In Sanskrit, "Prana" means the life-energy that goes up and "Apana" is the one that pulls down. The following is a verse from Prasna Upanishad (to be precise Prasnopanishad 3.8) which comes under Atharva Veda.
"The sun rises as the external Prana, for it assists the Prana in the eye. The deity that exists in the earth, is there in support of man's Apana (down-breathing). The ether between (sun and earth) is the Samana (on-breathing), the air is Vyana (back-breathing)."Sri Adi Sankara in his commetry for the above upanishad says "the earth has apana-sakti". Further he declares, just as an object thrown up is attracted by the earth, so prana that goes up is pulled down by apana. Did we already know gravitation ? Probably, we didn't bother about it too much.
"Adityo ha vai bahyah prana udayatyesa hyenam caksusam pranamanugrhnanah Prthivyam ya devata saisa purusasyapanamavastabhyantara yadakasah sa samano, vayur-vyanah"
The following is the translation."The sun rises as the external Prana, for it assists the Prana in the eye. The deity that exists in the earth, is there in support of man's Apana (down-breathing). The ether between (sun and earth) is the Samana (on-breathing), the air is Vyana (back-breathing)."Sri Adi Sankara in his commetry for the above upanishad says "the earth has apana-sakti". Further he declares, just as an object thrown up is attracted by the earth, so prana that goes up is pulled down by apana. Did we already know gravitation ? Probably, we didn't bother about it too much.
16 comments:
Kasthuri,
your psot reminds me of something, The form of Vishnu supposed to stabilise the earth according to agamas is SAMKARSHANA he who attracts everyhting, now isn't Gravitation always attractive? do the four vyuhas of the one denoted by the 26 syllabled Vishnu gAYATHRI DENOTE THE FOUR DIMENSIONS WHICH eINSTEIN REFORMULATED AS SPACE-TIME?
Does the concept of Krishna showing a series of worlds within worlds in his baby mouth to Yashoda suggest something along the lines of Fractal geometry of existence?
whew, the curoius connections are many,
thanks for bringing the them out in lovely short posts ( brevity is something I have to learn).
Sarvam SriKrishnaarpanamasthu!
Definitely, we knew it much better!
If you tell it in terms of an apple it reaches, and not in terms of prana :)
Kasthuri: Interesting!
LOL at TJ's comment :)
Kasthuri,
If it was said in our scriptures, why were the scriptures not popular? In general, I wonder why the content of our scriptures (scientific or spiritual) have not reached the public compared to Newton's law. Is there a basic flaw in our system? If so, why don't we work towards rectifying it?
I agree with Lavanya. Why is that we hear things like "this has already been told in the vedas.. ". Maybe we had vision, but to complement it, we need implementation too.
@ anand : Cool relations. I guess somebody needs to work on all this and bring out a consistent system. Wow, fractals is another cool idea for a post. Thanks.
@ tj : Yes, the Eurocentric science is too much. I guess what we need is a old wine in a new bottle.
@ ranj : Thanks.
@ lavanya : Good questions. My next post will be on this.
@ tt_giant : Yes, I agree implementation is good. But,scriptures are for different purpose. They deal more with the subjective world than with the objective world - the path choose by science. My next post will be on this.
Kasthuri,
As tj, humorously points out - much of our ancestral intelligence atleast figured out that :-) just that they did not bother to 'document' it.
How else could they have calculated, improved catapults etc :-)
kasthuri..
interesting culled straight out of the upanishads..:)
the reason y similar stuff from the vedas and upanishads because they are metaphysical/philosophical texts whereas the works from scientists like newton mostly physical ,which are must easier for the common man to grasp..
I just said wat tj had 2 say in a long-winded manner..:)
I guess people don't care much about the fact that metaphysics is actually the physics that underlies the actual physics....sortaf like physics about physics..
Dear Kasthuri,
I have only one thing to say about certain views declared here. I find that our ancients were not interested (with some exceptions) in extroverted science. only the samkhyas and Vaiseshikas attempted to probe the phenomenal world and the former arrived at the conclusion that it is the work of prakriti and the Purusha-the spiritual monad must dissociate from the prakritic manifestations to attain the spiritual summum bonum. we find as Krishna says, our ancients looking at the metaphysical perspective and I am of the opinion that their wisdom is not to be considered as flawed. It is however true that the system was rendered unprogressive in the medieval ages by some scholars. this can be rectified but seeing the world outside I do not find anything wrong with the inward looking culture developed by the Rishis and Vedanthins of Ancient India.
Sarvam SriKrishnaarpanamasthu!
Dear Kasthuri,
a techincal question unlike any other:
what does LOL mean in blogging parlance, I see it in every comments section and wonder whether its some new cipher or something?!
SarvamSriKrishnaarpanamasthu!
@ arvind : I guess they never bothered with the external world. I believe one can know anything if he completely knows about himself. Thanks.
@ krishna : Yeh, you are right, there is a very thin line between metaphysics and physics.
@ Anand : Cool. This is what I was planning to take it up in the next post. We were interested in the subjective world more than objective ones. Yes, Samkya and Vaiseshika attempted to model the physical world and their theory is nice. I like Samkya.
@ anand..
LOL - Laughing Out Loud
That's the usual chat lingo..
u might want 2 check out the link below
http://www.transl8it.com/
Hmm.. If we look carefully.. We'll find a lot more interesting stuff like these in our vedic literature..
@ioiio : I guess there several things like this (which relate to scientific principles). For eg. Bell's Theorem is one such.
Kasthuri,
Why do make such claims as "Did we already know gravitation?" Do you really think Newton's gravitation is a simple apple-fell-and-lo-there-is-gravity!!
Who are you kidding?
@ Swami : Was that a claim ? I thought that was a question ! Anyway, I agree gravity is not such a easy concept. When Einstien said "When I read the Bhagavad-Gita and reflect about how God created this universe everything else seems so superfluous." Did he mean relativity is such a superfluous concept ? Was he kidding ?
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