Welcome to the 8th issue of Vedagyan
Now we shall learn about AtharvaVeda.

Atharva Veda contains about six thousand verses. Though appears to be later in age this contains information on civilisation much older than Rig Veda. The name of this Veda is derived from Atharva Angiras a great seer.

Its 731 poems are in majority deal with herbs and their curative powers, the demons (both male and female), diseases that afflict society, sins and their atonement, pitfalls of performing rituals wrongly.

This Veda contains a number of hymns to compel

devatas who are reluctant to grant the favours to humans! This Veda recognises imps and goblins and gives very detailed descriptions of Spells! (Watch out Harry Potters!)

This Veda gave rise to Ayur Veda that is very popular today! Most of this Veda is not metred. Wonderful hymns of Varuna and Prtivi are noteworthy.

There were a number of Rishis named Angiras of them the foremost is Agni the Lord of Fire and he is known as Prathama Angiras.

A brief life history of Adi Sankara Bagavatpada.

Sri Sankara was born in a small hamlet called Kaladi in present day Kerala. This is situated on the banks of the river Poorna, and is near the famous Shiva Shrine of Vadakkunathan in Trichur. His parents were Sri Sivaguru and Aryamba of Nambudri families.

The childless couple Sri Sivaguru and Aryamba prayed to Sri Vadakkunathan for a progeny to which He assented with a condition! Lord gave them the option of having one child who would be extrodinarily brilliant and scholarly and pious but would die young, or else more children of mediocre in nature!
The couple would only have the son who is brilliant and pious.
Thus was the beginning of Shri Sankara’s life. He was none other than the avathara of Lord Shiva.
Sankara’s life is full of miracles and at the very young age he lost his father and his mother Aryamba performed his upanayana and he started learning the scriptures and other literatures. He mastered them all with astonishing alacrity.
When he was under gurukula he used to go into the village to some households and beg for alms as prescribed to be the duty of a Brahmachari. One day he went to a house of a very poor Brahmin and the lady of the house did not have anything to offer but for an amla fruit! Undaunted by the utter helplessness and abject poverty the lady brought that fruit and offered it to Sankara. Being a Gyani he understood her predicament, and then and there prayed to Goddess Mahalakshmi to give her the wealth. To every one’s surprise it rained gold! Thus he relieved her of her poverty!

In another instance he changed the course of Poorna River because his mother could not go that far to take bath. He was a renunciate even when he was young. But he wanted to take up Sanyasa Asrama in a proper manner. Suddenly one day when he was taking bath in the river a crocodile caught his leg and Sankara had no hope of survival and at the very instant he decided to take up sanyasa as it would mean taking a new birth!

He explained to his mother who was in a state of shock on seeing him caught by the creature, she readily agreed. Immediately the crocodile released Sankara. He promised his mother that at time of her death he would be by her side where ever he might be. He undertook a journey in search of a Guru.
Then he reached the Narmada valley and on the banks of the river Narmada he reached the Ashram of Govinda Bagavatpada a disciple of Gaudapada, and requested him to accept him as a student. Govinda Bagavatpada agreed and took Sankara as his disciple. On observing his progress he conferred the Paramahamsa order on Sankara.
Sankara wrote many books and commentaries. Most famous of them were Brahma Sutra Bhashya, Bhashyas of famous Upanisahads, Bhashya for Patanjali Yoga Sutra, Gita Bhashya. He also wrote many vartikas, tippanis, vrttis.
He composed many songs on the Lord and the famous ones are Baja Govindam, Nrsimha Karavalambam, and Soundarya Lahari etc. He wrote the bhashya of Vishnu Sahasranama.

He wrote famous books on contemplation and self-realisation, such as Atmabodham, Upadesa saram, and Drk Drsya vivekam, Aparoksha Anubhuti etc.

He held debates with many scholars of other faiths and won them. In Kashmir he debated with Kumarila Bhatta who deputed his disciple Mandana Misra to debate. Sankara won the debate.

Mandana Misra became his disciple called Suresvaracharya and became the head of Srngagiri mutt in Karnataka other mutts were at Puri, Dwaraka, Joshimutt, and Badrinath.

He established four principal mutts in four corners of the country and established his disciples as their heads and ordained them to uphold sanathana dharma and propagate our scriptures. He also divided the ritualistic worship of gods into major branches and established Vaishnavam, Saivam, Saktham, Kaumaram, Ganapathyam and Souram.

As promised to his mother he reached his mother at her deathbed and when she passed away, performed her final rites amid lot of protests from the locals against a Sanyasi doing these rites.

Later he went on a pilgrimage to mount Kailash and disappeared in a cave near Kedarnath. There are also other versions about his last days that say that he came down south to Kanchipuram and attained mukthi.

Within a span of thirty odd years Sankara created a revolution in our spiritual domain and left his indelible mark!

Bye now, see you all in the next issue.

Welcome to the 7th issue of Veda Gyan.

In the last few issues we learnt about Samaveda, and Yajur Veda. In this issue we shall learn about Rig Veda. This is one of the oldest repositories of information available to mankind. We are unable to exactly state the period to which this Veda belongs because a lot of conflicting conclusions are arrived at.


This Veda contains ten thousand verses forming 1017 poems in 8 chapters grouped in ten mandalas. These poems adore the Gods as Indra, Agni, Rudra, Asvins, Mitra, Varuna, Maruths, and Ribhus. About two thirds of this Veda is dedicated to Agni and Indra alone.

This Veda contains many veils, which are very difficult to overcome or understand. This Veda gives three more descriptions of Brahman namely Iswara, Hiranya Garbha, Viraj.

Rig Veda also mentions the Rishis to whom these hymns were revealed they are Visvamitra, Vasishta, Bharadwaja. This Veda has an interesting story as its base!

The story of Vrtrasura!

Vrtrasua was a dreaded asura with a lot of powers granted by way of boons by Brahma for his penance. He kidnapped the Sun God and kept him as a hostage and made the entire Devas subservient to him. The universal creation suffered in the absence of Sun God, as he is the sustainer!

All Devas deliberated this predicament and tried to find a solution. They consulted the three principal Gods namely Shiva, Vishnu, and Brahma.

They called the lord of the Devas, the Indra and told him that he had to lead an army to fight this dreaded asura and obtain release of the Sun God! But the problem was how to locate his hideout? Who should drive Lord Indra to his destination? Who should advise the Lord on war logistics?

It was decided that Brhaspati the guru of all devas would advise Indra on logistics and accompany him in his chariot. A hound called Sarama was employed to hunt down the asura in his mountainous hide out! Aswini devatas who were famous for their swift footedness were sent to smoothen the passage to Lord Indra of any resistance!

All devas were deployed to fight along with Indra and obtain the release of the Sun God. What ensued was a terrible and prolonged fight between the asura who was located at a deep cave of a mountain. After a long battle Indra manages to emerge victorious in his battle and set the Sun God free!

He achieves this victory only after he uses his new weapon called thunderbolt that is made of the backbone of a Rishi called Dadhichi. This bone for the weapon is obtained by Indra on the advise of Brhaspati as the gift from the maharishi himself after he gives up his body for the sake of welfare of Devas!

Titbits
Now let us take up the “Why” of the vessel full of water kept on the banana leaf topped with mango leaves and coconut. Here the vessel represents the human head and the water represents the knowledge of divine that is profound, and the mango leaves represent vigour and vitality and life. The rice represents all embodied creation. The recitation of Varuna japa is done first and all the powers of cosmos like Lord Varuna, Mitra, the three principal deities and other gods are established therein.

Rig Veda states that the human head is also known as Dronakalasa, which is given an outward expression by this arrangement of Poorna Khumba!

Sprinkling of Turmeric powder smeared rice when some one does pranam is again a symbol. The turmeric powder is a good insecticide and does not allow the rice to attract any insects. By using the rice after removing the chaff from the paddy is to prevent it from growing into a rice plant! Now this smeared rice is sprinkled upon the person doing the pranam to signify that he or she should live longer and be healthy and also attain the purpose of this birth by detaching themselves from knots of this vicious birth and death cycle. To live with the consciousness that everything belongs to the divine and is given to the human race to conduct their life with contentment.

Once a person lives with the consciousness that everything belongs to the divine his thoughts and deeds do not perpetuate and will not necessitate another birth in this world! This is pure philosophy and may be difficult for you children, to comprehend.

So do not worry about the significance now!

Ø Paatraviseshenyastam gunantharam vrjati silpamaadhatu |

Jalamiva samudrasuktau muktaphalatam payodasya ||

This verse states that a drop of rainwater that falls into the shell becomes a pearl; similarly the knowledge embedded into a good sishya is firm and attains glory!

There may be a heavy rain over the surface of the ocean but only a drop enters the shell and transforms into a pearl!


Six Gunas of the Lord!

The six gunas are: Ever expanding knowledge, bhalam (strength),

iswaryam( wealth), veeryam( valour), sakthi ( power), and Tejas (lustre).

Narayana’s sleeping posture upon the Aadishesha on the waters of vast ocean

Is to represent that he resides in pure knowledge or consciousness and can be

Apprehended after making the organs of perception submissive to the divine will!

News from the past !

This is the news item that appeared in the Madras Musings Oct. 04 issue.

The book named Vaimanika Sastra authored by Bharatdwja Maharishi explains in detail about various aircrafts. NASA has a copy of this book!

The book describes minute details of many ideas about designs of aircrafts, kind of alloys they used to build aircrafts, the kind of food and clothing the pilots need!

It also describes something very interesting that is 5,19,800 airways between the seven lokas!!!

Technical drawings based on this book of aircrafts were done in 1870 in Mysore.

In Melkot(Karnataka) efforts were made as an on going project to synthesise the alloys mentioned in the book

Zeppelin’ blimp has a similar shape aerodynamically to Tripura Vimana described in the book.

The 1950-soyuz crafts resembled Rukma Vimanam of the book.

A flight has been recorded in 1895 AD in India earlier than the Wright brothers!

The life sketch of a great saint Jayadeva.

Near the city of Puri in Orrisa where Lord Jaganatha with his brother Bhalarama and sister Subhadra reside, there was a village called Bilvagaun. In that village lived a pious couple namely Narayana Sastri and Kamalabai.Their life was fully devoted to Vishnu and they knew nothing other than HIM. But one thought was always troubling Kamalabai was that they did not have a son. Every time she prayed to Lord she would only express this desire and continued her service to Lord. One day Lord appeared in the dream of Narayana Sastri and told him that he would be blessed with a son!

Narayana Sastri instead of feeling happy felt angry with his wife for having asked for such a boon form all pervasive God! He felt ashamed and hung his head in shame!

On that very night Lord appeared in Narayan Sastri’s dream as a Brahman and told him that it is God’s will. Days passed and a child was born to them. They named him as Jayadev and was brought up as a devotee of Narayana.

Attaining marriageable age his parents searched and found a gem of a girl called Padmavati among their relatives. The marriage was performed with all the gaiety

And the young couple started their life. It was all dedicated to the Lord once again.

Daily poojas and bajans were routine. Jayadeva developed extraordinary ability to compose songs in praise of the Lord Jaganatha.He started composing ashtapatis called Geetha Govindam that is quite popular even today!

One day early in the morning during his composition while singing as Krishna addressing Radha , Jayadeva sang that his head was so hot and splitting and called upon Radha to place her cool like a lotus petal foot on his head! Immediately Jayadeva felt immensely sad for having sung like that and reprimanded himself and tore the palm leaf to pieces. Soon after he called his wife Padmavati and told her that he is going to the river to take his bath and would return for his morning pooja.

Within few moments Padmavati heard the foot steps of her husband and came out wondering what happened. There she saw Jayadeva having applied oil to his head

Coming hurriedly towards her. Jayadeva asked her to immediately bring him the palm leaves and the pen and added that he would add a line before he forgets. Padmavati as directed brought him the leaves and the pen. Jayadeva wrote a few lines and went back to take his bath satisfied.

On his return he performed his pooja and then asked Padmavati to bring him the palm leaves. He was awe struck! He could not believe his own eyes. He asked Padmavati whether she wrote anything. Padmavati replied that it was him who wrote on the leaves with oil dripping from his head! And also pointed out the oil stain on the leaves. The very same line he had written was found in the leaf!

He was overwhelmed with joy at the truth that Padmavati had received the grace of Lord. He ended that ashtapati with words that said, “the husband of Padmavati has won”


Bye now! See you in the next issue.

Veda gyan
Welcome to the sixth issue of Veda Gyan

In this issue we shall learn about Yajur Veda. This Veda mainly deals with procedures of performing yagnas. It is quite elaborate and descriptive. There are two versions of Yajur Veda namely Sukla Yajur Veda and Krishna Yajur Veda that are white and black! There is an interesting story behind these names.

Sage Vaisampayana taught Yajur Veda to a number of students. One of them is Yagyavalkya. It was a usual custom for the guru to go to the King’s court every day and bless him and come back. It so happened that one day the Guru had gone out of town and could not go to the King’s court. He accordingly deputed his pupil Yagyavalkya to go to the court and bless the King. When Yagyavalkya went to the king’s court he was away. After waiting a little while Yagyavalkya sprinkled the turmeric powder smeared rice on his throne and returned back to the ashram. To every ones surprise at the palace the throne had become a live tree issuing forth sprouts!

The next day the king was told about this strange happening. The king realising the greatness of the student sent a word to the ashram that from the next day the sishya could come and bless him every day! But the guru took it otherwise, feeling jealous of the sishya and reprimanded him. Yagyavalkya felt insulted and did not offer the ghee offerings in the yagya in the fire altar meant for his guru. On being questioned he was forthright in explaining his innocence. The argument between the guru and the student continued and finally the guru said that that Yagyavalkya was not fit to hold the Knowledge taught by him so far and he should reject it forthwith. Readily Yagyavalkya brought out all the knowledge acquired and assimilated as a big ball of flesh and blood from within his body and threw it out. The guru immediately changed the rest of the students into birds that eat flesh called Tittri and made them eat the flesh. Later he turned them back as humans! But the knowledge acquired was not in order because the birds had consumed the flesh in a disorderly manner. Thus the knowledge so acquired came to be called Krishna Yajur Veda or black Yajur Veda.

Yagyavalkya went out of the ashram and wanted to get back the knowledge he had lost. So he did penance and prayed to Lord Surya and the lord appeared before him and asked him what he wants. Yagyavalkya narrated the entire episode and requested him to impart the holy knowledge to him. The Lord explained the difficulty of learning from him because he is moving at a very fast pace and the student has to face him and

Move backwards in the same pace, and could not afford to rest till the knowledge is acquired, and the assimilation of that had to be very fast as there is no time for review. Yagyavalkya agreed to all these conditions and started learning and the lord was pleased with his dedication and sincerity. Upon finishing the entire portion of the

Veda Still what Yagyavalkya learnt was only the size of a grain of sand the lord blessed him and said that the portion of Veda he had learnt would be henceforth known after Him, that is Sukla Yajur Veda that means White Yajur Veda!

Yajur Veda is divided into a number of Anuvakas and subdivided into Viniyogas. The entire Veda deals with rituals or yagnas that we had explained in our previous issue.

Recensions or Reviews of this Veda are Taittriya Sanhita, Katthaka Sanhita,Maitrayani Sanhita,Kapisthala Sanhita belonging to the black Yajur Veda.

Madhyanadhina Sanhita and Kanva Sanhita belong to White Yajur Veda. Interesting information is that the Sun God appeared before him as a white horse taught this to Yagyavalkya! Vajin means horse that is why this is also called Vajasaneyi Sanhita!

Is it not amazing to learn that knowledge is related to Sun God and White horse etc? And we use adjectives like brilliant student, luminary personality, and enlightened person, horse sense etc. in everyday usage.


In the last issue I promised to explain certain rituals, now let us know the “Why” of these in this issue and the forthcoming ones.

The use of ghee in yagnas.

The Dharma of all Brahmin folk is to lead a simple life of a mendicant and acquire the highest knowledge and impart that to others thereby making the entire society benefit.

All rules and duties of these folks were designed, to suit student life and thereafter that of a teacher.

They were forbidden from acquiring huge wealth, eat and make merry as they please! They had to lead a much disciplined life and beg for alms every day and eat, only to keep their ego under check!

The students normally stayed with their teacher in his house or hermitage and helped him in his daily routine and learnt the lessons. The teacher in turn taught not only the scriptures but also yoga, meditation, steeped in spirituality.


The students were expected to have good concentration and pay undivided attention to his teachings. The teacher will impart the knowledge in the easiest way to assimilate by using examples that the students are familiar with.


Thus cows, ghee, moon, honey, Sun, rock, water, light, fire etc were frequently taken as examples to express inner qualities of an individual.

Cows were representation of knowledge because they were important source of nutrition and thereby ensured the well being of the individual and in Sanskrit the word “Go” means cow also meant light or knowledge!

Similarly Ghee was associated with intellect. This was because ghee or clarified butter is highly inflammable and helps in fire surging forward. Similarly the intellect should be alert to absorb all knowledge and assimilate. Ghee when poured forms an unbroken stream without any fissures. The intellect should also be supple or with flexibility and not be rigid and fragmented. Fire represented strong will power normally turned towards the divine. This is how the ghee came to be associated with intellect. Wherever a student or any other person was expected to concentrate and contemplate, the accompanied ritual was always associated with fire and ghee as offerings. Even if the offerings were other things as twigs or food, they will be accompanied with ghee.

Why do we offer ghee using the leaf of Purasai, tree? In the earlier issue we talked about this tree- Issue 2 where, in the Brahmaloka the tree was listening to the discussion of Rishis about Vedas and clearly understood the concept. As a confirmation of its understanding, the leaf of this tree split at the bottom, near its stem into two. Thereby affirming the virtue of detachment from the worldly pleasures! Then onwards the tree’s leaves began to be used to pour the ghee into fire to acquire knowledge. You all know by now what the fire and ghee represent.

With this we conclude this issue.

Veda gyan
Issue 5


Dear Readers,

Welcome to the fifth issue of Veda gyan. In this issue we shall learn first about Samaveda , later we shall take up other Vedas because this Veda is in song format and is full of prayers to God!


Samaveda is divided into three major parts and contains 1875 verses. The three divisions are Purvarchika, Uttararchika and Mahanamni archika.


Uttararchika comprises of Sukatas, Mahanamniarchika has ten verses only and Purvarchika is divided into Agneya kanda (Chapter), Anindra kanda, Pavamana kanda and Aranya kanda. Most of the verses of Samaveda are repetition of Rig Veda only. But we are unable to know whether Rig Veda or Samaveda that is first in the order of precedence.

Purvarchika is sung in two different forms namely 1. Gramageyagana 2. Aranyagana.

Uttararchika is sung in two different forms namely 1.Oohagana 2. Uhyagana.

The whole Samavedic hymns are sung in various metres ranging from 24 to 104. Of these Gayatri is 24 syllables.


Samaveda is sung along with additional swaras that are called stobas. These stobas are representation of various deities like Earth, Moon, Indra, Agni, Vayu etc. So in one song they pray to more Godhead.

Now a brief life sketch of a great saint of our times.

Sadasivendra Sarasvati also popularly known as Sadasivabrahmendra was a great yogi of 18th Century. Though we do not have much data on his family, we have some information on his student days.

It was at Tiruvisanallur a small village near kumbakonam on the banks of river Kaveri.There lived a teacher called Ramabadra Dikshita who was famous for his works like Janakiparinaya.

His famous contemporaries were Sri Venkatesa also known as Sridhara Ayyaval in his later years that invoked Goddess Ganga and brought her forth from his well at his home! And Gopalakrishna, who later came to be known as Mahabashyam Gopalakrishna Sastri, the preceptor of Tondaiman Kings who ruled from Pudukottai.

Sadasiva was one among them. During those days the boys were married early in their childhood. At the end of his student life he came to know that his wife had come of age in a distant village. His mother was happy to receive him. When he reached his teachers quarters for dinner he had to wait for more than an hour for his dinner. This made him thoughtful and set the process of renouncing the married life in motion!

He avoided his home and became a wandering monk. He did not even spare the leaves thrown away with remnants of food. People took him to be a crazy youth! But soon he found a preceptor in Paramasivendra Sarasvati. He began studying Yoga under him apart form other scriptures. He made great progress and during this period he composed a number of songs that are famous even today!

Manasa Sancharare.is one of his famous compositions. Then the Pibhare ramarasam which is hummed even by the younger generation. He also composed a poem called Atmavidya vilasam that reveals his attainment of realisation. During this time an important incident happened in Sadasiva’s life that changed his stature totally. Because of his scholarship he would bother those who come to meet his teacher with a lot of questions and derive satisfaction on their predicament of not able to answer his questions. This practice was widely resented by all. The news reached his preceptor and he was visibly annoyed and exclaimed “Sadasiva when you will learn to keep your mouth shut?”


The student realised his folly and took a vow not to speak for the rest of his life! He prostrated before his teacher and took leave of his master and became a wandering mendicant. One day he was resting his head on the embankment that divided the fields and one of the labourers remarked that even those who had given up the world found it necessary to rest their head on the embankment! This struck Sadasiva and he started lying down on the ground. Next day when the labourers passed they noticed the change and remarked that those who profess to scorn all worldly things are not still insensitive to criticism! These small falls in his march were stepping stones for great success.

Sadasiva reached the banks of Amaravati near Coimbatore District and spent his days on the riverbed. Once when he was lying on the sands of the river in Kodumudi. Suddenly there were flash floods in the river, which carried him along. The villagers on the banks were helplessly watching their beloved saint whom they looked upon with awe and reverence being buried deep in the sand by the torrent water current! They quietly returned to their home regretting the episode. Three months passed when the floods subsided and water became scarce. The village officers began the erection of Korambu (A small bridge made of wooden planks for villagers to cross over). When one of the labourers plunged his spade he encountered some obstruction. When he drew it back a few drops of blood dripped from it. Now the officers and workmen gathered around and dug a deep pit around the spot. Wonder of wonders they found the yogi buried deep into the sand with his limbs lying in different directions but he was lost in trance! They carefully dug him out and brought him back to consciousness with care. To everyone surprise he walked away after some time as though nothing happened.


In another incident our sage was wandering in the night and found a paddy heap and he laid on it stretching his arms and relaxed watching this the guards wanted to castigate him and approached the saint with sticks in their hands stretched upwards. When the yogi looked at them they simply froze and were in that position till the next day dawn when their master arrived and started enquiring his guards the yogi simply got up and left the scene! As soon as he left the place the guards returned to their normal posture.


Like this a number of incidents have taken place. He has been spotted in two paces at the same time; he had transported a lot of children to Madurai from Kodumudi in a second and later brought them back after witnessing the rathotsav there! Once his limbs were chopped off by a Muslim chieftain but the saint walked without any pain, which rattled the offender, and immediately he came and begged for his pardon. The saint forgave him and just looked at his own elbow and immediately the severed part got fused together!

Source: Book of Brahmasutra Vrtti by Sri Sadasiva Brahmendral in its forword.

Just imagine about 150 years ago a great saint like this lived amongst us!


In the next issue we shall discuss more about relevance of rituals and also some important rituals of ours.


Next issue will feature some explanation about why we use ghee in yagnas? Why we use the leaf to pour ghee as offering? Why we keep a vessel full of water with coconut on the top and with mango leaves placed firmly on plain rice? Why we sprinkle turmeric powder smeared rice when some one does pranam? What is the significance of Dharba grass?



Bye now.