Friday, September 15, 2017

Cassini – created for Saturn, offered to Saturn!

Anything that has a beginning will have an end too. Cassini, the brainchild of mankind found its end an hour ago. It was a touching to hear the Cassini team bidding farewell to their creation that they followed meticulously for nearly 20 years.


For me, this moment of plunge of Cassini into Saturn is a reminder of the Vedic mantras. In the Vedic yajnas we make offerings to a specific deity in order to invoke the blessings of that deity. The offerings come first and then only the blessings follow. In the case of Cassini, Cassini received all about the Saturn in the first instance and finally gave itself as an offering to Saturn – swaha.

Shanaischarāya swāha/ shanascharāya idam na mama//

This was created for Saturn, was offered to Saturn. This is for Saturn, not for us! 
In the process, Saturn revealed itself to mankind through this that was offered.

For the scientific community, the gains have been tremendous through this probe.

For the Vedic culture too, there are gains. Three major revelations were gained from this probe which I have discussed in the past.

One is the knowledge about what actually the ‘exaltation of a planet’ means. Cassini probe showed that Sun’s northern sojourn on Saturn coincided with the time Saturn is supposed to move towards its exaltation (in Libra) in the astrological sense.


Saturn, due to its tilt like the earth is experiencing seasonal changes, with the movement of direct sunlight from north to south and south to north. North is auspicious in Vedic culture. The exaltation period of Saturn coinciding with Sun in the northern hemisphere of Saturn is a valuable and a surprising input for us. Without Cassini probe we would not have known this. I am tempted to extend this logic for other planets too, for their exaltation and debilitation signs though I am yet to come across corroboratory information from scientific probes to other planets.

The second revelation for us is the amazing formation of a hexagon on the North pole of Saturn, pictured by Cassini.


The hexagon is the basic design of the Yantra of Saturn upon which 2 triangles are inscribed one on each other. The same pattern can be formed in the above picture of Saturn’s hexagonal design captured by Cassini. It is shown below.

What we see as a result is the Yantra of Saturn!


As far as I know the Yantra of Saturn with this image is directly worshiped as a deity (Saturn) only in Tamilnadu in a temple at Thiru Erikkuppam near Arni, in Tiruvannamalai district. This is inscribed on a stone and dated 500 years ago.


The design of the Yantra concurring with the polar design of Saturn is really an amazing finding from the Cassini probe.

The third revelation is the discovery of hydrocarbons in Titan (satellite of Saturn) by Cassini. This raises scope for formation of pre-biotic like chemical substances in Titan sometime in a distant future. In other words Saturn’s satellite houses seeds of future life! 

Mosaic of Titan from Cassini's Feb 2005 fly-by. 

This is an amazing discovery from Vedic point of view, as Prajapati, the progenitor of life and living things has been assigned to lord over Saturn in the Nakshtra Sooktha of Yajur Veda!

Today life is present in Bhu loka (earth). As everything has to come to an end, life will come to an end sometime on earth. This can re-phrased as –  anything created, has to come to an end, earth would come to an end – not LIFE!

Life is what exists always. We can’t create nor destroy Life. Life exists in its subtle form everywhere, but when circumstances become conducive, it gets manifest. There is a continuity of life from one phase to another or one stage to another. When Life’s presence on earth comes to an end, it has to move on and continue elsewhere. Perhaps from the same solar system, it might find a host in Titan and progress along with the flow and evolve someday in another space and time of the Universe.
Cassini’s core molecules were digested by now by Saturn, but its legacy has left a trail in our minds too.


Related articles: