6. अनेकदर्शनमर्मवित् Aneka-darśana-marma-vit

One who knew the hidden import of many schools of knowledge

The word ‘darśana’, though usually used for traditional systems of philosophy, also means ‘schools of knowledge’ in general. It can therefore be taken here to include other oriental and occidental philosophies or schools of thought, as also science and metaphysics, while the traditional darśanas are spoken of in nāma 46.

The term ‘marma-vit’ means one who knows the hidden import. His Holiness is described here as a knower of the hidden import of not one, but aneka or many darśanas. This implies that His Holiness could answer profound questions and untie intricate knots not merely within a single domain, but also across multiple such domains. He was indeed a master at doing so in an integrated and seamless manner. His deep knowledge mothered insight into several domains. He had the unique ability to convey complex concepts, integrating and distinguishing between various schools of thought, in the simplest of ways, to even a lay person.

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In 1975, a Physics professor from Bihar in his forties, had a conversation with His Holiness in Hindi.

Professor: I am interested in showing that what was said in our ancient books is what modern science is now saying about the universe. It is now largely accepted that the universe is expanding. Its origin can be traced back to a time when it was a point. I believe that the universe will start shrinking after reaching a maximum size. This is because of the pull of gravity associated with the matter in the universe. It will return to the state in which it was when it originated. Then it will start expanding again. I think that this is exactly what is said in the Bhagavad-gītā and the Purāṇas.

His Holiness: You said that the universe will start shrinking because of the amount of matter in it. Has that much matter been discovered?

P: Not yet, but I am confident it will be.

HH: Let us suppose that it will be. Will the next cycle of expansion then be identical to the present one or bigger or smaller? If the next cycle of expansion is larger, more time will be required before the universe fully shrinks than will be needed for it to do so in the present cycle. Hence, ultimately, the universe will not shrink back, no matter how long one waits. Even if the next cycle of expansion is smaller than the present one, then too there will not be infinite cycles. If your position is that the scriptures speak of infinite cycles of expansion and contraction of the universe and that that is exactly what science is arriving at, you must not only have enough matter to cause the universe to shrink but it must also be that the next expansion must match the present one. Any evidence to the contrary will be fatal to what you are trying to establish.

P: I do not think such a contingency will arise.

[In 1975 when this conversation took place several physicists had shown that as per the second law of thermodynamics, the universe would not go through infinite cycles; even if there were to be cycles, the expansion of one cycle would not be the same as that of the preceding cycle.]

P (continued): If it turns out that the cycles will not be identical, I will have to go through our texts again and see how they exactly predict what conforms to the new data.

HH: In that case, you will be altering your interpretation of the scriptural texts to suit the scientific position of the day, whereas your aim is to start with texts and establish that that is what modern science has discovered. Let us suppose that nothing fatal to your present view is noticed now or in the near future and hence, no reinterpretation of the texts by you is needed for the present. Even then, what guarantee is there that even after a decade or two, data will not necessitate a major rethink? For instance, what would happen if scientists were to come across data that shows that the universe is expanding faster and faster? In that case, how would even the present expansion be followed by a contraction? Would you then reinterpret the texts to assert that they speak of the universe expanding faster and faster and not of it having infinite cycles of expansion and contraction?

P: I do not think that there is any reasonable possibility of data for an increasingly fast expansion turning up but I see the point that Your Holiness is making.

[As it turned out, the professor was wrong. Accelerated expansion of the universe was discovered in 1988 by two independent research teams and three scientists were awarded the Nobel Prize for this discovery in 2011.]

HH: I fully appreciate your interest in seeing scientific findings in the light of our ancient texts. The only point I was trying to make is that if you equate an interpretation of the scripture with a popularly held scientific view, as scientific interpretations are subject to change with new data or ideas, you may, in time, have to reinterpret the scripture to conform to the new scientific position.

P: I value our ancient culture and accomplishments. That is why I wanted to tell my students that modern science’s universe with infinite cycles of expansion and contraction was made known very long ago, in the Bhagavad-gītā and the Purāṇas.

HH: There is much that can make us proud of our ancients in the scientific realm. The concept of zero is an instance. Our ancients were the first to understand it. Suśruta performed surgery on the eye to remove cataracts (the word His Holiness used was netra-paṭala) over 2000 years ago. If you see the Śulba-sūtras, which deal with the construction of sacrificial altars, you will find that thousands of years ago itself, our ancients had an impressive knowledge of mathematics. For example, a Śulba-sūtra of Bodhāyana states, “A rope stretched along the diagonal of a rectangle produces an area that the vertical and horizontal sides make together.”²² When His Holiness explained the meaning of the sūtra, the professor exclaimed, “Amazing! This is the Pythagoras theorem. That means that we knew of this much before Pythagoras of the sixth-century B.C.” His Holiness proceeded to give some more examples about the discoveries in ancient India.

P: I did not know all this. I shall gather such information and present it to my students. I know Sanskrit and shall study the Śulba-sūtras.

After the professor left, His Holiness remarked to the disciple who was witness to the conversation, “He is sincere. He is, however, mistaken when he takes it that the Bhagavad-gītā and the Purāṇas specify that the universe endlessly expands and contracts. What they actually teach is compatible with a universe that has infinite cycles, a universe that can be traced back to a point and also with a universe that expands faster and faster.”

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A person who came to have the darśana of His Holiness, had an objection to Lord Kṛṣṇa’s statement, “Taking the form of the gastric fire and residing in bodies of all beings, I digest, in association with prāṇa and apāna, the four types of food (the foods that are ingested by masticating, by swallowing, by sucking and by licking).”²³ He said there is no fire in the stomach; there is only acid.

HH: How do you specify the energy of an item of food?

Man: In calories.

HH: One method of determining the calories in an item of food involves putting the item in a container surrounded by water, burning it and noting how much hotter the water becomes than before.

Man: I did not know this.

HH: The stomach serves to digest food, the body receives energy from the food digested and this energy can be associated with the burning of the item of food. Hence, is it wrong to speak, at least figuratively, of a fire in the stomach, the gastric fire?

Man: No.

HH: When you say that the acid in the stomach digests the food and the Lord says that, being in the stomach, He digests the food in the form of fire, is it not discernible from the Lord’s words that He digests food by taking the form of gastric acid and the digestive processes? It is worth bearing in mind that our ancients were not such ignoramuses that they thought that some actual fire, like in the kitchen, burns in the stomach. They did know what the stomach contains.

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34 7. Annapūrṇā-pratiṣṭhātā