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39-518: The Sri Yantra holds great significance in the Shri Vidya school, central to its worship. It symbolizes the union of masculine and feminine divine energies. The triangles, varying in size, form 43 smaller triangles in concentric levels, mirroring the cosmos. The power point ( bindu ) stands as the cosmic center, encompassed by concentric circles with lotus petal patterns denoting creation and life force. These elements, set within an earth square, depict

78-698: A government veterinary doctor and Sarojini Kak in Srinagar , India. His brother is the computer scientist Avinash Kak and his sister is the literary theorist Jaishree Odin . Kak received a Bachelor of Engineering degree from the Regional Engineering College, Srinagar (now the National Institute of Technology, Srinagar ) and a Ph.D. from the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi in 1970. During 1975–1976, Kak

117-472: A noted critic of pseudoarchaeology has concurred with Witzel. Meera Nanda writes about Kak being revered as a stalwart of Hindutva and one of the leading "intellectual Kshatriyas". Similar concerns of his being a Hindutva-based revisionist have been echoed by other writers. In a critique of faulty scientific reasoning in Hindutva ideologies and theories, Alan Sokal sarcastically criticized Kak as "one of

156-639: A review over Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute , criticized the book for its many shortcomings which did not stand the scrutiny of rigor and remarked it to contain inaccurate and misleading statements. S. G. Dani , a Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar prize recipient rejected Kak's hypothesis as unscientific and highly speculative with extremely vague details and whose results were statistically insignificant. Klaus Klostermaier in his book A Survey of Hinduism praised Kak, for opening up an "entirely new approach to

195-606: A temple with doors to different regions of the universe. In the Shri Vidya tradition, the Sri Yantra represents the core of devotion. Each triangle and level is associated with specific aspects of divinity, culminating in a structure known as the nava chakra. Its projection into three dimensions results in the Mount Meru , symbolizing the philosophy of Kashmir Shaivism . In the 2009 issue of Brahmavidya (the journal of

234-511: Is also known as the nava chakra because it can also be seen as having nine levels. "Nine" comes from" Nava" of Sanskrit . Each level corresponds to a mudra , a yogini , and a specific form of the Deity Tripura Sundari along with her mantra . These levels starting from the outside or bottom layer are: The two-dimensional Sri Chakra, when it is projected into three dimensions is called a Maha Meru ( Mount Meru ). The Sri Yantra

273-627: Is the Regents Professor of Computer Science Department at Oklahoma State University–Stillwater , an honorary visiting professor of engineering at Jawaharlal Nehru University , and a member of the Indian Prime Minister's Science, Technology and Innovation Advisory Council (PM-STIAC). Kak has published on the history of science , the philosophy of science , ancient astronomy , and the history of mathematics . Kak has also published on archaeoastronomy , and advocated

312-536: Is the symbol of Hindu tantra , which is based on the Hindu philosophy of Kashmir Shaivism . The Sri Yantra is the object of devotion in Shri Vidya . In a recent issue of Brahmavidya, the journal of the Adyar Library , Subhash Kak argues that the description of Sri Yantra is identical to the yantra described in the Śvetāśvatara Upanisad . The Sri Yantra is at the heart of Shri Vidya practice, representing

351-578: Is undoubtedly Bhāskararāya (1690–1785), who wrote over 40 works from a Sri Vidya perspective. He is the author of key Sri Vidya texts like the Saubhāgyabhāskara (a commentary to the Lalitā Sahasranāma ), Varivasyārahasya (a work on Sri Vidya mantra and worship) and the Commentary on Nityāṣōḍaśikārṇava . Sri Vidya practices are primarily divided into Kaula and Samaya, as referenced in

390-464: The Adyar Library ), Subhash Kak argues that the description of Shri Yantra is identical to the yantra described in the Śrī Sūkta in the Rigveda . The Sri Yantra's nine constituent triangles vary in size and shape and intersect to form 43 smaller triangles, organized in five concentric levels. Together they represent the totality of the cosmos and express Advaita or non-duality . In the middle,

429-648: The Lalita Sahasranama . Kaula is further subdivided into different schools: Dakṣiṇācāra , which focuses on external rituals; Mishramachara, a combination of ritualistic and meditative practices; and Vamachara , or left-hand practices. On the other hand, Samayachara emphasizes on meditative practices on Tripurasundari and the Sri Yantra . The Dattatreya Sampradaya is one of the most important living traditions in Shri Vidya . This tradition follows

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468-489: The Parashurama Kalpasutra , a manual that outlines the practices of Shri Vidya as taught by Dattatreya to Parashurama . The teachings were later documented by Sumedha, providing detailed guidance on mantra, nyasa, and homa rituals that are central to the spiritual path in this tradition. Subhash Kak Subhash Kak is an Indian-American computer scientist and historical revisionist . He

507-466: The Rig Veda , in what Noretta Koertge deems to be a "social constructivist and postmodern attack on modern science". He insists that Vedic scientists discovered the physical laws by Yogic meditation and that it is a valid scientific method which can be only evaluated within the paradigm of Vedic assumptions and by those who have attained Yogic enlightenment. According to Meera Nanda , Kak believes in

546-549: The Computer Science department at Oklahoma State University–Stillwater . Kak proposed an efficient three-layer feed-forward neural network architecture and developed four corner classification algorithms for training it. Despite being criticized for scalability issues; it gained the attention of the electronic hardware community. Kak has argued that there are limits to artificial intelligence and that it cannot match biological intelligence. Kak has been critical of

585-822: The Europeans. Edwin Bryant calls him a well read and articulate spokesman for the Indigenous Aryan hypothesis and for other issues concerning ancient Indian science and culture. Scholars have rejected his theories in entirety and his writings have been heavily criticized. Acute misrepresentation of facts coupled with wrong observations, extremely flexible and often self-contradictory analysis, cherry picking of data and forwarding of easily disprovable hypotheses have been located. His understanding of linguistics and subsequent assertion have been challenged. Romila Thapar calls Kak an amateur historian whose views on

624-493: The Indus Civilization were fringe and who was part of a group that had more to do with waging political battles at the excuse of history. Michael Witzel noted him to be a revisionist and part of a "closely knit, self-adulatory group", members of which often write together and/or profusely copy from and cite one another, thus rendering the whole scene into a virtually indistinguishable hotchpotch. Garrett G. Fagan ,

663-532: The Sri Yantra (" sacred instrument "), also Sri Chakra is a diagram formed by nine interlocking triangles that surround and radiate out from the central ( bindu ) point. The Sri Yantra is the object of devotion in Sri Vidya. The worship of the Sri Yantra is central to the Shri Vidya system of Hindu worship. The four upward-pointing isosceles triangles represent the Goddess's masculine embodiment Shiva , while

702-749: The Three Worlds ) as the main form of Mahadevi . Apart from Mahātripurasundarī, other important deities in this tradition include Gaṇapati , Bālā, Rājamātaṅgī , Mahāvārāhī , and Parā. The most important source for this branch of Sri Vidya is the Paraśurāma Kalpasūtra . A thousand names for this form of Devī are recited in the Lalitā Sahasranāma , which includes Śrī Vidyā concepts. The sect accepts and aims to provide both material prosperity and self-realisation. It has an extensive literature. The most important scholar of Sri Vidya

741-543: The distance between sun and earth et al. He then leverages the proposition to argue for the existence of a tradition of sophisticated observational astronomy as far back as 3000 or 4000 BCE. Kak also states that the construction of fire-altars were a coded representation of their astronomic knowledge and that the Vedic civilisation were aware of the speed of light. He prepared the section on archaeoastronomical sites in India for

780-500: The entire cosmos or a womb symbolic of creation. The 12 and 15 sides of the four upward and five downward triangles also correspondingly symbolise, on the physical plane, the 12 sidereal zodiac signs of the Sun and 15 'nityas' phase-signs of the Moon. This is surrounded by a lotus of eight petals, a lotus of sixteen petals, and an earth square resembling a temple with four doors. The Sri Yantra

819-400: The entire figure and the cosmos expand. The triangles are enclosed by two rows of (8 and 16) petals, representing the lotus of creation and reproductive vital force. The broken lines of the outer frame denote the figure to be a sanctuary with four openings to the regions of the universe. Together the nine triangles are interlaced in such a way as to form 43 smaller triangles in a web symbolic of

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858-407: The entire issue boiled down to an over-interpretation of some facts that were internally inconsistent and more, to the creativeness of Kak who was pre-motivated to find evidence of astronomy at every verse of Rig Veda. Meera Nanda criticized the arbitrary and absurd nature of Kak's analysis at length and noted his method to be "breathtakingly ad hoc" which "reads like numerology ." M A Mehendale, in

897-488: The five downward-pointing triangles symbolize the female embodiment Shakti . Thus, the Sri Yantra also represents the union of Masculine and Feminine Divine. Because it is composed of nine triangles, it is known as the Navayoni Chakra . These nine triangles are of various sizes and intersect with one another. In the middle is the power point (bindu), visualizing the highest, the invisible, elusive centre from which

936-662: The foreword to this book commending Roy's interpretations as a new way of looking at Vedic Physics. Meera Nanda, one of Kak's foremost critics, noted the result to be a "shameful demeaning of physics as well as the Vedas" and resembling "ravings of mad men". Kak co-authored In Search of the Cradle of Civilization with Georg Feuerstein and David Frawley , equating the Vedic Aryans with the Harappans and thus, participating in

975-503: The generalization of the quantum computing to commercial scale; he argues error correction is a significant challenge for scalability although it's fundamental to multi-purpose computing . Kak is the Regents Professor of Computer Science Department at Oklahoma State University–Stillwater and an honorary visiting professor of engineering at Jawaharlal Nehru University . He is also an honorary visiting professor of media studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University. On 28 August 2018, he

1014-573: The geometric manifestation of the formless Tripurasundari. Both the Lalita Sahasranama and Tripura Rahasya emphasize that while Tripurasundari is formless in her divine essence, she is worshipped through the Sri Yantra, which symbolizes her cosmic energy, and the Panchadashakshari Mantra (the 15-syllabled mantra ), which invokes her presence. Together, the Yantra and Mantra serve as the central tools for connecting with and realizing

1053-529: The idea of Indigenous Aryans . Many scholars have rejected his theories on these topics in entirety, and his writings have been heavily criticized. In 2019, the Government of India awarded him the Padma Shri , the fourth highest civilian award in India, for his contributions on the history of mathematics , science , ancient astronomy and philosophy of science . Kak was born to Ram Nath Kak,

1092-473: The noted historian of mathematics Kim Plofker . Kim Plofker rejected Kak's probabilistic analysis of the presence of planetary period numbers in the Rigveda's hymn number combinations, showing that Kak's apparent matches have "no statistical significance whatever". Witzel has rejected his analysis to be suffering from several shortcomings and questioned his usage of arbitrary multiplication factors to lead to

1131-445: The political controversy around the "Indigenous Aryans" theory. The chronology espoused in this book is based on the archaeoastronomical readings obtained by correlating textual references and archaeological remains. A review by Indian archaeologist M. K. Dhavalikar over Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute noted it to be a "beautifully printed" contribution that made a strong case for their indigenous theory against

1170-409: The power point ( bindu ) represents the cosmic center. The triangles are circumscribed by two concentric circles composed of 8 and 16 petals, representing the lotus of creation and reproductive vital force. The entire configuration is framed by the broken lines of an earth square, representing a temple with four doors open onto the regions of the universe. In the Shri Vidya school of Hindu tantra ,

1209-499: The principally Shakta theology of Śrī Vidyā the goddess is supreme, transcending the cosmos that is her manifestation. She is worshiped in the form of a mystical diagram (Sanskrit: yantra ), a central focus and ritual object composed of nine intersecting triangles, called the Shri Yantra or Śrī Cakra . The south Indian tradition of Sri Vidya generally focuses on Lalitā Tripurasundarī ( Beautiful Goddess of

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1248-510: The results. Kak's method depends on the structure of the Rigveda as redacted by the shakhas in the late Brahmana period, well within the Indian Iron Age , when it was organized into mandalas ("books"). According to Witzel, this leaves Kak's approach attempt to date the text flawed, because this process of redaction took place long after the composition of the individual hymns during the samhita prose period. Witzel concludes that

1287-473: The study of Vedic cosmology from an empirical astronomical/mathematical viewpoint". Klostermaier's books have been heavily criticized for offering pro-Hindu views that have little currency in scholarship. Kak's work influenced Raja Ram Mohan Roy's 1999 book Vedic Physics: Scientific Origin of Hinduism, which sought to prove that the RigVeda was coded per the laws of quantum and particle physics. Kak wrote

1326-487: The superiority of Hindus over Muslims. In a 2004 critique, she summarized some of Kak's views on the matter: according to Kak, Hindus built "cultural empires" without military conquest, in contrast to Muslim "military empires" reliant on conquest. In the book, Kak proposes that the organization of hymns in the Rig Veda was dictated by an astronomic code concerning the courses of planets—length of solar year and lunar year,

1365-489: The supposed migratory hypotheses, but chose to remain silent on certain crucial aspects which need to be convincingly explained. Guy Beck showered glowing praises on the book in his review over the Yoga Journal . Klostermaier et al. praised the book. Prema Kurien noted that the book sought to distinguish expatriate Hindu Americans from other minority groups by demonstrating their superior racial and cultural ties with

1404-428: The supreme goddess in Shri Vidya . Shri Vidya Shri Vidya ( ISO : Śrī Vidyā ; lit.   ' 'knowledge', 'learning', 'lore', or 'science' ' ; sometimes also spelled Sri Vidya or Shree Vidya ) is a Hindu Tantric religious system devoted to the Goddess . Shri Vidya developed out of various influences, especially Kāśmīr Shaivism , and its doctrines remain similar to this tradition. In

1443-805: The thematic study on Heritage Sites of Astronomy and Archaeoastronomy in the context of the UNESCO World Heritage Convention prepared for UNESCO by the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) and the International Astronomical Union (IAU) . While Kak's interpretation has been included in recent overviews of astronomy in the Vedic period in India and the West, his chronology and astronomical calculations have been critiqued by several Indologists, such as Michael Witzel , and

1482-529: Was a visiting faculty at Imperial College , London, and a guest researcher at Bell Laboratories , Murray Hill. In 1977, he was a visiting researcher at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research , Bombay. In 1979, he joined Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge , where he was appointed the Donald C. and Elaine T. Delaune Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering. In 2007, he joined

1521-767: Was appointed member of the Prime Minister's Science, Technology and Innovation Advisory Council (PM-STIAC) in India. Kak primarily advocates for an autochthonous origin of the Indo-Aryans from Punjab (" Indigenous Aryans " hypothesis) in contradiction of the scholarly consensus about the validity of Indo-Aryan migration theory ; Kak reads the promotion of the latter theory to stem from racist tendencies. Scholars have noted his charges to be without any basis, lacking in any critical examination and primarily intended to promote Hindu supremacy . Kak has also claimed to find evidences of advanced computing and astronomy in

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