India
is rich in spiritual Heritage and every custom laid down by
our ancestors to be followed had a clear reason behind it. A
fable or Mythological story was given, as reason for following
such customs so that the adherence may commence even from childhood;
but the wonderful benefits derived by following the mandate
was really surprising. The actual reason for such practice was
appreciated at a mature stage.
Puranic
Story about north
The traditional custom in India is that one should not lie towards
the North - having his head placed towards the Northern direction.
The popular story connected with this practice is as follows.
Goddess Parvathi was once necessitated to leave her abode for
getting water. As there was nobody to keep watch over the house
during her absence, she made a doll and gave it life and instructed
it to keep watch over the abode and not to allow anybody inside
till she came back. It happened that Lord Shiva wanted to enter
the house but forbidden to do so by the boy (i.e. the doll with
life). Enraged by this obstruction, the Lord at once cut of
the head of the boy and entered the house. Meanwhile The Divine
Mother entered the house and learnt the boy had met with his
end at Lord Shankara’s hand. She demanded from Lord Shankara
that the boy’s life must be restored at any cost. Shankara at
once ordered that head of any person who slept towards the North
must be brought for this purpose. The attendants of Lord Shiva
found only an elephant in that position and the head of the
elephant was brought and placed on the trunk of the boy and
his life restored. This is said to be the Lord Ganesa. And was
given many boons one of which was that no good act can be started
without worshipping Lord Ganesa. Incidentally Lord Shiva said
that who so ever slept towards North shall lose all his fortune
and goodness and shall be deemed to be great sinner.
Another story is that as Lord Yama- the Duty God (DHARMA) resides
in the south, nobody shall sleep towards North, as this would
mean disrespect to the Lord of Dharma, as ones feet will be
towards South in this position.
Scientific explanation
Our Sages thought that having born, as a human one should not
fritter away his energy with out deriving any advantage. It
is the duty of any person born, to acquire knowledge and proceed
in the right line of thinking and try to reach the Omnipotent
as his final goal. For this it is absolutely necessary to conserve
one’s energy to the best of one’s capacity.
Our body comprises of Iron, Cobalt and Nickel in small proportion
as necessary constituents to make us strong. In places situated
in the area between latitude 0 to 40 degrees the horizontal
component of earth’s magnetic field exists in considerable magnitude.
Its value at equator is 0.38 Oersteds (C.G.S. Units) and at
40deg. it is 0.31 C.G.S. Units. This means that a unit pole
placed in this region is either attracted or repelled (depending
upon the nature of the pole) with 0,38 to 0,31 dynes of force
(depending upon the latitude of the place)
The magnetic lines of force runs from South to North When a
man sleeps towards the North, these lines of forces run through
him and his cerebrum and at each instant, the iron, cobalt,
nickel present in his body is being magnetised and in a short
time the human body becomes a mass of small magnets. Summing
up all these small magnets become one big magnet of magnetic
moment ‘M’ which will be the resultant of pole strength multiplied
by the length of the magnets. Thus the human body will be subjected
to a force of MH dynes. Where H is the Horizontal component
if the Earth’s Magnetic Field.
When a person sleeps towards North he will be making an angle
of 0 deg. With the line of action of Force and as such the component
of Force along him will be MH Cosine 0. But Cos 0 = 1. Hence
full force of MH dynes will pass through his Cerebrum.
What does this mean?
Out of his conserved energy he will have to spend every time
MH dynes to counter act this force, in order to keep the system
in equilibrium. This means he is losing every time MH dynes
from his reserves. Thus sleeping towards the North is a wasting
disease as his energy is drained
by this quantity.
When he sleeps towards the south then the component along his
body will be MH Cos 180degrees as he is sleeping opposite to
the line of action of the Force. Cos 180 = -1. And hence he
loses _MH dynes every time. This means he gets MH dynes added
on to his system and one therefore sleeps towards South to his
best advantage.
Sleeping towards East or West would mean that the component
of the force is MH Cos 90 or MH Cos 270 degrees which is ‘0’as
Cos 90 and Cos 270 degrees are equal to 0. Hence the man is
not subjected to any reaction.
Persons situated at higher latitudes are not subjected to influence
of this force as the value of H wanes out as we go higher up.
It is 0.18 C.G.S.Units at U.K. and 0 at the Pole
Hence the maximum effect is felt by the people living between
the two Tropics and India being one such country, our ancestors
rightly laid down, as one of the normal precepts of life to
be followed, that one should not sleep towards the north as
they wanted to discourage any wastage of energy, however small
it may be. Only a literate in science subject can understand
the above analysis. As our ancestors wanted everybody whether
literate or illiterate to be benefited equally they have told
these through stories. They aimed at the results only in whatever
way the principle is conveyed to the mass. From this we can
see how our ancestors have framed our codes of life with high
scientific principle.
