The ancient Hindu sages or ‘rishis’ used the sound for attaining higher status. They have understood the power of sound and effectively used it for healing various mental and physical diseases.
The mantras which are basically sound waves aligned and arranged in a mysterious way resulted in bestowing whatever one wants. In order to get rain, invoking rain God through mantras which is called as ‘Varuna Japa’ was performed. Similarly each and every mantra, when recited properly for obtaining a particular result resulted in the specific intended benefit.
The wonders of sound was scientifically researched for the past two hundred years. Ernst Florens Friderich Chladni, (birth 30-11-1755 death 3-4-1823) a German physicist and musician carried out very many experiments.
When a violin bow was drawn vertically across the rim of a metal plate the sound waves produced certain patterns in sand sprinkled on the plate. Different musical tones would cause the sand particles to move into geometric patterns.
In recent years, further research on this was carried out by Fabien, a musician, along with French scientist Joel Sternheimer. He discovered that elementary particles vibrate according to musical laws.
The vibration of sound make forms. These musical vibrations as well as forms produced by them can be made visible to the eye by ingenious experiments, by throwing the images on the screen.
Sound is defined as any pressure variation in air, water or some other medium that the human ear can detect.
The number of pressure variations per second is called frequency of the sound. This is measured in cycles per second or Hertz (Hz).
The range of human hearing extends from approximately 20 Hz to 20000 Hz. Just for comparison sake, it may be noted that the range of lowest to highest note of a Piano is 27.5 Hz to 4186 Hz
The speed of sound is 340 meters per second. There is one more scale used to measure the sound – the decibel. An average man can hear zero decibel and consistent noise above 80-90 decibels in an 8-hour workday is considered hazardous.
Sound can build forms and can also destroy or disintegrate them.
The ancient sages of India have very clearly analyzed each and every letter and the corresponding sound. They have given the specific color, form and characteristics of the basic 51 letters in Tantra books.
For example the text, ‘Kamadhenu Tantra’ gives the description of the letter A.
‘A’ means Krishna, Siva, Brahma, Indra, Soma, Vayu, Agni, a happy man, a tortoise, a court yard etc.
By aligning the letters properly and assigning the correct intonation one could gain very many benefits. These sonic wonders were given in the form of hymns to the humanity by the sages. Hindus recite these mantras till this day.
Science also throws more light on sonic wonders.
Now Sound Therapy is being advised for speed healing. Dr Jason W. Busse, of Ontario has found that using ultrasound waves will speed up the healing process.
The wonders of sound is an interesting subject and one could learn a lot by studying it deeply.
