Hi BAD Astronomers! Here is my debut with
FAD Astronomy!

MARS & MURUGA(N)

Mars has been topical news. Unmanned craft have landed on the planet and have been probing it more than ever before. As the Red Planet is said to be closest to Earth in ever so may centuries, expectation of traces of water on the planet is said to be getting confirmed. They are waiting agog for signs of evidence of the existence of life forms there, even if past.

It all started you know with seeing canals on Mars. The earliest telescopic pictures of Mars showed long hazy lines on the disc, too regular and straight to be Natural features. Thereby started a pet theory that they must be irrigation canals dug up by living beings like us - some advanced civilization of ‘Martians’. The interesting thing is: the ‘artificial canal’ theory has been discarded by later analysis – but the interest in tracing water and life on Mars is still persisting.

Why? I HAVE MY PET THEORY THERE!

Science also has pet theories – has it not - on things like Evolution of Life, Origin of the Universe and the Birth of Planets. I have mine, on the birth of Mars. Actually my theory gives more about the planet’s identity. Just wait till after the next paragraphs!

There was a pet theory floated by some Post-Galileo telescopic views of our moon: that this nearest neighbor of ours was actually part of Earth, broken away aeons ago under some unexplained catastrophe, leaving behind the Pacific Ocean! I could have told them they were wrong – [my pet theory!] – but see, it has taken a space age, landing on the moon and examining things closely, to realize that Moon is materially quite different from Earth and must have rather come as a catch from somewhere deep in the Milky Way. Interestingly, by the way, that place is called ‘ksheera-saagara’ in Sanskrit writings and ‘paaR-kadal’ in Tamil lore – both the words mean ‘milky ocean’ – whose churning by the celestial 'devas' released a number of things from the deep, and the moon was one of them.

The ‘Worlds in Collision’ theory of Immanuel Velikovsky came nearer reality but only half way. Velikovsky took cues and suggestions from the ancient lores of tribes and civilizations the world over, to propound that some ‘space collision’ must have occurred, between possibly a comet and our Earth, causing cataclasmic and cataclysmic events like mountains blown off hitting continents, diluvian floods merging land and sea, and the most remarkably, a big chunk of Earth flying out to form a separate planet. I agree with him on the flying mountain part of the story. But he went wrong, in the identification of the planet.

He said it is Venus. I say it is Mars!

My pet theory says more then that – some thing more stunning. Here goes the abstract.

I). Mars is ‘kuja’ in Sanskrit. ‘kuja’ means literally, ‘Earth-born’.

In Indian astronomical–cum-astrological parlance unambiguously synonymous names also are to be found:
 ‘bhauma’ meaning ‘issued of bhumi (Earth)’ and, more tellingly ‘dharani-garbha-sambhoota’ (Earth-Womb-Brought-into-being).
 In case there is doubt that it is the same Mars that the rest of the world is talking about, refer to the other names also in simultaneous use viz ‘angaaraka’ = ‘glowing ember’ or the Red Planet’, Chevvaa(y) in Tamil and Malayalam.
 After the Sun’s Day and Moon’s Day, the third day of the week, associated with Mars is ‘bhauma-vaasara’ the ‘Day of Bhauma’.
 Mangal-Vaar in Hindi for Tuesday is after the name ‘Mangala’ which also is an epithet of Mars in astrology.
Now, that is the seed of my pet they: Mars is born of Earth. QED!.

II). Mars (= Kuja = etc.) is also found invoked as ‘Kumara shakti-hasta’ in the common household prayer sloka – the nava-graha-stotram.
Now ‘Kumara, shaktihasta’, is very well known to refer to Kartikeya, son of Siva of the Hindu Trinity, whose personal hand-held weapon is shakt-vel the javelin of Energy. And Kartikeya is of reddish complexion – Pallava-aruna.
If that is uncanny, then hear this: Kumara Kartikeya is the designated adhidevata – Ruling Deity of Mars!

That is the ‘spark’ of my pet theory: Comparison of our story of mars with the Purana stories of Kartikeya the Son of Siva – variously called Kumara, Skanda or Subrahmanya and worshipped as ‘Kandan’ and ‘Murugan’ by the Tamils the world over who affectionately brand him as ‘the Tamil God’

 Mars is God of war in Roman mythology. Kumara the Son of Siva, (with a number of aliases – Skanda, Murugan Subrahmanya and so on) is the Deva-Sena-Pati, the head of the Divines’ armies; his birth was indeed ‘engineered’ by the Devas and the Rishis for the purpose of vanquishing certain special asuras. The Puranas besides, refer also to the great epic Kumara Sambhava of the great Kalidasa.

 The clinching handle of my pet theory: Kumara was born when a primordial fire-ball of tremendous energy issued from God Siva’s third eye and Mother Earth received the effulgence on herself as the only possible withstander of its impact. The child god so born grows to be the preordained commander of the devas’ forces and fights off some special asuras who have been intimidating the world, taking the form of mountains. The wielder of the shakti-vel smites the mountains, blows them up into pieces of rock.

See how this story blends so nicely with our story of the genesis of Mars using the Velikovskian model of flying mountains and space collision.

So I enunciate:-

In a catastrophic near collision (with Earth) of an enormous extra-terrestrial body, Mars formed and shot out of Earth in the manner of a modern missile intercepting rocket, hit the on-coming mountainous thing and blew it up into a thousand pieces, eventually taking position as on individual planet in orbit between us and Jupiter.

Sceptical Question:
Q. Where are those blown up thousands of rock pieces?
A. Why, they are the asteroids – [ Position consonant with Newtonian Dynamics!]
Q. If Mars shot out as a rocket, where on earth was it launched from?
A. A circumstantial evidence:- Of the “Six Abodes of The Six-Faced God” in South India, associated with different epic exploits of his, there is one place, Tiru-Chendur on the shores of the Bay of Bengal, uniquely associated with the very special heroic episode of ‘Soora-Samhaara’, the vanquishing of the mountainous colliders referred to earlier. Cf. to-day’s space programmes in India choosing Sriharikota on the east coast for scientific reasons of eastward launching!

The Final Feather on our Cap
The most intriguing story of Kumara’s heroics is the one wherein he, in an irrepressible mood, takes on the Creator, Brahma Himself, sidelines him and embarks by himself on the job of creating life forms!

So what is there so cranky in my waiting with bated breath for the analysis of samples of the Rover-collected Martian material. Can’t I expect them to make a beeline to Tiru-Chendur dig up the beach for test-matching material?

I am not one of those opinionated pucker-browed obscurantists who would stretch and strain meanings of ancient writings to establish that all knowledge and discovery and invention – past, present and eternal future – have already been recorded by the ancients, particularly their own ancestors. But this my pet theory of Mars-Murugan equation – isn’t it tantalizing?

N.Balasubramanian alias nbalu

Thread moved from "BABBling" to "ATM".

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Welcome to BAUT, nbalu!

You'll see that your new thread has been moved to this, the ATM (Against the Mainstream) section of BAUT. If you've posted to other internet discussion fora, you may have some idea of how such are run. BAUT is somewhat different - we are a discussion forum devoted to astronomy, astrophysics, cosmology, and space science, and are avowedly scientific in our approach.

To meet the needs of our forum, we have some simple rules (Rules for Posting to This Board), one of which (#13) applies specifically to this ATM section. If I may offer a suggestion, to make your stay with us both enjoyable and rewarding, please take the time to read the rules.

On to some questions about your idea:

1) when did 'Mars shoot out as a rocket'?

2) how long ('eventually') did the 'thousand pieces' take to 'tak[e] position as on individual planet in orbit between us and Jupiter'?

Thanq for the 'non outright-rejection' of the 'pet theory' posting.
The thousand pieces refer to the asteroids between Mars and Jupiter - not Mars itself.
On the question of 'When' my search for an answer (from ancient records from all over the Globe) is present continuous! [Pet theories' license!]

nbalu

Can you give us a rough idea of the timescale you are suggesting? Are you talking essentially present day, as Velikovsky suggested? Or are you suggesting these events occured during the protoplanetary phase, or at least, a few billion years ago? Or something in between?

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The Leif Ericson Cruiser

I hv just now hit upon some writings that appear to date the birth of Murugan to some writable number like
a certain 'n-thousand + 21600.m' years ago!
I am wary about falling for it. I shall come again shortly with less fuzzy comments
nbalu