note on Yajna Construction

Note on Yajna construction  : 200 words:

is the very beginning and symbol of Indian culture and civilization. An Indian temple of any type of whatever deity it may be built for is ‘an altar raised to the divine self’ wrote Mahayogi Sri Aurobindo. Thus whatever was told in Yajna became temple in later centuries in Indian History. The layout and construction of a Yajna chiti is needing a lot of knowledge from trigonometry, algebra, astronomy, fractals, basic learning in symmetry, artistic vision and sense of aesthetics and several other subjects. Not just that but a construction of Yajna Chiti is based on deep understanding of various shapes, sizes, their manufacturing,  limits, fits, tolerances, surface and edge finishing and so on. Yajna was a project to be done jointly by many disciples under the guidance of their guru and we see this as an indigenous innovative way of integral education of the student in mathematics, art and science. While Garud Chiti, Shaina chiti, Rathachakra Chiti and Kurma Chiti are four examples chosen. There are many more in it. So we have chosen temple construction as a toy for students and through which they will enjoy and also learn several subjects in higher secondary and even in higher education.

 

Note on temple construction toy : 500 words:

Overview of Idea :

The Toy we have conceived will have all the basic parts needed in all their variants as put in a box and having each one of them some arrangement to join to each other: either like jig saw puzzle and carpentry Fitting jobs,  it can be male and female joints or  it will have close press fitting slots and projection like structure or will have nuts and bolts to join. The completed figures can be many in number from the same parts given.

Yajna or Yagya (Sanskrit: यज्ञ) (IAST: yajñá) means "sacrifice, devotion, worship, offering", and is a  ritual done in front of a sacred fire, often with mantras. Yajna has been a Vedic tradition, described in Vedas, Brahmanas, and especially in Yajurveda. It is considered as messenger of the Gods. From the early dawns of Indian history, when Symbols were everything, The age of Spirituality and Intuition, it was Yajna which symbolised the communication and interdependence between cosmic powers and human beings. ‘Parasparam Bhavyantaha’ as Bhagwat Geeta says; they strived for unity, prosperity by mutual win win situation, a great symbol of continuing of cosmic cycle  by fulfilling each ones duty and giving more than what you receive. For offering oblations and libations into sacred fire to symbolic offerings in the presence of sacred fire (Agni) it eveolevd over the milleniums and yet the spiritual essence was kept in tact.

Yajna rituals-related texts have been called the Karma-kanda (ritual works) portion of the Vedic literature, Yajna have continued to play a central role in a our rites in Upanayan or Vivah or any other auspicious occasion. The puja as we’ll as temple worship in later times evolved from the Yajna.

The starting of a Yajna Chiti construction involves the making of basic geometric shpaes like squares, rectangles, circles and connecting them  to each other and the construction basically starts from understanding types of triangles, Shulba Sutra, areas, volumes and circumference / periphery of different figures.

There are layers of construction which signify symbolically layers of different psychological and spiritual states. For students the starting can be as simple as right angle triangle and Shulba Sutra which is also known as Pythagoras theorem now, Other points to begin are the polar and linear measurements and there relation like area, circumference and volume of different geometric figures, squares and coordinate geometric, second order and third order equations and so on.

Mathematics and architecture are very closely related,

The mathematics is needed for engineering and architects when making 3 D models and prototypes and then to scale it up to actual size. Vastushastra, Jyotirvidya, Jyotish, Tantra, Yoga and many other things are related to temple construction. The layout and construction of a Yajna Chiti  is needing a lot of knowledge from trigonometry, algebra, astronomy, fractals, basic learning in symmetry, artistic vision and sense of aesthetics and several other subjects. It was a great synthesis of integral education in science as well as arts and so we have chosen temple construction as a toy for students and through which they will enjoy and also learn several subjects in higher secondary and even in higher education.