arjun uvaach

The craft of reciting mantras - with an ascetic lifestyle purposed to a singular focus on diction, was called Naad Yoga. This Yoga must be practiced in a sacred daily routine (Bramhacharya). The idea was to tune mind & body into understanding, memorizing, and chanting - switching all material distractions off - an expression, so profound that it became an art form.

Naad was communication of knowledge - rigorous spoken content with creative potency - mantras. In contrast, Mudra was the pleasure of knowledge. Since knowledge is already manifested into beings and things, depiction of human body engaging in various forms, was deemed celebration of existence. Old Indian dance forms such as Bharatnatyam are based on Mudra - so are the ancient carvings on cave walls. They wouldn't enable someone recreate the universe, but they allowed expressing gratitude. In that sense, Mudra was considered an expression of devotion, whereas Naad was that of human pride - only humans had sophisticated oratory skills. Both were, nevertheless, termed Yoga because they were connected to knowledge .

With passage of many millennia, Naad is now morphed into elocution, vocals and music; and Mudra is seen as the origin of performing arts - dance, sculpting and painting. Siva is believed to have created both art forms to please his soulmate Adi Shakti - the first force. Siva is also known as Adi Yogi - the first Yogi. One who was connected and devoted to knowledge - Vishnu. Siva is the highest form of objective intelligence who fully understands the creation - hence creation of two fundamental art forms - Abhivaykti

Humans developed exceptional sophistication in vocal expression. While Mudra was a universal language of signs, Naad had a local touch and hence competitive spirit. In West, vocal expression reached its pinnacle in "opera". On the Eastern side, it achieved perfection in Vaidik recital — a format so distinguished that spoken Sanskrit, finds it's roots in Vaidik recital. Vocals, however, had a limitation - they were not the best storage medium. Reciters always inflicted their own distortions. They often forget the content if they missed few days of practice. The bigger problem, however, was that of portability - vocal communication needed physical proximity. Written word had to be invented to circumvent these limitations. As the body of knowledge expanded, Naad Yoga split into two faculties - research and recital. Research was later named Nyaan Yoga, leaving the original name to pure recital. Mudra was further refined into Hath Yoga - the complex body postures (Aasnas) to stretch and unlock internal energies - the common perception of Yoga in the West.

A Nyaan Yogi would conduct Yazna (the repetitive actions) to go deeper in pursuit of a skill stream. A Naad Yogi would do the same for the purpose of undistorted rendition. Both were complimentary to each other. There was no point in cumulating knowledge if it couldn't be preserved - over generations. Similarly, there was nothing to recite if it didn't carry specific knowledge. Thus, Naad Yogies worked in close interaction with Nyaan Yogies. The role of Vyasa was of utmost importance in holding these two arms of Yoga together. It was like a bridge between expertise and expression -> hence, a very sought after title, and one that needed dexterity in both. Vyasas controlled the flow of information — somewhat like the editors of main stream media these days. They decided what must go to the public consumption, & what could be left to obscurity.

This arrangement for decryption and communication of knowledge through rigorous focus (and gratitude) is called Snatana Dharma - a faith that has no beginning and the one that never decays. Sanatana was the way of life for at least ten generations of Vaśiṣṭhas - starting well before Rama and going up to the days of Krishna. During this period, it gathered enormous social and political capital and thus the driver seat on direction of mankind.

With power came the conflict. Some Nyaan yogies wanted to make their work imperishable by committing it to a text themselves - they probably felt ignored by reciters! On the other side, such attempts were cursed - they were seen as lustful acts to undermine the sacred tradition. They were anyway destined to fail for the written language was not standardized. And writing tools were still in their infancy.

3.1

An ascetic lifestyle was important to Naad Yogies. Not only was it necessary for extreme focus on recital, rich hosts would select a trusted rites-admin only if they believed the ritual maker didn't want any of the material gains — an assurance that all the blessings would come directly to the host (without any cut). In a way, rites were the marketplace between humans and their deities where a Naad Yogi acted like a catalytic intermediary. Humans invested their allegiance, time and money while deities provisioned things they wanted in return. No one knew if the marketplace actually worked, but it was a matter of belief, and it worked for those who believed. In addition to apparent divine exchange, the arrangement funded the ‘knowledge ecosystem’. At the same time, rituals normally followed with charity to the poor. This reinforced the status of the powerful hosts. To the world, it appeared as if Naad Yogies endorsed their hosts; giving legitimacy to their endeavours. Generational cycles of this model led to a highly federated power structure. Every rich house had the rights to bear arms to protect their wealth with a direct line of command to the king.

The rich hosts and the powerful, as patrons, provided enough alms and homage to allow Yogies invest their time in spiritual as well as in material research. This primary research led to groundbreaking insights that centuries later influenced at least four major religions — Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism; along with hundreds of factions that thrive in South East Asia - and beyond. Not only religion, it also formed the primitive basis of science that includes linguistics, mathematics, cosmology, medicine, surgery, and lot more. It was like the "open source" movement of our time. Yogies shared their knowledge free of charge and lived on donations hence collected. That said, the ritual hosts did get early access to the new insights simply because they were close to the Naad Yogies. These insights led to them excelling in their pursuits; and hence more wealth - a virtuous cycle. Such successes were seen as the blessings of deities.

The formalization of rituals ensured the knowledge stayed immutable over the course of passage from one generation to the next. Imagine a world without written word - no books, no libraries and of course no internet. In that world, Naad Yogies would recite for days to a gathering of entire village without missing a single beat or breath (Prana). They were the vessels of knowledge that held water from different streams of Nyaan Yoga. For example a skill such as a Vaidya (doctor) may need to know botany (Vrakayurveda); human anatomy (Ayurveda); and horticulture (Krushi). This would allow him to understand the properties of herbs, how to use them to cure diseases; and how to grow them - a complete package. On the other side, a Nyaan Yogi would focus all his time and energy only on one stream.

Collectively Naad Yogies were called śatosha. The syllable śat stands for the hundred (skills) - a doctor or a metallurgist etc. And osha means a cumulation - for example in Sanskrit a treasury is called Kosha; Santosha means satisfaction available to a saint.

3.2

The literal meaning of Sanskrit word Naad is a dense voluminous sound, produced from the bottom of lungs. For example - the roar of lion (Singh) amidst a dense forest is called Singh-Naad. Most of the Acharyas (teachers) were necessarily Naad Yogies. Through years of practice (and sacrifice), they had learnt to channel internal knowledge in upper Chakras¹ - in heart Chakra (Anahata) for compassion, and in throat Chakra (Vishudhi) for vocal cleansing.

Moving energy to upper Chakras was a distinguished proof of being superior to rest of the species. Other species held the life energies in two lower Chakras — Swadhishthana (sexuality) ; and Manipuraka (consumption). By moving energy up the spinal column, referred to as raising the Kundalini, Naad Yogies separated humanity from animal kingdom - first quantum jump that made humans a representative identity of all mammals. Being a representative, they must watch for the benefit of all - Sarv Eva Bhavantu Sukhinah - peace and prosperity for all. They believed it was Naad Yoga that made humans bipedal in the world of quadrupedal mammals. Not only that taller you stand, farther you could see and speak ; the vertical spinal column allowed the Kundalini to rise, thereby opening access to upper Chakras.

The Chakra system was linked to five senses. Each sense represented an element - as shown in the graphic below. The way a sense was to an external element, a Chakra was considered the nerve center of internal traits - Vritties ².

By bringing life force to throat, Naad Yogies perfected the repeatable public recital, making it an ‘art of vocal expressions’. If your interest is peaked in what kind of renditions were these, I recommend listening to this one-minute clip of Shanti Mantra from Brahmin priest Santosh Mudgal here. Notice the stresses on the syllables and over-all elocution. Vaidik elocution is a complete genre of rendition practiced standing tall or sitting in upright position. Speech is restricted lying down or any other posture (Aasna or Yougic Mudra) that curls the spinal column. A curled up spinal column was believed to obstruct the rise of energy from lower to upper Chakras.

In a way Naad was an improvement over Mudra. We first perfected facial and body gestures that gave us an edge over predators. Once we accomplished physical security, speech took over. Among other things, it enabled barter for value-exchange. Barter was based on immutability of spoken word. A popular quote from Ramayana in local dialect is Pran Jahi per vachan na jahi - means one may sacrifice life but never go back on the spoken commitment. It was the underlying principle of barter.

3.3

There was no “generally” cherished art of 'writing'. The primary use of written word was to send telegrams through pigeons. Short, cryptic and perishable. There were attempts to write messages on the cave walls, or on those of temples. Small chisels and hammers were adapted (from sculpting) but the process remained utterly time-consuming as well as painstaking.

Some researchers (Nyaan Yogies), did consider the idea of converting the Mantras into text format — long before Parāśara, for obvious advantages of durability and portability. What if all the Vyasas died? What if human race perished though epidemic, or other extinction level event. The ancient wisdom must be preserved beyond human shelf life. Those questions existed, but without the comfort of a Mac, writing was a Herculean task! It was an exercise of solitude - to train our vast neural network - Sahsrara the top Chakra. And reading the limited text was akin to deciphering the code - with a cheat sheet - because every writer had their own extensions of symbols. We went through a similar period in computer programming till we got to unicode standards of text formatting. The idea of a book back then was similar to immersive virtual reality in the fifties - an impossible craving that appeared to have no chance of success.

There were some bold attempts, but they were mostly experimental—often half-baked, grammatically flawed, and contextually incoherent. The focus was not on the content itself; rather, it centered on the writing process and testing the claims of writing enthusiasts. Advocates for this pro-text perspective championed the idea of asynchronous freedom. Some of them subscribed to an extraordinary notion: they argued that if text could be passed down through generations, it should also be possible for information to flow from the future to the past. They referred to this phenomenon as "divine information." The promise was that this divine information could be made accessible to everyone. This idea had a circular logic: if someone were to read a book ten generations from now, they could theoretically reconstruct today's world in their minds. Given the pace of progress, what if they could correct the mistakes of our current thinking through observable signs? Wouldn’t that transform our own world? They believed that books served as bridges to a continuum; the more one writes, the greater the chances of receiving assistance from one’s future self. Some even suggested that the discipline of writing opened a portal in the human mind. Since they assumed that all information already existed in potential form, the quest was merely to unlock the pathways within our minds.

Such grand claims aside, there were immediate benefits. In absence of version management systems, Nyan Yogies could only inform the final construct - they themselves lost the knowledge that accumulated one step at a time with each iteration. In essence, they knew how, but very few could tell why! The "why" was acquitted to deities. Text allowed them remember intermediate discoveries - something like taking notes !

Majority of the Vyasas and Naad Yogies didn't believe written word could ever replace the rigor and authenticity of recital. Some beneficiaries of spoken layer, even denounced the efforts to ‘jail’ the wisdom into written symbols as downright demonic. Somewhat like main stream media's nervousness towards internet aggregators these days! Though writing meant content could be passed on to far-flung places; but the act of writing (and reading) wouldn't invoke elemental powers — they thought! Their arguments, sometimes, sounding sheer absurdities - how would you send the homage , the butter (ghee), fruits and milk to the deities without proper ritual? Other times the arguments were even more vicious - they thought the written words were insinuated by the demons to digress humans from reality. As if spoken word was "here and now" (truth), written word a far-fetched fantasy !

3.4

The "recital-model" had seen over ten generations of Vaśiṣṭhas - it was fully saturated by the time of Parāśara's birth. One of the reason it warranted a backlash was - somehow, the ritual had gotten more important than the content. While writing had no payback, chanting meant they could perform the rites for the kings and the rich, in lieu of ‘necessities and niceties’. Rich were mandated to perform rites at least sixteen times through their life span — birth, marriage and death being the major milestone rituals. In addition, every year, they must perform a rite for the peace of their dead — Shradha. Kings had even more rituals at their hands. In all, it was a flourishing economy of rituals and ritual makers. Priests were more important than a family physician ! Kings didn't even take on a simple journey without consulting their spiritual guru. The organised religion was still a thing of future but the clout many leading reciters enjoyed was a beginning of faith intermingling with politics. The nexus of politics and faith is a vicious cycle for they feed on each other. Reciters were turning into the gatekeepers of power.

Writing, on the other hand, had no such incentive. There was no kindle book store, no way to barter the text. It did have a promise to democratize the information and that did appeal to some, but such people were few and far. Most felt a commoner had no reason to access Vaidik knowledge without a qualified gatekeeper. And most thought the job of a Vyasa was eternal — fully protected till the end of humanity - immortal. Those who didn't believe in rituals and thus by extension defied the Vaidik wisdom were named Asuras — a class of outspoken people just short of being a monster (Rakshsa).

New rituals were being added left right and center. A new ritual if you want to enter a new home. Another if you bought a horse and a cart. Yet another to start the harvest. Sages developing distinct artifacts of knowledge Rishies, somewhat like PhDs of our times, weren't entirely happy in current arrangement. They were not sure if adding more rituals was the right path forward. People who had attained demonstrable mastery in a specific field or indigenously developed a new area of research Maharishies, often got most of the attention from Vyasas — the editors. But new Rishies often had problems in getting their work ritualized. It was hard to get attention from the chanting community. As such, they had no way to preserve their work other than scribing it themselves.

3.5

Parāśara understood and appreciated this growing concern among budding Rishies. He also noticed the hardships of writing first-hand, when he scribed his own work Krishi Parāśara - the first book on agriculture. His lineage and the work on agriculture won him a title of Maharishi though it cost him better part of his prime. He wanted to invest more time on improving the ‘writing experience’.

He had one more reason for this desire — his first love — Astrology (Jyotish). Astrology was something beyond the spoken means — it needed charting various planets and stars that were hard to capture for any purely spoken language.

Astrology (Jyotish) is the long old ancestor of modern day cosmology. Most people think astrology's secret sauce is somehow foretelling the future through broad predictions that had applied to almost anyone. In truth, it is a deep understanding of space and time. Effect of motion of massive celestial bodies in space-time, on our physical reality — our tiny box. Clues of effect of celestial motion on earthlings were apparent in changing weathers, and it had already found applications in agriculture - the subject of Parāśara's early investigation, but he found seasons impacted the moods. There was something in the extra terrestrial that connected deep with the spirit of not only humans but animals too.

Astrology was considered the ultimate science for it warranted knowledge of all the "hundred skills". One could predict only if s/he knew everything that was there to know. Not only the hundred skills, it needed deep understanding of three potencies of knowledge - particularly Vishnu the very source of manifestation. Armed with this ultimate spiritual science, he figured out how to predict expression of a specific trait in a newborn — with high degree of accuracy. Even today, in India, a priest (Pandit) would pictorially draw the state of heavenly bodies at the time of childbirth, called Janmpatri — a cosmic birth-chart. This document, normally kept as a scroll, details the exact positions of seven main grahas (the sun, moon and five main planets), and twenty-seven stars Nakshtras at the time of birth. It also details the effect of the motion of this system on the subject child's future. It is an important consideration (in many Hindu families) to determine the suitable marital match.

Charting the stars and planets was impossible in spoken word. A proper framework of scribing was a necessity!

An accurate practice of this skill was like controlling the “chromosomal dice”. If someone could predict child's future owing to the effect of cosmic alignment at the time of birth — Janmpatri; then s/he could reverse engineer the logic to ascertain the best time to conceive a child for a specific target future - though such a strategy, also meant long wait for the appropriate planetary alignment — sometimes, many generations in the future. Krishna Dwaipayana was one such awaited child. His birth was predicated by Maharishi Parāśara — the astrologer extraordinaire, and very rightly known as the ‘father of Astrology’. His epic book Brihat Parāśara Hora Shastra is considered the starting point of Astrology.

An English translation of this epic work is embedded here below for reference ...

3.6

Maharishi Parāśara was excited at the prospect of organizing the entire wisdom, and he believed written text was the only way to pull off such a miraculous thing. At the same time the issue was about freedom of expression. Siva invented dance (Mudra) for everyone and everyone was free to enjoy this art-form as much as they desired, but the spoken word was gradually getting corrupted. Greed had made in-roads into once ascetic Naad Yogies. As such, not only they preached the things favorable to their powerful patrons, they also supported suppression of ideas that were not in line with the vested interests. In the guise of keeping the society in checks and balances, the balance of expression was tilted in favor of rich. Thus, more focus on rituals that glorified the kings instead of helping researchers get their word out to the world. While absolute freedom of expression was still a long way, there must be a legit path available to keep important research from getting lost.

He, however, had no illusions. He knew scribing technology, might take more than a lifetime to reach maturity where it was accessible enough to write and read. There was another reason for this wait. Every new generation appeared to get a new version of the ‘core kernel’. Something that made acceptance of newer convictions' lot easier. He, himself, was working hard on many inscription strategies that were promising, but still not ready for the prime time, particularly for his generation subsumed in the magic of spoken words. He thought, it would take a generational shift to gain acceptance for these tools. That was probably the trigger for craving to have a child who could further his work into next generation.

Even today, we are not beyond “generational shift”. For example, Baby Boomers were comfortable with their landlines and emails. It took a generation for the internet to take firm hold particularly with smartphones. Boomers were happy with their cable TVs. Our generation takes streaming video, as a commodity. We assume smartphones and streaming is forever, while the Gen Z and Gen Alpha may wonder how could people block their hands — the most important organs of human body, with smartphones. Why would someone watch stuff on a tiny five-inch screen when VR allows them to jump right into the experience? The next generations will have implants to let them talk, walk and work simultaneously. Their reality may seem like a virtual reality to us, just the way our way of life is living in a VR for people three generations back. With every generation, new tools become effortless and universally acceptable simply because new tools become part of the Sanskara - the first steps of learning.

And it wasn't just the tools — the pen and the paper; he must find ways to wrap a payback method around ‘writing’ to make it a self-sustaining model like Dravya Yazna. And he must steer this ship safe from the ones with vested interests in then existing paradigm of spoken rites, because labeling someone Asura was easy for the power-brokers — even for the slightest clue of non-compliance. Even today, changing the existing power-structure isn't free from risk. Music labels killed Napster. China banned free internet. Central banks hate Cryptos. The play of vested interest is to sustain the past through "suppression of information"; while progress demands "fearless expression" for rapid innovations.

It was an ambitious and tall order that might bear fruits in next generation — Maharishi thought — he must perpetuate his life's learnings, and those from his ancestors to a worthy heir. He believed fate blessed him the Astrology, to ensure he found one.

notes and stuff: