Jones' Blunder, Palibothra and the Amorites
Indology was fostered in the chrysalis of the British Raj. In the train of the conquerors were also scholars and noble benefactors who laid down their lives for the study of India's past. Sir William Jones was an 18th century Jurist and Orientalist whose founding of the the Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1784 (with C. Wilkins) was a landmark in Oriental studies. Jones, chief justice of the Calcutta Supreme court, was a prolific linguist and studied the ancient Indian Law books in Sanskrit.
His translation of Shakuntala of Kalidasa created a worldwide stir and highlighted the literary heritage of ancient India. Jones also held that Sanskrit was related to classical Greek and Latin and that they were linked to Gothic, Celtic and Persian. He is famous for holding that Sandrocottos of the Greek writers was Chandragupta.
However, Jones was unaware that many cities in India had older counterparts in Iran-Baluchistan and his idea that Patna in Bihar was Palibothra was a fatal error that has no archaeological basis. Throwing the basic canons of archaeology to the wind, M. Carver and D. Chakr-abarti claim that Jones' idea is proved by the Chinese reports written a thousand years later. Unaware of the existence of Patali (~ 4th mill,), M. Witzel renders a spirited defense of Jones. The Palace at Palibothra which excelled those at Susa and Ecbatana may have been at Kohnouj near Djiroft where a superb Bronze age culture has been found. That Alexander celebrated his victory over the Indians at Kohnouj shows that this was India. Vishvamitra may also have been from Kohnouj. Djiroft near Darab seems to have been Dvaravati, capital of Kamboja.
The Amorite Lamgi-Mari was an Ikshvaku King (~1789 B. C.)
After discarding the Jonesian traits the Indus-Saraswati seals appear in a very different light. They mention Mahakal and point to a great role of Amorites in ancient India. Mekal was an Amorite god. An early Ikshvaku king (Issakkv) was Lamgi-Mari who was also an Amorite. The seals may contains names of Rama and other Ikshvaku kings. They also mention great figures such as Visvamitra and Vrishaparva. The Tantras were in vogue in Indus-Saraswati. The Sammoha Tantra refers to the Tantric culture of Bahlika, Cina, Mahacina, Parasika, Airaka, Kamboja, Gandhara, Nepal etc., which is proved by the presence of Kamadeva (Kumduba) in Kismar-Markhase (3rd millennium). Markhase (Khas-la) bordered Indus-Saraswati. Unaware of the true background of early Hinduism, W. Donigher likens it to an armadillo. Hinduism is a disparate mix of diverse doctrines, cults, and social traits, yet no study of world-religions is possible without it. No history of the ancient world can be written without the Mahabharata and the Ramayana.
Colonial Indology and the Blunder of Jones
Alexander The Great In A Wider World
The Jonesian bag of lies concerning Palibothra has sullied world history. Even after more than two millennia, the spectacle of the party of the Greeks and Macedonians streaming out of Europe and risking their lives across continents and seas to mingle with the exotic peoples of Africa and Asia appears stupefying. Alexander belongs to the world and his history has to written from a world perspective. He was aware of his unique role and had expert writers in his train to chronicle his mission yet there is little about him that is certain. This is due to the
inability to stamp out the lies spread by his generals who succeeded him (and probably poisoned him), and also bungling in geography.
If the fables spun around Patna are rejected, Patali west of Baluchistan becomes Palibothra, where Alexander came. Justin's information that he had defeated the Prasii, is not only true but calls for a drastic revision of history. In the new geographical setting, Moeris, Orontobates, Sashigupta and Orontes all turn out to be aliases of Chandragupta Maurya who was once an ally but later turned a foe. Together with Orontobates Alexander rewrote History. Is is stunning to realize that there was a princess between them. Ada II whom Alexander once wanted to marry, became Orontobates' wife.
Sir William Tarn wrote about Alexander's dream of a Brotherhood of Man but this has been disputed by unwary writers such as E. Badian and P. Green. Sadly, it has been overlooked that the Opis banquet was held in the month of Mithra and probably on the day of the feast of Mithra where a call for Brotherhood is very natural. The history of Diodotus/ Asoka also hints that Alexander promoted the idea of a Brotherhood of Man. At least one of the Pillars of Asoka was a re-inscribed altar of Alexander.
As Chandragupta's rise coincides with Alexander's fall, it is judicious to see a link between the two. This is hinted by the shadowy name of Diodotus of Erythrae in Alexander's diary. In an edict Chandragupta's grandson Asoka gives the clue that his ancestors were also Devanampiyas, which implies that they were also known as Devadatta or Diodotus. Thus it is more than likely that Diodotus of Erythrae was Chandragupta. Therefore, it is natural to suspect that he had a hand in the poisoning of Alexander.
Although learned scholars such as Rostovtzeff and Tarn held that Alexander is ignored in Indian literature, this is far from true. The capital of Chandragupta, which is the locale of the drama Mudrarakshasa, was in the North-west where Alexander came. A careful study reveals that Chandanadasa of the play is, in fact, a ghost of Alexander. The respectful treatment of Chandanadasa in the play shows that Alexander was not the villain he has been painted as by Badian and Green.
The Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka has highlighted the exploitive role of both Christianity and Islam in Africa but notwithstanding the bloodletting it caused, Alexander's expedition had a very different outcome. His legacy should be sought not only in the Seleucid Empire or the culture of Alexandria but also in the unmistakable Greek imprint on Buddhist religion and art. The rise of Asoka/Diodotus and the resurgence in Indian culture in the fourth century B.C. were largely due to Alexander's tryst with India.
As the last Titan of the Heroic Age, Alexander saw the sword as a means to further righteousness, but at the end of his career he seems to have mellowed and realized the futility of violence. He was a pupil of the great Aristotle and in India came in contact with the famous philosopher and playwright Asvaghosha (Calanus) and the imprints of both of them are visible in his life history. Like many Indian gods he was not always above sin, but his greatness lies in that even Sisygambis, the mother of Darius-III courted death by refusing food after hearing of Alexander's demise, and that the Prasiians treated his altars with great respect.
Alexander's Dream of a United Nations
Discovery of Alexander's Missing Altar
Alexander's Mission and World Peace
Alexander the
Great in a Sanskrit Drama
Sashigupta and the Poisoning
of Alexander
A Letter to Alexander From an Indian Sage
Gotama Buddha and the Nepalese Bluff in World History
Buddhism literally throbs with the history and geography of India. The relics from Sanchi, Ajanta, Bharhut, Amaravati, Mathura and the Gandhara area (now in Pakistan and Afghanistan) firmly link India with the rise of Buddhism. The Indian tradition of tolerance and moderation goes beyond the sixth century B.C. and the roots of primitive Buddhism can be traced to the Indus-Saraswati era. Buddhist history is a queer
Gandhara Image of Buddha and Heracles
mix of facts and fiction that baffles the discerning reader but a careful study reveals close links of early Buddhism with not only Hinduism but also Zoroastrianism and Judaism which also grew in the lands adjacent to Bamiyan and the Silk Road.
Historians such as H. C. Raychaudhuri and R. Thapar blindly affirm that Gotama was from the Nepal area but this has no basis. Nepal is a beautiful country but a careful study shows that Gotama of Nepal is a nauseating fraud foisted by the thug Führer. Names of Suddhodana, Siddharta and Tiŝŝa in the Persepolis tablets prove that Gotama was from Baluchistan-Seistan.
Kapilavastu or Prophthasia (Kuh-e Khwaja) links Abraham, Gotama and Zoroaster
Early India was wider than British India and it is in this 'India', at Kuh-e Khwaja in Seistan, only about 150 kilometers from the Baluchistan-Iran border, that Gotama Buddha was born. Kapilavastu, also known as Babil, was once the holiest religious centre of the world. The statement in the Lalitavistara that all the Buddhas are born at Kapilavastu is historically correct. Babylon, which later became another Babil, gained ascendancy.
Antecedents of Hinduism-Buddhism in Indus-Saraswati-Seistan
Gotama and Zoroaster in a Non-Jonesian Frame
Sanchi & Ajanta -Windows to the Garden of Eden
Personal Seals of Gotama and Zoroaster
The Persepolis tablets provide priceless data about the socio-religious aspects of Iraq, Iran and also India, yet much remains unknown. M. Boyce (History of Zoroastrianism, p. 132) laments,
Excavations in the
1930's of the Persepolis treasury, and one area of the fortifications,
brought to light a remarkable quantity of inscribed material, in Elamite
and Aramaic. These discoveries raised great hopes of clear light being
shed on the religion of the early Achaemenians, but such hopes were to
be disappointed.
In fact, Boyce has herself to blame for the mess. For writers such as Frye and Boyce, Zoroastrianism was a purely Persian (and perhaps also Central Asian) phenomenon whereas Buddhism pertained to the Indians. A holistic approach, on the other hand, conclusively indicates
the presence of Buddhism in Iran. Ŝedda-ŝaramana of tablets is Ŝedda-Arta or Siddhartha Gotama who was the same as Gaumata. Moreover, the ubiquitous Ŝudda-Yauda-ŝaramana (or Ŝudda-Yauda-Damana) was Ŝuddhodana. Incidentally Gotama's father and all his uncles had Dana-names and Al-beruni gave his name as Buddho-dana. This reveals his kinship with Daniel the Jew. Other names such as Tiŝŝa, Yaŝudda, Karaŝna etc. rubbishes the Nepalese origin theory
PFS 79 may have been the Seal of Gotama (Courtesy Oriental Institute).
of the thug Führer. Also, as Indians and Iranians formed one cultural unit, Gotama's adversary Devadatta can be seen to be Damidadda of the tablets. Damidadda who was clearly the same as Bagadada, was
Damidadda who used PFS1243 may have been Zoroaster
Zoroaster himself. Herzfeld wrote with insight that Zoroaster's enemy Graehma was Gaumata. Devadatta founded a parallel religious sect.
Diodotus-I Was Asoka
The blunder of Palibothra greatly falsified the history of Asoka. Apart from the Edicts, archaeology has unearthed very little inscribed material and though some punch-marked coins have been associated with him, this has been disputed. The palace unearthed near Patna is said to be Asoka's, but in the absence of inscriptions this is clearly unacceptable. Even in Taxila, so often mentioned together with his name in the texts, not many inscriptions have been found.
Sir Mortimer Wheeler, one of the finest minds on ancient India, failed to pinpoint Jones' mistake, but gave important clues regarding the real Asoka. He writes,
'It is just possible that Ashoka had Seleukid blood in his veins; at least his reputed vice-royalty of Taxila in the Punjab during the reign of his father could have introduced him to the living memory of Alexander the Great, and, as king, he himself tells us of proselytizing relations with the Western powers'.
Wheeler noted the clear Achaemenian imprint on his architecture and suggested that he could have been a half-Greek yet no one could
imagine that this half-Greek was the Indo-Greek king Diodotus-I, known to classics scholars for his matchless coins. Frank Holt is rightly impressed by the figure of the thundering Zeus on these coins which illustrates the vigour of Diodotus' youth but fails to grasp his multi-faceted personality.
Inscribed Portrait of Asoka from Kanganhalli (Courtesy ASI)
Experts on Bactrian language such as S. Shaked and N. Sims-Williams also are unaware that no study of Bactrian culture can be sensible without noting that Diodotus-I of Bactria was the great Asoka. Sadly, the crucial import of the absence of his inscriptions and other relics has been glossed over. What was the religion of Asoka before he adopted Buddhism? The great visionary Ananda Coomaraswamy does not mince words,
Chandragupta Maurya, of whose origins
little is known, displaced the last king of the Nanda Dynasty about 320
B. C. and made himself the master of Pataliputra, the capital of
Magadha. His famous grandson Asoka (272-232) B. C., whose early faith
may have been Brãhmanical, Jaina or possibly Magian, early in life
became an ardent Buddhist;..
This was first stated by Dr. Spooner but he was shouted down. By which
name was Asoka known in the west? From the fact that the Greco-Roman
writers do not refer to Asoka or Piyadassi, R. Thapar readily declares
that he was unknown in the West. This is ridiculous, they must have used
a different name. The most frequent name the king uses for himself in
the Edicts is Devanampiya, not Asoka. As 'Nam' and 'Dat' both mean
'law', Devanam (piya) is the same as Devadat or Diodotus. Asoka
(Diodotus) was in fact a very well known figure in the Greco-Roman
world. After his conversion to Buddhism he had to change his name
Devadatta as it was a hated name among the Buddhists. The names of two
biographies of Asoka, Asokavadana and Divyavadana also hint that Deva (datta)
was a name of Asoka. In the 8th Rock Edict he refers to his ancestors as Devanampiyas which shows that
it was his patronymic, not
title. The
name `Devanampiya' is blindly translated as `beloved of the gods' but this is
only partly true. `Deva'
was Asoka's name proper.
A Coin-Portrait of Asoka Who Was Diodotus-I
Discovery of Alexander's Missing Altar
Shiva Min(uksha), Mahakala and the Amorites in India
In sophistication and intellectual makeup, the Indus-Saraswati seals have no peer in any contemporary writing. Ideally the messages in the seals should have been the starting point of Indian history but sadly, due to Jones' error this culture seems to stand apart from later society. From no other civilization of antiquity is there such a deafening silence.
The claim that Harappan religion was unrelated to later Hinduism is absurd. Śiva, the mysterious Hindu god, was a world deity worshipped in West Asia, Central Asia and even Egypt. Ancient king-names such as Kaksivant (RigVeda), Kak-siwe Tempti, Siwe-Palar-Khuppak, Queen of Sheba etc. and place-names such as Seistan, Sippar, Borsippa etc. demonstrate the preponderance of the Śiva cult in the ancient world. Sukumari Bhattacharji relates Śiva to the ithyphallic Egyptian god Min,
Min corresponds to Shiva very closely. He is ithyphallic, has the bull for his animal, is lunar by nature, and is associated with plants.
Significantly, the name Min (uksha) can be clearly read in the so-called Proto-Śiva seal. While Minuksha symbolized the procreative aspect of Śiva, many seals from Mohenjo-Daro also mention Mahakal who signified his destructive aspect. Mohenjo-Daro (Makkâŝ?) may have been a great religious centre of the ancient world.
in the head-dress of Proto-Shiva or
Minuksha 
The first step towards decipherment is the realization that early Magadha was Magan, west of Baluchistan. Magadha (Mah-Gud) and Melukhkha (Maha-Uksha) are synonymous but the etymology of the latter suggests a Sanskrit substratum in the seals. Both Rama and Manu (Mannu) were linked to Magan. Manu also ruled Dravida (Dilmun?) and is cited in texts from Bahrain (a part of Dilmun). Thus Dilmun, Magan and Melukhkha was early India. The claim that the language of the seals is para Munda is as absurd as the notion that they are non-linguistic. The mature phase of the RigVeda may be about 1500 B.C. but the seals show clear Vedic traits. In the absence of bilingual texts, decipherment is a daunting task but a modest start can be made by making some simple assumptions.
1. The seals have to be seen vis-à-vis Indus-Saraswati-Elam (Magadha).
2. The symbol of Mitra
in the
seals shows a link with Vedic culture.
3. The language of the seals is a mix of early Sanskrit and Dravidian.
4. The seals are logo-syllabic and run from right to left like early Brahmi.
5. Brahmi has to be seen as an offshoot of Indus writing.
6. Langdon's idea of a link of the Indus symbols with with Sumerian is correct.
As S.
N. Kramer and G. F. Dales pointed out, the Indus-Saraswati civilization
was closely linked to other Bronze Age cultures. Thus data about the
seals can be gleaned from Sumer and Djiroft
(Dvaravati). Sir Max Mallowan
wrote that the signs for god, heaven, star
, for water
, for earth
, for heaven and the deep
, had long been painted on the pottery of
Mesopotamia and Iran and were invested with magical prophylactic
meaning. Similar signs appear in the seals and had very similar
meanings.
I. Mahadevan
writes that the sign
has the highest frequency.
From the great importance of the bull
in this culture, it is natural to expect that it is linked to the
bull. In
Sumerian the sign 
stood for the bull. Significantly, a similar sign was
used at Tell Halaf in
3000 B.C. for the bull (The Dawn of
Civilization, p. 89).
Thus the sign
can be read as Uksha which echoes the
English Ox. Its later became the Brahmi 'Sa'
and perhaps also the Latin U. Uksha
later
became the genitive case-ending 'Sa'.
The important text
appears in
many seals and copper tablets from Mohenjo-daro and was of great
ritual significance. It can be read as the votive formula
Maha Kala Dvara Uksha
which echoes Darius and shows the great role of Shiva.
Mahakal seems to be the same as the Canaanite deity
Mekal (late 3rd millennium) linked
to the Amorites. His other name Resheph
is a clear echo of the Sanskrit Rishava and
shows the dubious nature of the label 'Semite'.
The Amorites (Mar-tu) first appear in the Sumerian texts (c. 2400–c. 2000 BC) and are said to be western 'Semites' but their presence in the East calls for a drastic revision of history. Ram-Sin's father Kudur-Mabuk calls himself the lord of Amurru and a Shaik (Saka?). Hammurabi was also an Amorite. They are said to be nomads who probably brought down the 3rd dynasty of Ur. Were they the Maruts?
The
Jaiminīya Upanişad Brāhmaņa and other texts
(~900 B. C.)
mention teachers
such as Yaśasvin Jayanta Lauhitya,
Śyāma Jayanta Lauhitya, Dakşa Jayanta Lauhitya, Jayanta Pārāśarya,
Jayanta Vārakya etc.. The mysterious epithet
Jayanta
may be
the precursor of the terms 'gentiles'
and 'giant'. The Amorites are
described as giants in the Old
Testament. In the Ramayana also Ravana is portrayed as a giant. The term
Lauhitya may stand for the Gulf
area.
more...
A King-Name at Last in the Seals - Vrishaparva the Wise
Not much can be said about the seals with definiteness, yet meaningful progress can be made by using controlled imagination. The Indus Saraswati culture was a blend of both Aryan and Dravidic elements. The name Minuksha of the Proto-Shiva has links with goddess Minakshi of South India. More importantly, the ancestors of the Pallavas of South India appear to be of Harappan origin. D. P. Mishra writes,
Our view that the Asuras were the authors of the Harappan civilization has at present little support from the world of scholars, particularly archaeologists. .... John Marshall tentatively put forth the claims of the Dravidians and by now it has become a fashion not to disagree with his view. However, some have tried to modify it by associating the Mundas as junior partners of the Dravidians...
Unlike writers such as R. Thapar who deny any link of the Indus-Saraswati culture with Hinduism, D. P. Mishra takes a saner view and boldly surmises (Studies in the Proto-History of India, p. 119) that the Asura king Vrishaparva could have been a king of Mohenjo-Daro. This appears to be borne out by the seals.
Seal no. 1101 01 in Mahadevan's concordance reads VrishaPallava Kala Kala
The Sanskrit word for a young leaf is
'Pallava' which makes it very likely that the symbol 
of the leaf-man stands for the word Pallava which was the name of an
important dynasty of South India. The word may also have been read as
Palla which again is the name of another important royal line. 'Pālah'
in Sanskrit means 'king' which corresponds to the Persian word Bala,
which stood for city and King.
The sign
has some similarities with the sign
which also occurs in a large number (42)
of seals and seems to have ritual significance. If this is identified
with 'Soma' which was linked to sacrifice,
may be given
the value Vrisha or the sacrificial bull. The symbol may in fact depict a
strapped sacrificial bull.
The symbol
depicts
a city criss-crossed with roads and stood for a plot of land in Sumer.
It may be given the value 'Kala' which agrees with 'Bala' in Persian and
'Kella' in Indian languages.
The pair
can then be read as Kala-Kala or Kaldu. Thus the seal may be read as
Vrsa Pallava Kala Kala which may me
provisionally rendered as 'Vrishaparva the ordainer
of Time'. B. M. Barua (A History of Pre-Buddhistic
Indian Philosophy, p. 204) wrote that in ancient India, god was
described as Kāla-Kāla, the knower of time at whose behest the
Brahma-wheel turns. That this title was also assumed by priests and
priest-kings is hinted by the name Ayatollah Khal-Khali. The word Chaldaean or Kaldu (Kala2) may also be linked to Kāla-Kāla. Vŗşaparvâ
is variously described as both an Asura and a Danava.
Two kings named Vrishaparva are famous in the Indian tradition. The older one, according to the Mahabharata, was a son of Prajapati Kasyapa and his wife Danu. Stories involving his daughter Sharmistha and her friend Devayani have been immortalized in the Indian tradition. Both Sharmistha and Devayani, daughter of Shukracharya were married to the great Yayāti who is said to be the first Samrât or universal monarch. His sons were the famous Puru and also king Yadu who may be the progenitor of the Jews. His other sons were Turvasu and Druhyu. This story hints at a reconciliation between the Devas and Danavas.
In the Vana Parva, the Mahabharata describes a royal hermit Vrishaparva who may belong to the line of the older patriarch and who is eulogized in glowing terms. The holy hermitage of Vrishaparva was surrounded by blossoming trees that grew by whirling waters. He is said to be 'law-wise', 'celebrated over the worlds', 'wise and pious' and more significantly, 'knower of the past and future' which is in striking agreement with the seal epithet 'Kala Kala'. King Vrishaparva helped the Pandavas when they were banished to the 'forest'. This episode may in fact indicate that the Pandavas were related to the Yadus. Vrishaparva may have been an early Pallava king.
Rama, Rostam, Shutrukna-hhunte and BMAC
Persian history in which such a great hero as Rostam, remains a mythical figure is nothing but woolly mishmash. He is placed in the Arsacid era by Frye and others but this is a travesty. Commonsense dictates that Naqsh-i Rostam (carvings of Rostam) must be a memory of Rostam. Moreover as this was the Achaemenid burial place it is natural to suspect that Rostam was their ancestor. Although the Persian annals do not mention Rostam there is evidence for a mysterious ancestor Arya-Ram-ana whose gold tablets are the earliest inscriptions in Old Persian. The Sasanid ancestor Ram-Behist also alludes to Rama who is none other than the great Rama of Indian history who is posted as a tribal king by Jonesian writers such as R. Thapar. Rama's link with Indo-Iran is proved by that the name of his half-brother Shatrughna echoes Shutrukna-hhunte, a great hero of Elam. The
Kurangun relief of Rostam, or Ramah. Picture courtesy Prof. Mark Garrison
'Sons of Ramah' of the Book of Ezra include Darius-I and Gotama Buddha. It is a sad miscarriage of history that while the greatness of Hammuravi is acclaimed, Ram-Sin of Larsa, who is called an Elamite, is lost to oblivion. The great Indian Epic Ramayana, on the other hand clearly indicates that Ram-Sin was Rama who ruled Sumer, Elam and Indus-Saraswati.
A pre-Achaemenid relief at Naqsh-i Rostam which was effaced by the Sasanids is similar to the Kurangun relief and belongs to Rostam whose name in the inscriptions is Rathastam. This corrresponds to Rama's name Dasarathi which is echoed in the Mitanni name Tusratta. 'Ratha' stands for
Rama was an Indo-Aryan from the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex
chariot in Sanskrit. The eminent linguist Sukumar Sen suggests that Rama's title was Margaveya, which shows that he was from Margiana near the homeland of Babur, not Ayodhya.
The clashes of Rama, the Indo-Aryan from BMAC with Hammu-Ravi takes one back to the crossroads of history when the Indo-Iranians arrived in Indo-Iran and Sumer. In the Sumerian texts Ram-Sin and his enemy were both supported by ten kings and Ravana, who was probably Ravi-ana or Hammu-ravi, had ten heads.
Ram-Sin of Larsa was the Historical Rama
Rim-Sin and Hammurabi at the Crossroads of History
Numerous inscriptions, letters and archaeological relics confirm Hammu-rabi as a colossus of the ancient Middle East. However, his law-code existed before him and he was just one among several able contemporaries such as Ram-Sin of Larsa, Siwe-Palar-Khuppak and Shamshi Adad. He is portrayed as a just king by writers such as Van De Mieroop but this is not quite true. His treatment of his closest ally Zimri-Lim does not reveal a regard for propriety or Law. He was not deified like Ram-Sin and some of his love letters reveal a full-blooded personality.
8-pointed disk of the Sun (Ravi) reveals Hammu-Ravi's name
The eminent Assyriologist C. J. Gadd writes with greater circumspection,
It has to be admitted that the discoveries of recent years have been damaging to the reputation of Hammurabi as a dynast, in the sense of a conqueror and the founder of a far-flung empire. It is now apparent that he was for the greater part of his reign no more than a struggling aspirant, and that even his brief supremacy was much more narrowly circumscribed ...
Sadly historians have greatly misjudged Hammurabi's contemporary Ram-Sin (or Rim-Sin) whose legacy may have been greater. Gadd is unaware that Ram-Sin, who ruled for sixty years (longest in Sumerian history), was the great Rama of the Indian Epic Ramayana yet with rare insight terms his reign as the golden age of Sumer.
As Hammurabi addresses Siwe Palar Khuppak as a father, he may have revered not only Shamash but also a proto-Shiva like god. This brings him closer to Indo-Iran. Significantly the Bible names him as Amraphael. Rim-Sin's capital was Senkereh (Larsa) which is also a name of Shiva. Borsippa may also be a Shiva-related name. Simparra of the Persepolis tablets echoes Sippar. He was an Amorite but should he be classified by the blanket attribute 'Semite'? The Indo-Iranian features of Amorite language have been much discussed, but the Sun-disk in his famous Stele can be read in Sanskrit as Ravi and this is the crux of his name Hammu-ravi. This agrees with Ravana (Ravi-ana) of Valmiki.
Hammuravi's nemesis Rim-Sin led an army from BMAC to Jamutbal
Gadd indicated many problems in Hammurabi's history but the most serious one is that his palace has not been found at Babylon or elsewhere.
Jesus Christ, St. Thomas and Prophthasia
Before the 17th century
Jesus Christ
was perceived solely through the mirror of faith, but gradually this gave
way to a more rational outlook that is skeptical and cold.
Christ has been portrayed as a mythical
being by scholars such as Bruno Bauer but this
seems to be disproved by data from India,
Iran and Ceylon. It may be recalled that early writers on Buddhism also
did not consider Gotama Buddha as a historical figure.
After purging Jesus' history of layers of
accreted myth, it seems
reasonable to agree upon certain basic facts of his life, namely, that
1) He was a person of flesh-and-blood,
2) He was a Jew who spent many years in Galilee, 3) He was regarded as a great teacher and
healer, 4) He spent many years (12th-30th) in Indo-Iran, 5) He was baptized by John the Baptist,
6) He was crucified in Jerusalem by Pontius
Pilate.
4th-century mosaic of Jesus as a Teacher
A close associate of Jesus was St Thomas who is linked to
Seistan
in the legends. St. Matthew reported
that "Three Magi" or "Wise Men" followed a
star which they thought was a sign that the King of the Jews had been
born and brought gifts (gold, frankincense and myrrh) for the infant
Jesus. Ernest Herzfeld, the great expert on
early Iran, wrote that the Magi went from the Palace at Kuh-i-Khwaja in Seistan.
Jesus also may have come to Seistan
which was the land of Abraham,
Gotama and Zoroaster.
Babil or
Kabil
(Kuh-e Khwaja) harks back to St.
Thomas and the
Magi
The links of
Christianity with
Buddhism
are inseparable as both the religions grew from the
crucible
of Mithraism.
On the basis of some late and unreliable data it has been suggested
that Jesus may have escaped crucifixion and came to modern
Kashmir but this is very unlikely.
Jesus may instead have come to the
great religious centre of Babil in
Seistan which was the abode of not
only Abraham and Zoroaster but also St. Thomas and Gotama Buddha.
Skepticism and
questioning are essential ingredients of science but doubt is
antithetical to faith. Skeptics have been seen in sinister light by the
custodians of faith. Sukumari Bhattacharji holds that rudiments of doubt
are present in the 'sacred' text RigVeda. The empiricist Roger Bacon was
jailed for 'doctrinal digressions'. The anger of the Church is evident
from that the Italian monk G. Bruno was burned alive for supporting
Copernicus' Heliocentric theory and even the great Galileo incurred the
wrath of the Church for trying to interpret biblical passages in a
scientific way. The spirit of enquiry also led the poet John Milton to
envision Jesus as a human being. The yearning to rediscover the true
sayings of Jesus hidden beneath the reverent periphrases of the holy
texts motivated the hapless Protestant theologians of Tűbingen who were
ostracized by the society for their lack of faith.
Christianity rose as a Judaic heresy and its history is inextricably
linked with that of the Jews. However, as the ancestors of Abraham were
from the east, the history of the early Yahdus cannot be limited only to
the milieu of Jerusalem or Galilee but must also include the Yadus of
India and Iran.
The literature on early Christianity is
vast and formidable but widely divergent in outlook. The earliest
Christian texts are the letters of St. Paul, which date from about 50 AD
but Paul is an unreliable source as he never met Jesus and received his
theology, not from Jesus or his disciples, whom he hated, but through a
mystical communion with a Risen Christ. The great influence of Mithraism
on Christianity can be gauged from the fact that Paul or Shaul was from
Tarsus which was a great centre of Mithraism. The generally accepted
sources for the life and message of Jesus are the New Testament Gospels,
the earliest being Mark (AD 60–80), followed by Matthew, Luke, and John
(AD 75–90). The Gospel of Thomas, at times called the fifth Gospel, was
found in 1945 at Nag Hammadi in Egypt and is a document of a very
different vein. Its date is uncertain, scholars like E. Pagels have
favoured an early date (50-100 AD) but others have ascribed it to the
2nd century, yet it is believed that this Gospel may, in fact, contain
some actual sayings of Jesus.
more....
Saraswati and Ushas in the Harappan Seals
The Harappan civilization was based not on one but two large rivers - the Indus and Saraswati. The fact that more than a thousand Harappan sites have been unearthed in the Saraswati basin in Haryana and Sindh shows that the Harappan civilization should be called the Indus-Saraswati civilization. Remote sensing data show that in the 4th-3rd millennium B.C. the Saraswati was a mighty river which fell into the sea, but between about 2000 - 1700 B.C. geomorphologic changes caused its two main sources to change course. The Sutlej moved westward and became a tributary of the Indus whereas the Yamuna moved eastward and joined the Ganga. Due to
A tenth century image of Saraswati from Khajuraho (Photo courtesy ASI)
the huge loss of water, Saraswati became defunct. Did the Helmand, which was called Harahuvaiti or Sarasvati, also at some stage fall into the sea? However though there is sound archaeological basis for the name Indus-Sarasvati, it is apparently not cited in early epigraphic records.
Fortunately
the name Saraswati
can be read in
the seals though this seems to refer to a river or a river group. Due to the
difficulty of reading the seals, the cults of the Mother-goddess and the
Bull remain vague. The
Harappans buried the
dead with funerary items instead of cremating them, yet there is
an unmistakable continuity with Hinduism and Buddhism. Although no
temple has been found, the many terracotta figurines of the Bull and the
Goddess imply a link with later religion.
The apparent absence of temples in
any Harappan site reminds one of Herodotus’ report about Persian
temples and agrees with Vedic religion.
Although R. Thapar and S. Ratnagar affirm that there is no trace of Hinduism in Indus-Saraswati religion, this is totally baseless. Harappan religion can be termed proto-Hinduism. The great respect for Sarasvati in the RigVeda links it with ancient Hinduism. The Encyclopedia Britannica stresses the link of Harappan religion with Hinduism:
... has produced much evidence of the cult of the goddess and the bull.
Figurines of both occur, with the goddess being more common than the
bull. The bull, however, appears more frequently on the many steatite
seals. A horned deity, possibly with three faces, occurs on a few seals,
and on one seal he is surrounded by animals. A few male figurines in
hieratic (sacerdotal) poses and one apparently in a dancing posture may
represent deities. No building has been discovered at any Harappan site
that can be positively identified as a temple, but the Great Bath at
Mohenjo-daro was almost certainly used for ritual purposes, as were the
ghats (bathing steps on riverbanks) attached to later Hindu temples.
Chandragupta,
Alexander and a Princess Written history
often a grossly distorts truth. After
Alexander the Great, the most
illustrious figure of the 4th century B.C. was
Chandragupta Maurya who was
Moeris. He played a silent role in the world conquest of
Alexander but due to Jonesian delusions,
he has been relegated
to the domain of myth. No relic of him has been traced at Patna or anywhere
else. Again Maurya kings such as
Purnavarman and
Virasena have no place in Jonesian Indology.
D. Chakrabarti of Cambridge
refers to many 2nd century B.C. texts from Mathura but remains silent on
the absence of Chandragupta's inscriptions. R. Thapar, another prominent
writer on the Mauryas, also does not state that barring Asoka, no relic
of any Maurya or Nanda king is known. F. R. Allchin solves the problem
by dropping Chandragupta from his book on South Asia. He advises fresh
digging at Patna but judging from the experience of a century, this can
only be futile.
The noted Buddhist scholar B. M. Barua
rejected Jones' theory and wrote that Chandragupta belongs to the
North-West. Kulke and Rothermund miss that Magan west of Baluchistan was
early Magadha but reject Chandragupta's links with Bihar.
However, after clearing the Jonesian mud
and including West Asia in the scenario, many aliases of Chandragupta
come to light. It is only due to Jones' error that no coin of
Chandragupta is known.
Andragoras
whose beautiful coins have remained a mystery appears to be
Chandragupta.
Apart from the
coins of
Andragoras, the
two
Laghman Aramaic
inscriptions can also be seen to be of
Chandragupta. As they mention Priyadarshi, H. Humbach, A.
Dupont-Sommer and others have ascribed them to Asoka but this is hasty.
Raychaudhuri warned that Priyadarŝi was also a title of Chandragupta. D.
C. Sircar also rejected the ascription to Asoka. H. Falk toys with the
idea that inscriptions belong neither to Chandragupta nor Asoka. The
injunction against killing of creatures in the inscriptions have been
linked to Asoka but Chandragupta also became a Jaina later. The
clinching evidence is that Vakshu
in the inscriptions is Oxyartes (Tarn, GBI,
p. 101) who was a contemporary of
Chandragupta. Vakshu appears to be the same as Rakshasa of the
Mudrarakshasa.
E. Badian recognizes the importance of the satrap
Sashigupta
in Alexander's camp but overlooks that 'Sashi'
and 'Chandra' are the words for 'moon' in
Sanskrit. H. C. Seth wrote that Sashigupta was the same as Chandragupta
but so deep was Jonesian illogic that this was denied by H. C.
Raychaudhuri using flimsy arguments. That
Moeris, who was another Satrap, could have been Chandragupta
Maurya is common sense but this was also denied as it clashes with
Jones' decrepit theory. Moreover, Asoka states in an Edict that his
ancestors were also Deva-nampiyas which shows that the meaning of the
epithet as 'beloved of the gods' is not a primary one. Chandragupta who
used the title Priyadarshi was also known as a Diodotus. This shows that
the mysterious Diodotus of Erythrae whose name appears in Alexander's
diary was Chandragupta.
Chandragupta is
said to have met Alexander and
apprised him of the possibility of deposing the Nanda king, but in
reality the relation was far more intimate. This is evident from his
west Asian name Orontobates
which adds a cinematic touch to
their life stories. In some versions of the drama Mudrarakshasa,
Chandragupta is absent but his place is taken by Rantivarma which
shows that it was another name of the great Maurya. This echoes
Orontobates
who married Pixodarus' daughter Ada II. Pixodarus
offered the hand of his daughter, probably
Ada II, in marriage to Alexander's
half-brother Arrhidaeus, but through his friends Alexander offered
himself as a suitor for the
princess, but this was denied by his
father Philip.
Terah, Yudhisthira and the Pre-Exilic Jews or Yadus
The spectacular discoveries of Sir Leonard Woolley at Ur in Sumer contrast sharply with his infantile association of the city with Ur Kashdim, the abode of Abraham. This greatly messed up the history of Judaism and was disputed by eminent scholars such as W. F. Albright but Woolley's idea prevailed due to greater media appeal. The eminent scholar E. A. Speiser gave the clue that many Sumerian city-names echo the names of older cities in Elam.
Prophet Abraham
can instead be seen to be from Alexandria
Prophthasia near
Shahr-i Shokhta in Seistan which was larger
than Ur in Sumer. Urva of the Vendidad and Uruvela of the Buddhist texts
may correspond to Ur Kashdim. Distracted by Woolley, Herzfeld ignored the message hidden in the name
Sar-i Ibrahim of Alexandria
Prophthasia (Kuh-e Khwaja).
The
Encyclopedia of Islam
names
Usha as the mother of Abraham(Brahma)
which makes sense only in Indo-Iran. Moreover, literary data also rules out Sumer as
Abraham's homeland.
Cutha, near
Babylon, was known as Tell Ibrahim
and
may have been linked to Abraham. But there were other Cuthas
(Sumerian Gudua); Josephus ("Ant." ix.
14, § 1, 3)places Cutha in Persia. Thus like
Zoroastrianism,
Buddhism
and
Judaism
also rose in Seistan-Baluchistan which
was called Dharmasthana (Darma-shan) or the 'abode of religions' by the Islamic geographers.
The extensive literature on the Jewish Diaspora
is appallingly cliché-ridden. Arthur Koestler proposed a new definition of Jewishness which has
few takers. Scholars such as R. J. Zwi Werblowsky, E. S. Gruen and S. Shaked fail to reckon that Abraham's
original home
can also be called Israel. This is why
El,
Yahweh and
Nimrod resemble Ila
and
Yahvah and Rudra
of the RigVeda. Many Judaic traits were, in fact, inherited
from ancestors such as Terah
who seems to be
Yudhisthira (Yadus-Tera) of the
Epic
Mahabharata.
Monotheism is
a hallmark of Judaism but N. Sutton writes on monotheism of the
Epic. About Jewish
origin Ezekiel says;
Thy birth and nativity is of the land of Canaan: thy father was an Amorite, and thy mother a Hittite.
It is important to note that the Canaanites came from the East and that the seals indicate the presence of Amorites in India.
The Greek word Ἰουδαῖος is said to be a loan from the Aramaic Y'hūdāi but surprisingly it occurred to none that the Yadus of 'India' can be the early Yahdus. Shinar of the Old Testament was Sineru of the Pali texts and Usinara of the RigVeda which was in the north-west. Rabbinic Judaism and Zoroastrianism abhor monasticism or asceticism but the Jewish Kabbala reveals link with Hinduism and Buddhism. The religion of the Jewish Essenes (2nd cent. B. C.-1st
Scenes from the Book of Esther at Dura-Europos (244 AD)
cent. AD) favoured asceticism and differed from Temple Judaism. According to both Plato and Aristotle, all gods are good and should be adored. About the exclusiveness of Judaism Bertrand Russell writes,
... Yahweh would withdraw his favour if other gods were also honoured. Jeremiah and Ezekiel, especially, seem to have invented the idea that all religions except one are false, and that the Lord punishes idolatry.
Russell clearly recognizes that before Jeremiah and Ezekiel, Judaism was less absolutist. On the other hand, the essential unity of world-religions can be seen from that the Persepolis tablets give Ŝudda-Yauda-ŝaramana as the name of Gotama Buddha's father Suddhodana. The appellation 'Yauda' shows that Buddhism evolved from the Yadus or pre-exilic Yahdus. This is also confirmed by Gotama's name Buddho-Dana which shows a link with Jews such as Daniel. R. de Vaux linked the strifes in the Book of Esther to Achaemenid history which brings in Gomata who was the same as Gotama. His name Ŝaman corresponds to Haman. Xerexes' attack on the Daivas echoes the report in the Pali
The name Sar-i Ibrahim of Kuh-e Khwaja links it to Abraham
texts of a raid on Kapilavastu. The Bene Israel of India links Judaism with the Yadus of Indus-Saraswati area. The Yadus displayed traits of republicanism and Gnosticism which characterized later Jewish thought.
Nebuchadrezzar, Alexander, Babil and The Bible
The question as to which religion or civilization has inherited the legacy of Nebuchadrezzar's Babylon, is difficult to answer. Zoroastrianism and Judaism display a physical link, as is evident from the accounts of Daniel in the Old Testament, but for a fuller picture one has to also include religions such as Buddhism and Jainism. Babylon is harshly censured in the Book of Revelation, but the Old Testament takes the opposite view. H. W. F. Saggs writes in the Encyclopedia Britannica,
Despite the fateful part he played in Judah's history, Nebuchadrezzar is seen in Jewish tradition in a predominantly favourable light. It was claimed that he gave orders for the protection of Jeremiah, who regarded him as God's appointed instrument whom it was impiety to disobey, and the prophet Ezekiel expressed a similar view at the attack on Tyre. A corresponding attitude to Nebuchadrezzar, as God's instrument against wrongdoers, occurs in the Apocrypha in 1 Esdras and, as protector to be prayed for, in Baruch. In Daniel (Old Testament) and in Bel and the Dragon (Apocrypha), Nebuchadrezzar appears as a man, initially deceived by bad advisers, who welcomes the situation in which truth is triumphant and God is vindicated.
Every archaeological site is a precious relic from the past but Robert Koldewey, the meticulous excavator of Babylon was so overwhelmed by the sanctity of Babylon that he was reluctant to excavate it as this means destruction of ancient heritage. To understand the true dimension of this sacredness it is crucial to study Nebuchadrezzar's legacy which is larger than the millions of bricks inscribed with his name. An important clue is provided by Alexander the Great who died at Nebuchadrezzar's palace and who made Babylon his world capital. This was not for the city's great splendour but its humanistic heritage which has not been properly explored in the literature.
The Ishtar-Gate in 1932
One has to start by asking many intriguing questions which are evaded by nearly all the scholars:
1) For what offence did Nebuchadrezzar deport the Palestine Jews?
2) Why was captive Jehoiachin allowed to eat at the king's table?
3) Why did Jeremiah support Nebuchadrezzar?
4) Who was Tattenai who opposed the Palestaine Jews?
5) Who was Sethar-Boznai who is named with Tattenai?
It is very likely that Nebuchadrezzar was irked by the religious stance of the the Jews of Palestine. The clash with Sethar-Boznai and Tattenai may also have the same background. Bertrand Russell holds that Jewish religion was less exclusive before the era of Ezekiel. It is crucial to recognize that Buddhism evolved from the religion of the Yadus who were the early Jews. The fact that Abraham's abode Babil was the same as that of Gotama Buddha and Zoroaster leads to sea-changes in the history of religions.
But there is more to the history of Babil, or Babylon as it was called by the Greeks, than just Nebuchadrezzar who rebuild the city after it was destroyed by Sennacherib. The Akkadian bāb-ilû means Gateway of the gods, but as I. J. Gelb points out, this is not the primary meaning; Babil is an echo of an earlier city name. This city was clearly in the East. Herzfeld wrote about Bawer in Iran, which is said to have been founded by Jamshid. Babil clearly echoes Bawer. Babil is also cognate with Kabil or Kapil which shows the link with Kapilavastu (Kuh-e Khwaja) or Prophthasia. Kabil is mentioned in the Koran. An ancient Babil in the east founded by Jamshid implies that Ur must also have been in the same area. Significantly the Persian texts mention Urva which must correspond to Ur of the Book of Genesis. After his enlightenment Gotama Buddha preached at Uruvela which must have been near Shahr-i Shokhta. Islamic historians wrote about the Indian city Ubbula near Basra which is clearly an echo of Uruvela or Ur.
Babylon is said to have come into prominence during the rule of Sargon but some scholars hold that this was Sargon II. It is likely that after the decline of Prophthasia which was Babil, its sacred religious tradition was continued in Babylon. Bagapa the viceroy of 'eber nari' was Gotama Buddha whose title was Bhagava. He was probably the chief priest of the E-Sangila and was also linked to the earlier Babil. Gotama's name Buddho-Dana links him with Daniel and Babylon.
A rather strange Genesis story names Amraphael of Shinar, Arioch of Ellasar, Chedor-Laomer of Elam, and Tidal of Goiim as kings who confronted Israel. Amraphael is generally identified with Hammurabi which makes it likely that Chedor-Laomer or Kudur-Laghumar was Rim-Sin or Rama whose name was Raghupati. That Hammurabi was not deified may be due to his disapproval for the idea of divine kingship.
Visvamitra and the Mithraic Bull-Serpent
Motif in the Seals
The symbol
of Mitra
The
obvious answer is the
sage
Visvamitra, author of the famous
Gayatri mantra, who is one of the great
mysteries of Indian tradition. He was a Kshatriya but later became a
Brahmin. Precisely why he fell out with his king is unknown. He is
expressly declared as a ruler of the Earth
but the significance of this was lost in the Jonesian chaos. Viśvāmitra
is associated with Kanauj which must be Kohnouj near
Jiroft. After his
disgrace following the
Ten-Kings war he went to the forest. Where
was this territory? In the Epic Ramayana, Rama also went to the forest
or Vana and he (Ram-Sin of
The Buddhist attire and trefoils
link the priest-king with Mitra
Larsa) was in Sumer, Elam, and
Indus-Saraswati. Thus it is
highly likely that Visvamitra also went to Sumer. Moreover
Visvamitra was the son of
Gadhi, whose father was the legendary
Kusha-nabha whose name echoes
Cush of the western geographers and the
god Nabo.
Interestingly, in Sumerian history also there is a Mitra-like king who
was an easterner. The Buddha-like dress of
Gudea or Budea and his title Patesi (Priyadarshi) hints at a
link with India. His clasped hands
are also symbolic
Gudea was Viśvāmitra, son of
Gādhi
of friendship which indicates a link with
Mitra. But Gudea belongs to the late 3rd millennium B.C.
which was the mature phase of the Indus-Saraswati civilization and a
Mitra-king of this antiquity can only be
Viśvāmitra who is placed in the middle of the second
millennium B.C. by most scholars. As 'Gud' and 'Vrs' both stood for the
bull Gudea can be seen to be a namesake of Visvamitra.
He was was a son of
Gādhi
which agrees with Gudea's name.
Visvamitra
also
appears to be mentioned in the
seals. The sign-triad
The signs
it is expedient to turn
to the leaf sign
in the seals
firmly links the Indus-Saraswati era with early Vedic culture. This is
also confirmed by the Buddhist attire and
trefoils (which have an astral
significance) of the Mohenjo-Daro priest-king which links him with
Mitra. Who was this Mitra-king?
must
denote a very famous name as it has the highest frequency(37) of
triplets in the seal corpus. The
ending shows
that it is a Mitra-name and it is very likely that it stands
for
Visvamitra. To proceed further
link
Mitra with Bull and Serpent
which
was unique to Indus writing and does not
have counterparts in other ancient scripts.
Mitraism, Buddhism, Christianity, Vishnuism and the Kabbala
That Christianity rose from the crucible of Mithraism is well known and its inseparable links with Buddhism can be seen from that Buddhism was also an offshoot of Mitraism. This is evident from the peerless Buddhist art of Sanchi. The links of Buddhism, Christianity and Mithraism with Vishnuism and Eastern Judaism become clear when studied from the wider perspective of greater India. The numerous Mithraic communes or Sanghas in Europe, Asia Minor and Iraq speak of a widespread but puzzling religious heritage. The name Mitrabaudda in the Persepolis tablets prove that Mithraism was not a purely Zoroastrian phenomenon. On the other hand, the name of the monk Sanghamitra implies that early Buddhist cave monasteries may have been related to the Mithraic Sanghas. This is hinted by the presence of the Mithraic Cross at Sanchi which was a great
Mithraic Cross depicted at Sanchi
religious centre of the ancient world. The theism of Krishna and the Bhagavatas links the religion of the Yadus with Vishnuism. This is echoed in the Judaism of Kabbala, not Rabbinic Judaism. Sanchi is not associated with the life of Gotama Buddha and curiously Hsuen Tsang is also silent on it but it is at least as old as Asoka (Diodotus-I) and the
Fergusson was surprised by the Composite Cross at Sanchi
'Mauryan' polish of the sandstone pillar fragment near Stupa I speaks of Diodotus' fascination with Buddhism and India. It carries his famous edict warning against schism in the Buddhist community. This edict is also inscribed on the Allahabad and the Sarnath pillars. Were the disputes in some way related to the rise of Mahayana? Incidentally the term first appears in the famous Lotus Sutra which is dated to the 1st century B.C. In the council of Pataliputra presided by Asoka a major split occurred between the Mahasanghikas who took a liberal interpretation of the teachings and discipline and those who adhered to the older conservative approach. Whether this Pataliputra was Patali in Iran or Pattala is uncertain but the name Mahasanghika reminds one of the Sangumahhus of Babylon who were religious functionaries. It has to be recalled that Gudea of Sumer was an early Buddha and Gotama himself (Bagapa) was once at Babylon.
Bindusara Amitrodates or Mithradates
Being the father of the great
Diodotus-I, Bindusara is also of significant historical importance.
Although writers of the London school such as R. Thapar abandon Bindusara
in the gutter of history, there are saner alternatives. If one rejects the notion of a Mauryan capital at
Patna and turns instead to
Laghman area of Afghanistan there was yet another Gaur in
what is now Iran (Firuzabad) which was perhaps more important.
Archaeologists have recently found an ancient observatory here
(http://iran-daily.com/1384/2520/html/index.htm) which is very similar to those at Jaipur and
Turning now to history it can be seen that Chandragupta was a very powerful ruler and his dominion was larger than that of Seleucus with whom he clashed, but was he an absolute monarch? His identity with Andragoras seems to suggest that, at least in the early years, he acknowledged nominal Seleucid suzerainty. This was probably true also in the case of his son Bindusara.
Parnaka was Purnavarman alias Amitro-dana, Uncle of Gotama and Darius-I
Śankarâchârya, the famous Indian philosopher, is known worldwide for his erudition, yet his remark,
'There have been no world emperors (sārvabhauma) after Purnavarman'
seems unfathomable. That almost nothing is known about the Maurya king Purnavarman, cited by Hsuan Tsang, is a legacy of Jonesian Indology. The epithet 'world emperor' appears absurd in the context of eastern India where the Mauryas are dumped by R. Thapar and others.
Mithradates-I (171-138 B.C.), a late Parthian King of Chandragupta's line
Curiously the Âchârya excluded great names such as Asoka and Chandragupta although he must have known about them. Did he consult a lost history written by the Kashmirian historian Kshemendra (similar to the Rajatarangini) which is mentioned by Taranatha?
For more information about Purnavarman one has to turn away from eastern India to Indo-Iran which has a very ancient history. In the inscriptions found at the fortification area of Persepolis, the most important treasury official during Darius' regnal years 16 to 25 appears to be Parnaka, who was called Pharnaces by the Greek writers. His Persianness is stressed by all the writers yet equally convincing arguments show him to be an 'Indian'. India was also called Bharata and Baratkama who succeeded Parnaka, (Darius 32 to Xerxes 6) may have been another 'Indian'.
Hanuman, Bazrangids and the Indianization of
S. E. Asia
Hanuman, the close
associate of Rama was a figure of great historical importance. That he
was known as a monkey-chief should not distract us because there are
many indications in the Ramayana itself that he was a normal human
being. It is very likely that he was associated with a tribe with a
Phoenician
galley (Courtesy Institute of Texan Cultures) monkey totem.
Bāndar, the word for monkey is very significant. Hanuman can be
identified with Iliman, an associate of the Elamite king Ram-Sin who
ruled Sumer and probably also Elam and India. Iliman’s name can also be
read as Anuman as the cuneiform symbol for ‘An’ and ‘Ili’ was the same.
Hanuman is also widely known by the name Bajarangbali which appears to
be very significant. The Bazrangis were a well-known family of Fars.
They were the traditional priests of the Anahita temple at Istakhr in
Fars. According to Tabari, Ram-Behist the wife of Sasan, the earliest
ancestor of the Sasanids was a Bazrangi. The Bazrangis were a maritime
people who controlled the costal areas of southeast Iran which was once
‘India’. There is a hint of this in the name Maruti of Hanuman which is
associated with mobility. The way in which he brought a mountain of
medicinal herbs from a far-away place to cure Lakshmana who was
critically wounded, can be readily explained by his maritime links. The word ‘Bāndar’ for
‘port’ may be a memory of the Bāndars (Monkey-people). The seventeenth
century historian Taranatha refers to a Persian king named Bandero. The Bazrangis were the
colonizers of Oman and East Africa and their influence reached as far as
the Philippines. They appear to have played a major role in the
Indianisation or Sanskritisation of
South-East Asia.
Dharmapala, Gauda, Vanga and the Bangash
The link of modern Bengal with the Yavana lands in the North-west dates from the pre-Islamic era. The name Vaňga means 'broken' in Bengali and Sanskrit and Bengal or Vaňga-desha appears to have been a country split into two halves with an eastern part in modern Bengal and an western one near Baluchistan. Kalidasa’s remark that his hero Raghu uprooted and replanted the Vaňga people like rice plants is very significant. This is a clear hint at a geographical relocation which is also borne out by the history of the Bangash tribes of Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Dharmapala's vast empire included the Yavana lands
Dharmapala, the famous Pala king of Bengal, was one of the greatest rulers of India who controlled not only the whole of the East, Central and North India but also the Yavana lands. This is usually taken to be Baluchistan but his dominion may have extended further West. Significantly, Vaidyadeva's Kamauli grant of Assam links the Palas to Mihirasya vamsa or Sun/ Fire worshipping people who may have been from the Fars area which was once a part of greater India. Moreover, Sandhyakar Nandi, a court poet of the later Palas, stated that the Pala dynasty belonged to Samudrakula (Ocean lineage). This appears to be an allusion to the sea-link of the Palas with Gour in the the Fars area. The Buddhist text Arya-Manjushri-mula-kalpa refers to the rise of his father Gopala in Gauda, which is identified with Gaur in modern Bengal where relics of the Palas have been found, but the scenario is complicated by the fact that there was another flourishing city named Gour (Firuzabad) in the land of the Yavanas which Dharmapala controlled. Apart from Gour in Fars there was another Kanauj (Kohnouj) and Patali in the nearby Karman area.
Comments from leading scholars
"Your personal knowledge of the terrain makes your views especially valuable and I agree that Patna is too far east." (to be a Palibothra)
Prof. N. G. L. Hammond, editor of The Cambridge
Ancient History and discoverer of Vergina.
* "Dr. Pal departs largely from the trodden path (i.e. the Jonesian Indology) yet presents a cogent, well-documented thesis."
Prof. Sukumari Bhattacharji,
noted Indologist and author of "The Indian Theogony."
* "There is no question of disagreeing with you in any matter"
Mr. I. Mahadevan, noted writer on the Indus script.
* "I am both amazed and impressed by your paper 'An Altar of Alexander Now Standing near Delhi'. It is very convincing (though I would like to see counter arguments) and has changed my view of Alexander in India, of Ashoka, and the Euthydemid dynasty".
Prof. Thomas McEvilley,
Rice University, author of
"The Shape of Ancient Thought".
* "I sincerely thank you for the copies of your paper on Ancient Indian History which I received a few days back. Dr. Pal I regret to inform you that given my job of the Director of the Italian Embassy Cultural Centre I have quit Archaeology for good."
Prof. Maurizio Tosi, discoverer of Shahr-i Shokhta.
* "Thank you for your letter and the enclosure which I have read. I regret to say that I cannot give you an opinion on its contents as I am neither a specialist in linguistics nor in the ancient history of west Asia. I am sorry therefore that I cannot be of help to you".
Prof. Romila Thapar, Jawaharlal Nehru University, co-recipient of the $1mn Kluge Prize (2008).
* "It is good
to know that scholars are
making use of them. Too often one feels as if one is working
in a vacuum.
Prof. Mark Garrison, Trinity University, an eminent authority on Persepolis Tablets
* "Various renovations occurred at different times (at Kuh-e Khwaja) so the dating is complex with parts ranging from (pre-Sasanian) Buddhist to Sasanian to Islamic. It's very interesting to know that someone thinks the Buddha was born there."
Dr. Trudy Kawami, Arthur M. Sackler Foundation,
a commentator on the art of Kuh-e Khwaja.
* "He has performed an incomparable service in rectifying the western bias that has always been preponderant in studies of Alexander. No one now should look at Alexander without also going to Pal and delving further into the Sanskrit sources and their allusions to Alexander.".
Dr. Jan-Mathieu Carbon,
Corpus Christi College,
Oxford, in Scholia Reviews 14(2005)
* "I read your article with great interest. That is the rich nature of Alexander as a scholarly topic; there is always more to consider!"
Dr. Janet Grossman, The J. Paul Getty Museum
* "I, personally, have been waiting impatiently to see what you have to say concerning Jesus Christ and Alexander."
Prof. John Scarborough, University of Wisconsin
* "Your theses about Jonesian Indology certainly look stimulating and challenging".
Prof. Ian Mabbett, Monash University.
* "Your piece in the Sunday Statesman on Ram is most interesting."
Prof. T. C. Young Jr. Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, a noted expert on the history and archaeology of Iran
* Remember, barking dogs often wake people up and alert them to things they otherwise would have missed. I think that some of your theses serve that very important function among scholars. I suspect that Monique Cordell's review of your book in Bryn Mawr Classical Review will attract more readers and create reasoned debate of your ideas among a range of scholars.
Prof. T. Banchich, Canisius College, New York
* "Although I do not agree with your interpretations, I found them interesting reading. One of the few areas in which India is supposed to have made important contributions is religion, and now you are taking that glory away as well".
Dr. Pratapaditya Pal, noted Art commentator.
Related Sites
*Antiquity Review *Bryn Mawr Classical Review
*
Scholia Reviews * Nepalese Frauds *Babylon
*Alexander-the-Great
*
Historyfiles *Asoka
*American
Buddhist Journal *Chandragupta
*Persepolis Fortification Tablets * Cais-Soas
* L'Encyclopedie de L'Agora * Palibothra-Wiki
* Utrecht Univ. * 1stmuse * M. Lahanas
* Kalyan 97 * Newsfinder * atgtop10
* Amazon Reviews * Trirat's blog
A New Perspective In World History
Available from Amazon.com
As the thirst for true knowledge is unquenchable, truth is an unending source of pain.