The article below is a brief but fitting tribute to the memory of Dr C V Raman, the Nobel Prize winning physicist from India — the man who first shed light on Light with his theory that came to be known as the “The Raman Effect” in theoretical Physics.
https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/raman-sea/?utm_source=newsletter
A Distinct Phenomenon in Itself: C. V. Raman’s Discovery of Why the Sea is Blue (1921)
The quote below is from the above article and it immediately grabbed my attention for a reason that has —let me hasten to say — nothing really to do with Theoretical Physics (about which, by the way, I must at once confess, my knowledge is little more than what I once upon a time long ago acquired in high school) . What captured my interest is something entirely far removed indeed from Science … which I shall explain it later here below but only after first we have discussed Dr. Sir C V Raman’s own physicist’s inquiry into why the ocean waters appear blue; and how he disabused the scientific community as much as the commoner of the mistaken notion that the blueness of the sea is attributable to the reflection of of the vast blue skies that stretch across the vast universe.
QUOTE:
“In September 1921, a largely unknown Indian scientist was returning from his first trip overseas where he had attended an international universities congress in Oxford. He had ample time as his ship, SS Narkunda, made its way to Bombay via the Suez Canal to consider more deeply a question that had begun to concern him ever since his first voyages shuttling between Calcutta and Rangoon as a young civil servant in British-ruled India: why is the sea blue?
In 1899, the English physicist Lord Rayleigh had breezily dismissed the matter. “The much admired dark blue of the deep sea has nothing to do with the colour of water”, he wrote, “but is simply the blue of the sky seen by reflection.” However, the Indian scientist begged to differ. Staring over the steamer’s rail at “the deeper waters of the Mediterranean and Red Seas”, C. V. Raman saw, with the aid of a special prism to eliminate reflected sky light, that the blue was more intrinsic.
In a short paper, which would later appear in Nature, penned even before stepping off the Narkunda in Bombay harbour, he wrote:
“It was abundantly clear from the observations that the blue colour of the deep sea is a distinct phenomenon in itself, and not merely an effect due to reflected skylight. . . . the hue of the water is of such fullness and saturation that the bluest sky in comparison with it seems a dull grey.” Rayleigh had explained the blue of the sky using a formula to describe the scattering of sunlight by molecules in the air. In this process, the light preserves its wavelength or colour, with short-wavelength blue light scattered more effectively than other colours of longer wavelength. When he had completed further experiments in Calcutta, Raman confirmed that a similar effect pertained for light encountering water molecules, with the blue light scattered most effectively and other colours quickly absorbed, leading the sea to appear saturated by blue.”
UNQUOTE
The colour Blue is a phenomenon of deep wonder, indeed! It has a strange power to mystify the mind of a physicist as much as it has and can captivate the mind of the spiritual mystic…. And it is precisely from that viewpoint that I, an ordinary mind with little pretensions to scientific bent, wish to explore and appreciate the “Raman Effect”.
The colour Blue has always held a nameless and inexplicable mystery for both the scientist and the mystic. And for the mystic-poets and mystic-scientists of the world too… For it was truly out of poetic fascination with the colour Blue, in fact, that its many evocative synonyms were coined — viz. azure, cerulean, sapphire. sky-colored. or ultramarine.
For lovers of English poetry, here is a sampling of famous lines of verse that all wax so eloquently upon the inexpressible mystery of the colour Blue :
The blue bell is the sweetest flower
That waves in summer air;
Its blossoms have the mightiest power
To soothe my spirit’s care. . (Emily Brontë, ‘The Blue Bell’)
Into my heart an air that kills
From yon far country blows:
What are those blue remembered hills,
What spires, what farms are those? . A. E. Housman, ‘Into My Heart an Air That Kills’.
Thus, all three of them — scientist, poet and mystic — can be said to obsess about it while trying to understand its cause, nature, effect and the ethereal quality of that haunting hue called Blue …
Among the scientists there are quite a few who were able indeed to comprehend and unravel at least a little of its mysterious allure. But then such comprehension is always limited to the study of Light and Blue as plain scientific phenomena —- much as Dr. C V Raman’s itself clearly was. But while the scientist seeks to know how Blue is seen to be blue on the shimmering seas, the misty mountains or distant farms — or else how White, the primary colour, turns blue in spectrum physics — the mystic, dissatisfied with questions of mere “How”, ardently seeks to plumb depths of inquiry even further. The saint wants to know the mystery of Why blue is Blue… And it was perhaps to that relentless quest of science and of mysticism — or rather, shall we say, by borrowing the poetic metaphors of Doctor and the Saint — into the mystery of Blue, that the poet Omar Khayyam was alluding in a verse in his famous Rubbaiyyat:
“Myself when young did eagerly frequent, Doctor and Saint, and heard great argument About it and about: but evermore came out By the same door as in I went.”
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Let’s now turn to the utterances of the mystics and saints on what they had experienced subjectively as Blue-ness. Here below are a few examples from the vast body of Vedic and Vedantic literature, the true cultural riches of our ancient land:
In the ancient temple town of Sri Rangam is the magnificent abode of the Deity of Sri Ranganathaswamy, the iconic (Archaa) form of the Almighty Sriman Naaraayana. This “archaamurthy” is of such bewitching beauty indeed that many saints and mystics of India found themselves absolutely mesmerised by the paroxysmal ecstasy they plunged into at its mere sight!
One such mystic saint was Sri Tiruppaan Azhwaar (8-9th century CE). He was a bardic minstrel who was besotted with supreme bhakthi for the Deity of Sri Rangam but, since he belonged to a lower caste-order, was unable to gain entry into the temple sanctum to feast his eyes upon the divine icon. But thanks to a miraculous set of circumstances, when he did gain entrance into the sanctum, and for the very first time in life set eyes upon Sri Ranganathaswamy, he was seized by a shuddering mystic experience that shook him to the very roots of his being, his heart and soul!
In that rare moment of epiphany, the Azhwaar perceived the divine reality in all its glory — and in an all-enveloping haze of swirling, mind-bending aura of pure and brilliant blue !
Unable to fathom the intensity of that moment when he experienced the unbearable lightness of Being as pure Cosmic Energy, the Azhwaar involuntarily broke out into a song of bliss ! That song in chaste Tamizh is known today as “amalanadipiraan” , which is just one hymn of 10-verses in the larger body of Tamil hymnology popularly known today as “naalaayira divya Prabhandham (“the 4000- mystic hymns”).
On setting eyes on the “archaamurthy” of Lord Ranganatha, these were the exultant words of Tiruppaan Azhwaar:
“His Holy Body (Archa form) of blue diamond lustre, of ineffable beauty and bewitching complexion; such a divine BODY of this God (Neela meni) , aiyO! It has seized my mind… filling up my heart and soul with awe and rapture!”
Another mystic saint in the same pantheon of the holy Azhwaars (numbering twelve in all) was Saint Nammaazhwaar (8th century CE) who too experienced divine reality in the iconic form of Sriman Narayana manifesting as pure aura in dazzling blue.
In his magnificent hymns of great mystic insight known today as the compendium of “TiruvaiMozhi”, Nammaazhwaar gave vent to his subjective experiences of divine bliss in nothing but colours of deep and delightful blue :
“arugal ilaaya perum seer amarargaL aadhi mudhalvan/
karugiya neela nan mEni vaNNan senthaamaraik kaNNan/
(Tiruvoimozhi : 1.9.3
vEzha maruppai ositthaan viNNavarkku eNNal ariyaan/
aazha nedung kadal sErnthaan avan en arugalilaanE/
(ibid: 1.9.2
My Emperumaan- my Lord Almighty is the Only Chief of dEvAs, all divinities ; the One, who is ever permanent
Greatest Reality; who has the Most Beautiful ThirumEni (Divine Body) like the Dark, Blue Emerald;
He can not be comprehended fully by even the divine ones ; for He lies down and is in
"Yoga NidhrA" in the big, deep, long and endless ocean waters ; -
In the 13th century CE, there lived in Sri Rangam another great Vedantic preceptor known as Swami Vedanta Desika (1268-1368 AD). He was a formidable philosopher of the school of Visishtaadvaita Vedanta but was also a poet non pareil in Sanskrit and Tamizh. He too was deeply devoted to Sriman Naaraayana whom he worshipped (Upasana) in the avatara form of Sri Krishna.
This great Vedantic Acharya too conceived the divine reality only in mesmeric hues of pure blue! In a famous Sanskrit hymn , “gopaala vimshati” in praise of Lord Krishna, the poet Desikan prayed that in his final moments on earth before he sheds his mortal coils, the last image that his mind should be fixated upon firmly be that of Sri Krishna playing soft melodies on his divine lute while being surrounded in a gentle bluish-tinged haze of cosmic haze!
adharAhita cAru vamSa nALA:
makuTalambi mayUra pinchamAlA: |
harinIla SilAvibhanga-lIlA:
pratibhA: santu mamAntima prayANe ||
May the resplendent blue jyoti of Gopala reminding one of an incomparable blue gem stone (indranIla or blue sapphire), with blue peacock feather decorations on His dark black hair and the divine flute on His lips appear before me during the last moments of my life on this earth.
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Thus, we see that the mystic saints saw the blueness of the vast ocean, the overarching skies and the misty mountains being depicted not as mere physical phenomenon but as the very complexion of all Cosmos and likened it all to the “aura” of the Almighty.
Which is all , in fact, the real reason why one may see in the Hindu pantheon of divine mythology, the deities like Vishnu, Shiva, Rama and Krishna all being depicted in the colour blue…. It doesn’t mean they all have a blue skin, but only that the Supreme One is a certain energy source … a “kshetra” … whose reflection is found as the all-pervading Blue-ness of the cosmic energy-field known as “kshetragnya”. Divine Aura is nothing but a form of energy. It is even scientically proved — as perhaps the “Raman Effect” too does — that all existence is an energy-field, neither created nor destroyed. That energy is Light … a light with an unmistakable, mysterious bluish hue.
Sudarshan Madabushi