Expressions unleashed

VRIKSHAM - The Vedantic metaphor

2011-11-19T14:56:00.001-07:00

लक्ष्मीनाथ समारम्भां नाथयामुनमध्यमाम्

अस्मदाचार्यपर्यन्तां वन्दे गुरुपरंपराम्

Vedanta, which literally means 'End(or objective) of Vedas' is known from time immemorial for its metaphors to describe the state of affairs of this world, i.e., samsara (the cycle of birth and death) and the physical body of living beings, the mystery of which still captures our imaginations. The evanescence of this material existence is an important theme.

When we analyse the cause and effects of a phenomenon/problem , we naturally tend to talk in terms of the 'root cause' or the 'seed' of the problem and the 'fruit' as the result. This suits vedanta very well and hence we find the metaphor of the tree used creatively in similar contexts but with varying interpretations in different texts. The similes and metaphors of sanskrit literature are timeless. Deviating a little from the topic, let us look at one subhashitam to illustrate this point.

दीपो भक्षयते ध्वान्तं कज्जलं च प्रसूयते

यादृशं भक्षयेदन्नं जायते तादृशी प्रजा ||

[The lamp consumes darkness and generates soot/smoke. (Similarly) The type of food you

eat has a corresponding influence on the offspring.]

This is really an elegant comparison. At least I have never thought of darkness and soot as raw material and finished product, and that too relating them because of their black colour. The fact that a black input produces a black output is capitalized here to assert the importance of saatvik food. (Another variation of the subhashita ends as 'तादृशी मति: ' which means that the food you eat produces the quality of thinking that emanates from you).

Coming back to our metaphor, the tree**, the first example(and a famous one too) is from the Mundakopanishad (3.1):

द्वा सुपर्णा सयुजा सखाया समानं वृक्षं परिषस्वजाते |

तयोरन्य: पिप्पलं स्वाद्वत्त्यनश्नानन्यो अभिचाकशीति ||

[Two birds living together, each the friend of the other, perch upon the same tree. Of these two, one eats the sweet fruit of the tree, but the other simply looks on without eating]

The two birds are the Jivatma(individual soul) and paramatma (Supreme soul). The tree is nothing but the human body while the fruit is the results of past karma. Here the onlooker, the paramatma, is not touched by karma whereas the jiva is bound to the cycle of rebirth. Observe how the flow of meaning occurs with this metaphor. An occurrence of the natural world is transformed into profound metaphysics.

** The tree is often used as a metaphor to describe the Vedic literature. The four vedas including the various shakhas, six vedangas, Itihasas, puranas, dharmashastras, agamas, sutra granthas, bhashyams and acharya sri sooktis are all different parts of the tree of veda.

In the Bhagavatha puranam(11.12.21-23), Lord Krishna, responding to Uddhava's question uses the tree as a metaphor with even more detailed correlations between its parts and the worldly existence.

य एष संसारतरु: पुराण: कर्मात्मक: पुष्पफले प्रसूते ||

द्वे अस्य बीजे शतमूलस्त्रिनाल: पञ्चस्कन्ध: पञ्चरसप्रसूति:

दशैकशाखो द्विसुपर्ण नीडस्त्रिवल्कलो द्विफलोर्कं प्रविष्ट: ||

अदन्ति चैकं फलमस्य गृध्रा ग्रामेचरा एकमरण्यवासा:

हंसा य एकं बहुरूपमिज्यैर्मायामयं वेद स वेद वेदम् ||

[This tree of mundane existence has no beginning, is characterized by activity and puts forth flowers and fruits. Two are its seeds, innumerable are its roots, three are its lower trunks, five are its upper trunks; it yields five kinds of sap, eleven are its branches; it bears the nest of two birds; three are the layers of its bark; it bears two fruits and spreads as far as the realm of the sun. Full of carnal desires, men of the world partake of its one fruit while the swan-like men of wisdom dwelling in the forest eat the other. He alone knows the Vedas, who through spiritual preceptors comes to realize the one God appearing as many forms through his Maya]

Here the objects indicated are:

Two seeds - Paapam and punyam
innumerable roots - Innumerable cravings
three lower trunks - Sattva, Rajas and Tamas
Five upper trunks - Panchabhutams(the five elements)
Five kind of saps - Objects of five senses(five tanmatras - touch, taste etc.)
Eleven branches - Mind, five karmendriyas, five jnyanendriyas
two birds - Paramatma and Jivatma
three layers of bark - the three humours (vatam, pittham and kapham)
Two fruits - happiness and sorrow

Thus the metaphor ties together all the important concepts of Vedanta in a coherent manner.

Lord Krishna uses the tree metaphor with a variation in Bhagavad Gita(15.1-3).

ऊर्ध्व मूलमध:शाखमश्वत्थं प्राहुरव्ययम् |

छन्दांसि यस्य पर्णानि यस्तं वेद स वेदवित् ||

अधश्चोर्ध्वं प्रसृतास्तस्य शाखा गुणप्रवृद्धा विषयप्रवाला:|

अधश्च मूलान्यनुसंततानि कर्मानुबन्धीनि मनुष्यलोके ||

न रूपमस्येह ततोपलभ्यते नान्तो न चादिर्न च संप्रतिष्ठा |

अश्वत्थमेनं सुविरूढमूलमसङ्गशस्त्रेण दृढेन छित्त्वा ||

[The wise speak of the imperishable banyan tree, which has its roots above and branches below. Its leaves are the Vedas and he who knows this is the knower of the vedas. Its branches extend all about; nourished by the three gunas, the sensory objects are its shoots and below, in the world of men, its secondary roots stretch forth, binding them in Karma. Its real form is not perceived here, nor its end nor beginning nor its foundation but with determination one must cut down this strongly rooted tree with the weapon of detachment]

The inverted nature of the tree is important. Since Brahmam or the Supreme soul is the substratum for all activities and existence itself, it is the root of all worlds and hence this tree is rooted in Brahmam. However, during every creation cycle, After samashti srishti (i.e., creation of raw materials like the 5 elements and their admixture, Sriman Narayana, the eternal Supreme soul creates Brahma, who then creates with his knowledge of vedas, the rest of the material universe that he is in-charge of. Hence the tree has its trunk as Brahma, who then goes on to create the inhabitants of all the fourteen lokas including bhoo lokam. Hence the tree's branches extends all over this material realm.

The comparison of leaves of the tree to Vedas are is very clear to my level of understanding. However, I have an interpretation. The leaves are the receptors of sun's energy and nourish the plant because of this property. They lead to all further growth, production of flower and fruits in the tree. Similarly the Vedas are the source of any kind of prosperity, be it monetary or spiritual. Hence they are the leaves of the samsaric tree.

We find in the foregoing discussion that the tree is used as a metaphor for both the physical body of organisms as well as the whole world of samsara and this is an interesting fact in itself. There is school of belief which sees an organism's body as a microcosm. Every physical body is a universe in itself and undergoes the cycle of birth, growth and decay very similar to the universe. Thus the universe is the largest reflection of this microcosm.

Now what does this have to do with the tree?

'Hunting the hidden dimension'- a NOVA documentary on fractals has an interesting fact on the relationship between a tree and its parent forest. The distribution of sizes of the individual trees within a forest appears to exactly match the distribution of sizes of different branches within a single tree. The forest has a fractal structure with the tree as an element and of course the tree itself has a fractal structure. Similarly, the whole world of existence could be thought of as a fractal of the innumerable jivas who undergo the cycle of their own.

The tree occurs in many other texts like Kathopanishad, AnuGita and other parts of Mahabharata, Vivekachoodamani of Adi Shankaracharya and also alluded to in devotional hymns, from which we can be quite sure that our ancestors wanted to get this message across to us down the ages. At least the spiritually inclined people, instead of trying accumulate more wealth and/or power and fame, must strive to cut down this tree.

The solution to this 'tree' problem is given by the Lord himself in the Bhagavad Gita(15.4)

तत: पदं तत्परिमार्गितव्यं यस्मिन्गता न निवर्तन्ति भूय: |

तमेव चाद्यं पुरुषं प्रपद्ये यत: प्रवृत्ति: प्रसृता पुराणी ||

Thereafter, one must seek that place from which, having gone, one never returns and surrender to that Supreme Purusha (i.e., Lord Sriman Narayana) from whom has streamed forth everything, from time immemorial.

Jai Sriman Narayana.

Debunking the 'Hindu evolution'

2011-10-14T21:33:00.000-07:00

There is a lot of talk that goes on these days about how Hinduism is 'Scientific'. I also wrote a post a while back pointing out some similarities between the Nasadiya suktam in Rig Veda and the Big-bang theory but I also indicated that neither is a proof or evidence for the other and they run along different lines as to being sources of information on cosmos and reality. While we can compare, contrast and observe the similarities and differences, it is not very good to extend it beyond a certain measure and certainly not to the extent that Hinduism is 'Scientific'.

Now, I am pointing this out because if there is a revelation in any religion, which the Vedas are, then they do not come under the purview of science which only depends on pratyaksham(observation through the senses) and anumanam(inference) . Let us take up the dasavatharam, the ten incarnations of Lord Vishnu and examine if they really have any connection with Darwinian concept of evolution. (It is an entirely different issue whether Darwiniam evolution is Science at all in the first place. This is because you have to have more faith to believe in evolution than in intelligent design)

The only feeble connection that we can observe superficially between the dasavatharam and evolution is that in the list of ten that is popular, the first is an aquatic creature(fish) followed by an amphibian(tortoise) and then by a land animal (boar). Then it is described further how the rest of the avatars typically represent an ascent and an evolution to man and beyond. I quote the following from another blog(as this presents the view that I aim to critique)

Source:http://mailerindia.com/god/hindu/index.php?vish6

In fact in the study of the manifestations of Lord Vishnu, better known as the Dasha- Avatars, we find that the theory of evolution has been explained in a very subtle manner. They are

01. The first entry was made as The Fish (Macha-avatara). The life in water, as an amphibian, the earliest known life on the earth, from where the progress was chronicled.

02. Then came a life sustaining not only in water but progressed to some extent on land. The Lord took shape of a Terrapin (tortoise). (Koorma-avatara).

03. Amphibian became semi-amphibian, and then an animal in swamp or slush. Lord became a Boar (Varaha).

04. The animal progressed to half-human in the shape of Half lion + half-human (Nara-Simha)

05. Evolution, the path of progress took the half human to full human shape. The next avatar was that of a Dwarf (Vamana).

06. It is but natural that Dwarf will progress to a full human, but with a wavering mind, uncontrollable, and acting without reasons. Yes he came as Parasurama, a man without control.

07. Slowly the man became perfect. He was Rama. Always giving importance to the penance than the pleasure ever respecting the guru and the elders and remaining dutiful to others wherever he was.

08. And then the perfect human form emerged with cleverness and ability to think and win. A person of intelligence, taking decisions to suit the situation. He was Krishna. Ready to fight. Ready to mediate, and ready to love and ready to be loved.

09. Tranquility, submission, passion for peace is the next step from achieving everything. He was Buddha.

10. The cycle has to end, so that it can start again. Kalki, they say will come to destroy the world. So that evolution can take place again.

If the above had been presented as observations about these two pieces of information, then it is a fun comparison to read. However, there are so many inconsistencies in the way it has been presented especially with no mentioning of the various differences between traditional thought and Darwin's idea that we need to take a second look at it.

1. For this to be an evolutionary theory, the fish or the tortoise should not co-exist with any human beings or higher forms of intelligence like devas whereas we know clearly that a king named Satyavrata was the one who gave the fish a place in his palace before it grew bigger until reaching the size of the ocean. Similarly the tortoise. Lord Vishnu helped the Devas to get the amritakalasha by being a support for the mandara mountain while they churned the milk ocean.

2. These avataras all do not happen on earth. The matsya began its lila in South India while the kurma avatar happened somewhere in a non-human realm of milk ocean. The varaha avatara definitely did not happen on earth as it is Earth that he lifted out of another ocean.

3. The assumption that matsya is the first avatar of a cycle of creation is wrong. It is not supported by the Bhagavatha purana according to which it is the last avatar of the previous manvantara. The Lord takes the form of the fish to save the seed of all species so that they can start procreating after the end of the deluge. Hence even by this time cycle, it is not the first in the evolutionary line.

4. The Vaishnavas do not consider that the Lord's fish avatar is inferior to his varaha or narasimha avatara. They may have some differences but the lord usually comes with all his splendour everytime he appears to anyone in samsara lokas. Thus seeing an evolution into higher forms of life in the dasavathara is against the accepted traditional view of the nature of the avataras.

5. Elaborating on the previous point, it is not very intelligent to consider that Lord Krishna is more 'evolved' than Sri Ramachandra. In fact it is stupid. The choice of name and form and character of the avatara is in the hands of the Supreme almighty who is the all-knowing and all-observing consciousness.

6. The important point that is overlooked by the avatar-evolution group is that these ten avatars are just a set that has been formed so that it is simple to handle even for illiterates. By no means do the puranas say that this is the exhaustive list. In fact, Bhagavatha purana lists 24 avataras.

http://vicharvandana.tripod.com/24avataars.html

One glance can tell us that it is not in an exclusive animal to man order. So, the complete account of the avataras by no means supports evolution.

7. Overlapping with some of the previous points is the fact that the timescales of puranas and current science do not correlate that well. If we consider the beginning of Brahma's day, then it is way shorter than science's estimate of 4.5 billion years for current age of earth. However, if we consider Brahma's birth as the beginning, then Vedic thought posits trillions of years to the universe whereas science has 13.7 billion years as its most recent estimate for age of the universe. Also, humans and all of creation has existed for all these years rather than being evolved from a single-cell organism upward.

8. The puranas, though differing in their account of creation, agree on the fact that after the creation of panchabhutas, tanmatras, indriyas and manas, Brahma was created by Lord Sriman Narayana. Brahma then created plants, animals and humans in that order. Nowhere is it said that he dropped a single cell onto the earth which then by itself evolved through random mutation and natural selection into millions of species found on the planet today.

So, the stupidest thing anyone can say is:

Thus Darwin didn't propound anything new, but we presume that he studied our scriptures deeply, and came out with his theory. He had to win the laurels, because his name is such. Daar in Sanskrit (also in Arabic) means Doorway. So standing at the doorway to win, he won.

There is actually another view that Darwin can be somehow made to be a spokesperson for Vedanta. This is also not a tenable view because he neither talked about rebirth nor spiritual evolution through different species in different births. His theory was more or less materialistic, though explicitly he did not negate god. Also, a man can be reborn in the animal or plant kingdom according to his karma. Therefore evolution has nothing in common with vedanta.

We must analyse the assumptions and premise of each view(evolution or dasavathara) before coming to any conclusions about one being the same or derived from other. In short, it is the same people who point out that Krishna's life history is very similar to Christ's story, propagate this ridiculous idea of 'Hindu' theory of evolution.

Two more posts advocating the idea of dasavathara-evolution:

http://bharatnirman.wordpress.com/2011/01/03/hinduism-and-evolution-ii/

http://www.hinduyuva.org/tattva-blog/2008/06/hindu-evolution/

Note: The author of the second article is hopelessly entangled by the idea of everything in science is already present in Hinduism and tries to present some quote or the other from the scriptures trying to bend it to some concept in science. It is better to ignore him while studying both Science as well as scriptures.

2011-09-12T22:13:00.000-07:00

Resumes to interviews to offers - Part 3

The Onsite interview

The undergraduate qualifying interview that is held on-campus(my experience is from India) consists mostly of one round of HR (Human Resource) and one or two rounds of technical interview depending on the company. The onsite interviews that I faced in the US for all the technical positions gave me a whole new perspective on interviews. So, in this part I would like to share my and some of my friends' experiences during onsite interviews.

Follow up after the phone round typically takes anywhere between a week and two. However, there are abnormal cases which can extend upto a month even. Some companies do not bother to let you know the result of your interview at all (even if you try asking them).The last statement is true even for the result of some onsite interviews. I was asked to give a list of three references after 10 days after one of my onsite interviews and never got any news after that. Recently, one of my friends told me that the onsite interview that had already been scheduled, was cancelled at short notice because of the company's decision to go on a hiring freeze for a few months.

Companies, especially smaller ones and startups look for the local candidate pool in order to avoid spending on travel and relocation. So, if you are in a situation where there is very little local job availability and you know friends who are staying elsewhere, then you can mention their addresses on your resume to get a call. This really is helpful since smaller companies do not consider you even if you are ready to relocate at your own cost. However, the profitable thing to do in that case would be to accumulate at least a couple of interviews in that locality and visit the place later to face the interviews.

If you are scheduled to have the onsite interview in a place other than yours, then the company books the flight tickets, hotel and rental car 1 week in advance. I must say, they seamlessly do this for the candidates. In fact they can give you a pre-loaded debit card later on to compensate for your expenses during the stay.

Now on to the interview.....

Typically, the interview is scheduled to anywhere between 4 hours to 8 hours consisting of 4 to 8 rounds. Not many companies however have 8 hour interviews. There is the other extreme. One of my friends had 12 rounds from morning 9 am to evening 7pm at Apple.

I am writing all of the following from an electrical engineering interview perspective but I think much of this might overlap with any other engineering discipline too.

Some companies give the schedule of the rounds before hand. If that is the case, then you have lesser hassles. You have a good idea of what kind of questions might be asked. It is good to be abreast with what your friends/seniors are facing in interviews. For example, in a round consisting of Circuits, one can expect with a good degree of confidence questions about set-up, hold times of flip-flops, comparison of different logic families, dynamic logic etc. Even in these kinds of subtopics it is easy to know the kinds of question usually asked, by reading the textbooks thoroughly and asking others. Do not go unprepared for fundamental questions. Some students might have the impression that onsite interviews mostly involve advanced questions. This is a myth. I have often been asked basic questions in many rounds of onsite interviews. And if you mess up these, then you end up maintaining the status quo (of unemployment) for a long time. You cannot be sure of the result.

Team members sometimes frame a nice question reflecting a problem that the team might be trying to solve at the moment. It can also be a block level description of the fundamental environment that will be encountered during work. If such a broad open-ended question arises, then try to use all that you have studied and gathered to give the best possible answer. My friend was asked "what is a computer?. Can you explain me the basic blocks of a computer? We can proceed from there". Candidates might get stumped on hearing such questions because not everyone is really prepared beyond exam-type questions. Having an overall knowledge of the systems involved in your area of specialization is a very good idea.

One interview tip (especially for onsite) --- State and explain your answer even if you are very doubtful about it. This helps the interviewer gauge your thinking process. One interviewer was leading me to one small problem after another in the scheme of a big problem. At one stage, I had an answer in my mind but was just not telling him that for I felt that would look stupid. Eventually, he explained the solution and that ended up being the same thing that I had thought of. When I exclaimed that "That was exactly what I was thinking" the interviewer snapped back saying "I can't give credit to you for that. No matter what you say now, it can't change my mind ". Not everyone gives you that sort of reply. However, it might very well be the thought in their minds.

Be truthful when replying to questions that seek the level of your knowledge in a specific area. If you blow your trumpet now and fail to answer even basic questions later on, that could be the end of it. One interviewer was happy with my performance because I had told him earlier in the round that I had only a theoretical knowledge of a particular topic and he tested me on the fundamentals alone(This was a round on the PERL language).

Sometimes, the name of an interview round is misleading. For eg, I got my schedule for an onsite interview that had a round called "Architecture". Right from that moment, I nurtured a doubt in my mind that it could not be only computer architecture but might include something else too. This was supported by certain questions that I had faced in the phone round and the requirements in the skill set. It turned out to be right to such a huge extent that there was no computer architecture(as we study at college) at all in the round. Instead, it was all about extempore thinking at a higher level of abstraction called transaction level modeling (that consists of blocks like Arbiter, generator,monitor, FIFO etc). I asked the interviewer at the end of the round about the absence of questions from the computer architecture area to which he replied that he did not want to ask those questions precisely because students study them at college!

Interviews can be held in a dedicated conference room where the candidate is imprisoned, so to speak. The interviewers shuttle between the rooms in case of rush interviews where often there are more than five candidates being interviewed simultaneously. This was the case with all my onsite interviews except one which was conducted in the cafeteria. While this might evoke thoughts of a noisy environment, it would most likely not be the case as you would be asked to settle in a corner which is relatively isolated.

Though aptitude questions are generally not encountered in EE interviews, one team asked me to solve a few puzzles. So, if you are not a person who is naturally interested in brainteasers and puzzles, then it is a good idea to resort to these for relaxation during your interview preparations. It also generally helps you improve your lateral thinking and problem solving abilities. I was uncomfortable at first, when I saw a few sheets in the interviewer's hands that had "Algorithmic logic puzzles in C". However, I was relieved when he handed out the other sheet and I saw the monks, the eggs and the like on it.

There is another difference in questioning methodology. Interviewers can have a scratchpad or a laptop from which they ask you questions and you have to work out your answer on a sheet of paper or on the board(which looks funny if the interviewer sits there in his "formal shorts" and you write on the white board wearing your blazer). Alternatively, you can be given a sheet with questions and space for solutions.(It is advisable to carry a bunch of plain sheets along with at least 4 or 5 copies of your Resume to an onsite interview). You have to work it out while the interviewer 'supervises' and interrupts you to know how you arrived at a particular answer. In any case you are expected to be interactive. You must ask all the relevant questions in order to churn out an answer/solution. This in itself is a positive attribute. I can tell that with some confidence because I was told "Good. You did not disappoint me" at the end of such a round.

Finally, an increasingly important round in interviews. ie, Behavioral. When I first heard this name, I thought it was related to behavioral modeling and verilog. However, looking at the other rounds, I found out that this was to check how the interviewee acted in specific employment-related situations. Some people like to call it 'an advanced HR round'. This round is important but not taken too seriously for engineering job offer decisions though. It asks the same old questions with which you have been uncomfortable all along, like 'Tell me about yourself' , 'what are your strengths and weaknesses' , 'Why should we hire you?', 'Why do you want to work here?', 'Where do you see yourself in 5 years?', albeit in a more polished way, old wine in a new bottle. Though the answers to these might be simple or straightforward or might not even exist , you are supposedly tested for your "attitude" here. So, take time to go over behavioral interview preparations on the internet. There are nut cases that can come up with questions like "Will you quit your job if you get $1 million in a lottery?" .

The Lunch hour is usually a relaxation time during the interview process. I say 'usually' because there are known cases of eat-as-well-as-answer-a-question Lunches. I was fortunate not to face one. Theories run around that you are being indirectly 'tested' during lunch hour for your socialization skills. Though I will not deny that there is some truth in that statement, it is ridiculous to put on an artificial 'attitude' during that time. 'An interview candidate who was smiling/laughing throughout the lunch time sealed his fate then and there' observed one of my friends. He probably put on the dunce cap unknowingly while trying to impress people. Just relax and be normal. Do not overact.

In conclusion......

The interviewers look for basic knowledge and analysis skills in an interview. They write out a detailed report on how you performed, what are your strong areas and so on. This along with your resume can influence what task you are assigned initially in the company. Therefore, take good care to present your answers and your thought processes. Also, do not think that an answer is too simple to be true. Just start answering and develop it. Just be. Tackle the moment. You will sail through smoothly.

All the best for all those people searching for jobs.

PANCHABHUTAM

2011-08-24T00:02:00.001-07:00

மரத்தை மறைத்தது மாமதயானை
மரத்தில் மறைந்தது மாமதயானை
பரத்தை மறைத்தது பார்முதல்பூதம்
பரத்தில் மறைந்தது பார்முதல்பூதம்

This is an ancient tamil verse that betrays an important aspect of panchabhutas or what we translate today as 'the five elements'. This verse can be rendered into english as follows:

The collossal elephant hid the wood
The colossal elephant was hidden in the wood
Panchabhutas hid Paramatma
Panchabhutas were hidden in Paramatma

(Please bear with my crude translation)

It is a wonderful simile to illustrate how the gross and the subtle work in the universe. If we are so engrossed in the fact that the wooden elephant is an 'elephant' then we recognise it only as an elephant. However as it dawns upon us that it is in reality just wood, then the 'elephant' that we cognized earlier is sublated by the realization. Similarly, until we are spiritually underdeveloped and just see the world as made of five elements only, then they adumbrate our imagination, effectively screening out the Paramatma from our ambit of cognition. However, as we progress in our path, we realise that the all these gross elements are indeed the body of Paramatma who is our supreme goal.

The dualism between the Paramatma on one hand and jivatma & prakriti on the other simultaneously is one side of the coin. The other side is the organic whole. We also clearly find references in Veda samhitas as well as later commentaries that each of the elements is an aspect, a manifestation of Paramatma. It is only well suited to see how this obscure boundary , if at all it exists is illustrated by the wooden elephant.

The concept of 5 bhutas was not of mere textual interest to ancient Indians. They formulated many interesting and useful theories with this concept and put them to practice too. As people with modern education, we tend to think that 5 element theory was a primitive one. However, this view has its origin in the ignorance of this ancient idea. This modeling of the world is at a higher level of abstraction.

Panchajanya shankha of Lord Sriman
Narayana is a symbol of 5 elements

Prakrthi* is the term that is commonly used to club the gross matter in the universe(as opposed to jivatma and paramatma which are non-materialistic in nature). Here we take this word to mean the material cause of the universe. The five bhutas are Akasa(ether) , Vayu(air), agni/tejas(fire), ap(water), prithvi(earth). Some schools of thought like the charvakas admit only 4 elements.

(*Note that the word prakrthi has many different meanings in Indian tradition. Three clusters of meanings can be distinguished: 1. Prakrti is that which precedes, the first, that which is in its own form. 2. Prakrthi is the material cause, the producer of effects, the innate power of transformation and manifestation. 3. Prakrthi as the principles, constituents, parts or components of a whole.)

Creation is envisioned in the shastras as grosser elements emanating from more subtler elements. The verse "akashat vayu: vayor agni:...." declares that From Akasa comes Vayu. from vayu comes agni. From agni comes ap. From ap comes prithvi. Each element progressively has more tanmatras(or subtle elements). The sense of hearing, touch, vision , taste and smell constitute the tanmatras. The following image I gathered from the internet depicts this.

It is interesting to note that a similar idea is echoed in sciences, though a strict parallel is difficult to visualise. From the Singularity, Space was created and then it expanded. (This can be compared to akasa). Then all the elementary particles were created and were floating in a plasma-like soup.(Though strictly not air, this is similar to air). Then these particles combined through massive explosive nuclear reactions to form the first known matter (and dark matter probably). This is the agni phase. These slowly formed very hot molten material in galaxies (ap or water phase) which solidified slowly to form rocky worlds(prithvi or earth phase).

Here we should also understand that the five elements do not signify only the physical elements. They are more subtle than that. Anything solid has prithvi in it. Anything that is flowing and has properties of a liquid is made up of ap element to a large extent. Anything that has hotness(even latent) has agni in it and so on.

The voluminous project called the Kalatattvakosa by the Indira Gandhi National Center for the arts is rightly called the lexicon of fundamental concepts of Indian arts. Many volumes have been planned out of which six have been published so far to my knowledge. The third volume in this series is titled 'Primal elements-Mahabhutas' and is undoubtedly an encyclopedia on this topic. I have used this work as a major reference for this blog post. However, I am refraining from including information on how the elements are depicted and interpreted in the arts for want of space and time.

To summarise and understand more about individual bhutas, we will consider them one by one.

Akasa(Space)

The permeating space

Space(or ether) is the first element to emanate from the Supreme self, initially as a subtle principle and thereafter a gross matter. Space, abounding in the attributes of sattva, is the subtlest of all elements. Space provides room for all further creation and its specific quality is sound. It is a symbol of the Supreme self(Paramatma). When used as a metaphor, it indicates the supreme self. It is conceived as fullness, filling everything and sometimes as vacuum. The geometric form that represents akasa in the tantras is the circle that symbolises the totality of creation. Akasa has no form and is not an object. Its only similarity with the other four elements is that it has a distinctive quality which is perceptible to one of the senses, that is sound.

There are layers of meaning to all of the panchabhutas. Akasa can mean material space(bhutakasa) or space of the mind(Chittakasa). The adhyatmika meaning of space is the transcendental space of consciousness(chidakasa), the seat of brahman. The Chandogya upanishad (8.1.3) makes it clear:

'This space within the heart is as vast as this space (outside). Within it indeed are included both heaven and earth, as also both fire and air, sun and moon, lightning and stars. Whatever this one has here and whatever he has not, all that is included in that'.

Vayu(Wind)

The detached wind

Air, wind and breath are the same reality of vayu pervading the cosmos and the human body. The macro and microcosmic manifestations of vayu are differentiated as gross,subtle and subtlest. These are also the adhibhautika, adhidaivika and adhyatmika meanings. They are respectively vaata, vayu and prana. Vayu is the devata who reigns over antariksha(mid-space), who is the life energy and spiritual power. Vayu possesses sound and sensation of touch.

'Pranaad vaayurajaayata..' says Purusha sooktam. Therefore we know that breath of Brahmam gave rise to the cosmic wind. This element is very important as it is intimately tied to 'vac' or divine speech. In Indian tradition, the srutis or the vedas are also called the breath of brahmam. The sound of wind is the primordial sound of nature, Om. Vayu is called 'sabdayogin' the one who produces the seven musical notes. Vayu, is ultimately the same as the Paramatma. This is because Sriman Narayana, the Paramatma is the antaryami of Vayu and originally has the name vayu(that is later on taken up by the deva). He is addressed as Vayu in the Vishnu sahasranamam also. Vayu plays a very important role in madhva's dvaitam philosophy.

Agni(Fire)

The dazzling fire

As the third element, agni has the properties of sound, form and touch. It is both subtle and gross. The gross form is generated through panchikarana, a process of combination with the other bhutas.

Agni originates from vayu and is understood to have atleast 3 layers of meaning in the vedas. The adhibhautika meaning of agni is the physical fire. In its visible form, agni appears as sun in the sky, lightning in the atmosphere and as fire on earth. (This includes the sacrificial fires of which ahavaniya, garhapatya and dakshinagnis are well-known)

This is called as 'aranikkattai' in Tamilnadu and is
made from agnivriksha. It is used to produce fire for
all vedic karmas

At the adhidaivata level, Agni means the fire-god, the divine agent and the mediator. He is specially churned out and maintained during yajnas and carries the havirbhaga to all the respective devatas. Those who are well-versed in the shastras advise us to give full attention to the agni before looking at laukika karmas during any ceremony.

It is variously conceived as digestive fire, speech and divine will at the adhyatmic level.
Agni is also identified with the brahman itself. It is a symbol of divine splendour and spiritual illumination.

Ap(Water)

The life-giving water

Water or ap is one of the most important bhutas in Indian thought that it has ubiquitous presence in Indian life and rituals. Having born from agni, It has four qualities including taste. The Nighantu, which is a kind of Indian thesaurus, has 101 words for water.

Rains, rivers, sea and all the visible water bodies are the Adhibhautika level of water. At the adhiyajnika level (which may not exist for all elements), its function is purification. Adhidhaivata meaning is one of the devatas associated with water, Varuna/Apam-napat/Ganga etc. Adhyatmika symbolism of water is inner purification, life and fullness .

The philosophical nature of rivers is more than evident from the following quote :

"The river is everywhere at the same time, at the source and at the mouth...in the ocean and in the mountains, everywhere, and that the present only exists for it, not the shadow of the past, nor the shadow of the future. It is unchanging and yet it is always changing within, deeper inside beneath the surface. The voice of the river is the one word he had known since childhood that is Om, calling together the unity of all things and people at once." --Siddhartha by Herman Hesse

Prithvi(Earth)

The animate earth

The last but not the least, our home or Prithvi. She is poornam and has all the five qualities including smell.
Prithvi can mean territory. In this sense it has given rise to the term parthiva, a term for the king. The earth as the bearer of life is regarded as the mother of all beings.

The adhibhautika meaning is of course land/soil. Bhuma devi is not different from earth in the adhidhaivata sense. However, it must be noted that Bhudevi is not a narrow deity just for the earth. She is the life-giving force in the universe and in all universes.

'bhur' the word for earth is derived as follows: "all originates(bhavati) from this hence it is called bhuh, the source. Thus the source or Brahmam is the adhyatmic meaning of bhumi/prithvi.

A very important aspect of the way in which the earth is conceived is as a firm support. She not only supports all created beings but upholds all ritual activities of man. She herself is held up by truth. She was carefully lifted from the cosmic ocean by Lord Varaha, who saved both mankind as well as dharma by saving Bhudevi who is no different than these.

The Ayurveda utilises the panchabhuta concept extensively and I thought it would ease the burden of the reader if I reserve this for another post.

Update Dec 11th 2011: A Good webpage with quality information on panchabhutam here

Jai Sriman Narayana

2011-06-06T16:26:00.000-07:00

Hot air balloon over Napa Valley

Napa Valley is located about 80 miles North East of San Jose and is known for its wineries. It is equally famous for its hot air balloon rides. Here are some of the pictures and a couple of videos that I took when I ascended on the balloon 'discovery'.

There were many balloons ascending simultaneously. Ours started at about 6.30 am while some of them had started earlier. Thus, while we were at about 1000 feet we could spot balloons 1000 feet above our level. This is a typical time for the rides because that is when they can be more or less assured of favourable winds and weather.

A balloon at an higher altitude (our balloon is seen in the top of the picture)

Some tend to think that it will be scary when you are on high altitude(upto 2000 feet in Napa valley), but it is not so unless you are acrophobic.The ascent can be made very fast or relatively stagnant. Even a fast ascent can be seen clearly but not felt that vividly. For eg, compare the following two pictures. It is the same hexagonal house's top view from 2 different altitudes just 3-4 minutes apart.

I could see the balloon rise very clearly. The driver of the balloon controlled the ascent and the direction of flight through an open fire. A vent is controlled to enable a descent.

The basket that was our carrier had a capacity of 16. This is cheaper compared to 8 capacity baskets.

(view along with the basket)

The buzzing sound heard in the video atleast twice is the sound of the open fire that controls the flight of the balloon. It can be seen that the basket is slowly tilting in its course. Also seen are two balloons that have already landed and are about to be deflated. There is a group of vehicles (they are for transporting passengers to the starting place) that moves around the area to exactly match the landing spot of the balloon. This is because it is difficult to precisely control the landing location.

(Closeup view of another balloon)

(The driver said that this altitude is about 820 feet above ground)

A couple of more top views of the Napa valley and the residential area there.

(The smooth patterns seen in the pictures are wine producing crops of the valley)

The descent was made a little interesting by our driver by accelerating it. It bumped once, lifted few feet above the ground and finally landed.See this video.

I also managed to capture the balloon and the open fire. The other balloons were deflating at this time.

(deflating our balloon which is more of a parachute in my opinion)

(the fire that propelled)

The tour was completed at about 7.50 am and we reached our starting place in another 20 minutes. It was a nice experience.I had forgotten to take my jerkin but was helped by the open fire to keep warm throughout the flight.

And here is a fine photograph by National geographic covering the hot air balloons at Cappadocia in Turkey.

2011-05-11T02:48:00.000-07:00

Resumes to Interviews to offers-Part 2

The First round(s) of screening

This is generally a phone interview and can sometimes be just a one on one interview at a job fair or through skype. One of my friends had a phone interview followed by 2 skype rounds after which they decided to call him for onsite interview (phew!). However, he had by that time got a better offer and hence fortunately did not undergo the grilling here.

The job fair, at least in my university was more of a formality. That situation was amplified due to the recession in the 2008-2009 period. That does not deter the recruiters there to ask you some questions when you hand them your resume. So, go prepared with the basics to a job fair. I was not interested to pursue a full-time analog position. However, when I went to the job fair, Microchip volunteers asked a series of analog electronics questions to many candidates standing in the queue before me. I was afraid to some extent as I was not prepared for it. I however wanted to apply for the digital positions in the same company. I was waiting for a long time in the queue and then moved on to meet volunteers of another company due to time constraint. This was accelerated by my lack of confidence in analog electronics.

Now, the above situation might not seem to be a very bad one because I was not confident in what I did not what. However, it was partly responsible for me not applying to other positions here. It becomes detrimental when you are not prepared to answer questions upfront in your own field. Search for a technical volunteer rather than a HR person in amongst the company personnel in a job fair. This is actually one of my friend's tip. This can give your resume a better possibility than a paper shredder.

Phone interview can scare students especially the first time. However, there are candidates who are tensed even in their 4th or 5th phone interview. Apart from each person's nature, this is greatly influenced by the amount of knowledge that you have gathered with respect the position. Also be very clear about all the projects and internships that you have listed on the resume. Students sometimes(or often?) list projects that they have not actually done in school(this word is used as a synonym for a college too in the US). This is because, there could be a dearth of projects/courses related to areas that are typically required for the industry. So, if you are resorting to this tactic, then be very clear about what you have exactly written there , down to the grassroot level. Not knowing something in the resume is a very serious blackmark for a candidate.

For the first couple of interviews if you are not confident in certain areas you can write down brief hints on a sheet of paper, so that you are not stuck up badly in fundamentals and other expected questions. Skype rounds could be a little tricky as you might not have this freedom.

Average length of a phone interview is 1 hour. I have faced a half-an hour, a one hour and a one and a half hour phone interviews during my search. A friend of mine has had a 2 hour phone round too! . Sometimes interviewers have a very specific topic in mind and hence make the interview short. The other possibility for a short interview is poor answering from the part of the candidate.

A peculiar problem that some candidates face in the phone round is difficulty in understanding the accent of the interviewer. A chinese person called one of my friends and he had to ask, ask and ask him to repeat his question until he realised that what the person in the other end was asking was a flip-flop instead of a FIFO. Sometimes, interviewers do not give much attention to how they will sound to the person on the other side. They sit in a conference room and just speak while turning around in different directions. So, the best bet for the candidate is to ask the interviewer till he gets the question right(the fear of giving a negative impression makes the candidate not to do this). Also, just make an intelligent guess simultaneously as to what the interviewer could be asking. This is probably not that tough. I faced this problem in an interview where after repeated queries, I heard his word as color display. I was thinking quite hard as to what exactly a color display is doing in a verilog interview. When I finally said, I don't know what that command does, he was audibly disappointed. Later, I realised that he had asked for $display (pronounced as dollar display) command. It was a very common command in verilog and hence his disappointment.

Usually, they browse the spectrum of topics that the candidate needs to know for the position. However one of my friends always advises us to prepare in depth even for the phone interview. I did not quite realise the importance of this statement until I myself faced an interview where the interviewer suddenly jumped to an area which In had thought till then to be an on-site material. So, more knowledge, the better. Many a time you can guess what is in store for the onsite interview by pondering over the phone screen questions. If you feel that there was some question that was a little out of place in the interview, then you need to pay attention to it. This is because sometimes what the candidate surmises as the areas required for the position may not be an exhaustive list. If you get to know that the same person who interviewed a friend is going to call you for a similar position, then expect a very similar set of questions and prepare well. The interviewer either calls or emails the candidate to ask for a comfortable date for the interview. Allow yourself a reasonable time to prepare because postponing an interview that has been fixed might not strike a good chord with the interviewer. Also, get the email address of the person who calls. This is a good idea because many interviewers call from numbers that can't be called back. I got calls from Microchip that showed up as "unknown" on my display. Intel was a lot courteous as they did not act so underground-ly when calling a candidate.

A friend( and a guide) of mine who has worked for Intel for 11 years advised me to send a thank you note via email to the interviewer after both a phone round as well as on-site. It is good to ask when you will get to hear from them at the end of a phone interview. In addition I have tried asking them about my performance in a couple of interviews. One of them gave a straight answer that I did quite well. The other told me that they usually don't and can't discuss the performance with the candidate. This does not necessarily mean that he feels negative about your performance. Ask this question only if you are not a pessimist. In the phone rounds that eventually led me to two offers, the interviewers themselves expressed a positive feeling about the interview and one of them actually told me that he would ask his manager to proceed to the next round within next 2 weeks.

Finally, one last experience. After some point in my job search, I applied to India positions even though I was stationed in the US. I got a call from Hyderabad for a FPGA verification position. This person said he will call me over phone at the scheduled time and asked me to ensure that I had access to the internet for code sharing. During the interview that went on for an hour, he asked me to write certain code snippets(in perl) through gmail chat apart from other questions.

In general,prepare well, be confident and station yourself in a quiet place for the phone/skype rounds. Have a paper, pen, calculator nearby apart from any notes.(Dont rely on too many of them for you can't search for them during the short duration). Remember that most likely the interviewer is looking for a short crisp answer(not a tough one). Listen carefully and speak clearly. All the best for your phone interview.

To be continued in part 3........

2011-05-09T21:12:00.000-07:00

Resumes to Interviews to offers-Part 1

When I told my friends, that I got an offer from Intel, there was visible happiness in their tone and faces. It was more so because I was one of the last in my batch to get an offer after a long waiting period. Since I have some interlude before joining the company, I thought of writing a post on job search.

There are different kinds of students who look for a job in different disciplines and different market situations. However, there could be a few guidelines that can be common to all of them. I decided to put together this post because I thought it was prudent to do so before I forget what I went through during the job search. For those who are specifically in VLSI specialization, please see the follow-up posts for some interview questions that I faced.

Now, Resume is the first and important step in the job search. You do not have to really worry too much regarding many of the myths running around about these. There are people who vehemently oppose anything more than 1 page in a resume. It actually depends on the requirements for a particular position and what the general mentality of the people in a particular company is. If the position focusses on a specific subset in your discipline (for eg, digital electronics and related knowledge in electrical engineering), then you can exclude your other projects and coursework details (in this example analog related ones) from the resume(in which case the whole thing is called a C.V and edited version, the resume ). However, my personal experience as well as observation of my friends tells me that no one is bothered much if you give a 2 page resume. Many of us had 2 page resumes and did not fail to get calls from atleast 2 employers like Intel, Microchip, Marvell, Qualcomm, Apple, AMD, freescale semiconductors, Maxim etc. Don't get scared if someone suggests a top to bottom revamping of your resume. There are as many opinions on this as are people. Ask a couple of people and your own self about the clarity and content. If satisfied, go ahead.

Having an objective in a resume is optional. If you have one, then try to make it not too specific or too general. Another thing that most people make fuss about is references. There are mostly 3 categories of people when it comes to this. Some of them actually list down their 3 or 4 references with contact information in the resume itself. This has its own pros and cons. It shows that you are well-planned and confident but wastes that much of your resume space. Others just include one line "References available on request" . This is a better way because, it mentions about references but does not occupy space. I come under the third category of people who do not write anything about references at all in their resume. This option worked for me at least (I got 2 offers) and is advised by some experts too.

It is imperative that you talk to your references before listing them out on the resume. It is quite important to choose the references properly as they can make or break your offer in many cases. See this for an interesting tip.

Professors(from both undergraduate and graduate colleges), collegues during part-time job, internship mentors could be possible references for RCGs. Every candidate should be careful in choosing someone who will surely talk positive things about them.

As for as the rest of the resume , the format should be neat and not too cluttered. Bullet points are helpful as the attention span of anyone and especially hiring managers and assistants are very short in the current era. List your skillset (relevant softwares, operating systems, instruments etc that are relevant). For many positions, the resumes are searched for key-words. So, just remember that including words like oscilloscope, digital multimeter etc can also help at times.

Listing relevant courses also helps to some extent. I have observed that it is especially helpful in a job fair, where this list itself can actually impress a potential employer. They know that RCGs rely heavily on coursework compared to experience and hence this is the base to build on. I had listed just the course names. However, one of my friends suggested that it will be even better to briefly indicate the important things that has been covered in the course(I know this sounds crazy because it is difficult to compress all that here but let me give an example). If I list computer architecture as one of the courses, then I can probably say things like assembly language programming, caches, pipelining, dynamic scheduling, Tomasulo algorithm, branch prediction, multi-threading, simplescalar, superscalar, virtual memories etc. or a subset of these key words. In fact this can be done for the most important areas that are required for the job.

After listing your experience in the reverse chronological order(for RCGs it could be internships done during undergraduation and graduation) list the college projects. Do not list too many of them. 5 to 7 would be a reasonable number. Give a brief description of what was actually achieved in each project/internship. List down the tool used to accomplish these tasks alongside. If your internship is little more than 2 years old and you do not remember all intricate details, then I would really encourage you to sit down and think about all the key concepts that were involved in the work. When I submitted my resume to Fujitsu in a job fair, the recruiter there saw my resume and was interested in it. She was looking for verification and design engineers. She went through the resume and asked me to explain my internship experience. When I was describing it, through certain questions she understood that I had worked on something that is exactly what she was looking for. However, I was careless enough not to mention it in the resume. Therefore right keywords can make a lot of difference.

After the projects, I listed out my extra-curricular activities and I would suggest the same to anyone else too. However, if you are hard-pressed for space already, then you can skip this one. This section helps sometimes in behavioral rounds which is often a detested round for many candidates.

Applying

I actually just have a concise message for candidates who apply to any kind of position, internship, full-time fresh grads or full-time experienced. A third party recruiter succinctly words what should be done.....

Though what she says is mostly true, I would ask you to apply to all jobs online in addition to contacting recruiters directly. This is just to ensure that we keep all options wide open.

Ensure that you apply to as many companies as you can get access to. Though I personally had little success getting calls from any small company, my friends did get such calls. Use social networking sites and any other good way of networking. It sounds(and IS) opportunistic but that is precisely what one has to do if one has to land in a job. (It is imperative for International students as they do not have many benefits of greencard holders or citizens in the US). "Resume pushing" as it is popularly called, is the most important activity in the pre-interview stage of your job search. My personal experience (as far as engineering is concerned) tells me that more than 85 to 90% of all interview calls are through such references.

To be continued in Part 2.....

2011-01-07T22:39:00.000-07:00

Prithvi - Part II - More on Gaia and interconnectedness

Only after the last tree has been cut down,

only after the last river has been poisoned,

only after the last fish has been caught,

only then will you find that money cannot be eaten.

---Cree native American prophesy

The more we learn about the earth and its ecosystem, the more we know that we are heading towards doom. The mechanistic materialistic view of earth as a dead source of material that can be exploited to the maximum has cost us our planet as well as the biodiversity. It is said that when Descartes heard the screaming of a dog on whom his students performed vivisection, he exclaimed "do not mind that. It is just the sound of a machine being taken apart" . I was terribly shocked to hear this anecdote because the image I had of descartes was that of an advanced thinker. In contrast, Native american views of nature displays harmonious thinking. Compare the above incident with a saying from the blackfoot native Indian tribe.

"What is life? It is the flash of the firefly at night

It is the breath of the buffalo in the wintertime

It is the little shadow that runs across the grass

and loses itself in the sunset"

The present widespread worldview has been heavily impressed upon our psyche on the lines of the materialist thinkers. Hence we don't even realise and recognise that there is a problem. Is there a way out? I would like to present and discuss alternative healthy views of Mother earth that are very much needed in today's world if we want to survive. These views come from various periods of time and various parts of the globe. (This is a continuation of ideas presented in the earlier post on Prithvi- our mother).

Before getting into the details of gaia, we take a short tour of the broad lens that is used to view the earth as a superorganism. The word 'Superorganism' represents an intriguing phenomenon in nature. This creates controversy among scientists and the general masses but is in general defined as

" any complex thing or system having properties and functions determined not only by the properties and relations of its individual parts, but by the character of the whole that they compose and by the relations of the parts to the whole."

There are many levels of superorganisms that come to my mind from my studies in fields such as biology, philosophy, science fiction. Example of first level of superorganism are beehives, anthills, corals. Individual organisms work together to achieve a goal that is far beyond their imagination. The next thing that I can think of is a human. Humans are finest examples of superorganisms as there are billions of microbes in our body that help in regulating so many different functions in our body. Hence this body is such a congregation. The third is on a planetary level. Isaac Asimov in his foundation novel series talks about a whole planet that acts as a storehouse of information where the least important information is stored on rocks and similar components whereas that which is required immediately are with more sentient beings. The whole system acts like an organism.* The fourth level is also found in Asimov's work and is given a title "galaxia" a superorganism that consists of a whole galaxy. The fifth level(assuming one universe for the moment) is the whole universe as a superorganism. The ideas at the fouth and fifth levels are next to impossible to be tested anywhere in the near future but is worthwhile to think about.

* The gaia nature of the earth can also be viewed as a comparison between the human superorganism and the earth as done here.

The whole universe as a superorganism comes from the scriptures of sanathana dharma that talk about the universe being constituted of three things, namely paramatma(god), jeevatma(individual souls) and achit (all insentient matter). The Paramatma is the soul whereas the other two constitute his body. Hence the whole universe, in short is the God-organism. This is something that science will never even think about because of its inherent limitations of not seeing anything beyond five senses.

Gaia in modern times and ancient cultures

The Gaia hypothesis is the first comprehensive scientific expression of the profoundly ancient belief that the planet Earth is a living creature.Formulated by British atmospheric scientist James Lovelock and American Microbiologist Lynn Margulis, the Gaia hypothesis states that the Earth's climate and surface environment are controlled by the plants, animals and microorganisms that inhabit it. That taken as a whole, the planet behaves not as an inanimate sphere of rock and soil, sustained by the automatic and accidental processes of geology, as traditional earth science has long maintained, but more as a biological superorganism-a planetary body-that adjusts and regulates itself.

Geophysiologists warn that if the planet does function like a body, the Earth may have the equivalent of vital organs and vulnerable points. Regions of intense biological activity such as the tropical rain forests and coastal seas, are seen as vital not only to their geographic regions but to the entire global environment, much as the liver or spleen is necessary to the survival of the body as a whole. Once destroyed, these planetary organs can debilitate the entire system, much as an injury to the spine can cripple one's body up through the neck and down to the toes.

Many of us would remember the experience of trying to cram nitrogen, oxygen, carbon, sulphur cycles for our high school examinations. All of these cycles are excellent examples of earth regulation systems. Food chains and food web is another component of this great regulating organism.

There are a lot of controversies in the scientific community as to how the gaia metaphor affects mainstream social theory and ethics and whether the hypothesis can be satisfactorily 'scientifically' verified. That the Earth does not reproduce is cited as a reason for not accepting it as a living organism in the true sense of the word. However what still remains out of reach for this science is the definition of a living thing.To save some time here, we can borrow the ancient knowledge of the presence of 'atma' to classify a being as living. Instead of a detailed physical sciences perspective of gaia theory, we see some salient bird's eye view of this theory and some of its philosophical implications.

Lovelock once exclaimed " I think of the Earth as a living organism. The rocks, the air, the oceans and all life are an inseparable system that functions to keep the planet livable. In fact I now believe that life can exist only on a planetary scale. Can't have a planet with sparse life any more than you can have half a cat".

Many individual cultures have this thought in some form or the other. The Ufaina Indians in the columbian Amazon believe in a vital force called fufuka which is present in all living things. The source of this vital force is the sun. From the sun, it reaches the earth and is constantly recycled among plants, animals and human beings. Each group of beings requires a minimum of the vital force in order to live and is seen to be borrowing the energy from the total energy stock. When any being dies, the energy is released and goes back to the stock. Similarly when a living being consumes another, the consumer acquires the energy of the consumed. What is of importance to the Ufaina is that the vital force continues to be recycled from one species to another in such a way that not too much accumulates in any one of them, since this could deprive another of its vital force and upset the natural balance.

We can see that the above idea in principle the same as that veiled by modern science in a cobweb of jargons. The only difference here is that the Ufaina live by their wisdom whereas we, the others are insensitive as a race.

In the Vedic culture

The vedic hymns are the most ancient and sublime words that present a worldview of essential interconnectedness of the whole cosmos. What to speak of the earth. The whole of Rig veda creates an atmosphere where appreciation of nature and her bounties are part and parcel of the experience. These should not be taken to be hymns glorifying personified natural elements as maliciously done by the western Indologists. The hymns act at several different planes of consciousness. They represent the subtle elements and also the gross elements at various levels of realisations. The Prithvi suktam in Atharva veda is a fine example of imagery, poetry, nature worship, environmental consciousness, cooperation among living beings and above all a sense of oneness- a cosmic web in which each of us is a part.

The entire hymn of 63 verses is exceedingly important. Persons who are conversant with the modern tenets of ecology can fully appreciate this hymn. It does not view earth as a lifeless inanimate object as the modern physical scientist does. It begins with the idea that earth is supported by not mere gravitational forces, but by Truth, consecration and askesis (tapas).Earth can be made a happy abode for humans only when they live by satya and rita, Truth and Right. Earth spreads out for us and makes us prosperous. (12.1.12)refers to the self-cleansing nature of earth.(12.1.8)states that Earth in the beginning was sea salila upon the ocean arņava; then the supreme intelligence manishi created the subtle structures mayāĥ characterising the human beings and other beings, and inanimate matter. The rişhi thinks of himself as the son of earth and parjanya as his father (12.1.12).Each living being from the blue lotus to the human being on earth is uniquely supported by a gandha, odour of earth.

Mother earth appeared in her personal form in various periods of Indian history running for millions of years. We all know about the Varaha avataram of Lord Sriman Narayana where he saved Bhudevi from Hiranyaksha. However, the point to be noted here is that Bhudevi is not a personification of the visible globe alone but also of all the regions of the earth that are beyond our perception(ie, the 8 khandas other than bharatha khanda and 6 dweepams included)

Once, She was annoyed by the tyrannic, adharmic reign of King Vena and withdrew her resources thus resulting in a severe drought. Later on, his son Prithu ascended the throne and ruled as a just king. Still, She did not restore the earlier fertility. This annoyed King Prithu who chased Bhuma devi who had assumed the form of a cow. Later after some persuasion, She recognized the virtues of the current ruler and gave away her wealth to all the people. (In Greek Mythology, Demeter was the goddess of the harvest, who also controlled the seasons and hence was capable of destroying all life on earth . Life came to a standstill as the depressed Demeter once searched for her daughter who had been taken to the underworld. This story also echoes the idea of Mother Earth reacting to the happenings in the society).

Bhuma devi is considered by some to be an iconic, metonymic personification of earth in Hinduism. I think the word 'personification' itself invokes the idea of an artificial imagination of a non-existing personality. However, this kind of artificial force is not found in ancient Indian works. Bhudevi is just one among us. She is as real as any one of us. Sita Devi calls out to her to take her away from this manushya lokam so that she could end all her sufferings. Bhumadevi also responds to the yearning and takes her to nagalokam.

Some embedded notions of Ecology are found in the Indian culture. The 'Kolam' is often thought of as a decoration in front of a house but on deeper inquiry we come to know that it is a way to exercise the memory of the debt felt to the Earth goddess for her forbearance towards us despite all sorts of pain-inflicting activities by us like digging, spitting etc. We can observe that a Bharatanaatyam dancer touches the ground and pays respect to Mother Earth before beginning her performance. This is once again to plead her to be patient when the dancer stamps on her all along.

In Bhu Stuti(A hymn to Mother Earth) by Swami Vedanta Desika, we find that Bhudevi is not only Goddess Earth but the one who gives us all natural wealth. She is in charge of life anywhere in any universe. Above all, She is the spiritual instructor who teaches Prapatti to aspiring mumukshus(those desiring liberation from the birth cycle).

There is a vedic verse which is repeated often without knowledge of the meaning. This is a good example of the all pervasiveness and oneness of vedic thought

tacchamyo-rAvrNeemahe | gAtum yagnyAya |
gAtum yagnyapataye | daivee: svastirastu na: |
svasti mAnushebhya: | oordhvam jigAtu bheSHajam |
sham no astu dvipade | sham chatushpade |
om shAnti: shAnti: shAnti: ||

We seek that which gives us peace from sorrows, present and future. We seek growth for the rite of sacrifice and growth for patron of the rite, the yajamAna.The grace of the Gods be unto us.Well being to all mankind. May plants, like medicinal herbs flourish and grow upwards. Good come unto us from creatures that go on two feet and good from those that go on four feet.

Om! Peace!Peace!Peace

Some Native american quotes on mother earth and nature

"...all things share the same breath- the beast, the tree, the man....the air shares its spirit with all the life it supports " -- Chief Seatlle

" I do not think the measure of a civilization is how tall its buildings are but rather how well its people relate to their environment and their fellow man"- Sun bear of Chippewa tribe

A Ojibwa (native American) prayer to the soul of nature

Oh great spirit , whose voice i hear in the winds,

and whose breath gives life to all the world,

Hear me, for I am small and weak,

I need your strength and wisdom

Let me walk in beauty and my eyes ever behold the red and purple sunset.

Make my hands respect the things you have made

and my ears sharp to hear your voice,

Make me wise, so that I may understand the things that you have taught my people

Let me learn the lessons you have hidden in every leaf and every rock

I seek strength not to be stronger than my brother

but to fight my greatest enemy - myself

Make me always ready to come to you with clean hands and straight eyes

So, when life fades, as the fading sunset,

my Spirit may come to you without shame.

When studying the views of ancient and some modern cultures regarding earth and nature in general, we can feel the sharp contrast in the basic ideals. An Earth that is alive versus the one that is devoid of life has underscored the lifestyle of the masses according to the vicissitudes of time.

The West's heliocentric revolution in scientific understanding displaced humans from their fancied central position in the eyes of god(Note that most of the eastern philosophies never subscribed to such self-centered views) and the structure of the universe. The Gaian revolution(ie, the modern resurgence of the idea) will displace us from our fancied position as the superior species, uniquely in charge of the planet. Will our powerful egos resist the Gaian conception for this reason? Or are we sufficiently mature as a species to accept our position and responsibility as one part of a larger organism?

It is crucial to the question of whether or not we adopt this revolutionary concept to keep in mind that scientific concepts and the theories generated from them are no longer judged in terms of chimeral 'truth' but of usefulness. By usefulness, we mean conducive to human survival. In fact , as stated before, our self-centered views and practices threaten our very survival as a species. In that respect, a concept of ourselves as part of the life of earth, coupled with scientific knowledge of its geophysiology might prove useful in bringing about a reorganizing of our social structures and conduct, so that we rediscover our balance within Gaia and thereby insure our survival.

Scientists often cringe at any attempt to answer questions through alternative methods. They are narrow-minded enough to exclude interesting intuitive ideas like intelligent design. Hence, it is no surprise that there were many oppositions to Gaia theory for fear of the rebirth of the 'Goddess' in popular imagination.

Any amount of rational discourse will be insufficient to prove that the more-than-human world has atleast an equal status to that of human beings and to the works of the best human creative genius. Each of us need to spend time with the 'animate earth ' out there to realise that 'every speck of matter is sacred simply because it exists'.

2010-07-29T00:52:00.000-07:00

The greatest myth in Human history

Consider the following facts:

A path to to attain realization of the divinity that binds this entire universe based on self retrospection, revealed knowledge that is pure and given to mankind at the dawn of creation encompassing ways for all sorts of people at all times, code of conduct that imbibes truth and non-violence towards all living beings, freedom to interpret scriptures in accordance with one's inward experiences, all aspects of living including food, behaviour, worship leading us towards divinity.

A religion which is spiritually retarded, had to massacre millions of innocent lives for its survival, believes in a 'loving' god who sends his so-called children to eternal hell for a mere non-issue of not accepting a person's words(or authority), has a 'scripture' which was carefully edited out from numerous available books in order to gain mass support, does not talk about healthy food habits for its adherents, has revealed scriptures which is less than 2000 years old(while humans have been living on this planet for millions of years), persecutes anyone holding a slightly different view from supposed authority.

A third religion which has the same characteristics as the above except that its violence is several times larger than this second one. A religion whose founder himself massacred hundreds of innocent people to make others bow down to his authority. A religion whose paradise is nothing but a x-rated parlour, known for the worst disrespect of its women folk.

Another religion which holds the view that all of existence is just an illusion and void is the ultimate truth.

Though the above is a black and white picture of different world faiths, it is obvious for any sane person that give or take a few, that these are NOT the same in many aspects.

I am getting down to the topic of 'Radical universalism' or the statement "All religions are the same" that has plagued India severely for more than 150 years now.

There is a pithy anecdote of a hindu parents' dilemma. The parents had apparently been teaching their child that all religions are the same(similar to all rivers leading to the ocean blah blah..). After a few years at school, the boy came and told his parents that he wanted to be a christian from then on and not follow the vedic path. They were devastated and asked for the reason. Prompt was the reply "All religions are the same. So i can follow anyone of them and I want to try the others now"

(Note: The word hindu is a very misleading one and has very little meaning in the traditional context. There was no such word or idea in India before a few centuries. I am however using that word to denote a broad umbrella under which we gather the belief systems that trace their way back to vedas, though it might not be a genuine connection many a times. At this point it is good to remember that 'hindu' does not indicate any homogenous group and consists of extremely diverse systems. These also do not qualify for the statement " all paths are the same" )

This is the sort of stupidity that we are leading ourselves into after all these years of wisdom from our ancestors. In the words of a blogger who writes about christian tyranny in India,

"Christian missionaries have spread death and destruction to native non christian peoples and cultures. Christianity is evil, diabolic and the cause of holocaust and god knows what else is to come. If hindus do not wake up.. the genocide Christian religion will carry out its agenda in india also as it has elsewhere with great gusto."

These people have destroyed our culture as much as the muslims have done in the last 1000 years and hindus still think it is wisdom to call every religion and idea same??? Does it have any iota of sense in it.?

The writings of Frank Morales on this myth are a great treasure to analyse this absurd notion prevalent in Hindu society these days.

The theory of radical universalism that "all the religions are same" is nowhere to be found in any hindu scripture or taught by any acharya until coupe of centuries ago. Also, the theory defeats itself. This neo-hinduism is allegedly the only religion that claims that all religions are same(and no one else accepts this stand). So, Hinduism knows this particular fact that the other religions do not know. So, Hinduism is superior to others!!! This self-defeating logic is the result of ill-informed present day teachers who do not have any formal training in vedic texts whatsoever.

Also, by stating that all religions are the same, we commit the blunder of equating the moral and ethical systems of all these religions. While it is well-known that Hindus are asked to abstain from meat(atleast beef) if they want to live a saatvic life and attain freedom from birth and death, there is no such restraint in the other abrahamic religions. Killing people who do not follow your religion is not immoral in Abrahamic religions. This has directly resulted in world wide massacres.

Rebirth and karma are some of the most profound and beautiful messages of vedas and sanathana dharma. This perfectly explains why there are inequalities at birth among living beings and why bad things happen to good people. Spiritually retarded concepts like one person's death to save whole humanity, eternal hell for not following this person, only one life given to judge a soul(and that too gets a birth in a particular family by random chance?) are all embedded in christianity. Isn't it ridiculous on the part of a vedic person to call all these systems as same?

Let us come to the most common myth taught in schools and by ignorant people. All paths lead to the same goal ultimately. I think this is the climax of the whole absurdity. Frank writes,

"The Christian's sole aim in salvation is to be raised physically from the dead on the eschatological day of judgement and to find himself/herself with jesus in heaven, who is to be found seated at the right hand of the anthropomorphic male father/god of the old and the new testament. Muslims aspire towards a delightfully earthy paradise in which 72 houris(or virgin youth) will be granted to them to enjoy. Jains are seeking kevala or 'aloneness', in which they will enjoy an eternal existence of omniscience and omnipotence without the unwanted intrusion of a god, a brahman or an allah. Buddhists seek to have all transitory elements that produce a illusion of the self melt away and to have themselves in turn melt away into the nihilism of nirvana. To the buddhist brahman also is an illusion.

Each of these different type of religion has its own categorically unique concept of salvation and of the absolute towards which they aspire. Each concept is irreconcilable with the others. To state the situation unequivocally if a christian, muslim, jain or buddhist upon achieving their distinct notion of salvation were to find themselves instead united with brahman, they would most likely be quite upset and confused indeed. And they would have a right to be! Conversely the yogi would probably be quite bewildered upon finding 72 virgins waiting for him upon achieving moksham rather than realising the eternal bliss of brahman. One person's vision of salvation is another person's idea of hell"

It is quite clear that each one's goal is different. Radical universalism as expressed by modern non-traditional hindus would seek to deny the members of other religions the right to assert their own religions as unique and distinct traditions. Radical universalism would seek to deny non-radical universalists the right to believe in an absolute that is categorically not brahman. Regardless of how radically different the goal of any other religion might be, whether that goal is nirvana, allah or any other, followers of other religions are told that they are all really aiming at the decidedly hindu goal of brahman- whether they know this or not and whether they want brahman or not. This is termed tolerant intolerance. One of the key aspects of right to freedom of speech is the right to be able to disagree. However by imposing one god, one path, one world-view radical universalism denies these religions and their followers their uniqueness and dignity.

When anyone makes this unthinking claim "all religions are the same", they are betraying the grandeur and integrity of our great heritage and dharma that has so many unique contributions to its credit to the world(yoga, ayurveda, karma, rebirth, yagnya, mantras to name a few). To deny the uniqueness and greatness of hinduism leads to a very unhealthy psychological state of self-loathing, a sense of unworthiness and a schizophrenic confusion on the part of anyone who wishes to consider themselves hindu. This muddled up state is often the reason why hindu parents often find their children less interested in hinduism and in some cases embracing other seemingly more rational and self-abnegating faiths. Who after all wants to follow a religion in which it is claimed that the very basis of the religion is to exult the greatness of other religions at its own expense? NO ONE.

If we want this tradition that has survived for millions of years to stay and illuminate the world during this vicious age of kali, we need to really understand the core distinguishing concepts of sanathana dharma and explain to whoever asks us about it instead of repeating the ill informed ad absurdum statement "all religions are the same".

PS: Though there are serious issues with medieval practices like sati, dowry system and uncalled for inclusions in varna system practice, it is well beyond any doubt that the core ideals of vedas are all-encompassing, noble and esoteric. This is quite not true with all religions where politicians and other power-hungry people have often decided the core policies to be followed and dictated the bloody actions that have been witnessed in world history. One good example is Constantine of Eastern Roman Empire.

2010-04-22T23:15:00.000-07:00

Prithvi- Our Mother

Biologist E O Wilson, among many other scientists, has studied the complex interdependence among various species in the biosphere. He found that every species makes some constructive contribution- small or great - to the ecology of the planet. For eg, if the vegetation- grasses and shrubs- decrease, the herbivores suffer. And if the herbivores decrease, the carnivores are affected but he found that there is one species that does not contribute to the ecology. Yes....you guessed right! It is us, the HUMANs!

If the human species became extinct, there would hardly be any problems for any other species or for the ecology. In fact, most ecological problems would be solved if humans became or were made extinct. Arguably humans constitute the most intelligent species on the planet. Normally in a classroom, the more intelligent a student, the more potential he has to make positive contribution. Then why is it that the most intelligent species is making, not a positive, but a negative contribution to the planet?

(Courtesy: Spiritual Scientist Series)

This question looms large in the modern industrial age when all that we humans do is to infinitely dig away anything that is left as resource of nature and mother earth. Then once in a year to create some news for the media, we all make up banners and posters to celebrate this "Earth Day" . Anyway I liked the Google doodle for this year's Earth Day.

Greenery is something which we can never be tired of. I wonder at times how the world would look if it had all the plants predominantly in red or blue colour.

I believe that i have 2 effective ways of contributing to the cause of earth. One which i follow right from my birth, ie, vegetarianism and another using cloth bags instead of plastic ones.

One might wonder how vegetarianism might save the environment and the ecosystem for we all know the usual reasons for people turning to vegetarianism. Ethical reasons, health, aesthetic, religious (like karmic reasons) and sometimes financial reasons too are cited. However, here is where the unknown advantages lie:

Conservation of Fossil fuel. It takes 78 calories of fossil fuel to produce 1 calorie of beef protein; 35 calories for 1 calorie of pork; 22 calories for 1 calorie of poultry; but just 1 calorie of fossil fuel for 1 calorie of soybeans. By eating plant foods instead of animal foods, I help conserve our non-renewable sources of energy.
Water Conservation. It takes 3 to 15 times as much water to produce animal protein as it does to produce plant protein. As a vegetarian I contribute to water conservation.
Efficient use of grains. It takes up to 16 pounds of soybeans and grains to produce 1 lb. of beef and 3 to 6 lbs. to produce 1 lb of turkey and egg. By eating grain foods directly, I make the food supply more efficient and that contributes to the environment.
Soil conservation. When grains and legumes are used more efficiently, our precious topsoil is automatically made more efficient in its use. We use less agricultural resources to provide for the same number of people.
Saving our forests. Tropical forests in Brazil and other tropic regions are destroyed daily, in part, to create more acreage to raise livestock. By not supporting the meat industry, I directly reduce the demand to pillage these irreplaceable treasures of nature. Since the forest land "filters" our air supply and contains botanical sources for new medicines, saving these needs our immediate attention.

(courtesy:www.britishmeat.com)

Avoiding the use of plastic bags is ofcourse a well known way of helping the environment. I was using a couple of cloth bags for sometime and for some reason i discontinued the practice halfway. I have decided to resume this practice from my next purchase.

There is absolutely no use in just developing our technological comforts without making a large scale paradigm shift in our ways of lives in order to save the earth from becoming barren in a few decades. The popular but extremely unhealthy practice of malls and other shops using colossal amounts of plastic bags (no need to mention power consumption) should be stopped by rule as opposed to by incentives etc. because general masses are least concerned to consciously stop their usage. I have read elsewhere that if we pile up all the cans thrown out as garbage in America in one year, then they can form a chain that can extend from the earth to the moon (and this was years ago!).

All of these phenomenon seem to increase proportionally with the technological advancement of a country as well as the increase in the purchasing power of the populace. What i observe among many Indians in America is a reckless attitude towards resources. People who used to save (anything from food, electricity, money) spend like bottomless vessels after landing here. Back home, the situation is not drastically different. The so-called 'hip' culture all around the metropolitans have resulted in lots of dumb, non-thinking people without any concern for the country, ecology and environment. This so-called "modernization" is biting at the roots of mother earth and is the situation that led to the initial question of this post above.

However this was not the situation before the machine era. The ancients were far more conscious and appreciative of nature's bounties and devised ways to live in harmony with nature. "Bhumi" or "Prithvi" is the consort of Lord Vishnu and hence is the mother of all living beings. She is extolled in many vedic hymns like the Bhu suktam and Prithvi suktam in vedas.

Raimundo Panikkar writes in "The Vedic experience.."

"The Vedic attitude toward the earth springs from mankind's primordial experience of being on the one hand a guest, and on the other an offspring, of Earth. The earth is undoubtedly mother, is close to Man, but at the same time she is also alien, other and aloof. The earth is the foundation, the basis out of which emerges all that exists and on which everything rests. The earth is the basis of life and, when considered as a divine being, she always occupies a special place among the Gods.

Investigation of the Earth is of the same nature as personal introspection. To harm the Earth is a masochistic vice. Man is from the Earth and part of the Earth, yet he surmises more and more that he is not only of the Earth, not just an earthly thing."

The Rig Veda, 5th Mandala, 84th suktam extols prithvi as follows:

1. The mighty burden of the mountains bulk

rests, Earth, upon your shoulders; rich in torrents,

you germinate the seed with quickening power.

2. Our hymns of praise resounding now invoke you,

O far-flung Earth, the bright one.

Like a neighing steed you drive abroad your storm clouds.

3. You in your sturdy strength hold fast the forests,

clamping the trees all firmly to the ground,

when rains and lightning issue from your clouds.

Ancient Rishis symbolised the Earth as Mother cow, a treasure house of all bounties and gave her supreme respect. We need to understand from them how to respect her. We also have something to learn from Mother Earth also directly. One is perseverance by observing her enduring nature and the other is the path to liberation from this world, namely surrender to Sriman Narayana. The latter can be learnt by understanding Tiruppaavai , a beautiful hymn to Krishna by Andal, incarnation of Bhumi devi.

Ancient greeks had similar conceptualization of Mother Earth and called her Gaia. The same concept of a living Earth has re emerged in the 20th century due to the findings of modern science. Gaia superorganism theory has gained adherents in recent times. For a general idea of the same- http://geneticsevolution.suite101.com/article.cfm/gaia_theory

different conceptualisations of gaia

The Atharva Veda has a large and beautiful suktam on prithvi with 63 verses, some of which i present below:

2. Untrammeled in the midst of men, the Earth,
adorned with heights and gentle slopes and plains,
bears plants and herbs of various healing powers.
May she spread wide for us, afford us joy!

3. On whom are ocean, river, and all waters,
on whom have sprung up food and ploughman's crops,
on whom moves all that breathes and stirs abroad--
Earth, may she grant to us the long first draught!

12. Impart to us those vitalizing forces that come,
O Earth, from deep within your body,
your central point, your navel; purify us wholly.
The Earth is mother; I am son of Earth.
The Rain-giver is my father; may he shower on us blessings!

13. The Earth on which they circumscribe the altar,
on which a band of workmen prepare the oblation,
on which the tall bright sacrificial posts
are fixed before the start of the oblation--
may Earth, herself increasing, grant us increase!

Note the 4th line in the above verse.

34. Whether, when I repose on you, O Earth,
I turn upon my right side or my left,
or whether, extended flat upon my back,
I meet your pressure from head to foot,
be gentle, Earth! You are the couch of all!

35. Whatever I dig up of you, O Earth,
may you of that have quick replenishment!
O purifying One, may my thrust never
reach right unto your vital points, your heart!

We absolutely do not care for whatever the ancients pray in these two verses above. What we find often is miles of dug earth for all sorts of cables and underground transportation. This has indeed gone to the level of "reaching her vital points" and has created havoc.

"While most earthquakes are caused by movement of the Earth's tectonic plates, human activity can also produce earthquakes. Four main activities contribute to this phenomenon: constructing large dams and buildings, drilling and injecting liquid into wells, and by coal mining and oil drilling. Perhaps the best known example is the 2008 Sichuan earthquake in China's Sichuan Province in May; this tremor resulted in 69,227 fatalities and is the 19th deadliest earthquake of all time." (courtesy: wikipedia)

Soil pollution has reached its heights and exponentially etches our planet's capacity as a resource base. I have personally seen quite a few places like the one in the picture above in the outskirts of major cities. A literal 'alert' sign has been issued by concerned organisations like WHO and sustainability establishments regarding the whole issue of pollution of all kinds.

Great Pacific garbage patch, oil spills and the list is endless. My emphasis in this essay is more on the general feeling and the importance accorded by ancients to mother earth and our recklessness rather than discussing the nuances of environmental pollution. Actually, most of us have enough knowledge about the environmental degradation (all kinds of environmental damages including water, soil, air) but refuse to see the big picture for fear of losing small comforts. We should keep in mind that all these ecosystems are fragile and hence balanced only until left alone. As observed in the opening quote, we meddle with all of these ecosystems and rapidly moving towards self-destruction.

A new movie, called HOME is a high quality presentation on our atrocities on this planet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqxENMKaeCU

Each one has to give a thought about these serious environmental issues especially when our Earth is so special in our vicinity at least considering the fact that we might not spot liquid water for atleast another 500 million km from Earth and habitable planet for atleast 41,325 billion km from us.

May bhumi devi as well as the mighty Lord save us!

2010-03-05T23:08:00.002-07:00

On the Nasadiya suktam and the Big-bang(not a comparitive evaluation)

Is this representation of creation correct?

I have always wondered why there was something at all called "existence" instead of nothing. Though it became clear to me as time went by, that I would not be able to fully understand the answer(if i get one) due to our own inherent human limitations, I still wanted one. Thoughts flashed across my mind about the vedic "ekameva adviteeyam"(One only without a second) and how it had spawned a chain of interpretations and polemics in the ocean of Indian philosophy. Adi Shankara's advaitam and one of the Buddhist schools' absolute shunyavaadam and visishtadvaita were important currents in this ocean. I thought about the reason why vedanta deshika(a visishtadvaitin and one of the greatest acharyas of India) and others had accused Shankara to be a prachanna-bauddha( a buddhist in disguise) while Buddhism was precisely one of the many schools he was trying to win over during his lifetime. Did Shankara and Buddha tell the one and the same thing? Then one day i came across this one. "To me, nothingness is philosophically indistinguishable from undifferentiated oneness". This is a quote of a physicist.(Same as what our poorvacharyas were teaching us).

In my quest to find an answer to the question "Why not nothing?" and hence the related ones, why and how the universe came into being, I decided to look into two sources, employing two entirely different methods of inquiry. One of those was the vedic lore and the other, modern physics. While the Vedas are the eternal texts which codify eternal truth, science is an equally interesting field which is essentially a self-modifying field(based on its trials and travails). One must at the outset, however remember that science is in its infancy now and even if developed cannot lead to god consciousness because there is no way science transcends space and time due to its inherent limited premises.

The vedam is the 'pramana', the fountainhead of all knowledge in India from time immemorial. It is both anadi(without beginning) as well as apauresheya (not created by any human). It is often asserted(though a modern trend) that the vedas, in a cryptic manner contain some extremely advanced scientific truths, including those yet to be discovered by science. I was looking into the Rig veda to see if i could get an answer to my questions. While I was turning the pages of the 10th mandala of Rig veda Samhita, I landed on this specific suktam nicknamed by scholars as the Nasadiya suktam, because it begins as "Naasadaasi..". This is the 129th suktam of the 10th(and the last ) mandala. The reason why it has attracted considerable attention is that it talks about the moment of creation and what was there prior to it.

There are some parallels that can be recognised between this suktam and Big-bang theory(and this is to be taken with a pich of salt as there are vast differences as well and in no way one validates the other. There is obviously nothing 'Scientific' about Vedas in the sense that Science is limited by sensory perceptions.)

It begins in a very interesting way. (In another type of division of Rig veda this suktam belongs to the vargam 17 in 7th dhyayam in 8th ashtakam.)
परमेष्ठी प्रजापतिर्ऋषिः , त्रिष्टुप् छन्दः, भाववृत्तं देवता

1. नासदासीन्नो सदासीत्तदानीं नासीद्रजो नो व्योमा परो यत् |
किमावरीवः कुह कस्य शर्मन्नम्भः किमासीद्गहनं गभीरम् ||

Neither there was non-existent, nor the existent; nor there was any realm or region.What was wrapping? Where? In whose protection? Was water there, unfathomable deep?

This is the earliest idea revealed to humanity about creation and can be called the first cosmological insight. It is sad that most of us are not even aware of such a literature with us. The profundity of their meaning strikes a chord with us. Before the Big-bang there was the singularity, which cannot be explained by current level of scientific knowledge. Since the singularity was there, we cannot say that there was non-existence(asat). On the other hand, there was no existence (sat) either, because the measurements of singularity (which is a point) were zero. There was no air, nor any sky or space(alternatively any realm or region).

Moreover, the singularity was not covered or surrounded by anything like space or water. Water, here is not the liquid water as we know but a plasma kind of substance that came after the big-bang.

In short, the first verse precisely talks about the singularity or rather more generally a pre-big bang state. I also think that vatapatrasayi or aalilai krishna was a deep symbolism of this singularity.

Though we see water in the painting, i feel it signifies the unfathomable indescribable darkness before creation.

Vatapatrasayi is often thought of as the final stage of pralayam(or when all of existence merges with Lord Krishna). In the bhagavatham, we find that there is a beautiful description of the moment of creation from the anantashayana Narayana. To me it seems to be logically following the previous state of pralayam. We will take a look at it later in this post.

[ Indian philosophy of subsequent yugas represented in the itihasas and puranas are quite at home with this fact of existence and non-existence. We find that in the Vishnu sahasranamam and Bhagavatham, Sriman Narayana is addressed as both sat and asat, ie, both existence and non-existence]

2. न मृत्युरासीदमृतं न तर्हि न रात्र्या अह्न आसीत्प्रकेतः |
आनीदवातं स्वधया तदेकं तस्माद्धान्यन्न परः किं चनास ||

Neither was there death nor immortality then. There was no indication of day or night. That breathless one breathed upon by its own impulse/nature. Apart from that one, there was nothing else whatsoever.

(In sanatana dharma this verse indicates that paramatma,jivatma and acit(insentient matter) were together before creation. That is, though they were distinct, they seemed to be indistinguishable). There were no stars, planets or sun to demarcate night from day. Time also did not exist. This verse further emphsises the very different nature of singularity. The common misconception is that Big bang occured at a point in space which is false. The singularity contained space and time and it was present everywhere. Hence here we see that the verse stresses on the fact that nothing else whatsoever was there apart from it. Also, it introduces consciousness clearly into the picture of creation. Unlike being dry and indicating that we are here by chance, this verse indicates an intelligent being behind creation.

The next 2 verses are also equally interesting.

3. तम आसीत्तमसा गूळ्हमग्रेऽप्रकेतं सलिलं सर्वमा इदम् |
तुच्छ्येनाभ्वपिहितं यदासीत्तपस्तन्महिनाजायतैकम् ||

Darkness was there;enveloped by darkness, a plasmic continuum, in which there was nothing distinguishable. And then, an empty(world), united under a causal covering came out on account of the austere penance(of that supreme one).

From the big bang theory we have a postulate:

Before a time classified as a Planck time, 10^-43 seconds, all of the four fundamental forces are presumed to have been unified into one force. All matter, energy, space and time are presumed to have exploded outward from the original singularity. Nothing is known of this period.

There is a striking similarity between this statement and the above verse of our suktam.

4. कामस्तदग्रे समवर्तताधि मनसो रेतः प्रथमं यदासीत् |

सतो बन्धुमसति निरविन्दन्हृदि प्रतीष्या कवयो मनीषा ||

In the beginning, there was the divine desire, which was the first seed of the cosmic mind. The sages seeking in their hearts, have discovered by their wisdom the bond that operates between the existent(the manifested) and the non-existent(the unmanifested).

The 'sankalpa sakti' of paramatma as the cause for creation of the universe is pointed out in these two verses. It would be appropriate to look at the following bhagavatham verses

In the beginning(of creation), with the desire of evolving the different worlds, the Lord assumed the form of purusha consisting of sixteen component principles and constituted of the cosmic intellect. (1.3.1)

While he was in yoga nidhra reposing on the causal waters, there appeared from the lake of his navel a lotus wherefrom sprang up brahma, the lord of the progenitors of the world. (1.3.2)

This form of the lord is the imperishable seed of various avataras and the abode to which they all return. It is by a ray of his ray that gods, human beings and the lower forms of life are created. (1.3.5)

Here, the "knowledge of connection between existence and non-existence" is very significant.

The question is how could something as big as our universe have come from a point that was smaller than even a proton. We struggle to imagine how all of existence can be packed into a dimensionless point. Science is yet to explain this. Atheists argue that the fact that we do not know how it happened does not necessarily prove that there is a creator. However, according to me it neither disproves a creator. More precisely, the easiest, most understandable and at the same time satisfying answer is 'intelligent design'

The simple explanation offered in religion to this question is, since brahmam is 'sarvashakta' or 'one capable of everything' , he can shrink his size arbitrarily as well as expand to any extent. Science plays with its usual ways of building a 'jargon mountain' and explaining around this problem in some way using obscure quantum effects which are equally unproven anywhere till now.

5. तिरश्चीनो विततो रश्मिरेषामधः स्विदासीदुपरि स्विदासीत् |
रेतोधा आसन्महिमान आसन् स्वधा अवस्तात् प्रयतिः परस्तात् ||

Their controls(rays or reins) were stretched out, some transverse, some below and others above. Some of these were shedders of seed and the others strong and superb- the inferior, the causal matter here and the superior, the creator's effort there.

I think this rk might have also been an inspiration for sankhya philosophy (which deals with prakriti and purusha) propagated later on by kapila.

It also explains the process of expansion as well as simultaneous creation of matter from condensing energy. It is said that the young universe was a hot place with a huge soup of sub-atomic particles, which later on condensed and bonded to form all the variety of elements and objects that we observe today. This view is also corroborated in vedic literature where prior to creating brahma, 24 tattvas were created by parabrahmam sriman narayana. These all started from moola prakriti, which was nothing but the primordial matter forming the body of paramatma before expansion. Based on some latest scientific speculations such as string theory(which is discussed later), we are inclined to accept the fundamental unity of all matter.

6. को अद्धा वेद क इह प्र वोचत्कुत आजाता कुत इयं विसृष्टिः |
अर्वाग्देवा अस्य विसर्जनेनाथा को वेद यत आबभूव ||

Who really knows, who in this world can declare it, whence came out this creation? When was it engendered? When will it end? Nature's bounty came much later and hence who knows whence this creation was manifested?

This has a huge philosophical import as well as scientific dilemma about the age of our universe. Though vedic scriptures describe in detail the time scales of manvantara, kalpa and hence are aware of when the creation came about, this cryptic verse conveys the meaning of an eternal cycle of creation and absorption. Also it gives a voice to the human awe at the gigantic timescales involved in this existence(so huge that it is as good as unkown beginning and end).

Science , after revising its estimate for the age of the universe several times has now come up with a value of 13.7 billion years(and now there are few members of the scientific community who have proposed that the Universe might be much older than 13.7 billion years). To explain any further, we need to grasp the fundamentals of a current theory about the universe.

In a quest for a unified theory of the universe, scientists came upon what is called the string theory.It states that the fundamental building block of the whole universe including all the forces observed in nature, are infact ‘strings’ which are nothing but tiny threads of energy oscillating/vibrating at various frequencies. The mathematics of the theory predicts(and also requires) that there are tiny curled up extra dimensions(upto 6) at every point of space and we are unable to see them because they are billions of times smaller than even an atom. These dimensions gain prime importance because according to string theorists the actual nature of vibration of strings would depend on the precise shapes and curls of these extra dimensions. Hence, we could even stumble upon an explanation of why we have the exact scientific constants that we have in the universe if we can know more about these dimensions.[ An interesting comparative study here is that while string theory explains the universe as a symphony of strings, vedic idea is that the whole existence is made of vibrations, a part of which is the Vedas that we have inherited. The idea of shabda brahmam is a notable one. Vedas are given the ultimate authority and importance in Indian culture because it represents the cosmic vibration in a fundamental way. Om, infact encompasses the whole of existence.]

The “M-theory”, an extension of the string theory is the latest development in this field. It is yet to be verified by observation from experiments but has striking resemblances to what we already know from ancient Indian cosmology and science. M-theory, among others could stand for Membrane theory, which talks about 3 dimensional membrane universes floating on a 11 dimensional space. Bhagavatha mahapuranam praises the lord as the infinite power who just breathes out countless universes as he wishes. One theorist describes the possibility of our universe as a tiny bubble floating in higher dimension multiverse that contains infinite other universes! (Note: Here again there is a fundamental difference between science and religion. While bhagavatam talks about all these universes having separate brahmas creating life in each of these, M-theory just speculates on random universes sprung up by chance where we happen to be in a universe supporting life)

This gives a twist to the big-bang theory, that it was not a unique beginning. The big-bang, according to M-theorists is nothing but a collision of two 3d membranes in the 11 dimensional space. They also further theorise that big-bangs could be happening all the time in the 11 dimensional space and ours was not anything unique. In fact this does not really seem to contradict vedic cosmology as well because, it says that srushti(creation) and pralayam(the ultimate deluge) happen cyclically and as seen earlier also admits multiple universes. This might be one of the possible explanations between the difference in the ages of the universe as given by Vedas(~311 trillion years) and the one predicted latest by science(13.7 billion years)

As said before, the devas came much later than initial creation of 24 tattvas and brahma and hence sail in the same boat with us when it comes to knowing when creation started.

Apart from the foregoing discussion on the age of the current universe or kalpa or maha-kalpa, there is a very important concept in this verse. It is "anaadi" or beginninglessness. It is a concept which is virtually impossible for human mind to comprehend. The universe has been created and destroyed infinite number of times in the past and will continue to be so into the future forever. So, no one knows when the creation began(in fact it did not!).

7. इयं विसृष्टिर्यत आबभूव यदि वा दधे यदि वा न
यो अस्याध्यक्षः परमे व्योमन् सो अङ्ग वेद यदि वा नवेद

He from whom this creation arose- verily he may uphold it or he may not(and then of course none else can do it). The one who is sovereign in this highest heaven he assuredly knows or even he knows not(or who else knows)

Contrary to popular interpretation that this verse is on a skeptical note and is the source of atheism in indian thought etc., this actually talks about the greatness of paramatma. The sense of this rik is that brahmam is infinite in all attributes that he himself does not know his extents and powers(this is a statement to emphasise the infinity to finite people like us).

Interestingly, no one knows the size of the universe. We always talk about the extent of the visible universe only and have absolutely no idea of the size of the universe, leave alone the multiverse. It is impossible to know this quatity because it changes with every unit of time. In other words even now space is constantly expanding everywhere as you are reading this sentence.

A nice video about the big-bang

It appears that non-existence and existence do not differ as we think from a limited, conditioned point of view. Paramatma shrinking all this creation unto himself can be said to be the state of non-existence( though absolutely speaking, it is not so).
One last note is a quote by aurobindo regarding the inadequacy of science when it comes to metaphysics, in the context of rebirth

"Rebirth is for the modern mind no more than a speculation and a theory. It has never been proven by the methods of modern science or to the satisfaction of the new critical mind formed by a scientific culture. Neither has it been disproved; for modern science knows nothing about a before life or an after life for the human soul, knows nothing indeed about the soul at all, nor can know; its province stops with the flesh and the brain and nerve, the embryo and its formation and development.Neither has modern criticism any apparatus by which the truth or untruth of rebirth can be established. In fact modern criticism with all its pretensions to searching investigation and scrupulous certainity, is no very effiecient truth-finder. Outside the sphere of the immediate physical it is almost helpless. It is good at discovering data, but except where the data themselves bear on their surface their own conclusion it has no means of being rightly sure of the generalisations it announces from them so confidently in one generation and destroys in the next."

This is true for any issues related to religion and science. So, I take a cautious step here by saying that as of now we can sense a parallel between the nasadiya suktam and big-bang(sans its atheistic interpretations).

Note:
To see the Nasadiya suktam with the svara marks(accent marks) see the following link, hymn 129

http://www.sanskritweb.net/rigveda/rv10-120.pdf

2009-10-30T21:40:00.001-07:00

Evanescent Dharma -How is our cultural and religious corrosion catalysed?

Note: I am referring to bharatiya culture and sanathana dharma in this context.

असतो मा सद्गमय
तमसो मा ज्योतिर्गमय
मृत्योर् मा अमृतं गमय
ॐ शांति शांति शांति
( बृहदारण्यक उपनिषद् 1.3.28)

Day by day, the Kali yuga proceeds and the foresight of the rishis unfold in a very predictable fashion. In the name of freedom, people live as examples of "nrupasu", meaning man who is equal to an animal. This article talks about the various factors which slowly are invading the hindu society to cut it off from its roots, which is sanathana dharma(or "eternal dharma"). These are the ones I wish to concentrate in this post, while several others might also be the reasons.

1 The Christian Missionary activity and Islamic terrorism.

I would like to start with Kanchi paramacharya's quote on the stupidity of certain important tenets of these abrahamic religions.

"We cannot, however, help asking whether their belief is right. People who do not follow either Christ or the Prophet, are they really condemned to hell? A little thinking should show that the belief that the followers of Christianity or Islam have an exclusive right to salvation cannot be sustained. It is only some 2, 000 years since Jesus was born and only about 1, 400 years or so since the birth of the prophet. What happened to all the people born before them since creation? Are we to believe that they must have passed into hell? We are also compelled to infer that even the forefathers of the founders of Christianity and Islam would not have earned paradise. If, like Hindus, all those who lived before Christ or the Prophet had believed in rebirth, we could concede that they would have been saved: they would have been again and again until the arrival of Christ or the Prophet and then afforded the opportunity of following their teachings. But if we accept the logic of Christianity and Islam, according to which religions there is no rebirth, we shall have to conclude that hundreds of millions of people for countless generations must have been consigned to eternal hell."

These untenable religions have such claims which cannot be even reconciled among themselves. Now, they start "saving" the world with their"peaceful" religions. While I acknowledge that there might have been people who were motivated towards humanitarian endeavors because of every religion, the violence in the reference texts are way beyond any acceptable limit.

Exodus 35:2 -- For six days, work is to be done, but the seventh day shall be your holy day, a Sabbath of rest to the LORD. Whoever does any work on it must be put to death.

Dueteronomy chapter 7 : Talks only about violence towards other nations and nothing else.

Ephesians 6:5 --- Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ.

Numbers chapter 31---ridiculously eulogises violence. (For eg, verse 17-18 goes like... Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man)

Dueteronomy 21:18-21--If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. They shall say to the elders, "This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a profligate and a drunkard." Then all the men of his town shall stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you. All Israel will hear of it and be afraid.

This list is much longer. Some more verses as ready examples are Collossians 3:22-24, 1 Samuel 15:3 , Judges 15:8 , Luke 12:49, Matthew 10:34-39 etc. With inspiration from such a scripture, the missionaries who followed the sailors literally burnt off cultures on their path .Though the vedic religion survived because of its inherent strength and bhagawan's grace, the darker side of the truth is conspicuous. The Dalai Lama during his visit to one of the Kumbha melas(that has been recorded and released as a CD titled 'Shortcut to Nirvana') said that conversion is an outdated concept. I agree. Ancient India had a practise of philosophical debates to initiate conversions. Of course that shows a mature way of dealing with things. However, such fine practices are unknown to the missionaries, who lurk around in every place even now and start preaching whenever it is possible. There is absolutely no need of any new religions in India. The need of the hour is reforms in the age old tradition, to bring the wisdom of the dharmic religions to the masses.

As far as the other monotheistic religion, Islam, I have nothing to say here, because it would consume much of my post. I personally checked out a copy of Quran from my university library. It had been translated by 2 faithful Muslim scholars. To me the text appears to be just a political violence manual. In fact according to some statistics, 61% of quran talks only about violence towards non-believers. Check this out for yourself in the following link(Extremely interesting)

http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/Pages/Quran-Hate.htm

No wonder The Muslim people and Kings in India for a 1000 years destroyed countless temples and killed millions of Hindus. The best part is the hindus are blamed if they retaliate at some point when the issue goes out of control. Ridiculous!

Let us wake up and read the most important treasures of our civilization, which is of course, the vedas, itihasas, saatvika puranas, dharmashastras, pasurams of azhwars and sri sookthis of Acharyas. Let us not be ignorant of our shastras. I encourage the Buddhists and Jains also to be thorough with their religions because though there are clear philosophical and ideological differences among all the Indian religions, they all emphasize a common concern for life, peace and freedom. Otherwise how can one expect to see hundreds of sub sects in the subcontinent even two thousand years ago?

2.Neo-hinduism and NRMs

There is a dangerous group in India from the distortion point of view of classical ideas. It consists of self-declared swamijis. Swamijis includes many 'anandas' who simply start preaching the greatest myth of all times "All religions are same", which is a statement that cannot be more farther than truth. (I will deal with this great myth in a separate post). Hinduism for that matter does not preach that all religions are same. When a religion declares "kill the non-believers" or condemns all non-believers to eternal hell, how can it be ever equal to sanathana dharma, which teaches us a path to moksham via a dharmic life?

The NRMs are the New Religious Movements. Eg, Arya samaj, ISKCON, art of living, Oneness temple(flowering heart) etc. They often have no direct spiritual lineage to relate to right from the time of vedas or leave out important parts of our scriptures. Many join the new-age gurus to propagate the myth"all religions are same" which is a lie. ISKCON, on the other hand has a track record of miserable failure in the America of the '70s due to inherent flaws. It enforces strict near ascetic life for each and everyone irrespective of their backgrounds. This is impossible for the common folks who then start going astray after sometime. This resulted in the sexual abuses in the iskcon gurukulas of the '70s. Also the much debated "Acharya succession" issue reflects the lack of authentic tradition. These gurus and institutions adapt the teaching to market their discourses to suit their audience's tastes. This contrasts with classical works whos authors never knew us and hence are a good source of our true dharma. While Swami Dayananda did the most important work to re-establish the supremacy of vedas and give them a symbolic interpretation, he rejected the archa form of the lord much to everyone's dismay. The Arya Samaj also does not accept any other later scripture as authentic which is akin to discarding a library consisting of lakhs of books while retaining just 4 books(though of supreme importance).

3. Decline of sanskrit studies.

The masses have become so money oriented that anything that improves one's spiritual life has become a mere mockery for most people in the present generation in India. We can safely assume that atleast 75% of hindus today belong to a modified charvaka matham.(the materialistic school of ancient india). Sanskrit study is not encouraged by many people, parents or the academicians. Since sanskrit, deva bhasha is the key to the vedas and all the associated literature and proper understanding of hinduism, without it most of us miss the profound teachings of our rishis and acharyas and get swayed by superstition and ill-informed malign indologists and cheap-gimmick gurus.

The 'spoken sanskrit' has taken on a huge importance these days. I am not against this trend but i feel that this is insufficient for any great purposes. It is the trend now to go to crash courses and learn to speak sanskrit in 10 days or 20 days but no deep analysis of the written texts are possible with such shallow knowledge.

4. The entertainment epidemic.

Obscene,outdated movies and profane songs full to the brim with tamo gunam and rajo gunam including their trash lyrics seem to be the order of the day. I do not quite understand how any civilised person with a good thinking can spend all their leisure time on such junk and waste away their precious human life without some form of pursuit of sprituality. Most of the Indian movies(especially tamil ones, because i was indirectly forced to listen to such trash lyrics, thanks to those, with such pathetic tastes, surrounding me wherever i go) well gel with the foregoing description. People declare proudly that they are about to watch this movie or that and end up paying huge amounts in the state of art theatres, while not spending even one tenth of such amounts to ancient wisdom or national cause. The media is so bad these days that almost any program except a few can be easily said to be trash. Good movies and songs do exist, but get drowned in the ocean of the above said lot. While it is good to relax with these, it is a grave mistake on anyone's part to spend one's life on it.

I accept that personal tastes vary among the populace but I feel that at least some portion of each one's leisure time should be spent on contemplating about spiritual problems and consulting the solutions of our Ancients. I am pretty sure that there will be guilt in these people for wasting away their youth years in such paltry entertainments. Here is a short article about how we support vulgarity in the media:

http://www.satyavidya.org/component/content/article/52-miscellaneous/1-how-we-support-the-growth-of-vulgarity

5.The rat-race.

Many of us have given up almost all of the nitya karmanushtanams like sandhyavandhanam, aradhanam etc. which do not take huge amounts of time. While we seem to have time for gossip and all the utterly useless things in our life we "do not have time" for such karmas which are the prescriptions of bhagawan krishna.(Remember that it has been repeatedly emphasised that one is unfit for any further karmas if he does not perform sandhya daily. So there is no meaning in these people doing 'pooja' to deities on every occasion). The rat-race for money, comforts and 'hep' lifestyle which were the things precisely avoided by our ancestors (for excessive money leads to attachement and all related evil) , has assumed huge importance. The peer pressure rules our decision regarding any minute thing we do and we are all slowly getting burned out at younger ages due to work pressure. Michel Danino states aptly,

"Western civilisation, not even three centuries after the industrial Revolution, is now running out of breath. It has no direction, no healthy foundations, no value left except selfishness and greed, nothing to fill one's heart with. India alone has preserved something of the deeper values that can make a man human and the world will surely be turning to them in search of a remedy to its advanced malady"

The only thing that differentiates a man from any other animal is his adherence to dharma.

"Aharanidrabhayamaithunam ca samanyametat pasubhirnaranam
Dharmo hi tesamadhiko visesah dharmena hina pasubhissamanah"

(Meaning: Human beings and animals have the same urges. They eat and sleep and copulate and besides, the feelings of fear are common to both. What, then, is the difference between the two? It is adherence to Dharma that distinguishes human beings from animals. Without Dharma to guide him man would be no better than an animal.)

6. The NRI myth.

A common myth about the NRIs is that they are culturally and religiously more pious than their Indian counterparts. While this may accurately describe a few, the general case is not so. The NRIs contribute to erosion of Indian knowledge and heritage in their own unique way. Most of them in their student phases do not even care for what their parents had to say, leave alone what Ancient India had to say. Let me take America for instance. They try to mimic what they consider 'fashionable'. This happens in various ways. Their language,behaviour and body language changes altogether in few years. Many Brahmins start eating non-vegetarian foods, including beef, become at least half drunkards and consider it to be "modern", "fashionable" etc. This denouncement, which also exists among the Indian college students(discussed later in this essay) is a very etchy problem. Francois Gautier,a Paris-born political analyst who lived in India for 30 years, mocks India's elite intelligentsia's obsession with the west and all things western and asks them:

" O members of the Indian intelligentsia! You think that reading the latest New York times best seller, speaking polished english and putting down your own countrymen, especially anybody who has a hindu connection, makes you an intellectual. But in the process you have not only lost your roots, you have turned your back on a culture and civilisation that is thousands of years old and has given so much to the world. You are forgetting what a privilege it is to be born an Indian-and a hindu at that-inheritors of a spirituality that accepts that God manifests himself under different names, at different times, when today the world's two biggest monotheistic religions still think their god is the only true one and it is their duty to convert everybody by guile or force."

When they settle down and start having children, suddenly knowledge "dawns" upon them and they start behaving slightly better. I have personally spoken with ABCDs(i.e., children of the NRIs) and feel that they are not responsible for the terrible accents when they speak their mother tongues. How does anyone expect them to know deep facets of Indian culture?.(Infact I am not implying here that the Indians are not plagued by these problems, but am trying to analyse the NRI situation). Progressively, as generations go, they can declare proudly that they belong to "Indian" lineage but they have not even seen India . If they expect to learn about India and her culture from their text books, it is just the distortions that they will learn.(Eg, California textbook case where Hinduism was portrayed in a very negative manner due to the bias of the writers towards judeo-christian traditions.)

7.Political manoeuvring.

Caste and religious play is a common feature in Indian politics. More so in Tamilnadu, where the asuric forces(as of 2009) have taken over the government and interfere in many aspects of Sanathana dharma. They try to give wrong facts about the basic texts and also interfere in temple activities,which have an already well-established agama shastra and needs no one's attention. There is absolutely no need for reservation for minority religions because if they have talent then they can compete with others and establish their positions. All these factors turn some hindus against their own religion. They view their own dharma as inferior or sometimes convert to other religions for gaining entry into educational institutions etc.
Update: The New chief minister Jayalalitha was elected in 2011 and hopefully the situation should improve.

8 Self-declared 'Indologists' and their Indian pet-dogs.

Starting with Max Mueller and his "(mis)interpretations" of Rig Veda, this group of so-called scholars have done more damage to Indian and hindu literature and culture than everyone else put together. They worked hard with colonial and christian missionary work in their minds to degrade Indian culture and deem it as primitive and foreign. The Aryan Invasion theory for eg, has been decisively proven to be false. There was no invasion whatsoever and Our great rishis were the original inhabitants of the Indian subcontinent. for a thorough arguement, see:

http://www.archaeologyonline.net/artifacts/aryan-harappan-myth.html
http://folks.co.in/2009/09/harappan-civilization-is-vedic-civilization/

The damage they have done is so deep that it will take a long time to heal. Schools in India still teach this outdated and false invasion theory. The indologists also belittled the vedas and other scriptures and tried to instill a negative image into the Indian mind. Their straight descendents still exist for eg, Michael Witzel, a Harvard professor in indology. He holds on to his pet theories with no basis and was given the right treatment by Indian scholars when he could not answer their questions. However there are the other lot of westernised and marxist historians like Romila Thapar who wag their tail to people like Witzel and denounce their own culture. The ineffeciency of these indologists to interpret any vedic scripture ia aptly discussed along with some myths about vedas here:

http://agniveer.com/vedas/myths_vedas/

The other important source of misinformation is popular sites like the wikipedia. While it is true that wikipedia might give reliable information on scientific facts, it is not so for religion or history. The group of "specialists" behind wikipedia is so rigid and hopeless that they do not welcome any suggesions or alternative readings of certain facts and theories in history and religion. They still give outdated information on for eg, Rig Veda but have no scope for improvement. So, my advise to whoever reads this post is "do not rely on wikipedia for sanathana dharma and indian history"

9. The pathetic Indian student.

The 'college culture' if there is anything like that in Indian colleges are as incorrigible as possible. Students waste away their precious years on computer games that are of null value towards anything one can imagine(health,spiritual growth,material growth,knowledge etc.). In fact it is damaging to each of these. I am from BITS,Pilani. So i will put down what i have gleaned about this corrosive counter-culture from this place. "Oasis" is supposed to be a cultural festival of BITS. In my opinion, parts of it can be better termed as 'acultural festival' as it has no culture whatsoever in it. Some Students lose their inhibitions and freely give themselves away to drugs, sex and other vices. Others who are more sensible, restrain from these but are addicted to rock and third rate music. While taking a break in the form of a fest is perfectly fine, the song-mania almost never ceases and continues through all other times too. None of these reflect even an iota of concern for Indian culture, tradition or values. Drinking and smoking become a part and parcel of their lives for many.

The birth day celebration is another big joke. The birthday person is beaten up and he cannot even move the next day. Some groups take it to the level of breaking eggs on the person against his own desire. If one successfully puts up with all these uncouth behaviour, then he is acknowledged as "cool dude". Else he is banished from the group.!! Students often have booze parties and go to the level of puking,singing and dancing while drunk and say later that they have had the best times in their lives(so called memories....huh!) little realizing how much time they have wasted in their lives.

This list of college behaviour is endless. Ragging and continuous watching of pornography are other instances for example.(It was surpising to me how much time and effort youngsters spend in uploading videos of their friends taken while they are blabbering after getting drunk). These self-declared free-thinking and modern youth are in fact more stubborn and biased regarding their ill-informed views that they are totally unfit to question traditional wisdom(because they do not even know what their scriptures say). In summary, students care least about other fellow human beings, their parents' feelings, Indian culture and their religion and contribute so effectively for degradation of our dharma.

10. the ubiquitous materialism in educational institutions.

The educational institutions are no less worse. They do not impart any proper moral education from a young age. While students are taught 'about' religion, they are never offered even electives on religious topics(schools as well as colleges). The management is after money and nothing else is important for the administrators. Students are encouraged to study just science for material benefits and other fields of creativity are ignored. Hence they share the role in the widespread guilottine of culture. The result of this as well as neglect on the part of the masses themselves to know their religion is best expressed by the following anecdote from the book Hindu Dharma.

The following is a part of translator's note:

"More than 20 years ago, I said in an article in The Illustrated Weekly of India that "Hindus know less about their religion than Christians and Muslims know about theirs". Wanting to verify the statement, my editor Sardar Khushwant Singh asked my colleagues (most of them were Hindus), in schoolmasterly fashion, to name any four Upanishads. For moments there was silence and it was a Muslim lady member of the staff who eventually responded to the editor's question by "reeling off" the names of six or seven Upanishads""

I decided to write this particular post to share my views on how bad the things are at the moment. Suggestions for improvement can be discussed here but i feel they are not of much use since the concerned persons are least inclined to listen to anyone else.

2009-09-17T00:28:00.000-07:00

Hwal' Bay Nyu Wa- A land to inspire our Spirit
(Home of the hualapai)

(painting of the canyon by Bruce aiken)

Grand canyon- one of the earth's most powerful inspiring landscapes-overwhelms our senses. Its story tells of geological processes played out over unimaginable time spans as a unique combination of size, colour and dazzling erosional forms: 446 km long, upto 29 km wide and 1.6 km deep. Its rugged landscape hosts a fascinating variety of plant and animal communities, from the desert next to the colorado river deep in the canyon to montane forests atop its north rim.

Humans have also played their part in the history of the canyon as evident from the archaeological discoveries.

The journey

I live in Tempe, Arizona presently. This belongs to the phoenix area, which is the capital of arizona state, known for its distinct Native indian population. We reached grand canyon through flagstaff, a town which is a 2 hour drive from here.

(USA-Arizona highlighted)
Grand canyon shown on google map (click to enlarge)

Our first trip was to the West rim of the canyon.

(The group)

This place is best known for its skywalk, a major attraction from couple of years back.

This is the best we could capture the skywalk(side view in the background) as we were not allowed cameras there. They had a system of capturing our picture while on the skywalk but charge us a humongous 30 dollars. So, we opted out of it. For a sake of feel of the skywalk I borrowed a couple of pictures from elsewhere in the web.

This is basically a glass bottomed, horse shoe shaped cantilever bridge which has been engineered using the state of art techniques. As you walk on it you can see through the bottom of the bridge to what is 4000 to 5000 feet of the depths of the canyon's wilderness. It is a scintillating experience. You are just a glass plate away from 4000 feet of free fall!

A nice video of the skywalk from national geographic

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/03/070328-skywalk-video.html

60 dollars is what puts off people who go to the west rim. On the other hand what i suggest is that it is worth the trip if you consider that you pay 20 dollars for the skywalk and 40 more to enter the area to see the grand views of the grand canyon. The eagle point is the same place as the skywalk but the eagle formation in the the rocks is a natural wonder.

If you observe closely the background in the above picture, you can see the dip in the rock formation and there it resembles the eagle's body and the sides resemble its wings spread out.

(An oblique view of the eagle)
(The edge of the canyon facing the eagle)

The other good view point in the west rim is the guano point. The colarado river cuts its way meandering all over the place.

The above view shows a small hill on the other side of which the canyon turns around from the left side to the right side. The grandness of the canyon is infinite to be captured by the tiny camera!

Near the earlier mentioned skywalk we also saw some model Native american huts. It was an interesting view.

These settlements belong to the hualapai tribe, which also privately owns the grand canyon. The hualapai along with a dozen other Indian tribes especially the yavapai and the havasupai descend from the ancient anasazi tribe who inhabited the ancient southwest america more than 4000 years. They speak the languages belonging to Yuman-Cochimí language family.

The europeans directed by the hopi(another famous tribe of arizona) first had a glimpse of the canyon in 1540. It was not until 1775 that fransiscan friar fransisco garces explored upto the colorado river on foot and horseback. 'colorado' meaning "rusty-red" in spanish is the name that caught on. After some minor explorations, a major undertaking was in 1869 by Major john wesley powell and his crew of eight. He encountered the wilderness of the canyon on its face and gives us a graphic description.

"The cyclopean forms which result from the sculpture of tempests through ages too long for man to compute, are wrought into endless details, to describe which would be a task equal in magnitude to that of describing the stars of the heavens or the multitudinous beauties of the forest..."

(.....A testimony of time)

South rim

Our next day trip was to the south rim which is generally a busier outpost compared to the west or the north rim. The first point there was the manther point.

This view is curious for a different reason. The peaks in the background here are named after Hindu and other ancient deities. For eg, there is the vishnu temple,shiva temple, buddha temple, Isis temple(ancient egyptian goddess). 'Temple' means a peak here.

Interestingly enough, the basement rocks of the canyon are called as vishnu basement rocks, which i premise to be a tribute to the almighty whose shariram(or the cosmic body) forms all of the manifested worlds.

Yaki point is another important view point in the south rim. We felt that here a more wider view(about 180 degree) is available.

(A view from yaki point)

Now on to some geographical information..........

The canyon is the old world marvel consisting of several layers of rock formation.

Five broad stages can be recognised in the ultimate formation that we witness at the moment. They are as follows:

Stage 1: Vishnu basement rocks

Tectonic plates move slowly across the earth's surface. Almost 2 billion years ago a plate carrying island arcs and the plate that became North America collided. Heat and pressure from this process changed those existing rock layers into dark metamorphic rock, the basement of the canyon. Molten rock then squeezed into cracks and hardened as light bands of granite.

Stage 2: Grand canyon supergroup

The red shale, fossil-algae bearing limestone and dark lava of the grand canyon supergroup are revealed only in a few areas. The many strata of the supergroup accumulated in basins formed a s the landmass pulled apart. The expansion caused blocks to rotate, tilting the supergroup layers.

Stage 3:Paleozoic Sedimentary rocks

Nearly horizontal layers of sedimentary rocks comprise the upper two-thirds of the canyon walls. These rocks formed near sea level and at the edge of a continent. The remains of marine life accumulated on the ocean floor to form limestone. Rivers deposited sediments in swamps and deltas that then became mudstones. Dunes solidified into sandstone.

Stage 4:The colorado plateau rises

About 70 million years ago the rocky mountains began to form, pushed up as the North American plate overrode the pacific plate. In the process a large section of what is now Utah, northern arizona, western colorado and a corner of new mexico rose from sea level to elevations of thousands of feet, forming the colorado plateau. This uplift occured with remarkably little tilting or deformation of the sedimentary layers. The stage was set for the carving of the canyon.

Stage 5:Canyon carving

By five or six million years ago, the colorado river flowed across the colorado plateau on its way from the rocky mountains to the gulf of california. Each rain washed sparsely vegetated desert soils into the river. A steep gradient and heavy sediment loads created a powerful tool for erosion. The river's volume varied seasonally and over time. As the las tice age ended 12000 years ago, the volume may have been 10 times today's volume.

As the river cuts down, the canyon deepens. Tributaries erode into the canyon's sides, increasing its width. Erosion carves faster into the softer rock layers, undermining harder layers above. With no foundation these layers collapse, forming the cliffs and slopes profile of the canyon. Erosion wears away the ridges separating adjacent side canyons, leaving buttes and pinnacles.

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(Another elegant mark of the river)

Yavapai observatory point is a point that was chosen by geological and other experts to be one of the points where we can have the grandest view of this nature's wonder. Therefore the point has an observatory. The formation process of the canyon is explained there with various models similar to musuems. There is also a book shop available at the place.

(Yavapai observation station)

Exciting things to do at south rim

Helicopter ride, rafting and various trails are the different things you can engage yourself in, at this place. The helicopter ride seems costly at 150 dollars per person for just 25 to 30 minutes of the ride. We had a glimpse of how rafting would be at the yavapai observation station. Since we went as a group which had a small child, we could not attempt rafting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8wXSmzIAKg

This is an informative video on the first explorers and white water rafting.

There is an Imax theatre which hosts a short movie of about half an hour on the grand canyon. It was an amazing one which took us to the depths of the canyon upto the colorado river as well as gave us the bird's eye view too(the person who had flown in between the canyon walls to take a video of it did a brave and excellent job). We also learnt a bit about the people who had inhabited it and the explorers who discovered it.

Flora and fauna in the canyon

For this grand and colossal a place,the canyon teems with wildlife but it is difficult for a visitor to see most of it. I purchased a coffee table book about the canyon and it had some nice national geographic quality pictures of wildlife of the area.

Some of the fauna......

(Click to zoom in)

Some flora...

The colorado river has done the consistent work of carving the canyon. So it occupies the pivotal position in its history. Some paintings depicting the colorado river...

Grand canyon also has its share in the legends and imaginative accounts of people. What came to my mind immediately is the "Road runner show" which i used to watch in the cartoon network more than 10 years back. The coyote makes repeated tries to catch the road runner but in vain. I thought a snapshot from the cartoon was a nice way of representing it here.

(The coyote hatching another one of its 'would be failure' plots to catch the road runner)
(The coyote has a 90 degree fall into the canyon depths as a result of backfiring of its plans)

The Havasupai Indians have their creation story in relation to the grand canyon.

Before there were any people on earth there were two gods. Tochapa of goodness and Hokomata of evil. Tochapa had a daughter named Pu-keh-eh, whom he hoped would become the mother of all living. Hokomata the evil was determined that no such thing should take place, and he covered the world with a great flood. Tochopa the good felled a great tree and hollowed out the trunk. He placed Pu-keh-eh in the hollowed trunk and when the water rose and flooded the earth she was secure in her improvised boat.

Finally the flood waters fell and mountain peaks emerged. Rivers were created; and one of them cut the great gushing fissure which became the Grand Canyon.

Pu-keh-eh in her log came to rest on the new earth. She stepped forth and beheld an empty world.

When the land became dry, a great golden sun rose in the east and warmed the earth and caused her to conceive. In time, she gave birth to a male child. Later a waterfall caused her to conceive and she gave birth to a girl. From the union of these two mortal children came all the people on the earth. The first were the Havasupai, and the voice of Tochopa spoke to them and told them to live forever in peace in their canyon of good earth and pure water where there would always be plenty for all!’.

We can see that the great floods is nothing but the pralayam from which Lord sriman narayana rescued the vedas and sapta-rishis by taking the matsya avataram. We find that the same story trickles through to the stories of various cultures including the much later written Noahs story.

Some other myths revolving around the place are its possible link with the not-yet-proven atlantis civilization or with the Egyptian civilization.

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"The canyon is its own answer. It fills the soul of all responsive persons with awe. It allures, attracts and holds those who have gazed into its mysterious depths."

--- George wharton James, 1910

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2009-07-15T12:09:00.000-07:00

Vedantabijam (वेदान्तबीजम्) or 'Seed of vedanta'

Vedantam has been the undercurrent of life in Bharata desam from time immemorial. It has been reviewed, re-reviewed and commented upon, translated for thousands of years. It is the purport of our 2 grand epics Mahabharata and Ramayana. Following the footsteps of our fore fathers, i have summarised to the extent of my knowledge, the meaning of a very important verse from a very important upanishad in the following post:

http://venetiaansell.wordpress.com/2009/07/13/vedanta-bijam/

Read and provide your comments.

2009-03-10T23:15:00.000-07:00

Upto Calculus in India: A review of important elements of calculus found in Indian mathematics till the 17th century-- PART I

यथा शिखा मयूराणाम् नागानां मणयो यथा |
तद्वद् वेदांगशास्त्राणाम् गणितं मूर्धनि स्थितं ||

( लगध : वेदांग ज्योतिषं :4) before 3500 B.C
[Like the crest of the peacocks, like the crest-jewels of the serpants, so does the lore of the mathematics stand at the head of all the lores forming the auxiliaries of the vedas]

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The Newton-Leibniz feud over priority of discovery of calculus is a famous episode in modern western mathematical history. That these two men, despite having many other inventiones/discoveries to their credit, fought over calculus itself lends an idea as to how important a discipline it is. Many of us, whose disciplines involve mathematics in some way,have experienced the utility of calculus during our education. It is almost an ubiquitous mathematical technique.

In this blog which i divide into 2 parts, I intend to summarise from various sources about how Indian mathematicians over the ages came very close to discovering calculus. In fact, they did use calculus, but in a limited sense of astronomy and did not extend it to general functional analysis.Due credit must be given to them for some of the greatest ideas they introduced for the first time in the history of mathematics like infinite series and error associated , numerical integration and infinitesimals. The euro-centric view tries to cast aside these as a mere footnote. This is a ridiculous situation.

While I provide the details about various mathematicians in the following paragraphs, I stick to the dates in history given according to modern research, by V.Lakshmikantham and S.Leela as opposed to euro-centric dates which always tries to push all Indian dates into A.D and hence prove that Indians learnt all things from greeks(although it should be appreciated that there was interaction and mutual learning between indians and greeks to some extent over the ages) .

For more information on this view of indian history see:
http://www.vnn.org/editorials/ET0003/ET14-5679.html

Though there are so many contributions to the field of mathematics by Indians, in this blog i concentrate only on those aspects that involve calculus ideas. Astronomy was the main discipline for Indians although right from Aryabhatta's time we see chapters exclusively dedicated to mathematics too. In the course of tackling various problems in astronomy, elegant mathematical techniques were developed.

In this first part i will outline details about our mathematical history upto the point of Bhaskaracharya II. In the second part we will take up the medieval Kerala school of mathematics and their contributions.

Ideas of zero and infinity
These two important concepts in mathematics were known from time immemorial in India in sanathana dharma (eg, anantam) and emphasised more by the later indian religions namely, buddhism(from c.1800BC) and jainism. The infinite brahman(ananta) as well as infinite cycle of yugas were the fundamentals of upanishads. zero was the part of the place value notation indicated in the vedic literature.

Buddhism's 'sunyavadham' and Jainism's five kinds of infinities also developed these concepts further. The idea of infinitesimals and limits often involve a variable approaching these two entities.

Aryabhatta (born 2765 B.C) was one of the very important early mathematicians/astronomer who influenced later mathematicians for over the following 4000 years. He gave the value of π (pi) to be 3.1416 and mentioned that it is an approximate value. This value was remarkable for his age. Though it is not very clear as to how he arrived at this value, there are theories that he used a 256 sided polygon as an approximation to the circle. This has been disproved in a subsequent paper. There is also a theory that he used a 384 sided polygon ('crest of the peacock:Non-European roots of mathematics' and 'Geometry in Ancient and Medieval India'). These indicate that Aryabhatta had the insight of the limiting value of the perimeter of a N-gon to be the circumference of the inscribed circle.

He also introduced the notion of tatkalikagathi(instantaneous motion) while talking about the motion of moon and planets and expressed the instantaneous velocity of a heavenly body in the form of a basic differential equation. Aryabhatta and Brahmagupta(born 30 B.C) gave the formula pertaining to instantaneous motion as
where u,v,w are the true longitude, mean longitude, mean anamoly respectively at any particular time and u' , v' , w' are the values of the respective quantities at a subsequent instant and e is the eccentricity or the sine of the greatest equation of the orbit. This was later expounded fully by Bhaskaracharya who writes:

'to find the instantaneous velocity in longitude of the planet, the kotiphala is to be multiplied by the time rate of change of anomaly and divided by the radius, and the quotient thus obtained is to be added to or subtracted from the mean velocity of the planet according to its position in the six signs from the beginning of cancer or capricon'. Expressed in modern notation,

where the symbols have their meaning like true longitude,mean longitude,anamoly,radius of epicycle,kotiphala etc.(which cannot be easily understood without a deeper knowledge in astronomy)

While dealing with this type of equation, Manjula(c.900 A.D) hit upon an important result in differential :

where (w'- w) is small.

Virasena(710-790A.D) uses the method of exhausion to find the volume of frustum of a cone in his Dhavala. If a and b are the diameters of the bigger and smaller bases, then he removes a cylinder of diameter b from the solid and cuts open the solid to form a wedge kind of solid. He then removes smaller and smaller pieces from it and through series summation arrives at the result. This is akin to techniques that Archimedes uses for the quadrature of parabola and other figures.

Bhaskaracharya(b. 1114 A.D)-(486A.D according to Lakshmikantham and Leela)-(well known as Bhaskara-II)gives the geometrical proof of the above result and uses it to calculate "the angle of position"(an important parameter in determining the position and velocity of planets).

In modern notation it is as follows:
Bhaskara-II expressed other important ideas of differential and integral calculus in his texts. He had a primitive notion of limit. In the second chapter 46th verse of Lilavathi, his well known mathematical treatise, he poses the following question and answer:

'What number is it, which multiplied by cipher and added to half itself and multiplied by three, and divided by cipher, amounts to the given number sixty three?'

The question may seem strange for a modern reader for we were all taught that dividing by zero is not allowed in operations. Here if we take a look at the answer given by bhaskara and the method he adopts to arrive at it, we can compare it to the notion of limits that we have today.

The answer given by him is 14. Let us look at the method. Do not operate with the zeros until the end. Write the expression and we finally cancel the zeros as shown.

This is akin to:
The following two important results , which are wrongly attributed to later day european mathematicians such as Rolle were given by Bhaskaracharya.

1. When a variable attains maximum value, its differential disappears.
2. When a planet is either in apogee or perigee, the equation of the centre vanishes, hence for some intermediate position, the increment of the equation of the centre(ie, differential in modern term) also vanishes.

The second one is the celebrated intermediate value theorem.

Bhaskara has up his sleeve some very ingenious numerical integration methods to find the volume and the surface area of a sphere. He first gave the correct formula for the volume of sphere in the indian subcontinent.

Methods Surface area of a sphere:

1. The first method is to divide the surface of the sphere into thin strips by drawing circles of increasing radius keeping one of the poles as the centre. This will result in latitude kind of circles on the surface. (See below)

Now area of each strip is found out by considering it as a rolled up trapezium.(Note that dimensions of the trapezium are known because while we draw the circles we measure the increasing radius in terms of arcs of sine, the table of which exists right from Aryabhatta's time).
This totalled up gives the surface area. Bhaskara concludes through explanation here that the area can be generalised as (circumference x diameter). The essence of this method is the idea of integration, though not presented in a numerical rather than the general way.

2. The second method is by dividing the sphere into lunes (vapras) as shown below and adding the areas.

The way Bhaskara indicates this method is interesting. He asks us to divide the sphere into parts that resemble natural divisions on the amalaka(myrobalan) fruit. Even through this method the consistent result of (circumference x diameter) is concluded. I do not wish to go into details here but a comprehensive description can be found in Sarasvati amma's book 'Geometry in Ancient and medieval India'.

Volume of sphere:

In the words of Bhaskara , " Consider on the surface of the sphere pyramidal excavations, each of a base of an unit area having unit sides and of a depth equal to the radius of the sphere, as many as the number of units of area on the sphere. The apices of these pyramid meet at the centre of the sphere. The sum of the volumes of the pyramids equals the volume of the sphere".

This idea is a 3 dimensional extension of the method to find circle's area when it was divided into triangles.

The next part will concentrate on Post Bhaskara II mathematics,mainly on the Kerala School of mathematics which gave some of the most brilliant results ever to humanity.

COURTESY: Various issues of Indian journal of history of science, 'Geometry in ancient and medieval india' by Saraswati Amma, 'Crest of peacock', 'Origin of mathematics'

2008-06-30T23:38:00.000-07:00

A Trip to talakadu, Somnathpura and Shivanasamudra (7th June 2008)

Talakadu

Talakadu (about 185 km from Bangalore)is historically famous for its temples and more for the sand dunes and the three pronged curse of Alamelamma in 1610, which is supposedly the reason why it is covered with sand dunes now. This myth is linked with the Odeyar kings who acquired Talakadu at that time. However ,recent researches claim to have enough proof to dismiss this as a myth invented no earlier than the 1800s. To have a better idea, the following link is a good one.

http://www.vikramsampath.com/royalmysore_excerpt_1.html

The legendary sands of Talakadu, which is the starting point of many a tale told in this region.

One of the hunter brothers with the Shiva lingam. (sculpture on the pillar of the outer prakaram)
The name of the place is attributed to two hunter brothers, Tala and kada who struck a tree with their axe out of curiosity when they observed an elephant come and pray near a tree daily. They were shocked to find a bleeding shivalinga and so, to repent for their act ,they built the first temple there. Even now they stand guarding the temple in the form of carved images just outside the temple.

Among the temples of Talakad, the Pathaleshwara, Maruleshwara, Arkeshwara, Vaidyanathee-shwara and Mallikarjuna temples, the five lingams believed to represent the five faces of Lord Shiva are famous. Keerthinarayana temple of Lord Vishnu is another important temple. .There were very few tourists other than us in Talakadu during this time.

On the way to Talakadu

The dvarapalakas of Vaidyeshwara temple that has been fully excavated(not tala and kada)

Vaidyeshwara temple

Carvings on the outer wall of the temple

Mooshikavaahana

Lord Nataraja performing tandavam on Muyalagan.

The significance of Nataraja murthy in south Indian tradition is very significant. He is the unmoved mover whose movement is responsible for every single movement in the world. While the asura below his feet signifies our ego,which he alone can destroy. The ring of fire around him(missing in the above sculpture), his damaru, snake ...all have a dynamic inner meaning. For a detailed idea about the symbolism, take a look at:

http://www.lotussculpture.com/nataraja1.htm

Lord Shiva in a rare standing posture. He holds the maan(deer) and mazhu (axe), in his left and right hind hands respectively. The other two hands show abhaya and varada hastams.

Lord Rama

Gangala murthy( one of the 64 forms of Lord Shiva)

Lord shiva is said to be associated with destruction, dancing in cemeteries, wearing the skulls and bones etc. Why ? While everybody irrespective of human, animal, plant, devas, asuras and all creatures at the time of praLaya get reduced (die) to be created again in the next prapanchOtpatti, God is the only one, Who is ever present. Indicating this Eternal being of God is the skulls, skeleton ornaments and the concept that he dances in the cemeteries.

GangALar is the mUrti after reducing all the creations into Him. He will be having a staff with bones collected in it, which is an indication of destruction. He alone will exist and will be enjoying the Self.

Godess Shakti or Parvati devi

Lord Muruga/ Karthikeya (also called as the one with six-faces) on his vaahanam peacock.

The stone chain found in the above temple.

Shown for a comparison is also a stone chain but from Kancheepuram Varadarajar temple.

The ever guarding Nandi.

Dvajasthambam(the 3 cross bars at the top indicate ichcha shakthi, kriya shakthi and jnana shakthi of the lord). The temple itself signifies our body where the gopuram is our paadham, the garbha griham is our head, ardha mandapam is the neck, maha mandapam is chest and dvajasthambam the naabhi.

....my earlier visit to Talakadu (in 1997, ie. 11 years before)

Paathaleeshwarar temple (one of the 5 shiva temples that went under sand)

the same temple 11 years ago(sand covering the entrance that is seen here has been removed completely now and a new overhead cover has been added in front of the temple as seen in the previous photograph)

Another temple which has been excavated.(not sure whether it is Shiva temple or a Vishnu temple as the temple was closed during our time of the visit).

remains of the above temple's wall scattered on the ground(we spotted some new stones there too)

This is the Hoysala temple for lord Keerthi Narayana in Talakadu which we saw in 1997 (don't remember seeing it in the recent trip)

A dingy ride(பரிசல் in tamil) in the river cauvery near the temples in Talakadu is refreshing.

Somnathpura (should not be confused with the one in Gujarat)

This place is also a very historical one dating back to 1268 A.D , when the Hoysala emperor Narasimha III's general Somanatha Dandanayaka built a temple for Lord Vishnu to commemorate a victory of the Hoysalas over the cholas. The architecture here is typical to Hoysalas, other examples being at Beluru and Halebeedu though among the three sites this one is known for its overall symmetry.

Very early Hoysalas were Jains. Ramanujacharya , who had to be in disguise due to persecution of Vaishnavaites by Krimikanta chozha was forced to leave chozha country for 12 years until the next king ascended the throne. For these 12 years, starting from 1096AD, he took refuge in Karnataka(Melkote) and during this time he cured a peculiar disease of Queen Shantala devi, wife of Vitthala Deva(popularly known as Bitti Deva) . Therefore, the prince converted to vaishnavism and was called as Vishnuvardhana thereafter.(He was not the reigning prince at that time but ruled over a few provinces under his brother Bellala). From then on there were pious vaishnava kings in the dynasty. There were some Shaivite kings also among the Hoysalas for we find grand temples to Lord Shiva as well, as seen in Halebeedu.

The lamp post at the entrance to the temple

The huge polished granite slab at the mahadwara, is a treasure for, in beautifully engraved old kannada, it gives details about the construction of the temple and the rulers who contributed to its completion and upkeep from the 13th to 16th century A.D.

The lathe carved pillars (typical of the Hoysala style of architecture)

The method employed was a primitive form of lathe. The pillar was mounted on a potters' wheel and animals were made to go around the wheel(probably with sharp tools tied to them at required levels) and the shapes were carved. The symmetry achieved is amazing!

Grand view of the trikuta(3- topped) vimana temple of Somnathpura

All the sculptures in the temple have been carved on a special type of stone called soapstone(largely composed of the mineral talc and rich in magnesium). A unique property of soapstone very useful in making sculptures is that it is initially soft when under the ground and hardens gradually over the years when exposed to the atmosphere. Therefore, during the time of building the temple, fresh soapstones were used to ease the carving process. They hardened in course of time.

Outer Prakaram

The temple is adorned with sculptures, rightly described in English as poetry in stone. The outer wall of the temple throughout has 6 bands of aculptures, above which the main sculptures of the deities are found. While the lowermost band has elephants(totalling to 540, no two being the same), the next band has horse riders. The third band has running floral designs throughout. The fourth and the most painstaking one portrays scenes from epics, Ramayanam and Mahabharatham. The fifth band has the figure of a chimera(made of 7 different animal parts). The sixth band has swan as its main theme, though variations are found in this panel. Erotic scenes from Kamasutra are also found in few portions.

A close-up view of the lower three bands(the imagination of the sculptors is best seen rather than described)

Another view of the 6-band art

A war scene from the epics neatly executed on stone.(Observe the dynamism in representation. Even the horses seem to have entered a fighting mood)

The epic panel runs in time from the right to the left of the temple. In this picture, if observed closely, one can see the cradles of all the babies(Rama, Lakshmana, bharata and Shatrugna) rocked by the elders. In the next stage in the left panel, we see that the babies begin to crawl.
Outlet for abhishekam water from inside the temple. This is a made out of a single long stone.

One of the elephants adorning each corner of the 36-pointed star base of the temple

The dvarapalakas to Somnathpur temple

Vishnu sitting on the 7-hooded Adisesha(comparitively rare posture against his most popular reclining pose)

Saraswati Devi

lord Vishnu, Lakshmi devi and Lord Krishna

Lord Vishnu in many variations of postures and mood

Lord Vishnu (with Shanku , Chakra , gadhaa, padmam)

Lord Rama ( with his kodhandam) shown in his original form as Vishnu

Shadbhuja vishnu (as against his usual chaturbhujam posture)

Indra, chief of the devas, with his vajrayutam in one hand

Vishnu in ardhapadmasana(a yogic posture considered rare for representation of Vishnu).Usually Lord Shiva is portrayed in this way.

Nardhana lakshmi(dancing pose). Note the maize on her right hand.

Shadbhuja vishnu with different weapons in his hand

Brahma with his weapons. While one or two garbhagrihams alone separately exist for brahma in the whole world, images of him in the walls around a temple are not uncommon. Brahma is not separately worshipped because he also a jivathma who has a fixed lifespan(though that span is very great compared to life in bhoolokam, approximately 311.04 trillion human years)

Dhanvantri, the divine healer. He is considered an avatar of Lord Vishnu and rose from the ksheerabdhi when it was churned with the mandhara mountain. He has a amrita kalasam in one hand and a leech on the other representing the dual role of giving positive energy as well as removal of all diseases including the disease called as our samsara.
Dhanvantri in Tanjore style.(Note the leech on the right hand and kalasam on the left)

Lakshmi devi in a graceful posture

An extremely rare depiction of the matsya avatar of lord vishnu. Notice the fish's face brought out elegantly on stone.

Let us be protected by the fish form of our God, which appeared for, Searching for the Vedas, with tense examining looks And Created a mirage of the lotus forest in the great waters of the sea, And appeared to climb on the swing created by the dashing of waves with waves.

- Dasavathara Stotram by Vedanta desika(1269-1370 A.D)

(shown on the left is Raja Ravi varma's depiction of matsya moorthy)

Varaha avataram of Lord Vishnu, to save bhoomidevi

Lakshmi Narasimha, avataram of Lord Vishnu to save prahalada from Hiranyakasipu.

A creative sculpture showing Hanuman with the baana lingam in his hand.[ He was asked to bring a shiva linga from the himalayas by Rama when they had to perform a pooja at Rameshwaram to clear the brahmahaththi dosham which had been caused due to killing of Ravana(a brahmin). Since it took a long time to get one and the auspicious time was nearing Rama and Sita devi made a lingam out of sand and started the pooja. When Anjaneya arrived he was sad to see that his efforts were fruitless. So lord Rama granted him a boon that thereafter, the lingam brought by Hanuman would be worshipped first and then only the bhaktas should worship his shivalingam. Thus there are 2 lingams in Rameshwaram till today and pooja is performed as directed by Lord Rama]. The story inside the braces is a cooked up story . See comments section for additional information.

Indra and sachidevi(indraani) on airavatha

Lord Vishnu and Lakshmi devi on their vahanam Garuda(one of the nityasoori-s)

Mahishasuramardhini in a dynamic fighting posture

Lakshmi devi with Lord Vishnu. Here godess Lakshmi rests her feet on a tender lotus because of which the lotus bends slightly. The elephant gives support to the lotus with its trunk.

The chimera made up of seven animal parts(of which i remember 6, namely crocodile mouth, pig's body, lion's foot, peacock's tail,some part of elephant and cow too). Each one stands for a specific character which the hoysalas wanted to portray in their important symbol.

A beautiful Annapakshi is shown feeding its chicks. We see that the artists took so much inspiration from nature and saw divinity in the whole thread of creation.

This is a wonderful forest scene,with its trees, cows, mountain etc. as a part of the epic band of the temple. This can be used to explain stylization in art, which from times immemorial is a characterising feature in Indian art tradition. The artist finds himself in ease with space and movement in stylization unlike static realism.

Krishna with govardhanagiri

This is the scene from Mahabharata where Bhima gets food to Bakasura. Later he fights and kills him thus saving the villagers from the wicked asura.

Other assorted sculptures:

Inside the temple

We are baffled by the intricacy in architecture once we move inside the temple. Our guide told us that there are 16 different types of ceilings in the temple. Here we find a imaginative and a rare portrayal of 4 stages of development of a banana flower.Some of these ceilings :

Note the colour that has been aptly used for the banana flower as well as in the designs surrounding it. This gives a natural flavour to the already well-carved banana flower by simple usage of vegetable dyes.

The last 2 of the above snaps show the ceilings where the banana flower is fully developed.
One more ceiling(which is in the room adjacent to the garbhagriham)

Here also we find lathe-turned pillars. There are also other kinds of pillars where the symmetry is laudable. It is said that the temple construction took a total of 65 years!(quickly finished when compared to Beluru and Halebeedu which took hundreds of years)

Lathe turned pillars just outside the garbhagriham

This is a trikuta vimana temple (one with 3 tops or 3 vimanas) and hence has 3 residing gods .
Keshava, Janardhana and Venugopala are the 3 gods of the temple. (These are one of the very few sculptures in the whole temple that have their noses intact. A sad but common feature seen in the temple is that the noses of most of the forms have been chipped out by the invaders. It is said that their plan was to render the temple an inactive one because generally Hindu deities which have been damaged are not worshipped. Even the animal forms have not been spared by the invaders. Trunks of elephant etc. which show power have also been truncated.)

There are miniatures of the respective idols at the entrance of the garbhagriham.

Venugopala

The details and intricacy of the sculpture is beyond words. Cows and calf were very dear to Krishna and here they stand captured by the divine music of the lord. Even the ten avatarams are carved in the pointed arch that envelops the tree under which Krishna is standing. The tree is no lesser than reality for the eyes.

Miniature of venugopala at the gateway

Keshava

This was the idol that went missing in the intermitant period(mostly due to muslim invasions) and has been reconstructed from an idol on the outer wall as well as by adding new parts to it.

Miniature of Keshava at the gateway

Janardhana

Na Jayathe Ardhayathi Cha Samsaram ithi janardhana,” meaning, one who is birthless (Na Jayathe) and who redeems the suffering of his Bhakthas (Ardhayathi Cha Samsaram). Here the sufferings refer to “Samsara.” Since he does both he is called “Janardhana.”

Here our guide stepped in to point out that with a little bit of imagination we can see a cow's face if we carefully observe the chest and stomach portion of idol of Lord Janardhana. (We were excited to see the excellent proportions that went into making of the idol that gave these two perspectives.)

New designs combined with old ones serving the purpose of window. This is one of the places where renovation work has been done to a great extent.

A neatly maintained temple garden by ASI(though some tourists feel that it mars the ancient feel of the monument)

A grand view of the temple

This is a snap from the corridors on the inner periphery of the temple. There are 64 small mandapams which originally housed different deities but were totally uprooted or damaged during the 1311 and 1326 muslim invasions.

We can see the names of some of the sculptors on their works as they seemed to have signed their works.

From the names it is evident that the artists were both local and from outside the region. The famous Ruvari Mallithamma, Masanithamma, Chameya, Rameya, Chaudeya and Nanjeya are considered locals while Pallavachari and Cholavachari are thought of as artists from Tamil country.(Courtesy: Wikipedia)

Our group

We left the temple with a feeling of shortage of time to see the entire temple. Infact rain took away its own share of our time during our visit to the temple. There are also so many sculptures near the ceiling inside and on the vimana outside which almost none of the visitors can see properly.

Shivanasamudra (known to most people as Shivasamudra)

This place famous for its 2 waterfalls, Gaganachukki and Bharachukki completed our one day trip. Here we have the second highest waterfall in India. We encounter this place in our geography textbooks in the context of first hydro-electric project established in India in 1902, because of which Bangalore was the first city to receive power in India in 1906.

Bharachukki had more water during our visit in June. We also enjoyed a dingy ride here. We have to climb quite a few steps from the point where the vehicles halt to the place from where dingies are available.

Gaganachukki had less water(below)

Gaganachukki during our visit in 1997(below)

This view is from diametrically opposite place than the one taken above

For more information on the falls read:

http://www.deccan.net/india/cauvery/shivasamudram.html

The trip was a nice refreshing one, away from the monotonous life that most of us have these days. Religion, history,myths, architecture, nature, travel and some local food spiced up our little trip.

2008-04-11T18:50:00.000-07:00

சிலேடை(பாகம் 2)

ஒளவையார் தனது தள்ளாடும் வயோதிகப் பருவத்தில் இருந்த பொது குறிப்பறிந்து திருவாலங்காடு அருகில் இருக்கும் பழயநூரை சேர்ந்த சாரி என்பவன் அவருக்கு கோல் கொடுத்து உதவினான் . அதற்கு கைம்மாறு செய்ய விரும்பிய அவர் ஒரு கறவை ஆடு வாங்கிப் பரிசாக கொடுக்க நினைத்தார் . அதனால் அப்பொழுது ஆட்சியில் இருந்த சேர மன்னனை சந்தித்து நடந்ததைக் கூறி " ஒரு ஆடு வேண்டும் " என்றார் .சேர மன்னனோ ஒரு தங்க ஆட்டையே அவருக்கு பரிசாக அளித்தான் . இதை பாராட்டி பாடிய ஒளவை "சேரா , உன்னாடு பொன்னாடு " என்று வாழ்த்தினார் .இது ஒரு சிலேடை . நேரடியாக அவர் " உன் ஆடு பொன் ஆடு " என்று கூறுவதாகவும் கொள்ளலாம் . அதோடு "உன் நாடு பொன் நாடு " என்று அவர் வாழ்த்தியதும் பொருந்தும்.
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நம்மில் பல பேருக்கு நன்கு தெரிந்த ஒளவை மூதாட்டியின் ஒரு பாடல் .

வாக்குண்டாம் நல்ல மனமுண்டாம்
மாமலரால் நோக்குண்டாம் மேனிநுடுங்காது பூக்கொண்டு
துப்பார் திருமேனி தும்பிக்கையான் பாதம்
தப்பாமல் சார்வார் தமக்கு.

இப்பாடலுக்கு மேலெழுந்தவாரியான பொருள் :

" யானை முகத்தவனைத் தவறாமல் என்றும் வணங்கி வருபவர்களுக்கு நல்ல வாக்கு , நல்ல மனம் ,இலக்ஷ்மி தேவியின் நல்ல பார்வை ஆகிய இம்மூன்றும் கிட்டும் ."

இப்பாடலில் மறைந்துள்ள மற்றொரு பொருளையும் காண்போம் .நீண்ட நாள் வாழ்தற்க்குரிய அருமருந்தான காயகல்பம் செய்யும் முறையைப் பாட்டி கூறுகிறார்கள் .
1. துப்பார்த்திருமேணி - திரு அடைமொழி . துப்பு - குப்பை .மேனி .இச்செடி எங்கும் வளர்ந்திருக்கும் .
2. தும்பிக்கையான் பாதம் - அனைநெருஞ்சி
3. மாமலர் - தாமரை.

குப்பைமேனி இலை , ஆனைநெருஞ்சி இலை , ஓரிதழ்த் தாமரை இவற்றைச் சம அளவில் எடுத்து பனங்கற்கண்டு , பசுநெய் , தேன் ஆகிய மூன்றுடன் சேர்த்து செய்ய கிடைப்பதே காயகல்பம் . இந்த மருந்தை உண்டால் நல்ல வாக்கு வன்மை பெரும் .நல்ல மனம் உண்டு (உடலில் எந்த இடையூறும் வராது ) நல்ல நோக்கு - நல்ல பார்வை கிட்டும் , மேனி நுடங்காது - உடல் தொய்வு ஏற்படாது .எனவே இரண்டிற்கும் வழி காட்டிய ஒளவையை போற்றி வாழ்வோம் .
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ஸ்ரீ சுவாமிநாத சுவாமியை வணிகச் செட்டியாராக பாவித்து , இரு பொருள்படும்படி பாடல் ஒன்றை இயற்றியுள்ளார் சொக்கநாதப் புலவர் . அது :

" வெங்காயம் சுக்கானால் , வேந்தயத்தால் ஆவதென்ன
இங்கார் சுமந்திருப்பார் இச்சரக்கை - மங்காத
சீரகத்தைத் தந்தீரேல் தேடேன் பெருங்காயம்
எரகத்துச் செட்டியாரே "

இதற்கு , " அஜீரணத்தைப் போக்க ரசம் சாப்பிடு , குணம் அடையலாம் " என்றும் , " உடம்பு தளரும் போது நம் ஆன்மாவுக்கு வீடுபேற்றை தரவல்லது ஸ்ரீ ச்வாமினாதறது பேரருள் மட்டுமே " என்றும் இரு வேறு பொருள் கொள்ளலாம் .

[குறிப்பு]
வெங்காயம் -> வெம்மையான காயம்(உடல்)
சுக்கு -> சுக்கு போல் சிரியதாக
வெந்தயம் -> அயக்கந்த சிந்தூரம்
இச்சரக்கை ->இவ்வுடலை
சீரகத்தை -> சீரான மனத்தை
பெருங்காயம் -> பெரிய உடல்
ஏரகத்து செட்டியார் -> திருவேரகம்(சுவாமிமலை) முருகன் .

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திருமணம் ஒன்றில் மணமக்களை சிவனும் திருமாலும் காக்க வேண்டும் என்று சிலேடையாக பாடியது .(காளமேகப் புலவர் பாடல் )

" சாரங்க பாணியர் அஞ்சக்கரத்தர் கஞ்சனைமுன்
ஓர்அங்கம் கொய்த உகிர்வாளர் - பார்எங்கும்
எத்திடுமை ஆகர் இனிதால் இவர்உம்மைக்
காத்திடுவர் எப்போதும் காண்" .

1. சாரங்க ->சார்+அங்க(சால்புடை அங்கத்தினர்) , சாரங்கம் எனும் வில் கொண்டவர்.
2.அஞ்சக்கரத்தர் ->ஐந்து அக்கரத்தை(அட்சரம்) உடையோர்(நமசிவாய), அம் (அழகான) சக்கரத்தைக் கொண்டவர்.
3.ஓரங்கம் கொய்த => ஓர் அங்கம் அளித்த (உமையொரு பாங்கன்), ஓரங்கம்(திருவரங்கம்)

மேற்காணும் ஒற்றுமைகளால் சிவனும் திருமாலும் இப்பாவில் ஒன்றாகின்றனர்.

[ ஓம் நம சிவாய , ஓம் நமோ நாராயணாய ]

2008-03-19T06:52:00.000-07:00

சிலேடை
ஆர்குட்டில் சிலேடைப்பற்றிய ஒரு நல்ல இழையிலிருந்து சில துளிகள்.
தமிழில் பல சிறப்பான வெண்பா வகைகள் உள்ளன. இவற்றுள் இரட்டுற மொழிதல் மிகவும் அழகான சிந்தனையை தூண்டுவதாகவும் இருக்கும் ஒரு வகை .இரு பொருள்பட செய்யுள் இயற்றுவதே சிலேடை ஆகும் .

செங்கல்பட்டு பெருங்காயம்
பொருள் ஒன்று : செங்கல் பட்டு பெரும் காயம் .(அதாவது அடி படுவதை பற்றி பேசுகிறோம்).
பொருள் இரண்டு : செங்கல்பட்டில் இருந்து வரும் பெருங்காயம்.(சமையல் பொருள்).
அடுத்து ...தலை விதி வசம் மற்றும் அதன் வேற்றுமையான தலைவி திவசம் .
கவி காளமேகம் இதற்க்கு மிகவும் பெயர் பெற்றவர். அவரது பாடல்களை தெரிவிப்பதற்கு முன்பு அழகிய சொக்கநாதர் பாடல் ஒன்றைப் பார்போம் .

சக்கரத்தி னாலரவந் தாங்குதலி னோடுமுள்ளெட்
அக்கரத்தி னால்வேலை யார்வதினால் - மிக்கவன்பர்
முக்கியமாய்க் கைக்கொளலால் முத்துசா மித்துரையே
கைக்கடியா ரந்திருமால் காண்.

பொருள் :
இது திருமாலுக்கும் கைக்கடிகாரத்துக்குமான சிலேடை .
கடிகாரம்:
1. சக்கர வடிவை உடையது .
2. ஒருவித ஓசையைக் கொண்டுள்ளது .
3. முள் தொடுகின்ற எண்ணையும் எழுத்துக்களையும் உடையது .
4. சிறந்த வேலைப்பாடு உடையது .
5. விரும்பும் அன்பர் கைக்கு அழகூட்டுவது .

திருமால் :
1. சக்கராயுதத்தை உடையவர் .
2. ஆதிசேடனாகிய பாம்பணைமேல் பள்ளிகொள்பவர்.
3. ஓம் நமோ நாராயணாய என்ற அட்டாக்கர மந்திரத்தால் வணங்கப்படுபவர் .
4. திருப்பாற்கடலில் எழுந்தருளி உள்ளவர் .
5. மெய் அன்பர்களால் கைகூப்பித் தொழும் தன்மையர் .

ஆலமர்க் கடவுள்
பொருள் 1: கல்லால மரத்துக்கு அடியில் இருந்து தனது மௌனத்தாலேயே அனைத்தையும் கற்பிக்கும் தென்முகக் கடவுள் .(தக்ஷிணாமூர்த்தி )
பொருள் 2 : ஊழிக் காலத்தே உலகினைத் தன்னுள் அடக்கி ஆலிலைத் தளிரிலே படுத்திருக்கும் குழந்தைக் கண்ணன் .

அடிநந்தி சேர்தலா லாகம் வெளுத்துத்
கொடியுமொரு பக்கத்திற் கொண்டு -வடிவுடைய
மாசுணத்தை பூண்டு வளைத் தழும்பு பெற்றதனால்
பூசணிக்காயும் ஈசனெனப் போற்று!

பூசணிக்காய்:-
அடி நந்தி சேர்தலால் - அடிப்பாகத்தே பெரிய காம்பு சேர்ந்திருக்க விளங்குவதால்
ஆகம் வெளுத்துத் - உடல் வெளுத்து
கொடியும் ஒரு பக்கத்திற் கொண்டு - ஒரு பக்கத்தே கொடியினைக் கொண்டு
வடிவுடைய மாசுணத்தை பூண்டு - அழகான வெண்நிறத்தை மேல் கொண்டு
வளைத் தழும்பு பெற்றதனால் - வளைவான தழும்புகளை மேல் கொண்டதனால்
பூசணிக்காயும் ஈசனெனப் போற்று! - பூசணிக்காயையும் ஈசனாகக் கருதிப் போற்றுவாயாக!

சிவபெருமான்:
அடிநந்தி சேர்தலால் - திருவடியிலே நந்திப்பெருமான் சேர்ந்திருத்தலாலும்
ஆகம் வெளுத்துத் - திருநீறணிந்து உடல் வெண்மையையாய் இருப்பதாலும்
வடிவுடைய கொடியுமொரு பக்கத்திற் கொண்டு - ஒரு பக்கத்தில் பூங்கொடியாய உமையைக் கொண்டு
மாசுணத்தை பூண்டு - சிறந்த பாம்பு ஆபரணத்தைக் கொண்டுவளைத்
தழும்பு பெற்றதனால் -தன் திருமேனியினிடத்தே அம்மை தழுவியதால் ஏற்பட்ட வளையல் தழும்புகளைக் கொண்டவர் சிவபெருமான்.

2007-11-16T09:14:00.000-07:00

Chitralakshana-musings on a centuries old art.

Disclaimer: The title has nothing to do with an ancient treatise on art by nagnajit or later treatises and neither has a connection to a recent book by Mulk Raj Anand. It has been given in the sense of its original meaning.

Art- in any form is to be experienced by the beholder and none other than the seer himself can help him do so. Innumerable art forms exist in variety and spread. It could be a cloistered one or a clichéd one. In this post I get down to a specific art form, "Tanjore painting". From my association with it for about 10 months I can very well rephrase it as "Tanjore work" rather than painting.

The art form is more than 500 years old though the oldest paintings that survive now are atmost 250 to 300 years old. It has mindboggling intricacies to it right from the process of board preparation till its completion. The process itself takes up space to be described and hence I am not doing it here.

The aesthetic part of the work is what attracted me more because there are people whom I found complain that the art form is a time-tested one and is far away from realism. There is big hue and cry now-a-days that Indian aesthetic aspect has declined and one can hardly find it among the masses. This is true because of various factors but I am reminded of ‘Kolams’ and rangolis in this context. An addition to this list can be Tanjore paintings(though costlier).

The proceeding of the work amazes the artist himself.Every next stage adds beauty to the work. Sticking of jaipur stones(on the sketched board) followed by creating embossing effects render the painting beautiful. Later comes the gold foil work(22 carat ones). You feel like seeing your painting now and then. The last stage involves colouring. It uses colours that are pleasing to the eye and there are a few traditional combinations that often occur though not mandatory.

The themes were restricted to Hindu deities and puranas (which I think is the best possible thing because it adds a sanctity to the art and suites them well) though now it is being extended to many other themes. Some of the very common themes are Vennaithaazhi Krishna, Radha and Krishna, Krishna in various postures, Lord Shiva, Godess Parvati and Lakshmi and many others. I found a unique collection of Lord Shiva Tanjore paintings in a book published by the Koviloor mutt that deserves mention here. It has all forms of Shiva and his tiruvilayadals.

Image : This is my first tanjore painting(before framing..... and I used Chettinad frame for it)

It is popularly called as " Pendant Krishna"

2007-08-23T20:51:00.001-07:00

My Ancestry-with a little history and Geography

Says Raja raja cholan in the Epic novel ponniyin selvan by Kalki “I am determined by what I achieve rather than what my ancestry is”.Still ,I was intrigued to know my roots when my father made a passing remark that we are the descendents of Appaya Dikshita,the famous 16^th century philosopher and religious Acharya.

History thrills me and the more I came to know about this Acharya and his era,the more I was interested in finding out the little piece of missing information.He lived from 1520 A.D to 1592 A.D and has 104 works ,spanning many a theme,to his credit.Some of his important works include Parimala,Shiva tatva viveka,Margabandhu stotram,Ratna traya pariksha,sivarkamani deepika.

By surfing through the web I hit upon a site that maintained the family tree of Appaya Dikshita and by way of correspondence with the owner of the site my search was over.I located my position in the family tree.I could do this effectively because the last in the link till then was Swami Shivananda(1887-1963)(of Divine Life Society fame) who I knew was my great grandfather’s brother.

Appaya Dikshita lived in and around Adayappalam,a village in Arcot district.His grandfather Vakshasthala Dikshita(1453A.D-1528A.D),who is my 15^th generation ancestor was one of the advisors for King Krishnadevaraya of Vijayanagara empire(who ruled from 1509 to 1529).There seems to have been an Andhra connection.Though the names of his ancestors have been lost in obscurity,through various sources we know now that they came down from further north(as also implied by the sect name vadadesa vadamal).They seem to have inhabited the region around present Nasik (Near Thryambakeshwar)around 700 years ago and might have migrated south due to muslim onslaught during that time.

Due to the descent of Appaya,the family tree has been recorded from his times continuously till now and this is a rare phenomenon found in few families.A look at the following chart will give an overview:

3 great personalities figure here.Apart from Appaya,his brother’s grandson Nilakanta Dikshita was a master poet and was the minister of Thirumalai Nayakar of Madurai(who ruled from 1623A.D to 1659A.D).He has authored many books like shivalilarnavam,Gangavatharanam ,Kalividambana and others.Swami Shivananda was a great yogi and his work in bringing awareness regarding the Advaita Vedanta is remarkable.

There is an interesting similarity between the surnames of dikshidars and dikshits and the region from where they come from(near Nasik).I take a leave here by seconding my mail-friend’s statement that more research is required to establish the missing link between these two families.

P.S: I am at the last link in the above chain

2006-11-13T08:25:00.001-07:00

LORD CHESTERFIELD

This personality may sound new to some of us but I came to know about him through my 12th class English lessons. He lived in 18th century and was the earl of Chesterfield. His name Philip Dormer Stanhope is lesser known. He is very famous for his letters to his son.i am a great admirer of Chesterfield for his language, vocabulary and style of his letters. Above all this, his exact description of how people behave, react and feel in numerous situations of life and advice regarding the same cannot be described in words (or atleast I feel so).I can safely make this statement since I have read quite a bit of him. (3 volumes of his letter collections are a part of BITS library).This blog entry is just to share one good passage from his letters.

Chesterfield on “an absent man”……
“What is commonly called an absent man is commonly either a very weak or a very affected man; but be he which he will, he is, I am sure, a very disagreeable man in company. He fails in all the common offices of civility; he seems not to know those people of today, with whom yesterday he appeared to live in intimacy. He takes no
Part in the general conversation; but, on the contrary, breaks into it from time to time
with some start of his own, as if he awoke from a dream. This is a sure indication,
either of a mind so weak that it is not able to bear above one object at a time; or so
affected, that it would be supposed to be wholly engrossed by, and directed to some very great and important objects. Sir Isaac Newton, Mr.Locke and (it may be ) five or six more
,since the creation of the world ,may have had the right to absence, from that intense thought which the things they were investigating required. But if a young man, and a man of the world, who has no such avocations to plead, will claim and exercise that right of absence in company, his pretended right should, in my mind, be turned into an involuntary absence, by his perpetual exclusion out of the company. However frivolous a company may be, still, while you are among them,do not show them by your inattention, that you think them so; but rather take their tone, and confirm in some degree to their weakness, instead of manifesting your contempt for them.”

This is a small example for his own style of expressing general issues which are easier thought than written down. So Chesterfield stands as testimony for a good guide(both for our life as well as our literary skills!).

2006-08-20T03:15:00.000-07:00

FOOD! FOOD! FOOD!

A WORD OF CAUTION: names of many dishes are transliterated ones(from tamil).So if the reader is not familiar with them he/she can assume it to be good food

I was looking right down at my plate kept on the mess table.It was a sick feeling that failed to get out of me and many of my other vegetarian friends.Yes this is one of the BITS,Pilani messes .I remember my school days when my mother served piping hot sambar and rasam with a large variety of vegetable side dishes.Sundays meant a morkozhambu or a vaththakozhambu which most tamils relish.
The situation seemed to get worser by the day.We could bear with our mess food at the beginning of a semester but that last tinge of hope vanished as days passed by.My mother would give me a call everyday.One day she would say she enjoyed a good meal of porichakozhambu,curd rice with pickle.Another day she would mention Kozhukattai.I could have burst to tears but sat there without options.The management did not budge even an iota regarding this mess ‘phenomenon’(obviously one needs good food for studies to go on smoothly).Big ladles served us unlimited food that we loathed to the core.I aptly recalled S.T.Coleridge’s poem ‘Rime of the ancient mariner’ which had those golden lines ‘water water everywhere not a drop to drink…..’
It was not the same case with the north indians(affectionately called CHOMs-for CHappathi Oriented Meins).They munched away chappathis like anything and enjoyed the dreaded grub(supposed to be better than the other day menus but beware it will knock out the wits out of a person).Here again nostalgia.I recalled excellent south Indian payasams,about a dozen like the navaratna payasam,semia payasametc whenever they provided us with a sweet which was not a sweet at all.
One of our friends was elected as the veg sec. of the mess and we got a ‘kootu’(a south Indian dish) for atleast twice a week that we could eat with satisfaction.Even this came under danger when some choms protested for having this item for the menu.Lots of poor souls were between the devil and the deep sea.(hunger and mess food).They had to be content with a big bar of Cadbury’s and a cooldrinkfor lunch on days when the mess drove away people with its characteristic smell.
Horror would await us in the morning for the breakfast.Anything that was provided meant no good as it would be too oily or would taste shit.Idly,dosai ,vadai and others like adais were awesome at home.
Many of my non-vegetarian friends did not seem to face any problems for I think it is in their nature to freely admit anything and everything through their oesophagus. We
Would get the threat of our lives by simply seeing one of their plates right opposite to ours. They exclaimed “here non veg is cooked better than the veg”.I am a person who respects our culture and if the old masters had practiced something(vegetarianism for instance),they meant it. ‘DHANWANTRI’-a general health book says that chemicals, especially adrenaline that are secreted in an animals body due to its fear of death at the time of butchering, stay in the flesh even afterwards.The chemicals have a similar effect on humans after entering the body as meat.
I recalled my filling experience at Hotel Saravana Bhavan ,Delhi at the beginning of the semester before our journey to Pilani from Delhi.(This journey is for 5 ½ hours with a break at a roadside Dhaba.Effectively, my lamenting began with the journey itself).’good food’-that was the last time I could see chutney varieties,pongal and many other south Indian varieties.People in Pilani rarely seemed to know what a coconut was.
The places that happened to be our saviours once in a while from the ruthlessness of mess food were C’not( a small place inside BITS campus named after the original cannought place in Delhi) and the IC(Institute Canteen).Though I wasn’t as conservative as my mother regarding food,I found that I could not survive on naans,kulchas,paneer butter masalas etc. that were available in c’not.Due to my request a small well-packed box arrived the following week.It was from my mother.I was so thrilled to open it and find sealed packet of pulikaachal and savouries like mixture,thattai etc. inside it.i thought “phew!this is how one has got to survive in a place known for its notorious weather and even more notorious food”.
Food is an essential part of any culture and hindu literature abounds in it.Right from the Bhagavat gita to Vedanta desikar’s ahara niyamam-a 21 verse tamil work which gives guidelines about foods that are to be accepted and rejected.Often I remembered the temple prasadams that were warm,tasty and gave a feeling of completeness of visiting temples.
‘Fruits’-that was what my amma advised me to make up for the everything deficient diet.I thought that was a lot better idea than my father’s,which was to swallow sea-cod pills and vitamin tablets day after day.One thing that made me calm was a situation that existed in one of the Tamilnadu colleges.They had to return the banana leaves after washing them after a meal.(students resorted to tearing of leaves to avoid this).
I was in my train after the semester and eagerly awaited my destination(Chennai) while I wondered how we were forced not to follow our tradition and to sacrifice all our rights to eat good food to obtain a B.E.[hons.] degree!

2006-08-18T05:05:00.000-07:00

TUTORIAL SYSTEM IN BITS

Well, I don’t know how many blogs or discussions in orkut have been guided by this,but I felt a necessity to express my view on this common problem(or rather a boon as some would put it).The evolution of a system could have had so many dynamical changes involved in it but what we face is its present state.
Going into the pros and cons………
Those who speak of advantages(including professors of course) say that you get to study regularly on smaller topics and get tested on them so that the whole course is mastered. A big NO from my side for it does not happen the way it should.That crushes the purpose of the system. Theory alone is taught in the lecture hours leaving the problem solving to the tutorial sessions(since they exist).The tutorial profs are mind you not eligible to teach anything ,copy their way out to somehow put up some solutions(of tha tut sheet)on the board and ultimately end up giving a nice tut problem for say 10 marks,after seeing which students get butterflies in their stomachs as they have never even understood the problems done in the previous half an hour or so.
That which makes life hell for people is the number of tuts per week.college life is TO HAVE freetime and do things that one likes and not keep cramming things everyday for this tut or the other.
A major accusation about BITS(by a few alumni) is that the standard of education has come down compared to the previous years.I feel a reason could be the tutorial systems. TUT MANUAL-Take out the book the previous night or that day morning,go to the section included ,etch into your memory the 2 formulae involved(very much true for ES-2),go to the tut section, sit idle for half an hour (or if bored try doing some problems),get the evaluation sheet ,pour out the formula,substitute the numbers involved,get it right!(Not a bit of working of the system you need to know for this!).
I do not mean to say that we all will be experts if the system is changed but hope 100 % that a better knowledge and a memorable college life(enjoying it or otherwise why would people describe CDCs as “acid test”?)will come to stay if at all changes are possible.