WHO DISCOVERED AMERICA?
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 century and had 3000 Deva-Dasis to perform religious ceremonials. The Mexican temple had the Gopuram style. Here you see a reconstruction of the same after it was destroyed by the Spaniards. The temples at Tikal in Mexico also bore the imprint of our famous temple at Madura. No wonder E. G. Squire in his American archaeological researches in 1851 wrote:
""It is believed a proper examination of these monuments would disclose the fact that in their interior structure as well as in their exterior form and obvious purposes these buildings correspond with great exactness to those of Hindustan and the Indian Archipelago.
""Sir Stamford Raflles wrote, ""The great temple of Borobudur might readily be mistaken for a Central American Temple.
""From child-birth to cremation and Sati the Astecs observed almost all Hindu rituals including the Gurukula system of education followed in India. The Incas of Peru with Ayar Brahman ancestry observed the sacred thread ceremony, the ear-piercing ceremony all other Hindu rituals and rigidly observed the caste systems of India. It is not without reason that the Spanish author Lopez says in his book Le Races Aryans de Peru : ""Every page of peruvian poetry bears the imprint of Ramayana and Mahabharata.""
Sanskrit was the sacred language of the rulers and quichua the language of Peruvians. The Aryo-Quichua vocabulary prepared by Lopez proves it.
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