The Wonder
That Was Bharatvarsha
Written
by Dr. Seshadri Kumar, 22 February, 2015
Copyright © Dr. Seshadri Kumar. All Rights Reserved.
For other articles by Dr. Seshadri Kumar, please visit http://www.leftbrainwave.com
Disclaimer: All the opinions expressed in this article are
the opinions of Dr. Seshadri Kumar alone and should not be construed to mean
the opinions of any other person or organization, unless explicitly stated
otherwise in the article.
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No, this is not a review of the famous, wrongly-named book
by A.L. Basham, in which he used the word India instead of the more correct Bharatvarsha.
This is an attempt to educate modern Indians about the glory of their culture
by revealing new insights that have resulted from the work of tireless
researchers around the globe on the origins of civilization. And all roads of
inquiry lead only to one conclusion – that the source of all civilizational
greatness in the world is India.
For too long, India has been cast as the land of
snake-charmers, tigers, and elephants. For centuries, westerners have mocked
India for its backwardness. However, recent SCIENTIFIC discoveries have
established that India was more advanced than any other country in the world in
antiquity.
Join me as I reveal the story of hitherto unknown (or little
known) scientists, who languish in their quiet academic environs because their
momentous discoveries have not been given the credit they deserve. This article
is a humble attempt to cast light on their collective greatness and the
earth-shaking importance of the seminal work they have done.
I hope you enjoy this article as much as I did writing it.
Anything that is good in the article should not be ascribed to me – for I am
merely a messenger – it should be ascribed to the great scientists who have revealed
so much for us to learn and whose work you are going to discover through this
article.
So, without further ado, let me begin telling you about the
recent momentous discoveries that have established, once and for all, why
Bharatvarsha was the greatest civilization ever on the planet.
The IVC
and the Aryan Invasion/Migration Controversy
The Indus Valley
Civilization (IVC) is one of the oldest civilizations of mankind. Although
there have been older human settlements on the planet than the IVC, the IVC can
fairly be said to be the cradle of all civilizations because of the range and
depth of the ideas it brought forth (this will be made clear in the following).
This is the civilization to which modern India owes its existence. So it is
meaningful to look at what this civilization was all about and what it has
bequeathed us.
The IVC was first discovered in Harappa, now in Pakistan, with
later discoveries in Mohenjo-daro,
also in Pakistan, Lothal in
Gujarat in India, and various other places. While initially these discoveries
were greeted with great excitement, as it gave Indians a view of what seemed to
be their antiquity, this fond hope was soon dashed when archaeologists
investigated the artifacts in depth.
The reason was that India is largely a country of Hindus,
with significant minorities that made their homes in India due to migration and
conquest; but essentially, India was the land of the Hindus. The Hindu epics
(itihasas) such as the Mahabharata
and the Ramayana spoke of
an ancient civilization that Hindus held to be around 5000 years old. The
discovery of the IVC gave Hindus a lot of hope that this was the proof of the
ancient civilization they were looking for. Unfortunately, some key archaeological
facts went against them – or seemed to at the time.
The
Absence of the Horse
One key point of variance
was that the Hindu scriptures, right from the time of the Rig Veda, the
most ancient scripture, spoke of “Ashvas” – that were translated as “horses”
everywhere in the epics. The IVC carvings and drawings showed no evidence of
any horses, though there seemed to be some strange one-horned animals drawn in
the reliefs and tablets, in addition to identifiable buffaloes. See figure
below for an example.
This seemed to dash the hopes of the Hindus, who were hoping for confirmation
that the IVC was part of the ancient civilization mentioned in their epics.
Because of the absence of the horse in the evidence from the ruins, an
alternative theory sprung up – that the Vedic traditions did not belong to the
Harappans, but were brought to India by the Aryans,
who invaded India at the end of the Harappan period. The fact that the
horse seemed like a well-known animal in Persia helped this explanation.
Recent research, by Hefner et al. (2007) has revealed a
rather different picture. According to these researchers, who have published a
book on this topic, the image seen in the IVC seals is not a horse at all, but
a unicorn. Many mythologies talk about unicorns, but we have never seen any
evidence of unicorns – that is, until Harappa. After digging a lot in the IVC
and the BMAC (Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex) as well as in
Afghanistan and Iran, Hefner et al. found out that during the Harappan period,
unicorns were indeed quite common, and they rapidly mutated to the horse that
we know today. Hefner et al. (2007) found huge unicorn graveyards in the BMAC,
which are thought to be massive “Ashwamedha Yagna” (mistranslated today as horse
sacrifice, but in reality unicorn sacrifice) complexes. They have found several
well-preserved horns of the unicorns that prove this theory without a doubt.
The cause of the confusion, therefore, has been twofold: believing that "ashva" in the Vedas referred to horses, and believing that unicorns did not exist. With the discovery of unicorn fossils, Hefner et al. have resolved this question.
The cause of the confusion, therefore, has been twofold: believing that "ashva" in the Vedas referred to horses, and believing that unicorns did not exist. With the discovery of unicorn fossils, Hefner et al. have resolved this question.
The
Saraswati Civilization
Another point of contention was the mention of the river
Saraswati as an important river in the Vedas, whereas there is no known river
in that region today. There has been much controversy recently regarding the
Saraswati river of the Vedas, which many consider mythical, and many, including
Michel Danino, consider a real river connected to the Ghaggar-Hakra basin in Pakistan/India.
However, the clinching evidence for the Saraswati river
basin surely must come from the recent work of Ali et al. (2014), who have
found what appear to be unquestionably Vedic era bows and arrows. There has
been strong speculation that the artifacts retrieved from the Ghaggar basin are,
in fact, the bow, quiver, and arrows of the famous Pandava hero, Arjuna. The
main artifact at the root of this momentous discovery is a bow about 12 feet
long, which matches the description of Arjuna’s bow Gandiva, said to be 8
cubits (12 feet) long. The quiver is surprisingly well-preserved, being made of
pure gold and carved exquisitely.
Ancient
Hindu Warfare: Astras
One of the controversial aspects of Hindu epics is the
frequent mention of “astras” – special weapons that are weaponized by chanting
of specific mantras (religious chants) and possess tremendous destructive
powers. One of these, the Brahmastra, is said to have so much power that it is
said to have the power to completely destroy the whole world.
Naturally, the scientific world has dismissed these claims
as religious gobbledygook. The general attitude towards these claims has been
that these are highly exaggerated descriptions that can only be attributed to
poetic license, and that there is no scientific basis to these claims.
New scientific
evidence has revealed that these may no longer be fairy tales. There is reason
to believe that the ancient Indians were in possession of highly advanced
weapons technology not yet fully understood by modern man. But the beginnings
of such understanding are on the horizon.
In recent papers, published after 30 years of research by
two different groups of workers at opposite sides of the globe, scientists have
learned that sound waves emitted at precise frequencies with extremely specific
cadences have the ability to highly excite the molecules of air in the local
vicinity of these chants, and thereby “hypercompress” air packets – to the
point that they can cause minute fusion reactions that can then lead to a chain
reaction – a phenomenon described as “lukewarm fusion” (as contrasted with
“hot” and “cold” fusion). The resulting fusion reactions, if properly amplified
by the right kinds of chants, according to Dagar et al. (2013) (a multifactorial
study spanning 3 generations of researchers in one family and published after
the death of the researchers) and Carreras et al. (2014) (again the result of a
40 year international collaboration and, again, published after the death of
one of the principal investigators) can lead to weapons of different
destructive potentials.
It is in this way that astras can be launched by the proper
chanting of mantras that give them awesome destructive power. The secrets of
these astras are locked away within a few highly-realized rishis, and it is
necessary for Hindus to reclaim these before the secrets are lost to humanity.
Ancient
Hindu Aviation Technology
Another recent topic of controversy, which garnered much
attention when a session was devoted to it at the Indian Science Congress of
2015 in Bangalore, is the possibility of Vedic Hindus possessing advanced
aviation technology. It was claimed during this conference that in Vedic India,
aircraft existed that could fly forwards as well as backwards with equal
facility, and easily move between planets and galaxies. Much of these
speculations have rested on two main sources. The first is the ancient epic
Ramayana, in which the hero Rama (as well as his enemy Ravana) were said to
have used flying machines called “Vimanas.” The second is a text called the
Vymanika Shastra that detailed many aspects of these vimanas. In particular,
the VS talked about these planes being fueled by vast quantities of cow and
elephant urine, among other ingredients. See figure below to see an illustration
of one of these vimanas and its fuels.
One of the objections raised to the idea of the existence of
this ancient technology is the lack of evidence. No one has, to date,
discovered the existence of even one of these ancient aircraft in any of the
archaeological ruins. It has been argued that if such aircraft existed, and in
substantial numbers, there should be at least one indicator of their past
presence – either some broken down aircraft, or some airports that housed them,
or similar supporting evidence. The complete lack of such evidence – at least
until recently – has been a weakness of the theory that ancient India possessed
advanced aviation.
However, recent discoveries by a team of biologists and
archaeologists have revealed (Herman and Allen, 2012) the existence of specific
mosses in Iraq which fossilized years ago. Examination of these fossils, which
were covered under mounds of ruins and which came to light because of incessant
bombing runs that have completely destroyed the mounds and exposed the
underlying fossils, first by American air force operations in the first and
second Gulf Wars as well as by violence by insurgents, have revealed that they
originate from a specific kind of moss that can only grow if fuelled by copious
amounts of cow and elephant urine. This leads to the only possible conclusion –
that this archaeological site in Iraq was a forward post for Vedic armies and
airforce units, which were using this vast site as a supply depot with adequate
fuel for their aircraft. With such large quantities of fuel, some leakage is inevitable,
and this leakage had clearly led to the growth of these mosses.
Hindu Inter-Continental
Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs)
Archaeology continues, and will always continue, to be our
window into the past. One of the greatest mysteries of history has been the
mystery of the giant stones of
Costa Rica. These are large, perfectly spherical stones that are found in
abundance on the island of Costa Rica. There are about 300 of these stone
spheres on the island of Costa Rica, and no one knows where they came from.
They are customarily referred to as the Diquis spheres, as a reference to the
primitive pre-Columbian peoples known as the Diquis. However, it is highly unlikely
that such a primitive civilization would be capable of sculpting such a large
number of perfect spheres (see picture below), that too out of stone,
especially when no
one is able to explain how they might have been carved from the stone
without any tools.
However, there is another explanation that fits the facts
better, and which has recently been confirmed by new archaeological and
linguistic evidence.
In the Mahabharata, it is said that after the establishment
of their kingdom Indraprastha, the Pandavas conducted a magnificent Rajasuya
Yagna to commemorate their supremacy over the entire earth. Before they could
perform this sacrifice, however, the Pandavas needed to bring the entire earth
under their sway. The four Pandavas, viz., Bhima, Arjuna, Nakula, and Sahadeva,
are said to have conquered all the lands on the east, the north, the west, and
the south of Indraprastha respectively. Of course, some lands, such as America,
were well beyond the range of land-based forces. For this reason, the mighty
Pandavas used weapons of various kinds, along with their aircraft (vimanas), to
subjugate those lands that were separated from them by oceans. One such example
was the Americas. In those days, the West Indies were attached to the
continental United States, and the Pandavas utilized efficient demonstration of
force (“shock and awe”) to reduce the Americas to subjugation.
This they did by dispatching intercontinental ballistic
missiles – spheres that were discharged as projectiles from the western coast
of India to reach the Americas. In an effort to minimize loss of life and obtain
a quick surrender, Nakula opened fire with massive batteries of cannons on the
western coast of India that rained showers of perfect, spherical boulders on
the coasts of America and the modern Caribbean as a “softening” measure. Because of this, the island of Costa Rica,
which is on the eastern end of the North American continent, was bombarded by
hundreds of stone spheres.
This might seem like a fanciful fairy tale but for the
recent discovery by a team of Sanskrit scholars and explorers based at the
University of Miami, who have published the results of their study in a recent
paper. In this paper, Jagger et al. (2015) mention that they investigated 95 of
these boulders carefully, with high-powered lenses, all over their surfaces,
and discovered that many of them were engraved minutely in Sanskrit with
inscriptions such as “With Love from Indraprastha,” “Nakula Sends You His Love,”
“Bow Before the Pandavas,” and “Resistance is Futile.” Needless to say, when
Nakula arrived a few days later in his vimana, the Americans were only too
happy to avoid a repeat of the stone shower, and acquiesced immediately to whatever
terms he proposed.
This theory is supported by the mythology of the natives of
Costa Rica themselves, the Bribri. As
has been mentioned,
“In the cosmogony of the Bribri, which is shared by the
Cabecares and other American ancestral groups, the stone spheres are “Tara’s
cannon balls”. Tara or Tlatchque, the god of thunder, used a giant blowpipe to
shoot the balls at the Serkes, gods of winds and hurricanes, in order to drive
them out of these lands.”
So the natives themselves recognize that these are cannon
balls, and the god Tara/Tlatchque in their story doubtless refers to Nakula,
and the god Serkes to the native ruler of America that he drove out with his
aggressive military actions in order to make America subservient to
Indraprastha. Given the fact that Nakula came down from the sky in his vimana,
and rained stones from the sky on them, it is natural for the primitive Bribri
to think of him as a “god of thunder.”
The
Caste System as a Method for Better Organizaton of Society
One of the main criticism of Hindu society regards the Caste
System, which many modern sociologists consider to be barbaric and cruel.
However, many today defend the system as simply a means for organizing labor in
Vedic societies. While many have claimed that this is simply a defensive
posture adopted by today’s Hindus to defend the indefensible, recent
discoveries of old publications dating to the early 20th century show
that, before the contamination of western attitudes made them hostile to India,
Europe was quite welcoming of Indian ideas on social reorganization.
Two studies bear telling evidence towards this conclusion.
The first is a position paper by Todt et al. (1932) who talk in glowing terms
of the Hindu order of life and its uplifting ideas in organizing society into
more capable and less capable workers, and even talk about its incorporation in
Europe as a general way of life (modified, of course, to suit Europe suitably).
The second is a paper by Daniel Malan in 1930, in which the author praised the
Hindu social organization and interpreted it as a model for life in all
countries, specifically South Africa. It should be mentioned that Malan later
implemented his modified system to great success in South Africa as Prime
Minister in 1948.
Hindu Advances
in Medicine – Test Tube Babies
One of the most stunning scientific claims in the
Mahabharata is the mention of test tube babies. Significantly, the entire
Kaurava brothers, numbering to 100, were said to be born out of a single
embryo, which was split after it grew up and the pieces put in pots with ghee
(clarified butter) in them, and which then went on to become full-born babies
in due course. Similarly, the teacher Drona gets his name because he was born
of sperm ejaculated by his father and preserved in a pot (a pot is known in
Sanskrit as a Drona, thus giving him his name.)
While these claims have been ridiculed by western doctors
and scientists as impossible, recent archaeological evidence appears to confirm
these claims. This sensational discovery is the discovery, under 50 feet of
overgrowth, of a vast scientific laboratory that appears to have been frozen in
time due to a volcano 2500 years ago which since has turned completely dormant.
This laboratory, not far from Pune, in the Deccan Traps, was found, similar to
the ruins of Pompey, with people frozen in their actions due to their rapid
engulfment by volcanic ash.
As Steptoe et al. (2015) describe, the laboratory unearthed
shows large rows of clay pots with fetuses in them in what is clearly a process
of in-vitro fertilization. Contrary to modern medical practice, however,
embryos at various stages, all the way to full term babies, were recovered from
within the pots in the ash deposits. The findings are nothing short of
revolutionary and hold great promise for modern medical research if the secrets
of the ancient Hindus can be deciphered.
Hindu Advances
in Medicine – Plastic Surgery
The Indian Prime Minister, Shri. Narendra Modi, recently
stated that ancient Hindus were very advanced in plastic surgery. Mr. Modi used
the example of the Hindu God Ganesha to illustrate his belief that Indians must
have been quite advanced in plastic surgery, as the mythological story of
Ganesha involves the transplantation of an elephant’s head onto a human torso.
Religious myths of any civilization always have some anchors
in that civilization’s daily experiences. There is reason, therefore, to
speculate that the Ganesha story was inspired by technologies that they were
already aware of. Recent science has confirmed that this, indeed, was the case
with the Hindus.
A recent archaeological find near Ropar in Haryana has
revealed the presence of a large number of copper plates that have been dated
to 3300 BCE. As Dali et al. (2013) explain, these copper engravings appear to
be an ancient “brochure” advertising the skills of the Royal College of
Physicians at the court of Hastinapura. The engravings are fascinating, and
show various examples of what can only be plastic surgery: dogs with sewn-on
human heads and hands, pigs with dog-heads, goats with cow-heads, tigers with
the heads of asses, and even rats with cockroach-heads. See figure below for an
example of one of these copper plates.
Soma: The
Enabler of Excellence in Hinduism
By now, it is abundantly clear to most people that ancient Hinduism
was responsible for most worthwhile things in the world. A cursory search on
the internet reveals that the entire world was Vedic once, and that
Christianity and Islam are offshoots of Hinduism. We have also learned from the
learned scholars who prowl the internet that the source of most science and
technology are the Vedas; that Newton and Leibniz stole the ideas of calculus
from Vedic rishis; that most technology that is only being discovered today had
already been discovered by the Vedic rishis, be it airplanes, cars, medicine, surgery,
nuclear weapons, etc., etc.
The question is: WHY? What made the Hindus of Vedic times
such geniuses and so far ahead of their time? And why are they not at the top
of the world today, if they were so advanced once upon a time? The answer, in
one word, is: SOMA. The wonder elixir that the Vedas talk about – which is
offered at every sacrifice to the Devas – was the source of the ancient Hindus’
extraordinary creativity.
Soma, as described in the Rig Veda, is a miracle plant. It
is even said to confer immortality. It is said to be the reason the king of the
Devas, Indra was able to defeat the Asura Vritra. In those days, the educated
Hindus, viz., the Brahmanas, who used to perform sacrifices regularly, often
drank soma in connection with religious rites. This gave them tremendous
creativity and gave them the ability to conceive of airplanes, cars, calculus
and other extraordinary feats of mind when other civilizations were still
shivering in the cold because they had not yet discovered fire.
This idea might have been relegated to mere idle speculation,
had it not been for the recent publication of a manuscript that is 48 years old
this year. This book, written by Morrison et al. (1967) and published this year,
purports to have rediscovered the lost Soma plant and talks about its
extraordinary properties as evidenced by direct experimentation by the authors.
The authors claim to have traveled to Central Asia in 1962 and found the lost
plant, whereby they brought it back to the USA and started experimenting with
its properties by ingesting its extract.
The results, for those who are aware of the history of blues
and rock’n’roll, are nothing short of spectacular: Jim Morrison formed the
legendary band “The Doors”; Eric Clapton, nicknamed “Slowhand,” is considered
one of the greatest blues guitarists in the history of blues and rock’n’roll; and
Jimi Hendrix is considered by many to be the most skilled electric guitarist
ever.