Till now we have tried to understand many ways to unlock the ancient wisdom. All that was theoretical, in a way. Now it is time for us to explore the practical side of our learning. So, I have decided to dedicate another menu heading for the purpose – “Mystic Passages”. The aim of this series is to bring in some archaic passages and unveil the hidden messages with the help of many keys that were explored in this blog. This will give us some experiential ground to apply the hints that we have gathered till now.
In this first part of the series, I have chosen a passage from “Mahabharata”. The preamble runs as follows. A character named “Upamanyu” takes care of the job of overseeing the cattle. Having warned by his guru “Thoumya” to not drink the milk of the cows, as the cows are not of theirs, he wrongly eats a poisonous plant and the white liquid of that plant touches his eyes and he becomes blind. Then he falls into a ditch. Noticing his absence, his guru comes in search of him. When he realizes that Upamanyu lost his eyesight, he asks him to recite the mystic passages on “Aśvini Datās”, who having pleased by his prayers, restores his eye sight and also gives him the wisdom of LIGHTS (Jyotirvidya). The story is pregnant with many interesting points, but let us focus only on one of the stanzas of the prayers that he uttered.
Ṣaṣṭiśca gāvaḥ triśataśca dhēnavaḥ
Ēkaṃ vatsaṃ suvatītaṃ duhaṃti
Nānāgōṣṭhāvihitā ēkadōhanāḥ
Tā vaśvinau duhatō gharma mukthyaṃ
Word to Word Meaning:
Ṣaṣṭiḥ = 60; Gāvaḥ+Ca = Cows; Triśatiḥ = 300; Dhēnavaḥ+Ca = a milch cow; Ēkaṃ Vatsaṃ = One calf; Suvatē = Giving birth to; Taṃ = To it; Duhaṃti = giving milk; Nānā Gōṣṭha = many groups; Vihitāḥ = arranged; Ēkadōhanāḥ = Having only one udder; Tau+Aśvinau = Those two Aśvinis; Gharmaṃ = Sunlight or heat from sunlight; Ukthyaṃ = Food; Duhataḥ = They are squeezing.
Import:
360 cows gave birth to only one calf and are feeding it with the milk. The Aśvini dēvatās arranged these cows into many groups. All cows together have only one udder. From this udder, they are milking the warmth of sunlight as their food.
When a profane reads the above import, they will obviously think that the author, Sage Vyāsa, has no logical sense at all. How can 360 cows give birth to one calf? How can all of them have only one UDDER? All this will seem a crazy mind’s fantasy. Let us see if the profane is right in his exclamation, or if we have some coherent thought in this passage.
Previously, in the articles: 28) The SIX Keys (Part-1), 28) The Six Keys (part-2) we have explored extensively how “Gau” not only implies cows, but also light! It is that key we need to apply here. The literal translation suggests that:
The last point is itself a hint for us to change the meaning associated with the word “Gau” to light. Why? Let us see point by point:
Thus, we see that the angels – Aśvinis are squeezing the essence of SUN light as the very splendors of the cyclic creation. Așvini dēvatās, in the above story, have been said to restore the eye sight of Upamanyu. They are the angels of “Binaries” and that is why there are two Aśvini dēvatās. The two aspects in our body are: eyes, ears, lungs, etc. So, they rule the binaries of this creation, including the binaries of our body. Also, to suggest that they are the lords of LIGHT (and hence lords of binaries of days and nights), it was said that they bestowed Upamanyu with the wisdom of LIGHTS or Jyōtirvidya.
Also, it is said that they are arranging the cows in different groups. That means, the different divisions, as we mentioned earlier, like seasons, year cycles, planetary orbits, etc are being caused due to different roles taken by the rays of the SUN. Here one must understand the rays as creative rays of divine light rather than the visible rays of SUN. Just like we (the soul) is different from our body, there are “spiritual rays” as well as the physical rays of SUN that we see. If this key is understood, then the grouping of rays into many different cycles of creation is easy to understand!
So, we have used the key of Nirukta (Gau = LIGHT RAY), key of Numbers (360), key of Astrology in decoding one of the passages. It is in this way, do we need to unlock the mystic passages. Without the keys, we would have been left with a mythical group of 360 cows with one udder! The seed inspiration for this article comes from a Telugu book titled – “Aśvini Dēvatalu” written by my GURU – Master. E. K.
PhD (Quantum Physics), M.Sc. (IIT Madras), B.Tech. (LNMIIT).
Bridging the depths of Science and the wisdom of the Vedas
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