Discussion on Indian Epics, Texts, Treatises & Kathas

[Manishw]

@ Ramanna Ji, Brihaspati Ji or any other Guru, comments, suggestions, criticisms are all welcome.Will proceed further after that.
Added later:
Thank's Atri ji made corrections
Thank's Murugan Ji

[Atri]

"In the beginning, there was darkness hidden in darkness, all this universe was an unilluminated sea. The Gods stood together in the sea.Then as dancers they generated a swirl of dust. When, like ascetics, the Gods overflowed the world, then from hidden in the ocean they brought forth the Sun".

This is not the correct translation of Nasadiya sukta.. Here is the verse you are referring to..

तम आसीत तमसा गूळमग्रे.अप्रकेतं सलिलं सर्वमािदम |
तुछ्येनाभ्वपिहितं यदासीत तपसस्तन्महिनाजायतैकम || - 10.129.3

Salilam Sarvam-Aadim = Primordial waters (Ambha referred to in verse 1 of same sukta). Nothing about ocean.. There is nothing about gods standing together on ocean and dancing.

Will have to check other references..

RV mentions heavenly oceans too, along with geographical "eastern" and Western Samudra of India. What complicates things furthermore is the usage of the word "Sindhu" both as "any" river, Indus river and ocean.

Regarding Sea-faring aryans, it is true. vedics do mention about ships, seas, oceans and inter-civilizational trade by ships in their literature.

वेदा यो वीनां पदमन्तरिक्षेण पतताम |
वेद नावः समुद्रियः || - 1.25.7

He (Varuna) knows the path of birds that fly through heaven, and, Sovran of the sea,
He knows the ships that are thereon.

आ यद रुहाव वरुणश्च नावं पर यत समुद्रमीरयावमध्यम |
अधि यदपां सनुभिश्चराव पर परेङख ईङखयावहै शुभे कम || 7.88.3

When Varuṇa and I embark together and urge our boat into the midst of ocean,
We, when we ride over ridges of the waters, will swing within that swing and there be happy.

अनारम्भणे तदवीरयेथामनास्थाने अग्रभणे समुद्रे |
यदश्विना ऊहथुर्भुज्युमस्तं शतारित्रां नावमातस्थिवांसम || 1.116.5

You wrought that hero exploit in the ocean which giveth no support, or hold or station,
What time you carried Bhujyu to his dwelling, borne in a ship with hundred oars, O Ashwins. - What else but oceanic trade will a 100 oar ship be used for?

Of course there are other direct references towards trade via sea.

[Murugan]

[edit] Samudra and ships
Some scholars like B.R. Sharma hold that the Rigvedic people may have been shipbuilders engaging in maritime trade[9]. In Rigveda 1.25.7; 7.88.3 and other instances, Samudra is mentioned together with ships. In RV 7.89.4 the rishi Vasishta is thirsting in the midst of water. Other verses mention oceanic waves (RV 4.58.1,11; 7.88.3). Some words that are used for ships are Nau, Peru, Dhi and Druma. A ship with a hundred oars is mentioned in RV 1.116. There were also ships with three masts or with ten oars.[10] RV 9.33.6 says: 'From every side, O Soma, for our profit, pour thou forth four seas filled with a thousand-fold riches."

[Mauli]

Ancient use of big numbers baffles experts

Hyderabad, Aug. 20: Centuries before modern European mathematicians formalised the concept of infinity, ancient Indians dabbled in numbers so gigantic that their motivations have left even 21st century mathematicians baffled.

A series of Indian texts dated from about 1000 BC to the 2nd century BC described mystifyingly large numbers, some with no links to reality, delegates at the International Congress of Mathematicians 2010 under way have said.

“It’s astonishing — the fascination with large numbers goes very far back in India,” said Kim Plofker, a mathematics historian at the Union College, Schenectady, New York, a plenary speaker at the congress who has analysed ancient Sanskrit, Buddhist, and Jain texts.

The Yajur Veda, which some scholars believe was composed around 1400 BC, has a line that invokes successive powers of 10 up to a trillion, Plofker said in a special paper circulated at the congress.

“Such vast numbers could have had no practical application in the context of Vedic culture,” she wrote.

The allure of large numbers is also visible in the epic Mahabharata that describes a cosmic time span over four billion years long, constructed out of 360-year periods, said Plofker, who told The Telegraph she was drawn to ancient Indian mathematics after opting for a Sanskrit course because it had a script unfamiliar to her.

Her paper also cites examples of large numbers from Buddhist and Jain scriptures.

While English mathematician John Wallis assigned the ribbon-like symbol for infinity in 1650 and German mathematician George Cantor provided a logical foundation for the concept of infinity, Plofker said, Jain texts from the early centuries of the first millennium explored concepts of infinity.

“Ancient Indians appeared to enjoy using large numbers,” said Shrikrishna Dani, a mathematician at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research who is pursuing research in pure mathematics but is interested in its history. “This seems to be something unique to India — we don’t have evidence of such large numbers so far from cultures elsewhere,” Dani said.

“There were some attempts to relate it to nature, but it appears to be a part of the process of abstract thinking,” Dani said.

One Buddhist text from the early first millennium refers to what Plofker has described in her paper as “sequences of numbers that could be conceived only through mind-boggling comparisons” such as the number of grains of sand in the beds of a hundred million rivers.

Another Jain text from the early first millennium refers to a time period of two raised to the power of 588.

Some scientists believe observations of nature may have driven the abstract thinking that led to large numbers.

“It may have been connected to the sharp contrasts observed in nature — the vastness of a mountain to the smallness of a mustard seed,” said Roddam Narasimha, a senior scientist at the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bangalore, who has written papers on the subject.

The differences in the sizes, Narasimha said, could have stimulated thinking about how small as well as how large things might be.

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1100821/j ... 836915.jsp

[brihaspati]

The Bharatyias were in the business of trying to understand and describe the universe. It would be necessary to construct very large numbers to fit those they either logically reasoned or counted or extrapolated from counting to estimation.

A key thought pattern seems to be iteration or iterated thinking. I suspect it has to do with a fundamental feature of human abstract thinking that lies behind imagination. It is self observation of the thought process in self.

[ramana]

Aryan invasion theory(AIT) is a particular obsession in the West particularly for German nationalists under Hitler.

Actually it was the German scholars Schlegel, father and son who first started looking at Aryans. A key understanding would be why did Western Europe suddenly feel the need for Aryan origination theory to validate their own selfs is important to ken.
There was an explosion of studies to de-link European languages from the Tower of Babel formulation to Sanskrit in the late 18th century. From this came the quest for a non ME origin of the European people. All this was after the Enlightenment in Western Europe.

[Carl_T]

The word Aryan was known to the west for a while through the latin word "Ariana" for Iran, and has been used in Iran for a long time as an ethnonym in inscriptions dating back to Darius (posted on this thread a few pages back). And of course there was Mr. Pahlavi who styled himself as "Aryamehr"!

Now starting in 1700s discovery of newly translated Indian texts got European intellectuals Voltaire to Emerson excited. India was "fashionable" among western intellectuals, and it is then we see western theories about India being the birthplace of western culture. In that line, Schlegel argued for India being the "Urheimat" of western culture and the cradle of civilization by westward migrations out of India. Of course, this view was supplanted by William Jones' thesis.

[Klaus]

The Yajur Veda, which some scholars believe was composed around 1400 BC

The date, 1400 B.C is again based on the much-flawed AIT. Since the Yajur Veda actually deals with analytical and physical sciences (apart from mathematics), very much needed in any activity including shipbuilding, it might actually follow Rig Vedic timelines of 55000 B.C or so.

“Such vast numbers could have had no practical application in the context of Vedic culture,” she wrote.

This line is again incorrect and is psy-ops (the attempt is to make it look like Vedic culture was not research intensive, or something like "All theory and no application"). These Western scholars run their crappy mouth once too often.

I have heard from a professor at Madurai Kamaraj university that there was research enquiries going on in the field of micro-organisms and pathology around 2800 BC in Sivaganga district of TN. Number crunching of the order of 10 power -10 is needed and must have been used.

[naren]

A key thought pattern seems to be iteration or iterated thinking. I suspect it has to do with a fundamental feature of human abstract thinking that lies behind imagination. It is self observation of the thought process in self.

fractal ?

[Klaus]

fractal ?

I guess he means the kind of thinking which lead to the development of the schools of thought of introspection/self realization in philosophy, architectural design (the design of the Sydney Opera House is the embodiment of abstract thought, the same is said to be conveyed in the layout of Hawa Mahal) and the discovery/development of music. Music was already present in the nature around us and that is why it was discovered more than developed.

[brihaspati]

Klaus ji, thanks for the explanation. I did not want to go deeper as it may go OT. Its the interface of abstract group theory and approximating the human thought process.

Naren ji, think of
"I see tree"
"I see that I see tree"
"I see that I see that I see tree".......
the "see" is changing in senses in the same sentence. But they are defined only in terms of the "previous" "see"'s. You cannot take them out and make them stand alone. This is a simple example and it will terminate in a short iteration. But it shows how values or associated connotation changes by iteration. Now how would you try to describe the end product or terminal expression?

[svinayak]

@ Ramanna Ji, Brihaspati Ji or any other Guru, comments, suggestions, criticisms are all welcome.Will proceed further after that.
Added later:
Thank's Atri ji made corrections
Thank's Murugan Ji

Is this your page. Well written

Also check the following thread
http://www.india-forum.com/forums/index ... sking-ait/

[Mauli]

Esoteric Understanding of Sri Hanuman Ji

http://youtu.be/qlJzT99g8m4

http://youtu.be/aYG79yKhETs

[brihaspati]

Manishw ji,
great start.

Perhaps the important issues to be explored
(1) climatic conditions-rapid sea-level rise episodes around 14KYBP, 12KYBP, 8KYBP, and general slow rise - corresponding changes on the subcontinent-aridity, formation flow and change in rivers
(2) genetic evidence
(3) possible linguistic developments
(4) origins of agriculture and corresponding settlement patterns and urbanization-pastoralism processes
(5) maritime trade and transoceanic presence or evidence

[Mauli]

Species of Knowledge and the Transmission Authority

http://www.planetshifter.com/node/1621


AN INTERVIEW WITH NAGA BABA RAMPURI

CLAUDIA TURNBULL

http://www.rampuri.com/download/Namarupa_Int2.htm

CT: Which brings me to another question about sacred landscapes. Do you feel that there is something about the landscape in India that enriches Vedic practices? Is there something key in being in the landscape of India rather than somewhere else?

R: The sacred landscape is what I would describe as signatures of nature, and this is extremely significant. In India it is very much part of reading the text of the world and it is very much part of the tradition there. Now, curiously enough, this also makes things very, very local as opposed to universal. What we would love to do, especially in the West, especially in what I might describe as the Christian West, although there could be the Christian, the Jewish, the Muslim, or even the Buddhist, West; they would love to universalize things. They love to work with universal principals, which I don’t relate to at all. I relate to local things and local geography and local knowledge and local deities and local spirits and local people and local language. Everything local. Sacred landscape or signatures of nature are really localized.

OK, now that having been said, does that mean that in order to have knowledge and understand these things you have to go to India? If you take that question a step or two further, you might ask the question, does that mean that if I want to know what you know, speaking to me, I have to renounce the world and go live in India for thirty-seven years, be a baba, live in a cave, and all that other stuff? Obviously the answer is no; that is all ridiculous. Then you might ask the question, what is the value of your spending your thirty-seven years in India and living in an order of Naga Babas, an ancient oral tradition? What connection does that have with the rest of the world? Why are we even having this interview, why are you writing books? What is the connection there? It comes back to some of these ideas of reading the world as a text and using the sacred landscape.

What I have found is that I come to Europe and go to some of these cities and places; I look around and I see all sorts of sacred landscape. I say to people, "My god, you live in a sacred place." How do I know? Look at all these signs, look at these marks, and look at these flags on your world, on your earth, in this place. And look at what that must indicate. Look what it marks just under the surface, just below the concrete. Look at this mirror.

I find the value of my experience is to take it like a giant mirror bring it into your space and hold it up to you to look into and see the sacred landscape in your own location. Understand how your own location is sacred and what there is to connect with, how to use that to make your life and other lives more prosperous and more wonderful.

I find sacred rivers here and I find sacred marks on the landscape that are extremely significant and wonderful, as significant and wonderful as sacred rivers and signatures in India. Yet here they are more covered up, because we have had certain things happen. We have had the Christians overrun all of Europe and most of the world, hiding many of these things. We’ve had the abolition of the sacred feminine in the world. To make things worse, we have put cement and concrete over all the earth spirits. We have buried the earth spirits underneath millions of tons of cement and concrete. If all that isn’t bad enough, what has really happened is we have forgotten the spirits of the earth and the deities of our local places. That is the worst thing. If we can use this mirror of India, not to go to India, and not to look at India, and not necessarily to follow Indian philosophy or Indian thinking, but just strictly as a mirror to look at our own world, our own location, and our own lives and find the sacred, and the sacred feminine as well, there, then I would say that my pilgrimage has brought some fruit. But not that people must go to India, or become Indians, or learn Indian philosophy or Sanskrit or any of that stuff. I don’t think that is the case; I don’t feel that is the case.

CT: Taking it more specifically . . .

R: How specific do you want to get?

CT: Say, for instance, New York City. How would you recognize the sacred beneath those mammoth structures?

R: Well, the Brooklyn Bridge, what’s that, the East River that it goes over?

CT: Right.

R: Without the East River, there wouldn’t be a New York City because it is the fresh waters that created the original agriculture and the ability for a civilization or a culture to exist there. The meeting of the East River with the ocean, which gave rise to commerce and immigration, is a great sangam (confluence). That is like the sangam where the Jumna (Yamuna), the Ganga and the Saraswati rivers meet in India. Or where the Ganga meets the Bay of Bengal in Eastern India.

I would look at the East River as a goddess; the goddess of prosperity. Not the water of the East River, but the spirit of the East River that we recognize by seeing the water. Then the next thing that I would look at, or think about, is all these huge phallic buildings that house banks because New York is the banking capital of the universe. Those banks in New York are housed in these huge Shiva lingams, and wherever there are Shiva lingams that are hiding wealth, you know that the Mother Goddess is just below the surface, because the name of the Mother Goddess is prosperity. Whether that prosperity is mango trees laden with ripe fruit or fields of wheat or fluorescent green rice patties or treasure chests of gold coins, the name of the Mother Goddess is prosperity. She gives life and nourishment and sustenance as her nature. In those places where life, nourishment, and sustenance are concentrated, that is where the signatures of the Mother Goddess lie, and that’s where great prosperity is possible.

Does that mean that great prosperity is easily available to you and me? No, because there are also very greedy people on this planet who do their level best to control, manipulate, hide, and maintain those places. It is the same way in India; you go to temples of the Mother Goddess that are being coveted by the high priests of that temple. If you are a nice person and give a little donation, then those priests that are coveting that sacred ground will allow you access to the Mother Goddess, or at least her mark or her flag, to make one’s prayers. In this way New York City is probably one of the most sacred places on earth! That doesn’t make it a good place, that doesn’t make it a nice place, that doesn’t mean that you go there and get rich. You can die of starvation on the street. But that doesn’t take away from the fact that this is a very, very powerful place of abundance and prosperity, which is the nature of the Mother Goddess.

One other thing that I might mention is that in India all the deities have an animal, sort of a totemic animal, as their vehicle or as their companion. Ganesh is the elephant god who has got this big belly, who is the lord of obstacles because he is the lord of all those earth spirits that hide the wealth of the earth. Ganesh, who is also connected with prosperity and success, has as his companion vehicle the rat. What does the rat mark? The rat always marks abundance and prosperity. Why? Because wherever you have food and especially lots of food or abundance of food you have rats and mice to come and eat that food. So if you have rats and mice around, you know that there is abundant food because otherwise they wouldn’t be there. Does that mean you have to like rats and mice because they mark abundance? No, you abhor rats and mice because they are dirty, they steal, they cause disease and all these other things. But that doesn’t take away from the fact that they mark abundance, wealth, and prosperity. So that is why New York is a holy place.

CT: In your book you mention Patanjali's Yoga Sutras as an important text to the Naga Babas. You describe the yogic practice derived from the Yoga Sutras that involved using a guru mantra while counting fifty-one rotations through a string of a hundred rudraksha beads. You were to keep your back straight and not let your mind wander. Can you elaborate on what knowledge or practices of your tradition are specific to the Yoga Sutras?

R: The Yoga Sutra of Patanjali is one of these great exclamations of a yogi that was pretty spontaneous. It is said in the tradition that he came out with the Yoga Sutra in a spontaneous way. The significant thing that I mention there in the book is his definition of yoga, which would be yogah citta-vritti-nirodhah. Citta is the mind; the vritti is the movements, the chatter of the mind; nirodhah comes from the root rudh, which means to stop. What Patanjali is saying there is that yoga is stopping the chatter of the mind. Now, he is not saying stopping the mind—he’s not saying citta-nirodhah—which a lot of modern Western spiritual sects would have us believe. He is saying, stopping the chatter, the vritti, of the mind. So if I were to give that commentary, I would say that he was saying that if you can stop all the little bullshit, then that is the state of yoga. If you stop all the little things, all the little banalities of life, all the distractions, then that is the state of yoga. That’s what he is saying. That is also what I would call the state of renunciation.

What is curious about Patanjali is that the Yoga Sutra, which he is very well known for in the West, was almost spontaneous in creation. However, he spent eighty years composing a text called Mahabhashya, which is almost unknown in the West outside of academia. In the academic West it is well known because it is one of the greatest pieces of linguistics ever written. In the introduction to the Mahabhashya Patanjali asks this really astounding question; "What is the meaning of a word?" I mean, sound is the basis of our language, which is made up of words. Our language is that which gives the parameters to all our knowledge. Yet we are not sure what the meaning of a word is. If we don’t know what the meaning of a word is, then how do we think about knowledge, our human knowledge? To make things perhaps even worse for the uninitiated, he concludes this argument with the statement, "The meaning of a word is its sound."

So we’re back to square one. It’s these sounds, which are put together in all possible ways, that form the boundaries of our knowledge. And this to me is what makes Patanjali the great yogi, even more than his definition of yoga—citta-vritti-nirodhah—or his description of what constitutes yoga—Yam - niyam - asan - pranayama - pratyahar - dharan - dhyan - samadhi. I also talk about this in the book.

In the West, what most people do is take people like Patanjali or even Sankara and make them almost Christian figures and their texts biblical types of texts, to be taken in a fundamental sense, number one. Number two, taken as in the sense of both a primary and a secondary text. In all these cases, these texts, whether we are talking about the Vedas or we are talking about the commentaries of Sankara or Patanjali, all of these are only primary texts in the sense that they require a commentary and they require not just any commentary, but the commentary of the tradition of that lineage.

What’s curious about the Bible is that you can interpret it in any way you want to, basically. And people do. There isn’t a lineage unless you want to call the seat of Rome the lineage. There isn’t a lineage that offers a commentary to a text like that. And yet, I have heard the most ridiculous explanations and interpretations of Advaita Vedanta from people in the West, interpreting Sankara in ways that are completely foreign to the traditions of Sankara, or at least the traditions of Sankara that I am familiar with, and certainly the Naga Sannyasis, the Naga Babas, are a living tradition of Sankara.

CT: Can you give an example?

R: Yes, I can give an example. I remember an American scholar whom I was sitting with in India either last year or the year before. He was explaining to me how Advaita Vedanta was the best of all the systems. He explained to me why it was better than Buddhism and why it was better than Jainism and Christianity and all of this stuff, giving me a monotheistic approach to Advaita Vedanta. I said to him that sounds great, but it sounds like the combination of Christianity and the Hare Krishnas to me. I said to him that I had never ever heard that kind of explanation in the actual tradition of Sankara, that this is very foreign to the oral tradition of Sankara. In fact it stands Sankara on his head. His interpretation was monotheistic "my God is better than your God" stuff, which is not really the tradition of Sankara at all, at least not in my experience of the tradition of Sankara, my life in India. "My God is better than your God" is monotheistic drivel. The only thing it really serves to do is to create "us and them" and more conflict in the world.

This is not the case, I believe, in Sankara or the tradition that followed him. So here you have an example of somebody purporting to be in Sankara's tradition who was as hundred and eighty-degree opposite as you could ever be.

[naren]

Naren ji, think of
"I see tree"
"I see that I see tree"
"I see that I see that I see tree".......
the "see" is changing in senses in the same sentence. But they are defined only in terms of the "previous" "see"'s. You cannot take them out and make them stand alone. This is a simple example and it will terminate in a short iteration. But it shows how values or associated connotation changes by iteration. Now how would you try to describe the end product or terminal expression?

Fascinating. Will probably go OT if we explore further.

[ramana]

^^^ Then explore in another new thread, but don't stop looking. GDF has been created to look beyond the normal and normative.

[ramana]

There is a doctrine in one of our texts that deals with 'extraordinary' situations where the prescribed dharma can be deviated from. The reason why I post it is the floods in TSP are causing Hindus to seek refuge in camps. And guess what is being fed to them by the TSP in charge of the camps? Beef.
I wish some Hindu sant/leader makes known his commentary on what our texts say about following the normal religious practices in case of extreme distress or under duress. My view and I am not a leader or sant is that in such siutations( herded in refugee camps in times of natural calamities, or situations not under your control like in Dar-ul-Islam lands) departure for normal practices (eg. eating proscribed foods etc...) will not affect your adherence to Sanathan Dharma. If there was some clarification on this matter many of current TSP citizens would not be stuck in that rat hole.

[Muppalla]

There is a doctrine in one of our texts that deals with 'extraordinary' situations where the prescribed dharma can be deviated from. The reason why I post it is the floods in TSP are causing Hindus to seek refuge in camps. And guess what is being fed to them by the TSP in charge of the camps? Beef.
I wish some Hindu sant/leader makes known his commentary on what our texts say about following the normal religious practices in case of extreme distress or under duress. My view and I am not a leader or sant is that in such siutations( herded in refugee camps in times of natural calamities, or situations not under your control like in Dar-ul-Islam lands) departure for normal practices (eg. eating proscribed foods etc...) will not affect your adherence to Sanathan Dharma. If there was some clarification on this matter many of current TSP citizens would not be stuck in that rat hole.

This was written pretty beautifully in Telugu by Bakta Potana in Mahabhagavatam. The context was when Vamana came to ask for three feet of land from Sibi Chakravarthy, Sukracharya explains when one can lie and not get the sin.

added later
http://data.sgsdatta.org/wiki/index.php ... Bhagavatam

Another aspect in Bhagavatham is about telling lies. It states that in the following situations one can tell lies.

Prana, vita, manabhangamandu chakita gokulagrajanma rakshana mandu, vaivahikamulandu, varijakshulandu prana vitha mana bhangamandhu bonkavachu nadhipa|
According to this poem, an individual can lie to gain women, or to perform marriages. If there is danger to the life or money or situations of rape or losing power, an individual can tell lies. To protect the life of cattle or scholars, telling lies is not a sin.

[Abhi_G]

Ramana, buffalo sacrifice used to be standard in jamindari Durga/Kali pujas in Bengal, maybe even 50-60 years back. Of course it is the "mahishasur" connection - poor buffalo. But people used to consume the meat. I am also not a sant or guru but in such extreme circumstances, Hindus have to think of survival first. We have committed the mistake of removing people from our folds many times in the past over beef. I agree with you regarding some sant making some statements.

[brihaspati]

Almost all "shaktas" will have no problem whatsoever with non-beef meat. Problem is that there was always a difference between beef eating and buffalo eating. Buffalo's were exempt from the ban - cows and bulls were not. This is the fundamental debate also about the Sindhu Saraswati civilization. SSC shows evidence of buffalo bones with scrape marks and other possible indications of being slaughtered for meat and therefore was argued by some of the Thaparites as being proof of "beef-eating". This was equally vehemently protested that buffalos were not banned from being eaten.

The buffalo meat at "durga-puja" ashtami-navami sandhikshana "bali" would be deemed "purified" by the sacrifice, whereas meat in PA run camps or other shelters would not be ritually purified in the "Hindu" sense.

I think they should also be careful about beef in Pakiland in general. In BD there has been a sudden epidemic of anthrax after consuming a diseased animal which was slaughtered by suppressing the fact of the disease. In the general health hazards scenario following massive floods, the beef could very well be a health hazard as some of the pathogens are not killed off even on high temp cooking.

What is the big deal in providing the lentil-rice mixture - which we SDRE's know as "khichri"? Nutritious, consuming less fuel than cooking beef etc, less easily rotten, and quite safe even in epidemic situations!

[putnanja]

One interesting observation I had when reading Mahabharatha is that the week names aren't mentioned at all. The thithi( the number of day following the new moon, and whether it is shukla or krishna paksha ) is mentioned, as also the nakshatra, but not vaara.

According to what I read, India had six days to a week earlier, and it was changed to 7 days a week later on after Alexander's invasion( greek influence?). But what I am interested in knowing is the complete absense of week names in MB. Don't know how it is in Ramayana though.

[Abhi_G]

^^^
That is interesting. Tithi would be more robust no? If the "vaar" is mentioned then amuk "shan, amuk "maasika" ityadi no? Whereas, if tithi is used, then solely related to Krishna/Shukla paksha. The position of the star is used as reference. I may be wrong big time here.

Related to this, I thought that the names of the weekdays were direct influence from Indic sources. If you happen to know the French versions which carry the Latin influence, many of the names of the week correspond to our Sanskrit versions. Which way did the information flow? East to West or West to East?

Som (Moon) Lundi (Lun <- Luna/r)
Mangal (Mars) Mardi (Mar <- Mars)
Vudh/Budh (Mercury) Mercredi (Merc?)
Brihaspati (Jupiter) Jeudi (Jeu??)
Shukra (Uranus?) Vendredi (do not know)
Shani (Saturn) Samedi (do not know)
Ravi (Sun) Dimanche (do not know)

Also here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Week-day_names

Interestingly enough, I am hearing some references of "koshthi vichaara" (horoscope analysis) to be inspired after Alexander's invasion following their oracles.

[Carl_T]

I don't know about French but in Spanish:

Lunes - Moon
Martes - Mars
Miercoles - Mercury
Jueves - Jupiter
Viernes - Venus
Sabado - Sabbath
Domingo - Day of lord

EDIT: Just saw link

[Abhi_G]

Italian, Spanish, Romanian and French have Latin roots. That is very well known. The question was how the connection was made with the Indic counterparts of the names of weekdays.

[putnanja]

^^^
That is interesting. Tithi would be more robust no? If the "vaar" is mentioned then amuk "shan, amuk "maasika" ityadi no? Whereas, if tithi is used, then solely related to Krishna/Shukla paksha. The position of the star is used as reference. I may be wrong big time here.

I am not arguing about whether thithi is more robust or not. However, the absence of "vaara' in the epics is quite interesting. In hindu astrology, certain combinations of vaara and nakshatra isn't suitable for some auspicious events like marraige, thread ceremony etc. And vaara(weekday) plays a big role in astrology. The fact that it is missing in our epics means that at one time, it wasn't given importance. Or does it imply something else?

[Abhi_G]

^^^^
No, no, I did not mean you were against/for anything.

It just occurred to me that tithi may be more robust. But there can be arguments against that too. My thinking was something like this: if the timing corresponding to the position of a star/planet is accurate and keeping in mind that the stars/plantes (at least the visible ones) do not vanish in the time scales corresponding to human life (and Indics have been observing movement of stars from aniquity), then all events post that timing can be accurately tabulated.

[Pulikeshi]

Almost all "shaktas" will have no problem whatsoever with non-beef meat. Problem is that there was always a difference between beef eating and buffalo eating. Buffalo's were exempt from the ban - cows and bulls were not.

The Bull and Veal were eaten - there are references for this and I have posted them before on BRF.
Samkara (see Radhakrishnan's Principal Upanishads for example) says that this is allowed depending on country and climate.
It made absolutely no sense to eat the cow - she is the giver of milk, worthy of veneration, etc.

Dharmic's need to be educated that society evolves and mores and norms change...
If a particular sect or group within the Dharmic umbrella want or do not want to eat beef it is their right.
The government needs to honor the contract of allowing the people of follow their religious beliefs.
The need to look for overarching rules - No beef shall be consumed -
in the Hindu texts is to succumb to the problem of hierarchical religions and beliefs.

This is my best understanding of the matter - irrespective of personal choice.

[naren]

I would see this from a utilitarian perspective. Cow has its utilty. Its possible that the farmers might have slaughtered the cows just for a day's meat. If you "divinize" it, you can just get by, the winter season, with cow's milk. In the summer season, your "living tractor" could be employed in various ways.

[SwamyG]

A fascinating site: http://ancientindians.net/

[brihaspati]

Actually there are quite a number of refs for beef eating in the earlier texts. However, post Vedas, the refs dwindle. Maybe we should consider the possibility that things like anthrax visited India once. Except milk, no other part of the cow is safe - not even when cooked.

[Mauli]

Samskruta Sukthi Sagar

http://www.archive.org/details/SamskrutaSukthiSagar

Must read for those who wants to enjoy the "Rasa" of Sanskrit poetry.For those with Victorian morality discretion is advised.

[ramana]

Bji, I would like to explore the cosmogony described in the Hindu Epics and puranas. My interest was piqued by this article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale

[naren]

In tamil texts, there is a reference to eight types of warfare. One such warfare is stealing the neighbouring king's cows and it complementary - defending against it. I think there are such references in other texts too ? This implies that the cow was treated like "property".

[ramana]

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[ramana]

And for those who already know Sanskrit:

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[Carl_T]

And for those who want to pay money and read Sanskrit:

http://www.claysanskritlibrary.org

[Carl_T]

Actually there are quite a number of refs for beef eating in the earlier texts. However, post Vedas, the refs dwindle. Maybe we should consider the possibility that things like anthrax visited India once. Except milk, no other part of the cow is safe - not even when cooked.

If the reason is anthrax, abstinence would not be limited to beef but to meat of other animals like buffalos and goats as well. Now anthrax could be part of the reason for abstinence from meat in general, but it would not specifically single out the cow.


Regarding the utilitarian explanation, should it not apply to the buffalo as well?

[Pratyush]

Samskruta Sukthi Sagar

http://www.archive.org/details/SamskrutaSukthiSagar

Must read for those who wants to enjoy the "Rasa" of Sanskrit poetry.For those with Victorian morality discretion is advised.

Getting a weird message cannot be displayed as it is under review.

[naren]

Regarding the utilitarian explanation, should it not apply to the buffalo as well?

May be the buffaloes looked SDRE compared to TFTA cows ? Thats racist !

Given a choice between killing cow and buffalo, probably buffalos were chosen. May be cow's byproducts have more medicinal values, that they were preferred ? Its also interesting to note that buffaloes have been "demonized" as the vehicle of Yama, whereas the cows have been deified.