vedabhASya - Vedic Studies

Ashtalakshmi stotram tranlsation in Tamil and essence in English.

Ashta-Lakshmis are the eight attributes of matter forms and biological forms.

In matter forms. the eight attributes are Wave nature, Particle nature, Pressure, Mass, Volume, Velocity, Entropy and Enthalpy.

In biological forms, the eight attributes are Consciousness, Metabolism which is the ability to consume other forms and use them as energy source, Ability to handle pressure/Courage, ability to control/rule over other biological beings (humans/animals etc), Expansion/Pro-creation, Winning over physical and mental spaces, Increasing Knowledge and maintaining Physical/Mental energy which is Health.

Brahma-anda are the matter forms in Universe. Pinda-anda are the biological forms. As the pindAnda follows the same design pattern as the brahmAnda, this stotram invokes the ashta-lakshmis in the Universe, in all the biological beings and in us too, giving us the ability to grow, prosper and evolve.

The forward only moving ‘Arrow of Time’ or ‘kAla’ is the most frightful divinity in our Universe. ‘kAlA’ is synonymous to ‘death’ because arrow of time and death cannot be reversed. This irreversible, fearful perspective of arrow of time is the kAla bhairava. Science recognizes today eight ‘arrows of time’. There are eight (ashta) kAla bhairavas. The eight slokas of kAla bhairava ashtakam point to these eight arrows of time in the way they characterize the kAla bhairava.

Adi Shankara's Lakshmi nRsimha Karavalambam translated and sung inTamil, essence in English.

Adi Shankara says Lakshmi nRsimha is like the 'Palate'. Our tongue vibrates and strikes against the Palate to make meaningful complex words. Likewise vibrating particles strike against the Higgs field and make meaningful matter forms.

Shiva Thandava Stotram is generally sung for either the music content or with bhakti bhaav. But it has a scientific content that talks about what is Shiva Thandava.

Shiva is the property of energy. Shiva thandava is the ultimate vibrations of energy, the underlying cosmic rhythm or rhythmic beat of mrdangam or dumru,  in every matter particles explains this stotram. It also says depicts how Universe evolves in the 'matted' hair of Shiva and what it means.

Listen to the translation in tamil. Read the essence in English.

Background In the past few chapters, we went through
1. Force-fields (Scalar Higgs/Vishnu, Vector/Chakra, Spinor/Conch) (1)
2. Fundamental Particles (Panchajana/Five particle types, ChaturSana/Four right-handed particles) (2)
3. Interactions (Soma/strong, Madhu/Weak, Apa/Electromagnetic) (3)
4. Charges ( Vaishravana/Color, kAla/Weak, Yama/Electric) (3)
5. Composite Particles (Sura/Nucleons, Asura/Non-nucleons, Rakshasa/Vector and Pseudo-scalar mesons and Yaksa/Scalar and Pseudo-vector mesons) (4)
6. Concepts of Chirality, Helicity etc (4)
7. Asvins - The electromagnetic field (8)
8. How asvins grow vasus, learning/evolving molecular clouds (11)
9. Asvins leading to Stellar nucleosynthesis (12)10. Three-wheeled Asvins (13)
11. A top level summary of our understanding till now (14) Executive Summary of Rgveda Mandala 5 Hymn 74
Atri is the neutrino-decoupling event in the early Universe that allows the EM interactions to gain upper hand and evolve the Universe further. Vasus are atoms/mol…

Background As I travel through the Vedas and Upanishads, here is a look-back or  gist of my understanding, as it stands now. This is a summary of my understanding spread over many blog posts and few of my books.
It's a challenge always to have a starting point in describing Vedas and Upanishad, like starting in a limitless expanded space. I am starting at some point arbitrarily. Devas - Adityas, Rudras and Vasus Let's start this from the 'devas', which are more easily understood. Devas make our Universe.
There are 33 devas, of which there are 12 Adityas which are primitive (pre-molecular) matter forms and processes born out of creative energies, 11 Rudras which are 11 force-fields of Universe, then there are 8 vasus, which are eight states of atom/molecules based matter forms. 
The 12 adityas, the pre-molecular matter forms and processes are divided into 8 pre-molecular matter forms and 4 processes. The eight pre-molecular matter forms are
1. Urukrama or Vishnu, the …

Background How are the days of the week named..? One reason is the order in which the planetary evolution and stabilization happens in the Solar System.  Another reason is the 'Hora system'.

In Vedic cultures sunrise was the start of the day. A day and night between two sun-rises were divided into 60 ghatis. Every 2.5 ghatis approximately were called a 'Hora'. Hence there were 24 'Horas' between two sun-rises approximately. The 'hour' should have come from the 'Hora'.

The 'horas' were named after the seven luminaries that affect Earth and they were repeated. Thus a 24 horas day and night had these seven luminary names repeating in day.

But the interesting point there is 'order' in which the names of luminaries were chosen for the horas. That order indicates that those days people had indeed known more than what we knew 100 years back.
Synodic period and Sidereal period Synodic period is the time that elapses between two success…