In olden times, there was a kingdom by the name Smrudhpuri. The people in the kingdom were very happy. There was no dearth of material pleasures of any kind in the kingdom. But as they say, the only thing permanent in the nature is Change. So was the case with Smrudhpuri. An acute famine struck the kingdom. Even the richest persons came on streets, begging.
Hindus prostrate before their parents, elders, teachers and noble souls by touching their feet. The elders in turn bless them by placing their hand on or over their heads. Prostration is done daily, when we meet elders and particularly on important occasions like the beginning of a new task, birthdays, festivals etc. In certain traditional circles, prostration is accompanied by Aabhivaadana that serves to introduce one-self, announce one’s family and social stature.
Vedas - The storehouse of Knowledge
The Vedas are the most valued texts in the Bharatiya tradition and are regarded as the highest source of knowledge. But what do they contain? Are they merely socio-historic texts describing warring tribes that perform sacrifices to nature Gods asking their favors in return? Or are they detailed manuals of rituals? Or are they in fact the storehouse of very advanced scientific knowledge?
Toulouse is located in the south west of France. Not many people are aware of this aerospace capital of Europe. Many Indians visit this city individually or in small groups albeit for a short span of couple of weeks, mostly related to the aerospace business.
Since the time of Panini, Indian mathematicians have used letters of the Devanagari script to represent numbers. Pingala used an octal coding scheme to represent the meter of a Sanskrit verse, and it played an important role in the transfer of Vedic knowledge from one generation to another. Later, coding schemes were developed by Indian astronomers to encode complex numbers which they encountered in their daily research. One such system, called the Katapayadi, was used in India during the ninth century C.E.
“Here was the pride of India, the man whom the English had moved heaven and earth to bring to Cambridge” - says Robert Kanigel, the author of the book “The man who knew Infinity”.
He was talking about a towering mathematical figure, Srinvasa Ramanujan. Ramanujan was a self-taught mathematical prodigy from the small town of Kumbakonam in southern India. Despite being from a poor family, Ramanujan carved a niche for himself in the world of mathematics through sheer persistence and belief in his ability. Lack of formal training did not prevent him from reaching the highest echelons of the mathematical world of his times, Trinity college - Cambridge University.
This article is extracted from a paper titled ‘Challenges faced by Hindu Youth in USA - Living a Vedic life in global religious and irreligious villages’ presented by Dr. B V Venkatakrishna Sastry of the Hindu University of America at the Vedic Conference, Saltillo, Mexico during March 30-31, 2006. The last hundred and twenty five years have seen a spread of the Hindu Renaissance movement, with an interest among the scholarly in the true interpretation of the Vedas.
