Similarities and differences in cosmological descriptions of Vedic and modern sources of cosmology

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
First of all we need to know that when we talk about say Indian cosmology or Vedic cosmology it’s not monolithic there are many different sources for getting knowledge so one of them is the Puranas so one of the Puranas is the Bhagavatam, we call it Srimad Bhagavatam, it is also known as the Bhagavat Puran or the Bhagavat Mahapuran and there is another genre of literature which also gives description of cosmology and that is called as Jyotishi Shastras so now within the tradition it is understood that the Puranas describe the universe as it is seen from a divine perspective from a higher perspective beyond what is accessible to us humans and the Jyotishi Shastras, they describe the universe from a more accessible perspective similar to what we humans can perceive the universe and both these describe the universe in ways that are similar and also dissimilar so that means within the Indian tradition itself, the Puranic and Jyotishi cosmology, there are significant differences between the two so the Jyotishi cosmology, Jyotishi Shastra description is strikingly similar to the description that are given in modern cosmology so let’s look at some similarities over here so one of the Jyotishi Shastras is the Surya Siddhanta now Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur, the spiritual master of Srila Prabhupada, wrote a commentary on the Surya Siddhanta and that was one of the reasons why he got the name Bhakti Siddhanta so he was so now in that, the distance between the earth and the moon is described and we will see that there it is described as 253,000 miles and according to modern cosmology it is 252,088 miles so there is a significant level of similarity between the distances now of course, we need to know that the earth and moon distance also, it varies because the moon is sometimes closer, the moon goes further there is a perigee and apogee that is there so it varies and even the earth itself is moving, the moon is moving but still there is a significant amount of similarity between these distances and the Jyotishi Shastras we don’t know their exact time they were written but historically we do know that they came long before we had developments in modern cosmology now there is also the earth’s diameter that is described so the earth’s diameter is here described as 7840 miles in Surya Siddhanta and it is described as 7917.5 miles in modern cosmology so again if the descriptions of the cosmos were simply some pre-scientific imagination some religious mythology then how would we have such precise correlation so that is we are all talking about Jyotishi Shastras over here and these are strikingly similar and we could go into more but let’s focus on the example principle right now now we may say that are there some differences also are there any disturbing differences so till now I talked about we are having three sources of cosmology, one is the Puranic cosmology, the second is the Jyotisha cosmology and third is the modern cosmology so I gave some examples of modern cosmology and Jyotisha cosmology are similar but then what about the Puranic cosmology yes the Puranic cosmology is strikingly different not just from modern cosmology it is different from Jyotisha cosmology also and although these differences are there, these differences didn’t disturb the Bhakti tradition, there is no evident tension that we can find what do I mean there is no evident tension, that there were Bhagavatam commentators who have written extensive commentaries on the Bhagavatam including on its 5th canto and they use Jyotisha Shastras for making horoscopes and for fixing ceremonial timings called as Muhurtas so they are writing a commentary on the Bhagavatam but when they have to do any practical work with respect to timings in the past astrology and astronomy were quite well connected so for that time they are using the Jyotisha Shastras they don’t use the Bhagavatam so why is this significant that means that they accept both sources of knowledge as reliable they are commenting on the Bhagavatam why would somebody comment on a book if they didn’t consider that book to be authentic so obviously they accept the authority of the Bhagavatam they are great, we have Vishwanath Chakraborty Thakur or we have Jeeva Goswami these are very prominent scholars so they are commenting on the Bhagavatam they accept the Bhagavatam’s authority at the same time when they are focusing on some astrological purposes like making horoscopes or fixing timings then they are referring to Jyotisha Shastras that means they consider both to be authoritative now but aren’t the two contradictory how do we make sense of the fact that the two are contradictory or at least the two don’t give very similar information to the Puranic cosmology that means whatever cosmological description we are reading just now this is not what is used even by the tradition for making astrological calculations so now why are there differing visions because of many reasons we will discuss two among those reasons that why will there can be a differing vision, what we see can be different because of perspective from where we see and because of purpose why we see so what do I mean by this perspective and purpose say if we are looking at a mountain I am looking at the mountain from one side and you are looking at the mountain from the opposite side say we are both looking at the same mountain but both of us will see something different on the other hand say if I am looking at the mountain to spot some wildlife my focus will be different are there some deer over here, are there some special animals, on the other hand if you are looking to understand the topography ok this is a plain, this is a plateau this is a peak, this is a cliff your focus will be different so there can be different visions because of various reasons so two among them are perspective and purpose