Hello dear readers,
I pray and hope you and your family are in good health and doing well.
Today in this article I wish to talk about our lost legacy.
I wish to bring to light a version of history that is never given its due respect by the international community.
My purpose in writing this article is not to prove that 'East or west India is the best.
My purpose to write this article is to bring to light a lost version of history that deserves its status and recognition in world history. I wish to just reveal some truth with Evidence and share some facts.
A lot of world history has been tampered, or re-written and has shown biases to satisfy human biases.
Reading, and understanding ancient knowledge and wisdom can give us new insights and perspectives about a lot of things. This may help us better understand our world today. This can give us a wider perspective and many new perspectives about the nature of humanity and intelligence. We can discover some new things that were not known to us. We may prevent ourselves from repeating some mistakes they did and we can definitely adopt a lot of good things that the ancients discovered in their studies and research.
Hence in my view, reading and learning from world history is very important. Sadly, a lot of this history has been damaged, distorted, or destroyed by men of greed and fear over millennia. From the great libraries of Babylon to the Ancient literature of Vedas, from Copies of Mayan literature to monuments of Budha, Narrow-minded, power-hungry people have destroyed these heritages and legacies, just to bring their own version of history into the limelight.
Fortunately, some parts of this history have still survived and we can try to understand the past through these windows into the past.
Here is my attempt to bring to light some extraordinary scientific facts and discoveries, that as per 'Modern history' were only discovered recently and that gives us a 'False narrative' that we are somehow the 1st people to 'figure this out.
Let's begin one by one:
1. The Speed of light:
Light is an electromagnetic wave. And it travels at a speed. This speed is 'defined' to be 299,792,458 meters per second in space (vacuum). Note the word 'defined' here. The speed of light by definition is this much. Even today, the exact, and accurate speed has not been 'Measured'. Now I don't mean to say that this 'defined' speed is wrong. It must be pretty close to the actual speed. This is because of some limitations in modern-day methods and experiments that allow for a certain degree of error and as per the latest experiments the speed was measured to be at ~ why we have measured the speed to be 299,792,456 +/-- 1.1 m/sec. And this was after hundreds of years of trying to improve upon this value, which I will come to in a moment.
So finally, in 1983 at the 17th annual Conference of general weights and measures, it was just decided to consider 299,792,458 meters per second to be the speed of light. And this was made the definition.
And hence the modern value accepted for the speed of light is this.
299,792,458 m/sec
Now let us see what the Vedic literature has to say about the speed of light.
The oldest reference we can find is a statement written by a sage named 'Sayana' in 1395.
Sayana was writing an explanation of the Rig Veda for the King.
And he was writing an explanation & commentary on the Rig Veda. In his commentary of the Rig Veda, he mentions in a verse, and as we quote here in sanskrit,
तथा च स्मर्यते योजनानां. सहस्रे द्वे द्वे सते द्वे च योजने
एकेन निमिषार्धेन क्रममन्
If you know Hindi as well, you can figure out, सहस्रे द्वे द्वे सते द्वे च योजने means something like, 1000 - 2 - 2 - 100 - 2, and Sayan is saying here, 'It is a fact (tathya) that the Sun (light), travels, 2 thousand 2 hundred and 2 Yojanas, in half a 'Nimish'.
The points to assert in this statement are
1. तथा च -- It is a fact, it is known. The root 'Tath' corelates with 'tathya' or facts or something that be known and needs no further explanation.
Which means when 'Sayana' wrote this, this was common scientific knowledge and not something he has just discovered. It means the knowledge must have been older than sayana himself. It means it is older than 14th century.
2. सहस्रे द्वे द्वे सते द्वे च योजने एकेन निमिषार्धेन क्रममन् -- travels 2,202 Yoajanas in 1/2 nimish.
So there are a few different explanaitons of what 1 Yojana is. I tried to search for many resources and the top explanations that i came up with were that 1 Yojana is either ~12.89 Km of today's units or it is somewhere between 14 to 16 Kms. I mean the definition of Yojana is slightly different in different texts. Which is not very absurd if you ask me.
What is the definition of 1 metre. If you see historically the definition of what 1 Metre is has changed many a few times over the past 200 years. And so, it is possible that the definition of Yojana may have evolved over time to make easier or better calculations.
Anyways, 1 thing is certain that 1 Yojana is somewhere between 12.8 to 16 Kilometers of modern units. For this Lecture we will accept this to be 12.8 Km as this is the most common with maximum references.
Nowe let us come to Nimish. I went throught the units of time in ancient vedic era. And i am very impressed.
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| This is an ongoing series and you will learn about a lot of extra-ordinary achievements of vedic civilisation. |
The vedic era has units of time ranging from 'truti' and 'paramanu' (29.6 micro seconds) to 'Maha-Kalpa' which is approximately 311 Trillion years long. Now one thing that MUST be acknowledged here is why would a civilisation have such a large range of units to measure time scales?
Today, the smallest measurement of time in Modern Physics is called a 'Plank time' and the smaller units are 'seconds'. The largest unit is 'Year' or 'Eons' (unofficially).
Similarly for distance we have the smallest distances like nanometers, and femto meteres exist in our scales of measurement and large one's like Astronomical unit, Light years and Parsecs.
Why did we invent such large units or scales? Because we needed them.
We knew the universe is Sooo BIG, that if we keep counting it in metres we will run out of numbers. So let's just use 'Light years' or Parsecs.
Then I believe it is safe to assume that the purpose of having such a large range of measuring scales and units in Vedic civilisation can be a reflection of the scale of calculations and measurements they needed to do or were doing.
They must be inventing these scales and units to messure something that small or that big.
Anyways, more on that later,
so, 'Sayana' mentions that it is known that the sun (light) travels, 2,202 yojanas in half Nimish.
When we convert 2202 Yojanas into meters, we get, 28,383,780 meters of SI units.
When we convert 'half nimish' into seconds, we get, 0.0889 seconds.
If we calculate the speed of light from this,
it turns out to be = distance / time = 28383780/0.0889 = 319, 277,615 meters per second
Now this value is pretty close to the Value accepted today which is 299, 792,456 meters per second.
...
...
Let's just forget about the accuracy for a while, it maybbe slightly off because of the difference in what a nimish or yojana was during the times of 'Sayana', instead let us focus on the more pressing points I mention below...
Let us infer somethings, that we can definitely conclude here:
1. It was known that light "travels".
2. It was known that light has a finite speed.
3. It was known that the light comes to us from the Sun, or a source of light.
Why do I mention these 'obvious' points you ask?
This is because when western civilisation teaches students about the "History" of measuring the speed of light.
They start like this,
1. Aristotle thought that light does not travel all, it is just present everywhere. -- And he is given his due respect.
2. Later on Euclid (one of the most renowned mathematicians in European history) was of the opinion that light actually comes out from our eyes, and not from an outside source. -- And he gets his due respect in history.
3. Until the 17th century, most of European scientists believed that light speed was 'Inifnite' and that it can reach anywhere instantaneously. Even Kepler, the one who gave us the theory of planetary motion and described the elliptical orbits of planets as per "Modern history" (although, a village priest in India at the time could have precisely located every planet using what is called a Yantri) also believed that light speed was infinite. -- And they get their due respect in history.
4. After this came a scientist by the name of Christiaan haygus in 17th century who for the 1st time in "Modern history" concluded light had a 'finite speed' and figured out that the speed of light was 220,000,000 meters per second. This was the closest that any scientist had gotten in their recorded history. Although this is far away from the true value -- He is also given the due place he deserves in history.
5. Later on finally a scientist named Fizeau setup an experiment in 18th century and he calculated the speed of light to be near 313,000,000 Meters per second. Closer but still not accurate.
And all of them get their Due credit in history.
Only as late as the year 1983 was the closest and today's accepted speed of light was calculated so precisely.
Now my question is WHY, why were the literatures and discoveries of Ancient Bharat even included in historical references?
If we can talk about Aristotle, Euclid and Christiaan. Why cannot we talk about 'Sayan'?
To be continued...
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