I was not sure if its a dream or reality. I opened my eyes a little to make sure that it's not a dream. My friend Jay was trying to wake me up.

 ‘Come on Arjun! Wake up quickly!’ Jay called me again.

 It was a Sunday morning. We usually wake up late on Sundays. I was not getting why Jay was trying to wake me up so early!

 ‘Come on Arjun! Wake up! It's 9AM! We need to get ready by 10 AM at least otherwise we will be late for the show.’ Jay cautioned me.

 Suddenly I remembered that we had planned to go to Nehru planetarium to watch planetarium show as it was a Sunday. Jay was my roommate. We used to stay at our college hostel in Mumbai. We both were final year students of one of the best engineering colleges in Mumbai. I met Jay for the first time on the very first day of college. We became good friends over a period of time. Though we both were good in academics, we were worried about our job placements.   Luckily, we both got placed in the same company 5 months back. So, we were much relaxed then. We decided to visit some important places in Mumbai before we leave Mumbai. We wanted to utilize our free time to explore beauty of Mumbai city. Mumbai is really a great megacity. Mumbai is full of life. There are many tourist spots in Mumbai. That Sunday we decided to visit Nehru planetarium to watch planetarium show as Nehru Planetarium is one of the best planetariums in India.

As a child, I was always fascinated by the stars in the night sky. I used to observe stars during night time almost daily from the terrace of my home. I had lot of questions regarding these stars in the night sky. So, on one of my birthdays my mother gifted me the Space Encyclopedia which had lot of astronomical information. I still have that book with me. At school, I came to know about planetarium show at Nehru planetarium but I never got a chance to visit Nehru planetarium. So, I recommended my friends that we should visit Nehru planetarium once before we leave Mumbai. I was very excited to visit Nehru Planetarium.

We had breakfast at our college canteen. We got ready to leave for Nehru planetarium by 10 AM. We had to reach the Nehru planetarium by at least 11AM because ticket booking for planetarium shows starts after 11AM. We decided to watch 12PM show. There was average traffic on the road. We reached Nehru Planetarium by 11.15AM. When we reached the ticket counter we came to know that 12PM show is a hindi show. Our first preference was for English show but English show was at 3PM. Finally, we booked ticket for the 12 PM Hindi show.

We had some free time as show was going to start after half an hour at 12 PM. So, we decided to roam around at Nehru planetarium campus. The planetarium campus was really well maintained and clean. There was lot of greenery in the planetarium campus. I looked at the planetarium building, its dome shaped structure appeared to me like a huge Egg or a huge back of a tortoise. It was really a huge structure. Small models of globe and space launch vehicles are also installed in the campus of Nehru Planetarium.

Then we went inside to see the exhibition area. There were lot of informative pictures and scientific models installed in the exhibition area. Photo gallery included photos of ISRO missions, Solar System, space shuttles, etc. We had very little time to explore all the informative scientific models and galleries as show was about to start. Somehow, one small model of ancient architecture attracted my attention. It was small replica of ancient astronomical observatory in India called Jantar Mantar. I had read about Jantar Mantar in past. Word Jantar is derived from Sanskrit word Yantra which means machine. Word Mantar is derived from Sanskrit word Mantra. The literal english meaning of Jantar Mantar is calculating machine which is used to observe stars and planets from Earth's surface. In short it's an ancient form of space observatory. India has a glorious history of astronomers and scientist who did lot of research of stars and planets. Acharya Varahamihira, Aryabhatta,Bhaskaracharya, etc. are some of the names of ancient Indian astronomers. These ancient astronomers built lot of equipments and observatories to study motions of stars and planets. ISRO gave names of these ancient astronomers to Indian satellites to respect their contribution towards field of astronomy.

Show was about to start so we entered the main planetarium hall and got seated in the chairs allocated to us. Chairs were so arranged that we could see the dome shaped ceiling. Soon, all the entrance doors of the hall got closed. There was complete darkness in the hall of some time. I could hear the voices of children who were asking funny questions to their parents out of curiosity. Even I was curious and lot of questions were arising in my mind. Soon, there was an announcement about the start of the show and show started immediately after that.

The dome shaped structure which looked like an Egg or back of a tortoise, appeared like the sky from inside as show started. Projectors created exact replica of stars in the night sky. The name of the show was ‘Vismayjanak Brahmand’ as it was a hindi show which means ‘Awesome Universe’ in English. At the start of the show it was shown that how sky looks like during night time and day time. How the motions of Sun and Moon attracted attention of ancient astronomers. How stars in the night sky triggered the thought process of ancient astronomers which gave birth to the scientific field of astronomy. How ancient astronomers imagined shapes of different animals, etc. by observing the patterns of group of stars called as constellations. In hindi these constellations of stars are called as Tara Mandal. Two words were frequently used during the show. First one is ‘Brahmand’ and second one is ‘Tara Mandal’. Brahmand is actually the very ancient word which appears in ancient Indian scriptures. Description of Brahmand is given in these ancient Indian scriptures. Now a days, word Brahmand is used as hindi equivalent of word Universe. Word Mandala is also a very ancient word mentioned in ancient Indian scriptures which generally refers to circular motion of the sun, the moon, other stars and planets as observed from Earth’s surface.

It was mentioned in the show that ‘Brahmand me anek Tara Mandal hai. Hamara Saur Mandal inhi Tara Mandalo ka ek hissa hai.’ which means ‘There are many star constellations in this universe. Our Solar System is one part of these star constellations.’ This statement reminded me one of the Mantras which was taught at my school. We used have physical education classes at our schools. In these physical education classes our teacher used to teach us Yoga and Surya Namaskar along with various sports. He used to chant Surya Namaskar mantra and twelve names of Sun during Surya Namaskar asanas. We used to repeat those Surya Namaskar mantras after him.

The Surya Namaskar Mantra is as follows:

‘Dhyey sada savitru mandala madhyawarti, narayana sarsija….’

Three words from this Surya Namaskar mantra always attracted my attention i.e. Savitru Mandala Madhyawarti. In Sanskrit, Savitra means the sun. In Sanskrit, Sun has many names. Savitra is one of the names of the sun. In Sanskrit, Madhyawarti means central position. So, literal english meaning of ‘Savitru Mandal Madhyawarti’ is ‘Central position of Sun’s circle’. Today, we know that Sun is at the centre of our Solar System. So, I was always curious to know if ancient Indian astronomers were aware of this fact! Or if there is some other fact these ancient astronomers wanted to convey?

As show progressed I was trying to figure out if I can get answers to some of my questions. 

Surya Namaskara Mantra