-Saurav Raj Pant
According to historical reports, Rig Veda was written around 1700-1100 BCE; making it as the first written text of human civilization whereas Bhagavad Gita was written between 400 BCE and 200 CE. Both texts are regarded as the ‘masterpiece’ of human knowledge in Eastern and few notables intellectuals like Heisenberg, Bohr and even Einstein of Western Civilization talked about the richness of these textbooks. Unfortunately, during the course of the colonial period and rise of the Western civilization this masterpiece slowly went under the subject of ‘inferiority’ knowledge. Interestingly, there are many findings in these books which are now been proved by modern science. Key notables findings which are also proved by modern science includes Theory of Relativity, Multiple Universe, the law of conservation of Energy and measurements of the speed of light. Our Vedic knowledge talks about sub-atomic particles ‘soul’, formation of universe through singularity( Rig Veda 10:129) is same as modern science accepted the notion of vacuum nature of universe before its existence and sudden change via quantum fluctuation or uncertainty principle of Heisenberg—or the ‘will of the I am the alpha and omega like particles’. Here are some of the examples that our Vedic knowledge had already explored the origin of the universe, energy, light, etc.
# Example 1
In Shreemad Bhagawad Gita Mahapuran of 10th Dasham Skandha on the 13th Adhyay titled under “The Brahman-Vimohana Lila- 40th Shlok” had explained about the evidence of Time Dilation (Theory of Relativity) very long time ago before(3106 BC) Albert Einstein proposed this theory in the 20th century. According to evidence based on the Gita, Brahmalok(the house of the engineer of Universe) has more Gravity than Earth making time going slower than Earth. This means that one day of Brahma is 4.32 billion years. Meaning, if we spent one day in another dimension of this universe, 4.32 billion years on earth will pass out. Time dilation of the universe and the parallel universe had already been mentioned very clearly in Vedic knowledge via ‘Indralok’ and Brahma lok’ including the difference of time. Stephen Hawkings talked about the possibilities of the multiple universes based on his research in the 21st century. But, such imagination is already gathered in Bhagavad Gita.
One day Brahma (the engineer of this Universe) felt that he is only the sole creator of this universe. So, to clear his doubt Lord Krishna called many Brahmas and told him that, there is not only one universe and not only one Brahma. There are multiple Brahmas and universe. Modern Science is coming to this conclusion only in the 20th century. But, Vedic knowledge had already mentioned this very early. This is of big surprise for all of us who thought that we are backward in terms of knowledge production and power of imagination that our ancient sage has.
#Example 2
During 14th Century, Sayana; who was the minister in the court of Bukka of the great Vijayanagar Empire in Karnataka, South India had commented on the verse( 1:50:4 of Rig Veda) by mentioning “It is remembered here that Sun (light) traverses 2,202 yojanas in half a Nimisha.” The same statement was also mentioned by Bhatta Bhaskara’s on commenting for Taittiriya Brahmana(dated back to 10th century). Sayana calculated the speed of the light based on the unit calculation (Nimisha & Yojana) established by Mahabharata text as well as Vishnu Puran respectively. Mahabharata textbook falls around 8th and 9th centuries BCE and Vishnu Puran fall back to 1st millennium BCE to early 2nd-millennium CE. It was only in 1676 A.D (17th century), Danish Astronomer Olaus Roemer first successfully measured the speed of light which almost equals to the speed of light calculated by the Eastern Philosopher dated back to the 10th and 14th century.
#Example 3:
Bhagavad Gita 2.23 stated that “The soul can never be cut to pieces by any weapon, or burned by fire, or moistened by water, or withered by the wind”. Here, ‘soul’ is similar to ‘energy’ what today’s modern science explains. It was only in 1850 A.D when Rudolf Clausius had explained about the nature of energy in his ‘First law of Thermodynamics” stated as “ Energy can neither be created nor destroyed; energy can only be transferred or changed from one form to another”. In the same way, the soul also transfers from one body to another. Secondly, in Chapter 7, Verse 4 of the Bhagavad Gita, it states that “Earth, water, fire, air, ether, mind, intelligence and false ego—all together these eight constitute: My separated material energies”. This statement already shows the mass and energy relationship very early comparing to Einstein’s formula of E=MC2 in 1905 A.D of the 20th century.
What next?
These three prime examples are very few findings among our vast Vedic knowledge that has also been proved by modern science. A thorough read of our Vedic books is must to understand the quantum theory of the universe. At a time, when these powerful texts were written—- Eastern world were benefited with a glorious period of economic boom and prosperity. But due to the course of history, eastern societies fall under the trap of chronic problems due to various political reasons and Vedic knowledge became the only knowledge for ‘chanting’ in religious deities. So, to revive our contemporary societies via renaissance; the re-study of Vedic text under the scientific approach is a must. Since westerners were reading this text and were getting the real ‘juice’ of this vast knowledge nonetheless we are still guided by the Lord Macaulay theory of ‘perceiving our own knowledge and culture’ as inferior to foreign elements. Therefore, it’s a time for reviving our Eastern wisdom and using Western technologies for our complete transformation.