Answers by

PROF. HR NAGENDRA,
Vice Chancellor,
SVYASA, Bangalore, India

Click Play button to Play Audio
(Please wait as the audio loads)

Transcription

Upanishads form part of the vedas and historians have put the dating of the vedas to now 6000 BC, is always controversial.And some people say it is 8000 BC. But some of the archaeological findings now recently has put the dating back to even 1500 BC or 16000 BC. But according to what we believe in Yoga and spiritual lore, that does not have a particular time when it came up. It might have come but it is a set of laws. The laws were discovered and put forth in the form of books. For example if you leave this object it is going to come down, this is the law of creation. From the time the creation take place came forth the laws are ever there. But it was given to Newton to bring about this theory of gravitation. It does not mean he found out some new law. He only wrote that this is available in nature. In the same way the Upanishads and the Vedas are the treasure house of all knowledge, all set of laws, they are eternal, Aporishaya, not done by anybody. It is done by the creator himself. In the creation the set of laws were set in creation and they are enshrined in the vedas. Therefore in tradition we see that the Brahma who is the creator, he gave the us vedas. What does that mean? The creator brought all the wisdom of the laws and the structure of this entire creation through this. So it went through in the form of teachings. But when it came in the form of books or in the form of the writings then historians can say okay now it is started 8000 years, 10000 years back, 15000 years back. But it is too small a time frame. When did the creation start? Look at the entire creation, four yugas, satya yuga, treyata yuga, dwapara yuga, kali yuga. And what is Kaliyuga? 486000 years. What is the Dwaparayuga? That is double. And double that is Treyatayuga. And double that is Satyayuga. So what is the time frame for .85*8. So many lakhs of years, that is one day for Brahma, the creator. And then you have the continuous pralaya and there is nothing, it is all in the seed form in the Anandamayakosha. And that is the night for Brahma. And like that one Brahma lives for hundred years. Calculate how many years. And when did this creation start, Anadhi, thousands and thousands and thousands of Brahmas, millions of Brahmas have come and gone. And therefore when did this vedas arise, when did the Upanishad come, when did the whole system of this knowledge base came, is Anadhi, has no beginning. And who wrote that? There is no person who created the creator Brahma, but it is Aporishaya, not anyone particular whether it is Valmiki or Vyasa who wrote. That writing is historical. In this particular age, it has come now, that year also it was there, in the previous yuga also it was there, it was there for eternity. That is the traditional understanding about the antiquity or the origin of the vedas and the upanishads and the Yoga lore. The most ancient since the time the creation came into existence all this knowledge base are available. What about Bhagavadgita? Bhagavadgita is compilation of the Upanishad acknowledged and Vyasa Maharshi is supposed to have brought out that dimension of the Bhagavadgita. So that comes as part of the Mahabharatha. Ramayana and Mahabharatha are the great epics and Bhagavdgita is part of the Mahabharatha. So many historians put that as 1500 BC and always historians differ in the timings and therefore you can say that it is between 1000 to 2000 BC as the approximate time frame as to when the Bhagavadgita came into existence.