Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth

[Klaus]

Evidence of an ancient shoreline suggests a "great flood" may have taken place around 5000 BC.

Link 2

Robert Ballard, an acclaimed underwater archaeologist, has talked about his findings with a US news outlet after scouring the depths of the Black Sea off the coast of Turkey with advanced robotic technology in search of traces of an ancient civilisation.

Ballard said he now supports a theory first put forward by scientists from New York's Columbia University that the Black Sea was once a freshwater lake surrounded by farmland before being overrun by "an enormous wall of water" from the rising Mediterranean Sea.

The theory goes on to suggest that the story of this traumatic event, seared into the collective memory of the survivors, was passed down from generation to generation and eventually inspired the biblical account of Noah.

[shiv]

Evidence of an ancient shoreline suggests a "great flood" may have taken place around 5000 BC.

IMO 5000 BC is too recent. I would guess 10,000 to 8000 BC. Ice age melts really took off by then

[Nilesh Oak]

Klaus ji,

I am currently reading Noah's flood by Ryan and Pitman. Ignore the connection between the flood/Black sea they described and Noah/old testatment etc.... after all they have to take a leap of faith for making that connection.. However important thing I wanted to stress is their timeline .. not just generic ~5000 BC (as reported in the news you quoted) but specific years from samples derived using AMS (acclerated mass spectrometry) were 5520 BC, 5630 BC, 5550 BC, 5560 BC, 5560 BC with 1 std. deviation error of 35-50 years.

Now compare this with my predicted/proposed date for 'FLOODING OF DWARKA' from purely astronomy evidence and ONLY within Mahabharata text' for year 5525 BC!

I wrote to both Ryan and Pitman. If I will hear back from them depends on how dogmatic their personal views are about Noah and his ark. After all I am showing that by this time 5561 BC - MBH War, or 5525 BC - flooding of Dwarka......Indian civilization was far advanced and well settled during this time and long before 6th Millennium BC.

[Nilesh Oak]

Evidence of an ancient shoreline suggests a "great flood" may have taken place around 5000 BC.

IMO 5000 BC is too recent. I would guess 10,000 to 8000 BC. Ice age melts really took off by then

Shiv ji,

Ice age melting was not one single instance. And while the process would have been continuous, there were 3 CRE events (Catastropic rise (sea level) events) crudely dated around 12000 BC, 9000 BC and 5600 BC.

[shiv]

Now compare this with my predicted/proposed date for 'FLOODING OF DWARKA' from purely astronomy evidence and ONLY within Mahabharata text' for year 5525 BC!

I wrote to both Ryan and Pitman. If I will hear back from them depends on how dogmatic their personal views are about Noah and his ark. After all I am showing that by this time 5561 BC - MBH War, or 5525 BC - flooding of Dwarka......Indian civilization was far advanced and well settled during this time and long before 6th Millennium BC.

Nileshji - Vedic references to Manu are more likely to be the equivalent of biblical flood memories - and there is proof that India was a flourishing civilization by 5000 BC as you have pointed out.

[Klaus]

Nilesh ji, tend to agree with you. News reports on past flooding events tend to be very obtuse in Western media, my feeling is that a lot of eyes are on this thread and MSM is taking a contrarian approach, recent articles such as the Turkey origin of "Aryans" for example. It is probably best to ignore the noise and focus on putting our story out with the best presentation.

However, one question I have for Shiv ji is whether early waves of Doma were forced out of the Black Sea area and into Eastern Europe due to the flooding? The phylogenetic paper posted earlier on the thread may not have taken this aspect into account entirely. Would it be possible to definitively place Doma people at the Black Sea area prior to the flooding? IOW a phase-wise and batch-wise migration to the Baltics and Central Europe rather than a fall sweep of people.

Another question to all discussants on the thread is how do we differentiate groups of Bharat origin people based on whether they were voluntarily migrating or carrying out an exodus? We are quite sure that it was not just the Doma who moved out of India.

[Lalmohan]

there were several catastrophic lake breakouts as the ice melted - like the one in the pakistani karakorum recently. one shown on discovery channel recently talked about a lake burst in north america which was bigger than the great lakes currently. these events would have released catastrophic 'flash flooding' and significant changes in geography in their vicinity - eventually leading to sea level rises

[shiv]

However, one question I have for Shiv ji is whether early waves of Doma were forced out of the Black Sea area and into Eastern Europe due to the flooding? The phylogenetic paper posted earlier on the thread may not have taken this aspect into account entirely. Would it be possible to definitively place Doma people at the Black Sea area prior to the flooding? IOW a phase-wise and batch-wise migration to the Baltics and Central Europe rather than a fall sweep of people.

No They are recent migrants - post Islam. Read the original paper

[Nilesh Oak]

Link is provided without getting into the discussion of implications...

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... ce+News%29

[harbans]

Anyone saw John Abrahams', Vicky Donor movie? I was completely appalled and shocked by casual statements that Vicky's ancestry is Alexanders' soldiers in India and that Greek is Aryan and Aryan sperm count is the maximum..not only is all that factually wrong, it gives credence to discarded racial theories. NOt only wrong at that level there is no study that shows that Greek sperm counts are higher than African, Mongol or Pacific or Indic peoples. Not only that genetically Bengali's and Gujarati's probably have more central Asian genes than North Western Indian people. THe amount of fallacious information that the idiocy of AIT has churned is amazing. And from what i hear the Director or Producer of this movie wanted it to be sent for Oscars and representing Indian cinema. Can anyone connected with the press point out these for public info..

[sanjaykumar]

That IQ studies genius Phillipe Rushton was 'studying' the distance of ejaculates of different races. all very scientific. So yes maybe there is something to it.

[Lalmohan]

That IQ studies genius Phillipe Rushton was 'studying' the distance of ejaculates of different races. all very scientific. So yes maybe there is something to it.

are you serious? sounds like he was a regular at the madrassah then...

[shiv]

Anyone saw John Abrahams', Vicky Donor movie? I was completely appalled and shocked by casual statements that Vicky's ancestry is Alexanders' soldiers in India and that Greek is Aryan and Aryan sperm count is the maximum..not only is all that factually wrong, it gives credence to discarded racial theories. NOt only wrong at that level there is no study that shows that Greek sperm counts are higher than African, Mongol or Pacific or Indic peoples. Not only that genetically Bengali's and Gujarati's probably have more central Asian genes than North Western Indian people. THe amount of fallacious information that the idiocy of AIT has churned is amazing. And from what i hear the Director or Producer of this movie wanted it to be sent for Oscars and representing Indian cinema. Can anyone connected with the press point out these for public info..

Only one single spermatozoon is necessary. Higher sperm counts make zilch difference if you can't fertilize lots of women. All this ancestors were Greeks business will go for a six in a few short years when one can check one's genetic code using a kit bought off a supermarket shelf.

But I think Greece was fertilized by the Arya who left India as the followers of Bhrigu's descendant (Zoroaster) who was an Atharvan priest with their God Varuna/Ahura Mazda and the Zend Avesta - the Bhargava Atharva Veda. They used to pronounce sapta as hapta. That became Greek Hepta. It came back to India as Persian "Haphta" for week as opposed to Hindi Saptah

[ramana]

And is now very popular with the INC taking hafta(weekly loot) from the people!

[Neela]

^^^
Ramana garu,
it seems Brothers Grimm, german brothers, are credited with collecting the european fairy tales. I think if one could find some connection between Grimm brothers and India, then it would be a clincher, or atleast a significant pointer.
[..]

The (younger?) Grimm came up with Grimm's law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grimm%27s_law.

He knew Sanskrit very well. So must have read all the panchtantra etc.

Is this relevant for the discussion?
http://www.theosophy-nw.org/theosnw/wor ... -rhall.htm

Such fairy tales belong to an oral tradition handed down by country people from generation to generation, and only relatively recently written down. Who were their original authors? Scholars of comparative philology and mythology agree that there is indeed a common source. John Thackray Bunce, author of Fairy Tales: Their Origin and Meaning (1878), says that "Celtic, Teutonic and Nordic myths echo the eternal and universal themes and vivid imagery found in sacred books of the Hindus and Persians -- the Vedas and the Zend Avesta . . ." Swedish scholar Fredrick Sander, who published his Rigveda-Edda about 1890, was convinced that Norse mythology came from India and preserves Hindu myths more faithfully than do the classic Greek and Roman, which are much disfigured (Masks of Odin, p. 22).

[ramana]

Merry Christmas...


INDO-EUROPEANS ORIGINS 1: THE 200 YEAR-OLD QUESTION

INDO-EUROPEANS ORIGINS 1: THE 200 YEAR-OLD QUESTION
Science has finally answered the 200 year-old question of why people from India to Iceland speak languages clearly related to one another. Natural history, not linguistics unlocks the puzzle of Indo-European origins.

First of two parts article by Dr. Navaratna Rajaram (NS Rajaram)

A two hundred year-old question
Creation: Biblical vs Scientific timeline

Creation: Biblical vs Scientific timeline

Unlike most academic disciplines, Indology (i.e. Western study of India) and its offshoot of Indo-European studies can be dated almost to the day. In a lecture in Kolkotta delivered on 2 February 1786 (and published in 1788) Sir William Jones, a forty year-old British jurist in the service of the East India Company observed:

“The Sanskrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong indeed, that no philologer could examine them all three, without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists…”

This influential statement is well known but not the errors Jones committed like his dating of Indian tradition based on the Biblical superstition that the world was created on Sunday, 23rd of October 4004 BCE at 9:00 AM— time zone not specified. The date was first derived by the Irish bishop James Ussher (1581 – 1656) based on a literal reading of the Bible combined with the belief that world would end 2000 years after Christ or twelve years ago.

While it sounds comical today, it was taught as history through most of the nineteenth century even though both Darwin’s theory of evolution and geology had determined the earth had to be millions of years old to support fossils and the enormous diversity of life forms found on the planet. Even this very greatly underestimated its age. (The current estimate for the age of the earth is about 4.5 billion years.)

IE languages map

IE languages map

Jones was a capable linguist and knew some Sanskrit. His task was to study Indian texts and understand Hindu law to help administer British justice in a manner acceptable to them. In his study of Hindu texts like the Puranas he came across dates that went much further back than the Biblical date for Creation. He dismissed them as superstitions (for failing to agree with the Biblical superstition) and imposed a chronology on Indian history and tradition to fit within the Biblical framework.

This was to have fateful consequences for the study of India over the succeeding two centuries down to the present. To cite an example, Indian tradition going back at least to the mathematician Aryabhata (476 – 540 CE) has held that the Kali Age began with the Mahabharata War in 3102 BCE. This marks the end of an era known as the Vedic Age. Accepting it takes the beginning of the Vedic period as well as several dynasties like the Ikshwakus to 6000 BCE and earlier. This is millennia before the Biblical date for Creation which men like Jones could not accept.

Dates based on the Biblical chronology were accepted as historically valid by most Western scholars of the period including influential ones like F. Max Müller. He explicitly stated that he took the Biblical account including the date to be historical. Most of them were classical scholars or students of religion and had no inkling of science. The widely quoted dates of 1500 BCE for the Aryan invasion and the 1200 BCE date for the Rig Veda were imposed to make them conform to the Biblical date of 4004 BCE for Creation.

Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, a pioneer in population genetics

Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, a pioneer in population genetics

The situation has not changed much in the succeeding two centuries. Indologists like Wendy Doniger, Diana Eck, Michael Witzel and their Indian counterparts like Romila Thapar have little comprehension of the revolution in our understanding of the past brought about by science in the past two decades. They continue to quote 1200 BCE for the Rig Veda without mentioning that it rests on the authority of a 400 year-old Biblical superstition! (Some ‘scholars’ like Doniger and Thapar don’t know any Sanskrit either, but that is a different matter.)

Language puzzle, linguistic inadequacy

To return to Jones and his successors, in their ignorance of science it was natural they should have come up with some speculative theories to account for similarities between Sanskrit and European languages, especially Greek and Latin. Being linguists, they created a field called philology of comparing languages and cultures and called it a ‘science’ of languages. But it soon got mixed up with crackpot theories on race and language— like the ‘Aryan’ race speaking ‘Aryan’ languages somehow ending up in Nazi Germany!

There was even an ‘Aryan’ science movement that denounced Einstein and his ‘Jewish’ physics! (This can be compared to some present day anti-Hindu academics who denounce anyone objecting to their theories and conclusions as ‘Hindutva advocates’.) It was denounced by scientists, especially in the twentieth century, but politics and prejudice kept it alive for over a century. In addition to the Nazi ideology, British colonial policy usedrace as a way of classifying its British Indian subjects.
Scientifically discredited IE migration map showing the Aryan invasion

Scientifically discredited IE migration map showing the Aryan invasion

Setting aside such aberrations, Jones did raise a legitimate question: why do people from India and Sri Lanka to Ireland and Iceland speak languages clearly related to one another, and have done so for more than two thousand years? This fact has been widely noted but a few examples help illustrate the point. What is deva in Sanskrit becomes dio in Latin, theo in Greek and dieu in French. Similarly, agni for fire in Sanskrit becomes ignis in Latin from which we get the English words ignite and ignition. A particularly interesting example is the Russian drink vodka meaning ‘a little water’ is related to the Sanskrit udaka. And there are many more, far too many to be seen as coincidence. Prejudice and politics aside this basic question remains.

Over the past two hundred years many theories have been created to account for these similarities. These are based mostly on superficial phonetic similarities but none has proved satisfactory. Even without the confusion introduced byrace theories, these explanations give glaring inconsistencies. To take an example, using the same data and the same methods some scholars have argued that a branch of Indo-Europeans called ‘Aryans’ invaded India, while some others claim the reverse— that Aryans (or Indo-Europeans) originated in India and migrated to Eurasia and Europe taking their language(s) with them. The AIT of course holds the opposite view—that the invading Aryans were the eastern branch of Indo-Europeans.

Science to the rescue
Sir William Jones

Sir William Jones

With the benefit of hindsight one can see that the science needed to unlock the language mystery did not become available until about twenty years ago. It was only in the last few decades, with the emergence of molecular biology after World War II and especially gene sequencing and genome research in the past decade and more that we are able to trace the origin and spread of Indo-Europeans and their languages. Two areas of natural history— the distribution of mitochondrial DNA and Y-chromosomes in the world’s population groups and the fate of humans in the face of natural events have resulted in the spread of Indo-Europeans and their languages from a group perhaps as few as a thousand 60,000 years ago over two billion speakers today.

What has allowed us to unlock the mysteries of IE origins is science, especially natural history and population genetics. Population genetics was founded by Sir Ronald Fisher, Sewall Wright and J.B.S. Haldane. Fisher, a geneticist as well as a statistician had two outstanding students, C. Radhakrishna Rao (C.R. Rao) and Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza. Rao became known as the world’s greatest mathematicalstatistician while Cavalli-Sforza carried forward Fisher’s work in population genetics, combining microbiology with mathematical genetics. If we are able tounlock the secrets of our origins today much of the credit must go to these pioneers.

The material presented here, especially in the second part draws heavily on the work of Cavalli-Sforza, Stephen Oppenheimer and their colleagues. (This author had the good fortune of working with C.R. Rao while a student in the U.S.) What is extraordinary in all this is the depth and power of scientific analysis needed to unlock the puzzle. Linguistics, the principal tool used for over two hundreds has proved unequal to the task of unlocking the mystery of our origins. The creation of Vedic and Sanskrit languages in India going back perhaps 10,000 years or more was crucial in the evolution of the final phase of Indo-European languages.

No less remarkable is the vast time scales involved— not thousands but tens of thousands of years. Even this is miniscule by evolutionary standards. We Indo-Europeans have been on the planet for barely 65 thousand years, while dinosaurs ruled the earth for as many million years. With this as background, we may next look at a brief account of our origin and spread.

(To be continued)

Dr. Navaratna Rajaram is a scientist and historian. The ideas of the article are explored in greater detail in his forthcoming book Genes of Time and the Birth of History.

[ramana]

Indo-Europeans 2-Natural History of languages

INDO-EUROPEANS 2: NATURAL HISTORY OF LANGUAGES


All non-African humans and their languages can be traced to about a thousand individuals in South Asia 60,000 years ago. Two events during the Ice Age, a gene mutation and a major natural catastrophe played a pivotal role.

By Dr. Navaratna Srinivasa Rajaram (NS Rajaram)

Aryan to Indo-European
FOXP2 'speech' gene

FOXP2 ‘speech’ gene

Ever since Sir William Jones in 1786 noticed remarkable similarities between Sanskrit and European languages, the question of how people from Sri Lanka and Assam to Ireland and Iceland happen to speak languages clearly related to one another has remained one of the great unsolved problems of history. The usual explanation, at least in India is the famous, now infamous Aryan invasion theory or the AIT. It claims that bands of invading ‘Aryan’ tribes brought both the ancestor of the Sanskrit language and the Vedic literature from somewhere in Eurasia or even Europe.

This was the result of scholars assuming that the ancestors of Indians and Europeans must at one time have lived in a common region speaking a common language before they spread across Asia, Eurasia and Europe carrying their language which later split into different dialects and languages. They called these speakers Indo-Europeans and their languages—from North India to Europe—members of the Indo-European family. They called the original language Proto-Indo-European or PIE, a term sometimes applied to itsspeakers also.

European linguists soon followed up on these ideas but in their newfound enthusiasm committed two egregious blunders. First, they borrowed the Sanskrit word Arya which only means civilized and turned it into a geographical and then a racial term by applying it to the people and languages of North India. (The correct term for North India is Gauda, just as Dravida means South India.) Next, they placed South Indian languages in a totally different category called the Dravidian family excluding them from nearly all discourse about Indo-Europeans. In reality South Indian languages are much closer to Sanskrit in both grammar and vocabulary, whereas withEuropean languages it is limited to vocabulary.
Scientifically determined migration map


This point—the closeness of the so-called Dravidian languages to Sanskrit—needs to be emphasized because keeping the two separated continues to be part of a political and academic agenda. In truth, there are no reasons to suppose that Gauda and Dravida languages including Sanskrit had ever remained in separate exclusive domains. Some covert Aryan theorists like Thomas Trautmann go to the extent of claiming that the Dravidian family was ‘discovered’ by Bishop Robert Caldwell in 1835, just as Sanskrit was ‘discovered’ by Jones in 1786. The truth is by then they had a two thousand year history of coexistence, and at no time were people of the south ignorant of Sanskrit.

The Aryan myth and the idea of the invasion (AIT) were taught as history for nearly a century until archaeologists discovered the Harappan or the Indus Valley civilization. It continues to be taught in one form or another in spite of the many contradictions highlighted by archaeologists like Jim Shaeffer and B.B. Lal as well as natural scientists like Sir Julian Huxley L. Cavalli-Sforza and others. Politics and entrenched academic interests have succeeded in keeping alive this two hundred year old ad-hoc hypothesis but science may have put an end to its survival while at the same time opening a vast new window on the origin and spread of Indo-Europeans.

Recent discoveries in natural history and population genetics, especially in the past two decades have changed our understanding of Indo-European origins in ways that were totally unexpected. The picture, still a bit hazy, highlights the fact that theories like the AIT are naïve and simplistic. To begin with they very greatly underestimate the time scales involved and also ignore the revolutionary impact of natural history on humans in the past hundred thousand years. It is science, not linguistic theories that help us unlock the mystery of Indo-Europeans.
Toba eruption, comparison

Toba eruption, comparison

A volcano and a gene mutation

Our story takes us to Africa some hundred thousand years ago. Our ancestors, called ‘anatomically modern humans’ have been located in fossils in East Africa dating to about that time or somewhat earlier. We were not the only humans then existing: there were several other ‘humanoid’ species in Asia and Africa among which the now extinct Neanderthals are the best known. What separates us from them is we have survived and they have not. In addition we are a speaking species with language without which civilization as we know it is inconceivable. So it is the origin of spoken language that we must seek and not just phonetic similarities in surviving languages.

This means, before speaking of Indo-European, Proto-Indo-European or any other language, we must ask ourselves when did humans begin to speak in the first place? The answer is provided by the discovery of the mutation of a gene knows as FOXP2. It is a complex ‘transcription’ gene that controls both verbalization and grammar. The time when the mutation occurred cannot be pinpointed but based on the evidence of the extinction of all other human species following the Toba super-volcanic eruption about 73,000 years ago, we may place it around 80,000 years before present.

Then, around 74,000 years ago, there was a massive volcanic eruption on the island of Sumatra known as the Toba Explosion. It is the greatest volcanic explosion known, nearly 3000 times the magnitude of the 1980 Mount St. Helen’s explosion. It resulted in a 6,000 year long freeze causing the extinction of all the human species on the planet except a few thousand of our ancestors in Africa and the Neanderthals. In particular, all non-speaking humanoids became extinct. As a result, only speech capable humans survived this catastrophe. This means all of us are descended from this small group of speech capable Africans. (Neanderthals became extinct 30,000 years ago.)

Indo-Europeans, two waves
Toba recreation

Toba recreation

This was the situation until about 65,000 years ago when small groups of our African ancestors made their way to South Asia traveling along the Arabian coast. All non-Africans living today are descended from these one thousand or so original settlers in South Asia. They flourished in a small area for some ten thousand years in South-Central India. Their small number living in a small area meant a single language would have sufficed for their needs. This was the primordial language of our ancestors. My colleagues and I call it Proto-Afro-Indian. No trace of it has survived.

For the next ten thousand years they led a precarious existence by hunting and gathering. About 52,000 years ago there was a dramatic warming in climate. This led to increase in both population and territory. It was followed by a mass extinction of animals probably due to over-hunting. Shortly after this, about 45,000 years ago or so, small groups left the Indian subcontinent in search of better hunting territory and made their way to Eurasia and Europe. These are the first Indo-Europeans. The language they took with them, possibly more than one, was descended from the primordial Afro-Indian became the first Indo-European. We have no idea what it was like.
Simplified map of the spread of humans

Simplified map of the spread of humans

All this took place during the last Ice Age or what scientists call the Pleistocene. Towards the end of the Ice Age, about 11,000 years ago, agriculture originating in India and Southeast Asia replaced hunting-gathering leading to much larger populations. Important domestic animals including the horse were also domesticated in the region (There is no truth to the claim that horses were unknown in India before the Aryan invaders brought them.) There were now several languages in north and south India which my colleagues and I call Gauda and Dravida languages. (Arya means civilized and inappropriate for region or language.)

There were two major developments in the Indian subcontinent during the Holocene or the period after the Ice Age 10,000 years ago. First, there was intense activity leading eventually to the creation of the Vedas and the language that became Sanskrit. These were not dialects but carefully constructed by incorporating features found in both northern (Gauda) and southern (Dravida) sources. This accounts for the so-called Dravidian features found in the Vedas as well as the closeness of Dravidian grammars to Sanskrit grammar.

The other was a second wave of people out of India who took with them both Sanskrit related languages and agricultural skills along with domestic animals including rats and mice! This accounts for the closeness of Sanskrit to European languages, in vocabulary but not grammar. AIT advocates claim a reverse movement but this is convincingly refuted by genetic analysis of humans as well as domesticated animals. They show a movement out of the Indian subcontinent. Even linguistic arguments fail because while the Vedas show ‘Dravidian’ features, they show no traces of European or Eurasian influences. (Modern Indian languages on the other hand do show the influence of both English and Persian, testimony to their presence.)

This means there were two major waves of Indo-Europeans, both out of India into the north and west. We know of the first (c. 45,000 BCE) only from genetic studies of modern populations around the world. We have no idea what their languages were like. The second, and much more recent, occurred at the turn of the Pleistocene-Holocene transition some 10,000 years ago. It has left many traces in archaeology, genetics, culture, and above all in the Sanskritic imprint on the languages of Europe and Eurasia. This is supplemented by genetic and other scientific data relating to animals that accompanied them including of rats and mice!

India’s pivotal role, Sanskrit’s perfection

India was (and is) pivotal because of its strategic location and climate. Both land and sea routes—east-west as well as north-south—are accessible from India. Also, India enjoys a subtropical climate that allows both tropical and temperate flora and fauna to flourish. Further, relative to other large countries India has the largest arable land area and receives ample rainfall over a wide area.

Sanskrit and movements that led to it played a crucial role in the evolution and spread of Indo-European languages. Sanskrit itself evolved along two parallel tracks— Vedic and what became classical. Since the idea that it was brought by invading Aryans has been demolished by science, we must look to indigenous sources to understand its history. Unique conditions prevailing in India for tens of thousands of years until the end of the Ice Age proved congenial for creating the language of the Vedas and what later became literary Sanskrit.

Sanskrit enjoys a pivotal position among languages just as mathematics does in the sciences. This is because Vedic Sanskrit is the oldest surviving language whose origins may go back to the end of the Pleistocene and the beginning of the Holocene or 10,000 years. Then there is the perfection of its grammar (like Panini’s famous Ashtadhyayi) attained over millennia of cultivation. Sanskrit was a carefully created language to meet specific needs and its pristine form has been carefully preserved through the efforts of hundreds of generations of scholars. (‘Samskrita’ means composed, compiled or created.)

We can only speculate, but the stability and close-knit and relatively small population during these millennia must have been factors that contributed to the unmatched linguistic perfection of the Sanskrit language and the Rig Veda. Its creators must have realized that they had succeeded in creating something extremely precious, which made them go to great lengths to preserve its purity through their unique method of teaching from generation to generation.

This accounts for the perfection of phonetics and grammar found in Sanskrit and nowhere else. The grammar followed by Kalidasa 2000 years ago is the same as the one we use today. This is not true of any other language. (Just compare Shakespeare’s English with today’s English.) Some Eurocentric linguists find it hard to digest the fact that Sanskrit is central to their discipline. They have tried to relegate it to a secondary position by creating something called Proto-Indo-European or PIE from which they try to derive Sanskrit. This will not work because many different PIEs have been constructed over the last century, but there is only one Sanskrit preserved for thousands of years. Sanskrit can do without IE Studies (as it has done for thousands of years) but IE Studies will collapse without Sanskrit. PIE cannot save it.

Finale

As far as methodology is concerned, observant readers will have noticed that the approach outlined here reverses the usual procedure of looking at language similarities and then trying to infer movements and location of speakers, in the process creating artifacts like PIE. What is done here is the opposite: we use science, particularly natural history and genetics supplemented by archaeology and related fields to arrive independently at the movements, extinctions, ‘drifts and selective sweeps’ from which we go on to derive the spread of languages. This avoids the circularity involved in deriving movements from language similarities and then attributing those similarities to the movements.

Finally, the picture given here is by no means definitive but decidedly in better agreement with scientific data and the fossil record than linguistic theories like the AIT which must now be relegated to the dustbin of history. The goal at this time is to build a scientific framework: many details remain to be filled, but any new theory must account for scientific data, especially from natural history and genetics, and take also into account the vast time scales involved. Such momentous developments as the evolution and spread of languages over half the world cannot be squeezed into a few thousand years like the Biblical account of Creation in 4004 BC on which the AIT was based.

Acknowledgements: The author is happy to acknowledge suggestions and comments from Dr. Stephen Oppenheimer, Dr. David Frawley, Dr. Premananda Priyadarshi and Dr. Rosalie Wolfe.

_________

Dr. Navaratna Rajaram is a scientist and historian. Ideas of the article are explored in greater detail in his forthcoming book Genes of Time and the Birth of History.

[Virendra]

But I think Greece was fertilized by the Arya who left India as the followers of Bhrigu's descendant (Zoroaster) who was an Atharvan priest with their God Varuna/Ahura Mazda and the Zend Avesta - the Bhargava Atharva Veda. They used to pronounce sapta as hapta. That became Greek Hepta. It came back to India as Persian "Haphta" for week as opposed to Hindi Saptah

Pt. Kota Venkatachelam wrote the same in 1950s, that Greeks are at least partially of Indian stock and modern Greeks are result of a comparitively recent mixture.

[Prem]

But I think Greece was fertilized by the Arya who left India as the followers of Bhrigu's descendant (Zoroaster) who was an Atharvan priest with their God Varuna/Ahura Mazda and the Zend Avesta - the Bhargava Atharva Veda. They used to pronounce sapta as hapta. That became Greek Hepta. It came back to India as Persian "Haphta" for week as opposed to Hindi Saptah

Pt. Kota Venkatachelam wrote the same in 1950s, that Greeks are at least partially of Indian stock and modern Greeks are result of a comparitively recent mixture.

Dukakis who ran for the post of POTUS against Se, Bush use to ask donation from Indians claiming ethnic affinity. He use to cite his Nose with Desi Nose variations.

[Agnimitra]

Did you know that ancient Egyptian civilization was originally created from Druidic Irish Aryan inhabitants? This and much more explained clearly in...

The Irish Origins of Civilization

From the excerpts:

The land we now call Egypt was colonized...and was originally peopled by fair Celts from the shores of Britain. This was the Exodus of the Aryans, some of whom returned later to their primeval homes

[shiv]

I wonder if, (and hope that) people are still interested in this topic.

I have been doing some reading, research and writing and I can find absolutely zero evidence that a language called "Avestan" existed around the same time as Vedic Sanskrit. Note that for AIT to work, Avestan has to be a sister language of Vedic Sanskrit, but as far as I can tell, Avestan is as cooked up as PIE. Let me explain why.

Europeans had little knowledge and even less interest in Zoroastrianism until a Frenchman called Anquetil du Perron spent 7 years with a Parsi guru in Surat learning the hymns and rituals of the Parsis as was known to the guru in the Pahlavi tongue (also called the middle Persian language that existed around 1500 AD.). This man, Perron wrote a book in 1771 about the Parsi religion entitled the Zend Avesta. That is how the name Zend Avesta came up. German scholars believed Perron. British scholars thought he was fake.

Finally a man called Burnouf found another Sanskrit translation of a Pahlavi (Middle Persian) vesrion of the "Zend Avesta" written by a Parsi called Naryosangh in the 15th century. Burnouf used his knowledge of Sanskrit to translate this work and used linguists methods to "correct" the Zend Avesta of Perron. He said that Perron's language and probably the language of his Parsi priest teacher were also wrong, and Burnouf "reconstructed" the "Avestan language" using these old Pahlavi sources and his knowledge of Sanskrit. This reconstructed language is called Avestan.

There is zero proof that Avestan existed as a language at the time of Zoroaster. The earliest textual findings of Avestan are 10th century texts that have samples of Avestan and these are more than 2000 years after Zoroaster. Anestan remains a constructed language.

In fact , as discussed earlier the words "Zend Avesta" are likely to be a corruption of "Chhand Upastha" where Chhand means veda and Upastha means verses. The Zend Avesta reads like the Atharva Veda and is thought to be the "lost" fifth Veda - the Bhargava Atharva Veda. What we have of the Atharva Veda today appears to be the Angirasa Atharva veda. The Gopatha Brahmana refers to five Vedas, and the Atharva Veda itself was known as the Angirasa-Bhargava samhita although nothing remains of Bhrigu/Bhargava in it.

Zoroaster himself was an atharvan as was Bhrigu/Bhargava of the Vedas. Zoroaster is thought to be a descendant of Bhrigu and Ahura Mazda is none other than the much venerated Vedic Asura - Varuna. But leaving those details aside, it is entirely possible that the original Zend Avesta was in Vedic Sanskrit and underwent language change over many centuries until its discovery from texts revealed the language in the form which it reached after some time - and that form is called Avestan. The name "Avestan" itself sounds silly to me. It would have to have a cognate called the "Upasthan" language or "Verses-an" language.

[RajeshA]

There is zero proof that Avestan existed as a language at the time of Zoroaster. The earliest textual findings of Avestan are 10th century texts that have samples of Avestan and these are more than 2000 years after Zoroaster. Avestan remains a constructed language.

shiv saar,

great investigative effort there.

On the issue of timing of Zoroaster, there are simply too many pointers which say he lived around 6000 BCE.

Linking some earlier posts: [1] [2] [3] [4]

In fact Zoroaster's history was changed due to "inconsistency" some linguists found with their AIT. If AIT has no feet to stand on than all the corrections undertaken on the "traditional date" are needless, and the "traditional date" of 6000 BCE should be preserved.

If Mahabharata of 5561 BCE speaks of Zarathustra's new religion, then it makes all the more sense, that it was more like 6000 BCE.

So your findings on Avestan are consistent with Zoraster's traditional date!

[shiv]

Rajesh I am currently using AIT approved 1200 BC dates for Zoroaster because I am treading very carefully and taking many sources for a whole lot of other things. What it means is that I am getting Rig Veda before 2000 BC and up to 3000 BC, with suggestions that go back to 5000 BC mainly on astronomical dating. I am trying to arrive at dates that take a lot of written refs from various people including many 18, 19 and 20 century western scholars.

1200 BC for Zoroaster can be fitted with a whole lot of other texts written by Indians and others. There is so little known about 6000 BC that the date is difficult to defend - and I intend to defend every single date I get against AIT onslaught using multiple cross references form Vedic, Zoroastrian, Assyrian and Greek history. The connections are there.

[johneeG]

India's Cultural Link with Ancient America

Arun Chinchmalatpure

Right from the period of first Spanish historian Mr. Fray Shahaun (1515 AD) till today a number of scholars have worked over the life of native Americans and some of them came to the conclusion that in ancient times people from India and the Indian archipelago migrated to America and developed a great civilization there. In his book 'A Compact History of Mexico' Mr. Ignacio Bernall states that people from Asia entered America some thirty-five thousand years before, whereas Mr. Arcio Nuns, a Brazilian nuclear scientist, mentions about the Dravidians of Asia with America as old as eleven thousand years.

An article published in the 'Hindu' of 27th Sept. 1985 about the discovery made by Dr. Harry Fell, renowned epigraphist of USA goes to suggest that the early merchant settlers of South-East Asia had sailed to far off lands in pursuit of their profession, whose presence in Mexico is available in the form of inscriptions. Dr. Fell has deciphered the Indic inscription from Tihosuco which reads that merchant Vusaluna, the captain of the ship, sailing along the coast line, had got the inscription engraved on the stone slab in the month of July of the year 845. It is assumed that year mentioned is of Saka era.

Cultural Links:

Worship - The archaeologists found many Hindu deities like Shiva, Shiva linga, Ganesh, Kali, Sun, Buddha etc. (in similar or slightly different forms) which were worshiped in ancient America. The Hindu God of luck, Ganesh, was worshiped in Central-South America. Images of Ganesh have been excavated in plenty in Mexico. This god with the elephant's trunk is frequently depicted in Mexican manuscripts and in the temple ruins in Central America as the god with a proboscis-like horn, whence water is squirting and his head is most frequently portrayed on the corners of temple walls, which are always built with reference to the original points. And image of 'Ekadant Ganesh' was noticed in the temple at Kopan by great Indologist late Dr. W.S. Wakankar.

An image of Hanuman called by the name 'Wilka Huemana' and measuring 50 feet in height and 12 feet in breadth was found in Guatemala. Similar one was found during an excavation of an Aztec temple in Mexico City and was known as 'Euhectal', a wind God, a monkey God.

Buddhism also had a vast influence on pre-Colombian America. Professor F.W. Putnam found in the jungles of Honduras a sculpture which greatly resembles Buddha. According to the July, 1901 issue of American Harper's Magazine, it has been proved with evidence that five Buddhist monks had reached Mexico in ancient times, via Alaska.


Mexican Buddha

Ceremonies, Beliefs and Customs:

Hindu culture, civilization, custom and belief also dominated ancient America to some extent. Ancient Americans believed in legendary cataclysm, rebirth, four yugas and the concept of two planets like Rahu and Ketu causing solar eclipse. The Hindu doctrine of the ages is preserved in a stone monolith popularly known as the Aztec calendar. This remarkable piece of stone carving is in the form of an immense disc 12 feet in diameter and weights over 20 tons. A festival called Sita-Ram (Situa-Raimi) was celebrated in Mexico during Nav-Ratri or Dussehra period which has been described on page 5867 in the book 'Hamsworth History of the World'. Both in Central and South America, there are found Sati cremation, priesthood, gurukul system, yajna, birth, marriage and death ceremonies to some extent similar to the Hindus.

Social life:

The ancient American's dresses (male and female) were simple and similar to those of Hindu dresses. Mexican face types were found to be similar to those of Assam, Naga, Nepal and Haryana people. Even their reddish brown skin complexion bears distinct similarity with those of Nepalis and Nagas. If an Indian is shown a Maya lady of Yucatan province from Mexico, he will recognize her as a Jat Lady of Haryana. Ayar Inoa King used to wear a turban, earring and a trishul type trident in his hand.

Today native Indians of America live in the states of California, Arizona, New Mexico who number only few lacs (lac = 100,000). These tribes are still vegetarians. Similarly, only two lacs natives are survived in Canada who are still called as 'Indians'. Their lifestyle, customs, and beliefs are similar to Bharatiya people.

Trade:

Goldsmiths from Peru and Mexico prevailed working style similar to Indian traditional goldsmiths. Mr. Michael Long of the National Geographic Society was surprised to see the back strap weaving method in handloom at Santa Rosa of Peru. This is used to separate thread. It is very well known that cotton is a gift given by Indians to the whole world.

Language:

Professor Raman Mena, curator of the National Museum of Mexico, said that the general appearance of Maya's writing is considered of oriental origin. According to scholar Orozco V. Berra, Maya and other languages are of Sanskrit origin. A few Sanskrit and Quichua words are given here to show their similarity and origin.

Quichua Sanskrit

A hina (also) ena (also) Killa (moon) Kil (shining) Illapi (chant) lap (to speak) Paksa (fortnight) Paksha (fortnight)

The word 'Wara', a unit of measurement, was also used by Maya people. They used to call Antyas as Antis. Professor Hug Fox of Michigan State University found a strange mix of Tamil and local American languages in use some millennia ago. For example, shasta, Indiana, Arevada, Utah, Guyana etc. Mr. Arcio Nuns from the Federal University of Brazil found evidence of our Gorani language in the form of Bruhi language during his long research work conducted in South America. 'Gorani' language was practiced thousands of years before in Tamilnadu as per Arcio Nuns. This language is still used in the Adi-Chandlur tribal area of Tamilnadu and shows similarity to the Bruhi language being practiced in South America.

It is also believed that Quichua's (language of Peruvians) characteristic of mouth transmission is derived from Indians. Writing mathematical figures by using vertical and horizontal straight lines was a system commonly practiced by Indians and Mayas.

Shilpa:

Southern and Central American excavations revealed ancient cities, forts, bridges, tanks, canals, houses and pyramids which indicated the high state of civilization and what is found that some sculptures of those archaeological remnants are similar in form and design to that found in Indian sculptural monuments. 'Supporting the buildings over the arms of Yaksha' is an Indian art. Similar types of construction was found in ancient Mexico. Similarly, sculptures of human figures with headgear similar to Tamils, sculptures of Indian style ornamentation of elephants were found in Kopan (Honduras) and Palenque. Thousands of ancient baked-clay bricks were found in Comalcalco in Mexico over which Pali scripts were engraved and these were used in the construction of pyramid temples which were similar to the pyramid temple in the Chidambaram village situated on the Coromandel coast in Southern India. In an article written by scholar Ronald Shiller named 'Unsolved Mysteries of the Incas' (published in Reader's Digest of August 1982) he claims to have seen the imprints of South-East Asian culture over the sculptures found in Peru dating to the second century BC.

I hope my findings will help the scholars to study the influence of Indian culture over the Meso-American culture, so as to bring before the world the universality of great Vedic culture in the past.

Vedic Roots of Ancient America

Sushama Lodhe

Baffling Links to Ancient India:

History is full of misnomers; one such term is the New World, as applied to the Americas. The landing of Columbus in 1492 undoubtedly created a new life on the continents, but it neither created nor discovered a new world. Many centuries ago Asian migrants had come to the western shore in substantial numbers. What if the popular idea that Tibetans and American Indians have much in common in terms of their spiritual culture is largely a result of another historical scenario?

What if Hindus and Hopis, Advaitins and Aztecs, Tibetan Monks and Mayans were part of one world culture - a spiritual one?

Baron Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859), an eminent European scholar and anthropologist, was one of the first to postulate the Asiatic origin of the Indian civilizations of the Americas. Swami B.V. Tripurari asks, " What mysterious psychological law would have caused Asians and Americans to both use the umbrella as a sign of royalty, to invent the same games, imagine similar cosmologies and attribute the same colors to the different directions?"

The first Maya Empire had been founded in Guatemala at about the beginning of the Christian era. Before the fall of Rome the Mayas were charting accurately the synodical revolutions of Venus and whilst Europe was still lingering in the Dark Ages the Maya civilization had reached a peak of greatness.

It is significant that the zenith of Maya civilization was reached at a time when India had also attained an unparalleled cultural peak during the Gupta period. Indian cultural intercourse with Southeast Asia, the Gupta period, had begun more than a century before the Mayan classical age in 320 and Buddhism and Hinduism had been well known in neighboring countries for centuries. If there was contact between Mayan America and Indianized Southeast Asia, the simultaneous cultural advance would not appear surprising. In marked contrast, this was the darkest period in Europe's history between the sack of Rome and the rise of Charlemagne.

The most important development of the ancient American or Asiomerican culture took place in the south of the United States, in Mexico, in central America and in Peru. The early history of Asiomericans is shrouded in mystery and controversy due to the absence of definitive documentary evidence, which was destroyed by the European conquerors in their misguided religious zeal.

However, it appears that after the discovery of introduction of maize into Mexico, Asiomericans no longer had to wander about in search of food. Men in America, as in other parts of the world, settled down to cultivate food and culture, a by-product of agricultural life, inevitably followed.

Of the Asiomerican civilizations, the best known are the Maya, the Toltec, the Aztec, and the Inca. The Mayas were possibly the earliest people to found a civilization there; they moved from the Mexican plateau into Guatemala. They were later pushed out, presumably by the Toltecs, who, in turn were dislodged by the Aztecs.

Similarities:

Astrology

Baron Alexander Von Humboldt, whilst visiting Mexico, found similarities between Asian and Mexican astrology. He founded systematic study of ancient American cultures and was convinced of the Asian origin of the American-Indian high civilization. He said:

"If languages supply but feeble evidence of ancient communication between the two worlds, their communication is fully proved by the cosmogonies, the monuments, the hieroglyphical characters and the institutions of the people of America and Asia."

In 1866, the French architect, Eugene Viollet-le-Duc, also noted striking resemblances between ancient Mexican structures and those of South India.

Hindu-Mexican Trinity:

Scholars were also greatly impressed by the similarity between the Hindu Trinity - Brahma-Visnu-Shiva and the Mexican Trinity Ho-Huitzilopochtli-Tlaloc as well as the likeness between Indian temples and American pyramids. The parallels between the Hindu Brahma-Vishnu-Shiva Trinity and the Mexican Ho-Huitzilopochtli-Tlaloc Trinity and the resemblances between the attributes of certain Hindu deities and those of the Mayan pantheon are impressive. Discussing the diffusion of Indian religions to Mexico, a recent scholar Paul Kirchhoff has even suggested that it is not simply a question of miscellaneous influences wandering from one country to the other, but that China, India, Java and Mexico actually share a common system."

Kirchhoff has sought "to demonstrate that a calendaric classification of 28 Hindu gods and their animals into twelve groups, subdivided into four blocks, within each of which we find a sequence of gods and animals representing Creation, Destruction and Renovation, and which can be shown to have existed both in India and Java, must have been carried from the Old World to the New, since in Mexico we find calendaric lists of gods and animals that follow each other without interruption in the same order and with attributes and functions or meanings strikingly similar to those of the 12 Indian and Javanese groups of gods, showing the same four subdivisions."

E. B. Taylor also found the counterparts of the tortoise myth of India in ancient America.

Donald A. Mackenzie and other scholars, however, are of definite opinion that the ancient Mexicans and Peruvians were familiar with Indian mythology and cite in support close parallels in details. For instance, the history of the Mayan elephant symbol cannot be traced in the local tradition, whereas it was a prominent religious symbol in India. The African elephant has larger ears. It is the profile of the Indian elephant, its tusk and lower lip, the form of its ear, as well as its turbaned rider with his ankus, which is found in Meso-American models. Whilst the African elephant was of little religious significance, it had been tamed in India and associated with religious practices since the early days.

The Mexican doctrine of the World's Ages - the universe was destroyed four consecutive times - is reminiscent of the Indian Yugas. Even the reputed colors of these mythical four ages, white, yellow, red and black are identical with and in the same order as one of the two versions of the Indian Yugas. In both myths the duration of the First Age is exactly the same, 4,800 divine years. The Mexican Trinity is associated with this doctrine as in the Hindu Trinity with the Yugas in India.

Later, two English scholars Channing Arnold and Frederick J. Tabor Frost, in their The American Egypt, made a detailed examination of the transpacific contacts, reinforcing the view of Buddhist influences on Central America. The most recent and by far the most systematic well-reasoned, and effective case has been advanced by the eminent archaeologist, R. Heine-Geldern and Gordon Ekholm, who favor Indian and Southeast Asian cultural influences on ancient America through migration across the Pacific.

According to the Mayan calendar, which is extant, the time record of the Mayas began on 6 August 613 B.C. It is an exact date based upon intricated astronomical calculations and prolonged observations. To work out this kind of elaborate calendar must have taken well over two thousand years of studying stars and the Asiomericans must have been remarkably shrewd observers.

Use of Zero

The Mayas of Yucatan were the first people besides the Indians to use a zero sign and represent number values by the position of basic symbols. The similarity between the Indian zero and the Mayan zero is indeed striking. So far as the logical principle is concerned, the two are identical, but the expressions of the principle are dissimilar. Again, whilst the Indian system of notation was decimal, as was the European, the Mayan was vigesimal. Consequently, their 100 stood for 400, 1000 stood for 8000, 1234 for 8864. While the place of zero in the respective systems of the Indians and Mayans is different, the underlying principle and method are the same and the common origin of the Mayan and Indian zeros appears to be undoubted. Disputes continue amongst scholars in the absence of conclusive evidence. As chronological evidence stands today, the Mayan zero appears to be anterior by several centuries to its Hindu counterpart.

Other similarities

In 1949, two scholars, Gordon Ekholm and Chaman Lal, systematically compared the Mayan, Aztec, Incan, and the North American Indian civilizations with the Hindu-oriented countries of Southeast Asia and with India herself. According to them the emigrant cultures of India took with them India's system of time measurement, local gods and customs. Ekholm and Lal found signs of Aryan civilization throughout the Americas in art (lotus flowers with knotted stems and half dragon/half fish motifs found commonly in paintings and carvings), architecture, calendars, astronomy, religious symbols and even games such as our Parchessi and Mexican Patilli, which have their origins in India's pachisi.

Both the Hindus and Americans used similar items in their worship rituals. They both maintained the concept of four Yuga cycles, or cosmological seasons, extending over thousands of years, and conceived of twelve constellations with reference to the sun as indicated by the Incan sun calendar. Royal insignias, systems of government and practice of religious dance and temple worship all showed remarkable similarities, pointing strongly to the idea that the Americas were strongly influenced by the Aryans. The theory is found in the Vedic literature of India. The ancient Puranas (literally "histories") and the Mahabharata make mention of the Americas as lands rich with gold and silver. Argentina, which means "related to silver", is thought to have been named after Arjuna (of silver hue).

Another scholar, Ramon Mena, author of Mexican Archaelogy, called the Nahuatl, Zapoteca, and Mayan languages "of Hindu origin." He went to say, "A deep mystery enfolds the tribes that inhabited the state of Chiapas in the district named Palenque... their writing, and the anthropological type, as well as their personal adornments... their system and style of construction clearly indicate the remotest antiquity... (they) all speak of India and the Orient."

Still another scholar, Ambassador Miles Poindexter, a former ambassador of the United States to Mexico, in his two-volume 1930s treatise The Arya-Incas, called the Mayan civilization "unquestionably Hindu." He proposed that primitive Aryan words and people came to America by the island chains of Polynesia. The Mexican name for boat is a South Indian Tamil word, Catamaran, and Poindexter gives a long list of words of the Quichua languages and their analogous forms in Sanskrit. Similarities between the hymns of the Inca rulers of Peru and Vedic hymns have been pointed out. A. L. Krober has also found striking similarities between the structure of Indo-European and the Penutian language of some of the tribes along the northwestern coast of California. Recently, an Indian scholar, B. C. Chhabra, in his "Vestiges of Indian Culture in Hawaii", has noticed certain resemblances between the symbols found in the petroglyphs from the Hawaiian Islands and those on the Harappan seals. Some of the symbols in the petroglyphs are described as akin to early Brahmi script.

Indeed, the parallels between the arts and culture of India and those of ancient America are too numerous and close to be attributed to independent growth. A variety of art forms are common to Mexico, India, Java, and Indochina, the most striking of which are the Teocallis, the pyramids with receding stages, faced with cut stone, and with stairways leading to a stone sanctuary on top. Many share surprisingly common features such as serpent columns and banisters, vaulted galleries and corbeled arches, attached columns, stone cut-out lattices and Atlantean figures; these are typical of the Puuc style of Yucatan. Heine-Geldern and Ekholm point out that temple pyramids in Cambodia did not become important until the ninth and tenth centuries, a time coinciding with the beginning of the Puuc period.

Vedic Americas

Vrin Parker

The fact that a highly civilized race inhabited America long before the modern civilization of Europe made its appearance there, is quite clear from the striking remains of ancient and his refinement existing in the country. Extensive remains of cities which must have been once in a most flourishing condition, of strong and well-built fortresses, as well as the ruins of very ancient and magnificent buildings, roads, tanks and canals that meet the eye over a very wide area of the southern continent of America, irresistibly force us to the conclusion that the country must have been inhabited at one time by a very highly civilized nation. But whence did this civilization spring?

The researches of European antiquarians trace it to India. Mr. Coleman says: "Baron Humboldt, the great German traveler and scientist, describes the existence of Hindu remains still found in America."

Speaking of the social usages of the inhabitants of Peru, Mr. Pococke says: "The Peruvians and their ancestors, the Indians, are in this point of view at once seen to be the same people." The architecture of ancient America resembles the Hindu style of architecture. Mr. Hardy says: "The ancient edifices of Chichen in Central America bear a striking resemblance to the tops of India." Mr. Squire also says: "The Buddhist temples of Southern India and of the islands of the Indian archipelago, as described to us by the learned members of the Asiatic Society and the numerous writers on the religion and antiquities of the Hindus, correspond with great exactness in all their essential and in many of their minor features with those of Central America." Dr. Zerfii remarks: "We find the remarkable temples, fortresses and viaducts, aqueducts of the Aryan group."

A still more significant fact proves the Hindu origin of the civilization of ancient America. The mythology of ancient America furnishes sufficient grounds for the inference that it was a child of Hindu mythology. The following facts will elucidate the matter:

Americans worshiped Mother Earth as a mythological deity, as the Hindus still do - Dhatri mata and Prithvi mata are well known as familiar phrases in Hindustan.

Footprints of heroes and deities on rocks and hills were worshiped by the Americans as devoutly as they are done in India even at the present day. Mexicans are said to have worshiped the footprints of Quetzal Coatl and the Indians worship the footprints of Buddha in Ceylon and of Krishna in Gokula near Mathura.

The Solar and Lunar eclipses were looked upon in ancient America in the same light as in modern India. The Hindus beat drums and make noises by beating tin pots and other things. The Americans, too, raise a frightful howl and sound musical instruments. The Carecles (Americans) think that the demon Maleoyo, the hater of light, swallows the moon and sun in the same way as the Hindus think that the demons Rahu and Ketu devour the sun and the moon.

The priests were represented in America with serpents round their heads, as Siva, Kali and others are represented by the Hindus.

Voodoo and Vedic tradition

tannhaus
from http://iskcon.livejournal.com/85071.html

It might surprise you that Voodoo is not about casting spells and sticking pins into dolls. You might find it even more surprising that Voodoo is a legitimate religion that is, in many ways, very similar to Vedic religion. In order to promote greater understanding and respect, I have decided to show some similarities as well as differences between Voodoo and Vedic religion.

First, let us start with where Voodoo came from: During the sixteenth century, slave traders began taking people from the West Coast of Africa (also known as the Slave Coast), the area comprising Benin (formerly Dahomey) and Togo, and selling them to French owned plantations in the Caribbean. The French Catholics tried to forcibly convert the slaves to Catholicism. What instead happened was an integration of the Yoruba and Fon traditions of Africa with Catholicism, thus creating Vodou. The later movement of these slaves also brought Vodou to New Orleans and the Carolina coast.

The word Vodou means "Spirit" or "Deity" in the Fon language of Dahomey. Like Vedic religion, Vodou is monotheistic. They believe in one God, called Bondye (from French Bon Dieu, "Good God") who is unfathomable. In Vedic religion, guru provides a link between God and man. In Vodou, that link is accomplished by spirits very similar to the demigods: the loa (also spelled lwa). It is also accomplished by the Mambo (priestess) or Houngan (priest).

There is no difference between Houngans and Mambos other than gender. They are equals in respect and power. But, they complete the link between man and God by helping us connect to the loa. In many ways, the Houngan and Mambo are like our spiritual parents. They provide spiritual guidance, emotional support, and they even provide herbs when we are ill. Whereas any person can pray to the loa and feel them in their lives, the mambo or houngan has the ability to bridge the gap between our plane of existence and theirs and actually call them into our realm of experience.

As far as the loa themselves, who are they? They are archetypical and ancestral spirits, bridging the gap between man and God. Their similarity to the demigods is surprising. For instance, the loa Ghede corresponds to Yama and the loa Papa Legba corresponds to Ganesh. In Vodou they realize that the demigods are below God and so they serve God _through_them.

A major theme in Vodou is service, just like in Vedic religion. As Sallie Ann Glassman (my old Mambo and author of Vodou Visions, a book where you can find this information on Vodou as well as a lot more) says, "The core focus of a Vodou Sosyete (society or congregation) is on service. Be true to yourself and make your life the most beautiful offering that you can give. Service to the Lwa is service to the community. Service to the community is service to the Lwa."

The lwa are honored in much the same way as Krishna and the demigods. They are offered incense, water, food (they even have favorite foods), etc. A difference is that the loa are also offered liquor and cigarettes or cigars (which signifies lower gunas of the worshiper). But the idea is the same. The offering is made, the loa accept the offering, and then the now sacred food can be consumed by the congregation (as prasadam).

In Vodou, respect and honor are paramount. It is not some empty respect for a God that you cannot see, but it is respect for all life. Each individual is a creation of God and is thus sacred. Every item, when used in the service of the Lwa, becomes sacred. Whereas many people go to a church which they consider holy ground, Vodou makes the ground they live on holy. Vodou makes the things of your everyday life sacred. Vodou makes the here and now an act of worship, and not just the "there and on Sunday".

Like in the Vaisnava tradition, song and dance is an integral part of the Vodou ceremony. When you dance in Vodou, you offer your energy and body to the lwa. You feel the drumbeat pulse through you like the heartbeat of the loa and you immerse yourself in their caress. The trappings of everyday life bleed from you and you become spirit, dancing in honor and ecstasy. You commune with the lwa.

No article on Vodou would be complete without also touching on three often misunderstood subjects: magic, possession, and sacrifice:

In Vodou, like in the Vedas, animal sacrifice is a reality. But also, like the Vedas, Judaism, etc., animal sacrifice is done with a sense of compassion and respect. The idea is not to torture or harm the poor animal, but instead to offer it up to the lwa, life and body. Afterwards, the animal is cooked and eaten by the congregation. This is not a barbaric rite, but one that affirms life. Whereas in the West we eat meat that comes wrapped in plastic and anonymous, these animals are cared for, respected, and eventually offered to the lwa. All life is sacred. Their gift does not go unnoticed.

There is often a difference in Vodou in the United States and Vodou in Haiti in that regard. In Haiti it is believed that without the life force the lwa cannot manifest in our realm of experience. It is also worth noting that the Haitians don't enjoy the luxury of buying anonymous animals wrapped in plastic. They have to kill their own animals. So, it can be argued, if they have to kill their own food, why should they not be able to kill the food for the loa?

That brings up another issue: How do the loa "manifest" in our realm of experience? Some people see them in their dreams or visions but the primary way of manifestation is that of possession. In the West, when you mention possession immediately you think of a setting something like that from the movie Exorcist. The thought of losing control over our own bodies terrifies us. In the context of Vodou, however, possession is a beautiful thing.

When someone is possessed by a lwa in Vodou, the lwa essentially borrows that body for a time. Then they can interact with the congregation directly. This is an amazing experience, being able to talk, dance, and laugh with a being that is, for all intents and purposes, identical to the demigods. For the person who is possessed, they do not remember the incident. They have given the ultimate sacrifice: their own body for the good of the congregation even though they weren't around to enjoy! However, they're later told what has happened and can take comfort in knowing that _they_ were inhabited by the lwa... and they are transformed by the knowledge that they themselves were chosen by the lwa and shared their bodies with such a powerful and beautiful spirit.

As far as the value to the people around a possessed person... they actually get more value than the possessed person. The loa acts through that body. They will talk... eat the offerings... dance... It's like having them there as a flesh and blood person. The person possessed won't remember this... but the people in the congregation will actually get to spend time _with_ the loa... in a very real sense.

The last thing I want to touch on is the issue of magic. For those familiar with Vedic traditions it comes as no surprise that other religions acknowledge magic to be possible. However, in the context of Vodou, there is a difference between a sorcerer (bokor, "one who offers with a left hand", which suggest a left-hand tantra connection) and the priest or priestess. The priest and priestess deal with spiritual transformation and the bokor deals with magic. Magic is temporary whereas spiritual transformation follows you for all your life.

It is not simply a case of good and evil, because the bokor can do spells for good _or_ bad. But, like Gandhi said, "As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world - that is the myth of the atomic age - as in being able to remake ourselves." Anything the bokor does is necessarily temporary because it works on the material plane, which is in a constant state of change. However, when we enact real spiritual change with the help of the Mambo or Houngan and the loa, that change follows us all the days of our lives. I would like to end this article with a quote from Gandhi as well: "The essence of all religions is one. Only their approaches are different.

Links Between Ancient India and Mayans

From the Deccan Chronicle

HYDERABAD, INDIA, April 29, 2002: Recent studies suggest a link between Indus Valley and Mayans of Central America. The studies focused on the calendars of the two advanced civilizations. The Indus Valley inhabitants followed a calendar based on the movements of Jupiter and the Mayans followed one based on the Venus. In the Puranas, a secondary Hindu scripture, Jupiter, Brihaspati, was acknowledged to be the leader of the gods, while Venus, Shukra, was the leader of the asuras. The texts further state that the devas and asuras lived on opposite sides of the Earth. Mexico and India are at opposite sides in longitude. The correspondences were pointed out by B. G. Siddarth, director of the B. M. Birla Science Centre in Hyderabad. He also said the Hindu story of the churning of the ocean has been found in carvings in Mexico, as well Mayan representations of a tortoise carrying twelve pillars similar to Indian illustrations. Dr. Ganapati Sthapati of Chennai, a foremost expert on Vastu Shastra, the ancient Hindu architecture, has visited the Mayan structures in Central America and found many similarities between the design and construction methods of the Mayans and that of the ancient Hindus.

Vedic Culture in Peru

Guru-vrata Das

In 1994 I saw a newspaper article that showed a photograph of a "huaco" (ancient pot usually made of clay, from the Inca culture or older). The sign that appeared on this "huaco" was a big svastika with four dots inside. This is a Vedic sign that you can see on the top of the gates of ancient temples. (Of course, the archeologists did not know what that symbol meant and maybe they still don't know it).

Also a devotee-scholar told me that he had seen another "huaco" that he described in this way: A monkey supposingly running or flying, holding a small mountain in one hand and a club in the other. The monkey had some kind of helmet. Sounds familiar doesn't it? Jaya Sri Hanumanji!

I've heard that some stories from Ramayana tell that Sri Ramacandra came to the American continent when he was fighting with Ravana & Kumbhakarna. This is very interesting point. When you go to Bolivia and to the south of Peru, you can see a very famous festival called "La Diablada" ("Demoniac Dance"). This festival depicts a very ancient story: two angel-like warriors fight against a ten-headed demon. This demon has a army and the angelical warriors are being helped by animal armies, especially by a society of well organized monkeys. Jaya Sri Ramayana!

I have also heard that the word "Dinka" means "Children of the Sun" or "Worshipers of the Sun" in Sanskrit or some other Indian language. The word "Inka" in Quechua (language spoken by the Inca culture) means "Children of the Sun". And worshiping the Sun gives the worshiper intelligence and gold, a very notorious feature of the Inca empire. Their society was very similar to varnasrama.

American Indian Karna

Vrin Parker

There are many similarities between Vedic culture and the American Indian traditions. In the Pueblo (Indians of the SW USA) traditions there is an amazing tale which parallels the story of Karna from the Mahabharata. There are some variations but the similarities are striking. Here is the story as retold by Gerald McDermott. He published it in a children story book form and thus many of the details have been simplified. More research will surely find the parallels an even better match.

"Long ago the Sun God sent the spark of life to Earth. It traveled down the rays of the sun, through the heavens, and it came to the Pueblo. There it entered the house of a Young Maiden. In due course, the Boy came into the world of men. He lived and grew and played in the Pueblo (village).

However the other boys would not let him join in their games. "Where is your father?" they asked. "You have no father!" they mocked him and chased him away. The Boy and his Mother were sad.

One day he said, "Mother, I must look for my father. No matter where he is I must find him." So the boy left home.

He traveled through the world of men and came to the Corn Planter. "Can you lead me to my father?" he asked. Corn planter said nothing, but continued to tend his crops.

The boy went to the Pot Maker. "Can you lead me to my father?" Pot Maker said nothing, but continued making his pots.

Then the boy went to the Arrow Maker, who was a wise man. "Can you lead me to my father?" Arrow Maker did not answer, but, because he was wise, he saw that the Boy had come from the Sun God. So he created a special arrow. The Boy became the Arrow.

Arrow Maker fitted the Boy to his bow and drew it. The Boy flew into the Heavens. In this way the Boy traveled to the Sun.

After meeting the Sun God, and passing his tests, father and son rejoiced. The Boy was transformed and filled with the power of the Sun. "Now you must return to Earth, my son, and bring my spirit to the world of men." Said the Sun God.

Once again the Boy became the Arrow. When the arrow reached the Earth, the Boy emerged and went to the Pueblo.

The People celebrated his return in the Dance of Life."

Anyone familiar with the story of Karna can see the similarities. I will point out the obvious ones.

The Sun God is Suryadeva. The Maiden who received the spark of life through his rays is the Maiden Princess, Kunti. The Boy is Karna. The other boys who would not let him join in their games are the Pandavas who mocked Karna for not knowing who his father was.

The Corn Planter and Pot Maker represent the teachers Drona and Kripa. The Arrow Maker represents Parashurama, who accepted Karna as his disciple and made him the greatest archer on earth.

Of course there are many points in the Mahabharata story that don't seem represented here but since the source is a modern retelling of an ancient Pueblo Indian tale, thousands of years of separation from the original version will always create variations. This phenomenon can be found in Vedic culture itself. Example: Hanuman is a well known Brahmacari yet in Thailand he is married.

It is hoped more research and cultural exchanges can be done in the ongoing search for Humanities Ancient World Vedic Heritage.

Link

Were the Mayas’ Pyramids Built By the Vedic Architect Maya? (by Marcus Schmieke)

Nowadays, it is generally known that Columbus was not the first to discover America. In the course of centuries, almost every seafaring culture set out to the American continents. In the last few years, direct traces have been discovered which lead from India directly into the heart of the Maya Culture of Central America.

In the scriptures of South India, countries located south of India and their relation to the Vedic culture were mentioned. Following these traces, the renowned Vedic architect Dr. V. Ganapati Sthapati travelled to Peru in spring of 1995. His ancestors had built the big Shiva temple in Tanjore approximately a thousand years ago, and he himself continues to build temples all over the world according to the same principles of Vedic architecture. Merely studying old Sanskrit and Tamil scriptures on architecture caused him to assume that there had to be a connection between South America and India.

Not only is its plot based exactly on the same geometric matrix, the Vasatipurusha Mandala, but also its form is identical with the South Indian Vimana (temple domes) even in details. Furthermore, there are amazing similarities as to measurements.

Dr. Sthapati discovered that the South-Indian measure/rule (Kishku yardstick approx. 33 inch) was used mainly in the Peruvian region of Kushku. Residential buildings were also built strictly according to the principles of Vasati, as developed by Maya Danava. Its plots, position of doors and windows, proportions, form of roofs, inclination angles of roofs, diameter of columns, width of walls etc. are perfectly in accordance with the rules of Vasati, which are still applied in 60% of all houses built in India nowadays.

Residential buildings were also built strictly according to the principles of Vasati, as developed by Maya Danava. Its plots, position of doors and windows, proportions, form of roofs, inclination angles of roofs, diameter of columns, width of walls etc. are perfectly in accordance with the rules of Vasati, which are still applied in 60% of all houses built in India nowadays.

Considering so many similarities, it is hard to believe in accident as an explanation. In addition, also the techniques applied by the Maya to erect their buildings and to hammer their huge stones for temples and pyramids are identical to those still taught and applied by Dr. Sthapati today. They have been described by Maya Danava in his books on Vasati.

Did Maya Danava really travel from South India to Peru, or did he originally come from South America to become a famous architect in India later? This question can only be answered if we take into account the mystical personality of Maya Danava.

According to historical records of the Vedic culture, Maya Danava’s influence on man was prevailing for 8000 years. But at the same time, he is described as a being from another planetary system who is equipped with all sorts of mystic powers and with an astronomic life span. Had the same Maya Danava first worked as an architect in South India and published Vedic texts in order to contribute later to the development of the Maya Culture in Central America, which shows a number of similarities with the Vedic India also in fields different from architecture?

It is also very interesting to have a closer look at a linguistic comparison. Even today there are a number of words in the Maya language which indicate a relation to the Vedic culture. The Maya word K’ultanlini refers to the divine power and has obvious similarities to the Sanskrit word Kundalini which also refers to the life power and the power of consciousness.

The Sanskrit term yoga can be found again in the Maya word Yok’hah, which means at the top of truth. For our considerations, it is most interesting to investigate the connection between the Maya word Chilambalam which is the name for the temple room of the caste-pyramid Chichen Itza. This pyramid has the same plot as a South Indian temple vimana. Both are based on a grid consisting of 8 x 8 squares.

In Vasati such a square grid is called Manduka Mandala, the frog mandala. The centre is formed by a square made of four squares, which corresponds to the Brahmasthana, the place of Brahma. At this location the divine energy is so strong that it is not suitable for people to live there.

Both in the Vasati temples and in the Maya pyramids the most sacred place of the whole structure is located exactly in this square. The Mayas call this area Chilambalam, which means sacred room. This room is cubic and corresponds to the original form of room itself in Vasati.

Adhering to this principle, there is a Shiva-temple in South India in which the sacred room or the room of consciousness is being worshiped. This temple with immaculate proportions is called Chidambaram and ranks amongst the most famous Vasati temples of South India next to Shri Rangam. The same concept of the sacred room or hall of consciousness was called Chilambalam by the Mayas. Another perplexing parallel.

Link

-----

The Myth, Romance and Historicity of Alexander and His Influence on India This link lead to an article that discusses whether any real alexander existed or was it a myth which was famous in many countries and which was ultimately usurped by the Greeks.

The Truth About Alexander Another interesting article on Alexander and greek relations with India.

[RajeshA]

shiv saar,

I think the 6000- BCE is a date we should simply keep as a possible suggestion, an alternate theory to AIT. Unlike AIT Theorists we as yet do not need to give concrete dates for various events.

It suffices to prove that their premises and logic is faulty and that they push these theories to promote an ideological agenda and not in the spirit of unbiased scientific inquiry.

[shiv]

shiv saar,

I think the 6000- BCE is a date we should simply keep as a possible suggestion, an alternate theory to AIT. Unlike AIT Theorists we as yet do not need to give concrete dates for various events.

It suffices to prove that their premises and logic is faulty and that they push these theories to promote an ideological agenda and not in the spirit of unbiased scientific inquiry.

Rajesh we need not stick to any specific dates as long as the underlying racist presumptions can be exposed. The only people who have a specific date are the AIT people. No one else has a specific date for anything. That is their strength, They have their arguments sussed out. But their dates can be upset using their methods and their data. That is my intention. Whatever dates I arrive at are hardly important as long as I can show that AIT dates are cooked up and without factual basis.

AIT dates for PIE are actually fixed by Vedas, Zoroaster and Mitanni although they do not want to admit it.

Because Mitanni is 1500 BC and because Zoroaster has been given 1200 BC they have a clear path where language came from Europe to Syria (Mitanni in 1500 BC) and then went as Indo-Iranian to Iran and India forming Avestan and Sanskrit

Working Backwards they get dates like

1. Indic (Vedic sansklrit and Avestan)-1200 BC
2. proto Indo Iranian (Mitanni) 1500 BC
3. Since proto Indo Iranian was a branch from PIE PIE cannot be older than 2500, to 2000 BC. So whether it was horse or chariot or agriculture or whatever - they have fixed the spread PIE to about 2500 BC.

I also found out something more from my research. Europe in the 18 and 19 century saw its history in the Bible and classical Greece. Then they got a shock when they found all the ruins of a great civilization in Assyria that had existed from 2500 BC. Europeans had thought that they were Japhetic people (Descendants of Noah's son Japheth) - superior to Semites. But all these Assyrian finds badly screwed their world view. they were desperately searching for something to prove that they were better. Sanskrit came as a godsend. Since they found a great language connected up with European languages they claimed it as their. Initially they allowed Indians in the club - but later said that indians had mixed with blacks and had not remained pure.

But what made these scholars even more happy was the Mitanni texts. The Mittanis ruled the hated Semites. So now the Europeans had proof that their Japhetic ancestors were conquerors who first conquered Syria from the Semites and then went all the way up to India taking their language with them. Hence AIT dates have to be Mittani before Avestan and and Sanskrit

So AIT is less about anti-India racism and more about proving superiority over Semites. I have many refs but here is one from a Parsi
http://www.heritageinstitute.com/zoroas ... estern.htm

On the one hand the technique of using knowledge of Sanskrit to understand the Avestan languages is clearly valid and has proved very valuable. On the other hand, however, the racial constructs employed by some philologists are full of bias and conjecture, and have resulted in great harm. These individuals, hungry to find some historical proof that European Christians were not Semites, but a separate and superior race, and that Christianity was not based on Semitic roots - appropriated the culture and history of the people of the Avesta, the Aryans, for their own ends. They have used the power of the written word and the credibility of scholarship to create the illusion of fact out of fiction.

also

When western philologists published their conclusions about the Aryans of the Avesta and Rig Veda (the earliest Hindu scriptures), together with their racial constructs, they fed a speculative frenzy about the Aryan peoples - much of it based on the desire of some Europeans to claim superiority over non-Europeans who were thus worthy of colonization and subjugation, or by Christians to claim racial separation from the Jews and other Semites.

[disha]

Please continue with this thread. There is lot of information and analysis in this thread.

Somebody (venug?) was looking to start a project on putting this together in a doc/movie form. I have not given up on that idea yet.

[AbhiJ]

Caste System in Hawaii

No attempt to modify it. Direct Correspondence with Indic Caste System.

[RajeshA]

shiv saar,

from all our studies so far in context of this thread and beyond, I think one thing one can say for certainty - History as espoused by Europeans is at its core an effort to prove their superiority - either through reconstructed, nay re-imagined past full of glory; or simply through their domination in their scholarship of various ancient civilizations, thus claiming them as part of the universalism of their civilization; or by taking credit for the achievements of others.

Their second great accomplishment has been to whitewash their own history of plunder and genocide by wrapping their barbarism and greed in eloquent language as deeds of exploration, valor, liberation and education.

It is with this insight that we should look upon the works of European historians, and try to build a solid new edifice of history keeping Satyamev Jayate front and center of the new effort. We have to treat everything touched by a European historian as contaminated by prejudice and use that as a filter to adjudge their works, sieving out the substance from their propaganda.

We Indians have shown too much of deference and awe to European names. Even today, even we here on this thread, are not completely freed from this attitude. Our fight against AIT still presupposes a behemoth of "good" European scholarship as our adversary and we still lack the confidence to call it a pack of see-through lies put together by some eloquent fiction-writers.

It does not free us from our duty to expose these "see-through" lies for they are as yet not quite visible to all, considering that these lies have been cleverly buried in a web of cross-references in so called scholarship as well as incessant repetitions of falsehoods.

Normally we are accustomed to accepting the statements of others in these matters as his best judgment and if the name has some fame, we consider it as as close to truth as possible. We don't by nature consider the other as telling lies, knowingly or unknowingly. So the European recipe has always been quite simple - to promote their people as scholars of high repute and then to give them a platform for telling lies about history. We Indians fall for this quite easily. Often many simply wish to identify themselves with a "superior" system of European "truth-telling", rather than hopping into the trenches and finding out the truth for themselves, or accepting what other SDRE Indians have discovered if it contradicts European "truths".

Sorry for the little rant directed at us in general, but AIT is as much about freeing Indians from the "mesmerizing" European narrative as it is about the truth itself.

[RajeshA]

johneeG ji,

whenever I read your posts, I often think of the saying "Sau Sunaar ki, to ek lauhaar ki"!

Thanks for your efforts!

[AbhiJ]

What is Huna

The word "Mana" means life force energy. Equivalent to Ki (as in Aikido), Chi (as in Tai Chi) or Shakti or Prana in the Sanskrit language. You may use another word that you prefer, meaning Life Force Energy. The Hawaiians call it Mana. Taken together, the word Ho'omana means to empower or empowerment. When you have Life Force Energy you are empowered, are you not?

The people, called Kahuna, who practiced these techniques and teachings knew that all power and all force emanated from the One, the source of All -- all life, all energy, which in Hawai'i was called I'o. In those times, the same knowledge was taught everywhere else on the planet, too. Around the world today, only remnants of this system survive.

There are only remnants of this system around the Earth, because starting in 325 A.D, (it may have started as early as several thousands years B.C.) a wave began to sweep around the planet in an attempt to destroy the balanced systems -- the original teachings of the peoples of the Earth. The wave hit Hawai'i sometime between 750 and 1250 A.D. At the same time, the Kahuna Pa'ao arrived in Hawai'i from Tahiti (which by the way the word Tahiti in Hawaiian language means somewhere other than here it doesn't necessarily means the physical place called Tahiti) and found a very peace-loving people living in a paradise.

Several years later Pa'ao returned with a number of warriors and priests who overturned the original teaching. The old order was overturned and the current order of Ku was installed.

The Huna we teach predates the teachings of Pa'ao. So, it is very ancient -- from before 750 A.D. We believe that before that time the existing order was a balanced system which could be called The Order of I'o. This is true all over the world. The balanced system was an equally Male / Female system, where men and women were honored equally, where there were both male and female Kahuna.

Before that time balanced systems prevailed around the world, Hawai'i was not the only place where the balanced system were attempted to be wiped out, in western Europe the system was called Wicca and, like Huna, there were attempts to wipe out this teaching. The Holy Inquisition conducted by "The Church", for example, killed hundreds of thousands of people and reduced the population of Spain by more than 50% in 200 years. In India, too a system called Tantra was challenged by the newer system called Vedanta. Although Tantra fared better than Wicca, both systems were subject to much persecution.

The situation was the same all over the world, from the Native Americans which were put in reservations but there the medicine woman tradition prevailed, to the Aboriginals in Australia, where a whole generation of children was kidnapped and "civilized" in white man schools. Each of this peoples bearing the original teachings experienced serious pressure to eradicate the culture and the teachings. We believe that around 325 A.D. definitely, but perhaps even before that, there swept around the planet a wave that began to increase the male dominant patriarchal systems in such a way that the old balanced order was overthrown somewhere around 2,000 years ago, and in Hawai'i the original order was was overthrown between 750 and 1250 A.D.

However, Hawai'i was very lucky to be so isolated. In other areas of the world the original teaching was wiped out earlier than that. There was a real concerted effort in western Europe to wipe out the original teachings which has persisted for thousands of years. These destructive pressures continue today in the world.

One purpose of the original teaching was the study of the ways of increasing life force energy, to give every single human the power in his own hands, ultimate means to create what they totally want in their life. The notion of Life Force is a very important notion. What's also important in the process is also to learn how to make connections with the sources of Mana both inside and outside yourself. The scope of Huna is quite broad -- if you think of it this way, there is one teaching and it has many different names.

[Prem]

Should not DNA test tell us if ancient Mayan or Incas were related to Indics so we know if they were Apne or Beghane? If positively proven , Bharati Bacchas Theory will do Dhobi Patka to AIT.

[anupmisra]

When I visited Paestun in Italy ( Campania region of Italy, 75 KM southeast of Naples) in 2005, I came across this shivaling among the classical Greek temples. It was located between two temples facing West. Mind you, Paestum was settled by ancient Greeks around seventh century BC.

[shiv]

We Indians have shown too much of deference and awe to European names. Even today, even we here on this thread, are not completely freed from this attitude. Our fight against AIT still presupposes a behemoth of "good" European scholarship as our adversary and we still lack the confidence to call it a pack of see-through lies put together by some eloquent fiction-writers.

It does not free us from our duty to expose these "see-through" lies for they are as yet not quite visible to all, considering that these lies have been cleverly buried in a web of cross-references in so called scholarship as well as incessant repetitions of falsehoods.

<snip>

Sorry for the little rant directed at us in general, but AIT is as much about freeing Indians from the "mesmerizing" European narrative as it is about the truth itself.

Rajesh you will have to trust my judgement on this one. In any case I intend to trust my judgement. I have been arguing the Indian viewpoint for so many decades that I have found that the biggest hurdle is us. It is Indians who are the first wave of defenders to stop you and protect the liars. In the case of AIT the lies have been built up over two centuries, and include works by Indians too - Indians who have swallowed the lies wholesale.

I do not propose to say anything that cannot be corroborated from multiple sources. It is the Indians who need to be convinced, not the AIT Nazis who will get swept away once their protective wall of Indian dhimmis and apologists is shattered. The life blood of the Nazis is the obedient dhimmis who digest stuff only when fed to them with the sly "pir review takniki" that they are taught to expect.

[RajeshA]

shiv saar,

With my comments, I never intended to question your judgment, saar! I am not the only one, who has full confidence in it!

I also agree that we have to build our our edifice of history using many bricks of refutation of AIT.

[RajeshA]

Jhujar ji,

strong cultural links between the native Americans and Indians need not have genetic overlap as their basis. With Southeast Asia we have had very strong cultural ties, however our DNA profile differs from theirs. Well of course, all non-African humans once had their origins in India, but that is another story.

[johneeG]

shiv saar,

from all our studies so far in context of this thread and beyond, I think one thing one can say for certainty - History as espoused by Europeans is at its core an effort to prove their superiority - either through reconstructed, nay re-imagined past full of glory; or simply through their domination in their scholarship of various ancient civilizations, thus claiming them as part of the universalism of their civilization; or by taking credit for the achievements of others.

Their second great accomplishment has been to whitewash their own history of plunder and genocide by wrapping their barbarism and greed in eloquent language as deeds of exploration, valor, liberation and education.

It is with this insight that we should look upon the works of European historians, and try to build a solid new edifice of history keeping Satyamev Jayate front and center of the new effort. We have to treat everything touched by a European historian as contaminated by prejudice and use that as a filter to adjudge their works, sieving out the substance from their propaganda.

We Indians have shown too much of deference and awe to European names. Even today, even we here on this thread, are not completely freed from this attitude. Our fight against AIT still presupposes a behemoth of "good" European scholarship as our adversary and we still lack the confidence to call it a pack of see-through lies put together by some eloquent fiction-writers.

It does not free us from our duty to expose these "see-through" lies for they are as yet not quite visible to all, considering that these lies have been cleverly buried in a web of cross-references in so called scholarship as well as incessant repetitions of falsehoods.

Normally we are accustomed to accepting the statements of others in these matters as his best judgment and if the name has some fame, we consider it as as close to truth as possible. We don't by nature consider the other as telling lies, knowingly or unknowingly. So the European recipe has always been quite simple - to promote their people as scholars of high repute and then to give them a platform for telling lies about history. We Indians fall for this quite easily. Often many simply wish to identify themselves with a "superior" system of European "truth-telling", rather than hopping into the trenches and finding out the truth for themselves, or accepting what other SDRE Indians have discovered if it contradicts European "truths".

Sorry for the little rant directed at us in general, but AIT is as much about freeing Indians from the "mesmerizing" European narrative as it is about the truth itself.

+108, saar. This post must be the first post of this thread, nay, the first post that everyone(not just indians) must read before studying anything on history(or even religion or culture for that matter because all of them inter-connected).

The big problem is that all of us are seeing the world through the eyes of the colonial european constructs. For example: Africans learn about India through colonial europeans. Indians learn about Americans(the original ones) through colonial europeans. And so on.

These colonial europeans have muddied the waters completely. Otherwise, if there was a direct contact, I think it is very easy to see that most of the ancient civilizations have same social and religious concepts with some local variations. Perhaps, the world was always inter-connected, just as it is today.

Colonial europeans with their ridiculous history based on biblical theology complicated the things. Their conclusions and views must be summarily dismissed. Even their data-points must be accepted only after they are independently corroborated.

Today, this problem has evolved further... Not only do people look at each other through the eyes of colonial europeans, but they are starting to look at their own culture and society through eyes of colonial europeans. In particular, this is the bane of Indian history, culture, and religion.

People give more weight-age to the half-baked views of some unwashed colonial, instead of the traditional scholar. For evidence, just visit epics thread and discussion on Draupadi based on Randomoozham or Narendra Kohli's Mahasamar. I get the feeling that works like Randomoozham and Mahasamar depict the true impact of colonials on Indians. The colonials have been successful in making Indians consider other half-baked theories as more relevant, then what is mentioned in the original scriptures.

It has become 'rational' and 'modern' to interpret the grand scriptures to suit one's own mundane existence and bias. So, instead of accepting the work as it is, it is deconstructed. The same people hold even silly works of the colonials over and above criticism(even when the criticism is well-founded). Remember the takleef to some when Conan Doyle's racism(specially directed at Indians) was discussed in UK thread?!

This is the true impact of the colonial work. I think this phenomenon is not limited to India. It is high time that Indians must reject all the narratives put forth by the colonials. And I agree with you that traditional dating should always be given higher priority than the dates colonials(or their heirs) have come up with.

Having said that, it seems Shiv saar, has some piskological game in mind. Maybe his method will have success...

I think we(as anti-AIT or pro-OIT), should not be tied down to one method or even a narrative. Each one can poke holes into the establishment theory(AIT) in our own ways. You never know which one will hit the bull's eye... So, we should throw all we got and then something will stick. Also, different people are convinced by different kind of arguments. So, multiple arguments are also good from that point of view.

But primary focus must be on negating AIT. OIT need not have a structured narrative at all... atleast, not at the early stage. One only needs to show that various cultures around the world have Indian link. The narrative can be formed and reformed at a later stage.

johneeG ji,

whenever I read your posts, I often think of the saying "Sau Sunaar ki, to ek lauhaar ki"!

Thanks for your efforts!

Thanks so much for that praise, RajeshA ji. Thanks a lot...

---
anupmisra ji,

I was wanting to post on that for sometime. Somehow, did not post it due to laziness.

Many Shivalingas are found in the so-called cemeteries of cervetri. The western historians are calling them as 'phalus' and they are supposed to have been erected on the tombs to indicate that male was in the tomb.

I find it strange that archeologists seem to find so many tombs and cemeteries only. They never find any corresponding palaces, temples, forts or any such other monuments. Only tombs and cemeteries...

There are three possibilities:
a) Ancient people were obsessed with tombs.
b) Modern archeologists(specially western ones) are obsessed with tombs.
c) Only tombs have survived while all other monuments have perished.

Modern historians want us to believe in (a) and (c). But, why would tombs survive while other monuments perish? Infact, it should be the other way around, no? I mean a temple or a palace must have more lifetime than a tomb(particularly if its some random citizen). A temple or a palace or a fort is again and again repaired by successive generations and used by them. On the other hand, a tomb is forgotten very quickly within a generation. So, how come that only tombs are found?

So, to me, (b) is a possibility. It is possible that it is the modern archeologist and historians who are obsessed with tombs. Their first instinct is to 'identify' any ancient monument as a 'tomb'. Why this obsession? It may have to do with the cultural background of the western historians, particularly those who started this fad(the colonial europeans). Colonial europeans with their X-ism background may have been prone to identify any monument with some scattered skeletal remains as a tomb or cemetery.

Leave that as it may...

In this particular case(etruscian excavations), they have come up with a weird explanation for finding Shivalinga(phallus) on the so-called 'tombs'. It seems the phallus indicates that the tomb belongs to a male. To me, this seems like a lahori logic...

The above conclusion becomes more absurd when we see that these 'tombs' are filled with colorful paintings(as if they are a temple).

Moreover, it is known that greeks and romans cremated their dead(until they were converted by the X-ians forcefully). Even Vikings cremated their dead(correct me if I am wrong). So, how come etruscians are burying their dead?!

Also, if we assume that etruscians buried their dead. Then, there must be many many tombs and cemeteries. Are so many tombs and cemeteries found?

By all these counts, I am inclined to believe that regular etruscian people were cremated and not buried. If we accept the monuments to be 'tombs', then they must be special people because they were buried and not cremated.

Anyway, in India, there is a tradition of combining 'tombs' and temples. Yep, 'tombs' of some people were treated as temples. For example, Raghavendra Swami at Mantralayam, AP.

Some background details are necessary to understand. Generally, Hindus cremate their dead. But, sanyasis(or monks) are not cremated. Instead, they are buried. This is an important point... and may have many connections.

There is an interesting point here. Among Vaishnavas, a tomb of a pontiff(or a sacred sanyasi) is called 'Brindavan'. On the top of a tomb, a tulsi is planted. And it is called a Brindavan. At Mantralayam, this is the procedure that is followed.

But, among others(specially, Advaitas), a shivlinga is erected on the top of the tomb. It is called as Adhishtana. This shivlinga is then worshiped. The monument built for this purpose is similar to temple architecture. This place is equivalent to a temple(but, it is also a tomb). People visit it as if its a regular temple and pray there. For example, in Sringeri, one will find Adhishtanas of many earlier Pontiffs. This seems to be the traditional vedic method.

Some place named Govindeshwar Gupha in MP:

Straight opposite to the entrance, one comes across a recent idol of Govindabhagawad pada. Behind him is carved on the cave wall, Govind Bhagavad pada and a young shankara who is taming the raging Narmada using his Kamandala. No idea how old that carving is. A thousand years maybe!


Towards the right, there's an opening with steps leeding further down.



A small chamber, and then at the extreme end there's further stairs leading further down. No windows or light. Didn't want to go down in utter darkness. Stopped here and turned back! It seemed like the cave was spiralling down to the river.



Old Adhishtana (in remembrance to a guru who's passed away. May be Govinda bhagavad pada himself?) Adhishtanas in earlier times were all shaped like Shiva lingams.

Link

This tradition continues in Sringeri:

The 130th Aradhana of the 32nd Acharya of the Peetham, Brahmibhuta Jagadguru Sri Narasimha Bharati Mahaswamiji was celebrated in Sringeri on May 26th. Jagadguru Sri Bharati Tirtha Mahaswamiji offered special worship at the Adhisthanam of His Parapara Guru.

Link

In the above pic, the present Pontiff of Sringeri is worshiping the Shivalinga that was erected on the 'tomb' of earlier Pontiff. This is a temple, for all intents and purposes.

Now, lets look at etruscian phallus'(Shivalinga):



More links to many Shivalingas found in cerveteri:
http://217.115.252.254:1572/Dokumenty%2 ... veteri.jpg

http://www.flickr.com/photos/roger_ulrich/6195624468/

Tomb Markers (cippi) from Cerveteri
An assortment of tomb markers (cippus, plural cippi), from the Etruscan Banditaccia necropolis of Cerveteri (Caere). These are no longer in situ. Markers like these, usually without any inscriptions or figural decoration, were set up on small stands before the doorways of chamber tombs.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/roger_ulrich/6195624468/

Tomb Markers (cippi) in situ from Cerveteri
A group of tomb markers (sing. cippus, plural cippi) in situ at the Etruscan Banditaccia necropolis of Caere/Cerveteri, Italy. These simple markers, the exact purpose of which is not known, were placed outside the tombs in the cemetery, Note the house-shaped cippus on the right.

Lets, look at the supposed cemetery:


It seems to me that the pillar in the above picture is uncannily similar to a pillar of any Indian temple.

Now, look at this picture of an etruscian 'tomb':


Link to bigger picture:
http://slinging.org/forum/yabbfiles/Att ... eliefs.jpg

This is unmistakably similar to a Hindu temple with a Shivalinga in the center.

Picture of the place from outside:


The other etruscian items that were found in archeological excavations are:


And another etruscian lion depiction:


This figure is very similar to south-Indian lion depictions.

For example, Lion pillar at Mahabalipuram:


Lion is frequently found in Indian architecture. Infact, Lion is seen as symbol of power(and royalty). Throne is called Simhasana or Lion-seat.

Another etruscian item that was found:
http://217.115.252.254:1572/Dokumenty%2 ... Museum.jpg

Etruscan pendant with swastika symbols, Bolsena, Italy, 700-650 BC. Louvre Museum.jpg

Another etruscian item is a chariot:
http://217.115.252.254:1572/Dokumenty%2 ... 0%20BC.jpg

Link

Konark temple with its wheel:


The upper part of etruscian chariot is similar to this toy version of Indian chariot:

India
Uttar Pradesh, Kaushambi

Toy Cart with Lion Charging a Warrior on the Side and Wheels with Lotus Motifs, 1st century B.C.

Partially molded terracotta with red slip
Height: 14 cm (5 1/2 in.)

Link

---
In short, the etruscian architecture has many similarities with ancient India. And there are also cultural and religious similarities(like worshiping cows, calves, bulls, horses and swastika).

Coming back to Shivalingas(or Phallus) on the tombs. This may have lead to modern-day grave-stone culture. That means, grave-stones are a 2-d versions of Shivalingas that used to be erected on the tombs of (spiritually)important people.

Finally, the etruscian excavations may not be mere tombs, but temple-tombs... similar to Indian culture.

[member_22872]

Smasana is the place where lord Shiva is supposed to reside. Even now one can find small shiva lingas on top of some Hindu graves. So I think the correlation does point to Hindu influence.

[AbhiJ]

Aztec are a bunch of interesting people.

When the Aztecs saw an eagle perched on a cactus on the marshy land near the southwest border of Lake Texcoco, they took it as a sign to build their settlement there

Source

Huitzilopochli, the god of sun and war, told the Aztecs where to build.
They were to build where they saw an eagle with a snake on a cactus.

Coat of Arms of Mexico (Also on their Flag)



Inscription in Mexico:



Garuda:





Garudas are usually represented with a snake in their beak and hands, symbolizing the protection from ophidians and the subjugation of nagas

http://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=Garuda

[Prem]

Exploring Geographic and Geometric Relationships Along a Line of Ancient Sites Around the World
By Jim Alison
Geographic Relationships
http://www.grahamhancock.com/forum/AlisonJ1-p1.htm

The circumference of this line around the center of the Earth is 24,892 miles. Along this line, the great circle distance from the Great Pyramid to Machupicchu is 7,487 miles, 30.0% of the circumference. Machupicchu is 2,564 miles from Easter Island, 10.3%. Easter Island is 10,096 miles from Angkor Wat, 40.6%. Angkor Wat is 2,490 miles from Mohenjo Daro, 10.0%. Mohenjo Daro is 2255 miles from from the Great Pyramid, 9.1%. In addition to calculating the distances between these sites as a percentage of the circumference of the Earth, the distances may also be calculated in degrees of the 360° circumference, by multiplying the percentage by 3.6. For example, the Great Pyramid is 108° away from Machupicchu. ( Or Maha Chup Acchu])
Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom were constructed at a time when 72 temples were built across the Angkor Plain. The Angkor temple at Prassat Preah Vihear, 90 miles Northeast of Angkor Wat, is within one tenth of one degree of the line. Like Machupicchu, the temple at Prassat Preah Vihear was built on the edge of a mountaintop. The first temples built around Angkor are near the city of Rolous, Southeast of Angkor Wat. The temples near Rolous are also thought to have been built on foundations constructed at a much earlier time.Halfway between Angkor Wat and the Great Pyramid is the Indus Valley, the city of Mohenjo Daro, and the unexcavated city of Ganweriwala, which is East of Mohenjo Daro, and thought to be just as large. Both of these sites are on the line between Angkor and the Great Pyramid. The Indus Valley is also antipodal to Easter Island. It is an interesting coincidence concerning these two sites, opposite each other on Earth, that of the few ancient written languages of the world that remain undeciphered, two are Indus Valley Script and Rongorongo, the written language of ancient Easter Island. The world's first known written languages, Egyptian Hieroglyphics and Sumerian Cuneiform, were also developed along this line of ancient sites. The Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Brahman and Buddhist religions, as well as ancient Egyptian and Peruvian religions, were also developed along this line.