Indian Minister claims internet was invented in India thousands of years ago

The statement caused a public and media uproar, with the minister being mocked and ridiculed. But there is much more to this story, writes Bhagawati.

Biplab Deb, chief minister for the north-eastern state of Tripura, India, claimed that an ancient epic written in Sanskrit about 2,000 years ago confirmed the South Asian origin of the web.

During a workshop on Computerization and Reforms at Pragna Bhawan in Agartala, the capital city of Tripura, he stated that the traditional story relating to a battle in the Kurukshetra War – believed to have taken place about 3000 BCE – proved his claim.

He spoke about an incident from the Mahabharata where a character named Sanjaya was able to give every single account of the biggest battle that was taking place many miles away to his king. To him, this proves that India had access to both technologies, internet and satellites.

With his statement, Biplab Deb joins a long list of Indian ministers in the current Hindu nationalist BJP government – including prime minister Narendra Modi – who have claimed that many modern-day scientific or technological achievements were invented many centuries ago.

In spite of the ridicule being poured on Biplab Deb, it appears he has a point but he might have just not looked deeply enough into the matter. If he had he might have stumbled upon scientifically proven psychic communication, also called telepathy, thought transference, i.e. communication from one mind to another, separated over a distance, without using sensory perceptions.

Osho speaks on the subject in a Hindi discourse on October 3, 1970:

As I understand it, Krishna does not speak to Arjuna through words; he communicates with him at the psychic level. It is such a wordless, silent communication between two persons that a third person standing close by will never know it. No other people present at Kurukshetra could hear it; otherwise a crowd would have gathered round Arjuna’s chariot. At least the Pandava brothers were sure to join them. Even the Kauravas would not have resisted the temptation to listen to this unique dialogue. If a spoken dialogue between Krishna and Arjuna had taken place, lasting for four long hours, anything – including fighting – could have happened. But nothing of the kind occurred. No, it was an inner communion between the two, a psychic communication,

It is significant that while no one present on the battlefield has any inkling of this dialogue, Sanjaya, who is far away from the battlefield, hears and relates it to Kaurava’s blind father Dhritarashtra. Sitting in his home, Dhritarashtra anxiously asks Sanjaya, “On the field of Kurukshetra my people and the sons of Pandu have gathered together, eager for battle. What are they doing?”

They are miles from the battlefield and yet Sanjaya makes a verbatim report to Dhritarashtra. He tells him that when the two armies are arrayed and eager for fight, Arjuna feels depressed and confused and desists from fighting. And Krishna persuades him to come out of his despondency to fight as a warrior should fight. How does Sanjaya know this from such a distance?

This is a telepathic communication. Sanjaya is in telepathic contact with Kurukshetra and everything happening there. Otherwise he has no way to know and relate the goings-on at the battlefield. So first of all, the dialogue happens between two persons at the psychic level and it is again at the psychic level that Sanjaya hears it and relates it in words to Dhritarashtra. Dhritarashtra is the first person to receive the Geeta, and then the whole world receives it. That is how it found its way to the whole world and a place in the epic of the Mahabharat. Transcribed into words it now takes four hours to go through the whole text. But it is just possible the whole thing happened within four moments. Maybe, it happened beyond time.

Research into psychic communication has been going on for decades, predominantly by Russia and the USA. Russian research on telepathy dates from the early 1920s when a program was established at the Institute for Brain Research at Leningrad State University. They call telepathy “biological communication,” and looked into it as a ship-to-shore way of communicating with submarines without using electronic equipment. They also considered training their cosmonauts to develop and use precognitive abilities to “foresee and to avoid accidents in space.”

Scientists must keep an open mind to phenomena that appear outside of matter. Humans have enormous potential and it is only through meditation that we can access and develop the various layers of our seven subtle bodies. Osho says that hypnotism, telepathy and clairvoyance all are the potential of the fourth body.

Quote by Osho from
Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy, Ch 16, Q 3 (excerpt, translated from Hindi)

Bhagawati is a regular contributor