India And The West

2023 will be the year that India will become the most populous nation in the world. India goes far back into ancient times. Let's have a look at possible historic connections between the West and India.

HINDUISM AND ANCIENT EGYPT

I consider Egypt to be the greatest of ancient civilizations. This is due not only to the artifacts and monuments left by the ancient Egyptians, but to the sheer longevity of the civilization. Assyria, Babylon and Persia all reached a peak that was as great as that of Egypt. But none of these lasted very long as a great power. 

In later days, ancient Greece appeared suddenly as a brilliant light on the world, but then faded just as quickly. Even as widespread as Rome was, it lasted only a few centuries as a great power. 

Egypt, in contrast, was a truly great kingdom for maybe two thousand years. A major part of the reason was certainly it's somewhat protected location and the reliability of the Nile River. 

My belief is that Hinduism may well be a continuation of the religion of ancient Egypt. The similarities, allowing for change over time, are just too close and numerous. Hinduism is a very old religion that arose in India at the time that Egypt was a thriving civilization. Unlike every other major religion, Hinduism cannot be traced to any one founder or event. 

The people in Egypt in the days of the pharoahs did not seem to believe in the personal reincarnation that is so central to Hinduism. But in the clear skies of Egypt, they took note of the "death" of celestial bodies in the western sky every evening and their "rebirth" in the eastern sky. The Egyptians considered the constellations in the vicinity of the north star to be "immortal" because they never set below the horizon. 

Egypt's world-famous pyramids, over a hundred of them, are always located west of the Nile River, except for one. Pyramids are tombs and west is where the sun and stars set ( or die ) every evening. It seemed natural to the early Egyptians for west to represent death. 

Just as in Hinduism, astrology had great importance to the ancient Egyptians. Consider the Sphinx, for example, a huge stone carving of the head of a woman on the body of a lion. The woman represents the constellation Virgo as the beginning of the zodiac and the lion represents Leo as it's end. Both religions consist of numerous deities, the Egyptian Ra, the sun god, has a role similar to the Hindu Vishnu.

The most important physical feature of Egypt is the Nile River. Without it, all of Egypt would be a barren desert. The Nile carried fertile soil upstream and deposited it on it's banks and it's Mediterranean delta. The ancient Egyptians clearly recognized the importance of the Nile and worshipped the river itself as a god. 

To Hindus, it is the Ganges which is a holy river in a very similar way. Pilgrimage to Benares, which is situated on the river, and bathing in the Ganges is a sacred Hindu ritual. In Hinduism, the Ganges is a goddess just as the Nile was a god to the ancient Egyptians. 

Cows are very important to Hindus today and are actually considered as gods. In ancient Egypt cows were also very important. Gods were sometimes in the form of cows. Probably the best-known example is Hesat.

I am not the first person to think of this. You can read in detail about the many similarities between the ancient Egyptian religion and Hinduism by doing a Google search for "Ancient Egypt Hinduism". 

The many close similarities are there and the timeframe is right, the next question is how the religion got from Egypt to India. For one thing, there were trade routes all over the Middle East and Near East in ancient times. 

In the early 1970s, there was a project and then a movie made about it called "The Ra Expedition". This was the construction of a boat from papyrus reeds, following the plan of such a boat from ancient Egypt. The boat was sailed and, on the second attempt, it made it across the Atlantic Ocean. This proved that the ancient Egyptians could definitely have accomplished such a feat, and they did indeed have a fleet of ships in the Red Sea about 2,000 BC. 

If such a boat had sailed from Egypt southward on the Red Sea, the ocean currents could have carried it from there straight to the west coast of India. My claim is that the evidence presented here makes it a better than even probability that modern Hinduism is a continuation of the religion of ancient Egypt, whether it was brought to India by land or by sea.

THE AMAZING STORY OF ABRAHAM

Here is something about the world that is already known, but not widely-known. Everyone should know about this.

There are, broadly speaking, two main classifications of religion in the world. 

There are the western, or monotheistic, religions of Judaism, Christianity and, Islam. Monotheistic means to be based on one god. The original monotheistic religion was Judaism, and Christianity and Islam sprang from that.

Then there are the eastern religions, the major ones being Hinduism and Buddhism. Hinduism came first and Buddhism sprang from that.

These are not the only religions but the others are minor, in the number of adherents, by comparison. Jainism is another eastern religion. Sikhism is a kind of a bridge between the eastern and western religions. Confucianism is more of a philosophy than a religion.

The predominant religion greatly affects the nature of the society in which it operates. We saw in the posting on this blog, "Understanding The World In Terms Of The South And West And The North And East", April 2016, how the concept of the nation differs in the two halves of the world. 

In the North And East, the nations have tended to stay the same since ancient times. But in the South And West, new nations have tended to come into being with new ideas. 

The two halves of the world are based on their predominant religions. The South And West is based primarily on the monotheistic religions and the North And East is based primarily on the eastern religions, such as Hinduism and Buddhism.

The two main families of religions, the monotheistic and the eastern, are generally considered as polar opposites. The monotheistic religions focus on salvation by a personal God. The eastern religions typically focus on seeking enlightenment through a fundamental cosmic principle and reincarnation.

The Jews began with a man named Abraham. He had faith that there was only one God, not the multitude of gods typically worshipped by people of the time. Abraham's God was an almighty and all-powerful God. Abraham's God led him from a place called Haran, probably in modern Iraq, to the Jews' Promised Land, which would become the nation of Israel.

Israel was divided into twelve tribes. The Israelites became known as Jews for the tribe of Judah, which became the predominant tribe.

Before Christianity and Islam the Jews, in the nation of Israel, were first delivered from bondage by God. Later they were disciplined by two exiles from their homeland. The first exile was the permanent exile of the ten tribes of the northern nation of Israel, after the twelve tribes had split into the two nations of Israel and Judah. These ten tribes were scattered around the Assyrian Empire, and have since been known as the Ten Lost Tribes.

The second exile was the temporary exile of the remaining nation of Judah to Babylon. The Jews' original Temple had been destroyed by the Babylonians and the Jews built the so-called Second Temple in it's place after they were allowed to return from Babylon, after it had been conquered by the Persian Empire.

But not all of the Jews returned to their homeland. Some were doing quite well in Babylon and chose to stay. The result was a thriving Jewish community that lasted from Babylon until modern times. Most of these Iraqi Jews were finally brought to Israel in the 1950s, but the community in Babylon, that declined to return from the exile, played a prominent role in Jewish history.

Some Jews from places like Babylon and Syria migrated eastward to Iran and India, where there were thriving Jewish communities.

There were also ancient Jewish communities, that survived into modern times, in Yemen and Ethiopia. Most were eventually brought back to the modern nation of Israel by airlift.

Judaism was the original of the western monotheistic religions. Christianity is the belief that Jesus was the Jews' long-awaited messiah. Islam acknowledges Jesus and the prophets of Judaism, but claims that Muhammad restored their true message, which had been mistranslated and distorted, and was the "seal" of the prophets.

Just as the original religion of the western, or monotheistic, religions was Judaism, the original eastern religion was Hinduism. Buddhism later sprang from Hinduism. We do not think of India today as a Buddhist country but the wheel symbol on the Indian flag is actually a Buddhist symbol, because Buddhism did originate in India.

Hinduism is polytheistic, meaning many gods, but centers on the universal cosmic principle, known as Brahman. 

Hinduism, originating in India, used to be known for it's caste system. The highest caste was of Hindu priests and religious figures, and was known as the Brahmins.

The universal cosmic principle is called Brahman. It's priestly caste are called Brahmins.

There is a writing script that appeared in northern India several centuries before the time of Christ. It is known as the Brahmic Script. It is very important because almost all of the later writing scripts in India are descended from it.

According to the Wikipedia article on "Brahmic Script", it is generally believed to be of Semitic origin. Semitic means the people of the Middle East, including the Jews. We saw above that Jews had migrated eastward to India from Babylon, Syria and, Persia.

Having related words from the same root has been seen before in India. Indian civilization emerged around the Indus River, in what is now Pakistan. The predominant religion in India is Hinduism. Notice the similarity of the words "Indus", "India" and, "Hindu".

Now, what do you notice here?

The words "Brahman" and "Brahmin", which are so important to religion in India, and the word "Brahmic", which is so important to writing in India, is very similar to the name of Abraham. The Brahmic Script, which is of Semitic origin, seems to have been named for Abraham.

Abraham's God was the one all-powerful and almighty God. The western monotheistic religions begin with Abraham. Brahman is the Hindu concept of the universal cosmic principle. The eastern religions begin with Hinduism.

Doesn't it seem that Brahman was named for Abraham? The migrating Jews brought the script to India and the Jews were the people of Abraham. 

I am not the first person to notice this but I do think it deserves more attention. The eastern and western religions look like polar opposites but this appears to be a fundamental link between them.

THE ILIAD AND THE BHAGAVAD GITA

Considering the other likely ancient connections between India and the Middle East there is one more that I can't help noticing. I wonder if there could be a connection between the Iliad, the famous epic of ancient Greece, and the Bhagavad Gita, the Hindu scriptures.

The Iliad certainly came first. Several centuries after the Iliad was written came Alexander the Great. What is interesting is that Alexander conquered as far east as India. Alexander's forces, having some learned men with them, and India had a considerable effect on each other, and Alexander's foray took place right around the time that the Bhagavad Gita is believed to have been written.

The Iliad is about a short period of time in the Trojan War. The fabled Trojan War involves the Greek siege of a city named Troy. The King of Troy is given a giant horse on wheels as a gift. But there are Greek soldiers concealed inside the horse. They emerge at night, open the gates of the city, and the city falls to the Greeks. The term "Trojan Horse" has been in use ever since, today in computer malware.

There has long been mixed opinion about whether the Trojan War actually happened. It could have literally happened, it could be the consolidation of events in other battles, or it could be pure legend. Evidence has been found that there was a city named Troy, although not that this siege of it happened.

The main epic of the Bhagavad Gita has a striking similarity to the Iliad. The Bhagavad Gita is about a relatively brief period of the main battle of a great war. Like the Iliad it contains all kinds of moral lessons and interactions with gods. Also like the Iliad it is written in the form of an epic poem.

Also very interesting is the parallel correspondence between the Odyssey, of ancient Greece, and the Ramayana, of India. The Odyssey is related to the Iliad, both believed to be written by Homer. While the Iliad is about the Trojan War the Odyssey is about the adventures of a hero, Odysseus, on his long journey home after the war.

Just as the Odyssey related to the Iliad in Greece so the Ramayana related to the Mahabharata in India, and the Bhagavad Gita is part of the Mahabharata. 

Similar in tone to the Odyssey the Ramayana is also about adventures on a long journey. A prince, Rama, his wife, Sita, and his brother, Lakshmana, are exiled to the forests. While Odysseus journeys across Greece, the prince journeys across India. 

The journey of Odysseus lasts ten years, the journey of Rama lasts fourteen years. Like Odysseus Rama was a king that eventually arrived home. Odysseus arrived home in Ithaca, in the far western extent of Greece. Rama arrived home in Ayodha, in the far northern extent of India.

The campaign of Alexander into India is well-known. This doesn't mean that there could not have been earlier contacts that have since been forgotten or were never so widely-known.

INDIA AND ZERO

Have you ever noticed the bizarre curve in the progress of technology in human history? A lifetime is really too short to notice but technical progress since the beginning of civilization has been somewhat like a turtle morphing into a very fast rabbit for the last 1/15 or so of a race. If we consider civilization as having begun about 7,000 years ago, almost all of our technical progress, relatively speaking, since then has been in the last 350 years. 

There has been intermittent progress throughout civilization such as the development of writing, alphabets, geometry, cement and, flying buttresses. However, none of these steps had much effect on the daily life of the average person. In contrast, the last three and a half centuries have been incredibly different. 

Before this, humans were adept at agriculture, building, medicine, navigation, mining, measurement, writing, calendars and, time-keeping. The one thing that was missing was machines. Anything that human beings made before 350 years ago that could be described as a machine was very rudimentary. When the Industrial Revolution came, it was based on machines and affected all other areas of progress. 

But why did human history unfold like this? I believe that the Reformation opened the psychological door to the Industrial Revolution but did not provide the vehicle. The newly-invented printing press spread the Industrial Revolution and promoted mass-education but I do not believe that it was the cause of it. National rivalry spurred competition but I do not believe that it caused the such progress either. 

My conclusion is that it was simple arithmetic that turned out to be revolutionary. Geometry, which is vital to the construction of complex buildings, was quite advanced in ancient times. In fact, it was much more advanced that arithmetic. 

It struck me one day that there are no complex calculations discussed or mentioned in the Bible. The most complex calculation seems to be 12,000 from each of the twelve tribes of Israel. In contrast, the construction of the temple is told in geometric detail and plumbs and surveying is also discussed in the Bible. 

The Industrial Revolution actually began with a gradual numbers revolution and when that became embedded in our thinking, the machines naturally followed. People could count since prehistoric times either with their fingers or piles of stones. A variety of abaci (the plural of abacus is abaci) and counting boards have been in use for thousands of years. 

What I have concluded that changed the course of history is the concept of zero. When the importance of zero is fully grasped, very complex calculations can be done on paper. Without using zero, we are limited to the relatively simple calculations that can be done with abaci and counting boards. It is not necessary to understand the importance of zero in order to use these simple devices but it is to do complex calculations on paper. 

Geometry became advanced long before arithmetic because it did not require understanding of the importance of zero. The building of elaborate structures requires geometry but only relatively simple arithmetical calculations because buildings do not have moving parts. The planning of machines, in contrast, require complex calculations with numbers and this could not be done in ancient times. 

Have you ever noticed the similarity between an addition or multiplication problem and the operation of machines involving wheels or pistons? Not only did the ability to do complex calculations make the development of machines possible, those early machines even resemble the operation of an arithmetic problem as the operation moves from one column to the next. The Arabs seem to have introduced the idea of zero to Europe but merchants brought it to them from India.

INDIA AND CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS

Here is something that has really got to be written, that everyone has got to know about, but that seems to have been forgotten.

Columbus Day is the holiday commemorating the landing of Christopher Columbus in the western hemisphere in 1492. This was not the first time that Europeans had landed in the western hemisphere but it was the landing of Columbus that established permanent contact between the two hemispheres.

Columbus correctly believed that the earth was spherical and was trying to reach the east by sailing westward. What happened is that he unexpectedly ran into the western hemisphere along the way.

Columbus was seeking India. He thought he had landed in India and referred to the native people where he had landed as "Indians". The native people of the western hemisphere are still called Indians today.

Columbus Day has become a controversial holiday. Whether the landing of Columbus is something to be celebrated, or to be mourned, depends on one's point of view. It opened up a new world but the native people of the western hemisphere suffered tremendously.

In all of the controversy over Columbus Day, between those of white European and native Indian backgrounds, the thing that gets almost completely forgotten about Columbus Day is that the voyage was motivated by India, and thus without India the western hemisphere would never have developed as it did.

Sooner or later some other ship would certainly have come across the western hemisphere, but the whole purpose, at the time, of finding a shorter route to the east was to reach India. The west had long known about India because of trade along the Silk Road. It may be that the rise of the Ottomans, in the eastern Mediterranean, prompted the search for another route to the east.

But the reason for this great effort to reach the east was India. Spain, having finally gained complete independence from Moorish control, commissioned Columbus to try to reach the east, specifically India, by sailing westward. Portugal took the opposite approach and sailed around southern Africa, with Vasco da Gama succeeding in reaching India.

So while it was Portugal that reached the objective of India, Spain established contact with the previously-unknown western hemisphere. Some time later, a Portuguese ship on the way around southern Africa would happen to reach the coast of Brazil, which is why Brazil speaks Portuguese today. It is not quite certain whether the Portuguese discovery of Brazil was accidental or not.

Columbus was not on a colonizing journey, even though it was his voyage that initiated the Age of Imperialism. He had only three ships and was not heavily armed. Columbus was on a mission to explore and trade.

But what could India possibly have that was so valuable, that made it so important for western Europeans to reach it? Nations commissioned voyages and sailors risked their lives to reach a nation on the opposite side of the world. The question is "why"?

It couldn't possibly be gold, or other minerals. There was gold to be found in places all over the world and India is no richer in minerals than many other places.

There is one simple and obvious answer what India had to offer that started a rush to reach the opposite side of the world, that drastically changed the world in the process. It was India's food, specifically spices.

This means that Indian food is the reason the nations of North and South America are what they are today. 

The two continents could have been named for curry, North and South Curry. America could have been named for biryani the United States of Biryani.

Thanksgiving, the following month after Columbus Day, is celebrated with a feast centering around turkey. It parallels Columbus Day in that it is a harvest festival celebrating the first permanent English settlement in what is now the U.S.

But the turkey is a myth that was invented much later. I think it would make more sense to remember the reason for Columbus' voyage that so changed the world and to celebrate Columbus Day, and especially Thanksgiving, with a feast of Indian food. I celebrate Thanksgiving with chapati, rather than with turkey.

HAS INDIA ENTERED ANOTHER GOLDEN AGE?

India is an ancient country that has had it's share of past "golden ages". 

The Mauryan Empire ruled in India during the Fourth and Third Centuries B.C. This was the beginning of India's periodic golden ages. The best-known emperor of the time was Chandragupta I. We don't think of India as a Buddhist country today but Buddhism actually began there and got a major boost when it was embraced by the Mauryan Emperor Ashoka.

The time period centered around the Fourth and Fifth Centuries was the time of the Gupta Empire in India. One of it's emperors took the name of Chandragupta II. This was a great golden age that, among other things, brought the numerals that we use today, the 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. 

Possibly the most important invention ever is the concept of zero. You may have noticed that there are no complex calculations in ancient times involving numbers, although there is with geometry. There were abacus, and various counting devices, but complex calculations with numbers are impossible without understanding the importance of zero.

A thousand years ago, around the beginning of the Second Millennium, India had the Chola Empire. This was another golden age.

Today there are former Hindu temples across southeast Asia. The great temple of Angkor Wat, which is on the Cambodian flag, was built as a Hindu temple. We have visited My Son, the ruins of a Hindu temple in Vietnam.

Hinduism on the Indonesian island of Bali is a legacy of India's far-reaching influence during it's golden ages. The vast majority of the population of this densely-populated and much-visited island are Hindu by religion. Southeast Asia is often referred to as "Indochina" because it was influenced by both India and China.

India is a diverse country and it's golden ages are not associated with any one religion. The Mauryan Empire, although not originally Buddhist, is associated with spreading Buddhism. The Gupta and Chola Empires were Hindu. The remainder of the Second Millennium saw two more golden ages in India, first the Delhi Sultanate and later the Mughal Empire. Both were Moslem and both saw India producing a very significant share of global wealth.

India's Mughal Empire produced what might be the most famous building in the world, the Taj Mahal.

Images from Google Street View

We can see that India's golden ages happen almost on a regular schedule, about every four hundred years. History is a powerful force and what that means is that the next golden age should be beginning right about now.

There is no announcement when a golden age begins. They don't start and end suddenly. Every king, emperor and politician would like to promote his reign as a golden age. A golden age may not even be recognized at the time, but by historians long after.

There is plenty of reason to believe that India has already entered another golden age. 2023 is the year that India will become the most populous nation in the world. Indians abroad often enter politics. At the time of this writing the prime ministers of both Britain and Ireland are of Indian descent. Jagmeet Singh is the leader of Canada's NDP party, and could potentially be prime minister. Bobby Jindal, Governor of Louisiana, ran for U.S. President. Nikki Haley has announced her candidacy for 2024. Part of the New Indian Empire is not conquest but politicians in other countries, even though their allegiance is not to India.

Another part of the New Indian Empire is space. Missions to Mars have a high casualty rate and India is the first nation to launch a successful Mars mission on it's first attempt. I have already suggested here that the region around the moon's south pole could be named "New India" because of the country's exploration there.

If we always seem to be hearing about India and Indians it could be because it's next golden age is arriving right on schedule.