Notes on Hindu Luni-solar Panchang

Month | ruling deity

चैत्र | रूद्र

वैशाख| सरस्वती
ज्येष्ठ | लक्ष्मी
आषाढ़ | काली

श्रावण | इन्द्र
भाद्रपद | मित्र
आश्विन | पर्जन्य

कार्तिक | वायु
अग्रहायण | वरुण
पौष | भग

माघ | ब्रह्म
फाल्गुन | विष्णु

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On Makara Sankranti & basics:

Makara Sankranti is designed* to be roughly aligned with the start of Pausha mAsa. Accordingly, in some regions MS is called as pausha sankranti.

Further, Makara Sankranti has got nothing to do with 21/22 December (winter solstice).

*NOTE: each mAsa is designed to be aligned with unique rAshi (constellation). This is implemented with adhika and kshaya mAsa-s, keeping solar and lunar cycles matched at all times. The concept of adhika and kshaya mAsa-s is central to the panchAnga system and at a deeper level (not in the scope of this blog post) generates the particulars of nakshatra-s (hence then the  rAshi-s).

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On the overall framework:

1) makara sankranti is NOT the start of uttarAyaNa. And neither makara-sankranti nor uttarayana-onset is equal to winter solstice.

2) Uttarayana starts when surya enters kumbha constellation (dhanishtha), or more precisely, at the onset of mAgha mAsa. Kumbha+mAgha (i.e. uttarayana) is celebrated as mAghi kumbhotsava throughout North India, and in particular at prayAga.

  Note: The two festivals (associated with uttarayana): Bhishma-ashtami and Bhishma-ekadashi are both celebrated in the mAgha+kumbha combinatorial.  It is reasonable to suggest that Bhishma died on a day that was the eighth day into uttarayana (eight the number associated with Bhishma).

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3) Uttarayana originally meant — the year half that increased dharma/ “light”/ “day”/ liberation. In short, this has something to do with the “northwards” progression of  the wheel of Time within the panchanga framework of Hindus. An in-depth discussion is beyond the scope of the present article.

However, in the passing, it ought to be mentioned that in Vaidika tradition (as laid out explicitly in texts such as Apastamba), ” the study of purva-mimAmsa (viniyoga related) of the Veda-s begins in the month of shrAvaNa with an Upakarma (‘involvement’) ritual, while the study of uttara-mimAmsa (moksha related) of the Veda-s is commenced in mAgha with an Utsarjana (‘liberation’) ritual.”

4) A literal understanding of the above resulted in conflating uttarayana-onset with winter solstice.

5) The chief cause of the above misfortune was– winter solstice coinciding with the real uttarayana i.e. with kumbha sankranti (more precisely, the start of mAgha mAsa) at the very start of the present kaliyuga. (nothing unusual about it though : equinoxes and solstices have marked sankranti-s at the yuga transits)

6) The pauranika/ paurusheya texts, for example, which state “uttarayana” (wrongly understood as winter solstice) as coinciding near makara sankranti, simply present the fact: the winter solstice no longer coincided with kumbha, that is, the literal uttarayana no longer coincided with the real uttarayana.

7) As stated before, we can calculate the age of such texts from their mention of the literal uttarayana occurring in makara sankranti. In the end, all this unambiguously places Mahabharata at ~3000 BCE.

8) people are however no doubt free to follow any calender (or religion, or film star, etc) that suits their taste. We already have purnimanta, amanta, angrezi, sarkAri, etc going on so we can have even more.

9) The Hindu luni-solar panchanga is a natural framework that maps seasons not in a one-on-one fashion with time but as in a two dimensional matrix having yuga as one extra “y-cordinate”. It is only natural that if pausha is today winter then the same should be the summer for people in the far opposite end of the yuga chakra. This y-cordinate charts out a natural itihAsa, simply to be gleaned from the surviving narrations of people from the past yuga-s.

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End Note:

  Aping Sayana/ Western zodiac system (which were themselves borrowed from somewhere else without an understanding of the deeper motivations) is unacceptable because even if we were to adopt a tropical system, the winter solstice had better coincide with aquarius boundary rather than capricorn’s in order to somewhat reflect the deeper structure of the original zodiac.

  Ratha saptami is another evidence that uttarayana is the same as mAgha sankranti. There is a one-to-one correspondence of mAgha mAsa with kumbha rashi so both can be interchangeably used.

  Though to be precise, uttarayana indeed starts with the start of magha. And if we average out the co-occurrences of magha with kumbha, it should be around the center of kumbha.

  If we look at the sky map near 3000 BCE (rider: I’ve not gone through the regression formula inside such softwares) this is exactly what we see: winter solstice (WS) falling in the centre of kumbha (N.B. centers are easier to mark). So on the average WS used to fall at the very start of magha. And because magha start is uttarayana, we see that WS and uttarayana were one and the same in 3000 BCE.

  Let us understand this very clearly:

  The co-occurence of uttarayana (= magha sankranti) with WS can happen only during a yuga transit. It is not a normal yearly phenomenon. This was a problem for those who had simply copied a 3000 BCE zodiac from somewhere else, we have better things to do.

 The co-occurence of WS with dhanishtha gives us a date of 2500-2100 BCE. This gives us a fair idea of the period when mahabharata was still undergoing redaction/ retelling.

 It is not that everything is fine with the Hindu panchanga today. We need to put the zero year at the start of kaliyuga. The tradition of observation and mathematical modelling needs to be reinvigorated.

A Hindu-centric World-view

Abstract:

    A linguistic framework for a Hindu world-view, geocentric about the Indian subcontinent, is presented. This world-view, in all likelihood widely prevalent among Astika Wanderers since time immemorial, is drawn upon here by available empirical detail, and ably captures the envisioned entanglements of Devata-s with the mundane realm.

Discussion:

Figure-A

    In Fig-A two red lines are shown drawn across the India map:

    A vertical line running at Longitude [77.5 ± 1.0°], a horizontal line at Latitude [10 ± 1.0°].  Their intersection point – just north of Kerala and Tamilnadu, and south of Karnataka – is earmarked here as the Origin point,  KumAra-Granthi. Quadrants falling in the left nADI of bhArati are shown in red overlay, while quadrants falling in the right nADI of bhArati are shown in blue overlay.

    The red regions are primarily Devis’ Kshetra-s/domains, the blue ones are primarily Devas’ Kshetra-s. In Deva-Kshetra, societies evolve as conservative, industrial, male dominant, and tend to practise systematized religions (Deva oriented). Devi-Kshetra cultures evolve as socialistic, creative, female oriented, and practise diverse localized religions (Devi oriented).

    These influences also culminate in a specific Triangular representation of India:

1) KaumAra-vertex (South); Prototypical

2) Ashvina-vertex (West); Sarasvati cultures

3) Hanumat-vertex (East); GAnga cultures

Figure-B

    Next, in Fig-B, the same red lines are extended beyond the subcontinent to throughout the globe.

    China, big chunks of Russia, South America, South of Africa – fall in the red quadrants, whereas Europe, Mid-East, Australia, etc come under the blue quadrants. Now, societies and cultures beyond the Indian subcontinent can hardly be classified as Astika (subscribing to Hindu world-view) – so the modes of religions are not Hindu – yet other indicators (e.g. socialist/communist proclivity of Red, and liberal/conservative of Blue, etc) fit in perfectly with the model.)

    We clearly also have one more Kumara-granthi- near Mexico (where the red lines intersect again). Unsurprisingly, this is the birth-place of Kumara manifestation, the great old God – Kukulkan. (To be honest though, quite surprising)

    The North American countries show equal areas between Red and Blue, though not in an as diversified manner as India.

    India’s diversity – with holistic specialization – can be a hidden gift to the nation, but if not properly handled by policy influencers can only result in genetic load (as is the case presently) manifesting into chaos and self-destruction.

On the Triangle Linguistic-Representation of India:

1) KaumAra-vertex (South); prototypical

2) Ashvina-vertex (West); Sarasvati cultures

3) Hanumat-vertex (East); GAnga cultures

    These are the three orthogonal centres of core-competencies that through interactions amongst themselves create the whole Astika homeland. Linguistically these are the centres of Dravidian, Sanskrit, and Munda families respectively, all other regions in-between being “Krigian geostatistical” mix of the three.

    So even as the KaumAra-vertex can be somewhat seen as the first among equals, the mutual interactions among the three are more on the lines of contemporaneous. For example, the mandAra parvata “used” in Samudra Manthana (a Southern event) is located in the Bihar-Jharkhand region (near Hanumat vertex).

    Another way to understand this is with the analogy of Antenna: the three vertices constitute an antenna array like system — creating a space inside (the triangular region) where internal communication (without interference) happens, and a space outside where signals are transmitted.

    The three vertices, however, are far from being alike: as discussed earlier, the Southern vertex constitutes of both deva & devi kshetra-s within a rather condensed territory. The other two centres — Ashvina & Hanumat are attuned to deva and devi influences respectively and have a lot of freedom for space and movement.

    Ashvina vertex — being deva oriented, outwards looking, and male dominant – was responsible for taking the lead in the codifying of Astika knowledge system in the form of Veda. Both the Veda and the “universal” language it was expressed in were built bottom-up in an industrial-like fashion, even as these truly belonged to the time immemorial inter-communication within the triangle of the insiders’ space.

P.S.
There is also the tradition of Veda mUrti-s (largely “off-the-radar” and undocumented, though once acknowledged by the Maharashtrian scholar Sri Hemadri in his ~1300 AD work Chaturvarga Chintamani) where each Veda itself is known and worshiped as a deity with a unique face:

Rg-veda: रासभाननः (Donkey face)
Sama-veda: हयाननः (Horse face)
Yajur-veda: अजाननः (Goat faced)
Atharva-veda: मर्कटाननः (Monkey face)

    So, even as Ashvin koNa took lead in putting expression to the Veda, this tradition indicates that –
1) the Rk & the sAman come originally from the Ashvin-vertex (donkey and horse both belong to equus genus).
2) Atharvan comes originally from the Hanumat-vertex.
3) Yajus comes originally from the KaumAra-vertex (अज understood as “prototypical”; आदेः जायते. Moreover, the goat is also considered as the most original face of Kumara – “the six-faced” – of his all six faces.).

Daksha-Vishnu, Kalki.

Bālāji, the Lord of Tirupati : meaning of the name

Consider two words: बालाजी and रामाजी.
जी is honorific. Also, बाला and रामा both are in vocative.

Both बाल and राम, fundamentally mean: “male”
So बालाजी (as well as रामाजी) means:
“He”
(with a capital h)

Of course that would be Lord Vishnu here.
The actual accents – how people down South here – pronounce बालाजी supports what I said.

The moral of the story:
a) Sanskrit lost accents.
b) Sanskrit lost varied use of vocative.
c) Tradition is therefore, as an authority, higher than a loukika bhAShA, and shouldn’t be doubted so easily.

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रामा as a vocative is in universal use in प्राकृतम् (i.e. not only Hindi) throughout Northern India. And this is indeed naturalistic, evidenced by other uses (in a-ending nouns) such as यारा (vocative) for यार (male friend), and therefore is not borrowed.

regarding बाला,

Again, in the North we have:
बालमा (voc.) and बलमा (voc.) for बालम (male friend) and बलम (male friend).

balls : testicles, ball : round object, ballsy : courageous, bald : no hair on (round) scalp (thus exposed), bull, bell, etc.

Hindi: बल manly power, बाल hair growing on (round) scalp, बाला bangle (round), बाली earring (round), बेल a round fruit, बाली Sugreeva’s powerful brother, बैल, etc.

In fact, shaving head at Tirupati could be related to the word root.

जी following a vocative is easy to understand. But the deeper question is indeed of the original uses of vocative that modern Sanskrit has lost. We will come to this point later but for now, let us understand बाला as the vocative qualifying जि: the nominative to produce बालाजि:, or बालाजी: the nominative.

To summarise, I must emphasise again that बालाजी means “He” / पुंदेवता (not related to Bala-Krishna as speculated by some).
The historical questions are highly irrelevant, since the “He” could have been any male deity, theoretically. The exchange of deities, among different dhārmika orientations, in the long histories of temples is a commonly observed phenomenon all over India. There is more unity among dhārmika traditions than what is acknowledged superficially. The point is, the spiritual power remains the same. However, this has not stopped many trouble mongers from peddling unnecessarily, without proper context or acumen, in such matters.

The validation of the meaning “He” (पुंदेवता) comes in the existence of quite a few Hanumāna temples (in Rajasthan) that are also called as Balaji temples, and also at least one Sūrya temple in Madhyapradesha again called a Balaji temple.

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बल (= वल) can be said to be the root word here. By applying different vowels and semivowels we get all other instances (including yavana words such as vale, valley, wall, ball, bull, etc etc).

One of Indra’s enemies is known as वल (also बल). वल, just like वृत्र, is a power of असत् that encompasses, encircles, and isolates realms. Since Vaidika words are self-referencing, and original, the purest meaning of वल is this: circle, or something circled. An immediate example: वलय.

The next purest instance I can think of is the vel of vel-murukan. This vel is mystically understood to be the piercer of the barrier (here, वल). From here we can see बल also getting its meaning: manly power, or even the male organ. So we have बैल etc.

In my view, therefore, in the North-West of India (or likely in Maharashtra itself) we had the word mutation of वल as वल and बल (e.g. in Punjabi: वल्ले-वल्ले and बल्ले-बल्ले) and there onwards it spread to IE worlds. However, before the mutation, the word had its origin in the South as वेल.

Veda : An Alien Language

Before we delve into the Vaidika universe, let me present a question:
“how do we recognise asat (ignorance)?”

One particularly safe check, kAla and desha accounted, would be to say:
“ignorance is synonymous with unreasonable confidence.”

Or, in this way, when assumptions become synonymous with conclusions, we say this is ignorance. Some of the contemporary discussions conducted — on Vaidika subjects — among the online groups, in my opinion belong to this category, and as such require periodic reviewal and addressal; hence this short piece.

Vaidika studies in bhArata must take a problem solving approach, over and above that of a purely linguistic or history oriented one. It is precisely the failure of publicly funded institutions in this regard that has left wide open the windows on many a problem — right from bhArata’s prehistory, to the possibilities for the future — and has made the “market” rife for speculations, such as to be seen in exchanges within the online world, that predictably, make use of many unsound tools, such as comparative mythology, poor translations of Sanskrit texts, etc.

That AdhyAtmika ideas don’t compare/ translate well at all from one culture to another is a long standing consensus on the issue, really, so when this same translation is still suitably used to “better” understand the fundamental thoughts of the Veda, or say its traditions, one is hard pressed to fathom why this shouldn’t be better seen as a polemical/ ignorant exercise that starts with assumptions (Aryan invasion is one such) and ends with the same in the form of conclusions, in addition to nothing of note returned at all in-between.

Indeed, comparative mythology can be of some value in special contexts —there is admittedly a distinct possibility of the existence of a unique devatA or AdhyAtmika motive that itself could have been the very banner — the propellant force, as it were — associated with the expansion (and remembered accordingly) of certain conquering tribes (from whichever homeland).

The evidence is encouraging, and in Vaidika devatA parjanya we do find the single pan-Indo-European deity remembered both in name as well as in religious import, wide across-the-board.

More importantly, there is this basic homeland requirement of the consistency of seemingly diverse basis ideas — a requirement, which in layman’s terms means, e.g. there can be no vishNu-expression without a garuDa-expression, or there can be no marut-expression without a parjanya-expression, or no mitra without varuNa, no agni without iLA, etc. In other words, when all the expressions in a system are connected to each other in measured (unambiguous) steps, the system is known as being consistent.

Any adequately evolved (“axiomatised”) thought (or belief-, or aesthetic-) system cannot be both complete and consistent at the same time — again, a widely demonstrated proposition, albeit having its origin in Mathematics.

“Complete” in simple words means, any truth (that the system is supposed to express) can be expressed by some finite collection/ application of the expressions of the system.

In simple terms, if the Vaidika system is indeed the original home — as reflected in its consistency of ideas — then it must also be not complete, that is, original ideas should keep coming — springing from the same base — in an ever recursive quest for “to know it all”. HanumAn, kALI, gaNEsha, durgA, krishNa, rAma, chhinna•mastA, and uncountably others — are a testimony to that. On the other hand, all Arya traditions outside bhArata didn’t sustain because they, of necessity, came out as being inconsistent (their disparate elements being historical accidents) and complete (fully expressive of all truths in their narrow domain of mythology).

In the expression of a consistent system, therefore, much more is at stake than the fulfilling of some mythology geared towards festive museum-cum-temple art-and-architecture.

A consistent knowledge system is, of purpose, implemented on real world objects. This is by certain mechanisms, one of which is known — again from Mathematics — as “homomorphism” (saMvartana). The most important class of such homomorphisms in the Veda is the spelling out of the devI equivalents of each Vaidika deva, and vice versa. For example, dakshA and daksha, indrANI and indra, etc.

Or, in the contexts of different Vaidika traditions, in Tantra the iDA and the pingalA, in sankhyA the Zero (shunA) and the One (sItA), in the primeval “left” and “right” of the Hindu sampradAya-s and geographies, in the sisterly mirrors gangA and sarasvatI — and such and such — all exemplarily speak of an exceptionally high degree of consistency running through the veins of Hinduism straddled across vast measures of times and spaces. Remember, this is just one example.

A consistent system, if meticulously revealed, has the capacity to explain all the other real/ abstract world objects. sankhyA — the number system — comes out of the same Vaidika system, and further leads to sAnkhya, Physics. (That the Vaidika system indeed contains the sankhyA-system is no trivial conclusion, and requires more than a passing remark. This also means that Vaidika system has more, not less, to do with modern science.)

“Homomorphisms”, such as explained here, in this way become one of the tools that a consistent system utilises for grasping all truth that is possible. Some other methods are: recursive application, parallel (vector) compilation, fibre connections, etc.

The Veda, literally “the-knowledge”, in a way indeed encompasses all possible knowledge, by the way of containing “all-consistencies.” And since the Veda is not closed knowledge, you will not find the detail of “interplanetary travel” laid out in it : as the ignorants on the other end of the spectrum — in reality the other side of the same coin — love to shout off their rooftops.

Both ends of asata are equally dangerous, because both wrongly assume Veda to be a complete and inconsistent system, and not surprisingly, both come to the same conclusion, “Veda is primitive.” (Or, “Veda is mere ritual”, etc)

The correct view of Veda therefore is, not as “the-knowledge” (vidyA) — which makes it closed (asata)— but as “the-knowing” that acknowledges its consistency (Rta).

The polemical discourse (Aryan Invasion, etc) has the “currency” — literally speaking — that it has because it is backed by big money. In such circumstances, it is convenient to lose faith, and become a conformist. But because one cannot change one’s skin tone as easily (as ones’s convictions), hence the need for “respectful cognition (by the-other-earth-dwellers) of (unique) Hindu identity, also the-being-different” and so forth. This sums up to a large extent the contemporary Hindu trajectories visible in the media.

Back to the matter at hand: what is this Vaidika system in its basic outline — what is this marvellous superstructure like — that has been the ever breathing progenitor, the fountainhead, of originalities among the bhAratIya-s?

Before I answer this question, let us understand the meaning of a system, or a context. Again, a simple example: if shrI rAma is an avatAra, bhagavAna•vishNu is the context. Or, if kAtyAyinI is the devI then amba•durgA is the context. Or, if indra is a vasu then agni, the ashTa•vasu is the context. And so on.

The biggest such context, which is indeed also seen as a deity, therefore becomes very much one and the same as the “Vaidika system” itself.

Well, the name of that deity is Aditi.

Dictionaries give the meaning of this theonym as “unbounded, undivided”, alright, though in my opinion better understood, arguably, as:
ad अद् + iti इति, or “the start to the end”. “From the Alfa to the Omega.”

Aditya-s are therefore the basic devata-s, the pillars, which build up the Reality that surrounds us all, here and now. And, by definition (cf. Yaska), Aditya-s are the ones who are ever present — from the very start (ādi) to the very end (iti).

The widely understood virATa manifolds (lokAH): pRthvI, dyO (svarga), antariksha, and Om : which are further divided into three sub-manifolds each, lead necessarily to the existence of twelve Aditya-s (sometimes exclusively dealt in only the six or seven of dyO•pRthvI context).

The earliest material evidence of toying with this core idea is found in the indu-valley seals, where the various designs — ranging from four mutually tangent circles (each concentric with three circles), to the fully evolved svAstika in the end — are testimony to the creative efforts involved in the shaping of Aditi as this abstract art.

Aditi is still here, you will still find Her devotees, if only you looked harder. svAstika, Aditi’s signature, is alive too — even survived organised misappropriation (courtesy the Nazis). The neo-Nazis, however, are still very keen about their Aryan project as having its logical conclusion in the successful appropriation of the svAstika, even if necessitated by the planting of “minority Aryan tribes” among “majority Dravidian Indu-dwellers” even before the muhUrta of the official “Aryan Invasion”.

No doubt there is much to talk about— the 33 devatAs, the flow of soma, the dyAvA•pRthvI, visvedevA as Aditya-s, the rAmAyaNa and the mahAbhArata, the tantra and the yoga, the sankhyA and the sAnkhya, among others — but I intend to end this essay here with the outlining of the basics already complete.

But not before offering a word of caution to bhAratIya scholars who aspire to become students of dharma. This is regarding the fundamentals of studying (and, quoting) the dhArmika literature. Remember this “parimANa” thumb rule:

(One word of the Veda, aka śabda) = (one line of upanishads, aka vAkya) = (one para of the purANa-s, aka upAkhyAna).

This is only a thumb rule, I agree, but is an important formula which when respected, takes into account all such factors such as synchrony, diachrony, polysemy, the intended depth and measure of thought, etc.

Otherwise, for example, weighing the śabda of Veda against the śabda of purANa, or the vAkya of purANa with that of the upanishads, etc, will only keep you running into circles if not into contradictions.

To sum up, I dealt a complex issue, namely the Veda and its contemporary studies, in simplest possible terms. However, I sense this write-up still sounds unfamiliar, disorienting to the majority (if not the totality) of the readers, who are daily fed the by-far-the-most-dangerous-of-all-theories, the VIP — “Veda-is-primitive” theory (peddled by Western Indologists, muddled by desi-s who have “evolved” beyond “rituals”).

Wake up.

Yama

Sanskrit Language : A new Beginning

1. An Overview Of The State-Of-Affairs

What is Sanskrit?

Sometimes it is said, “Sanskrit is a context-free language.”

What is a context-free language? Surely, I caught this phrase earlier on from the Internet, a phrase which actually relates to an entirely different subject domain: software engineering.

So I went to the wiki for info, and understood that a context-free is a set of instructions fed to a computer that is able to calculate it without any glitch (i.e., without any problems of ambiguity in the “meaning” of the instructions). The trick is, in the set of instructions, profuse use is made of parentheses, so the computer at a time “concentrates” on “understanding” (calculating/ parsing) only what lies within a parenthesis, unmindful of what lies without. That is, the whole instruction (“sentence”) can be spread out into many different branches (calculated individually) each based on the occurrence of the parentheses. Within a parenthesis the jargon and the accompanying rules are simple enough for a computer-language, so no problems there either. High end computing languages, e.g. LISP, openly acknowledge the primacy of this parentheses based logic (called “S-expression”) as their very foundation.

Wiki also informs that pANini’s systemisation of Sanskrit grammar rules as algebraic formulas was the motivation behind this subject. Some rAkshasa-s, on the Internet, write in their blogs, “Sanskrit is just another language. That Panini created rule based grammar for Sanskrit is a credit to Panini, not Sanskrit.”

In long and short, there is a whole lot of misinformation and propaganda on Sanskrit, yet the so-called Hindu vidvAna-s, in reality better termed “the cultural Hindus”, who range anywhere between from theoretical physicists to actual Sanskrit professors “sucking-off” in foreign (and Indian) universities, who far from doing nothing to counter the malignant campaign on Sanskrit are doing their best to spread it even further.

Today a full-time career in Sanskrit is seen as a privilege of those below poverty line who have kinda lost-out on their lives, and once there in their professions are required no more than to translate Sanskrit texts into other languages – thus further killing and rendering Sanskrit obsolete.

What is not told is that Sanskrit was studied by ill-intentioned people (rAkshasa-s) who wanted to create a genuine Artificial Intelligence (AI) by using a language “like Sanskrit” as a medium of direct interaction between humans and machines that could be naturally utilized by both. But this project failed, and today what we have is “fake AI” tidbits that try to convince us otherwise by using brute search power (they can search whole dictionaries in seconds) instead of a natural understanding; and Sanskrit too, features in the wiki article describing the grammar of just plain simple instructions – not AI instructions – for computers.

AI is a sinister project that aims not only at replacing soldiers full-fledged at the war-fronts with AI enabled war-machines, but also in doing so intends to define a world order where – as gauged by AI machines – there would be certain hierarchy of different races on the earth based on their average intelligences – and going still further to the logical conclusion – waging of war against those less intelligent races (not capable of building AI machines themselves), subjugating/ eliminating them, thus ensuring the earth of limited resources secure for the descendants of the intelligent races.

Yet another focus of major conflict is the way rAkshasa-s are propagating the myth – using linguistic mechanics – that Sanskrit is not aboriginal to bhArata. This is in addition to making Panini merely incidental to Sanskrit, as discussed earlier.

Now, this linguistic-mechanics is just like physics where inherently any process occurring in the world is theoretically reversible: that is, for example, it can be shown that if a sugar cube can dissolve in water, then the same sugar cube can come out of the water from the dissolved state: now this second process is not what we observe in our daily lives, but is shown to be still possible, though with a small probability.

In this way, starting from the basic fact of the existence of Indo-European families of languages, any mechanics can show the direction of language spread from either side. In reality, the mechanics is very conveniently chosen to describe migrations into bhArata, and the other scenario – migration out of bhArata – is not spared a thought even by mistake.

The West, overall, is under the impression that the world is moving towards order, opposite to what Hindus believe: that the world is moving from orderliness towards chaos. West is very confident of the material progress it has led, BhArata thinks otherwise.

The West, therefore, sees the orderliness in Sanskrit as a later phenomenon – and thus feels impelled to visualise a much more randomised and chaotic language as a precursor to Sanskrit. A Hindu, on the other hand, sees the order within Sanskrit as the starting point of the language, and understands all the present bhASA-s of today related to Sanskrit – be it Hindi, or Bangla, or English, or German – as corruptions of Sanskrit.

Which viewpoint is right? Is it the best of the times, or the worst of the times?

Seemingly, there has been a lot of progress – forests and wild-life (“less intelligent species”) have been replaced with shining metros and civic order; true, there has been a lot of consumption and laying waste of earth’s resources in so doing, but it is hoped that with advance in Science our Technology will finally become 100% green.

However, to better understand the “arrow of time”, to understand why processes only proceed in one direction and not the other (even though otherwise sanctioned by the mechanics), a new language was investigated. This is known as, “the 2nd law of thermodynamics” and it postulates: “processes take place predominantly in the direction of the increase in the chaos of universe.” Therefore, dissolving of the sugar-cube in the water is along the “arrow of time” because when the atoms of the sugar are dissolved and distributed in the water body, randomness “of the universe” is increased.

Just as the sugar cube has crystalline orderliness about it, Sanskrit too – in this view – originally has its own orderliness. The more we go down the “arrow of time”, the more this crystallinity of Sanskrit gets dissolved.

The most inner (and the finest) structure of Sanskrit is the way it is able to express AdhyAtma and Devata-s. And this structure pretty much gets dissolved within bhArata itself where we have seen how in classical Sanskrit onwards we lost to a great extent what Vedic jargon and Devata-s really meant. And there is no point even going outside bhArata because the mythology outside bhArata though may have a few words cognate with Sanskrit, there is no heads or tails involved as far as transmission of AdhyAtmic idea-s is concerned.

And then, at the second layer of structuring within Sanskrit lies the system of declension – which ensures the free-word-order nature of clauses. We find only a few languages that retain this feature. Free-word-order is what a natural language requires in order to be “context-free” (free from ambiguity) because natural languages cannot employ parentheses to achieve so, the way computer languages do.

At the third layer we have Sanskrit words. We find here a much greater occurrence of transmission but still, the logical structure in the Sanskrit that gives rise to the words in first place – something that is not the handiwork of Panini or any other grammarian but is inbuilt in Sanskrit – is largely missing in other languages.

At the outermost layer we have sound systems. Here also, the chaos and disorder in other languages are apparent, so much so, even the Western Indologists are seen – not without justification – by Hindus as “mlechCha having tongues twisted like dog’s tail” that cannot get simple consonants and vowel sound of Sanskrit straight.

But the purpose of this post ultimately is much more. I talked about the four layers of the structure of Sanskrit; it is clear therefore that to create a clear shared understanding of Sanskrit, we need to get more near to the innermost layers (Devata and declension aspect), instead of wasting our efforts on the outermost ones (rules and sounds).

2. Sanskrit As A Language Of Computation

Can a “parantheses-free” computing language that employs “free word order” of ideas be the future of Computation such as in applications like Quantum Computation?
Surely that is one way forward for Computing & computers. But before that we will see a lot of sociological changes, passing through necessary milestones; one that comes to my mind is: the establishment of “online universities” and freeing up of the control of knowledge off the hands of a few. Knowledge imparting should be freed from commercial profiteering, just like the case in the Vedic age.
To say it in yet another way, “knowledge should be resolved from temporal urges.” This is the very principle that forms the essence of Sanskrit itself: free-word-order.

Programming languages are still English based, that is a huge sociological problem that will, if, take decades to the least to overcome. To understand with an example, let us talk about the state-of-art in Computing today, known as “object oriented programming (OOP)”. Now, programming has three components: data, control structure, and execution. OOP has taken forward programming from its infancy by evolving one of the three aspects – the data – in the correct direction by encapsulating data into “objects”. This is exactly how Sanskrit does it: declension, inflection is nothing but encapsulating data in various objects – be it nouns or verbs. But since the carrier of this idea is still English, the object concept is far from fully integrated; it is implemented by the use of clumsy expressions such as “MyAccount.AccountBalance”.

This is just an example. Computing is still in its infancy, even in the objects there is miles to go before the correct way of encapsulating data is understood. And the less said about the control-structure aspect, the better.

But some credit must be given to the leaders in this field- they stumbled upon a key principle that is going to last. The principle is (relates to the execution aspect of programming), “the resolving of knowledge from temporal necessities”, just what I wrote about earlier. This is achieved via “compiler-interpreter” duo, such as implemented by the programmers in JAVA-language.
This is the real foundation of Computing, just as in the Veda AsviniKumar(s) is the foundation. Computing will surely evolve out of its infancy, but this principle is going to last.

Sanskrit is the language for the Veda, and outrageous as it may sound now, I will not be surprised at all if Sanskrit in one of its avatar becomes the carrier of Computation in a hundred years from today. But as I said already, this should be preceded by other sociological revolutions, led by better evolved, and equipped, humans among us. If someone tries this before that, there is likely to be evil intent behind that, as pointed out in the OP.

3. More On Sanskrit & Computation

Indeed, there is some utility – of the language of computation – in understanding Sanskrit concepts (though one runs the risk of turning into rAkshasa while working at AI!).
Peer-to-peer (P2P) computing is today being increasingly used in applications (such as torrents). P2P is based on the idea of distributive computing – where the data flow takes place among many computers instead of from a single one (known as server). Classically (not P2P), when we request any data from the Internet, it is the owner of that data – the server computer – that decides to reply to our query.

Sociologically, this server-client model belongs to the TV age of communication (most of the 20th century) when the receiver (client) had no options to interact with the info-owner/broadcaster and therefore had to accept whatever came his way. And as we know, TV was to a big extent a propaganda tool in the hands of powerful politicians (who released one sided info and views) and rich industrialists (who used hypnotic advertisements).

So, to sum up thus far, how does distributive computing connect to object oriented programming (OOP)? In applied Sciences, many researchers have realised the limiting effects of linear models (thinking). Linear thinking means: step by step, procedural thinking. What they have found out is that a vast majority of natural phenomena can only be realistically modelled with non-linear models.

Non-linear means: the effect doesn’t strictly follow the cause; the effect itself is capable of changing the cause. Metaphorically, in non-linear models, cause and effect “interact with each other”.What is interesting is, it was found out that the only way to solving the non-linear models was with the help of computers (indeed, it isn’t unusual today to find Ph.D’s submitting their theses containing a lot of colourful graphical outputs generated in computers, instead of old-fashioned mathematically worked out results).
The computation technique used in solving such models is known as “agent based modelling” – and variants thereof – where there are no clearly defined causes and effects (or servers and clients); instead, everything is made equal – called “agents” – and then the agents thus created are simply left to communicate with each other: a solution naturally emerges after they have communicated enough.
Agents are created as objects in the programming stage – so here is the connection with OOP. The actual computation is along the lines of distributed computation since each of the agents is more or less independent of others and therefore can do its own computing sitting anywhere – one agent in Australia, other in Japan, and so on.

Now consider a simple sentence in Sanskrit:
vidyA dadAti vinayam.विद्या ददाति विनयं ।”Education gives humility.”

The English sentence (equivalent to the Sanskrit one) produced here necessarily belongs to a linear paradigm: therefore, “gives” follows “Education” and “humility” follows “gives”. This isn’t just linearity inherent in the basics of English the language – this is also the linearity inherent in the mental constitution of English speakers. And future is pressing us to remove this limitation.
In the Sanskrit sentence, we can express the same without any change in meaning as-
विद्या ददाति विनयं ।
विद्या विनयं ददाति ।
ददाति विद्या विनयं ।
ददाति विनयं विद्या ।
विनयं विद्या ददाति ।
विनयं ददाति विद्या ।
How is this possible?

With our homework already done, it is not very difficult to understand. All the three words in this sentence should be thought of as agents (or objects).
विद्या – feminine, nominative noun
ददाति – present tense verb, third person singular
विनयं – masc., accusative noun

So, each agent encapsulates data – and local computing (inflection) – within. There is no linear flow of knowledge – the agents interact with each other simultaneously. All agents interact with all agents, and the final picture, the understanding, emerges naturally; sounds almost fantastical, doesn’t it?
This is like an impressionistic painting where the color patches “mix” only in the consciousness of the onlooker to give the whole picture. Or, like quanta emerging from an undifferentiated field.
Importantly, in Sanskrit no basic distinction is made between the noun types (#expressions) and the verb types (#statements), as both are seen as agents. The role of #parentheses is performed by the indeclinables in Sanskrit.

4. Sanskrit : A Level Playing field

Sanskrit is a level playing field: Bhakta-s from different sampradaya-s can come here, from time to time, to gage their progress, by seeing how much of Sanskrit they are able to play.

I don’t think that mentally aggressive types – the Raks (rAkshasa-s) – can do that. They can memorise everything – like a rAvaNa – and even become known as great Sanskritists (like the Indologists), or even teach their computers to do all that instead – but the soul of Sanskrit will ever elude them.

Sanskrit as taught today is wholly memory based. This is because these Sanskrit pandita-s themselves are the problem, the reason why this language is in disuse, and how the Raks have been able so far to take away this heritage (yes the outer forms only) from Hindus.

If we don’t have the access to the Devata layer of Sanskrit, we should very well forget about its revival.

5. Sanskrit : The Devata Layer

Eight Vasu-s, Eleven Rudra-s, Twelve Aditya-s, and so on.. indeed, we are in the right place!
One thing, that is always overlooked is, suppose a Devata X is a Vasu. Does that exclude the possibility of Sri X being a Rudra as well? Or an Aditya as well?

That is a point to ponder, particularly in the context of the unitary field of awareness lived by the Rsis.

“Context” – the word is interesting. Is Sanskrit only approachable via a strictly Vedic route? Or, can Sanskrit be equally approachable by each sampradAya of Hinduism in their own unique ways?

The consistency of Dharma demands that indeed all sampradaya-s do have gateways to the core of Sanskrit. But, we thought a short while ago that the core of Sanskrit, the innermost layer, belongs to Devata. That is, it was understood that it is the Devata-s who hold the keys to the core of Sanskrit.

So, does that mean: the same Vedic Devata-s are worshipped under different names in the various sampradaya-s?

The answer is yes and no. Because each sampradaya is a different “context”. And by this “context” I don’t mean a passive word here: the context itself is a deity, is real. For example, in Vaishnavism, the “context” is Lord Vishnu.

In this way, the “context” becomes important. Even in the Vedic knowledge itself; therefore, what we know as Vasu-s, Rudrá-s, Aditya-s or Maruta-s are mostly the “same Devata-s” under “different contexts”. And, as discussed before, they also aren’t the “same Devata-s” at all.

Let us, therefore, start with the “smallest context”, and that would be, the “Eight Vasu”. And we know Sanskrit noun cases are also eight in number.

Maruta-s (marud•gaNa) are the smallest context, smaller than even the EightVasu (beside the point, but their numbers are quoted always in fractally increased orders). Therefore, the “original” Maruta, who is the “leader” of the marud•gaNa, is likely present in other (larger) contexts.Lord Vayu can be said a marut, when He moves together in the marud•gaNa. However, Maruta himself is different from Vayu.

“mara” means, “die”. The “ta” sound is the sound of Death, as in mrtyu, hatya, etc. On the other hand, the sound related to Vayu – who’s murty is the breath – is the “ha” sound, the same as in “hu” which means, “to sacrifice” or “to do Yagya”. Sacrifice is a precursor to Death; we will come back to this important piece of information when(ever) discussing the Sanskrit Noun cases, the vibhakti-s.

6. Sanskrit : More on the Devata Context

An assertion was made in the last part, regarding the “context”. Let me further illustrate that with relevant examples.

Lord Indra is always listed in as an Aditya. In mahA•bhArata, He is also addressed as vAsava {literally, “of the Vasu (community)”}. So we see, the same Devata can be a Vasu and an Aditya, depending on the “context”.Again, this “context” itself can be a deity. We shouldn’t mistake this word for “different regional contexts, evolved due to differently (and, linearly!) evolved local histories”.

To understand this fully — in mahA•bhArata, a man, in flesh and blood, is also called vAsava. Who is that?

Śri Bhishma!

He was not only a vAsava, but “the vAsava”, because he was the eighth issue from mA gangA. Bhishma was thus the “Eight•Vasu”, the upper bound of all perfections and fullness of nAma and rUpa.

Yet, there is still something to be said: we have vAsudeva Sri KrishNa also there! vAsudeva means “the son of vasudeva”, alright, but we know that vAsudeva is among the thousand nAma-s of Lord Vishnu. And then Krishna was the eighth child as well!

So we have a vAsava and a vAsudeva existing right there at the same place and the same time!

So the “context” has nothing to do with place or time. Let us understand this clearly. These are cosmic movements. Bhishma was the son of Mother•gangA, so we may say that the context here, the dynamics, is Lord Shiva. Or it could be that the ashTa•vasu itself be the context here.

And when KrishNa is addressed as vAsudeva, we know this under the dynamics of Lord Vishnu. On the mundane level, Krishna is “the son of Vasudeva”, and is addressed as such, but the inner meaning many a time is different: Lord Vishnu Himself is called out, who we know — that by “in-to mapping”/ ava•taraNa — can come to be born a Vasu, or an Upendra, or the varAha, so on.
The bottom line is, we don’t even need to go to mahA•bhArata to see it — this great play is unfolding full throttle right here and now in front of our very own souls.

Name nArAyaNa नारायण : A truer understanding

Summary:
Calling shrI viSNu instead as “nArAyaNa” is a serious disrespect, even if borne out of ignorance, towards shrI viSNu: Narayana is a proper name of shrI sUrya, a Vedic god. Narayana as an epithet of shrI viSNu, no problems, but as a proper name itself — is a huge denigration of both shrI viSNu and Vedic Dharma.

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nAra means waters, also means woman, mother.
And AyaNa : let us just say, it means “refuge”.
Indeed, we are not talking about “Samudra” (the Father) here, instead we are talking about Apah, nAra, Mothers’ expanse.

Who is the first born of Mother? In Shaiva tradition it is gaNesha, and equivalently in Vedic it is shri agni, also called “apAma-napAta” i.e. waters’ child.

Surya is the highest deity in the span of shri agni the aSTa-vasu and therefore understood as the very first manifestation of Creation from Mother’s womb of Infinity. The first God that we can understand in terms of forms and worship accordingly. The overlord, as well as the guide, of all Creation.

shri viSNu, a “composite God” like shri agni, has a still far greater scope (pervading virtually everything within it) than even shri agni, and therefore He obviously “contains” Surya also within Himself (in the infinite unbroken continuity of His being).
In this way He can assume any of the various deities’ names as His adjectives. This is not the same as calling His proper name as something which is a proper name of some other deity.

However, the avatAra who can indeed take Narayana as His proper name is the Avatara of Lord who comes in the Surya-mode of shri viSNu.

And that would be, shri rAma. Ever heard of “rAmAyaNa”? The sacred book that is the refuge of all mortals? Ramayana is Narayana.

Does Rama-Narayana ring a bell? yes?
Does Krishna-Narayana ring a bell? No?

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If we try go deeper into the famed “nara, nArAyaNa, hari, kriSNa” found in the purANa-s, by comparing with the mahA-mantra “hare kriSNa hare kriSNa..” we find that hari and kriSNa are common to both listings.

nara is nothing but the divine human inflated within us. So we are left with the word nArAyaNa being same as the name rAma of the mahA-mantra.

shri rAma – the superhero of rAmAyaNa, when exhausted in the war against rAvaNa, was advised to worship shri sUrya (in Aditya stotram) in order to regain strength by tapping into His very own source (sUrya).

But do I mean then that shri rAma was an incarnation of sUrya deva, not of shri viSNu?

No. karNa in the mahAbhArata was a manifestation of sUrya. But when we talk about avatAra, we say: “shri rAma was viSNu’s avatAra in the mode of sUrya.” We can, otherwise, find many similarities between karNa and shri rAma. But karNa wasn’t an avatAra. People in the anga-pradesha even to this day remember the rule of karNa as fondly as the rest of Hindus remember the rAma-rAjya.

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rAma nAma and nArAyaNa nAma:

Many Hindus cultivate a habit of using the rAma nAma frequently, such as by greeting each other using the nAma (“Jai shri rAma”, etc). The secret behind this is no secret at all: we do it so that the nAma is on our lips for one final time again when we are about to die.

RAma is the shortest path to what Vedanta knows as “moksha”. I equated rAma nAma to nArAyaNa earlier in this thread. Notice the “rA” sound common to both (same that occurs in surya who is bhArata-bhAratI).

So, yes, we are not talking about finite entities here at all. We are talking strictly about the “Infinites”, the “its” here.

Read the following carefully to understand this:

Let me explain the idea using the material analogy (a valid method). Let us then talk about the material space (bhaga-AkAsha) that we are surrounded with. How do we characterise this space?

Clearly, bhaga-AkAsha is attribute less. Yet we say, “here we have so and so length, so and so width, and so and so depth”. Thus, we still are able to talk about the infinite in terms of “length”, “width”, and “height” which are very much finites. This is known as understanding the infinite using the language of finite.

In surya who is bhArata-bhAratI, the bhArata-component is an aMsha of Sri Indra, while the bhAratI-component (a mighty Devi as well) is an aMsha of Narayana.

In this way, to the Vedic Rsis all knowledge was expressed in terms of the aindra (Vedic Sanskrit is called Aindra): Indra classifies the finites by “divide-and-rule”, but also makes out the infinites using the Aindra reception (also known as “inducing”, “induction” etc – these words are rooted in Indu and Indra).

To come back to the original analogy, what do the Aindra description of bhaga-AkAsha (material space) using length, width and depth (there could be actually many more such finites such as position, momentum, energy, etc) tell us?

This description by the three finites tells us about the existence of three Infinites within the space. What are their names?

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Let us now come out of the analogy. The point I tried to demonstrate here was that: “there are more than one Infinite”. There are more than one States of what Vedanta calls “mOkSa”. And Narayana is the deity, the “it”, who is the closest such state. Narayana is therefore also the first deity of this class encountered by our specially talented ancestors, the Rsis, when they were on their “straightest path”, when they toiled hard to pave the way forward for humanity.

The names nara, nArAyaNa, hari and krishNa – spell out a very important formula (though still not the whole of the sanAtana-truth), and all these four names are seen on an equal footing, yet they are different from each other: nara is all the finite worlds combined, whereas the three others are three different Infinites, three different “its”.

I hope I made myself clear here.

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On the intellectual plane, let me point out that the Rsis nara, nArAyaNa, hari and krishNa belonged to Satyuga (ref. MahAbhArata). In satayuga shri viSNu doesn’t incarnate: there is no need for it.

So these four were Rsis who specialised in four very important modes of shri viSNu. This is how these names today are quoted more in the context of Vaishnavism. Though, these four names, and the deities behind them, can in a still valid way appear in Shaiva or any other Dharmika paradigm as well. Thus, for example, we see Swamy Satya-narayana’s vigraha (in the ancient and important satya-narayana temple in Annavaram, Andhra Pradesh), though still considered on some kind of equivalence with shri rAma (who is believed to be the kshetra-pAlaka of the said temple), is also traditionally considered as “belonging” to all the three paradigms (also called deities): Shiva, Vishnu and BrahmA.

Prajāpati

 

RV [10-121.10]

Prajapati! thou only comprehendest all these created things, and none beside thee.
Grant us our hearts’ desire when we invoke thee: may we have store of riches in possession.

“Hindu”

“Hindu” comes from “Indu” which stands for Soma PavamAna (Soma juice).

RV 8.48.3 (Devata: Soma, Rsi: Kanva)

अपा॑म । सोम॑म् । अ॒मृताः॑ । अ॒भू॒म॒ । अग॑न्म । ज्योतिः॑ । अवि॑दाम । दे॒वान् । किम् । नू॒नम् । अ॒स्मान् । कृ॒ण॒व॒त् । अरा॑ति । किम् । ऊँ॒ इति॑ । धू॒र्तिः । अ॒मृ॒त॒ । मर्त्य॑स्य ॥

apāma | somam | amṛtāḥ | abhūma | aganma | jyotiḥ | avidāma | devān | kim | nūnam | asmān | kṛṇavat | arāti | kim | oṃ iti | dhūrtiḥ | amṛta | martyasya

meaning: “We have drunk Soma (Indu), become Immortal, of Light, and discovered the Gods. Now what harm mortals’ trickery could possibly do to us (the Immortals)?”

This rica from the Veda is very definitive of Āstika ideals. So, whether you use Hindu or Indu, Hindustan or India, doesnt matter.

Soma PavamAna is known as Indu, e.g.

RV 09.113.11 (Devata: Soma PavmAna, Rsi: Kashyapa)

यत्र॑ । आ॒न॒न्दाः । च॒ । मोदाः॑ । च॒ । मुदः॑ । प्र॒ऽमुदः॑ । आस॑ते । काम॑स्य । यत्र॑ । आ॒प्ताः । कामाः॑ । तत्र॑ । माम् । अ॒मृत॑म् । कृ॒धि॒ । इन्द्रा॑य । इ॒न्दो॒ इति॑ । परि॑ । स्र॒व॒ ॥

yatra | ānandāḥ | ca | modāḥ | ca | mudaḥ | pra-mudaḥ | āsate | kāmasya | yatra | āptāḥ | kāmāḥ | tatra | mām | amṛtam | kṛdhi | indrāya | indo iti | pari | srava

Make me immortal in that realm (Prithvi in this pada) where happiness and transports, where Joys and felicities combine, and longing wishes are fulfilled. Flow, Indu, flow for Indra’s sake.

From “Indu” to “Hindu” there is hardly any journey, to warrant an overreaction. Indian/ Indu/ Bharatiya/ Hindu/ Hindustan/ Indus all mean the same thing in Vedic Sanskrit.

Sindhu?

Sindhu originally means : Ocean, Sea. SaptaSindhu (HaptaHindu) is the region near Ocean where Seven rivers (used to) end their journey. This region is known as Sindh. SaptaSindhavah (plural) means those seven rivers meeting the ocean, in the Sindh region, the leading most of whom is (was) Sarasvati (river).

Sindhu also denotes the “Fourth” realm (see here) which equates it to the word Samudra of the Veda.

Sindhu only later came to be identified with a river when Sarasvati started to flow into that (needs more research though).

We also have HinduKush/ HinduKo west of Indus, and not the east of it.

Indus:

If we see that the Greek branch of IE is older than Avestan (the latest to migrate out of India), then “Indu” is original just as “Hindu”.

Conclusion:

1. Hindu stands for original Indu, notwithstanding the SaptaSindhu-HaptaHindu identity.

2. In Veda, Indu means “Soma flow”/ “Soma-river” and is related to “Indra” who intakes (as in receiving from indriya-s) the Soma through the tongue “which is Agni”. Agni (the janus faced god) has these aspects: bhArata, bhArati. Agni is explicitly called bhArata in Veda. So in the Vedic understanding, bhArat and Indu are on the same level. Again, bhArata means “Indra-like” (like Arjuna is addressed as bhArata by Krishna). bhArati, on the other hand, is like goddess IlA. So in the mystical sense bhArata is the kingdom of Indra, whereas ilA-vrata is the spiritual loka hovering directly over it.

Indu in Aryan Languages

1) Indigo (English) : Greek indikon (ινδικόν), Roman indicum

Literally, “of/ from India”. Also, indikon (and English indigo) is the Greek word for “dye”.

That is, “dye from India”.

On the other hand, indigo as a color is a prominent (sixth) color of Indradhanuhsa. Indra Himself is related to six (as the leader of the six loka-s of dyAvAprithvi), and also originally the lord of the sixth chakra (now it is Soma/ Indu, in Tantra). This is the mystical meaning behind indigo the color, which is the sixth color among the seven of the Indradhanusha light-spectrum. Interestingly, in the modern yoga practices the 6th chakra is shown in indigo color.

2) Indigenous : Latin indu+gena

Indu people (gena/jana) are the indigenous people. That is the psychological reason why the westerners christened many aboriginal races as Indians (Red Indians, West Indians, Indonesians, etc). “The Homeland”/ “Motherland” is subconsciously attached with India.

3) Induction : Latin inducere/ induco : induce, lead in, bring in.

Indra = Indu + ra

Indra drinking indu denotes the receiving of spiritual intuition. “Induction” derives from that.

This has to be seen distinct from Greek [endos], which means “within” and not “leading into”.

4) Industry :

industry (n.)

late 15c., “cleverness, skill,” from Old French industrie “activity; aptitude” (14c.) or directly from Latinindustria “diligence, activity, zeal,” fem. of industrius “industrious, diligent,” used as a noun, from early Latin indostruus “diligent,” from indu “in, within” + stem of struere “to build” (see structure (n.)). Sense of “diligence, effort” is from 1530s; meaning “trade or manufacture” first recorded 1560s; that of “systematic work” is 1610s.

The word is reflective of the Indus (Vedic) civilisation of India which was, as is commonly known, innovations and industry driven. “Indus Civilisation” can be seen thus as “Industrial Civilisation”.

So, we have plenty there on the IE side of the story. Closer to home, I don’t see ancients were so dumb as to equate Sindh with the whole of India. Again, HinduKush/ HinduKo is more along the lines of indiko discussed earlier, and geographically as well doesn’t sit well with Sindh idea. Sindh is still there, as well as the Sindhis.

And India of Indra and Indu is also, still here.

[Advanced readings: In RgVeda Sindhu (Ocean, Samudra) has a mystical meaning more than anything. So, even though the Ocean there is called Sindhu mahAsAgar, we very well know Sindhu means Samudra in general in even Hindi. The best picture imo (in RV thought) is this: Indu (Soma) originates from Samudra (Sindhu) and finally pours into Samudra (Sindhu) as well. Indeed, there are two Samudra-s (one above, one below) in Vedic thought. Sarasvati, too, is called in one place “sindhu-mAtA” (bahuvrihi) meaning: having Samudra (Sindhu) as Her Origin (Mother), which all sounds to be too counter-intuitive if understood in very literal terms. To continue with the Indu flow picture, when it enters into mystical dyAvAprithvi realm through the efforts of Indra, it branches out in six/seven streams each one of which finally merges into the Samudra.]

Indian-Hindu-Āstika :: Political:Cultural:Religious

The “directory”, apparently, is:

Indian > Hindu > Āstika

Here I am taking the words according to their present meaning (so, “Hindu” is cultural, and “Indian” is political, even though both derive from the same word Indu).

Or, let us say:

Indian-Hindu-Āstika

Today it has already suffered ellipsis and we have:

Hindu-Āstika

And tomorrow, devoid of the cultural assets, the bindi and the sari, it will be:

Āstika

This can be the western route. By that time, to counterbalance that, there will be no India left.

This is based on pure observation. The story on this end of spectrum is going on like this:

Indian-Hindu-Āstika

Indian-Hindu

Indian

-nil-

Already we are into the phase in India where Hindu word has been orchestrated.

It is already into the last phase where the idea of India is in peril. Foreigners and Indian intellectuals (not to forget the immigrants)have joined a chorus: “there never was an India” (la-la-..background music).

Yet, pick any Indian among the billions of them, and run a narco on him/her, you will hear Vedic rica-s straight coming one after one from the mouth.

*But, again, that one is from the third innermost, obsolete, layer i.e. Āstika.

[The idea “India” received a major setback during the mass exodus of thousands of “educated Indians” especially during the nineties, the consequences of which will be most readily visible in the next twenty-five years.]

“Indu” went under some other morphisms too. One example is “Bindu”.

Bindu: drop, point, ajna chakra, soma.

Yet another is: “Bindi” which women folk put on their foreheads (again, the 3rd eye, ajna chakra).

That Bindu and Bindi are sound morphisms becomes evident from their non-derivation from any sandhi or other rules in Sanskrit.

“Indu” is obviously a less understood word and its significance is not grasped fully even by pundits of Hindu Dharma. So, I will not be surprised if it still takes many decades before Hindus themselves are able to understand and visualise this word Hindu/ Indu properly in its full light.

Ultimately, however, I do see the point of having the freedom to choose ones own name, instead of relying on terms given by others no matter however much Vedic in origin or not.

So, the focal point is this word, “Indu”. Why should we accept it?

Why should we, of all Devatā-s in our pantheon, relate ourselves, for the denomination, to Indra only?

Where is the evidence, if there at all, that our Rishis called themselves as Indu-s?

However, we know that we have always used BhArata and BhArati for self-identity.

But, who is this BhArata and this BhArati?

Well, there have been illustrious kings, chakravartins, going by that name. There was a Vedic tribe, a very prominent one, also of name BhArata.

But ultimately it is our spirituality, our worldview, that gives us a meaningful insight into the meaning of these two words.

Though I have touched on this earlier, briefly, I will rather avoid dwelling on it right now. Except, emphasising on that there is a point where BhArata meets BhArati. That point is to be understood (again, IMO) as Indu.

In Indu, both BhArata and BhArati are simultaneously present.

Then, it might be asked here: why the hell we don’t remember all this?

Because, this was a real, long, long time ago.

Another hint that I will leave here is, the whole world was dominated and in a way controlled by Aryan armies from India. India, therefore, when seen through the eyes of the world, was an icon, murthy, of Lord Indra.

[Advanced Readings:

bhArata and bhAratī —

Let us think of these as mere words (so, Sanskrit is the key, again).

Both these words mean: “of bharata” (Hindi: भरत का).

Mostly, bhArata = son of bharata

bhAratī = daughter of bharata

This much is clear as day. But, now, just imagine,

Who (ka?) is that divine power that could be the Father of Mother BhArati Herself?

PrajApati. It is PrajApati.

So the next immediate question: is PrajApati called bharata anywhere? Or, who are the deities that are called bharata?

Quote:

Satpatha BrAhmaNa 1.8.14

‘Far, far famed is this Agni of the Bharata (tribe),’–the Bharata, doubtless, is Pragâpati, for he sustains (bhar) this entire (universe);–‘that his great light shineth brightly, as the sun(Surya),’–that is, ‘that, like the sun(Surya), his great light shines brightly;’

My further opinion on this;

Agni and Prajāpati together form the Whole. It is as if the coming together of Finite and Infinite. When we start Yagya, we first become inflated and one with Agni, and then invoke Prajapati to unite with us (this is somewhere in some BrAhmaNa). This is still only a very generic understanding. Actually, just as a rectangular field can be divided by any line running across it, similarly, Rsis used to dissect the Map Of Reality in as many ways as possible, so in that sense we can say, the division into Agni and PrajApati is one such (and of particular interest to us in the present context).

Now let us have a look at this pada of RgVeda [9.5.9] regarding Indu (Soma) PavamAna,

“Indu is Indra, tawny Steer; PavamAna is PrajApati.”

So “Indu PavamAna” is purposely broken into Indu and PavamAna to showcase the duality inherent in Indu.

One part is, clearly, on the side of Infinite Godhead, the PrajApati, while the other is on the side of the Finite Godhead, Indra.

But, instead of themselves fully entering inside the DNA of Indu (ain’t possible )- PrajApati and Indra elect their representations. Indra selects bhArata from this side and PrajApati sends BhArati from His side. So that’s why I said in an earlier post that BhArata is “Indra-like”.

But I also said that BhArati is ILA-like, but here I write She is a representation of PrajApati, how? Actually, it is in the same manner as “bhArata is Indra-like, yet also a representation of Agni”. It isn’t clear at all, I guess, but let it be, for now.

So this kind of, “logically”, illustrates that “Indu is bhArata-bhArati”.]

P.S.:

1) Indu doesn’t mean “Moon” originally, neither does soma. Indu is infact more related to Surya Deva. “Moon” is a symbol of “mind-body” and thus is the last receiver of the nectar, here on the mortal Earth, and hence soma can be seen on this level only symbolically as Moon. Indu, however, is the level of soma not on Earth but on Swarga. So connecting Indu with Moon is not OK.

2) PrajApati has undergone some change after the Vedic age, but still, as this wiki-page amply shows, He still remained a very formidable Deity, and could well be on a resurgence today. The wiki-page also suggests the relationship between PrajApati and the geographical map of India.

Understanding The Indu-Saraswati Seals

The Indu-Saraswati seals of archaeological find provide a very keen insight, as also some hard evidence, into the deep Vedic roots of the (H)indu Civilization. The connection between the two: Vedic literature, and archaeological find: is apparently indeed natural, but it could be asked here- why, then, the connection has not been immediately evident to everyone? The answer to this question has more to do with a bad approach to the problem, than the “purported” mal-intent of some to distort an otherwise purely academic discourse.

The problem with the approach has been that it misconstrued the Vedic corpus as a “given” and an accessible resource, while the seals (and the other finds) were “meant” to be something inscrutable, mysterious that needed decoding. The reality, however, turns out to be just the opposite:

The seals- simple creations of artisans- are actually the “given”, whereas it is the Vedic texts that needed the decoding.

This problem is more a home-grown one than a conspiracy theory pointing to some foreign stake-holders:
Hindus have failed to understand the Vedic thought in its true light, and under the spell of relatively recent paradigms such as Vedanta continue to see the Veda as merely something of a ritual-book, karma-kANda. The Vedic Sanskrit (in which the Veda is written) is far richer than the Classical Sanskrit (in which the Vedanta is expressed), and this fact alone- if not anything else- should have alerted them that the quality of content should therefore also be far richer in the Vedic than in the post Vedic.

Anyway, enough on this already; here we will be discussing some of the depictions in the seals alongside an understanding from the Vedic view-point. For the conceptual framework- not much is explained here- the reader is advised to consult other posts of this blog-site.

ADITI and The Four Realms (lokA)

This depiction relates to the Four Realms of Aditi, and the three-fold nature of each Realm is represented by three concentric circles in each of the quadrants. The circles (realms), naturally, also have contact points with the adjacent realms. “Asat” is the state of these realms when they are isolated from each other, whereas “Sat” is the state when these realms communicate with each other via the four contact points between them.

This depiction is a secondary variation of the first one. In addition to the four realms, there is one more shown now in the center, indicative of the “Immortal” consciousness which is placed center of all the realms and their influences.

This seal focuses only on one realm, and as before there are three concentric circles, and also the fourth making a boundary giving effect of emanating Sun-rays. The circles therefore can also be seen as some kind of solar deities, also called Aditya-s, or the children of Aditi.

This one is still another variation of the Four Realms, idealized to the extreme by the use of plain straight lines. This symbol is known as Swastika and is the most sacred  (certainly more than the AUM) symbol of Hindus.

This one is yet another idealized variation of Realms. The circles are not completely abandoned (not even in the present day Swastika) and are depicted as simple dots.

In a related symbology, this seal depicts Vedic God Yama having buffalo-horns (buffalo is His vAhana) for His crown. This goes against the earlier speculations about the figure being that of Shiva/ Rudra, though very few know about the close proximity of the two Vedic Gods Yama and Rudra. As a corroborative we can see four animals surrounding the kingly God: a Tiger (on His left bottom), an Elephant (on His left top), a Rhino (on right top) and a Buffalo (on right bottom). These four animals denote (in the postVedic mythology) the “contact points” between the four realms. Moreover, their sequencing is also right: Tiger is opposite Buffalo (Yama’s own place), and Elephant is opposite Rhino.

copyright: J M Kenoyer

Finally, this one, as also discussed earlier in this post, depicts the Vedic God Vayu as an exotic imaginary animal, who is “made up” from an artistic synthesis of many different animals (yes, horse included), receiving Soma juice (soma pavamAna) from an equally exotic “Soma-juice-blender”-cum-“Sacrificial-altar” where the acts of sacrifice (Vedic Yagna) and the receiving of Soma-juice are simultaneously performed and effected. This is also how the communication lines are established between the two (of the four) realms: Heaven (Dyo) and Earth (Prithvi).

Now let us look at the above pendant. Looks like yet another Vedic depiction of Swastika and Aditi’s Realms ? Well, only, this is from Bolsena, Italy  ( Etruscan, 700 BC at the farthest). The Indu-Saraswati seals discussed here, however, belong to 3000-2000 BC window. So, the pendant borrows from the Indu-Saraswati which is the source– if we go by the time-scales involved, by the richness and the variety evident of the original design as discussed earlier, and also by how this goes right to the heart and crux of the Vedic thought; finally, the stickiness and exact similarity between the two confirms a faithful transfer of religio-spiritual beliefs (normally associated with actual migrations/invasions of people).

There is more to say, no doubt, but let us leave it here for now.

REFERENCES AND FURTHER EXPLORATION:

1. RgVeda: A Summary

2. Conversations & Stories

3. RgVeda: The Real Meaning

4. THE RAMAYANA AND THE ROOTS OF PRE-CHRISTIANITY CIVILIZATION OF ITALY

Hanumāna

brahman, brahma, brahmA

In this post the meaning of brahmanब्रह्मन्-brahmaब्रह्म-brahmAब्रह्मा is discussed and explained, along-with the other derived and related words found in Hindu texts.

“brahma”ब्रह्म is often used something like an attribute (as in brahma-loka, brahma-vidya, brahma-gyAna, etc), in other words, brahma is adjective-like. Analogy is: rudra which means “angry” but still is a Vedic god’s name. Or, daksha means “skilled” but still many times a god’s name (theonym). Similarly, brahma means “creating”, but still…what?

1) So we come to the occurrences of brahma in RigVeda. We are told that the prAtipadika प्रातिपदिक (nominal stem) bráhman = prayer/ creation, and the prAtipadika brahmán = a type of ritvija priest.

2) So in their nominative forms प्रथमा विभक्ति, we have bráhma for the “prayer”, and (brahmá turned into) brahmA for the latter, i.e. the “priest”.

3) brahma in this way, is the unnamed (because it has never been used as a theonym in RV) trinity god of Veda (“the-you-know-who”, the 12th aditya) with the other mighty two as mentioned in the above: rudra and daksha.

4) From the Rig-Veda, brahma-daksha-rudra are the core aspects of brahmA-Vishnu-Shiva, respectively. Of course this is neutrally speaking, not with respect to any sectarian viewpoint (e.g., the Vaishnava pov: “brahmA came from Vishnu, not from brahma, and Vishnu himself being brahma”, and so on, etc).

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To further illustrate on the meaning of brahman-brahma-brahmA, we can use analogy.

Say, in Atman-Atma-AtmA, the first word “Atman” आत्मन् is a prAtipadika प्रातिपदिक (nominal stem), and both “Atma” आत्म and “AtmA” आत्मा are two different words (the nominative प्रथमा विभक्ति) formed from the same prAtipadika, Atman आत्मन् .

It gets easier if we use some imagination (and theory) to understand their meaning:
Let us think of Átman, and Atmán. Now, both are the same Atman but with accents on different a’s. It is not difficult to see how the nominative Átma comes from Átman, and the nominative Atmá comes from Atmán.

Of course this we will not find in the grammar-treatises on classical Sanskrit (i.e., post Vedic), but have to construct (and in fact has been already) this picture about accents (note: accents went extinct in classical Sanskrit).

So, by the time of  classical Sanskrit, words like Atmá gave way to words like AtmA. There are many such examples: amman-amma/ammi-ammA, amban(?)-amba/ambi-ambA, etc. Though we dont have any clue anymore, this should be the case with words such as rudra, daksha etc also.

Now, what all this says about the meaning part?

When the accented letter is nearer to the first letter of the word, we can expect the meaning “essence” of something. Whereas when the accented letter is nearer to the last letter of the word, we can expect the meaning “envelope” of something.(As we are told, “the first can be like abstract noun, and the second could be like agent noun.”)

Thus amba अम्ब means “mother” which is the essence of a lady’s relationship with her child. But “ambA” अम्बा means “someone who possesses motherhood” (apart from being other things).

So one can call his mother “ammi” अम्मी but any lady (including one’s own mother) can be called “ammA” अम्मा.

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The suffix “Na” ण is also interesting. And what we get to see in RV is that bráhmaNa (from bráhma) and brahmáNa (from brahmá) are also seemingly present.

“Na” suffix makes a change in the meaning, which looks like:-

1) whereas bráhma = supreme-creativity/ creative, bráhmaNa = hymn/ prayer (a product of supreme-creativity). So when bráhma became brahma, bráhmaNa became brAhmaNa, which we know as “brAhmaNa-texts”. The varna brAhmaNa also comes from this, and should mean “a creative-man-product stamped out of Rsis’ varna-ashrama”.

2) whereas brahmá = a possessor of supreme-creativity, brahmáNa = a kind of mystic (a manifestation of supreme-creativity into man). And when (in fact in the RV itself) brahmá became brahmA (the divine possessor of brahma), brahmáNa becomes brahmANa (a brahma-possessor mystic or priest).

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Examples:

Rig 06.052.003
किम् । अ॒ङ्ग । त्वा॒ । ब्रह्म॑णः । सो॒म॒ । गो॒पाम् । किम् । अ॒ङ्ग । त्वा॒ । आ॒हुः॒ । अ॒भि॒श॒स्ति॒ऽपाम् । नः॒ ।
किम् । अ॒ङ्ग । नः॒ । प॒श्य॒सि॒ । नि॒द्यमा॑नान् । ब्र॒ह्म॒ऽद्विषे॑ । तपु॑षिम् । हे॒तिम् । अ॒स्य॒ ॥
kim | aṅga | tvā | bráhmaṇaḥ | soma | gopām | kim | aṅga | tvā | āhuḥ | abhiśasti-pām | naḥ |
kim | aṅga | naḥ | paśyasi | nidyamānān | bráhma-dviṣe | tapuṣim | hetim | asya
Why then, O Soma, do they call thee keeper of prayer? Why then thou not guard our devotion from reproaches?
Why then beholdest thou how men revile us? Cast thy hot dart at him who hates devotion.
(Griffith*)

Rig 02.001.002

तव॑ । अ॒ग्ने॒ । हो॒त्रम् । तव॑ । पो॒त्रम् । ऋ॒त्विय॑म् । तव॑ । ने॒ष्ट्रम् । त्वम् । अ॒ग्नित् । ऋ॒त॒ऽय॒तः ।
तव॑ । प्र॒ऽशा॒स्त्रम् । त्वम् । अ॒ध्व॒रि॒ऽय॒सि॒ । ब्र॒ह्मा । च॒ । असि॑ । गृ॒ठऽप॑तिः । च॒ । नः॒ । दमे॑ ॥
tava | agne | hotram | tava | potram | ṛtviyam | tava | neṣṭram | tvam | agnit | ṛta-yataḥ | tava | pra-śāstram | tvam | adhvari-yasi | brahmā | ca | asi | gṛṭha-patiḥ | ca | naḥ | dame
Thine is the Herald’s task and Cleanser’s duly timed; Leader art thou, and Kindler for the pious
man.
Thou art Director, thou the ministering Priest: thou art the Brahmā (ritvija priest), Lord and Master in our home. (Griffith)

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Summary:
1) brahman ब्रह्मन् is a root, and should not be used.
2) The root brahman ब्रह्मन् has two nominative words: brahma ब्रह्म and brahmā ब्रह्मा.
3) brahma ब्रह्म = creation, devotion, creative, the unnamed deity of RgVeda, the 12th Aditya, the central deity of advaita-vedānta.
4) brahmā ब्रह्मा = a ritvija (vedic) priest, one of the trinity gods in Hinduism, the deity (brahmā) whose core aspect is brahma ब्रह्म.
5) brāhmaNa ब्राह्मण = prayer, prayer-book, any creative product, brāhmaNa varNa.
6) brahmāNa ब्रह्माण (?) = a mystic.

PanchaJana पञ्चजन and The Five Yoga-s

From Vedanta वेदान्त generally one comes to know about the four Yoga-s योग as spiritual disciplines that can be practiced together or independent of each other.  Vedanta, however, has only made a collection of the already existing Yoga-s: bhakti भक्ति, karma कर्म, rAja राज, and jnana ज्ञान.

Firstly, Vedanta did not create them.

Secondly, even then, one Yoga is missed out: the Yoga of “Artistic pursuits” (for the lack of better word).

The only place where these are talked about (and indeed discovered) is in the Veda, where the Five Yoga-s are called “The Five Tribes” (PanchJana/ पञ्चजन), where, the evolved mankind is thought of as “components” made from five kind of people: The Athlete (<Karma), The Lover (<Bhakti), The Artist, The Thinker (<Raja), and the Sage (<Jnana). Every Arya (Hindu) is invited to fully evolve himself using all these modes, together.

This is aligned to the way by which we can implement Dharma धर्म into the practical/ day-to-day aspects of our lives, something that holds further promise for our progress.

¿”The Yoga of Artistic pursuits”? / “A FIFTH Yoga?”

Veda doesn’t use too many labels, it only talks in terms of its Devatā-s. One can say, Veda is the BigBang consciousness where all knowledge, all awareness, reside in a unitary language.
We can call this “fifth” Yoga, and what comes to my mind, the “Vrata Yoga” व्रत योग. Vrata means here “starting something with a resolve of completing it”, i.e., “the part” containing the “whole” by the way of harmony. Indeed, Art fits the bill, but there is surely a greater scope.

These five Yoga-s, or the modes, are gifts from the Deva-s of Swarga स्वर्ग: Sūrya सूर्य (Jnana), Indra इन्द्र (raja), Mitra मित्र (Vrata), Marut मरुत (Bhakti), and AśviniKumar अश्विनीकुमार (Karma). Swarga has two ends (like any other Lōka): one is presided over by Sūrya and the other by AsviniKumar.
One can say, Surya is very much related to Indra, and Asvins (AsviniKumar) very much related to Marut.

PanchJana and Pandava-s

In Mahabharata, Kunti (wife of king Pāndu) wanted the very best of humans as her children, with the use of the vardāna (boon) given to her by Rsi Durvāsā. She (along with the other queen, Mādri) was blessed with “five sons” known as “Pāndava-s”.

Now, the thing with the Mahabharata is that here we get to see the total range, from the very divine to the vilest; purest of knowledge, mixed with even the worst of ignorance. And a lot of grey shades, to add on to this.

Rsi Durvāsā’s vardāna was perfect; Mitra, Indra, Maruta and AsviniKumar — gave their amśa-s (parts) to take birth (as manifestation only, and not Avatāra) as: Yudhisthira, Arjun, Bhim, and Nakul – Sahdeva, respectively.

Of course, people of the Mahabharata age, due to some ignorance (no Satyuga, remember) called Yudhisthira to be from Dharma, and Bhima from Pavan, since Mitra was as good as forgotten by that time, and Marut also got converged into a separate Vedic Deva, Vayu. (confusing mostly because Lord Hanuman, a Janus-God, was known to be from both Marut and Pavan/ Vayu). On the other hand, Dharma as an idea had become the prerogative and authority of the king (means, no separate Judiciary), by that time, and indeed, in Veda it is Mitra who is the ruler of Swarga (not Indra), so Yudhisthira was conceived to be “the best ruler of men.” {however, Dharma in general relates to all the five modes together, and Marut in particular}

Mahabharata is rich, and complex in its history telling. Now, in the “Pāndava-s”, AsviniKumar manifested as a twin (since Asvins are twins). So it seems to break the notion of PanchJana.

Though, actually not, the real fifth in this fivesome was KarNa, the son of Surya from Kunti.

Mahabharata is mind-boggling, yes?

The Pāndava-s became the “five modes” to support progress by connecting to the divine in Krishna. One may ask, however, how come Krishna was an Avatār, but the Pāndava-s were not?

One can only say: if, for example, Vishnu incarnates as the Indra mode, then it is Avatāra; equally, and equivalently, the same thing can be said as: if Indra incarnates in the Vishnu mode then it is an Avatāra. Else, the manifestation could well turn out be an out-of-harmony power, Asura (not a pejorative in the Veda; it is like “Titan” may be).

 

Savitr

RV [05-81.05]

उ॒तेशि॑षे प्रस॒वस्य॒ त्वमेक॒ इदु॒त पू॒षा भ॑वसि देव॒ याम॑भिः । उ॒तेदं विश्वं॒ भुव॑नं॒ वि रा॑जसि श्या॒वाश्व॑स्ते सवित॒ स्तोम॑मानशे ॥

You are the One Lord over all (your very own) Creation, also you’re like Pusan through your forbearing acts, O God. And this whole world of beings is your reign, Savitr, for you SuryaHorse (also a Rsi) has created the hymn.

RV [01-35.09]

हिरण्यपाणिः सविता विचर्षणिरुभे द्यावापृथिवी अन्तरीयते । अपामीवां बाधते वेति सूर्यमभि कृष्णेन रजसा द्यामृणोति ॥

Savitr the golden-handed, busy with both of them, manifests in the inter DyavaPrithvi space. He overpowers sickening limitation, impels Surya (through it), and thus spreads Dyo’s Light out of the dark realm.

Tryambaka Ishvar Rudra

Before understanding the meaning of “Tryambaka” त्र्यम्बक, let us consider the following Rica रिचा, श्लोक (incidentally one of the most powerful mantra-s) from the RgVeda:

RV 2.41.16 (to Devi Saraswati)

अम्बि॑ऽतमे । नदी॑ऽतमे । देवि॑ऽतमे । सर॑स्वति । अ॒प्र॒श॒स्ताःऽइ॑व । स्म॒सि॒ । प्रऽश॑स्तिम् । अ॒म्ब॒ । नः॒ । कृ॒धि॒ ॥
ambitame nadītame devitame sarasvati | apraśastā iva smasi praśastim amba nas kṛdhi ||

Translation: “Among all mothers (ambi-s), among all rivers, among all Devis, O Saraswati, thou are the best! O mother (amba), make us – the ignoble- full of renown.”

Here, both ambi अम्बि and amba अम्ब have been used to mean “mother”. So, amba means: mother -common noun- not Mother, but mother; and much more than that:
“womb” can be seen as coming from amba.
It also denotes the “waters” realm of Mother (Antariksha; Space).
That’s where ambā (“watery”/ “spacious”) comes from, as well as ambikā (ambi+kā; fem.).
Hence, ambuja (ambu+ja) means: “water-born”; ambar (amba+ra) means: antariksha, ākāsha.
And that’s why ambak (amba+ka; masc.) means: “of mother”. This is the only meaning Veda knows of, verily, as in this exquisite Rica (the famed Mahāmrityunjaya Mantra) for Rudra.

RV 7.59.12:

त्र्य॑म्बकम् । य॒जा॒म॒हे॒ । सु॒गन्धि॑म् । पु॒ष्टि॒ऽवर्ध॑नम् । उ॒र्वा॒रु॒कम्ऽइ॑व । बन्ध॑नात् । मृ॒त्योः । मु॒क्षी॒य॒ । मा । अ॒मृता॑त् ॥
tryambakam | yajāmahe | sugandhim | puṣṭi-vardhanam | urvārukam-iva | bandhanāt | mṛtyoḥ | mukṣīya | mā | amṛtāt

Translation: “I worship thee, the Three-mothered (Tryambaka), of pleasant odour, the giver of good health. Liberate me unto Immortality even as the gourd fruit is freed of its shell (i.e., when death comes).”

So, त्र्यम्बक = त्रि + अम्बक, Tryambaka = tri (three) + ambaka (of mother)
Tryambaka, then means, “of three mothers”. Rudra has three mothers: ILā, DakshiNā and Saraswatī, when He is seen to come/ take birth evolutionarily from the Antariksha realm.

This realisation has been lost on the people since the end of the Vedic age, and upon much speculation and groping in the dark, Tryambaka was arbitrarily assigned the meaning: Three eyed. That even while Trilochana त्रिलोचन already means “three eyed” and is used very widely as an attribute of Shiva/ Rudra. However,

1) No etymology (in Sanskrit) exists for ambak meaning eye, in the same way that ambak is shown here to be from amba.

2) “Eye” (लोचन, चक्षु, नयन, etc.) is a utility word and therefore ambaka if meaning “eye” should have usage in regular contexts. This also doesn’t seem to be the case. However, in a classical text on Ayurveda, Ashtānga Hridayam, a word “valāmbaka”(vala+ambaka) वलाम्बकः occurs, and is said to be the place where the “remaining disease (phlegm)” is confined. Now, both Vala and ambaka are Rgvedic words. Vala is the Asat of Antariksha (Mother’s) realm who holds up Her waters, that is, is a barrier between us and Mother. The disease, in question, is being sent to this mysterious place, outside the body to “above it”, via the sahasradhara chakra, presumably. “valāmbaka” (Mother’s hold/ cave) is that place where this is sent and held up. This is how healing and self-healing is performed by Yogis. So here again, ambaka means “of mother” and not “eye” as translated by some.

3) There is this village named “ambaka” in Maharashtra/ India 17°12’4″N 74°22’25″E (wikimapia link). The site says the village has in its middle an ancient Ambā Temple, “from which it derives its name”. Moreover, the villagers must have been extremely conservative about this, given the fact that they fell under islamic dominance and surrounding areas do seem to have adopted islamic names. Now this is some hard evidence.

Rig Veda: A Summary

Here is a little summary of the Veda, of as discussed in detail in my book. Hope it will be of interest and benefit to the reader.

On my part, it will help me write my upcoming posts with greater clarity and purpose. (And, of the Reader, I will urge some patience for now if all this seems rather dry and distant).

(A) REALMS

1) (finite) Realm: Prithivi/Earth
Presiding God: Pushan
Constituting Gods: Vayu, Bhag, Varuna

2) (finite) Realm: Dyo/Svar/Heaven
Presiding God: Soma
Constituting Gods: Indra, Parjanya (Marut), Mitra

3) (infinite) Realm: Antariksha/ Vyom/ Apah
Presiding God: Savitr/ Mahi
Constituting Gods: Sarasvati, Ila (Prishni), Dakshina

4) (infinite) Realm: Samudra
Presiding God: Brahmanaspati
Constituting Gods: Brahman (Brahm), Rudra, Daksha

(B) CONNECTING GODS

1) Prithvi and Dyo
Connecting God: Asvini Kumar
Breakup: Usha (Vayu-like), Ratri/Nakta (Parjanya-like)

2) Dyo and Antariksha
Connecting God: Surya
Breakup: Bharata (Indra-like), Bharati (Ila-like)

3) Antariksha and Samudra
Connecting God: Yama
Breakup: Sarama (Sarasvati-like), Tvashta (Rudra-like)

4) Samudra and Prithvi
Connecting God: Aryaman
Breakup: Vidhata (Brahman-like), Dhata (Bhag-like)

(C) COMPOSITE GODS

1) Prithvi and Parjanya
God: Marut gana
Number: 5 Maruts
Breakup: 3 of Prithvi ( Vayu, Bhag, Varuna), 1 Parjanya, and these 4 combined as one.

2) Dyava-Prithvi and Surya
God: Agni
Number: 8 Vasus
Breakup: 3+3 of Dyava-Prithvi, 1 Surya, and these 7 combined as one.

3) Visva (Antariksha-Dyava-Prithvi) and Rudra
God: Rudra ( Shiva)
Number: 11 Rudras
Breakup: 3+3+3 of Visva, 1 Rudra, and these 10 combined as one.

4) Samudra-Antariksha-Dyava-Prithvi
God: Aditi
Number: 12 Adityas
Breakup: 3+3+3+3 of all realms.

(D) MISCELLANY

1) God Incarnate
Vishnu: Visva + Daksha

2) Brahma:
Brahman + Visva (Bhag onwards)

3) Synonyms: (gau, vac, Aditya), (parvat, asva, connection/barrier between realms)

4) Agni’s triple birth:
1st in Aryaman’s place
2nd in Asvini Kumar’s place
3rd in Surya’s place.

5) Soma Pavamana:
The Soma “juice”, manifests in Tvashta’s place and marches on in its
journey, connecting all four realms one after the another. The connecting
of the realms is also the winning of Immortality… a state of Sat, as opposed
to that of isolation and ignorance known as Asat.

6) Virat/ Purusha form of an Aditya:
a) when the Aditya expands in his realm only: 3-fold expansion.
b) when the Aditya expands in his realm inclusive of the two connecting gods: 5-fold expansion.
c) when the Aditya expands fully, shows Aditi: 12-fold expansion.
d) total number of gods: 12X12 = 144. if symmetry taken, 77.
Considering the usual 3-fold expansion, 12X3 = 36.
But since Brahman is not spoken of, 11X3 = 33.

Asvini Kumar

RV [1-120.01]

Asvins, what praise may win your grace? Who may be pleasing to you both?
How shall the ignorant worship you?

RV [1-181.04]

Here sprung to life, they both have sung together, with bodies free from stain, with signs that mark them;
One of you (is) Prince of Sacrifice, the Victor, the other counts as Heaven’s auspicious offspring.

RV [1-022.2,3]

We call the Asvins Twain, the Gods borne in a noble car, the best of charioteers, who reach the heavens.
Dropping with honey is your whip, Asvins, and full of pleasantness; sprinkle therewith the sacrifice.

Conversations and Stories

**************************************************
#1: Prajapati’s Yagna
*************************************************

Asat was winning. Pani started covering Brahmanaspati.

Sati (Parvati), the Mother, belonged to both Daksha and Rudra: as the daughter of the former and as the wife of the latter. Then Darkness came. Mother, in a fit of rage and desperation, terminated her Representation in that Loka.

Sacrifice (Yagna) was thus obstructed, and Asat won, disconnecting Savitar from Brahmanaspati. Shiva took refuge in his aloofness, now that he was Rudra alone, bereft of the Mother.

Daksha, too, suffered; Vishnu rambled on like a headless chicken for some time. Vishnu collapsed back to Daksha, causing serious questions over his ability for miracles, for incarnations.

Mother’s first born, Ganesh, meanwhile lost Dyava-Prithivi to Vrtra. Mother’s second born, Kartikeya, suffered against Dasyus in a bloody war of Dharma over the control of Prithivi.

Shiva’s family, like the four realms, disunited. Prithvi suffered. Cried for Saviour, though even that was not to be enough.

Krishna came. Against all odds.

*************************************************
#2: the fight
*************************************************

Shaivite said: Shiva is Brahman. And thought: I proved Shiva to be supreme.
Vaisnavite said: Vishnu is Brahman. And thought: I proved Vishnu to be supreme.
Vedantist was silent, listening. And thought: Brahman is supreme. I won.
Onlooker said: vedantist has indeed won; in the battle of two, it is the third that gains.

*************************************************
#3: Pani’s plot
*************************************************

Pani marvelled at his work, said:
From now on, for eternity, these three- Daksha Rudra and Brahman, will continue sleeping the Death, the Asat. From now on, this Death be called Immortality, and that which is Immortality, be christened Death.

Vrtra said: I didn’t understand, my Lord.

Pani: O DasyuNaresh, call me Immortal, and call them- Vishnu, Shiva and Brahma, mortal. Label anything mortal that sacrifices, tries to connect the Realms, tries to make Soma juice flow, tries to do Yoga of Evolution.

Vrtra: by what name shall I address you, then, my Lord?

Pani: call me Brahman.

Vala exclaimed: but that is cheating my Lord!

Pani: no one will ever know. This Brahman is the silent one; we can commit crimes in his name. No one will ever know.

Vrtra: I didn’t understand, my Lord. Why not call you as Daksha or Rudra for that matter?

Pani: O dumb head, let me put it this way. Have you read Veda? All its Gods, the Immortal children of Aditi, are way too vocal, noisy. But this one, this Brahman, is totally mute.

Vrtra: I have read Veda, my Lord, but could not make out head or tail of it.

Vala: and I thought you, coming from a background of privilege, had refined sense and sensibility!

Vrtra: that I have; my father was XXX at king XXX’s court, I have studied XXX at XXX university, I was born…

Pani: Enough. If you, the bright one, can’t understand it, verily, this Veda is all gibberish.

Vrtra: So what should I teach them, the Dasyus?

Pani: Raise the gibberish to your level and taste, call it the “culmination of Veda”, and preach it in the name of Veda. But know, all the while, in your inner heart, the falsity of Veda.

Vala: Veda is just ritual. Primitive thought. Its mantras, particularly the Gayatri mantra, tickle me no ends!

Vrtra: my lord, should I renounce, not marry, in order to preach?

Pani (concluding): not at all necessary, that is for the frustrated Yogis. Don’t let them anywhere near the corridors of power. As for you, you will always be in company of kings. Dasyus will hate the very Gods they will worship. One would ask of his God: grant me immortality, that is, eternity of youth, eternity of lust, eternity of greed; otherwise I will not come to you again; you are after all, just fake, since Brahman alone is real.

******************************************************
#4: when even the Onlooker wasn’t spared
******************************************************

Onlooker was agitated, anguished. A voice raised upwards from the depths of his very soul.
“Why didn’t, Aditi, my beloved, Mother, you make me realise all this all these thousands of years?”

Aditi reveals herself, reveals in a form of Mother.

Aditi: did you even utter my name, once, in all these millennia?
Onlooker: no, Mother, I didn’t. I am sorry.
Aditi: or, did you do the continuous Yagna of mighty Agni?
Onlooker: neither, Mother.
Aditi ( to herself): so Agni is unlit. unlit within.

Aditi: but, then, sure you did worship some of the Gods of Dyava-Prithivi?
Onlooker: I don’t know anything about Dyava-Prithivi, Mother.
Aditi ( mumbles): ok. let us get to the point.

Aditi: do you offer Yagna to Bhag?
Onlooker: no, Mother. (Yagna, ritual??)
Aditi: do you offer Yagna to Varuna?
Onlooker: no, Mother. (Water God??)
Aditi: do you offer Yagna to Vayu?
Onlooker: no, Mother. (Wind??)

Aditi: oh me! How did you then defend your land, life and honour?
Onlooker: I didn’t. Mother. (breaks down).
(pause)
Onlooker: but times have changed Mother. Now, in the age of Technology, children of Bharati, resourceful, talented, sure do retain an edge over Asuric forces.
Aditi: do you, then, offer Yagna to Indra?
Onlooker: no, Mother. (the pervert demi God??)
Aditi: do you offer worship to Mitra?
Onlooker: no, Mother. (Mitro devo bhavah??)
Aditi: do you offer Yagna to Marut?
Onlooker: no, Mother.
Aditi: without a clear intellect, an aesthetic depth, or an innate character, where do you stand? Does all this sound to you as some alien language? This Sanatana Dharma? What have you been upto? Forget it. Forget everything. Just tell me one thing- did you pray to Asvini Kumar?

Onlooker: no, Mother, no. I have no idea who the Asvini Kumar is. All that I cared about was Moksha, Nirvana, Liberation. Or that is what I was told about. Oh, I am so confused! Oh, all this Moksha baggage, and with that a life lived of Dasyu, even death doesn’t liberate.

Aditi: wake up. This the last call.
Aditi ( mumbles): teach Moksha to enemies. (goes)

*************************************************
#5: Asvini Kumar
*************************************************

Onlooker was unwell. He started vomiting. Vomiting the Truth, literally, couldn’t hold it back now.

“Can you see me?”
Onlooker: who said that?
“Who am I. Speak.”
Onlooker: nAsatya!

Onlooker: Nasatya! kumAra! My Saviour!
Onlooker: Asvini Kumar!
(falls at Nasatya’s feet)

Asvini Kumar, as a friend would, embraced Onlooker!
Onlooker: I am saved!
Onlooker: you are the Nasatya, slayer of Asat. You are the Only God, were there any. You are the Only Way. You, Asvini Kumar, alone have the power to connect Prithvi to Dyo and even more, to make Dyava-Prithvi complete. You alone, Lord of Effort, of Sacrifice, of Yagna, have the power to bring Immortality on Earth.
Asvini Kumar: yes. I am Immortality. Can you see, now, why it is called Sanatana, Immortal, Dharma?
Onlooker: yes, Nasatya. I see now. It is not because Dharma has always been there or will always be there (that is not the meaning of Immortality). It is because, you, Nasatya, established this Dharma here on Earth.
Asvini Kumar: oh! Where? Under what name?
Onlooker (takes breathe): it was under the name of Murugan, Kartikeya, Kumara – The Lord of Immortality, that you established Dharma. You were also called by your very own, as Tamil Kadavul, the One God of Tamils. Oh yes, now I remember, it was the Land of Tamils.

Asvini Kumar: know that to be the Homeland.
Asvini Kumar: Homeland. the net-giver. Pilgrimage. Even Gods owe that land. That is why Rama had to incarnate, when that Pani specimen, Ravana became irresistible.
Onlooker: tell me about your other Avatars, Nasatya.
Asvini Kumar: Hanuman. Kumara, That Lord of Immortality.
Onlooker: indeed, Nasatya, without Hanuman who is the God before all Gods, the most worshipped, there would be no Sanatana Dharma in the expanses of Bharati.

Asvini Kumar: Bharati. The net-giver. Pilgrimage.
Onlooker: Nasatya, you incarnated as Christ, too!
Asvini Kumar (laughs merrily): the march of Sanatana Dharma!

Onlooker: Bharati is in great distress, again. An ugly mix of Dasyus, Vrtras, Valas, and Panis inhabit that land. Now that I am awake, what should I do Nasatya?

Asvini Kumar: sing my songs. tell my story. tell Rig-Veda!

Ṛtvij(ऋत्विज्) Varna

This post is in follow of the earlier one, Varna-Veda-and-stuff, where Varna is shown to be same as the tripartite executive+judiciary+legislature plus the business constructs of state. No doubt, there is plenty to research after in the connection, and the genealogy, between these terms on one hand and others such as दक्ष, रुद्र, विश् – of Varna- on the other hand.

Talking of researches, and scholars, though, all their tools and methodologies, evidently, break down when handling the Veda and the Rsis. How can one explain away, for instance, the insights of an Einstein? Linear time (and closed systems) are not applicable at places of “discontinuities”; “something”, for example, may come in, but “something” may not come out of your system, and vice-versa. And, that net unexplained “something” can be big enough to change everything around it, in space and in time.

So, in the present context, once we decide to see the work of Rsis as a net “something”, we can look for the imprint, or the D.N.A., inside Veda, of the changes caused by it outside. If Varna is attributed to the efforts of Rbhus (ऋभु), the Rsi-like people who no doubt graduated from the Rsis’ schools, their efforts and motivation should have an image in Veda.

But, then, the domain of Rbhus was works, and enlightenment was that of Rsis. Varna, in its most general form, is related with works, after all, so there is seemingly no common ground between Rbhu and Rsi. Is there no work, of professional character, in Veda? Well, there is.

Veda’s soul is Yagna, or Sacrifice, which is the mechanism for a continuous growth, and evolution, into Immortality. And, rituals are the tools used, very festively, to create a conducive environment for the same.

Moreover, it was good fun to the Rsis, who doubled up as Rtvijas and conducted the Yagna rituals. The question is, granted the Yagna ritual belonged to works, was it seen sufficiently in that light by Rsis, and therefore professionally undertaken?

If the painstakingly detailed rituals described in the later texts such as Brahmanas and Srautas are any indication, or if the sophisticated Soma rites still performed in some parts of India are any evidence, certainly, the Yagna rituals were very professionally performed.

In addition, if the likes of (future) Rbhus were to be inspired, the Rsis had to show the way of works in their rituals, in which, indeed, the students too played their parts.

So what we know today for sure, based mainly on Rig Vedic body itself, the Rtvijas had a fourfold division: the Hotr (होतृ), Brahmán (ब्रह्मन्), Udgatr (उद्गातृ), and Adhvaryu (अध्वर्यु). The fourfold Varna of Rtvij.

Among these, Brahman’s work was to observe and to steer the event in a purposeful direction, by the use of timely interjections. Udgatr, the Chanter, on the other hand, was moved with Faith, Love, and Devotion; in his songs the ritual achieved its culmination and fulfilment. Adhvaryu, the Skilled one, was responsible for connecting all diverse elements of Yagna, for a hassle free passage of the events, which he did in a most graceful manner. Finally, Hotr was responsible for apparently everything, doing bits of direction, chanting and manipulation. Hotr was, above all, also responsible for money matters, and interactions with the patron, or Yajmana (यजमान) of the Yagna.

To be explicit, Hotr, Brahman, Udgatr and Adhvaryu correspond, respectively, to the example of Varna that we discussed earlier: Vispati, Brahman, Rudra and Daksha.

As discussed in Kalicharan’s Veda, though, the real motivation of the Rbhus behind the establishment of Varna in the urban society was the evolution of the state of affairs from the Dasyu mode (of Asat) to the Dyava-Prithivi (Heaven-Earth) mode of Agni.

It necessitates the existence of the Earth counterparts of the aforementioned Rtvijas. And Rig Veda doesn’t disappoint, either. Hence, we have Potr (पोतृ) for Hotr, Nestr (नेष्ट्र) for Brahman, Prashastr (प्रशास्तृ) for Adhavaryu, and Agnidh (अग्नीध्) for Udgatr. If Hotr represents the whole Soma (Homa), the presiding God of Heaven, then Potr speaks for the whole Pusan, the presiding God of Earth in the Veda. Each of these Rtvij classes were, apparently, divided into subclasses which themselves were of Dyava-Prithvi, or Varna, constitution: this elaboration was required when the Yagna ritual and event grew voluminous.

So, what’s the moral of the story?