arjunUvaach

Our time ¹ began long before Dwaipayana's birth - even before birth of his father Maharishi Parāśara. Seven months before Parāśara's nativity, Bramhrishi Vaśiṣṭha — his grandfather — woke up to a grotesque morning. His sprawling congregation (Ashrama), on the banks of river Yamuna, sank into the deepest of grief, and rage. His son Śakti Muni was killed by a tribal lord who titled himself a king. What bigger pain a man might have than his son sacrificed in his own backyard ! Religious accounts proclaim Bramhrishi had one hundred sons taken that fateful morning of mass-murder for he treated all his disciples, particularly the Aacharyas (faculty members), as his true-born!

The epitome of India’s contemporary knowledge hubs, Mathura, was in free bloodbath. In today’s parlance, it would be as if someone killed en-masse at Google campus. Hundreds of knowledge bearers left dead. Not even their wives spared. Even children didn’t get a plea for mercy.

Only Bramhrishi himself, and his daughter-in-law Adrushyanti survived the massacre. Adrushyanti (wife of Śakti Muni) was carrying yet to be born Parāśara - couple of months into her conception. The young widow couldn’t even announce her motherhood before the curse gripped the congregation. A dark night swept her massive wings across the main city and the adjoining villages.

Despite his constant contact with continuum - the interconnected play of the past, present and the future beyond mere causality - Bramhrishi wasn’t immune to pain. The pain of losing one’s offspring is known to be the biggest of them all - even animals feel it - they cry. Remorseful Bramhrishi however didn’t cry - As if tears froze in his mind. He wondered about the curse and if the dark night would ever resolve itself into light. And he saw himself at the root of this ill eruption.

He couldn’t help self-loathing that he must have incurred a foundational error to warrant such a backlash, from the very people he was trying to salvage - his “old” - not by age but by tradition - those who lived off the jungle and followed its rules, without any recollection of the past and none to worry in foresight. Spoken words were actions for them. They didn’t know how to think deep or plan. They believed in old stories - Puranas, and they believed in barter to its extreme - an eye for an eye. Why would they turn against him ?

On the surface, it appears the contest is between “old” and “new”. The old seeking to maintain a status quo while the new aspiring for “the” better. But the truth is “old” loves the “new” like we see our own future in our children. And the new knows the old as a dependable trustee. The shift, however, must happen, and it needs a trigger - something unwarranted - a mishap to break the umbilical cord. Bigger the ensuing shift, bigger the mishap.

In a way, the “mishap” marks the beginning of the “transition” - beginning of a new time. It is a gun shot to initialize the race. The battle begins at this moment amongst many variants of the “new”. In fact, many new possibilities crop up to capitalize the opportunity. Having recognized the inevitable, they all stake their claim to righteousness and thus the earnest representation of truth. This happens over and over again as in “history repeats itself”. There are many examples ² in our recent past though a keen observer may see them in her own backyard, in their own families. They occur for the consciousness must evolve to understand the nature of unity ³. A mishap is a step back before the hitherto slow breeding innovations sling into expansion. Such triggers, driven by imperceptible evolution of consciousness are said to be caused by Prarbdha.

Prarbdha, a Sanskrit word, means something that had already begun. It ties together the past, present and the future. In that sense it also means “fate”, because the fate had commenced before the material event physically occurred, and condensed into a mishap…

Saddened to the core, and unaware that the young widow was carrying, Bramhrishi Vaśiṣṭha tried to end his life. He miraculously survived three attempts. Probably Gods wanted to extend his life to ensure unborn Parāśara had a chance at life.

And more importantly, to save humanity from the loss of the ‘knowledge’ that was locked in Bramhrishi's mind, for there was no written text.

1.1

If we think of modern civilization as a long train 🚈, then what Vaśiṣṭha had staged ⁴ were ‘literally’ the wheel-assembly ☸ . Hard to coalesce and even harder to decrypt Neolithic knowledge - agriculture, mining, metallurgy, transport, to name a few — down to the very meaning of five elements. Pieces of entire wisdom were sharded in the collective memory of congregation as “methods” to accomplish complex tasks. Particularly one hundred skills that were deemed magical. For example, it was hard for a forest dweller to fathom, a metal as strong as iron, could be extracted by burning a special type of mud in big fire (furnace). Those who didn’t believe in such a miracle could visit the congregation to see the proof first hand. In essence these 100 skills were the first set of “qualified” truths. Their authenticity as much as the Sun shows up every day in pretty much same size while the Moon grows to get full for fifteen nights - and then it diminishes. One of the reason people said “hundred sons” were taken that fateful morning was each of them owned one skill stream. The owner of a skill stream was called Aacharya.

In Sanskrit, the numeral 100 (One hundred) is spoken as śat (where ś is pronounced as in “shine”, a as in hut and t with tongue touching the teeth). In this context, it was the hundred magical skills carefully identified by Vaśiṣṭhas

The root phoneme for the word “Truth” is sàt ( where s is pronounced as in “site” and rest as in śat). In essence the śat for first hundred truths morphed into sàt - the pure provable truths. These truths could be realized through a set of pre-defined actions (Yazna). The idea was Yazna leads to truth -> consistent practice of carefully designed set of actions leads to deterministic outcomes. In other words, the definition of “Truth” was something magical but provable through controlled experiments - a scientific approach to segregate false claims from rigorous truth. Goes without saying, those were the times of voodoo magic. Having a proven “myth buster” institute was important for nascent logic (and experiment). It was also important to showcase the extensive work that goes into such activities thereby establishing a barter value for the products of these skills -> 100 kilos of wheat for say a kilo of iron.

The information was stored in accurate recital, but one must recite the method only after practicing the skills extensively. Information must be rooted in deep experiential knowledge such that it represented “Truth”. In Vaidik belief system - Truth is what one experiences through actions and is realized though intense practice. A “lie” is the one that is told without personally engaging in the activity. No one was a “liar” by choice or for fun. People lied because they were either lazy to indulge in actions or they wanted someone else to experiment first rather than putting themselves in harms-way.

The congregation was thus the reference point for “Truth” - for various branches of innovations that appeared almost magical to the “old”. Vaśiṣṭha had it all indexed in his mind. More importantly he knew how to kick-start an auditory store of information - an obvious divine grace for such a skill was never heard before. Who would sacrifice the pleasures of life to sustain information to the benefits of future generations - gather and qualify all the know-hows - break them down into precise spoken words (mantras) and set up a regular cadence for recital to keep the methods fresh in memory. The true meaning of Yazna is “practice” of skills, but since practice was linked to chanting, the adapted meaning of Yazna (in public sphere) became formal recital of mantras. In due course, to further formalize the recital, ritualistic routines were added - such as specific dress, time of the day or day of the week. Paying homage to Fire as gratitude towards Sun became the starting point of Yazna - metals being the most precious discoveries and each of them needed big fire. Tools were too shaped with fire and even the bricks.

Since Bramh is the entirety of information, Vaśiṣṭha was aptly titled Bramhrishi - one who synthesised the information to extract knowledge. One who could remember the past and plan for the future. The legend says he was one of the seven sons of Bramha (the embodiment of Bramh).

If it took us say five thousand years from the wheel to a car, it had probably taken fifty thousand ⁵, to evolve the ‘wheels’, for (unveiling of) knowledge is never a straight line. It is a curve that curls up exponentially with time (time being a measure of consistent iterations). Had Vaśiṣṭha died, the nascent civilization could have receded back into stone ages, and quite possibly perished into a dark future. The trajectory of rise of consciousness is contingent upon the discoveries, and the inventors who built on each other’s work through consensus ⁶. Think of it as a pyramid — upside down. At some point in the past, this inverse pyramid meets the primordial jungle — just a single hinge on which a vast civilization must balance. Bramhrishi Vaśiṣṭha was that underpin.

Survival was not a question here! Even animals ‘survived’ to this date! And for that matter, some of the fittest species (Dinosaurs) perished. At stake was ‘our first civilized world’ — driven by an external store of information. At the center of this advancement was a group of dedicated sages who practiced all the important discoveries, and disseminated them through daily recital. They were the nodes of this information network that was built on experiential knowledge. Their objective was to progressively cache and catalog the principles of civilization - so that humans had a shot at the deeper mysteries of the universe - beyond mere survival - as if they were mining the present on behalf of future. Their collective rigor opened a portal to the future where Angels , Wizards and Humans of our time evolved to bear the knowledge. In a way, they created the very “concept” of future. It also means, they passed on the burden of figuring out “who we are” to their incarnations - us !

We are obviously not there yet, but we now have an immensely distributed and fault-tolerant network to allow us make an attempt. At least a guarantee that our external store of information shall stay unharmed, as long as a part of earth survived. Our “text” based knowledge store (books, code, history) is protected in this obscure corner of the universe while we adapt ourselves into higher orders of experiences to go where no other conscious being has gone before - in quest of primordial question “who we are “ !

Thus, the tenet is NOT “survival of the fittest” anymore - it is “evolution of consciousness !” In fact the advantage of spoken language (and later the written word) is such that survival has already become secondary to us. The dramatic improvement in modes of communication and hence value exchange, has turned humans into one living organism such that no other species is a predator to us. Contrarily, protection of other species is incumbent on us. In essence, we had a quantum jump making us the representative conscious species of planet Earth - beginning of our time.

1.2

The potency to build such a distributed network - the underlying protocol that enables this ‘network of information’, is not unique to humans. Holding the information in a network of manifested beings - living or non-living - as we discussed - is a core potency of nature what we refer to as Bramh. For example, Mycorrhizal ⁷ Network – a vast underground network of fungal linkages that connects trees to one another is an information network. This network monitors amongst other things, even the wild growth is well spaced out. The network ensures equitable distribution of resources - enough nourishment for the flora seeking sunlight, and the minerals. And an equally considerate ecosystem for the fauna that spring up to act atop this information network. It is an expression of Bramh - coexistence with freedom and interdependent growth in a distributed system.

In essence, Bramh is the bearer of the evolutionary knowledge. Bramh binds a cell with another with knowledge of existential purpose, a star with another, even an atom to an atom. It is the expression of “knowledge” that turns billions of cells together into a limb; an infinite random cluster of stars into a galaxy. It is the knowledge that lives in union of atoms to turn them into elements of periodic table. However, the definition of Bramh goes a little further in Vaidik science. It is believed that the Bramh is our own true reflection. It’s a universal mirror that shows us who we are. Universal mirror because a regular mirror is just a three-dimensional reflection of our physical being but Bramh reflects on us through millions of dimensions. More granular our self-image, more is the dimensionality, and a greater conscious experience. Siva is the peak of such conscious experience - an end state where we see objective reality and thus achieve ability of discretion - ability to recognize singular “Truth” from all the false claims. The idea of “evolution” is gradual growth of consciousness from the state of ignorance to being one with eternal Siva. Mysterious thing though is the “end state” exists at all the times.

Vaśiṣṭha was respectfully titled Bramhrishi because he understood this natural phenomenon before anyone else, and applied it to “knowledge storage” beyond evolutionary mechanism. In a way, he discovered the first “battery” for storing knowledge - to target it for a “purpose” in an accelerated fashion. He distributed important discoveries amongst his disciples and had them remember finer details through daily recital - to perpetuate the knowledge externally from one generation to the next. He saw this ability as a kind grace, as if he inherited it from all-pervading Bramh in his quest to attain Siva.

He was probably aware he was tinkering with a core protocol ⁸ of nature. Instead of letting knowledge be decrypted at a natural snail pace, he was putting the “evolution” in an express lane; but he chose this lane with humility. His objective was not to use this battery of knowledge for personal leverage. He wanted to share the benefits with all - not only humans but all living beings - a permission less and censor resistant dissemination of knowledge. He did see the benefits of spoken primitives in growth of barter, however, the attack on the congregation raised doubts in his mind. They made him question his own integrity - Is this path correct? Is altering the course of nature righteous? A question that may haunt modern architects of artificial intelligence as much as those spearheading the gene editing tools! Are we disturbing the natural equilibrium?

He got the answer only when multiple suicide attempts were rejected. In a way “fate “ itself paved his path. Over time, Bramhrishi put this attack behind him. A mishap - he thought- was the law of nature - Prarbdha.

He rebuilt the congregation ground up and brought his focus to newborn Parāśara. He had only one “take-away” from the incident - there must be a fallback option in case such a disaster struck again. Writing the scriptures was one such option but how could someone scribe vast knowledge on temple walls and what if someone burnt the temples!

The pen and the ink were still couple generations in the future …

1.3

Such a gory attack on the humble keepers of the primitive knowledge would obviously beg two questions — Why and When ! Why would anyone have a problem with someone trying to build a new civilization for greater good. We know most nation states have issues with bitcoin because they have genuine vested interest in their “Fiats”, but what could be the “vested interest” for those who were anyway living off the jungle?

As far as the ‘why’ is concerned — there is a good answer. The congregation was rich! The legend says Bramhrishi had a magical cow (Kaam Dhenu) that gave him everything he asked for — on demand. The obvious truth is, magical cow was the ‘Knowledge’. Knowledge attracts wealth — be it Apple, or be it Google of our times, or the Ashramas of the past, the source of wealth has always been the accumulated knowledge. Vaśiṣṭha's Ashram was by far the biggest research institute of that time. They were the keepers of inheritance from Bramh. Many jealous eyes were set on the plush ‘wealth and peace’ of the congregation — material as well as intellectual.

As regards to ‘when’, unfortunately, we don’t have a date or a year. The broad consensus amongst historians is a wide range - between three and five thousand years, before Christ. How come ‘keepers of knowledge’ forgot to mention a date? It would be rather presumptuous (on our part) to quickly conclude there was no time-keeping in those days. In Mahabharata, Dwaipayana estimated even the durations of four Yugas (ages). Then how come there was no date on the first document? Or the spoken words that preceded the full-blown transcription?

The rational answer seems a bit more nuanced.

Probably, in that world, before the written word, when only way to sustain knowledge was to memorize it, last thing anyone cared was the ‘metadata’ — such as date, or time. Even the names of the primal inventors who kick-started the civilization are unknown. No one knows who solved the hard problems of those early days — how to start a fire? — how to preserve the seeds? — how to use rivers for transport? — how to attach horse(power) to a loaded cart? These solutions evolved over thousands of years and were passed on from one generation to the next through the word of mouth. The sense of time was probably lost in the slow pace of iterative innovations of that first civilization.

It, however, didn’t mean ‘no credit’ was given to the early inventors. Instead of mentioning every individual name, they were tagged to a group. One distinct group for a specific area of exploration (skill stream), to practice gratitude. For example, all those who contributed in water works, irrigation, and agriculture were represented by a single entity Indra. All those who invented fire and various ways to control it — who contributed from mining to metallurgy; were named Agni. Those who tamed the winds, to build the early sail boats were called Varuna. These group entities, represented by respective common name, were called ‘deities’. They were worshipped for the blessings they bestowed on humanity and thus by extension to all the species.

Using a pseudonym to identify a group is common even today. Instead of counting thousands of hardware and software experts, we simply say “Apple” makes iPhone. The phenomenon goes beyond technology or business. We normally say Mahatma Gandhi got India freedom. What we actually mean by this generalization is thousands of freedom fighters who worked with Mahatma, got India freedom. Instead of counting the names of thousands of activists who worked in “civil rights movement”, we simply use the name of Dr King to express our gratitude.

Sàtoshi Nakamoto is a pseudonym for a group of cypherpunks who white-papered the “Bitcoin Protocol” and open-sourced the digital implementation of value - aka digital gold. Very apt pseudonym - Sàtoshi means wisdom in Japanese and begins with Sàt - the truth (in Sanskrit).

There was a good reason to purge the superfluous information. Without the facility to scribe, the average human memory offered limited storage. The focus was on keeping the “information” fresh and compact, instead of maintaining the meta-data or the version history. The knowledge (hidden in information) was important because it was our distinction from the rest of the species. It was our path to liberation from the miseries of hard early life. The goal was to equip as many human minds with the latest findings as possible, rather than copyright protection or allocating laurels on individual basis. Also, the information must be itemized based on usability (not by the inventor or the date) to render it real-time. In that verbal world, only that information carried forward that was put to use every day such as survival skills, or was (forcefully) recited on daily basis.

We don’t know the exact date, but we know for sure that the piece of eternal code rests archived in our foundations. And the fact we succeeded to tame the forces of nature, and that we built increasingly complex systems of finance, mobility, security and health, is a testament that our core kernel is flawless — as if it was a gift from the future.

1.4

The other reason seems to be embedded in the culture. Adhyatma - “know thy self”, was the keyword. The culture sought internal peace rather than external prosperity. The primary question was “who am I?” rather than “what is this universe?”. The “God” was nothing but the supreme knowledge of self in unmanifested (Avyakta) state. The work for knowledge was deemed work of the God.

This culture was based on a symbiotic framework of belief and inquiry - a belief based model that explained manifestation, expanse, evolution, and governance; from atomic to the universal scales; and placed human endeavours as part of the divine equilibrium. Science was the discovery of the ways’ god worked ! The accuracy of this belief system isn’t as important as the fact that it was easy to comprehend and widely subscribed. Amazing thing is, as we are getting to the deeper layers with modern science, Vaidik belief system seems to tread close ⁹ with particle physics, Darwin’s evolution as well as information theory. Maybe all paths lead to a singular truth!

While deities represented the beautiful complexity of our civilization (through physical research and experiments), they did so (as believed) atop pulpit of three core competencies, collectively referenced as potencies of unmanifested supreme. As a practical implication, in Vaidik science, god is nothing but three potencies of knowledge.

These three potencies exist to answer the profound question - who am I? It was believed, “Knowledge” in its unmanifested form, though at eternal peace, must manifest to answer this fundamental question - who am I? Because “observance” is possible only for those that have a chiral physical shape. This is now proven (beyond doubt) thanks to the work of Fermi and Dirac that all massful subatomic particles have a spin 1/2 - which means they have their mirror image built into them.

The primary drive of all manifested beings is to find who they are - Adhyatma - study of self. Knowledge manifests, governs and decays the manifested beings through it’s eightfold basic nature - Ashtadhamool Prakriti ¹⁰. And must it evolve till it gets to the answer. Here is a brief description of these three potencies:

• Potency of existence - Vishnu represents distribution of a full copy of encrypted knowledge (Atma) in every being. Infinitely many shapes of beings are possible as if the species with different physical attributes are randomly generated. Even with in species, every living being is unique, further supporting the randomness evidence. Yet, every being has the same instance of Atma as if access to a full copy of knowledge is permission less no matter what shape or size or color or gender - even the ones that we deem lifeless. No one needs to seek permission from anyone else as far as the completeness of their copy, however, no one knows existence of Atma because the knowledge is encrypted (Avykta) to their sensory apparatus. Atma is also referred as the immutable unit of every measure across all that exists. For example number “one” is immutable unit of all the numbers - it doesn’t change any number in multiplication (or division) yet number system can’t exist without “one”. As soon as a “form” is manifested as a product of something with this universal unit, it seeks a fundamental question - who am I? The answer may be provided by Bramh.

• Potency of reflection - a vast network of manifested entities known as Bramh, to allow manifested entities interaction with each other - to express different attributes of knowledge enabled by their form. The goal of the collective is to decrypt the knowledge through a mirror image. For a quark the universe is its antiquark because that is the reflection. (Separate a quark from its antiquark, and a string forms between them that pulls them back together. —Kevin Hartnett, Quanta Magazine, 18 Apr. 2023). For complex beings such as humans, the universe that truly reflects their mirror image is more nuanced and granular. The rise of consciousness is synonymous to ability to decrypt or understand the bounds of knowledge - the fundamental unit, through more granularity. Entities may hypothesize, reflect, mediate, meditate, or build tools to interact. Premise is to understand the one that is bestowed in them - their Atma. Mathematically speaking, the goal is to find the common denominator. It feels like billions of large prime numbers are trying to understand the nature of number “one” that is a common factor to all of them.

• Potency of parity - Ability to see one’s own reflection in Bramh is Siva. Dwaipayana wrote in chapter eighteen of Bhagvad Gita - that by which One Eternal Essence is viewed in all things, undivided in the divided, know that to be knowledge having the quality of goodness. Contrarily, all those manifestations that fail are decayed by Siva for they don’t fulfill the very reason of manifestations - seeking who am I ? In essence Siva represents the zenith of consciousness. One that governs Bramh for a meaningful rendering such that there must exist a parity symmetry. Every interaction is Bramh must assume the counterparty is my own reflection. The fundamental assumption on parity symmetry (mirror image) allows manifestations to initiate self discovery? They may iterate till they find one in truth. In other words , Siva ensures there is only one universe contained within its own reflection - all other interactions in Bramh are discarded to bind manifestation to its very purpose - who am I ? At the most fundamental level, as a manifestor-observer mirror ¹¹, Vishnu and Siva also represent the fundamental duality of nature (Ardh-narishwar).

Metaphorically, in a programmers’ language, Vishnu is the editor, Bramh is the compiler and Siva is the runtime. These core competencies are scale-invariant. They exist unchanged from subatomic particles to the galactic depths of cosmos. But the complexity of our civilization exists only at human scales, thanks to the intelligent discoveries of groups of inventors, represented separately by respective deities. Again in a programmers’ language, the deities are the big applications written over eternal Editor, Compiler and Runtime - operating systems , databases, protocols, blockchains - to name a few.

The framework (of core potencies and deities) acted as a happy marriage between faith and scientific inquiry. The evolution and expansion of universe (and particularly of the bio-verse) was considered a means to decrypt the parts of “One” knowledge. The decryption was facilitated by scientific endeavours, formulated (and constantly improved) by deities. The notion of awakening (or the light) was the state of fully decrypted ‘knowledge’; and that of sleep (or the darkness), was being completely oblivious. The Vaidik invocation Tamso Mam Jyotir Gamay means — take me from my existing darkness to the light! Thus, Vaidik way of life is same as the path of scientific discovery of our time. There is no friction whatsoever, but it invokes a spiritual sense of surrender, and respect for the core mechanisms of nature, that are beyond human control. In essence, the question is NOT - “what is this universe?” (as sought by modern science), the question is - “who am I?” because the entire universe around me is my own reflection. If I could figure out what powers me, I readily know what runs the universe !

While material discovery and faith thrived in co-existence, the framework of Knowledge and its potencies was considered eternal and omni-present. Such being the case, putting a date or a name on the realization of a tiny piece of knowledge was anyway quite meaningless. This approach culminated the idea of sacrificing (open sourcing) every accomplishment to the potencies of the supreme knowledge. Science became sacred. Spirituality was a way of life. Even human life, being a manifested entity, was considered a gift of three potencies. Taking an ownership view in terms of attaching a revelation to one’s own name was felt awkward and lustful. If there is no name, then there is obviously no date. In essence, doing good anonymously became the culture and time-keeping never made to the list of priorities - even for the mishaps.

1.5

Before the ‘written word’ became the mainstream mechanism to preserve literature, scriptures were passed on as Shruti¹² — the spoken word. A choir of reciters chanted the hymns (Richas and Mantras) whole day long — from the early morning to the late evening. Certain mantras must be recited at a specific time of the day, and at a specific place. Some of them must be performed in front of the holy fire — rites. Teachers (Aacharyas), a level-above the reciting students, helped them get the pronunciation right, and to attune a Vaidik elocution style. And finally, the editors (Vyasas) were responsible for the content. Vyasas were there to make sure the spoken content stayed current, accurate, and in exact line with the messages of sages. Their stated objective was to keep the knowledge distributed over as many human minds as feasible — a blockchain of knowledge, distributed over biological nodes. Vyasas ran carefully designed distribution and consensus protocols.

And there was a good reason for intense focus on recital. Memories couldn’t be stolen! Even today, we are advised to memorize our passwords! No one even imagined the scenario of such a nihilistic attack on Vaśiṣṭha congregation. No one had provisioned redundancy at the network level. The attack was on the vocal store of knowledge — on Kaam dhenu — the modern ways of civil life that provisioned everything for everyone. The mantra was Sarve Bhavantu Sukhinha — peace and prosperity to one and all. Not for the kings or the rich alone, or the strong — for everyone, including minor species. This knowledge created a new ‘human fork’ in otherwise old ‘planet of apes’. And the attackers were the Apes (Rakshsas) ¹³, who didn’t want to subscribe to the idea of a systemic change in human approach to civilization — a pragmatic view of governance for equity — from “survival of the fittest” to “well-being of all”!

notes and stuff: