Many people have heard of the “Aryan Invasion Theory” according to which the Vedic civilization is not native to India, but was created by invaders who came from other parts of the world into ancient India. Factually, whether the Vedic texts were authored by natives or invaders should not matter if they are true. The proof of truth should be the...
I used the last post to weave many seemingly disjointed ideas—modalities, inseparability, qualities, how the illusion of motion is created without a motion by revelation and hiding of modes, how this leads to alternative ideas of space and time, an alternative conception of laws of motion, and why the idea of a separated reality modeled by mathematics is always false even...
In the previous post, I made a pithy remark in passing—Progressive history doesn’t have revolutions and paradigm changes. I will use this post to explain how this is a consequence of the modern scientific assumptions about the separation of locations, times, and things. Separation allows us to count things, and then describe them using mathematical equations. But it also takes away...
I recently came across a book with the same title as this post, by a British historian Ian Morris, that tells an obscurantist history of the West, attributing its successes to geography. There have been similar books (e.g., Collapse by Jared Diamond) that attribute the rise and fall of empires to climate changes, and the availability of food and energy. This...
The Varṇāśrama system is divided into four classes—Brahmana (priests), Kshatriya (rulers and warriors), Vaisya (farmers and businessmen), and Sudra (workers). If these classes follow their prescribed duties and are not misguided by greed, lust, and envy, then society is free of class clashes. If, however, people in these classes neglect their duties or are guided by greed, lust, and envy, then...
Even as I often criticize quantity thinking, I don’t mean to say that it is completely useless. Many quantitative truths are pervasively true. 2 + 2 = 4 in all situations, for example. This truth can be used for practical purposes like counting the number of people, animals, and houses. Numbers can be used for financial accounting. We can use a...
The Vedic tradition has always had a very weak interest in chronological history. Vedic texts only record the important events—e.g., those about the incarnations of God on earth, or those of great devotees of God, who then spread devotion to God all over the earth. Everything else in history is presented around these two basic themes. For instance, even when the...
There is a popular narrative in India at present that Islamic Invaders and British Colonialists destroyed India’s traditional culture and civilization. That is not entirely false. But any serious student of history is led to ask: Why did these invaders succeed in conquering India when numerous such invasions were repelled previously? The Mauryan Empire in India (beginning with around 200 BCE)...
Species in modern science are defined by the type of body and often by their DNA, and they evolve through random mutations and natural selection by the environment. Cracks in this notion of evolution appear when one zooms out to look at ecosystems. An ecosystem is defined by interrelations between species and the study of ecosystems is concerned with their stability. The...
