SRIMAD BHAGAVATAM 1.12.

12 TRANSLATION

Thereupon, when all the good signs of the zodiac gradually evolved, the heir apparent of Pandu, who would be exactly like him in prowess, took birth.
PURPORT Astronomical calculations of stellar influences upon a living being are not suppositions, but are factual, as confirmed in Srimad Bhagavatam. Every living being is controlled by the laws of nature at every minute, just as a citizen is controlled by the influence of the state. The state laws are grossly observed, but the laws of material nature, being subtle to our gross understanding, cannot be experienced grossly. As stated in the Bhagavad-gita (3.9), every action of life produces another reaction, which is binding upon us, and only those who are acting on behalf of Yajna (Visnu) are not bound by reactions. Our actions are judged by the higher authorities, the agents of the Lord, and thus we are awarded bodies according to our activities. The law of nature is so subtle that every part of our body is influenced by the respective stars, and a living being obtains his working body to fulfill his terms of imprisonment by the manipulation of such astronomical influence. A man's destiny is therefore ascertained by the

birthtime constellation of stars, and a factual horoscope is made by a learned astrologer. It is a great science, and misuse of a science does not make it useless. Maharaja Pariksit or even the Personality of Godhead appear in certain constellations of good stars, and thus the influence is exerted upon the body thus born at an auspicious moment. The most auspicious constellation of stars takes place during the appearance of the Lord in this material world, and it is specifically called jayanti, a word not to be abused for any other purposes. Maharaja Pariksit was not only a great ksatriya emperor, but also a great devotee of the Lord. Thus he cannot take his birth at any inauspicious moment. As a proper place and time is selected to receive a respectable personage, so also to receive such a personality as Maharaja Pariksit, who was especially cared for by the Supreme Lord, a suitable moment is chosen when all good stars assembled together to exert their influence upon the King. Thus he took his birth just to be known as the great hero of Srimad Bhagavatam. This suitable arrangement of astral influences is never a creation of man's will, but is the arrangement of the superior management of the agency of the Supreme Lord. Of course, the arrangement is made according to the good or bad deeds of the living being. Herein lies the importance of pious acts performed by the living

being. Only by pious acts can one be allowed to get good wealth, good education and beautiful features. The samskaras of the school of sanatana-dharma (man's eternal engagement) are highly suitable for creating an atmosphere for taking advantage of good stellar influences, and therefore garbhadhana-samskara, or the first seedling purificatory process prescribed for the higher castes, is the beginning of all pious acts to receive a good pious and intelligent class of men in human society. There will be peace and prosperity in the world due to good and sane population only; there is hell and disturbance only because of the unwanted, insane populace addicted to sex indulgence.

His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ What follows is a report by Basu Ghosh Das, concerning a large conference on Cosmology , held in Baroda, India in 2010. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Global Conference on Cosmology @ Bangalore
BY: BASU GHOSH DAS Dec 11, 2010 BARODA, INDIA (SUN) Following is a short report on the recently held "Global Conference on Cosmology" at Bangalore, attended and addressed by three ISKCON devotees: Rasaraj Prabhu of the BI (Berkeley/Bombay), Basu Ghosh das (myself), President, ISKCON Baroda, and Antardwip Prabhu of the Bhaktivedanta Academy, Mayapur. There are more than 500 photos of the conference that appear

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in our gallery. IskconBaroda.com

Devotee Scholars Attend Cosmology Conference

By Basu Ghosh das

A "Global Conference on Cosmologies Perspectives of the Universe" took place from December 2-4, 2010, at Bangalore The conference was organized by the Srinivas Jyotish Vigyan Research Foundation, founded and headed by Sri Dev Nath Acharya, and headquartered at Srirangam, Tamil Nadu. The conference venue was the auditorium of the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS), located on the campus of the famed Indian Institute of Science, established more than a century ago. The invited speakers were accommodated in the NIAS guesthouse adjacent to the auditorium. The conference was inaugurated by Karnataka Chief Minister (functional head of the Government of Karnataka), the Honorable Sri B.S. Yeddyurappa. In his inaugural address he expressed his pleasure of being present at the conference as well as expressing the importance of the knowledge of the ancient Indian literatures. The keynote address was presented by Dr. G. Madhavan Nair, the former chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization, ISRO, the Indian Government space exploration agency. He presented a slideshow depicting ISRO's "Chandrayaan" project that launched an unmanned research vehicle into outer space, and its findings. The rest of the 3-day conference was a series of sessions in which various invited academics discussed Cosmology in its various aspects from different perspectives. The list of prominent speakers included Professor B. V. Sreekantan, the distinguished High Energy Astrophysicist, Dr. Smita Jha from the humanities department at IIT Rourkela, , Dr. Jarita Holbrook from UCLA, Rasaraj das, Director of the Bhaktivedanta Institute, Prof. M.A. Lakshmi Thathachar of the Samskrit Foundation, Prof. M. Venkata Krishnan, Head of the Dept. of Vaishnavism, Madras University, Sri. R. Ganesh, "shata avadhani", Prof. K. Ramasubramanian, Presidential Awardee from the Humanities Department at IIT, Bombay, and Dr. Priyadarshana Jain, Head, Dept. of Jainism, Madras University. The readers of this would be particularly happy to learn that three ISKCON devotees, Basu Ghosh das (yours truly, President, ISKCON Baroda), Rasaraja Prabhu (AKA Prof. Ravi Gomatam,

Director, Bhaktivedanta Institute, as well as Director for the newly formed Institute for Semantic Information Sciences and Technology [ISIST], Berkeley/Bombay) and Sriman Antardwip das (Bhaktivedanta Academy, Sridham Mayapur), were invited to speak, and each gave a talk and submitted written papers at the conference. Rasaraja Prabhu's talk was titled "Toward a possible new mathematical conception of space to understand Puranic cosmology scientifically." He started by pointing out that Bhagavat descriptions of cosmology seem to defy common sense perception and modern scientific observations, as in describing the height of the Himalayas as 80,000 miles (SB 5.6.19). He then showed how his own original research in developing a new field of physics called Macroscopic Quantum Mechanics (MQM) opens the way for a new conception of space in both scientific and commonsense thinking that can fit Bhagavat descriptions nicely. One of the attendees, a physics teacher, later said that while many other attempts to link Vedic cosmology to modern science were weak, "your talk alone made attending the conference worthwhile for me." Basu Ghosh das, who's talk was entitled "The Cosmos and it's depiction in the Temple of the Vedic Planetarium: presenting the Bhagavat concept of the Universe to the World" first of all presented a short movie displaying the design concepts of the Temple of the Vedic Planetarium at Mayapur. He then explained how ISKCON was founded to propagate the Vedic concepts, knowledge and dharma around the world. ISKCON's Founder-Acarya Srila Prabhupada conveyed the clear conception of the origin of the universe based on both the Mahabharata in the Bhagavad-gita and the Srimad Bhagavatam, the Bhagavat Mahapurana. He also commented that Prabhupada and the Vedic tradition teaches that the Vedas, Itihasas and Puranas are true history and not mythology. He expressed surprise that a number of Indian scholars accept the Western contention that this is all false, and that they accept the "wild speculation" of the "big bang" theory of the creation of the Universe. He presented more than sixty slides showing the Bhagavat conception of the creation and the universe, Srila Prabhupada's desire to construct the ToVP, Srila Prabhupada inspiring Ambarish Prabhu (Alfred B. Ford) to finance the ToVP, and pictures of the ongoing construction of the ToVP at Mayapur and section plans of the ToVP. He also presented a few interesting

details about the construction of the ToVP, such as the fact that the ToVP will be supported by two thousand seven hundred pilings that have already been made, and that in the pilings stainless steel was used instead of regular steel, etc. Antardwip Prabhu spoke on the topic: "On reconciling Puranic cosmologies and Surya Siddhanta." He pointed out that while Puranic cosmologies give a description that presupposes subtler planes of perception, the Siddhanta texts describe a cosmology more akin to present common sense perception, and how both descriptions can be reconciled. Rasaraj Prabhu chaired one of the nine, one and a half hour sessions, and Basu Ghosh das also chaired one session. Some of the other topics presented at the conference: African Cosmology, Pre-historic observational astronomy in India, Creation Shrishti Vignana [presenting the vedic concept of cosmology], Physics of Rotating and Expanding black-hole universe, Metaphysics and modern Science, Cosmogony and space from rock arts, Cosmology of Sankhya-yoga, Reconciling aspects of Darshanas [the six ancient Indian philosophies] and modern physics, The esoteric cosmology of the Vedas, Ancient Indian Cosmology observational perspectives, How did Indian Astronomers predict the celestial events accurately?, Cosmology in ancient art, Cosmology in Sanskrit folk literature, Indian astronomical tables with special reference to the South Indian practices, Cosmic geometries of holy places of North India, Jain Cosmology and it's application for conscious evolution, Cosmology and Agama [shastras], Cosmology according to the Puranas, and Cosmology and Sankhya. Concluding the program, the Honorable former Justice of the Supreme Court of India, Sri M.N. Venkatachaliah gave the valedictory address. Thereafter, concluding remarks were presented by the NIAS Director, Prof. V.S. Ramamurthy. The proceedings of the conference containing all the papers will be published in the near future by the organizers. Copyright 2005,2010, HareKrsna.com. All rights reserved.