The Mahabharata & Ancient Star Wars - Fact or Fiction?

The Mahabharata is one of the longest poems in the world and is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India, the other being the Ramayana. This particular epic is part of the Hindu history.

Besides its epic narrative of the Kurukshetra War and the fates of the Kauravas and the Pandavas, the Mahabharata (whether absolute fact or utter fiction) contains much philosophical and devotional material, such as a discussion of the four "goals of life" (right action, purpose, pleasure, and liberation). Among the principal works and stories that are a part of the Mahabharata are: the Bhagavad Gita (a sacred text outlining the key tenets of Hinduism), the story of Damayanti, an abbreviated version of the Ramayana, and the Rishyasringa, often considered as works in their own right.

The works of the Mahabharata was originally attributed to the scribe Vyasa. However, this lengthy, ongoing poem of mythical madness was most likely composed by several writers between the 8th century BCE and the 4th century CE (a mere estimation of the time frame). Perhaps this is why many people still question if it was fictional, factual, or a mixture of both fiction and fact; blah! To read more about it via the elaborate version, visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahabharata

The reason why such a subject lands on this myths, legends, and folklore blog, is because the Mahabharata is a story of gods, demigods and men. Many people believe that the demigods and gods in this ancient manuscript were actually ancient astronauts who battled among each other for possession of this lovely blue planet known as Earth. In the past, I re-typed and/or copied a short story that covered this very same subject, and it was entitled "Ancient Star Wars." And you can find it here: [Link is no longer active, but it is now Part 2 of this post, below...]

Did the writings within the Mahabharata provide grammatical evidence of atomic warfare that occurred in our distant past? After reading the short story about ancient star wars, the weapons described in the Mahabharata didn't sound so primitive after all. It is an interesting concept to think about, to say the very least. Who knows for sure? Sometimes you're better off just using your creative imagination while leaving the rest for the pseudo-scientific creatures of today to pretend that they can unravel such things from ancient history... As the last part of the title asks: Fact or fiction??? Yeah, go get 'em, fellow brainiacs of ultimate knowledge and know-how... Either way, it sounds like this place has been under conflict from the very start. Cheers! Ha-ha!

Part 2: The Mahabharata & Ancient Star Wars

In 1952, the father of the atomic bomb, Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, was at Rochester University to attend a conference of the world's top nuclear scientists.  It was just seven years after the first A-bombs had mushroomed over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. During a question & answer session for the young college students, Oppenheimer gave a bombshell answer that was largely overlooked, or ignored, by the media. A student asked:  "Was the bomb exploded at Alamogordo, New Mexico, during the Trinity Project, the first one to be detonated?" Oppenheimer's reply:  "Yes, it was the first one -- in modern times, of course."

Later, chemist Robert Warth, who attended the conference, said that Oppenheimer seemed "startled" by the question and that the students looked at each other in bewilderment. Did Oppenheimer believe that atom bombs had been exploded in an earlier time? We know that Oppenheimer was a complex man with many interests; he was deeply interested in the religions along with beliefs in ancient India, and had read the great sagas like the Vadas, the Puranas, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana.

These ancient records contain startling and vivid references to tactical nuclear warfare, mentioning weapons all too familiar to us, most recently from Desert Storm in the Gulf War, like explosives, artillery and rocketry.  [Hence the title, "Ancient Star Wars"]

An amazing section of the Mahabharata, called the Drona Parva, describes warfare between ancient armies on what is now the plains of northern India.  The blasts of "final" (today we call them "ultimate") weapons to destroy entire armies.

  

In part, the Drona Parva reads: "The steeds and elephants and weapons were carried away as if these were the dry leaves of trees - borne away by a great wind.  They looked highly beautiful, like flying birds, flying away from the trees..." The saga describes the mushroom clouds of tactical nuclear warheads:  "They [the clouds] looked like the openings of giant, spreading parasols."

This is the nuclear battlefield described in all its horror from records written 8000 years ago!  The Drona Parva also tells of the suffering that followed the bombs, when "the people's hair fell out and their food was spoiled."  The survivors also washed their bodies often, which is a necessary survival precaution for people exposed to radioactive fallout.

Similar catastrophes have been reported in the records of other ancient civilizations, like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, which is also detailed in this book.  But it is only in India that ancient records, copied and recopied from the originals, describe in detail the great explosions and the terrible ensuing slaughter. The use and effect of tactical super-weapons like low-yield atomic warheads, strike aircraft, SCUD-type missiles and armored vehicles are also revealed in remarkable detail. References to what we think of as purely modern weapon systems like these, are scattered throughout the Indian texts - which mostly concern the adventures of gods and heroes.

The Mahabharata saga runs to 200,000 verses, making it seven times longer than Homer's ILLIAD and ODYSSEY put together. It was written in 1500 B.C., but describes events of a much earlier time, just as Homer wrote of the Trojan war, a conflict that ended more than 500 years before he was born.  The Mahabharata was first translated into Sanskrit in 1834, and then appeared in English in 1884.

The Mahabharata is the story of gods, demigods and men.  Again, many experts believe these gods and demigods, referred to in the ancient manuscripts, were ancient astronauts who battled among themselves for possession of this planet, and that man was almost destroyed in the process. Many historians say the Mahabharata describes the Aryan invasion of India which forced the original Dravidian inhabitants to the southernmost sections of the subcontinent, or to life as members of lower castes serving the Aryan masters.

...But time and time again, they are puzzled by references to weapons only easily identified as modern-day radar, fighter aircraft, smoke barrages, poison gas shells, armored divisions and nuclear missiles.

In Victorian times, British historians got around the puzzle by declaring that the super-weapons were "agneyastras" - great siege cannons used in antiquity to blast through the gates of castles and cities. They said that these references had been slipped into the Mahabharata in modern times in a prideful Indian attempt to say:  "See, we invented cannon before you did." But this notion was completely disproved by the great Indian historian V. R. Ramchandra Dikshitar in his book "War in Ancient India."

Writing at the height of World War 2, Dikshitar said: "Aircraft and other weaponry is now just catching up on what the Mahabharata meant when it spoke of vimanas, fighting sky chariots; the mohanastra, which caused armies to fall unconscious without a wound; the tashtra, which killed large numbers of the enemy in one blast and the fog dart, which covered the battlefield in thick smoke and hid the movements of armored formations. To glibly characterize everything found in this ancient literature as imaginary, and summarily dismiss it as unreal...has been the practice of many scholars till quite recently."

Today, scientists and military men recognize the super-weapons described in the Mahabharata; but this wasn't the case 100+ years ago.  One brilliant translator of the saga, P. Chandra Roy, said in the 1850s:  "To the English reader, there is much in this book that will strike him as ridiculous." ...And in 1884, the translator Kisari Mohan Ganguli added:  "There are verses in the Mahabharata which are exceedingly difficult to construe."

But what was mysterious or ridiculous in the 1800s seems perfectly understandable to us in today's world of high-tech weaponry. The following excerpt from the Mahabharata is chillingly familiar to all of us, even though it is separated from our own atomic age by 8000 years:

"A single projectile charged with all the power of the Universe.  An incandescent column of smoke and flame, as bright as 10,000 suns, rose in all its splendor.  It was an unknown weapon, an iron thunderbolt, a gigantic messenger of death, which reduced to ashes...the entire race of the Vrishnis and the Andhakas."

---Editor's Interjection:  Please note, the last quote seemed to be an extravagant exaggeration to denote the extreme force behind this particular weapon used during the times of ancient Star Wars.  It didn't literally nor could it possibly be charged with all the power of the Universe... ---

Then, in a horror that invokes the memories of Hiroshima, the saga goes on: "The corpses were so burned as to be unrecognizable.  Their hair and nails fell out, pottery broke without any apparent cause, and the birds turned white.  After a few hours the foodstuffs were all infected, and to escape the fire...the soldiers threw themselves into the river..."

Do the Mahabharata, the Ramayana, the Mahavira Charita and other Indian classics, describe a war fought between armies of ancient astronauts for possession of this planet?  Or does it describe an experiment that went terribly wrong?  Did the extraterrestrials seek to advance mankind's knowledge by giving him the secrets of atomic energy for peaceful purposes?  And did man misuse that knowledge, building not power plants, but weapons?

The ancient astronauts' bold experiment may have been destroyed on the plains of northern India in 6000 B.C., plunging man into a dark age that was to last almost 8000 years. Could it be that we are now, if we are not careful, on the brink of repeating that horror?

Editor's Comment:

This chapter provided relatively simple concepts that ultimately leads to the possibility of us repeating our past mistakes - which is very possible.  What will throw many narrow minded folks for a loop, is the concept that suggests that the human race was assisted with the help of aliens from another planet.  Most people stuck within the limits of mundane thoughts, will always be limited to a degree.  Either way, we've been visited many times before.  Life is all throughout the cosmos, not just stuck here on this lovely planet of ours.

---End of Post 'The Mahabharata & Ancient Star Wars - Fact or Fiction?'

Semi-related Post: "Beowulf - Fact or Fiction?"

Interbreeding Species of Ancient Humans

I recently read an article over a newly discovered species of humans that could have performed a few interbreeding activities with some our ancient ancestors. It goes on to say:

"Scientists say an entirely separate type of human identified from bones in Siberia co-existed and interbred with our own species. The ancient humans have been dubbed Denisovans after the caves in Siberia where their remains were found. There is also evidence that this group was widespread in Eurasia. A study in Nature journal shows that Denisovans co-existed with Neanderthals and interbred with our species - perhaps around 50,000 years ago." Read more, here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12059564

This reminds me of a few years ago, when they discovered a dwarf-like humanoid/chimp called the "Homo floresiensis." There was lots of debate there, and some people thought that it was a dwarfed version of the evolving humanoid, but later they started to see that the evidence led to what I originally thought a few years ago, and that being it was a separate species all together. By what I read and seen back then, when it first hit the media, the Homo floresiensis was more closely related to a monkey than anything else. I just looked at it as an advanced midget ape with keen survival skills and stumbled along into something else without giving it much thought. I just don't waste time pondering over trivial stuff.

Anyway, back to the original subject concerning the Denisovans: What makes this so mysterious, is the missing link between Homo Erectus, Neanderthals, Denisovans (the ones spoke about in that article link) and the Homo sapiens (the species of today). It seems that all the other species quickly disappear after the Homo sapiens arrived at this beautiful scene hosted by planet Earth. Some folks get creative and even go as far as saying that aliens from another planet came down here and altered the DNA of the Homo Erectus by interbreeding it with more advanced beings or by performing genetic alterations by using some advanced form of science, to create the Homo sapiens. Then again, you'll have the creationists battling the evolutionists in what is or isn't possible.
I must say, though, when it comes to macro-evolution theories, their concepts of speciation do seem to be quite asinine, to say the least!

At any rate, when it comes to today's humanoids, the interest levels over subjects like this, often splits into 4 groups:

1) Scientists, 2) Religionists/Creationists, 3) Creative open-minded thinkers, and 4) the ones who just don't give a crap either way, as long as they got plenty food to eat and various forms of entertainment at hand.

I once wrote about a related subject, here:  "Theory of Evolution: Where is the Missing Link between Homo erectus & Homo sapiens"

At times, when researching the origins of life and our ancient ancestors, it can be perplexing and hilarious all at the same time. At any rate, no one actually knows for sure just what all could have happened in the past, but it makes for some excellent debate, arguments, stories, and science fiction tales or flicks. Hey, I just thought of a movie that sort of relates to this subject, well, in an inverted way. Ha-ha!

---'Click Here' to Search for 'Planet of the Apes' DVDs

Woot-woot!  ---End of Post 'Interbreeding Species of Ancient Humans'

...Other Sacred Rocks & Stones

Recently, I did a post about the sacred rock formation of Uluru (Ayers Rock). Today, I thought that it would be nice to add a "Part 2" to this subject and mention a few other sacred rocks & stones. Of course, there are many more mysterious stones and rocks on this planet, but I'll just add them to this blog sporadically. 

Speaking of mythical mysteries, I was going to also provide images and information about the "Dropa Stones" on this post, but after finding a lot of questionable, duplicated content that stemmed from the two main Dropa stories that are commonly found on the Internet with no solid evidence whatsoever, I decided to omit that from this subject. If you're wondering, the Dropa stones supposedly were discovered in caves and contained information that was written by aliens who crash-landed on this planet via a misguided, malfunctioning space probe. They were unable to repair their spaceship, and they either all died or got killed off by the humanoids who labeled them as short, big-eyed, yellow skinned ugly people, or a few survivors may have made it and formed a tribe of these "short, big-eyed people" that lived here long ago, yada-yada, blah-blah, and the story goes on without any real anything. However, subjects like that are always worthy of appearing on a myths, legends, & folklore blog, such as this one, but the Dropa dung will not get a separate post with a title - due to the cloudy tales & legends that I read about online... Enough said; if you're interested, do your own web search over that particular subject. Anyway... 

Below, I'll provide a few pics with a brief description that relate to other sacred rocks & stones found on this lovely blue planet. 

Carnac Stones: The Carnac stones are an exceptionally dense collection of megalithic sites around the French village of Carnac, in Brittany, consisting of alignments, dolmens, tumuli and single menhirs. 3,000 (or more) prehistoric standing stones were hewn from local rock and erected by the pre-Celtic people of Brittany, and are the largest such collection in the world. Local tradition (legends, myths, and folklore) claims that the reason they stand in such perfectly straight lines is that they are a Roman legion turned to stone by Merlin or Saint Cornelius – Brittany has its own local versions of the Arthurian cycle. A Christian legend associated with the stones held that they were pagan soldiers in pursuit of Pope Cornelius when he turned them to stone. The exact reason for these stones is uncertain, but many believe they may have had some astrological purpose, especially since they run from east to west. At times, when looking at the aerial shots, it just looks like a big graveyard to me, but surely they had more purpose than being massive tombstones. Anyway, read more about these sacred stones, here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnac_stones

The 3 major groups of Carnac stone rows, as shown below; click to enlarge:

This area also has several dolmens, and are generally thought to have been tombs... I'll provide an image of one below, for an example:

[ Image Credit: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Crucuno_dolmen.jpg ] 

Stonehenge: Around 5,000 years old or more, the Stonehenge in England is a temple-like complex centered around a ring of heavy stones. The exact purpose of such alignment, still remains a mystery today...

Easter Island Statues: Some of these sacred stone heads weigh up to 6 tons each. Rows of these mysterious statues face out towards the sea from Easter Island in the Southern Pacific. It is amazing enough that they carved so many, but most of the astonishment arises when thinking about how they moved such large stones/rocks around...and why??? The purpose for these stones is not certain, but many believe that they represent their ancestors.

  [ Image Credit: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:AhuTongariki.JPG ]

  Related pictorial link, featuring ancient, sacred rocks & stones: "The Lost City of the Incas," http://www.perpendicularity.org/machu-picchu.html. [Link is no longer active]

---End of Post

Is Silicon-based life possible?

Well, by our current Earth-bound understanding of science, the typical answer is: "No, it is not possible, but it makes for great science fiction movies."

I asked this question, with silicon being the base for another possible life-form, because that seems to be the most popular suggestion out of all the elements we know about. Personally, I'm more curious about there being life based on other elements that we don't know about or haven't discovered - that is possibly out there, in ample amounts, somewhere in the universe.

Instead of me typing a bunch of subjective opinions that I generally enjoy doing, mainly on other websites and blogs of mine, I'll just provide a couple resources that are not supporting the theory of silicon-based life, but their reasons may provide even more questions and possibilities, depending on your imagination.

Resources:
1) Conceivably, some strange life-forms might be built from silicone-like substances were it not for an apparently fatal flaw in silicon's biological credentials. This is its powerful affinity for oxygen. When carbon is oxidized during the respiratory process of a terrestrial organism, it becomes the gas carbon dioxide – a waste material that is easy for a creature to remove from its body. The oxidation of silicon, however, yields a solid because, immediately upon formation, silicon dioxide organizes itself into a lattice in which each silicon atom is surrounded by four oxygens. Disposing of such a substance would pose a major respiratory challenge.
Read more, here: http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/S/siliconlife.html

2) Silicon biochemistry: The most commonly proposed basis for an alternative biochemical system is the silicon atom, since silicon has many chemical properties similar to carbon and is in the same periodic table group, the carbon group. Like carbon, silicon can create molecules that are sufficiently large to carry biological information. However, silicon has several drawbacks as a carbon alternative. Silicon, unlike carbon, lacks the ability to form chemical bonds with diverse types of atoms, which permits the chemical versatility necessary for metabolism.
Read more about this and other exotic element-based biochemistries, here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothetical_types_of_biochemistry

Okay, now back to the original query, "Is Silicon-based life possible?" This concept has been applied to many fantasy and sci-fi flicks. For example, the original Star Trek series, episode 26, had a show that featured a silicon-based being. This particular show was called "Devil in the Dark." The Horta (a silicon-based life-form) is discovered by miners on Janus VI and every 50,000 years, all the Horta die except for one individual who survives to look after the eggs of the next generation. Anyway, the point is, on a planet with a totally different chemistry and available elements (many elements that could possibly be unknown to us), it is a plausible theory that life may not necessarily have to be limited to the carbon-based category.

Conclusion:
I suppose that I could have changed the title of this post to "Does all life have to be carbon-based?" and it would have had the same effect.  Hell, forget about the silicon-based life theories and the doubts therein. Just think about the possibility of all the other exotic elements that we may not even be aware of, that could exist deep within the cosmos. When it comes to the marvels of life itself, the mystery in what makes life possible, and the amazingly stupendous amounts of various types of life that we do know about on this beautiful planet, I'd say that anything could be possible elsewhere...

---End of Post "Is Silicon-based life possible?"

Incas - Sky Gods

  Just as there have been many various types of civilizations throughout time on planet Earth, there have also been many different gods worshipped by the dwellers therein. The Incas were known to be "people of the sun" and they were also very into the notion of "Sky Gods," as well. 

This sort of stuff just reminds me of how people think without knowing a science behind things. I'm not saying that there isn't a force or a higher being or beings behind some things, but then again, what is so mysterious about that? Hell, I'd hate to know that the Homo sapiens on planet Earth are the most advanced race in the universe. Now that's a scary thought... Ha-ha! 

Anyway, if a person didn't know any better and they heard a loud thunder, for example, what else would they have thought back then? The same applies to lightning and all the other creative activity that happens in the sky, hence forth the "Sky Gods" in full mythical force. 

The Incas main divinity, as far as existence is concerned, was Viracocha, and was the great creator god in the pre-Inca and Inca mythology in the Andes region of South America. Viracocha was one of the most important deities in the Inca pantheon and the Incas believed that this deity was the creator of all things, or the source from which all things derived from, and this particular Inca god was also associated with the sea in an intrinsic fashion. Obviously, the ancient Incas believed that Viracocha created the universe, sun, moon, stars, time (by commanding the sun to move over the sky) and civilization itself, as would most people who worship creator gods under any name.

Inti was the Incan sun god, the ruler of the daytime. This may have been the most important god of the Incas, as far as daily living is concerned, for very apparent reasons (we all need the sun, ya know...).

Mama Kilya, also known as Mama Quilla, was the moon goddess and ruler of the night. One could say that the Incas looked at Inti as the divine male and Mama Kilya as the divine female. Also, they represented Inti with gold and Mama Quilla with silver.

Illapu, also known as Illapa, was the Incan thunder god. Illapu was also known as the provider of rain, and they often prayed for such things, since rain is a necessary thing, duh...

I just read in a mythology book that mentioned some deity called "Chuichu." It said that the Incas believed in a rainbow god that was a two-headed dragon-like deity called Chuichu. They knew that the rainbow somehow related to the sun or the sun's rays, but due to the lack of understanding back then, which is understandable, they couldn't figure it out - so why not just label it as a god, since it is simpler to blame it on a god-like being, ya know...

Additional Link: Incas - Aliens & Ancient Astronauts [Link is no longer active, but the last 25% of that page is posted here: Mysterious Pyramids of Giza]

---End of Post "Incas - Sky Gods"

Sacred Ayers Rock - Uluru

   Found within the southern part of the Northern Territory in central Australia, this particular rock formation is very sacred to the aboriginal people. Ayers rock, also known as "Uluru," has many caves, springs, ancient artwork, waterholes, and so on. The Aborigines believe that the rock caves found inside the Uluru have spiritual significance. This mighty sandstone has been weathered over time, but still stands 1,142 feet above the plains and is an incredible 5.8 miles around (the circumference). 

Ayers rock often seems to change color, depending on the angle of the sun, with its most attractive moment being during sunsets, as it often appears to glow red. 

Image of the Uluru, below:

As with most subjects that deal with ancient times & history, the Sacred Ayers Rock comes with many myths & legends. For example: The sacred Uluru is in the middle of the Simpson Desert. Even though it appears to just be a giant land mass in the middle of a desert, the Aborigines think of it as a symbol of all creation. There is an Aborigine legend that Uluru was once an ocean, but after a great battle at its shores, it rose up in revolt at the bloodshed, forming the great blood-colored rock that you often see glow red, during sunset, like I mentioned before. 

Every feature on Ayers Rock has a special meaning to these people, such as: a pair of holes are the eyes of an ancestor; a mark down the side is the blood of the "venomous snake people," shed in a battle, and on and on and on... As you can see, I'm stopping right there and I'm not about to get into all the myths, legends, and folklore that spawned from the Uluru - as this post would become too large.

Australian Aboriginal Proverb: "We are all visitors to this time, this place... Our purpose here is to observe, to learn, to grow, to love and then we return home."

At any rate, I just wanted to drop down a couple images of this sacred, massive chunk of a rock formation, as it is still very interesting to look at...

---Side Note: If you're interested in traveling and/or taking a vacation near this sacred rock formation, visit: http://www.ayersrockresort.com.au/ 

-Ayers Rock Resort website says: "With over 65 tours, local activities and attractions within the Resort and the Uluru Kata Tjuta National Park, your days will be action-packed. Ride a camel across the desert dunes. Hop on a Harley or embark on a base walk of Uluru (Ayers Rock)." 

That travel website also has lots of resources, galleries, stories, etc. I just seen an interesting page on there, called "5 fascinating critters to find in Uluru Kata Tjuta National Park." The 5 listed were: Brush-Tail Mulgara, Splendid Fairy-Wren, Blue-Tongued Lizard, Rufous Hare-Wallaby, and the Thorny Devil. But then again, if you're more interested in exotic creatures, you should probably head on over to the Nature & Wildlife Blog. Anyway, I'm just rambling now...

 ---End of Post "Sacred Ayers Rock - Uluru"