Origins of Vedic Clans – how European thinkers got it wrong
Origins of Vedic
Civilization
Kenneth Chandler, Ph.D.
(Three chapters from a book in progress)
The Indus-Saraswati Valley Civilizations spread over
more than 250,000 square miles, and included over
1600 sites. Most of the villages and cities were laid out
on an exact north-south grid on sites west of the river,
and were built with kiln-fired brick of uniform size.
Sites have been found dating from 6,500-7,000 BC.
Origins of Vedic
Civilization
Did Aryan Invaders of India Create the
Vedic Tradition?
HOW ANCIENT IS THE VEDIC TRADITION and how did it begin? Was it the
creation of a people who invaded India from outside, as many European scholars
believed for centuries? Or did it arise among an indigenous people of northern India? In
this chapter we will ask where the Vedic tradition originated, and in the next chapter,
we will consider when it came into existence. In the third chapter, we will consider its
relation to European civilization.
According to the Vedic tradition, the Veda is eternal. It exists within the eternal
fabric of consciousness itself. As such it is uncreated. But even so, we can ask, when
was the Veda first cognized? And when did the tradition of reciting the Veda begin?
Did Invaders of India Create the Vedic Tradition?
Many myths about the Veda and Vedic tradition have formed that must be dispelled
before we can get an accurate picture of its origins. One myth is that a race of lightskinned
Aryan peoples invaded India from outside, pushing the dark-skinned natives,
called Dravidians, into the south. According to this theory, the lighter-skinned race
invaded India in an incursion that took place, some scholars project, around 1,500 BC.
This myth persisted long after an overwhelming body of scientific evidence, and a
consensus of archeologists, showed that it is completely untenable. It must be
discredited before we can get an accurate picture of the character of Vedic Civilization.
As we will see, the Veda was first “cognized,” not by invading races from outside
India, but by a people who had lived continuously in India for thousands of years. Also,
the dates commonly ascribed to the origin of the Vedic tradition are probably off by
many thousands of years. Archeologists at Harvard, Oxford, and other top universities
in the US and Europe are now widely agreed that there was no invasion of India from
outside that displaced the peoples of the Saraswati and Iudus river valleys. This
civilization arose within northern India and there is also evidence, which we will
3 Origins of Vedic Civilization
consider in the next chapter, that Vedic civilization was either a precursor to the Indus-
Saraswati civilization or an early contributor to its cultural and spiritual heritage. Vedic
civilization arose in India many millennia before the speculative mythologies of the
past suggest.
Origins of the Indo-European Hypothesis
Linguistic similarities between Indian and European languages were recognized by
the earliest European scholars. In the late eighteenth century, it was observed that
Sanskrit, Iranian, and most European languages share many common words and
grammatical structures. Early linguists classified Vedic Sanskrit and the majority of
European tongues in the same “family of Indo-European languages.”
Sir William Jones was the first to show that there are many common cognate words
shared by Sanskrit and European languages. Speaking to the Asiatic Society in Calcutta
on February 2, 1786, Jones made a statement which was soon to become quite famous:
…the Sanskrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a
wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more
copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than
either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in
the roots of verbs and in the forms of grammar, than could
possibly have been produced by accident; so strong, indeed,
that no philosopher could examine them all three, without
believing them to have sprung from some common source,
which, perhaps, no longer exists.1
A quick glance at some of the common cognate words of English and Sanskrit shows
definite family resemblances that Jones spoke about:
Notes
1 Quoted in the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, ed. William Morris (Boston and
New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1969), article by Calvert Watkins, p. XIX.
4 Origins of Vedic Civilization
Common Cognate Words Shared by English and Sanskrit
advocate, adhivaktr
agri, ajira
bind, bandhi
bright, bharajat
brother, bhatr
candle, chandra
cardio, hrd
come, gam
deity, devata
eight, ashta
end, anta
genus, janus
gnosis, gnana
idea, vidya
identity, idamta
immortal, amrta
kalon, kalyana
mega, maha
man, manu
mind, manas
mortal, mrta
mother, matr
same, sama
three, tri
vivi, jiva
voice, vaca
wind, vata
wit video, vid
yoke, yoga
young, yuvan
me, mee, mum
In nineteenth century, the German linguist Friedrich Schlegel suggested that the
main body of European languages were derived from Sanskrit. Schlegel’s suggestion
was widely rejected, mainly because European scholars did not like to think that their
language and culture derived from India. But the early nineteenth century it was widely
recognized that all European languages and the Indic languages belonged to a common
“family,” distinct, for example, from Chinese, African, and American Indian language
families and groups. All but a few of the European languages, such as Basque for
example, belong to this distinct family of Indo-European languages. Thus, the idea that
an Indo-European language was at the root of the family of the main body of European
languages came into prominence.
To many European scholars of the nineteenth century (characterized more by their
Euro-centrism than by scientific attitudes towards peoples of other cultures), the idea
that the family of European languages family could have originated in India was
unthinkable. It was just not culturally acceptable to think that the roots of European
language and culture could be traced to darker-skinned peoples indigenous to India. So
European thinkers began to speculate about a pre-historic “proto-Indo-European” race
who had migrated from somewhere in Western Asia, perhaps around the Black Sea,
Eastern Europe, or Russia, to settle in India and in Europe. This, as we will see, was a
purely racial and cultural bias, with no basis in archeological fact.
2 G. S. Rayall, English and Sanskrit: A Common Heritage of Words, (Patiala: Punjab University Press,
1996).
Civilization
Kenneth Chandler, Ph.D.
(Three chapters from a book in progress)
The Indus-Saraswati Valley Civilizations spread over
more than 250,000 square miles, and included over
1600 sites. Most of the villages and cities were laid out
on an exact north-south grid on sites west of the river,
and were built with kiln-fired brick of uniform size.
Sites have been found dating from 6,500-7,000 BC.
Origins of Vedic
Civilization
Did Aryan Invaders of India Create the
Vedic Tradition?
HOW ANCIENT IS THE VEDIC TRADITION and how did it begin? Was it the
creation of a people who invaded India from outside, as many European scholars
believed for centuries? Or did it arise among an indigenous people of northern India? In
this chapter we will ask where the Vedic tradition originated, and in the next chapter,
we will consider when it came into existence. In the third chapter, we will consider its
relation to European civilization.
According to the Vedic tradition, the Veda is eternal. It exists within the eternal
fabric of consciousness itself. As such it is uncreated. But even so, we can ask, when
was the Veda first cognized? And when did the tradition of reciting the Veda begin?
Did Invaders of India Create the Vedic Tradition?
Many myths about the Veda and Vedic tradition have formed that must be dispelled
before we can get an accurate picture of its origins. One myth is that a race of lightskinned
Aryan peoples invaded India from outside, pushing the dark-skinned natives,
called Dravidians, into the south. According to this theory, the lighter-skinned race
invaded India in an incursion that took place, some scholars project, around 1,500 BC.
This myth persisted long after an overwhelming body of scientific evidence, and a
consensus of archeologists, showed that it is completely untenable. It must be
discredited before we can get an accurate picture of the character of Vedic Civilization.
As we will see, the Veda was first “cognized,” not by invading races from outside
India, but by a people who had lived continuously in India for thousands of years. Also,
the dates commonly ascribed to the origin of the Vedic tradition are probably off by
many thousands of years. Archeologists at Harvard, Oxford, and other top universities
in the US and Europe are now widely agreed that there was no invasion of India from
outside that displaced the peoples of the Saraswati and Iudus river valleys. This
civilization arose within northern India and there is also evidence, which we will
3 Origins of Vedic Civilization
consider in the next chapter, that Vedic civilization was either a precursor to the Indus-
Saraswati civilization or an early contributor to its cultural and spiritual heritage. Vedic
civilization arose in India many millennia before the speculative mythologies of the
past suggest.
Origins of the Indo-European Hypothesis
Linguistic similarities between Indian and European languages were recognized by
the earliest European scholars. In the late eighteenth century, it was observed that
Sanskrit, Iranian, and most European languages share many common words and
grammatical structures. Early linguists classified Vedic Sanskrit and the majority of
European tongues in the same “family of Indo-European languages.”
Sir William Jones was the first to show that there are many common cognate words
shared by Sanskrit and European languages. Speaking to the Asiatic Society in Calcutta
on February 2, 1786, Jones made a statement which was soon to become quite famous:
…the Sanskrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a
wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more
copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than
either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in
the roots of verbs and in the forms of grammar, than could
possibly have been produced by accident; so strong, indeed,
that no philosopher could examine them all three, without
believing them to have sprung from some common source,
which, perhaps, no longer exists.1
A quick glance at some of the common cognate words of English and Sanskrit shows
definite family resemblances that Jones spoke about:
Notes
1 Quoted in the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, ed. William Morris (Boston and
New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1969), article by Calvert Watkins, p. XIX.
4 Origins of Vedic Civilization
Common Cognate Words Shared by English and Sanskrit
advocate, adhivaktr
agri, ajira
bind, bandhi
bright, bharajat
brother, bhatr
candle, chandra
cardio, hrd
come, gam
deity, devata
eight, ashta
end, anta
genus, janus
gnosis, gnana
idea, vidya
identity, idamta
immortal, amrta
kalon, kalyana
mega, maha
man, manu
mind, manas
mortal, mrta
mother, matr
same, sama
three, tri
vivi, jiva
voice, vaca
wind, vata
wit video, vid
yoke, yoga
young, yuvan
me, mee, mum
In nineteenth century, the German linguist Friedrich Schlegel suggested that the
main body of European languages were derived from Sanskrit. Schlegel’s suggestion
was widely rejected, mainly because European scholars did not like to think that their
language and culture derived from India. But the early nineteenth century it was widely
recognized that all European languages and the Indic languages belonged to a common
“family,” distinct, for example, from Chinese, African, and American Indian language
families and groups. All but a few of the European languages, such as Basque for
example, belong to this distinct family of Indo-European languages. Thus, the idea that
an Indo-European language was at the root of the family of the main body of European
languages came into prominence.
To many European scholars of the nineteenth century (characterized more by their
Euro-centrism than by scientific attitudes towards peoples of other cultures), the idea
that the family of European languages family could have originated in India was
unthinkable. It was just not culturally acceptable to think that the roots of European
language and culture could be traced to darker-skinned peoples indigenous to India. So
European thinkers began to speculate about a pre-historic “proto-Indo-European” race
who had migrated from somewhere in Western Asia, perhaps around the Black Sea,
Eastern Europe, or Russia, to settle in India and in Europe. This, as we will see, was a
purely racial and cultural bias, with no basis in archeological fact.
2 G. S. Rayall, English and Sanskrit: A Common Heritage of Words, (Patiala: Punjab University Press,
1996).
Origins of Vedic Civilization
Many European scholars immediately bought in to the “Indo-European hypothesis,”
which was the stimulus to develop the discipline of historical linguistics. European
scholars like Max Muller, Thomas Young, Joseph de Goubinau, Dwight Witney, Sir
Mortimer Wheeler, A.L. Basham, George Cox, and John Fiske all adopted the theory of
Indo-European origins. They commonly proposed that a people speaking “proto-Indo-
European” came from somewhere in central or Western Asia or southeaster Europe,
invaded India from the northwest, overran the local culture, and settled in the north of
India.
These Indo-Europeans were said to be “Aryans” in race and language, which meant
primarily fair-haired and light-skinned people. By the twentieth century they were
conceived, mainly by German scholars, as a blue-eyed, blond race that was the stock of
the Germanic people—all nicely fitting the cultural-political-racial agendas of Western
Europe—and Nazi Germany in particular.
In spite of the large number of scholars of the late nineteenth and early twentieth
century who believed the invasion theory, it turns out, as we see below, that there is
almost no shred of evidence to support it. It is one of the great myths formed by
European scholars to support their bias that outside invaders created early Indian
civilization. Anthropologist today find all evidence points to an origin of the Vedic
tradition that is indigenous to northern India.
Scientific Archeology:
The End of the Invasion Theory
In the 1990s, a new wave of scientific evidence, coming partly from satellite photos,
geological study, archeological digs, and other anthropological finds began to seriously
discredit the old myth. Once the rubble of false assumptions was cleared away, a far
more simple scientific picture of the origins of ancient north Indian civilization began
to emerge.
Professor Colin Renfrew, professor of archeology at Cambridge University, in his
Archeology and Language: The Puzzle of Indo-European Origins, (1988) gives
evidence for Indo-Europeans in India as early as 6,000 BC. He comments:
As far as I can see there is nothing in the Hymns of the
Rigveda which demonstrates that the Vedic-speaking
Many European scholars immediately bought in to the “Indo-European hypothesis,”
which was the stimulus to develop the discipline of historical linguistics. European
scholars like Max Muller, Thomas Young, Joseph de Goubinau, Dwight Witney, Sir
Mortimer Wheeler, A.L. Basham, George Cox, and John Fiske all adopted the theory of
Indo-European origins. They commonly proposed that a people speaking “proto-Indo-
European” came from somewhere in central or Western Asia or southeaster Europe,
invaded India from the northwest, overran the local culture, and settled in the north of
India.
These Indo-Europeans were said to be “Aryans” in race and language, which meant
primarily fair-haired and light-skinned people. By the twentieth century they were
conceived, mainly by German scholars, as a blue-eyed, blond race that was the stock of
the Germanic people—all nicely fitting the cultural-political-racial agendas of Western
Europe—and Nazi Germany in particular.
In spite of the large number of scholars of the late nineteenth and early twentieth
century who believed the invasion theory, it turns out, as we see below, that there is
almost no shred of evidence to support it. It is one of the great myths formed by
European scholars to support their bias that outside invaders created early Indian
civilization. Anthropologist today find all evidence points to an origin of the Vedic
tradition that is indigenous to northern India.
Scientific Archeology:
The End of the Invasion Theory
In the 1990s, a new wave of scientific evidence, coming partly from satellite photos,
geological study, archeological digs, and other anthropological finds began to seriously
discredit the old myth. Once the rubble of false assumptions was cleared away, a far
more simple scientific picture of the origins of ancient north Indian civilization began
to emerge.
Professor Colin Renfrew, professor of archeology at Cambridge University, in his
Archeology and Language: The Puzzle of Indo-European Origins, (1988) gives
evidence for Indo-Europeans in India as early as 6,000 BC. He comments:
As far as I can see there is nothing in the Hymns of the
Rigveda which demonstrates that the Vedic-speaking
population were intrusive to the area: this comes rather 6 Origins of Vedic Civilization from a historical assumption about the ‘coming’ of the Indo-Europeans.3
Professor Schaffer at Case Western University writes in “Migration, Philology and
South Asian Archaeology” that there was an indigenous development of civilization in
India going back to at least 6000 BC. He proposes that the Harappan or Indus Valley
urban culture (2600-1900 BC) centered around the Saraswati river described in the Rig
Veda and states that the Indus Valley culture came to an end, not because of outside
invaders, but due to environmental changes, most important of which was the drying up
of the Saraswati river.
Schaffer holds that the movement of populations away from the Saraswati to the
Ganges after the Saraswati dried up in about 1900 BC, is reflected in the change from
the Saraswati-based literature of the Rig Veda to the Ganges-based literature of the
Itihasa and Puranic texts. He also states that the Aryan invasion theory reflects a
colonial and Euro-centric perspective that is quite out of date. He concludes:
We reject most strongly the simplistic historical interpretations…
that continue to be imposed on south Asian culture
history…Surely, as south Asian studies approach the
twenty-first century, it is time to describe emerging data
objectively rather than perpetuate interpretations without
regard to the data archaeologists have worked so hard to
reveal.4
Anthropologist Brian Hemphill of Vanderbilt University has been studying the human
remains of the northern Indian subcontinent for years. He states categorically that his
analysis shows no indication of population replacement or large-scale migration.5
Archaeologist Mark Kenoyer, associate professor of anthropology at the University of
Wisconsin at Madison, and co-director of the Harappa Archeological Research project,
holds that the invasion theory is completely unsupported by archeological, linguistic, or
literary evidence. He writes in an article on the Indus valley civilization:
3 Colin Renfrew, Professor of Archeology at Cambridge University, in his famous work, Archeology and
Language:
Professor Schaffer at Case Western University writes in “Migration, Philology and
South Asian Archaeology” that there was an indigenous development of civilization in
India going back to at least 6000 BC. He proposes that the Harappan or Indus Valley
urban culture (2600-1900 BC) centered around the Saraswati river described in the Rig
Veda and states that the Indus Valley culture came to an end, not because of outside
invaders, but due to environmental changes, most important of which was the drying up
of the Saraswati river.
Schaffer holds that the movement of populations away from the Saraswati to the
Ganges after the Saraswati dried up in about 1900 BC, is reflected in the change from
the Saraswati-based literature of the Rig Veda to the Ganges-based literature of the
Itihasa and Puranic texts. He also states that the Aryan invasion theory reflects a
colonial and Euro-centric perspective that is quite out of date. He concludes:
We reject most strongly the simplistic historical interpretations…
that continue to be imposed on south Asian culture
history…Surely, as south Asian studies approach the
twenty-first century, it is time to describe emerging data
objectively rather than perpetuate interpretations without
regard to the data archaeologists have worked so hard to
reveal.4
Anthropologist Brian Hemphill of Vanderbilt University has been studying the human
remains of the northern Indian subcontinent for years. He states categorically that his
analysis shows no indication of population replacement or large-scale migration.5
Archaeologist Mark Kenoyer, associate professor of anthropology at the University of
Wisconsin at Madison, and co-director of the Harappa Archeological Research project,
holds that the invasion theory is completely unsupported by archeological, linguistic, or
literary evidence. He writes in an article on the Indus valley civilization:
3 Colin Renfrew, Professor of Archeology at Cambridge University, in his famous work, Archeology and
Language:
The Puzzle of Indo-European Origins, (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1988) Renfrew
also sees evidence that the Indo-Europeans were in Greece as early as 6,000 BC.
4 in Aryan and Non-Aryan in South Asia: Evidence, Interpretation and History, ed. by Bronkhorst and
Deshpande, University of Michigan Press.
5 See Jonnathan Mark Kenoyer, “Birth of a Civilization.” Archeology, January/February 1998, 54-61, p.
61.
7 Origins of Vedic Civilization
If previous scholars were wrong about the origin of the
Indus people, they also missed the boat when it came to
explaining their downfall, which they attributed to an
invasion by Indo-Aryan speaking Vedic tribes from the
northwest.6
Archeological evidence simply does not support the thesis of an outside invasion.
Kenoyer argues, “it’s likely that the rivers dried up and shifted their courses, altering
trade routes and undermining the economy.” Kenoyer holds that the Indus valley script
can be traced to at least 3,300 BC—making it as old or older than the oldest Sumerian
written records.
Archaeologist Kenneth Kennedy writes that no Aryan skeletons have been found in
the Indus valley that differ from the skeletons of indigenous ethnic groups.
All prehistoric human remains recovered from the Indian
subcontinent are phenotypically identifiable as south
Asians. Furthermore their biological continuity with living
peoples of India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and the border regions
is well established across time and space.7
Scientific archeology, it is now safe to say, no longer gives the invasion theory a grain
of credibility. It has lost its supporters among serious scientists.
Also, as professor Renfrew argues, there is no internal evidence from the ancient
Vedic literature that Vedic civilization originated outside India. The verses of the Rig
Veda, the most ancient songs of Vedic tradition, detail many aspects of daily life of the
people. There is no hint in this vast literature of a migration or of a history that lies in a
homeland beyond the mountains of northern India. All evidence from archeology,
anthropology, and Vedic literature indicate that Vedic civilization was indigenous to
northern India. Geological data now explains the demise of the Indus and Saraswati
valley civilizations in terms of climactic change, bringing an end to the outsideinvasion
theory.
6 Mark Kenoyer, “Indus Valley: Secrets of a Civilization” in Wisconsin, Fall 1998. See also E.J.H. Mackay,
Further Excavations at Mohenjo-daro, 1938, p. 222.
7 Kenneth Kennedy, “Have Aryans Been Identified in the Prehistoric Skeletal Record from South Asia”
appearing in The Indo-Aryans of South Asia (Walter de Gruyter, 1995) Kennedy writes, “Assumptions
that blondism, blue-grey eyes and light skin pigmentation are physical hallmarks of either ancient Aryans
or of members of Brahmin and other social groups in modern south Asia, find their origins in the
improper marriage of excerpts from Vedic texts with nineteenth century Germanic nationalistic writings.”
8 Origins of Vedic Civilization
Causes of the Decline of the Indus-Saraswati Civilization
Geological and archeological evidence, it turns out, give strong evidence that a long
and devastating drought followed by devastating floods led to the abandonment of the
settlements along the banks of the Indus and Saraswati rivers in western India, ending
an urban civilization that had flourished, archeologists now surmise, sometime between
2,600 BC and 1,900 BC. The Indus and Saraswati valley civilization was vast and
widespread, and covered over 250,000 square miles, from north central India in the east
all the way to the eastern edge of Iran in the west. There is no evidence to suggest that
this vast civilization was destroyed by Indo-European Aryan invaders, but rather, it is
now virtually certain that its demise came as a result of widespread climatic changes
that occurred in 1,900 BC.
Recent studies by Louis Flam of H. H. Lehman College of the City University of
New York have shown that the course of the Indus river changed dramatically around
1,900 BC, probably flooding many settlements along the river and disrupting the Indus
valley civilization. Jim Schaffer of Case Western University has found impressive
evidence that settlers of the Indus valley migrated at this time east to the plane of the
Ganges.8
Mortimer Wheeler, the anthropologists who excavated Mohenjo-Daro in the in the
1920s , one of the most well-preserved cities of the Indus Valley civilization, brought to
the project an “outside invasion theory.” He found unburied skeletons in the most
recent layers of the city which led him to think that he had evidence that the civilization
was overrun by invaders from outside. More reliable recent evidence has shown that the
people of the Indus valley were not victims of invasion and massacre, but that their
civilization withered as a result of various climactic changes, including prolonged
droughts and extensive flooding, and possibly also earthquakes that changed the course
of the rivers.
It was not outside invaders of India who brought an end to the Indus-Saraswati
civilization, but a series of climactic changes and natural disasters. The biases of
European scholarship caused them to see invaders where there were none. They existed
only in the imagination of European scholars.
Historical Linguistics and Migrations of Early Civilization
The other issue that needs to be considered is language origins. Historical linguistics
appears to detect patterns of language change which some think may imply patterns of
8 See Jonnathan Mark Kenoyer, “Birth of a Civilization.” Archeology, January/February 1998, 54-61, p. 60.
9 Origins of Vedic Civilization
migration of early peoples, and which may therefore provide a clue to the origins of
Vedic civilization.
The original theory proposed by the early historical linguistics who considered these
issues was that Vedic Sanskrit conserved the original sound system of the “proto-Indo-
European” language most closely, and that Iranian and European languages underwent
a systematic sound shift, creating break-away or daughter languages spoken by the
people who populated India and Europe.9 According to this theory, Vedic Sanskrit was
put at near the trunk of the proto-Indo-European language tree, if not the trunk itself.
This theory has been challenged and hotly debated in recent years, most especially by
computer linguists.10 Since the 1990s, it is now common for computer linguists to hold
that Sanskrit is not so near the root of the Indo-European language tree, but a
subsequent branch. A currently dominant theory is that the original Indo-European
language stemmed from an Indo-European proto-language that has since been lost.
The first languages to break off from the proto-Indo-European root, according to the
dominant contemporary linguistic theories, was Anatolian (the language of what is now
central Turkey), followed by Celtic (a language found in nearby Thrace in northeastern
Greece, and also Ireland suggesting that there was a commerce or colonization between
Ireland and early Thrace), then Greek, and then Armenian.11 According to these
theories, the Indian and Iranian language groups are still later branches off the proto-
Indo-European “root.”
The linguistic evidence appears to imply migrations of people from the Black Sea area
into India, and yet there is no anthropological evidence to support either a migration
into northern India, or an invasion. Evidence from skeletal remains, as we saw, as well
as pottery and other artifacts, show no cultural replacement at any time in north Indian
9 Thomas V. Gamkrelidze and V. V. Ivanov, “Family Tree of the Indo-European Languages,” Scientific
American, March, 1990, p. 110 and following.
10 Dr. Don Ringe and Dr. Ann Taylor, two linguists at the University of Pennsylvania, with the help of
computer scientist Dr. Tandy Warnow, developed a computer algorithm to sift through the Indo-
European languages and look for grammatical and phonetic similarities between them. Their work,
published in 1996, has thrown up four possible family trees. “We have come up with a favorite,” says Dr.
Warnow. The tree shows that the first breakaway language was Anatolian, an ancient group of languages
once spoken in Turkey. Celtic was quick to follow, spawning Irish, Gaelic, Welsh and Breton. Armenian
and Greek then developed from proto-Into-European. Strangely enough, one of the later branches to
emerge, according to the runs of the computer programs, was Sanskrit.
11 It is interesting that the Celts settled in Thrace in northern Greece, just a short distance from Anatolia.
Thrace was the birthplace of the Orphic mysteries which swept into Greece in the sixth century BC.
Celtic is one of the earliest languages, along with Anatolian and Greek, to break off from the Indo
European proto-language. The technique for self-knowledge described by Socrates were said to have
come from Thrace. The Anatolians of central Turkey occupied the area near where the pre-Socratic
tradition sprang up in the sixth century BC. This suggests that a technique was passed from India into the
Celtic language.
10 Origins of Vedic Civilization
history. This makes it difficult to conclude that a people speaking a proto-Indo-
European root language migrated to India from outside, resulting in a language shift to
the daughter language of Sanskrit. The hard anthropological evidence just does not
support such a view. How else, then, can we account for the apparently late evolution of
Sanskrit from the proto-Indo-European root language?
Eminent computer linguists caution against drawing conclusions from computersimulated
language programs—which may reflect the assumptions of the programmers
more than the branches of the linguistic tree.12 They caution that computer linguists
tend to program in assumptions that reflect their own biases and expectations, and
therefore the outcomes cannot be any more accurate than the assumptions. Computer
linguistics does not necessarily mean unbiased, objective linguistics, but may, on the
contrary, program in distinct biases of the linguists. If linguists start with a theory of an
outside invasion, they will naturally bring those biases into their work, and it is not
unthinkable that such biases have colored computer and historical linguistic theories.
It also needs to be pointed out that if a false assumption is programmed in, then
anything at all can come out. Anything at all can be derived from a false assumption. If
the assumption that Sanskrit is not the proto-Indo-European language root be false, then
anything follows.
More on the Indo-European Proto-Language
In 1990, Thomas V. Gamkrelidze and V. V. Ivanov, authors of the two volume The
Indo-European Language and the Indo-Europeans,13 published an article in Scientific
American, in which they state, “The landscape described by the reconstructed Indo-
European proto-language is mountainous—as evidenced by the many words for high
mountains, mountain lakes and rapid rivers flowing from mountain sources.” They note
also that, “the [proto-Indo-European language] has words for animals that are alien to
Europe, such as “leopard,” “snow leopard,” “lion,” “monkey” and “elephant.””14 The
authors suggest, on the basis of this and other linguistic evidence, that the homeland of
the proto-Indo-Europeans was somewhere in the Caucasian mountains of western Asia
near the Black Sea in around 4000 BC.
These same words could be used to make the case that the mountainous terrain, and
more especially the elephant, monkey, and snow leopard are more commonly found in
12 Personal communication with several faculty of the linguistics department at the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill.
13 Thomas V. Gamkrelidze and V. V. Ivanov, The Indo-European Language and the Indo-Europeans,
(published in Russian in 1984)
14 Thomas V. Gamkrelidze and V. V. Ivanov, “Family Tree of the Indo-European Languages,” Scientific
American, March, 1990, p. 110 and following.
11 Origins of Vedic Civilization
the region of northern India and the Himalayas.15 If the words for elephant, monkey,
snow leopard, and mountains are in fact more abundant in the Indo-European protolanguage,
this would most likely put the proto-Indo-European home somewhere in the
Himalayan region of northern India, rather than in the Mountains to the east of the
Black Sea. This would tend to support the hypothesis that the Indo-European protolanguage
originated in the region of the Himalayas of northern India and Tibet, rather
than in the area of central Turkey, where there are few monkeys and elephants.
At present, there is simply not enough evidence to discern the early patterns of
migration and language shift that brought about the different language groups. We can
say with relative certainty, however, that the Vedic people did not migrate into India
from outside, so it is relatively unlikely that the Vedic language came from outside
India. Thus the origins of Vedic Sanskrit remain obscure.16
Many linguists stress that our “linguistic heritage, while it may tend to correspond
with cultural continuity, does not imply genetic or biological descent. There is no more
reason to suppose that we, as speakers of an Indo-European language, are descended
biologically from the speakers of proto-Indo-European, than that the English speaking
population of Nigeria is Anglo-Saxon.”17 It is necessary to be very careful in drawing
conclusions about migration patterns and racial origins from linguistic evidence.
Rules of Language Transformation
A main tool of historical linguistics is the set of rules of sound and grammatical
transformation governing the language change. One language evolves into another due
to cultural or geographic separations of peoples due to migrations or other cultural
displacements, such as conquest. Using the rules of historical linguistics, it appears to
15 Thomas V. Gamkrelidze and V. V. Ivanov, “Family Tree of the Indo-European Languages,” Scientific
American, March, 1990, p. 110 and following. The authors argue that more “recent evidence now places
the probable origin of the Indo-European language in western Asia.” They hypothesize that the proto-
Indo-Europeans originated sometime around 4,000 BC in the region around the Black Sea.
16 Radio-carbon dating of skeletal remains of the “Kennikut man” found in the late 1990s in the Columbia
river gorge on the west coast of north America shows that caucasoidal men inhabited Oregon more than
ten thousand years ago. Some words of the Klamath Indians of that region of Oregon are also of apparent
Indo-European origin. The Klamath word which means “to blow” is “pniw” and may be linked to the
Greek “pneu” which means breath or to blow, and ultimately to the Sanskrit “prana” which means breath.
Linguists assume this was mere accident before the discovery of Caucasoid remains in the area. This
would suggest that a migration into the Americas took place 10,000 years ago or more—and the
immigrants brought with them an Indo-European language, putting the dates of the proto-European root
at before 10,000 BC. The Rig Veda civilization, like the American Indians, had a bow and arrow
technology. Rig Vedic civilization can be placed in time as more advanced than the Indian culture of
10,000 years ago.
17 American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, ed. William Morris (Boston and New York:
Houghton Mifflin, 1969), article by Calvert Watkins, p. XX.
12 Origins of Vedic Civilization
be possible to discern patterns of change and to determine which language has shifted
into the other.
One such rule is the softening of consonants over time. Thus, for example, the “v” in
the Sanskrit “Veda,” meaning knowledge, is transformed into the softer English “w” in
“wit,” “witten,” “wisdom” and the German “wissen,” which also means knowledge,
and derives from the more ancient Sanskrit root. The Sanskrit “deva” is transformed
into the softer Latin “deus,” Greek “theos,” Lithuanian “dewas,” Irish “dia,” and Old
Prussian “diews.”
Using such transformation rules, linguists attempt to reconstruct which languages are
earlier and which broke off later in the transmutation of language. Historical linguists
assume that these rules are constant over time and that they apply to early
transformations as well as later ones.
If we assume that the basic rules of language transformations are constant and do not
mutate over time, then these conclusions follow. But could there have been sound shifts
in the opposite direction at much earlier times in history? Perhaps different laws
applied at the time when Vedic Sanskrit changed from and to other languages.
Consider that there are also changes in the reverse direction. For example, the “g” in
the Sanskrit “go,” (meaning cow) is transformed into the harder consonant “k,” to make
the German word “kuh” for cow. The English word “cow,” pronounced with a hard
“k,” is a harder, guttural form than the “g” in the Sanskrit “go.”
Also, in the case of the Vedic tradition, we have a people who were highly conscious
of language and sound and the rules of sound transformation, even from the early
Vedanga period. The Vedangas give elaborate theories of sound and its relation to
meaning. Ancient Sanskrit grammar has its own rules for the transformation of
consonants, internal rules for change, codified in ancient texts on phonology and
grammar (Nirukta and Vakaran), both of which express elaborate theories of sound.
Such self-reflective theories at an early date may have influenced the direction of
language shift and may be anomalous to the rules applied in later linguistic theory.
Other hypotheses may explain why Vedic Sanskrit appears to not be the proto-Indo-
European root language. One might propose, for example, that an early form of Sanskrit
arose in northern India, and that some north Indian peoples migrated west to the Black
Sea area, where their language mutated into Anatolian, Armenian, Celtic, and Greek.
Then language change within Vedic Sanskrit, due to self-reflective grammatical
theories, have mutated this earlier form of Sanskrit in a direction contrary to the typical
rules of linguistic transformation.
13 Origins of Vedic Civilization
Computer simulated models of language change may be simply wrong or misleading.
In other words, the transformation “rules” of historical linguistics may not apply to
changes as early as Vedic Sanskrit. Or they may reflect more the racial and cultural
biases of the programmers. Rather than assume a migration from the Black Sea area
into India, which is not supported by anthropological evidence, we must simply
acknowledge that we do not have enough knowledge to discern the early patterns of
migration of the people who wrote the Vedic literature. The simplest hypothesis to
account for the data may be that Vedic Sanskrit is itself is the mother tongue of the
proto-Indo-European peoples.
Summary: Euro-centrism and Objective Science
For years, theories of the origins of the Indo-European people were based on small
bits of evidence that were used to make sweeping generalizations. The Euro-centric
perspective so heavily biased the discussion that it became necessary for scientists of
the later twentieth century to re-examine and re-balance the perspectives in order to
remove long-standing misconceptions formed by two centuries of speculative mythmaking.
When these misconceptions are eliminated by objective science, no evidence
remains that the Veda tradition came to India from outside.
Now we come to our second main question, How long ago was the Veda first
cognized? When did the Veda first come to be known in the civilization of India? How
far back in time does the Vedic tradition go?
How Ancient is the
Vedic Tradition?
New Light on the Cradle of Civilization
A SECOND MYTH that dies hard is that Vedic civilization came into existence as
recently as 1000 to 1200 BC. Many scholars today have come to think that these dates
are ridiculously recent and that the Vedic tradition, meaning the tradition of reciting the
Rig Veda and the Vedic literature, is far more ancient. Scholars of the nineteenth
century, the highly venerated Max Muller for one, give dates as recently as 1,000 to
1,200 BC.18 These dates, like the Aryan invasion theory, are products of a Euro-centric
bias. They were rooted in unsustainable religious, cultural, and ethnic assumptions that
were not based on scientific evidence.
Max Muller, one of many Christian missionaries to India, was firmly committed to
the Biblical account of creation. Muller accepted the date of creation given in the Bible
at 4004 BC and the great flood at 1500 BC. This compelled him to date the Rig Veda
much later in time than an impartial scientist would have done. Muller had to fit the
entire Vedic tradition into a time-frame following the great flood, which Biblical
scholars held took place in 1500 BC.
Muller wrote a letter to his wife, dated 1886, in which he said “The translation of the
Veda will hereafter tell to a great extent on the fate of India and on the growth of
millions of souls in that country. It is the root of their religion, and to show them what
the root is, I feel sure, is the only way of uprooting all that has sprung from it during the
last 3,000 years.” These are hardly the words of an unbiased scientist. No matter how
great Muller’s scholarly reputation, we have to examine his reasons for setting the dates
around 1000 to 12000 BC.
Muller recognized that the Vedic tradition had to exist (n part) before Buddha, who
lived in about 500 BC and who reacted against the Vedic tradition. Muller and other
Germanic scholars also noticed that the Agni Purana (16) and other Vedic texts refer to
18 These dates were given by Max Muller. For a recent discussion of Muller’s projected dates, which were
meant as a minimum of time, not an actual dating, see Maurice Winternitz, A History of Vedic Literature,
Vol. 1, (New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1981), pp. 270-288, especially p.273.
15 How Ancient is Vedic Civilization
Buddha, so they felt justified in thinking that the Vedic tradition was just a little more
ancient than Buddhism, and they put the dates of the Vedic period roughly two-thirds of
way between the great flood (the Biblical limit they accepted) and the time of Buddha.
Muller thus set the dates of the Vedic period at 1000 to 1200 BC. Muller reasoned that
if Buddha rejected the Vedic tradition, the Rig Veda must have preceded him by at least
several centuries, but it had to have started (in his opinion as a Bible scholar) after the
great flood.
Even Muller, however, recognized that this was an estimate of a bare minimum of
time that lapsed between the beginning of the Vedic tradition and the time of Buddha.
However, it became commonplace for textbooks to give the dates of the Vedic tradition
as 1,000 to 1200 BC, based on Muller’s minimum estimate. Soon these were known as
the dates of the Rig Veda. This fixed Muller’s estimate of a bare minimum into an
absolute date in the popular imagination.19 The mud of speculation had become
sedimented into the brick of common belief. Current evidence shows that the Veda did
not began so recently in human history. The references to Buddha occur in very late
additions and have no bearings on the far more ancient origins of the Vedic tradition.
Satellite Photographs and Geological Evidence:
Dates of the Saraswati River and the Rig Veda
More recent scholars, such as David Frawley, Dr. B.G. Siddharth, Dr. S.B. Roy,
Professor Subhash Kak, Dr. N.R. Waradpande, and Bhagwan Singh have made a case
for much more ancient dates of the Rig Veda. Also B.G. Tilak, P.C. Sengupta, Pargiter,
Jagat Pati Joshi, Dikshit, K.N. Shastri, Sri Aurobindo, Hermann Jacobi, Dayananda
Saraswati, B.G. Sidharth, among many others, have argued for its greater antiquity.
David Frawley and N.S. Rajaram, in Vedic “Aryans” and the Origins of Civilization,
put forward an interesting and compelling theory of the origins of Vedic civilization.
Drawing upon a large array of evidence from anthropology, satellite mapping, geology,
historical linguistic, and literary study, they have helped discredit the old “Aryan
invasion theory” to establish that the Rig Veda was of much greater antiquity than
Muller had estimated.
One of the strongest bits evidence comes from satellite pictures of an ancient and
dried riverbed that is now taken to be the former bed of the Saraswati river. This great
19 There is strong evidence that Max Muller mistakenly judged the antiquity of the Indian literature by
thousands of years or more (see below). His arbitrary and most unconvincing placement of Alexander’s
visit to India to coincide with Chandragupta Maurya is widely disputed today by many scholars.
According to the evidence of the Purunas, Buddha lived approximately 1,800 BC., and Chandragupta/
Tekshasila (Taxila) was about 1700 BC. The university at Nalanda probably flourished around 1,400 BC.
16 How Ancient is Vedic Civilization
river, described in the Rig Veda as a “mighty river flowing from the mountains to the
sea,” has long since disappeared from the maps of modern India, until satellite pictures
revealed the bed of an ancient river running from the Himalayas to the western gulf of
the Indian ocean, roughly paralleling the course of the Indus, but lying to the east of the
Indus.
Satellite photos and geological field studies show that the Saraswati ceased to be a
perennial river and flowed only seasonally, sometime before 3,000 BC. Also, since
approximately 1,900, the Saraswati riverbed has been completely dry. This, as we will
see, is a key piece of the scientific evidence to establish dates of the Rig Veda.
The Saraswati was fed by melt from Himalayan glaciers, after the receding of the last
ice age, about 8,000 BC. As the melting glacial waters ceased to feed the river, it
changed its course, became a seasonal river, perhaps went underground, and eventually
dried up in its former riverbed. Some, like Subhash Kak, hold that the change in the
course of the river was due to an earthquake.
This event left the many settlements along the banks of the Saraswati to their fate. As
the river dried, without water the agricultural settlements and villages were no longer
sustainable. After this time, the towns and cities were re-located to the Indus river
valley nearby and still later, after the droughts and flooding that came to the Indus and
Saraswati valleys around 1,900 BC, settlers migrated further east to the Ganges river
plain.
The Rig Veda mentions the Indus river quite often, and it mentions the Saraswati no
less than 60 times. Its reference to the Saraswati as a “mighty river flowing from the
mountains to the sea” shows that the Rig Vedic tradition must have been in existence
long before 3,000 BC when the Saraswati ceased to be a “mighty river” and became a
seasonal trickle. Frawley and Rajaram drew the conclusion that the Rig Veda must have
been composed long before 3,000 BC.
Rajaram writes that the “Saraswati described in the Rig Veda belongs to a date long
before 3,000 BC.” He concludes that, “All this shows that the Rig Veda must have been
in existence no later than 3,500 BC.”20 He thus places the beginning of the Vedic
tradition “long before 3,000 BC” and its end before 2,000 BC.
The Mahabharata, the great epic of classical Sanskrit, describes the Saraswati as a
seasonal river. Since the Saraswati dried up by 1900 BC, the Mahabharata would have
to be dated at least before 1,900 BC. Since it was still a seasonal river in 3,000,
Rajaram and Frawley put the date of the Mahabharata in 3,000 BC.
20 N.S. Rajaram, Hindustan Times. N.S. Rajaram, Aryan Invasion of India: The Myth and the Truth.
17 How Ancient is Vedic Civilization
Evidence from French SPOT satellite and the Indo-French field study have changed
this conception of history. By showing that the Saraswati ceased to be a mighty river
long before 3,000 BC, they showed that the Rig Vedic civilization must have begun
long before the Saraswati became a seasonal trickle sometime long before 3,000 BC. If
the Rig Vedic tradition began before 3,500 BC, this would date it earlier the
civilizations of Egypt, Harappa, or Mesopotamia.
Other Approaches to Dating the Vedic Tradition
In an article entitled, “Birth of a Civilization,” in Archeology, January/February 1998,
anthropologist Mark Kenoyer sums up decades of scientific research on the archeology
of India and argues that the Rig Veda verses were known on the subcontinent sometime
before 1500 BC, by communities in the northwest area of the subcontinent.21 This is,
again, a minimal date, not an attempt to fix the time of the Vedic period at 1,500 BC.
Maurice Winternitz, a German scholar and author of the two volume History of
Indian Literature, extensively re-examined the evidence for Muller’s dates in 1981, a
decade before the movement to push back the dates of Vedic civilization that started in
the 1990s. Winternitz estimated how long it would have taken for the vast body of
Vedic literature to form and develop before the Buddhist revival in 500 BC. He
considered each of the major periods of Vedic literature and estimated a bare minimal
time for the incubation of each. His estimate of 1900 years put the beginning of the
Vedic tradition at sometime before 2,400 BC as a bare minimum.
The vast literature of the Rig Veda, the Brahmanans, the Aranyakas, the Upanishads,
the Vedangas, the Upangas, the Puranans, the Itihasa, the systems of Ayur-Veda,
Winternitz argued—each a huge body of literature—required a sustained incubation
period that must have taken an extended period of time. Winternitz could not imagine
that this had taken place in the short span of time that had been assigned for it to
happen between 1,500 BC and 500 BC when Buddha lived. This, it must be
emphasized again, was Winternitz’s estimate of a minimum time, and was not meant to
fix the date of the Rig Vedic beginning.
The City Under the Sea:
Dwarka
Undersea exploration of an ancient city about half a mile off the coast of Gujarat in
India, in 1981, lead to the discovery a city that had been submerged since 1,600 BC.
The city is well established to be Dwarka, an ancient city mentioned in the
Mahabharata, the great epic of the late Vedic period of Itihasa. The Mahabharata
21 Jonnathan Mark Kenoyer, “Birth of a Civilization.” Archeology, January/February 1998, 54-61, p. 61.
18 How Ancient is Vedic Civilization
describes Dwarka as built on land reclaimed from the sea. Boulders have been found
under the fortified city walls, showing that it was the result of land reclamation. The
Mahabharata also mentions that Krishna warned the residents of Dwarka that the city
would be reclaimed by the sea. The discovery of a seal engraved with a three-headed
animal at the Dwarka site corroborates a reference made in the Mahabharata that such
a seal was given to the city. Seven nearby islands described in the Mahabharata have
also been discovered.
Since archeological research shows that the city was submerged around 1,600 BC,
this would date the Mahabharata at least before 1,600 BC. Again this is a minimum
time. Pottery found at the site, inscribed with the script of the Indus valley civilization,
has been established by thermoluminescene tests to be about 3,530 years old.
The Mahabharata was written toward the end of the classical Vedic period. If we
accept Winternitz’s estimates a minimum of 1,500 years lapsed from the beginning of
the Vedic period to the Mahabharata, then since Dwarka was submerged by 1,600, this
would set the date of the Rig Veda back to before 3,100 BC. This again marks the
minimum date of the Rig Veda, and should not be construed as a fixed date.
The body of literature produced by Greece and Rome from Homer to Proclus spans
roughly 1,300 years. The Vedic tradition produced an even larger body of literature
from the beginning of the Rig Veda to the end of the classical period, so it would
probably require at least 1,300 years for the Vedic tradition to generate a larger amount
of literature. If we take 1,600 BC as the minimum date of the Mahabharata, this would
put the beginning of the Vedic tradition sometime before 2,900 BC. If we take
Wintenitz’s estimate of at least 1,900 years, this would put the beginning of the Rig
Veda before 3,500 BC.
Frawley and Rajaram, as well as many others, now put the date of the Mahabharata
war at about 3,000 BC (Maharishi Mahesh Yogi also gives this date in his commentary
on the Bhagavad Gita). If we add 1,900 years incubation time as Winternitz estimates,
this would put the dates of the Rig Veda back before 4,900 BC.
Astronomical References in the Rig Veda and Other Evidence
Evidence from other sources known since the late nineteenth century also tends to
confirm the great antiquity of the Vedic tradition. Certain Vedic texts, for example,
refer to astronomical events that took place in ancient astronomical time. By calculating
the astronomical dates of these events, we thus gain another source of evidence that can
be used to place the Rig Veda in a calculable time-frame.
19 How Ancient is Vedic Civilization
A German scholar and an Indian scholar simultaneously discovered in 1889 that the
Vedic Brahmana texts describe the Pleiades coinciding with the spring equinox. Older
texts describe the spring equinox as falling in the constellation Orion. From a
calculation of the precision of the equinoxes, it has been shown that the spring equinox
lay in Orion in about 4,500 BC.
The German scholar, H. Jacobi, came to the conclusion that the Brahmanas are from a
period around or older than 4,500 BC. Jacobi concludes that “the Rig Vedic period of
culture lies anterior to the third pre-Christian millennium.”22 B. Tilak, using similar
astronomical calculations, estimates the time of the Rig Veda at 6,000 BC.23
More recently, Frawley has cited references in the Rig Veda to the winter solstice
beginning in Aries. On this basis, he estimates that the antiquity of these verses of the
Veda must go back at least to at least 6,500 BC.24 The dates Frawley gives for Vedic
civilization are:
Period 1. 6500-3100 BC, Pre-Harappan, early Rig Vedic
Period 2. 3100-1900 BC, Mature Harappan 3100-1900, period of the Four Vedas
Period 3. 1900-1000 BC, Late Harappan, late Vedic and Brahmana period
Professor Dinesh Agrawal of Penn State University reviewed the evidence from a
variety of sources and estimated the dates as follows:
• Rig Vedic Age – 7000-4000 BC
• End of Rig Vedic Age – 3750 BC
• End of Ramayana-Mahabharat Period – 3000 BC
• Development of Saraswati-Indus Civilization – 3000-2200 BC
• Decline of Indus and Saraswati Civilization – 2200-1900 BC
• Period of chaos and migration – 2000-1500 BC
• Period of evolution of syncretic Hindu culture – 1400-250 BC
The Taittiriya Samhita (6.5.3) places the constellation Pleiades at the winter solstice,
which correlates with astronomical events that took place in 8,500 BC at the earliest.
The Taittiriya Brahmana (3.1.2) refers to the Purvabhadrapada nakshatra as rising due
east—an event that occurred no later than 10,000 BC, according to Dr. B.G.Siddharth
of India’s Birla Science Institute. Since the Rig Veda is more ancient than the
Brahmanas, this would put the Rig Veda before 10,000 BC.
22 Maurice Winternitz, A History of Vedic Literature, Vol. 1, p. 277.
23 B.G. Tilak, The Orion, or Researches into the Antiquity of the Vedas (Bombay: 1893).
24 For example, Rig Veda, verses 1.117.22, 1.116.12, 1.84.13.5.
20 How Ancient is Vedic Civilization
Attempts to date the Rig Veda based on astronomical evidence have some merit, but
the conclusions are hotly debated, and probably not entirely free of conjecture. Some
contemporary scholars take them quite seriously as a method of dating the Rig Veda,
but the evidence is inconclusive at present.
Evidence from Sthapatya Veda Architecture:
Relation of Vedic Civilization to the Indus/Saraswati Civilizations
Perhaps the most interesting evidence for the antiquity of the Vedic tradition comes
from architectural remains of towns and cities of the ancient Indus-Saraswati
civilization. The Indus Valley Civilization flourished, according to the most reliable
current scientific estimates, between 2,600 and 1,900 BC—but there are cities, such as
Mehrgarh, that date back to 6,500-7,000 BC. These dates are based on archeological
fieldwork using standard methods that are commonly recognized in the scientific
community today. Over 1600 settlements have been found in the vast Indus/Saraswati
region that extended over 25,000 square miles.
The most well known cities of the Indus valley civilization, Mohenjo-Daro and
Harappa, were built of kiln-fired brick and laid out on an exact north-south axis. This
means that the main streets of the city ran north-south, and the entrance of the homes
and public buildings faced east. The cities were also built to the west of the rivers, so
that they were on land that sloped east to the river.
These facts, which may seem trivial on first glance, turn out to be highly significant.
The ancient architectural system of Sthapatya Veda prescribes detailed principles of
construction of homes and cities. One of the main principles of Sthapatya Veda is that
cities be laid out on an exact north-south grid, with all houses facing due east. Another
is that the buildings be oriented to the east with a slope to the east and any body of
water on the east. Most of the cities of the Saraswati and Indus valley followed these
principles exactly.
21 How Ancient is Vedic Civilization
These early cities were planned and constructed according to exact principles that
align the microcosm of human dwelling to the larger cosmos. They applied laws of
nature that are set out in Sthapatya Vedic architecture. When the principles were
codified into a system is open to question, but since the building and city planning were
done according to Sthapatya Vedic principles, it is reasonable to conclude that
Sthapatya Veda was known and practiced during the ancient period of Indus-Saraswati
valley civilizations. The system called Sthapatya Veda architecture may have preceded
this period, or may have been codified later, but the cities were built according to
Sthapatya Vedic architecture.
Since these cities were constructed as early as 6,500 to 7,000 BC, this would suggest
that Sthapatya Veda may have been known as early as that. This gives another reason to
put the origins of Rig Vedic tradition even before that time. This is another bit of
evidence, which is not noted in previous literature, that may establish the great antiquity
of the Rig Vedic tradition.
Archeological research has shown Indus Valley civilization was an outgrowth of an
earlier agrarian civilization. Richard H. Meadow of Harvard University has shown for
instance a gradual shift from the hunting of game to the raising of sheep, goats, and
cattle called the humped zebu, which were apparently domesticated in the Indus
valley.25
The city of Mehrgarh, lying to the West of the Indus river near the Bolan Pass,
between ancient India and Afghanistan, was first inhabited from 6,500 BC to 7,000 BC
by a largely agrarian people who cultivated barley and cattle.26 The Rig Veda frequently
mentions barley and milk cattle, and may have come from this agrarian period that was
precursor to the Indus-Saraswati valley civilization.
Yoga in the Ancient Indus Valley
There are still other reasons to think that the ancient city of Mohenjo-daro was home
to a civilization that knew the Vedic tradition. One artifact from Mohenjo-daro is a seal
with a figure of a seated deity, pictured here in lotus posture:
25 See Jonnathan Mark Kenoyer, “Birth of a Civilization.” Archeology, January/February 1998, 54-61, p.
56.
26 Jonnathan Mark Kenoyer, “Birth of a Civilization.” Archeology, January/February 1998, 54-61, p. 56.
22 How Ancient is Vedic Civilization
Picture of a king seated yoga posture with Pipili Leaf,
found in the ancient city of Mohenjo-daro in the Indus
valley.
Mark Kenoyer, the University of Wisconsin anthropologist mentioned earlier,
describes this figure as “seated in a yogic posture.” Kenoyer characterizes it as a deity
with three faces, his feet in a yogic posture extending beyond the throne, with seven
bangles on each arm, and a pipili plant adorning his head.
Here is further evidence that the Indus valley civilization was not pre-Vedic. Rather
than being overrun by “Indo-Europeans” who composed the Rig Veda, the Indus valley
was apparently intimately linked to the Vedic tradition, and its kings practiced yoga. If
the practice of yoga was known at the time of Indus valley civilization, yoga must have
been practiced in India before 1,900 when the Indus Valley settlements were withered
by drought.
If the Indus valley civilizations practiced Sthapatya Veda architecture and Yoga, then
the Vedic tradition was well established in India during the Indus valley civilization
which flourished, archeologists think, around 2,600 BC. The Indus Valley civilization
is thus either contemporaneous with the Vedic tradition, or the Vedic tradition was its
predecessor; but in no case was the vast Indus Valley civilization, extending over 2,500
square miles and 1,600 settlements, destroyed by outside invaders. The Indus-Saraswati
civilization may have been a successor to, or late remnant of, an earlier Vedic
civilization, which built their towns and cities on Sthapatya Vedic principles in the
Indus valley and introduced yoga. It was the drying up of the Saraswati in around 1900
BC that ended Indus-Saraswati civilization, not Aryan invaders.
23 How Ancient is Vedic Civilization
The Devanagri Script:
Is the Vedic Tradition Pre-Indus-Valley?
Now we consider the Devanagri script in which Vedic Sanskrit is written. For years
after Mohenjo-Daro and other settlements of the Indus valley were excavated, the only
evidence of a writing script were a few artifacts that were inscribed with characters that
appeared to be pre-Devanagri. Devanagri is the language in which both Vedic and
Classical Sanskrit are written, so if the script of the Indus valley was indeed an earlier
and more primitive script, as it appears to be, this led many archeologists to speculate
that the Vedic tradition belongs to a post-Indus valley civilization and that the period
came after the end of the Indus-Saraswati civilization. Thus some scholars felt that the
Vedic tradition must belong to a period more recent than 1900 BC, when the peoples of
Indus and Saraswati settlements apparently abandoned their homelands and migrated
east to the Ganges river valley.
This speculation, it turns out, is completely unfounded. Recent digs in western India
have unearthed stone inscriptions in Devanagri, that date from 3,000 BC. This is an
extremely important finding. For one thing, we know that the Vedic tradition began as
an oral tradition. Recitation of the Vedic hymns employed, as we mentioned, elaborate
methods to perpetuate the oral tradition. The Vedic tradition existed before the advent
of a written script, and was passed on in an oral tradition long before the advent of a
written script.
The Rig Veda was memorized by heart and recited in teams of two pundits, who
sang in unison to preserve its purity, precisely because there was no script in which to
write it down and preserve it over time. Preservation depended on memorization and
passing it on in a formal method of oral recitation.
Since the oral tradition of recitation was a phenomenon that belonged to the period
before the advent of a written script, and, since the Devanagri script existed in the Indu-
Saraswati valley by 3,000 BC, this would place the origins of the Vedic tradition long
before 3,000 BC. The Vedic literature in its entirety is a body of oral literature, passed
on first in recited songs, and only later written down, after the advent of a script. If we
take Winternitz’s estimated time for the incubation of the Vedic period, which is 1,900
years, this would put the beginnings of the Vedic oral tradition sometime before 4,900
BC.
New Light on the “Cradle of Civilization”
Textbooks on the origins of civilization commonly state, even today, that the “cradle
of civilization” was in Mesopotamia, in the flood plane between the Tigris and
24 How Ancient is Vedic Civilization
Euphrates rivers. Mesopotamian artifacts have been dated as far back possibly as 4,500
BC, and Egyptian, Assyrian, and other ancient civilizations extend back possibly as far
as the early fourth millennium BC..
The discovery of cities such as Mehrgarh in the Indus valley, which dates from 6,500
to 7,000 BC, puts the Indus valley settlements much further back in time. Exactly how
long ago the Rig Vedic tradition began remains unfathomable, but there are far more
ancient cities in the Indus-Saraswati valley than have been found in the middle-eastern
civilizations of Mesopotamia.
How long ago did urban civilization begin in India? The most reliable answer is that
we don’t know. More importantly, the Vedic tradition may have begun before the
advent of the written languages and the building of brick towns and cities. The
appearance of a written script and building of cities may have come after the decline of
the oral Vedic tradition. Moreover, there is evidence of a long period of human activity
in India long before the earliest appearance of towns in the Indus-Saraswati valley
around 7,000 BC
Archeological evidence shows that at 40,000 BC, during the last ice age, groups of
hunter-gatherers lived in central India in painted shelters of stacked rocks. There are
also sites with rock windbreaks in northern Punjab in India dating from this time.
As early as 100,000 BC, there were humans with 20th-century man’s brain size
(1,450 cc), and as early as 300,000, Homo Sapiens roamed from Africa to Asia.
Evidence of human use of fire dates to 360,000 BC. There is also evidence that
hominids occupied the Punjab region of northern India as early as 470,000 BC. Stone
hand axes and other primitive chopping tools found in northern India have been dated
to 500,000 BC. Other stone artifacts found in India have been found dating from two
million years ago. Remains of the genius “Homo” were found in Africa that are dated
between two and a half to three million years ago.
How far back in time, then, does the Vedic tradition go? The most sure answer is still
at this point in time that we simply do not know. At present there is not enough
evidence to determine, except we can venture that it is far more ancient than has been
commonly supposed. The Rig Vedic civilization almost certainly dates from long
before 3,000 BC, and possibly before 6,000 BC.
However, in dating the Rig Veda, the range of possibilities must not be considered
too narrowly. We must not arbitrarily assume that Vedic tradition originated at any
given date. Its origins may go back in time tens of thousands of years, or even longer.
Since it is an oral tradition, it left no footprints in stone. What is certain is that the
Aryan invasion myths and the dates given by Muller and other nineteenth century
25 How Ancient is Vedic Civilization
scholars came from wild speculations that served nationalist, religious, and racist
agendas, not from scientific considerations.
India and the West
The Flow of Science and Mathematics from India to
Arabia and Europe
THE EUROPEAN SCHOLARS who postulated the Aryan invasion theory were
biased, unscientific—and ultimately wrong. The Rig Veda was cognized by a people
indigenous to India, probably sometime long before 3,000 BC. So we move on to the
next question. How did the Vedic Civilization of India influence the civilizations of the
Middle-East, Egypt, and Europe?
Evidence from a variety of sources shows that an influence of Vedic civilization
flowed west to the continent of Europe. As we will see, science and mathematics
originated in India and came to Greece centuries later. Science and mathematics were
probably introduced into Europe and Egypt from India, possibly through Persia, Arabia,
and Mesopotamia, although possibly also directly.
Vedic and Indic Influences on Persian and Greek Civilization
The Zend-Avesta of Persia took many names of deities from the Rig Veda, most
notably Indra, and included Vedic deities in its pantheon. An archeological excavation
in 1907 found clay tablets from early fourteenth century BC in Boghazköi, near the site
of the ancient city of Troy on the eastern edge of the Mediterranean, in what is now
northwest Turkey. These tablets invoke the names of four Vedic deities—Indra, Mitra,
Varuna, and Nasatyau—in sealing a treaty between the Hittites and the Mitani.27 A
Vedic influence was definitely in eastern Mediterranean prior to the Trojan war, which
occurred about a century later. This site is just up the coast from the Greek city states
where the Pre-Socratic philosophers of Greece sprang up about eight hundred years
later.
Indications of a Vedic influence in the Zend-Avesta in Persia are found earlier than
1,600 and a Vedic influence was in Greece as early as 1,400 BC. But there is much
evidence of a link between the early Greeks and the more ancient Vedic civilization of
India, suggesting that Vedic culture flowed west to Persia and Europe.
27 Maurice Winternitz, A History of Vedic Literature, Vol. 1, pp. 282-283.
27 India and the West
Many of the Greek gods and goddesses are highly similar to those of the and those of
Vedic civilization, suggesting a strong historical connection. Both Vedic Indra and the
Greek Zeus, called king of the gods, were associated with the unbounded and called by
the appellation “Thunderbolt.” Saraswati and Athena, female goddesses of sacred
wisdom, both had similar roles as representing wisdom and nurturers of the creative
arts.28 The Vedic Pushan and Greek Dionysus were both associated with youth, goats,
and wine. Pushan was described as “goat-born,” Bacchus “half-goat.” The tenth
Mandala of the Rig Veda relates that the young god Pushan stole the cattle of Indra,
herded them backwards into a cave, and hid them somewhere inside in a mountain.
Homeric hymns from the ninth century BC attribute exactly the same feat to the young
god Dionysus, who put false feet on the cows, pointed backwards, and then herded
them into a mountain cave, so the gods could not find them.29
The Katha Upanishad of the Vedic tradition relates a metaphor in which the self is
the lord of the chariot, the intellect the charioteer, the body the chariot, the horses, and
the senses. “He who has no understanding…” the Upanishad say, “his senses are out of
control, as wicked horses are for a charioteer.”30 Exactly same metaphor is found in
Plato’s Phaedrus, which uses the image of a chariot moving through heaven and falling
to earth when the self, the charioteer, allows the horses, representing sense and appetite,
to get out of control.31
The Vedic practice of performing sacrificial rites also has echoes in the religious
practices of Greece and Israel. In the Odyssey, Odysseus makes sacrificial offerings of a
bull to the gods, and in Israel, in the Old Testament, there are many descriptions of
burnt offerings of animals to the gods. These practices have their roots in more ancient
Vedic rites.
Fragments from Empedocles’ book on Purification give the same definition of
health that the Charaka Samhita of the Vedic tradition did more than two thousand
years earlier. Heraclitus defines “health” as a balance of the fundamental elements
28 There is also a link between the “angirasas” of the Rig Veda, who were higher beings-intermediates
between gods and men and attendants of Agni, who is often described as a messenger between heaven
and earth. They personify flames of fire as messenger to heaven. This view is borne out by the
etymological connection of Sanskrit “angiras” with the Greek “angelos” (messenger).
29 The cow symbolizes the senses in the Rig Veda, so the backward movement of the cows appears to be a
metaphor for retiring from the outer senses to go within the self.
30 See The Principal Upanishads, ed. S. Radhakrishnan, p. 624. The line quoted is from section 3, no. 5.
31 See The Principal Upanishads, ed. S. Radhakrishnan, (New Delhi: Harper Collins, 1994) The metaphor
of the chariot is given in the Katha Upanishad, pp. 623-625. Plato’s metaphor in the Phaedrus is used to
talk about the experience of the eternal.
28 India and the West
(earth, air, fire and water32) in all parts of the body, each part having the proper
proportion that is right for it. Plato’s Timaeus defines health in the same way. This is
how it is defined in Charaka Samhita.
Ancient legends in Greece speak of the early Pre-Socratics as traveling to India.
Thales, Pythagoras, Empedocles, Democritus, and Plato were all fabled to have made
the journey (although the legends are rarely given credibility). Commentators on the
early Greeks from around the first and second century passed BC on these legends.
While these journeys may or may not have taken place, it is not unthinkable, for there
were well established commercial routes between India and Greece along the Silk
Road, protected by Persian king, as well as between ports on the Red Sea that linked
Greece with India in a thriving spice trade.
Plotinus in the third century AD set out from Alexandria (a city famed for its esoteric
knowledge) on an expedition to India to gain more experiential knowledge of the
transcendent. The expedition never completed the journey, so that Plotinus never
arrived in India, but Plotinus believed that it was the place to learn about the
transcendental unity of Being.
If anything specifically Vedic brought the Greek awakening that occurred in the early
sixth century BC, it was not ideas or concepts from India, but the introduction of a
technique of transcending to experience pure consciousness. Plato writes about a “fair
word” that a physician of Thrace gave to Socrates to enable him to become immortal
and gain self-knowledge.
Ancient India:
A Lighthouse for Scientific and Mathematical Discovery
India remained a lighthouse for the advance of civilization long after the classical
Vedic period. Our modern zero-based number system (the place-value number system)
was first developed in India. Called ‘Arabic numerals’ in the West, they actually
originated in India and were passed into Europe through Arabia, whence they derived
their name in the West.
In Arabia, mathematics was called the “Indian Art,” and the numerals used in Arabia
were called “Indian numerals.” Arabic scholars knew that mathematics had come into
Arabia from India and not vise versa. It was also in India that the counting numbers
were first invented. This inspired Albert Einstein to say, “We owe a lot to the Indians,
32 See Plato, Timaeus, see §82 and following. The Greeks had four elements, earth, air, fire, and water and
the Vedic tradition the same four plus space.
29 India and the West
who taught us how to count, without which no worthwhile scientific discovery could
have been made.”
The following chart shows the evolution of the numerals from the early Indus-
Saraswatic valley script to Devanagri to the Arabic to the present:
Evolution of the “numerals” which are mistakenly called “Arabic numerals” in the West. In
fact they came into Arabia from India. In ancient Arabic, these numerals were called “Indian
numerals” and mathematics was called the “Indian art.”
The value of “pi” was first calculated in India by Budhayana (conservative scholars
put him at least in the sixth century BC) long before it was known in Europe.
Budhayana was also first to introduce a mathematical way to calculate the hypotenuse
of a right triangle. The Shulba Sutra (the Budhayana) written prior to the eighth century
BC in India, used the theorem about two centuries before it was introduced by
Pythagoras into Greece in the sixth century BC. The wording of the theorem in the
30 India and the West
Shulba Sutras is exact: “The diagonal chord of the rectangle makes both the squares
that the horizontal and vertical sides make separately.”33
a
b
c
a2 + b2 = c2
33Saraswati Amma, Geometry in Ancient and Medieval India, (Motilal Banarisdas, 1979), p. 18. For a
discussion of mathematics in ancient India, see also Herbert Meschkowski, Ways of Thought of Great
Mathematicians, (San Francisco: Holden-Day Inc., 1964), and Saraswati Amma, Geometry in Ancient
and Medieval India, (New Delhi: Motilal Banarisdas, 1979), p. 18. For an update on the scientific
understanding of the Rig Veda, see Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Vedic Physics: Scientific Origin of Hinduism,
with a Foreword by Subhash Kak, Toronto, Canada: Golden Egg Publishing, 1999.
The Shulba Sutra are among the most ancient of mathematical texts known to man. In the valley of the
Indus River of India, the world’s oldest civilization had developed its own system of mathematics. The
Vedic Shulba Sutras (fifth to eighth century BC), meaning “codes of the rope,” show that the earliest
geometrical and mathematical investigations among the Indians arose from certain requirements of their
religious rituals. When the poetic vision of the Vedic seers was externalized in symbols, rituals requiring
altars and precise measurement became manifest, providing a means to the attainment of the unmanifest
world of consciousness. “Shulba Sutras” is the name given to those portions or supplements of the Kalpa
sutras, which deal with the measurement and construction of the different altars for religious rites. The
word shulba refers to the ropes used to make these measurements.
Although Vedic mathematicians are known primarily for their computational genius in arithmetic and
algebra, the basis and inspiration for the whole of Indian mathematics is geometry. Evidence of
geometrical drawing instruments from as early as 2,500 BC. has been found in the Indus Valley. The
beginnings of algebra can be traced to the constructional geometry of the Vedic priests, which are
preserved in the Shulba Sutras. Exact measurements, orientations, and different geometrical shapes for
the altars and arenas used for the religious functions (yagyas), which occupy and important part of the
Vedic religious culture, are described the Shulba Sutras. Many of these calculations employ the
geometrical formula known as the Pythagorean theorem.
This theorem (c. 540 BC.), equating the square of the hypotenuse of a right angle triangle with the sum
of the squares of the other two sides, was utilized in the earliest Shulba Sutra (the Baudhayana) prior to
the eighth century BC. Thus, widespread use of this famous mathematical theorem in India several
centuries before its being popularized by Pythagoras has been documented. The exact wording of the
theorem as presented in the Sulba Sutras is: “The diagonal chord of the rectangle makes both the squares
that the horizontal and vertical sides make separately.” The proof of this fundamentally important
theorem is well known from Euclid’s time until the present for its excessively tedious and cumbersome
nature; yet the Vedas present five different extremely simple proofs for this theorem. One historian,
Needham, has stated, “Future research on the history of science and technology in Asia will in fact reveal
that the achievements of these peoples contribute far more in all pre-Renaissance periods to the
development of world science than has yet been realized.”
The Shulba Sutras have preserved only that part of Vedic mathematics which was used for constructing
the altars and for computing the calendar to regulate the performance of religious rituals. After the Shulba
Sutra period, the main developments in Vedic mathematics arose from needs in the field of astronomy.
Jyotisha, the science of the planets, utilizes all branches of mathematics.
The need to determine the right time for their religious rituals gave the first impetus for astronomical
observations. With this desire in mind, the priests would spend night after night watching the advance of
the moon through the circle of the nakshatras (lunar mansions), and day after day the alternate progress of
the sun towards the north and the south. However, the priests were interested in mathematical rules only
as far as they were of practical use. These truths were therefore expressed in the simplest and most
practical manner. Elaborate proofs were not presented, nor were they desired.
31 India and the West
Major centers of learning operated in ancient India. The World’s first major
university and trade school was in Taxila (Takshila) then in northwestern India, around
700 BC (some scholars estimate). It boasted a thousand students from all over the
known world who studied 60 disciplines taught there. The University of Nalanda,
established in the forth century BC, was also a major center of learning in the ancient
world.
The Indian astronomer and mathematician Bhaskaracharya in the 5th century BC
(this is an estimated date that may be too recent), calculated the time taken by the earth
to orbit the sun to nine decimal places.34 Algebra, trigonometry, and calculus were first
set forth in ancient India. Aryabhata the Elder (476-550 AD) gave a summary of Indian
mathematics that covers astronomy, spherical trigonometry, arithmetic, algebra and
plane trigonometry. Aryabhata also gives a formula for finding the areas of a triangle
and a circle. His main work, the Aryabhatiya, contains continued fractions, quadratic
equations, sums of power series and a table of sines. Aryabhata gave an accurate
approximation for “pi” of up to 3.1416 and was one of the first to use algebra.35 His
most important achievement was the invention of the “0,” which enabled the
development of the place number system.
Aryabhata also wrote an text on astronomy, the Siddhanta, which taught that the
apparent rotation of the heavens was due to the rotation of the Earth on it axis.
Aryabhata gives the radius of the planetary orbits in terms of the radius of the
Earth/Sun orbit as essentially their periods of rotation around the Sun. He believed that
the Moon and planets shine by reflected sunlight, and he taught, incredible though it
may seem, that the orbits of the planets around the sun are ellipses. This was a thousand
hundred years before Copernicus and Kepler came up with the same discovery in
Europe. He also correctly explained the causes of the eclipses of the Sun and the Moon
and calculated the value for the length of the year at 365 days 6 hours 12 minutes 30
seconds. This is a slight overestimate since the true value is less than 365 days 6 hours.
His work, written in 121 stanzas, gives a remarkably accurate view of the structure of
the solar system.
Brahmagupta (598-670 AD, again an estimated date that may off), head of the
astronomical observatory at Ujjain, the foremost mathematical center of ancient India,
developed algebraic notation and gave remarkable formulas for finding the area of a
cyclic quadrilateral and for the lengths of the diagonals in terms of the sides.
34 According to Bhaskaracharya’s calculations, which were made in the 5th century BC, the time taken by
earth to orbit the sun is 365.258756484 days (slightly larger than the correct time).
35 Aryabhata also introduced the versine (versin = 1-cos) into trigonometry.
32 India and the West
Brahmagupta also studied arithmetic progressions, quadratic equations, theorems on
right-angled triangles, surfaces and volumes, and calculated the length of the year at
365 days 6 hours 12 minutes 36 seconds.
Quadratic equations were first discovered by Sridharacharya in the 11th century. Then
Bhaskara (1114-1185 AD) reached an understanding of the number systems that solved
equations which were not solved in Europe until several centuries later. Like
Brahmagupta before him, Baskara was head of the astronomical observatory at Ujjain,
where he developed a sophisticated understanding of 0 and the negative numbers.
The art of navigation was invented 6,000 years ago by navigators of the Indus river.
The English word navigation is derived from the Sanskrit word ‘Navgatih’ and the
word navy from the Sanskrit ‘Nou.’ The first known reservoirs and dams for irrigation
were also built in India.
Ayur-Veda, the earliest known system of medicine and surgery, was developed in the
Vedic period in India. Sushrut, the father of surgery, developed surgical procedures
including cesareans, cataract removals, setting fractures, removing urinary stones and
even plastic and brain surgery. Over 125 surgical tools are named in the ancient Sushrut
medical texts. Anesthesia was also well known. Detailed texts on anatomy, physiology,
etiology, embryology, digestion, metabolism, genetics, and immunity date from Vedic
times.
Sometime around 444 BC, Empedocles introduced a medical system into Greece
modeled on the then ancient Ayurvedic system of India. Empedocles’ book on
Purification gives, as we saw, the same definition of health as the Charaka Samhita. It
bears repeating: health is the balance of the fundamental elements (earth, air, fire and
water36) in all parts of the body, each part having the proper proportion of each that is
right for it. Empedocles adopts this definition from the Vedic tradition. Plato’s Timaeus
defines health in the same way.
Joseph Needham, the eminent physicist and cultural historian, comments that, “Future
research on the history of science and technology in Asia will in fact reveal that the
achievements of these peoples [of India] contribute far more in all pre-Renaissance
periods to the development of world science than has yet been realized.”37 The first
pioneer of wireless communication was Jagdeesh Bose—not Marconi as commonly
taught in the West.
36 See Plato, Timaeus, see §82 and following. The Greeks had four elements, earth, air, fire, and water and
the Vedic tradition the same four plus space.
37 Quoted in V. Raghavan, Presidential Address, Technical Sciences and Fine Arts Section, XXIst AIOC,
New Delhi, 1961.
33 India and the West
India’s most substantial gift to world civilization was, however, the discovery of pure
consciousness and the mapping out of the architectonic structure of pure knowledge.
All other achievements derive from this great awakening of knowledge that took place
in ancient Vedic India.
Summary and Conclusion
The Vedic heritage of India has been grossly miscalculated, misunderstood, and
under-appreciated. The light of Vedic knowledge burned brilliantly in Vedic India long
before is spread into Iran, the middle-east, and Europe.
It appears that Rig Vedic civilization originated in northern India, definitely before
1,900, and probably before 3,000 BC. The Vedic tradition may have originated before
6,500 BC. Passed on from father to son in unbroken tradition of pundits who recited the
Vedic verses, it is still sung by pundits in India today. Imagine if Homeric bards were
found today who could still chant the Iliad and Odyssey according to the oral tradition
handed down from Homeric times! This would be heralded as a monumental event. Yet
the Vedic tradition was possibly as ancient to Homer when he lived as Homer is to us
today.
The Vedic tradition lives in the songs softly chanted by pundits today that may have
originated ten thousand or more year ago, or even further remote in time. The Rig Veda
and the Vedic literature were preserved by a tradition of chanting, with self-correcting
feedback methods, always involving two pundits reciting the verses together. Other
methods of self-correction were used, so the authenticity of the tradition is well
preserved. The written Veda did not emerge until the Devanagri script was invented,
and that was post-Indus-Saraswati civilization.
The Vedic civilization, far more ancient than the Greek, spread from India to Europe,
via Anatolia, Thrace, and Greece, and from there into Western Europe. The direction of
the flow was from India into Arabia and then to Europe. Evidence shows that the Vedic
tradition entered into Europe sometime before the early fourteenth century BC.
The Rig Vedic tradition and its literature almost certainly came into existence
sometime long before the earliest civilizations of Mesopotamia, Sumeria, and Egypt.
These were relatively late events in the history of civilization and probably owe their
existence to the earlier civilization of Vedic India.
It is necessary to reiterate that the origins of the Vedic tradition are still obscured in
the fog of time, but it is necessary to shift it much further back than Muller’s
contingent of scholars put it. A more balanced view of the Vedic tradition might place
it as follows:
34 India and the West
1. Before 6,500 to around 3,000 BC—early Rig Veda to Itihasa period38
2. 2600-1900 BC, Mature Harappa civilization
3. 1900-1000 BC, late Vedic and Brahmana period
4. 500 BC, Shankara’s revival
Because we don’t know yet how ancient the earliest verses of the Rig Veda are, we
have to abstain from any dogmatic pronouncements, but we have seen reason to think
that they are far more ancient than Europeans scholars previously estimated. The
ancient Vedic tradition was indigenous to the land of India, possibly overlapping the
Indus and Saraswati valley civilizations and extending into the Himalayas, where the
tradition continued unbroken for perhaps tens of thousands of years.
The Rig Veda extols the Indus rivers in the oft repeated refrain, “Flow Indus to
Indra”—a metaphor for the flow of individual awareness into unbounded universal
awareness. The whole tradition, as we see in the following chapters, is about the
experience of awakened consciousness, or enlightenment.
The refrain, “flow Indus to Indra” is also a reference to the Indus civilization that
lived along the banks of the Indus river since 6,500 BC. It was this awakening of
consciousness that cradled the ancient Vedic civilization of Vedic India—long before
civilization emerged in Europe. As the river of civilization flowed from India
westward, one of its main tributaries was the civilization of ancient Greece and Asia
Minor.39 Greek civilization possibly resulted from the spread of techniques that passed
on the enlightenment tradition from India into the Eastern Mediterranean basin.
38 Mesopotamian, Sumerian, and Egyptian civilizations cannot, according to traditional archeology, extend
much past 3,300 BC. Recent research has suggested that the pyramids were constructed as early as
12,500 BC.
39 One of the great puzzles of early history is to understand why sometime around 500 BC a great
awakening of knowledge occurred simultaneously in India, China, and Greece. Lao Tzu and Confucius in
China, Buddha in India, and Heraclitus and Parmenides in Greece all flourished around that time. Lao
Tzu as well as several early Greeks, according to legend, made a journey to India. The possibility exists
that the awakening came from India, where for thousands years before, the Vedic tradition flourished.
This was also the time of a great re-awakening of the Vedic tradition in India. Shankara’s teaching of
transcendental meditation in India began, according to ancient records, contrary to what is currently
taught in Western scholarship, sometime in the late sixth century BC. Shankara did not live in the ninth
century where he was misplaced by modern scholars unfamiliar with the Vedic tradition.
Modern scholars have traditionally placed Shankara in the ninth century AD. This results from a
confusion of an illustrious successor of Shankara with the original Shankara who lived about 500 BC.
“Shankara” had become a title, so in the long succession of Shankaracharyas, or masters of the Shankara
tradition, there were many Shankaras. It was a natural confusion but the first Shankara lived in the mid to
early sixth century BC. (See Maharishi’s discussion of this in his Bhagavad Gita, A New Translation and
Commentary, Livingston Manor, NY: MIU Press, 1967, p. 186.) There are historical records of the
Shankarcharya tradition that link it back to the original Shankara in the sixth century BC, mentioning
each of the Shankaracharayas in the long succession.
According to recent archeological and anthropological research, the Vedic tradition began probably
sometime well before 3,500 BC. This would put the origin of the Vedic tradition at least 2,400 years
35 India and the West
The Vedic tradition gives a much deeper meaning to the word “tradition” than has
been known before. Nothing in the West approximates it. For thousands of years, the
Vedic tradition expanded, and grew richer in detail, commenting on itself and
expanding by knowledge of itself. Each contributor built on what the previous had
done, cumulating in a systematic exposition of the structure of pure consciousness.
Techniques to gain enlightenment were developed, cultivated, and passed on generation
after generation. The techniques sustained the tradition and gave it substance through
making the experience available.
Vedic civilization centered around the discovery of pure consciousness and the
delineation of its structure. The Rig Veda and the Vedic literature gave a monumental
depiction of this structure of eternal consciousness. These remarkable works give a
prior to the battle of Troy, the event that marks the mythological beginning of the early Greek literary
tradition, and 3,000 years before the earliest Pre-Socratic philosophers.
For a fuller discussion of this new wave of scholarship, see David Frawley and N.S. Rajaram Vedic
“Aryans” and the Origins of Civilization: A Literary and Scientific Perspective, 1995. See also George
Feuresein, Subhash Kak, and David Frawley, In Search of the Cradle of Civilization: New Light on
Ancient India, 1995. Also, David Frawley, Gods, Sages Kings, (Morson Publishing, 1991). See also, N.S.
Rajaram The Hindustan Times (Nov. 28, 1993). Rajaram writes, “It is now recognized by scholars that
the Aryan invasion theory of India is a myth that owes more to European politics than anything in Indian
records or archaeology.” Frawley writes. “the rationale behind the late date for the Vedic culture given by
Muller was totally speculative. Max Muller, like many of the Christian scholars of his era, believed in
Biblical chronology. This placed the beginning of the world at 400 BC and the flood around 2500 BC.
Assuming to those two dates, it became difficult to get the Aryans in India before 1500 BC.” See also
Colin Renfrew, Professor of Archeology at Cambridge University, in his famous work, Archeology and
Language: The Puzzle of Indo-European Origins, (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1988). See also
Mark Kenoyer, “Indus Valley: Secrets of a Civilization” in Wisconsin, Fall 1998 and Kenneth Kennedy,
“Have Aryans Been Identified in the Prehistoric Skeletal Record from South Asia” appearing in The
Indo-Aryans of South Asia (Walter de Gruyter, 1995) Kennedy writes, “Assumptions that blondism,
blue-grey eyes and light skin pigmentation are physical hallmarks of either ancient Aryans or of members
of Brahmin and other social groups in modern south Asia, find their origins in the improper marriage of
excerpts from Vedic texts with nineteenth century Germanic nationalistic writings.” Also N.S. Rajaram,
Hindustan Times. N.S. Rajaram, Aryan Invasion of India: The Myth and the Truth. Also, Maurice
Winternitz, A History of Vedic Literature, Vol. 1, (New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1981), pp. 270-288.
Winternitz writes, in 1981, that it is imprudent to try to fix the dates of the Vedic civilization any earlier
than 2,000 or 2,500 BC. Max Muller had argued in 1859 in his History of Ancient Sancrit Literature, that
the Rig Veda could not have been written before 1,200 or 1,000 BC. Later scholars often took this as the
date of the Rig Veda and attributed this date to Muller. However, Muller did not attempt to fix the date at
1,200 or 1,000 BC, but only held that it must be earlier than that. Winternitz gives compelling reasons to
think that the date of the Rig Veda cannot be before 2,000 or 2,500 BC. Even this is not, as he says, a
legitimate attempt to set a date, but only to set the latest possible beginning of the Rig Veda. There is no
reason whatever, as he points out, to think that it began in 2,000 to 2,500 BC—only that this is the latest
date at which the hymns of the Rig Veda can reasonably be supposed to have begun. One must be very
careful not to take these as dates of the Rig Veda, only as the lower limits of a date, before which the Rig
Veda must have been written.
Many put the Rig Vedic tradition at 6,000 BC or before. See A. Ludwign, Der RigVeda, III, Prag, 1878,
pp. 183 ff. and B.G. Tilak, The Orion or Researches into the Antiquity of the Vedas, Bombay, 1893. Also
see Abinas Chandra Das, Rig-Vedic India, I, Calcutta, 1922; discussed in Maurice Winternitz, A History
of Vedic Literature, Vol. 1, pp. 275 and 287 and following.
For further reading, see also A.L. Basham, The Wonder That Was India, Calcutta: Rupa & Co., 1967.
36 India and the West
complete science of the structure of pure knowledge that exists within the self of
everyone. It was from this cognition of the structure of Veda and the Vedic literature
that the civilization was born.
In the West, by comparison, there was no sustained theme of enlightenment remotely
comparable to the Vedic tradition. There was no sustained tradition of knowledge based
on the experience of consciousness. The early history of western Europe, including the
glory of ancient Greece, are sparks, brilliant though they be, from the great fire of
knowledge of Vedic India.
Preview of More to Come:
What is the Veda and
the Vedic Literature?
THE NEXT QUESTION IS, what is the Veda and the Vedic tradition? Since the
Veda and the Vedic tradition have extremely ancient roots going back at least to the
third millennium BC and probably much further, we now want to ask, what is this Rig
Veda and the Vedic literature? What is the Vedic tradition really about?
It is as if we have been on an archeological dig on an ancient site in the Indus valley
and we find a treasure room of vast extent, filled with books that are about an ancient
science. As we decipher these ancient codes, we discover an ancient body of knowledge
more advanced than any science known today. This is the excitement of the rediscovery
of the Veda.
If the European scholars got the dates of the Vedic tradition and the invasion theory
entirely wrong, neither did they understand anything of what was going on in the Vedic
tradition. Again, we cannot expect that they can give an penetrating answers to the
question of what the Veda is. The answer must come from those who know the Veda
from direct experience.
The Veda itself is said to be knowledge. Veda means knowledge. It refers to the kind
of knowledge that comes from transcending activity to experience the knowledge
structured within the inner silence of consciousness itself. Veda is the self-knowledge
consciousness of itself, consciousness knowing its own nature. This knowledge exists
deep within everyone, deep within our own consciousness, but we are out of touch with
it because we have lost the ancient knowledge of how to go within. By diving deep
within the self, and beyond our own individual consciousness, to the universal allpervading
consciousness, when consciousness is still and deeply silent, we too can
experience the Veda. It is this experience from which all Vedic knowledge comes. On
the basis of this experience, we can know the structure of the Veda that exists eternally
in consciousness.
38 What is the Veda and the Vedic Literature?
The Veda is the expression of the knowledge gained during transcending, or going
beyond active mind and finite mind, to experience the infinite consciousness that lies at
the basis of all created things. This experience gives knowledge of the eternal
consciousness that pervades all creation. It is not localized to individual awareness. It is
universal all-pervading consciousness. Anyone can gain access to this consciousness by
transcending activity to experience the infinite, unbounded silence at the basis of
creation.
The infinite silence is not seen, as one sees an object separate from the self. Infinite
silence is what the seer becomes when he or she is deeply silent. The Vedic seers
discovered that when the mind is deeply silent and still, it expands from individual
mind to infinite mind. One becomes infinite mind and the structure of this infinite mind
is what one experiences when one sees the Veda.
The greatest Vedic scholar and seer of all ages is undoubtedly Maharishi Mahesh
Yogi. Maharishi is a great genius who has brought to light the deeper meaning of the
Veda on the basis of the direct experience of the Veda itself. Since the Veda is
structured in consciousness, the consciousness which is not individual but universal and
all-pervading, it exists within everyone. Every individual consciousness grows out of
the vast ocean of universal consciousness which is the Veda. By diving within our
individual consciousness, and beyond, to the infinite sea of universal consciousness, we
can experience the eternal, all-pervading sea of consciousness and its self-interacting
dynamics by which the world is created within the eternal sea of consciousness. This is
to witness the mechanics of creation. Veda is this mechanics of creation.
The Vedic tradition grew out of a discovery of a way to go within consciousness and
directly experience the Veda which exists deep within consciousness. It is only through
this experience that there can be genuine knowledge of the Veda at all. It is for this
reason that Maharishi brought out a technique to directly experience the silent level of
consciousness within everyone. This technique makes the eternal Veda accessible to
everyone on the basis of personal experience. It is the foundation of the knowledge of
the Veda. The name of the techniques is the Transcendental Meditation technique. It is
the method that opens the direct experience of universal consciousness and the Veda to
anyone. It is thus the method of knowledge that makes universal knowledge of the
eternal field of pure consciousness accessible to everyone. It is the method of
exploration of consciousness by which anyone can gain access to the silent,
unconditioned, universal consciousness that underlies and pervades all manifest objects
in the physical world.
39 What is the Veda and the Vedic Literature?
Thus, the only solid foundation for knowledge and understanding the Veda is the
exploration of the fundamental level of inner silence, the inner silence of pure
consciousness itself, where the Veda is structured. Only through experience of this
level of reality—the silent foundation of universal consciousness—can anyone be
prepared to know and understand the Veda. The Veda is the reality of consciousness
and the knowledge of consciousness that is accessible through this experience; the
Vedic tradition is the tradition that carries that knowledge over time; and Vedic
civilization is the civilization that was built on this knowledge that existed in India at
least three thousand years and probably more before the Christian era began.
As we will see, the Rig Veda and the Vedic literature are a systematic expression of
consciousness and the knowledge of consciousness. The Veda tells us something about
our own consciousness, about our human potential to be in and to experience a
universal field of consciousness that underlies all created things. The essential meaning
of the Veda escaped Western scholars for two centuries, but we now are rediscovering
its meaning and coming to directly experience and know the Veda through direct
experience through the guidance of Maharishi. This method brings knowledge more
advanced than any other approach available in the world today, and as we will see, it
has practical applications far greater than any other method of knowledge. In this and
the following chapters, we will see that the Veda is a lasting expression of deep
knowledge that has survived over many thousands of years in virtually perfect
condition, and that it holds the secret to unlocking new knowledge and a new approach
to knowledge that will enhance our own civilization more than any other discovery in
history.
What is Vedic Cognition and How is it Passed On?
The Rig Veda was not “created” out the human imagination, as works of poetry or
literature are created. Unlike poetry or literature, the Veda is experienced and then the
experience of the Veda is recited in hymns that directly express the experience of the
Veda. This is called Vedic cognition.
Cognition means that the Vedic rishis or seers heard what is there in the universal
field of consciousness and they sang out the sounds that they heard. They were not
making up poems, hymns, theories, or world-views, but they heard the sounds in the
field of pure consciousness and saw the flow pure knowledge within it. Their
experience came from being established in the deepest level of the mind.
This experience is what the recited sounds of the Veda express. But the hymns of the
Rig Veda are not about the Veda, as if the expression were something different from
40 What is the Veda and the Vedic Literature?
the Veda itself, which they were describing. The rishis heard the Veda and saw its
structure, and this sound itself is expressed in the hymns of the Rig Veda. The
experience of the Rig Veda flowed through the rishis into the hymns of the Rig Veda.
The hymns of the Rig Veda sought out those rishis who were fully awake and made
themselves known to them, and the rishis passed on these hymns in a long unbroken
tradition that endures to the present.
The Rig Veda, the most ancient hymns of the Vedic tradition, has been preserved
over time by a method of memorization and recitation passed these hymns on from
father to son in an unbroken sequence over vast stretches of time. By two pundits
chanting the hymns (and by chanting them forwards and backwards) a method of
ensuring their purity was established that allowed these hymns to be passed on over
thousands of years without loss. The Veda we possess today, unbelievable as it may
seem, is thus an expression of the sounds heard many thousands of years ago.
It was only in relatively recent times, probably around 3000 BC, that the Veda and
Vedic literature, were committed to writing. Before that Veda was an oral tradition.
The Vastness of the Veda and The Vedic Literature
Maharishi identifies 40 distinct branches of the Veda and the Vedic literature. These
forty branches include, first and foremost, the Rig Veda samhita, and of equal
importance, the Sama Veda, Yajur Veda, and Atharva Veda. These four bodies of
sound are what is meant by the Veda.
In addition to the Veda, the Vedic literature includes 36 branches, all based on the
Veda itself. These include the six branches of Vedanga, six branches of Upanga, and
six branches of Ayur-Veda, for example. All branches of Vedic literature are
considered, like the Veda itself, uncreated or eternal structures of knowledge.
The extent of the Veda and the entire Vedic literature is vast, huge—much larger, for
example, than the remaining body of literature of all of ancient Greece and Rome.
There are ten volumes of the Rig Veda alone in one of the best editions available in
English (the Wilson translation). There are 54 books of Kalpa, just one of six branches
of the Vedangas. There are 18 books of Puranas. The Itihasa includes the Ramayana
and the Mahabharata, the later of which is printed in an English edition which has 20
volumes. There are thus, for example, over a hundred volumes in just these four
branches of the Veda and the Vedic literature.
Maharishi sees this vast body of the Veda and the Vedic literature as a systematic
body of literature that has a detailed, intricate structure in every part, and all
systematically related in a whole. It is systematic in the sense that is not a random
41 What is the Veda and the Vedic Literature?
collection of books that were written over vast stretches of time, but it forms a complete
whole, with a comprehensive organization and structure. Each of the books of Vedic
literature relates in a systematic way to all the others and each forms an essential part of
the whole of Vedic literature.
Where is the Veda and How is it Known?
The Veda is expressed in sounds that are recited and heard, but the Veda itself exists
in the unmanifest field of unbounded pure consciousness, called parame vyoman. This
is a universal silent field of consciousness that pervades everything in the universe.
Since it is all-pervading, it pervades the body and mind of every individual. It exists on
the most subtle, or fine scale, of activity. It is smaller than the smallest particle of the
atomic nucleus. It is on a scale smaller than the smallest quark and lepton. It is the field
of consciousness in its least excited state. Everything in nature is an excitation of this
field. All particles of matter and force are excited states of this one all-pervading field.
To know the Veda, which is everywhere at the most subtle foundation of the world,
we have only to take our awareness from the excited states of consciousness to the least
excited state of consciousness. By taking our awareness from the active, gross level of
activity to the silent field of pure consciousness, we allow our individual mind to
become settled and stilled and in that state of wakeful silence, and in that state, the
mind spreads out to identify with the all-pervading field of consciousness. On that level
of awareness, the entire Veda and Vedic literature can be directly experienced as the
fabrics of our own consciousness. We simply dive from the surface level of activity to
the silent all-pervading depth where consciousness is eternally awake within itself. On
that level of all-pervading nature, consciousness is eternally interacting within itself.
This self-interaction of consciousness as its flows from unity into diversity is the Veda.
It is the eternal reality at the foundation of everything that exists in the observable
manifest world.
Structure of the Veda
The Veda has a structure. It is structured in the form of mandalas, or circles. The
structure of the Veda and the Vedic literature is a flow of knowledge, not a static,
frozen structure. As the eternal consciousness flowing within itself and knowing itself,
it flow, and creates within itself a structure that is dynamic and flowing. This flowing
structure of Veda is an eternal flow of pure knowledge of the self as it unfolds
knowledge of itself. It is the flow of consciousness as it knows itself and flows from
unity to diversity. It is the flow of self-knowledge within consciousness, giving rise to
the entire diversity of creation. It is the flow of the oneness of eternal pure
42 What is the Veda and the Vedic Literature?
consciousness into the many formed unity of the Veda, and from there to the forms and
phenomena of the manifest universe, the visible material world.
The first flow of knowledge of the Veda is the flow from the One into the many. The
eternal oneness of pure Being or pure consciousness knows itself. And in knowing
itself, it breaks itself into many. The infinite One collapses into a point, and into
infinitely many points. These points of consciousness are finite, separate, isolated
points of individual consciousness. But they are all ultimately points of the one infinite
whole of consciousness. Each is a collapsed point of the infinite whole, and in the
process of returning to wholeness, the finite points of consciousness expand back into
the infinite One from which they began. This is the fundamental process of creation that
is expressed in the Rig Veda and in the Vedic literature.
The Rig Veda expresses this process in sound. The Rig Veda is essentially this
sequence of vibrations that manifest as the process of consciousness knowing itself. It
unfolds out of the process of consciousness knowing itself. This entire process is a
necessary sequence of sounds that unfold the pure knowledge of consciousness to itself.
It is the eternal murmuring of consciousness to itself.
The Rig Veda does not describe the process in articulate language, using descriptive
terms, the way a scientist might describe an object of nature. The vibrations of
consciousness as it moves within itself create unmanifest sounds in the unmanifest field
of pure consciousness, which manifest as the sound of the Veda, and these sounds
within the infinite field of pure consciousness become the vibrations that manifest in
the forms and phenomena of physical creation.
Collapse of Infinity to a Point:
The Apaurusheya Bhashya Structure of the Veda
The basic process of consciousness knowing itself takes the form of a collapse of the
infinite whole of pure consciousness into infinitely many finite points of consciousness.
This process of infinity collapsing to a point, and the points expanding into infinity, is
the basic process that structures the Veda. It is the process by which the eternal Oneness
of pure consciousness knows itself. Infinite wholeness collapses to a point and the point
expands to infinity. Out of this process all creation comes.
Maharishi has discovered that this process and its structure is expressed in the first
syllable of the Rig Veda, in the first line, in the first verse, and in the first mandala,
each expression being a more elaborate commentary on the collapse of infinity than the
previous. This structure Maharishi calls the Aparasheya Bhasha structure of the Rig
Veda. Maharishi was the first to discover and bring it to light.
43 What is the Veda and the Vedic Literature?
Maharishi discovered that the Rig Veda has a marvelous structure in which each of
the parts reflects the structure of the whole. Thus, for example, the First Mandala of the
Rig Veda, which gives the meaning of the Veda as a whole, has 192 suktas. The Tenth
Mandala has the same number of suktas, mirroring the gaps between the suktas of the
First Mandala. This is not an accidental structural parallel, but an indication of the
intricately interlocked structure of the Veda as a whole. This kind of structural identity
is reiterated in many places throughout Vedic literature.
Maharishi sees the first syllable of the Rig Veda, Ak,40 as containing the whole Rig
Veda within itself. It represents the collapse of the continuum of flow of infinite
wholeness to its own point. The “A” sound represents flow or continuum, and the “k”
sound represents the stop, or collapse of the flow. This sound is actually the process of
the infinite whole of consciousness collapsing to its point values.
This first syllable of the Rig Veda is elaborated and commented on in the first 24
richas (verses), which are further elaborated in the corresponding 24 padas (phrases) of
the next eight richas, giving 192 of the meaning of the syllable Ak. These all emerge
from the 24 sandhi (gaps) of the first richa. From the 192 gaps between the 192 akshara
(syllables) of richa 2-9, emerge the 192 suktas of the First Mandala of the Rig Veda.
The 192 sandhi between the 192 suktas of the first Mandala give rise to the 192
suktas of the Tenth Mandala, a circular structure that precisely fills the gaps of the First
Mandala. Similarly, the gaps between the nine richas of the first sukta are elaborated in
Mandala 2-9 of Rig Veda, unfolding the total Rig Veda with all its ten Mandalas.41
The whole of the Rig Veda has a marvelous and intricately interwoven structure that
is beyond the capacity of the human mind to create. It was not created, but cognized by
the seers of ancient India. This is part of the reason that Maharishi recognizes the
tradition that the Veda and the Vedic literature “eternal” or uncreated.
The Three-in-One Structure of Pure Knowledge:
The flow of Rishi, Devata, and Chhandas in the Structure of the Veda
There is one other structure of the Veda that is basic to understanding the Veda. In the
process of knowing itself, the infinite pure consciousness, which is eternal knows itself.
In knowing itself, pure consciousness creates a division within itself of knower, known,
and process of knowing. This is necessary for it to know itself. It is both eternally one,
and yet it is eternally three—knower, knowing, and known—making a three-in-one
structure of self-knowing consciousness.
also sees evidence that the Indo-Europeans were in Greece as early as 6,000 BC.
4 in Aryan and Non-Aryan in South Asia: Evidence, Interpretation and History, ed. by Bronkhorst and
Deshpande, University of Michigan Press.
5 See Jonnathan Mark Kenoyer, “Birth of a Civilization.” Archeology, January/February 1998, 54-61, p.
61.
7 Origins of Vedic Civilization
If previous scholars were wrong about the origin of the
Indus people, they also missed the boat when it came to
explaining their downfall, which they attributed to an
invasion by Indo-Aryan speaking Vedic tribes from the
northwest.6
Archeological evidence simply does not support the thesis of an outside invasion.
Kenoyer argues, “it’s likely that the rivers dried up and shifted their courses, altering
trade routes and undermining the economy.” Kenoyer holds that the Indus valley script
can be traced to at least 3,300 BC—making it as old or older than the oldest Sumerian
written records.
Archaeologist Kenneth Kennedy writes that no Aryan skeletons have been found in
the Indus valley that differ from the skeletons of indigenous ethnic groups.
All prehistoric human remains recovered from the Indian
subcontinent are phenotypically identifiable as south
Asians. Furthermore their biological continuity with living
peoples of India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and the border regions
is well established across time and space.7
Scientific archeology, it is now safe to say, no longer gives the invasion theory a grain
of credibility. It has lost its supporters among serious scientists.
Also, as professor Renfrew argues, there is no internal evidence from the ancient
Vedic literature that Vedic civilization originated outside India. The verses of the Rig
Veda, the most ancient songs of Vedic tradition, detail many aspects of daily life of the
people. There is no hint in this vast literature of a migration or of a history that lies in a
homeland beyond the mountains of northern India. All evidence from archeology,
anthropology, and Vedic literature indicate that Vedic civilization was indigenous to
northern India. Geological data now explains the demise of the Indus and Saraswati
valley civilizations in terms of climactic change, bringing an end to the outsideinvasion
theory.
6 Mark Kenoyer, “Indus Valley: Secrets of a Civilization” in Wisconsin, Fall 1998. See also E.J.H. Mackay,
Further Excavations at Mohenjo-daro, 1938, p. 222.
7 Kenneth Kennedy, “Have Aryans Been Identified in the Prehistoric Skeletal Record from South Asia”
appearing in The Indo-Aryans of South Asia (Walter de Gruyter, 1995) Kennedy writes, “Assumptions
that blondism, blue-grey eyes and light skin pigmentation are physical hallmarks of either ancient Aryans
or of members of Brahmin and other social groups in modern south Asia, find their origins in the
improper marriage of excerpts from Vedic texts with nineteenth century Germanic nationalistic writings.”
8 Origins of Vedic Civilization
Causes of the Decline of the Indus-Saraswati Civilization
Geological and archeological evidence, it turns out, give strong evidence that a long
and devastating drought followed by devastating floods led to the abandonment of the
settlements along the banks of the Indus and Saraswati rivers in western India, ending
an urban civilization that had flourished, archeologists now surmise, sometime between
2,600 BC and 1,900 BC. The Indus and Saraswati valley civilization was vast and
widespread, and covered over 250,000 square miles, from north central India in the east
all the way to the eastern edge of Iran in the west. There is no evidence to suggest that
this vast civilization was destroyed by Indo-European Aryan invaders, but rather, it is
now virtually certain that its demise came as a result of widespread climatic changes
that occurred in 1,900 BC.
Recent studies by Louis Flam of H. H. Lehman College of the City University of
New York have shown that the course of the Indus river changed dramatically around
1,900 BC, probably flooding many settlements along the river and disrupting the Indus
valley civilization. Jim Schaffer of Case Western University has found impressive
evidence that settlers of the Indus valley migrated at this time east to the plane of the
Ganges.8
Mortimer Wheeler, the anthropologists who excavated Mohenjo-Daro in the in the
1920s , one of the most well-preserved cities of the Indus Valley civilization, brought to
the project an “outside invasion theory.” He found unburied skeletons in the most
recent layers of the city which led him to think that he had evidence that the civilization
was overrun by invaders from outside. More reliable recent evidence has shown that the
people of the Indus valley were not victims of invasion and massacre, but that their
civilization withered as a result of various climactic changes, including prolonged
droughts and extensive flooding, and possibly also earthquakes that changed the course
of the rivers.
It was not outside invaders of India who brought an end to the Indus-Saraswati
civilization, but a series of climactic changes and natural disasters. The biases of
European scholarship caused them to see invaders where there were none. They existed
only in the imagination of European scholars.
Historical Linguistics and Migrations of Early Civilization
The other issue that needs to be considered is language origins. Historical linguistics
appears to detect patterns of language change which some think may imply patterns of
8 See Jonnathan Mark Kenoyer, “Birth of a Civilization.” Archeology, January/February 1998, 54-61, p. 60.
9 Origins of Vedic Civilization
migration of early peoples, and which may therefore provide a clue to the origins of
Vedic civilization.
The original theory proposed by the early historical linguistics who considered these
issues was that Vedic Sanskrit conserved the original sound system of the “proto-Indo-
European” language most closely, and that Iranian and European languages underwent
a systematic sound shift, creating break-away or daughter languages spoken by the
people who populated India and Europe.9 According to this theory, Vedic Sanskrit was
put at near the trunk of the proto-Indo-European language tree, if not the trunk itself.
This theory has been challenged and hotly debated in recent years, most especially by
computer linguists.10 Since the 1990s, it is now common for computer linguists to hold
that Sanskrit is not so near the root of the Indo-European language tree, but a
subsequent branch. A currently dominant theory is that the original Indo-European
language stemmed from an Indo-European proto-language that has since been lost.
The first languages to break off from the proto-Indo-European root, according to the
dominant contemporary linguistic theories, was Anatolian (the language of what is now
central Turkey), followed by Celtic (a language found in nearby Thrace in northeastern
Greece, and also Ireland suggesting that there was a commerce or colonization between
Ireland and early Thrace), then Greek, and then Armenian.11 According to these
theories, the Indian and Iranian language groups are still later branches off the proto-
Indo-European “root.”
The linguistic evidence appears to imply migrations of people from the Black Sea area
into India, and yet there is no anthropological evidence to support either a migration
into northern India, or an invasion. Evidence from skeletal remains, as we saw, as well
as pottery and other artifacts, show no cultural replacement at any time in north Indian
9 Thomas V. Gamkrelidze and V. V. Ivanov, “Family Tree of the Indo-European Languages,” Scientific
American, March, 1990, p. 110 and following.
10 Dr. Don Ringe and Dr. Ann Taylor, two linguists at the University of Pennsylvania, with the help of
computer scientist Dr. Tandy Warnow, developed a computer algorithm to sift through the Indo-
European languages and look for grammatical and phonetic similarities between them. Their work,
published in 1996, has thrown up four possible family trees. “We have come up with a favorite,” says Dr.
Warnow. The tree shows that the first breakaway language was Anatolian, an ancient group of languages
once spoken in Turkey. Celtic was quick to follow, spawning Irish, Gaelic, Welsh and Breton. Armenian
and Greek then developed from proto-Into-European. Strangely enough, one of the later branches to
emerge, according to the runs of the computer programs, was Sanskrit.
11 It is interesting that the Celts settled in Thrace in northern Greece, just a short distance from Anatolia.
Thrace was the birthplace of the Orphic mysteries which swept into Greece in the sixth century BC.
Celtic is one of the earliest languages, along with Anatolian and Greek, to break off from the Indo
European proto-language. The technique for self-knowledge described by Socrates were said to have
come from Thrace. The Anatolians of central Turkey occupied the area near where the pre-Socratic
tradition sprang up in the sixth century BC. This suggests that a technique was passed from India into the
Celtic language.
10 Origins of Vedic Civilization
history. This makes it difficult to conclude that a people speaking a proto-Indo-
European root language migrated to India from outside, resulting in a language shift to
the daughter language of Sanskrit. The hard anthropological evidence just does not
support such a view. How else, then, can we account for the apparently late evolution of
Sanskrit from the proto-Indo-European root language?
Eminent computer linguists caution against drawing conclusions from computersimulated
language programs—which may reflect the assumptions of the programmers
more than the branches of the linguistic tree.12 They caution that computer linguists
tend to program in assumptions that reflect their own biases and expectations, and
therefore the outcomes cannot be any more accurate than the assumptions. Computer
linguistics does not necessarily mean unbiased, objective linguistics, but may, on the
contrary, program in distinct biases of the linguists. If linguists start with a theory of an
outside invasion, they will naturally bring those biases into their work, and it is not
unthinkable that such biases have colored computer and historical linguistic theories.
It also needs to be pointed out that if a false assumption is programmed in, then
anything at all can come out. Anything at all can be derived from a false assumption. If
the assumption that Sanskrit is not the proto-Indo-European language root be false, then
anything follows.
More on the Indo-European Proto-Language
In 1990, Thomas V. Gamkrelidze and V. V. Ivanov, authors of the two volume The
Indo-European Language and the Indo-Europeans,13 published an article in Scientific
American, in which they state, “The landscape described by the reconstructed Indo-
European proto-language is mountainous—as evidenced by the many words for high
mountains, mountain lakes and rapid rivers flowing from mountain sources.” They note
also that, “the [proto-Indo-European language] has words for animals that are alien to
Europe, such as “leopard,” “snow leopard,” “lion,” “monkey” and “elephant.””14 The
authors suggest, on the basis of this and other linguistic evidence, that the homeland of
the proto-Indo-Europeans was somewhere in the Caucasian mountains of western Asia
near the Black Sea in around 4000 BC.
These same words could be used to make the case that the mountainous terrain, and
more especially the elephant, monkey, and snow leopard are more commonly found in
12 Personal communication with several faculty of the linguistics department at the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill.
13 Thomas V. Gamkrelidze and V. V. Ivanov, The Indo-European Language and the Indo-Europeans,
(published in Russian in 1984)
14 Thomas V. Gamkrelidze and V. V. Ivanov, “Family Tree of the Indo-European Languages,” Scientific
American, March, 1990, p. 110 and following.
11 Origins of Vedic Civilization
the region of northern India and the Himalayas.15 If the words for elephant, monkey,
snow leopard, and mountains are in fact more abundant in the Indo-European protolanguage,
this would most likely put the proto-Indo-European home somewhere in the
Himalayan region of northern India, rather than in the Mountains to the east of the
Black Sea. This would tend to support the hypothesis that the Indo-European protolanguage
originated in the region of the Himalayas of northern India and Tibet, rather
than in the area of central Turkey, where there are few monkeys and elephants.
At present, there is simply not enough evidence to discern the early patterns of
migration and language shift that brought about the different language groups. We can
say with relative certainty, however, that the Vedic people did not migrate into India
from outside, so it is relatively unlikely that the Vedic language came from outside
India. Thus the origins of Vedic Sanskrit remain obscure.16
Many linguists stress that our “linguistic heritage, while it may tend to correspond
with cultural continuity, does not imply genetic or biological descent. There is no more
reason to suppose that we, as speakers of an Indo-European language, are descended
biologically from the speakers of proto-Indo-European, than that the English speaking
population of Nigeria is Anglo-Saxon.”17 It is necessary to be very careful in drawing
conclusions about migration patterns and racial origins from linguistic evidence.
Rules of Language Transformation
A main tool of historical linguistics is the set of rules of sound and grammatical
transformation governing the language change. One language evolves into another due
to cultural or geographic separations of peoples due to migrations or other cultural
displacements, such as conquest. Using the rules of historical linguistics, it appears to
15 Thomas V. Gamkrelidze and V. V. Ivanov, “Family Tree of the Indo-European Languages,” Scientific
American, March, 1990, p. 110 and following. The authors argue that more “recent evidence now places
the probable origin of the Indo-European language in western Asia.” They hypothesize that the proto-
Indo-Europeans originated sometime around 4,000 BC in the region around the Black Sea.
16 Radio-carbon dating of skeletal remains of the “Kennikut man” found in the late 1990s in the Columbia
river gorge on the west coast of north America shows that caucasoidal men inhabited Oregon more than
ten thousand years ago. Some words of the Klamath Indians of that region of Oregon are also of apparent
Indo-European origin. The Klamath word which means “to blow” is “pniw” and may be linked to the
Greek “pneu” which means breath or to blow, and ultimately to the Sanskrit “prana” which means breath.
Linguists assume this was mere accident before the discovery of Caucasoid remains in the area. This
would suggest that a migration into the Americas took place 10,000 years ago or more—and the
immigrants brought with them an Indo-European language, putting the dates of the proto-European root
at before 10,000 BC. The Rig Veda civilization, like the American Indians, had a bow and arrow
technology. Rig Vedic civilization can be placed in time as more advanced than the Indian culture of
10,000 years ago.
17 American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, ed. William Morris (Boston and New York:
Houghton Mifflin, 1969), article by Calvert Watkins, p. XX.
12 Origins of Vedic Civilization
be possible to discern patterns of change and to determine which language has shifted
into the other.
One such rule is the softening of consonants over time. Thus, for example, the “v” in
the Sanskrit “Veda,” meaning knowledge, is transformed into the softer English “w” in
“wit,” “witten,” “wisdom” and the German “wissen,” which also means knowledge,
and derives from the more ancient Sanskrit root. The Sanskrit “deva” is transformed
into the softer Latin “deus,” Greek “theos,” Lithuanian “dewas,” Irish “dia,” and Old
Prussian “diews.”
Using such transformation rules, linguists attempt to reconstruct which languages are
earlier and which broke off later in the transmutation of language. Historical linguists
assume that these rules are constant over time and that they apply to early
transformations as well as later ones.
If we assume that the basic rules of language transformations are constant and do not
mutate over time, then these conclusions follow. But could there have been sound shifts
in the opposite direction at much earlier times in history? Perhaps different laws
applied at the time when Vedic Sanskrit changed from and to other languages.
Consider that there are also changes in the reverse direction. For example, the “g” in
the Sanskrit “go,” (meaning cow) is transformed into the harder consonant “k,” to make
the German word “kuh” for cow. The English word “cow,” pronounced with a hard
“k,” is a harder, guttural form than the “g” in the Sanskrit “go.”
Also, in the case of the Vedic tradition, we have a people who were highly conscious
of language and sound and the rules of sound transformation, even from the early
Vedanga period. The Vedangas give elaborate theories of sound and its relation to
meaning. Ancient Sanskrit grammar has its own rules for the transformation of
consonants, internal rules for change, codified in ancient texts on phonology and
grammar (Nirukta and Vakaran), both of which express elaborate theories of sound.
Such self-reflective theories at an early date may have influenced the direction of
language shift and may be anomalous to the rules applied in later linguistic theory.
Other hypotheses may explain why Vedic Sanskrit appears to not be the proto-Indo-
European root language. One might propose, for example, that an early form of Sanskrit
arose in northern India, and that some north Indian peoples migrated west to the Black
Sea area, where their language mutated into Anatolian, Armenian, Celtic, and Greek.
Then language change within Vedic Sanskrit, due to self-reflective grammatical
theories, have mutated this earlier form of Sanskrit in a direction contrary to the typical
rules of linguistic transformation.
13 Origins of Vedic Civilization
Computer simulated models of language change may be simply wrong or misleading.
In other words, the transformation “rules” of historical linguistics may not apply to
changes as early as Vedic Sanskrit. Or they may reflect more the racial and cultural
biases of the programmers. Rather than assume a migration from the Black Sea area
into India, which is not supported by anthropological evidence, we must simply
acknowledge that we do not have enough knowledge to discern the early patterns of
migration of the people who wrote the Vedic literature. The simplest hypothesis to
account for the data may be that Vedic Sanskrit is itself is the mother tongue of the
proto-Indo-European peoples.
Summary: Euro-centrism and Objective Science
For years, theories of the origins of the Indo-European people were based on small
bits of evidence that were used to make sweeping generalizations. The Euro-centric
perspective so heavily biased the discussion that it became necessary for scientists of
the later twentieth century to re-examine and re-balance the perspectives in order to
remove long-standing misconceptions formed by two centuries of speculative mythmaking.
When these misconceptions are eliminated by objective science, no evidence
remains that the Veda tradition came to India from outside.
Now we come to our second main question, How long ago was the Veda first
cognized? When did the Veda first come to be known in the civilization of India? How
far back in time does the Vedic tradition go?
How Ancient is the
Vedic Tradition?
New Light on the Cradle of Civilization
A SECOND MYTH that dies hard is that Vedic civilization came into existence as
recently as 1000 to 1200 BC. Many scholars today have come to think that these dates
are ridiculously recent and that the Vedic tradition, meaning the tradition of reciting the
Rig Veda and the Vedic literature, is far more ancient. Scholars of the nineteenth
century, the highly venerated Max Muller for one, give dates as recently as 1,000 to
1,200 BC.18 These dates, like the Aryan invasion theory, are products of a Euro-centric
bias. They were rooted in unsustainable religious, cultural, and ethnic assumptions that
were not based on scientific evidence.
Max Muller, one of many Christian missionaries to India, was firmly committed to
the Biblical account of creation. Muller accepted the date of creation given in the Bible
at 4004 BC and the great flood at 1500 BC. This compelled him to date the Rig Veda
much later in time than an impartial scientist would have done. Muller had to fit the
entire Vedic tradition into a time-frame following the great flood, which Biblical
scholars held took place in 1500 BC.
Muller wrote a letter to his wife, dated 1886, in which he said “The translation of the
Veda will hereafter tell to a great extent on the fate of India and on the growth of
millions of souls in that country. It is the root of their religion, and to show them what
the root is, I feel sure, is the only way of uprooting all that has sprung from it during the
last 3,000 years.” These are hardly the words of an unbiased scientist. No matter how
great Muller’s scholarly reputation, we have to examine his reasons for setting the dates
around 1000 to 12000 BC.
Muller recognized that the Vedic tradition had to exist (n part) before Buddha, who
lived in about 500 BC and who reacted against the Vedic tradition. Muller and other
Germanic scholars also noticed that the Agni Purana (16) and other Vedic texts refer to
18 These dates were given by Max Muller. For a recent discussion of Muller’s projected dates, which were
meant as a minimum of time, not an actual dating, see Maurice Winternitz, A History of Vedic Literature,
Vol. 1, (New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1981), pp. 270-288, especially p.273.
15 How Ancient is Vedic Civilization
Buddha, so they felt justified in thinking that the Vedic tradition was just a little more
ancient than Buddhism, and they put the dates of the Vedic period roughly two-thirds of
way between the great flood (the Biblical limit they accepted) and the time of Buddha.
Muller thus set the dates of the Vedic period at 1000 to 1200 BC. Muller reasoned that
if Buddha rejected the Vedic tradition, the Rig Veda must have preceded him by at least
several centuries, but it had to have started (in his opinion as a Bible scholar) after the
great flood.
Even Muller, however, recognized that this was an estimate of a bare minimum of
time that lapsed between the beginning of the Vedic tradition and the time of Buddha.
However, it became commonplace for textbooks to give the dates of the Vedic tradition
as 1,000 to 1200 BC, based on Muller’s minimum estimate. Soon these were known as
the dates of the Rig Veda. This fixed Muller’s estimate of a bare minimum into an
absolute date in the popular imagination.19 The mud of speculation had become
sedimented into the brick of common belief. Current evidence shows that the Veda did
not began so recently in human history. The references to Buddha occur in very late
additions and have no bearings on the far more ancient origins of the Vedic tradition.
Satellite Photographs and Geological Evidence:
Dates of the Saraswati River and the Rig Veda
More recent scholars, such as David Frawley, Dr. B.G. Siddharth, Dr. S.B. Roy,
Professor Subhash Kak, Dr. N.R. Waradpande, and Bhagwan Singh have made a case
for much more ancient dates of the Rig Veda. Also B.G. Tilak, P.C. Sengupta, Pargiter,
Jagat Pati Joshi, Dikshit, K.N. Shastri, Sri Aurobindo, Hermann Jacobi, Dayananda
Saraswati, B.G. Sidharth, among many others, have argued for its greater antiquity.
David Frawley and N.S. Rajaram, in Vedic “Aryans” and the Origins of Civilization,
put forward an interesting and compelling theory of the origins of Vedic civilization.
Drawing upon a large array of evidence from anthropology, satellite mapping, geology,
historical linguistic, and literary study, they have helped discredit the old “Aryan
invasion theory” to establish that the Rig Veda was of much greater antiquity than
Muller had estimated.
One of the strongest bits evidence comes from satellite pictures of an ancient and
dried riverbed that is now taken to be the former bed of the Saraswati river. This great
19 There is strong evidence that Max Muller mistakenly judged the antiquity of the Indian literature by
thousands of years or more (see below). His arbitrary and most unconvincing placement of Alexander’s
visit to India to coincide with Chandragupta Maurya is widely disputed today by many scholars.
According to the evidence of the Purunas, Buddha lived approximately 1,800 BC., and Chandragupta/
Tekshasila (Taxila) was about 1700 BC. The university at Nalanda probably flourished around 1,400 BC.
16 How Ancient is Vedic Civilization
river, described in the Rig Veda as a “mighty river flowing from the mountains to the
sea,” has long since disappeared from the maps of modern India, until satellite pictures
revealed the bed of an ancient river running from the Himalayas to the western gulf of
the Indian ocean, roughly paralleling the course of the Indus, but lying to the east of the
Indus.
Satellite photos and geological field studies show that the Saraswati ceased to be a
perennial river and flowed only seasonally, sometime before 3,000 BC. Also, since
approximately 1,900, the Saraswati riverbed has been completely dry. This, as we will
see, is a key piece of the scientific evidence to establish dates of the Rig Veda.
The Saraswati was fed by melt from Himalayan glaciers, after the receding of the last
ice age, about 8,000 BC. As the melting glacial waters ceased to feed the river, it
changed its course, became a seasonal river, perhaps went underground, and eventually
dried up in its former riverbed. Some, like Subhash Kak, hold that the change in the
course of the river was due to an earthquake.
This event left the many settlements along the banks of the Saraswati to their fate. As
the river dried, without water the agricultural settlements and villages were no longer
sustainable. After this time, the towns and cities were re-located to the Indus river
valley nearby and still later, after the droughts and flooding that came to the Indus and
Saraswati valleys around 1,900 BC, settlers migrated further east to the Ganges river
plain.
The Rig Veda mentions the Indus river quite often, and it mentions the Saraswati no
less than 60 times. Its reference to the Saraswati as a “mighty river flowing from the
mountains to the sea” shows that the Rig Vedic tradition must have been in existence
long before 3,000 BC when the Saraswati ceased to be a “mighty river” and became a
seasonal trickle. Frawley and Rajaram drew the conclusion that the Rig Veda must have
been composed long before 3,000 BC.
Rajaram writes that the “Saraswati described in the Rig Veda belongs to a date long
before 3,000 BC.” He concludes that, “All this shows that the Rig Veda must have been
in existence no later than 3,500 BC.”20 He thus places the beginning of the Vedic
tradition “long before 3,000 BC” and its end before 2,000 BC.
The Mahabharata, the great epic of classical Sanskrit, describes the Saraswati as a
seasonal river. Since the Saraswati dried up by 1900 BC, the Mahabharata would have
to be dated at least before 1,900 BC. Since it was still a seasonal river in 3,000,
Rajaram and Frawley put the date of the Mahabharata in 3,000 BC.
20 N.S. Rajaram, Hindustan Times. N.S. Rajaram, Aryan Invasion of India: The Myth and the Truth.
17 How Ancient is Vedic Civilization
Evidence from French SPOT satellite and the Indo-French field study have changed
this conception of history. By showing that the Saraswati ceased to be a mighty river
long before 3,000 BC, they showed that the Rig Vedic civilization must have begun
long before the Saraswati became a seasonal trickle sometime long before 3,000 BC. If
the Rig Vedic tradition began before 3,500 BC, this would date it earlier the
civilizations of Egypt, Harappa, or Mesopotamia.
Other Approaches to Dating the Vedic Tradition
In an article entitled, “Birth of a Civilization,” in Archeology, January/February 1998,
anthropologist Mark Kenoyer sums up decades of scientific research on the archeology
of India and argues that the Rig Veda verses were known on the subcontinent sometime
before 1500 BC, by communities in the northwest area of the subcontinent.21 This is,
again, a minimal date, not an attempt to fix the time of the Vedic period at 1,500 BC.
Maurice Winternitz, a German scholar and author of the two volume History of
Indian Literature, extensively re-examined the evidence for Muller’s dates in 1981, a
decade before the movement to push back the dates of Vedic civilization that started in
the 1990s. Winternitz estimated how long it would have taken for the vast body of
Vedic literature to form and develop before the Buddhist revival in 500 BC. He
considered each of the major periods of Vedic literature and estimated a bare minimal
time for the incubation of each. His estimate of 1900 years put the beginning of the
Vedic tradition at sometime before 2,400 BC as a bare minimum.
The vast literature of the Rig Veda, the Brahmanans, the Aranyakas, the Upanishads,
the Vedangas, the Upangas, the Puranans, the Itihasa, the systems of Ayur-Veda,
Winternitz argued—each a huge body of literature—required a sustained incubation
period that must have taken an extended period of time. Winternitz could not imagine
that this had taken place in the short span of time that had been assigned for it to
happen between 1,500 BC and 500 BC when Buddha lived. This, it must be
emphasized again, was Winternitz’s estimate of a minimum time, and was not meant to
fix the date of the Rig Vedic beginning.
The City Under the Sea:
Dwarka
Undersea exploration of an ancient city about half a mile off the coast of Gujarat in
India, in 1981, lead to the discovery a city that had been submerged since 1,600 BC.
The city is well established to be Dwarka, an ancient city mentioned in the
Mahabharata, the great epic of the late Vedic period of Itihasa. The Mahabharata
21 Jonnathan Mark Kenoyer, “Birth of a Civilization.” Archeology, January/February 1998, 54-61, p. 61.
18 How Ancient is Vedic Civilization
describes Dwarka as built on land reclaimed from the sea. Boulders have been found
under the fortified city walls, showing that it was the result of land reclamation. The
Mahabharata also mentions that Krishna warned the residents of Dwarka that the city
would be reclaimed by the sea. The discovery of a seal engraved with a three-headed
animal at the Dwarka site corroborates a reference made in the Mahabharata that such
a seal was given to the city. Seven nearby islands described in the Mahabharata have
also been discovered.
Since archeological research shows that the city was submerged around 1,600 BC,
this would date the Mahabharata at least before 1,600 BC. Again this is a minimum
time. Pottery found at the site, inscribed with the script of the Indus valley civilization,
has been established by thermoluminescene tests to be about 3,530 years old.
The Mahabharata was written toward the end of the classical Vedic period. If we
accept Winternitz’s estimates a minimum of 1,500 years lapsed from the beginning of
the Vedic period to the Mahabharata, then since Dwarka was submerged by 1,600, this
would set the date of the Rig Veda back to before 3,100 BC. This again marks the
minimum date of the Rig Veda, and should not be construed as a fixed date.
The body of literature produced by Greece and Rome from Homer to Proclus spans
roughly 1,300 years. The Vedic tradition produced an even larger body of literature
from the beginning of the Rig Veda to the end of the classical period, so it would
probably require at least 1,300 years for the Vedic tradition to generate a larger amount
of literature. If we take 1,600 BC as the minimum date of the Mahabharata, this would
put the beginning of the Vedic tradition sometime before 2,900 BC. If we take
Wintenitz’s estimate of at least 1,900 years, this would put the beginning of the Rig
Veda before 3,500 BC.
Frawley and Rajaram, as well as many others, now put the date of the Mahabharata
war at about 3,000 BC (Maharishi Mahesh Yogi also gives this date in his commentary
on the Bhagavad Gita). If we add 1,900 years incubation time as Winternitz estimates,
this would put the dates of the Rig Veda back before 4,900 BC.
Astronomical References in the Rig Veda and Other Evidence
Evidence from other sources known since the late nineteenth century also tends to
confirm the great antiquity of the Vedic tradition. Certain Vedic texts, for example,
refer to astronomical events that took place in ancient astronomical time. By calculating
the astronomical dates of these events, we thus gain another source of evidence that can
be used to place the Rig Veda in a calculable time-frame.
19 How Ancient is Vedic Civilization
A German scholar and an Indian scholar simultaneously discovered in 1889 that the
Vedic Brahmana texts describe the Pleiades coinciding with the spring equinox. Older
texts describe the spring equinox as falling in the constellation Orion. From a
calculation of the precision of the equinoxes, it has been shown that the spring equinox
lay in Orion in about 4,500 BC.
The German scholar, H. Jacobi, came to the conclusion that the Brahmanas are from a
period around or older than 4,500 BC. Jacobi concludes that “the Rig Vedic period of
culture lies anterior to the third pre-Christian millennium.”22 B. Tilak, using similar
astronomical calculations, estimates the time of the Rig Veda at 6,000 BC.23
More recently, Frawley has cited references in the Rig Veda to the winter solstice
beginning in Aries. On this basis, he estimates that the antiquity of these verses of the
Veda must go back at least to at least 6,500 BC.24 The dates Frawley gives for Vedic
civilization are:
Period 1. 6500-3100 BC, Pre-Harappan, early Rig Vedic
Period 2. 3100-1900 BC, Mature Harappan 3100-1900, period of the Four Vedas
Period 3. 1900-1000 BC, Late Harappan, late Vedic and Brahmana period
Professor Dinesh Agrawal of Penn State University reviewed the evidence from a
variety of sources and estimated the dates as follows:
• Rig Vedic Age – 7000-4000 BC
• End of Rig Vedic Age – 3750 BC
• End of Ramayana-Mahabharat Period – 3000 BC
• Development of Saraswati-Indus Civilization – 3000-2200 BC
• Decline of Indus and Saraswati Civilization – 2200-1900 BC
• Period of chaos and migration – 2000-1500 BC
• Period of evolution of syncretic Hindu culture – 1400-250 BC
The Taittiriya Samhita (6.5.3) places the constellation Pleiades at the winter solstice,
which correlates with astronomical events that took place in 8,500 BC at the earliest.
The Taittiriya Brahmana (3.1.2) refers to the Purvabhadrapada nakshatra as rising due
east—an event that occurred no later than 10,000 BC, according to Dr. B.G.Siddharth
of India’s Birla Science Institute. Since the Rig Veda is more ancient than the
Brahmanas, this would put the Rig Veda before 10,000 BC.
22 Maurice Winternitz, A History of Vedic Literature, Vol. 1, p. 277.
23 B.G. Tilak, The Orion, or Researches into the Antiquity of the Vedas (Bombay: 1893).
24 For example, Rig Veda, verses 1.117.22, 1.116.12, 1.84.13.5.
20 How Ancient is Vedic Civilization
Attempts to date the Rig Veda based on astronomical evidence have some merit, but
the conclusions are hotly debated, and probably not entirely free of conjecture. Some
contemporary scholars take them quite seriously as a method of dating the Rig Veda,
but the evidence is inconclusive at present.
Evidence from Sthapatya Veda Architecture:
Relation of Vedic Civilization to the Indus/Saraswati Civilizations
Perhaps the most interesting evidence for the antiquity of the Vedic tradition comes
from architectural remains of towns and cities of the ancient Indus-Saraswati
civilization. The Indus Valley Civilization flourished, according to the most reliable
current scientific estimates, between 2,600 and 1,900 BC—but there are cities, such as
Mehrgarh, that date back to 6,500-7,000 BC. These dates are based on archeological
fieldwork using standard methods that are commonly recognized in the scientific
community today. Over 1600 settlements have been found in the vast Indus/Saraswati
region that extended over 25,000 square miles.
The most well known cities of the Indus valley civilization, Mohenjo-Daro and
Harappa, were built of kiln-fired brick and laid out on an exact north-south axis. This
means that the main streets of the city ran north-south, and the entrance of the homes
and public buildings faced east. The cities were also built to the west of the rivers, so
that they were on land that sloped east to the river.
These facts, which may seem trivial on first glance, turn out to be highly significant.
The ancient architectural system of Sthapatya Veda prescribes detailed principles of
construction of homes and cities. One of the main principles of Sthapatya Veda is that
cities be laid out on an exact north-south grid, with all houses facing due east. Another
is that the buildings be oriented to the east with a slope to the east and any body of
water on the east. Most of the cities of the Saraswati and Indus valley followed these
principles exactly.
21 How Ancient is Vedic Civilization
These early cities were planned and constructed according to exact principles that
align the microcosm of human dwelling to the larger cosmos. They applied laws of
nature that are set out in Sthapatya Vedic architecture. When the principles were
codified into a system is open to question, but since the building and city planning were
done according to Sthapatya Vedic principles, it is reasonable to conclude that
Sthapatya Veda was known and practiced during the ancient period of Indus-Saraswati
valley civilizations. The system called Sthapatya Veda architecture may have preceded
this period, or may have been codified later, but the cities were built according to
Sthapatya Vedic architecture.
Since these cities were constructed as early as 6,500 to 7,000 BC, this would suggest
that Sthapatya Veda may have been known as early as that. This gives another reason to
put the origins of Rig Vedic tradition even before that time. This is another bit of
evidence, which is not noted in previous literature, that may establish the great antiquity
of the Rig Vedic tradition.
Archeological research has shown Indus Valley civilization was an outgrowth of an
earlier agrarian civilization. Richard H. Meadow of Harvard University has shown for
instance a gradual shift from the hunting of game to the raising of sheep, goats, and
cattle called the humped zebu, which were apparently domesticated in the Indus
valley.25
The city of Mehrgarh, lying to the West of the Indus river near the Bolan Pass,
between ancient India and Afghanistan, was first inhabited from 6,500 BC to 7,000 BC
by a largely agrarian people who cultivated barley and cattle.26 The Rig Veda frequently
mentions barley and milk cattle, and may have come from this agrarian period that was
precursor to the Indus-Saraswati valley civilization.
Yoga in the Ancient Indus Valley
There are still other reasons to think that the ancient city of Mohenjo-daro was home
to a civilization that knew the Vedic tradition. One artifact from Mohenjo-daro is a seal
with a figure of a seated deity, pictured here in lotus posture:
25 See Jonnathan Mark Kenoyer, “Birth of a Civilization.” Archeology, January/February 1998, 54-61, p.
56.
26 Jonnathan Mark Kenoyer, “Birth of a Civilization.” Archeology, January/February 1998, 54-61, p. 56.
22 How Ancient is Vedic Civilization
Picture of a king seated yoga posture with Pipili Leaf,
found in the ancient city of Mohenjo-daro in the Indus
valley.
Mark Kenoyer, the University of Wisconsin anthropologist mentioned earlier,
describes this figure as “seated in a yogic posture.” Kenoyer characterizes it as a deity
with three faces, his feet in a yogic posture extending beyond the throne, with seven
bangles on each arm, and a pipili plant adorning his head.
Here is further evidence that the Indus valley civilization was not pre-Vedic. Rather
than being overrun by “Indo-Europeans” who composed the Rig Veda, the Indus valley
was apparently intimately linked to the Vedic tradition, and its kings practiced yoga. If
the practice of yoga was known at the time of Indus valley civilization, yoga must have
been practiced in India before 1,900 when the Indus Valley settlements were withered
by drought.
If the Indus valley civilizations practiced Sthapatya Veda architecture and Yoga, then
the Vedic tradition was well established in India during the Indus valley civilization
which flourished, archeologists think, around 2,600 BC. The Indus Valley civilization
is thus either contemporaneous with the Vedic tradition, or the Vedic tradition was its
predecessor; but in no case was the vast Indus Valley civilization, extending over 2,500
square miles and 1,600 settlements, destroyed by outside invaders. The Indus-Saraswati
civilization may have been a successor to, or late remnant of, an earlier Vedic
civilization, which built their towns and cities on Sthapatya Vedic principles in the
Indus valley and introduced yoga. It was the drying up of the Saraswati in around 1900
BC that ended Indus-Saraswati civilization, not Aryan invaders.
23 How Ancient is Vedic Civilization
The Devanagri Script:
Is the Vedic Tradition Pre-Indus-Valley?
Now we consider the Devanagri script in which Vedic Sanskrit is written. For years
after Mohenjo-Daro and other settlements of the Indus valley were excavated, the only
evidence of a writing script were a few artifacts that were inscribed with characters that
appeared to be pre-Devanagri. Devanagri is the language in which both Vedic and
Classical Sanskrit are written, so if the script of the Indus valley was indeed an earlier
and more primitive script, as it appears to be, this led many archeologists to speculate
that the Vedic tradition belongs to a post-Indus valley civilization and that the period
came after the end of the Indus-Saraswati civilization. Thus some scholars felt that the
Vedic tradition must belong to a period more recent than 1900 BC, when the peoples of
Indus and Saraswati settlements apparently abandoned their homelands and migrated
east to the Ganges river valley.
This speculation, it turns out, is completely unfounded. Recent digs in western India
have unearthed stone inscriptions in Devanagri, that date from 3,000 BC. This is an
extremely important finding. For one thing, we know that the Vedic tradition began as
an oral tradition. Recitation of the Vedic hymns employed, as we mentioned, elaborate
methods to perpetuate the oral tradition. The Vedic tradition existed before the advent
of a written script, and was passed on in an oral tradition long before the advent of a
written script.
The Rig Veda was memorized by heart and recited in teams of two pundits, who
sang in unison to preserve its purity, precisely because there was no script in which to
write it down and preserve it over time. Preservation depended on memorization and
passing it on in a formal method of oral recitation.
Since the oral tradition of recitation was a phenomenon that belonged to the period
before the advent of a written script, and, since the Devanagri script existed in the Indu-
Saraswati valley by 3,000 BC, this would place the origins of the Vedic tradition long
before 3,000 BC. The Vedic literature in its entirety is a body of oral literature, passed
on first in recited songs, and only later written down, after the advent of a script. If we
take Winternitz’s estimated time for the incubation of the Vedic period, which is 1,900
years, this would put the beginnings of the Vedic oral tradition sometime before 4,900
BC.
New Light on the “Cradle of Civilization”
Textbooks on the origins of civilization commonly state, even today, that the “cradle
of civilization” was in Mesopotamia, in the flood plane between the Tigris and
24 How Ancient is Vedic Civilization
Euphrates rivers. Mesopotamian artifacts have been dated as far back possibly as 4,500
BC, and Egyptian, Assyrian, and other ancient civilizations extend back possibly as far
as the early fourth millennium BC..
The discovery of cities such as Mehrgarh in the Indus valley, which dates from 6,500
to 7,000 BC, puts the Indus valley settlements much further back in time. Exactly how
long ago the Rig Vedic tradition began remains unfathomable, but there are far more
ancient cities in the Indus-Saraswati valley than have been found in the middle-eastern
civilizations of Mesopotamia.
How long ago did urban civilization begin in India? The most reliable answer is that
we don’t know. More importantly, the Vedic tradition may have begun before the
advent of the written languages and the building of brick towns and cities. The
appearance of a written script and building of cities may have come after the decline of
the oral Vedic tradition. Moreover, there is evidence of a long period of human activity
in India long before the earliest appearance of towns in the Indus-Saraswati valley
around 7,000 BC
Archeological evidence shows that at 40,000 BC, during the last ice age, groups of
hunter-gatherers lived in central India in painted shelters of stacked rocks. There are
also sites with rock windbreaks in northern Punjab in India dating from this time.
As early as 100,000 BC, there were humans with 20th-century man’s brain size
(1,450 cc), and as early as 300,000, Homo Sapiens roamed from Africa to Asia.
Evidence of human use of fire dates to 360,000 BC. There is also evidence that
hominids occupied the Punjab region of northern India as early as 470,000 BC. Stone
hand axes and other primitive chopping tools found in northern India have been dated
to 500,000 BC. Other stone artifacts found in India have been found dating from two
million years ago. Remains of the genius “Homo” were found in Africa that are dated
between two and a half to three million years ago.
How far back in time, then, does the Vedic tradition go? The most sure answer is still
at this point in time that we simply do not know. At present there is not enough
evidence to determine, except we can venture that it is far more ancient than has been
commonly supposed. The Rig Vedic civilization almost certainly dates from long
before 3,000 BC, and possibly before 6,000 BC.
However, in dating the Rig Veda, the range of possibilities must not be considered
too narrowly. We must not arbitrarily assume that Vedic tradition originated at any
given date. Its origins may go back in time tens of thousands of years, or even longer.
Since it is an oral tradition, it left no footprints in stone. What is certain is that the
Aryan invasion myths and the dates given by Muller and other nineteenth century
25 How Ancient is Vedic Civilization
scholars came from wild speculations that served nationalist, religious, and racist
agendas, not from scientific considerations.
India and the West
The Flow of Science and Mathematics from India to
Arabia and Europe
THE EUROPEAN SCHOLARS who postulated the Aryan invasion theory were
biased, unscientific—and ultimately wrong. The Rig Veda was cognized by a people
indigenous to India, probably sometime long before 3,000 BC. So we move on to the
next question. How did the Vedic Civilization of India influence the civilizations of the
Middle-East, Egypt, and Europe?
Evidence from a variety of sources shows that an influence of Vedic civilization
flowed west to the continent of Europe. As we will see, science and mathematics
originated in India and came to Greece centuries later. Science and mathematics were
probably introduced into Europe and Egypt from India, possibly through Persia, Arabia,
and Mesopotamia, although possibly also directly.
Vedic and Indic Influences on Persian and Greek Civilization
The Zend-Avesta of Persia took many names of deities from the Rig Veda, most
notably Indra, and included Vedic deities in its pantheon. An archeological excavation
in 1907 found clay tablets from early fourteenth century BC in Boghazköi, near the site
of the ancient city of Troy on the eastern edge of the Mediterranean, in what is now
northwest Turkey. These tablets invoke the names of four Vedic deities—Indra, Mitra,
Varuna, and Nasatyau—in sealing a treaty between the Hittites and the Mitani.27 A
Vedic influence was definitely in eastern Mediterranean prior to the Trojan war, which
occurred about a century later. This site is just up the coast from the Greek city states
where the Pre-Socratic philosophers of Greece sprang up about eight hundred years
later.
Indications of a Vedic influence in the Zend-Avesta in Persia are found earlier than
1,600 and a Vedic influence was in Greece as early as 1,400 BC. But there is much
evidence of a link between the early Greeks and the more ancient Vedic civilization of
India, suggesting that Vedic culture flowed west to Persia and Europe.
27 Maurice Winternitz, A History of Vedic Literature, Vol. 1, pp. 282-283.
27 India and the West
Many of the Greek gods and goddesses are highly similar to those of the and those of
Vedic civilization, suggesting a strong historical connection. Both Vedic Indra and the
Greek Zeus, called king of the gods, were associated with the unbounded and called by
the appellation “Thunderbolt.” Saraswati and Athena, female goddesses of sacred
wisdom, both had similar roles as representing wisdom and nurturers of the creative
arts.28 The Vedic Pushan and Greek Dionysus were both associated with youth, goats,
and wine. Pushan was described as “goat-born,” Bacchus “half-goat.” The tenth
Mandala of the Rig Veda relates that the young god Pushan stole the cattle of Indra,
herded them backwards into a cave, and hid them somewhere inside in a mountain.
Homeric hymns from the ninth century BC attribute exactly the same feat to the young
god Dionysus, who put false feet on the cows, pointed backwards, and then herded
them into a mountain cave, so the gods could not find them.29
The Katha Upanishad of the Vedic tradition relates a metaphor in which the self is
the lord of the chariot, the intellect the charioteer, the body the chariot, the horses, and
the senses. “He who has no understanding…” the Upanishad say, “his senses are out of
control, as wicked horses are for a charioteer.”30 Exactly same metaphor is found in
Plato’s Phaedrus, which uses the image of a chariot moving through heaven and falling
to earth when the self, the charioteer, allows the horses, representing sense and appetite,
to get out of control.31
The Vedic practice of performing sacrificial rites also has echoes in the religious
practices of Greece and Israel. In the Odyssey, Odysseus makes sacrificial offerings of a
bull to the gods, and in Israel, in the Old Testament, there are many descriptions of
burnt offerings of animals to the gods. These practices have their roots in more ancient
Vedic rites.
Fragments from Empedocles’ book on Purification give the same definition of
health that the Charaka Samhita of the Vedic tradition did more than two thousand
years earlier. Heraclitus defines “health” as a balance of the fundamental elements
28 There is also a link between the “angirasas” of the Rig Veda, who were higher beings-intermediates
between gods and men and attendants of Agni, who is often described as a messenger between heaven
and earth. They personify flames of fire as messenger to heaven. This view is borne out by the
etymological connection of Sanskrit “angiras” with the Greek “angelos” (messenger).
29 The cow symbolizes the senses in the Rig Veda, so the backward movement of the cows appears to be a
metaphor for retiring from the outer senses to go within the self.
30 See The Principal Upanishads, ed. S. Radhakrishnan, p. 624. The line quoted is from section 3, no. 5.
31 See The Principal Upanishads, ed. S. Radhakrishnan, (New Delhi: Harper Collins, 1994) The metaphor
of the chariot is given in the Katha Upanishad, pp. 623-625. Plato’s metaphor in the Phaedrus is used to
talk about the experience of the eternal.
28 India and the West
(earth, air, fire and water32) in all parts of the body, each part having the proper
proportion that is right for it. Plato’s Timaeus defines health in the same way. This is
how it is defined in Charaka Samhita.
Ancient legends in Greece speak of the early Pre-Socratics as traveling to India.
Thales, Pythagoras, Empedocles, Democritus, and Plato were all fabled to have made
the journey (although the legends are rarely given credibility). Commentators on the
early Greeks from around the first and second century passed BC on these legends.
While these journeys may or may not have taken place, it is not unthinkable, for there
were well established commercial routes between India and Greece along the Silk
Road, protected by Persian king, as well as between ports on the Red Sea that linked
Greece with India in a thriving spice trade.
Plotinus in the third century AD set out from Alexandria (a city famed for its esoteric
knowledge) on an expedition to India to gain more experiential knowledge of the
transcendent. The expedition never completed the journey, so that Plotinus never
arrived in India, but Plotinus believed that it was the place to learn about the
transcendental unity of Being.
If anything specifically Vedic brought the Greek awakening that occurred in the early
sixth century BC, it was not ideas or concepts from India, but the introduction of a
technique of transcending to experience pure consciousness. Plato writes about a “fair
word” that a physician of Thrace gave to Socrates to enable him to become immortal
and gain self-knowledge.
Ancient India:
A Lighthouse for Scientific and Mathematical Discovery
India remained a lighthouse for the advance of civilization long after the classical
Vedic period. Our modern zero-based number system (the place-value number system)
was first developed in India. Called ‘Arabic numerals’ in the West, they actually
originated in India and were passed into Europe through Arabia, whence they derived
their name in the West.
In Arabia, mathematics was called the “Indian Art,” and the numerals used in Arabia
were called “Indian numerals.” Arabic scholars knew that mathematics had come into
Arabia from India and not vise versa. It was also in India that the counting numbers
were first invented. This inspired Albert Einstein to say, “We owe a lot to the Indians,
32 See Plato, Timaeus, see §82 and following. The Greeks had four elements, earth, air, fire, and water and
the Vedic tradition the same four plus space.
29 India and the West
who taught us how to count, without which no worthwhile scientific discovery could
have been made.”
The following chart shows the evolution of the numerals from the early Indus-
Saraswatic valley script to Devanagri to the Arabic to the present:
Evolution of the “numerals” which are mistakenly called “Arabic numerals” in the West. In
fact they came into Arabia from India. In ancient Arabic, these numerals were called “Indian
numerals” and mathematics was called the “Indian art.”
The value of “pi” was first calculated in India by Budhayana (conservative scholars
put him at least in the sixth century BC) long before it was known in Europe.
Budhayana was also first to introduce a mathematical way to calculate the hypotenuse
of a right triangle. The Shulba Sutra (the Budhayana) written prior to the eighth century
BC in India, used the theorem about two centuries before it was introduced by
Pythagoras into Greece in the sixth century BC. The wording of the theorem in the
30 India and the West
Shulba Sutras is exact: “The diagonal chord of the rectangle makes both the squares
that the horizontal and vertical sides make separately.”33
a
b
c
a2 + b2 = c2
33Saraswati Amma, Geometry in Ancient and Medieval India, (Motilal Banarisdas, 1979), p. 18. For a
discussion of mathematics in ancient India, see also Herbert Meschkowski, Ways of Thought of Great
Mathematicians, (San Francisco: Holden-Day Inc., 1964), and Saraswati Amma, Geometry in Ancient
and Medieval India, (New Delhi: Motilal Banarisdas, 1979), p. 18. For an update on the scientific
understanding of the Rig Veda, see Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Vedic Physics: Scientific Origin of Hinduism,
with a Foreword by Subhash Kak, Toronto, Canada: Golden Egg Publishing, 1999.
The Shulba Sutra are among the most ancient of mathematical texts known to man. In the valley of the
Indus River of India, the world’s oldest civilization had developed its own system of mathematics. The
Vedic Shulba Sutras (fifth to eighth century BC), meaning “codes of the rope,” show that the earliest
geometrical and mathematical investigations among the Indians arose from certain requirements of their
religious rituals. When the poetic vision of the Vedic seers was externalized in symbols, rituals requiring
altars and precise measurement became manifest, providing a means to the attainment of the unmanifest
world of consciousness. “Shulba Sutras” is the name given to those portions or supplements of the Kalpa
sutras, which deal with the measurement and construction of the different altars for religious rites. The
word shulba refers to the ropes used to make these measurements.
Although Vedic mathematicians are known primarily for their computational genius in arithmetic and
algebra, the basis and inspiration for the whole of Indian mathematics is geometry. Evidence of
geometrical drawing instruments from as early as 2,500 BC. has been found in the Indus Valley. The
beginnings of algebra can be traced to the constructional geometry of the Vedic priests, which are
preserved in the Shulba Sutras. Exact measurements, orientations, and different geometrical shapes for
the altars and arenas used for the religious functions (yagyas), which occupy and important part of the
Vedic religious culture, are described the Shulba Sutras. Many of these calculations employ the
geometrical formula known as the Pythagorean theorem.
This theorem (c. 540 BC.), equating the square of the hypotenuse of a right angle triangle with the sum
of the squares of the other two sides, was utilized in the earliest Shulba Sutra (the Baudhayana) prior to
the eighth century BC. Thus, widespread use of this famous mathematical theorem in India several
centuries before its being popularized by Pythagoras has been documented. The exact wording of the
theorem as presented in the Sulba Sutras is: “The diagonal chord of the rectangle makes both the squares
that the horizontal and vertical sides make separately.” The proof of this fundamentally important
theorem is well known from Euclid’s time until the present for its excessively tedious and cumbersome
nature; yet the Vedas present five different extremely simple proofs for this theorem. One historian,
Needham, has stated, “Future research on the history of science and technology in Asia will in fact reveal
that the achievements of these peoples contribute far more in all pre-Renaissance periods to the
development of world science than has yet been realized.”
The Shulba Sutras have preserved only that part of Vedic mathematics which was used for constructing
the altars and for computing the calendar to regulate the performance of religious rituals. After the Shulba
Sutra period, the main developments in Vedic mathematics arose from needs in the field of astronomy.
Jyotisha, the science of the planets, utilizes all branches of mathematics.
The need to determine the right time for their religious rituals gave the first impetus for astronomical
observations. With this desire in mind, the priests would spend night after night watching the advance of
the moon through the circle of the nakshatras (lunar mansions), and day after day the alternate progress of
the sun towards the north and the south. However, the priests were interested in mathematical rules only
as far as they were of practical use. These truths were therefore expressed in the simplest and most
practical manner. Elaborate proofs were not presented, nor were they desired.
31 India and the West
Major centers of learning operated in ancient India. The World’s first major
university and trade school was in Taxila (Takshila) then in northwestern India, around
700 BC (some scholars estimate). It boasted a thousand students from all over the
known world who studied 60 disciplines taught there. The University of Nalanda,
established in the forth century BC, was also a major center of learning in the ancient
world.
The Indian astronomer and mathematician Bhaskaracharya in the 5th century BC
(this is an estimated date that may be too recent), calculated the time taken by the earth
to orbit the sun to nine decimal places.34 Algebra, trigonometry, and calculus were first
set forth in ancient India. Aryabhata the Elder (476-550 AD) gave a summary of Indian
mathematics that covers astronomy, spherical trigonometry, arithmetic, algebra and
plane trigonometry. Aryabhata also gives a formula for finding the areas of a triangle
and a circle. His main work, the Aryabhatiya, contains continued fractions, quadratic
equations, sums of power series and a table of sines. Aryabhata gave an accurate
approximation for “pi” of up to 3.1416 and was one of the first to use algebra.35 His
most important achievement was the invention of the “0,” which enabled the
development of the place number system.
Aryabhata also wrote an text on astronomy, the Siddhanta, which taught that the
apparent rotation of the heavens was due to the rotation of the Earth on it axis.
Aryabhata gives the radius of the planetary orbits in terms of the radius of the
Earth/Sun orbit as essentially their periods of rotation around the Sun. He believed that
the Moon and planets shine by reflected sunlight, and he taught, incredible though it
may seem, that the orbits of the planets around the sun are ellipses. This was a thousand
hundred years before Copernicus and Kepler came up with the same discovery in
Europe. He also correctly explained the causes of the eclipses of the Sun and the Moon
and calculated the value for the length of the year at 365 days 6 hours 12 minutes 30
seconds. This is a slight overestimate since the true value is less than 365 days 6 hours.
His work, written in 121 stanzas, gives a remarkably accurate view of the structure of
the solar system.
Brahmagupta (598-670 AD, again an estimated date that may off), head of the
astronomical observatory at Ujjain, the foremost mathematical center of ancient India,
developed algebraic notation and gave remarkable formulas for finding the area of a
cyclic quadrilateral and for the lengths of the diagonals in terms of the sides.
34 According to Bhaskaracharya’s calculations, which were made in the 5th century BC, the time taken by
earth to orbit the sun is 365.258756484 days (slightly larger than the correct time).
35 Aryabhata also introduced the versine (versin = 1-cos) into trigonometry.
32 India and the West
Brahmagupta also studied arithmetic progressions, quadratic equations, theorems on
right-angled triangles, surfaces and volumes, and calculated the length of the year at
365 days 6 hours 12 minutes 36 seconds.
Quadratic equations were first discovered by Sridharacharya in the 11th century. Then
Bhaskara (1114-1185 AD) reached an understanding of the number systems that solved
equations which were not solved in Europe until several centuries later. Like
Brahmagupta before him, Baskara was head of the astronomical observatory at Ujjain,
where he developed a sophisticated understanding of 0 and the negative numbers.
The art of navigation was invented 6,000 years ago by navigators of the Indus river.
The English word navigation is derived from the Sanskrit word ‘Navgatih’ and the
word navy from the Sanskrit ‘Nou.’ The first known reservoirs and dams for irrigation
were also built in India.
Ayur-Veda, the earliest known system of medicine and surgery, was developed in the
Vedic period in India. Sushrut, the father of surgery, developed surgical procedures
including cesareans, cataract removals, setting fractures, removing urinary stones and
even plastic and brain surgery. Over 125 surgical tools are named in the ancient Sushrut
medical texts. Anesthesia was also well known. Detailed texts on anatomy, physiology,
etiology, embryology, digestion, metabolism, genetics, and immunity date from Vedic
times.
Sometime around 444 BC, Empedocles introduced a medical system into Greece
modeled on the then ancient Ayurvedic system of India. Empedocles’ book on
Purification gives, as we saw, the same definition of health as the Charaka Samhita. It
bears repeating: health is the balance of the fundamental elements (earth, air, fire and
water36) in all parts of the body, each part having the proper proportion of each that is
right for it. Empedocles adopts this definition from the Vedic tradition. Plato’s Timaeus
defines health in the same way.
Joseph Needham, the eminent physicist and cultural historian, comments that, “Future
research on the history of science and technology in Asia will in fact reveal that the
achievements of these peoples [of India] contribute far more in all pre-Renaissance
periods to the development of world science than has yet been realized.”37 The first
pioneer of wireless communication was Jagdeesh Bose—not Marconi as commonly
taught in the West.
36 See Plato, Timaeus, see §82 and following. The Greeks had four elements, earth, air, fire, and water and
the Vedic tradition the same four plus space.
37 Quoted in V. Raghavan, Presidential Address, Technical Sciences and Fine Arts Section, XXIst AIOC,
New Delhi, 1961.
33 India and the West
India’s most substantial gift to world civilization was, however, the discovery of pure
consciousness and the mapping out of the architectonic structure of pure knowledge.
All other achievements derive from this great awakening of knowledge that took place
in ancient Vedic India.
Summary and Conclusion
The Vedic heritage of India has been grossly miscalculated, misunderstood, and
under-appreciated. The light of Vedic knowledge burned brilliantly in Vedic India long
before is spread into Iran, the middle-east, and Europe.
It appears that Rig Vedic civilization originated in northern India, definitely before
1,900, and probably before 3,000 BC. The Vedic tradition may have originated before
6,500 BC. Passed on from father to son in unbroken tradition of pundits who recited the
Vedic verses, it is still sung by pundits in India today. Imagine if Homeric bards were
found today who could still chant the Iliad and Odyssey according to the oral tradition
handed down from Homeric times! This would be heralded as a monumental event. Yet
the Vedic tradition was possibly as ancient to Homer when he lived as Homer is to us
today.
The Vedic tradition lives in the songs softly chanted by pundits today that may have
originated ten thousand or more year ago, or even further remote in time. The Rig Veda
and the Vedic literature were preserved by a tradition of chanting, with self-correcting
feedback methods, always involving two pundits reciting the verses together. Other
methods of self-correction were used, so the authenticity of the tradition is well
preserved. The written Veda did not emerge until the Devanagri script was invented,
and that was post-Indus-Saraswati civilization.
The Vedic civilization, far more ancient than the Greek, spread from India to Europe,
via Anatolia, Thrace, and Greece, and from there into Western Europe. The direction of
the flow was from India into Arabia and then to Europe. Evidence shows that the Vedic
tradition entered into Europe sometime before the early fourteenth century BC.
The Rig Vedic tradition and its literature almost certainly came into existence
sometime long before the earliest civilizations of Mesopotamia, Sumeria, and Egypt.
These were relatively late events in the history of civilization and probably owe their
existence to the earlier civilization of Vedic India.
It is necessary to reiterate that the origins of the Vedic tradition are still obscured in
the fog of time, but it is necessary to shift it much further back than Muller’s
contingent of scholars put it. A more balanced view of the Vedic tradition might place
it as follows:
34 India and the West
1. Before 6,500 to around 3,000 BC—early Rig Veda to Itihasa period38
2. 2600-1900 BC, Mature Harappa civilization
3. 1900-1000 BC, late Vedic and Brahmana period
4. 500 BC, Shankara’s revival
Because we don’t know yet how ancient the earliest verses of the Rig Veda are, we
have to abstain from any dogmatic pronouncements, but we have seen reason to think
that they are far more ancient than Europeans scholars previously estimated. The
ancient Vedic tradition was indigenous to the land of India, possibly overlapping the
Indus and Saraswati valley civilizations and extending into the Himalayas, where the
tradition continued unbroken for perhaps tens of thousands of years.
The Rig Veda extols the Indus rivers in the oft repeated refrain, “Flow Indus to
Indra”—a metaphor for the flow of individual awareness into unbounded universal
awareness. The whole tradition, as we see in the following chapters, is about the
experience of awakened consciousness, or enlightenment.
The refrain, “flow Indus to Indra” is also a reference to the Indus civilization that
lived along the banks of the Indus river since 6,500 BC. It was this awakening of
consciousness that cradled the ancient Vedic civilization of Vedic India—long before
civilization emerged in Europe. As the river of civilization flowed from India
westward, one of its main tributaries was the civilization of ancient Greece and Asia
Minor.39 Greek civilization possibly resulted from the spread of techniques that passed
on the enlightenment tradition from India into the Eastern Mediterranean basin.
38 Mesopotamian, Sumerian, and Egyptian civilizations cannot, according to traditional archeology, extend
much past 3,300 BC. Recent research has suggested that the pyramids were constructed as early as
12,500 BC.
39 One of the great puzzles of early history is to understand why sometime around 500 BC a great
awakening of knowledge occurred simultaneously in India, China, and Greece. Lao Tzu and Confucius in
China, Buddha in India, and Heraclitus and Parmenides in Greece all flourished around that time. Lao
Tzu as well as several early Greeks, according to legend, made a journey to India. The possibility exists
that the awakening came from India, where for thousands years before, the Vedic tradition flourished.
This was also the time of a great re-awakening of the Vedic tradition in India. Shankara’s teaching of
transcendental meditation in India began, according to ancient records, contrary to what is currently
taught in Western scholarship, sometime in the late sixth century BC. Shankara did not live in the ninth
century where he was misplaced by modern scholars unfamiliar with the Vedic tradition.
Modern scholars have traditionally placed Shankara in the ninth century AD. This results from a
confusion of an illustrious successor of Shankara with the original Shankara who lived about 500 BC.
“Shankara” had become a title, so in the long succession of Shankaracharyas, or masters of the Shankara
tradition, there were many Shankaras. It was a natural confusion but the first Shankara lived in the mid to
early sixth century BC. (See Maharishi’s discussion of this in his Bhagavad Gita, A New Translation and
Commentary, Livingston Manor, NY: MIU Press, 1967, p. 186.) There are historical records of the
Shankarcharya tradition that link it back to the original Shankara in the sixth century BC, mentioning
each of the Shankaracharayas in the long succession.
According to recent archeological and anthropological research, the Vedic tradition began probably
sometime well before 3,500 BC. This would put the origin of the Vedic tradition at least 2,400 years
35 India and the West
The Vedic tradition gives a much deeper meaning to the word “tradition” than has
been known before. Nothing in the West approximates it. For thousands of years, the
Vedic tradition expanded, and grew richer in detail, commenting on itself and
expanding by knowledge of itself. Each contributor built on what the previous had
done, cumulating in a systematic exposition of the structure of pure consciousness.
Techniques to gain enlightenment were developed, cultivated, and passed on generation
after generation. The techniques sustained the tradition and gave it substance through
making the experience available.
Vedic civilization centered around the discovery of pure consciousness and the
delineation of its structure. The Rig Veda and the Vedic literature gave a monumental
depiction of this structure of eternal consciousness. These remarkable works give a
prior to the battle of Troy, the event that marks the mythological beginning of the early Greek literary
tradition, and 3,000 years before the earliest Pre-Socratic philosophers.
For a fuller discussion of this new wave of scholarship, see David Frawley and N.S. Rajaram Vedic
“Aryans” and the Origins of Civilization: A Literary and Scientific Perspective, 1995. See also George
Feuresein, Subhash Kak, and David Frawley, In Search of the Cradle of Civilization: New Light on
Ancient India, 1995. Also, David Frawley, Gods, Sages Kings, (Morson Publishing, 1991). See also, N.S.
Rajaram The Hindustan Times (Nov. 28, 1993). Rajaram writes, “It is now recognized by scholars that
the Aryan invasion theory of India is a myth that owes more to European politics than anything in Indian
records or archaeology.” Frawley writes. “the rationale behind the late date for the Vedic culture given by
Muller was totally speculative. Max Muller, like many of the Christian scholars of his era, believed in
Biblical chronology. This placed the beginning of the world at 400 BC and the flood around 2500 BC.
Assuming to those two dates, it became difficult to get the Aryans in India before 1500 BC.” See also
Colin Renfrew, Professor of Archeology at Cambridge University, in his famous work, Archeology and
Language: The Puzzle of Indo-European Origins, (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1988). See also
Mark Kenoyer, “Indus Valley: Secrets of a Civilization” in Wisconsin, Fall 1998 and Kenneth Kennedy,
“Have Aryans Been Identified in the Prehistoric Skeletal Record from South Asia” appearing in The
Indo-Aryans of South Asia (Walter de Gruyter, 1995) Kennedy writes, “Assumptions that blondism,
blue-grey eyes and light skin pigmentation are physical hallmarks of either ancient Aryans or of members
of Brahmin and other social groups in modern south Asia, find their origins in the improper marriage of
excerpts from Vedic texts with nineteenth century Germanic nationalistic writings.” Also N.S. Rajaram,
Hindustan Times. N.S. Rajaram, Aryan Invasion of India: The Myth and the Truth. Also, Maurice
Winternitz, A History of Vedic Literature, Vol. 1, (New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1981), pp. 270-288.
Winternitz writes, in 1981, that it is imprudent to try to fix the dates of the Vedic civilization any earlier
than 2,000 or 2,500 BC. Max Muller had argued in 1859 in his History of Ancient Sancrit Literature, that
the Rig Veda could not have been written before 1,200 or 1,000 BC. Later scholars often took this as the
date of the Rig Veda and attributed this date to Muller. However, Muller did not attempt to fix the date at
1,200 or 1,000 BC, but only held that it must be earlier than that. Winternitz gives compelling reasons to
think that the date of the Rig Veda cannot be before 2,000 or 2,500 BC. Even this is not, as he says, a
legitimate attempt to set a date, but only to set the latest possible beginning of the Rig Veda. There is no
reason whatever, as he points out, to think that it began in 2,000 to 2,500 BC—only that this is the latest
date at which the hymns of the Rig Veda can reasonably be supposed to have begun. One must be very
careful not to take these as dates of the Rig Veda, only as the lower limits of a date, before which the Rig
Veda must have been written.
Many put the Rig Vedic tradition at 6,000 BC or before. See A. Ludwign, Der RigVeda, III, Prag, 1878,
pp. 183 ff. and B.G. Tilak, The Orion or Researches into the Antiquity of the Vedas, Bombay, 1893. Also
see Abinas Chandra Das, Rig-Vedic India, I, Calcutta, 1922; discussed in Maurice Winternitz, A History
of Vedic Literature, Vol. 1, pp. 275 and 287 and following.
For further reading, see also A.L. Basham, The Wonder That Was India, Calcutta: Rupa & Co., 1967.
36 India and the West
complete science of the structure of pure knowledge that exists within the self of
everyone. It was from this cognition of the structure of Veda and the Vedic literature
that the civilization was born.
In the West, by comparison, there was no sustained theme of enlightenment remotely
comparable to the Vedic tradition. There was no sustained tradition of knowledge based
on the experience of consciousness. The early history of western Europe, including the
glory of ancient Greece, are sparks, brilliant though they be, from the great fire of
knowledge of Vedic India.
Preview of More to Come:
What is the Veda and
the Vedic Literature?
THE NEXT QUESTION IS, what is the Veda and the Vedic tradition? Since the
Veda and the Vedic tradition have extremely ancient roots going back at least to the
third millennium BC and probably much further, we now want to ask, what is this Rig
Veda and the Vedic literature? What is the Vedic tradition really about?
It is as if we have been on an archeological dig on an ancient site in the Indus valley
and we find a treasure room of vast extent, filled with books that are about an ancient
science. As we decipher these ancient codes, we discover an ancient body of knowledge
more advanced than any science known today. This is the excitement of the rediscovery
of the Veda.
If the European scholars got the dates of the Vedic tradition and the invasion theory
entirely wrong, neither did they understand anything of what was going on in the Vedic
tradition. Again, we cannot expect that they can give an penetrating answers to the
question of what the Veda is. The answer must come from those who know the Veda
from direct experience.
The Veda itself is said to be knowledge. Veda means knowledge. It refers to the kind
of knowledge that comes from transcending activity to experience the knowledge
structured within the inner silence of consciousness itself. Veda is the self-knowledge
consciousness of itself, consciousness knowing its own nature. This knowledge exists
deep within everyone, deep within our own consciousness, but we are out of touch with
it because we have lost the ancient knowledge of how to go within. By diving deep
within the self, and beyond our own individual consciousness, to the universal allpervading
consciousness, when consciousness is still and deeply silent, we too can
experience the Veda. It is this experience from which all Vedic knowledge comes. On
the basis of this experience, we can know the structure of the Veda that exists eternally
in consciousness.
38 What is the Veda and the Vedic Literature?
The Veda is the expression of the knowledge gained during transcending, or going
beyond active mind and finite mind, to experience the infinite consciousness that lies at
the basis of all created things. This experience gives knowledge of the eternal
consciousness that pervades all creation. It is not localized to individual awareness. It is
universal all-pervading consciousness. Anyone can gain access to this consciousness by
transcending activity to experience the infinite, unbounded silence at the basis of
creation.
The infinite silence is not seen, as one sees an object separate from the self. Infinite
silence is what the seer becomes when he or she is deeply silent. The Vedic seers
discovered that when the mind is deeply silent and still, it expands from individual
mind to infinite mind. One becomes infinite mind and the structure of this infinite mind
is what one experiences when one sees the Veda.
The greatest Vedic scholar and seer of all ages is undoubtedly Maharishi Mahesh
Yogi. Maharishi is a great genius who has brought to light the deeper meaning of the
Veda on the basis of the direct experience of the Veda itself. Since the Veda is
structured in consciousness, the consciousness which is not individual but universal and
all-pervading, it exists within everyone. Every individual consciousness grows out of
the vast ocean of universal consciousness which is the Veda. By diving within our
individual consciousness, and beyond, to the infinite sea of universal consciousness, we
can experience the eternal, all-pervading sea of consciousness and its self-interacting
dynamics by which the world is created within the eternal sea of consciousness. This is
to witness the mechanics of creation. Veda is this mechanics of creation.
The Vedic tradition grew out of a discovery of a way to go within consciousness and
directly experience the Veda which exists deep within consciousness. It is only through
this experience that there can be genuine knowledge of the Veda at all. It is for this
reason that Maharishi brought out a technique to directly experience the silent level of
consciousness within everyone. This technique makes the eternal Veda accessible to
everyone on the basis of personal experience. It is the foundation of the knowledge of
the Veda. The name of the techniques is the Transcendental Meditation technique. It is
the method that opens the direct experience of universal consciousness and the Veda to
anyone. It is thus the method of knowledge that makes universal knowledge of the
eternal field of pure consciousness accessible to everyone. It is the method of
exploration of consciousness by which anyone can gain access to the silent,
unconditioned, universal consciousness that underlies and pervades all manifest objects
in the physical world.
39 What is the Veda and the Vedic Literature?
Thus, the only solid foundation for knowledge and understanding the Veda is the
exploration of the fundamental level of inner silence, the inner silence of pure
consciousness itself, where the Veda is structured. Only through experience of this
level of reality—the silent foundation of universal consciousness—can anyone be
prepared to know and understand the Veda. The Veda is the reality of consciousness
and the knowledge of consciousness that is accessible through this experience; the
Vedic tradition is the tradition that carries that knowledge over time; and Vedic
civilization is the civilization that was built on this knowledge that existed in India at
least three thousand years and probably more before the Christian era began.
As we will see, the Rig Veda and the Vedic literature are a systematic expression of
consciousness and the knowledge of consciousness. The Veda tells us something about
our own consciousness, about our human potential to be in and to experience a
universal field of consciousness that underlies all created things. The essential meaning
of the Veda escaped Western scholars for two centuries, but we now are rediscovering
its meaning and coming to directly experience and know the Veda through direct
experience through the guidance of Maharishi. This method brings knowledge more
advanced than any other approach available in the world today, and as we will see, it
has practical applications far greater than any other method of knowledge. In this and
the following chapters, we will see that the Veda is a lasting expression of deep
knowledge that has survived over many thousands of years in virtually perfect
condition, and that it holds the secret to unlocking new knowledge and a new approach
to knowledge that will enhance our own civilization more than any other discovery in
history.
What is Vedic Cognition and How is it Passed On?
The Rig Veda was not “created” out the human imagination, as works of poetry or
literature are created. Unlike poetry or literature, the Veda is experienced and then the
experience of the Veda is recited in hymns that directly express the experience of the
Veda. This is called Vedic cognition.
Cognition means that the Vedic rishis or seers heard what is there in the universal
field of consciousness and they sang out the sounds that they heard. They were not
making up poems, hymns, theories, or world-views, but they heard the sounds in the
field of pure consciousness and saw the flow pure knowledge within it. Their
experience came from being established in the deepest level of the mind.
This experience is what the recited sounds of the Veda express. But the hymns of the
Rig Veda are not about the Veda, as if the expression were something different from
40 What is the Veda and the Vedic Literature?
the Veda itself, which they were describing. The rishis heard the Veda and saw its
structure, and this sound itself is expressed in the hymns of the Rig Veda. The
experience of the Rig Veda flowed through the rishis into the hymns of the Rig Veda.
The hymns of the Rig Veda sought out those rishis who were fully awake and made
themselves known to them, and the rishis passed on these hymns in a long unbroken
tradition that endures to the present.
The Rig Veda, the most ancient hymns of the Vedic tradition, has been preserved
over time by a method of memorization and recitation passed these hymns on from
father to son in an unbroken sequence over vast stretches of time. By two pundits
chanting the hymns (and by chanting them forwards and backwards) a method of
ensuring their purity was established that allowed these hymns to be passed on over
thousands of years without loss. The Veda we possess today, unbelievable as it may
seem, is thus an expression of the sounds heard many thousands of years ago.
It was only in relatively recent times, probably around 3000 BC, that the Veda and
Vedic literature, were committed to writing. Before that Veda was an oral tradition.
The Vastness of the Veda and The Vedic Literature
Maharishi identifies 40 distinct branches of the Veda and the Vedic literature. These
forty branches include, first and foremost, the Rig Veda samhita, and of equal
importance, the Sama Veda, Yajur Veda, and Atharva Veda. These four bodies of
sound are what is meant by the Veda.
In addition to the Veda, the Vedic literature includes 36 branches, all based on the
Veda itself. These include the six branches of Vedanga, six branches of Upanga, and
six branches of Ayur-Veda, for example. All branches of Vedic literature are
considered, like the Veda itself, uncreated or eternal structures of knowledge.
The extent of the Veda and the entire Vedic literature is vast, huge—much larger, for
example, than the remaining body of literature of all of ancient Greece and Rome.
There are ten volumes of the Rig Veda alone in one of the best editions available in
English (the Wilson translation). There are 54 books of Kalpa, just one of six branches
of the Vedangas. There are 18 books of Puranas. The Itihasa includes the Ramayana
and the Mahabharata, the later of which is printed in an English edition which has 20
volumes. There are thus, for example, over a hundred volumes in just these four
branches of the Veda and the Vedic literature.
Maharishi sees this vast body of the Veda and the Vedic literature as a systematic
body of literature that has a detailed, intricate structure in every part, and all
systematically related in a whole. It is systematic in the sense that is not a random
41 What is the Veda and the Vedic Literature?
collection of books that were written over vast stretches of time, but it forms a complete
whole, with a comprehensive organization and structure. Each of the books of Vedic
literature relates in a systematic way to all the others and each forms an essential part of
the whole of Vedic literature.
Where is the Veda and How is it Known?
The Veda is expressed in sounds that are recited and heard, but the Veda itself exists
in the unmanifest field of unbounded pure consciousness, called parame vyoman. This
is a universal silent field of consciousness that pervades everything in the universe.
Since it is all-pervading, it pervades the body and mind of every individual. It exists on
the most subtle, or fine scale, of activity. It is smaller than the smallest particle of the
atomic nucleus. It is on a scale smaller than the smallest quark and lepton. It is the field
of consciousness in its least excited state. Everything in nature is an excitation of this
field. All particles of matter and force are excited states of this one all-pervading field.
To know the Veda, which is everywhere at the most subtle foundation of the world,
we have only to take our awareness from the excited states of consciousness to the least
excited state of consciousness. By taking our awareness from the active, gross level of
activity to the silent field of pure consciousness, we allow our individual mind to
become settled and stilled and in that state of wakeful silence, and in that state, the
mind spreads out to identify with the all-pervading field of consciousness. On that level
of awareness, the entire Veda and Vedic literature can be directly experienced as the
fabrics of our own consciousness. We simply dive from the surface level of activity to
the silent all-pervading depth where consciousness is eternally awake within itself. On
that level of all-pervading nature, consciousness is eternally interacting within itself.
This self-interaction of consciousness as its flows from unity into diversity is the Veda.
It is the eternal reality at the foundation of everything that exists in the observable
manifest world.
Structure of the Veda
The Veda has a structure. It is structured in the form of mandalas, or circles. The
structure of the Veda and the Vedic literature is a flow of knowledge, not a static,
frozen structure. As the eternal consciousness flowing within itself and knowing itself,
it flow, and creates within itself a structure that is dynamic and flowing. This flowing
structure of Veda is an eternal flow of pure knowledge of the self as it unfolds
knowledge of itself. It is the flow of consciousness as it knows itself and flows from
unity to diversity. It is the flow of self-knowledge within consciousness, giving rise to
the entire diversity of creation. It is the flow of the oneness of eternal pure
42 What is the Veda and the Vedic Literature?
consciousness into the many formed unity of the Veda, and from there to the forms and
phenomena of the manifest universe, the visible material world.
The first flow of knowledge of the Veda is the flow from the One into the many. The
eternal oneness of pure Being or pure consciousness knows itself. And in knowing
itself, it breaks itself into many. The infinite One collapses into a point, and into
infinitely many points. These points of consciousness are finite, separate, isolated
points of individual consciousness. But they are all ultimately points of the one infinite
whole of consciousness. Each is a collapsed point of the infinite whole, and in the
process of returning to wholeness, the finite points of consciousness expand back into
the infinite One from which they began. This is the fundamental process of creation that
is expressed in the Rig Veda and in the Vedic literature.
The Rig Veda expresses this process in sound. The Rig Veda is essentially this
sequence of vibrations that manifest as the process of consciousness knowing itself. It
unfolds out of the process of consciousness knowing itself. This entire process is a
necessary sequence of sounds that unfold the pure knowledge of consciousness to itself.
It is the eternal murmuring of consciousness to itself.
The Rig Veda does not describe the process in articulate language, using descriptive
terms, the way a scientist might describe an object of nature. The vibrations of
consciousness as it moves within itself create unmanifest sounds in the unmanifest field
of pure consciousness, which manifest as the sound of the Veda, and these sounds
within the infinite field of pure consciousness become the vibrations that manifest in
the forms and phenomena of physical creation.
Collapse of Infinity to a Point:
The Apaurusheya Bhashya Structure of the Veda
The basic process of consciousness knowing itself takes the form of a collapse of the
infinite whole of pure consciousness into infinitely many finite points of consciousness.
This process of infinity collapsing to a point, and the points expanding into infinity, is
the basic process that structures the Veda. It is the process by which the eternal Oneness
of pure consciousness knows itself. Infinite wholeness collapses to a point and the point
expands to infinity. Out of this process all creation comes.
Maharishi has discovered that this process and its structure is expressed in the first
syllable of the Rig Veda, in the first line, in the first verse, and in the first mandala,
each expression being a more elaborate commentary on the collapse of infinity than the
previous. This structure Maharishi calls the Aparasheya Bhasha structure of the Rig
Veda. Maharishi was the first to discover and bring it to light.
43 What is the Veda and the Vedic Literature?
Maharishi discovered that the Rig Veda has a marvelous structure in which each of
the parts reflects the structure of the whole. Thus, for example, the First Mandala of the
Rig Veda, which gives the meaning of the Veda as a whole, has 192 suktas. The Tenth
Mandala has the same number of suktas, mirroring the gaps between the suktas of the
First Mandala. This is not an accidental structural parallel, but an indication of the
intricately interlocked structure of the Veda as a whole. This kind of structural identity
is reiterated in many places throughout Vedic literature.
Maharishi sees the first syllable of the Rig Veda, Ak,40 as containing the whole Rig
Veda within itself. It represents the collapse of the continuum of flow of infinite
wholeness to its own point. The “A” sound represents flow or continuum, and the “k”
sound represents the stop, or collapse of the flow. This sound is actually the process of
the infinite whole of consciousness collapsing to its point values.
This first syllable of the Rig Veda is elaborated and commented on in the first 24
richas (verses), which are further elaborated in the corresponding 24 padas (phrases) of
the next eight richas, giving 192 of the meaning of the syllable Ak. These all emerge
from the 24 sandhi (gaps) of the first richa. From the 192 gaps between the 192 akshara
(syllables) of richa 2-9, emerge the 192 suktas of the First Mandala of the Rig Veda.
The 192 sandhi between the 192 suktas of the first Mandala give rise to the 192
suktas of the Tenth Mandala, a circular structure that precisely fills the gaps of the First
Mandala. Similarly, the gaps between the nine richas of the first sukta are elaborated in
Mandala 2-9 of Rig Veda, unfolding the total Rig Veda with all its ten Mandalas.41
The whole of the Rig Veda has a marvelous and intricately interwoven structure that
is beyond the capacity of the human mind to create. It was not created, but cognized by
the seers of ancient India. This is part of the reason that Maharishi recognizes the
tradition that the Veda and the Vedic literature “eternal” or uncreated.
The Three-in-One Structure of Pure Knowledge:
The flow of Rishi, Devata, and Chhandas in the Structure of the Veda
There is one other structure of the Veda that is basic to understanding the Veda. In the
process of knowing itself, the infinite pure consciousness, which is eternal knows itself.
In knowing itself, pure consciousness creates a division within itself of knower, known,
and process of knowing. This is necessary for it to know itself. It is both eternally one,
and yet it is eternally three—knower, knowing, and known—making a three-in-one
structure of self-knowing consciousness.
Full credits go to the original author.
RIG VEDA for all religions
RIG VEDA – asks all to be in Harmony
The Rishi is Madhuchchhandas, the son of
Viswamitra, The Devata is Agni, the meter is
Gayatri.
Viswamitra, The Devata is Agni, the meter is
Gayatri.
1. I glorify Agni, the high priest of the sacrifice,
the divine, the ministrant, who presents the
oblation (to the gods), and is the possessor of
great wealth.
the divine, the ministrant, who presents the
oblation (to the gods), and is the possessor of
great wealth.
2. May that Agni, who is to be celebrated by
both ancient and modern sages, conduct the gods
hither.
both ancient and modern sages, conduct the gods
hither.
3. Through Agni the worshipper obtains that
affluence which increases day by day, which is
the source of fame, and the multiplier of
mankind.
affluence which increases day by day, which is
the source of fame, and the multiplier of
mankind.
4. Agni, the unobstructed sacrifice of which
thou art, on every side, the protector, assuredly
reaches the gods.
thou art, on every side, the protector, assuredly
reaches the gods.
5. May Agni, the presenter of oblations, the
attainer of knowledge, he who is true,
renowned, and divine, come hither, with the
gods.
attainer of knowledge, he who is true,
renowned, and divine, come hither, with the
gods.
6. Whatever good thou mayest, Agni, bestow
upon the giver (of the oblation) that, verily,
Angiras, shall revert to thee.
upon the giver (of the oblation) that, verily,
Angiras, shall revert to thee.
7. We approach thee, Agni, the reverential
homage in our thoughts, daily, both morning
and evening.
homage in our thoughts, daily, both morning
and evening.
8. Thee, the radiant, the protector of sacrifices,
the constant illuminator of truth, increasing in
thine own dwelling.
the constant illuminator of truth, increasing in
thine own dwelling.
9. Agni, be unto us easy of access; as is a father
to his son: be ever present with us, for our good.
to his son: be ever present with us, for our good.
What man asked from Angels of GOD was Harmony among all people on this earth and beyond.
But now we are moving in ignorant path saying this is mine and that is yours.
But now we are moving in ignorant path saying this is mine and that is yours.
So it is cleat that Man has degraded himself in sheer ego of dividing self into religions, caste, creed, colors, genders etc
Hindu _ Arabic Numericals
Origins
If u observe carefully, most of the numbers in Arabic seem to be sleeping version of Hindu numbers.
Check carefully
Check carefully
Even the 786 in Arabic if rotated anti clockwise is OM symbol.
Allah the word in Arabic means “Mother Durga” as in Sanskrit.
Allah the word in Arabic means “Mother Durga” as in Sanskrit.
The Hindu-Arabic numeral system originated in India.[4] Graham Flegg (2002) dates the history of the Hindu-Arabic system to the Indus valley civilization.[4] The inscriptions on theedicts of Ashoka (1st millennium BCE) display this number system being used by theImperial Mauryas.[4] This system was later transmitted to Europe by the Arabs.[4]
Buddhist inscriptions from around 300 BC use the symbols which became 1, 4 and 6. One century later, their use of the symbols which became 2, 4, 6, 7 and 9 was recorded. TheseBrahmi numerals are the ancestors of the Hindu-Arabic glyphs 1 to 9, but they were not used as a positional system with a zero, and there were rather separate numerals for each of the tens (10, 20, 30, etc.).
Positional notation without the use of zero (using an empty space in tabular arrangements, or the word kha “emptiness”) is known to have been in use in India from the 6th century. The oldest known authentic document that may be argued to contain the use of zero and decimal notation is the Jaina cosmological text Lokavibhaga, which was completed on August 25, 458. [5]
The first inscription showing the use of zero which is dated and is not disputed by any historian is the inscription at Gwalior dated 933 in the Vikrama calendar (876 CE.) [8] [9].
This 9th century date is currently thought to be the first physical evidence for the use of positional zero in India. According to Lam Lay Yong,
- “the earliest appearance in India of a symbol for zero in the Hindu-Arabic numeral system is found in an inscription at Gwalior which is dated 876 AD”.[10].
Professor EF Robertson and DR JJ O’Connor report:
- “The first record of the Indian use of zero which is dated and agreed by all to be genuine was written in 876″ on the Gwalior tablet stone[11].
However, Arabic court records (see next section titled “Adoption by the Arabs”) and the Persian mathematician Al-Khwarizmi’s book On the Calculation with Hindu Numerals, clearly indicate that this system and the use of zero by the Indians predates 876 AD; with the aforementioned documents dated as 776 AD and 825 AD respectively.
According to Menninger (p. 400):
- “This long journey begins with the Indian inscription which contains the earliest true zero known thus far (Fig. 226). This famous text, inscribed on the wall of a small temple in the vicinity of Gvalior (near Lashkar in Central India) first gives the date 933 (A.D. 870 in our reckoning) in words and in Brahmi numerals. Then it goes on to list four gifts to a temple, including a tract of land “270 royal hastas long and 187 wide, for a flower-garden.” Here, in the number 270 the zero first appears as a small circle [...]; in the twentieth line of the inscription it appears once more in the expression “50 wreaths of flowers” which the gardeners promise to give in perpetuity to honor the divinity.”
The Encyclopaedia Britannica says, “Hindu literature gives evidence that the zero may have been known before the birth of Christ, but no inscription has been found with such a symbol before the 9th century.“[12].
Adoption by the Arabs
These nine numerals were adopted by the Arabs in the 8th century. How the numbers came to the Arabs is recorded in al-Qifti‘s “Chronology of the scholars”, which was written around the end the 12th century, quoting earlier sources [13]:
- … a person from India presented himself before the Caliph al-Mansur in the year 776 who was well versed in the siddhanta method of calculation related to the movement of the heavenly bodies, and having ways of calculating equations based on the half-chord [essentially the sine] calculated in half-degrees … Al-Mansur ordered this book to be translated into Arabic, and a work to be written, based on the translation, to give the Arabs a solid base for calculating the movements of the planets …
An Arab telephone keypad with both the Western “Arabic numerals” and the Arabic “Arabic-Indic numerals” variants.
This book presented by the Indian scholar was probably Brahmasphuta Siddhanta (The Opening of the Universe) which was written in 628 (Ifrah) [14] by the Indian mathematicianBrahmagupta.
The numeral system came to be known to both the Persian mathematician Al-Khwarizmi, whose book On the Calculation with Hindu Numerals written about 825, and the Arabmathematician Al-Kindi, who wrote four volumes, On the Use of the Indian Numerals (كتاب في استعمال العداد الهندي [kitab fi isti'mal al-'adad al-hindi]) about 830, are principally responsible for the diffusion of the Indian system of numeration in the Middle-East and the West [15].
The use of zero in positional systems dates to about this time, representing the final step to the system of numerals we are familiar with today.
The first dated and undisputed inscription showing the use of zero at is at Gwalior, dating to 876 AD. There were, however, Indian precursors from about 500 AD, positional notations without a zero, or with the word kha indicating the absence of a digit. It is, therefore, uncertain whether the crucial inclusion of zero as the tenth symbol of the system should be attributed to the Indians, or if it is due to Al-Khwarizmi or Al-Kindi of the House of Wisdom.
In the 10th century, Arab mathematicians extended the decimal numeral system to include fractions, as recorded in a treatise by Syrian mathematician Abu’l-Hasan al-Uqlidisi in 952-953.
In the Arab World—until modern times—the Hindu-Arabic numeral system was used only by mathematicians. Muslim scientists used the Babylonian numeral system, and merchants used the Abjad numerals, a system similar to the Greek numeral system and the Hebrew numeral system. Therefore, it was not until Fibonacci that the Hindu-Arabic numeral system was used by a large population.
What Sanskrit from Bharat taught the world for a million years
click on the image to enlarge it
It’s a shame that the world went on a crusade against Hindus in Bharat after denomination. The people who taught the whole world science and the language of peace. India has lived, prospered and shared knowledge which enlightens us not only in materialistic living but also in the spiritual uplifting. They lived peacefully with all Nations even though Bharat was a superpower for more than 50000 years.
It’s a shame that the world went on a crusade against Hindus in Bharat after denomination. The people who taught the whole world science and the language of peace. India has lived, prospered and shared knowledge which enlightens us not only in materialistic living but also in the spiritual uplifting. They lived peacefully with all Nations even though Bharat was a superpower for more than 50000 years.
In return, Hindus were massacred in millions in the onslaught by Persians and Britishers.
Scriptures were misinterpreted to meet the accordances and fancies of the English.
Scriptures were misinterpreted to meet the accordances and fancies of the English.
By TIME – the ultimate Hero who is GOD Himself as left proofs of Bharat being the pregenetor of the earth civilisation.
Vande Mataram – Hail to such a beloved motherland.
Future History of the World
Kali Yuga
From The Mahabharata
Vana Parva, Section CLXXXIX
Translated by Sri Kisari Mohan Ganguli
From The Mahabharata
Vana Parva, Section CLXXXIX
Translated by Sri Kisari Mohan Ganguli
Vaisampayana said:
Yudhishthira, the son of Kunti, once more asked the great Muni Markandeya about the future course of the government of the Earth.
Yudhishthira, the son of Kunti, once more asked the great Muni Markandeya about the future course of the government of the Earth.
And Yudhishthira said:
O thou foremost of all speakers, O Muni of Brigu’s race, that which we have heard from thee about the destruction and re-birth of all things at the end of the Yuga, is, indeed, full of wonder. I am filled with curiosity, however, in respect of what may happen in the Kali age. When morality and virtue will be at an end, what will remain there! What will be prowess of men in that age, what their food, and what their amusements? What will be the period of life at the end of the Yuga? What also is the limit, having attained which the Krita age will begin anew? Tell me all in detail, O Muni, for all that thou narratest is varied and delightful.
O thou foremost of all speakers, O Muni of Brigu’s race, that which we have heard from thee about the destruction and re-birth of all things at the end of the Yuga, is, indeed, full of wonder. I am filled with curiosity, however, in respect of what may happen in the Kali age. When morality and virtue will be at an end, what will remain there! What will be prowess of men in that age, what their food, and what their amusements? What will be the period of life at the end of the Yuga? What also is the limit, having attained which the Krita age will begin anew? Tell me all in detail, O Muni, for all that thou narratest is varied and delightful.
Thus addressed, that foremost of Munis began his discourse again, delighting that tiger of the Vrishni race and the sons of Pandu as well.
Morality then is said to wait on men, with
only a fourth part of itself remaining
only a fourth part of itself remaining
And Markandeya said: Listen, O monarch, to all that has been seen and heard by me, and to all, O king of kings, that hath been known to me by intuition from the grace of the God of gods! O bull of the Bharata race, listen to me as I narrate the future history of the world during the sinful age. O bull of the Bharata race, in the Krita age, everything was free from deceit and guile and avarice and covetousness; and morality like a bull was among men, with all the four legs complete. In the Treta age sin took away one of these legs and morality had three legs. In the Dwapara, sin and morality are mixed half and half, and accordingly morality is said to have two legs only. In the dark age (of Kali), O thou best of the Bharata race, morality mixed with three parts of sin liveth by the side of men. Accordingly morality then is said to wait on men, with only a fourth part of itself remaining. Know, O Yudhishthira that the period of life, the energy, intellect and the physical strength of men decrease in every Yuga!
Wedded to avarice and wrath and ignorance and lust, men will entertain animosities towards one another, desiring to take one another’s lives.
O Pandava, the Brahmanas (Brahmins) and Kshatriyas and Vaisyas and Sudras, (in the Kali age) will practise morality and virtue deceitfully and men in general will deceive their fellows by spreading the net of virtue. And men with false reputation of learning will, by their acts, cause Truth to be contracted and concealed. And in consequence of the shortness of their lives, they will not be able to acquire much knowledge. And in consequence of the littleness of their knowledge, they will have no wisdom. And for this, covetousness and avarice will overwhelm them all. And wedded to avarice and wrath and ignorance and lust, men will entertain animosities towards one another, desiring to take one another’s lives.
And Brahmanas and Kshatriyas and Vaisyas with their virtue contracted and divested of asceticism and truth will all be reduced to an equality with the Sudras. And the lowest orders of men will rise to the position of the intermediate ones, and those in intermediate stations will without doubt, descend to the level of the lowest ones. Even such, O Yudhishthira, will become the state of the world at the end of the Yuga.
Of robes those will be regarded the best that are made of flax and of grain the Papalum frumentacea will be regarded the best.
[Note: The word in the text is Kora-dushakas, supposed by Wilson to be the Paspalum frumentacea (vide. Dict.)]
Men will live on fish and milk, goats
and sheep, for cows will be extinct
and sheep, for cows will be extinct
Towards this period men will regard their wives as their (only) friends. And men will live on fish and milk, goats and sheep, for cows will be extinct. And towards that period, even they that are always observant of vows will become covetous. And opposed to one another, men will, at such a time, seek one another’s lives; and divested of Yuga, people will become atheists and thieves. And they will even dig the banks of streams with their spades and sow grains thereon. And those men, who are devoted to ceremonial rites in honour of the deceased and of the gods, will be avaricious and will also appropriate and enjoy what belongs to others. The father will enjoy what belongs to the son; and the son, what belongs to the father. And those things will also be enjoyed by men in such times, and enjoyment of which hath been forbidden in the scriptures.
And the Brahmanas, speaking disrespectfully of the Vedas, will not practise vows, and their understanding clouded by the science of disputation, they will no longer perform sacrifices and the Homa. And deceived by the false science of reasons, they will direct their hearts towards everything mean and low. And men will till low lands for cultivation and employ cows and calves that are one year old, in drawing the plough and carrying burthens. And sons having slain their sire, and sires having slain their sons will incur no opprobrium. And they will frequently save themselves from anxiety by such deeds, and even glory in them.
And the whole world will be filled with Mleccha behaviour and notions and ceremonies and sacrifices will cease and joy will be nowhere and general rejoicing will disappear. And men will rob the possession of helpless persons of those that are friendless and of wisdom also. And, possessed of small energy and strength, without knowledge and given to avarice and folly and sinful practices men will accept with joy the gifts made by wicked people with words of contempt. And, O son of Kunti, the kings of the earth, with hearts wedded to sin without knowledge and always boastful of their wisdom, will challenge one another from desire of taking one another’s life.
And the Kshatriyas also towards the end of such a period will become the thorns of the earth. And filled with avarice and swelling with pride and vanity and unable and unwilling to protect (their subjects), they will take pleasure in inflicting punishments only. And attacking and repeating their attacks upon the good and the honest, and feeling no pity for the latter, even when they will cry in grief, the Kshatriyas will, O Bharata, rob these of their wives and wealth.
The girls will themselves choose their lords
And no one will ask for a girl (for the purposes of marriage) and no one will give away a girl (for such purposes), but the girls will themselves choose their lords, when the end of the Yuga comes. And the kings of the earth with souls steeped in ignorance and discontented with what they have, will at such a time, rob their subjects by every means in their power. And without doubt the whole world will be Mlecchified.
[Note: The word in the text is mlecchibhutam. The Sanskrit grammar affords a great facility for the formation of verbs from substantives. Mlecchify may be hybrid, but it correctly and shortly signifies the Sanskrit word.]
And full of avarice and folly the whole
world will have but one kind of food.
world will have but one kind of food.
And when the end of the Yuga comes, the right hand will deceive the left and the left the right. And men with false reputation of learning will contract Truth and the old will betray the senselessness of the young, and the young will betray the dotage of the old. And cowards will have the reputation of bravery and the brave will be cheerless like cowards. And towards the end of the Yuga men will cease to trust one another. And full of avarice and folly the whole world will have but one kind of food. And sin will increase and prosper, while virtue will fade and cease to flourish. And Brahmanas and Kshatriyas and Vaisyas will disappear, leaving, O king, no remnants of their orders. And all men towards the end of the Yuga will become members of one common order, without distinction of any kind./p>
Men will seek those countries where
wheat and barley form the staple food.
wheat and barley form the staple food.
And sires will not forgive sons, and sons will not forgive sires. And when the end approaches, wives will not wait upon and serve their husbands. And at such a time men will seek those countries where wheat and barley form the staple food. And, O monarch, both men and women will become perfectly free in their behaviour and will not tolerate one another’s acts. And, O Yudhishthira, the whole world will be mlecchified.
And men will cease to gratify the gods by offerings of Sraddhas. And no one will listen to the words of others and no one will be regarded as a preceptor by another. And, O ruler of men, intellectual darkness will envelope the whole earth, and the life of man will then be measured by sixteen years, on attaining to which age death will ensue. And girls of five or six years of age will bring forth children and boys of seven or eight years of age will become fathers. And O tiger among kings, when the end of the Yuga will come, the wife will never be content with her husband, nor the husband with his wife.
The inhabited regions of the earth will be
afflicted with dearth and famine, and the
highways will be filled with lustful men
and women of evil repute.
afflicted with dearth and famine, and the
highways will be filled with lustful men
and women of evil repute.
And the possessions of men will never be much, and people will falsely bear the marks of religion, and jealousy and malice will fill the world. And no one will, at that time, be a giver (of wealth or anything else) in respect to any one else. And the inhabited regions of the earth will be afflicted with dearth and famine, and the highways will be filled with lustful men and women of evil repute. And, at such a time, the women will also entertain an aversion towards their husbands. And without doubt all men will adopt the behaviour of the mlecchas, become omnivorous without distinction, and cruel in all their acts, when the end of the Yuga will come. And, O thou foremost of the Bharatas, urged by avarice, men will, at the time, deceive one another when they sell and purchase. And without a knowledge of the ordinance, men will perform ceremonies and rites, and, indeed, behave as listeth them, when the end of the Yuga comes.
And when the end of the Yuga comes, urged by their very dispositions, men will act cruelly, and speak ill of one another. And people will, without compunction destroy trees and gardens. And men will be filled with anxiety as regards the means of living. And, O king, overwhelmed with covetousness, men will kill Brahmanas (Brahmins) and appropriate and enjoy the possessions of their victims. And the regenerate ones, oppressed by Sudras, and afflicted with fear, and crying Oh and Alas, will wander over the earth without anybody to protect them. And when men will begin to slay one another, and become wicked and fierce and without any respect for animal life, then will the Yuga come to an end. And, O king, even the foremost of the regenerate ones, afflicted by robbers, will, like crows, fly in terror and with speed, and seek refuge, O perpetuator of the Kuru race, in rivers and mountains and inaccessible regions.
And Sudras will expound the scriptures,
and Brahmanas will wait upon and listen
to them, and settle their course of duty
accepting such interpretations as their
guides.
and Brahmanas will wait upon and listen
to them, and settle their course of duty
accepting such interpretations as their
guides.
And always oppressed by bad rulers with burthens of taxes, the foremost of the regenerate classes, O lord of the earth, will in those terrible times, take leave of all patience and do improper acts by becoming even the servants of the Sudras. And Sudras will expound the scriptures, and Brahmanas will wait upon and listen to them, and settle their course of duty accepting such interpretations as their guides. And the low will become the high and the course of things will look contrary. And renouncing the gods, men will worship bones and other relics deposited within walls. And, at the end of the Yuga, the Sudras will cease to wait upon and serve the Brahmanas. And in the asylums of great Rishis, and the teaching institutions of Brahmanas, and in places sacred to the gods and sacrificial compounds, and in sacred tanks (water reservoirs), the earth will be disfigured with tombs and pillars containing bony relics and not graced with temples dedicated to the gods. All this will take place at the end of the Yuga, and know that these are the signs of the end of the Yuga.
And when men become fierce and destitute of virtue and carnivorous and addicted to intoxicating drinks, then does the Yuga come to an end. And, O monarch, when flowers will be begot within flowers, and fruits within fruits, then will the Yuga come to an end. And the clouds will pour rain unseasonably when the end of the Yuga approaches. And, at that time, ceremonial rites of men will not follow one another in due order, and the Sudras will quarrel with the Brahmanas. And the earth will soon be full of mlecchas, and the Brahmanas will fly in all directions for fear of the burthen of taxes. And all distinctions between men will cease as regards conduct and behaviour, and afflicted with honorary tasks and offices, people will fly to woody retreats, subsisting on fruits and roots.
And the world will be so afflicted, that rectitude of conduct will cease to be exhibited anywhere. And disciples will set at naught the instructions of preceptors, and seek even to injure them. And preceptors impoverished will be disregarded by men. And friends and relatives and kinsmen will perform friendly offices for the sake of the wealth only that is possessed by a person. And when the end of the Yuga comes, everybody will be in want. And all the points of the horizon will be ablaze, and the stars and stellar groups will be destitute of brilliancy, and the planets and planetary conjunctions will be inauspicious. And the course of the winds will be confused and agitated, and innumerable meteors will flash through the sky, foreboding evil. And the Sun will appear with six others of the same kind. And all around there will be din and uproar, and everywhere there will be conflagrations. And the Sun, from the hour of his rising to that of setting, will be enveloped by Rahu. And the deity of a thousand eyes will shower rain unseasonably. And when the end of the Yuga comes, crops will not grow in abundance.
And women, living uncontrolled,
will slay their husbands and sons.
will slay their husbands and sons.
And the women will always be sharp in speech and pitiless and fond of weeping. And they will never abide by the commands of their husbands. And when the end of the Yuga comes, sons will slay fathers and mothers. And women, living uncontrolled, will slay their husbands and sons. And, O king, when the end of the Yuga comes, Rahu will swallow the Sun unseasonably. And fires will blaze up on all sides. And travellers unable to obtain food and drink and shelter even when they ask for these, will lie down on the wayside refraining from urging their solicitations. And when the end of the Yuga comes, crows and snakes and vultures and kites and other animals and birds will utter frightful and dissonant cries.
And when the end of the Yuga comes, men will cast away and neglect their friends and relatives and attendants. And, O monarch, when the end of the Yuga comes, men abandoning the countries and directions and towns and cities of their occupation, will seek for new ones, one after another. And people will wander over the earth, uttering, ‘O father, O son’, and such other frightful and rending cries.
Men will again be created and distributed into
the four orders beginning with Brahmanas.
the four orders beginning with Brahmanas.
And when those terrible times will be over, the creation will begin anew, and men will again be created and distributed into the four orders beginning with Brahmanas. And about that time, in order that men may increase, Providence, according to its pleasure, will once more become propitious. And then when the Sun, the Moon, and Brihaspati will, with the constellation Pushya, enter the same sign, the Krita age will begin again.
[Note:Pushya is the eighth lunar asterism consisting of three stars,
of which one is the Cancer. (Vide Wilson’s Dict.)]
of which one is the Cancer. (Vide Wilson’s Dict.)]
And commissioned by Time, a Brahmana
of the name of Kalki will take his birth.
And he will restore order and peace in this world
of the name of Kalki will take his birth.
And he will restore order and peace in this world
And the clouds will commence to shower seasonably, and the stars and stellar conjunctions will become auspicious. And the planets, duly revolving in their orbits, will become exceedingly propitious. And all around, there will be prosperity and abundance and health and peace. And commissioned by Time, a Brahmana of the name of Kalki will take his birth. And he will glorify Vishnu and possess great energy, great intelligence, and great prowess. And he will take his birth in a town of the name of Sambhala in an auspicious Brahmana family. And vehicles and weapons, and warriors and arms, and coats of mail will be at his disposal as soon as he will think of them. And he will be the king of kings, and ever victorious with the strength of virtue. And he will restore order and peace in this world crowded with creatures and contradictory in its course. And that blazing Brahmana of mighty intellect, having appeared, will destroy all things. And he will be the Destroyer of all, and will inaugurate a new Yuga. And surrounded by Brahmanas, that Brahmana will exterminate all the mlecchas wherever those low and despicable persons may take refuge.
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A few peculiarities of Kali Yuga
Selected texts from Sri Ramacharitamanasa
of Sant Tulasidas, Uttar-kanda, verses 96-103
Selected texts from Sri Ramacharitamanasa
of Sant Tulasidas, Uttar-kanda, verses 96-103
The Tulasi Ramayana
Kakbhushundi said: In the Kali-Yuga, the hot-bed of sin, men and women are all steeped in unrighteousness and act contrary to the Vedas. In the age of Kali, every virtue had been engulfed by the sins of Kali-Yuga; all good books had disappeared; impostors had promulgated a number of creeds which they had invented out of their own wit. The people had all fallen prey to delusion and all pious acts had been swallowed by greed. Now listen, while I describe a few peculiarities of Kali-Yuga.
No one follows the duties of one’s own caste, and the four Ashrams or stages of life also disappear. Every man and woman takes delight in revolting against the Vedas. The Brahmans sell the Vedas; the kings bleed their subjects; no one respects the injunctions of the Vedas. The right course for every individual is that which one takes a fancy to; a man of erudition is he who plays the braggart. Whoever launches spurious undertakings and is given over to hypocrisy, him does everyone call a saint. He alone is clever who robs another of his wealth; he who puts up false appearances is an ardent follower of established usage. He who is given to lying and is clever at joking is spoken of as a man of parts in the Kali age. He alone who is a reprobate and has abandoned the path of the Vedas is a man of wisdom and dispassion in the Kali age. He alone who has grown big nails and long locks of matted hair is a renowned ascetic in the Kali age.
They alone who put on an unsightly garb and ornaments and eat anything and everything, no matter whether it is worth eating or not, are ascetics; they alone are perfect men and they are worth adoring in the Kali age. They who are of maleficent conduct are held in great esteem and they alone are worthy of honour. Even so they alone who are babblers in thought, word and deed are orators in the Kali age.
Dominated by women, all men dance to their tune like a monkey controlled by its trainer. Sudras instruct the twice-born (Brahman, Kshatriya and Vaishya) in spiritual wisdom and wearing the sacred thread, accept the worst type of gifts. All men are given over to sensuality and greed and they are irascible and hostile to the gods, to the Brahmans, to the Vedas as well as to the saints. Unfortunate wives desert their accomplished and handsome husbands and bestow their hearts on a paramour. Wives having their husbands alive have no ornaments on their person, while widows adorn themselves in the latest style. The disciple and the preceptor severally resemble a deaf man and a blind man: the one would not listen, while the other cannot see. A spiritual guide who robs his disciple of money but fails to rid him of his sorrow is cast into a terrible hell. Parents call their children and teach them such religion as may fill their belly.
Men and women talk of nothing else than the knowledge of God (Brahma-Gyana); while in their greed they would kill a Brahman, or for that matter, kill even their own spiritual guide for the sake of a single shell. Sudras argue with the twice-born : “Are we in any way inferior to you? A good Brahman is he who knows the truth of God!” and defiantly glower at them.
They alone who are covetous of another’s wife and are clever at wiles and steeped in delusion, malice and worldly attachment are enlightened men swearing by the identity of the individual soul with God. Such is the practice I have seen in every Kali age. Doomed themselves, such people bring ruin even to those rare souls who tread the path of virtue. They who find fault with the Vedas by dint of logic are condemned to each hell for a whole Kalpa (cycle of time). People of the lowest grade in society get their heads shaved and enter the order of Sannyasa (renunciation) when their wives are no more in this world and they have lost their household properties. They allow themselves to be worshipped by the Brahmanas and bring ruin to themselves here as well as hereafter.
As for the Brahmanas, they are unlettered, grasping, lascivious, reprobate and stupid and marry low-caste women of lewd character. Sudras on the other hand practice Japa (the muttering of prayers) and austere penance, undertake sacred vows of various kinds and expound the Puranas from an exalted seat. All men follow a course of conduct of their own imagination; the endless variety of wrong-doing cannot be described in words.
In the Kali age there ensues a confusion of castes (due to promiscuous intermarriages) and every one infringes the sacred laws. Men perpetrate sins and reap suffering, terror, disease, sorrow and desolation. Overcome by delusion they walk not in the path of devotion to Sri Hari, conjoined with dispassion and wisdom – a path which has the approval of the Vedas, – and invent diverse creeds of their own.
The so-called recluses build themselves houses and furnish them at considerable expense. Dispassion is no more to be seen in them, the same having been wiped out by their sensuality. The so-called ascetics grow wealthy and householders go penniless; the freaks of the Kali age are beyond all telling. Men drive out a well-born and virtuous wife and bring home some servant-girl, casting to the winds all good usage. Sons respect their fathers and mothers only so long as they have not seen the face of their wives. From the time they take a fancy to their wives kinsfolk they begin to look upon their own people as their enemies.
Kings get addicted to sin and cease to have anything to do with piety. They ever persecute their subjects by inflicting unmerited punishment on them. The meanest churl, if he is rich, is accounted noble. A Brahman is known only by his sacred thread, and an ascetic by his naked body. He who refuses to recognise the Vedas and Puranas is counted as a true saint and a servant of Sri Hari in the Kali age. In the Kali age, those who find fault with others’ virtues can be had in any number, but no one possessing virtues.
In the Kali age famine are of frequent occurrence and for want of food grains people perish en masse.
In the age of Kali duplicity, perversity, hypocrisy, malice, heresy, pride, infatuation, concupiscence and arrogance etc. pervade the whole universe. Men practice Japa, austere penance and charity, perform sacrifices and undertake sacred vows with some unholy motive. The gods rain not upon the earth and food grains sown in the soil do not germinate.
In the age of Kali there is no contentment, nor discernment, nor composure. People of all classes, whether high or low, have taken to begging. Envy, harsh words and covetousness are rampant; while evenness of mind is absent. The duties and rules of conduct prescribed for the four orders of society and stages in life are neglected. Self-control, charity, compassion and wisdom disappear while stupidity and fraud multiply to a large extent. Men and women all pamper their body; while slanderers are diffused all over the world.
The age of Kali is a store house of impurities and vices but it has many virtues too. Final emancipation is possible in the Kali age without any exertion. Moreover, the same goal which is reached through worship of God, performance of sacrifices or the practice of Yoga in the Satyayuga and in the Treta and Dwapara yuga, men are able to attain through the name of Sri Hari in the Kali age. No other age can compare with the Kali age provided a man has faith (in its virtue); for in this age one can easily cross the ocean of transmigration simply by singing Sri Ram’s holy praises.
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From The Mahabharata
Santi Parva, section CCXXVII
Translated by Sri Kisari Mohan Ganguli
Santi Parva, section CCXXVII
Translated by Sri Kisari Mohan Ganguli
Time that is strong, assailing the universe, cooks it within itself and sweeps away everything without consideration of seniority of years or the reverse.
For all that, one that is being dragged by Time is unconscious of the noose thrown round one’s neck;. when the daughter-in-law will set the aged mother-in-law to work, when the son, through delusion, will command the father to work for him, when Sudras will have their feet washed by Brahmanas and have sexual congress fearlessly with women of regenerate families, when men will discharge the vital seed into forbidden wombs, when the refuse of houses will begin to be carried upon plates and vessels made of white brass, and when sacrificial offerings intended for the deities will begin to be borne upon forbidden vessels, when all the four orders will transgress all restraints.
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From The Mahabharata
Santi Parva, Section CCXXXVIII
Translated by Sri Kisari Mohan Ganguli
Santi Parva, Section CCXXXVIII
Translated by Sri Kisari Mohan Ganguli
Vyasa said:
In the Kali Yuga, the duties of the respective order
disappear and men become afflicted by inequity.
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disappear and men become afflicted by inequity.
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Daughters-in-law, lecture and rebuke their husbands
The Mahabharata
Santi Parva, Section CCXXVIII
Translated by Sri Kisari Mohan Ganguli
The Mahabharata
Santi Parva, Section CCXXVIII
Translated by Sri Kisari Mohan Ganguli
Addressing Sakra, Sree, the Goddess of Wealth said:
In consequence of the Danavas (demons) having been distinguished for good qualities, I dwelt with them from the beginning of creation for many Yugas together. Times were altered and that alteration brought about an alteration in the character of the Danavas. I saw that virtue and morality deserted them and they began to own the sway of lust and wrath. Persons, though themselves inferior in attainments, began to cherish animosities towards seniors in age possessed of superior qualifications, and the while the latter, possessed of virtue and merit, used to speak upon proper topics in the midst of assemblies, the former began to ridicule or laugh at them. When reverend seniors in age came, the younger individuals, seated at their ease, refused to adore the former by rising up and saluting them with respect.
In the presence of sires, sons began to exercise power (in matters that concerned sires alone). They that were not in receipt of wages accepted service and shamelessly proclaimed the fact. Those amongst them that succeeded in amassing great wealth by doing unrighteous and censurable deeds came to be held in esteem. During the night they began to indulge in loud screams and shrieks. Their homa fires (sacred fires) ceased to send bright and upward flames. Sons began to lord it over sires, and wives dominated over husbands. Mothers, fathers and seniors, preceptors, guests and guides ceased to command respect for their superior status. People ceased to bring up with affection their own offspring but began to desert them. Without giving away the defined portion in alms and reserving the fixed portion for offering it unto the gods, every one ate what he had. Indeed, without offering their goods to the deities in sacrifices and without sharing them with the Pitris (ancestors), the gods, guests, and reverend seniors, they appropriated them to their own use shamelessly.
Their cooks no longer professed any consideration for purity of mind, deed and word. They ate what had been left uncovered. Their corn lay scattered in yards, exposed to devastation by crows and rats. Their milk remained exposed and they began to touch ghee (clarified butter) with hands unwashed after eating. Their spades, domestic knives, baskets and dishes and cups of white brass, and other utensils began to lie scattered in their houses. Their housewives abstained from looking after these. They no longer attained to the repairs of their houses and walls. Tethering their animals they abstained from giving them food and drink
Disregarding children that only looked on, and without having fed their dependants, the Danavas ate what they had. They began to prepare Payasa (pudding prepared of rice boiled in sugared milk), and Krisara (milk, sesamum and rice), and dishes of meat and cakes and Sashkuli (pie made of rice or barley boiled in sugared water), not for gods and guests, but for their own selves, and commenced to eat the flesh of animals not killed in sacrifices.
They used to sleep even after the sun had risen. They made night of their morns. Day and night, disputes and quarrels waxed in every house of theirs. They that were not respectable amongst them no longer showed any respect for those that deserve respect while the latter were seated in any place. Fallen off from their defined duties, they ceased to reverend those that had betaken themselves to the woods for leading a life of peace and divine contemplation. Intermixture of castes freely commenced among them. They ceased to attend to purity of person or mind. Brahmanas learned in the Vedas ceased to command respect among them. Those again that were ignorant of Richs (Ved Mantras) were not condemned or punished. Both were treated on a footing of equality, those, that is, that deserved respect and those that deserved no respect.
Their servant girls became wicked in behaviour, and began to wear necklaces of gold and other ornaments and fine robes, and used to remain in their houses or go away before their very eyes. They began to derive great pleasure from sports and diversions in which their women were dressed as men and their men as women.
When difficulties threatened the accomplishment of any purpose and friend sought the counsel of friend, that purpose was frustrated by the latter even if he had any interest of the slightest value to subserve by frustrating it. Amongst even their better classes have appeared traders and dealers in goods, intent upon taking the wealth of others. The Sudras amongst them have taken to the practice of penances. Some amongst them have begun to study, without making any rules for regulating their hours and food. Others have begun to study, making rules that are useless. Disciples have abstained from rendering obedience and service to preceptors. Preceptors again have come to treat disciples as friendly companions. Fathers and mothers are worn out with work, and have abstained from indulging in festivities. Parents in old age, divested of power over sons, have been forced to beg their food of the latter. Amongst them, even persons of wisdom, conversant with the Vedas and resembling the ocean itself in gravity of deportment, have begun to betake themselves to agriculture and such other pursuits.
Persons who are illiterate and ignorant have begun to be fed at Sraddhas. [Note: No merit attaches to the act of feeding an illiterate person ; illiterate meaning not proficient in the Vedas]. Every morning, disciples, instead of approaching preceptors for making dutiful enquiries for ascertaining what acts awaited accomplishment and for seeking commissions which they are to discharge, are themselves waited upon by preceptors who discharge those functions.
Daughters-in-law, in the presence of their husbands’ mothers and fathers, rebuke and chastise servants and maids, and summoning their husbands lecture and rebuke them. Sires, with great care, seek to keep sons in good humour, or dividing through fear their wealth among children, live in woe and affliction. Even persons enjoying the friendship of the victims, beholding the latter deprived of wealth in conflagrations or by robbers, or by the king, have begun to indulge in laughter from feelings of mockery. They have become ungrateful and unbelieving and sinful and addicted to adulterous congress with even the spouses of their preceptors. They have betaken themselves to eating forbidden food. They have transgressed all bounds and restraints. They have become divested of that splendour which had distinguished them before.
In consequence of these and other indications of wicked conduct and the reversal of their former nature, I shall not, O chief of the gods, dwell among them (Danavas) any longer. There, where I reside, the seven other goddesses with Jaya for their eighth, who love me, who are inseparably associated with me, and who depend upon me, desire to live. They are Hope, Faith, Intelligence, Contentment, Victory, Advancement, and Forgiveness. She who forms the eighth, viz., Jaya, occupies the foremost place amongst them. All of them and myself, having deserted the Asuras (demons) have come to thy domains. We shall henceforth reside among the deities who are devoted to righteousness and faith.
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From Srimad Bhagavat Mahapurana
Book twelve, Discourse 2
Rendered into English by
C.L.Goswami M.A., Shastri
Rendered into English by
C.L.Goswami M.A., Shastri
Sri Suka said: (Discourse 1) (As Kaliyuga advances) the Brahmanas of Saurastra, Avanti, the Abhira territory (the principalities of Sura, Arbuda and Malawa) will become Vratyas or fallen men (because of their giving up the Samskaras or purificatory rites, especially the ceremony of investiture with the sacred thread), and the rulers will be mostly of the Sudra class. Sudras, fallen Brahmanas and members of the higher castes who have given up the Vedic courses of conduct and Mlecchas will rule over the banks of the Indus and Chandrabhaga rivers, the city of Kaunti and the territory of Kashmira.
These kings, O Parikshit, who will all be contemporaries, will be no better than Mlecchas (in their course of conduct) and will be given over to unrighteousness and mendacity, illiberal and furious ways. They will kill women, children, Brahmins and cows. They will covet other people’s wives and other people’s wealth. They will experience vicissitudes of fortune in quick succession and will be poor of strength and courage and will be short lived (too). They will cease to perform purificatory rites, will be devoid of righteous actions. Being dominated by Rajas and Tamas and being Mlecchas in the garb of Kshatriyas, they will suck the blood of their own people. The people ruled over by them too will acquire their habits, ways of life and mode of speech and, oppressed by one another as well as by their rulers, will go to ruin.
Sri Suka continued : (Discourse 2) Thenceforth, day after day, by force of the all-powerful Time, O king, righteousness, veracity, purity (of mind and body), forgiveness, compassion, length of life, bodily strength and keenness of memory will decline. In the Kali age wealth alone will be the criterion of pedigree, morality and merit. Again, might will be the only factor determining righteousness and fairness. Personal liking will be the deciding factor in making the choice of a partner in life, and trickery alone will be the motive force in business dealings. Capability of affording sexual delight will be the (only) criterion of masculine or feminine excellence and the sacred thread will be the only mark of Brahmanhood.
External marks will be the only means of knowing the Ashramas or the stages in life (of an individual) and the only guide in determining the mode of greeting which people should adopt when meeting one another. Justice will have every chance of being vitiated because of one’s inability to gratify those administering it, and voluble speech will be the (only) criterion of scholarship. Want of riches will be the sole test of impiety and hypocrisy will be the only touchstone of goodness. (Mutual) consent will be the sole determining factor in marriage and it will become acceptable practice to have toilet and bath (combined) in one place. A distant water reservoir or pond will be the only holy resort for bath etc., and wearing (long) hair will be regarded as the sign of beauty.
Filling one’s belly will be the (only) end of human pursuit and audacity of speech will be the only criterion of veracity. Skill will consist in supporting one’s family; virtuous deeds will be performed (only) with the object of gaining fame; and when in this way the terrestrial globe will be overrun by wicked people, the person who would prove to be the most powerful amongst the Brahmanas, Kshatriyas, Vaisyas, and Sudras will become the ruler. Robbed of their wealth and of their women by greedy and merciless Kshatriyas, behaving like robbers, people will resort to mountains and forests and subsist on leaves, roots, meat, honey, fruits, flowers and seeds.
(Already) oppressed by famine and (heavy) taxation, people will perish through drought, (excessive) cold, storms, (scorching) heat of the sun, (heavy) rains, snowfalls and mutual conflict. In the age of Kali men will be tormented by hunger and thirst, ailments and worry and their maximum age will be only twenty to thirty years. When through the evil effect of Kali age the bodies of men get reduced in size and become emaciated, the righteous course laid out by the Vedas for men following the system of Varnas (caste system or grades of society) and the Ashramas (stages in life) gets lost, when religion is replaced by heresy to a large extent and rulers mostly turn out to be thieves. When men take to various pursuits like theft, mendacity, wanton destruction of life and so on; when members of the three higher castes are mostly converted into Sudras and cows are reduced to the size of she-goats and begin to yield as little milk. When people belonging to the four Ashramas mostly become householders and the connotation of relationship will extend only to the relatives of one’s wife. Annual plants get stunted in growth and trees are mostly reduced to the size of a Sami (a small tree). Clouds will mostly end in flashes of lightning (rather than pour rain) and dwellings will mostly look desolate (for want of hospitality to strangers).
In this way, when the Kali age, whose influence is so severe on the people, is well-nigh past, the Lord will appear in His divine form (consisting of Sattwa alone) for the protection of virtue. Lord Vishnu, adored by the whole animate and inanimate creation and the Soul of the universe, appears (in this world of matter) for protecting the virtue of the righteous and wiping out (the entire stock of) their Karma (and thereby liberating them). The Lord will appear under the name of Kalki in the house of the high-souled Vishnuyasa –the foremost Brahmana of the village of Sambhala. Riding a fleet footed horse named Devadatta (because it will be presented to Him by the gods) and capable of subduing the wicked, Lord of the universe, wielding the well-known eight divine powers (Anima and so on) and possessed of endless virtues and matchless splendour, wearing the insignia of royalty,
will traverse the globe on that swift horse and exterminate with his sword (weapon) tens of millions of robbers.
Now when all the robbers are (thus) exterminated, the minds of the people of the cities and of the countryside will become pure indeed because of their enjoying the breeze wafting the most sacred fragrance from on the person of Lord Vasudeva. With Lord Vasudeva, the embodiment of strength in their heart, their progeny will grow exceedingly strong (as before). When Sri Hari, the Protector of Dharma, appears as Kalki, Satyayuga will prevail (once more) at that time and the progeny of the people will be of a Sattvika (virtuous) disposition. When the moon, the sun and Jupiter rise together in one zodiacal house and the Pusya constellation is in the ascendant, then it will be known as Satyayuga.
The all effulgent personality (consisting of pure Sattva) of Lord Vishnu (Himself) appeared under the name of Sri Krishna. The moment He ascended to (His divine abode) in heaven the Kali age entered the world, in which age people take delight in sin. So long as the aforesaid Lord of Lakshmi touched the earth, Kali could not prevail over it. When the seven stars constituting the Great Bear enter the constellation of Magha, then Kaliyuga embarks on its career of twelve hundred celestial years (432 000 human years). When from the Maghas the stars of the Great Bear pass on to the constellation of Purvasadha, then from the time of king (Mahapadma) Nanda onwards Kali will gain ascendancy. Persons learned in ancient history maintain that the age of Kali set in on that very day, (nay) the very moment Sri Krishna ascended to His abode in heaven. O,Parikshit, at the end of one thousand celestial years and of the fourth Yuga (Kaliyuga) Krtayuga will prevail (once again), when the mind of men will reveal (to them the true nature of) the Self.
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From the Mahabharata
Santi Parva, section CCXXXII
Translated by Sri Kisari Mohan Ganguli
Santi Parva, section CCXXXII
Translated by Sri Kisari Mohan Ganguli
In the Krita age the performance of sacrifices was not necessary. Such performance became necessary in the Treta age. In the dwapara age, sacrifices have begun to fall off. In the Kali age, the same is the case with them. In Krita age, men, worshipping only one Brahman, looked upon the Richs, the Samans, the Yajuses and the rites and sacrifices that are performed from motives of advantage, as all different from the object of their worship, and practised only Yoga, by means of penances. In the Treta age, many mighty men appeared that swayed all mobile and immobile objects. (Though the generality of men in that age were not naturally inclined to the practice of righteousness, yet those great leaders forced them to such practice.)
Accordingly, in that age, the Vedas, and sacrifices and the distinctions between the several orders (Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya & Sudra), and the four modes of life (Brahmacharya, Grihastha, Vanprastha and Sannyasa), existed in a compact state. In consequence, however, of the decrease in the period of life in Dwapara, all these, in that age, fall off from that compact condition. In the Kali age, all the Vedas become so scarce that they may not be even seen by men. Afflicted by iniquity, they suffer extermination along with the rites and sacrifices laid down in them. The righteousness which is seen in the Krita age is now visible in such Brahmanas (Brahmins) as are of cleansed souls and are devoted to penances and the study of the scriptures.
As regards the other yugas (ages), it is seen that without at once giving up the duties and acts that are consistent with righteousness, men, observant of the practices of their respective orders, and conversant with the ordinances of the Vedas are led by the authority of the scriptures, to betake themselves from motives of advantage and interest to sacrifices and vows and pilgrimages to sacred waters and spots. As in the season of rains a large variety of new objects of the immobile order are caused to come forth into life by the showers that fall from the clouds, even so many new kinds of duty or religious observances are brought about in each yuga. As the same phenomena reappears with the reappearance of the seasons, even so, at each new Creation the same attributes appear in each new Brahman and Hara (Siva).
Mother of All languages – Sanskrit
Aryan Language Family
| Aryan |
| Armenian |
| Albanian |
| Balto-Slavic |
| Keltic |
| Italic |
| Hellenic |
| Teutonic |
| Tokharian |
| Aryan | ||||
| Indian | Iranian | |||
| Vedic | Classical Sanskrit | Prakrit | Avesta | Iranian or Persian |
| Balto-Slavic | |||||
| Old Slavic | Baltic | ||||
| Russian | Polish | Lithuanian | Czech | Bulgarian | Lettish |
| Keltic | |
| Gaelic | Brittanic |
| Italic | ||||
| Latin | ||||
| French | Italian | Spanish | Portuguese | Romanian |
| Hellenic |
| Greek |
| Teutonic | |
| East Teutonic | West Teutonic |
| East Teutonic | ||
| Scandinavian | Gothic | |
| West Norse | East Norse | |
| Swedish Danish | Icelandic | |
| Norwegian | ||
| West Teutonic | |||
| High German | Middle German | Low German | |
| Frisian | Anglo-Saxon | ||
| Modern German | Old Frankish | ||
| Mid English | |||
| Yiddish | Dutch Flemish | ||
| Modern English | |||
The relationship of the languages is determined by resemblances between them.
These are of two kinds: Resemblances of vocabulary and of grammatical structure.
These are of two kinds: Resemblances of vocabulary and of grammatical structure.
A few examples of similarities between Indo-European words.
| Sanskrit | Latin | English | Greek |
| Pitar | Pater | Father | Patros |
| Matar | Mater | Mother | Matros |
| Pancha | Quinque | Five | Pente |
| Sapta | Septem | Seven | Hepta |
| Dasan | Decem | Decimal or Ten | Deka |
| Bhurja | Birch | ||
| Pac | Bake | Pesso | |
| Madhu Sweet | Mead | Methu | |
| Asti | Est | Is | Esti |
| Damas | Domus | Domicile | Domos |
| Bharami bear (a burden etc) | Fero | Bear | Phero |
| Aham | Ego | Ego | Ego |
| Dwaar | Door | ||
| Bhraata | Brother | ||
| Astau | Okto | Eight | Okto |
| Trayas | tres | Three or Tri | Treis |
| Ayas | Iron | ||
| Vrkas | Wulf old English for wolf) | Lukhos | |
| Eka | Oinos | One | Oinos |
| Dva | Duo | Two | Duo |
| Chatvaras | Quattuor | Four | Tettores |
| Sas | Sex | Six | Hex |
| Nava | Novem | Nine | Ennea |
| Patha | Path | ||
| Sarpa | Serpent | ||
| Gow | Cow | ||
| Mooshak | Muus | Mouse Muus old English | Muus |
| Svasri | Sister | ||
| Sun | Son | ||
| Danta | Dental | ||
| Surya | Sun | ||
| Taru | Tree | ||
| Shanishvram -Slow moving planet | Saturn | ||
| Unapexishta | Unexpected | ||
| Hard-Hriday | Heart | ||
| Nabhi | Navel | ||
| Agni | Ignis | Ignite | |
| Hantar (killer) | Hunter | ||
| Naas,Nasika | Naas | Nose (nasal) | |
| Nisha | Night | ||
| Vahan | Vehicle | ||
| Yog | Yoke (to join) | ||
| Pratham | Proto (first) | ||
| Vacha | Vocal | ||
| Hasta | Hand | ||
| Santa | Saint | ||
| Kroora | Cruel | ||
| Tat (Tat Tvam Asi) | That | ||
| Janan (generate) | Generate | ||
| Loka (place) | Location | ||
| Daman | Dominate | ||
| Tri-kona-miti | Trigonometry | Trigonometry | |
| Mia (Me) | Me | ||
| Mana | Mind | ||
| Asi | Yes | Si? | |
| Axa | Axis | ||
| Duhita | Daughter | ||
| Sweda | Sweat | ||
| Para | Para | Pre-fix e.g.’Para-psychology’ | |
| Peen (pointed) | Pin | ||
| Kedar | Cedar(tree) | ||
| Widhur | Widow | ||
| Katika | Cart | ||
| Prithak | Part (section) | ||
| Nau Boat | Navy | ||
| Vid=know Vidya=knowledge Veda=knowledge based scriptures | Videre | Witan(old English) Be aware Wit- Wise |
To all readers, Sanskrit exists on earth since a billion years.
Rama was born in the 27th kalpa of TretaYuga.
TretaYuga was 1.3 billion years ago. And Sanskrit is older than Ramayana as
Vishnu Purana exists millions of years prior to Ramayana.
Rama was born in the 27th kalpa of TretaYuga.
TretaYuga was 1.3 billion years ago. And Sanskrit is older than Ramayana as
Vishnu Purana exists millions of years prior to Ramayana.
Humans were Vegans before the Kaliyuga that is until 600 AD.
After 1300 AD the whole world became carnivore after the onslaught by barbarian hordes of Persia(Hunas & Moghuls).
After 1300 AD the whole world became carnivore after the onslaught by barbarian hordes of Persia(Hunas & Moghuls).
Vegetarism is bouncing back in European countries,especially UK and hope Vedanta too returns back for peace and harmony of people.
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The most archaic Sanskrit (Devanagari) is that of the Vedas, multiple books written in thousands of hymns and verses arranged in song cycles. The Vedas say that “God-men” brought Sanskrit to Earth men as a language of musical tones.
Indus Script
- the mother of all alphabetic scriptsAbove on the left is a comparison of the numerals 1 through 10 in Devanagari Sanskrit compared to Arabic. On the right are some examples of Devanagari vowels and diphthongs.Sources: The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th Edition © 1993 and Sanskrit Keys to the Wisdom Religion © 1968 by Judith Tyberg.Ever since the 19th Century, there has been a huge debate about the actual history of India. When the Europeans first came there, they noticed that the people in India who had the Sanskrit language as the main language of their literature – they noticed that the European languages were similar (in word concepts), so that meant the Europeans and East Indians had to be related. The 19th Century scientists also noticed that the Sanskrit culture or Vedic culture, as it is sometimes called after the ancient Indian literature, Vedas, which meansknowledge, so sometimes the ancient Indian culture is called the Vedic culture or Vedic civilization. The literature is called the Vedic literature. So, the scientists noticed that it appeared to be older than the European cultures. Since the European languages were related to the Indian language Sanskrit of the Vedas that could only mean that the European peoples had to have come out of India somehow and then gone to Europe with their languages that differentiated into Russian, English, Spanish, German and the rest of them. The European investigators didn’t like that idea because it would have given the Vedic culture a position superior to their own. So, these early cities in the Indus Valley like Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro have been identified by archaeologists such as Richard Meadows and others as being non-Vedic. They think the Vedic culture came into India maybe 3500 years ago.Isn’t that inconsistent with the concept of the Vedas of the Krishna character who comes and says the universe is teeming with life and appears to have knowledge about other habitations in the cosmos and is talking from an age that would go back at least 9,500 years?In these ancient Sanskrit writings, there is no hint at all that the culture came from anywhere else.And if they are the prime source and if the Vedic literature can be taken literally, then it implies that there were cities there inhabited at least several thousand years ago.
- the mother of all alphabetic scriptsAbove on the left is a comparison of the numerals 1 through 10 in Devanagari Sanskrit compared to Arabic. On the right are some examples of Devanagari vowels and diphthongs.Sources: The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th Edition © 1993 and Sanskrit Keys to the Wisdom Religion © 1968 by Judith Tyberg.Ever since the 19th Century, there has been a huge debate about the actual history of India. When the Europeans first came there, they noticed that the people in India who had the Sanskrit language as the main language of their literature – they noticed that the European languages were similar (in word concepts), so that meant the Europeans and East Indians had to be related. The 19th Century scientists also noticed that the Sanskrit culture or Vedic culture, as it is sometimes called after the ancient Indian literature, Vedas, which meansknowledge, so sometimes the ancient Indian culture is called the Vedic culture or Vedic civilization. The literature is called the Vedic literature. So, the scientists noticed that it appeared to be older than the European cultures. Since the European languages were related to the Indian language Sanskrit of the Vedas that could only mean that the European peoples had to have come out of India somehow and then gone to Europe with their languages that differentiated into Russian, English, Spanish, German and the rest of them. The European investigators didn’t like that idea because it would have given the Vedic culture a position superior to their own. So, these early cities in the Indus Valley like Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro have been identified by archaeologists such as Richard Meadows and others as being non-Vedic. They think the Vedic culture came into India maybe 3500 years ago.Isn’t that inconsistent with the concept of the Vedas of the Krishna character who comes and says the universe is teeming with life and appears to have knowledge about other habitations in the cosmos and is talking from an age that would go back at least 9,500 years?In these ancient Sanskrit writings, there is no hint at all that the culture came from anywhere else.And if they are the prime source and if the Vedic literature can be taken literally, then it implies that there were cities there inhabited at least several thousand years ago.
Yes, and there has been other research going on in that area. For example, the Rg Veda, which is one of the earliest Vedic literatures, talks about a mighty river called the Saraswati that flowed from the Himalayan mountains down to the Arabian Sea, down in that area of northwestern India. And such a river doesn’t exist there today. So, what happened is that people thought therefore the Rg Veda cannot be talking about India. It has to be talking about some other place outside of India where there was some kind of river.
But what happened that is quite interesting a few years ago is that archaeologists in India started studying the satellite photographs from American satellites like LANDSAT had been providing and they noticed there was a dry river channel that began up in the Himalayas, a huge river that went down almost to that Bay of Khambaht (Cambay) we are talking about (the location of the underwater city site). And then later, they found that on the banks of that river there were 800 to 1000 urban sites, archaeological sites.So, it does appear that what the Rg Veda was talking about, a mighty river lined with cities in India over 5,000 years ago – that has to be true. The last time that river had water in it was over 5,000 years ago?Is there a possibility that there could have been some sort of non-human co-habitation on the continent of India let’s say 50,000 years ago that could explain all of the Vedas?
Yes. In Kashmir, the valley of Kashmir, it appears it was many years ago a lake. Now, there is an ancient Sanskrit manuscript that tells of a lake that existed in that area, so that account is there in some ancient writings. Now, according to modern geological reporting, about 40,000 years ago Kashmir was indeed a lake in the valley of Kashmir in northern India. It was covered by a huge lake and it was blocked on the southern end by a little range of mountains. And at a certain point, something happened and it broke open and the lake drained out. That happened about 40,000 to 50,000 years ago. So, it is interesting that you’ve got this ancient historical record that talks about this lake. And if it is to be taken literally, then it means that somebody must have seen this lake as it existed 50,000 years ago and wrote about it.”
The Suryasiddhanta speaks of the division of time.
According to it:
According to it:
| Years | |
| Present age Kaliyuga- where devilism spreading faster by force | 432,000 |
| Dvaparayuga ” | 864,000 |
| Tretayuga ” | 1,296,000 |
| Krtayuga ” | 1,728,000 |
It is beleived that these ages are mentioned in years of Demi GOD(devas) calendar.
Their years are 4 times multiples of Human ages. So we can say Kaliyuga compromises 108000 years.
Their years are 4 times multiples of Human ages. So we can say Kaliyuga compromises 108000 years.
If digits in 432,000 and 108000 are added individually in a manner we calculate birth numbers we will get number Nine. Nine is the number of GOD and the total means GOD Himself will come at the end of Kaliyuga.
Arabs were Hindus – Kaba a Temple – Kabaleshwaran Mandir
For all aspiring readers: Note:This is not an attempt to malign or make any religion feel inferior or obstructed.
This is only a finding and thought to see us all in one light….the light of unity and peace.
I myself love Islaam and the people of Arabia. The people of Arabia are thouroughly gentlemen.
After reading the holy Quran i was astound to have seen many resemblances in good thoughts with reference to Puran and Bible. So many mannersims in Islam are same as that in Sanatan Dharma(Hindu Dharma).
The word Sanatan Dharma itself means Peaceful and Righteo us way of living for all…which is same as Islaam. Both the scriptures(Quran and Puran) mention that we all belong to one GOD and that we are all destined to meet in HIS abode where rivers flow in gardens where Gandharvas(Cupids) play music and the Lord is served by thousands of DemiGods or Farishtays or Angels.
For all readers again im mentioning that Hindu is not religion neither it believes in conversions nor supports it as it knows whatever/whichever form we may worship, all the prayers reach that ONE GOD and are replied by that one GOD only. The only concept where there is a difference between the styles of worship is that Hindus worship each and every form of GOD who expanded as DemiGods and sunsequently is that ONE GOD HIMSELF testing us in different masks. It is none but that ONE GOD or PARAMESHWAR who is present in all and manifests in all atoms. So we think twice even before kicking a stone without reason. Help ever Hurt never.
This is only a finding and thought to see us all in one light….the light of unity and peace.
I myself love Islaam and the people of Arabia. The people of Arabia are thouroughly gentlemen.
After reading the holy Quran i was astound to have seen many resemblances in good thoughts with reference to Puran and Bible. So many mannersims in Islam are same as that in Sanatan Dharma(Hindu Dharma).
The word Sanatan Dharma itself means Peaceful and Righteo us way of living for all…which is same as Islaam. Both the scriptures(Quran and Puran) mention that we all belong to one GOD and that we are all destined to meet in HIS abode where rivers flow in gardens where Gandharvas(Cupids) play music and the Lord is served by thousands of DemiGods or Farishtays or Angels.
For all readers again im mentioning that Hindu is not religion neither it believes in conversions nor supports it as it knows whatever/whichever form we may worship, all the prayers reach that ONE GOD and are replied by that one GOD only. The only concept where there is a difference between the styles of worship is that Hindus worship each and every form of GOD who expanded as DemiGods and sunsequently is that ONE GOD HIMSELF testing us in different masks. It is none but that ONE GOD or PARAMESHWAR who is present in all and manifests in all atoms. So we think twice even before kicking a stone without reason. Help ever Hurt never.
A wise saint once said: The Ultimate Guru/ Imaam - (who is GOD/Lord) wears different masks(avtaars)
to spread light among HIS children.
to spread light among HIS children.
Kaaba a Hindu Temple?
[Note: A recent archeological find in Kuwait unearthed a gold-plated
statue of the Hindu deity Ganesh. A Muslim resident of Kuwait requested
historical research material that can help explain the connection between Hindu civilisation and Arabia.]
statue of the Hindu deity Ganesh. A Muslim resident of Kuwait requested
historical research material that can help explain the connection between Hindu civilisation and Arabia.]
Was the Kaaba Originally a Hindu Temple?
By P.N. Oak (Historian)
By P.N. Oak (Historian)
Glancing through some research material recently, I was pleasantly surprised to come across a reference to a king Vikramaditya inscription found in the Kaaba in Mecca proving beyond doubt that the Arabian Peninsula formed a part of his Indian Empire.
The text of the crucial Vikramaditya inscription, found inscribed on a gold dish hung inside the Kaaba shrine in Mecca, is found recorded on page 315 of a volume known as ‘Sayar-ul-Okul’ treasured in the Makhtab-e-Sultania library in Istanbul, Turkey. Rendered in free English the inscription says:
“Fortunate are those who were born (and lived) during king Vikram’s reign. He was a noble, generous dutiful ruler, devoted to the welfare of his subjects. But at that time we Arabs, oblivious of God, were lost in sensual pleasures. Plotting and torture were rampant. The darkness of ignorance had enveloped our country. Like the lamb struggling for her life in the cruel paws of a wolf we Arabs were caught up in ignorance. The entire country was enveloped in a darkness so intense as on a new moon night. But the present dawn and pleasant sunshine of education is the result of the favour of the noble king Vikramaditya whose benevolent supervision did not lose sight of us- foreigners as we were. He spread his sacred religion amongst us and sent scholars whose brilliance shone like that of the sun from his country to ours. These scholars and preceptors through whose benevolence we were once again made cognisant of the presence of God, introduced to His sacred existence and put on the road of Truth, had come to our country to preach their religion and impart education at king Vikramaditya’s behest.”
For those who would like to read the Arabic wording I reproduce it hereunder in Roman script:
“Itrashaphai Santu Ibikramatul Phahalameen Karimun Yartapheeha Wayosassaru Bihillahaya Samaini Ela Motakabberen Sihillaha Yuhee Quid min howa Yapakhara phajjal asari nahone osirom bayjayhalem. Yundan blabin Kajan blnaya khtoryaha sadunya kanateph netephi bejehalin Atadari bilamasa- rateen phakef tasabuhu kaunnieja majekaralhada walador. As hmiman burukankad toluho watastaru hihila Yakajibaymana balay kulk amarena phaneya jaunabilamary Bikramatum”.
(Page 315 Sayar-ul-okul).
[Note: The title ‘Saya-ul-okul’ signifies memorable words.]
A careful analysis of the above inscription enables us to draw the following conclusions:
- That the ancient Indian empires may have extended up to the eastern boundaries of Arabia until Vikramaditya and that it was he who for the first time conquered Arabia. Because the inscription says that king Vikram who dispelled the darkness of ignorance from Arabia.
- That, whatever their earlier faith, King Vikrama’s preachers had succeeded in spreading the Vedic (based on the Vedas, the Hindu sacred scriptures)) way of life in Arabia.
- That the knowledge of Indian arts and sciences was imparted by Indians to the Arabs directly by founding schools, academies and cultural centres. The belief, therefore, that visiting Arabs conveyed that knowledge to their own lands through their own indefatigable efforts and scholarship is unfounded.
An ancillary conclusion could be that the so-called Kutub Minar (in Delhi, India) could well be king Vikramadiya’s tower commemorating his conquest of Arabia. This conclusion is strengthened by two pointers. Firstly, the inscription on the iron pillar near the so-called Kutub Minar refers to the marriage of the victorious king Vikramaditya to the princess of Balhika. This Balhika is none other than the Balkh region in West Asia. It could be that Arabia was wrestled by king Vikramaditya from the ruler of Balkh who concluded a treaty by giving his daughter in marriage to the victor. Secondly, the township adjoining the so called Kutub Minar is named Mehrauli after Mihira who was the renowned astronomer-mathematician of king Vikram’s court. Mehrauli is the corrupt form of Sanskrit ‘Mihira-Awali’ signifying a row of houses raised for Mihira and his helpers and assistants working on astronomical observations made from the tower.
Having seen the far reaching and history shaking implications of the Arabic inscription concerning king Vikrama, we shall now piece together the story of its find. How it came to be recorded and hung in the Kaaba in Mecca. What are the other proofs reinforcing the belief that Arabs were once followers of the Indian Vedic way of life and that tranquillity and education were ushered into Arabia by king Vikramaditya’s scholars, educationists from an uneasy period of “ignorance and turmoil” mentioned in the inscription.
In Istanbul, Turkey, there is a famous library called Makhatab-e-Sultania, which is reputed to have the largest collection of ancient West Asian literature. In the Arabic section of that library is an anthology of ancient Arabic poetry. That anthology was compiled from an earlier work in A.D. 1742 under the orders of the Turkish ruler Sultan Salim.
The pages of that volume are of Hareer – a kind of silk used for writing on. Each page has a decorative gilded border. That anthology is known as Sayar-ul-Okul. It is divided into three parts. The first part contains biographic details and the poetic compositions of pre-Islamic Arabian poets. The second part embodies accounts and verses of poets of the period beginning just after prophet Mohammad’s times, up to the end of the Banee-Um-Mayya dynasty. The third part deals with later poets up to the end of Khalif Harun-al-Rashid’s times.
Abu Amir Asamai, an Arabian bard who was the poet Laureate of Harun-al-Rashid’s court, has compiled and edited the anthology.
The first modern edition of ‘Sayar-ul-Okul’ was printed and published in Berlin in 1864. A subsequent edition is the one published in Beirut in 1932.
The collection is regarded as the most important and authoritative anthology of ancient Arabic poetry. It throws considerable light on the social life, customs, manners and entertainment modes of ancient Arabia. The book also contains an elaborate description of the ancient shrine of Mecca, the town and the annual fair known as OKAJ which used to be held every year around the Kaaba temple in Mecca. This should convince readers that the annual haj of the Muslims to the Kaaba is of earlier pre-Islamic congregation.
But the OKAJ fair was far from a carnival. It provided a forum for the elite and the learned to discuss the social, religious, political, literary and other aspects of the Vedic culture then pervading Arabia. ‘Sayar-ul-Okul’ asserts that the conclusion reached at those discussions were widely respected throughout Arabia. Mecca, therefore, followed the Varanasi tradition (of India) of providing a venue for important discussions among the learned while the masses congregated there for spiritual bliss. The principal shrines at both Varanasi in India and at Mecca in Arvasthan (Arabia) were Siva temples. Even to this day ancient Mahadev (Siva) emblems can be seen. It is the Shankara (Siva) stone that Muslim pilgrims reverently touch and kiss in the Kaaba.
Arabic tradition has lost trace of the founding of the Kaaba temple. The discovery of the Vikramaditya inscription affords a clue. King Vikramaditya is known for his great devotion to Lord Mahadev (Siva). At Ujjain (India), the capital of Vikramaditya, exists the famous shrine of Mahankal, i.e., of Lord Shankara (Siva) associated with Vikramaditya. Since according to the Vikramaditya inscription he spread the Vedic religion, who else but he could have founded the Kaaba temple in Mecca?
A few miles away from Mecca is a big signboard which bars the entry of any non-Muslim into the area. This is a reminder of the days when the Kaaba was stormed and captured solely for the newly established faith of Islam. The object in barring entry of non-Muslims was obviously to prevent its recapture.
As the pilgrim proceeds towards Mecca he is asked to shave his head and beard and to don special sacred attire that consists of two seamless sheets of white cloth. One is to be worn round the waist and the other over the shoulders. Both these rites are remnants of the old Vedic practice of entering Hindu temples clean- and with holy seamless white sheets.
The main shrine in Mecca, which houses the Siva emblem, is known as the Kaaba. It is clothed in a black shroud. That custom also originates from the days when it was thought necessary to discourage its recapture by camouflaging it.
According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, the Kaaba has 360 images. Traditional accounts mention that one of the deities among the 360 destroyed when the place was stormed, was that of Saturn; another was of the Moon and yet another was one called Allah. That shows that in the Kaaba the Arabs worshipped the nine planets in pre-Islamic days. In India the practice of ‘Navagraha’ puja, that is worship of the nine planets, is still in vogue. Two of these nine are Saturn and Moon.
In India the crescent moon is always painted across the forehead of the Siva symbol. Since that symbol was associated with the Siva emblem in Kaaba it came to be grafted on the flag of Islam.
Another Hindu tradition associated with the Kaaba is that of the sacred stream Ganga (sacred waters of the Ganges river). According to the Hindu tradition Ganga is also inseparable from the Shiva emblem as the crescent moon. Wherever there is a Siva emblem, Ganga must co-exist. True to that association a sacred fount exists near the Kaaba. Its water is held sacred because it has been traditionally regarded as Ganga since pre-Islamic times (Zam-Zam water).
[Note: Even today, Muslim pilgrims who go to the Kaaba for Haj regard this Zam-Zam water with reverence and take some bottled water with them as sacred water.]
Muslim pilgrims visiting the Kaaba temple go around it seven times. In no other mosque does the circumambulation prevail. Hindus invariably circumambulate around their deities. This is yet another proof that the Kaaba shrine is a pre-Islamic Indian Shiva temple where the Hindu practice of circumambulation is still meticulously observed.
The practice of taking seven steps- known as Saptapadi in Sanskrit- is associated with Hindu marriage ceremony and fire worship. The culminating rite in a Hindu marriage enjoins upon the bride and groom to go round the sacred fire four times (but misunderstood by many as seven times). Since “Makha” means fire, the seven circumambulations also prove that Mecca was the seat of Indian fire-worship in the West Asia.
It might come as a stunning revelation to many that the word ‘ALLAH’ itself is Sanskrit. In Sanskrit language Allah, Akka and Amba are synonyms. They signify a goddess or mother. The term ‘ALLAH’ forms part of Sanskrit chants invoking goddess Durga, also known as Bhavani, Chandi and Mahishasurmardini. The Islamic word for God is., therefore, not an innovation but the ancient Sanskrit appellation retained and continued by Islam. Allah means mother or goddess and mother goddess.
One Koranic verse is an exact translation of a stanza in the Yajurveda. This was pointed out by the great research scholar Pandit Satavlekar of Pardi in one of his articles.
[Note: Another scholar points out that the following teaching from the Koran is exactly similar to the teaching of the Kena Upanishad (1.7).
The Koran:
"Sight perceives Him not. But He perceives men's sights; for He is the knower of secrets, the Aware."
Kena Upanishad:
"That which cannot be seen by the eye but through which the eye itself sees, know That to be Brahman (God) and not what people worship here (in the manifested world)."
A simplified meaning of both the above verses reads:
God is one and that He is beyond man's sensory experience.
The identity of Unani and Ayurvedic systems shows that Unani is just the Arabic term for the Ayurvedic system of healing taught to them and administered in Arabia when Arabia formed part of the Indian empire.
It will now be easy to comprehend the various Hindu customs still prevailing in West Asian countries even after the existence of Islam during the last 1300 years. Let us review some Hindu traditions which exist as the core of Islamic practice.
The Hindus have a pantheon of 33 gods. People in Asia Minor too worshipped 33 gods before the spread of Islam. The lunar calendar was introduced in West Asia during the Indian rule. The Muslim month ‘Safar’ signifying the ‘extra’ month (Adhik Maas) in the Hindu calendar. The Muslim month Rabi is the corrupt form of Ravi meaning the sun because Sanskrit ‘V’ changes into Prakrit ‘B’ (Prakrit being the popular version of Sanskrit language). The Muslim sanctity for Gyrahwi Sharif is nothing but the Hindu Ekadashi (Gyrah = elevan or Gyaarah). Both are identical in meaning.
The Islamic practice of Bakari Eed derives from the Go-Medh and Ashva-Medh Yagnas or sacrifices of Vedic times. Eed in Sanskrit means worship. The Islamic word Eed for festive days, signifying days of worship, is therefore a pure Sanskrit word. The word MESH in the Hindu zodiac signifies a lamb. Since in ancient times the year used to begin with the entry of the sun in Aries, the occasion was celebrated with mutton feasting. That is the origin of the Bakari Eed festival.
[Note: The word Bakari is an Indian language word for a goat.]
Since Eed means worship and Griha means ‘house’, the Islamic word Idgah signifies a ‘House of worship’ which is the exact Sanskrit connotation of the term. Similarly the word ‘Namaz’ derives from two Sanskrit roots ‘Nama’ and ‘Yajna’ (NAMa yAJna) meaning bowing and worshipping.
Vedic descriptions about the moon, the different stellar constellations and the creation of the universe have been incorporated from the Vedas in Koran part 1 chapter 2, stanza 113, 114, 115, and 158, 189, chapter 9, stanza 37 and chapter 10, stanzas 4 to 7.
Recital of the Namaz five times a day owes its origin to the Vedic injunction of Panchmahayagna (five daily worship- Panch-Maha-Yagna) which is part of the daily Vedic ritual prescribed for all individuals.
Muslims are enjoined cleanliness of five parts of the body before commencing prayers. This derives from the Vedic injuction ‘Shareer Shydhyartham Panchanga Nyasah’.
Four months of the year are regarded as very sacred in Islamic custom. The devout are enjoined to abstain from plunder and other evil deeds during that period. This originates in the Chaturmasa i.e., the four-month period of special vows and austerities in Hindu tradition. Shabibarat is the corrupt form of Shiva Vrat and Shiva Ratra. Since the Kaaba has been an important centre of Shiva (Siva) worship from times immemorial, the Shivaratri festival used to be celebrated there with great gusto. It is that festival which is signified by the Islamic word Shabibarat.
Encyclopaedias tell us that there are inscriptions on the side of the Kaaba walls. What they are, no body has been allowed to study, according to the correspondence I had with an American scholar of Arabic. But according to hearsay at least some of those inscriptions are in Sanskrit, and some of them are stanzas from the Bhagavad Gita.
According to extant Islamic records, Indian merchants had settled in Arabia, particularly in Yemen, and their life and manners deeply influenced those who came in touch with them. At Ubla there was a large number of Indian settlements. This shows that Indians were in Arabia and Yemen in sufficient strength and commanding position to be able to influence the local people. This could not be possible unless they belonged to the ruling class.
It is mentioned in the Abadis i.e., the authentic traditions of Prophet Mohammad compiled by Imam Bukhari that the Indian tribe of Jats had settled in Arabia before Prophet Mohammad’s times. Once when Hazrat Ayesha, wife of the Prophet, was taken ill, her nephew sent for a Jat physician for her treatment. This proves that Indians enjoyed a high and esteemed status in Arabia. Such a status could not be theirs unless they were the rulers. Bukhari also tells us that an Indian Raja (king) sent a jar of ginger pickles to the Prophet. This shows that the Indian Jat Raja ruled an adjacent area so as to be in a position to send such an insignificant present as ginger pickles. The Prophet is said to have so highly relished it as to have told his colleagues also to partake of it. These references show that even during Prophet Mohammad’s times Indians retained their influential role in Arabia, which was a dwindling legacy from Vikramaditya’s times.
The Islamic term ‘Eed-ul-Fitr’ derives from the ‘Eed of Piters’ that is worship of forefathers in Sanskrit tradition. In India, Hindus commemorate their ancestors during the Pitr-Paksha that is the fortnight reserved for their remembrance. The very same is the significance of ‘Eed-ul-Fitr’ (worship of forefathers).
The Islamic practice of observing the moon rise before deciding on celebrating the occasion derives from the Hindu custom of breaking fast on Sankranti and Vinayaki Chaturthi only after sighting the moon.
Barah Vafat, the Muslim festival for commemorating those dead in battle or by weapons, derives from a similar Sanskrit tradition because in Sanskrit ‘Phiphaut’ is ‘death’. Hindus observe Chayal Chaturdashi in memory of those who have died in battle.
The word Arabia is itself the abbreviation of a Sanskrit word. The original word is ‘Arabasthan’. Since Prakrit ‘B’ is Sanskrit ‘V’ the original Sanskrit name of the land is ‘Arvasthan’. ‘Arva’ in Sanskrit means a horse. Arvasthan signifies a land of horses., and as well all know, Arabia is famous for its horses.
This discovery changes the entire complexion of the history of ancient India. Firstly we may have to revise our concepts about the king who had the largest empire in history. It could be that the expanse of king Vikramaditya’s empire was greater than that of all others. Secondly, the idea that the Indian empire spread only to the east and not in the west beyond say, Afghanisthan may have to be abandoned. Thirdly the effeminate and pathetic belief that India, unlike any other country in the world could by some age spread her benign and beatific cultural influence, language, customs, manners and education over distant lands without militarily conquering them is baseless. India did conquer all those countries physically wherever traces of its culture and language are still extant and the region extended from Bali island in the south Pacific to the Baltic in Northern Europe and from Korea to Kaaba. The only difference was that while Indian rulers identified themselves with the local population and established welfare states, Moghuls and others who ruled conquered lands perpetuated untold atrocities over the vanquished.
‘Sayar-ul-Okul’ tells us that a pan-Arabic poetic symposium used to be held in Mecca at the annual Okaj fair in pre-Islamic times. All leading poets used to participate in it.
Poems considered best were awarded prizes. The best-engraved on gold plate were hung inside the temple. Others etched on camel or goatskin were hung outside. Thus for thousands of years the Kaaba was the treasure house of the best Arabian poetic thought inspired by the Indian Vedic tradition.
That tradition being of immemorial antiquity many poetic compositions were engraved and hung inside and outside on the walls of the Kaaba. But most of the poems got lost and destroyed during the storming of the Kaaba by Prophet Mohammad’s troops. The Prophet’s court poet, Hassan-bin-Sawik, who was among the invaders, captured some of the treasured poems and dumped the gold plate on which they were inscribed in his own home. Sawik’s grandson, hoping to earn a reward carried those gold plates to Khalif’s court where he met the well-known Arab scholar Abu Amir Asamai. The latter received from the bearer five gold plates and 16 leather sheets with the prize-winning poems engraved on them. The bearer was sent away happy bestowed with a good reward.
On the five gold plates were inscribed verses by ancient Arab poets like Labi Baynay, Akhatab-bin-Turfa and Jarrham Bintoi. That discovery made Harun-al-Rashid order Abu Amir to compile a collection of all earlier compositions. One of the compositions in the collection is a tribute in verse paid by Jarrham Bintoi, a renowned Arab poet, to king Vikramaditya. Bintoi who lived 165 years before Prophet Mohammad had received the highest award for the best poetic compositions for three years in succession in the pan-Arabic symposiums held in Mecca every year. All those three poems of Bintoi adjudged best were hung inside the Kaaba temple, inscribed on gold plates. One of these constituted an unreserved tribute to King Vikramaditya for his paternal and filial rule over Arabia. That has already been quoted above.
Pre-Islamic Arabian poet Bintoi’s tribute to king Vikramaditya is a decisive evidence that it was king Vikramaditya who first conquered the Arabian Peninsula and made it a part of the Indian Empire. This explains why starting from India towards the west we have all Sanskrit names like Afghanisthan (now Afghanistan), Baluchisthan, Kurdisthan, Tajikiathan, Uzbekisthan, Iran, Sivisthan, Iraq, Arvasthan, Turkesthan (Turkmenisthan) etc.
Historians have blundered in not giving due weight to the evidence provided by Sanskrit names pervading over the entire west Asian region. Let us take a contemporary instance. Why did a part of India get named Nagaland even after the end of British rule over India? After all historical traces are wiped out of human memory, will a future age historian be wrong if he concludes from the name Nagaland that the British or some English speaking power must have ruled over India? Why is Portuguese spoken in Goa (part of India), and French in Pondichery (part of India), and both French and English in Canada? Is it not because those people ruled over the territories where their languages are spoken? Can we not then justly conclude that wherever traces of Sanskrit names and traditions exist Indians once held sway? It is unfortunate that this important piece of decisive evidence has been ignored all these centuries.
Another question which should have presented itself to historians for consideration is how could it be that Indian empires could extend in the east as far as Korea and Japan, while not being able to make headway beyond Afghanisthan? In fact land campaigns are much easier to conduct than by sea. It was the Indians who ruled the entire West Asian region from Karachi to Hedjaz and who gave Sanskrit names to those lands and the towns therein, introduce their pantheon of the fire-worship, imparted education and established law and order.
It may be that Arabia itself was not part of the Indian empire until king Vikrama , since Bintoi says that it was king Vikrama who for the first time brought about a radical change in the social, cultural and political life of Arabia. It may be that the whole of West Asia except Arabia was under Indian rule before Vikrama. The latter added Arabia too to the Indian Empire. Or as a remote possibility it could be that king Vikramaditya himself conducted a series of brilliant campaigns annexing to his empire the vast region between Afghanisthan and Hedjaz.
Incidentally this also explains why king Vikramaditya is so famous in history. Apart from the nobility and truthfulness of heart and his impartial filial affection for all his subjects, whether Indian or Arab, as testified by Bintoi, king Vikramaditya has been permanently enshrined in the pages of history because he was the world’s greatest ruler having the largest empire. It should be remembered that only a monarch with a vast empire gets famous in world history. Vikram Samvat (calendar still widely in use in India today) which he initiated over 2000 years ago may well mark his victory over Arabia, and the so called Kutub Minar (Kutub Tower in Delhi), a pillar commemorating that victory and the consequential marriage with the Vaihika (Balkh) princess as testified by the nearby iron pillar inscription.
A great many puzzles of ancient world history get automatically solved by a proper understanding of these great conquests of king Vikramaditya. As recorded by the Arab poet Bintoi, Indian scholars, preachers and social workers spread the fire-worship ceremony, preached the Vedic way of life, manned schools, set up Ayurvedic (healing) centres, trained the local people in irrigation and agriculture and established in those regions a democratic, orderly, peaceful, enlightened and religious way of life. That was of course, a Vedic Hindu way of life.
It is from such ancient times that Indian Kshtriya royal families, like the Pahalvis and Barmaks, have held sway over Iran and Iraq. It is those conquests, which made the Parsees Agnihotris i.e., fire-worshippers. It is therefore that we find the Kurds of Kurdisthan speaking a Sanskritised dialect, fire temples existing thousands of miles away from India, and scores of sites of ancient Indian cultural centres like Navbahar in West Asia and the numerous viharas in Soviet Russia spread throughout the world. Ever since so many viharas are often dug up in Soviet Russia, ancient Indian sculptures are also found in excavations in Central Asia. The same goes for West Asia.
[Note: Ancient Indian sculptures include metal statues of the Hindu deity Ganesh (the elephant headed god); the most recent find being in Kuwait].
Unfortunately these chapters of world history have been almost obliterated from public memory. They need to be carefully deciphered and rewritten. When these chapters are rewritten they might change the entire concept and orientation of ancient history.
In view of the overwhelming evidence led above, historians, scholars, students of history and lay men alike should take note that they had better revise their text books of ancient world history. The existence of Hindu customs, shrines, Sanskrit names of whole regions, countries and towns and the Vikramaditya inscriptions reproduced at the beginning are a thumping proof that Indian Kshatriyas once ruled over the vast region from Bali to Baltic and Korea to Kaaba in Mecca, Arabia at the very least.
Links to similar topics
The following explanation is reproduced from the Sword of Truth archives.
All Arabic copies of the Koran have the mysterious figure 786 imprinted on them . No Arabic scholar has been able to determine the choice of this particular number as divine. It is an established fact that Muhammad was illiterate therefore it is obvious that he would not be able to differentiate numbers from letters. This “magical” number is none other than the Vedic holy letter “OM” written in Sanskrit (Refer to figure 2).
Anyone who knows Sanskrit can try reading the symbol for “OM” backwards in the Arabic way and magically the numbers 786 will appear! Muslims in their ignorance simply do not realise that this special number is nothing more than the holiest of Vedic symbols misread.
Word Id is a sanskrit word meaning worship and Idam – means “i worship”.
Allah in sanskrit means “Universal Mother DURGA” GOD is neither male or female and also he is both. HE is undefinable. So GOD is called DURGA. He is universal Father and Mother both.
Mallika refers to Mother Goddess Durga (Shiva is also called MALLIKA ARJUN – ancient name for Shiva)
Isha means Mother Durga again and Fridays are HER worship days since ancient times in Hindus.
Also the word “Jummah” is present in Maha MrityunJaya Mantra ” Om Jummah Shivaya, Om Bhur Bhuvvah Swaha, Om Tryambhakam Yajamahe…”
Ummah also means Mother Godddess Durga. There were idols of Allah in Makka or Kabaleshwaran Temple.
In Tamil there is a word for Shiva Temple namely “Kabaleshwaran Temple”.
In Tamil there is a word for Shiva Temple namely “Kabaleshwaran Temple”.
Islam and its thoughts are same as in Keno UpanishadUma, the Golden Goddess (29)
Kenopanishad
Paraphrased- simplified- abridged
By R.R.Diwakar
Kenopanishad
Paraphrased- simplified- abridged
By R.R.Diwakar
At whose desire does the mind function, who puts first the vital force into motion? This has been an eternal question. “The Brahman or the transcendent and immanent Spirit,” answers the Rishi (sage) the seer of the Kenopanishad. It is neither seen by the eye nor heard by the ear. Nor does the mind know it. The Spirit, on the other hand, is the seer of the eye, the hearer of the ear, and the knower of the mind. It is through the power of all this all-pervasive Spirit that everything else functions. It is beyond the reach of the senses and can only be felt like a mighty presence through intuition. It is that Spirit which is real God and not the many gods that people worship.
Sanskrit is older than a billion years as it exists before RAM was born and even much before this cycle of Life and Death. So there is no question of Sanskrit being inherited from any other language other than Prakrit which came straight from Shiva (who is the Holy Spirit).
The Arabs flourished under the rule of Vikramadita – as arabs know him as Bikramatum.
Group of African tribes used to chant word OM while on Mekkah pilgrimage. Om is nothing but Allah.
So we all are one belonging to ONE GOD who wants us to live only in peace and harmony.
Group of African tribes used to chant word OM while on Mekkah pilgrimage. Om is nothing but Allah.
So we all are one belonging to ONE GOD who wants us to live only in peace and harmony.
One has to beleive that GOD can never like to preach humans ”Humanity” through wars and attacks.
No! My soul, My Zameer says no, GOD can have never asked to do this!
Then who?
No! My soul, My Zameer says no, GOD can have never asked to do this!
Then who?
Its Man and his evil ambitions who mislead mankind to evil doers. Everytime a GOD man dies, man takes undue advantage and uses HIS teachings for Power!
The world has changed terribly in past 3000 years. Man has lost his glory.
The Glory of Lord Krishna and teachings of Ram who even befriended his
enemies through HIS teachings, all are lost.
The Glory of Lord Krishna and teachings of Ram who even befriended his
enemies through HIS teachings, all are lost.
Though a ray of Hope as written in Vedas that Lord Vishnu comes back as Kalki to bring back all to humanity is still prevailing in my mind! Sathya Sai baba is really doing a lot to bring all together!
Anyways again i want to mention that Hindu is not a religion, its a way of living peacefully and harmoniously with all. We are not promoting any language or religion or culture here…just that we need to know facts as we are human beings.
Im surprised that the two cultures who have so much culture resemblance and who managed to flourish together as a SUPER POWER before the Britishers arrived are now divided.
I wish all come together as “One Kind” – Human Beings and make this world a happy place for our children. Im sure this is the only way we can bring a smile on GOD’s lovely face.
I wish all come together as “One Kind” – Human Beings and make this world a happy place for our children. Im sure this is the only way we can bring a smile on GOD’s lovely face.
Peace be to all the worlds. May all prevail in consciousness removing the bad thoughts in our minds.
Loka Samstha Sukhino Bhava, Sarve Santu Niramaya.
Loka Samstha Sukhino Bhava, Sarve Santu Niramaya.
Misconception about Shiv Linga
What does Shivlinga means?
The word Ling in SHIV ling has come from two words that is Leen and Gati.
Leen means dissolve and Gati means grow. It means man should dissolve(Leen)
in shiva then he should grow(Gati). (leen+ga)= ling.
Most people around the globe think that meaning
of ling in concerned with male sex organ, but this is
totally wrong theory.
The word Ling in SHIV ling has come from two words that is Leen and Gati.
Leen means dissolve and Gati means grow. It means man should dissolve(Leen)
in shiva then he should grow(Gati). (leen+ga)= ling.
Most people around the globe think that meaning
of ling in concerned with male sex organ, but this is
totally wrong theory.
Shiv Linga is just a symbol of the form and formless GOD – Paramatma – Atma Linga
Shiva Linga represents the symbol of Soul – The eternal soul/ which is not affected either by water, fire, earth, weapons,clothes…making it invincible. The Shaft below the Shiv Linga represents that the whole creation is created because of Viraag and Union of the Supreme GOD HIMSELF as male and female(Shiva & Shakti).
Shiva Linga represents the symbol of Soul – The eternal soul/ which is not affected either by water, fire, earth, weapons,clothes…making it invincible. The Shaft below the Shiv Linga represents that the whole creation is created because of Viraag and Union of the Supreme GOD HIMSELF as male and female(Shiva & Shakti).
But i dont blame them for this. They should blame themselves for not reading the scriptures authentically.
RIG Veda says in its first stanza that there is only ONE GOD(ParBramha – Mahavishnu) and from HIM emerged all beings including Demi-GODS. There is Swarg(Heaven- where every soul enjoys its merits for 100 years of DemiGods{( 1 year = 1,27000 year Day + 1 year = 1,27000 year Day)} with Apsaras(Beautiful Virgin Dancers) and Hell (Where Yama will Punish every evil soul – but this too is not permanent)
The only permanent “Abode of GOD” is “Vaikuntha” where soul becomes one with GOD and becomes “Ever Living” and “Ever Happy”.
RIG Veda says in its first stanza that there is only ONE GOD(ParBramha – Mahavishnu) and from HIM emerged all beings including Demi-GODS. There is Swarg(Heaven- where every soul enjoys its merits for 100 years of DemiGods{( 1 year = 1,27000 year Day + 1 year = 1,27000 year Day)} with Apsaras(Beautiful Virgin Dancers) and Hell (Where Yama will Punish every evil soul – but this too is not permanent)
The only permanent “Abode of GOD” is “Vaikuntha” where soul becomes one with GOD and becomes “Ever Living” and “Ever Happy”.
Similarly, the trinity of GODhead and its importance is mentioned in the Genesis of Bible – the ancient original Bible . So that brings Hindu and the Christian origins on the same level.
Now if Islam has over all these years being accepting that they acknowledge the messengers and writings of Bible as “Messages from previous Messengers of Allah”, then Muslims and Hindus and Christians all belong to one family. A lingam is a stone structure which represents the space in which the universe creates and destroys itself symbolically . There is a Lingam in Kaba too.
Now if Islam has over all these years being accepting that they acknowledge the messengers and writings of Bible as “Messages from previous Messengers of Allah”, then Muslims and Hindus and Christians all belong to one family. A lingam is a stone structure which represents the space in which the universe creates and destroys itself symbolically . There is a Lingam in Kaba too.
Egyptians were basically Hindus :
Hindu administrations, the Sanskrit language, Hindu culture and the Hindu medical system–Ayurved, held sway throughout the ancient world. Monarchs then used to attend court bare-bodied with sacred ash and colour marks on their bodies.
This is an Hindu Egyptian monarch of those times. [The 'V' mark is called tilok, and is shown being worn by this Egyptian in the same style that it is still worn by Vaishnavas today in India, on the forehead, arms, neck, chest and belly, representing that one is a worshiper of Lord Krishna or Vishnu.] (Published on page 38 of the Bible Dictionary {appended to the Holy Bible edited by the American Review Committee} and on page 185 of “Long Missing Links” by Aiyangar.)
One Egyptian Demi-GOD is Jupiter, half man half eagle.
Which is exactly the same as Garuda, the vehichle of (VISHNU)GOD HIMSELF. Egyptians were anciently called “Nagas”, we still see Snakes on the Crowns of statues.
Which is exactly the same as Garuda, the vehichle of (VISHNU)GOD HIMSELF. Egyptians were anciently called “Nagas”, we still see Snakes on the Crowns of statues.
England’s royal tradition is of Hindu origin.
The British coronation chair in Westminster Abbey in London. It has lions at its four legs. (Only two front ones are seen in this photo.) This is because England’s royal tradition is of Hindu origin. A Hindu king has to be crowned on a Simhasana, i.e. a Lion’s Seat. The almond-colored square stone (seen in the shelf under the seat) is an ancient Hindu memento carried from Delhi, i.e. Indraprastha by Hindu warriors when they first set up throne in the distant British isles.
[The following is a different caption under a replica copy of the same photograph in the album.]
[The following is a different caption under a replica copy of the same photograph in the album.]
It is no coincidence that this coronation chair of British royalty in Westminster Abbey, London, is literally a Lion’s seat (simhasan) as it is called in Hindu tradition. A cutpiece of an ancient Shiva Lingam serving several vicissitudes may also be seen reverently placed in the compartment under the royal seat.
The sacred stone is known as the Stone of Destiny (Bhagyavidhata) alias stone of Scone (because it was brought from a church in the city of Scone in Scotland, to London in 1296 A.D.). But before being brought to Scotland, it was at the Hill of Tara (Taragarh) in Ireland. Thus, these two, i.e. the Simhasan & Shiva Lingam reaching back into immemorial antiquity, are significant proof of Britain having once been a Hindu country ruled by Hindu Kings. The lions are also of the Burmese and Mysorean Hindu design.
How can GOD belong to some religion, class or cult?
HE belongs even to ants, worms and all kinds of beings.
HE belongs even to ants, worms and all kinds of beings.
When a soul takes life on earth, one becomes either rich, poor, handsome, ugly, leper, handicap, animal, great soul, etc.
So then doesnt it make GOD partial to one andnot another? If the concept of taking birth once is there it surely does. But then Vedas say that we are born like this and that because of our past lives..which makes Super Sense. Why would GOD be accounted for our Physical forms? We ourselves are to be blamed! Arent we? We do some actions which are bad putting aside the pestering of good thoughts of the inner soul or Zameer. The Zameer is the fully conscious mind which tells us truth is always good…that Zameer is none but GOD! Every body is a temple of GOD so how can we harm it?
To be one with GOD one has to think of HIM, see HIM in all beings..thus then only we all will be able
to make us all actually proove that we are all children of One GOD…not Shaitaan who kill people and dont feel guilty.
Loka Samstha SukhinoBhava .Sarve Santu Niramaya.
May all worlds be in peace. May all beings live in peace and fullfillment.
This was my message.
There is no religion. There is only GOD and each of us.
Religions are made by man for his own matrialistic goals.
May all worlds be in peace. May all beings live in peace and fullfillment.
This was my message.
There is no religion. There is only GOD and each of us.
Religions are made by man for his own matrialistic goals.
For hundreds of years Persians(Kinnars), Egyptians(Nagas) have been exchanging spiritual knowledge with Bharat(Which has the oldest culture on earth – 1.3 billion years old or more).
So why now in this “Machine Age or Kali Yuga”, man has become so intolerable to human values?
I think the new education and extremism fed to mankind by dwellers of Shaitaan are much saleable in this age of Satan.
So why now in this “Machine Age or Kali Yuga”, man has become so intolerable to human values?
I think the new education and extremism fed to mankind by dwellers of Shaitaan are much saleable in this age of Satan.
May all be in peace! May all be united!
For the day of Maha Prayala, Vishnu or Allah will not judge us by religion, but by Karma or Actions.
Dharma – is the rightful, noble thinking, not Religion!
For the day of Maha Prayala, Vishnu or Allah will not judge us by religion, but by Karma or Actions.
Dharma – is the rightful, noble thinking, not Religion!
The generations of the Machine Age have prooved themselves to be sons of none but monkeys! fickle as monkey minds loosing all humanity and human values within.
Earth is not the only place where u will find life! So why dont we value our selves as Humans first rather than Religions? Think!
Om Sai Ram!
Science explained by LORD KRISHNA!
Since the time Newton attempted to explain planetary orbits through the laws of gravity and Motion, the scientific belief that the totality of existence can be explained through science has been gaining momentum. Correspondingly the hand of God on the canvas of the universe has been becoming dimmer and dimmer. Prior to Newton, God was understood to be the creator and controller of the universe. Newtonian physics relegated Him to the role of a creator, a mere clockmaker who had no power over nature, which was governed by laws. Darwin’s origin of natural species proposed in 1859 provided the intellectual justification for removing God even from the role of the creator. The intellectual climate of that time embraced Darwinian evolution not so much because of its scientific basis, but because of its ideological implications. This covert agenda to exile God from the academic world was made explicit by Frederic Nietzsche through his jolting “God is dead” proclamation. Today almost all the academic textbooks and journals as well as commercial science fiction novels and movies portray evolution as a proven fact, as an unquestionable scientific reality. Time and time again we get to hear recycled versions of the same old tale of human and universal origins: the universe originated with a big bang, unicellular life evolved fortuitously on the earth in a primordial soup, life forms evolved to increasing levels of complexity, and gradually all the flora and fauna on our planet – including we humans – came about. And concomitantly the religious world reviews of universal origins involving God are almost instantly rejected as pre-scientific superstitions.
This materialistic worldview has gained widespread acceptance not so much due to its scientific validation as due to its vigorous propagation. Moreover the impressive technological accomplishments of science – catering to the mass demands for instant relief and pleasure – have created among people a naïve, unquestioning faith that whatever science says must be true.
But as the harmful effects of technology are being increasingly recognized, so also are the fallacies of the scientific worldview that underlies these technologies.
More and more people – including acclaimed scientists – are realizing that reductionistic theories overlook a cardinal principle of science: theories should be based on objective evidences, no matter how unexpected, and not subjective beliefs, no matter how popular. The evidence uncovered by science – both at the macroscopic and the microscopic level – portrays a picture of the universe that is strikingly different from what most of us have been taught to believe as science.
Observation of the fine harmony of the universal laws, the amazing complexity and the purposeful, wonderful organization of animate and inanimate life on different levels, has started a progressively strengthening movement for the respiritualization of science.
This website is not anti-science, it is pro-humanity. Our human race deserves to know the truths about its origin and purpose and that is what this site will provide –by combining modern scientific research with timeless Vedic wisdom. The value and glory of Vedic wisdom has been recognized by many eminent thinkers. We give here just a few quotes:
“We owe a lot to the Indians, who taught us how to
count, without which no worthwhile scientific
discovery could have been made. “
~ Albert Einstein
After the conversations about Indian philosophy, some of the ideas of Quantum Physics that had seemed so crazy suddenly made much more sense”.
W. Heisenberg (German Physicist, 1901-1976)
“The Vedanta and the Sankhya hold the key to the laws of mind and thought process which are co-related to the Quantum Field, i.e. the operation and distribution of particles at atomic and molecular levels.”
“The Vedanta and the Sankhya hold the key to the laws of mind and thought process which are co-related to the Quantum Field, i.e. the operation and distribution of particles at atomic and molecular levels.”
Prof. Brian David Josephson (1940 – ) Welsh physicist, the youngest Nobel Laureate
” It is India that gave us the ingenious method of expressing all numbers by ten symbols, each receiving a value of position as well as an absolute value, a profound and important idea which appears so simple to us now that we ignore its true merit. But its very simplicity, the great ease which it has lent to all computations, puts our arithmetic in the first rank of useful inventions, and we shall appreciate the grandeur of this achievement the more when we remember that it escaped the genius of Archimedes and Appollonius, two of the greatest men produced by antiquity.”
Pierre Simon de Laplace, French mathematician, philosopher, and astronomer,
Vedas(Old Sanskrit writings ) say that when SCIENCE ENDS SPIRITUALITY BEGINS!Most of the scientific conclusions now being put forth by some very acknowledged scientists were already mentioned by LORD KRISHNA in HIS SONG, the BHAGWAD GITA.
At the beginning of creation, Krishna spoke the knowledge of the Vedas, which guides souls on the journey of life and ultimately back to their spiritual home.
From time to time that knowledge becomes diluted or changed. To revive it, Krishna came to this world 5,000 years ago and spoke Bhagavad-gita to His friend Arjuna. The Gitacontains detailed teachings on the supreme, infinite soul (God), the finite souls, karma (work in this world), time, and creation.
Bhagwad GITA was spoken by Krishna and written by Vyasadeva around 3100 BC, ie 3800 years before Mohammed and 2800 years before Jesus. Krishna was quite famous all around the world just like HIS previous avtaar RAM. It is said that the LORD(GOD-Mahavishnu) who has no ego no form but yet ever multiplying in forms comes to earth to save HIS own devotees(Good people – not any specific religion) from evil deors of Shaitaan and guide them to a satisfactory and ideal way of living. Everytime thus when Lord appears in his various AVTAARS on this stage of earth to play his own DRAMA, the uncanny and the unwise people on earth think of it as a new religion and caste and recoginise HIM just by few names. How thus people with such ego can understand GOD?
Each of us is one of the innumerable spiritual souls who emanate from Krishna.KRISHNA said to Arjuna before he revealed to him, the HOLY SONG OF GOD, ”O Arjuna, the preaching that I am going to give you today has been already spoken to Vivaswan(The Sun of our Galaxy), some 140 Yugas ago( 1 Yuga is 1,27000 human years)”. Krishna further said that our Sun Vivaswaan is not the only Sun. There are around 10,000 more suns in other galaxies. HE said that HE controls the whole Universe just by using 1% of HIS entire potential. There are millions of galaxies within HIM (which we all live in) and Millions of species all round the universe. He said firther that though there are other living entities, Humans are the most foremost creation made to “UNITE with GOD” . This human birth is attained after several births of pain and agaony and yes “Good merits”. And most of us loose this form after death because of our BAD ACTIONS in this birth.
Some people dont beleive in re-birth as their religion doesnt allow them to. But how then their religion allow them to beleive in Ghosts and Magical Genis? Its a matter of simple logic. Man tends to change everything GOD has created and taught…its our ego. But GOD forgives.
Krishna has mentioned how HE created the world. This explanation talliles exactly with the researches of the scientists.
“The Big Bang” – As explained by Lord Krishna…even before science came to existence!
Krishna Says:
Krishna Says:
The galaxies of this universe are all floating on a huge ocean (The Milky Ocean where LORD is SEATED). He emanualted HIMSELF as the four handed “NARAYANA”(Narah means the spiritual waters in Sanskrit and the physical position is termed as “Ayana” so “Narayana”). HE then created a seed(A big EGG) and as Narayana seated himself within the egg. He then divided the egg into two (Here the blast occurs) that is the “Heaven – Swarg or Jannat” and other “Hell – Nark or Jahhannum”. According to Lord Krishna there are 28000 Hells which souls are sent to repent for their past actions. There is one Swarg where humans go for their good merits enjoy for 100 years(which in uncalculable in human years- almost permanent for us) of Demigods (Devas, Adideva) and then come back to life in forms as per their merits. Some souls become angels or devas or farishtays some become humans. Similarly the turmour in hell is also not permanent and then souls come back as animals or pisachas. Then again htis life is counted for merits and the cycle continues.
Thus this prooved “Energy or Shakti” is Constant. Shakti is Lords own energy a female form of the Lord HIMSELF as lord has also explained how HE divided HIMSELF into female and male form and then created “Viraag” -(pain caused by seperation of these two entities “male and female”).
After creating these two halves Lord set to create other planets and galaxies. HE then expanded HIMSELF to three planary expansions “Brahma (to create planets, Vishnu(to pamper and manage the creation) Shiva)”
Planet of GOD:
Vaikuntha (or the ageless planet) is explained as the “Planet of GOD”. Once we become one with HIM leaving aside our egos and bad actions we move to higher planet of Krishna (Vaikuntha) where we are form and no form like GOD and have no age. Rivers flow under green gardens, sweet music played by Gandharvas or Cupids, Krishna says further that there are thousands of “Laxshmis” serving HIM.
Thus this prooved “Energy or Shakti” is Constant. Shakti is Lords own energy a female form of the Lord HIMSELF as lord has also explained how HE divided HIMSELF into female and male form and then created “Viraag” -(pain caused by seperation of these two entities “male and female”).
After creating these two halves Lord set to create other planets and galaxies. HE then expanded HIMSELF to three planary expansions “Brahma (to create planets, Vishnu(to pamper and manage the creation) Shiva)”
Planet of GOD:
Vaikuntha (or the ageless planet) is explained as the “Planet of GOD”. Once we become one with HIM leaving aside our egos and bad actions we move to higher planet of Krishna (Vaikuntha) where we are form and no form like GOD and have no age. Rivers flow under green gardens, sweet music played by Gandharvas or Cupids, Krishna says further that there are thousands of “Laxshmis” serving HIM.
“That supreme abode of Mine is not illumined by the sun or moon, nor by fire or electricity. Those who reach it never return to this material world.” –Sri Krishna,Bhagavad-gita 15.6
Can u imagine Krishna spoke about electricity 5000 years back!
Can u imagine Krishna spoke about electricity 5000 years back!
What science agrees:We can admittedly find nothing in physics or chemistry that has even a remote bearing on consciousness. Yet all of us know that there is such a thing as consciousness, simply because we have it ourselves. Hence consciousness must be part of nature, or, more generally, of reality, which means that, quite apart from the laws of physics and chemistry, as laid down in quantum theory, we must also consider laws of quite a different kind. —Niels Bohr, 1922 Nobel Laureate, Physics
Ordinary science cannot study spirit and its characteristic, consciousness, which are outside the purview of matter. Spirit can be studied through a spiritual science, such as that given in the Vedas.
Besides consciousness, other evidence suggests that our identity is separate from our bodies—for example, past-life memories and out-of-body experiences.
Besides consciousness, other evidence suggests that our identity is separate from our bodies—for example, past-life memories and out-of-body experiences.
While God is infinite, we souls are small and are subordinate to Him. We exist to serve Him in love. Our intrinsic nature—our dharma—is to serve. That quality cannot be separated from us, just as heat cannot be separated from fire and sweetness cannot be separated from sugar. We will find full satisfaction only in re-discovering our unique service to God.
Lord Krishna says about:
Material Bodies
- there are 8,400,000 kinds of bodies born of the soul’s illusory desire to experience varieties of material enjoyment
- although we dwell within the body, Krishna is the body’s actual owner and controller; for example, He decides when we’ll leave it
- the elements of the body—skin, bones, blood, hair, etc.—are all repulsive on their own; we find the body attractive only because of the force of material illusion
- material bodies undergo six transformations: birth, growth, sustenance, production of by-products, dwindling, and death
- the body is a machine made of matter by which we, the soul, try unsuccessfully to find full satisfaction
- our actions in the human body determine what kind of body we’ll get next
Even after so many creations and dilusions, Lord Krishna says about what HE has to do:
“The Supreme Lord has nothing to do, and no one is found to be equal to or greater than Him, for everything is done naturally and systematically by His multifarious energies.”
“The Supreme Lord has nothing to do, and no one is found to be equal to or greater than Him, for everything is done naturally and systematically by His multifarious energies.”
KRISHNA belongs to ALL of us: Whats in the name?Just as we may have different names according to our various roles—Mommy, Dr. Jones, Sweetheart, Professor, Your Honor—so does God. And since God is unlimited, He has innumerable names.The names can be generic terms, such as “God” or “the Absolute Truth.”They can be in Sanskrit, such as Govinda, Gopala, or Shyamasundara.They can be in other languages, such as Yahweh and Allah.
The name Krishna, which means “the all-attractive One, ” implies that each of us has an eternal relationship with God and we are always drawn either to Him directly or to His energies.
What is an Avtaar ?
People who have not learnt or read about this concept would be reluctant at the first time to acknowledge this from a normal human being.
But read what LORD HIMSELF Says. Before you read please close your eyes and think if you can really question the POWER OF GOD(KRISHNA, ALLAH, YEHWAH)?
Krishna expands into innumerable forms, each of whom is Krishna Himself. Being all-powerful He can expand Himself into forms with the same power and characteristics He possesses, without diminishing Himself in the least. Krishna is likened to the original candle that lights other candles of the same luminosity.
Krishna expands Himself to enjoy in a variety of ways through relationships with His innumerable devotees. Some of His expansions manage the material world, but Krishna in His original form remains aloof from the affairs of this world, ever enjoying with His associates in His spiritual land.
Krishna’s first expansion is Balarama, His elder brother in Goloka Vrindavan. From Balarama come all other expansions.
Although Krishna produces many forms identical to Himself, He remains one undivided entity.
Scientific explanation of expansion given by KRISHNA HIMSELF
Universal Management
Universal Management
To carry on work in the material sphere, Krishna expands Himself or incarnates. Each expansion or avatar possesses some of Krishna’s qualities in full. They appear with forms and emotions different from Krishna’s, and They carry out specific activities. They are uniquely named according to these characteristics.
Krishna creates the material world in response to our desire to try to enjoy outside of our relationship with Him. Everything here is created, sustained, and ultimately destroyed by His expansions.
Ultimately everyone reach Vaikuntha, “the place of no anxiety.”
Krishna’s Avatars
Krishna repeatedly comes to this world in various forms to perform specific functions. Such avatars distinguish themselves by performing extraordinary feats. They are known by references to them in the Vedas, including Srimad-Bhagavatam, which recounts histories of several prominent incarnations from the beginning of creation.
Krishna repeatedly comes to this world in various forms to perform specific functions. Such avatars distinguish themselves by performing extraordinary feats. They are known by references to them in the Vedas, including Srimad-Bhagavatam, which recounts histories of several prominent incarnations from the beginning of creation.
The islamic versionof KRISHNA’s coming is mentioned in Mehdi Moud a persian writing.
The ulltimate teacher is called a “Imam Mahdi” – who is a part of GOD HIMSELF
The ulltimate teacher is called a “Imam Mahdi” – who is a part of GOD HIMSELF
Below we see how the humble and most powerful LORD KRISHNA comes everytime in forms to help mankind:
Unlike normal human beings KRISHNA or GOD doesnt have any ego.
He comes every Yuga or Age to save mankind from expanding kingdom of Devil.
Incarnations
He comes every Yuga or Age to save mankind from expanding kingdom of Devil.
Incarnations
- come to show spiritual practices for a specific age in cyclical time
- come to give a glimpse of life in the spiritual world, and their actions become topics for discussion to liberate devotees
- come to create and control the material worlds
- take charge of the universe’s secondary creation (by Brahma), its maintenance (by Vishnu), and its destruction (by Siva)
Some points here to clarify to other religions that Hindus dont have 36000000 GODS.
Universal Managers
Some souls are invested with extraordinary power to manage the universe. They are known as devas or demigods. Although they display godlike powers, they are not God. They are finite souls empowered by God to act on His behalf. Unseen by us, they control, among other things, the forces of nature.
Knowing the Lord!
Krishna says that His opulence is unlimited and thus we can see Him everywhere, from the great cosmic laws to the buds of a flower. Here’s a sample of the many ways He suggests we can perceive His presence:
- I am the taste of water
- I am the light of the sun and moon
- I am the consciousness of living beings
- Of bodies of water I am the ocean
- Of sacrifices I am the chanting of the holy names
- Of immovable things I am the Himalayas
- Of weapons I am the thunderbolt“I am the source of all spiritual and material worlds. Everything emanates from Me. The wise who perfectly know this engage in My devotional service and worship Me with all their hearts.”
The word “Brahman,” or simply “Brahma,” is used in a generic sense to mean spirit. God, the individual souls, and the spiritual effulgence of God are all referred to as Brahman (its Sanskrit root means “the greatest”).
When the word is used in the context of Brahman, Paramatma, and Bhagavan—the three phases of the Absolute Truth—it refers to the impersonal effulgence of God (Bhagavan). Brahman is also called the “brahma-jyoti”, or “spiritual light.” or “Noor Elahi” It is fills the spiritual world and, when transformed by God, becomes the primordial elements of the material world. Thus it is said to pervade everything.
“Whenever I have read any part of the Vedas, I have
felt that some unearthly and unknown light illuminated
me. In the great teaching of the Vedas, there is no
touch of sectarianism. It is of all ages, climbs, and
nationalities and is the royal road for the attainment
of the Great Knowledge.” ~ Thoreau (American Thinker)
felt that some unearthly and unknown light illuminated
me. In the great teaching of the Vedas, there is no
touch of sectarianism. It is of all ages, climbs, and
nationalities and is the royal road for the attainment
of the Great Knowledge.” ~ Thoreau (American Thinker)
Yoga makes life easy
The British Heads especially have been involved in misguiding the world youth by making very amusing statements and discoveries. Most of them revisited were “Humbugs”. Just as the “Darwin Theory” about India that Indians came from north and are originated from Aryans and stuff! Its all “Mickey Mouse Stories”
Recently a gentleman named: Fr Jeremy Davies, exorcist for the leader of Catholics in the UK declared that yoga puts people at risk from devils and the occult is closely associated with the scourges of ‘drugs, demonic music and pornography,’ which are ‘destroying millions of young people.’
Hahahahahahahah! this is the worst “Sulky Joke” ever said by anyone on earth!
This guy is surely not in his senses!
About Yoga and Yagnas:
Yoga has been practiced millions of years by mankind. Special Spiritual and Academic Universities called “Ashrams” have been teaching Yoga to millions for ages. Yoga is a practice which connects man and GOD by inner healing and learning to control mind. Yoga is practiced to shed away bad actions and its causes.
Yoga increases inner strength which keeps our mind away from temptations of the evil world.
It inceases inner stamina to fight diseases.
Yoga increases inner strength which keeps our mind away from temptations of the evil world.
It inceases inner stamina to fight diseases.
Yoga was inducted in a more technical approach by Lord Krishna:Lord Krishna spoke the Bhagavad-Gita on the battlefield of Kuruksetra in 3102 B.C.; just prior to the commencement of the Mahabharata war. This date corresponds to 1700 years before Moses, 2500 years before Buddha, 3000 years before Jesus and 3800 years before Mohammed. So first and foremost it should be clearly understood that the eternal knowledge of the Bhagavad-Gita has not been influenced by Buddhism, Christianity, Hebrewism or Islam; for these religions did not exist at that time and were established milleniums later.
Many great and notable individuals from modern times as well as bygone eras have read the Bhagavad-Gita and have extolled its universal message. We are naming some of them:
Albert Einstein stated that when reading the Bhagavad-Gita he thinks about how God created the universe and then everything else seemed so superfluous.Mahatma Gandhi stated that the Bhagavad-Gita calls on humanity to dedicate mind, body and soul to purity.Dr. Albert Schweizer stated that the Bhagavad-Gita has a profound influence on the spirit of mankind by its devotion to God which is manifested in all actions.Sri Aurobindo stated the Bhagavad-Gita has a new message for every age and every civilization.Herman Hesse stated that the wonder of the Bhagavad-Gita is its beautiful revelation of life’s wisdom which has made philosophy blossom into religion.Ramanuja has stated that the Bhagavad-Gita reveals the goalof the all the Vedic scriptures.Aldous Huxley stated that the Bhagavad-Gita is the most comprhensive statement of perennial philosophy.Madhvacarya has stated that the Bhagavad-Gita is apauruseya which means of divine origin and eternal.
Yoga in three steps as described by Lord KrishnaKrishna outlines three approaches towards union with God.
Karma Yoga – the Way of Action
Jnana Yoga - the Way of Knowledge
Bhakti Yoga – the Way of Devotion
- Karma Yoga
Each person should do his or her duty with faith and without hope of personal benefit or ambition. This faith and this disinterestedness act to purge people following Karma Yoga of their burden of karma. Faithless and self-interested actions would tend to increase that burden. Only by shedding the burden of karma can people hope to achieve release from an endless cycle of births, deaths, and rebirths into lives involving suffering.
- Jnana Yoga
Jnana Yoga allows people to seek union with God through contemplation, meditation, and the realisation that the Self (Atman) and the World-Soul (Brahman) are One.
- Bhakti Yoga
Under Bhakti Yoga Krishna may be worshipped as a spirit or as an image by his followers. Every worshipper who approaches with a sincerely loving heart is fully accepted. Krishna will accept any offering, be it little or be it great, as long as it is made with love. Union with Brahman, and release from the suffering inherent to the otherwise endless cycle of births, deaths, and rebirths, can be attained through sincere devotion to Krishna.
Yoga can never inherit any evil spirit as it teaches to be free from worldly senses and temptations offered by devil. It can only make a devil run for his life!
The Bhagavad-Gita literally translates as the Song of God! It was originally revealed in the classical language of Sanskrit spoken on the Indian sub-continent. It was first translated into English in 1785 by Charles Wilkins. It was translated into Latin in 1823 by Schlegel, into German in 1826 by Von Humbolt, into French in 1846 by Lassens and into Greek in 1848 by Galanos. By now it has been translated into all the major languages of the world such as Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Hebrew, Portugese, Arabic, Hindi and Bengali.
Yoga Poses for Healthier and Peaceful Life
Yagna and its Importance!
Below text is copyrighted and is just taken as a reference from “vedic.by-choice.com”
Which areas of your life can be transformed by Yagnas
Which areas of your life can be transformed by Yagnas
Yagnas can be performed for any desires, goals, issues or problems. So they can be requested for any purpose or motivation, as long as they are for highest good.
Yagnas are performed for your progression, evolution, growth, co-creation of good present karma & co-creation of good future karma. So Yagnas are for more happiness, a better life, more peace of mind, and more support of nature. Yagnas are for spiritual, emotional, mental, physical & material fulfillment. So Yagnas can be performed for love, marriage, relationships, children, health, career, success, business, wealth & prosperity. They can be performed for fulfillment of any worthy goals or desires.
Yagnas can be performed for neutralization, transcendence & alleviation of difficult karma, for appeasement of sufferings, for removal of obstacles & blockages, for dissolution of crisis, for clarity through chaos, for healing of physical, emotional, mental & spiritual imbalances, for protection from dangerous situation, and for reversal of already manifested problems. Yagnas are also performed for protection & prevention.
What we see and experience is the reflection of our state of consciousness at a given moment, so the world is as we are. This perception is what Yagnas can help us transcend.
Yagnas influence and modify your DNA. Eventually you realize that the functioning of your mind is different. Your perception of reality changes & evolves, therefore your suffering diminishes, answers and solutions are provided to you more and more spontaneously, you start to feel happier and more joyful, and you have more peace of mind. You do not experience events, circumstances and situations the same way anymore. People also start reacting to you differently because they react to the new you. Good things start manifesting.
Yagnas help you connect with your higher self. The more you progress in your Yagnas journey, the more you become aware you are the co-creator of your life, the more you take responsibility, the more you attract the opportunities that will support manifestation of your desires. You become one with the whole Universe and the energy is synchronizing itself to create the perfect timing & combination of events that will support you in your evolution. By the same time, the lesser and lesser you suffer from the duality of your Human experience.
All around, you start to see the opportunities and potentials that were always there but that you could not see. Suddenly you feel inspired and you have more ideas. You start recognizing the signs and engage on a path towards a better life. Yagnas help raise our level of consciousness towards a more awakened state. When we are awake, we can only be optimistic because we see the potential everywhere.
“if you are awake, there’s no way you’d be pessimistic, because you would see all of the potential in yourself and in others..” Dr Robin Smith, CNN Larry King live
As proven in Quantum Physic, we are all sounds and vibrations. The frequency on which we vibrate determines our experiences of life and our reality.Yagnas being the science of sounds help change the frequency on which you experience your life, by enhancing your level of vibration, therefore raising your level of awareness & consciousness. So Yagnas help you become more “in tune” with the sounds of creation, the energy of what you wish and desire, the field of pure potentiality & of all possibilities.
So what actually occurs when Yagnas are performed , is the re-sewing, re-webbing and re-weaving of the vibrations of your energy. Therefore your whole experience of life is transformed and progressing. You start attracting what is better for you. You start attracting what you need, what you want and desire.
When will you start to feel Yagnas
This whole transformation is a progressive journey. Whether you feel Yagnas right away or not, they still operate already on a deep level of karma progression. Some breakthroughs could take place within 7 seconds, 7 minutes, 7 days, 7 months or more. It all depends on your current karma, the intensity of your selected Yagnas program, your level of awareness and your commitment to your transformation. But when you start to experience these new states of awareness, these new feelings, these new visions, this new perception of life, the transformation of your surrounding, it is not through your effort… it is happening to you naturally, it is a blessing from nature that you embrace and receive with gratitude.
Life doesn’t have to be difficult. We all have the right to a better life and it is our true nature to be at ease and in bliss.
According to the Vedic knowledge of Karma, whatever good or bad, positive or negative, happiness or unhappiness, success or failure, pleasure or pain, prosperity or lack, that we come across in our life, is the result of your own past actions, past thoughts & past perceptions. Yagnas are part of the present actions you can take to remove your negative karma and co-create your future positive karma. Yagnas operate like karmic surgery. So not only Yagnas can help neutralize difficulties, blockages and problems, but they can help prevent potential future negative occurrences.
“Our present destiny is shaped by our past actions & our present actions will determine our future destiny” Vedic Literature on Yagnas
Some western men who have acknowledged Bhagvad Gita
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