Month: July 2013

Hinduism and the Total Number of Species or Life Forms on Planet Earth
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Modern biologists today can list and name around 1.3 million species of life forms on planet earth. But modern biologists also agree that this number is a significant underestimate of the actual total number of species on this planet, so millions of species and life forms are yet to be identified, named, listed and studied. Even today every year around 15,000 new species and life forms are discovered which keeps adding to the number of known species mentioned above. For centuries Taxonomists around the world have been trying to get an approximate definitive figure about the total number of species on Earth and to list them all. Now let us see what the ancient Hindu scriptures have to say about the total number of species on planet Earth.

Ancient Hindu Texts on Total Number of Life Forms
Bhagavadgita – 5000 year old text
The ancient Hindu text Bhagavadgita which which is atleast 5000 years old and dates back to the times of Mahabharatha says in (2.22) that just as one gives up an old shirt to put on a new one, the soul gives up an old body to acquire a new kind of a body (vasāmsi jirnāni yathā vihāya). And that a soul can be born as any of the 8.4 million species on this planet one of which is humans, the greatest of all life forms. Since being born as a human is such a rare opportunity, one should make complete use of this human life, and devout one’s lifetime to do good things, earn knowledge, help others, serve the society and try to attain moksha (salvation).

What is quite obviously hidden in this message is a statement which says that there are 8.4 million different life forms on this planet!

Padma Purana – 5000 year old text
Another ancient Hindu text Padma Purana which is also a contemporary of Bhagavadgita not only says that there are 8.4 million different species on Earth, but also goes a step ahead and categorizes or classifies them as follows.

Jalaja (Water based life forms) – 0.9 million
Sthavara (Immobile implying plants and trees) – 2.0 million
Krimayo (Reptiles) – 1.1 million
Pakshinam (Birds) – 1.0 million
Pashavah (terrestrial animals) – 3.0 million
Manavah (human-like animals) – 0.4 million

8.4 million life forms in all! The actual Sanskrit verse from the Padma Purana explaining the above numbers is as follows

jalaja nava lakshani, sthavara laksha-vimshati, krimayo rudra-sankhyakah, pakshinam dasha-lakshanam, trinshal-lakshani pashavah, chatur lakshani manavah

In other words these 5000 year old texts are not only suggesting that there are 8.4 million species or 8.4 million different life forms on earth, but have also categorized them!

Total Number of Life Forms estimated by Modern Science
As late as Aug 2011, a detailed study “estimated” (not discovered them all, but only calculated using a detailed mathematical analysis) the total number of species on planet earth to be around 8.7 million, plus or minus 1.3 million. Read this article on The New York Times, How Many Species? A Study Says 8.7 Million, but It’s Tricky. What this means is that around 7 million species or life forms are yet to be discovered and cataloged! Also please note that it doesn’t have to be exactly 8.4 million species even today, because biodiversity on earth has changed in the past few thousand years with climate change, mass extinction, etc. Irrespective of whether the final number ends up near 8.4 million or not, this gives us a lot of insight into the scientific and analytic capabilities of our ancestors and proves that the ancients were as equally scientific tempered as the scientists of our age. Please note that the numbers quoted above are from texts which are atleast 5000 years old, a period which modern science says belongs to “Stone Age” !?

Look at the striking resemblance of the number 8.4 million life forms mentioned in the ancient Hindu scriptures, and the new number “8.7 million, plus or minus 1.3 million” arrived at using modern scientific analysis and decide for yourself. Be careful the next time you chose to ignore a number or a statement in an ancient text as myth or irrelevant.

Remember these lines from the 500 year old kannada dasara pada?
“ಎಂಭತ್ತ್ನಾಲ್ಕು ಲಕ್ಷ ಜೀವ ರಾಶಿಯನ್ನು ದಾಟಿ ಬಂದ ಈ ಶರೀರ…” which means that our human body evolved out of 8.4 million species.

Who said there is no science in spirituality, and who said that the ancients knew no science. They knew better than us, ain’t it?

http://www.hitxp.com/articles/science-technology/hinduism-veda-total-number-species-life-forms-earth/

How old is Yoga ? Any Guesses

A 5000 years old seal found from the Indus valley sites shows Lord Shiva performing a very difficult Yogasana pose called as Mulbandhasana in which the feet are folded backwards (inset).

This is a highly advanced form of Yoga and Meditation which must have taken a very long time to evolve, and thus Yoga can be approximated to be at least 6000 years old. So back in this time, our people had deep insights about the functioning of human body in the form of Yoga. They also knew how practicing Yoga can lead to a healthy life. The amazing thing is that the effectiveness of this 6000 years old Indian Science is proven accurate even today!!

Sonia Gandhi in legal fight to ban ‘fictionalised biography’

Sonia Gandhi, the Italian head of India’s ruling Congress Party, has launched a legal campaign to stop the publication of a damaging “fictionalised biography” based on her life.
Mrs Gandhi, the widow of former prime minister Rajiv, is regarded as one of the world’s most private leaders.

She has taken strong exception to her portrayal in Spanish writer Javier Moro’s ‘The Red Sari’ as a snob who wanted to leave India following her husband’s 1991 assassination. The book also portrays her as a central figure in Indira Gandhi’s 1975 imposition of emergency rule.

Several authors and film-makers have been drawn to the romance and tragedy of Mrs Gandhi’s life. She married Indira Gandhi’s son Rajiv after meeting him at Cambridge in the mid-1960s and was living with his family in New Delhi when his brother Sanjay died in a plane crash and Indira was killed by her Sikh guards. In 1991 Rajiv was assassinated by a Tamil suicide bomber.

Javier Moro’s book, which has been successful in Italy and Spain where more than 200,000 copies have been sold, is now expected to be published in India later this year.

Lawyers action for Mrs Gandhi described the book as “full of untruths, half-truths, falsehoods, defamatory statements, completely imaginary and invented conversations” and warned she would “take all steps to protect and defend herself and her family.”

She appears to have been most wounded by its claim that she had wanted to leave India, describing it as “this country that devours its children” and had complained about having to learn to speak Hindi. In the book, Moro writes that “Sonia did not understand why she had to learn a language only spoken by the servants.”

Both are potentially damaging for Mrs Gandhi whose Italian nationality is used against her by opponents, and whose supporters are overwhelmingly poor Hindi-speaking voters. “She is sensitive to the claim that she is not committed to India and she legitimately takes offence if anyone says she wanted to run away after Rajiv’s death. A defamation case is in order,” said leading Indian commentator M.J Akbar.

Javier Moro defended his claim that she had wanted to leave India.

“There were articles in the Italian papers. After her husband died, her mother called, and it’s logical that she asked ‘when are you coming home’. It’s not far-fetched it’s a literary licence,” he said.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/7800735/Sonia-Gandhi-in-legal-fight-to-ban-fictionalised-biography.html

Is Islam opposed to Family Planning ?

Let us examine what Maulana Sadiq says, by looking at some other Islamic countries.

Indonesia, with the largest Muslim population of any country in the world (190 million), has had one of the most successful population stabilisation programmes, far more successful than ours. A major reason for the success has been the government’s ability to convince the

Indonesian religious leaders that family planning and population control was in the national interest. So much so that a fatwa was issued approving the intrauterine device (IUD) as a birth control measure. In October 1983, almost 22 years ago, a national conference of the Ulama (local-level religious leaders), passed a resolution stating, “Islamic teachings justify family planning for the betterment of health conditions of mother and child, to make the child healthy, intelligent and devout”.

Passages from the Qur’an and from the teachings of Mohammad were included in the resolution to show that both the Qur’an and the Prophet justified family planning. Even the sterilisation methods of male vasectomy and female tubectomy, along with implants (the best known being Norplant) and injectables (such as Depo-Provera), are currently used in Indonesia’s family planning programme. Indonesian religious lea-ders promote the virtues of birth control.

In the 1960s, Indonesia had a population growth rate far in excess of India’s and a standard of living lower than us. Today, the annual population growth rate is a manageable 1.4% a year (India’s is close to 2%) and the Indonesian per capita income above ours.

In the Islamic Republic of Iran, after the overthrow of the Shah in 1979, the new fundamentalist leaders dismantled the country’s earlier family planning programme and introduced pro-natalist policies. They soon realised their mistake, as the population rate soared, increasing by almost 40% in a decade. In the late 1980s, they made an abrupt about-turn, promoting modern methods of contraception, including the pill, IUDs and condoms. Later, even implants and sterilisation were permitted. Today, Iran has one of the most successful family planning programmes in the world. And the country is still run by Islamic fundamentalists.

Tunisia, another almost wholly Islamic country, has a successful family planning programme which goes back to the mid-1970s. It is the only Islamic nation where polygamy – having more than one wife – is banned by law. Soon after Tunisia got its independence from France in 1956, its far-sighted leader, Habib Bourguiba, argued that even though the Qur’an permitted polygamy, it was only on condition that all the wives must be treated equally – a logical impossibility and, therefore, not permissible. There was no opposition from the religious leaders and the law still stands. As a result, Tunisian women have been empowered as perhaps in no other developing country in the world, with a high percentage of them elected to its parliament.

Morocco has closely followed suit. Its king, Mohammed VI, recently announced a radical change in the Family Law: The legal age of marriage was raised to 18, for men and women; a woman was given the right to ask for divorce; and polygamy, though still allowed, was subject to such stringent conditions that it was virtually made impossible. In family planning centres, run by the government and NGOs, the reproductive health needs of women are addressed and youngsters given advice on modern contraceptive methods, which are widely available.

“In the last 10 years, Morocco’s annual population growth rate has come down from 1.9% to 1.6% and the fertility rate of women (the average number of children women have) from almost four to under three”, according to Zakia Mrini, president of the Ennakhil (Palm Tree)

Association Pour La Femme et L’Enfant. She also told us that 35 members of the Moroccan legislature were now women. “It is now a criminal offence for a man to beat up a woman”, explained Dr Khoumsi, head of the Family Planning Association of Morocco.

Indonesia, Iran, Tunisia and Morocco are only four of several Islamic countries – Bangladesh, Turkey and Egypt are two others – where family planning is widely practised, using modern methods of contraception, including sterilisation. Abortion, admittedly, remains a controversial area, but some of these countries permit it if the health of the woman is in danger. The

AIMPLB should wake up to reality. It should take a lead in enlightening Muslims in India with what is happening in the Islamic world.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/opinion/edit-page/THELEADER-ARTICLE-Muslimcountries-show-the-way-in-birth-control/articleshow/1072906.cms?intenttarget=no

Ancient India and Navigation
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Vasco da Gama discovered sea route to India . Really ? Read on

Portugese explorer Vasco da Gama, who is credited with discovering the sea route to India, actually followed a Gujarati trader from Zanzibar, a new book claimed. Suresh Soni, author of ‘India’s Scientific Heritage’, quoting archaeologist Dr Vishnu Shridhar Wakankar, said “He no doubt came to India but not as a discoverer sea-farer but following an Gujarati trader from Zanzibar.” According to Dr Wakankar, Vasco da Gama had recorded in his diary that upon his arrival at Zanzibar in Africa he saw a docked ship three times bigger than his own. He took an African interpreter to meet the owner of that ship Chandan, a Gujarati trader who used to bring pine wood and teak from India along with spices and take back diamonds to Cochin. Vasco da Gama followed Chandan to reach the shores of India, a fact very few in independent India know about, regrets Soni. “This should have been told to the new generation but this is not done,” he added.

The author said Venetian trader and explorer Marco Polo, as early as 13th century, had recounted that ships in India had double boards which were joined together with strong nail and crevices, filled with special kind of gum and were so huge that 300 boatmen were needed to row them. These vessels could take a load of 3000 to 4000 gunny bags having small rooms and arrangements for comfort. Additional layers were added to the bottom, when it gets damaged. Some ships had as many as six layers, the book says. In the 15th century another traveller Nicolo Conti found Indian ships were much bigger than their own ships and their bases were made of three boards to weather formidable storms. Some ships were built in a such a manner that if one part was damaged, the rest could substitute for it. Another traveller Berthma had written how wooden boards were joined to prevent even a drop of water seeping into the ship and that it would take eight days to come to Iran from Cape Comorin (Kanyakumari), the book records.

Read more at: http://news.oneindia.in/2007/07/14/vasco-da-gama-followed-a-gujarati-trader-1184411295.html

A L E X A N D R O S by Plutarch

Plutarch was a great historian and he recorded an interesting event which occured in India:

While in India, Alexander took ten of the Brahmins prisoner. These men had a great reputation for intelligence, so Alexander decided to give them a test. He announced that the one who gave the worst answer would be the first to die, and he made the oldest Brahmin the judge of the competition.

Which are more numerous, Alexander asked the first one, the living or the dead? “The living,” said the Brahmin, “because the dead no longer count.”

Which produces more creatures, the sea or the land? Alexander asked the second. “The land,” was his answer, “because the sea is only a part of it.”

The third was asked which animal was the smartest of all, and the Brahmin replied: “The one we have not found yet.”

Alexander asked the fourth what argument he had used to stir up the Indians to fight, and he answered: “Only that one should either live nobly or die nobly.”

Which is older: day or night? was Alexander’s question to the fifth, and the answer he got was: “Day is older, by one day at least.” When he saw that Alexander was not satisfied with this answer, the Brahmin added: “Strange questions get strange answers.”

What should a man do to make himself loved? asked Alexander, and the sixth Brahmin replied: “Be powerful without being frightening.”

What does a man have to do to become a god? he asked the seventh, who responded: “Do what is impossible for a man.”

The question to the eighth was whether death or life was stronger, and his answer: “Life is stronger than death, because it bears so many miseries.”

The ninth Brahmin was asked how long it was proper for a man to live, and he said: “Until it seems better to die.”

Then Alexander turned to the judge, who decided that each one had answered worse than another. “You will die first, then, for giving such a decision,” said Alexander. “Not so, mighty king,” said the
Brahmin, “if you want to remain a man of your word. You said that you would kill first the one who made the worst answer.” Alexander gave all of the Brahmins presents and set them free, even though they had persuaded the Indians to fight him.

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1897 में बंगाल में भीषणअकाल,
रेंड और आयन नाम के अंग्रेज अफसरों की तैनाती की जाति है, पर ये लोगो की सुध लेने की जगह उन पर अत्याचार करते है,
ऐसे में बालक दामोदर काफी विचलित हो जाए
13 वर्ष की आयु में वह बालक हिन्दू पत्रिकामें तीव्र लेख लिखता है,
लेख पढ़ कर बंगाल के चाफेकर बंधूओ की भुजाओं के रक्त में जैसे लहर दोड उठती है,
वे दोनों अंग्रेज अफसरों को गोली मार देते है,
चाफेकर बंधुओ को फांसी दे दी जाति है,
ये बालक दामोदर और कोई नहीं, वीर सावरकर थे, घर में बने मंदिर में जाकर वे देवी की प्रतिमा के सामने खड़े होकर कहते है की अब राष्ट्र की रक्षा कौन करेगा,
कौन आएगा आगे,
तब वे देवी के सम्मुख स्वयं ही प्रतिज्ञा लेते है, की
अपनी सभी पूर्वजो और पितरो को साक्षी मान कर,
मातृभूमि पर मर मिटने वाले उन हुतात्माओ और बलिदानियों को साक्षी मान कर
मैं शपथ लेता हु की या तो चाफेकर बंधुओ की तरह बलिदान को प्राप्त होऊंगा या शिवाजी महाराज की तरह विजयी होकर आऊंगा,