others that his date is somewhere around the middle
of the 4th century C.E.

Legend also says that Sushruta received instruction from Dhanvantari,
another historical personage who has been transported to the thin air of
puranic mythology which says that during the Churning of the Ocean by devas
and asuras he (Dhanvantari) emerged and received medical knowledge from
Indra who had it from Brahma via Ashvins and Prajapati. All this hasn't
deterred artists from making realistic paintings of a bearded Sushruta at
work on his patients. Personified symbols are often more meaningful than
abstract ones.

Be that as it may, Sushruta's work reveals a very sophisticated level of
medical practice in ancient India, and a correspondingly advanced technology
for the manufacture of the many surgical instruments the work mentions.
Sometimes, one tends to make more claims for its greatness than is really
necessary to give its author an honored place in the history of science. The
book compares very favorably with contemporaneous medical explorations in
other civilizations of the ancient world. Yet, except for some Indian
doctors and specialists in the history of ancient Non-Western science, not
many have even heard of Sushruta or his accomplishments.

V. V. Raman
October 19, 2005

As English is among languages, there is a dominant system in medicine: the
allopathic. But there are also other medicinal systems in the world, based
on other philosophies and considerations. One such is the Ayurvedic system
which has been serving the health and medical needs of millions of people in
India over many generations, and is now practiced in other countries too,
with institutes and universities where it is taught and researched.. This
very ancient system goes back to Vedic times and earlier. Though its origins
are not known, the illustrious name of Caraka has been associated with it
for centuries.

If this was a person - scholars have argued about this - he was a great
physician and scholar. Some say that he flourished in the 8th century
B.C.E., others that he practiced in King Kanishka's court in the 1st or the
2nd century C.E. He is remembered through a text that bears his name: Caraka
Samhita.

Legendary accounts speak of him as an incarnation of Sesha, the mythic
serpent Lord. Perhaps this was a metaphor for saying that he came from the
Naga people whose land was known for its serpents. Etymologists have also
traced the name Caraka to a Sanskrit word meaning "to move." The English
word chariot is cognate to this. The name may well have referred to a
physician who went from place to place to cure his patients like a family
doctor, or it may have emerged to refer to the fact that his ideas traveled
far and wide.

Medical practice has an ancient history in India. Many authors must have
written on this topic. But Caraka's is one of the few treatises on the
subject to have survived. Caraka-samhita consists of 120 chapters. It does
not claim to be original, but, as Ptolemy's Almagest did for astronomy, it
brings together all the then known information on the subject. The work
begins with salutations to Brahma, Daksha, the Ashvins, and others of
mythological standing, whom it proclaims as the originators of the subject.

Caraka Samhita considers medicine as cure for the sick, and for assisting
people maintain good health. Its prose and verse format covers a wide range
of topics, from definitions of terms and lists of remedies to classification
of diseases and cures. It includes many related topics like prognosis and
dietetics, as well as a variety diseases and ailments: tetanus, convulsions,
insanity, abdominal pains, jaundice, swelling of the scrotum, and more. The
descriptions and categorizations in the book reveal that medical
practitioners in ancient India were engaged in systematic studies of health
related issues.

The book talks about soul and the causes of happiness. Drugs are discussed
as also the tastes and properties of the urine of various animals (used as
medication). Six hundred purgatives are mentioned as also the smoking of
certain kinds of leaves. It is stated that "a person of normal mental
faculty, intelligence, strength and energy, desirous of his well-being
pertaining to this world and the world beyond has to seek three basic
desires, viz., desire to live, desire to earn, and desire to perform
virtuous acts."

The three-dosha theory, by which vayu (wind), pitta (bile), and kapha
(phlegm) in disequilibrium cause diseases is introduced in Caraka's work.
This key idea is important in the terminology of Indic medicine. Caraka's
work is closely affiliated to three major darshanas (Samkhya, Vaishesika,
and Nyaya).

Caraka's treatise instructs physicians never to betray their patients, and
to always be pleasant in speech. It asks them to respect the confidentiality
of patients. It says that "Physicians who are born in noble families, are
well read, have practical experience, are skillful, pure, and whose
medicinal prescriptions and surgical operations are infallible, who are
self-controlled, have all equipment, are endowed with healthy sense organs,
are acquainted with natural manifestations, and have presence of mind: they
are saviors of life and destroyers of diseases; such physicians are well
acquainted with the anatomy and physiology of the entire body, manifestation
and growth of the body, and origin and evolution of the universe."

Caraka Samhita has this to say on the relationship between physician and
patient: "A doctor should be sympathetic and kind to all patients, should be
concerned with those who are likely to be cured, and should feel detached
from those who are towards death." This reflects a noble and enlightened
perspective, one which goes beyond the physical dimension of life into its
humanistic dimension.

Understandably, Caraka Samhita - somewhat like what Galen's work did in the
West - served for many centuries as a classic in Indian medical education.

Caraka's treatise has been commented upon by many scholars. It is believed
by some scholars that this work is actually an edited version of a work by a
certain Agnivesa. In fact, an English translation of the work is entitled
Agnivesa's Caraka Samhita.

Like Shakespeare's plays, what ultimately matters is the substance, not who
the author was. We may define Caraka as the author of the work that bears
that name, and celebrate that name.

V. V. Raman
October 21, 2005

Aryabhata is an honored name in Hindu mathematics. Two (unrelated) eminent
mathematicians bear that name. Aryabhata-I wrote his major work while he
lived in Kusumapura. It is believed that this city was near the capital
Pataliputra of the glorious Gupta empire. There were periods when cities
like Pataliputra, Ujjain, Vijayanagaram, and Madurai shone brightly on the
map of India. In the view of some scholars, Aryabhata-I was born in the
south, in Tamil Nadu or Andhra or Kerala. Both in classical and in modern
times, Aryabhata-I's works have been extensively studied and commented upon
by scholars over the centuries. They have come down to us mainly in a
collection known as Aryabhatiya. This was translated into Arabic in 800 C.E.
Aryabhatiya of Aryabhata was first rendered into English in 1874 by Hendrik
Kern of Holland, then by Walter Clark in 1930. A new edition was published
in 1976 by K.V. Sharma to commemorate the 1500th birth year of the great
ancient scientist: a well-deserved homage to the first of India's
mathematician-astronomers whose works have survived. This treatise is a
treasure-house of Hindu mathematics of the times, compressed in a 100 plus
verses. India's first artificial satellite, launched in 1975, was named
Aryabhata. In 1979, the International Astronomical Union named a lunar
crater after him.

Aryabhatiya's introduction deals with "the alphabetical system of dealing
with numbers," by which numbers are represented by the use of vowels and
consonants. It has parallels in Greek, Roman, and Hebraic numbering systems.
The 33 consonants of Sanskrit were taken to stand for 1, 2, 3, .25, 30,
40, . 100. Vowels were used to generate higher numbers, up to 10^18. The
place value system seems was already known.

The book gives the sum to n terms of an arithmetical progression, a formula
for the sum of the squares, one for the sum of the cubes, of the first n
integers; and rules for finding square roots. It talks about the properties
of triangles, including areas of triangles and circles. The volume of a
sphere in the book is incorrect, but one historian (K. Elfering) pointed
out that this could have arisen from a mistranscription of a manuscript.

The book discusses quadratic equations and explores, in an astronomical
context, integral solutions for the equations by = ax + c and by = ax - c,
where a, b, and c are integers (Diophantine equations).

Aryabhata-I sometimes took pi as the square root of 10, but he also gave
rules for evaluating pi: "Add four to one hundred; multiply by eight, and
add again sixty two thousand; the result is the approximate value of the
circumference when the diameter is twenty thousand." This gives a value of
3.1416. His values for the diameter (1,050 yojanas) and circumference
(3,375 yojanas) of the earth, give a different value for pi. The book
estimates of the diameters of the sun, the moon, and the planets. There are
elements of trigonometry in the work: definition of sine, rules for
calculating it and a table of sines.

Aryabhata-I adopted the traditional yuga scale: a Kalpa is 1008 Mahayugas
which is 3,354,560,000 years. By his reckoning, the present age began in
3102 B.C.E.: the Hindu equivalent of Bishop Usher's thesis. Thus, in the
tradition, this became the start of the Kaliyuga. His reasoning was based on
planetary-stellar conjunctions. This appears to be based on speculative
calculation rather than on observations. As Amartya Sen reminded us, "it is
mathematics rather than observational science to which ancient Indian
intellectuals were inclined to give their best attention."

And yet, Aryabhata-I is recognized as one of earliest astronomers to
recognize that the rotation of the earth and that of the celestial sphere
are equivalent descriptions. Some scholars credit him with recognizing (long
before Copernicus) that the planets are moving around the sun in elliptical
orbits (long before Kepler), and are swayed by the sun (before Newtonian
gravitation). Aryabhata also initiated the system in which the day started,
not at sunrise, but from midnight (ardharatrika), as we do.

Aryabhata-I explained eclipses as arising from the shadows of the earth and
the moon, rather than from mythological Rahu-Ketu devouring celestial
bodies. But that bit of his scientific insight did not percolate into the
psyche of the people; hence the fantasy interpretation has persisted down to
our own times.

Perhaps the best tribute to the genius of Aryabhata-I was paid by the
illustrious Bhaskara:: "Aryabhata is the master who, after reaching the most
distant shores and delving into the inmost depths of the ocean of ultimate
knowledge of mathematics, planetary motions and spheres, handed over the
three sciences to the learned world."

The city of Ujjain has seen many victories and defeats. It had its glory
days during the reign of the great Vikramaditya whose court glittered with
several gems of whom, it is said, the immortal Kalidasa was one. Ujjain was
also once a center for mathematical and astronomical studies in India, with
its own observatory. Scholars used to work there in the context of the
science of that age as others do in our own times in various research
centers in India. Varahamihira was among those who lent scientific luster to
Ujjain.

As with philosophical darshanas and religious sects, in astronomy too there
used to be at one time different approaches. These were called siddhantas -
the same term is used for philosophical and theological schools of thought.

Varahamihira is remembered especially because he has left behind a valuable
work, called Pa?iddhantika which discusses five of these classical
siddhantas, known with the epithets Surya, Romaka, Paulisha, Vasishtha, and
Paitamaha. [In the Vaishnava tradition the five scriptural sources Veda,
Smriti, Itihasa-Puranas, Pancaratra and Divya Prabandham are referred to as
Pa?iddhanta.] Two of the Siddhantas in Varahamihira's work bear names of
alien vintage. Romaka (of Rome) Siddhanta is Alexandrine astronomy, based on
the work of Ptolemy, with cycles, epicycles, and all. It presents the
Hipparchus model of the tropical year. Paulisha Siddhanta, with tables of
sines, is based on the system of Paulus, another astronomer in Alexandria.

Vasishtha Siddhanta traces its origins to Sage Vasishtha, while Surya
Siddhanta is dedicated to the Sun God. Paitamaha (grandfather's) Siddhanta
is said to be the oldest, and it contains the astrological lore of the time.

In sum, Pa?iddhantika is a compendium on astronomy. It expounds how
various astronomical systems presented the motions of the sun, the moon, and
the planets, time-reckoning, and related mathematics. It also talks about
astronomical instruments and cosmology. An English version with commentaries
was published by Otto Neugebauer and David Pingree in the 1970s: another
instance of Western scholarship universalizing ancient and little known
systems.

Up until the 17th century every astronomer, whether in Greece, Europe, or
India, was also an astrologer. Ptolemy's Almagest contains astrology and
astronomy. Copernicus and Kepler were astronomers and astrologers also. So
was Varahamihira. Recall that in the Indian tradition there are six
principal sections of astrology: Gola or positional astronomy, Ganita or the
associated mathematics, Jataka or natal astrology, Prasna or questions
relating to time, Muhurta or auspicious time intervals, and Nimitta or
omens. Varahamihira wrote on all these. Some of the ideas in Varahamira's
Brihajj?ka and Viv?patala continue to exerts great influence in the
Hindu world to this day. Much of the credit for the popularity of astrology
in India goes to Varahamihira and his disciples.

Another systematized branch of ancient inquiries was divination, in which
one would predict the course of events by appropriately interpreting omens.
This was common practice in ancient Babylonia, India, Greece, and Rome, for
example. Varahamihira also wrote on a book on this subject. His
Brihatsamhita deals with omens, but it also has information on the geography
of India of those times.

But there is also some mathematics in his works. Recall the basic formula
connecting sines and cosines: the sum of their squares equals one. Or again,
the formulas for the sine and cosine of double angles (like, cos 2x = 1 -
2sine-squared-x). We find these formulas enunciated for the first time in
Varahamira's works. It is not clear how much of this is original work. Yet,
since this is among the most ancient texts in India where these appear,
trigonometric texts in India could refer to these as Varahamihira's
formulas. This would be a legitimate way of reminding the young of the
scientific legacy of our ancestors.

Varahamihira tackled problems in combinatorial arithmetic. A simple problem
would be as follows. Suppose we have six students in a group, and we have to
choose any four from among them for a game. In how many different ways can
this be done? The answer is 15, but it will take some mathematics to figure
this out. Varahamihira devised a scheme by which this can be done for the
general case in which one combines r different objects from a set of n
different ones (nCr, as one would say today). This scheme was re-discovered
a thousand years later by Blaise Pascal, and is now generally known in
mathematics books as Pascal's triangle. The reason for this has nothing to
do with Eurocentrism. In Pascal's time, scientific results were widely
published; in Varahamira's time, they were not.

The idea of accepting ideas from aliens is always a touchy one. In this
context, Varahamihira was an enlightened Hindu who did not shy away from
recognizing merit wherever he found it. He told his countrymen:

"The Greeks,
though impure (mlecchas), must be honored, because they were trained in the
sciences and therein excelled others. What then are we to say of a Brahmin
if he combines with his purity the height of science?"

Thus did he urge the
learned men of his time to pursue the positive sciences.

V. V. Raman
October 26, 2005

/
/
/

I disagree with Mr. Raman's translation of Varahamihira's Sanskrit verse which is -

mlecchaa hi yavanaasteshu samyagsaastramidam sthitham /
rishivat tepi poojyante kim punardaivavid dvijah //

Here idam saastram does not refer to all sciences. Its meaning is to be related to daivavid which means a person knowing fortune telling or astrology. There
are two scinces relating to planetary movements - one is astronomy or jyotisham and the other is astrology or daivam (fortune). In Varahamihira's time the Arya Brahmins were knowing and practicing only astoronomy but not astology. The astrology part came from the Greeks or yavanas. Becasue of the knowledge of astrology yavanas were respected as Rishis. Therefore Varahamihira was persuading the Arya Brahmins to study astrology. Varahamihira was a maga Brahmin.

Varahamihira's Brihajjatakam is mainly based on Greek Astrology.

I shall give a few examples -

The names of the 12 solar signs of the zodiac are greek but used in by the Hindus using the Sanskrit equivalents.

I quote from Varahamihira Brihajjataka -

kriya taavuru jithuma kuliira
leya paarthona juuka korpiaakhyaah/
taukshika aakokero
hridrogaschethasischaanthyam //

The equivalent Sanskrit names being - Mesha, Vrishabha, Mithuna, Karkitaka, Simha, Kanya, Thula, Vrischika, Dhanus, Makara, Kumbha and Meena.

There are another 33 greek words in Brihajjataka for which there are no sanskrit equivalents.

One of the greatest mathematicians of his time and unsurpassed for two
centuries, Brahmagupta was also an illustrious astronomer who worked in
Ujjain when it was the vibrant capital of the Avanti kingdom. That was a
place where Hindu astronomers used to watch the skies and observe the
position of stars with precision. It is said that Brahmagupta was the head
of the observatory in Ujjain.

We do not have many details about his activities there, but we do have
manuscripts of texts bearing his name. One of them is called
Brahma-sphuta-siddhanta, a massive work consisting of more than a thousand
verses. It begins with several chapters which review the generally known
results of astronomy, ranging from planetary motions and time reckoning to
conjunctions and eclipses. Thus the book could have served as a good text
book on the subject. But it also gives additional information on these.

It appears that in those days repudiating authorities was not uncommon in
India. Scholars freely criticized one another. Unfortunately, in the
exercise of this freedom, Brahmagupta was motivated more by a desire to
uphold orthodox views than by new ideas. Thus he was a severe critic of
Aryabhata-I whose notion of four yugas of equal duration he rejected on the
grounds that it was contrary to the traditional mode. He also rejected
Aryabhata-I's idea of a spinning earth because it ran counter to all
previously held beliefs. Finally, - and this was the most unfortunate and
unscientific criticism of all - Brahmagupta refused to accept Aryabhata-I's
interpretation of eclipses, preferring instead the Rahu-Ketu myth. This was
a step in the backward direction.

With all that, Brahmagupta's book also has expositions of basic mathematics
and descriptions of astronomical instruments like the gnomon and the
measuring stick. More importantly, it has an entire chapter on algebra,
which he called kutaka. Indeed, we find here one of the earliest systematic
treatments of the subject.

In Brahmagupta's treatise we read about positive and negative quantities.
The significance of this will become clear if we recall that the concept of
negative integers was not as simple as we may imagine today. In fact, for
many centuries mathematicians dealt with only positive numbers. While it is
generally known that the Hindus were the first to introduce the notion of
zero (sh? and place value system, it is not as universally recognized
that Brahmagupta (and Hindu mathematicians more generally) were among the
first to introduce and manipulate negative numbers as legitimate
mathematical entities. It is said that when the eminent Alexandrine
mathematician Diophantus encountered -4 as a solution to a linear equation,
he discarded it as absurd. In Brahmagupta's text rules are given for the
addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division of negative numbers. The
book refers to negative numbers as debts, while positive numbers are called
fortunes.

Brahmagupta solved the quadratic equation, and was the first to discuss the
indeterminate equation a.x-squared + 1 = y-squared. Many centuries later,
this was named Pell's equation by Euler, and the name has stuck. It should
more properly be called Brahmagupta's equation. Brahmagupta gave his own
proof of the Pythagorean Theorem for right triangles. He also derived the
formula for the area of a cyclic quadrilateral of sides a, b, c, d, and
perimeter 2s as the square root of (s-a)(s-b)(s-c)(s-d).

Here is an example of the kind of algebraic problems Brahmagupta discussed,
albeit in ancient notations (H. T. Colebrooke's translation): "Two apes
lived at the top of a cliff of height h, whose base was distant mh from a
neighborhood village. One descended the cliff and walked to the village, the
other flew up a height x and then flew in a straight line to the village.
The distance traversed by each was the same. Find x."

The transmission of Indian mathematical and astronomical works to Europe via
Arab scholars is well established. In particular, Al-Khwrizm? Zij
al-sindhind played an important role here. While zij is the Arabic term for
astronomical table, it is believed that sindhind is an Arabic version of
Siddhanta (not unlike Thakur becoming Tagore in English). In any case, this
work is said to be closely related to Brahmagupta's treatise. David Pingree
has pointed out that "most of the basic parameters in al-Khwrizm? tables
are derived from Hindu astronomy. For all seven bodies the mean motions, the
mean positions at epoch, and the positions of the apogee and the node all
agree with what can be derived from the Brahmasphutasiddhanta."

Such were the accomplishments of this great mathematician who is said to
have composed his treatise at the age of thirty. Quite possibly, there were
many more mathematicians in that age, but the works of only a few have
survived. And the names of even these are not as well known as those of
sages, saints, and swamis, because their works have little to be with soul
liberation or the divine.

V. V. Raman
October 28, 2005

Dina Nath Mishra
www.dailypioneer.com

Colonial rulers knew how to enslave the Indians. They derided Indian civilisational treasure and its contribution to world. They planned it meticulously, invented a number of theories, wrote hundreds of biased and seemingly scholarly books and projected dozen of myths. They knew that the Indians took pride in their Vedic traditions.

Disdainfully, they described the Vedas as shepherd songs. Let us examine this description. For example take Vedic hymns number Rig 1.164.11, 2.27.11 and Yajur 18.40 alongwith their meaning and essence, "The sun moves neither right nor left, nor east nor west but around which this earth and its satellites keep continuously moving and this secret only the serious and intelligent alone can learn, let me live in the light without fear."

It talks about Solar System, with sun in the centre and movement of planets and their satellites held together by gravitational forces. "The twelve spoke wheel of twelve months revolves round the sun continuously. Seven hundred and twenty pairs of suns in the form of day and night also remain present where the number of days and nights are 360 each."

This shows that Rigvedic people knew fairly well about the movement of the earth on its own axis and also around the Sun due to which they were able to calculate time, seconds, minutes, hours, weeks, months and year. "The moon gets light from the ray of the sun named Susumna, indicating that the people knew that the moonlight was due to the reflected light of the sun. The Vedic period ended at least 5,000 years ago. The learned people of western civilisation were still grappling over the size and shape of the earth.

They were unaware of its gravitational force, whereas Vedic Scholars calculated the time of the rotation of earth, developed the calendar of twelve months in a year. Yet the Britishers had the temerity to call these Vedas containing thousands of hymns like these as "shepherd songs."