Vedic Physics: Scientific Origin of Hinduism

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The Rigveda is the first book of humankind and the most sacred scripture of Hinduism. It also happens to be the most ill- understood book of our times. Despite the extensive study by academic and religious scholars, the purpose and meaning of the Rigveda and many ancient Hindu scriptures remain unclear. In this pathbreaking book, the discovery of the Rigveda as a book of ancient cosmology is described, and related to the seals of ancient Indus Valley Civilization, thereby challenging our perception of humanity.

"The Vedas have always been lauded as containing the secrets of cosmogenesis. Raja Roy in his remarkable book shows how this is true not only from the yogic vision but according to the latest insights of modern physics. The book takes the reader on a vast panoramic journey through the universe of matter, mind and human history as well."

"Roy presents a new framework for the understanding of the Vedic hymns from the point of view of physics and then he draws parallels with recent theories on the nature of the universe. We celebrate the new path he has hewn through the bush of old scholarship."

Who am I? Why am I here? These are the questions that have arisen in my mind since as long as I can remember. Perhaps it was because of the Samskara I received from my father, who woke me up very early in the morning every day and recited verses from Ramacharitamänasa, when I was a kid. I was spiritually oriented from my childhood. As a young boy, I read the Gita regularly and tried to follow its teachings. In school Mathematics and Physics were my favourite subjects. When I got an opportunity to learn Sanskrit in school, I found Sanskrit as fascinating as Mathematics and Physics.

In school and college I kept reading books on Hindu religion and philosophy to find the answers to the deepest questions of existence. In university I came across relativity and quantum mechanics, and found these subjects fascinating. Somewhere deep inside I had the feeling that I would find the answers to the quest of my existence in the discoveries of modern science. I reasoned that if religion presents the true view of the reality, then it cannot be contradictory to the findings of science. However, they presented diametrically opposite views of the same world, and it became a question of choosing which one best represents the reality. I kept on weighing the evidence, and by the time I had finished my Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering at a reputed university in USA, I found the evidence to be overwhelmingly in the favour of modern science. May be it was the intellectual environment of American universities, or it was my specialization, I had become a more materialistic person than I used to be, and I had become more or less an atheist. Science presented to me a world without a God, a world without any meaning and a world without any purpose for existence. This was not a very comfortable position to live by, but I was prepared to live with it, if that is what all the evidence pointed to. However, deep inside I had doubts, and questions kept on surfacing in my mind. Could modern science be wrong somewhere? After all, modern science does not explain satisfactorily how randomness can generate such complex structures as human beings. As a last attempt to find the meaning and purpose of life, I started to read the most sacred scripture of Hinduism, the Rgveda. It is a very difficult book to follow, with no apparent planning behind its organization. It was when I was reading the ninetieth hymn of the tenth book of the Ṛgveda, known as Puruşa hymn that an idea struck me. This hymn is about the creation of the universe from the Supreme Being. The eighth verse talks about the creation of domesticated and wild animals. I said to myself that so far the creation story was making sense, and suddenly the subject of animals has come up. What were animals doing so early in creation? Then, I realized suddenly that it was not about animals at all. Domesticated animals live together and wild animals live alone. Domesticated animals are symbolic representation of particles that live together and wild animals are symbolic representation of particles that live alone. These particles, called bosons and fermions, are very familiar to physicists. If my reasoning was correct, then it was likely that the Vedas are a coded book. After that I started to read the Vedas very carefully. wondering about the meaning of each term I encountered. Soon, it became clear that I was not dealing with primitive intelligence here, as all the history books declare. It became clear that the Vedic sages had discovered the subtle nature of reality, and coded it in the form of the Vedas. This would explain the reason why extraordinary steps were taken to preserve the Vedas, and the honor given to the Vedas by the Hindus, even though its meaning is little understood.

The Vedic texts are a great puzzle to historians. These ancient hymns and their prose commentaries ask the most subtle questions about the nature of self, questions that the West has started asking only recently. What was the cultural context in which Vedic ideas arose? Was the mystical basis of Vedic thought connected to a comprehensive system of knowledge in which the outer sciences had their own place?

Western scholars have considered spirituality and psychology to be the main contribution of Vedic thought. That this is incorrect is clear from the recent scholarship that shows that the Vedic people knew considerable mathematics, astronomy, medicine and other sciences. The chronological frame for Indian culture has also undergone a revision. Archaeological studies have shown that there is continuity in Indian culture that goes back to about 8000 B.C. The Indian rock art has even longer prehistory; experts have claimed that the oldest paintings are about 40,000 years old.

Raja Ram Mohan Roy's book adds to this emerging picture with an audacious reinterpretation of Vedic system of knowledge. Roy's basic premise is that the mind - by analysis, reflection on every day phenomena, and grasping the nature of its own self-can discover a considerable amount of science, and this is what the Vedic rishis did. He presents a new framework for the understanding of the Vedic hymns from the point of view of physics and then he draws parallels with recent theories on the nature of the universe.