"I believe the Earth actually (and obviously) resonates, quite literally, with the Hindu belief in the divine sound of OM (or more accurately, AUM), that single, universal syllable that contains and encompasses all: birth and death, creation and destruction, being and nothingness.."

(source: Scientists Say The Earth Is Humming Not just noise, but a deep, astonishing music. Can you hear it? - By Mark Morford - rense.com).

India had a thriving civilization capable of sophisticated astronomy long before Greece, Egypt, or any other world culture. For more than a century scholars have debated the antiquity of the Vedas and their related literature, the Brahmanas and Puranas. Incontrovertible evidence that such "advanced" astronomical concepts as precession, heliocentrism, and the eclipse cycle are encoded in these ancient texts, passages of which make perfect sense only if these astronomical keys are known. Based on internal evidence in the Mahabharata and Ramayana, it is  likely to establish dates--and even places--for the events described in these famous epics and thus place India, or the roots of civilization. 

A Rg Vedic hymn to the Asvins (Mercury and Venus), quoted in the Mahabharata, also refers to the twelve zodiacal signs. Zodiacal signs are mentioned in the Rig Veda, thus, they precede Greco-Babylonian astronomy. The earliest reference to the zodiacal signs is, therefore, in the Rig Veda, not in Babylonian literature. This completely upsets the rather smug history of astronomy as conceived by the western scholars of the past couple of centuries. It is obvious that the Rig Vedic seers were not mere observers in the sense the Babylonian were. They had theorized about their observations, beating the Greeks by over a thousand years in this process. 

By deciphering the astronomical events and alignments contained in symbolic form in these ancient texts,  question many if not all of the assumptions governing Indo-European prehistory. The astronomical significance of many Hindu deities, the system of lunar asterisms used to mark time, the identity of the Asvins, and the sophisticated calendar of the ancients that harmonized solar and lunar cycles. 

With the rise of modern science it should have been feasible to crack the Vedic code at least three decades earlier, but here lies the greatest tragedy of India. Under the Marxist grip Indian intellectuals have been made ashamed of their heritage, and most educated Hindus are ready to parade with the banner " We are ashamed of being Hindus" at the drop of a hat. Most educated Indians - including scientists have no clue as to what is in the Vedas. The Vedas are written in Sanskrit and most educated Indians can not understand it as there is a conspiracy to finish Sanskrit and everything else that Hindus should be proud of. There are very few Vedic scholars left in India. 

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Vedic India and the Primordial Tradition

Vishnunabhi is the navel of Lord Vishnu, the emanation point of the cosmos.

According to John Major Jenkins, a leading independent researcher of ancient cosmology:

"Our understanding of the true age of the ancient Vedic civilization has undergone a well-documented revolution. Feuerstein, Frawley, and Kak have shown conclusively (In Search of the Cradle of Civilization) that the long-accepted age of the Vedic culture—erroneously dated by scholars parading a series of assumptions and unscientific arguments to roughly 1500 BC—is much too recent. Evidence comes from geological, archaeological, and literary sources as well as the astronomical references within Vedic literature. The corrected dating to eras far prior to 1500 BC was made possible by recognizing that precessional eras are encoded in Vedic mythology, and were recorded by ancient Vedic astronomers. As a result, the Indus Valley civilization appears to be a possible cradle of civilization, dated conservatively to  7000 BC. Western India may thus be a true source of the civilizing impulse that fed Anatolia in Turkey, with its complex Goddess-worshipping city-states of Çatal Hüyük and Hacilar. However, there are layers upon layers of even older astronomical references, and legends persist that the true “cradle” might be found further to the north, in Tibet or nearby Central Asia.  

The work of these three writers shows that biases and assumptions within scholarly discourse can prevent an accurate modeling of history and an underestimation of the accomplishments of ancient cultures. The analogous situation in modern Egyptology and Mesoamerican studies also requires that well-documented new theories — often exhaustively argued, interdisciplinary, and oriented toward a progressive synthesis of new data — should be appraised fairly and without bias. 

Next to the Australian aborigines, the Vedic civilization is perhaps the oldest continuous living tradition in the world. Its extremely ancient doctrines and insights into human spirituality are unsurpassed. We might expect that its cosmology and science of time has been as misunderstood as its true antiquity. In looking closely at Vedic doctrines of time, spiritual growth, calendars, and astronomy, we will see that a central core idea is that of our periodic alignment to the Galactic Center. And, according to these ancient Vedic beliefs, the galactic alignment we are currently experiencing heralds our shift from a millennia-long descent of deepening spiritual darkness to a new era of light and ascending consciousness. "

Lord Vishnu is the infinite ocean from which the world emerges - Lord is shown lying down on a thousand-headed snake (named Shesha or Ananta Nag - Timeless or Ageless snake).

According to ancient Vedic beliefs, the galactic alignment we are currently experiencing heralds our shift from a millennia-long descent of deepening spiritual darkness to a new era of light and ascending consciousness. "

***

Vishnunabhi: Yugas and Galactic Center

One of the oldest writings in Vedic literature comes from a pseudo-historical god-man called Manu. René Guénon pointed out that Manu belongs to a family of related archetypal figures, which include Melchezidek, Metatron, St Michael, Gabriel, and Enoch. As an angelic inspiration for the rebirth of humanity at the dawn of a new era, or Manvantara, Manu is the primal law-giver, and his laws were recorded in the extremely ancient Vedic text called the Laws of Manu. Much of its contents describe moral and ethical codes of right behavior, but there is a section that deals with the ancient Vedic doctrine of World Ages - the Yugas. Manu indicates that a period of 24,000 years — clearly a reference to precession — consists of a series of four yugas or ages, each shorter and spiritually darker than the last.  In one story this process of increasing limitation is envisioned as a cosmic cow standing with each leg in one quarter of the world; with each age that passes a leg is lost, resulting in the absurd and unstable world we live in today—a cow balancing on one leg.   

According to the information in the Laws of Manu, the morning and twilight periods between the dawn of each new era equals one-tenth of its associated yuga, as shown in the following table: 

Dawn  Era   Dusk   Total          Name 

400 + 4000 + 400 = 4800 years. Satya Yuga (Golden Age)
300 + 3000 + 300 = 3600 years. Treta Yuga (Silver Age)
200 + 2000 + 200 = 2400 years. Dwapara Yuga (Bronze Age)
100 + 1000 + 100 = 1200 years. Kali Yuga (Iron Age) 
                            12,000 years 

In Vedic mythology, a fabled dawn time existed in the distant past, when human beings had direct contact with the divine intelligence emanating from Brahma—the seat of creative power and intelligence in the cosmos. This archaic Golden Age (the Satya Yuga) lasted some 4800 years. After the Golden Age ended, humanity entered a denser era, that of the Silver Age, lasting only 3600 years. In this age, humanity’s connection with the source was dimmed, and sacrifices and spiritual practices became necessary to preserve it.  The Bronze Age followed, and humanity forgot its divine nature. Empty dogmas arose, along with indulgence in materialism. Next we entered the Kali Yuga—in which we remain today—where the human spirit suffers under gross materialism, ignorance, warfare, stupidity, arrogance, and everything contrary to our divine spiritual potential.  

As the teachings tell, Kali, the creator-destroyer Goddess, will appear at the end of Kali Yuga to sweep away the wasted detritus of a spirit-dead humanity, making way for a new cycle of light and peace. Notice that the Manu text takes us from a pinnacle of light to the ultimate end-point of the process—the darkness of Kali Yuga. And notice that the four ages, when the overlap period is added, amounts to only half of the 24,000-year period of the Vedic Yuga cycle.

(source: Galactic Alignment - By John Major Jenkins).

Lord Vishnu - 5th century.

The Indian astronomers went even further, giving a physical reason for how the dual star or binary motion might allow the rise and fall of human consciousness to occur. They said that the Sun (with the Earth and other planets) traveled along its set orbital path with its companion start, it would cyclically move close to, then away from, a point in space referred to as Vishnunabhi, a supposed magnetic center or "grand center". 

***

The Indian astronomers went even further, giving a physical reason for how the dual star or binary motion might allow the rise and fall of human consciousness to occur. They said that the Sun (with the Earth and other planets) traveled along its set orbital path with its companion start, it would cyclically move close to, then away from, a point in space referred to as Vishnunabhi, a supposed magnetic center or "grand center". They implied that being close to this region caused subtle changes in human consciousness that brought about the Golden Age, and conversely, our separation from it resulted in an age of great darkness, the Kali Yuga or Dark Age. "When the Sun in its revolution around its dual comes to the place nearest to this grand center, ... (an event which takes place when the autumnal equinox comes to the first point of Aries), dharma, the mental virtue, becomes so much developed that man can easily comprehend all, even the mysteries of the Spirit." 

(source: Lost Star of Myth and Time - By Walter Cruttenden). Also refer to Hamlet's Mill - By Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend.  (For more refer to chapter on Greater India: Suvarnabhumi and Sacred Angkor).

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Advanced Scientific Concepts in Hindu Literature

The revolutionary contents of the Vedas

For a quick glimpse at what unsung surprises may lie in the Vedas, let us consider these renditions from the Yajur-veda and Atharva-veda, for instance.

" O disciple, a student in the science of government, sail in oceans in steamers, fly in the air in airplanes, know God the creator through the Vedas, control thy breath through yoga, through astronomy know the functions of day and night, know all the Vedas, Rig, Yajur, Sama and Atharva, by means of their constituent parts."

" Through astronomy, geography, and geology, go thou to all the different countries of the world under the sun. Mayest thou attain through good preaching to statesmanship and artisanship, through medical science obtain knowledge of all medicinal plants, through hydrostatics learn the different uses of water, through electricity understand the working of ever lustrous lightening. Carry out my instructions willingly." (Yajur-veda 6.21). 

" O royal skilled engineer, construct sea-boats, propelled on water by our experts, and airplanes, moving and flying upward, after the clouds that reside in the mid-region, that fly as the boats move on the sea, that fly high over and below the watery clouds. Be thou, thereby, prosperous in this world created by the Omnipresent God, and flier in both air and lightning." (Yajur-veda 10.19). 

" The atomic energy fissions the ninety-nine elements, covering its path by the bombardments of neutrons without let or hindrance. Desirous of stalking the head, ie. The chief part of the swift power, hidden in the mass of molecular adjustments of the elements, this atomic energy approaches it in the very act of fissioning it by the above-noted bombardment. Herein, verily the scientists know the similar hidden striking force of the rays of the sun working in the orbit of the moon." (Atharva-veda 20.41.1-3).

(source: Searching for Vedic India - By Devamitra Swami p. 155 - 157). For more refer to chapter on Hindu Culture and Vimanas).

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The Rig Veda is the oldest Indian text and one of the oldest surviving in the world. 

This collection of hymns of sages like Vasistha, Visvamitra, Agastya, Dirghatmas, and others was compiled over a span of a few hundred years. The verses of the Rig Veda form a code that, properly interpreted, reveals an amazing amount of astronomical knowledge, which is unbelievable when we consider their antiquity - 1500 B. C. being a conservative estimate. In fact, the Rig Veda shorn of its allegory and metaphorical camouflage, is the oldest textbook of modern astronomy. 

The Rig Veda is the oldest Indian text and one of the oldest surviving in the world. 

The Rig Veda is according to astronomical grounds, more than five thousand years old. The verses of the Rig Veda form a code that, properly interpreted, reveals an amazing amount of astronomical knowledge, which is unbelievable when we consider their antiquity - 1500 B. C. being a conservative estimate. In fact, the Rig Veda shorn of its allegory and metaphorical camouflage, is the oldest textbook of modern astronomy. 

***

From this approach it follows that the Rig Veda seers were scientists in the modern sense. Pre-Rig Veda astronomers, had, in fact measured the sphericity of the Earth, established the heliocentric theory in its modern form, and explained the seasons astronomically. Advanced concepts like the causes of auroral displays were also understood. The Rig Veda is according to astronomical grounds, more than five thousand years old. The Rig Veda repeatedly refers to Earth and the heavens as "bowls" thus suggesting that the sphericity of Earth was recognized. This can be confirmed by several hymns as well. Several hymns are attributed to the Aswins, which are the planets Mercury and Venus. A Rig Veda hymn to the Asvins, quoted in the Mahabharata, also refers to the twelve zodiacal signs. Undoubtedly, the twelve zodiacal signs were known. Thus, the earliest reference to the zodiacal signs is, therefore, in the Rig Veda, not in the Babylonian literature. 

Sphericity of Earth:

The existence of rather advanced concepts like the sphericity of Earth and the cause of seasons is quite clear in Vedic literature. For example, the Aitareya Brahmana (3.44) declares: 

“The Sun does never set nor rise. When people think the Sun is setting (it is not so). For after having arrived at the end of the day it makes itself produce two opposite effects, making night to what is below and day to what is on the other side…Having reached the end of the night, it makes itself produce two opposite effects, making day to what is below and night to what is on the other side. In fact, the Sun never sets….”

Earth as Flat at Poles:

"Twenty-four centuries before Isaac Newton, the Hindu Rig-Veda asserted that gravitation held the universe together. The Sanskrit speaking Aryans subscribed to the idea of a spherical earth in an era when the Greeks believed in a flat one. The Indians of the fifth century A.D. calculated the age of the earth as 4.3 billion years; scientists in 19th century England were convinced it was 100 million years."

(source: Lost Discoveries: The Ancient Roots of Modern Science - By Dick Teresi p. 7 - 8).

It is quite remarkable that the Markandeya Purana (54.12) speaks of Earth as being flattened at the poles and bulging at the equator, that is, not perfectly spherical.

The Vishnu Purana, in an obvious elaboration of the above quotation from the Aitareya Brahmana, also speaks of antipodes of Earth and indeed implies the existence of Earth’s rotation. In addition, even more elementary concepts like the phases of Moon and the cause of twilight were well understood, as was the fact that the blue sky is nothing but scattered sunlight. (cf. Markandeya Purana, 78.8, or 103.9)

Sun the center of the Solar System:

Dick Teresi has observed that:

"The Vedas recognized the sun as the source of light and warmth, the source of life, and center of creation, and the center of the spheres. This perception may have planted a seed, leading Indian thinkers to entertain the idea of heliocentricity long before some Greeks thought of it. An ancient Sanskrit couplet also contemplates the idea of multiple suns: 

"Sarva Dishanaam, Suryaham Suryaha, Surya." 

Roughly translated this means, "There are suns in all directions, the night sky being full of them," suggesting that early sky watchers may have realized that the visible stars are similar in kind to the sun. A hymn of the Rig Veda, the Taittriya Brahmana, extols, nakshatravidya (nakshatra means stars; vidya, knowledge)."

"Two thousand years before Pythagoras, philosophers in northern India had understood that gravitation held the solar system together, and that therefore the sun, the most massive object, had to be at its center. "

(source: Lost Discoveries: The Ancient Roots of Modern Science - By Dick Teresi  p. 1 and 130).

One frequently encounters the concepts of the Sun being at the center of the solar system (cf Markandeya Purana, 106. 41). All this pales, however, before the concept, startlingly similar to the twentieth-century model, of an oscillating universe, or more accurately, a universe being cyclically created and destroyed, with just about the right time period of about 10,000 million years. 

(cf. Mahabharata Santi Parva, or Markandeya Purana, 81, 57-58).  

The Rig Veda repeatedly asks, "How is it that though the Sun is not bound and is directed downwards, it does not fall?" A question asked by Isaac Newton more than three thousand years later, and no one else, because the Greeks had furnished the crystal spheres to which these objects were attached!

When we talk of gravity, Newton comes to our mind, but in the text Surya Sidhantha dated around 400 AD, Bhaskaracharya described it stated. "objects fall on the earth due to one force. The Earth, planets, constellations, moon and sun are held in orbit because of that one force".

"Seven horses draw the chariot of Surya". Rg Veda 5. 45. 9 

These seven horses are the seven colors compromising light. These seven colors become visible in a rainbow or when light passes through a prism. 

Vedic literature used large numbers and employed modern decimal enumeration, compared with the primitive Greek and Roman arithmetic. The first recorded evidence of "Hindu" numerals is at least as old as the Ashoka's edicts, circa 250 B. C.

Not just astronomy, but other physical concepts appear in quite a developed form in ancient Indian literature. These include atomism, superposition of various sound notes, the division of time into very small units of the order of a 100,000^th of a second, and so on. 

The Laya Yoga Samhita stated that just as the beams of sunlight entering a room reveal the presence of innumberable motes, so infinite space is filled with countless brahmandas (solar systems). The atomic structure of matter was discussed in the ancient Vaisesika treatises. And in the Yoga Vashista it was stated, in a passage very similar to the foregoing: "There are vast worlds all placed way within the hollows of each atom, multifarious as the motes in a sunbeam." 

(source: Crises in Modern Thought: The Crises of Reason - By Swami Kriyananda (J. Donald Walters) vol. 1 p - 95). 

Modern physics confirmed that the sun's rays travel in a curved way, but not in a straight line. Our ancestors told that the sun's chariot was drawn by seven horses tied by snakes. As the movements of the snakes are crooked and curved, so also the sun's ray. The phenomenon is described in a metaphysical poetic line bhujagana mita sapta turaga. The chapter on light says that there are seven colors in the white ray of the sun. Artharveda says that there are seven types of sun's rays, sapta surayasya rasmayah. 

The law of gravitation discovered by Brahmagupta anticipated Newton by declaring "all things fall to the earth by law of nature; for it is the nature of the earth to attract and keep things." 

(source: Hinduism and Scientific Quest - By T R. R. Iyengar p. 153-154 South Asia Books ASIN 8124600775).

Marquis Pierre Simon de Laplace ( 1749-1827) French mathematician, philosopher, and astronomer, a contemporary of Napoleon.  Laplace  is best known for his nebular hypothesis of the origin of the solar system. wrote:

 "Nevertheless the ancient reputation of the Indians does not permit us to doubt that they have always cultivated astronomy, and the remarkable exactness of the mean motions which they assign to the Sun and the Moon necessarily required very ancient observation."  

Yaqubi, Shiite historian, wrote in the ninth century: "Hindu are more exact in astronomy and astrology than any other people. 

Atoms:

In the realm of physics, remarkable contributions have been made by Indian scientists. Kanada, the founder of the Vaisesika system of philosophy, expounded that the entire matter in this world consists of atoms as many in kind as the various elements. Kanada's atom would then correspond to the modern atom. Some Jain thinkers went a step further. They thought that all atoms are the same kind and variety emerged because they entered into different combinations. Kanada taught that light and heat are variations of the same reality. Vacaspati interpreted light as composed of minute particles emitted by substances and striking the eyes. This is a clear anticipation of the corpuscular theory of light, which was proposed by Newton but rejected till the discovery of the proton.

(source: Hinduism and Scientific Quest - By T R. R. Iyengar p. 153-154 South Asia Books ASIN 8124600775).

Other discoveries of modern technology is that of atomic energy and its by-products. Most people agree that no civilization before us had knowledge of such things. But time and time again we find in the Vedic literature descriptions of weapons that had a similar amount of energy as the atomic bombs we use today. And to what else would these next few verses from the Artha-veda be referring if they are not a description of the basic principles of atomic energy?

"The Atomic energy fissions the ninety-nine elements, covering its path by the bombardments of neutrons without let or hindrance. Desirous of stalking the head, i.e. the chief part of the swift power, hidden in the mass of molecular adjustments of the elements, this atomic energy approaches it in the very act of fissioning it by the above-noted bombardment. Herein verily the scientist know the similar hidden striking force of the rays of the sun working in the orbit of the moon. " (Artha-Veda, 20.41.1-3)

J. Robert Oppenheimer, (1904-1967) Scientist, philosopher, bohemian, and radical. A theoretical physicist and the Supervising Scientist Manhattan Project, the developer of the atomic bomb said:  He is most remembered for his work with Albert Einstein on the first atomic bomb.

Only seven years after the first successful atom bomb blast in New Mexico, Dr. Oppenheimer, of The Manhattan Project, who was familiar with ancient Sanskrit literature, was giving a lecture at Rochester University. During the question and answer period a student asked a question to which Oppenheimer gave a strangely qualified answer:

Student: Was the bomb exploded at Alamogordo during the Manhattan Project the first one to be detonated?

Dr. Oppenheimer: "Well -- yes. In modern times, of course.

"Berlitz goes on to quote a number of passages from the Mahabharata that describe the impact of a weapon that I suspect  must be the brahmaastra, although he neither names the weapon nor cites those sections of the text from which his quotations are drawn (he lists Protap Chandra Roy's translation of 1889 in his bibliography):...a single projectile Charged with all the power of the Universe.

An incandescent column of smoke and flame As bright as ten thousand Suns Rose in all its splendor......it was an unknown weapon, An iron thunderbolt, A gigantic messenger of death, Which reduced to ashes. The Entire race of the Vrishnis and the Andhakas....the corpses were so burned As to be unrecognizable. Their hair and nails fell out; Pottery broke without apparent cause, And the birds turned white. After a few hours all foodstuffs were infected......To escape from this fire. The soldiers threw themselves in streams to wash themselves and their equipment...

(source: Doomsday 1999 A.D. - By Charles Berlitz Doubleday; March 1981 ASIN 038515982X  p. 118-122).

(Refer to Visions of the End of the World - By Dr. Subhash Kak - sulekha.com).

Oppenheimer described the thoughts that passed through his mind when he witnessed the first atomic  test explosion.

"Of a thousand suns in the sky if suddenly should burst forth the light, it would be like unto the light of that Exalted One. (Bhagvad Gita XI,12)
" Death am I, cause of destruction of the worlds, matured and set out to gather in the worlds there" (Bhagvad Gita XI 32)

For example, the Vishnu Purana in an insightful passage declares, 

 “How can reality be predicated of what is subject to change, and reassumes no more of its original character? Earth is fabricated into a jar; the jar is divided into two halves; the halves are broken to pieces, the pieces become dust; the dust becomes atoms….” 

Universal Time Scale:

The late scientist, Carl Sagan, in his book, Cosmos asserts that the Dance of Nataraja (Tandava) signifies the cycle of evolution and destruction of the cosmic universe (Big Bang Theory). 

"It is the clearest image of the activity of God which any art or religion can boast of." Modern physics has shown that the rhythm of creation and destruction is not only manifest in the turn of the seasons and in the birth and death of all living creatures, but also the very essence of inorganic matter.

For modern physicists, then, Shiva's dance is the dance of subatomic matter. Hundreds of years ago, Indian artist created visual images of dancing Shiva's in a beautiful series of bronzes. Today, physicist have used the most advanced technology to portray the pattern of the cosmic dance. Thus, the metaphor of the cosmic dance unifies, ancient religious art and modern physics. The Hindus, according to Monier-Williams, were Spinozists more than 2,000 years before the advent of Spinoza, and Darwinians many centuries before Darwin and Evolutionists many centuries before the doctrine of Evolution was accepted by scientists of the present age.

"The Hindu religion  is the only one of the world's great faiths dedicated to the idea that the Cosmos itself undergoes an immense, indeed an infinite, number of deaths and rebirths. It is the only religion in which the time scales correspond, to those of modern scientific cosmology.  Its cycles run from our ordinary day and night to a day and night of Brahma, 8.64 billion years long. Longer than the age of the Earth or the Sun and about half the time since the Big Bang.  And there are much longer time scales still." 

The Cosmic dance of Lord Shiva in bronze.

" The most elegant and sublime of these is a representation of the creation of the universe at the beginning of each cosmic cycle, a motif known as the cosmic dance of Lord Shiva. The god, called in this manifestation Nataraja, the Dance King.

***

" The most elegant and sublime of these is a representation of the creation of the universe at the beginning of each cosmic cycle, a motif known as the cosmic dance of Lord Shiva. The god, called in this manifestation Nataraja, the Dance King. In the upper right hand is a drum whose sound is the sound of creation. In the upper left hand is a tongue of flame, a reminder that the universe, now newly created, with billions of years from now will be utterly destroyed." 

(source: Cosmos - By Carl Sagan Random House ISBN 0375508325  p. 213 -214).

Fritjof Capra (1939 - ) Austrian-born famous theoretical high-energy physicist and ecologist wrote:

"Modern physics has thus revealed that every subatomic particle not only performs an energy dance, but also is an energy dance; a pulsating process of creation and destruction. The dance of Shiva is the dancing universe, the ceaseless flow of energy going through an infinite variety of patterns that melt into one another’’.For the modern physicists, then Shiva’s dance is the dance of subatomic matter. As in Hindu mythology, it is a continual dance of creation and destruction involving the whole cosmos; the basis of all existence and of all natural phenomenon. Hundreds of years ago, Indian artists created visual images of dancing Shivas in a beautiful series of bronzes. In our times, physicists have used the most advanced technology to portray the patterns of the cosmic dance."

(source: The Tao of Physics: An Exploration of the Parallels Between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism - By Fritjof Capra p. 241-245).

Jawaharlal Nehru (1889-1964) first prime minister of free India, was more than a deeply moral human being. He yearned for spiritual light. He was particularly drawn to Swami Vivekananda and the Sri Ramakrishna Ashram. In his book - A Discovery of India he wrote:

"The statue of Nataraja (dance pose of Lord Shiva) is a well known example for the artistic, scientific and philosophical significance of Hinduism."

(source: A Discovery of India - By Jawaharlal Nehru  p. 214).

Hinduism is the only religion that propounds the idea of life-cycles of the universe. It suggests that the universe undergoes an infinite number of deaths and rebirths. 

Hinduism, according to Carl Sagan, "... is the only religion in which the time scales correspond... to those of modern scientific cosmology. Its cycles run from our ordinary day and night to a day and night of the Brahma, 8.64 billion years long, longer than the age of the Earth or the Sun and about half the time since the Big Bang" 

Long before Aryabhata (6th century) came up with this awesome achievement, apparently there was a mythological angle to this as well -- it becomes clear when one looks at the following translation of Bhagavad Gita (part VIII, lines 16 and 17), 

"All the planets of the universe, from the most evolved to the most base, are places of suffering, where birth and death takes place. But for the soul that reaches my Kingdom, O son of Kunti, there is no more reincarnation. One day of Brahma is worth a thousand of the ages [yuga] known to humankind; as is each night." 

Thus each kalpa is worth one day in the life of Brahma, the God of creation. In other words, the four ages of the mahayuga must be repeated a thousand times to make a "day ot Brahma", a unit of time that is the equivalent of 4.32 billion human years, doubling which one gets 8.64 billion years for a Brahma day and night. This was later theorized (possibly independently) by Aryabhata in the 6th century. The cyclic nature of this analysis suggests a universe that is expanding to be followed by contraction... a cosmos without end. This, according to modern physicists is not an impossibility. 

(source: Astronomy and Mathematics in Ancient India).

Professor Arthur Holmes (1895-1965) geologist, professor at the University of Durham. He writes regarding the age of the earth in his great book, The Age of Earth (1913) as follows:

"Long before it became a scientific aspiration to estimate the age of the earth, many elaborate systems of the world chronology had been devised by the sages of antiquity. The most remarkable of these occult time-scales is that of the ancient Hindus, whose astonishing concept of the Earth's duration has been traced back to Manusmriti, a sacred book."

When the Hindu calculation of the present age of the arth and the expanding universe could make Professor Holmes so astonished, the precision with which the Hindu calculation regarding the age of the entire Universe was made would make any man spellbound.

(source: Hinduism and Scientific Quest - By T. R. R. Iyengar p. 20-21).

Sir Jacob Epstein has written about Shiva Nataraja: 

"Shiva dances, creating the world and destroying it, his large rhythms conjure up vast aeons of time, and his movements have a relentless magical power of incantation. Our European allegories are banal and pointless by comparison with these profound works, devoid of the trappings of symbolism, concentrating on the essential, the essentially plastic." 

(source: Let There Be Sculpture - By Sir Jacob Epstein  1942 p. 193).

Swami Kriyananada (J. Donald Walters) World renowned as a singer, composer, and lecturer, founder of the Ananda Village is perhaps the most successful intentional community in the world writes: 

"Hindu cosmography, for example born in hoary antiquity, strikes one in certain ways as surprisingly modern. India has never limited its conception of time to a few crowded millennia. Thousands of years ago India's sages computed the earth's age at a little over two billion years, our present era being what is called the seventh Manuvantra. This is a staggering claim. Consider how much scientific evidence has been needed in the West before men could even imagine so enormous a time scale." 

(source: Crises in Modern Thought: The Crises of Reason - By Swami Kriyananda (J. Donald Walters) vol. 1 p - 94).

Princeton University’s Paul Steinhardt and Cambridge University’s Neil Turok, have recently developed The Cyclical Model. 

They have just fired their latest volley at that belief, saying there could be a timeless cycle of expansion and contraction. It’s an idea as old as Hinduism, updated for the 21st century. 

The theorists acknowledge that their cyclic concept draws upon religious and scientific ideas going back for millennia — echoing the "oscillating universe" model that was in vogue in the 1930s, as well as the Hindu belief that the universe has no beginning or end, but follows a cosmic cycle of creation and dissolution.

(source: Questioning the Big Bang -  msnbcnews.com). (For more on yugas, refer to One Cosmic Day of Creator Brahma).

" Another point illustrating the advanced nature of the Vedic Aryan civilization is their conception of the universal time scale. The time factor is calculated as affecting various levels of the universe differently. For example, a day for the demigods is equal to six months for humans on planet earth. And a year is calculated as 360 human years, while 12,000 years of the gods is said to be but one blink of the eye of Maha Vishnu. For Lord Brahma, the highest of all the demigods, his day equals one thousand cycles of the combined four ages of Satya, Treta, Dvapara, and Kali-yugas. This amounts to 4.3 billion years, at the end of which is his night when there is a partial annihilation of the universe, which includes the earth. After an equal number of years, Brahma's day begins again, and that which is destroyed is again created or revived. 

For example in the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna tells Arjuna:

"All the worlds from Brahma's world (the universe) are periodic. Arjuna.
They, those who know the day and night, know that the day of Brahma is a thousand yugas long and a night is a thousand yugas long. 
From the unmanifested, all the manifest things spring forth on the arrival of the day (of Brahma). On the onset of night all these sink into what is called the unmanifested. 
Partha, (Arjuna), this multitude of created things having existed over and over again and helplessly destroyed at the onset of night, spring forth on the onset of day."

All this sounds a little like the modern theory of an oscillating universe that begins with a big bang that all matter flying out until the outrushing matter comes to a halt and collapses back into a tiny speck, leading to another big bang, and so on. An entire cycle according to present-day cosmological ideas could take 10,000million to 20,000 million years. It seems incredible that the ancient Hindus could hit upon this idea thousands of years ago. Some biased scholars have tended to dismiss this agreement of the order of length of the cycle as a mere coincidence. 

"Interestingly, modern science has estimated that the age of the earth is about 4 billion years. Scholars feel it is uncanny that the Vedic Aryans could have conceived of such a vast span of time over 3,500 years ago that would be similar to the same figure estimated by science today." 

(source: The Secret Teachings of the Vedas - By Stephen Knapp p. 25). (Refer to Visions of the End of the World - By Dr. Subhash Kak - sulekha.com). 

(Artwork courtesy of The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust International, Inc. www.krishna.com).

Speed of Light:  

One such book is the celebrated commentary on the Rig Veda by Sayana (c. 1315-1387), a minister in the court of King Bukka I of the Vijayanagar Empire in South India. In his commentary on the 4^th verse of the hymn 1.50 of the Rig Veda on the sun, he says: 

Tatha cha smaryate yojananam sahasre dve dve shate dve cha yogane ekena nimishardhena kramamana namo ‘stu ta iti 

Thus it is remembered: O Sun, bow to you, you who travers 2,202 yojanas in half a minute. 

The Puranas define 1 nimesha to be equal to 16/75 seconds. 1 yojana is about 9 miles. Substituting in Sayana’s statement we get 186,000 per second.  

Sayana’s statement was printed in 1890 in the famous edition of Rig Veda edited by Max Muller, the German Sanskritist . He claimed to have used several three or four hundred year old manuscripts of Sayana’s commentary, written much before the time of  Romer. Further support for the genuineness of the figure in the ancient book comes from one of the earliest Puranas, the Vayu, conservatively dated to at least 1,500 years old. The Puranas speak of the creation and destruction of the universe in cycles of 8.64 billion years, that is quite close to currently accepted value regarding the time of the big bang.

(source: The Wishing Tree - By Subhash Kak   p. 75 - 77).

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Zero to Infinity in Indian Mysticism

Ananta is Sanskrit for infinity.  

It is equated with the Supreme Brahman — infinitely powerful and so infinitely free. It is bigger than any quantity that can be imagined; it is bigger than any finite number. Infinity is one of the fundamental axioms upon which contemporary mathematics is based. 

Sanskrit grammar and interpretation in ancient India were closely linked to the handling of high value numbers. Studies relating to poetry and metrics initiated sastragnaas or scientists to both arithmetic and grammar. Grammarians were just as competent at calculations as professional mathematicians. Indian sastragnaas or scientists, philosophers, astronomers and cosmographers — in order to develop their arithmetical, metaphysical and cosmological speculations concerning ever higher numbers — became at once mathematicians, grammarians and poets. They gave their spoken counting system a truly mathematical structure which had the potential to lead directly to the discovery of the decimal place-value system. 

Negative numbers had been rejected as solutions of problems in early times. They were eventually admitted in Hindu practical mathematics through problems involving money transactions, since the idea of receiving and owing money was a simple and obvious one — a negative number could be interpreted as a debt. Objection to negative numbers continued up to the early 19th century. Negative numbers are the mirror image of positive numbers. The invention of Cartesian geometry brought the X, Y co-ordinates and numbers came to be represented on a graph. Today, the series of negative natural numbers go up to infinity. 

In Indian mysticism, the concept of infinity and zero are very closely linked. In the Isavasya Upanishad, there’s a line: “Poornasya poornam aadaya poornameva visish-yate”. To mathematically explain this, we have to assume that the first poornam represents infinity and the second, zero. In Sanskrit, poornam means both full and zero. Indian mathematicians knew perfectly well how to distinguish between these two notions which are mutually contradictory and which are the inverse of each other. They knew that division by zero gave them infinity.    

The symbol is that of Ananta, the great Adisesha of infinity and eternity, which is always represented, coiled up in a horizontal figure of 8 just like the leminiscate.   

Lord Vishnu is said to rest in the coils of Ananta, the great serpent of Infinity, while he waits for the universe to recreate itself.         

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The symbol for infinity is called the leminiscate. English mathematician John Wallis introduced this symbol for the first time in 1655. Hindu mythological iconography contains a similar symbol representing the same idea. The symbol is that of Ananta, the great Adisesha of infinity and eternity, which is always represented, coiled up in a horizontal figure of 8 just like the leminiscate. 

Wallis was not aware that this symbol, in Indian mythology, referred to infi-nity and eternity. How did two diverse civilisations use the same symbol to denote infinity, without either of them realising its use by the other? In many cosmogenics the interlace symbolises the very nature of creation, energy and all existence. It evokes samsara or the eternal cycle of birth and rebirth. Eternal and infinite (ananta) are symbols of non-thought. Their value is entirely emotional. They act on our sensitivity. They invoke the peculiar sensation of the inability to imagine.  

The concept of infinity has always remained an enigma. The Taittiriya Upanishad says: yatho vacho nivartante, apraapya manasa saha — where mind and speech return (being) unable to comprehend. In Indian cosmology, Ananta refers to the Adisesha or the great serpent on which Lord Vishnu reclines, taking His yoga nidra or anantasayanam. A Tamil azhwar paasuram (verse) says that Ananta acts as an umbrella when Vishnu walks, as a simhasana (throne) when He sits, as sandals when He stands, and as a bed when He reclines.  

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" I am the nucleus of every creature, Arjuna; for without me nothing can exist, neithe