This is undoubtedly the most fascinating truth of our existence that WE EXIST. Scientists say that there is innumerable number of galaxies in our universe, as many sand grains there are on a sandy beach, just to give an estimate! However, till date no other planets can claim to harbour habitable situations for intelligent life forms to thrive like that of our very own Earth. So, let’s not get into that debate “Are we alone?”. Instead we must remember that none has contacted us from any other corner of the universe nor from within our milky way galaxy so far and that makes us all alone. Water, methane, ammonia, hydrogen and little support of strong electric flicker are what needed to give birth to life, as per Science. And our little green planet is just at the right spot to nestle all of them at the same place at the right time.  (In fact Astrophysicist Michael Hart concluded after some calculations that Earth would have been uninhabitable had it been just one percent far or five percent closer to the Sun) And voila! You have Life. Therefore, elements of nature are important and that our ancestors had sufficiently accredited them in both of our scriptures and temples built on those scriptures. We owe our existence to these elements found in nature more than any gods and goddesses. But what if the Gods we pray are anthropomorphic forms of these fine essentials of our living!

There is a temple in South India wherein the God Shiva and his consort Parvathi are not seen as husband and wife but as Teacher and Student and therefore are placed one opposite to another. No Shivaratri or Girija-Kalyanam is celebrated here. In this Jambukeshwarar Temple of Tamil Nadu one finds Shiva to be worshipped as Water Lingam or presiding deity of the element Water. Here water flows under the Lingam!

In another temple of Tamil Nadu, Parvathi made Shiva Lingam out of sand to depict the Earth element. Somewhere along the bank of Swarnamukhi river in Andhra Pradesh  He represents air and the lamp keeps flickering despite the presence of any air. It is said that Vayu god  prayed for a boon to be present in all the living creatures and thus Shiva manifested as the Vayu Lingam and vayu became PranVayu.

In another story Shiva manifested himself as a column of fire and Brahma and Vishnu went in search of the fire’s pinnacle and origin respectively, in their private contest for superiority. In Sanatan Dharma, where there is no Adi (beginning) and no Ananta (end), the infinite cannot be gauged. They both failed. Shiva, here atop the Annamalai Hill, depicts the fire element.

Shiva in Chidambaram is nothing but Ether where the priest draws aside the curtain (of ignorance) to reveal the vacant space garlanded by 51 hanging golden leaves. This is where one experiences the ultimate divinity. Where the lotus of thousand petals blossom atop the crest of your body and you fathom the distance between material and spiritual consciousness!

We have always been thankful to these natural elements, phenomenon like Sun Rise, comets or Thunder have always invoked awe from within us and Hinduism has rightly adopted them into its various shastras through stories and incorporated their significance into symbolic gestures of sculptors.

Yamato race who established ‘Shintoism’ or Path of God in Japan, the original animistic religion, believed that all living things are animated by spirits and even today ceremonies are held where spirits are invited to reside, invigorate and nourish the visitors. Sakaki or the evergreen trees are worshipped till date. Similarly in Hindu philosophy it is believed that supreme consciousness resides within each of us enclosed by five layers of or sheaths called Koshas. Temples are built on the same plan as per Vastupurushamandala symbolising the cosmos, the recurrent cycle of time.

By now we all know the initiation of our universe took place at around 13.7 billion years ago with a ‘Big Bang’ and our mathematical probe has concluded with the required consensus that before it there was Singularity. All things compacted into an unimaginable dimensionless, infinitesimally small point. And there was nothing around it. Not even nothingness. Not even void! Ater the event of the big bang the universe is expanding rapidly at an unfathomable speed. Where did singularity came from or what caused it to burst open or where is it heading towards are some questions that we are yet to figure out. This is hard to understand, difficult to comprehend even at this age of modern Science. But our 5000 years old Hinduism (or more) had based its way of life on the fundamentals of ‘No Beginning’ and ‘No end’. It is so fascinating to note that today’s science is validating  yesterday’s tenets and belief, where religion meant not claiming territory or not debasing other beliefs but meant science and science meant religion.

This is not about the greatness of any religion but the farsightedness of our forefathers, their conjecture or their deep association with nature that had enabled them to postulate such profound secrets of the cosmos in easy stories of our Puranas (ancient shastras).