RAMAYANA - CURIOUS QUESTIONS

RAMAYANA - CURIOUS QUESTIONS by V.S.Gopalakrishnan 28 Jan 2024 We often have some curious questions about this epic story. Browsing the internet provides some answers. 1. Why was Ram asked to go on exile for 14 years and not soe other number? In TretaYuga the rule was that a king should quit thrne for 14 years in order to lose his kingdom. But the rule was 13 years in dwapara yugafor which the Pandavas got exiled. 2. When did Ramayana happen? Experts suggest 5th Century BC. As for Mahabharata, Krishna's year of death is reckoned as 3102 BC from when Kaliyuga starts. 3. When did Valmiki live? Actually he is stated to have narrated the epic to Lava and Kusha, (Imagine29,000 verses in Sanskrit!). 4.When did Tulsidas live? Tulsidas died aged 111 years on 31July 1623. 5.At what age did Ram and Sita marry? As per Valmiki, Sita was 6 and Ram was 13 when they married. But what is generally accepted is that Ram was 25 and Sita was 18. 6. At what age was Ram exiled? Different numbers areavailable depending on interpretations. But it sees that 39 is likely. 7. After how many years in exile wasSitaabducted? It would seem that the abduction took place in the tenth year of exile. 8. How did Sita die? Sita, who was born of earth, requested Mother Earth to take her away. Mother Earth split and Sita went into it. 9.How long did Ram rule Ayodhya? 30 yearsand 6 months. 10. How did Ram die? He died by walking into the river Saryu and taking jal samadhi. ========================================================================

AFGHANISTAN IS TURNING INTO TALIBANISTAN

AFGHANISTAN IS TURNING INTO TALIBANISTAN

V.S.Gopalakrishnan Ph.D., IAS Retd.

typed on 24 July 2021

 

Afghanistan has always been deadly for India down the ages, and India has been naively and foolishly seeking its friendship by spending 3 billion dollars in that country as development assistance from its own tax-payers’ money. How did we ignore the gory Taliban factor when it was amply clear that when the US forces and NATO forces left that country, the avaricious Taliban would try to gobble up the country?

In the remote Vedic times, that region (presently Afghanistan) along with the area covered by Saptasindhu was the land of the Vedic Aryans. The Afghan rivers named Kabul, Swat, Kurram and Gumal are mentioned in the Vedas along with the Saptasindhu names. And in the Itihasic time, that region was called Gandhara. The Gandhari of Mahabharata was from there. The Gandhar in the seven surs is derived from Gandhara. Buddhism, from Ashoka’s time, became an important factor in that region in addition to Hinduism.  

It all changed when the Afghan land was attacked by Muslim Arab conquerors and Herat was captured in 652 AD. In the following three centuries, the whole region came under Muslims. Mahmud of Ghazni  (Ghazni is in Afghanistan) invaded India 17 times starting from 1001 AD. The 16^th trip was to Somnath temple in 1025 AD to plunder the gold. The main purpose of his attacks was to loot our wealth and convert us to Islam.

And then we remember Muhammad Ghori (Ghor is in Afghanistan) who invaded India 7 times starting from 1175 AD. He eventually occupied the Delhi throne in 1192 AD by defeating Prithviraj Chauhan, and established the very long Muslim rule in India. The bloodshed suffered by Hindus and the wealth looted cannot be imagined.   

Ahmad Shah Durrani invaded India eight times between 1748 and 1767. After the assassination of Nadir Shah, Ahmad Shah Durrani succeeded the throne of Afghanistan and started plundering wealth from nearby regions. Emperor Nadir Shah of Persia had invaded Delhi in March 1739 and stolen the Peacock throne and also slaughtered up to 30,000 residents of Delhi..

Historically, India remained a target of attack by the fierce Afghans, for gaining wealth and for effecting conversion.

THE TALIBAN PROBLEM:

Afghanistan today has only 3.8 crores of population compared to Pakistan’s 22 crore population. The Pashtuns (also called Pathans, an Iranian ethnic group) in Afghanistan make for about 1.6 cr, and the Pashtuns in Pakistan make for nearly 4.4 crores of population.  Thus more than 40 percent of Afghans are Pashtuns and nearly 20 percent of Pakistanis are Pashtuns. Thus the Pathans live in both countries, in the area called Pashtunistan. These Pashtuns or Pathans make for the Taliban (Talib means student or religious study).

In the 1990 s, Taliban had captured Afghanistan and introduced brutal, religious, fundamentalist rule. The arrival of the US troops in 2001 was a setback to Taliban. Now, with the withdrawal of the US and NATO troops, Taliban in Afghanistan has gained ascendancy. Despite the Doha Agreement, the Afghan Taliban has been indulging in violence, terrorism etc. The Taliban says it has captured 85 percent area in Afghanistan. It is just a matter of time before Taliban captures Kabul and the country with their ruthlessness and military power contrary to its promises of non violence. Taliban cannot just be trusted. It is bound to introduce Sharia law in Afghanistan and curb the freedom of women. Girls will be denied education. Women will have to quit jobs, stay at home and wear black burka. Most of the Sikh and Hindu families at Jalalabad and other cities have recently sold their properties and businesses to local Muslims and fled to India. That shows how friendly Taliban will be towards India. We hope that the Museums in Afghanistan are not destroyed the way the Taliban destroyed the Bamian Buddhas in February 2001. 

The Americans should have insisted on full surrender of arms by Taliban when they signed the peace agreement with them in Dubai. Why this was not done is not clear. It may be remembered that at the end of the Second World War, the Americans asked every Japanese citizen to surrender his weapon, even a sword! Secondly, the U.N. was never in Afghanistan and it was the Western forces that were maintaining the country in some peace and balance. Now, a bloody civil war likely to see the killing of thousands of civilians by the Taliban, is very much on the horizon. In such cases, there should be a provision evolved, for the U.N. to enter the country with its forces in order to prevent bloodshed of the common people at the hands of some militaristic forces. The U.N.forces should ensure disarming of citizens (like the Pashtuns) armed to the teeth.

If Taliban comes to power, the threat to India cannot be under-estimated. We now have to rue we went to assist Afghanistan with 3 billion dollars in developmental projects.

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DO YOU BELIEVE IN TELEKINESIS?

 

DO YOU BELIEVE IN TELEKINESIS?

V.S.Gopalakrishnan Ph.D., IAS retd.

9 july 2021

 

In simple terms “telekinesis” would mean moving an object by the power of the mind. Do you believe in it? Scientists don’t. Scientists don’t believe in anything for which there is no scientific explanation! Yesterday, I was watching a video showing the scientifically unexplained process of simultaneous yawning by us, and can you believe me, watching that I too yawned! But yawning is real. But, does science have to boot it away rather than trying to find an explanation for it? ESP is considered real although science cannot explain it.

But in the last one century, magicians used their skill to demonstrate telekinesis. For example you can make a pencil roll without touching it. You only have to bend your head and quietly blow out air, and voila, a pencil rolls away. Thus magic brought a bad name to the real phenomenon of telekinesis that depends on mind power. I remember the astounding demonstrations of Uri Geller who could bend a spoon. The whole world was astounded by him for years till one day his bluff was called off. He was doing magic. And he admitted to it. With a few hours’ practice, you and I can learn the simple trick of bending a spoon!

But for centuries, telekinesis has had recognition as a spirit based phenomenon. The spirits of dead people would shift tables, chairs etc. Such phenomenon is true despite the lack of any scientific explanation.

In recent decades interest has been growing in the power of telekinesis by human beings. Small items can be moved by a few inches by such power. This is also known as psychokinesis. Average Americans began to take an interest in this. If you go to the home page of YouTube and search for “telekinesis”, a very large number of videos mostly posted by Americans can be seen. They tell you that you can acquire this mind power within a week. What is basically required is meditation and concentration. I do not think that that is fake. After all, the objects are only shifted only a few inches. 

(1)The Egely Wheel in the video below, is an elementary experimental proof. The wheel revolves by itself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvUfEnBzx3M

(2)A more interesting demonstration of psychokinesis is the Psi Wheel. This demonstrates amazingly how mind energy can move a little paper object like an umbrella go round and round on a pivot. Below is a video that you will find very interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5NwRfMJgOQ

(3) The following is a chi power demonstration, of a low grade. This also need not need much training.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhqbO0_vYyE

But the real Chi Masters of China particularly develop enormous power through years of concentrated training. It would appear that they obtain their power from the cosmic energy around us. They can fell down human beings who come near them (like attackers). I don’t propose to post more videos here. Please type “chi power demonstration” inside the search box of YouTube home page. Right on the first page you will note about 20 amazing videos and you would feel like seeing each one of them.

TELEPORTATION:

This is the power to make an object disappear from one place and appear at another place. This is within the powers of siddhars, one may say. The late Sathya Sai Baba was once being interviewed by an American journalist. Baba asked him his year of birth and in a flash produced an American coin minted in that particular year and presented it to him! I believe that this is nothing but teleportation. Obviously somewhere in the USA, one coin would have disappeared and found missing! This episode is contained in a book on the Baba by the American.

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CAN THE SWAN REALLY SEPARATE MILK AND WATER?

V.S. GOPALAKRISHNAN

27 Feb 2015

In our literature and scriptures, we have come across the mention that the swan separates milk from water. Is that real? Or is that metaphorical? Well, as far as I am concerned I can also separate milk from water. It simply entails boiling the diluted milk.

The white swan is the vahana of the couple Brahma and Saraswathi. Why do Gods have to have vahanas is something on which I will write a blog separately. Have there been any swans in India that I have seen? Sadly no. I have seen them in the waterpools of Jardin du Luxembourg in Paris, but the white swan seems to have practically vanished from India. Why so? But we get to see other kinds of water birds only like ducks and geese which belong to the same Anatidae family of birds as swans. Some of these have lovely colours and captivating beauty and yet nothing can rival the pristine purity and ethereal beauty of the white swan which is the most graceful-looking of them all.

Let us see which spokespersons in history and prehistory have announced that the swan can separate milk from water and consume the former only. But before that let us see where swan itself is mentioned and celebrated in our scriptures and literature.

MENTION OF SWAN:

Like most things in India swan is mentioned right in the Vedas! Called “Hamsa” in Sanskrit, it is said to find a mention a number of times in Rig Veda ((1-65-5; 1-163-10;2-34-5;3-8-9;;AV 6-12-1 etc). The Vedas say that swans lived on Lake Mansarovar in summer and migrated to Indian lakes in winter.

It seems that when soma is crushed to extract the juice, a sound comes out which is like the hissing sound made by a swan when disturbed on the water (Rig Veda  1-65-5)

Swan is said to be mentioned in Yajur Veda (Kataka, Maitrayani, Vajasneyi Samhitas and Taitriya Brahmana) crediting it with the ability to separate soma from water!

It seems that the wise swan is compared in the Shiva Purana (2-15-10) to the sun and the spiritually elevated man.

The “Mute Swans” are the category of white swans with red beaks that we adore while there are six other species of swans such as black swans, black necked swans etc. The mute swans go in pairs, devoted to each other, largely monogamous in life and it is stated that the writer Asvagosha mentions this in his “Buddhacharita” as a factor that was invoked to get Gautama Siddhartha back to his wife.

 

(above; the "Mute swan" or white swan)

(above: black swan)

(above: the black-necked swan)

The Ramayana carries the story of Ravana entering the scene of King Marutta performing sacred rites at which Gods and sages were present. And a wrathful Ravana challenged King Marutta to a fight and even ate up the rishis! The various Gods present, frightened of Ravana, disguised themselves in different forms. Varuna disguised himself as a swan and escaped the killing by Ravana. In return Varuna gave the boon of a pure white permanent colour to the swan!

In the Mahabharata, there is the famous story of Nala-Damayanti. A golden swan is sent by Nala to Damayanti which sings the praises of Nala to Damayanti and they end up in marriage.

Dramatist Kalidasa’s plays and many Tamil literature works also frequently mention swans.

As per the Sikh Granth traditions, swans eat pearls while white cranes go for measly frogs.

Our great saints are called “Paramahamsa”. The “hamsa” represents wisdom and enlightenment. Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and Paramahamsa Yoganand are well known great spiritual figures.

STORIES OF SWANS SEPARATING MILK FROM WATER:

I have earlier referred to the Yajur Veda references on the swan’s ability to separate soma from water, and in due course this became a common impression of the swan being able to separate milk from water.

Kalidasa has referred to the extraordinary capacity of swan ‘separating milk from water’ in the Sakuntalam drama (Act 6-33). 

In a large number of Tamil literature, the swan’s capacity to select milk from water has found mention.

WHERE DOES THE TRUTH LIE?

Scientifically, swan is a bird which neither produces milk nor drinks milk.

Swan is essentially herbivorous. At best it does extract milk from the stems of water plants and it has filters (lamellae) in its mouth to keep out dirt and mud while doing so.

The white swans are incredibly graceful, beautiful and purity-personified. It has thus become an object of not just admiration but veneration. Qualities of wisdom, discretion and spirituality are now commonly being attributed to swans and evolved human beings.

Man is faced with choices and he should take in and practise what is good, virtuous, ennobling, spiritually elevating etc and should eschew what is bad, harmful, only sensually fulfilling etc. This is the allegorical lesson for man from the example of the swan that can allegedly separate milk and water. 

The ability to separate milk from water is thus highly metaphorical. Most of our mythologies have to be better understood not too literally but metaphorically in terms of the lessons and the wisdom presented.

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