Underworld: The Mysterious Origins of Civilization

  33. Jarridge, cited in ibid., 485

  34. Ibid., 489. Emphasis added

  35. Ibid., 489

  36. Ibid., 489 and Jonathan Mark Kennoyer, Ancient Cities of the Indus Valley Civilization, 38, American Institute of Pakistan Studies, Oxford, 1998

  37. Kennoyer, op. cit., 38

  38. Possehl, op. cit., 460

  39. Ibid., 21, 22, 491

  40. Ibid., 447; Gupta, op. cit., 22

  41. Possehl, op. cit., 447: ‘Taken as a whole the dates from Mehrgarh I and II seem to indicate that there was a settlement there at the beginning of the eighth millennium BC’

  42. David Frawley, Gods, Sages and Kings, 58 and 300, Passage Press, Salt Lake City, 1991

  43. In Georg Feuerstein, Subash Kak, David Frawley, In Search of the Cradle of Civilization, 89, Quest Books, Wheaton, Ill., 1995

  44. Ralph T. Griffith (trans.), Hymns of the Rgveda, vol. 1, 5, footnote 10, Munisharam Manoharlal Publishers, Delhi, 1987 (first published 1889]

  45. Lokamanya Bal Ganghadar Tilak, The Arctic Home in the Vedas, 225, Tilak Bros, Poona, 1956

  46. Wilson, cited in Griffith, op. cit., vol. 1, 47, note 1

  47. See discussion in Griffith, op. cit., vol. 1, 48, note 12

  48. Max Muller, cited in Griffith, op. cit., vol. 1, 48, note 12

  49. Tilak, op. cit., 225

  50. Ibid., 225

  51. Nicholas Borozovic, Douglas W. Bur-bank, Andrew J. Meigs, ‘Climatic Limits on Landscape Development in the Northwestern Himalaya’, Science, vol. 276, no. 5312, 25 April 1997, 571–4

  52. Edward Derbyshire, ‘Quaternary glacial sediments, glaciation stule, climate and uplift in the Karakoram and northwest Himalaya: review and speculations’, in Palaeogeography, Tolaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 120, 1996, 147–57, see 151 and 153

  53. S. K. Gupta, P. Sharma and S. K. Shah, Journal of Quaternary Science, 7 (4), 1992, 283–90, see 283

  54. Jonathan A. Holmes, ‘Present and Past Patterns of Glaciation in the Northwest Himalaya: Climate, Tectonic and Topographic Controls’, in John F. Shroder Jr (ed.), Himalaya to the Sea: Geology, Geomorphology and the Quaternary, 72

  55. Ibid., 84

  56. Ibid., 86. Holmes’ study suggests (p. 90) that the maximum extent of glaciation in the Himalayas and the Karakorams may even have been reached somewhat earlier than the maximum extent of glaciation elsewhere in the world and thus the Himalayan ice-cap may have endured a rather longer period of deep-freeze and ‘slumber’ than other ice-caps

  57. Borozovic et al., op. cit.

  58. Mohamed Amin, Duncan Willetts, Graham Hancock, Journey Through Pakistan, Camerapix Publishers International, Nairobi, 1982

  59. Ibid., 112

  60. Holmes in Shroder, op. cit., 73

  61. Borozovic et al., op. cit., 573. P. J. Taylor has noted modern ELAs of between 4800 and 5500 metres in the Zanskar range, see Glacial Geology and Geomorphology, April 2001, http://ggg.qub.c.uk/ggg/papers/full/ 2001/rpo2 /rp02.html

  62. Morner, cited in Derbyshire, op. cit., 154

  63. Derbyshire, op. cit., 153

  64. Ibid., 153

  65. Some of the most useful papers are gathered together in B. P. Radhakrishna and S. S. Merh (eds.), Vedic Sarasvati: Evolutionary History of a Lost River of Northwestern India, Geological Society of India, Bangalore, 1999.

  66. Coxon et al., Journal of Quaternary Science, 11 (6), 1996, 495–510, see 495

  67. Ibid., 495

  68. Shroder, Owen, Derbyshire, ‘Quaternary Glaciation’, in Shroder, op. cit., 133

  69. Coxon et al., op. cit., 498

  70. Daniel Vuichard and Markus Zimerman, ‘The 1985 Catastrophic Drainage, etc.’, Mountain Research and Development, vol. 7, no. 2, 1987, 91–100, see 91.

  71. Lewis A. Owen, ‘Neotectonics and glacial, etc.’, Tectonophysics, 163, 1989, 227–65, see 237

  72. Butler, Owen and Prior, ‘Flashfloods, earthquakes and uplift in the Pakistan Himalayas’, Geology Today, 197, November-December 1998

  73. Kenneth Hewitt, ‘Natural dams and outburst floods of the Karakoram Himalaya’, Hydrological Aspects of Alpine and High Montane Areas (Proceedings of the Exeter Symposium, July 1982), IAHS publ. no. 138, see 259

  74. Ibid., 259

  75. Again the notable exception, where this matter is considered directly, is Radhakrishna and Merh, op. cit.

  76. Elise Van Campo, Quaternary Research, 26, 1986, 376–8, see 376 and 384

  77. Ibid., 385

  78. Ibid., 384–5

  79. Ibid., 385

  80. See discussion in chapter 3

  81. Thomas J. Crowley and Gerald R. North, Palaeoclimatology, 62, Oxford University Press, 1991

  82. Lawrence Guy Straus et al., Humans at the End of the Ice Age, 66, 86, Plenum Press, New York and London, 1996. The Younger Dryas is explicitly a term for a European cold phase, although the phase itself was global. The same phase is thus sometimes referred to by different names in other places; but it is also a generic term and it is used as such here

  83. Crowley and North, op. cit., 63

  84. Adams and Otte give date of start of Younger Dryas cold period as 12,800 and the end as 11,400 calendar years ago, Current Anthropology, vol. 40, 1999, 73–7, see 73

  85. Straus et al., op. cit., 86

  86. Adams and Otte, op. cit., 73

  87. Ibid., 73

  88. M. A. J. Williams and M. F. Clarke, ‘Late Quaternary environments in north-central India’, in Nature, vol. 308, 12 April 1984, 633–5, see 633

  89. See also B. P. Radhakrishna, ‘Vedic Sarasvati and the Dawn of Indian Civilization’, in Radhakrishna and Merh, op. cit., 7–8

  90. Crowley and North, op. cit., 62

  PART THREE: India (2)

  9 / Fairytale Kingdom

  1. Deo Prakash Sharma, Harappan Seals, Sealings and Copper Tablets, 20–21, National Museum, New Delhi, 2000

  2. Jonathan Mark Kennoyer, Ancient Cities of the Indus Valley Civilization, 112, American Institute of Pakistan Studies, Oxford, 1998

  3. Encyclopaedia Britannica, Micropaedia, vol. 12, 846

  4. Personal communication from Hari Shankhar, Yoga teacher, Chennai, south India

  5. Kennoyer, op. cit., 112

  6. Sharma, op. cit., 20

  7. For a superb inquiry into the nature of Siva see Stella Kramrisch, The Presence of Shiva, Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi, 1988

  8. S. R. Rao, Dawn and Devolution of the Indus Civilization, 306, Aditya Prakashan, New Delhi, 1991

  9. See for example discussion in Kennoyer, op. cit., 110

  10. Gregory L. Possehl, Indus Age: The Beginnings, 80, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999

  11. Kennoyer, op. cit., 113

  12. Full discussion in chapter 10

  13. See discussion in chapter 8

  14. Possehl, op. cit., 1

  15. Captain M. W. Carr (ed.), Descriptive and Historical Papers Relating to the Seven Pagodas of the Coromandel Coast (first published 1869), reprinted Asian Educational Services, New Delhi, 1984

  16. Shulman in Alan Dundes (ed.), The Flood Myth, 294, University of California Press, 1988

  17. Ibid., 294–5

  18. Journal of Marine Archaeology (JMA), vols. 5–6, 1995–6, 7ff, Society of Marine Archaeology, National Institute of Archaeology, Goa, India, 1997

  19. Ibid., 7–8

  20. Ibid., 7, 14ff

  21. See discussion in chapter 1

  22. Interview with Rao, 29 February 2000, cited in chapter 1

  23. Ibid.

  24. Ibid.

  25. S. R. Rao, The Lost City of Dvaraka, fig. 55, Aditya Prakashan, New Delhi, 1999

  26. Interview with Rao, 29 February 2000

  27. JMA, op. cit., 64

  28. Interview with Rao, 29 February 2000; and JMA, op. cit., 65

  29. Many reproduced as plates to Rao’s The Lost City of Dvaraka, op. cit.

  30. Krishna as avatar of Vishnu – e.g. Danielou

  31. Interview with Rao, 29 February 2000

&
nbsp; 32. Ibid.

  33. As for example in 2001

  34. Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, Myths of the Hindus and Buddhists, 393, Dover Publications, New York, 1967

  10 / The Mystery of the Red Hill

  1. Alain Danielou, The Myths and Gods of India, 221, Inner Traditions International, Rochester, 1991

  2. See discussion in Ramana’s Arunachela: Ocean of Divine Grace, 1, Sri Ramanasramam, Tiruvannamalai, India, 1998

  3. M.C. Subramanian, Glory of Arunachela, 93, Sri Ramanasramam, Tiruvannamalai, India, 1999

  4. Ibid., 100

  5. Ibid., 103

  6. Ibid., 104

  7. Skandananda, Arunachela Holy Hill, xi, Sri Ramanasramam, Tiruvannamalai, India, 1995

  8. Ibid., xi

  9. Subramanian, op. cit., 104; Skandananda, op. cit., xix

  10. Skandananda, op. cit., xl, note 20

  11. John E. Mitchiner, Traditions of the Seven Rishis, 206, Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi, 1982

  12. Ibid., 208

  13. Ibid., 206

  14. Subramanian, op. cit., 106

  15. Skandananda, op. cit., xi

  16. Subramanian, op. cit., 104

  17. Skanda Purana, 12, chapter 2, verse 52

  18. Arunachela Mahatmyan, 16

  19. ‘Thiruvannamalai and its surroundings a geological Paradise: a plea for preservation as a National Heritage site’, paper by T. V. Viswanathan, former Deputy Director General, Geological Survey of India, handed to me at Sri Ramana Asram

  20. E.g., see Jonathan Mark Kennoyer, Ancient Cities of the Indus Valley Civilization, 110, American Institute of Pakistan Studies, Oxford, 1998

  21. Sharp-eyed readers will have noticed an example of this in a passage quoted earlier in this chapter.

  22. W. J. Wilkins, Hindu Mythology, 265–6, Heritage Publishers, New Delhi, 1991

  23. Jan Knappert, Indian Mythology, 228 and 230, Diamond Books, London, 1995; New Larousse Encyclopaedia of Mythology, 341, Hamlyn, London, 1989

  24. Stella Kamrisch, The Presence of Shiva, 7, Motilal Banarsidass, 1988

  25. Alfred Hildebrandt, Vedic Mythology, vol. 2, 289, Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, Delhi, 1990; Wilkins, op. cit., 266

  26. Hildebrandt, op. cit., vol. 2, 282; Wilkins, op. cit., 266

  27. Danielou, op. cit., 192–4

  28. Ralph T. Griffith (trans.], Hymns of the Rgveda, vol. 1, 318 and 319, Munisharam Manoharlal Publishers, Delhi, 1987 (first published 1889)

  29. Ibid., vol. 1, 162–3

  30. Rig Veda, 10.136.7, discussed in Hildebrandt, op. cit., vol. 2, 287; Kamrisch, op. cit., 20–21, 83–4; 424–6

  31. Griffith, op. cit., vol. 2, 630; vol. 1, 162; Wilkins, op. cit., 265–6

  32. Kamrisch, op. cit., 21

  33. Ibid., 119 and 123

  34. Griffith, op. cit., 8.13.20

  35. Larousse, 376

  36. Ibid., 337

  37. Danielou, op. cit., 209

  38. Wilkins, op. cit., 102–3

  39. Kamrisch, op. cit., 425–6

  40. Mitchiner, op. cit., 190–91

  41. Bhagvata Purana, 6.15.11, vol. 8, 856, Motilal Banarsidas, Delhi, 1978

  42. David Goodman (ed.), Be As You Are: The Teachings of Sri Ramana, 1, Penguin Books, New Delhi, 1992

  43. Ibid., 1

  44. Ibid., 1

  45. Ibid., 3

  46. Skanda Purana and Arunachela Mahatmya

  47. For example, Inca myths regarding Tiahuanaco, Aztec myths regarding Teotihuacan and Ancient Egypt’s Edfu cosmology

  48. See discussion in Keeper of Genesis/ Message of the Sphinx, chapter 12

  49. Cited above: Subramanian, op. cit., 104

  50. See discussion in next chapter

  51. C. Ramachandran Dikshitar, Studies in Tamil Literature and History, 7, The South India Sauiva Siddhanta Works Publishing Society, Madras, 1983

  52. Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, On Consideration, cited in Robert Lawlor, Sacred Geometry, 6, Thames and Hudson, London, 1989

  53. See discussions in Fingerprints of the Gods and Heaven’s Mirror

  54. Ibid.

  55. See discussions in Fingerprints of the Gods

  56. Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend, Hamlet’s Mill, Nonpareil, Boston, 1992

  57. See discussion in Fingerprints of the Gods

  58. See discussions in Fingerprints of the Gods and Heaven’s Mirror

  59. Santillana and von Dechend, op. cit.

  60. See discussion in Heaven’s Mirror

  61. See discussion in Heaven’s Mirror, where this grid is first proposed

  62. Wilkins, op. cit., 353

  63. Danielou, op. cit., 160

  64. Ibid., 220–21

  65. V. Naryanaswamy, Thiruvannamalai, 17, Manivasagar Pathippagam, Madras, 1992

  66. S. Kamrisch, op. cit., 83–4, and see Rig Veda, 7.59.12

  67. Donald A. McKenzie, India: Myths and Legends, 146–7, Mystic Press, London, 1987

  68. M. Sundarraj, Rig Vedic Studies, 83, International Society for the Investigation of Ancient Civilization, Chennai, 1997

  69. Ibid., 83

  70. Griffith, op. cit., 1.154.1–3

  71. Ibid., 1.155.4

  72. Ibid., 1.155.6

  73. Ibid., 6.49.13

  74. Ibid., 1.164.11

  75. See discussion in Fingerprints of the Gods, part 5

  76. Richard L. Thompson, Mysteries of the Sacred Universe: the Cosmology of the Bhagvata Purana, Govhardan Hill Publishing, Florida, 2000

  77. Ibid., 47

  78. Ibid., 239

  79. Ibid., 269

  80. Ibid., 104

  81. Ibid., 104

  82. Ibid., 105–6

  83. Schulman in Alan Dundes (ed.), The Flood Myth, 295, University of California Press, 1988

  11 / The Quest for Kumari Random

  1. See discussion in C. Ramachandran Dikshitar, Studies in Tamil Literature and History, chapter 1, The South India Sauiva Siddhanta Works Publishing Society, Madras, 1983

  2. Discussed at length in K. N. Shivaraja Pillai, The Chronology of the Early Tamils, University of Madras, 1932

  3. Ibid., 19

  4. Ibid., 20

  5. For example, it is claimed that Ethiopia’s national epic, the Kebra Nagast (‘Glory of Kings’), was concocted to legitimize the Solomonic dynasty

  6. Pillai, op. cit., 19

  7. Dikshitar, op. cit., 5

  8. Ibid., 5

  9. Ibid., 5–6, 13–14; P. Ramanathan, A New Account of the History and Culture of the Tamils, 8–10, Sauiva Siddhanta Works Publishing Society, Chennai, 1998; T. R. Sesha Iyenagar, Dravidian India, 154, Asian Educational Services, New Delhi, 1995

  10. Dikshitar, op. cit., 6

  11. N. Mahalingam, Kumari Kandam -The Lost Continent, 2, 59–60, Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference/Seminar of Tamil Studies, Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India, January 1981, International Association of Tamil Research, Madras

  12. Personal communication from Dr T. N. P. Haran, American College, Madurai

  13. Ibid.

  14. Dikshitar, op. cit., 7

  15. Ibid., 7

  16. Ibid., 7

  17. Ibid., 8

  18. Ibid., 8

  19. Dr D. Devakunjari, Madurai Through the Ages, 26, Society for Archaeological, Historical and Epigraphical Research, Madras

  20. Dikshitar, op. cit., 8

  21. Pillai, op. cit., 19

  22. Dikshitar, op. cit., 4

  23. Ibid., 4

  24. Ibid., 5

  25. Pillai, op. cit., 21. See also 19

  26. V. Kanakasabhai, The Tamils Eighteen Hundred Years Ago, 21, Sauiva Siddhanta, Madras, 1966

  27. Ibid., 21, note 3

  28. Ibid., 21, note 3; Dikshitar, op. cit., 13–14

  29. Ramanathan, op. cit., 8

  30. Ibid., 8–9. Dikshitar, op. cit., 14. In his commentary on the Tolkappiyam, Per-Asiyar calls this lost territory not Kumari Kandam but Panainadu

  31. Ramanathan, op. cit., 32


  32. Ibid., 32–3

  33. Sesha Iyenagar, op. cit., 24, 25

  34. Dr M. Sundaram, Chief Professor and Head of the Dept of Tamil, Presidency College, Madras, ‘The Cultural Heritage of the Ancient Tamils’, research paper

  35. Shulman, in Alan Dundes fed.], The Flood Myth, 301, University of California Press, 1988

  36. William Geiger, The Mahavamsa, or The Great Chronicle of Ceylon, ix-x, Asian Educational Services, New Delhi, 1986 (first published 1912)

  37. N. K. Mangalamurugesan, Sangam Age, Thendral Pathipakam, Madras, 1982, 47

  38. Rajavali, vol. 2, 180, 190, cited in Kanakasabhai, op. cit., 21

  39. R. Spence Hardy, The Legends and Theories of the Buddhists, 6, Sri Satguru Publications, Delhi, 1990 (first published 1866)

  40. Ibid., 6

  41. Ibid., 6

  42. See chapters 7 and 11

  43. Tennant’s Ceylon, vol. 1, pages 6 and 7, cited in Kanakasabhai, op. cit., 21, footnote 4

  44. Mahalingam, op. cit., 2–54

  45. Ibid., 2, 59–60

  46. Ibid., 2–54

  47. Dikshitar, op. cit., 17, citing Tiruvilaiyadal Puranam

  48. Dr D. Devakunjari, op. cit. To be precise, ‘its two sides from north to south measure 720 feet and 729 feet, the two east to west sides measure 834 feet and 852 feet’

  49. The dimensions of the Great Pyramid of Egypt are examined in detail in Fingerprints of the Gods, part 4

  50. John Howley, Jada Bahrata Dasa, Holy Places and Temples in India, 587, Spiritual Guides, 1996

  51. V. Meena, South India: A Travel Guide, 35, Hari Kumari Arts, Kanyakumari

  52. Howley and Dasa, op. cit., 589

  53. Devakunjari, op. cit., 217

  54. T. G. S. Balaram Iyer, History and Description of Sri Meenakshu Temple, 7, Sri Karthik Agency, Madurai, 1999; Devakunjari, op. cit., 214

  55. Examples are to be seen in the Harappan Gallery of the National Archaeological Museum, New Delhi

  56. Sesha Iyenagar, op. cit., 100

  57. Cited in ibid., 100

  58. Cited in David Frawley, The Oracle of Rama, 140, Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, Delhi, 1999

  59. See chapter 7

  60. Cited earlier in this chapter

  61. Mahalingam, cited earlier in this chapter

  62. Pillai, op. cit., 24

  63. Cited earlier in this chapter

  64. Dikshitar, op. cit., 9

  65. Ibid., 9

  66. This, at any rate, has been my experience

  67. See chapter 1