The Mahabharata and the Ramayana recount many examples that indicate our ancestors had knowledge of nuclear energy thousands of years ago, according to a paper presented in the ongoing national conference on emerging trends in nuclear and chemical technology, at Gitam University in Hyderabad.
The descriptions of weapons such as brahmastra and pashupatastra, which could annihilate several thousands or trigger drought, could only be imaginable in nuclear terms, said K.V. Murali Krishna, chemistry lecturer at Silver Jubilee Government College, Kurnool.
Indian mythology, especially the Vedas, Smritis and Puranas, are storehouses of valuable technological and ethical knowledge offering breathtaking insights hidden in Sanskrit verse, says Mr Krishna’s paper, titled The glimpses of chemistry and technology in Vedic literature.
“Though it is evident that a knowledge in nuclear science existed in ancient India, people should also realise that their use was bound by high values of ethics. (It) calls for only ‘favourable’ and ‘protectional’ use of such extreme energy,” Krishna said.
Starting his journey in the 1980s, Mr Krishna has studied rare scripts and publications, and interacted with Sanskrit scholars, to better comprehend the issue. Mr Krishna also said he wants to correlate knowledge from ancient scriptures to provide a new paradigm of understanding in science.
He said the scriptures hold 'amazing' scientific facts. Giving an instance, he pointed out that the Yajur Veda says a blend of ghee and honey gets decomposed into smaller units in presence of sacrificial fire, and the number of molecules is said to be paraardh, 1,00,00,000 (1 crore), which is “atomic level”.
“Even Vaastu Shastra says gods’ unit of weight measure is atoms, clearly revealing the micro level understanding of Vedic Indians,” he observed.
Krishna also derives an interesting theory from the edicts of Shiva Purana, which reveals that Shiva represents neutron, a combination of opposite forces of male and female (Shakti). Shiva thus created Vishnu, representing proton, and Brahma as electron.
“In metallurgy, Saint Bharadwaja gave a detailed description of 404 types of crucibles (and) 532 types of furnaces for producing metals to construct aircraft,” he explained.