07-10-2008, 12:30 AM
Ramana,
IMHO, HH is a much better source for biotech and sanskrit.
<!--QuoteBegin-ramana+Jul 9 2008, 10:50 PM-->QUOTE(ramana @ Jul 9 2008, 10:50 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->Ashok Kumar, Have you read the book "Your Inner Fish" by Neil Shubin which traces the human origins from fish via amphibians and mammals using fossils and genes. The reason why I ask is in the dasavtaras, the first one is matsya the very saem fish that Shubin talks about. So my point is there a significance in that avatara about the human origins? Is there any hint why matsya avatara? The next is Kurma ie an amphibian.
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I haven't read the book, but heard about it. The idea is not new. There is a theory that human embryos also go through all these evolutionary stages, where first they appear like fish embryos, then amphibian embryos etc. The actual appearance of similarity between the embryos may be controversial, but one thing is quite well established that structures in an embryo appear in an order that follows their appearance during evolutionary history. Some people even say that a human embryo goes through whole of human evolutionary history, starting from fish to human, at a fast rate during its development.
The sequence of the dashavatara is very striking in showing evolutionary trends. The reptilian branch separated out after the amphibious stage, and didn't connect with human evolution which moved to mammals. Birds developed from the reptilian branch. So it is even more striking that the dashAvatara doesn't have any snakes or birds in the sequence.
If the dashAvatAra seqence was merely fanciful, it could have had snakes or birds in the sequence too. Great nAgas such as sheSha, vAsukI and great birds like garuDa etc are part of the purANic lore, but are absent in the dashAvatAra sequence. So the fact that the snakes along with birds are absent, is another agreement with the evolutionary history of humans.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/comm...of-Man-wiki.jpg
Sri Aurobindo's interpretation of human avatAras as evolutions of consciousness also gels in well with this. The dashAvatAra are about evolutions of humans, not of any other species.
IMHO, HH is a much better source for biotech and sanskrit.
<!--QuoteBegin-ramana+Jul 9 2008, 10:50 PM-->QUOTE(ramana @ Jul 9 2008, 10:50 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->Ashok Kumar, Have you read the book "Your Inner Fish" by Neil Shubin which traces the human origins from fish via amphibians and mammals using fossils and genes. The reason why I ask is in the dasavtaras, the first one is matsya the very saem fish that Shubin talks about. So my point is there a significance in that avatara about the human origins? Is there any hint why matsya avatara? The next is Kurma ie an amphibian.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I haven't read the book, but heard about it. The idea is not new. There is a theory that human embryos also go through all these evolutionary stages, where first they appear like fish embryos, then amphibian embryos etc. The actual appearance of similarity between the embryos may be controversial, but one thing is quite well established that structures in an embryo appear in an order that follows their appearance during evolutionary history. Some people even say that a human embryo goes through whole of human evolutionary history, starting from fish to human, at a fast rate during its development.
The sequence of the dashavatara is very striking in showing evolutionary trends. The reptilian branch separated out after the amphibious stage, and didn't connect with human evolution which moved to mammals. Birds developed from the reptilian branch. So it is even more striking that the dashAvatara doesn't have any snakes or birds in the sequence.
If the dashAvatAra seqence was merely fanciful, it could have had snakes or birds in the sequence too. Great nAgas such as sheSha, vAsukI and great birds like garuDa etc are part of the purANic lore, but are absent in the dashAvatAra sequence. So the fact that the snakes along with birds are absent, is another agreement with the evolutionary history of humans.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/comm...of-Man-wiki.jpg
Sri Aurobindo's interpretation of human avatAras as evolutions of consciousness also gels in well with this. The dashAvatAra are about evolutions of humans, not of any other species.