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A Glorious Hindu Legacy: Indic influence in Southeast
Asia.
Hinduism in
Cambodia
According
to an ancient Sanskrit inscription, Cambodia was born from the
water. Being the oldest Indianised state in Southeast Asia, its
religion was Hinduism. Cambodia boasts the largest temple
complex in the world, named Ankor, from the Sanskrit meaning
"the capital city".
It was built in the ninth century
C. E. in honor of the Hindu god Lord
Vishnu. The
complex extends over an area more than twice the size of
Manhattan and took thirty-seven years to complete.
Angkor Wat was
dramatically rediscovered in 1860 by the French naturalist and
explorer Henri Mouhot, 1826
-1861) a French naturalist and explorer, who
exclaimed:
“It is grander than anything
left us by Greece or Rome.”
"At
the sight of this temple, one feels one's spirit crushed, one's
imagination surpassed. One looks, one admires, and, seized with
respect, one is silent. For where are the words to praise a work
of art that may not have its equal anywhere on the globe? ...
What genius this Michalangelo of the East had, that he was
capable of concaving such a work.''
(source: Le Tour du Monde
2-1863-299).
He
was staggered by his discovery. There was a city so vast and so
sophisticated that it must have been built by people with an
advanced knowledge of engineering, science, mathematics and art.
The young Frenchman soon sent word back to Europe
telling of the most beautiful lost city ever to be discovered. The
monumental scale, grandeur and beauty of Angkor justifies its
reputation as one of the world’s great creations.
Mouhot wrote: What
strikes the observer with not less admiration than the grandeur,
regularity, and beauty of these majestic buildings, is the
immense size and prodigious number of the blocks of stone of
which they are constructed. In this temple alone are as many as
1532 columns. What means of transport,
what a multitude of workmen, must this have required, seeing
that the mountain out of which the stone was hewn is thirty
miles distant!...."
(source: Angkor:
Heart of an Asian Empire - By Bruno Dagens p.
140 -141).

The
Majestic Angkor Wat.
“No Sultan’, ‘no Mikado, No Viceroy of India could
offer his guests a comparable spectacle.”
(For
more refer to chapter on Greater
India: Suvarnabhumi and
Sacred
Angkor).
***
Lord
Alfred Harmsworth Northcliffe (1865 - 1922) remarked
when he went to Cambodia as a reporter for his newspaper,
“No Sultan’, he cabled, ‘no
Mikado, No Viceroy of India could offer his guests a comparable
spectacle.”
(source:
The Road to Angkor - By Christopher
Pym p. 176 - 180).
Christopher Pym, author
of Ancient Civilization of
Angkor and The Road to Angkor
has observed:
"Angkor is the ancient capital of the Khmer empire, a
fabulous city of ruins buried deep in the jungles of Cambodia.
The most striking of Angkor’s ruins are Angkor the Great, a
walled cit with five enormous gateways, and Angkor Wat, a huge
temple with five towers which soar majestically above the
surrounding forest.
The most astonishing thing about Angkor is the size of the
ruined buildings, and the way in which many of them are still
locked in the clasp of giant rain-trees with orchids trailing
above the sculptures and monkeys swinging in the darkness into
sunlight through the deserted galleries. For Angkor was once the
‘lost city’ par excellence, and some of its temples are
still hard to reach and enter.
Both Khmers and Chams were Hinduized
peoples, and their cultures flowered as the result of the
intermarriage between Hindu settlers from India and the
indigenous tribes of the Indo-China peninsula."
(source: The Road to Angkor - By
Christopher Pym p. 1 - 15).
Cambodia
Both Khmers and Chams were Hinduized
peoples, and their cultures flowered as the result of the
intermarriage between Hindu settlers from India and the
indigenous tribes of the Indo-China peninsula."
(For
more refer to chapter on Greater
India: Suvarnabhumi and
Sacred
Angkor).
***
Rabindranath
Tagore (1861-1941) poet,
author, philosopher, Nobel prize laureate. Tagore
was deeply critical of the British Raj in India.
He
has remarked:
“To know my country in truth (he
writes) one has to travel to that age when he realized her soul
and thus transcended her physical boundaries.”
Benjamin Rowland
( - 1972) Curator of American Art and author
of The Art and Architecture of India
"Perhaps it might be compared’, ‘to the impression that
would be produced on a wanderer in another millennium coming
suddenly upon the ruins of Manhattan rising silent and empty
above the Hudson."
(source: The Art and Architecture of
India - By Benjamin Rowland and
The Road to Angkor - By Christopher
Pym p. 176 - 180).
Angkor wat is the largest religious monument in the world.
Built by Suryavarman II in the 12th century to honor
Lord Vishnu. Its bas-reliefs show episodes from the life of Rama,
an incarnation of Vishnu, as related in the Indian epic,
Ramayana; scenes from another Indian epic, The Mahabharata; and
some ‘historical’ court scenes. Angkor wat is also an
observatory, the sun rises directly over the temple on the day
of the summer solstice, the beginning of the solar year in the
Hindu calendar. Its dimensions reflect Hindu notions about time.
Beautiful as it is, in its day Angkor wat was even more
impressive, its towers gilded in gold and its exterior painted
white.
(source:
Southeast
Asia – A Concise History – By Mary Somers
Heidues p. 40 – 41).

Lord Shiva.
***
Sir
Francis Osbert Sacheverell Sitwell (1892- 1969) 5th Baronet, in his book Escape
with Me - an Oriental Sketch Book (1941) has
rated Angkor
as:
"chief wonder of the world today, one of the summits to
which human genius has aspired in stone, infinitely more
impressive, lovely, and, as well, romantic, than anything that
can be seen in China.”
(source:
The Road to Angkor - By Christopher
Pym p. 176 - 180).
“The great edifice of Angkor Wat with its huge
lotus-bud-shaped towers, the glory of Khmer architecture and of
its founder Suryavarman II stands out above them all. It is a
spectacle of beauty, wonder and magnificence. One is struck by
its sheer enormity. It is 5,000 feet by 4,000 feet. What
brilliant scenes in Khmer history had this causeway witnessed.
Armies had marched, cavalry had galloped, priests had walked in
procession with all the ceremonial of their office. “
The bas-reliefs are one of Angkor Wat’s greatest treasures
and outstanding attractions. In the lower terrace they continue
for over half a mile, which gives some idea of the vastness of
the temple. Every stone is decorated. The bas-reliefs are about
8 feet high. The whole effect is that of an almost endless
tapestry in stone. The subjects are principally religious, of
legends and of war.
Angkor
Goddess in Venice Museum.
***
The scenes from Ramayana and Mahabharat
take up nearly half a
mile, and the total number of figures of men, animals and birds
has been calculated to be nearly 20,000. There are combats
between opposing forces who are mounted on elephants. Hundreds
of elephants have been sculptured on the walls, and illustrate
some incidents from these two epics; warriors fighting from
chariots, scenes from the lives of the God Rama and his wife
Sita, who was kidnapped by the demon Ravana, armies of men and
monkeys. Vast stretches depict Khmer victories on land and sea,
naval pageants, victory marches with bands and banners. The God
Vishnu is mounted on a garuda; there are invocations to the
Hindu trinity, goddesses, and guardian deities.
The sculptors were fortunate in being provided with a most
sensitive, ideal and endless canvas upon which to exercise their
talents. This was polished sandstone. They used about 4,000 feet
of it. The bas-reliefs decorate eight panels, four of which are
over 100 yards long.
Everything about Angkor Wat is on a massive and lavish scale,
as if time, expense and labor were of little importance. The bas
reliefs in the majority of cases are executed with exquisite
beauty, and the most minute attention to detail, symmetry and
proportion.

Apsara
dancing in Cambodia today.
In
Hindu sacred stories, Apsaras are heavenly nymphs of great
beauty and
charm, often represented as dancers at the celestial court. In a
number ofstories, the Gods sent Apsaras to earth to distract and seduce
sages practicing
austerities - especially those who are gaining alarming levels
of yogic power
through their concentrated meditation. Apsaras would also reward
heroes
who fell in combat, rushing to the battle site and carrying them
into heaven.
(source: webmaster's own collection of photos taken during a
recent visit).
(For
more refer to chapter on Greater
India: Suvarnabhumi and
Sacred
Angkor).
Refer
to Cambodia's
Cultural Arts.
***
Arnold
Toynbee (1889-1975) the great
British historian. His massive research was published in 12
volumes between 1934 and 1961 as `A Study of History'. Author of
several books, including Christianity:
Among the Religions of the World and One
World and India.
He
wrote
about Angkor in The Observer, he called it 'A Foretaste of
Nirvana', saying that "one could
spend the ret of one's life sitting there."
(source:
The Road to Angkor - By Christopher
Pym p. 176 - 180).
Shiva linga -
Preah Kan and Ganesha bronze, Angkorwat.
***
(For
more refer to chapter on Greater
India: Suvarnabhumi and
Sacred
Angkor).
***
James
Ferguson author of History
of Indian and Eastern Architecture, wrote in
1876,
"To
the historian of art the wonder is to find temples with such a
singular combination of styles in such a locality - Indian
temples constructed with pillars almost purely classical in
design, and ornamented with bas-relief so strangely Egyptian in
character."
(source: Angkor:
Heart of an Asian Empire p. 43).
S.
Sarin has written: "The Cambodian country, with
its own language, knows Sanskrit as well since the dawn of
history and some learned scholars speak of Indo-Khmer culture,
as the aspects of question are interconnected to one another. So
viewed, the deep cause of the noble sense of gratefulness in
Cambodian behavior is firstly due to the Ramayana,
which had been well-known, for example through the bas-relief of
Angkor Temples." In Cambodian language, Tin
(three) Gun meaning "knowing, acknowledging what
has been done, grateful." In Cambodian way of speaking,
people have Tin, and Gun (guna),
"quality."
(source:
Indian
Epic Values: Ramayana and Its Impact - By G. Pollet
p.222 -228).

Ram killing the
golden deer in the Ramayana, Angkorwat.
(For
more refer to chapter on Greater
India: Suvarnabhumi and
Sacred
Angkor).
***
Cambodia's national
flag, which features the imposing
facade of Angkor Wat, the 12th century Hindu temple
dedicated to Lord Vishnu, is
only one of the symbols of how deeply internalized India is in
the collective consciousness of the Cambodian people.
(source:
Cambodia
embraces India's pride - By Shobori
Ganguli - dailypioneer.com
4//11/02).
Refer
to Angkorwat
image
- World Heritage Tour. For
more refer to chapters on Sacred
Angkor and Glimpses
XVI - Glimpses XIX.
For a documentary
on Hindu temples, refer to The
Lost Temples of India.
Top
of Page
Follow
up history of Cambodia
US
Aggression in Cambodia
Mark
Twain (1835-1910) also known as Samuel Clemens,
one of the most widely loved and celebrated American writers
since his first books were released in the late 1860s.
He was also quite vitriolic about missionaries
who justified imperialism as an extension of the religious
duty.
"I bring you the stately matron
named Christendom," he wrote angrily, "returning
bedraggled, besmirched, and dishonored from pirate raids in
Kiao-chou [Tsingtao, China], Manchuria, South Africa, and the
Philippines, with her soul full of meanness, her pocket full of
boodle, and her mouth full of pious hypocrisies."
"Notwithstanding their passioned opposition, the
anti-imperialists were fighting rearguard actions against faits
accompli in the Philippines and elsewhere, leading Theodore
Roosevelt, secretary of the Navy, virile
expansionist, and later president, to deride them as "men
of a by-gone age having to deal with the facts of the
present."
(source:
American
Imperialism - vi.uh.edu).
Watch
We
are Warlike people - By George Carlin.
For
U.S political
and military intervention,
refer
to Perpetual
War for Perpetual Peace – By Gore Vidal
Refer
to World Conquering Creeds in
chapter Glimpses
XVI.
“The
moneyed elite in the United States have long coveted their
neighbors' land, resources, and cheap labor forces. Eager to
invade, annex, and exploit, the plutocracy began to disseminate
the warped notion of Manifest Destiny
in the Nineteenth Century. Purporting
to have the unwavering support of the Almighty, the
"superior" Anglo-Saxons rationalized slavery, the
Native American Genocide, the conquest of half of Mexico, the
annexation of Hawaii, and their eradication of over 300,000
"savages" in conquering the Philippines.”
(source:
Hell
Awaits, America - rense.com).
***
One
might want to recall that American intervention in Cambodia was
a disaster for the Cambodians. American and South Vietnamese
forces invaded Cambodia in April 1970, the North Vietnamese
simply moved westwards, deeper into Cambodian territory. The
chaos of post-invasion Cambodia, which led to the takeover of
power by the murderous Khmer Rouge.
The American role
The
responsibility for the rising popularity of the Khmer Rouge
rested with the successive US administrations which prosecuted a
protracted and brutal imperialist war throughout Indochina in
the 1960s and 1970s, destroying millions of lives and
devastating industry and agriculture. Prince
Sihanouk had sought to maintain his country's
distance from the war in Vietnam through a policy of neutralism.
He refused to act against Vietnamese supply lines along the Ho
Chi Minh trail, which ran through eastern Cambodia. At the same
time he kept silent about US military actions against Vietnamese
forces operating on Cambodian soil.
The
Nixon administration finally broke with Sihanouk in
April 1970, backing a CIA-directed military coup that installed General
Lon Nol and sent Sihanouk into exile in Beijing. One
month later Nixon announced the invasion of Cambodia by 20,000
US and Vietnamese troops.
Cambodia
was transformed into a battlefield with Lon Nol's troops
fighting the Khmer Rouge and American and Saigon troops in
combat with NLF and regular North Vietnamese forces. The
country's population experienced the most intensive saturation
bombing in world history. During nearly five years of bombing
raids, from 1969 to 1973, some 532,000 tons of bombs were
dropped on Cambodia, more than three times the tonnage dropped
on Japan in all of World War II.
Under
the impact of the bombing and widening warfare, Cambodian
society disintegrated. By 1974, 95 percent of Cambodia's
national income came from US aid, much of it siphoned off into
the pockets of corrupt military officers. Two million out of the
seven million people were homeless. Annual rice production had
plunged from 3.8 million tons to only 655,000 tons. Much of
Cambodia's farmland remains even today untillable because of
bomb craters and unexploded ordnance.
The
major responsibility for this social catastrophe lay with Nixon
and his principal foreign policy aide, National
Security Adviser Henry Kissinger.
The
bombing of Cambodia was carried out as a secret and illegal
operation--secret, at least, from the American people, if not
from the victims in Cambodia, or the thousands of American
military personnel who participated in the attacks, or the
American reporters in Vietnam who knew of the bombing raids but
kept silent.
The
Khmer Rouge in power
It
was only after the American intervention in Cambodia that Pol
Pot and the Khmer Rouge began to win wider
support.
From
a badly organized and poorly equipped force of less than 5,000
men in 1970, it grew to be an army of around 70,000 when, in
April 1975, the Lon Nol dictatorship finally collapsed. Out of a
population of approximately 8 million people, Pol Pot's regime
killed one-quarter.
The
Khmer Rouge targeted Buddhist monks, Western-educated
intellectuals, people who appeared to be intelligent (for
example, individuals with glasses), the crippled and lame, and
ethnic minorities like ethnic Laotians and Vietnamese. They were
thrown into the infamous S-21 camp for interrogation.
(source:
US
aggression in Cambodia - wsws.org and Pol
Pot).
Watch
We
are Warlike people - By George Carlin.
For
U.S political
and military intervention,
refer
to Perpetual
War for Perpetual Peace – By Gore Vidal
Top
of Page
Large
Symbols Like Peruvian Signs Found on Gujarat Hillside
Vadodara,
Gujarat, India. August 6, 2006: Geologists have discovered a
striking archaeological feature on a hillock in the Kutch
district of the western Indian state of Gujarat. This feature is
shaped like the Roman numeral VI. Each arm of this feature is a
trench that is about two meters wide, two meters deep and more
than 100 meters long. The feature has evoked the curiosity of
archaeologists because such signs have mostly been observed so
far in Peru. The team, led by Dr RV Karanth, a former professor
of geology at the Maharaja Sayajirao University in Vadodara,
Gujarat, has been involved in a palaeoseismological study of the
Kutch region for the past 11 years Palaeoseismology involves the
study of sediments, landforms and other geological evidence of
past earthquakes to unravel their history and determine the
nature and occurrence of present-day earthquakes. This feature
was discovered at a hillock 3km from the sleepy oasis township
of Khavda, which is also known as the gateway to the Rann of
Kutch, an extensive salt marsh of western India and southeast
Pakistan between the Gulf of Kutch and the Indus river delta.
Dr. Karanth says such trenches have not been noticed elsewhere
in the region. Archaeologists, he says, can now pursue further
research. Geometric lines and animal shapes etched into the
desert plain by people of the Nazca civilisation (AD 1-700) of
Peru are well known. "But such signs on hill-slopes have
not been reported from Peru," says Dr. Karanth. He says
that one of the prominent explanations given for the Peruvian
features is that they may have been constructed to make
astronomical observations and calculations. "The
Tropic of Cancer passes through Kutch. So if this structure is
man-made, it is likely that the slope of the hillock was
utilized for making certain astronomical calculations in the
past," explains the geologist. Interestingly,
there are numerous indications to suggest that Harappans were
well-versed in astronomy. The straight streets of that time were
oriented in the cardinal directions - east, west, north and
south. Linkages between ancient Harappan scripts and latter
Vedic texts also suggest that Harappan priest-astronomers
tracked the progress of various planets and mapped the sky. Dr.
Karanth has also discovered ruins of a fort-wall, houses,
storage tank and a temple on the hilltop.
(source:
Large
Symbols Like Peruvian Signs Found on Gujarat Hillside -
bbcnews.co.uk). For more refer to chapter on India
on Pacific Waves and Vimanas.
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of Page
Vedic India
and the Primordial Tradition
Vishnunabhi
is the navel of Lord Vishnu, the emanation point of the cosmos.
According to John Major Jenkins,
a leading independent researcher of ancient cosmology:
"Our understanding of the true age of the ancient Vedic
civilization has undergone a well-documented revolution. Feuerstein,
Frawley, and Kak have shown conclusively (In
Search of the Cradle of Civilization) that the
long-accepted age of the Vedic culture—erroneously dated by
scholars parading a series of assumptions and unscientific
arguments to roughly 1500 BC—is much too recent. Evidence
comes from geological, archaeological, and literary sources as
well as the astronomical references within Vedic literature. The
corrected dating to eras far prior to 1500 BC was made possible
by recognizing that precessional eras are encoded in Vedic
mythology, and were recorded by ancient Vedic astronomers. As a result, the Indus Valley
civilization appears to be a possible cradle of civilization,
dated conservatively to 7000
BC. Western India may thus be a true
source of the civilizing impulse that fed Anatolia in Turkey,
with its complex Goddess-worshipping city-states of Çatal Hüyük
and Hacilar. However, there are layers upon layers of
even older astronomical references, and legends persist that the
true “cradle” might be found further to the north, in Tibet
or nearby Central Asia.
The work of these three writers shows that biases and
assumptions within scholarly discourse can prevent an accurate
modeling of history and an underestimation of the
accomplishments of ancient cultures. The analogous situation in
modern Egyptology and Mesoamerican studies also requires that
well-documented new theories — often exhaustively argued,
interdisciplinary, and oriented toward a progressive synthesis
of new data — should be appraised fairly and without bias.
Next
to the Australian aborigines, the Vedic civilization is perhaps
the oldest continuous living tradition in the world. Its
extremely ancient doctrines and insights into human spirituality
are unsurpassed. We might expect that its cosmology and science of time has been as misunderstood as its true antiquity. In
looking closely at Vedic doctrines of time, spiritual growth,
calendars, and astronomy, we will see that a central core idea
is that of our periodic alignment to the Galactic Center. And,
according to these ancient Vedic beliefs,
the galactic alignment we are currently experiencing
heralds our shift from a millennia-long descent of deepening
spiritual darkness to a new era of light and ascending
consciousness. "

Lord Vishnu
is the infinite ocean from which the world emerges - Lord is
shown lying down on a thousand-headed snake (named Shesha or
Ananta Nag - Timeless or Ageless snake).
According to ancient Vedic beliefs,
the galactic alignment we are currently experiencing
heralds our shift from a millennia-long descent of deepening
spiritual darkness to a new era of light and ascending
consciousness. "
***
Vishnunabhi:
Yugas and Galactic Center
One of the oldest writings in Vedic literature comes from a
pseudo-historical god-man called Manu. René
Guénon pointed out that Manu belongs to a family of
related archetypal figures, which include Melchezidek, Metatron,
St Michael, Gabriel, and Enoch. As an angelic inspiration for
the rebirth of humanity at the dawn of a new era, or Manvantara, Manu is the primal
law-giver, and his laws were recorded in the extremely ancient
Vedic text called the Laws of Manu. Much of its contents
describe moral and ethical codes of right behavior, but there is
a section that deals with the ancient Vedic doctrine of World
Ages - the
Yugas. Manu indicates that a period of 24,000 years
— clearly a reference to precession — consists of a series
of four yugas or ages, each shorter and spiritually darker than
the last. In one
story this process of increasing limitation is envisioned as a
cosmic cow standing with each leg in one quarter of the world;
with each age that passes a leg is lost, resulting in the absurd
and unstable world we live in today—a cow balancing on one
leg.
According to the information in the Laws of Manu, the morning
and twilight periods between the dawn of each new era equals
one-tenth of its associated yuga, as shown in the following
table:
Dawn
Era Dusk
Total Name
400 + 4000 + 400 = 4800 years. Satya Yuga (Golden Age)
300 + 3000 + 300 = 3600 years. Treta Yuga (Silver Age)
200 + 2000 + 200 = 2400 years. Dwapara Yuga (Bronze Age)
100 + 1000 + 100 = 1200 years. Kali Yuga (Iron Age)
12,000 years
In
Vedic mythology, a fabled dawn time existed in the distant past,
when human beings had direct contact with the divine
intelligence emanating from Brahma—the seat of creative power
and intelligence in the cosmos. This archaic Golden Age (the
Satya Yuga) lasted some 4800 years. After the Golden Age ended,
humanity entered a denser era, that of the Silver Age, lasting
only 3600 years. In this age, humanity’s connection with the
source was dimmed, and sacrifices and spiritual practices became
necessary to preserve it. The
Bronze Age followed, and humanity forgot its divine nature.
Empty dogmas arose, along with indulgence in materialism. Next
we entered the Kali Yuga—in
which we remain today—where the human spirit suffers under
gross materialism, ignorance, warfare, stupidity, arrogance, and
everything contrary to our divine spiritual potential.
As
the teachings tell, Kali, the creator-destroyer Goddess, will
appear at the end of Kali Yuga to sweep away the wasted detritus
of a spirit-dead humanity, making way for a new cycle of light
and peace. Notice that the Manu text takes us from a pinnacle of
light to the ultimate end-point of the process—the darkness of
Kali Yuga. And notice that the four ages, when the overlap
period is added, amounts to only half of the 24,000-year period
of the Vedic Yuga cycle.
(source: Galactic Alignment - By John
Major Jenkins).

Lord Vishnu - 5th
century.
The
Indian astronomers went even further, giving a physical reason
for how the dual star or binary motion might allow the rise and
fall of human consciousness to occur. They said that the Sun
(with the Earth and other planets) traveled along its set
orbital path with its companion start, it would cyclically move
close to, then away from, a point in space referred to as Vishnunabhi,
a supposed magnetic center or "grand center".
***
The
Indian astronomers went even further, giving a physical reason
for how the dual star or binary motion might allow the rise and
fall of human consciousness to occur.
They said that the Sun
(with the Earth and other planets) traveled along its set
orbital path with its companion start, it would cyclically move
close to, then away from, a point in space referred to as Vishnunabhi,
a supposed magnetic center or "grand center". They
implied that being close to this region caused subtle changes in
human consciousness that brought about the Golden Age, and
conversely, our separation from it resulted in an age of great
darkness, the Kali Yuga or Dark Age. "When the Sun in its
revolution around its dual comes to the place nearest to this
grand center, ... (an event which takes place when the autumnal
equinox comes to the first point of Aries), dharma, the mental
virtue, becomes so much developed that man can easily comprehend
all, even the mysteries of the Spirit."
(source:
Lost
Star of Myth and Time - By Walter Cruttenden).
Also refer to Hamlet's
Mill - By Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend.
(For
more refer to chapter on Greater
India: Suvarnabhumi and
Sacred
Angkor).
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of Page
Ram
Sethu - The Earliest and largest carbon-fiber reinforced civil
engineering structure known to man
Floating stones found in Rameshwaram
Do
stones float in water? The answer would be a certain no. But in
the island of Rameshwaram in Tamil Nadu, stones, it seems, do
float in water. Difficult to believe-but it's a reality.
Floating
stones of Rameshwaram have a mythological twist to it. According
to the Hindu mythological epic Ramayana, which was supposed to
have taken place over 17 million years ago, Lord Rama and his
army of monkeys used stones to build a bridge across the Palk
Strait to link Rameshwaram to Sri Lanka. Legend as well as
archaeological findings indicate the first signs of human
inhabitation in Sri Lanka date back to the primitive age and it
is assumed that the bridge's age is also almost equivalent.

Sign
Petition - Save
Ramar Sethu. Refer
to Save
Ram Sethu and The
Bridge of Ram and Dharmagraha
That is the
memory so beautifully adopted by the Geological
Survey of India in its logo, which describes India in
this line etched at the bottom of its insignia -- Aasetu
Himachal, meaning India is spread between the Bridge
and the Himalayas. That is the Ram Setu Bridge on the southern
tip of our motherland, an identity of the nation, under
destruction now.
For more on
Ramayana, refer to chapters Vimanas,
Hindu Scriptures, Dwaraka,
War in Ancient India,
Survarnabhumi and
Sacred Angkor.
***
G.
Mohan Das,
a local historian and caretaker of the stones in the temple,
said that these stones could have been the kind used to build
the mythological bridge.
"The
history of these floating stones is that when Lord Rama made a
bridge to trek to Lanka to bring back his consort Sita, these
are the same stones used. But today's educated people do not
agree to it. They believe it is a coral which is in Australia,
Chennai, in small islands. We believe there is no difference in
these stones. Both the stones do not have air in them. The
composition is the same and it has 40 kinds of chemicals,"
he said.
Space
images taken by NASA reveal a series of rock outcrops in the
Palk Strait between India and Sri Lanka. Some historians say
these could be the part of the mythological bridge linking
Indian peninsula with Sri Lanka island.
***
NASA
Photos Reveal Bridge to Lanka
NASA’s
statement accompanying the above photograph says:
“The
bridge's unique curvature and composition by age reveals that it
is man-made. Legend as well as Archeological studies reveal that
the first signs of human inhabitants in
Sri Lanka
date back to the primitive age, about 1,750,000 years ago and
the bridge's age is also almost equivalent.”
According to the Ramayana,
Lord Rama built a bridge to Lanka in
ancient times, and the new photos greatly intrigue Hindus.
Space images taken by NASA
reveal a mysterious ancient bridge in the Palk Strait between
India and Sri Lanka. The recently discovered bridge currently
named as Adam´s Bridge is made of chain of shoals, c.18 mi (30
km) long.
The bridge´s unique curvature
and composition by age reveals that it is man made. The legends
as well as Archeological studies reveal that the first signs of
human inhabitants in Sri Lanka date back to the a primitive age,
about 1,750,000 years ago and the bridge´s age is also almost
equivalent.
This
information is a crucial aspect for an insight into the
mysterious legend called Ramayana, which was supposed to have
taken place in tredha yuga (more than 1,700,000 years ago).
In
this epic, there is a mentioning about a bridge, which was built
between Rameshwaram (India) and Srilankan coast under
the supervision of a dynamic and invincible figure called Rama
who is supposed to be the incarnation of the supreme.
This information may not be of
much importance to the archeologists who are interested in
exploring the origins of man, but it is sure to open the
spiritual gates of the people of the world to have come to know
an ancient history linked to the Indian mythology.
According
to encyclopedia.com (rä´me)
or Rama's Bridge, chain of shoals, c.18 mi (30 km) long, in the
Palk Strait between India and Sri Lanka. At high tide it is
covered by c.4 ft (1.2 m) of water. A steamer ferry links
Rameswaram, India, with Mannar, Sri Lanka. According to Hindu
legend, the bridge was built to transport Rama, hero of the
Ramayana, to the island to rescue his wife from the demon king
Ravanna.
(source: http://www.indolink.com/Religion/r091702-130924.php
and Floating
stones found in Rameshwaram).
15
kg Rameshwaram rock that stays afloat
Weighing
15 kg, the rock does not sink in water. The devotees
believe it is a fragment of the "rocks huge as autumn
clouds'', as described in Valmiki Ramayan, used to built the Ram
Setu by Nala, the son of Vishwakarma.
Mahavir
Mandir Trust secretary Acharya Kishore Kunal said he brought
this "floating'' stone from Hanuman Temple at Rameshwaram.
"I was told that during the devastating cyclone of 1964
many such floating pieces from the Ram Setu were found scattered
near Rameshwaram,'' he said.
"The
availability of these floating stones gives evidence to the
account of Valmiki on the construction of Ram Setu which is
described the Yudha Kand of the Ramayana,'' he said.

Sage (Rishi)
Valmiki writing the Grand epic of The Ramayana.
"Divine
poem, ocean of milk!"
"Whoever
has done or willed too much let him drink from this deep cup a
long draught of life and youth........Everything is narrow in
the West - Greece is small and I stifle; Judea is dry and I
pant. Let me look toward lofty Asia, and the profound East for a
little while. There lies my great poem, as vast as the Indian
ocean, blessed, gilded with the sun, the book of divine harmony
wherein is no dissonance. A serene peace reigns there, and in
the midst of conflict an infinite sweetness, a boundless
fraternity, which spreads over all living things, an ocean
(without bottom or bound) of love, of pity, of clemency."
Such was the
first and enduring impression made on Jules
Michelet (1798
-1874) French writer and historian by the Ramayana.
***
Sage
Valmiki wrote:
"Now
let a wondrous task be done, By Nala, Vishwakarma's son, Who,
born of one of Vanar race, Inherits by his father's grace, a
share of his celestial art, Call Nala to perform his part, And
he, divinely taught and skilled, A bridge athwart the sea shall
build... Then the great bridge of wondrous strength was built...
Rocks huge as autumn clouds bound fast, with cordage from the
shore were cast...''
(source:
15
kg Rameshwaram rock that stays afloat - The Times of
India
Date: October 3, 2007),
The
Rama Sethu is a man-made formation.
S
Badrinarayanan, former director of Geological
Survey of India and a member of the National
Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT) says the
Adam's Bridge
was not a natural formation.
He
has opined that:
"Coral
reefs are formed only on hard surfaces. But during the study we
found that the formation at
Adam's Bridge
is nothing but boulders of coral reefs. When we drilled for
investigation, we found that there was loose sand two to three
meters below the reefs. Hard rocks were found several meters
below the sand. Such a natural formation is impossible. Unless
somebody has transported them and dumped them there, those reefs
could not have come there. Some boulders were so light that they
could float on water. Apparently, whoever has done it, has
identified light (but strong) boulders to make it easy for
transportation. Since they are strong, they can withstand a lot
of weight. It should be preserved as a national monument."
Such a
natural formation is impossible. Unless somebody has transported
them and dumped them there, those reefs could not have come
there. Some boulders were so light that they could float on
water. Apparently, whoever has done it, has identified light
(but strong) boulders to make it easy for transportation. Since
they are strong, they can withstand a lot of weight. It should
be preserved as a national monument,” he opined.
He also cautioned that once the channel connected the turbulent
Bay of Bengal and the calm Gulf of Mannar, it could spell doom
for the southern Tamil Nadu coastline. During the tsunamis, it
was Adam’s Bridge and Sri Lanka that saved the southern
coastline when Nagapattinam and other northern shores were
ravaged.
“Such comforts would not be there in future if this man-made
barrier is cut open,” he added.
(source: Sethusamudram
Shipping
Canal
Project: A Good Thing Done Badly!
- By Sundara Krishnaswami indiacause.com and Dummy’s
guide to Ramar Bridge - mumbaimirror.com).
Hindu
Baiting and a Cowardly Deed?
A Non-Hindu
Christian Congress Party Union Cabinet Minister for Culture
Mrs. Ambika Soni spoke like
an Occidental Christian Despot of the Middle Ages when she
recently informed the Lok Sabha:
''There
is no archeological or historical evidence regarding the
existence or otherwise of the Rama Sethu Bridge or Adam's Bridge
in Rameswaram''

Ram Sethu
aerial photo.
"rocks
huge as autumn clouds'', as described in Valmiki Ramayan, used
to built the Ram Setu by Nala, the son of Vishwakarma.
(photo
source: Contributed by a visitor this
website).
From
the original Ramayana of Maharishi Valmiki down to Kamba's great
work in Tamil and Tulsidas' Ramcharitmanas, the story of Lord
Ram has been told and retold in almost every language of the
world. The Ramayana's
story was by no means confined to
India
and, "its fragrance has traveled across the whole of South
and
Southeast Asia
."
Hindu
Baiting and a Cowardly deed? - The unsavoury saga of the UPA
Government first denying the existence of Lord Ram
through an affidavit in the Supreme Court, thus unleashing
outrage across the nation, and then hastening to deny its
earlier denial through a fresh affidavit.
***
The Union
Minister for Shipping T.R.Balu
and the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister
Karunanidhi are committed to the supreme Dravidian
cause of destruction of the Rama Sethu Bridge just in order to
deal a death blow to the sacred feelings and susceptibilities of
millions and millions of Hindus in India and the world.
Karunanidhi and T.R.Balu, deathly enemies of Eternal Hinduism,
have shown again and again that they are no less ignorant than
Mrs.Ambika Soni in their Himalyaan ignorance of historically
established facts about the
Rama
Sethu
Bridge
or
Adam's Bridge
.
Historical
Records of Rama Bridge
To
silence if not to outwit the arrogant, irresponsible Cabinet
Ministers in high office in
New Delhi
and
Madras
today, I would like to cite a few references from printed books
and documents where there are textual references to Rama's
Bridge or
Adam's Bridge
or Sethu Bandhana.
Marco
Polo (1254 -1324) was a Venetian trader and explorer
who gained fame for his worldwide travels, recorded in his book
IL MILIONE (''The Million'' or The Travels of Marco Polo). He
visited several ports in India. A book ''On The travels of Marco Polo'' translated by Marsden
into English was published in
England
in 1854. In this book Rama's Bridge has been described as
SETABUND-RAMESWARA which only means Setu-Bandha (page-380).

The Rameswaram
temple
Lord
Ram worshiped Lord Shiva at Rameswaram with Lakshmana and
Hanuman at his side.
(source:
British Library).
***
A
Catalogue of the Mammals in the Museum of the Hon. East-India
Company,
East
India
Company
Museum
written by Thomas Horsfield
(1773-1859), was published in
England
in 1851. In this Catalogue, Rama's Bridge was used as a
reference point to define the expanse of Bharatam. We can see
from this Catalogue, adequate pointers to the rich biodiversity
of the flora and fauna of Rameshwaram and its environs.
Sir
William Jones (1746-1794) in his ''Discourses
delivered before the Asiatic society'' published in
1801 (p. 29) has observed as follows:
“The
characters, in which the languages of
India
were originally written, are called Nagarai, from Nagara, a city
with the word Deva sometimes prefixed, because they are believed
to have been taught by the Divinity himself, who prescribed the
aritificial order of them in a voice from heaven. These letters,
with no greater variation in their form by the change of
straight lines to curves, or conversely, than the Cusick
alphabet has received in its way to India, are still adopted in
more then twenty kingdoms and flates, from the borders of
Cashgar and Khoten, to Rama’s Bridge, and from the “Sindhu
to the river of Siam. Nor can I help believing”
Arnold
Hermann (1835) in his ''Historical
researches into the politics, intercourse, and trade of the
principal nations of antiquity'' translated from the
German into English, Oxford University Press (p.89) wrote:
“Six
years before Christ. The particular object of this inscription
is to record the liberality of a certain renowned conqueror
named Deb Pal Deb, who overran all
India, from the sources of the Ganges to Rama’s bridge at Ceylon, which “is celebrated in the Ramayana.”
William
Yates, 1846, A dictionary of Sanscrit and English,
designed for the use of private students and of Indian colleges
and schools, Baptist Mission Press, (p.821)
"Samudra
m. A Shark, a whale; Rama’s bridge, marine mari"
The entry, samudraaru or samudraarah is given the
meaning: Rama's bridge.

Vanara Sena
Rama Setu Sculpture at
The Prambanan Temple in Indonesia.
The
Ramayana has massively influenced the entire Asian landmass,
there are probably as many versions and interpretations of the
Ramayana as there are Rama-bhaktas. All variants are legitimate,
like myriad paths in quest of the Ultimate Truth. From Sangam
poetics to the bhakti of the Alwar saints, the classical
rendition of Kamban, the grand philosophy of Ramanuja, the
soulful depths of Thiagaraja, and the sheer energy of Therukuttu
(street theatre), 'what was built forever is forever being
built.'
For
more refer to chapters on
Suvarnabhumi,
Sacred Angkor and
Glimpses XII to
Glimpses XIX.
***
Charlotte
Speir Manning, George Scharf, 1856, ''Life in Ancient
India
'',
Oxford
University
Press (p. 117).
“Rama
and all the allied forces marched down to the
Coromandel coast
, and making a bridge by casting rocks into the sea passed
quickly into Lanka. Vestiges of Rama’s bridge may still be
seen, occasionally much inconvenience to navigators, who are
obliged to lighten heavy burdened vessels before they can pass
the rocks and sandbanks of “the Straits of Manaar. After
fighting a few battles, the…”
Lodovico
de Varthema, George Percy Badger, John Winter Jones,
1863, The travels of Ludovico di Varthema in
Egypt
,
Syria
, Arabia Deserta and Arabia Felix, in
Persia
,
India
..., Published for the Hakluyt Society,
London
(Translated into English from the original Italian edition),
(p.185)
''...The
expedition of Ram to Ceylon, and his victory over Rhavan or
Rhaban, King of that island, is one of the fables of Hindu
mythology, but he passed into the island at the strait, since
called, by the Mohamedans, Adam's Bridge. The whole country
round, in consequence of this, preserves the memorial of his
conquest. There is a Ramanad-buram on the continent close to the
Bridge; a Rami-Ceram, or country of Ram, the island close to the
continent; [Rameswaram, called Rammanana Kojel by Baldaeus, and
Ramonan Coil by D'Anville;] and a Point Rama on the continent.
The
Bridge itself, formed by the shoals between Rami-ceram and
Mannar, is Rama's Bridge; and in Rami-ceram is Ramar-Koil, the
temple
of
Ram
. This Koil or temple (Koil means temple in Malayalim) is
undoubtedly the origin of Koru; and the repetition of it three
times in Ptolemy is in perfect correspondence with the allusion
to Ram at the present''
(source:
Rama
Sethu: Historic facts vs political fiction - IV
– By V Sundaram - newstodaynet.com)
Lord
John Sinclair Pentland (1860 – 1925) was Governor
of Madras from 1912 to 1919. He visited Rameshwaram in 1914 when
Sir Alexander Tottenham
(1873-1946) was the District Collector of Ramanathapuram. Lord
Pentland was so overwhelmed by what he saw in Rameshwaram that
he wrote as follows to Lord Hardinge,
the then Viceroy of India:
"'For
me Rameshwaram, very much like India as a whole is the real
world. We English men live in a mad house of abstractions. Vital
life in Rameshwaram has not yet withdrawn into the capsule of
the head. It is the whole body that lives. No wonder the English
man feels dreamlike: the complete life of Rameshwaram is
something of which he merely dreams.... I did not see an English
man in
India
who really lived there. They are all living in
England
, that is, in a sort of bottle filled with English air....
History can be events or memory of events.... along the Bay of
Bengal the Madras Presidency runs, with the well-governed city
of
Madras
at its centre and the sublime and glorious temples of Tanjore,
Tiruchi,
Madurai
and Rameshwaram adorning its Southern boundaries. And then
Adam's Bridge- a reef of sunken islands' beckons us across the
Palk Straits to
Ceylon
, where civilisation flourished more than 2000 years ago....Linga
stones may be seen in many places on the highways in my
Presidency. Hindus break upon them the coconuts which they are
about to offer in sacrifice. Usually the phallic ritual is
simple and becoming; it consists in anointing the stone with
consecrated water or oil, and decorating it with leaves. At the
Rameshwaram temple, the Linga stone is daily washed with Ganga
water, which is afterwards sold to the pious, as holy water or
mesmerized water has been sold in
Europe
. All these are a little part of my beloved Presidency - indeed
my favourite
India
. Right from the dawn of history,
India
is extraordinarily continuous in time. In space, on the other
hand, it is extraordinarily discontinuous....from early times in
India
, it is ethnology, philology, and archaeology that give and will
give us some notions of the truth. From archaeology much can be
expected. I would earnestly request you to direct the
Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) to undertake an extensive
and intensive survey of Rameshwaram and its beautiful environs,
particularly with reference to the historic and primordial
Adam's Bridge'.
This
very request of Lord Pentland has been made again by Dr
Subramanian Swamy in his letter to Mrs Ambika Soni last month.
(source:
Rama
Sethu: Historic facts vs political fiction - I
- By V Sundaram - newstodaynet.com). Watch video on Save
Ramsetu
and
Watch History
of Ayodhya - videogoogle.com.
- Hugh
Joseph writes:
-
- "I read the story
headlined above with great interest. This is a story of
major significance, as understanding its implications will
turn the entire world of Science and History on its head.
This bridge, according to accounts in the Ramayana and the
Srimad-Bhagavatam, was constructed in the age know as Treta,
over 2 million years ago.
-
- How
did the writers without super space-ranging satellites know
about the existence of this bridge? In these
ancient accounts, written over 5,000 years ago, we find
discussions of, among other things, space travel, inter
planetary travel, what we call UFOs and what we mistakenly
call ETs. This is not only the History of the planet Earth,
but also of this Universe, (a mediocre universe among many
millions of universes).
-
- Here one can also learn the
real undisguised and uncontaminated truth about God. Our
man-made religions are of little or no value when compared
to the stunning and breathtaking revelations found in the
pages of the Srimad-Bhagavatam, Ramayan, Bhagavad-gita,
etc."
(source:
rense.com.
For more refer to chapter on Vimanas).
***
A
unilateral war to wipe out Hinduism and Hindu
heritage
"In the contemporary world, there is an intensification
of the on going war against Hindus whether by the jehadi
pornographer Artist M F Husain
trashing the most sacred Hindu objects of
veneration, abetted by their own obscene elites, or the brazen denunciation of their
ancient epic, the Ramayana by some ASI low-life."
- Dr.
Gautam Sen, Director of
Gandhi-Einstein Foundation and Professor (retd) politics of the
world economy, London School of Economics and Political Science.
***
Apart from
being the ancient-most sacred symbol of Hindu faith and
heritage, Ram Sethu symbolises Bharat.
Religion
is a matter of faith. And for Hindus, Ram Sethu is the
ancient-most and sacred symbol of their faith, heritage and
history. To save Ram Sethu is to save Bharat. Though as
per Arnold Toynbee, "Civilizations
die from suicide, not murder", a
unilateral war is being waged by anti-Hindu forces to wipe out
Hinduism and Hindu heritage from earth the way other native
cultures and religions have been erased all over the globe. The
proposed demolition of Ram Sethu by the Congress-led UPA
government is a similar assault on symbols of Hindu religion and
Hindu heritage. To save Ram Sethu is to
save vast thorium deposits which can meet Bharat's long term
energy needs. Saving it also saves vast areas of Bharat from
future tsunamis.
Why
this undue haste?
The undue
haste with which the government is proceeding with Sethusamudram
Ship Channel Project (SSCP) shows that it is bent upon
demolishing this holy monument. Surprisingly, while five other
better and cheaper routes which do not destroy this shrine are
available, the route that destroys Ram Sethu has been selected.
Former Supreme
Court Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer has cautioned that
this project would undermine
India
's security concerns with American
presence in Sethusamudram waters. Besides, he has
mentioned that "The callousness
with which such a big project is conceptualized and implemented
is an unpardonable act." Moreover, he has termed the
project as "an open challenge to age old Hindu
beliefs", and has called upon "every Indian to see
that this historic and holy monument is protected."
Remember
Ram's message
Sakand
Puraan has a touching request from Bhagwan Ram to the future
rulers to save Ram Sethu in these words: "Bhooyo bhooyo
bhavino bhoomipaala natva natva yaachte Ramchandrah / Samanyo
ayam DharmaSethur naranaam kaale kaale paalniyo bhaviddhih"
which means, " Ramchandra humbly
and repeatedly requests the future rulers to protect this Dharma
Sethu at all times." Since
instead of protecting Ram Sethu, |