Lingodhbhava - The Case of Multiple Dimensions

 I left my work halfway through writing this, so let me first provide you a context.

I am researching and writing a document for a science exhibition in my school, on the topic of black holes. While researching Time Dilation, I once again met a familiar topic I once studied briefly in the past, the 4^th dimension. For the past years, I have been deeply interested in, and learned briefly about Hinduism, alongside its perception of reality and the universe.  After all these years, all this information together churned in my mind, and this is the outcome.

 

It is no surprise that the concepts of Hinduism have been intertwined with new scientific discoveries time and time again. Be it conductivity of current, the Pythagorean theorem, surgery, solar eclipses and a lot more. But all of the above are just substantial evidence for proven theories. There are no hypothetical situations in any of the above cases.

So why not see, if we can find a link between an ancient script, and a hypothetical unproven theory.  

Now with ourselves, we have two distinct topics. The 4^th dimension, and Lingodhbhava. Let’s uncover each of them one at a time.

Starting with the story of Lingodhbhava.

There was once a fiery debate between Lord Vishnu and Lord Brahma. These deities wanted a clear establishment of who was superior to the other. Whilst in the middle of their conflict, they notice a massive pillar of light. Emerged from the pillar of light the voice of Lord Shiva, in the form of Lingodhbava, who challenged both Lord Brahma and Lord Vishnu to find the source of this light.

At once, Lord Vishnu took the form of a boar (Varaha Avatharam) and dug into the Earth to find the source. Lord Brahma assumed the form of a swan (Hamsa) and soared into the skies. Despite their maximum effort, none of the lords could find the source of the pillar of light. While Lord Vishnu conceded, Lord Brahma alleged that he had found the top of the “lingam” (Here, pillar). He claimed to have found the Ketaki Flower in his hand from atop the lingam.

Lord Shiva was enraged. He explained that there was no end, nor a beginning to this lingam. It was eternal.

While the story does not end here, the part explaining the concept of Lingodbhava does.

And now for the concept of the 4^th dimension. The obvious answer would be time. And that might be correct. But have we TRULY considered all the possibilities before coming to this conclusion?

Are there truly no more PHYSICAL dimensions?

The most popular concept when it comes to the fourth dimension (apart from time) is the concept of tesseract. If the above image confuses you, do not worry, as it confuses me too.

String Theory also talks about these additional dimensions, stating that they exist in smaller scales. String theory explains that the fundamental element is a string, whose movement can’t be captured in 3 dimensions.

A simple cartesian plane in Mathematics also fails to capture the sense of the 4^th dimension for many. 

 

I wonder why.

We the people of the present are unable to comprehend the fourth dimension in its entirety. Perhaps we could figure something out in the future. Or have we already figured something out in the past?

That’s when I got reminded of the story of Lingodhbhava. While this story has no mention of the term dimensions, it brings an important concept into the equation. The concept of Infinity.

Let me explain my thought process as simply as I can here. Let’s say we have a conference room. A long table in the centre, and leather chairs decked out surrounding the table. This conference room is cuboid in shape if you exclude the woodwork and paints. To measure the volume of this room, we need three values. Length, breadth and height. You miss one value; it becomes impossible to find the volume.

So, say the room was increased horizontally indefinitely. You couldn’t see the end of the table, and chairs continued to fill the open gaps as far as your eyes could see. This room was huge. It had a table with no end and infinite chairs. Could you still find the volume of this? No. You don’t have all three values height, length and width anymore. This means an object with an infinite in any of its dimensions has an indefinite volume.

Or perhaps if you label the length as x, the volume of this room would be Height X Breadth X x.

Ok, forget volume. Can finding the area of this room give us an idea about its size? No, it can’t. Mainly because it doesn’t take into account all the dimensions. When we calculate the area of any 2-dimensional Object, we consider the height to be 0. Mainly because we don’t find the beginning or the ending of the height.

Familiar line?

The story of Lingodhbhava encapsulates the concept of infinity, and the incapability to measure it. Sure we could assign variables, but then the answer would be incomplete. So how do we find the true measurement of any of these values?

Is it even possible?

In the same conference room, if we had an idea about what lay Next, something BEYOND volume, we could have derived the formula for the length, and eventually the volume itself.

To measure something, we need all its dimensions, and to truly understand all its dimensions we need all the values. If a value is missing, it must mean that it is beyond our vision (Like infinity).

Let me repeat.

To measure something, we need all its dimensions, and to truly understand all its dimensions we need all the values. If a value is missing, it must mean that it is beyond our vision (Like infinity).

And a simple question, what is the universe?

Infinite.

There are no borders to the universe. It is an infinite expanse in all directions and all dimensions.

There are over 6 different theories all which suggest that there are more dimensions than just 4. Well, whether any of them are valid isn’t known in the present, perhaps only in the future, and the past.