Thought for the Day this morning was presented by an Indian chap - I didn't get his name - who asserted that a sunken city had just been found off the coast of India that was thought to be 11,000 years old. He cited this in passing as evidence for the vast antiquity of the Vedic culture.
When I published a book in 2004, including what I thought was a balanced account of Indian philosophy, I was very surprised to be attacked by someone in the School for what I wrote. Apparently I had been duped by prejudiced Western scientists and historians who wished to cover up the truth about the great antiquity of Indian culture. According to Western scholars, the Upanishads date from 1000 BC - 150 AD, which makes the oldest of them the most ancient philosophical texts known. This isn't enough for the 'Hindutvas', though, who seem to feel that anything short of full authentication of legendary dates is a cover-up.
Anyway, when I heard on Radio 4 that there was proof of a pre-Sumerian culture in India, I was of course interested. (to read on, click Read More below ...)
A little research on Google revealed a couple of possible candidates. An expedition led by one Graham Hancock in 2002 discovered a port city at Mahabalipuram in the Bay of Bengal that was claimed to be of great antiquity. The recent tsunami then uncovered some remarkable statues which were recognised to be 7th Century AD, possibly with another layer from the first century. Old, but not really ancient enough for the Hindutvas.
But wait - another sunken city was also discovered in the Bay of Cambay (Northwest India) in 2001 by a team led by ... er, Graham Hancock. A lot of excitement on web-sites about anything from Freemasonry to Hermetic teachings. Could this be the lost city of Atlantis/Lemuria? The Indians are really thrilled as well.
Much digging around later, I am struggling to find any scientific data on the site, but finally this. It turns out the piece of wood dated to 9500 BC was just a piece of wood that was dredged up from the sea bed, which turned out to be quite old. And Graham's 'artifacts' were just natural formations. Oh well, never mind!
Graham Hancock is, of course, the legendary 'pyramidiot' author of "The Sign and the Seal", "Fingerprints of the Gods", etc. Like Baigent and Leigh (who just lost $2m failing to sue Dan Brown for plagiarism of their 'research'), he is what is called an 'Alternative Historian'. The 'Alternative' part means that, instead of conducting ordinary research, he does just enough to convince a lay person, and makes the rest of it up.
This is a bit of a digression from the usual subject, but it illustrates a useful point. Many people who are spiritually oriented want to believe that they have 'one up' on the boring, unimaginative scientists. This makes them all too willing to believe what shysters like Hancock feed them.
What I would say to anyone who is inclined to Freemasonry, Knights Templar, Bloodlines of the Grail, Pyramids on Mars, Mayan Calendars, or indeed legendary Hinduism, as a proof that the world is more mysterious than it seems, is, "why bother?" These lurid tales are metaphors in pseudo-scientific language for what is genuinely beyond ordinary comprehension. We all have direct access to the deepest mysteries of the spirit.
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
The Life Aquatic, with Graham
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5 comments:
I read an article by David Frawley some time ago in defence of his theories of the history of Vedic civilisation. One of the points he made against the current scientific approach was about the notion of 'primary source'. As taught in schools, 'primary source' means an actual piece of physical object that has survived. Frawley argued (this is from memory, I can't locate the article) that the only significance of the 'primary source' is that it is made of a material that doesn't decay/erode. Hence we try to piece together ancient history from pieces of pottery and the remains of the one man in a million unfortunate enough to have fallen into a peat bog! Any theory pieced together from these rare and random occurrences is likely to be dubious. Like finding a piece of non-stick frying pan 3,000 years from now and trying to extrapolate our modern world from it. The approach is also powerless to comment upon belief systems etc unless we have remains of artistic works. So the very method of questioning dictates a resulting materialistic theory.
I am sure that there are many who want to look for ‘primary source’ evidence to prove or disprove the mythological history. I don’t know whether the myths are to be understood at this level or not. Sometimes I think this debate detracts from understanding the allegorical meaning which is considerably more important than ‘objective fact’. Having recently read an excerpt of the Ramayana and its symbolic interpretation, something is unarguably connected with. This connection is a more living thing than any material explanation.
The question is: do we consider myth as:
a)an alternative history? or
b)a symbolic, timeless wisdom whereby ‘worldly’ events may be interpreted ?
I have no doubt about (b). Perhaps there is a clarification necessary of the relative areas of jurisdiction of science and ‘alternative’ sources with regard to (a)? I think most people, including scientists, see what they want to believe.
I would tend to agree with Hamlet, “there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy”. So many seem to think myth is so much ‘dreams and vapour’, but if you examine it, so is the scientific view of ancient history extrapolated from the survival of a piece of pottery.
"I find it so tragic and ironical that the age in which we live should regard the word "myth" and "illusion" as synonymous, in view of the fact that the myth is the real history, is the real event of the spirit. It is this immense world of meaning with which the image links us. The myth is the tremendous activity that goes on in humanity all the time, without which no society has hope or direction, and no personal life has a meaning."
Footnote: The last quote was Laurens van der Post
I agree with most of what you say, although David Frawley is a very dodgy source. While scientists may (unconsciously) see what they want to see, the Hindutvas are deliberately promoting a point of view.
Again, as with Son of Moses in our recent discussion, you appear to be equating 'material evidence' with 'materialism'.
Material evidence is perfectly valid, so far as it goes. Materialism is the belief or faith that "all this is in truth matter". The two are not the same.
The Vedic culture talks a lot about chariots, and chariot wheels (which are fairly enduring objects) are found in India from the 4th millennium BC, but not before. Since in this case we have a material object and perfectly-preserved artistic works (the Vedas) referring to the same object, it is reasonable to believe that the Vedic culture dates from that time.
Not that it matters tremendously how long ago they were, except to people like Frawley.
Kapila quotes Laurens van der Post:
"I find it so tragic and ironical that the age in which we live should regard the word "myth" and "illusion" as synonymous, in view of the fact that the myth is the real history, is the real event of the spirit. It is this immense world of meaning with which the image links us. The myth is the tremendous activity that goes on in humanity all the time, without which no society has hope or direction, and no personal life has a meaning."
I think that he over-eggs this a bit in the last sentence, simply because since myth is so powerful, it will not be altered much by surface skepticism. When a myth ceases to be meaningful it is because people no longer find it compelling. If it's not compelling or meaningful, it is replaced by a 'new' myth.
Myth operates below the conscious level - at pashyanti rather than madhyama. It represents the unconscious desires and aspirations of humanity, coming up from the depths to take form in a story. Van der Post is right about its strength, but wrong about the tragedy.
He's also wrong that we regard myth and illusion as synonymous. I think there is a wide appreciation of the difference, despite the existence of some people who fail to discriminate on this matter.
There is another group of people - and this includes a large section of the readership for the Da Vinci Code - who fail to discriminate between myth and fact.
Ask children about this - they understand that a story is a story but that it has power and truth (and therefore great appeal) even though it may not be of this world.
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