Are attempts to interpret ancient Rathas in the Vedas as hi-tech cars misinterpretations of scripture?

From Vighnesh P

Hare Krishna.
Question from Vignesh Prabhu. Are the interpretation from the Vedas that the hundred Kauravas were produced by stem cell research or that the Anvasharath in the Rig Veda is the, is a ancient car or that, say Sanjay had television, Sanjay’s ability to see was television, Doordarshan in an ancient sense. Are these interpretations of scripture right? Is this saffronization of syllabus? Is it restoration of scripture? Answer.
The intention is right. The specific methods will be required progressively and they will be done gradually. We presented with greater scientific rigor.
Even Shrila Prabhupada talked about, this is mentioned in Life comes from Life book that Sanjay’s ability to see something at a distance was in one sense like, like television. It is not exactly television. It is called as distant perception.
It comes in the paranormal abilities, ESP, or PSI phenomena they are called. So now there are two different things which you should not confuse over here. First is the point of the respectability and the glory of the Vedic scriptures.
These scriptures are definitely containing profound wisdom and that profound wisdom was both material and spiritual. In the past, the Brahmanas would not just use spiritual knowledge to people in terms of helping them become elevated towards the spiritual world, but they could also perform Karmakanda rituals by which people could get their material needs fulfilled. So in general, whoever fulfills people’s material needs and can do it in impressive ways, which they themselves can’t do, that attracts and inspires people and then they develop faith in the spiritual component of the scripture also.
So that’s how Karmakanda is a progression to Jnanakanda and ultimately to Bhakti. So in today’s society, the material and the spiritual components have become not only separated, but they have become opposed. Today, most of the material facilities for people are provided by scientists and science has been largely been hijacked by materialists and atheists.
And that’s why people get material things from materialistic scientists and then they think that what is scripture giving us? Why do we need scripture at all? So a scripture is a body of knowledge, which offers knowledge at a far greater level, which material science can never provide. Science can help us to go fast, but spirituality will tell us where we should go. So science can provide velocity, spirituality can provide direction.
So the important knowledge that comes from spirituality, from scripture, is the knowledge about the purpose of life and how to achieve that purpose. And this knowledge is missing even in science. In fact, there’s a famous conversation between Einstein and Heisenberg to Nobel laureates quoted by Dr. Abdul Kalam in his Ignited Minds.
And he said that in western civilization, we have like a magnificent ship with all facilities in it, but it doesn’t know where it is going and it doesn’t have a map. That is the predicament of science, which is science and materialism overall, which is unguided by scripture. So now the attempt, the primary purpose of scripture right now should be to, primary contribution of scripture is to provide people spiritual knowledge and spiritual guidance.
Now, the material knowledge and scripture is also valid, but much of that may not be accessible now. So, for example, skeptical scientists may accuse those who say that there was tensile research in the ancient times or there was technology to produce a car or such things. You know, he says, OK, but then where is the mechanism to do it repeatedly? Why was it not done in the mass scale? And why was all the technology developed in the West? So now the point is there was access to higher levels of the universe and through that one got mystical powers.
And by those mystical powers one was able to do extraordinary things. Now, because of the decline of powers in Kali Yuga of individual human powers, human abilities, so now we don’t have access to the universe and because we don’t have access to the higher aspects of the universe, so most of these powers are inaccessible. And that’s why people, when they can’t access, those powers can’t be accessed, skeptics start dismissing all these as fairy tales.
So now some of those techniques, some of those principles may be accessible and may be useful even today. Ayurveda is becoming increasingly accepted as an important alternative form of medicine. Vastu Shastra is becoming popular.
Vedic mathematics is not only equivalent to, but in many ways, superior to modern mathematics. So, as more and more the ancient Vedic scriptures are studied, more and more the material knowledge within them, what is relevant now, what is accessible now, that will also be discovered. But if they are entirely dismissed as just mythological, as just fairy tales, then nobody will explore it only.
And therefore, the wisdom within them will never be mined. And ultimately, when Srila Prabhupada was asked, there was a book which talked about how there are ancient civilizations all over the world in the past. Famous book by Hancock, Fingerprint of the Gods.
So, Prabhupada said, can this be ascribed to the Vedic civilization? So, Suhotra Maharaj, one of the Sikon Sanyasis asked. Prabhupada said, Vedic technology, why is this? He was asked that is all this ancient technology produced by the Vedas? So, Prabhupada said Vedic technology means Guru-Shishya Parampara. So, Prabhupada focused that in the Guru-Shishya Parampara, we get the spiritual process of purification and elevation.
That is the essential Vedic technology that is available. And that’s what the world needs the most today. But people will not turn towards it, many people will not turn towards it or appreciate it, if they feel that actually we need only material things and all our material needs are provided by modern sources of knowledge.
So, for people to develop respect for the Indian knowledge sources, various strategies can be used. So, one strategy is, of course, what the Krishna Consciousness Movement is doing. Directly presenting the spiritual message in a relevant and empowering way, intelligible and empowering way, by which people take up the spiritual message.
And at a mass level, if the material knowledge within scriptures is also researched and presented in a scientifically intelligible way, that can also create a lot of respect in people’s mind for Vedic literature and then they will turn towards the spiritual wisdom. So, now there will be this sort of knowledge will be presented, material knowledge is presented in today’s language that can fall in various terms. Now, Devamrith Maharaj in his book Searching for Vedic India shows how the same verses in the Rig Veda can be interpreted as entirely mythological by a skeptical translator and by sympathetic translator can see in those verses advanced technology.
So, now what is right? See, the right point is that we want people to take Vedic scripture seriously because they contain a serious wisdom and not just spiritual, even material serious wisdom can be discovered in them. So, the attempts which are being done here can be appreciated. The specifics will need to be researched and they will need to be improved.
They will need to be presented with greater scientific rigor. Otherwise, skeptics will dismiss them as saffronization of syllabus. So, to the extent we have scientific interest and scientific rigor, we can study those sections of scripture more in detail and present it with greater intelligibility.
Sadaputpuru, one of Sri Prabhupada’s disciples, wrote a book called Vedic Cosmography. He wrote a book called Alien Identities. Many books he wrote like that and many devotee scientists have written books which showed how things which had earlier seemed to be completely mythological, you know, they had parallels with modern scientific findings and they could illumine things which modern science has not been able to find.
So, we appreciate the spirit in which this is being done and we also recognize that there is a need to do this presentation in a more rigorous way so that people ultimately take the spiritual message within the Vedic literature seriously. Thank you.