Brahma Vidya Rahasyam: A Scientific Exposition of Brahmavada According To Vedic Tradition (Set of 2 Volumes)

Seventy five years old Dr. A.S. Ramanathan is a scientist by career. He retied as Deputy Director General of Meteorology from the India Meteorical Department; He has to his credit a number of research papers, published both in India and abroad.

Dr. Ramanathan is well versed in Ancient Sanskrit literature and has good knowledge of Vedic tradition. Some years back. He came across the works of Madhusdhan Ojha and his disciple Motitlal shastri on Vedic literature and was deeply attracted towards them. He came to Jaipur several times and devoted lot of time to study their writings. He was so much impressed by the expositions of Ojha that he went to the extent of saying that no other scientific analysis of our culture in the past as Ojha has done. He considers Ojha as an Avatar of Veda Vyasa.

For the past few years, Dr Ramanathan has been writing on Ojha’s works, making special stress on his contributions to the scientific understanding of Vedic Culture. According to him, Ojha was the first scholar to pave the way for organized research studies in our Ancient Sanskrit Literature.

This is the sixth publication of the author. Earlier he has published five books namely.

1. Weather Science in Ancient India.
2. What is Veda
3. Vedic Concept of Soma
4. Vedic Concept of Atman
5. Atmagatividya.
These days Dr. Ramanathan is working on “A Scientific presentation of the Advatia Concept according to Vedic Tradition”. He is also editing with introduction and notes Ojha’s commentary on Brahma sutras and his work entitled ‘Samsayataducchedavada.’

It is my pleasure and a privilege that Dr. A. S. Ramanathan has dwelt on Shri Bhagvat Gita. There are many commentries on Gita but hardly any one has touched the essence of Gita is authentic book amongst Satraps. It is one of the three authentic scrpturs.

1. Gita
2. Vyas Sutra Meemansa.
3. Vyas Sutra
There are unnumberable commentries on Gita but hardly any of them has touched the botton of the Sastras. Dr. A. S. Ramanaathan has touched the subject and derived essence of it. Let us take the would vaishwanar. It is the combination of all the three Sastras. Dr. A.S. Ramanathan has given valuable contribution by using this trio Vaiswanar is the combination Prashthan Trayee. It contacts Gita, Upanishad and Vyas Sutra. This trio depicts the meaning of each word. These are:

(1). Gita
(2) Upanishads
(3) Vyes Sutra. Gita is authentic sashtra. Through Parthian Trayee,
It has touched the essence of it. Several Acharya say that we die but Gita says we do not die but change the body and keep on changing the body. According to Gita the never dies but goes on changing the body, dying the body.

Dr. Ramanathan has tested which is made of matter. Matter is also undertroyable but changes shape. Though it change but based on soul. The soul has no identity. It manifested matter in various shapes and goes on changing. The theory everything changes on the basis of some unchangeable thing. We can not walk on any moving object. Moving object will carry nowhere we always move on unmovable things. Dr. Ramanathan’s though states that we can move on immovable basis. On application the soul is movable, it moves through matter. Matter always rests on soul. Theory emerges that matter moves on immovable object. Dr. Ramanathan lives in Shri Rangapuram but lacs of his reader know him by name because he works on Gita. He has touched of Gita. Hardly readers of Gita understand the mening of Gita. For example Vaishwanar. The readers of Gita do not understand the meaning of Vaishwanar is the combination of (fire), air and the sun. Hardly reader can explain the meaning of Gita says ( I am not visible, I do not appear but covered behind YogMaya, Lord Krishna is black and hidden behind Yogmaya. These two words illustrate to explain the meaning of Shri Mad Bhagavad-Gita.

I am extremely happy to present to the readers, this book entitled Brahmavidya Rahasyam which is the fourth book in our series on Atmavidya as conceived and preached by our Maharsis. I am particularly happy that I am able to present to the readers three important original texts of Madhusudan Ojha on Brahmavijfianam and provide notes on them. They are:

1. Dasavada Rahasyam.
2. Brahmasiddhantah (Siddhantavadah) and
3. Samsayataducche-davadah. I have also provided an elaborate introduction to the subject in the beginning of this book in which I have highlighted many aspects of Brahmavidya witch are of great interest to the readers and which have been admirably treated by Ojha in the texts included in this book.
Most of the books on Brahmavidya available so far give us the impression that this Vidya is contained in the Upanishads, Brahmasutras and Bhagavad-Gita. Therefore the authors of these books have confined their studies and exposition to the elucidation of the teachings of the three great Acaryas (Samara, Ramanuja and Madhvacarya). That it is not so, has been made amply clear in the expositions of Madhusudan Ojha. This most outstanding Vedic scholar we have ever known has traced this Vidya right from premedic times to the Upanisadic period and has explained the development and ramifications of this Vidya in a masterly way. He has written many books on this subject quite of few of which were brought in print many years ago but never received the attention they deserved. I hope to bring out most of them with notes and introduction, so that his writings become available to a larger section of the scholar community. All of us are ....very much aware that this subject requires the right type of menta equipment and dedication on the part of the reader. But even a casual reading of the beautiful verses that Ojha has presented to the reader in these texts will reveal the richness of Sanskrit language and the fertile mind of the composer of these verses. It is very difficult for any onev to decide whether the verses contribute to the richness of the language or the language contributes to the rich content of the verses.

I am never tired of repeating that Madhusudan Ojha was the most outstanding Vedic Scholar we have known during the past two thousand years. In the field of Vedic Sciences he was far ahead of his times and very few had the necessary scholarship to follow his teachings. Since his mind worked like that of a creative scientist, he could probe into the mighty minds be of our sages understand their basic concepts and explain to us very lucidly the logic of Vedic in thought. An intelligent reader can read between his lines and understand many things which at first sight look puzzling. It is most unfortunate that for want of proper care, many of his writings have been lost. Some of them were borrowed by interested scholars and were never returned. The result has been that we have today only a few of his works brought into print long ago and some tom manuscripts which badly require printing. For extensile an is one of the most outstanding contributions to Vedic research. Nobody knows who is keeping it. Ojha's son has written somewhere that somebody borrowed it from him but it was never returned. Whatever was put in print in those days was entirely due to the untiring efforts of a few distinguished scholars like. Giridhar Sharrna Chaturvedi, Surjandas Swami and Adiabatic Thakur who had close contact with Ojha and had known his extraordinary abilities in the interpretation of Vedic texts. Later Vasudevsaran Agrawala also took great interest and brought into print a few of Ojha's works.

Recently Karpurchand Kulish has taken great interest in the publication of Ojha’s works. Apart from a few works of Ojha which Kulish has brought into print, his main contribution has been that he has brought into print many of the Hindi writings of Motilal Shastri who was a student of Ojha. Kulish has been mainly instrumental in the creation of a cell for Ojha studies in the university at Jodhpur.

Motilal Shastri had the ability to prepare notes in Hindi on whatever subject his master taught him and had left good amount of notes prepared by him A few of them were printed during his life time by himself and the rest have been taken up by Kulish for printing. Quite a few of these notes have already been published by Rajasthan Patrika whose Founder Editor is Kulish. The most notable of them are his notes on some Kansas of Stepfather Brahman which reflect Ojha's depth of know1ede in Ojha had great appreciation for Motilal Shastri for his ability to prepare notes on his lectures. He blessed Motital Shastri with the following words, implying that he is capable of protecting the jnanasampatti entrusted to him by Ojha. It is most unfortunate that Motilal Shastri did not have any students in this line to hand over the Jnanasampatti to them so that it is not lost for ever after him. Nor did he edit any of Ojha's works with commentary during his life time. Ojha’s contributions are as rich and as valuable as the contributions of Sankara Ramanuja and others but while the jnanasampatti of these Acaryas have been handed over systematically from generation to generation and is intact and well protected by devoted scholars, it is most regrettable that Ojha's contribution met with a different fate and many of them have been lost for ever. We can only say,

It is with the above painful feelings at this late stage of my life, I have decided to try my best to bring out as many as possible of the original writings of Ojha with notes and introduction in English so that people will realise how great he was.

The original text for Brahmasiddhanta of Ojha I have used here is what was edited by Giridhar Sharma Chaturvedi with a commentary in Sanskrit and published by V.S. Agrawala in 1961. This commentary has been very useful to me. For the text of Samsayataducchedavada I have used the one that was published by Adya Datta Thakur in 1926. Motilal Sharma's grand son Radioman Kumar Sharma had prepared this text with the notes of Motilal Sharma and this has been recently published by Rajasthan Patrika. I have consulted these notes also in the preparation of my book. As regards Dasavada Rahasyam I have used the text that was reprinted by Ojha's grand son Padmalochan Ojha in 1952.

I sincerely thank Shri Karpur Chand Kulish Founder Editor Rajasthan Patrika Jaipur for all the assistance I have received in the publication of my books. My thanks are also due to S. Sivakumar of Sankari Lasers Chennai -5. and to Art Prints Chennai - 5. for the typesetting work carried out by them