Agneya-Kona of Bharatavarsa

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The book focuses on the cultural developments of Agneya-Kona (the south-east India) and their contributions to the development of humanity, and highlights the concocted history of Bharatavarsa, especially of Agneya-Kona.

The author projects many artefacts to substantiate his theory. Many archaeological figurines, along with circular discs, and nude female figurines — are cases in point. Female principle was worshipped in the Mahanadi Valley both in aniconic and iconic forms.

Agneya-Kona has contributed significantly to the growth of the tantric worship. In the pre-historic rock painting of Gudahandi, there is a trace of Yoga, especially Kundalini Yoga. The book details the spiritual and yogic culture of Orissa, the formative phase of Purusottama Jagannatha culture, the impact of Narassimha culture, yoni tantra traditions of the Central Mahanadi Valley and the spiritual relationship of Kalahandi with Candipur Tara-Pitha of Birbhum.

A Sumerian temple that imbibed the form of Lord Puruottama Jagannatha is in highlight, and the author makes a strong statement that the culture of the region is older than the Sumerian Civilization.

The book is a source of inspiration for archaeologists and historians, who want to study more about south-east India, and students, teachers and researchers of arts and culture.

Raja Jitamitra Prasad Singh Deo is an amateur archaeologist and President of Khariar Sahitya Samiti. He is credited with the discovery of pre-history rock art of Yogimath Donger, Chat Ghumar rock art, copper plates, gold coins of Sarabhapuriya Dynasty, stone seal of Panduvamsi Dynasty, Kalachuri coins, terra-cottas, beads, sculptures of various types and many antiquities. His collections of archaeological remains have been displayed in Khariar Branch Museum in Orissa, specially established for this purpose by the Government of Orissa and at his private Palace Museum, at Khariar. Cultural Profile of South Kosala; Origin of Jagannatha Deity; Tantric Art of Orissa; Character Assassination in Modern History of Orissa; Sonic Tantric Esotericism of Orissa; Role of Raja R.N. Bhanja Deo of Kanika, Orissa (in the Indian Legislative Council 1976-20); Tantric Hedonism of Mahanadi Valley (Uddiyana Pitha); and Kama in the Land of Kamakala are his works. He is also a contributor to many research journals, bulletins, periodicals, magazines, souvenirs and newspapers.

The Indians were the educators of the world, when the Indian empire in the remote past covered a large part of Asia, Europe and other continents. This could spread Indian astrology across Asia and Europe. However astrology — the science of sciences — has lost its sheen in our country. Its present status is that of sufferance and neglect. Our approach to astrology should be more constructive, serious and intense. To make this happen, it should be taught across the premier academic institutions in the country. The Government and public should extend financial support to get astrology a new lease of life.

This book deals with Agneya-Kona of Bharatavarsa, i.e. south-east of India, i.e. Bharatavarsa. Agni, i.e. fire,3 on earth is the mundane, earthly form of the Divine, celestial Sun in the high heavens. The sun fire — principle or the life — animates the body in the form of oxygen [prano vai nosadagnih] says satapatha Brahmaza VI.7.ll of 1gveda). The control-centre of the life-fire in the human being is the head which, therefore, is placed at the very top. Being identical in essence with cosmic energy, a properly “turned in and concentrating human brain can, at anytime, switch itself on to the cosmic currents pulsating the universe.

Seeing meaning in our Vedic teachings, the West is turning to the East.

Therefore, Ram Swarup4 says:

A fateful thing has been happening. Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism are becoming available to the world. Already, it is having a transforming effect on the minds of the people, particularly in countries where there is freedom to seek and express. Dogmas are under a cloud; claims on behalf of last prophethood and only sonship, hitherto enforced through great intellectual conditioning, brow-beating and the big stick are becoming unacceptable. Religions of proxy are in retreat. More and more men now seek authentic experience. Borrowed creed will not do. Men and women are ceasing to be obedient believers and are becoming seekers. They no longer want to be anybody’s sheep, now that they know that they can be their own shepherds. An external authority, even when it is called God in certain scriptures, threatening and promising alternately, is increasingly making less and less impression; people now realize that Godhead is their own true, secret status and they seek it in the depth of their own being. All this is in keeping with the wisdom of the east.

At this juncture, one of the great Vedantists of the West, David Frawley, whose Hindu name is Vamadeva Shastri, has written a book, Yoga and the Sacred Fire(Self-Realization and Planetary Transformation).

I felt the necessity to write this book, Agneya-Koia of Bharatavara, so that the cultural developments of the region and their contributions to humanity can be known.

The author is grateful to his wife, Rani Rajshree Devi of Khariar, for providing solitariness by taking up all worldly responsibilities. Without her assistance and support, the author could not have devoted to research and written various books listed on the facing title page.

The history of the evolution of Sanatana Dharma, the Hindu philosophy, starts with four Vedas Rgveda, Yajurveda, Samaveda and Atharvaveda and six Darsana Sastras — Pürva-Mimamsa of sage Jaimini, Nyaya by sage Gautama, Vaisesika by sage Kanada, Samkhya by sage Kapila, Yoga by sage Patanjali and Uttara-Mimãmsa (Brahma-Sutra) by sage Veda Vyasa.

In the words of Swami Chinmayananda:

We have thus in Indian philosophy today altogether six recognized main schools of thoughts, all of them arguing differently to arrive at seemingly independent conclusions, which, when digested by a sincere student (sadhaka), would indicate the same truth. To help us gain a comparative estimate of the relative merits of these different systems of thoughts, scholars have provided us with a beautiful classification of all these schools of thoughts.

The chart shown on the next page classifies the different philosophies, according to the Hindu tradition.

Swami Chinmayananda2 further informs that the Samkhya philosophy is the most scientific in treatment and so, perhaps, the most appealing to the modern mind of our scientific age. The Samkhyans are extremely rational; their scientific approach has the flavour of modernity. The Samkhyans again fall under two groups, marshalled behind two great expounders of this school of thought, Kapila and Patanjali. Kapila’s philosophy does not take into consideration the God principle; while Patanjali adds to the fundamental factors of his doctrine, the concept of Isvara also. On this basis, these philosophies are termed “Nir-Isvara Samkhya”, and “Sa-lvara Sathkhya.

According to kapila vatsyayan the system of samkhya yoga can be summarized as shown in chart.

The early archaeological remains showing the origins of samkhya darsana and yoga darsana are traced in the great Mahanadi river valley and they are dealt in chapters 1 and 2.

Great politics has been done to ancient Indian history by English historians.4 In the words of His Divinity, Dharma Chakravarti Swami Prakashanand Saraswati:

This is the age of materialism called Kaliyuga that started 5,101 years ago (3102 BCE). The effects of Kaliyuga are to despise the Divine Truth and to elevate the anti-God elements in the name of Cod. Its effects have been clearly visible for the last 2,500 years when Jagadguru sankaracarya descended in India. But in the last 200 years such despisations were much greater when the English regime tried to destroy the culture and the religion of India by all means, and, during that time, they deliberately produced such derogatory literatures in huge quantities that confused and misguided the whole world.

Trying to impose the worldliness of their own culture upon the Hindu faith, they introduced such fictitious theories and disparaging dogmas that produced a derogatory and demeaning view of Hinduism, These publications affected the minds of Hindu writers to such an extent that they also began to think and write on the same lines. As a result of that, the reputed organizations like Ramakrishna Mission and Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan and world-known learned scholars like Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, produced such books that were the replicas of the same trend that was promoted by Sir William Jones, the associates of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Max Muller (who was a highly paid employee of East India Company), and many more.

The Indian rsis, yogis and saints through intuitive wisdom and knowledge have dealt in every aspect of human life and wisdom, which are supposed to live with the nature and thereby maintain equilibrium. In the words of Swami Prakashanand Saraswati:

Seeing such an amazing spiritual greatness of India, which was a ruled colony of the British, their vanity was hurt and their hearts revolted. They couldn’t believe that India had such a deep and descriptive divine philosophy since time immemorial whose single ray incorporates the teachings of all the pious religions of the rest of the world. At the same tame, recognizing the blemishes of their own culture and of their own religion of the wrathful God of the Bible whose beliefs induced the killing and burning of millions of innocent people, they, as a psychological reaction of their prejudiced minds, decided to crush the Hindu culture to the extremes and bring it as low as possible.

Because of this background, false history of ancient India has been written and taught in the Indian educational institutions. Hence, to showcase the true history, I have taken up the regional study of the Agneya-Koria, i.e. south-east India.

Vedic rsis and their disciples had civilized the entire world in ancient period. “The missing link of world civilization: Indo-Aryan colonization” has been worked out in recent years by Vishnu Kant Varma. The author had earlier stated that Varahamihira, in his Brhat-Sathhita, put Kosala, Kalinga, Vanga, Upa-Vanga, Jathar, Anga, Sailik, Vidarbha, Vatsa, Andhra, Cedi, Udharva, Kant, Brusa, Naliker and Charmadip in the Agneya-Koiia (i.e. south-east) of India. The grouping of states indicates that Kosala here refers to Daksina Kosala or South Kosala.

From the grouping of states in Agneya-Kona, i.e. south-east India, it seems that the centre of Agneya-Kona is the Great Mahanadi River Valley. With this background, the author1° had written a book Tantric Hedonism of Mahanadi Valley . In that book, all aspects of Agneya-Kona could not be dealt. Therefore, comes the endeavour to write the present book.

Each and every corner of India had contributed to the Great Tradition of Bharatavarsa.’1 From the archaeological antiquities traced and discovered in this region, it is observed that Tantra and the two main trends which originated in this area are the Samkhya Darsana and Yoga Darsana. This background developed Sapta-Matrka worship, Sixty-four Yogini cult, sculptures and temple architectures with eroticism and the great Jagannatha cult, which is the syncretic culture, meant for the present world.

K.C. Mishra dealt the theology of the system of Yoga in the Jagannatha cult and states:

The most important aspect of the Cult of Jagannatha is its elaborate system of Yoga which is mainly based upon the hatha-yoga. The aims of Yoga system are to control diseases, decay and death through physical culture and to realize the Alekha Niranjana (the formless and the spotless) by transmuting the subtler body into a gross physical super conscious one. The theory of the six plexuses (sat cakra), the thousand-petalled lotus (sahasrara) and that of the three mystic nerves, i.e. ida, pingala, susumna giving the processes of breath control like puraka, kumbhaka and recaka together with various practices of madras and bandhas are taken in more or less modified form by these Vaisinavas from earlier Tantra-Yoga practices. They also name, after hatha-yoga, their Yoga system as ghata-yoga, which means the Yoga of the body (ghata).

It is impossible to describe here in detail the elaborate yogic processes of the Jagannatha cult, so we simply present below the salient features of it with a view to pointing out its distinctive nature. The yogic philosophers of Orissa seem to have made a thorough survey of the whole nervous system of the human body, and they counted altogether 72,000 nerves from the naval region of the body. Out of these 72,000 only ten nerves are considered to be essential for yogic practices and they are named as ida, pingala, susumnã, gandhari, hastijihva, pusa, yasasvini, alambusa, kuhu and 4ankhini. But only the first three nerves are regarded as the most important ones, and they are located inside the vertebral column — 4/a on the left, pin gala on the right and susumna in the middle — running parallel to one another. These three mystic nerves meet together inside the forehead in between the two eyes, where both the nostrils meet the juncture is known as trikuta. Above trikuta, there is a small slit known as the brahmarandhra, leading to the region of Alekha, and the valve of the slit is as delicate as the skin of the sesame seed. The sadhaka is to raise the vital wind upward through susumna and keep it in the trikuta, and then, opening the gate of brahmarandhra, should concentrate upon Alekha, whereby he would easily conquer Yama, the God of Death. The vital energy or the life-force, conceived in the nature of the coiled snake and, hence called kundalini, is taken to be tending downward in the case of the ordinary human being who fretters it away in various worldly indulgences. In yogic sadhana, this vital force is to be given an upward direction, which is called ulta or ujani (reverse) sadhana, implying a process of reversal from the world of pravrtti to the state of nivrtti.

There are six cakras in the human body, and kundalini in her reverse (ulta) ascent towards nivrtti is to gradually pass through them, making the different stages of Yoga. The final stage, however, is reached when the slit at the top of the triicu7a can be opened by constant yogic concentration allowing thus the kui4aiznr to get through the vankunala to the brahma cakra, situated inside the cavity of the head below the skull. This brahma cakra is also called the sahasrara, the thousand-petalled lotus, which is as luminous as the rays of a thousand suns and is described as the incomprehensible region of Alekha. The upward journey of the kuii4ahni towards the sahasrara is considered as the march of the finite towards the infinite, and their union is taken to be the alliance of Radha and Krsna in eternal rasa arena. Moreover, the brahma cakra or the thousand-petalled lotus is regarded as the seat of Jagannatha. Acyutananda in his Chayairsa Pa fain and Balaramadasa in Virafa Gita identify the human body in all its aspects with temple of Jagannatha, making the sahasrara region the thousand-petalled lotus. The logical corollary is that these Orissan Vaisnavas visualize the union of Radha and Krsna as the image of Jagannatha. In other words, Jagannatha to them is not only the visible expression of the incomprehensible Alekha Brahma but also the non-dual conception of both Rädha and Krsna.

Because of these reasons while dealing with indriya and manifestation in the arts, the opinion of Kapila Vatsyayan’3 is very correct, when she states:

Ultimately with the creation of Jayadeva’s Gita-Govinda, and its interpretation by the Goswamin’s Rupa and Jiva, specially in the Ujjvalanilamani, a new sastra of rasa based on sense perceptions and dialogue of firm and atma is enunciated.

The wheel again comes full circle for the texts of bhakti and the theology developed is a consummation of a distinctive comprehension of sense- perceptions and their role in metaphysics, philosophic discourse, medicine, arts and mysticism. This is the holistic system and approach of the Indian tradition, where each concept becomes a hub and Idly for radiating into differing interpretations as spokes but all held together and regulated within the circumference.