How to understand the contradictions between modern cosmology and Bhagavatam cosmology?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So modern science gives us a particular vision of cosmology where it says that the cosmos is millions of light years. And how do we understand this from the Shastric perspective? First thing to know is that scripture has a particular purpose and that purpose is to give us spiritual knowledge. Along with that, scripture may give us some knowledge about the material world also.
But that is not the primary purpose of scripture. So if we start approaching scripture for material facts and figures, we divert ourselves from the purpose of scripture. Because scripture is like, I’ll use simple examples for this.
First let’s start from something called health. We have health as a primary concern for us when we are living in this world. Whether we are materialist or spiritualist, our health is important.
Now we can take care of our health, we can treat ourselves either using Ayurveda or using allopathy. Now both are valid ways which can help us to heal ourselves. But if we consider the conceptual model of Ayurveda of how it sees the body and what it sees the body, it’s substantially different.
Ayurveda’s central is the concept of heat, Jatavagani. We come to allopathy, there is no such conception as fire in the body. There is temperature of the body but there is no such concept as Jatavagani.
What we call as facts are always theory laden. Theory laden means what we call as a fact is determined by what kind of theory we are using. Now when we were taking care of the body, Prabhupada was pragmatic.
He preferred allopathy, Ayurveda himself. But once or twice he did use allopathy. Once he was in England and he had a serious health problem, he did a surgical correction using allopathy.
Prabhupada was not fanatical that you have to take Ayurveda only. He did not make allegiance to the material system of medicine coming from the Vedas as a form of medicine. Even if I find that Ayurveda doesn’t work for me, Ayurveda doesn’t make sense to me, I take allopathy, I take homeopathy, I take whatever else.
It doesn’t matter. The body is just a tool for functioning in this world. So just as we understand clearly that the scripture is not primarily come to give us material knowledge.
We may learn something important about health also from scripture. We may learn about regulated living and things like that. But that is not the primary purpose of scripture.
So similarly giving knowledge of the cosmos is not the primary purpose of scripture. And when we position scripture as a competitor of science, scripture is giving knowledge of material world, science is giving knowledge of material world and the two are in competition. We devalue scripture.
We devalue scripture. Scripture is giving us higher knowledge. It is giving us knowledge of the spiritual world.
So that’s why in general there is no need to highlight any conflict between the scriptural knowledge of the scriptural conception of the universe and modern scientific conception of the universe. So we understand that these are two different models. Two different perspectives.
Just as Ayurveda and allopathy give us two different models of the body. Similarly the Bhagavatam and modern science, they give us two different models of the universe. And if we see when Parikshit Maharaj asked Shukdev Goswami for a description of the universe, you know, if he could have just seen all those things from a mystical vision, and then he also says after that, that this universe is so vast that it cannot be understood comprehensively.
The purpose of the Bhagavatam is not to give an exhaustive knowledge of cosmology. It’s primarily from chapters 15 to 25 that it talks about cosmology. And there are a few hundred verses in those ten chapters.
But barely one-tenth of it all. The remaining verses are, okay, these residents are staying over here, this is how they offer prayers, and this is what Jambudvi president offers prayers, this is what this president offers prayers. So the purpose of the Bhagavatam is to give an overview of how dharma and devotion pervade the universe.
And that’s why if we look at the start and the end of the descriptions of the cosmos, the point is this is how the glory of Lord Hari is demonstrated. So the point is not to give an exhaustive cosmology. So apart from that also, if we try to say consider, now the devotees, we are trying to make a planetarium as per Shri Prabhupada’s vision.
At the same time, Prabhupada himself told you to consult some very learned Vedic scholar who can explain this. So it is quite difficult to just build a planetarium based on the Bhagavatam’s description because it is like, suppose 500 or 1000 years down the line, say all the maps of the world are destroyed. And we have Leela Amrut.
And based on Prabhupada’s travels in America described in Leela Amrut, we have to construct a map of America. See Leela Amrut is not a geographical book. It is a biographical book.
It contains some geographical knowledge. But to make a geographical or cartographical map from Leela Amrut will be very difficult. So like that from the Bhagavatam to depict the cosmos is extremely difficult.
And what to speak of it being difficult from the modern perspective of those who have been educated in the modern scientific conception of the cosmos, it is difficult even from the traditional perspective. What do we mean by the traditional perspective? See although we often refute Mayavad very strongly, we have a very Mayavadi notion of Indian history. What do we mean by Mayavadi notion? We think that everything in Indian culture, Indian history, Vedic tradition, everything was Bhakti.
But it is not like that. There are many different schools of thought and all these schools of thought were present. And actually they all evolved towards Bhakti.
But when I say so, with respect to the vision of the cosmos itself, there are two broad bodies of knowledge. There is Puranic cosmology and there is Vedic Jyotishya cosmology. So Jyotishya cosmology is basically what is used in astrology.
Jyotishya Shastra, as Bhakti Shastri Thakur commented on, and Surya Siddhanta. Now these are two different bodies of knowledge. The Puranic cosmology and the Jyotishya cosmology, they are different.
And even prominent astronomers, astronomers and mathematicians say like R. A. Bhatta. R. A. Bhatta, he himself said, I cannot understand the Puranic cosmology. Now he developed the Jyotishya Shastra quite a bit.
He wrote a lot and he is one of the founders. So he is able to make sense of the cosmology that is described in the Jyotishya Shastra. And using that, he gives a lot of good calculations, remarkable calculations.
So he is in many ways prescient as compared to what modern science found later. But even he is not able to reconcile the two. And our Acharya, say Vishwanath Chakraborty, Vishwanath Chakraborty, before that, other Acharyas who commented in the Bhagavatam, they have tried to explain the Bhagavatam’s cosmology as much as possible.
But none of them has ever used the Bhagavatam’s cosmology for doing any astrological calculations. The Bhagavatam’s cosmology is not usable. The dimensions described over there are such that they just don’t make sense from our human perspective.
So, that means there is a cosmology that makes empirical sense and that is for practical use. That is the Jyotisha cosmology. And the Puranic cosmology, none of the Acharyas have denied or rejected it.
But it is more of a envisioning of a cosmos from some other perspective. And how that is to be understood now, it’s difficult. But nobody has created a, none Acharya has said that, because we follow Bhagavatam, so therefore, we will not refer to Jyotisha Shastra’s cosmology.
They have not created a confrontation between the two. So, today, just as within the Vedic, the tradition was comfortable with two different regions of the cosmos. So, and they were also comfortable with not being able to reconcile the two.
So, actually, the whole philosophy is Achintya Bheda Bhed. Achintya Bheda Bhed means that we have to come to a level of understanding, acceptance of the contradictory, isn’t it? So, we have to to some extent accept that there will be contradictory things and we may not be able to reconcile the things. So, just as in our tradition, the two traditional sources of knowledge, of cosmological knowledge, Jyotisha cosmology and the Puranic cosmology, the two were not brought into confrontation.
Similarly, today, the empirically derived cosmology, this cosmology that is used for making practical sense of the universe, that is modern scientific cosmology. So, in a sense, modern scientific cosmology is similar to Jyotisha cosmology, similar in the sense that it makes empirical sense, it is usable for practical purposes. Now, of course, there are many concepts which are similar between Jyotisha and Puranic cosmology and there are many concepts which are dissimilar between modern cosmology and Jyotisha and Puranic cosmology together also.
So, they are not exactly interchangeable. But I am talking about the principle here. The principle is, we don’t have to bring the material in confrontation with the spiritual.
The material knowledge is for functioning in this world. And whether we use modern cosmology for understanding and functioning somewhere, whatever functioning we have to do, or whether we use Jyotisha cosmology, it doesn’t make much difference. It’s just a model.
It’s like either I take Ayurveda or Ayurveda. So, modern science as an endeavour, it is a programme And even honest scientists would admit that their vision of the universe is not complete. It is prone to revision.
So, that’s why, in general, trying to highlight the facts and figures of the universe, that distracts us from the purpose of scripture. So, we focus on the principles that are taught in scripture, the values that are given in scripture, the spiritual wisdom that enables us to raise our consciousness. So, when we otherwise, if we can do some kind of reconciliation and try to explain this figure is like this, this figure is like this.
But, if we try to highlight the factual aspect of scripture, we will always be on the defensive. Defensive against outsiders and insecure ourselves. How do I make sense of this? How do I make sense of this? How do I explain this? How do I explain this? How So, the Bhagavatam uses the vision of the cosmos which is from a higher dimensional perspective.
Now, somebody may say, what do you mean by higher dimensional, it’s just imaginary. No, that’s not true, because the same thing can be perceived at different levels, it can be in different ways and that is acknowledged even in science. For example, today science has two prominent theories, especially physics, there is quantum physics and there is relativity.
And quantum physics and relativity perceive the universe in two different ways. Now, according to relativity, there are solid particles, there are atoms, whereas according to quantum physics, there is just waves. And waves collapse into particles when there is an observer who is looking at them.
Quantum physics is a very complicated theory, but even Einstein, no, he couldn’t digest quantum physics. You know, one of his most famous quotes, critical of quantum physics is that, I would like to believe that the moon continues to exist even if I am not looking at it. So, according to quantum physics, the idea is that there is no such thing as a moon, there are only waves.
And when there is an observer who looks at the moon, then the waves collapse into an object. So, Einstein said, this doesn’t make any sense to me. But the problem is that quantum physics makes no sense in terms of a pictorial model of the universe.
But it works with incredible precision as far as mathematical calculation is concerned. So, quantum physics, that means basically, see quantum physics is more of mathematical and theoretical, conceptual, whereas relativity is more of observational. Not entirely observational, but more deriving from observation.
So, we could say, broadly speaking, that relativity relies more on protection. There is a vision of the universe and I want to make sense of that. Whereas, quantum physics relies more on Hanuman.
We make inference, we make calculations, we come up with a theory and we see if the whole thing makes sense. So, basically, within modern physics itself, protection and Hanuman in that sense are at war. Now, what do scientists do? Scientists, you know, there are areas in the study of the universe where relativity works.
There are areas where quantum physics works, especially in terms of cosmic distances, it is relativity that works. In terms of especially the microcosmic world, it is quantum physics. So, what do scientists do? They just use whichever theory works.
So, now, if you see, most scientists today have given up. By scientists, I refer to those who are serious scientists who actually go deep into the subject. You know, they no longer make the claim that science gives us any understanding of reality.
They tell us only science gives us models of reality. The models have some connection with reality. But models are not the reality.
See, a model is like a map. A map of say Bangalore gives us some idea of Bangalore. But the map of Bangalore is not Bangalore.
So, like that, quantum physics gives us one model of reality and relativity gives us another model of reality. And the reality is something different. And just as there are two models which are not reconcilable, and still science goes on, you know, accepting whichever works more pragmatically.
So, just because we say that there is another vision of the universe which is given at the time of Bhagavatam which doesn’t make sense to us empirically, that does not mean it is false. It simply means it’s a vision from a different perspective. And we focus on the devotional message that comes from the Puranic cosmology.
And if we are in a field of science, if I do some research, if some devotee scientist is working at ISRO, you know, he doesn’t have to make it or she doesn’t have to make it a mission to try to counter modern cosmology. It’s just functional. It’s a functional model.
As far as it works, use it. Even science itself may reject it tomorrow if some other functional model works better. So, what happens is if we put scripture as a competitor to science, then we devalue scripture.
And thus we create insecurity in our own faith and we create hostility among our potential audiences. So, we avoid that by focusing that scripture is there to give us spiritual knowledge. Does that answer your question?