Today we continue our 7-part series titled Towards Bridging the Gap between Science and Religion: Some Hindu Perspectives. In today's column, Metanexus contributing columnist Paul Utukuru observes:

"A comparative study of Modern cosmology and Hindu Cosmology based on Vedanta is not only interesting but also important for Vedanta takes matters a little further into the spiritual realm. It maintains that the universe of name, form, and emotions into which we are born, in which we live and in which we will eventually die, originates from and is sustained by that which is beyond time and within time at the same time. A difficult concept to grasp by our finite minds. The Clay is in the Pot but the Pot is in the Clay only in terms of its potentiality. This is an analogy often used by Eastern mystics to covey what is meant. Interestingly, the sixteenth century Jewish Kabbalist Moses Cordovero is believed to have said 'There is nothing not pervaded by the power of divinity. God is in everything that exists, though everything that exists is not God,' writes Kerry Gordon, echoing the same idea in the December 2002 issue of Zygon."

Read on to examine notions of divinity and materiality, of religion and science, as found in both modern and Hindu cosmology. Also, along with today's column, Paul Utukuru's Introduction to this series appeared on Metanexus:VIEWS on 2003.03.06., and Cosmic Singularity--A Vedanta Perspective by Dharmbir R. Sharma appeared on Metanexus:Views 2003.03.07., the following columns will be appearing on subsequent Thursdays and Fridays in March:

* Duality and Multiplicity in Consciousness, Mathematics, Physics and Almost Everything Else by Mark MacDowell * Thoughts on Studying Consciousness Scientifically by Ramakrishna Puligandla * Modeling the Nature of Reality mathematically: An introduction by Jagdish N. Srivastava * Concluding Remarks from V.V.Raman

Today's columnist, Paul Utukuru, has a Master's degree in Physics and a Doctor of Science degree in Radiological Science. During his professional career as a medical physicist, he published widely in the field of the physics of medical imaging and radiation oncology. Since his retirement from the Johns Hopkins University in 1995, Utukuru has been active in matters related to bridging the gap between Science and Religion. His writings and lectures reflect his interests from the point of view of Neurotheology, Spiritual Transformation, Christian ethics, Epistemology and Hindu Cosmology.

--Stacey E. Ake

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Subject: Some Hindu Perspectives 3: Ancient Hindu Cosmology and Modern Cosmology From: Gopala Rao Email: <marygopala@yahoo.com>

A comparative study of Modern cosmology and Hindu Cosmology based on Vedanta is not only interesting but also important for Vedanta takes matters a little further into the spiritual realm. It maintains that the universe of name, form and emotions into which we are born, in which we live and in which we will eventually die originates from and is sustained by That which is beyond time and within time at the same time. A difficult concept to grasp by our finite minds. The Clay is in the Pot but the Pot is in the Clay only in terms of its potentiality. This is an analogy often used by Eastern mystics to covey what is meant. Interestingly, the sixteenth century Jewish Kabbalist Moses Cordovero is believed to have said "There is nothing not pervaded by the power of divinity. God is in everything that exists, though everything that exists is not God," writes Kerry Gordon, echoing the same idea in the December 2002 issue of Zygon.

Many modern historians have documented that according to some ancient Hindu scriptures, the Sun is 108 Sun-diameters and the moon is 108 Moon-diameters away from the earth. The modern values for these figures are 107.6 and 110.6 respectively. My own calculations based on published literature have revealed that the age of the Universe according to Hindu Cosmology is 19.252 billion years. Compare this with the still uncertain value of 12 to 19 billion years according to modern astronomy. According to Vedic Cosmology, the Sun revolves around the center of our galaxy once in 325.5 million years. The modern figure for this is in the range of 225 to 270 million years.

Writing about his inflationary model of the universe, the renowned physicist Alan Guth states that his theory implies that in the first 1/1030th of a second, the entire matter and energy in the universe came into existence from nothing that existed before. Paul Davies points out in his famous book Superforce that even space and time came into being at the moment of the big bang. Even particle physicists are suggesting that at the most fundamental levels of nature, particles may be constantly going in and out of nothing. Physics Nobel-laureate Charles Townes remarked as follows in his keynote address at the Second World Congress for the synthesis of science and religion in January 19917 in Calcutta. "Quantum mechanics predicts that there is an infinite amount of energy in every volume of the world regardless of how small it is. Physicists don't really believe this and yet that is what it says". All these modern ideas and discoveries are strikingly similar to the foundations of Hindu Vedanta.

Scientists are still struggling to deal with issues such as the singularity problem, the horizon problem, the magnetic monopole problem, the smoothness problem, the flatness problem, anisotropy of the 30 K cosmic ray background, the recently discovered phenomena of gamma ray bursts by satellites and space telescopes etc. Cosmologists are also not sure whether the universe is open, flat or closed. Quantum mechanics and the theory of Relativity have still to be reconciled.

The most recent development in connection with all these issues is a return to a cyclical theory of expansion and contraction of our universe by Paul Steinhardt (Princeton) and Neil Turok (Cambridge). In their view space and time exist forever. The big bang is a bridge to a pre-existing contracting era. The Universe undergoes an endless sequence of cycles in which it contracts in a big crunch and re-emerges in an expanding big bang, with trillions of years of evolution in between, almost exactly as outlined in ancient Hindu Cosmology. Steinhardt and Turok contend that the visible universe exists within a three-dimensional membrane or brane that is like a stretched rubber sheet. Another brane separated from ours by only a microscopic thickness contains a universe in which there is only dark matter. In each periodic cycle, a collision between the two membranes results in enormous amounts of matter and radiation.

In this context, the point of departure between Vedic Cosmology and Modern Cosmology may be of interest. Unlike modern cosmology, Vedic Cosmology relates the rotational speed of our own galaxy to the period of oscillation of the endless cycles of creation, growth and eventual decay. It is said that our own galaxy, knows as Permeshti Mandala rotates around Svayambhu Mandala, the center of all galaxies with a period of 4.32 billion years which is also said to be the period of the endless cycles.

Interestingly, the eighteenth century German philosopher Immanuel Kant suggested that the universe might actually consist of rotating systems rotating around larger rotating systems. Extending Kant's idea further, the Belgian priest and astrophysicist George Lemaitre proposed a more detailed rotating model of the universe in the late nineteen thirties. Lemaitre's proposal involves the origin of the universe from a single primeval atom and the consideration of an initial big bang followed by a series of mini bangs.

More recently, Ernest Sternglass , from the University of Pittsburg published in 1997 his thought-provoking book entitled Before the Big Bang in which he elaborates on and further extends Lemaitre's rotating model in a very interesting manner.

According to Sternglass, "the universe began with just a single electron-positron pair rotating around its own axis with a speed close to that of light. And it contained the entire mass of the cosmos in a volume less than a trillionth of an inch in diameter, long before the explosive formation of ordinary matter in the big bang. He then treats the universe as a system of immense whirlpools, where not only the earth but also our solar system, the galaxy of which we are a tiny part and finally the universe itself all spin around their own axes in a sort of cosmic dance. Evolution, he argues, consists of the self replication of this primeval electron positron pair into trillions and trillions of such pairs as in cell division eventually resulting in the formation of neutrons, protons, all the other nuclei, the atoms, molecules, stars and the galaxies."

Based on this hypothesis, Sternglass calculates that the rotational speed of the cluster of galaxies of which ours is one is 4.76 x 10^2 years. Except for a factor of ten difference, this number is almost the same as a day or night of Brahma which is 4.32 x 10^9 years. Furthermore, according to Sternglass's calculations, the rotational speed of the universe as a whole is 1.56 x 10^13 years. According to Vedic Cosmology, the present Brahma came into being 1.555 x 10^14 years ago. Again interesting agreement, except for a factor of ten. Sternglass further suggests that the recently discovered phenomenon of gamma ray clusters may be due to delays between successive mini bangs. Vedic Cosmology also includes delays between yugas, the so-called yugasandhis (twilight zones) .

This brief comparison between Hindu Cosmology and Modern Cosmology suggests one import thing. And that is that it would be worthwhile for modern cosmologists that are reviving the cyclical theories of expansion and contraction to reconsider the suggestions of Kant, Lemaitre and Sternglass in their research and try to establish even a better correlation of their numbers with those of Hindu Cosmology. Recent discoveries by the well known UCLA astrophysicist Vera Rubin on dark matter and the rotational aspects of galaxies and stellar systems may also be relevant in this context.

The Yuga Chronology of ancient Hinduism also raises some interesting questions with regard to the timing of the Continental Drifts, the lost continent Atlantis, extinction of the Australopithecines and the occurrence of the Great Flood in the Middle East and Central Asia around 3000 BCE. Besides, the Vedic description of creation, sustenance and eventual decay does not stop at the numbers quoted. It also addresses such issues as the nature of the Ultimate Reality, its expression in the created worlds, intent and purpose in creation, matter free consciousness, the operational principles of the law of Karma , the theory of Reincarnation, information survival beyond biological extinction etc.

These issues however are beyond the scope of this essay.

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Published   2003.03.13