In my previous post I explained the concept of Purusha and used the concept to provide insights to the Vedic understanding to the creation of the Universe and how it differed from the popular Big Bang Theory. You may have noticed that I also used the creation sequence to explain the gender hierarchy in humans or possibly other species as well. I can go further to use the creation sequence to explain the top-down approach in business where all work is done to accomplish a certain “end product”, i.e. the Prithvi of the company. The end product is typically the goal set by the topmost level (Prithvi) in the company which the bottom levels (Purusha) work to achieve. Hence, as a matter of fact, these different ideas are actually interconnected together by a single concept, the creation sequence Purusha-Vayu-Soma/Apa-Agni-Prithvi. If the position of one of these deities is interchanged with another, would the sequence then be successful in explaining all the inter-associated ideas still? If suppose I interchange the positions of Vayu with Agni to make the masculine gender the topmost in the gender hierarchy can this new sequence still explain the fundamental law of imperpetuality? No. If Agni is interchanged with Vayu it means that a random initial state is always the solution leaving no room for further tuning to achieve any desired outcomes. If this was the fundamental law of nature then nothing can be built, no civilizations would have existed, the concept of communication or evolution becomes devoid, the world we live in itself would have not been created nor even the universe. Hence there cannot exist such a world with the masculine gender as the topmost gender in the gender hierarchy. This is the kind of interconnected understanding the Vedas give. Speaking of understanding, I now commence the Sun marathon with Surya, the Vedic concept of understanding.
SURYA:
Surya is the Sanskrit word meaning the Sun. The Sun is a very simple but important component of nature and also for the Vedas. It will be surprising to know how such a simple component or element can reveal many things about nature itself.
The Sun is the primal source of energy for the Earth and other planets around it. As the source of energy, the Vedas classify the Sun as a masculine in form. But also as a source, it is the center point or treasure (the end point) that is sought. It is this quality that classifies the Sun also as feminine in form. In philosophical terms it is both the Father and the Mother. As the Father, he is a Guardian and a Guider and as the Mother she is a Healer.
The Vedic perspective of the Sun is an embodiment of multiple Fires (Agni) interconnected together. Hence all properties of Agni are used but in plurality. Surya can be depicted as an object receiving information from multiple angles or dimensions. The interconnection of these multiple dimensions is what brings Understanding. The interconnections give a structure (Varuna) to the information that is being received and this is why the Vedic authors wrote that Surya is the eye of Varuna. Why the eye and not the mouth or ears? This is because the Eye is such an object that receives a multitude of information about its surroundings. The brain (Varuna) that has structure receives ample information from the eyes (Surya) to restructure itself. The video link posted below shows this quality of the brain explained by one scientist.
http://www.ted.com/talks/henry_markram_supercomputing_the_brain_s_secrets.html
The brain not only uses the eyes to receive information but also the ears, nose, touch and taste. To the brain, these five senses collectively represent Surya. The job of these five senses is to provide information only. This information is usually in the form of loose connections, much like an ocean of water (water has loosely connected molecules), and it is from this pool rigid interconnections are made to create an understanding. That is why it is sometimes dangerous to believe something only through seeing and hearing. Humans are equipped with the sixth sense, the sense of understanding, that works beyond the five senses. The concept of meditation is wound around this. In the Vedas this is phrased as the Sun, that is hidden in the ocean, is raised from it towards the Sky (the source – hence understanding becomes the primal source of knowledge for a being). Many speechless terrible things are happening in this world today due to the lack of understanding. Also the idea of a divine spirit governing the functions of this universe is a product of the sixth sense which many fail to do because they arrogantly use only the five senses and get diabolically furious when made to use the sixth sense.
The Vedic authors realizing this concept must have concluded that nature itself is interconnected by multiple things that give its profound structure. Hence, this very idea must have guided them to write the Vedas by analyzing multiple aspects of nature into general concepts that make the multitude of natural inter-associations intact. It is only through understanding can someone find a solution for a desired outcome (understanding as the Mother). It is also understanding that provides guidance in ones endeavors (understanding as the Father).
The above paragraphs have explained the most important understanding of the Vedic Deity Surya. Other aspects of the Sun will be covered further in this Sun marathon. Before I go further in the marathon, I will cover Chandra, the Moon, in my next post along with some interesting insights about the connection between the Sun and the Moon. It may give insights about the religions of many tribes that exist today but specifically it will give insights to the culture of ancient India.
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Saturday, July 2, 2011
Purusha
In my last post I introduced you to an important deity Ardhanareshwar, the half Shiva half Parvathi deity, and gave you a few examples of the concepts it talks about. Based on one of the examples I gave, I’m going to make another important extrapolation of the Ardhanareshwar deity. Using the example that Ardhanareshwar tells that there exists multiple paths to divinity and that an individual selects only one among them, there exists multiple universes like our universe that follow different paths to same upper world, i.e. the Divine World. These universes are parallel universes having their own unique (Vishnu) set of rules (Varuna) to progress to the Divine World. If scientists were to find alien planets like our planet Earth, they will have to look outside our universe, i.e. by first entering a worm-hole portal to another universe. These other universes probably exist because our universe, which may look absolutely perfect for us, may not actually be perfect in the perspective of the Divine World. Our universe may be suitable for only certain types of souls to progress to the Divine World. The other universes may be tailored to be suitable for a mutually independent set of souls. Or if one universe produces a bad by-product soul, this soul could be sent to another appropriate universe to clean it. Hence these universes act like organs to the Divine World. This extrapolation may not be a perfect extrapolation because I’m not from the Divine World, but it could be close to it.
PURUSHA:
Purusha is a very important Vedic concept and a very important scientific concept. It is concept that tells nothing in this world is perpetual. Everything that happens or exists has a source or in order for something to happen or exist something must be done or expended. Purusha is a Sanskrit word meaning ‘The man of the house’, i.e. the source of income in the household. This comes from the male’s natural tendency to be the source of income for the household which is why it is not a good idea to ask a man how much he is earning.
Purusha is an important deity in the Vaastu Chart as well. It is the deity that connects the two halves of the chart. The Purusha part of the Vaastu Chart is mobile and its orientation depicts the phase of action or creation. More specifically the deity at the Foot of Purusha empowers the deity at the Head of Purusha and various insights can be drawn by this connection. The foot as the source of empowerment tells that the foot is an important source of energy for every creature. The mechanical pressure by which the foot is pressed on the ground by the weight of the body provides energy to the body. Likewise in an organization, the foot, which is the root level, is one that empowers the goals of the head of the organization. Therefore, the fact that the Brahmins (who were considered the educated class) ill-treated the Shudras was a complete violation of their own doctrine and was the cause of their downfall and the downfall of Hinduism a long time ago.
Given that Purusha is also an important deity in the creation sequence, let me now explain what the Vedic idea of the Creation of the Universe and the Earth is from this sequence. Then we can compare this with the Big Bang Theory postulated by modern scientists. Let me first remind you the sequence. It is Purusha-Vayu-Soma/Apa-Agni-Prithvi. According to the Vedas, the universe was created by the actions of a being from the upper world. This being (Purusha) churned (Vayu) something that generated material (Soma), probably the electric charges. This churning continued and more of such material was being generated and the energy of the system was accumulating. The energy was confined to a bounded region (Prithvi) which caused the generation of Fire (Agni) spots in the region (this comes from the Agni-Prithvi association) and expansion (i.e. growth - Agni). These Fire Spots then began to suck in the material (a property of Agni) and the material began distributing accordingly. Now the fact that there were multiple such Fire Spots, the churning must have happened at multiple locations on the bounded region according to the Law of Conservation (brotherhood of Agni and Indra) where the number of Fire Spots created is equal to the sum of the number times and number of locations churned on that region. This multiple churning would have happened in a regulated manner (Rudra) by one individual. Hence the Vedic authors gave Aum (from the Vayu (churning) of Creation) another epithet of Shiva through the phrase ‘Aum Namah Shivaya’. The Fire Spots sucked in material uptil its capacity at which point they began to cool into solid form (Prithvi). The material or charges would have converted (Agni) to specific atoms and molecules (Prithvi) during this stage. The churning would have been regulated in a specific pattern (Varuna) in both Time and Space in order to provide the Universe under construction a specific or unique (Vishnu) texture/structure. A structure that defines the rules of the Universe’s System and the rules for divine progression. The Big Bang Theory on the other hand talks about a thermal instability from out of nowhere on a massive object that created the Universe and the Earth.
In Bharathanatyam, the Anandha Thandavam depicts creation as the dance of Shiva. Anandha means ‘Happiness’ in Sanskrit. Hence it says that the qualities of happiness where injected into the Universe during its creation. In this Universe, divinity can be achieved only through happiness where nothing, such as wealth, status, etc, bounds you. But to enter that kind of state requires a lot of churning, twisting, etc, which will be horrifying to you when it occurs. Or without taking necessary risks (the horror) one will never get what he/she really wants (the happiness). The intonation of Anandha Thandavam too has horrifying touch to it. It looks confusing in the beginning because happiness and horror don’t look associated.
My next post will commence the Sun marathon. In this marathon a whole new set of interesting concepts will be introduced to you. Things that you never expected to be connected will begin being connected and you may possibly fall flat (the horror) when trying to digest it. There nothing to worry about when that happens because the same thing also happened to me and I turned out fine later (the happiness).
PURUSHA:
Purusha is a very important Vedic concept and a very important scientific concept. It is concept that tells nothing in this world is perpetual. Everything that happens or exists has a source or in order for something to happen or exist something must be done or expended. Purusha is a Sanskrit word meaning ‘The man of the house’, i.e. the source of income in the household. This comes from the male’s natural tendency to be the source of income for the household which is why it is not a good idea to ask a man how much he is earning.
Purusha is an important deity in the Vaastu Chart as well. It is the deity that connects the two halves of the chart. The Purusha part of the Vaastu Chart is mobile and its orientation depicts the phase of action or creation. More specifically the deity at the Foot of Purusha empowers the deity at the Head of Purusha and various insights can be drawn by this connection. The foot as the source of empowerment tells that the foot is an important source of energy for every creature. The mechanical pressure by which the foot is pressed on the ground by the weight of the body provides energy to the body. Likewise in an organization, the foot, which is the root level, is one that empowers the goals of the head of the organization. Therefore, the fact that the Brahmins (who were considered the educated class) ill-treated the Shudras was a complete violation of their own doctrine and was the cause of their downfall and the downfall of Hinduism a long time ago.
Given that Purusha is also an important deity in the creation sequence, let me now explain what the Vedic idea of the Creation of the Universe and the Earth is from this sequence. Then we can compare this with the Big Bang Theory postulated by modern scientists. Let me first remind you the sequence. It is Purusha-Vayu-Soma/Apa-Agni-Prithvi. According to the Vedas, the universe was created by the actions of a being from the upper world. This being (Purusha) churned (Vayu) something that generated material (Soma), probably the electric charges. This churning continued and more of such material was being generated and the energy of the system was accumulating. The energy was confined to a bounded region (Prithvi) which caused the generation of Fire (Agni) spots in the region (this comes from the Agni-Prithvi association) and expansion (i.e. growth - Agni). These Fire Spots then began to suck in the material (a property of Agni) and the material began distributing accordingly. Now the fact that there were multiple such Fire Spots, the churning must have happened at multiple locations on the bounded region according to the Law of Conservation (brotherhood of Agni and Indra) where the number of Fire Spots created is equal to the sum of the number times and number of locations churned on that region. This multiple churning would have happened in a regulated manner (Rudra) by one individual. Hence the Vedic authors gave Aum (from the Vayu (churning) of Creation) another epithet of Shiva through the phrase ‘Aum Namah Shivaya’. The Fire Spots sucked in material uptil its capacity at which point they began to cool into solid form (Prithvi). The material or charges would have converted (Agni) to specific atoms and molecules (Prithvi) during this stage. The churning would have been regulated in a specific pattern (Varuna) in both Time and Space in order to provide the Universe under construction a specific or unique (Vishnu) texture/structure. A structure that defines the rules of the Universe’s System and the rules for divine progression. The Big Bang Theory on the other hand talks about a thermal instability from out of nowhere on a massive object that created the Universe and the Earth.
In Bharathanatyam, the Anandha Thandavam depicts creation as the dance of Shiva. Anandha means ‘Happiness’ in Sanskrit. Hence it says that the qualities of happiness where injected into the Universe during its creation. In this Universe, divinity can be achieved only through happiness where nothing, such as wealth, status, etc, bounds you. But to enter that kind of state requires a lot of churning, twisting, etc, which will be horrifying to you when it occurs. Or without taking necessary risks (the horror) one will never get what he/she really wants (the happiness). The intonation of Anandha Thandavam too has horrifying touch to it. It looks confusing in the beginning because happiness and horror don’t look associated.
My next post will commence the Sun marathon. In this marathon a whole new set of interesting concepts will be introduced to you. Things that you never expected to be connected will begin being connected and you may possibly fall flat (the horror) when trying to digest it. There nothing to worry about when that happens because the same thing also happened to me and I turned out fine later (the happiness).
Monday, May 30, 2011
Varuna
In my previous post I gave a short exercise in reconstructing paradise from the Deities I covered so far. I had also given a short list to aid you, the reader, if you were interested in doing it. From the exercise, you could have come to the following conclusions:
1) Each individual on this planet is regarded as the most significant entity by the planet itself.
2) The purpose of each individual is to learn something from whatever is given to him/her.
3) Each individual has a unique combination of qualities that are purposeful for himself/herself as well as for the planet.
4) From the qualities given, the individual has the capability to control certain aspects of the environment he/she resides in.
5) The planet doesn’t consist of only one individual but many. Therefore, each individual learns to blend in the environment he/she resides in.
6) An intellectual individual weighs all the obstacles before doing what he/she wants to do and in return learns from them.
7) The goals of each individual are protected between the individual and the planet.
8) The planet is the source of the individual’s survival. The individual in return gives back whatever the planet requires from him/her.
From the conclusions listed above, it becomes implicit that paradise is not only about getting what one wants but to also give. In fact, there’s more in the giving side (Shiva) than getting (This conclusion comes from the understanding of the Maruts – The core of any entity is Shiva, the science of the entity’s behaviour). The imbalance brings about sacrificial qualities (Agni) by which the concerned individual learns. This imbalance should not be confused with the balance between what the planet expects from the individual and what the individual does. From the previous post, Agni’s association with the Maruts gives Agni the keyword of Doing. This keyword enhances Agni’s keyword of Sacrifice.
By including the Maruts in the exercise, it enhances the notion of communication between the individual and its environment. This notion of communication was seen by the Vedic authors as the most significant thing that binds the Universe together. In fact nothing would have existed if entities did not have the capability of communicating with each other. Even light would not be able to travel if it fundamentally can’t move from, say, an infinitesimal distance from point A to point B. Time would also not exist if time A can’t move to time B. In order to classify this as a single notion, the Vedic authors termed it as Aum.
AUM:
The idea of Aum was derived from the creation sequence Purusha-Vayu-Soma-Agni-Prithvi that fundamentally describes one entity transferring something to another entity. The entities are Purusha and Prithvi. Removing Purusha and Prithvi leaves Vayu as the prime reason for anything to be transferred between two points and its counterpart Agni, becomes the prime reason for anything to receive what was transferred (Soma). The Vedic authors then had to signify Vayu in their idea of Aum (yet to be developed). Using Vayu, they represented the idea of Aum as some Sound Energy (not necessarily saying that Sound Energy is the only energy that creates movement). To further enhance this representation (Indra) – note that it is being confined, they figured out that all terrestrial living creatures have a mouth that modulates the air to send a message. As humans, the mouth is by far the most significant thing that enables us to communicate our thoughts and emotions. From this came script writing which requires the imagination of sound when reading or writing.
A sequence of phonemes was then made to represent the source (Purusha), i.e. the individual. They came up with Aah-Ooh-Mmm that represents The Abdomen – The Heart – The Head. Surprisingly, I noticed that the Native Americans too have the same sequence. Instead of combining Aah and Ooh into one Au to make Aum or Om like the Indians, they combined Ooh and Mmm as one and hence they say it as Aah-Umm.
Aum became the symbol for Hinduism when religions began dividing the humans. Until then as per Vedic Scriptures, an individual was given the right to create his/her own Deity, possibly from existing Deities, that represents the individual’s character and goal (which are already bounded) in the divine sense. The notion of religion did not exist fundamentally. The Vedic ascetics at the time of division would have not understood why the people wanted to symbolize a formless entity. In fact they were ready to adopt the teachings into theirs and maintain one belief system, much like how they adopted the teachings of Buddha. But symbolism was what drove them and so to protect the Vedic teachings, they too had to symbolize the formless entity.
By formlessness, it means that the concept of communication exists in all scientific fields. Today, we use this concept in money distribution (Economics), heat distribution (Thermodynamics), charge distribution (Electronics), variable distribution (Software – no ics here), knowledge distribution (Spirituality), etc, as there are many more. It is definitely very difficult to represent all this as one sensible symbol. Well, you can make an insensible symbol that probably looks weird and say it represents everything.
By now, you, the reader, have come across the use of sequences in Vedic Science. This is actually an important Vedic concept which I’m going to cover right now.
VARUNA:
Varuna, in Vedic depiction, is the God of Rain or the God of the Sky. The depiction of Varuna as the God of Rain helped me more in understanding what Varuna actually represents. His depiction of the God of the Sky comes after understanding the actual representation.
As the God of Rain, I personally saw the specific sequence of events as the representation of Varuna. Hence I associated the keyword ‘Sequence’ to Varuna. This very keyword explained most of Varuna’s characteristics given in Vedic Literature. From the notion of Sequences comes the notion of Patterns and Rules. From Rules comes the Law. This Sequence can represent a sequence of events in time or the sequence of structure (patterns or rules). Are there more? Well I just defined sequences on two infinites, time and space. The number system too is a sequence and so is the music scale.
It so happens that all sequences are closed (Indra) sequences. Very often in Vedic Literature will you find the animosity between Indra and Varuna caused by Indra’s overthrow of Varuna’s Rule. The animosity depicts Indra’s constraint on Varuna, i.e. sequences of anything must close. Indra and Varuna were placed facing each other in the Vaastu Chart probably for this reason. Hence Time, Space, The Number System, The Music Scale, Sentences (meaning is closed or complete) etc, are all in closed form sequences. When these sequences close, they become Indra entities.
Sequences left open become uncontrolled or wasteful as there is no reuse or repeatability. Closed sequences also help in monitoring a particular portion of its sequence. This concept is heavily used in Closed Loop Control Systems, today, where measuring instruments are part of the process (sequence of activities) control. In Vedic depiction, the measuring part for process control maintenance is the Sun, the eye of Varuna. The Sun (Surya), which I will describe in detail later in my Sun Marathon, is an entity of multiple Fires (Agni). As Varuna’s eye, Surya measures (Agni) multiple parameters of the ongoing process (Varuna) and controls it based on its set of defined rules (Varuna). Likewise, natural systems are usually self-correcting (Indra) systems, e.g. the planet Earth.
In the Vaastu Chart (a closed sequence of Deities with Varuna as one of them), it becomes evident that the starting node is Varuna. This starting node is empowered by one of the later nodes, Indra. Actually it is Varuna-Chandra empowered by Indra-Aditya but since I have not yet explained Chandra and Aditya, I’m breaking it down to Varuna empowered by Indra. In the design perspective, this translates as during the commencement of a design a closed or complete (Indra) specification sheet (Varuna) is required. In the learning perspective, the learner looks for a closed or complete set of rules that can be used to understand something. These set of rules or patterns become the alphabets in that particular understanding which when arranged in different ways form different meanings, i.e. different words. If you had watched “The Gods must be crazy” movie, you will get the idea of I’m talking about. In that movie, they show two different cultures, the White Western Culture and the Black African Tribal Culture. In the perspective of both, the other is illiterate because they (the other) can’t read the patterns known to the them. For the African Tribe, the patterns they learned to read were events that happened in a particular area, e.g. deer fighting (I think), whereas in the West (or Europe I think), patterns they learned to read were some kind of data on a computer plot. The two pattern analysis had different purposes (Vayu, which is why Vayu comes after Varuna in the Vaastu Chart) and because of this difference the movie showed that one race is not superior or inferior to the other.
The Vaastu Chart, today, is understood only as a building construction chart. There is actually a lot more to it than just a building construction chart. Once I have covered all the Deities in that chart, I will dedicate one post to explain in detail the Vaastu Chart. There are two versions of the Vaastu Chart you can find on the internet. A simplified one, which is the more common one, and an advanced one. The advanced one is a little more intricate and quite complicated for me. The simplified one, however, gives really good insights on the Vaastu chart which I will cover.
Just like the Vaastu Chart, the Creation Sequence which is also a sequence of Deities, has a lot more to it than just a Creation Sequence. Other than a creation sequence, according to me, this sequence also tells gender progression. With Purusha starting the sequence and Prithvi ending the sequence, it kind of tells that the male progresses to the female. :S. For a guy it sounds weird, but I bet the girls would love this. There is, however, enough evidence within the sequence to support this. Note that Purusha is associated with Vayu while Prithvi is associated with Agni. Purusha’s association with Vayu translates to the male as agents of change while Prithvi’s association with Agni translates to the female as a mediation to the next level. Since the next level to human is divinity, the feminine is a mediation between the human and the divine. As I mentioned earlier in one of my posts, the woman is actually form of divinity represented in Parvathi. The masculine, on the other hand, are agents of change in the human race or any other species (they are the ones who have a natural tendency to go out to the world and make their mess). It is in fact an interesting theory to consider in mapping which species progresses to which species in the hierarchy. So according to the Karma concept, a man’s next birth is a woman if the man met all requirements to complete him as a man. Little more thinking in this direction, a good man becomes a hot chick in his next birth. :P. Again, with the associations of Vayu and Agni with Purusha and Prithvi respectively, and that Agni’s characteristics place Agni as the elder one among the brotherhood of Agni, Indra and Vayu, it shows that the feminine reaches maturity much faster than the masculine. This is true in the biological sense as well. The Egyptians made their Agni counterpart, Shu, feminine probably for this reason.
As mentioned earlier, the Vedas represent singularity as masculine and plurality as feminine. This is another concept that supports the gender progression. The representation doesn’t mean that men can only do one thing at a time and women can only to multiple things at a time. They are actually common characteristics. In fact both men and women do multitasking or just do one thing. To compensate for the representation, the Vedic saints introduced a deity termed Ardhanareswar to show that both men and women do multitasking or just do one thing at a particular point of time. Ardhanareswar is a deity that is half Shiva and half Parvathi. At the point of its introduction, it became a more powerful form due to concept it represented. The concept was powerful enough to explain why alien planets don’t exist and that the planet Earth is the only planet with life in this massive universe. The Ardhanareswar deity explains that to implement a single (Shiva) entity it requires a multitude (Parvathi) functionality to define it or a single entity is made up of a multitude of other entities. Examples are the human body system that has multiple organs that make it work, a car engine that has multiple other parts just to ensure the cylinders run the wheels smoothly, a source code of a software application that has multiple functions and libraries to make it work (also to note is that there is only one main function for a software application that calls other routines), etc. Likewise the massive universe exists just to define the functionalities of every species living on the planet Earth including the stimulus that runs it (the stimulus part comes from the understanding of the Gayathri Manthra which I will cover after Savitr in the Sun Marathon). Ardhanareswar also explains that there exists multiple paths to divinity and that one of them can be chosen by an individual. Multitasking in fact is achieved by regulating multiple single tasks in consequent time frames in software. In human life, an individual has multiple things to deal with such work, family, personal development, community, etc. The individual has to regulate these in a well-balanced (Vishnu) manner. This is because an individual has multiple purposes (Vayu, but Vayu is also associated with Rudra – the important aspect of Shiva) for the planet.
Varuna has an important companion called Mitra by which He is always paired with. Mitra is a Sun Deity which I will cover in the Sun Marathon. Together they provide an interesting concept especially when they are paired with the Sun-Moon pair.
Now that you as the reader have come across too much of Purusha, I might consider posting about Purusha before the commencing the Sun marathon.
1) Each individual on this planet is regarded as the most significant entity by the planet itself.
2) The purpose of each individual is to learn something from whatever is given to him/her.
3) Each individual has a unique combination of qualities that are purposeful for himself/herself as well as for the planet.
4) From the qualities given, the individual has the capability to control certain aspects of the environment he/she resides in.
5) The planet doesn’t consist of only one individual but many. Therefore, each individual learns to blend in the environment he/she resides in.
6) An intellectual individual weighs all the obstacles before doing what he/she wants to do and in return learns from them.
7) The goals of each individual are protected between the individual and the planet.
8) The planet is the source of the individual’s survival. The individual in return gives back whatever the planet requires from him/her.
From the conclusions listed above, it becomes implicit that paradise is not only about getting what one wants but to also give. In fact, there’s more in the giving side (Shiva) than getting (This conclusion comes from the understanding of the Maruts – The core of any entity is Shiva, the science of the entity’s behaviour). The imbalance brings about sacrificial qualities (Agni) by which the concerned individual learns. This imbalance should not be confused with the balance between what the planet expects from the individual and what the individual does. From the previous post, Agni’s association with the Maruts gives Agni the keyword of Doing. This keyword enhances Agni’s keyword of Sacrifice.
By including the Maruts in the exercise, it enhances the notion of communication between the individual and its environment. This notion of communication was seen by the Vedic authors as the most significant thing that binds the Universe together. In fact nothing would have existed if entities did not have the capability of communicating with each other. Even light would not be able to travel if it fundamentally can’t move from, say, an infinitesimal distance from point A to point B. Time would also not exist if time A can’t move to time B. In order to classify this as a single notion, the Vedic authors termed it as Aum.
AUM:
The idea of Aum was derived from the creation sequence Purusha-Vayu-Soma-Agni-Prithvi that fundamentally describes one entity transferring something to another entity. The entities are Purusha and Prithvi. Removing Purusha and Prithvi leaves Vayu as the prime reason for anything to be transferred between two points and its counterpart Agni, becomes the prime reason for anything to receive what was transferred (Soma). The Vedic authors then had to signify Vayu in their idea of Aum (yet to be developed). Using Vayu, they represented the idea of Aum as some Sound Energy (not necessarily saying that Sound Energy is the only energy that creates movement). To further enhance this representation (Indra) – note that it is being confined, they figured out that all terrestrial living creatures have a mouth that modulates the air to send a message. As humans, the mouth is by far the most significant thing that enables us to communicate our thoughts and emotions. From this came script writing which requires the imagination of sound when reading or writing.
A sequence of phonemes was then made to represent the source (Purusha), i.e. the individual. They came up with Aah-Ooh-Mmm that represents The Abdomen – The Heart – The Head. Surprisingly, I noticed that the Native Americans too have the same sequence. Instead of combining Aah and Ooh into one Au to make Aum or Om like the Indians, they combined Ooh and Mmm as one and hence they say it as Aah-Umm.
Aum became the symbol for Hinduism when religions began dividing the humans. Until then as per Vedic Scriptures, an individual was given the right to create his/her own Deity, possibly from existing Deities, that represents the individual’s character and goal (which are already bounded) in the divine sense. The notion of religion did not exist fundamentally. The Vedic ascetics at the time of division would have not understood why the people wanted to symbolize a formless entity. In fact they were ready to adopt the teachings into theirs and maintain one belief system, much like how they adopted the teachings of Buddha. But symbolism was what drove them and so to protect the Vedic teachings, they too had to symbolize the formless entity.
By formlessness, it means that the concept of communication exists in all scientific fields. Today, we use this concept in money distribution (Economics), heat distribution (Thermodynamics), charge distribution (Electronics), variable distribution (Software – no ics here), knowledge distribution (Spirituality), etc, as there are many more. It is definitely very difficult to represent all this as one sensible symbol. Well, you can make an insensible symbol that probably looks weird and say it represents everything.
By now, you, the reader, have come across the use of sequences in Vedic Science. This is actually an important Vedic concept which I’m going to cover right now.
VARUNA:
Varuna, in Vedic depiction, is the God of Rain or the God of the Sky. The depiction of Varuna as the God of Rain helped me more in understanding what Varuna actually represents. His depiction of the God of the Sky comes after understanding the actual representation.
As the God of Rain, I personally saw the specific sequence of events as the representation of Varuna. Hence I associated the keyword ‘Sequence’ to Varuna. This very keyword explained most of Varuna’s characteristics given in Vedic Literature. From the notion of Sequences comes the notion of Patterns and Rules. From Rules comes the Law. This Sequence can represent a sequence of events in time or the sequence of structure (patterns or rules). Are there more? Well I just defined sequences on two infinites, time and space. The number system too is a sequence and so is the music scale.
It so happens that all sequences are closed (Indra) sequences. Very often in Vedic Literature will you find the animosity between Indra and Varuna caused by Indra’s overthrow of Varuna’s Rule. The animosity depicts Indra’s constraint on Varuna, i.e. sequences of anything must close. Indra and Varuna were placed facing each other in the Vaastu Chart probably for this reason. Hence Time, Space, The Number System, The Music Scale, Sentences (meaning is closed or complete) etc, are all in closed form sequences. When these sequences close, they become Indra entities.
Sequences left open become uncontrolled or wasteful as there is no reuse or repeatability. Closed sequences also help in monitoring a particular portion of its sequence. This concept is heavily used in Closed Loop Control Systems, today, where measuring instruments are part of the process (sequence of activities) control. In Vedic depiction, the measuring part for process control maintenance is the Sun, the eye of Varuna. The Sun (Surya), which I will describe in detail later in my Sun Marathon, is an entity of multiple Fires (Agni). As Varuna’s eye, Surya measures (Agni) multiple parameters of the ongoing process (Varuna) and controls it based on its set of defined rules (Varuna). Likewise, natural systems are usually self-correcting (Indra) systems, e.g. the planet Earth.
In the Vaastu Chart (a closed sequence of Deities with Varuna as one of them), it becomes evident that the starting node is Varuna. This starting node is empowered by one of the later nodes, Indra. Actually it is Varuna-Chandra empowered by Indra-Aditya but since I have not yet explained Chandra and Aditya, I’m breaking it down to Varuna empowered by Indra. In the design perspective, this translates as during the commencement of a design a closed or complete (Indra) specification sheet (Varuna) is required. In the learning perspective, the learner looks for a closed or complete set of rules that can be used to understand something. These set of rules or patterns become the alphabets in that particular understanding which when arranged in different ways form different meanings, i.e. different words. If you had watched “The Gods must be crazy” movie, you will get the idea of I’m talking about. In that movie, they show two different cultures, the White Western Culture and the Black African Tribal Culture. In the perspective of both, the other is illiterate because they (the other) can’t read the patterns known to the them. For the African Tribe, the patterns they learned to read were events that happened in a particular area, e.g. deer fighting (I think), whereas in the West (or Europe I think), patterns they learned to read were some kind of data on a computer plot. The two pattern analysis had different purposes (Vayu, which is why Vayu comes after Varuna in the Vaastu Chart) and because of this difference the movie showed that one race is not superior or inferior to the other.
The Vaastu Chart, today, is understood only as a building construction chart. There is actually a lot more to it than just a building construction chart. Once I have covered all the Deities in that chart, I will dedicate one post to explain in detail the Vaastu Chart. There are two versions of the Vaastu Chart you can find on the internet. A simplified one, which is the more common one, and an advanced one. The advanced one is a little more intricate and quite complicated for me. The simplified one, however, gives really good insights on the Vaastu chart which I will cover.
Just like the Vaastu Chart, the Creation Sequence which is also a sequence of Deities, has a lot more to it than just a Creation Sequence. Other than a creation sequence, according to me, this sequence also tells gender progression. With Purusha starting the sequence and Prithvi ending the sequence, it kind of tells that the male progresses to the female. :S. For a guy it sounds weird, but I bet the girls would love this. There is, however, enough evidence within the sequence to support this. Note that Purusha is associated with Vayu while Prithvi is associated with Agni. Purusha’s association with Vayu translates to the male as agents of change while Prithvi’s association with Agni translates to the female as a mediation to the next level. Since the next level to human is divinity, the feminine is a mediation between the human and the divine. As I mentioned earlier in one of my posts, the woman is actually form of divinity represented in Parvathi. The masculine, on the other hand, are agents of change in the human race or any other species (they are the ones who have a natural tendency to go out to the world and make their mess). It is in fact an interesting theory to consider in mapping which species progresses to which species in the hierarchy. So according to the Karma concept, a man’s next birth is a woman if the man met all requirements to complete him as a man. Little more thinking in this direction, a good man becomes a hot chick in his next birth. :P. Again, with the associations of Vayu and Agni with Purusha and Prithvi respectively, and that Agni’s characteristics place Agni as the elder one among the brotherhood of Agni, Indra and Vayu, it shows that the feminine reaches maturity much faster than the masculine. This is true in the biological sense as well. The Egyptians made their Agni counterpart, Shu, feminine probably for this reason.
As mentioned earlier, the Vedas represent singularity as masculine and plurality as feminine. This is another concept that supports the gender progression. The representation doesn’t mean that men can only do one thing at a time and women can only to multiple things at a time. They are actually common characteristics. In fact both men and women do multitasking or just do one thing. To compensate for the representation, the Vedic saints introduced a deity termed Ardhanareswar to show that both men and women do multitasking or just do one thing at a particular point of time. Ardhanareswar is a deity that is half Shiva and half Parvathi. At the point of its introduction, it became a more powerful form due to concept it represented. The concept was powerful enough to explain why alien planets don’t exist and that the planet Earth is the only planet with life in this massive universe. The Ardhanareswar deity explains that to implement a single (Shiva) entity it requires a multitude (Parvathi) functionality to define it or a single entity is made up of a multitude of other entities. Examples are the human body system that has multiple organs that make it work, a car engine that has multiple other parts just to ensure the cylinders run the wheels smoothly, a source code of a software application that has multiple functions and libraries to make it work (also to note is that there is only one main function for a software application that calls other routines), etc. Likewise the massive universe exists just to define the functionalities of every species living on the planet Earth including the stimulus that runs it (the stimulus part comes from the understanding of the Gayathri Manthra which I will cover after Savitr in the Sun Marathon). Ardhanareswar also explains that there exists multiple paths to divinity and that one of them can be chosen by an individual. Multitasking in fact is achieved by regulating multiple single tasks in consequent time frames in software. In human life, an individual has multiple things to deal with such work, family, personal development, community, etc. The individual has to regulate these in a well-balanced (Vishnu) manner. This is because an individual has multiple purposes (Vayu, but Vayu is also associated with Rudra – the important aspect of Shiva) for the planet.
Varuna has an important companion called Mitra by which He is always paired with. Mitra is a Sun Deity which I will cover in the Sun Marathon. Together they provide an interesting concept especially when they are paired with the Sun-Moon pair.
Now that you as the reader have come across too much of Purusha, I might consider posting about Purusha before the commencing the Sun marathon.
Sunday, February 6, 2011
The Maruts
By now you as a reader of this blog, if you have come this far, you will realize that Vedic Science is all about trying to visualize things pictorially and knowing keywords associated with each Deity, how they relate with the others and understanding the outcome. You will also be able to reconstruct what paradise is, based on the Deities I have covered so far. All you need to do is to jot down their keywords and play the game. Don’t forget to include the feminine Deities too. They, too, are very important. To aid you in doing that here’s a short list:
Vishnu – Individuality, Uniqueness, Protection, Good Shape, Intellectual, Good Balance.
Lakshmi – Abundance in Multiple aspects, Beauty.
(Vishnu and Lakshmi go together: Living and Blending in an Environment)
Shiva – Controllability of Filtered Contents to give an outcome
Durga – Courage or Motivation in Multiple ways
(Shiva and Durga go together: Doing something good for the Environment against possible obstacles)
Agni – Learning, Consuming, Sacrifices, Growth.
Indra – Limits, Reuse of Resources, Getting Feedback.
Vayu – Changing with Changing Environment, Purpose.
Prithvi – Entity.
Dyava – The Environment.
(Prithvi and Dyava go together: An Entity gets coupled to an Environment)
Soma – The Resources
These things are also good points to keep in mind when building a product. Now I’m going to talk about something that will lift your Vedic understanding quite higher because this Deity kinds of binds together some of the Deities we have discussed so far. That means we are reaching closure(by closure it means that the knowledge you have so far will take shape(Vishnu), so it will have an individuality and be protective of itself from breaking) but not fully.
THE MARUTS:
There is quite a lot about the Maruts I will be covering in this post. Firstly let’s start from the etymology. Maruts comes from the Sanskrit root “mar” meaning “to shine”. As a noun and in plural they mean The Shining Ones. They are followers of Indra meaning they assume circular forms or some closed loop form. A better way to interpret their appearance is by imagining a wave propagating isotropically.
The simple diagram above that represents the Maruts has a lot to it. Firstly each ring in the diagram above represents a level of intensity. The bigger the ring, the lower the intensity. Just the way we all perceive light generated by a light bulb or the Sun or any light source. The closer we get to it, the brighter it appears. This one interpretation can give light to many concepts I’m about to unravel in this post.
Now let’s look at what the Vedas describe about how they are generated. The Vedas describe them to be generated by Vayu. That means a Change in something generates them, which is true scientifically because that’s how Electromagnetics(the thing that allows your electronic devices to transmit wirelessly) work. In fact anything that changes propagates something. It all depends on how influencing the change is, i.e. how far it can go before it can make no effect. Think of a simple pond. When you throw a stone into it you see some waves. The stone that fell into the pond created an energy(Soma) change to the water molecules in one region. That energy spread with molecules closer to that region, thereby receiving more of that energy. At this point you will understand if I say that the Maruts are self-generating. It’s simple. An energy change in one region created a ring that received most of the energy. Now since there was an energy change in that ring region, it created another ring that received most of the energy it had and this goes on. Remember that I said most of the energy and not all. Very soon you will understand Maruts connection with Agni and that will tell you that each molecule in the ring would have sucked some portion of that energy before letting the rest out.
With this model, we can include some control of this to get range of influence we require. The Vedas describe this as Rudra being the Father of the Maruts and not the generator. In the pond example above, the force with which the guy threw the stone is the Rudra. Rudra being the Father makes the Maruts an appropriate Deity to represent Child Entities. Hence the Rudra-Marut combination narrates the Father telling the Child how far it has to go. In this whole mechanism the Rudra and Vayu factors are the key parameters and they are tied together. Let’s draw this,
The diagram above, if you think deeper, represents the mechanism of “doing things”. So Rudra also represents “doing”. When you control something you are in fact doing something. Examples can be the verbs of your language. Going, Buying, Driving, Talking, Walking, Eating, etc, all involve some sort of Controllability and Change tied together. Now if you look into Vedic perspective, this translates to “doing something for a purpose/reason”. Everything we do has a purpose or reason. Sometimes we know it, sometimes we don’t, but there’s always a reason or to be more precise, a source. The Source is also an important Vedic concept known as Purusha. A concept that explains that nothing is perpetual.
There’s also something you might notice with the above diagram and the mechanism I told it represents. The diagram above, to any simple eye, will look like a model that represents Communication. Well in fact it is. So there exists a connection between Communicating and Doing. Think about it. Communication requires a Source and Destination. So does Doing. A complete sentence that has a verb in it always has a Subject and an Object, the Subject being the Source and the Object being the Destination. Now if the Source is Purusha in Vedic terminology, then what is the Destination? You might want to take a wild guess here from the Deities I have covered so far. If you were think Prithvi, you are in the right track. This actually makes Purusha tied to Dyava. We have now, Rudra, Vayu, Purusha and Dyava somewhat tied together. It means that whatever an object(Prithvi) receives, it comes from its Environment. Or whatever gets Created comes from the Environment. There is always a source. So now you can think about the Creation of the Universe for example. Using the above diagram as the model, the authors of the Vedas jotted down the sequence of Creation as Purusha-Vayu-Soma-Agni-Prithvi(You may notice here as well that Purusha is Source and Prithvi is the Destination). In English this was translated as Ether-Air-Water-Fire-Earth. This direct translation might look confusing as it throws out the important stuff. The Purusha concept kind of tells that the Big Bang Theory may have some flaws in it. Modern scientists somehow try to avoid bringing the idea of God into their theories because, firstly religion today has somewhat showed God to be a worthless piece of shit. Secondly, they do have the right notion that all things can be explained through scientific analysis. Thirdly, although they might have come to the conclusion that some higher spirit exists that created the Light that formed Matter and Anti-Matter, the division in religion would ignite a sort of Holy War. So there has always been a separation between Science and Religion, because Science encourages the act of exploring which Religion does not allow even the slightest. Religion today is more of blind belief, which according to Vedic Science is a terrible thing (I will cover on this more when I commence the Sun marathon). If you think about it Science is the one that is uniting the world while religion is hindering it. Ancient India had no such thing as religion. They all lived with nature together and did what was best for it.
Getting back to the sequence, we know that Purusha and Vayu are already somewhat tied together. By the Vedic concept of Symmetry/Twinning known as Ashwins, we can club Agni with Prithvi. Together they mean “a living object”. The Soma connects the two counterparts and it represents the Material that is transferred. On the whole this classification means the Source Generates the Material Required By the Living Object, or the Source Generates the Material Required to Create the Living Object. In a different classification, but yet conforming to the Symmetry/Twinning concept, we club Vayu, Soma and Agni together, keeping only Purusha and Prithvi as counterparts. The connecting combination Vayu-Soma-Agni represents a transfer function or to a layman the black box. Here Agni represents Conversion, Soma represents the Quantity/Amounts/Weights and Vayu represents the Difference required for Conversion(or the Equation). Remember in this black box, Vayu and Agni are the Counterparts(derived from the Vaastu Chart or could have been the other way too.).
The Egyptians too believed in the same sequence of Creation. You can refer to their sacred texts for verification.
There are a lot more advanced concepts that can derived from this sequence. Concepts that explain why truth prevails. But right now it’s quite early to give the detailed explanation because it requires understanding of a lot more Deities. I can give you a start though from the Deities I have covered so far. In fact the advanced explanation starts from it. Think about Rudra-Maruts and Dyava-Prithvi, with Purusha tying Rudra and Dyava. Remember it’s just a start. Deites like Pitru, Yama, Varuna, Tvashtri, Apam-Napat and Savitr which are important are missing. Also required is a good understanding of the Vaastu Chart which I will cover later.
From the Creation sequence with the first classification, The Maruts in the diagram get replaced by Agni. This is because it represents two sticks rubbed against each other to create Fire. The Purusha Stick does the Work(Vayu) on the Prithvi Stick until Fire(Agni) comes out of the Prithvi Stick. Usually Maruts and Agni go hand in hand. In the propagation example I gave, the Maruts represent ideal distribution of the energy isotropically, but since it is also associated with Agni, the energy doesn’t actually get ideally distributed. Elements of the propagation medium tend to suck some portion of that energy before letting the rest. This in mathematics is represented by attenuation constants of the medium. In Vedic ideology it says that some medium are more hungry than others. The Egyptians documented this concept in their story of Legend of Khnemu and of a Seven Years’ Famine[See http://www.sacred-texts.com/egy/leg/leg10.htm] where the King provides a tax solution to the problem. Khnemu is the Egyptian counterpart of the Vedic Kuberan(as per my analysis).Reflection and refraction too follow the same mechanism. In reflection the Soma is returned back to the Purusha Medium, while in refraction, the Soma passes through the Prithvi Medium. Agni and Maruts together represent Child Entities.
Now that we know that Agni and Maruts are associated together, the diagram that represent Communicating or Doing tells that whatever you say or do, something gets eaten from you. That something is usually your character. Your character gets exposed to the environment. Then this can be interpreted correctly or misinterpreted depending on the character of the environment. So deep down you if you have a terrible sorrow, the best thing to do to lessen it is to tell it to someone who you think will listen. In other cases, not everyone should know each and every single thing about you because there are certain things you don’t want others to know about you. Some may know some of you while others may know other things about you and you go on playing this game. The problem happens when your environment has totally ugly minds. That’s when you fall into trouble although you know your intentions weren’t wrong. At this point there isn’t much you can do because ugly minds will always think ugly no matter how much you do.
From the previous paragraph you can see that whatever you do or say, you get some sort of feedback Soma, whether good or bad. This strengthens Maruts association Agni in the context that Agni represents Sacrifice. That implies whatever you do is like doing to yourself. In an ideal environment, when you do something good for the environment, the environment does something good for you and vice versa. It also says that you are responsible for your actions. When you don’t want to, then there’s a violation. In Vedic ideology it translates to openly denying that your child is your child and abandoning it. When that happens child gets hurt(because it has a Vishnu) and in return turns against you. This child won’t rest until you accept it(the point when you accept you committed those actions). To understand this mechanism requires understanding more Deities, the Deities I spoke about.
Another important concept the Maruts introduce is the Ring concept. You will have to look at the very first diagram I posted in this post. Each ring depicts a level of close association. Mathematicians would see this as some sort of Euclidean Distance. In other words the distance between a point from the center point of interest in 2D or 3D space. You can visualize that diagram to be the Solar System or the Sub-Atomic System. They both give the same idea. In Vedic ideology, the closer you are to something the more likely you have characteristics equivalent to it. Also, the closer you are to something, the more you get influenced by it. So if you considering yourself as the center point, the ones that fall into your closest ring are your family members. The closer being your immediate ones like your parents and siblings. Their influences have drastic effects on you, whether good or bad. They are the ones responsible for giving the World maniacs and wise people.
Now for Agni’s association with Maruts, it is notable to recollect that often “getting warm” with something metaphorically means “getting close” to it.
The ring concept also provides one of the reasons why vegetarianism was adopted by Indians in the early times. Today it is known as the Food chain where last creature gets the least energy from the Sun. It was not only the Indians who realized this but also other civilizations across the globe. The staple food adopted by all of them was a vegetarian source that directly converts Sun’s energy to food in order work better during the day. It wouldn’t be smart to have a non-vegetarian source because the Sun’s energy becomes second-hand.
Another important idea the ring concept brings is the idea of Encapsulation, where the smaller rings are considered to be inside the bigger rings. The whole Universe is built that way. There’s always something inside something or something made of something. It kind of tells us that scientist can keep breaking the atom at deeper levels, they will always find something. If you look at it the other way round, it tells us that this Universe is probably inside a shell which is inside another Universe that has many other shells of Universe. This idea only existed among the Vedas until modern science has started theorizing about parallel universes, worm-holes, etc. I don’t know if other religious texts, except the Quran, talk about such things. The Quran seems to have some mention of Upper Worlds as the place we all will go once we reach divinity as being divine is the key to enter those Worlds. In those worlds, the life cycle starts again according deeper Vedic understanding. It’s hard for me describe what kind of worlds those are but all I can extrapolate is that being divine is the fundamental thing there. Since I’m just a mere human in this world, I can’t imagine what is beyond divinity. The Vedas bring Karma through this idea of Encapsulation. It only says that we will take births in this world repeatedly until we become fit to go to an Upper World. Much like repeating a class over again just to get a passing grade. It has made me wonder if the increase in human population has anything to do with this because there also exists cases where the male and female are both fertile but they don’t get children at all or probably after a very long time. Something else controls it according to me.
The Vedic Goddess Deity, Rodasi, is considered to be the consort of Maruts. Rodasi in Sanskrit means “Heaven and Earth Conjoined”. That in plain English means there exists a conjunction of interests between the Entity(Prithvi) and it’s Environment(Dyava). These are the actions(Maruts) an Entity is most likely to do in it’s Environment.
I have covered the important things about the Maruts in this post. Since there’s a lot about them, I’ll keep it a point to explain further concepts when they come to use. Very soon the Vedic track will take a different route. This route will be dedicated to explaining the Sun-like Deities only. The series will be Surya, Aditya, Savitr, Mitra and Pusan. I might bring Chandra after Surya to talk about key concepts that connect them. Before I get into the Sun marathon, I will cover Varuna in my next post.
Vishnu – Individuality, Uniqueness, Protection, Good Shape, Intellectual, Good Balance.
Lakshmi – Abundance in Multiple aspects, Beauty.
(Vishnu and Lakshmi go together: Living and Blending in an Environment)
Shiva – Controllability of Filtered Contents to give an outcome
Durga – Courage or Motivation in Multiple ways
(Shiva and Durga go together: Doing something good for the Environment against possible obstacles)
Agni – Learning, Consuming, Sacrifices, Growth.
Indra – Limits, Reuse of Resources, Getting Feedback.
Vayu – Changing with Changing Environment, Purpose.
Prithvi – Entity.
Dyava – The Environment.
(Prithvi and Dyava go together: An Entity gets coupled to an Environment)
Soma – The Resources
These things are also good points to keep in mind when building a product. Now I’m going to talk about something that will lift your Vedic understanding quite higher because this Deity kinds of binds together some of the Deities we have discussed so far. That means we are reaching closure(by closure it means that the knowledge you have so far will take shape(Vishnu), so it will have an individuality and be protective of itself from breaking) but not fully.
THE MARUTS:
There is quite a lot about the Maruts I will be covering in this post. Firstly let’s start from the etymology. Maruts comes from the Sanskrit root “mar” meaning “to shine”. As a noun and in plural they mean The Shining Ones. They are followers of Indra meaning they assume circular forms or some closed loop form. A better way to interpret their appearance is by imagining a wave propagating isotropically.
The simple diagram above that represents the Maruts has a lot to it. Firstly each ring in the diagram above represents a level of intensity. The bigger the ring, the lower the intensity. Just the way we all perceive light generated by a light bulb or the Sun or any light source. The closer we get to it, the brighter it appears. This one interpretation can give light to many concepts I’m about to unravel in this post.
Now let’s look at what the Vedas describe about how they are generated. The Vedas describe them to be generated by Vayu. That means a Change in something generates them, which is true scientifically because that’s how Electromagnetics(the thing that allows your electronic devices to transmit wirelessly) work. In fact anything that changes propagates something. It all depends on how influencing the change is, i.e. how far it can go before it can make no effect. Think of a simple pond. When you throw a stone into it you see some waves. The stone that fell into the pond created an energy(Soma) change to the water molecules in one region. That energy spread with molecules closer to that region, thereby receiving more of that energy. At this point you will understand if I say that the Maruts are self-generating. It’s simple. An energy change in one region created a ring that received most of the energy. Now since there was an energy change in that ring region, it created another ring that received most of the energy it had and this goes on. Remember that I said most of the energy and not all. Very soon you will understand Maruts connection with Agni and that will tell you that each molecule in the ring would have sucked some portion of that energy before letting the rest out.
With this model, we can include some control of this to get range of influence we require. The Vedas describe this as Rudra being the Father of the Maruts and not the generator. In the pond example above, the force with which the guy threw the stone is the Rudra. Rudra being the Father makes the Maruts an appropriate Deity to represent Child Entities. Hence the Rudra-Marut combination narrates the Father telling the Child how far it has to go. In this whole mechanism the Rudra and Vayu factors are the key parameters and they are tied together. Let’s draw this,
The diagram above, if you think deeper, represents the mechanism of “doing things”. So Rudra also represents “doing”. When you control something you are in fact doing something. Examples can be the verbs of your language. Going, Buying, Driving, Talking, Walking, Eating, etc, all involve some sort of Controllability and Change tied together. Now if you look into Vedic perspective, this translates to “doing something for a purpose/reason”. Everything we do has a purpose or reason. Sometimes we know it, sometimes we don’t, but there’s always a reason or to be more precise, a source. The Source is also an important Vedic concept known as Purusha. A concept that explains that nothing is perpetual.
There’s also something you might notice with the above diagram and the mechanism I told it represents. The diagram above, to any simple eye, will look like a model that represents Communication. Well in fact it is. So there exists a connection between Communicating and Doing. Think about it. Communication requires a Source and Destination. So does Doing. A complete sentence that has a verb in it always has a Subject and an Object, the Subject being the Source and the Object being the Destination. Now if the Source is Purusha in Vedic terminology, then what is the Destination? You might want to take a wild guess here from the Deities I have covered so far. If you were think Prithvi, you are in the right track. This actually makes Purusha tied to Dyava. We have now, Rudra, Vayu, Purusha and Dyava somewhat tied together. It means that whatever an object(Prithvi) receives, it comes from its Environment. Or whatever gets Created comes from the Environment. There is always a source. So now you can think about the Creation of the Universe for example. Using the above diagram as the model, the authors of the Vedas jotted down the sequence of Creation as Purusha-Vayu-Soma-Agni-Prithvi(You may notice here as well that Purusha is Source and Prithvi is the Destination). In English this was translated as Ether-Air-Water-Fire-Earth. This direct translation might look confusing as it throws out the important stuff. The Purusha concept kind of tells that the Big Bang Theory may have some flaws in it. Modern scientists somehow try to avoid bringing the idea of God into their theories because, firstly religion today has somewhat showed God to be a worthless piece of shit. Secondly, they do have the right notion that all things can be explained through scientific analysis. Thirdly, although they might have come to the conclusion that some higher spirit exists that created the Light that formed Matter and Anti-Matter, the division in religion would ignite a sort of Holy War. So there has always been a separation between Science and Religion, because Science encourages the act of exploring which Religion does not allow even the slightest. Religion today is more of blind belief, which according to Vedic Science is a terrible thing (I will cover on this more when I commence the Sun marathon). If you think about it Science is the one that is uniting the world while religion is hindering it. Ancient India had no such thing as religion. They all lived with nature together and did what was best for it.
Getting back to the sequence, we know that Purusha and Vayu are already somewhat tied together. By the Vedic concept of Symmetry/Twinning known as Ashwins, we can club Agni with Prithvi. Together they mean “a living object”. The Soma connects the two counterparts and it represents the Material that is transferred. On the whole this classification means the Source Generates the Material Required By the Living Object, or the Source Generates the Material Required to Create the Living Object. In a different classification, but yet conforming to the Symmetry/Twinning concept, we club Vayu, Soma and Agni together, keeping only Purusha and Prithvi as counterparts. The connecting combination Vayu-Soma-Agni represents a transfer function or to a layman the black box. Here Agni represents Conversion, Soma represents the Quantity/Amounts/Weights and Vayu represents the Difference required for Conversion(or the Equation). Remember in this black box, Vayu and Agni are the Counterparts(derived from the Vaastu Chart or could have been the other way too.).
The Egyptians too believed in the same sequence of Creation. You can refer to their sacred texts for verification.
There are a lot more advanced concepts that can derived from this sequence. Concepts that explain why truth prevails. But right now it’s quite early to give the detailed explanation because it requires understanding of a lot more Deities. I can give you a start though from the Deities I have covered so far. In fact the advanced explanation starts from it. Think about Rudra-Maruts and Dyava-Prithvi, with Purusha tying Rudra and Dyava. Remember it’s just a start. Deites like Pitru, Yama, Varuna, Tvashtri, Apam-Napat and Savitr which are important are missing. Also required is a good understanding of the Vaastu Chart which I will cover later.
From the Creation sequence with the first classification, The Maruts in the diagram get replaced by Agni. This is because it represents two sticks rubbed against each other to create Fire. The Purusha Stick does the Work(Vayu) on the Prithvi Stick until Fire(Agni) comes out of the Prithvi Stick. Usually Maruts and Agni go hand in hand. In the propagation example I gave, the Maruts represent ideal distribution of the energy isotropically, but since it is also associated with Agni, the energy doesn’t actually get ideally distributed. Elements of the propagation medium tend to suck some portion of that energy before letting the rest. This in mathematics is represented by attenuation constants of the medium. In Vedic ideology it says that some medium are more hungry than others. The Egyptians documented this concept in their story of Legend of Khnemu and of a Seven Years’ Famine[See http://www.sacred-texts.com/egy/leg/leg10.htm] where the King provides a tax solution to the problem. Khnemu is the Egyptian counterpart of the Vedic Kuberan(as per my analysis).Reflection and refraction too follow the same mechanism. In reflection the Soma is returned back to the Purusha Medium, while in refraction, the Soma passes through the Prithvi Medium. Agni and Maruts together represent Child Entities.
Now that we know that Agni and Maruts are associated together, the diagram that represent Communicating or Doing tells that whatever you say or do, something gets eaten from you. That something is usually your character. Your character gets exposed to the environment. Then this can be interpreted correctly or misinterpreted depending on the character of the environment. So deep down you if you have a terrible sorrow, the best thing to do to lessen it is to tell it to someone who you think will listen. In other cases, not everyone should know each and every single thing about you because there are certain things you don’t want others to know about you. Some may know some of you while others may know other things about you and you go on playing this game. The problem happens when your environment has totally ugly minds. That’s when you fall into trouble although you know your intentions weren’t wrong. At this point there isn’t much you can do because ugly minds will always think ugly no matter how much you do.
From the previous paragraph you can see that whatever you do or say, you get some sort of feedback Soma, whether good or bad. This strengthens Maruts association Agni in the context that Agni represents Sacrifice. That implies whatever you do is like doing to yourself. In an ideal environment, when you do something good for the environment, the environment does something good for you and vice versa. It also says that you are responsible for your actions. When you don’t want to, then there’s a violation. In Vedic ideology it translates to openly denying that your child is your child and abandoning it. When that happens child gets hurt(because it has a Vishnu) and in return turns against you. This child won’t rest until you accept it(the point when you accept you committed those actions). To understand this mechanism requires understanding more Deities, the Deities I spoke about.
Another important concept the Maruts introduce is the Ring concept. You will have to look at the very first diagram I posted in this post. Each ring depicts a level of close association. Mathematicians would see this as some sort of Euclidean Distance. In other words the distance between a point from the center point of interest in 2D or 3D space. You can visualize that diagram to be the Solar System or the Sub-Atomic System. They both give the same idea. In Vedic ideology, the closer you are to something the more likely you have characteristics equivalent to it. Also, the closer you are to something, the more you get influenced by it. So if you considering yourself as the center point, the ones that fall into your closest ring are your family members. The closer being your immediate ones like your parents and siblings. Their influences have drastic effects on you, whether good or bad. They are the ones responsible for giving the World maniacs and wise people.
Now for Agni’s association with Maruts, it is notable to recollect that often “getting warm” with something metaphorically means “getting close” to it.
The ring concept also provides one of the reasons why vegetarianism was adopted by Indians in the early times. Today it is known as the Food chain where last creature gets the least energy from the Sun. It was not only the Indians who realized this but also other civilizations across the globe. The staple food adopted by all of them was a vegetarian source that directly converts Sun’s energy to food in order work better during the day. It wouldn’t be smart to have a non-vegetarian source because the Sun’s energy becomes second-hand.
Another important idea the ring concept brings is the idea of Encapsulation, where the smaller rings are considered to be inside the bigger rings. The whole Universe is built that way. There’s always something inside something or something made of something. It kind of tells us that scientist can keep breaking the atom at deeper levels, they will always find something. If you look at it the other way round, it tells us that this Universe is probably inside a shell which is inside another Universe that has many other shells of Universe. This idea only existed among the Vedas until modern science has started theorizing about parallel universes, worm-holes, etc. I don’t know if other religious texts, except the Quran, talk about such things. The Quran seems to have some mention of Upper Worlds as the place we all will go once we reach divinity as being divine is the key to enter those Worlds. In those worlds, the life cycle starts again according deeper Vedic understanding. It’s hard for me describe what kind of worlds those are but all I can extrapolate is that being divine is the fundamental thing there. Since I’m just a mere human in this world, I can’t imagine what is beyond divinity. The Vedas bring Karma through this idea of Encapsulation. It only says that we will take births in this world repeatedly until we become fit to go to an Upper World. Much like repeating a class over again just to get a passing grade. It has made me wonder if the increase in human population has anything to do with this because there also exists cases where the male and female are both fertile but they don’t get children at all or probably after a very long time. Something else controls it according to me.
The Vedic Goddess Deity, Rodasi, is considered to be the consort of Maruts. Rodasi in Sanskrit means “Heaven and Earth Conjoined”. That in plain English means there exists a conjunction of interests between the Entity(Prithvi) and it’s Environment(Dyava). These are the actions(Maruts) an Entity is most likely to do in it’s Environment.
I have covered the important things about the Maruts in this post. Since there’s a lot about them, I’ll keep it a point to explain further concepts when they come to use. Very soon the Vedic track will take a different route. This route will be dedicated to explaining the Sun-like Deities only. The series will be Surya, Aditya, Savitr, Mitra and Pusan. I might bring Chandra after Surya to talk about key concepts that connect them. Before I get into the Sun marathon, I will cover Varuna in my next post.
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