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river called the Saraswati that flowed from the Himalayan Mountains down to the Arabian Sea, down in that area of north- western India. And such a river doesn't exist there today. So, what happened was that people thought that therefore the Rig Veda could not be talking about India; it had to be talking about some other place outside of India where there was some kind of river. But what happened a few years ago that is quite interesting is that archaeologists in India started studying the satellite pho- tographs from American satellites, like Landsat had been providing, and they noticed there was a dry river channel that egan up in the Himalayas—a huge river that went down almost to that Bay of Khambhat [Cambay] which we are talking 3 about [the location of the underwater city : North Park University, Chicago, Illinois) site]. And then later, they found that on the anks of that river there were 800 to 1,000 that would go back at least 9,500 years? urban sites, archaeological sites. MC: Oh, absolutely, Linda. In these So, it does appear that what the Rig Veda ancient Sanskrit writings there is no hint at was talking about—a mighty river lined all that the culture came from anywhere — with cities in India over 5,000 years ago— else. as to be true. The last time that river had LMH: And if they are the prime source _ water in it was over 5,000 years ago. and if the Vedic literature can be taken lit- LMH: Is there a possibility that there erally, then it implies that there were cities could have been some sort of non-human there, inhabited at least several thousand cohabitation on the continent of India, let's years ago. say 50,000 years ago, that could explain all MC: Yes, and there has been other _ of the Vedas? research going on in that area. For exam- MC: Yes. In Kashmir, it appears that ple, the Rig Veda, which is one of the earli- the valley of Kashmir was many years ago est Vedic literatures, talks about a mighty a lake. Now, there is an ancient Sanskrit \. L A ‘f es ie aN One of the mysterious white rings made of brick, which dot the landscape where the Harappan people lived. (Source: North Park University, Chicago, Illinois, USA) India who had the Sanskrit language as the main language of their literature...they noticed that the European languages were similar [in word concepts and roots], so that meant the Europeans and East Indians had to be related. The 19th-century scientists also noticed that the Sanskrit culture—or Vedic culture as it is sometimes called, after the ancient Indian literature, the Vedas, which means "knowledge"—appeared to be older than the European cultures. (Sometimes the ancient Indian culture is called the Vedic culture or Vedic civilisation; the literature is called the Vedic literature.) So, since the European languages were related to the Indian language Sanskrit of the Vedas, that could only mean that the European peoples had to have come out of India somehow and then gone to Europe, their languages differentiating into Russian, English, Spanish, German and the rest of them. The European investigators didn't like that idea because it would have given the Vedic cul- ture a position superior to their own. So, these early cities in the Indus valley, like Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro, have been identified by archaeologists such as Richard Meadows and others as being non- Vedic. They think the Vedic culture came into India maybe 3,500 years ago. LMH: Isn't that inconsistent with the concept in the Vedas of the Krishna charac- ter who comes and says the universe is teeming with life, who appears to have knowledge about other habitations in the cosmos, and who is talking from an age that would go back at least 9,500 years? MC: Oh, absolutely, Linda. In these ancient Sanskrit writings there is no hint at all that the culture came from anywhere else. LMH: And if they are the prime source and if the Vedic literature can be taken lit- erally, then it implies that there were cities there, inhabited at least several thousand APRIL — MAY 2002 NEXUS ¢ 69 Excavated walls of a Harappan city. (Source: North Park University, Chicago, Illinois) www.nexusmagazine.com