Science in Hinduism-Gravitational force and repulsive force

Posted By sarinmall on Sep 16, 2012

The Vedas have indefinite knowledge and depth of knowledge about science. When we talk of gravity what comes to our mind. Certainly newton, because that is what is being taught in schools today. But if we go one step down and ask how newton discovered force of gravity. Then one would say, through rigorous experimentation. Similarly, Vedas consist of real life information perceived by Rishis (sages) after intense penance, spiritual austerities and meditation.

In order to realize the supreme truth, one needs to practice the concepts mentioned in the Vedas and recommended by great souls like dayanand saraswati, Vivekananda etc.

Let us see some of the verses before we proceed further
Rigveda 8.12.28
As planets come closer to sun due to attraction, their speed of coming closer increases proportionately -  
The above verse was later proved by kepler and is known today as Kepler law or conservation of angular momentum

Rig Veda 8.12.28
"O Indra! By putting forth your mighty rays, which possess the qualities of gravitation and attraction-illumination and motion - keep up the entire universe in order through the Power of your attraction."

Rig Veda 5. 45. 9
Seven horses draw the chariot of Surya".  


Lod surya(Sun) on his seven divine horses

Rig Veda 1.6.5, Rig Veda 8.12.30
"O God, You have created this Sun. You possess infinite power. You are upholding the sun and other spheres and render them steadfast by your power of attraction.


Rig Veda 1.35.9
"The sun moves in its own orbit but holding earth and other heavenly bodies in a manner that they do not collide with each other through force of attraction.

Rig Veda 1.164.13
"Sun moves in its orbit which itself is moving. Earth and other bodies move around sun due to force of attraction, because sun is heavier than them.
  
Yajur Veda 33.43
"The sun moves in its own orbit in space taking along with itself the mortal bodies like earth through force of attraction."

Atharva Veda 4.11.1
"The sun has held the earth and other planets"

Above verses are self-explanatory. Now let us see verses from some other texts in details.
On seeing a fruit falling down from a tree, Newton derived the notion of gravitational force.  However, millenniums before the birth of Newton, Indian spiritual sages recorded the concept of gravitational force in various ancient texts. For example, In Surya Siddhartha (written around 400 AD), Bhaskaracharya stated that "Objects fall on the earth due to one force. The Earth, planets, constellations, moon and sun are held in orbit because of that one force".

Statue of bhaskaracharya at patnadevi (Birth place)
  
According to Indian spiritual gurus, all knowledge is pre-existing, and needs to be "recovered" rather than "discovered", by researching Vedas and similar ancient indian texts.

The words gravity and gravitational force in sanskrit is called as "GURUTVA AKAARSHANA SHAKTI". 'Gurutva' meaning 'mass' and 'Akaarshana' means 'attractive pull'.  
  
The Taittiriya branch of Krishna Yajurveda says -
  

The above verse says sun is holding the earth and other planets in space. kristheeh Means attraction. So, above verse says sun has power of attraction (kristheeh) and shines without interruption. (Which means sun is shining even at night). 

Saying that the sun attracts earth implies that the earth is also an onject with different type of repulsive force (Gravitational force). Otherwise, if sun had attractive force and earth doesn't have any force of its own, then they would have collided long back. 

This same idea is also reflected in verse of Varahamihira (6^th  century AD)  


Above verse means earth is like a sphere made up of the five basic elements, and is placed  
At the middle of a cage, this cage is made up of the galaxies and stars and hence, earth is dangling in the sky, like an iron ball in the middle of a cage of magnetic balls.  
   
Above verse also says that earth was not made only of earth. Instead it had five basic elements like fire, soil, water etc.  Bhaskaraacharya (12^th  century AD) rediscovered this concept in his work "Goladhyaya".
  

Above verse means "Without any support, Earth is hanging in the space through his  
own internal energy (shakti), because of which the whole solar system rotates in  
specified orbits, while creatures  like demons, humans, animals etc rests on her surface.  
Notice the five basic elements in the above verse which combiningly forms the earth


Five elements of earth
  
In above verse, it is said that earth is hanging in space because of her own energy.  So, what is this energy? Bhaskaracharya answers in the subsequent verse
  

  
Above verse translates as "Ball of earth has energy of aakrushti shakti meaning "attraction". Because of this attractive force, the earth pulls eveything towards her (svastham) and this power is her own and natural. Due to this attractive false, all objects dropped on earth appears to be falling down."
  
  Bhaskara concludes his topic by answering the question, "Is earth falling down in space?"  
By answering this question, he was actually referring to a group of western scholars who proposed that earth must be falling down at a great speed since objects thrown in space falls down in varying speed as per their size and earth itself is a very heavy object.  
  
To counter these arguments, Bhaskaracharya started with the assumption that heavier object falls with greater speed than lighter object. Let us now suppose an arrow is shot up, it goes to a certain distance and then its starts falling down. The arrow started falling down, and since the earth itself is traveling down, arrow should never fall back to the earth surface since the earth is mighty compared to arrow and is falling down at a heavier speed than a light weighted arrow. But it is not so. Hence, bhaskacharya suggested everyone to accept earth is not falling down. 

Today, this concept is well known by the formulae  
 
Bhaskaracharya gave one more argument to prove his theory. He said that for a person standing on the northern hemisphere, word 'downward' means a direction from head to feet.  At the same moment, a person standing on the southern hemisphere feels the same but it is actually in the opposite direction.  Now, if the earth is falling down, then which way it is falling, from the northern hemisphere side or the southern hemisphere?  So, it is worthless to say that earth is falling down.  

Bhaskara also gave a third technical argument. Suppose the sun is in the star "Bharani". On such a date, at the time of sunset, the face of the Dhruva fish (fish shaped group of stars around dhruva the pole star) moves to the western direction.  The next morning when the Sun rises in the east, the face of Dhruva fish turns to the eastern side.  This can be clearly observed by anybody. If the earth is falling down, the same Sun, who was on the western end of the Dhruva fish yesterday, cannot appear on the eastern end of the same fish in a gap of 12 hours. If that is the case, we may have to agree that there are two Suns, which is absurd.  So, Bhaskara concluded that it cannot be said that the earth is falling down.  
  
Objects are falling down because of the attractive force of earth. Referring to this idea, Aryabhatta(5^th   century AD) said that livings beings in different location are not scattered away into the space because of the attractive force of earth.  
  

In this verse, Aryabhatta used flower as synonyms of this universe objects.
Above verse translates as "Each flower is a cluster of co-centric smaller flowers, all of which put together make a ball like single flower. The smaller flowers of the Kadamba flower are tied to the center of the cluster, all the water living, the surface living and the sky living creatures are tied to the center of the earth.  "
   
Indian scriptures also say that not all objects falls on earth.


  
This verse states that one should not say that every object in this earth falls down. In fact, every element of this Universe has a quality of attracting other objects of its own class, and repelling those of other classes. Sage Valmiki (who wrote Ramayana) takes the example of the falling fruit.  
   
Scientific formula for attractive force
  
Sage Valmiki says that, since the fruit is a smaller part of the earth, it is attracted by the earth and hence it travels towards earth. It is neither going down nor up. It is going towards earth. Take a ball, which is hanged in the space by the help of a small thread.  Now suppose some ants walk all around the ball in a zigzag way. Now, how will you determine the downward direction for these ants? Every ant says that his legs are in the downward direction and his back is towards the upper direction. All ants are right even those who are in the downward direction relative to earth but upward direction relative to ball. So, there is nothing like a downward or upward direction. 

There is only a travel of an object towards another object of its own class.  
  
Interestingly the same example is repeated in Surya Siddhanta.    

Above verse questions that if every element of panchabhutas has a quality of repelling the other bhutas, how is it that water, air and fire are also available on the surface of the earth itself. He says that the other elements on the earth are studded in her, just like a few gems in a big golden bangle. The panchabhutas available to us are not pure ones. They are intermixed by a process called "panchikarana."  Hence, every particle in this Universe has a few traces of other elements also with in itself. Hence, the earth cannot totally repel other elements living on her surface. 

That is why they stay there, just like studded stones in a bangle.  If it were a piece of her own category, that would not have remained like a stone in a bangle, but it would have been totally absorbed in the earth in due course. That means, the power of attraction between two atoms of the same category is maximum
  

Attractive and repulsive force
  
This statement straightaway reminds us about the most recent EPR paradox, established by Einstein and subsequently development by Dr. Bell. According to Bell's theorem, it was proved experimentally that two atoms of the same category, separated by seven to eight lakh miles, behave as if they are inter connected. They have termed this connection as "superluminal".  

It is very clear that Valmiki's understandings of the principle of gravity are subtler and more logical than that of the medieval Vedic scientists (Sages).  
  
According to modern concept of cosmos, no celestial body is static in space. Each and  Every celestial body is rotating about itself and also about another heavier one, nearby.   The earth does so about sun.  Likewise, the sun also is revolving about a celestial body  named by scientists as "SERIUS" .  As such, the entire solar system is to be considered as  Rotating about that 'Serius'.   That being so, the locus of Earth in space, or of any other member of the solar system, cannot be considered as a simple ellipse (which is a closed conic).  It may, for the time being, be assumed to be an Elliptical spiral.  The statement that the orbit of Earth is  
elliptic is only relative and limited to the solar system - only under the assumption that  the Sun is static - which is not a reality.    That being so, we have come, in some other path, near to the concept of earth's falling  Down.    

Thus, we saw the concepts of gravitational force and repulsive force between objects in deep and I hope you liked this depth explanation.

So, before I end, Let us pray to the supreme god for his divine creation by embracing the below image which shows the magnificence of sun rays and how sun makes objects look extremely beautiful.


Jai shree krishna