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Before I start this analysis let me make one thing clear. This is just my POV. Being a avid lover of mythology from childhood and a science student and a professional working in IT field I had deep interest in connecting both. So this post will have whatever I observed in that journey.
Indian mythology as it is called which includes Epics Ramayan and Mahabharath many people have tried to find the historic relevance of it. Ashwin Sanghi's book " The Krishna Key" deals MB as a historic event itself. But I am not going to put it is a historic event. But rather I would put it as an extraordinary literary works that happened in ancient civilization of India across certain events that happened. Why I am telling this is that because if you see the fiction of accomplished Western writers like Jeffrey Archer, Ken Follett etc they have weaved multi dimensional stories around known historical events. So Ramayana and MB can also be that which represented the culture of those times, but the learnings can be made according to the present yuga.
Now why it is called myths. Reason is in ancient India the tradition was of oral telling of stories. So when it passed down from generation to generation many adaptations happened, many incidents added, some deleted. So even the most accurate literary work termed as Valmiki Ramayan or Vyasa MB may not be really so ( Purists may disagree but this is my view). That's why to get a real check or real learning of these epics it is better to read multiple versions, adaptations so that the core message will be easy to learn. As the perspective of author's vary and each perspective can bring a new learning.
For e.g Debasis Chatterjee IIMK Director's Wednesday column in Mathrubhoomi Paper based on Management lessons from BG was a beauty to read and I never used to miss one column of it. I guess it appeared three years back where he had compared Kurushetra battlefield as our mind in confusions and Krishna our inner voice
Now coming to the science of Indian mythology. First we need to acknowledge that the physical realm expansion of Information technology a great deal is contributed by Western science only. So what have we contributed. We have contributed to the world the balance of inner and outer world, while Western Science is mostly about outer world. In mythology the dharma or knowledge is about aligning your actions with respect to the laws of nature. Now what is laws of nature. To understand it you have to know the western science a bit in present times. But the rishis who wrote the epics had a good knowledge of these nature's law. They also knew how man will twist the laws of nature to suit his purpose. And how this twisting of law brings devastation. Our myths mostly used symbols as in those days just like we shout at each other, symbols were used to convey the message without uttering a single word. Problem is that we take symbols for what they are instead of understanding the symbolic meaning in them.
They dealt with applying laws of physical world to your mental world also. Because even your thought is an action and the world moves as per the action. This is the fundamental law of Indian mythology. Result is based on your actions and actions alone. if it is inline with Prakriti's law you will be rewarded, if it is opposite you will be punished. Even if you do good actions unless the punishment of old action is complete,you will not get benefit of your new action. Acting according to the law of nature will benefit you in the long run as it is constant. Maya is the laws of tradition that binds you. If you act with respect to Maya or traditional rules overriding nature's law you might get immediate victory, but you will lose in the end.
Or rather if you take both epics Ramayana and MB the script flows perfectly in line with Newton's law of motion.
So whenever we are discussing science in mythology we have to discuss the inner science not that whether we had pushpak viman or we did IVF or such things earlier. That's an extreme view though such things including cloning has been implied in MB symbolically. We need to understand they are metaphors or what advances in physical science can bring in. And if we do things with scant care to nature devastation it can bring.
In a nutshell it should be the amalgam of mythology and western science that should show the way forward as we need both dharma the real knowledge and purusharth dharma with respect to our yuga to acquire wealth and power.
