Matter and Cosmology in Ancient Bharat: Exploring Physics Insights in Vedas, Upanishads, and Darshanas

From the beginning, all schools of the Bharatiya Darshana have been studying matter and the universe deeply. Many representations of creation and dissolution of the universe have been developed at different times with an aim to integrate matter, mind, and consciousness. Broadly, these belong to four categories: 
i. Early ideas in the Rigveda and the Upanishads,
ii. Pluralistic representation,
iii. Dualistic representation, and
iv. Unitary representation.
In this work, we present the main features of matter, space, time, causality, and the universe as described in the Vedas, the Upanishads, Vaisheshika, Nyaya, Samkhya, Yoga, Mimamsa, Vedanta, Jaina, Buddhist, Tantra and Charvaka Darshanas. Range of their ideas begins with understanding the gross matter in terms of subtle paramanus of a few elements and it goes up to the dissolution of matter into Absolute Unity of Supreme Consciousness. Interesting parallels of various ideas of these schools with modern physics and metaphysics are also presented.