Monday 18 August 2008

Balarama's wife Revathi and Einstein's "Twin Paradox" Theory

There is a story mentioned in Srimad Bhagavatam. The story goes like this:

There lived a king called Kakudmi and he had beautiful daughter called Revathi. Kakudmi took his daughter to celestial world of Lord Brahma to ask him who would be the right husband for his daughter. Brahma was busy listening to music and Kakudmi waited for sometime till the end of music program. Then Kakudmi submitted his desire to Brahma. Brahma laughed and said "My dear Kakudmi, from the time you came here your earthly world has passed through 27 maha-yugas (millions of years) and so none of whom you have in mind or their descendents are alive now. Go back and marry off your daughter to Balarama, the elder brother of Krishna"

If you carefully read this story, there are some interesting points which are worth pondering.

First, Kakudmi took his daughter to Lord Brahma's world. This is a inter-stellar space travelling.

Second, even though Kakudmi was born millions of years before Balarama, during their marriage time she was still young! How is this possible? When Kakudmi and Revathi were in Brahma's world, their age was changing according to the world of Brahma not Earth! In today's science it is called "Twin Paradox". This is explained within the framework of "relativity theory". As per this theory, a person who makes a journey into space in a high-speed rocket will return home to find he/she has aged less than an identical twin who stayed on Earth.

Third, How different the time in Brahma's world compared to Man's (on Earth)? This article explains this (http://indiaheritage.org/rendez/article1.htm).

Happy Reading!

18 comments:

Unknown said...

That was so nice to know. The other instance i can mention is about the birth of Kauravas in pots with nutritive medium, which is similar to that of test tube baby concept.So many unanswered questions of modern science have their answers in The Gita, Vedas, Upanishads, Srimad Bhagavatam. It might require people with good sanskrit language and knowledge of modern science. Hope i see those days when indian scriptures give answers to many unsolved scientific mysteries...

Suresh said...

You are right Goutam. There are many things which looks like fairy tale but when we get deep into it, we get to know science behind this! As you rightly said, it requires people with knowledge of sanskrit and science to explore more.

goutam said...

Please mention more such incidents of Ramayana and Mahabharata which are related to science.Do you any Indian/foreign university that does a research on BhagavadGita and Modern Science?

Suresh said...

Dear Goutam, I'm not aware of any university which does research on BhagavadGita and science. If I come to know any, I'll update you here.

I'm also interested to understand the science behind Ramayana and Mahabharata. I'll surely post about any information I come across / get to know.

Suresh said...

Goutam,

To your question about the university, pls check The Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute (http://www.bori.ac.in/about.htm). This might be of your interest. I got to know about this from Gurudev (http://www.hitxp.com).

Goutam said...

Thanks a lot. I'll go through the website.

Also, recent sci-fi movies like Avatar and Inception are based on Hindu scriptures. Main character in Avatar is similar to Vishnu on Garuda with a 'V' on forehead. Also inception is based on Shankaracharya's preachings regarding illusion and real world. It has appeared as an article in Times of India recently.

Suresh said...

Goutam, thats really interesting. Can you pls point me to that article? I'm eager to read it.

Anti-Inquisition said...

There are other description of space travels by various kings of ancient India. For example, King Snatanu landed his spacecraft on earth on his return after a battle with Danavas.
In Mahabharata, Arjuna's space travel and his experience of 'space station' of Swarga is given in great detail.
The description of 'Sabhas" (space stations?) by Narad to Yudhisthir also it another example. One just have to read between the lines and have open mind to decipher the Shlokas.

Suresh said...

@Upadhyay Rathi Raj, you are right. We have to read and understand with open mind. Thanks for your comments.

The Teacher said...

A few questions in my mind: if Revati's father King Kakudmi knew how to travel to Brahma's world then how they may not knew about time dilation and twin paradox?

Secondly, how they travel back to the earth? Then why didn't the time dilation happen when they were traveling back to the earth? That means either the Brahma predicted the future that "Go back and when you will reach earth, there will be a man Balram, to whom you can marry your daughter" Missing LINKS.

Suresh said...

@The Teacher, How did Kukudmi travelled is still a question. From the story it seems he was not aware of the time dilation. Also "major" time dilation might have happened while he stayed there and not during the travel. Again, it is very difficult to comprehend. However the most surprising part is the mention of such things in puranas. May be, we have not reached the level of knowledge, so it is difficult to understand all these.

Thanks for your comments.

Anonymous said...

Hello all,

Interesting comments though!

I learnt that travelling faster than the speed of light will lead you to travel to past(go back in time).Is there any scenario in Indian Epics which could relate to this concept ??
Is it practically possible to go to past and change what has already happened in past??!What could be the consequences then!?

I have been watching a famous TV Series - Flash , where in a person moves with great speed which takes him back to time and change his past!!...Is there any such incident in Ramayana or Mahabharatha ??

Curious to know...

Suresh said...

@Anonymous, thanks for your comments. I've not come across any such stories in puranas where one goes back to past. That's an interesting question (though I am not convinced about the theory of travelling back to past and changing what has hapenned). If I find any such story, I'll publish in my site. If you come across any such, do let me know.

Unknown said...

Research on various Slokas the scriptures may be done in Sanskrit College in Calcutta, situated in College Street. They have good research publications but it's only available in there library.

Unknown said...

Time dilation did not happen during travel (either from earth to Brahmaloka or back). Time dilation happened in few hours that the mortals spent in Brahmaloka enjoying dance & music.

Reason why time dilation didn't happen during space travel is that they would have used a worm hole, which transports you from one part of the universe to another part in a jiffy. It makes sense that highly advanced beings used this mode of travel.

Maybe Kakudmi knew how to travel to Brahmaloka, but never used that technique previously. And he probably didn't factor in the time dilation phenomenon. There could be hundreds of explanations.

But what's interesting is that the concept of time dilation is explained so clearly in Mahabharata.

Suresh said...

@Mohan Iyer, That's an interesting point. That also brings another question "Where exactly the Brahmaloka is?" According to this story, there exist a physical world called Brahmaloka, which could be in the Milky Way or in some other galaxy as well!

Thanks for your comments and interesting notes.

Unknown said...

That is not interstellar travel, it is interdimensional travel. Brahma loka is a higher dimension.(95% Dark matter universe is invisible)

Unknown said...

@Unknown, thanks for your comments. Can you throw some more light on inter-dimensional travel? How do you say Brahma loka is in a higher dimension? Thanks!