Here’s an amazing one - the connection between Lord Shiva, Sanskrit and Computer languages!
Many of us have seen the Nataraja mudra - Shiva in a dancing pose, where he destroys a weary universe and brings a fresh one alive. It is an image with such amazing symbolism, that even the quantum physicists at CERN love it!
But in addition to the standard symbolic expression, have we wondered what are those 14 objects surrounding the circle, on either side? I mean these -
Well, it turns out there is an interesting story behind it.
The later-day creator of Sanskrit - Panini (पाणिनि) - was a rather dull student at a Gurukul (around the 4th century BC). The Gurumata (the wife of the Guru) advised him to go to the Himalayas to do tapa. He went to the Himalayas and started meditating on Lord Shiva. Pleased with Panini's strong tapa, Lord Shiva came and danced before him . While dancing, the sound from his Damaru was heard by Panini as the Maheshwara Sutrani (माहेश्वर सूत्र or शिवसूत्राणि). Thus, Panini wrote the Maheshwara Sutras and formed the eight chapters of basic Sanskrit grammar Ashthadhyayi.
So, the 14 sounds were -
Using these 14 sounds of the Shiva Sutra
Each of the fourteen verses consists of a group of basic Sanskrit phonemes (i.e. either open syllables consisting either of initial vowels or consonants followed by the basic vowel "a") followed by a single 'dummy letter', or anubandha. From these 14 verses, a total of 281 pratyāhāras can be formed: 14*3 + 13*2 + 12*2 + 11*2 + 10*4 + 9*1 + 8*5 + 7*2 + 6*3 * 5*5 + 4*8 + 3*2 + 2*3 +1*1, minus 14 (as Pāṇini does not use single element pratyāhāras) minus 10 (as there are 10 duplicate sets due to h appearing twice); the second multiplier in each term represents the number of phonemes in each. But Pāṇini uses only 41 (with a 42nd introduced by later grammarians, raṆ=r l) pratyāhāras in the Aṣṭādhyāyī. The Shiva Sutras put phonemes with a similar manner of articulation together (so sibilants in 13 śa ṣa sa R, nasals in 7 ñ m ṅ ṇ n M). Economy (Sanskrit: lāghava) is a major principle of their organization, and it is debated whether Pāṇini deliberately encoded phonological patterns in them (as they were treated in traditional phonetic texts called Prātiśakyas) or simply grouped together phonemes which he needed to refer to in the Aṣṭādhyāyī and which only secondarily reflect phonological patterns.
In this work, Panini created 3,959 rules of grammar for India’s Sanskrit language. This important work is the oldest surviving linguistic book and introduced the idea of metarules, transformations, and recursions, all of which have important applications in computer science. It is the world's first formal system, developed well before the 19th century innovations of Gottlob Frege and the subsequent development of mathematical logic. In designing his grammar, Pāṇini used the method of "auxiliary symbols", in which new affixes are designated to mark syntactic categories and the control of grammatical derivations. This technique, rediscovered by the logician Emil Post, became a standard method in the design of computer programming languages. Sanskritists now accept that Pāṇini's linguistic apparatus is well-described as an "applied" Post system. Considerable evidence shows ancient mastery of context-sensitive grammars, and a general ability to solve many complex problems. Frits Staal has written that "Panini is the Indian Euclid." (Personally, I would say Euclid is the Western Panini).
Incidentally, the first image is a Shiva statue installed at CERN (The European Organization for Nuclear Research). [ CERN ]
Thank you Panini ji!