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May 0728('
’Was wondering about a common phrase called “Nimisharda” which is used in Indian languages of sanskrit origin while referring to something that happens/moves instantly, similar to the ‘blink of an eye’. Nimisharda means half a nimesa. Did some research on the origins of this.
Found that in ancient sanskrit ‘Nimisha’ itself means ‘blink of an eye’ and that Nimisharda is used to represent how far light travels in half of the blink of an eye i.e. ‘within the blink of an eye’ !!
The fourth verse of the Rigvedic hymn 1:50 (50th hymn in book 1 of rigveda) is as follows:
????????????????? ?????????????? ????? |
??????? ????????? ||taraNir vishvadarshato jyotishkrdasi surya |
vishvamaa bhaasirochanam ||which means “Swift and all beautiful art thou, O Surya (Surya=Sun), maker of the light,
Illuming all the radiant realm.”Commenting on this verse in his Rigvedic commentary, Sayana who was a minister in the court of Bukka of the great Vijayanagar Empire of Karnataka in South India (in early 14th century) says:
tatha ca smaryate yojananam. sahasre dve dve sate dve ca yojane
ekena nimishardhena kramaman.which means “It is remembered here that Sun (light) traverses 2,202 yojanas in half a nimisha”
NOTE: Nimisharda= half of a nimisha
In the vedas Yojana is a unit of distance and Nimisha is a unit of time.
Unit of Time: Nimesa
The Moksha dharma parva of Shanti Parva in Mahabharata describes Nimisha as follows:
15 Nimisha = 1 Kastha
30 Kashta = 1 Kala
30.3 Kala = 1 Muhurta
30 Muhurtas = 1 Diva-Ratri (Day-Night)We know Day-Night is 24 hours
So we get 24 hours = 30 x 30.3 x 30 x 15 nimisha
in other words 409050 nimishaWe know 1 hour = 60 x 60 = 3600 seconds
So 24 hours = 24 x 3600 seconds = 409050 nimisha409050 nimesa = 86,400 seconds
1 nimesa = 0.2112 seconds (This is a recursive decimal! Wink of an eye=.2112 seconds!)
1/2 nimesa = 0.1056 seconds
Unit of Distance: Yojana
Yojana is defined in Chapter 6 of Book 1 of the ancient vedic text “Vishnu Purana” as follows
10 Paramn?us = 1 Paraskshma
10 Paraskshmas = 1 Trasaren?u
10 Trasaren?us = 1 Mahrajas (particle of dust)
10 Mahrajasas = 1 Blgra (hair’s point)
10 Blgras = 1 Likhy
10 Likhys= 1 Yka
1o Ykas = 1 Yavodara (heart of barley)
10 Yavodaras = 1 Yava (barley grain of middle size)
10 Yava = 1 Angula (1.89 cm or approx 3/4 inch)
6 fingers = 1 Pada (the breadth of it)
2 Padas = 1 Vitasti (span)
2 Vitasti = 1 Hasta (cubit)
4 Hastas = a Dhanu, a Danda, or pauruSa (a man’s height), or 2 Nriks = 6 feet
2000 Dhanus = 1 Gavyti (distance to which a cow’s call or lowing can be heard) = 12000 feet
4 Gavytis = 1 Yojana = 9.09 milesCalculation:
So now we can calculate what is the value of the speed of light in modern units based on the value given as 2202 yojanas in 1/2 nimesa
= 2202 x 9.09 miles per 0.1056 seconds
= 20016.18 miles per 0.1056 seconds
= 189547 miles per second !!
As per the modern science speed of light is 186000 miles per second !
And so I without the slightest doubt attribute the slight difference between the two values to our error in accurately translating from vedic units to SI/CGS units. Note that we have approximated 1 angula as exactly 3/4 inch. While the approximation is true, the angula is not exactly 3/4 inch.
NOTE: The original research in this direction was done by S.S. De and P.V. Vartak.
Related posts:
31 Responses to “Speed of light in Rigveda”
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Sriram Srinivasan says:
i would say great work done!
on the contrary i am putting myself on the place of a practical man and i have a lot of questions… i guess this is the right place to be asked.
1.how can i believe that what you say is correct / true?
if “”the vedas were not documented those days”" is the root answer for this question then there is another qn for everybody..1.1 what the hell are we doing instead of documenting the great source of knowledge?
and why the hell is it still being transmitted verbally?2.why does no one(as far as i know) know/still does not know about the truth-that vedas are source of enormous knowledge?
3.what steps are taken to document? if not what steps are to be taken?
4.if vedas were the origin of the current science, then we must integrate the latest discoveries/inventions laws/postulates etc and all those stuff into the vedas.if that is not possible then the vedas must be wholly re-written so the common ppl can understand now or in the future.
is there anything going on like this around? if not why?5. to the author: why have you posted your discovery in this blog? why not in newspapers/ magazines? so that a lot of ppl can be enlightened and can also speed up the process.
if so what are the media that carry material like these?6.why is there no truth about the vedas in what children/ppl learn these days?
7.if the vedas still have some trcace on this holy land then why ppl are trying to destroy it instead?
these are just a few questions that ran into my mind… common ppl like me are expecting precise answers..most preferably the truth which will always last for ever!
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what? says:
Is there any prediction that people reading and understanding veda had already announced before it was discovered using modern science??
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Why do people try to calculate or interpret things using veda only after they have been discovered?
Why could not people have announced speed of light(using the shloka) before it was actually measured using series of modern experiments?Same for other things. Only after a thing is known using modern physics or mathematics then come the people and say that these were already given in veda or ancient texts. This is really silly !!
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great work gurudev!.. we indians shud cherish the knowledge in the vedas, not criticize blindly. its pathetic that we question all this so much, but accept blindly the “”scientific”" results given by a small group of scientists somewhere else in the world.. the vedas are perfect knowledge.. its upto us to understand them..
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Sulakshana says:
Hi,
I am a commer graduate, but some how I ahve interest in the quantum physics and had been reading whatever I got to read about it. Mind, I had maths phobia, but the time, speed of light, the matter & energy & it’s relation to the “”Human living”" has been always mistic. I read alot about astronomy & cosmology. I had been trying to relate all our vedic verses ‘little that I know’ to the real scientic definations. It great to find this site. I hope you people tolarate non sceintific people like me. -
Padmanabha Rao says:
Hi,
The veda is veda. It provides knowledge to those who seek knowledge. The operative word being seek.
Each seeks, all the time. Endowed with a capacity to slice time, we might tend to seek across slices of time. But as we know (do we? how?), slicing time gets me nowhere…I am neither here nor there.
The veda carries a time. To have veda is to be in that time.
Modern science carries a time. To have science is to be in that time.
The attraction of veda today seems driven by ennui. Should that be “”to veda”" or “”for veda”", instead?
But otherwise, it should amaze even the most lethargic mind to see the Voyager crafts journeying far out or the nuclear technology. -
Thanks Vijay for your kind words about the blog!
Dont worry, none of us came with all knowledge prefed, we learn things slowly over a period of time, so as long as we have that quest to learn, its OK
Yes the entire humanity should be proud of its vedic knowledge and its vedic past -
Vijay says:
Gurudev,
This is an excellent forum. I am really ashamed of my knowledge on Vedas. I appreciate yor deeper analysis of our vedas and obviously we should be proud of it. -
Yes Srirama/Laxmikanth, you are right, it is unfortunate that most of the so called educated masses in this country are only literate, not educated, kind of brainwashed in the name of science
They are not even aware about the kind of toxins they are consuming everyday in the name of food, and still talk about being scientific! What a shame.
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laxmikanth says:
if we still continue to neglect our sacred texts then there will be no evidence left about these valuable information for the future genrations.
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Srirama says:
GREAT EXPLANATION. WE INDIANS DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE TRUE VALUE OF OUR OWN RESOURCES. WE PRAISE IT ONLY AFTER THE WESTERNERS AUTHORIZE IT. LET US OPEN OUR EYES AND PRAISE THE MIGHTY KNOWLEDGE IN VED
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Haha
Silly? In that case all great physicists like Schrodinger, Heisenberg, Oppenheimer, Bohr, Einstein are silly is it? Because all these great modern scientists have been referring to the presence of modern scientific knowledge in the ancient vedic texts.“”The juxtaposition of Western civilizations most terrifying scientific achievement with the most dazzling description of the mystical experience is given to us by the Bhagavad Gita, Indias greatest literary monument”" – Robert Oppenheimer, referring to the description of atomic bomb in Bhagavadgita
You yourself said that sanskrit is a DIFFICULT language, which obviously means you havent read the vedas in its original context. How on earth can you talk about things which you dont even know about?
Sanskrit is NOT a difficult language if you have the basic scientific instinct to learn things. Its a purely scientific language with such great accuracy in terms of its sentence formations that it has been recognized as the ONLY human spoken language eligible to be a computer programming language. By the way being DIFFICULT doesnt mean WRONG either. It only means we are NOT ABLE to understand it. And scientific approach says, try to understand it, instead of writing it off.
Do you mean the accuracy of the things like speed of light mentioned is a fluke? Let me reiterate again, the value for the speed of light has been given and the units have been specified, and the calculation has been done using the same units mentioned, by referring to their definition in earlier works. Now can you prove that sayana was NOT refering to the Yojana as defined in Vishnu Purana and other texts?? If not what did he mean when he said 2202 Yojanas in 1/2 nimesha?? Which definition of Yojana and Nimesha was he referring to?
Now you please dont be silly by saying “”current civilization is very advanced”"
Living on fossils of dead animals and plants to fuel the automobiles. Is this very advanced? Emitting green house gases left and right, global warming, pesticides/fertilizers removing soil fertility, are these great features of an advanced civilization? We are a Type 0 civilization, which means on galactic scales we are still like nomadic cave dwellers. Let us not fool ourselves by calling us advanced. Digging up earth everywhere to loot its natural resources, polluting air water and soil, making thousands of species go extinct everyday, is NOT advanced. Its primitive in galactic standards.
You said “”Both of us are using modern tools”",
Yes, so what? Ignore ancient’s contributions?
If not for the ancient Indians introducing the place value based mathematical system, forget the computers, not even the basic science would have been there.
To quote Einstein ‘We should be grateful to Indians who taught us how to count, without which no worthwhile scientific discovery would have been possible’And where did this teachings about counting come from? From the vedic mathematics.
And what is it part of? Atharva veda. If vedas do not talk science, then what the hell is vedic mathematics doing there?“”language, symbolism and data collection instruments”", all are present in the ancient texts. You just have to open your eyes to see it. Obviously the methodology used by the ancients IS NOT THE SAME as the modern scientists. If the Indians use one method, and the Americans another method to build super computers, does that mean one of the methods is NOT scientific?
As I said earlier, did anybody ask about the methodology used by Pythagoras to derive the statement of his theorem? Such hypocrisy is all prevalent in this country.
What do you mean by “”lack of original manuscripts (all knowledge was transmistted verbally)”"?? So what if it is verbal? Isnt it knowledge? If modern way of documenting things is in writing, ancient people were like walking libraries, which in itself proves their greatness.
Will just give you a simple example of the difference between the so called modern advanced civilization and the ancient vedic civilization
Today we document history in terms of the gregorian calendar. For instance I wrote this comment on January 2008 says modern scientific methodology of recording history.
Now say after another 2000 years an asteroid strikes earth, and there is massive destruction all over and civilizations have to start from the scratch again. Over a period of time science again picks up, then there will be a new calendar system and so on. Then somebody comes across this blog article stored in some fossil CD. Now how on earth will they know how long back was 2008?? Their calendar system will be something different. The very date 2008 CE is NOT self contained. It needs information about when did 1 CE start.On the other hand, look at the intelligence of the ancient vedic civilization. Every date/event is specified there not by using some predefined calendar system like ours, but by using astronomical positions of heavenly bodies at the date/time when the event occurred. Which is why even today we are able to calculate the accurate dates of ancient events using astronomical dating techniques by using the planetary positions mentioned in those ancient texts.
Now you tell me, which is a more advanced civilization? The modern civilization which cant even protect its historical date information in case of a civilizational collapse, OR the ancient civilization which can and which has?
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ashish says:
Hey
don’t be silly. either you do not understand basics of research in modern science, or are just fooling yourself by comparing Sayana and Vishnu Purana together.
modern science does NOT need any interpretation, but uses simple language to state assumptions, and simple mathematical symbols to show EXACT calculations to be carried out with KNOWN data.
each step above, assumptions, scientific logic, mathematics and data collection are open for enquiry. and, as stated above, none of that requires any ‘interpretation’.
unfortunately, none of the ancient ’shastra’ fits the bill as above. language, symbolism and data collection instruments are unknown. old Sanskrit is an extremely difficult language, coupled with the lack of original manuscripts (all knowledge was transmistted verbally), it is very difficult to compare two works together.
hence, comparing two works together (like Sayana and Vishnu Purana) is NOT like comparing Maxwell and Feynman. Works by Feynman and Maxwell (for example only) are in language in recent times, and follow the same scientific method (Descartian) to reach their conclusions.
even though i am proud of my roots, i can not blindly state that everything about the universe was known previously. there were many excellent things known, such as Shushruta or Yoga, of course. Yet, there were mystical elements to many rituals and works. The current civilization is very advanced, and we have to follow our own ways of scientific enquiry using modern ways.
finally, both of us are using modern tools (comp, internet) to communicate, right? let’s not get carried away by old times, and false pride about our ancestors. if you want to work on ancient science, let that be more thorough scientific enquiry.
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Manav says:
I have seen some stupid people arguing on the internet that Vedas contain no science in them.
I have only one basic question to ask them.
Then what the hell is vedic mathematics all about? Do these people think that maths as advanced as vedic maths is NOT science?
If vedas contain no science then why do so many quantum physicists flock around vedic texts? -
Ashish
Lets extrapolate the same argument to modern science
The formula is given by Maxwell.
The unit of length is defined by some other standard’s organization.
The unit of time is based on age old division of time.
The practical measurement of related constants is done by some other group of scientists.
and so on… So?? We dont find the definition of the exact length of 1 meter, or what exactly is the duration of 1 second in Maxwell’s paper when he gives the formula to measure the speed of light!!
We dont find either from where he got the values for permittivity or permeability of free space! All these values were written by DIFFERENT people.
And using this Maxwell arrives at the value of 2.99 x 10^8 meters per second!!
Does that mean his paper should be questioned?
No. Why? Because we know that there are other books/works which tell us how long is a meter, how lengthy is a second, whats the experimentally measured value of permittivity etc.We need to understand and realize the fact that even in ancient works ppl DID NOT state things that were OBVIOUS TO THEM in that context. If today somebody writes a research paper on the half life of some hypothetical radioactive element, saying it emits alpha particles and has a half life of 100 micro seconds, can we expect his work to also contain full biography of alpha particles, and complete description of a micro second? No.
Similarly when ppl spoke about Yojana in those days, it was as obvious to them as we speaking about kilometers today! As simple as that.Greek mathematician Pythagoras DIDNT provide ANY proof for the theorem named after him. Still nobody QUESTIONS his credibility!!!! Nobody asks, from where did he get it?
But when somebody discovers that Pythagoras had come to India, and that centuries before Pythagoras, Baudhayana in India had stated the same theorem WITH PROOF, the theorem still continues to be called Pythagoras theorem!To summarize
One ancient text tells about the speed of light calculated in terms of an ancient unit of length (called Yojana) and an ancient unit of time (called Nimisha)
Another ancient text gives us the actual measure of Yojana which can be used to express it in modern unit of length i.e miles.
A third ancient text gives us the actual measure of Nimisha which can be used to express it in modern unit of time i.e seconds.
THERE ARE NO OTHER ancient texts which give SOME OTHER contradicting definition or values to these ancient units.
Given these inputs, if we calculate and find that the value obtained using the ancient units is the same as the value proposed by modern science, how can we call it a fluke?As for the source, there is NOT A SINGLE WORK in modern science which has all its values from one single source. Research papers are not encyclopedia of their contents.
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Hi,
all i can say is, good try. but not satisfactory at all.
you get the formula from Rg Veda. then use calculations by Sayana. then receive one value from Mahabharata. finally, the last value comes from Vishnu Purana.
Given that all were written by different people, and their interpretations differed from each other, such a calculation can not be taken too seriously.
You will have to either obtain all the values from one single source (which explains why the formula is the way it is), or show that all the above sources have interpretations consistent with each other (and explain the formula from one of the sources).
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Hey VC
That was really exciting info!!! Thanks for that. This simply again proves that vedic texts have to be taken very very seriously about every single letter they speak about! -
VC says:
“”1 nimesa = 0.2112 seconds (This is a recursive decimal! Wink of an eye=.2112 seconds!)”" Interestingly, this website confirms that the eyelids blink at a rate of 5 times/ second (0.2 seconds /blink)
http://www.didyouknow.cd/fastfacts/body.htm
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Just to add on 1 angula is defined as the distance between the joints of two adjacent fingers (finger width) or the length of 34 sesame seeds laid next to each other!
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Yes you are right..
But the 1 dhanu = 6 feet can also be derived from the approximation of 1 angula (wrongly mentioned in the brackets as 1 inch, actually it is approx 3/4 inch, based on the value mentioned in Kautilya’s Arthashastra definition – a Republication by Penguin).
Thanks for observing that
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Kartik says:
i think you have assumed 1 dhanu = 6 feet and not
1 angula = 1 inch to arrive at the answer as it would lead to a diif. answer. 1 dhanu=6 feet assumption gives exact ans which you got. -
Gururaj
It was Sayana’s interpretation of the Vedas. Please note that these were commentaries on vedas. There are a lot of hidden riddles in these texts and over a period of time scholars have been trying to crack them and solve them.
Please see http://hitxp.wordpress.com/2007/09/19/a-vedic-qmech-riddle/ -
Gururaj says:
Hi GD,
One thing that is not clear where in veda does it say “”Sun (light) traverses 2,202 yojanas in half a nimisha?
What we see is Sayana saying it in 14th century.
Is there any reference in the vedic text about “”2,202 yojanas in half a nimisha”"?
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Pankaj Chandorkar says:
Can you tell me the value of pi (22/7) using vedic mathematics? I mean does pi has any significance in vedic mathematics?
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Hats Off!!
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Rohitash
The speed of light calculated based on the approx vedic metrics is 189547
The modern approximation assumed in my article is 186000
The actual value (as you correctly mentioned) is 186282.39So the vedic value is more closer to the actual value than to the modern approximation I have used
Please note that I have approximated 1 angula to be exactly 1 inch, which is a very small unit and hence even a very small mistake in this assumption adds on as a large error in the final calculation. We have no idea what is the EXACT value of vedic angula in terms of SI units.
Given the fact that even in the above calculation the error difference between modern exact value and vedic value is only 1.75%, and given the scope of a small error in unit conversions (due to angula value), I think we should be appreciating the ancient knowledge, which dates thousands of years back, and do more research on these things, rather than to expect it to be absolutely perfect in an era where measurements using atomic clocks were unknown!!
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Rohitash says:
I’m awfully sorry for busting in, but the speed of light calculated above as 189547 miles/sec is exactly translated to
305046327.1680000424 meters/sec,
whereas the measured value for c is EXACTLY
299792458 meters/sec = 186282.3970512208576 miles/sec.The value of 186000 miles/sec is used for common conversations which do not require exactness.
Therefore, the error in the above calculation derived from the Rig Veda is, as it seems, awfully large. -
Thanks sanket for your appreciation, the original research in this direction was done by S.S. De and P.V. Vartak .
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http://pressposts.com/Technology/Speed-light-explained-in-Rigveda/
Submited post on PressPosts.com – “”Speed of light explained in Rigveda”"
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