Paper on Chemistry and Technology in Hindu Scriptures

Paper titled ‘The glimpses of chemistry and technology in Vedic literature’ was presented by K.V. Murali Krishna at national conference on emerging trends in nuclear and chemical technology, at Gitam University in Hyderabad. The paper explores the knowledge of nuclear science, chemistry and technology in the Vedas, Puranas, Mahabharata and Ramayana.

K.V. Murali Krishna is a chemistry lecturer at Silver Jubilee Government College, Kurnool and he has been studying and collecting valuable scientific knowledge in Hindu scriptures for more than two decades.

Deccan Chronicle reports 

The Mahabharata and the Ramayana recount many examples that indicate our ancestors had knowledge of nuclear energy thousands of years ago.

Hindu Scriptures, 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. 

“Though it is evident that a knowledge in nuclear science existed in ancient India, people should also realize 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 aircrafts,” he explained. “Lord Krishna explained time as a fourth dimension to Barbarika, son of Ghatotgaja, in Mahabharata.

“Einstein’s formula, e=mc2, has found mention in the concept of Brahman, the energy-mass equilibrium," he added on.