Blockchain Consensus and Integrity: Similarities and Learnings from Ancient Literature
This work identifies cross-disciplinary insights for blockchain developers by drawing parallels with ancient preservation systems, though it is incremental in applying historical concepts to modern technology.
The paper explores how the integrity of the Vedas, an ancient text preserved for thousands of years, shares similarities with blockchain technology, including decentralized trust and mathematical encodings, and suggests that Vedic mechanisms could enhance current blockchain security and robustness.
In this paper, we have studied how the text of an ancient literature on how their integrity has been preserved for several centuries. Specifically, The Vedas is an ancient literature, which has its text remained preserved without any corruption for thousands of years. As we studied the system that protects the integrity of the text, pronunciation and semantics of the The Vedas, we discovered a number of similarities it has with the current concept of blockchain technology. It is surprising that the notion of de-centralized trust and mathematical encodings have existed since thousands of years in order to protect this work of literature. We have presented our findings and analysis of the similarities. There are also certain technical mechanisms that The Vedic integrity system uses, which can be used to enhance the current digital blockchain platforms in terms of its security and robustness.