Nowadays
we see a lot of documentaries on television giving scientific
or rational explanations for the Biblical events. But not many
things in the Hindu epics or Puranas are explained in the same
way. Any one with a scientific bent of mind or rational outlook
can find explanations for most of the ‘unusual or abnormal’
phenomena or miracles. While I was working for the BBC World
Service twelve years ago I had to interview one Indian doctor
who had specialisation in Test Tube(IVF) Babies. Casually I
mentioned that Gandhari also might have undergone IVF treatment
to give birth to 100 children from the urns where the pieces
of flesh were kept. But the doctor laughed at my suggestion.
I was surprised to read my view many years later when Mr Cho
Ramaswamy started writing Mahabaharata in his magazine ‘Tughlak’.
I am giving below some events from our epics and puranas and
modern explanations for the same. They may raise some questions
such as, did they have all the modern equipments like today?
or Are they just imagination or intuition about the future?
I leave it to the judgement of the readers.
Dasavatara and Darwin
Many of us have noticed the
similarity between Darwin’s Theory of Evolution and ten avataras
of Lord Vishnu . Fish/matsya Avatara, Tortoise/kurma Avatara,,
Boar/varaha Avatara, Man- Lion/narasimha Avatara, Dwarf/vamana
Avatara, then Rama, Parasurama, Krishna, Buddha(or Balarama)
and Kalki avataras are equated with the life in the sea, amphibians,
land animals, half man/half animal-semi civilised state, then
full grown intelligent men. This is a reflection of Darwin’s
Theory of Evolution. While I was writing this , a news item
appeared in the British newspapers saying that they have found
a fossil of 3 foot tall man. They also added that these kind
of people may still be existing even today in the remote forests.
This justifies the Vamana (dwarf) avatara. We already know that
there are pygmies in the Congo forests of Africa.
One Indian scholar explains the Varaha Avatara as follows:
‘One is reminded of the meaningful story full of highly relevant
symbolism from our Puranas, centred round the incarnation of
Lord Vishnu as the boar to restore the Mother Earth that had
tilted and slipped into the depths of ocean. The moral is when
human beings become oblivious of their responsibilities consequent
on their interconnectedness and interdependence, God Almighty
incarnates as Yagna Varaha-symbol of the principle of sacrifice.
When our actions become self-oriented and disjointed, breaking
the natural interrelatedness, Truth gets devalues and there
is atilt. Varaha(boar) comes to remind man of the urgency of
bringing the sense of sacrifice into his actions, of raising
them into Yagnas, so that harmony and strength are restored
as also the balance.
Theory of Time Dilation
If a 16 year old person travels at the speed of light (186000
miles per second), that person will be a Markandeya for ever.
He will be young for ever. We came to know this fact only after
the greatest physicist of our times Albert Einstein gave us
the Theory of Relativity. But there is a story in our Puranas
about Arjuna’s travel to Swarga (an alien planet?) in Indra’s
chariot driven by his driver Matali. When Arjuna came back to
earth he saw people more aged than he expected. When he asked
for explanation scholars told him that the time on earth was
different from the time of the place he visited. Even now we
read in the Puranas about Deva’s day, Manu’s day and Brahma’s
day. They have different durations. No other religion in the
world described ‘Time’ this way. The concept of time and the
way we use adjectives like ‘Surya Koti samaprabha’/light equivalent
to million suns show that our forefathers were aware of the
modern concepts.
(to
be continued)
