The Secret - Chidambaram

My interest in the vedas began a couple of years ago after I had been to Badrinath Temple. Not because of Bhakti (Faith) but in adoration for the work of Saint Adi Shankara to have travelled all the way up to the Himalayas from Kerala. I slowly started reading about him and his works, moved on to Dvaita and Advaita. Advaita impressed me more and so I stuck to it. Then I started to read the Vedas, they were too tough to handle, so I gave up and moved to Upanishads, assuming they would be easy to decipher. They were difficult too, in fact I had read only the English version translated by Max Muller. On reading them, my perspective on life changed. Not that I became a better person or something like that, but I started feeling very small and insignificant.  It is filled with so much factual knowledge that existed about 3000 years ago.

In principle, I belong to the scientific society, a firm believer of science and math and I need a theory to be proved, either through derivations or evidence. This made me question whatever I started reading in the Upanishads. I will quote a few (three) extracts from the Upanishads to show their advanced knowledge in astronomy.

   1. "Shiva is nothingness. Shakti manifests time. Upon copulation is born the cosmic fabric of space and time. Begins here; the cycle of creation.”

Okay, undoubtedly this is referring to The Big Bang. But hey .. wait !!!!!!! You need proof. From where did they get to know this? What’s up with Edwin Hubble’s Red shift and Blue shift? Dude, the guy got a Nobel Prize for this and the Vedas are talking about it as if it is as simple as plugging a wire into a socket.

   2. The way in which they determine the age of the earth to be 4.32 Billion years old     

   3. The significance of 108:
(i)  Distance between earth and moon is 108 times the diameter of moon. (110.62)
(ii) Distance between earth and sun is 108 times the diameter of the sun. (107.42)
(iii)Diameter of the sun is 108 times the diameter of the earth. (108.74)

*The actual scientific values are given within brackets for the above statements.

It’s all like The Great Mathematician Ramanujams' theories. There are statements which are true, with great amount of accuracy, but no proof. Either the proofs were not documented, they were guarded as a secret and passed on to only some sections of the society. Or they had been documented but lost with time or destroyed after a war, like how libraries in Greece were burnt and somehow ‘mysteriously’ the Hero’s Engine (the forbearer to Newton’s famous third law) alone escaped the fire and much of the secrets behind the Antikythera mechanism were burnt.

There are many such factual citations which I shall stop quoting, I believe you understood and agree my claim. Results - Yes. Proof - No.

The Brahman

The Upanishads talk about an interesting philosophy called ‘Brahman’. Not ‘Brahmin’, not the priestly caste of todays distorted Hinduism prevailing in India. ‘BrahmAn’ is different from ‘Atman’ are different. Atman is knowledge of one’s self, his capabilities and skill sets. Brahman is realization of one’s self. You can’t put it into words, it has to be experienced. All I can say is that it is different from introspection.

It is believed that Brahma (the four headed god, the first of the devas) passed on the knowledge of Brahman to his son Atharva. Atharva to Angir. Angir to Bhradvaga and Bharadvaga to Angiras. The Mundaka Upanishads start like this. Angiras’s house keeper asks the significance of Brahman to Angiras and he starts off by saying there are two levels of knowledge.

Lower Knowledge; comprising of the four Vedas, Siksha (Phonetics), Kalpa (Ceremonial), Veyaakarana (Grammar), Nirukta (etymology), Khandas (meter) and Jyotisha (astronomy).

Now do you find the reason I felt very small? All the above is classified as lower knowledge or ‘LKG’ (Lower Kindergarten).

Higher Knowledge; is that by which the Brahman is apprehended or ‘pursuing a Post Doc using LKG Knowledge’. It is difficult. The suggested method by the Vedas for apprehending the Brahman is by means of penance or Tapas or Brooding.

Space / Ether

There is a very significant and important claim in the Vedas about the Five Ghostly forms of Nature (Pancha Bootham).
1. Earth
2. Fire
3. Air
4.Water
5. Space/Ether.

In comparison with the early civilizations, only Hinduism refers to space/ether. All others have only the first four. Even Captain Planet says Heart as the fifth. This was intriguing. How would one refer to space, which is nothingness, as a significant contributor to Nature? The other four are tangible. Easy to approach and essential for life sustenance, without any of the first four, you cannot live. But Space???

So I delved a little more deep into understanding the significance of space. I tried to forget whatever accumulated knowledge I have and rewind my mind 3500 years ago and asked myself 3 questions.

1. What would I do, if I had some space?
2. What would I do, if I had more space?
3. What would I do, If I had no space?

The last one was easy to answer, I would die. But I was not very successful in answering the first two questions. My answers had something to do with the modern times. So I failed to actually tune my thought process to what it would have been 3500 years ago. 

But hey, you try it too. May be you can come up with something great. This exercise carried on for 6 months. Where I would validate my own answers and be dissatisfied with it at the end of the day. But I never gave up.

The Five temples:

In the state of Tamil Nadu, South India, there are 5 temples dedicated to the 5 Ghostly forms of Nature, one for each form. In each temple it is believed that, Lord Shiva exhibits the importance of each of the five forms of nature. Chidambaram, the temple for lord Natarajar, is dedicate to space. This very reason took me there.

And so I went to Chidambaram.

The first time I went was on 11^th January. The moment I stepped into the temple I was awestruck by the sheer size. The temple is spread over 56 Acres of land. Loud speakers installed in all the Gopurams (Pyramid structured entrance to a temple) and sacred hymns chanted all throughout the day. The voice echoes through all the walls of the temple.

And then there is a hall named Ayiram Kaal Mandapam, said to have a thousand pillars. Which further leads you to the Kanaga Sabhai where the main shrine of Lord Nataraja is located.

Religion apart, the architectural significance is something to be noted. It is believed that the temple underwent renovation and up gradation by various kings from time to time. Remember this fact. 

My first visit ended up being too ritualistic. I was caught a midst the crowd where there was a Dhanvantri homam being performed, where 108 herbs/spices are incinerated and the essence of the smoke engulfs the entire temple. They follow a specific order of sacrifice for offering the herbs/spices. Unlike the other homams (fire sacrifice), tears do not run down your eyes, the smoke is medicinal, Dhanvantri means Medicine in Sanskrit . The ‘Monday (Charity) Club – Dhanvantri Project’ accepts donations for the medicinal expenses for old and destitute women, you can go ahead and donate. I don’t work for them, this is not a marketing exercise, this is just an example to make you understand the word better.

There were 11 Dheekshidars (Temple priests) chanting mantras sitting around the fire. I have experienced several such occasions but this was different. I have never heard such a reverberation in an open space. The hymns chanted inside a room reverberates due to reflection of sound waves from the walls, the same was felt here, however there were no smooth walls. All were rough, old carved with statues. Come on, it’s a 1000 years old, you can’t expect it to be smooth.

Once the homam was over I entered the main temple shrine, where a Dheekshidar showed me the Chidambara Ragasiyam. Before my visit to the temple, I had done my own reading about what the Ragasiyam (Secret) was. The moment it was shown to me, I was able to recollect whatever I had read, a two coloured cloth (Red and Black) on the right hand side of Lord Nataraja was waved and behind it were golden vilva leaves arranged in a specific pattern. The belief is that the empty space signifies nothingness or ‘Nirguna Parabrahma’ or the state of mind one shall have after apprehending the Brahman.

Convincing as it can be, but something told me this was not it. There must be something else in the temple other than the embodiment of space alone. The concept of Brahman is for one to analyze and realize by himself through penance. If one is successful in doing so, he would be liberated anywhere, the place/location/region becomes immaterial to his state of mind, so why epitomoze space only at Chidambaram. This thought gave me sleepless nights and I felt the need to go the temple again.

My second visit.

My second visit was on 15th January. On my way, I was reading about Lord Nataraja. The significance of his posture. The different attributes and symbolic interpretations of the attributes. The Udukkai (hour glass shaped drum) in his right hand symbolizes creation. How?? Why?? Where?? Were all the thoughts in my head.

The article further reveals when Lord Nataraja causes the Udukkai to sound, he creates a series of sounds called 'Aksharas'. There are 14 Aksharas in total.
1.   a ee ung
2.   ruluk
3.   e ong
4.   ai uch
5.   hayavarat
6.   lann
7.   gnyama ngana namm
8.   jha bha ng
9.   gha Dda dha shh
10. ja ba ga da dha ch
11. ka pa cha tha ta chathav
12. kapai
13. sashar
14. hall
It is believed that these were the basic phonetics with which any language was given structure. There is a small tribe in the Amazon Basin, the Piraha Tribe, fisher folk by nature, they speak a language which has only 8 consonants and 3 vowels. though half the world away and completely secluded from any civilization, the 8 consonents and 3 vowels are part of the 14 Aksharas made by the Udukkai. All known languages have the 14 Aksharas of the Udukkai as their basic elements. How? and Why? is a discussion for another day.

On my way to the temple, I was randomly referring the Upanishads flipping random pages. One verse said that the significance of space/ether is that it enables sound to travel through it. The Vedas do not refer to Vacuum which is prevalent outside the earths’ atmosphere. Nor does it talk about the ability of sound waves to propagate through solids or liquids. They defined the medium which sound they make through chanting hymns and prayers travels to the gods up in the sky through ether.

What is that Sound?

I spent a good two hours in the temple searching for signs and again asking the three questions about Space to myself, trying to find some evidence, looking out for some architectural significance that portrayed space. Went around the temple thrice, looking at the same idols again and again to see whether I get a different perspective each time I saw them.

As I was strolling along Sivagangai – The temple pond, tired, I sat by its side and started throwing small pebbles into the water, gazing at the ripples, wondering "what is it that I want to find in this place"? Songs in praise of god was being played in the loud speakers fitted in the Gopurams and then it suddenly struck to me that if space/ether cannot be portrayed directly, it should be portrayed in a morphed/modified form where it creates an association with human beings. This was that golden moment where I laid my focus on SOUND.

The Reverberation, the Echo, the birth of 14 Aksharas from the Drum, significance of Natarajar himself, the relation between ether and sound, the significance of ether, the importance of Chidambaram …. All fell on a straight line of thought.

Though the temple symbolizes space, it has to be perceived not directly, but through sound. This according to me is THE SECRET. The architectural significance of the temple is built in such a way to focus the ether (the sound carrying medium) in specific orientation that makes the sound reverberate in the temple hall, that makes it echo and other unobserved behaviour that I shall search for during my forth coming visits to the temple.

Disclaimer:
Above portrayed is my own interpretation. To believe it or not is your own free will.

If you find anything mis-quoted or wrongly interpreted, please feel free to comment. I will use it as an opportunity to learn from you.