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- Who Discovered the Americas?
http://vedicempire.com/index.php?Itemid=26&id=24&option=com_content&task=view
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Topic: Who Discovered the Americas?
http://vedicempire.com/index.php?Itemid=26&id=24&option=com_content&task=view
Url: http://groups.google.com/group/hinduassociationusa/t/2cb55809c1c53893
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From: American Hindu Association <americanhinduassociation@gmail.com>
Date: Sep 12 08:48PM -0700
Url: http://groups.google.com/group/hinduassociationusa/msg/14429dd66f6dd5d4
Who Discovered the Americas?
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Written
by Vrndavan Parker *[image: Image]The Hindus were mighty navigators and
pioneers of culture centuries before Columbus was born. They established
their cultural empires in Java, Bali, Sumatra, Borneo, Philippines,
Cambodia, Champa, Annam and Siam and ruled there until after the 14th
century.*
*WHO DISCOVERED AMERICA?*
Writer : Chaman Lal
As the seeds of herbs and trees are carried to distant places by wind and
birds, so in ancient times mankind and culture spread over the world through
the tides of great Indian and Pacific oceans. The Hindus were mighty
navigators and pioneers of culture centuries before Columbus was born. They
established their cultural empires in Java, Bali, Sumatra, Borneo,
Philippines, Cambodia, Champa, Annam and Siam and ruled there until after
the 14th century. Evan today Cambodia's King bears the title of the great
Varman rulers of India, and Bali has a Hindu Raja. Hindu migration to
America was vigorous from the first to the twelfth century A.D.
Cambodia, the ancient Kamboja, was one of the earliest to receive the
culture of India. The name of its river Me Kong was derived from Ma Ganga
(mother Ganges). In the first century A.D. a Brahman called Kaundinya came
to Kamboja from Kanchi, the capital of Pallava kings in South India, married
the Kamboja Princess Soma and was elected king of the country. Champa, at
present Vietnam, figures prominently in the story of India's cultural
expansion. Vietnam was the footboard for the pilgrims to America. A prince
of Kalinga (Orissa) founded the Hindu State of Java in the first century A.
D. Java is the ancient Yava Dveepa mentioned in the Ramayana and other
Sanskrit texts. Bali Dveepa is still a stronghold of Hinduism. Borneo is the
ancient Suvarna Dveepa or Sri Vijaya. On the Indonesian national flag still
flutters our Garuda. From Angkor Vat to America Hinduism and its gods and
temples have left their imprint. Siam was the centre of Hindu culture for
centuries and boasts of rulers with names such as Rama, Praja Deepak and
Dharmaraja. The same pioneers of culture who ruled such large areas in the
Pacific for fourteen centuries also went to far off Mexico and Peru and
established cultural empires.
*Ship-building*
Indian ship-building had developed at least 2000 years ago and according to
Dr. Ekholm, Director of the Museum of Natural History in New York, and Dr.
Robert Heine Geldern, there appears to be little doubt that ship-building
and navigation were sufficiently advanced in southern and eastern Asia at
the period in question to have made trans-Pacific voyages possible. As early
as the time of Ptolemy in the second century A. D., Indian ships sailed to
the Malayan Peninsula and Indonesia not eastwise but across the Bay of
Bengal. In the third century horses were exported from India to the Malayan
Peninsula and Indo-China on indication that there must have been ship of of
considerable size.When the Chinese Buddhist scholar Fattein return from
India around A.D. 400 he embarked on a ships which carried more than 200
sailors and merchants and which therefore must have been larger than the
ships of Columbus and early Spanish explorers.""Ships of that size able to
cross the Indian Ocean and the China Sea with their dangerous cyclones could
certainly cross the Pacific as well.""According to French and British
historians the Hindus excelled in the art of constructing ships and for
centuries the British and the French borrowed from the Hindus many
improvements in the naval architecture.
Only two authorities will suffice:
""In ancient times the Indians excelled in the art of constructing vessels,
and the present Hindus can, in this respect, still offer models to Europe,
so much so that the English, attentive to everything which relates to naval
architecture, have borrowed from the Hindus many improvements which they
have adopted with success to their own shipping. The Indian vessels unite
elegance and utility, and are models of patience and fine workmanship.""
(Les Hindus- P. 181).
""Indian vessels are so admirably adapted to the purpose for which they are
required that, notwithstanding their superior science, Europeans were
unable, during an intercourse with India for two centuries , to suggest or
to bring into successful practice one improvement."" (Sir John Malcolm,
Journal of Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 1)
*Astec Calendar*
The fact that the Hindus were capable of sailing to far off countries like
Mexico and Peru is proved by the official historien of Mexico, who in his
book published by the Mexican Foreign Office.
""Those who first arrived on the continent later to be known as America were
groups of men driven by that mighty current that set out from India towards
the east.""
The U. S. Ambassador Miles Poindexter states in his book The Ayar-Incas that
primitive Aryan words and people came to America especially from Indo-Arya
by the island chains of Polynesia. The very name of the boat in Mexico is a
South Indian (Tamil) word: Catamaran.
After 17 years of research I can now claim to have proved my theory of Hindu
colonisation of America. The stones in every corner of America speak of
Hindu influences.
Let us begin with the Astec calendar known as the Astec Chakra of the Hindu
Astronomers. It is the foundation stone of Hindu culture in America. The
ancient Americans believe in the four Hindu ages (Yugas or cycles). This
Astec calendar (of Hindu origin) depicts the Hindu ages of the world.
Mackenzie, author of Myths of Pre-Columbian America, says, ""The doctrine of
the world's ages (Hindu Yugas) was imported into pre-Columbian America. The
Mexican sequence is identical with the Hindus. It would be ridiculous to
assert that such a strange doctrine was of spontaneous origin in different
parts of old and new worlds."" The very sculpture of the Sun in this
calendar bears the imprint of India.
*Game of Pachisi*
Witness the complicated game of Pachisi as it is played in India and Mexico.
Seventy years ago Edward Taylor pointed out that the ancient Mexican game of
Patolli was similar in its details to the game of Pachisi played in India
and the whole region of Southern Asia. ""It seems clear,"" he wrote, ""that
the Mexican game must have come from Asia."" Subsequently Stewart Culin
showed that even the cosmic meaning of the Mexican game, its relation to the
four quarters of the world and to the calendars ascribed to them was
essentially the same as in Pachisi. Dr. Kroeber, leading anthroplogist of
California, observes that ""the mathematical probability of two games
invented separately, agreeing by chance in so many specific features, is
very low. The close correspondence between the rules of the two games
indicates a real connection."" Dr. Kroeber however could not find more
evidence to link India with America and decided to leave the issue unsolved
expressing the hope that fuller and more accurate knowledge would some day
solve the dilemma. Dr. Robert Heine Geldern, the famous anthropologist of
Vienna, and Dr. Gordon F. Ekholm have now presented enough evidence to
support the thesis that Americans had definite cultural links with the
people of South-East Asia at least 2000 years ago.
*The Lotus Motif*
Their researches in the last three years support the theses. I presented 26
years ago in my book Hindu America. They begin with the lotus in India and
Mexico. (Lotus is one of the most sacred symbols of India. Hinduism is
essentially embodied in the lotus. One of the most frequent motifs of early
Indian art is the lotus plant.) The same kind of lotus motif occurs in
America at Chichen Itza (Mexico) as a border in the reliefs of the lower
room of the Temple of the Tigers. ""It is certainly remarkable that in India
as well as in Middle America, the rhizome, a part of the plant not normally
visible because it is submerged and deeply buried in mud should have been
the basic element of a whole motif and, moreover, be stylized in the same
unrealistic manner as an undulating creeper."" The two learned
anthroplogists are definitely of the view that "" such a combination of
highly specific details cannot be accidental. It suggests the existence of
some kind of relationship between Maya art and not only Buddhist art in
general but the school of Amravati of the second century A. D. in
particular.""
The most obtrusive factor in the customs and beliefs of the Maya
civilization according to experts is unquestionably Indian. Maya
architecture bears unmistakable seal of Hindu architecture as you can see
from the picture of Maya palaces and temples.
Atlantean figures appear in India in the second century B. C. They played an
important role in Indian art and are found even on very recent Siamese
temple. In America they can be seen at Thula in Central Mexico and Chichen
Itza. Gods and ceremonial figures standing on crouched human figures are
found in India from the second century B. C. onwards. In Central America
they occurred in many Maya sculptures, especially at Palenque. From Sanchi
to Central America the pattern is similar.
Those anthropologists who until yesterday completely denied any contact
between ancient America and Asia are much perturbed today to find that their
so-called 'cross' of Palenque (Mexico) is no longer a cross but an exact
copy of the Hindu Tree of Life on Mount Meru (Sumeru), the mythological
centre of the world. A representation of the Hindu Tree of Life is presented
in a shadow play from Java. This depicts the Hindu celestial tree on Mount
Meru. This Javanese specimen and the so-called Mexican cross have the same
demonic figure in the centre and branches of the tree are clearly visible
even to a layman. Javanese specimens are of course recent but the fact that
the motif appears in an already highly conventionalised among the reliefs of
Angkor Vat in Cambodia about the middle of the 12th century indicates that
it must be of considerable antiquity. We find stairways flanked by
serpent-balustrades in South-East Asia and Middle America. The use of half
columns flanking the doors and of groups of small columns set in panels in
characteristic of Cambodian architecture. Highly similar combinations appear
in certain Maya buildings.
*Common Ceremonial*
Most of you in India are familiar with the Charak Puja ceremonial observed
in Bengal and several States in South India. This Hindu Ceremonial also
observed in Mexico historian call it the mexicon and peru. The Spanish
Valador ritual. A relief of Bayon central temple of Angkor Thom in Cambodia
represents a rite similar to the Mexico Valador. The use of parasol
(Chhatra) is an age-old sign of royalty and rank in India, Burma, China and
Japan. The Maya Astec and the Incas also used it as a sign of royalty.
Frescoes of Chak Multum in Yucatan show two types of parasols both of which
correspond to types still in use in South-East Asia.
In reading descriptions of the palace and court of the Astec emperors of
Mexico, any one familiar with South-East Asia cannot fail to be reminded of
the courts of Burma, Siam and Cambodia. The same applied to the form of
government. Thus the institution of four chief officials in Mexico and Peru
corresponds to the four ministers of state and Governors of the four
quarters of the Kingdom in Hindu Buddist empires of South-East Asia. In both
cases this institution is based on cosmological principles. This indicates
similar pictorial story of the Hindu Buddist origins in the field of art,
religious architecture, government, kingship, cosmology and mythology proves
close cultural contacts between ancient India and countries of South-East
Asia with the countries of Central and South America. Dr. Robert Gelern and
Dr. Ekholm have come to the following conclusion:
""The large number of highly specific correspondences in so many fields
precludes any reponsibility of mere accidental coincidence nor would it help
us to take refuge in any kind of explanation based on some alleged
psychological laws. There is no psychologial law which could have caused the
peoples on both sides of the Pacific to stylize the lotus plant in the same
manner and to make it surge from the mouth of a jawless demon's head, to
invent the parasol and use it as a sign of rank and to invent the same
complicated game (Pachisi). There is no explanation other than the
assumption of cultural relationship. We must bow to the evidence of facts
even tough this may mean a completely new start in our appraisal of the
origin and development of the American Indian higher civilizations.""
*The Ayar Rulers*
The use of throne, the litre and of fans mounted standard like on long poles
as insignia of rank and royalty in the countries of Central and South
America bears the strong imprint of India. It may be observed here that the
last Ayar ruler of Peru was carried in his palanquin on the day the
Spaniards invaded Peru. His turban with the plume and his Mudra of the hand
are unmistakable proofs of his Hindu origin. His four Ranis performed Sati
after he was murdered by the Spaniards. A hundred Ayar rulers ruled Peru.
The Mexican national throne preserved in the National Museum of Mexico bears
the typical Hindu Buddist disc of the Sun. The Mexicans also had the Hindu
Simhasan (Lion throne). A scene of Buddha-Sangh as preserved in a relief
temple in Java has its parallel in the famous pyramid temple in Piedras
Negras, Guatemala. This is the finest piece of Maya sculpture in America. Is
has no real incidence in Maya Arts history but it does have a remarkable
similarity to a number of ""Life of Buddha reliefs"" of the Boro Budur in
Java. There is no way of knowing what the subject matter of the American
relief might be but the composition with the placing of the figures on
several levels is very similar to the one in Java.
*Images of Gods*
India has the reputation to be the land of gods but Mexico, Guatemala, Peru,
Bolivia and Honduras had more gods and richer temples than we had in India
at any time. Shiva, Ganesha, Indra, the Sun, Hanuman, Vishnu and his
tortoise incarnation (Kurma Avatar) were some of the Hindu gods worshipped
in central and South America. I present to you the galaxy of our Gods
preserved in the museums of America. Here you can see Shiva, Ganesha and
even his rat from the Inca mythology in Peru, Ganesha from the temple of
Diego Riviera in Mexico City, various images of Hanuman and Shiva from the
Guatemala Museum, Shiva Linga from Vera Cruz in Mexico City. The Mexican
Vishnu in spite of his Mexican features can be easily recognised from the
mace (Gada) and Chakra that he holds in his two hands. The image of Vishnu's
tortoise incarnation preserved by the United Fruit Line in the museum at
Quiragua, Guatemala, is the greatest puzzle for anthropologists. They have
named this image as the Turtle Stone although any one familiar with Hindu
mythology can see that it is Vishnu's Kurma Avatar (Tortoise incarnation).
Indra is preserved in the Mexican National Museum as well as Vaman Avatar
called the Diving God. There are two images of this Hindu God, one from Bali
and the other from Mexico.
*Hindu Rituals*
The largest temple in Mexico City was the temple of Lord Shiva, the War God
of the Mexican whom the Spanish invaders found entwined by golden snakes.
This temple was built in the 15th
--
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