Members,
This is a cross post from an indology site. At least read the first few
paragraphs. You can see how it is that they get the idea that India is the
source of Indo-European culture. India conserved that culture to a marked
degree, and was a seat of that culture on the surface; this seems evident
from the Puranic literature. The Hindus were able to hold off change and
conserve some ancient history, something that got blotted out in the West.
But their own literature tells of Shambhala and how civilization is
periodically regenerated from that subterranean city. In the light of their
modern brainwashing, they just don't know how to interpret these statements
that they find in their own litereature. They figure that there are some
fanatic statements mixed in but that, basically, their culture is on track.
To tell the truth, most Hindus don't read the Puranas. They consist of
thousands of verses- the Vishnu Purana has 64,000 verses to it! They mostly
read summaries and abbreviated forms of the literature, and the translators
don't directly translate this stuff, andthough there are some statements so
direct that they do; but they just ranslate it and go on, and nobody dwells
on it- not the indologist, and not the common man. In a way it is crazy of
them not to.
Read on and get some background understanding.
Dharma/Dean
Lakshmi-Hari Worship in Ancient Denmark
One of the things you have mentioned is the Gundestrup Cauldron
(Scientific American, March 1992), something that was unearthed in a
peat bog in Denmark. Apparently it shows strong evidence -- including
goddess-images similar to Lakshmi and Hariti and a god-image similar
to Vishnu -- of cross-cultural connections between Indic
civilizations and those of far northern Europe. You have also noted
the apparent connections between Celtic/Druidic pre-Christian
cultures of Europe and Hindu practices. Is this merely circumstantial
evidence or does it prove conclusively that there was a migration of
peoples westward from India, rather than eastwards into India (the
Aryan Invasion Theory)?
There is whole host of evidence that proves that Indian ideas, if not
people (that is apart from the Gypsies), travelled from India to
Europe. Indic people were apparently present in Palestine, Turkey,
Babylon in the 2nd millennium BCE. The names of the ruling dynasties
of these places and some Sanskritic inscriptions tell us this. The
father of the beautiful Nefertiti, Queen of Egypt, was a king of the
Near East named Tusharatha or Dasharatha.
The Puranas also say an Indian tribe called the Druhyus emigrated
West. Whether they emigrated all the way to Europe, we cannot say.
What is likely to have happened is that an Indic element became the
political and religious aristocracy in many countries, all the way up
to Europe. This may also explain the parallels between Indian and
European mythology.
What are the parallels between Indian and European mythology?
We have these parallels at many levels: in names and in the grammar
of the myths. Let's begin with names. There are two Rigvedic skygods,
Varuna and Dyaus; the corresponding Greek skygods are Ouranos and
Zeus. Similar to Agni and Bhaga we have the Slavic Ogun and Bogu. For
Aryaman and Indra we have the Celtic Eremon and Andrasta; Ribhu and
Ushas are the Greek Orpheus and Eos. The list goes on and on, and the
most interesting thing is that the Vedic list is comprehensive and we
see parts of it remembered in different parts of Europe suggesting
that the Vedic is the original.
The Vedic gods belong to three categories: the terrestrial, the
atmospheric, and the celestial, if we see them superficially, as the
Indologists of the 19th century saw them. In reality, they represent
categories in the spiritual firmament: they are shadows of the One.
The Europeans also saw their mythology in similar terms which is why
when the Greeks came to India they declared that Shiva and Krishna
were like their own Dionysius and Herakles.
There are still deeper connections, and these have been examined by
the scholar Georges Dum�zil in a series of fascinating books. In
Rome, the raj-brahmin dichotomy of India was paralleled by the rex-
flamen division. The injunctions to the flamen -- the keeper of the
flame -- are very similar to those to the brahmin. The gandharvas in
India had a shadowy role related to music and fecundity; in Rome this
was assigned to centaurs. Dum�zil found enough parallels to fill five
or six books. Joseph Campbell also wrote about these connections in
his books, as have many others.
After the Old Religion of Europe was extinguished, Indian myths
continued to influence Europe. From the lives of Krishna and Buddha a
nascent Christianity adopted the stories of miraculous conception and
birth, the star over the birthplace, the twelve disciples, and the
various miracles. Parables such as that of the pious disciple whose
faith makes it possible to walk on water, or the story where the
master feeds his numerous disciples with a single cake or bread were
borrowed. Medieval Christianity took some Indian Jataka tales and
transformed them into accounts of Christian saints. The most famous
of such instances is how a Buddha legend from the Lalitavistara
became the story of Barlaam and Josaphat!
If there were was no Aryan Invasion, then what exactly happened to
the Indus-Sarasvati civilization? A major civilization that spread
some thousands of square miles and was apparently quite sophisticated
cannot simply vanish.
It never vanished. There was a shift of population after the economy
around the Sarasvati river collapsed due to the drying up of the
river. People moved to the east and to the northwest and to the
south. There was no break in the cultural tradition. The same ceramic
styles continued. Only the level of prosperity went down. The Vedic
books also speak of a period when the rishis went to the forests, the
age of the Aranyakas. The Puranic books speak of a catastrophe in
1924 BCE.
Your work in archaeo-astronomy suggests unambiguously that the Max
Mueller chronology of the Vedas must be rejected and that the Rig
Veda must be dated not to ca. 1500 BCE, but to ca. 3000 BCE. What is
the impact of this?
Well if not 3000 BCE, certainly prior to 2000 BCE. Max Mueller was
absolutely wrong. What is the impact of the new dates? It changes the
history of ancient India and that of the rest of the ancient world.
It gives a centrality to India in world history.
Your recent book with Georg Feuerstein and David Frawley, In Search
of the Cradle of Civilization (Quest Books, Indian edition to be
published by Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi), suggests that in fact India
was the site of the very first civilization, not Sumer in Iraq. If
this is true, then India has not only the oldest continuous and
surviving civilization, but in fact it is the birthplace of
civilization. Could you elaborate on this?
Look, India has had cultural continuity for at least 10,000 years.
Before that we had a rock-art tradition which, according to some
estimates, goes back to 40,000 BCE. Not only are we one of the most
ancient civilizations, we have found in India the record of the
earliest astronomy, geometry, mathematics, and medicine. Artistic,
philosophical and religious impulses, central to the history of
mankind, arose first in India.
You have done considerable research on the structure of the fire
altars in Scriptural ritual (The Astronomical Code of the Rigveda,
Aditya Prakashan, New Delhi), and you have demonstrated that there
was a very formal and mathematical basis to the construction of
these. Could you explain?
Vedic Indians were scientific. They believed in laws of nature. They
represented their astronomy in terms of the altar constructions. One
problem they considered was that of the synchronization of the lunar
and the solar years: the lunar year is about 11 days shorter than the
solar year and if we add a round number of days every few years to
make up for the discrepancy, we find we cannot do it elegantly unless
we have a correction cycle of 95 years or its multiples. This 95-year
cycle is described in the earliest Vedic prose books.
The altars were to be built to slightly larger dimensions each year
of the cycle to represent the corrections. There were other symbolic
constructions. Like building a square altar (representing the sky)
with the same area as a circular altar (representing the earth),
which is the problem of squaring the circle. This led to the
discovery of the earliest geometry. They were aware that the sun and
the moon were at 108 times their own diameters from the earth.
These fire altars are at this time obsolete, right? Nobody uses them
any more, or is that not so? The only time I have heard of them
before reading your work was when I read of an impoverished Nambudiri
(Kerala brahmin) family whose illam or house was being sold, and they
had fire altars in the shape of a falcon, and the old head of the
household said this 5,000-year-old tradition was dying because they
couldn't afford the rituals any more.
It is a great pity that we are letting our cultural and
civilizational treasures die right before our eyes. We must do
whatever we can to preserve and celebrate this heritage.
You have mentioned a connection, apparently evident in the Vedas,
between internal and external things -- for instance between the
rhythms in the human body and astronomical cycles. Could you
elaborate?
A central Vedic belief was that there are connections between the
outer and the inner. The rishis declared that it was due to these
connections that we are enabled to know the world. One dramatic
aspect of these connections are the biological cycles which run the
same periods as various astronomical cycles. For example, the Purusha
Hymn of the Rigveda says that the mind is born of the moon. Just
recently, by research on volunteers, who stayed in underground caves
for months without any watches or other cues about time, it was found
that the natural cycle for the mind is 24 hours and 50 minutes. The
period of the moon is also 24 hours and 50 minutes. Our clock is
reset every day by daylight!
The connections between the outer and the inner were also represented
by other symbols. The 108 sun diameters from the earth of the sun
were paralleled by the 108 beads of the rosary for a symbolic
spiritual journey from the normal state to one of illumination.
I have read the book edited by you and Dr TRN Rao (Computing Science
in Ancient India, University of Southwestern Louisiana Press) on some
surprising mathematics: pi to many decimal places, Sayana's accurate
calculation of the speed of light, hashing algorithms, the binary
number system of Sanskrit meters -- are these mere coincidences or is
there conclusive evidence of advanced mathematics?
The binary number system, hashing, various codes, mathematical logic
(Navya Nyaya), or a formal framework that is equivalent to
programming all arose in ancient India. This is all well known and it
is acknowledged by scholars all over the world. I shouldn't forget to
tell you that a most advanced calculus, math and astronomy arose in
Kerala several centuries before Newton.
In particular, I am amazed, as a layman, by the evidence that Sayana,
circa 1300 CE, who was prime minister at the court of the Vijayanagar
Emperor Bukka I, calculated the speed of light to be 2,202 yojanas in
half a nimesha, which does come to 186,536 miles per second.
Truly mind-boggling! The speed of light was first measured in the
West only in the late 17th century. So how could the Indians have
known it? If you are a sceptic, then you will say it is a coincidence
that somehow dropped out of the assumptions regarding the solar
system. If you are a believer in the powers of the mind, you would
say that it is possible to intuit (in terms of categories that you
have experienced before) outer knowledge. This latter view is the old
Indian knowledge paradigm. If it were generally accepted it would
mean an evolution in science much greater than the revolution of
modern physics.
It is also well-known that the Vedic or Puranic idea of the age of
the universe is some 8 billion years, which is of the order of
magnitude of what has been estimated by modern astrophysicists. Is
this also a mere coincidence?
Again, either a coincidence, or the rishis were capable of
supernormal wisdom. Don't forget that the Indian texts also speak
about things that no other civilization thought of until this
century. I am speaking of air and space travel, embryo
transplantation, multiple births from the same embryo, weapons of
mass destruction (all in the Mahabharata), travel through domains
where time is slowed, other galaxies and universes, potentials very
much like quantum potential (Puranas). If nothing else, we must
salute the rishis for the most astonishing and uncanny imagination.
You also suggest that that the modern computer science term for
context-free languages, the Backus-Naur Form, should more accurately
be called the Panini-Backus Form, since Sanskrit grammarian Panini
invented the notion of completely and unambiguously defined grammars
(and devised one such for Sanskrit) as early as about 500 BCE.
Oh yes, all this is well established and well known, as also the
Indian development of mathematical logic.
How has the reaction been in scholarly circles to some of these
discoveries and conjectures of yours, which do turn conventional
wisdom on its head? In India, you are aware, some of your views would
have you branded as "reactionary", "Hindu fundamentalist", etc.
My work has been received most enthusiastically in scholarly circles
both in the West and India. I have written several scores of
scholarly articles and reviews and am in the process of writing major
essays for leading encyclopaedias. School texts in California and
other American states have been rewritten. Likewise, new college
texts in the US speak of these new findings. We are talking here of
hard scientific facts, they can neither be "fundamentalist''
nor "reactionary''. But I am aware that some ignorant ideologues in
India may actually pin pejorative labels on this work. This only
creates opportunities to bring facts to the attention of such people.
I am ever hopeful of converting more and more people!
How has your work in the history of science affected your research in
computing science?
Surprisingly, it has strengthened my technical work. It has provided
me a focus and a perspective. It has also given me the courage to
work on fundamental problems.
What do you attribute this to? Is this because it is a matter of self-
image? Indians have always been self-effacing, and perhaps not
believing in themselves much?
Self-image is a central factor in our development. We eventually
become what we want to become. We need faith in ourselves. That is
why a cultural focus is so crucial. I think our current self-
effacement is a result of the negative stereotyping we have
experienced for generations. Our school books talk about Socrates,
Plato and Aristotle -- and rightly so -- but they don't mention
Yajnavalkya, Panini and Patanjali, which is a grave omission. Our
grand boulevards in Delhi and other cities are named after
Copernicus, Kepler and Newton, but there are no memorials to
Aryabhata, Bhaskara, Madhava and Nilakantha!
Is self-image, then, sufficient reason for us to explore the past?
It could be a sufficient reason for some. For others, it is one of
the many impulses that guides them in their personal journeys.
Is there something that your Web readers can do to take some of this
research forward? Any references or other suggestions?
There is so much to be done to spread the knowledge of Indian
history. For at least 50 years, Indian intellectual life was stifled
by a Stalinist attitude. And before that, for two centuries,
colonialist historians appropriated Indian past for their own
purposes. What they left for us was a mutilated version of our past.
We are barely emerging from that hell. We need more people to
actively carry forward this research. We also need institutions --
private foundations, perhaps --that ensure that our historiography
will remain vital, critical and devoted to truth.
Any messages from you for your diasporic readers?
Pay attention to Indian and world history, there is much to be
learned from the past. Also go to the springwells of Indian
tradition, you'll find great treasure. Indian ideas provided central
themes to the American transcendentalists in the early 19th century
which led to American culture as we know it. I believe even more
vital Indian ideas will transform world culture in the coming
decades, and if you choose to be the interpreters of these ideas to
the modern world you would have participated in the most wondrous
drama of our times!
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