Prabhakar P Rao

• LANGUAGE, LINGUISTICS AND VEDIC DEITIES

• pprabhakarrao@rediffmail.com

VAGDEVATHA - Venerations to SPEECH : A Vedic Deity

1. We quote from Rig-Veda: [Ref 1}: Preceptor: Dirgha Thamah Auchathyah; Deity: Vagdhevatha:

“Chathwaari Vaakparimithaa Padhaani thaani vidhurbrahmanaah yee maniishinah | guhaa thriini nihithaa neengyanthi thuriiyam vaachoo manushyaa vadhanthi | Rg Veda:1:164:45 ||”

This translates as follows: Knowledgeable persons, Pandits opine that speech or sentences, composed of words, span over four dimensions, or stages in human mind. Three of them are hidden deep within and humans vocalize only the fourth stage.

In his well known text, Vaakyapadhiiyam, Bharthr Hari termed these four stages functionally as: Parawak, the concepts composed of condensed bits of thoughts, memes, deep in the human mind, Pashynthii, the serialized verbal format in the brain along with apt stresses and emotions, Madhyamawak, the propagational form (compression - rarefaction waves) in air, physically joining a speaker and his listener(s) and Vaikhari Nada, the perceptional (by the listener) forms.

2, [Ref 1]: Preceptor: Vamadevah, Deity: Agnih:

Chathwaari Shringaa Thrayoo Asya Paadaa Dhwee Shiirshee Saptha Hasthaasoo Asya | Thridhaa Badhdhoo Vrishabhoo Rooraviithi Mahoo Devoo Marthyaan Aaviveesha || Vama Deva : Rig Veda : 4:58:3 ||

Meaning: Riding on a Four Horned and Three Footed Bull with Two Heads and Seven Hands And Reined Thrice, that is Braying Aloud, the Almighty One Marches on and on Leading Us all along with Him.

Interpretation: "Mahoo Devoo" The Concepts emanating from depths of human Mind, "Vrishabhoo Rooraviithi" take the form of (ride on a bull) Speech and "Marthyaan Aaviveesha", propagate (as compression and rarefaction waves) in Atmospheric Air. This speech is composed of sentences with four stages of development (‘chathwaari shringaa’ as explained above) that are expressed in three tenses (past, present and future). These sentences are composed of words that have two distinct forms of existence (vocal form, the word and perceptional form, the meaning). These words are recognized mainly as nouns that take on seven cases (depending on modes of their participation in objective world acts) and verbs that take on three forms (depending on person they are attached to, viz., first, second or third).

It is commendable that with only forty two letters, the main structural features of all languages as also their propagation method have been metaphorically epitomized – it appears, the precetptors banked more on vocal media to carry the messages across Time.

The delineation of sentential evolution into four stages as described above appears to be more generic: eg, modern Management Sciences consider the life history of any project over four stages, viz, Conceptualization to start with, Design and Validation, Organization and Implementation by all within and finally, Marketing, the effects on and reactions by the General Populace and all without, only amongst whom the project can sustain and flourish. The parallelism between the two delineation criteria is evident.

Moreover, it is believed that all Vedic knowledge, Veda formed a single group in the beginning and Sage Veda Vyaasa, author of Maha Bharath, divided it into four divisions, viz, Rg, Yajur, Saama and Atharva Vedas based on the above criteria. The Vedas, all together, are supposed to discuss the “raison-d’-etre”, the "purpose-to-be" for all human life in general. Incidentally, vyaasa, literally means, diameter of a circle that divides it into two, a divisor or a devisor.

Ref 1: Rig-Veda Samhitha: Ed: H P Venkat Rao, Pub. Shri Jaya Chamarajendra Veda Rathna Mala, Mysore, 1953.

What is Knowledge?

According to ancient Indian thoughts, knowledge, Jnaana, has no isolated existence. First, there has to be a person who wants to know, Jnaathr; then something, that is worth known, Jneeya, that, has to capture his mind. Next, the jnaathr has to research, arjana it or someone has to teach, prajnaana it to him. The resulting representation of jneeya that is worth known, within jnaathr, one who wished to know, is jnaana, the knowledge. Representation of a problem-solution in a human-mind is knowledge.

First Language Acquisition by Toddlers

ABSTRACT: Language is devised by humans to represent objects, facts and events etc symbolically in words to significantly enhance interpersonal information exchange, analysis, storage and retrieval etc. In general, various features of objects, etc (including verbal names assigned to them) are cognized in various explicit regions of our brains; guided by our mentors in our toddler years, numerous connectionist networks develop in our nascent associational cortex, conjoining the correlated features that enable us to recognize the objects. Soon, we advance to cognize motion and thereby events and associated verbs that involve one or more participants whose status may change as a result of the motion. In course we learn to develop sentences to represent events: (static events are descriptions). When multiple participants act out an event, we find it hard to distinctly identify the role of each actor in our sentences; our mentors initiate us into use of ‘cases’ under such cases. Once, familiar with reasonably numerous verbs and associated actions leading to specific status shifts of objects, we find it easier to recognize objects in terms of their roles in different actions rather than in terms of their features, ie, we recognize objects in terms of their utility.

We do not know what form of speech was used by the early Hominid Neanderthal, with a shallow forehead about 60 thousand years ago [1, 2], if at all. But, his contemporary, the Homo Sapien, our ancestor, somehow got on to a fast track of linguistic development that got him a raised forehead accommodating a novel, hemispheric cerebral cortex. Of course, this cortex was not all used for only language skills; Language enabled him to interact closely with his fellow beings and to fine-tune his mental faculties via moderations applied to his limbic system driven emotional attitudes, to develop himself to be a cerebral cortex mediated rational species. Language is a facility evolved in human brain-minds that represents natural objects, events and facts symbolically via quantization of information in words and thereby it enables easy and reasonably accurate communication amongst fellow beings. So, any study of science of Language, Linguistics, needs to be holistically pursued within the frameworks of features of brain-minds; nature of objects and procedures of events. A few concepts are abstracted here on the neural representation of words, nouns and verbs, and their meanings in our brains as also on perception and comprehension of sentences in our minds.

Reference: Our hypothesis above appears to be supported by the findings in Max Plank Institute, Germany reported here:

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_language;

2. Neanderthal Genome Sequence, published in 'Science', May 7, 2010.

Connectionist Model for representation of Nouns and their Meanings

The human brain is composed of about 100 billion neurons mainly in four functional organs: the spinal cord and forebrain that keep us alive, the limbic system that forms our emotional survival kit, the cerebellum that supervises our balancing systems and the cerebral cortex that rationalizes us. Our linguistic skills, centered in the cortex are only well documented [1, 2]. Babies at birth are endowed with a vocal cord in their throats and fine hair cells within their cochleae. Guided by the parental assisstance, the toddlers, over their early months, firm up the prolific cortical neuro-axonal connectivity in their brains by instinct and tune up the vocal cords and auditory hair cells to accommodate the abundant speech phonems distributed in the environment [1,2]. By about six months, their sight-related occipital cortex on the rear and sound-related auditory cortex at left mid-posterior brain will have been well delineated. When they watch a teddy bear, for instance, the related optic signals incident on retinas, are transduced into neuro-electric pulse trains and relayed to a micro-neuron pool in the occipital cortex to excite a persistent image there. Similarly, when they hear a word, ‘teddy’, a corresponding image is excited at certain micro-neuron pool in the auditory cortex. Once, well trained to obtain focused images at respective regions, their nascent brains, with proliferation of axons, proceed on hunt for further order in nature [1,4]. Next, when an affectionate mentor holds a teddy bear in front of a baby and repeatedly pronounces the word, ‘teddy’, the contiguity of images at occipital and auditory regions prompts his instinct to recognize a problem in his associational cortex and a neuro-axonal connectionist circuit gets pruned in conjoining the two regions. The baby gets exhilarated and trims down the conjoining path to optimize it, and proceeds further, on hunt for such pairs, clusters of loose information packets [1,3]. Soon, for a piece of cake, he would develop a connectionist circuit in his association cortex conjoining the images of its form, size, color, taste, smell, etc. in respective cortical regions. The circuit is connectionist[8], in the sense that, it conjoins all images, viz., the image of the word ‘cake’ in his auditory region, the image of its likely shapes and colors in his occipital region, the images of its smell, taste in their respective regions, etc. Subsequently for signals of any one image, say, for the word, ‘cake’, all other data are excited via the conjoining circuit and that serves as a meaning; similarly, for its specific taste, the sum total of all other data serves as a meaning and so on. Now on, the moment a cake is shown to him, he recollects its taste and smell etc., and vice-versa, ie, he now perceives the meaning of the shape or the word, cake. It is inadvisable at this stage to speculate on physiology and complexity of the ‘conjoining circuits’; however in view of our understanding of the zonal delineations in our cortex for various sensory, motor and other activities, as also of the relatively large size and disposition of ‘associational cortical region’ [2], we are reasonably confident of the gross physical structure for the conjoining circuits [6,7]. It is further interesting to note that the pyramidal neurons that populate all, 2 to 5 layers of our cerebral cortex with their centrally placed pyramidal body surrounded all around by abundant spiny dendrites and a long axon [2, 5] are geometrically ideally suited for the bi-directional integration and analysis of the signals as demanded in this context. Physiology of pyramidal neurons has remained rather obscure, vis-à-vis, typical relay neurons. In conclusion: it is known that natural objects with multiple characterizing features cast multiple images in various sensory regions of the brains; toddlers instinctually prune in prolific axonal growth in their associational cortex to retain optimal connectionist neuron pool with branches reaching out to concerned sensory regions. This enables abstraction of the ‘image’ data for analysis and synthesis which connotes ‘representation’ of the object in terms of its vocal name and other features as also for their subsequent perception. However, this method of representation is somewhat externally imposed. It appears that as toddlers advance to acquire verbs, they get to be more objective and develop a utility based representation for the objects within their brains.

References: 1. Bransford J D, Brown A L and Cucking R L.,: NRL, Brain, Mind, Experience, School, Chapter 5, Minds and Brain. (http://www.nap.edu/html/howpeople1/index.html).

2. Guyton A C. (1981),: Textbook of Medical Physiology, p 560. (Saunders, Tokyo).

3 Gopnik A., Meltzoff A, and Kuhl P, (1999): How Babies Think - Science of Childhood. pp 102-108, (Widenfeld & Nicholson, London).

4.. Clarke R. (2003) : Linguistics 101, Lecture 10, Language Processing in Brain. (http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~rclark/summer_2003/ling001

5.Viktor Kharazia - Cortical Neural Structure 3, html,http://tonto.stanford.edu/~viktor/index.html,

6. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain,  : Functions;

7.http://www.biocrawler.com/encyclopedia/Biological_neural_network, : Representation in Neural Networks

8. Connectionism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connectionism/

Cognition And Recognition – Combinatorial Architecture

We present here a few more information that are active within our brains-mind, on the Stages between Cognition and Recognition. The circuit considered in Section 3.1 above, is connectionist: for, it conjoins the images of the form of the object cognized and its colour in our occipital region and images of its name, smell, taste etc in our auditory and other respective regions. Thereby, all images are being recorded and COGNISED by us at our respectively co-joined Neural Sectors, each forming a separate Phenomenal Architecture, a Combinatorial Sector [1] in the Associational Region of our Brains.

These Combinatorial Neural Sectors of the cake, 3.1 above, need to be unified and be comprehended by our ‘Self’ prompted, motivationally-driven, Vital force, for the ‘Conjoin’ of all these features, now forms a ‘Meaning’ for the word, ‘Cake’, thus forming a Recognitional Combinatorial Neural Sector in our Brains. Now on, the moment a Cake is shown to us, we RECOGNISE the full Meaning of the word, 'Cake'.

Four Stages between Cognition to Recognition:

In Brain-Mind Sciences, we comprehend, ie ‘Recognise’ Real World Events via four developmental Stages that are elaborated below:

To start with, we Cognise the images above in the form of the Combinatorial Sectors in the Association Region of our Brains as presented above. We first Cognise them via the Blessings of the ‘Shri Gurus’, in the form of ‘Data amassed into our Cognitional Arena’ leading to our cognitional ‘First Understandings’.

Next, we proceed to our ‘Poorva Gurus’ with our open Minds, for ‘Manana’ to ingest these data into our erstwhile Understandings to get them to be ‘Information’ within us via Blessings of the ‘Gurus’.

Further, we continue to our ‘Aadhi Gurus’ for the ‘Nidhi Dhii Aasiina, Nidhidhyasana’, the ‘Evaluation and Placement’ of this ‘Knowledge’ into its appropriate Locations.

Finally, we arrive at our ‘Muula Gurus’, our ‘Ulterior Destination’, for the ‘Saakshaathkarana’ of the Knowledge into ‘Wisdom’, our own ‘Inherence’, ie our internalized, the final RECOGNITION’al State.

References: 1 : http://Pulvermuller F. Knoblauch A, 2009, Discrete Combinatorial Circuits emerging in Neural Networks.

Shri Gurubhyoo Namah | Aadhi Gurubhyoo namah | Poorva Gurubhyoo

Namah | Muula Gurubhyoo Namah | Muula Dheevathaabhyoo Namah ||

Bio-neural Software representation of Verbs:

Verbs in general, represent active events that are physiologically more complex than simple nouns, objects and the methodology elaborated above fails to be adoptable for their representation; toddlers delay acquisition of verbs for a while. As has been brought out under Basis for Linguistic Syntax, Declensions on Nouns[1], by about eighteen months, a toddler instinctually acquires a few physical acts or events, such as, eating, swallowing, giving, etc., via developing in her brain a few facilitations. Numerous proprioceptive sensory and kinesthetic motor neurons are embedded into all our muscles and tendons to enable us reflexively acquire such events. In terms of modern Computer Operations, for each algorithm, such as moving the jaws and tongue in synchrony, we instinctually train concerned proprioceptive and kinesthetic neurons to achieve the task and retain such facilitation in subconscious memory. Such facilitations may be termed, by computational theory of mind, CTM, as bio-neural software. Subsequently at an occasion when her mummy offers a piece of cake and cajoles her to ‘eat it fast’, being already familiar with vocal representations of nouns, it occurs to her to try out labeling the word to eat for the act; mummy’s reactions support and enthrall her. Earlier it was believed that young toddlers lazed their times sleeping them out, whereas recent studies have revealed that their, firming-up-winning-synapses methodology based learning rates are fastest [2,3]. They acquire facts and methodologies simultaneously. It is for consolidation of such vast stream of data and information in their brains that they need long hours of sleep. Thus, once a toddler learns rudiments of acquisition of instinctive verbal software and their vocal equivalents, she pursues along same lines whenever she encounters similar scenarios. The structure and complexity of such software are inestimable; yet the concepts seem to be well placed. Clinical studies on brain-patients have shown that those with tumors at left-mid-central region, known as Broca’s region, show indications of agrammatical aphasia, wherein certain physical actions as well as grammastic expression and comprehension showed significant deficiencies [4]. In conclusion, it appears that all event-procedures and concerned verbs get represented in our brains as, some sort of, bio-neural software. The software serves as meaning for the vocal, verb located at auditory cortex.

References: 1. Syntax/Wikipedia/: Section 2: Basis for Linguistic Syntax.

2. Bransford J D, Brown A L and Cucking R L.,: NRL, Mind, Brain and Experience, Chapter 5, Mind and Brain. (http://www.nap.edu/html/howpeople1/index.html

3. Gopnik A., Meltzoff A, and Kuhl P, (1999): How Babies Think - Science of Childhood. Pp 102-108, (Widenfeld & Nicholson, London).

4. Federmeier K D, Segal J B, Lombrozo T and Kutas M.(2000) : Brain responses to nouns, verbs and class-ambiguous words in context. Brain, 123,12, pp 2552-2562.

Cognition and Comprehension of Sentences:

Now that the neural models for nouns and verbs, that together form simple sentences, have been figured out, what more is required to comprehend a sentence? A verb represents an action executable via certain procedure(s) by one or more actors, nouns and, in general, the status of the actors gets changed following any action. Such changes would be of use or utility, and thereby, of value for live actors. At a simplistic level, the utility ie, the vital force linking the acts and life systems gets determined in terms of requirements of ‘maintenance of internal homeostasis’; eg, a starved baby feels by nature via instinct away from homeostasis; whereas, a baby habituated to be close to his mummy for long hours would be by habituation via nurture away from homeostasis when he misses her for a while longer. Toddlers, subconsciously recognize simple objective acts, implementation of verbs, as means of narrowing any miss-matches that appear in their internal homeostasis. This prompts them, or, induces intentionality in them, to acquire, ie, to develop and hold, around their Broca’s regions [1] a library of algorithms, bits of bio-neural software that they may act out or may participate in ongoing acts as and when required. Here, it can be summarized that sentences are verbal representations of objective acts that result in status changes of the actors. We as human beings cognise sentences in terms of likely changes in internal homeostasis that might result due to such status shifts, while ourselves partaking in the act. That is how person A feels satiated after having taken a meal as also understands, perceives person B’s statement, a sentence of having had his dinner. Comprehension of the sentences, on the other hand is a very complex process: eg; for a query, such as ‘what is the time?’, a simple perception may beget a reply, ‘half past eight,’ whereas, a good comprehension might offer varieties of replies, such as: ‘oh, it’s already half past eight’ to ‘I misplaced my wrist watch, What a traffic on the roads! or, 'Time! what? That depends!!’, etc. Studies on comprehension are placed under ‘Linguistic Semantics’.

Reference: [1]:. Federmeier K D, Segal J B, Lombrozo T and Kutas M.(2000) : Brain responses to nouns, verbs and class-ambiguous words in context. Brain, 123, 12, pp 2552-2562.

Versatality of the Bio-neural Software:

It has been shown above how acquisitions in brains of humans or other life systems of certain bio-neural software enable emergence of intentionality to participate in real world events and how it facilitates humans to transliterate such events into sentences and also to perceive such sentences. A few more features of such software can easily be identified:

Up gradation of the Bio-neural Software

Obviously, for a baby in arms, ‘to eat’ consists only of moving his jaws and tongue whenever any soft food is tucked in his mouth and swallowing it and crying aloud when the baby feels starved. However, for a toddler, one option for ‘to eat’ may consist of a race to the kitchen and a search for the sweet piece of cake in the fridge etc. More over, in course, two distinct parts in this software get delineated. ie an action procedure part controlling body muscles to sit on a chair, use a fork to tuck the food to mouth, grind it leisurely etc and an interface, ie, a participant characterization part that describes, what, when, how much and what not to eat and when to stop etc. Thus, these soft ware get continually up graded as one advances in age.

Establishment of Relations between Objects

It has already been seen that all actions call for one or more participants with explicit characteristics to take on distinct roles. One may eat only specific items; one may give away only whatever he possesses, and so on. A verb thus defines a procedural relation between the participant nouns. As has been concluded under above section, Bio-neural Software Model for Verbs, toddlers subconsciously get the rudiments of such constraints that translate as Syntax guidelines, early though they may vocalize them quite later. Thus, by about two to three years, they would have learnt to relate and classify the objects in terms of their characteristics or utilities. Such classification and utility based perception of objects improve their knowledge base at faster rates.

Basis for Linguistic Syntax

Declensions on Nouns

The problem of syntax covers mainly two aspects in structuring of sentences, viz., declensions on nouns and word ordering; here we consider the first aspect in detail. Discussion under First Language Acquisition/Representation and Perception of Nouns ^[1] reveals that certain connectionist networks conjoining the images of various features of objects including their names get developed in association regions of our brains which enable their representation and subsequent perception. Representation of verbs is more complex and discussion under First Language Acquisition/Bio-neural Software Model for Verbs^[2] hypothesizes development of certain connectionist Bio-neural Software networks in our associational brains that implement the concerned actions, events and these software are subsequently captioned for their vocal names, the verbs. Just as their modern Computer Program counterparts, the software are necessarily composed of two parts: one that ensures the aptness of various actors for the event concerned and second that implements the event. Associating these observations with the fact the sentences in general are vocal representations of certain real world events, we will first describe below how the necessity for noun declensions are dictated by verbs concerned and second speculate on how toddlers acquire and adopt these features into their linguistic skills.

Let us consider a general verb, ‘to give’. Obviously this event requires three actors, one, a subject to exercise the act, to give, second, a first object, an object that is being given and third, a second object or dative, a noun that receives the object. It is easy to see that the three actors assume explicitly different and distinct roles with respect to the event. In course of instinctually ^[3,4] learning such an event, a toddler subconsciously and simultaneously gets the above distinctive features embedded into the first part of the bio-neural software. Subsequently when he encounters the problem of vocalizing such an event, may be, at two to three years of age, he scans subconsciously the event procedure through the software and notes specificities of the different nouns and timely parental guidance enables him to home on to the declensions for the nouns. Thus, the basics of syntax are genetically acquired for a few primary, representative verbs to start with and they are generalized for other verbs as and when they are encountered. In summary, any real world event requires one or more actors to participate in distinct roles. e.g., ‘to give’ requires three actors, one to give, second to accept and a third, the object that is being given. In any sentence, which is a verbal representation of such an event, these roles of actors are identified by appropriate subscripts or prepositions attached on to each of nouns. It appears that young toddlers acquire simple real world events as well as their verbal representations, i.e., for syntactic structuring those events in their mother tongue or first-language simultaneously. Thus, universality in syntactic structuring of all languages arises due to the universal nature of real world events.

References:

1. First Language Acquisition/Representation and Perception of Nouns.

2. First Language Acquisition/Bio-neural Software Model for Verbs:

3. Chomsky N., (1967), Review of Verbal Behavior in L A Jakobovits. Ed., Readings in Philosophy of Language, Englewood Cliffs, Prentice Hall.NJ.

4. Bower H G and Hilgard E R., (1986), Theories of Learning, V Ed., Prentice Hall, ND, pp 1-12.

Word ordering in Sentences

Nearly 150 years ago, German philologist, Max Muller at Oxford recognized that Indo-European Languages had significant commonalities in vocabulary and grammar. Bertrand Russell and Wittgenstein at Cambridge proposed a concept of Logical Atomism whereby knowledge is acquired by humans as atomic constructs or memes that are assembled to obtain sentences. As regards sentential structures, a profound distinction in position of verbs exists: verbs in Sanskrit are placed at ends of sentences, whereas in English they immediately follow subjects. Reason is perhaps simple: Oriental Sanskrit adopts a descriptive approach and as pointed out in Basis for Linguistic Syntax, Declensions on Nouns, since any event can be accomplished only after all paraphernalia are assembled, the verbal representation of the event, a sentence, carries the verb at its end. On the other hand, English adopts a prescriptive approach, declaring the event, verb immediately following the subject and then elaborating on the roles of various actors in the event. Moreover, it has been seen that the declension a noun carries is decided by the mode of its participation in the event concerned. Now, coming to the ordering of words, consider a simple, typical sentence: “The teacher shall return the answer-books to the students in the class-room at 2.P M tomorrow”. In a Sanskrit sentence also, the ‘participant nouns’ appear in same order. The qualifier words in above sentence, viz., ‘the’, ‘his’ ‘tomorrow’, etc., are necessarily placed beside the nouns they qualify. So the problem of sentential word ordering reduces to finding a basis for ordering the participant nouns, viz., teacher, books, students, class-room and 2 P M.

The nature of various physical events in real world is widely varied; it is impossible to standardize all roles, different actors take, in all events and provide distinctive features to identify them in sentences. Finnish linguists ^[1} have devised fifteen case declensions; in Sanskrit there are seven and in English, perhaps four or more. It was the well known grammarian, Panini, c 500 B C, who first serialized seven noun declensions as per their decreasing participation in the events concerned, in his Ashtaadhyaayii, a collation of grammatical formulae, as per following details:

1. Nominative: eg: Mango is Sweet : the “Mango” here is in Nominative Declension;

2. Accusative: eg: Peter ate a sweet Mango : “Mango” here is in Accusative Declension;

3. Instrumental: eg: Paul bought a book from a shop : “from a Shop” is in Instrumental Declension;

4. Dative: eg: On account of Rains the Match was abandoned: “On account of Rains” is in Dative Declension;

5. Ablative: eg: Ram arrived at the School : “at the School” is in Ablative Declension;

6. Possessive: eg: Bird’s nest is high on a Tree: “Bird’s” is in Possessive Declension; and

7. Locative: eg: Bird’s nest is high on a Tree: “on a Tree” is in Locative Declension.

As regards a basis for such a serialization, he offered a formula, 'sapthamI aDhikaraNah syAth (2:3:36)' implying that ‘the noun at seventh, locational declension 'participates least' in the event serving only as an event platform’.

Getting back to the sentence quoted above, it is interesting to note that the actors, participant nouns here, appear in the same order as serialized by Panini. Moreover, a little reflection on the extent of participation by various actors in the event of ‘distribution’ reveals that the subject here has in fact a major role, object has a marginally diminished role and so on with ‘2 P M’ the last, the locational, is not much involved in the event as such, firming up Panini’s proposition. In conclusion, it appears that we have been habituated by social practices to disperse the nouns in our sentences in an order of their decreasing participations in the concerned events. Of course, it is not dicta; should one wish to emphasize any particular sector in a sentence, he only needs to vary the order appropriately; i.e. to stress on the time of distribution in the above example, one frames his sentence as: ‘At 2 P M tomorrow, the teacher shall distribute the books .. .. etc. Only a simple sentence is considered here; one has to be more cautious while using compound verbs or phrases in his sentences.

Reference 1: Gleason Jr H A.(1966):An Introduction to Descriptive Linguistics.(Oxford & IBH, p160).

Note: The Ordering of Nouns conceived here is a Sub-Set of the gross 'Syntactic Structuring of Languages' brought out in Section 5 below.

Universal Syntax

As elaborated under Declensions on Nouns and Word ordering in Sentences, all events in nature are executed by one or more actors via definite procedure(s).(These terminologies, events, actors and procedures etc are lifted from modern, ‘Object Oriented Programming Techniques’). In a verbal representation of such an event that takes form of a sentence, the syntax essentially represents the transliteration of the procedure that point to the roles of various actors as well as the sequential order of execution. Hence, one notices a feature of universal syntax that transcends all languages. It should however be noted that the procedures only dictate incorporation of the syntactic features into the languages and linguists are called upon to give shape to these demands in form of appropriate declensions as subscripts or prepositions to nouns and ordering of the various words, nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs etc based on appropriate guide lines facilitating easy and accurate comprehension of the sentences. Thus, 'the sentences', that are, in general, verbal representations of physical events, in multitudes of languages appear to be formed under universal syntax guidelines due to the fact that the syntax essentially is a transcription of the 'event execution procedures' which are independent of all languages.

Structuralism in Linguistics

Our body is well structured through a Skeleton without which we would fall back into a flabby mass without any form and shape. This structure encloses ‘free spaces’ wherein we develop various specialized organs and exercise our ‘wills’ to walk and move about, mentally as well as physically. Our back-bones formed of co-operatively acting vertebrae, bony structures spaced apart by discrete disks, formed of muscles and tendons, not only support us straight but also enable us to bend forward, backward or all around; so also are our socketary joints conjoining our hands and legs to our bodies. The bones and muscles, within our palms also enable similar freedoms to the fingers over a wide range of movements. Such motions of various organs of our bodies are enabled by the proprioceptive and kinesthetic nerve tips embedded within the muscles and tendons that support us in communion with our skeleton. We strongly consider that such an organization of our body via our skeleton and various organs can be very similar to the Organizational Structures, that are supported by established etiquette in communion with our self-awarenesses, that forms our Holistic Societal Structure within which we live ever.

Refer to Section 3.2: Bio-Neural Software for Verbs and 4. Basis for Linguistic Syntax and, consider now the Sentence: “The Teacher gave away the Answer Books to his Students in their Class Rooms”.

Our Teachers have taught us in our secondary years to believe that ‘The Teacher’ above is the ‘Subject’ of this sentence; whereas any Karaka Sidhantha based Paninian Grammarian will consider the implementation of the ‘job, to give’ here to be the ‘Subject’.

In Modern, Object Oriented Computational Technique ‘Methods’, CTM, one represents instructions in a format: “Methods (Verbs) + Variables (Actors, Nouns)”. This is because, there are fewer ‘action based verbs, Methods,’ in all Languages to act as Central ‘Subjects’ that operate on the Variables above. As there are fewer Methods, Verbs required for implementing the instructions than the Varuables, we will need only fewer instructions in our Computer Programmes or the case endings or prepositions for the numerous Nouns in all Verbal Syntactic Languages.

Here, our Thesis has been: ‘The sentences are verbal representations of real world ‘event procedures’. They are implemented via Algorithms developed within our Broca’s regions; these procedures subsequently get transliterated into a Grammatical Structure in conceptualization of our spoken Sentences. Moreover, as we have seen earlier, these procedures require specific noun-endings to communicate clearly the roles of different actors in our spoken, Syntactically Structured sentences guided by Grammarians; this leads to a ‘Universality’ in Syntax in all Languages of all the World.

PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE

Preface: We present below a Rig Vedic Suktha (10:71:1-11) with Brhaspathi as Preceptor and addressed to the Deity, Vakthathva Jnanam, that purports the Philosophy of Language. There are eleven Rks here and we quote each of them below followed by its Bhavartha, the English Version of its Vaidhika meaning, ie, a meaning of the Rk as interpreted by Vidhwan Venkat Rao, the Chief Editor as quoted below, who based his meanings on the well known Sayana Bhashya, an early interpretation and critical analysis of Vedic Texts. These meanings are in a literatural language and we supplement it with a brief interpretation to keep the text as short as possible, and this is adapted to modern day Scientific Temperaments. .

bRrhaspathE prathamam vAchO agnam yathprairatha nAmadhEyam dhadhEnA | yadhEShAm ShrEShTa yadhripramAsIthprENA thadhEShAm nihitham guhAvihi | 1 ||

Bhavartha : English Version :- That, Brhaspathi, is the best (part) of speech which those giving a name (to objects) first utter; that which was the best of those (words) and free from defect, (Saraswathi) reveals it though implanted, by means of affection.

Interpretation : Gist: Innovation of New Words :- Whenever any new object or concept is visualized, the preceptors give it a name to delineate it off hand. But all its features would not have been collated as yet. In course many of their new features would be collated. Such a pairing of names and their meanings are adopted for general usage by populace for all the times next as illuminated by the Deity Saraswthi.

sakthumiva thithavunA punanthO yathra DhIrA manasA vAchamakratha | athrA saKhAyah* saKyAni jAnathE BhadhraiShAm lakShmIrnihithAdhi vAchi | 2 ||

English Version : When the wise create speech through wisdom winknowing (it) as (men winknow) barely with a sieve, then friends know friendship; good fortune is placed upon this word.

Interpretation : Meanings of words and Sentential Construction :- When Educateds use above words repeatedly in course, their pairing, ie, the friendship or sakhyatha, between the words and their meanings get strengthened. Such meaningful words are then used by all in conversational sentences to the pleasure of Lakshmi, the Consort of Vishnu.

• The saKythA here implies the friendly relation that exists between the ‘word’ and its ‘meaning’.

yajnEna vAchah padhavIyamAyanthAmanvavindhannRrShiSham paviShtaum | vyaDhaDhuh puruthrA thAm saptharEBhA aBhi sam navamthE | 3 ||

English Version : (The wise) reached the path of speech by sacrifices; they found it centered on the yajnas. the acts, the verbs acted by the Rrishis, who having performed it, dispersed it in seven places in verbal sentences as the seven noisy (birds) flock together.

Interpretation : Word Ordering in Sentences : Sentences are verbal representation of events that are meanings of verbs thereon; And, nouns in any sentence are serialled by the Teachers as per the extent of their participation in the above events in seven vibhakthi levels in Sanskrit and in four or five prepositional levels in English or other European Languages.

utha thvah pashyanna dhadharsha vAchamutha thwah shRrNvanna shRrNOthyEnAm | uthO thwsmai thanva-vi sasrE jAyEva pathya ushathI suvAsAh | 4 ||

English Version : One (man) indeed seeing Speech has not seen her; another (man) hearing her has not heard her; but to another she delivers her person as a loving wife well attired presents herself to her husband.

Interpretation : Interpretation of Sentences :- By only observing a job being performed or by only hearing a sentence representing the job one can not make out full sense out of them. Only to those who effortfully practice the acts and learn the syntactic procedures of Language, the sentences show their full and implied meanings as a well attired maiden shows her decorated Self to her husband.

utha thvam saKyE sThira pIthamAhurnainam hinvmthyapie vAjinEShu | mAyayaiSha vAcham shashruvA aPalAmapuShpAm | 5 ||

English Version : They call one man firmly established in the friendship (of Speech), they do not exclude him from (the Society of) the powerful (in knowledge); another wanders with an illusion that is barren, bearing speech that is without fruit, without flowers.

Interpretation : Importance of Relations between Words and their Meanings :- One who cares for the relationships between words and their meanings is a learned one; so, his messages are well understood by one and all; but one who cares little to listen to and strives less to perceive the sentences has only heard them; he will thus only be moving about without learning anything at all.

yasthithyAja sachividham saKAyam na thasya vAchyapi BAgO asthi | shRrNOthi na hi pravEdha sukRrthasya pamThAm | 6 ||

English Version : He who has abandoned the friend who knows the duty of a friend, in his speech there is not a particle (of Sense); what he hears, he hears amiss; for he knows not the path of righteousness.

Interpretation : Importance of Relations between Words and their Meanings in Sentences :- The sentences of people who care little for right, firm and friendly relations between words and their meanings carry little message. Others can only misinterpret such sentences; because the deeper concepts can never be fully represented by sentences such shallow meanings.

akShaNvmthah karNavamthah saKAyO manOjavEShvasamA baBUvuh | sa u EkakShAsa u thvE hRadhA iva snAthvA u thvh dadhRrshrE | 7 ||

English Version : Friends possessing eyes and ears were (yet) unequal to mental apprehension; some seem like pools reaching to the mouth, whereas others seem like pools reaching to the loins; some more seem like pools in which every one can bathe.

Interpretation : Depths of Sentential Perception :- All humans are equipped with similar visual and auditory organs; yet no two persons possess identical mental capabilities. A few can understand sentences only literally (shravanena); a few more like a pool of water to their eyes can see the contextual meanings to decipher their inner meanings (mananena). Next, a few more, like a pool with water to their loins can visualize and evaluate the meanings and educate their colleagues (nidhi-dhii-asanena). Still a few more like a deep pool with clear and sparkling water fit for bathing can view the total scenario and can conceive (sakshathkaranena) the meanings beyond any narrow mindedness and spread the messages that can stand steady over Times beyond.

hRrdhA thaShtEShu manasO javEShu yadhbrAhmaNAh samyajmathE saKAyah | a thrA ha thvam vi jahurvedhyABirOha brahmAnO vi charamthu thvE | 8 ||

English Version : Although Brahmins who are friends concur in the mental apprehensions which are conceived by the heart (of the wise), yet in this (assembly) they abandon one man (to ignorance of Sciences) that are to be known.

Interpretation : Origin of a Body of Knowledge by Groups of Sentences :- When conceptualizations emanating from depths of hearts of learned people and are reported through right words chosen by thoughtful minds, a full message is clearly expressed. Such messages are understood by people according to their depth of cognition and recognition; knowledge and familiarity in the topic under discussion.

imE yE narvakgn parascharamthina brAhmaNAsO na sukEtharAsah | tha EthE vAchamaBipadhya pApayA sirIsthmthram thanvathE aprajajnayA | 9 ||

English Version : Those illiterate men who do not commingle with good societal discourses and who do not prepare Soma libations for the offerings to the gods are always engaged in useless and sinful discourses and they are like manual labourers who till the land but cannot raise the harvests.

Interpretation : Body of Knowledge and Societal Perception :- Those people who do not exchange their views and opinions with their elders and colleagues often enough, they remain uneducated for ever; they fail to be participating in stimulated societal discourses. Such people are like hard working manual labourers not well versed in raising fruitful grains from the Lands.

sarvE namdhamthi yashasAgathEna saBAsahEna saKyA saKAyah | kilbiShaspRrithuShaNirhyEShAmaram hithO Bavathi vAjinAya | 10 ||

English Version : When the friend Soma, the sin-remover and food-provider is prepared and placed at the altar all the friends (priests) express great joy at Soma’s triumphant coming.

Interpretation : Importance of Securing Unitary Views in Conferences :- When, in a Conference of several learned delegates, all avenues perfecting a scheduled topic have been explored and right and practicable solutions are sorted out to happy ends, the Conveners are elated; for, here various conflicting views are merged and satisfactory and unitary ideology is perfected. And, consequently an amiable environment (Soma) has dawned to each participant’s consent and possibilities of progressive development for all has blossomed.

RrchAm thvah pOShamAsthE pupuShpAngAyathram thvO gAyathi shakvarIShu | brahmA thvO vadhathi jAthavidhyAm yajnsya mAthrAm vi mimItha u thvah | 11 ||

English Version : Still another, the first, Brahma priest looks after the sacrifice and gives instructions for rectifying the defects; the last one (Adhvaryu priest), being in charge of the sacrifice, (conducts it) perceives it in its proper form.

Interpretation : Sentential Evolution through Four Stages :- Sentences originate through four stages: Firstly, they are conceptualized in reply to any query in the originator’s heart, named by Bharthr Hari as ‘Parawak’, literally, aimed towards an assertive future. Secondly the originator chooses right words, emotions and gestures and serializes them in his brain/mind giving rise to Bharthr Hari’s ‘Pashymthi’, literally, the visible or heard form of the assertion. Next, the originator vocalizes it by breathing air out from his lungs, ‘Madhyamavak’, literally, the expressed form in the medium of air around. Finally, the vocalized form, ‘Vaikharinada’ literally, perceptualized form, joining the listener and the speaker which proceeds within the recipient’s ears to his brain and reconceptualized in his heart.

Bavathi yadhanuBAvAdhEda mUkOpi vAgmI jadamathirapi janthurjAyatyhE prAjJnya maulih | Sakala vachana chEthO dhEvathA BAratHI sA mama vachasi niDhaththAm sanniDhim mAnasE cha ||

Ganesha - Vidhyesha, Vignesha : A Rational View.

Ganesha - the Lord of all Education and Hurdles : A Rational View:

The various deities, events and narrations elaborated in different Vedic, Upanishadic and Puranic literature are believed to symbolically represent multitude of psycho-social mental states of Societal human beings. That has led to a concept that ‘Devine Light enlivens all Life Systems’. In an earlier exposition, ‘Katha Upanishad, Nachiketha’, we have seen how Yam Dharm, the Lord of Death or rather the Lord of Protocols (Ruler of Samyamanii Pur) can be traced to our reliance on and to our curiosity to know basis for the various protocols in our daily routines. Here we consider, the elephant headed God, the Ganesha, the Lord of Education, the Lord of Hurdles and the Lord Who is invoked a-begin of all auspicious events: What does He represent?

The origin of Lord Ganesha is somewhat bizarre: Once the divine Mother, Parvathi, consort of Mahadev scrapped a little soil of her skins, molded a boy off it, breathed life therein, left him a-guard at the doors and went busy on her bath, dressing and other decors. The boy guided any visitors into a waiting room next. It so happened soon, that Mahadev himself turned up. Being unfamiliar, the boy held Him back as usual. Somehow, initial verbal duel developed in that the Mahadev chopped the head off the boy with his trident. Parvathi rushed in, went aghast; she explained all details to Mahadev. On her appeals, He sent His staff, Ganas all around to fetch a head of any being found sleeping in northerly direction; they soon brought an elephant’s head. He positioned it on shoulders of the body nearby and revived life therein. He also blessed a big belly to the boy, so he could hold and digest all that his big head consumed. To please his consort further, He appointed the boy to lead his Ganas; so the boy became Ganesha. Further He blessed the boy to Lord all Education as also all hurdles; even to today, we invoke Ganesha at the start of our Education as also at the start of all our auspicious activities. How can we make any sense out of this narration ! ?

Contextually, it is well known that the divine mother, Parvathi, represents pure femininity, Nature, or Prakruthi, and Mahadev complements Her, representing pure masculinity, Nurture or Purusha. Now that, the Ganesha has been graced by Parvathi and Mahadev as Vidhyesha, the Lord of all Education, let us enquire as to what is Education ? Education is, so to say, a representation in perceptional and expressional forms in human minds of details on what is and what all manipulations can be affected on Nature, Prakruthi by human efforts, Nurture, Purusha.

But, Nature spans practically infinite extents. Obviously, all education we amassed since time immemorial would amount to nothing more than a tiny scrap top-soil, and would penetrate little deeper than the Nature’s, skins ! Yet, from our vantage point, that little forms an inexhaustible lot !! It is rather imaginative of the litterateurs to portray that Parvathi once wished to know her own beauty and so, she scrapped a bit of herself, molded a boy of it, infused a little curiosity into him and busied herself with her self-decorations !

Natural curiosity is random directed, ever hopping here and there. Acquisition of Information, Education requires concentrated and effortful attention at any topic of interest. A holistic learning, Education, requires three distinct refinements leading to four statuses in the acquired Knowledge : any "data" that has been heard or read via (‘Shravana’, as referred to in Sanskrit) out of natural curiosity needs first to be enlisted with the related information that we already know, thus reforming, fusing (‘Manana’) it also as ‘Information’. Subsequently, an estimate of the 'Vital Value' of this Information to us, in general, has to be made via (‘Nidhidhyasana’ or ‘nidhi dhi asina’); for it to be promoted as Knowledge. Finally, the relevance of such new Knowledge acquisitions in our overall daily routines needs to be verified intentionally until it gets set into our habituations (‘Sakshathkarana’) as Wisdom. Such multifaceted nurturing by self-motivational exercises is supposed to be graced by Mahadev – the three distinct refinements being guided by the three arms of His trident.

In view of the importance of such consolidation processes in holistic Education, Mahadev is often considered by scholars as the ultimate Teacher. Of course, Ganesha, well trained in these processes by the graces of Mahadev may readily acquire a lot more wisdom befitting his elephantine head and belly. Besides, on contemporary views, before venturing into any project, an Auspicious Task, it is essential to seek opinions, the graces of persons well versed in the field.

But, how to recognize such well versed persons ? It could be a Herculean task to distinguish a ‘jack of all trades’ from a well versed person; the former may have vast potentials to present insurmountable hurdles in our projects. So, we are advised to be in the good graces of all Vidhyeshas and proceed judiciously in pursuance of our projects. OM THATH SATH.

Saptha Lokaah  : Human Experiences Transcend Seven Dimensions ?

Ancient Indian Scriptures postulate that the real, visible world occults six more worlds! These are serially named as: Bhuloka (the physical world), Bhuvarloka or Anthariksha (the internal, attitudinal dimension) and Swarga Loka, literally, swa-arjitha loka, a loka earned by self-committed efforts, (perhaps, heavens, in English ? not exactly.) – these three form a first set; the next three are, Maharloka (the dimension of importances, exceptionals), Jano Loka (the dimension of populace) and Thapo Loka (the dimension of sustainable-organizational systems) and the last one is a Sathya Loka (the dimension of current truths !). Unfortunately there is little elaboration on locations or descriptions of these worlds. Could it be that these worlds correspond to the ‘dimensions over which human minds transcend in their daily chores’? Modern social environs are much too different from those ancient environs. Therefore, it would be futile to contemplate on what delineation parameters those ancients worked on and what social ideas they crystallized under these names. Then, how shall we proceed ?

Let us hunt within our modern social environs for seven delineation parameters guided somewhat by the literal meanings of names of those seven worlds. There is no much difficulty to recognize the Bhuloka, the visible, physical world wherein we live, work, socially interact, procreate, raise our children and care for elderly etc. At this basic organic level, the ancients also had a functionally similar Bhuloka to live in as the one we have.

The main function all us are engaged in, is earning one’s livelihood. But we no longer chase deer or work on ranches. We live in citizenry systems that enable us to be engaged in various social tasks and we are happy on them – or are we ? I heard a narration: Once a Teacher enquired after the welfare of three sculptors working with their chisels. The first one straightened up, swept his sweat off his face and blared out, “Are you blind not to notice me suffering my fate with this chisel reeling on these blasted stones ?”. The second one appeared to be busy: “Forty more blocks are yet to be planed ere I collect my wages and rush to my family with a few provisions”, he replied. The last was rather composed: “This is the last of the pedestals; now if I sculpt out a smooth seat and dedicate it to the Lord at the temple .. ..” Thus, everyone may have varieties of internal attitudes, spirits of approaches toward any action he is on. One can imagine of an internal world that is composed of all such attitudes forming a Bhuvarloka or Anthariksha.

Being engaged thus for long durations with positive attitudes on any activity, one acquires certain specialized expertise, mastery on that activity. In course he develops himself to be a professional: a master carpenter or a good sculptor; a natural agriculturist, a specialist physician or a well-informed author, administrator or researcher etc. Having thus earned for oneself a special position and being recognized so in the societal setup, one may experience a feeling of self-fulfillment and security, which are the attributes of a Swarga Loka. The last two dimensions refer obviously to individualistic segment of the societal organization that is composed of innumerable complementary specialists, each, hovering in his own Swarga Loka.

Human mind is a fathomless ocean; a societal organization, evolved through interactions and integrations of innumerable such minds, present and past, should open infinite action possibilities for humans at all instants. But, it does not happen so; for, toddlers are guided by their parents since early days into a societal molding: Sigmund Freud postulated that babies acquire a concept of ‘self’ through a circuitous route – to begin with, a natural necessity and nurtural availability guides them to be dependent on and thereby to recognize their ‘mother’; that mother often appears from nowhere and instantly vanishes; so, in course, she is recognized as a ‘non-me’; soon, several ‘non-me’s abound all around a central ‘me’, the ‘self’, distinctly cognized and recognized by frequent ‘inner’ sensations of hunger, its redressals and the like. Perhaps, delighted by attentive and affectionate pleasantries by numerous wards, we also learn to ‘be attentive’, thereby developing a delineation of ‘identity’ around the ‘self’. Society comprises infinite interesting things and events. So, we need to learn early to be deliberately attentive, thereby restricting our ‘self’ interests to a limited sector, classing this domain to be ‘important’. In course, one is recognized in terms of the societal sector he deems important. Without development of such a ‘value’ system in one’s mind, he may slide into an ‘attention deficit syndrome’. Such a compartmentalized societal sector one develops in his mind may be considered to form a Maharloka, a dimension of ‘exceptionals’.

Once one is aware of his role within the boundless Society as regards his duties and benefits, his interactions with the social environment allows him to recognize soon the Maharlokas driving his colleagues. In due course he would be able to visualize a unified, holistic Social Organization comprising multitude of populace, the Jano Loka.

Human generation gap is 20 to 30 years; human life expectancy is different in different countries. Fashions keep changing too. Over last four hundred years human societal systems have been changing at accelerated paces. Are we only powerless spectators for these changes or do we have any options for course corrections that can be contemplated and implemented ? With such contemplations perhaps we are transcending into a Thapo Loka.

Now we are left with the last one, the Sathya Loka. Sathya literally means, truth; but what is the ‘truth’ ? There are two types of truths referred to in Sanskrit, viz, rtha and sathya. The closest pair available in contemporary philosophies is, descriptive and prescriptive truths. Etymologically, one may proceed as follows: sath yah thath, sathyah: ie, sathya is that whichever is sath. Sath, conventionally translates to : ‘raison-de-tre’. Thereby we arrive at a definition for Sathya as that ‘which can be adopted as a worthy ‘cause, reason-to-be’ for leading the course of our lives’, which incidentally is close to it being a ‘prescriptive truth’. It is interesting to note a prescription often quoted in Sanskrit: ‘Sathyam thu Rtheena parishinchaami’ that nearly translates to, ‘one need to ensure frequently that prescriptive truths (paths) do not stray much from descriptive truths (paths)’. With these comments I call upon the readers to conceptualize the Sathya Loka as an exercise. Om Swasthi ||

BHAGAH: A promoter of Social Interdependencies ?

There is a group of Deities, Aadhithyaas, children of Kashyp and Adithi, numbering to six in Rg Veda and twelve in later Puranic texts. Centrally placed there, is one named, Bhaga. The word ‘bhaaga’ literally means a fissure or a niche: In a societal environment, each is ever on hunt for an apt niche for himself; all crave for some others to recognize and crave for them; we always wish to be interdependent, exchanging thoughts and feelings while still retaining our identities. It seems, Bhaga could be associated with such a mental attitude. A canto in Rg Veda (7, 41), Bhaagya Suktha, with seven Rks by Vasishta invokes Bhaga’s features to fair detail:

This early morning, we invoke You, Bhaga, the one placed central amongst many other Deities, stretching from Agni, the fire to Mahadev, the Rudhra.

Both a pauper and a prince equally seek Your graces that are clear and appear ever a-new.

Bhaga, You know us well; accordingly direct us on purposeful ways, prompt us into fructifiable thoughts, motivate us into engaging tasks; so, we may procreate good products and achieve worthy laurels.

Bhaga, we beseech your graces in early mornings, in our younger days, in our mid-years and in our olden times, as well.

We need You, Bhaga, to need us; thus joined together, we shall invoke all gods to guide us along affable, sociable passages.

So, first let us invoke the divine Dawn, Usha, to join us in our journey to newer heights that open up novel ventures in apt directions opening worthy scopes leading to engaging activities.

We pray to the divinities of Dawns to provide us sweet nectar so we may talk sweet, we may secure homes, we may interact amiably, we may acquire speedy horses and milking cows, we may be blessed with strong wills and stable minds that may lead us into Sunlit Days soon. We pray the gods to shower their blessings for holistic welfare to one and all.

Om thath sath Om!!

Reference: Rg Veda Samhitha: Ed. H P Venkat Rao, Pub: Shri Jaya Chamarajendra Veda Rathna Mala, Mysore, 1953.

AGNI, Invocations to the Vedic Deity, the FIRE

‘Vedas’ literally mean knowledge, knowledge of ‘Devas’, the Vedic Deities. Abeginning, Vedas constituted a single body and Vedavyasa, (literally, one who penetrated straight through, understood all Vedas), is supposed to have delineated them into four parts: Rig Veda is a description of the Devas, the Illuminants, while, Yajur Veda explains our interactions with the Devas; thus, these two together form a complementary whole. Sama Veda elaborates on how we interact with our fellow beings and Aatharva Veda are, perhaps pages left blank for use by the future generations !

Rig Veda 'begins' with an invocation to Agni :

AgnimILE purOhitham yajnasya dEvam rthvijam | hOthAram rathnadhAthamam ||

This can be translated somewhat as follows:

We all invoke thee, the Fire, to enlighten us with conceptualizations of deeds that promote healthy social relations, to illuminate us with right methods of their implementations, to enthuse us into their proper executions and to guide us to recognize and to experience the consequential results with joyful hearts.

And Yajur Veda 'ends' with a stanza venerating the same Agni:

Agne naya supathA rAyE asmAn vishvAni deva vayunAni vidvAn | yuyodhyasmajjuhuranameno bhUyisthAm tE nama uktim vidhEma ||

This can be translated somewhat as follows:

While appealing to pardon us for all our faults and to purify us from all our sins we express our gratitude to thee, the Fire, for all the blessings showered on us and we pray to thee to guide us along the right paths on and on.

It appears that our Preceptors are placing here, not a full stop, but a semi-colon.

Thus, they impress on us the continual and supreme role of Agni in all our lives. Who is that Agni?

He is the heat that ever shines on us from the skys, the solar rays. He is the fire that cooks our foods within the Chlorophills in our farmlands; He is the promoter of the chemical reactions that metabolize the sugars we consume and He is the fire within the mitochondrial organelle in all our cells that motivates us all into each of our Actions and Emotions. And, He is the Boatman, Ambiga, who ferries all us across the Time, generation after generations. He deserves our gratitudes, indeed !

|| Om | swasthi | shradhDhAm mEDhAm yashah prajnAm .. .. dhEhi mE havya vAhana ||

I beseech thee, the Fire, the deliverer of our sacrificial offerings to the deities, to shower on us all Enthusiasms Wisdoms Successes Conscious-awarnesses .. .. OM ||

KRISHNA’s Two Sisters

A while and a few events after Krishna was born in His Original Form in the dark corners of the prison cell in Mathura … …

The alarmed demon king, Kamsa knew that the baby presented to him was not Krishna but did not know that she was His sister, Durga; taking no risks and intending to save himself well in time, he was about to pound Her on to the nearby stones; but then, the baby twitched and got free, resumed Her real form and shot herself into the skies; thence She shouted down, “Lo, the narrow minded Kamsa, (Kamsa, literally means a narrow sector of a circle * ), beware! your terminator is budding elsewhere !!”, and She vanished.

Years and events rolled on .. .. and on .. .. ,

The historical, aithihasic epic, the Mahabharath, initiated at a meeting of numerous dignitaries at the Sacred Sathya Lok, the Brahma’s Abode, with an invocation, “ gangE cha yamunE chaiva gOdhAvarI saraswathI .. .. jalEsmin sanniDhim kuru krishNa krishNa gOvindha gOvindha .. .. japamaham kariShE”, was enacted and documented .. .. and .. .. on a following day,

The eldest of the Pandavas, YuDhishTira heard a news that a starved hunter’s arrow had grazed the feet of the Lord Krishna while He was reclining at the edge of a forest on the outskirts of Dwarka; he soon assembled all his brothers along with Draupadhi, and they decided together that it was apt time for them to call-it-a-day; he beckoned Krishna’s other sister, Subhadra and urged her, “Bhadhre, (Bhadra, literally means, secure), here are our grandchildren, Vajra (literally, of diamond, the hardest and indefectible one), Krishna’s grandson, and Parikshith (literally, the tested and verified one), our own grandson, and so many others too; would you take good care of these youngsters in all our absence, please !?”. And, the Pandavas then walked on and on, toward the high Heavens.

(* Termination of such a 'Kamsa', metaphorically implies extermination of (our own) 'narrow mindednesses' to attain liberated, Holistic Views')

• " HANDS THAT ROCK THE CRADLE, RULE THE WORLD "

Om Swasthi !!

PADMANABHA, LORD VISHNU, the Sustainer, at His Best

Interpretation of modern art is a rather tricky task. A Guru, who earlier spent years on Himalayas, remarked that interpretation of scriptural drawings is somewhat easy. On being pointed to a painting of Lord Vishnu, as Padmanabha resting over high seas on a Serpent with Lakshmi at His feet and Brahma in a Lotus blossom off His navel, the Guru had a translucent smile: “It’s a depiction of the mental state of that Pregnant Woman, sitting and dreaming at the the feet of Lord Vishnu!”, he remarked, “She has a vision of Vishnu, the sustainer in His all-embracing Trinitial form, on a nap on Adhi Shesha, the ‘initial remainder’ (emerged of a devastating fire), carrying within the cozy environs of a Lotus, the Brahma, meditating on innumerable initiations in process of forming a new live being, a new Universe, in fact, all within herself. These are the mix of fuzzy feels and thoughts, Bhakthi, that the Lakshmi is immersed in, alleviating all her anxieties on the ‘soon-to-be’ delivery”. No doubt, pregnancy is a primary sustaining act of all live beings!

Often that serpent is named as ‘Anantha’, the endless one; He is also supposed to support the entire universe a-top one of His thousand hoods! - now we know that that ‘initial remainder’ contains only 23, i.e, 50% of the requisite genes, which, in association with another somewhat similar set, are however capable of forming a new life, of supporting an ‘entire new Universe’, so to say. (Such an ‘association’ of two-halves reminds one of ‘ardha nArIshwra – a union of feminine and masculine halves of Mahadev, invoked by Brahma in this context as detailed in ‘Shiva Maha Puranam: vAyanIya samhithA 15, 8-15). As regards endlessness, these genes are well equipped to reproduce their replicas under favourable environs at appropriate later times! At times the same serpent is named as ‘Sankarshana’, literally, the ‘all attracting and culturing one’: we know, the main functions of genes is ‘abstracting varieties of requisite raw materials from environment and forming and sustaining various organs of the growing body’, portending clearly this name!

Addendum: Viewing Padmanabha from the angle of Lakshmi a-while, surfaced another facet of the ‘Adhi Shesha’: It is now known that a system to produce the progenatory spermatozoa matures in males on puberty whereas each female inherits a stock of original seeds of ovary from her mother within a few weeks of her own fetual life – and each of these Adhi Sheshas matures a-month to a fertilizable ovum. It has also been established that such ovary provide over 80% of the mitochondria, the Prometheus, the power-houses in all cells in living beings.

For an illustration of Padmanabha : visit: Vishnu, Wikipedia, Iconography; Figure 2.

NOTE: The Fetuses are in communion with their mothers via an umbilical cord just/sybolically as the Brahma is in communion with Lord Vishnu via the Lotus Flower and Stem.

|| OM NamO BhagavathE VAsudhEvAya ||

KATHA UPANISHATH: Nachiketha – A Rational Interpretation

Vedas are a collection of Natural Knowledge, a descriptive Natural Philosophy; (vis-à-vis various prescriptive Religious Scriptures) and Vedanthic Upanishaths, that supplement Vedas, are tracts of specialized knowledge interpreting and elaborating on Vedas. Katha Upanishath is a concise tract: first thirty stanzas here narrate a story of a boy, Nachiketha and following seventy stanzas expose a few theosophical aspects on immortality of Soul. We aim here to interpret rationally the story of Nachiketha.

STORY OF NACHIKETHA: A brief narration of the story is in order: Once, a well known Pundit, Vaajashravas was engaged on a prolonged Sacrificial Ceremony, termed Vishwajith (meaning, intended at acquiring mastery of all Worlds) Sathra. The main ritual here consisted of donating sincerely all wealth, cows and other riches that the Master had acquired all his life to deserving guests. His simple minded grandson, Nachiketha, kept watching him a while and a while longer with deep contemplations: ‘By donations of these olden cows that have already eaten a lot of fodder, begotten numerous calves and yielded much milk for long, what noble heavens would my granddad achieve .. .. .’ With concerns, he approached granddad and appealed: “Dad, whom would you donate me to?”. The pundit was perhaps preoccupied in his rituals; so the boy repeated and then pestered again. The granddad turned at him and said: “I offer thee to the Yama !”. The youngster bowed to the sacrificial Fire on the high altar, to his granddad as well and proceeded towards Samyamanipur, the locale of the Godly terminator of Human Lives, also referred to as Yama Dharma, one who maintains orderliness. In fact, Samyamanipur literally means a place where orderliness is maintained.

As Nachiketha found his way and arrived at his destination, Yama was out of station. He waited for three full days and nights at the Samyamani gates, starving, thinking, he ought to report to the Lord first. (Thaithariiya Brahmana, a later Vedhanthic tract, also refers to this story; but the preceptors here opine that over the first night the boy feeds on food provided by Yama’s subjects; the second night, on food provided by Yama’s staff and the third night, somehow, he feeds on Yama’s regular menu !).

The fourth morning Yama Dharma gets back; learning of an innocent boy starving for days at his gates in await for him, he is worried and rushes there; leading the youngster to his court, feeding and entertaining him, he enquires after the welfare and tidings. As if in atonement for three starving nights, the Lord offers to meet as many aspirations of the boy. Recollecting the facial expressions of his dad earlier as he was departing, Nachiketha appeals to Yama that his dad be relieved of his hard feelings. On so, being assured, Nachiketha seeks secondly to know the secrets of Divine Fire, prayers to which keep one free from fears of losses and pains, diseases and death. Pleased at the boy’s inquisitive perceptions, the Lord assents and further commends that, that all three forms of that Fires shall henceforth be named after the boy, as Nachikethaagni. Next, the boy seeks to know from the Lord, the Terminator of Human Lives and ruler of their ever-surviving Souls, the truths about the states of Life and Deaths and about the Soul of a person post his expiry. Though reluctant to part with the information at first, moved by the keenness of Nachiketha for the information, the Lord lets him into the secrets. Subsequently, the Lord blesses all blessings on to Nachiketha, who, with feelings of gratitude and self fulfillment bows to the Lord returns to his granddad.

VAAJASHRAVAS and his SACRIFICIAL CEREMONY: The story spans over multiple worlds !. How do we infuse rationality into it ? Human mind spans over multiple dimensions too. In order to express the mental activities clearly the Vedic preceptors often adopted a strategy of abstracting in symbolic words, the quintessential thoughts that flood our minds, ever and everywhere. Guided by a statement in the first stanza in the Upanishath that, ‘Vaajashravasah sarva vedasam dhadhau’ ie ‘Vajasharavas gave away all Vedas’, let us try out an interpretation that Vajashravas is a teacher in a school where Vedic literature are taught and studied. Obviously the teacher here is creating in the minds of students a Vedic image of the world, a fair replica of one he himself possesses; he is figuratively, ‘winning over’ the budding worlds. Thus, the education here can rightly be figured as a long duration Vishwajith Sacrificial Ceremony, where the teacher donates all his wealth, all knowledge he had acquired to enthusiastic students, thereby conquering all the budding worlds. Cows constituted material wealth in those days: they fed on grass, yielded calves and milk; so also did the Vedic words: they ‘consumed’ students’ minds, yielded the concepts and knowledge to them and provided a means for their later livelihood too.

NACHIKETHA and his PASSAGE to SAMYAMANIIPUR: Education in those days constituted mainly the study of Vedas, Upanishaths, ie various aspects on Sociology and Human Psychology, as also Vedangas, Logic etc. Here one subjectively assimilates the concepts, unlike in case of modern subjects, Physics, Computer Sciences etc, where, experimental verifications enable objective understanding of the concepts. The Vedic literature, perceived via careful observations and deep contemplations over undated ancient times, were carried to today, vocally by generations of teachers and students with deep faith and confidence at various Schools.

Profession of a teacher was considered sacred: Time never stands still; Societal conditions, values and dispositions, Personal habits, motivations and interrelations and Material facilities, and aspirations of people continually change. While delegating the same literature year after year to different groups of students, the teachers need to effectively contextualize them to ever changing present which may prove to be difficult. In the process any teacher may face stumbling problems. Such problems might drive one into deep thoughts, into serious discussions with colleagues, into close studies of books, into careful analysis and synthesis of concepts, into deep Tapas, meditational contemplations etc. As a matter of fact, such an unclear problem might prove to be a challenge, a ‘raison-d’etre’ for a teacher. One may even consider that only a life beset with such challenges is worth lived. It appears that, the Vedic preceptors here have metaphorically personified such a problem that emerged in the mind of Vajashravas and christened it as his coveted grandson, ‘Nachiketha’: for, the two words, na and chiketha, together in Sanskrit mean, something that is ‘unclear’.

The earliest Vedic texts have stood test of Time for long periods; not many novel problems are likely to emerge there-from: Nachiketha refers to these texts as olden cows that have already yielded ‘numerous calves’ that have challenged them to their utmost.

Now they move on to the Study of latter Literature such as Vedanga Mimamsa etc. In the middle of this discourse if any student in the class room repeatedly pesters for clarifications on a problem that has been nagging the teacher himself for long, it is natural the teacher would wish that the doubts on the problem be ‘destroyed, taken away by Yama’ and the problem be ‘solved’ !; that is what Vajashravas remarked to Nachiketha when the latter repeatedly intercepted him in the course of the Sathra.

It is plausible that deep contemplations on any concept and its discussions with others might show up some unsolved aspects of it as problems. But how such subjective, philosophical problems are sorted out in our minds has remained a mystery. It is being suggested in the Upanishath here that when a problem gets engrossed in the mind, the subconsciousness might work at the solution: ‘Nachiketha found his way to Samyamnipur by himself’; ie he shed his ‘problem’ format and assumed, reincarnated as a ‘solution’ [Ref 1}; in real terms it means, Vajashravas got his problem cleared in his mind.

Ref 1: Rig-Veda: Preceptor: Kumaro Yathayanah; Deity: Yama Dharmah (10:135).

YAMA DHARMA and his BOONS: However, any problem is fully solved only after its solution has been ‘documented’. Let us consider the various boons sought by Nachiketha from Yama Dharma one by one: First, Nachiketha appeals by this boon that his dad’s hard feelings be pacified. We consider, the preceptors here are emphasizing that contemplations on any problem with only cool minds and never with impatient angry hard feelings, facilitate conceptualizations of solutions, early and rightly.

As regards secrets of the Devine Fires, some elaboration is relevant: Obviously any problem is only partly solved when it gets cleared in one’s mind. For, the same or its near versions may spurt in someone else’s mind and that may also get clarified with same or a different solution in due course etc. With modern technological projects initiated on predefined goals, the solutions get applied immediately in development of marketable goods. On the other hand, with academic works, any problem-solution pair that has been figured out, is in general, published subsequently as a Thesis. In ancient days the communication facilities were rather scarce, yet, it appears that the importance of documentation was well recognized: for example, consider the following stanza from the Katha Upanishath:

bahUnAmEmi praThamO bahUnAmEmi maDhyamah | kig M swidhyamasya karthavyam yanmayAdhya kariShyasi | anupashya yaThA pUrvE prathipashya thaThA parE | 1:1:5 ||

Meaning: Having arrived at Samyamanipur, Nachiketha contemplated : “ I find that I have arrived here leading a few fellow followers; yet, I am not the first here, nor the last; Now that I am here, how shall I frame myself so as to be useful to Yama ? How are those my predecessors here framed and how can my followers be accommodated here?” Remembering that Nachiketha here represents a ‘problem-solution format’, this stanza rightly is directed towards documentation of a thesis.

Human Society is comprised of individuals and relations between them, the latter established and sustained through various etiquette or protocols backed by apt psychological feelings and abstract thoughts. The etiquette are not universal; they are composed by local cultures and established heritages. Children are brought up via the etiquette and in the process a concern for them is inbred into them. Yama Dharm is conceptualized to be the Lord of all ‘protocols’: for, on a first understanding, the protocols apparently freeze one’s options to act or react in social situations to narrow streams. Yama Dharma, the Lord of Samyamanipur, an ordered state, is often considered to be a terminator of Human lives, potentials to react; this conception arises often from being unaware of the plausible ‘breadths’ of the above ‘narrow streams’.

Let us now consider the Thaithariya menu served to Nachiketha over three nights in detail: The first night, he was served by Yama’s subjects: who are these subjects?. Popular belief points to the ever-surviving souls of humans post their expiry to be Yama’s subjects. Our predecessors, in their Times found a few sociological problems in their daily Chores; conceptualized their solutions and worked some apt derivatives of these problem-solution pairs in the form of social protocols and established them in the Society for benefits of future generations. Thereby these conceptualizations are, figuratively, their ‘Souls’ in action today and in this form they are subjects of Yama. From the statement that Nachiketha fed on menu provided by these subjects, we infer that Nachiketha contemplated on where he, the problem-solution pair that he represented, fits into the current social scenario, e g. whether the problem related to the field of generation-gaps, social-inequities, educational-relevancies etc.

The second night Nachiketha was served by Yama’s Dhuthas, servants: These servants are supposed to lead the Souls of expired beings to Samyamanipur and morphousize them amongst our predecessors – we venture to transliterate this statement to mean that Nachiketha secondly worked out a protocol or a physical form that can represent him in the current Social environs, eg, in its current simplest form, a thesis document. The third night Nachiketha fed on the Yama’s Punyas, the results of Yama’s good deeds: While proposing a novel procedure, it needs to be ensured that it meets the intended application correctly, satisfactorily and efficiently; more importantly, it should not contradict any other established practices or hurt the total social systems dearly; ie, the holistic effects of the new application needs to be carefully considered. Overall, the message here is that any novel conceptualization needs to be refined through these three exercises, Nachikethagnis for its ready acceptance into Social practices.

Thirdly, Nachiketha seeks to know from Yam the truths about the fates of Souls after expiry of human beings. Though reluctant at first, Yam was moved by Nachiketha’s insistence and he satisfies for himself with the youngster’s abilities to understand the complexities of the subject and reveals the truths. Deeper philosophical conceptualizations are implied here and closer studies are required for their understanding.

Subsequently, the Lord blesses all fortunes to Nachiketha, who, with feelings of gratitude and self fulfillment bows to the Lord and returns home to his granddad, Vajashravas.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY :

Raised from the moment of birth via some protocols, the Social Being, Man, uses the same protocols to express himself and to develop and sustain varied relations amongst his fellow beings and lives happily along. The forces originating these protocols are Subjects of that Master Yama. The speck of an urge in all our minds that seeks to know the basis of these protocols and supports them at occasions are bits of that Lord, and sum total of these bits in all human beings, the Samashti, comprises that Master of Samyamanipur, Lord Yama Dharma.

sahanAvavathu | sahanau Bhunakthu | saha vIryam karavAvahai | Om shanthih shanthih shanthih Om | Om thath sath Om ||

Conclusions: Nature of Vedic Deities

It is generally remarked that ‘Gods reside in human hearts’ and this assertion is often taken in a metaphoric sense. However, here we try to see ‘reality’ in this assertion. So far as the subject of the first tract above, ‘Vagdhevatha’, i e, ‘Speech as a Deity’ is concerned, the assertion can be considered to be fitting reasonably well – speech, no doubt resides within us. A critic might dispute whether ‘speech’ can be considered a Deity at all. In view of facts that, speech has reasonable power; with right talks we may acquire many of our aspirations; a consoling speech may relieve one of his pains and speech also enables us to share our emotions with others etc; i e, a few generic features ascribed often to Deities decorate speech as well, we may revere speech also as a Deity.

We make a few more observations: Speech is a facility devised by humans, as a ‘group activity’ to simplify their peaceful cohabitations. Over early, pre-speech periods, humans exchanged only coarse, emotive information that provided limited decision states such as yes/no, right/wrong, fight/flight etc, which in turn constrained their possible social ‘group sizes’. Speech enabled us to be rational via thoughts that may span over multiple states of mental freedom; so, we may exchange orders of magnitude enhanced emotive and rational information with our cohabitants. Thereby we may develop varied relations such as, father-mother, husband-wife, teacher-students (Guru-Shishyas), friends (Mithras), manager-superintendent-workers etc binding all us into a Societal Network that survives for ever and ever and is sustained by our ‘Vedic Deities’. On the other hand, we all, the mortals change every generation. On the evolutionary frame, this may have provided a fertile ground for our cortical growth and possibly for emergence of our characteristic, raised foreheads, too. Thus, Speech is a societal acquisition. However, the subsequent evolution of ‘the tower of Babel’ needs more elaborate considerations.

As seen earlier, Language is a Societal Acquisition: Only with Language, could man evolve Societal Relations and progress in Civilization by co-habitational living via development of co-relationships between themselves, such as, individual-Society, husband-wife, father-son, teacher-student, king-subject, and various brotherhoods, friendships, vyshti-Samashti etc. As individuals, we are mortals here, whereas the Society, composed of these Relationships survives forever. It is only through these permanent ‘Relationships’ that, the Civilizations of the Nations were developed: and thereby, the conceptualization of Vedic Deities to ‘MASTER’ these various Relations became necessary. As a few examples, of these Relationships and their allegoric Representations - we have in the Vedic Literature - for Father-Son, we have Dhasharatha-Shri Rama; for Teacher-Student, we have the Sage Shukra-Kacha; for King-Subject, we have Devendra-Maruths, for various brotherhoods, we have the Ashvinau and for Friendships, we have the Mithraah, Adhithyas. etc. Further, the ‘Vedas’ are the ‘Descriptions of Activities and Features’ of the Societal ‘Relationships, i e, Vedic Deities considered above.

The common aim in subsequent tracts above has been to figure out, how the concepts here can be infused into human brain/mind psycho-societal relations or interactivities: Obviously, every human being is partly an individual and partly a ‘societal molecule’. In ‘Saptha lOkAh, Seven Dimensions’, the first three of the seven worlds are postulated to be delineated within one’s individual attitudes towards his daily chores and the next three are delineated within his attitudes towards total Society; and possibly the seventh, Sathya lOka is the one in which one finds himself ‘presently’, moment by moment.

The Deity ‘Ganesha’ is believed to be the Lord of Education, Experience and Obstacles and His biography reads rather queer: it appeared natural to interpret this narration in terms of ‘theories of learning’. Parvathi and Mahadev respectively are known well to symbolize Prakruthi and Purusha or the roles of Nature and Nurture in our lives. A little reflection might reveal that the roles of our parents, mother and father, particularly, over our childhood periods may tally reasonably well with this approach.

In ‘Nachiketha’, a story from Kathopanishath, where Yama Dharma, the Deity of Death or also, of Order or routines, is supposed to have taught the secrets of eternal life to ‘Nachiketha’. Here, an attempt has been made to rationally interpret the story so as to convey the origins of ‘social routines’ that simplify our conducts over daily social interactivities.

Perhaps, such interpretations can be pursued for more Vedic Deities too?

So what? Organizational studies show that when human, other animate or even inanimate entities form groups varied new states and relations emanate depending on environmental conditions and lead to emergence of new properties of wholes, often not existent with individuals (*). Similarly and based on expositions above, we postulate that the Vedic Deities represent certain ‘constancy-datum states’, that emerge within each of our space-time continual, ‘psycho-societal, cognitive and motor activity domains’ on account of our Societal Living; in other words, that these Deities represent local steady state solutions of possible multi-dimensional ‘differential-equations’ that get developed within our complex and dynamic, ‘individual brain-societal mind’ system and guide its operation. This is a rather simplistic view, yet it suits well to fuse the fuzzy social concepts, ‘faith’ and ‘rationality’. As this appeared to be a natural course of evolution of human mind since time immemorial, the early Preceptors termed their literature to be, ‘Guidelines for a SanAthana Dharma, an Ancient Ordering Scheme!’

(*):i. e g, Formation of an Alumni Association leads to emergence of positions such as President, Secretary, and Members and also associated multiple 'relations' between the members. ii: Gaseous atoms acquire liquid properties under apt environmental conditions: One of numerous names of Lord Vishnu, the central of the Trinity, the preserver, is ‘nArAyaN’ that may literally mean, ‘properties that emerge on liquefaction’ – possibly, an affect of ‘Societation’ of Individuals !? The GAIA of Isaac Asimov in Foundation Stories could also be a ‘liquefied’ form, or a ‘societal group’!? The Confucian Philosophy attaches much significance to ‘Water’ for perhaps same reasons!? ||OM Swasthi||

yAchEham thwAm hrShIkEsha namasthE puruShOththama | hrudhayE kuru samvAsam shriyAh saha jagathpathE ||

With prostrations we appeal heartily to thee, the most revered of ‘nurtural’ powers, the Lord of all ‘Motivations’, please reside ever in our hearts with the ‘natural’ joyous vibes.

Manthra thanthra .. sarva lOpa prAyaschiththArtHam nAma thraya japam kariShYE :

achyuthAya namah, ananthAya namah, gOvindhAya namah |

nArAyaNAya namah | Om Thath Sath ||

An Exposition on Vedas, Deities, Dharma and Dhrashtaras

In continuation of our pursuance above, we summarize here the Conceptualizations of the Vedas, Deities, Dharma, Seers and Dhrshtaras. Thereby, we try to ground the Natural Religio-Philosophical Concepts such as Vedas and Deities, through rational dialectic arguments to the Vital Bio-Psycho-Sociological Conceptualization, such as Dharma. Vedas, the Rg Veda are Religious Literature, the Knowledge of Vedic Deities, Who establish and maintain Vital Organizational Synergic Order, Dharma, conceptualized by Natural Philosophical Teachers, Seers perpetuating across generations by vocalizing the Knowledge at the Educational Centers, Gurukulas such as Thakshashila about five Millennia ago.

What is now Rg Veda ? It is a book in the Library; it is its Rks, as also it is their meanings; Let us consider the first Rk of the Rg Veda: Agnimile Purohitham .. .. which translates to be somewhat : We invoke Thee, the Agni, the Fire to enlighten us with the Knowledge, the conceptualizations that promote healthy Social Relations such as : Father-Mother, Mother-Child, Husband-Wife, Teacher-Student, King-Subject, Friends etc, which lead to all active Interactions in our Structured Society, wherein we are all mortal individuals, Vyshtis, liable to make way to our off-springs in course of Time; whereas, these Relations constitute the Samashtiyic Society, forming an everlasting Stabilized Sociological Organization.

It is believed that this Agni, the Fire which inheres within us all, motivating us into all our acts, thoughts behind them, desires and drives to achieve them and feels of fulfillments and gratitude etc, that are the results of various Vital Oxidation-Reduction Reactions at the Neurons of our brains and muscles etc, taking place via multiple minute stages between carbohydrates we intake and oxygen from the blood flow; These are the activities of the various manifestations of Agni – His Motivational actions in our biological Vital Chethana, - that keeps all us, alive and kicking within our Samashtiyic Society. So, Vedas are the manifestations of this Agni in all His Forms pervading all Vedic Deities, Agni-Mukhah, in action within us humans and all other live Vital Beings as exposed here, apart from being the Rks in the books considered above.

Let us now consider, what is, who are the Vedic Deities ?

Consider firstly the Section 12 above, Padmanabha, the Lord Vishnu exposes an artist’s view of the mental state of Lakshmi, a Pregnant Woman sitting and dreaming at the feet of the Lord Vishnu, the Sustainer in His all-embracing Trinitial form, on a nap on Adi Shesha, the ‘initial remainder’, emerged of a fire-ablaze: Now, the Pregnant Woman is dreaming of carrying within herself, in the cozy environs of a Lotus within the fluidic placenta the Brahma of her own, meditating on multitudes of initiations in the process of forming a new Live Being, a New Universe, all within her own self; the realization of this depiction serves the everlasting need of the Sociological System, the Society of Regeneration of the Mortals, us all.

Secondly, in the Section 13, the Yama Dharma of Kathopanishath, is the presiding Deity of the Samyamanipur. It is here that the Disciplinary Rituals sustaining all our everlasting Societal Relations, are conceived and exercised. Moreover, all us, the Societal Individuals inherently wish to know the Rational Reasons behind these rituals as also, all of us do participate with these Rituals, so to say. There-from, we have concluded that all the Vedic Deities can be conceptualized via Sociologically Rational Reasoning.

Thirdly, in Section 14, Conclusions, we contend that there are multitudes of Vedic Deities expounded in Vedic Literature presiding over the various Samashtiyic Relations cited above, such as the Father-Son, Husband-Wife, Teacher- Student, Yajamana-Subjects, Mithras Friends etc. Next, let us consider the Father-Son Relation, cited above: this Relation that we, as individuals are bonded now, here is Immortalized by that of our wards or children who get bonded just like us ere we demise from here to our eternal abodes. Similarly, the Teacher-Student and the Yajamana-Subjects Relations, which are bonded like ours now, here, are also Immortalized by those relations of their wards or children who get bonded just like us ere they demise from here to their eternal abodes. Thus, all such transitory Relations are immortalized in the Society and Diefied by the Sociological Forces enabled by our co-habitational living forever. And, we list below, these Societal Relations, followed by the subsequently named Adhi Devathas, the Deities Who are listed respectively : Husband-Wife Relations by Bhagadhithyas, Father-Son by Dhasharatha-Purushoththama Ramachandra, Teacher-Student by Dhathara, Aryamana Adhithyas, Yajamana-Subject Relations by Indra-Maruths or also by Amshum Adhithyas and so on. Besides, there are multitudes of Vedic Deities inclusive of Vishwe Devathas. Moreover, the Rks and Sukthas in Rg Veda expose the Features or Gunas of these Deities; a study of these features enables us to understand and inhere Them whereby the Strength and Stability of our Sociological System will enhance considerably.

Further, these Relations lead to a somewhat hierarchical ordering of the participants in course of time, and the rituals associated with sustenance of them may get to be too routinal; hence, the Vedic Dhrashtara, Vishwamithra discovered into the Rg Veda, the concept of Mithra Adhithya, to preside over the feels of Mithratwa, the Friendships. This Conceptualization of the Mithratwa may transcend all other Relations, enhancing their affectivity in further strengthening the Societal Stability multifold. Overall, in the course of Teaching-Learning, as the student advances in his learning, he gets matured and the Societal Strength gets much more enhanced.

All the Vedas are known to be Conceptualizations by the Teachers at Thakshashila, Sacred Seers of various Vedic Deities. Then, What/Who are the Vedic Dhrashtaras ? We contend that the Vedas are Dharmic Knowledge, Conceptualizations developed in Educational Centers, Gurukulas such as the Thakshashila by groups of Teachers, working individually and collectively. They were contemplating on the Disciplines of Dharmic Co-habitational Living leading to Conceptualization of ‘Dharayathithi Dharmaha’, literally, that which “accommodates everyone who participates in the Job at hand with all his mind and heart towards achieving a sense of Fulfillment, or Salvation”. [Shrimadhbhagavatha 3.16.18]. So also, Thakshaka means a carpenter, (Kulishah – carpenter - Thakshaka; vidharmani: Rg Veda: 3.2.1–3) an expert in conceptualization and construction of Chariots or Rathas which are used during the annual Jathre, a Social “Dharmic” Gathering, at all rural and urban towns in our Bharatha Desha, India. The Jathre is the most important annual function where all people of the township participate. Even those migrated out of the town return to take part here. Hauling the gigantic Ratha, the Juggernaut around the central Deity is the most important function that “may accommodate everyone equitably” in the Jathre. Therefore, everyone participates to his full might in the Hauling. Each person here is fully aware that the Juggernaut will any way take its course around the Deity irrespective of his participation; yet he partakes here so as to achieve a sense of fulfillment of having hauled the Deity, The Jagannatha around His own Temple. The conceptualization of ‘hauling the Ratha’, has been conceived to be the concept of “Dharayathithi Dharmaha” by the Teachers at Thakshashila; this means allegorically that, the concept of “Dharma” always “accommodates everyone into the job at hand to co-habitationally live with all his mind and heart peacefully forever”.

Having achieved these multifaceted Conceptualizations, the Teachers, Seers wished to document their Findings as Religio-Vedic Literature to convey the Message and to carry them along Time through their students and all others interested here. Any Documentation needs each facet involved in it to be presented serially, as also, via the paradigms apt for its communication. This could be achieved by the Teachers who partake the roles or Mentalities, apt for the set of paradigms as required by the Dhrashtaras such as Vishvamithra, Vasishta, Angirasa and other Dhrashtaras with different Mentalitis as found to be apt.

In view of these facts, we contend that the Vedic Dhrashtara Vishvamithra may be considered to be the ‘Innovative Mentality that transcends the Individual and Loka, Statal Bounds’; Vedic Dhrashtara Vasista may be considered to be the ‘Mentality that transcends the Individual and Loka, Statal, as also transcending the Generations of Vital Live Beings in the Domain of the Eternal Time’ and the Vedic Dhrashtara Angirasa may be considered to be the ‘Innovative Mentality who participates in the job at hand with all his Heart and Mind burning so to say, himself to be the black Carbon, the Angaraka’.

Synopsis: Vedas, Rg Veda are Religious Literature, the Knowledge of Vedic Deities Who establish and maintain the Organizational Synergic Order, Dharma, conceptualized by Natural Philosophical Teachers, the Seers, and perpetuated along Time by assumed Mentalities of the Seers, the Dhrashtaras about five Millennia ago at the Educational Centers, Gurukulas such as Thakshashila.

Note 1 : Many of the Sociological Concepts developed and used by Max Weber in his Book: ‘Sociology of Religion’ in German, (English Translation Pub: Mathuen & Co Ltd London (1966)) can be better understood if one reads and understands the ‘Vedic Sociological Conceptualizations’ brought out here.

2. The word Religion comes from the Latin word Religio which consists of two words: re (back) and ligare (to bring or bind)

|| vyaasam .. vijnaana sahasra bhaanum .. .. pranamaami muurdhnaa ||

|| My humble salutations to the Seer Vyaasa, the all Illuminating Innovative Philosopher ||

An Exposition on Vedas, Deities, Dharma and Dhrashtaras

In continuation of our pursuance above, we summarize here the Conceptualizations of the Vedas, Deities, Dharma, Seers and Dhrshtaras. Thereby, we try to ground the Natural Religio-Philosophical Concepts such as Vedas and Deities, through rational dialectic arguments to the Vital Bio-Psycho-Sociological Conceptualization, such as Dharma. Vedas, the Rg Veda are Religious Literature, the Knowledge of Vedic Deities, Who establish and maintain Vital Organizational Synergic Order, Dharma, conceptualized by Natural Philosophical Teachers, Seers perpetuating across generations by vocalizing the Knowledge at the Educational Centers, Gurukulas such as Thakshashila about five Millennia ago.

What is now Rg Veda ? It is a book in the Library; it is its Rks, as also it is their meanings; Let us consider the first Rk of the Rg Veda: Agnimile Purohitham .. .. which translates to be somewhat :

We invoke Thee, the Agni, the Fire to enlighten us with the Knowledge, the conceptualizations that promote healthy Social Relations such as : Father-Mother, Mother-Child, Husband-Wife, Teacher-Student, King-Subject, Friends etc, which lead to all active Interactions in our Structured Society, wherein we are all mortal individuals, Vyshtis, liable to make way to our off-springs in course of Time; whereas, these Relations constitute the Samashtiyic Society, forming an everlasting Stabilized Sociological Organization. It is believed that this Agni, the Fire which inheres within us all, motivating us into all our acts, thoughts behind them, desires and drives to achieve them and feels of fulfillments and gratitude etc, that are the results of various Vital Oxidation-Reduction Reactions at the Neurons of our brains and muscles etc, taking place via multiple minute stages between carbohydrates we intake and oxygen from the blood flow; These are the activities of the various manifestations of Agni – His Motivational actions in our biological Vital Chethana, - that keeps all us, alive and kicking within our Samashtiyic Society. So, Vedas are the manifestations of this Agni in all His Forms pervading all Vedic Deities, Agni-Mukhah, in action within us humans and all other live Vital Beings as exposed here, apart from being the Rks in the books considered above.

Let us now consider, what is, who are the Vedic Deities ? Consider firstly the Section 12 above, Padmanabha, the Lord Vishnu exposes an artist’s view of the mental state of Lakshmi, a Pregnant Woman sitting and dreaming at the feet of the Lord Vishnu, the Sustainer in His all-embracing Trinitial form, on a nap on Adi Shesha, the ‘initial remainder’, emerged of a fire-ablaze: Now, the Pregnant Woman is dreaming of carrying within herself, in the cozy environs of a Lotus within the fluidic placenta the Brahma of her own, meditating on multitudes of initiations in the process of forming a new Live Being, a New Universe, all within her own self; the realization of this depiction serves the everlasting need of the Sociological System, the Society of Regeneration of the Mortals, us all.

Secondly, in the Section 13, the Yama Dharma of Kathopanishath, is the presiding Deity of the Samyamanipur. It is here that the Disciplinary Rituals sustaining all our everlasting Societal Relations, are conceived and exercised. Moreover, all us, the Societal Individuals inherently wish to know the Rational Reasons behind these rituals as also, all of us do participate with these Rituals, so to say. There-from, we have concluded that all the Vedic Deities can be conceptualized via Sociologically Rational Reasoning.

Thirdly, in Section 14, Conclusions, we contend that there are multitudes of Vedic Deities expounded in Vedic Literature presiding over the various Samashtiyic Relations cited above, such as the Father-Son, Husband-Wife, Teacher- Student, Yajamana-Subjects, Mithras Friends etc. Next, let us consider the Father-Son Relation, cited above: this Relation that we, as individuals are bonded now, here is Immortalized by that of our wards or children who get bonded just like us ere we demise from here to our eternal abodes. Similarly, the Teacher-Student and the Yajamana-Subjects Relations, which are bonded like ours now, here, are also Immortalized by those relations of their wards or children who get bonded just like us ere they demise from here to their eternal abodes. Thus, all such transitory Relations are immortalized in the Society and Diefied by the Sociological Forces enabled by our co-habitational living forever. And, we list below, these Societal Relations, followed by the subsequently named Adhi Devathas, the Deities Who are listed respectively : Husband-Wife Relations by Bhagadhithyas, Father-Son by Dhasharatha-Purushoththama Ramachandra, Teacher-Student by Dhathara, Aryamana Adhithyas, Yajamana-Subject Relations by Indra-Maruths or also by Amshum Adhithyas and so on. Besides, there are multitudes of Vedic Deities inclusive of Vishwe Devathas. Moreover, the Rks and Sukthas in Rg Veda expose the Features or Gunas of these Deities; a study of these features enables us to understand and inhere Them whereby the Strength and Stability of our Sociological System will enhance considerably.

Further, these Relations lead to a somewhat hierarchical ordering of the participants in course of time, and the rituals associated with sustenance of them may get to be too routinal; hence, the Vedic Dhrashtara, Vishwamithra discovered into the Rg Veda, the concept of Mithra Adhithya, to preside over the feels of Mithratwa, the Friendships. This Conceptualization of the Mithratwa may transcend all other Relations, enhancing their affectivity in further strengthening the Societal Stability multifold. Overall, in the course of Teaching-Learning, as the student advances in his learning, he gets matured and the Societal Strength gets much more enhanced.

All the Vedas are known to be Conceptualizations by the Teachers at Thakshashila, Sacred Seers of various Vedic Deities. Then, What/Who are the Vedic Dhrashtaras ? We contend that the Vedas are Dharmic Knowledge, Conceptualizations developed in Educational Centers, Gurukulas such as the Thakshashila by groups of Teachers, working individually and collectively. They were contemplating on the Disciplines of Dharmic Co-habitational Living leading to Conceptualization of ‘Dharayathithi Dharmaha’, literally, that which “accommodates everyone who participates in the Job at hand with all his mind and heart towards achieving a sense of Fulfillment, or Salvation”. [Shrimadhbhagavatha 3.16.18]. So also, Thakshaka means a carpenter, (Kulishah – carpenter - Thakshaka; vidharmani : Rg Veda: 3.2.1 – 3) an expert in conceptualization and construction of Chariots or Rathas which are used during the annual Jathre, a Social “Dharmic” Gathering, at all rural and urban towns in our Bharatha Desha, India. The Jathre is the most important annual function where all people of the township participate. Even those migrated out of the town return to take part here. Hauling the gigantic Ratha, the Juggernaut around the central Deity is the most important function that “may accommodate everyone equitably” in the Jathre. Therefore, everyone participates to his full might in the Hauling. Each person here is fully aware that the Juggernaut will any way take its course around the Deity irrespective of his participation; yet he partakes here so as to achieve a sense of fulfillment of having hauled the Deity, The Jagannatha around His own Temple. The conceptualization of ‘hauling the Ratha’, has been conceived to be the concept of “Dharayathithi Dharmaha” by the Teachers at Thakshashila; this means allegorically that, the concept of “Dharma” always “accommodates everyone into the job at hand to co-habitationally live with all his mind and heart peacefully forever”.

Having achieved these multifaceted Conceptualizations, the Teachers, Seers wished to document their Findings as Religio-Vedic Literature to convey the Message and to carry them along Time through their students and all others interested here. Any Documentation needs each facet involved in it to be presented serially, as also, via the paradigms apt for its communication. This could be achieved by the Teachers who partake the roles or Mentalities, apt for the set of paradigms as required by the Dhrashtaras such as Vishvamithra, Vasishta, Angirasa and other Dhrashtaras with different Mentalitis as found to be apt.

In view of these facts, we contend that the Vedic Dhrashtara Vishvamithra may be considered to be the ‘Innovative Mentality that transcends the Individual and Loka, Statal Bounds’; Vedic Dhrashtara Vasista may be considered to be the ‘Mentality that transcends the Individual and Loka, Statal, as also transcending the Generations of Vital Live Beings in the Domain of the Eternal Time’ and the Vedic Dhrashtara Angirasa may be considered to be the ‘Innovative Mentality who participates in the job at hand with all his Heart and Mind burning so to say, himself to be the black Carbon, the Angaraka’.

Synopsis: Vedas, Rg Veda are Religious Literature, the Knowledge of Vedic Deities Who establish and maintain the Organizational Synergic Order, Dharma, conceptualized by Natural Philosophical Teachers, the Seers, and perpetuated along Time by assumed Mentalities of the Seers, the Dhrashtaras about five Millennia ago at the Educational Centers, Gurukulas such as Thakshashila.

Note 1 : Many of the Sociological Concepts developed and used by Max Weber in his Book: ‘Sociology of Religion’ in German, (English Translation Pub: Mathuen & Co Ltd London (1966)) can be better understood if one reads and understands the ‘Vedic Sociological Conceptualizations’ brought out here. 2. The word Religion comes from the Latin word Religio which consists of two words: re (back) and ligare (to bring or bind)

|| vyaasam .. vijnaana sahasra bhaanum .. .. pranamaami muurdhnaa ||

|| My humble salutations to the Seer Vyaasa, the all Illuminating Innovative Philosopher ||

A few After-Thoughts on Vedic Literature

O Vedas are considered ‘apaurusheya’: i e, often interpreted as being of ‘non-human origin’; We suppose it only connotes a ‘Vedic Descriptive Philosophy’ rather than various other ‘Religious Prescriptive Philosophies’; Vedas describe a Natural, Ancient Order or Sanathana Dharma into which a Society evolves in its ‘natural, undisturbed’ course.

O Individuality: A Society is composed of Individuals and Relations between them. Who is an Individual? Opinions differ: It is believed that negation of accepted protocols, ‘Charvaka, Kranthi, Bandaya, revolutionary, ArgumentativeIndian attitudes etc, characterize ‘individualism’. In reality: Individuality does not exist in isolation. A Society spans multi-dimensions of human thoughts or mental domains; it is impossible for one to master them all; so one necessarily concentrates on a few domains around his environs to specialize himself in. The sum total of such specializations constitutes his 'Individuality'. One will recognize Individualities of his fellow-beings by extrapolation of his own experiential Individuality.

O Societal Groups: A Society is thus composed of sub-sets: viz., Social Groups, Families, and Individuals etc. It appears that the Socio-Psycho-Neuro relations and their dynamics in human brains-mind has been the Subject of Vedic Literature. Such a sub-structuring of Society enables individuals to develop deeper inter-relationships and attachments to fellow beings. Problem that might arise here is that some members may develop narrow ‘ethnic groups’ leading to detrimental affects on total societal structure. Without such sub-structuring, members find fewer inter-acting scopes leading to unhealthy mutual suspicions and/or fears.

O Tracts in Internet: Please note our Tracts Posted in the Internet : (<Wikipedia, User:Prabhakar P Rao>); the important ones here are: one on Language Acquisition by Toddlers, second on Language Structuring and one more recent submission on : Philosophy of Language; and, then seven tracts on Vedic or Puranic narrations: Saptha Lokah, Ganesha, Agni, Katha Upanishath:Nachiketha, Padmanabha; finally one on Conclusions and A few After-thoughts on Vedic Literature. All elsewhere, one only finds literal translations of such narrations backed by a verbal ‘aura’, promising far deeper meanings allegorically contained within whereas we have tried to interpret these narrations into our everyday, neuro-psycho-socio experiential arena.

O Vedic Deities - "Eigen States" of Psycho-Sociological Brains/Mind System: Vedic Literature expounds basic human Neuro-Psycho-Societal dynamics in a Natural Society. Vedas, thus can be considered to be an Encyclopedia of Sociology, Societation of Individual. Just as a jumble of balls interconnected through springs to form a framework, when set in motion, would oscillate at different resonating frequencies at different regions or domains, human brains-mind in a Societal set-up would experience different, but fixed statuses, such as, emotions, motivations, activities, status, thought patterns etc, which can be considered as “Eigen-states” of complex dynamic systems. With these steady societal-mental statuses, conceived as certain Deities and their dynamic modes, ascribed as their characteristics, the Preceptors drafted their findings in symbolic languages as Religious Texts. As there wasn’t any publication media in those days, they framed a Priestly Class and handed over these texts to them bidding that these be carried across Time, generations via vocal transmissions.

O When Natural Environs and Societal Dynamics are steady, it does not matter much as to which Deity is placed where. But, in complex courses of time, disturbances inducing unsteady conditions may set in too. It may be necessary to seek clarifications on the various operative modes too. How do we go about Now ?

|| Vyaasam cha vijJnyaana sahasra Baanum | PoorNa Prabhoodam Cha Suthaththva Diipam Kramaadhguruumscha PraNamaami Muurdhna ||

An Allegoric Synopsis of the Epical IthihAsa, MahA BhAratha

OUR PASSAGE THROUGH MAHABHARATHA

The MahA BhAratha is a guide to understand the Vedas, the natural descriptive Philosophy, the Knowledge on how we all live in the Cultural set up of the Society. It may be considered that we are all born as Pandava’s; And, we inherit the SanAthanic, age-old Lands from the Dhrtha RAShtra. We grow up while being Primarily educated under BhIShmAchArya, and Secondarily under DhrONAcharyas, and many others too. Simultaneously, we live along with SuyODhanA’s, DhushshAsana, DhurmarShaNA’s KarNas etc while raising the ABimanyu’s along with us. In the course, somewhere or other, we may fortunately encounter ShrI KrishNa, a familial, guiding Friend and Relative, with whom we may proceed along, spiritually and serenely. And, we may be able to hand over our Riches confidently to the inquisitive, Pari VIkShitha, ParIKShitha’s through SuBhadrA’s, for him to delegate them further to the innocent JanamEjaya YajamAnAs, who follow him; and we may peacefully merge with our Predecessors. In case, we miss the ShrI Krishna’s, we will have to quietly surrender our Riches to the DhrthaRaShtra of the following Kalpas, and reach our lasts, merging with the ever advancing Pasts, the Revered KAla.

| Thath PUjA Karma ChAkHilam | ooo

Miscellaneous Tracts on the "Discussion" Page

MUSICAL NOTES FROM STRINGED INSTRUMENTS AS VEENA

• Here below, we submit some sketchy details on ‘Musical Notes’ extracted from Ref [1]: P P Rao, @ Current Science: : 81.6.2001, p633-634:-

• As we have reported earlier in Ref [1] above, we have examined the Musical Notes produced in any stringed Musical Instruments, such as, a Veena, Sitar, Violin and Guitar etc and perhaps any other musical and percussion Instruments too. Equation [1] below relates the ‘Lengths’ as shown in fig 1 from the bridges on right to frets on left, n, n+1 etc as L(n) and L(n+1) etc of the wires on a Veena for production of consecutive notes n, n+1, etc where n, n+1 etc are the order of the note under consideration and N, the ‘number of notes per Octave :-

• [No./Octave = N ]’, as reproduced below :-

• L(n+1) / L(n) = {(1/2) power (1/N)}. [1]

• And, since active length of wire and frequency of note it produces is inversely related, the frequencies of the consecutive notes produced by the wires are related as:

• f(n)/f(n+1) = { 1/((1/2) power (1/N)) } [2]

• In a conventional Veena, N = 12 and the notes on each string span over two Octaves and n are the serial Orders, ‘ . 1 2 3 4 . . . 12 13 14 . .24, for the notes, [sa re’ re’’ ga’’’ ma’ ma’’ pa dha’ dha’’ ni’’ ni’’’ sa: re:’ re:’’ etc] . There are four wires spread along a length of resonating platform in a Veena and the notes excited here span over about 6 Octaves although musicians in general confine their ragas, tunes to only two Octaves at low end of the tunes in their musical production. A closer analysis of above equation shows that only for a few specific values for N of 12, 14, 17, 22, 24, 27 etc., with over 30 ignored for operational constraints, numerous higher harmonics of each note n happen to be ‘fundamentals’ or ‘harmonics’ of the notes higher up on the scale ‘concord’ to a ‘fairly good accuracy’ as discussed below. Thereby no harmonic of any note fringes out of the scale to a large extent. Thus, the notes together with their harmonics form a family of concordant or harmonious tunes and so, a ‘Musical Scale’.

• Simple mathematical calculations on above equations show that, as N rises, more and more notes and their overtones get excited in each Octave in any Stringed Musical Instrument so that only for N=12 a full fledged and acceptable Veena could be conceived and musicians all over have accepted this scale as a Universal one.

• If calculations are pursued further for different values of N, the number of Notes / Octave, it will be found that only for N= 12, 22, 24 etc, the ‘concordance’ accuracy fits best for all notes; better so, for N = 22, as Bharatha Muni found long ago ca 300 AD with perhaps only his ears – a surprising feat, indeed.

• However, since with increasing values of N the frets get overcrowded operational Veenas adopt only the values of N =12. . • Nevertheless, for reasons that have not been understood yet, Classical Musicians, both East and West, adopt only 7 of the 12 notes in their musical productions,

• If any fret is taken as reference instead of the first as above, we get following relations:

• L(13) = L(re:’) = (1/2) L(re’) = {L[0] / (2 power [13/12])} [3]

• L(14) = L(re:’’)= (1/2) L(re’’) = {L[0] /( 2 power [14/12])} [4]

• And so on.

• This implies that for each note, all its higher harmonics also get to be included into the Scale of Notes that form Ragas or Tunes under appropriate combinations.

• If calculations are pursued for N = 22, the level of ‘Concordance’ of the notes is found to be well verified with error limits at their least and Bharatha Muni’s findings are fully proven.

• Thus when one produces a fundamental tune of say, sa re’’ ga’’’ pa dha’’ sa: • a second harmonic tune in the next Octave, sa: re:’’ ga:’’’ pa: dha:’’ sa:: • a third harmonic tune in the third Octave and pa: dha:’’ ni:’’’ re:: ga::’’’ pa::… • a fourth harmonic tune in fourth Octave of sa:: re::’’ ga::’’’ pa:: dh:: ’’sa::: etc are also simultaneously produced. These series of notes froming ‘Mohana Raga’, tune are said to be in ‘samvadha’, Concordance or resonance with each other.

• Besides, in an extended musical tune spanning over multiple Octaves as quoted above, if a mistake is committed in the example cited, say a single note re:: is replaced by ma::, even an untrained ear can recognize the resulting discordance in the tune. This suggests that all higher harmonics accompanying the fundamentals are also recognized by our ears, although we may be aware of having heard only the strongest, fundamental tune.

|| yajnam dhaDhE saraswathI | Om that sath ||

Gender Equality: (Vaalmiiki RaamaayaNa) :

Females are fortunate in one sense: by the time the idea of ‘finality’ stares at them, they will have sprouted some physical part of their own self as live off-springs, giving them a sense of ‘immortality’, so to say. But, males are not that fortunate: they may bank only on some concepts that may have evolved of them or some physical objects devised by them as a guard against any shadow of ‘finality’. Of course, children belong to the fathers too; but, fathers are recognized by the children only through mothers’ words and attitudes and such ‘attitudes’ may vary over wide ranges.

• maa nishaadha prathiShTaam thvamagamah shaashvathiih samaaha | yathkrauncha miThunaadheekamavaDhiih kaama mOhitham | RaamaayaNa: 1: 2 : 15 ||

• This is the invocatory stanza in RaamaayaNa that sprouted from Maharshi Valmiki’s mind while he was returning to his ashram from the Thamasaa River on that early morning. It can be literally reproduced as follows: “Lo Nishadha, the hunter, thou, the eternal Time, shall not stay steady for long, now that you have felled the male of the crowncha pair out of their amorous conjoinment”. Thus, only the female of the birds is enabled to attain her ‘Raison d’etre’, the fulfillment of her life’s goal. So, the males in general are constrained to find the way to their salvation by themselves during the course of their daily chores.

P S: In the stanza above, the Maharshi Valmiki, having willed that the nishadha shall not stay at any place for long, he proceeded on to author the RaamaayaNa wherein he set a way of ritualistic and rational life practices for all humans on their daily routines for all future generations lasting until the Sun and Moon rotated in the Skies above; And, Shri Rama Chandra got to be known by all as ‘PurushOththama Shri Rama’, an exemplary ‘Persona-Grata’.

Now, reflecting back at his own life history, the Maharshi recollected that he himself was a hunter long ago, like the Nishadha above, and felt that he may be barred from self-salvation for ever … ...

A while later, he remembered the narration that he had heard that early morning from the celestial Sage Naaradha, the history of Shri Rama that he composed as the Rational and Ritualistic RaamaayaNa … …

Maharshi Valmiki educated this history to Lava and Kusha, children of of Shri Rama Chandra and he led them along with their mother Siithaa Deevi to AyooDhya …

and presented them to Shri Rama Chandra at the Platform of His Ashwa Medha Yajna … …

Thus, Valmiki established a framework for a Rational-Societal-Set-up (Sampradhaaya) for all our day to day Ritualistic Venerations (Sandhyaa Vandanams) … …

Mortals we all, by studying RaamaayaNa devotedly, we may learn and adopt a method for achieving our individualistic Salvation.

We may realize herefrom our position in the totality of Society and work within our constraints towards our Spatio-Temporal Resurrections towards our ‘Holistic Raison d’etre’.

Thus, the Maharshi proved himself to be a Lamp Post for all our co-habitational resurrections.

Bhavathi yadhanubhaavaadhEda mUkOpi vaagmii … Jadamathirapi jamthur jaayathee praajna maulih Sakala vachana cheethO dheevathaa Baarathii saa Mama vachasi niDhaththaam sanniDhim maanasee cha ||

Prayers to Vedic Deities: Ashvinau and SaraswathI

• dhasraa yuvaakah suthaa naasathyaa vrktha barhishaha |

aayaatham rudha varthanii | Rig Veda 1 : 3 : 3 ||

• Interpretation: Each ‘Present Step’ forward is the terminal step of all past ‘Victories’ as also the initiatory step for all ‘Future Hopes’.

• paavakaah nah saraswathii vaajeeBirvaajiniivathii |

yajnam vaShtu Dhiyaa vasuh | Rig Veda 1 : 3 : 10 ||

• Interpretation: Obeisances to Thii, Saraswthii, mother of all Knowledge, we are marveled at Your verbal treasures that are understable by Your verbal adornments; May our hears and minds be enriched and purified with your Decors and we pray to be employed into active life practices at your Services.

Manthra Thanthra Swara VarNa sarva lOpa prAyaschiththArtham nAma thraya Japamaham karishyE : AchyuthAaya namah | AnanthAya namah | GOvindhAya namah | NARAyaNAya namah || Om Thath Sath Om ||