vedabhASya - Vedic Studies

Background  Totaka ashtakam details the characteristics and attributes of Shankara.  We understand Shankara had the understanding of all the shastras, upanishads, learnt various philosophies, made people to self-realize and understand the concepts of Isvara and Jiva, created thoughts that become good deeds,  made them desire for neutral/equanimous perspectives, walked and travelled across like a ray of light, had none other in comparison to being in oneness. That's quite a breadth of information on Shankara.   Totaka ashtakam is said to be written by one Shankara's disciples (mookha kavi) who never spoke for a long time and the first words he spoke were the totaka-ashtakam.  The disciple declares that he knows very little and has little wealth and wants to surrender at the feet of Shankara to gain knowledge. It's so intriguing to note that this description of Shankara remains an apt description for mahA-periyava. Summary of Totaka-ashtakam You know the ocea...

Background Hanuman pancha-ratnam is a set of five stanzas that talk of Hanuman's characteristics, teach bhakti of Hanuman and through that bhakti, teaches us to inspire ourselves and acquire jnAna. vRsa-kapi Hanuman is called vRsa-kapi, which means 'strong masculine monkey' or alpha-male (roughly). An alpha-male is a monkey that leads the group, stands alone and detached from the rest on top of the group, extremely powerful. Hanuman made himself powerful, stood tall, alone and detached from the rest of the monkey troops, provided that leadership to monkey troops. Hence Hanuman is called vRsa-kapi. Hanuman - The inheritor of vAyu Hanuman is son of Kesari and Anjana. But Hanuman inherits the property of vAyu. Hence hanuman is also called vAta-atmaja, vAyu-suta etc.. (inheritor of vAyu). The five properties of vAyu There are five properties of vAyu (air or gas or molecular cloud or ensemble of molecules). They are 1. There are no interactive forces (i.e., attraction or repulsi...

Background kAsi panchakam explains what is kAsi  kAsi is a 'tirtha'. 'tirtha' is a sacred place. When does any place become sacred place..? In short kAsi panchakam says, a place becomes sacred when there is the detached observer (Shiva) and a flow of knowledge (Ganga) in that place.  Such a tirtha with Ganga and Shiva is called kAsi. Over a period this has descended into the physical forms of Ganga and Shiva. kAsi panchakam steps in and explains what indeed is that Shiva and Ganga. The entire Universe is kAsi, as there is detached observer and flow of knowledge in it. Our body is kAsi, as there is detached observer and flow of knowledge in it.  From very ancient times, the city of varanasi has been a center of knowledge. Scholars from across the world came to kAsi and hence there was flow of knowledge in the city. Shiva, the detached observer, resided in kAsi in various forms. Scholars in kAsi were also working on the knowledge of realizing that self, the detached obser...

Background Shiva is Energy. Three eyes of Shiva, the energy are the three sources of energy external to all matter forms. They are Dark Energy that expands the Universe, Cosmic Microwave Background that radiates over the Universe's space and Vacuum energy that fills the otherwise empty space. These three are the three eyes or sources of Shiva, the energy. Tripura- Sundari The energy that fills up the matter forms, as their 'internal energy' is Easwari. This internal energy is made of Potential (Uma) energy and Kinetic (durgA) energy. This internal energy that fills the matter forms is also called 'nArAyaNi' because it has 2 components that are 'Usable' (Lakshmi) that becomes energy of matter forms and 'Unsuable' (Sarasvati) that becomes entropy of matter forms. Same way, the energy that fills the 3 dimensions of the four dimensional space is called tri-pura-sundari. It is the vacuum energy as in modern science.  Since the vacuum energy makes the othe...

Background Shiva is the underlying Energy, in matter evolution. Shiva is consciousness in biological evolution. kAzi means that’s manifested, shining, glittering. The city of varanasi was called kAzi because it was a glittering city. The entire Universe is kAzi. The ruler of this kAzi, the manifested Universe is Shiva, the property of energy in matter domain, the property of consciousness in biological domain. More precisely the ruler of all manifestations is the kAla bhairava, the eight time-irreversible events and processes that evolve the material Universe out of energy. kAla bhairava are also the eight time-irreversible processes that evolve higher intelligence out of consciousness.  These eight irreversible events/processes are are the eight arrows of time in modern science.  Arrows of time In the ‘matter evolution’, there are eight arrows of time. Arrow of time are those processes or events that are not time-reversible. It means, once it has happened, it is not realisti...