2. Universe: Definition & Content

Universe in the normal course would mean the observer (say, Man or any other form of life) and his surroundings. For an infant, the Universe is all that the infant can see, touch, feel, small, hear and perceive in the process. As the infant grows up his/her concept of the Universe expands. As the earliest Man would have perceived, we as children, were introduced at some stage to the three parts of the Universe: the Heavenly layers in the skies above (Swarga Lokas in the ancient Hindu/ Indian scriptures), the top layers on the surface of the Earth where we live (Martya) and the part underneath the Surface of the Earth (Patal). The grand parents would then narrate the ancient age stories of these three kingdoms of the Universe, their inhabitants and their interactions. As the child would grow up further start going to school, the knowledge and perceptions would undergo a dramatic revolution. He/she would come to know more about what different things are there in the skies and how they behave, what different things are their on the earth surfaces at different locations and in the different layers deep inside the Earth's crust. He would come to know that the Earth itself is one large spherical body of materials in the sky now perceived more broadly as the Space. The Hindu child may also come to learn from the quotes of the ancient Indian texts about what the most ancient knowledge seekers described as the fundamental constituents of the Universe: the Mrithhika (solid particles of the landmass of the earth, the Apaa (the liquid water), the Agni (fire or light), the Marut (the wind that moves all around) and the Boym (the space all around). He/ she would also hear about Kal or Mahakal (time) as the fundamental element in which all that is there in the Universe witness changes including change of form. As one grows of further and studies in school getting introduced to the chapters of Physics and Chemistry like heat, sound, light, Mass, atomic and subatomic particles, energy,  acids, evaporation, oxidisation,  distillation, mixtures and etc., he would have known many new things about the Universe to forget what he had heard about the five fundamental elements of Mritthika, Apaa (symbolizing matter), Agni and Marut (symbolizing energy) and Boym (space) as also of the concept of Mahakal (Time). By the time  a course on astronomy has been introduced to the student who has learnt about the theory of general and special relativity and basics of quantum theory, the perception of the Universe has become the most modern. He now is competent to deal with the fundamentals of the Physical Universe the four elements of which are Matter, Energy, Space and Time with a few laws governing their behaviour.


Yet, is he adequately informed about the boundaries and coverage of the Universe of which he is a part? Does he perceive his emotions as those governed by the laws of physics and chemistry? Does he/ she enjoy the feeling of love and romance as the interaction of matter, energy and space over time? Does he/ she trace origin of  the thoughts and ideas that arise in his/her mind, the emergence of the questions to which he/ she seeks answers, to the fundamentals of the physical universe of matter-energy, space-time and laws or forces of electromagnetism, gravitation or weak and strong forms? Who helps the young knowledge seeker to improve his comprehension about the Universe?


The youth now has to study more: needs to know about molecular biology, proteins, cells, genetics and also of the proofs being obtained in support of the Big Bang Theory like the increasing distances between strictly held together multi-bodied galaxies. If he is in the academics, he has a chance to pick up the knowledge cross disciplines, though he may not have enough time to go beyond the specific field of his research/ study. If he/ she is a Cosmologist that's fine. For the rest of the mankind, the universe remain as mysterious as the learned man of the ancient times: what stories will he tell or write in the Internet for his grand children to enjoy.

1. Expanding Knowledge Unlocking Widening Ignorance

Man's Quest to know the Universe or the Creation, has continued since prehistoric ages and will continue till Human civilization lasts. The knowledge gathered as a result is vast and yet the knowledge has progressively expanded the universe of ignorance about the Universe. It seems to be the case of losing battle to comprehend the Universe. But this journey has been amazing and absorbing for human minds, besides being addictive. Search the Internet and you know more and more about what is known about the Universe and still you feel a lack of comprehension with more and more questions arising in your mind. Over the centuries and millenniums, Man has speculated about the origin and the nature of the Universe with the concept of Universe itself changing and the methodologies dividing themselves into separate disciplines like religion, metaphysics, philosophy, astronomy, physics, astrophysics, particle physics, space research and so on. This has probably created greater problems to comprehension. Occasionally smart minds like that of Stephen Hawkins shared a perspective for the layman (his book: A History of Time).


Wikipedia quotes NASA of the US: " Cosmology is the study of the structure and changes in the present universe, while the scientific field of cosmogony is concerned with the origin of the universe. Observations about our present universe may not only allow predictions to be made about the future, but they also provide clues to events that happened long ago when...the cosmos began. So—the work of cosmologists and cosmogonists overlaps."


Babylonian Literature is as far as the Western countries can go back to trace the earliest elements of Cosmology (earliest point 1900BC). This literature was more to do with concept of earth and heavens and linked to deities or God. Although dated earliest by the Westerns at 1700 BC for the Hindu Rigveda, the concept of Cosmology had already gone beyond the concept of religion and God in Rigveda. Clearly what was passed through over generations through recitation and memorising verses composed at the time of RigVeda must have been in the pursuit of knowledge quite a few centuries earlier than 1700 BC. The propositions they made then are amazingly scientific, testable hypothesis - the same way the hypothesis of Big Bang is now treated as a scientific theory. In Brahmanda Purana, one of the eighteen Mahapuranas, a set of Hindu religious texts, Brahmāṇḍa, means "Brahma's egg" or the created world (loka). This text contains twelve thousand verses. The major sections of this Purana include a description of creation of cosmos, discussion about the time as a dimension and details of Kalpa and Yuga.  The universe, as a living entity, is bound to the perpetual cycle of birth, death, and rebirth. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmology). 


 It is amazing that 4000 years ago, the knowledge seekers in India worked out duration of the phases in the cyclical evolution of the Universe: The universe sustains for around 311 trillion and 40 billion years that is 100 years of the cosmic creator Brahma. There is a smaller period of non-manifested universe of around 4 billion years equal to one day in the life of Brahma. The universe cycles between expansion and total collapse. After one cycle of the life of Brahma another universe follows up to an infinite number each of which exists for a time period of 311 trillion and 40 billion years. It also speaks of an infinite number of universes at one given point of time. Universe expanded from a concentrated form —a point called a Bindu. The Purana traces the origin of the Universe as a golden egg, Sounds like the dime-sized infinitely dense matter of particles that, as per the currently accepted Big Bang theory, exploded to create the Universe we  are part of.


But all this is too old and could not have been empirically tested using modern scientific methods and instruments at that time.. We have since traversed a long journey in acquiring knowledge now called Cosmology. Have we still come to grips with the Question of Creation and the Creator that we started with 4000 years or more back in the RigVedas or little later in the Upanishads or Gita - the later Hindu Scriptures - much before most of the major religions of today were born? Does today's Cosmology smell intrinsically any significant less story telling than the Rigvedas?


We could explore the questions in this blog.