Cosmology & Chemistry in Rig Veda

Cosmology & Chemistry in Rig Veda
The Vedas are regarded as the store house of ancient knowledge obtained through direct vision of reality by the Vedic seers. Mahrishi Veda Vayas compiled the Vedas around 5000 years ago. Prior to that, Vedas were transmitted through teacher-disciple tradition. Upon investigating, the Vedas reveal the discoveries made by the modern science. It is true that the verses of Vedas are symbolic in nature and require high level of intelligence and interpretation.
 
Rigveda Samhita is a collection of 1,028 hymns (suktas) in about 10,600 verses, organized into ten books (mandalas). The Rig Vedic hymns are dedicated to various deities, chief of whom is Indra. The others discussed are Vrtra, Agni, Soma, ,Adityas, Mitra, Varuna,  Ushas (the dawn), Savitr, Vishnu, Rudra, Pushan, Brihaspati or Brahmanaspati, Prithivi, Surya (Sun), Vayu or Vata (the wind), Apas (the waters), Parjanya (the thunder and rain), Vac (the word), many rivers, Vasus, Sadhyas, Ashvins, Maruts, Rbhus, and the Vishvadevas ("all-gods") as well as the "thirty-three gods" are the groups of deities mentioned.
 
A number of Vedic researchers have decoded the various deities and certain Rig Vedic hymns to corroborate the discoveries of modern science. The details are discussed below.
 
Names of deities in terms of science defined as under:
Aditi – Space energy; Indra – Electric force; Agni – Cosmic force which converts energy into matter, Varun – Proton; Soma – gravitational force; Vishnu – rotatory motion; Brihaspati – nuclear force; Rudra – extremely hot nuclear furnace of the galaxy from where they originate; Maruts – high energy photons; Prajapati – the creator.
 
Prior to Creation of Universe:

1. Rigveda Verse 10. 129.1 clearly spell out that before the beginning of the creation, there was nothing existent (sat) or non-existent (asat). There was no realm of air (i.e. atoms and molecules), no sky beyond (i.e. no sun, planet or moon), no living being, and no manifested energy. It was all dark and void. Only Brahma (self-sustaining power permeated the entire infinite space.
2. Rigveda Verse 10.129.2 tells that at that time no death existed; no immortal, no day or night, only self-sustaining power existed. Verse 10.129.3 tells that at that time complete darkness existed. Due to deep concentration, he has power of doing (Brahma).
3. Rigveda Verse 10.129.4 tells that he has great will-power and it was his will power which became the seed of creation.

 
Process of creation of Universe:

1. Rigveda Verse 10.190.1 tells that from deep concentration (Tapas), Rit (means substance, which may become generator of motion) and Satya (Sat means quality of existence & stability) were born. Subsequently, day (day means light i.e. photons) and night (absence of photons, Tamas) were born. Thereafter, ocean of un-manifested energy was born.
2. Rigveda Verse 1.164.42 tells that from galactic core oceans of energy (i.e. the suns) flow out different directions.
3. Rigveda Verse 1.2.8 explains that Mitra (electron) and Varuna (proton) interact and creates most extensive yajna (formation of the suns and galactic core). Mutual interaction between electron and proton is responsible for the generation of extremely high temperature and pressure inside galactic core.
4. Rigveda Verse 10.190.2 tells that from foaming ocean, the year (time) was produced. Thereafter, it created day (particles of light i.e. photons) and night (particles of matter).
5. Rigveda Verse 1.1.3 tells that the cosmic yajna gets nourishment and riches i.e. elementary particles through Agni for production of suns and suns and ultimately for formation of the galactic nucleus.

Modern Science - Georges Lemaitre first noted in 1927 that an expanding universe could be traced back in time to an originating single point. He presented his new idea that the universe is expanding and provided the first observational estimation of what is known as the Hubble constant. What later will be known as the "Big Bang theory" of the origin of the universe, he called his "hypothesis of the primeval atom" or the "Cosmic Egg".
 
Formation of Sun, Planets and Moon:

1. Rigveda Verse 1.154.1,2,3,4 explain about the three steps of Vishnu. First step, creation of suns from galactic core; second, creation of planets from suns; third, creation of moons from the planets. Hence, the entire universe is born out of three steps of Vishnu.
2. Rigveda Verse 1.155.3 says that the processes enhances the mighty power of Vishnu (the rotatory power of Supreme Being) i.e. emission of energy and particle radiation and later of suns, the rotational strength, with the result that the galactic core begins to rotate faster and faster with the ejection of suns from her. As a consequence, three types of suns of Vishnu make their appearance out of the galactic core, which, in the bright orbit of the luminous sky, shine with high, medium and low brightness, in accordance with the quality they acquired from their father.
3. Yajurveda Verse 1.23 says that he unites with her for Trita, for Dwita and for Ekat i.e. three kinds of solar systems viz. the sun, planet and moon is Trit; the sun and planet is Dwit and the sun alone is Ekat. This means that three kinds of suns were born from galactic core. First those, which could give, birth to their planets and moons, both. The second, those gave birth to their planets but not their moons, and the third those which could give birth neither to the planets nor to the moons and remained single. Suns were constantly ejected from galactic core.
4. Rigveda Verse 1.164.50 says, God or natural forces extended the yajna with another yajna. They created the suns by the yajna performed inside the galactic core. Yajna inside the suns created planets. They further extended the yajna of creation by performing a third type of yajna inside the planets for creation of moons of the planets.
5. The second sentence of Rigveda Verse 1.164.1 tells that seven planets born out of the sun.
6. Rigveda Verse 10.27.15 says, seven planets thrown out by strong forces, eighth planet from upper part (of sun), ninth planet from behind and tenth planet from front. It means that seven planets came from sun and last three planets were captured by the sun from outside by its strong gravitational field.
7. Rigveda Verse 1.164.33 describes about creation of moon. It says, the sun is my father and earth is my mother.

 
Modern Science: Accordingly, astronomers often group stars by their mass viz. Very low mass stars, with masses below 0.5 M☉, Low mass stars (including the Sun), with a mass between 0.5 M☉ and 1.8–2.5 M☉ and Massive stars generally have a minimum mass of 7–10 M☉
Planetary Movements – Planets revolve around Sun:

1. Rigveda Verse 1.164.2 says, one wheeled chariot of sun is drawn by one horse having seven names. The wheel has three navels in which bhuvans (world) exist. It never gets old and is not dependent on anybody. Here, Chariot means planetary system of seven planets is connected to the sun by gravitational force (horse). The wheels are elliptical in shape. Their orbit is continuously maintained i.e. planets circulate around sun under the influence of gravitational force.
2. Rigveda Verse 1.164.11 describes that the wheel of motion with 12 spokes (denotes months or zodiac) goes round and round the sun continuously without tiring for 720 sons in pairs (360 days and 360 nights i.e. 360 full days). This proves that the sun is stationary with respect to this wheel, while the latter with the earth, completes one revolution around sun in 360 full days.

The riddle of 360 days in a year was explained as the revolution earth took 360 days before moon was born. The birth of moon made earth lighter so that its angular velocity of rotation increased and earth began to make 365.25 rotations on its axis during the course of revolution around the sun.

1. Rigveda Verse 1.164.48 further describes that twelve spokes, one wheel, three navels (denotes three centres of the elliptical orbit), three hundred sixty (denotes total days in a year) have been placed, neither moving nor stationary.

 
Modern Science - Nicolaus Copernicus, a Polish astronomer first put forth the theory in 1543 that the Sun is at rest and that the Earth, spinning on its axis once daily, revolves annually around the Sun.
 
Luminosity of Sun:

1. Rigveda Verse 1.164.40 symbolically describes that earth receives three kinds of radiations i.e. heavy particles like protons, alpha particles etc. (barley), light particles like electron, neutrinos etc. (grass blades) and light or radiant energy (water).
2. Rigveda Verse 1.164.44 tells that three kinds of radiations are coming from the galaxies towards earth viz. light radiation, the photon and other radiations. The photon which is a particle of energy, create wave system and while travelling in the medium, affects a shave i.e. loss of energy.
3. Last sentence of Rigveda Verse 1.64.4 tells that the Maruts (high energy photons) originated from sun with self-force.

 
Modern Science - In addition to light, infrared and ultraviolet "light", radio waves, x-rays, and gamma rays; the sun radiates heat and a steady stream of charged particles known as the solar wind containing mostly electrons, protons and alpha particles with kinetic energy between 0.5 and 10 keV.
 
Phenomenon of splitting light into Vibgyor rays

1. Rigveda verse 1.164.3 clearly spells out that seven rays of light of the sun of different colours are sisters and moves towards seven cows (planets) and illuminate. This shows that the planets are not self-luminous.

 
Modern Science - Isaac Newton in 1666 discovered that light is made up of seven different colours.
 
Formation of Atom and its constituents:

1. Rigveda verse 10.72.8,9 say, eight sons of Aditi or space energy viz. Mitra, Varun, Aryaman, Bhag, Daksh, Ansh, Tuvijat and Martand. These eight Aditiyas correspond to elementary particles of modern physics viz. electron, proton, neutron, meson (+), meson (o), meson (-), Neutrino and photon respectively. Seven particles with Aditi attained proximity of Gods i.e. sub-atomic particles and one particle (called as Martend, identified as photon) could manifest energy.
2. Rigveda Verse 7.33.13 tells that due to mutual interaction between mitra and varuna, atomic nuclei are formed.

 
Modern Science – Various sub-atomic particles have been discovered during the century viz. Electron (J J Thomson, 1897), Photon (Einstein, 1905), Proton (Rutherford, 1919), Neutron (Chadwick, 1932), Antiparticles (Anderson, 1932), Meson & leptons (Anderson, 1936), Lambda Baryons (Unv. Of Melbourne, 1950), Neutrino (Clyde Cowan, Frederick Reines, 1956) and Kaons (1947).
 
Reference:

1. The Cosmic Yajna, by Sh. M L Gupta
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang; Stars;
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subatomic_particle