Vertebral Structure Of Human Spine

 In continuation of my observations, earlier posted in FB, about the apparent anomalies of Mother Nature in the design of human physiology ,  I would venture to add the following...

Is not the vertebral structure of human spine an evolutionary oversight?

It's perfectly suited for a quadruped animal or for a reptile.

Without such a structure the degree of flexibility such life forms need in order to move about and chase their prey would've been seriously impaired or even been made impossible.

 For humans with their vertical posture, such a design is a liability,  unnecessarily engendering a host of diseases due to the gravitational weight of the body parts vertically positioned above the plane of the vertebra concerned. (The padding with spongy material, namely the wonder material CARTILAGE' which is almost a SQUEEZABLE bone, on the lower and upper joints of the vertebrae, which exists now, is not enough to last a life-time. On the contrary for quadrupeds the weight of the vertical structures doesn't arise as the body is horizontal and the cartilage effectively does its function lifelong).This fact seems to have been ignored in the evolutionary process from quadruped monkeys to semi-biped gorillas and chimpanzees to fully biped homo sapiens.

To bend the upper part of the body to touch the ground, ideally humans are expected to use the hip joints (incidentally as realised by the ancient Indian sages who spelt it out in the famous Patanjali Yoga Sastra) and not the vertebrae.

So a straight heavy bone is ideal as the human spine with ribs branching from it.

In the case of an accident involving spine the extent of injury would almost be the same  in both the configurations. Perhaps  the single bone configuration scores better because of the replaceability of the bone with a steel tubing with provisions for jointing the ribs. A vertebral structure demands replacement of each vertebra with jointing to the vertebrae above and below with provisions for axial movement plus the horizontal jointing with rib bones on both sides.

 Undoubtedly in both cases the injury to the Spine is bound to be highly critical as it is the duct that the bundle of nerves known as the Spinal Chord that carry the brain signals to all parts of the body is securely ensconced...

My contention is that Nature is in the process of correcting it's evolutionary mistake. I suppose the number of vertebrae is already less than that of a 4-legged animal of same length of backbone and certainly far less than a reptile of the same lenth. 

It may take a million years for man's spine to evolve into a non-vertebral one...

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Devaswam Department Administering Only Hindu Temples... Does It Suit The Concept Of Democracy?

   I have been a votary of the proposition that it is wrong that the govt, perhaps only of Kerala, takes control of the administration and the huge revenue earned, in respect of the Hindu temples in the state, through a department called Devaswam. 

This is in the scenario of letting the worshipping centres of all other religions to be managed by themselves! 

Apparently this has happened in Kerala because the rulers of the princely state prior to independence were devout Hindus and they took upon themselves the responsibility of promoting the temples. When a democratic govt took over after independence the entire administration was blindly transferred to the new dispensation! No one pointed out this anomaly, not even the Hindu intelligentia, who were apparently in slumber!

The reason why the taking over of Hindu Temple Administration by the govt is unjustifiable is mainly that it is blatantly undemocratic. The additional reason is that the party in power may not be promotive of the religious beliefs and philosophy of the Hindu traditions that govern the working of the temples and hence might go counter to the ethos of Hinduism. Thus it only becomes a huge source of revenue for the govt with  miniscule  expenditure for their maintenance. It could also turn out that the party in power may be out and out agnostic in their attitude to religions, as is the case now in Kerala with the leftist parties in power. 

One way to counter the first criticism is to take over the worshipping places of other religions as well. However the govt lacks the guts to do that. If they attempt to touch the Islamic mosques or Christian churches there would be uncontrollable bloodshed, and the govt would be kicked out  of power. Even if the govt theoretically  succeeds in such an attempt the second issue still stands valid. Hindus, however, are largely a pacifist lot and lack the initiative to take up the issue legally with the Supreme Court. So they seem to be taking the present state of affairs as their fate! 

Of late after further introspection I too feel inclined to accept the existing practice to continue. My reason is the following. Whom will the govt hand over the administration if the Supreme Court passes a verdict to put an end to the govt's control over Hindu temples? The religion has no Body which has the approval of the various Castes to represent the religion. First they will have to take a united stand to elect a Body which is competent to represent them, which is a tough issue. That will need Casteism to go! Will the majority community be able to measure up to meet the challenge? How can people discard Caste when so many benefits revolve around that? The strange thing is that those who belong to the so-called 'lower'

Castes wouldn't like others to address them by their Caste denominations (it is a punishable criminal offence!), but would hold on to their Castes to enjoy the benefits thereof! 

The reservation system based on Castes which was envisaged by our Constitution makers to be in force for the first 10 years after independence has become perennial in our Vote Bank politics! The irony is that the benefits have been mostly annexed by the creamy layers in each Caste and thus have not achieved the purpose they were intended to serve. Thus we have ended up in this unsolvable conundrum of Democracy which perhaps no other democratic country in the world is a victim of !!!

Caste System Of Hinduism

 

The single inconsistency, in my humble opinion, militating against the characteristic universalism and tolerance of Hinduism,  is unfortunately the layered 'Casteism' that it unwittingly promoted  over perhaps millennia!

Hinduism is indeed the embodiment of dharma and culture of Indians,  which unfortunately is referred to as a 'religion' ( à la Semitic Religions) from the time of the cataclysmic invasions of a few centuries ago that happened from our northwestern frontier. It existed from pre-historic times for over 5000 years in India, distinct from and beyond the restrictive semitic definition of 'religion'.

 'Casteism' by itself is, in my view, a brilliant concept  introduced to enable specialisation in specific professions by ensuring that future practitioners could learn the profession from birth, watching parents practising the profession,  within the four walls of the household. Such a possibility of INHERITING the profession alone will provide the necessary environment to attain perfection in it and to take it to its pinnacle of excellence.

Today's 'professional societies' aim at the same goal but without the possibility of INHERITING the profession, thus mitigating the opportunity that promotes excellence. 

The problem arose when the concept of Hierarchy got superimposed on Casteism, obviously due to the narrow selfish interests of a section of the society and as a sequel the liberty to change the profession at any point in future was denied.

A consequence of fundamental and far-reaching effect of such a Caste System was that the right to know about the spiritual/philosophic aspects of the Hindu culture became the  prerogative of a certain section of the society and others were denied the knowledge. The great Vedic literature, Upanishads,  the Itihasas and other spiritual texts thus remained beyond the reach of other sections of the society. 

It is only for the last few decades that an effort is on to propagate the knowledge and to grant access to the texts, thanks to the great services of Swamy Vivekananda, Swamy Chinmayananda in the beginning, and  is continued by spiritual gurus like Shri Shri Ravi Shankar, Mata Amritanandamayi, Sadguru Jaggi Vasudev, Swamy Bhoomananda Tirtha and many others who are alive and working in present times.

 The Hindu temples are yet to take up this responsibility of interpreting the wealth of our spiritual texts to commoners and to make it possible for them to learn the great language of these texts, Sanskrit, to enable them to read and understand the texts directly.

No wonder that Hadiyas are born in the Hindu Society because the youngsters are ignorant and defenceless spiritually!

The culture of Hinduism is fundamentally secular ( not in the sense certain political parties are now preaching) and welcomes all cultures of the world to coexist with it and  welcomes the members of all religions to live and prosper in this land as it's neighbours. It has never exerted an anti-foreigner preference, though paradoxically that very same attitude has been so cruelly and unethically exploited to subjugate this great country of ours and its basic culture! If some fringe elements of that culture is acting against this basic tenet, know that it is as a natural human response to the attitude of aggression and forcible conversions directed towards it.

It's unquestionably to its credit that it so admirably withstood the incessant onslaughts by the semitic religions in the nature of forced conversions and brutal diabolic torture and extermination they unleashed on it from the time of Moghal rule and also to the additional psychological aggression through Macaulayan strategy by the British employed to instill inferiority about our culture, language and all the wealth of spiritual, philosophical, artistic, medical, scientific, astronomical and mathematical  achievements of a few thousand years! 

The testimony to its relevance today is the fact that it survives with  unquestionable validity despite the propagation of some semitic religions which took birth thousands of years later with ostensibly more and more modern concepts about God and Creation!  

The western civilizations, for the past couple of centuries, seem to have realised the lofty principles on which Indian culture is founded and are progressively welcoming it's propagation on their shores and their members are arriving in India in large numbers to attend discourses at the Ashrams of our modern-day Gurus.

'LOKA SAMASTA SUKHINO BHAVANTU !' ( May the people of the whole world flourish in Happiness, Harmony, Peace and Prosperity!) the great Upanishadic principle still continues to govern India's great indigenous culture. 

Let us not provoke that culture to discard that  universal message of the Upanishad!