Mythological Juggernaut

MYTHOLOGICAL JUGGERNAUT

by Sukhdev Bhatia

Smashwords Edition

Copy right 2014 : Sukhdev Bhatia

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Table of Contents

Chapter1 - Prologue

Chapter2-.The Mortal Gods -5000BC

Chapter3- Ram's Story, a myth or reality-4000BC

Chapter4-Krishna, the lovable God-3000BC

Chapter5-The Unified God-2000BC

Chapter6-Escape of Souls and Nirvana-1000BC

Chapter7-Extra Terrestrial Paradise- Zero AD

Chapter8-Learnt at the feet-500AD

Chapter9-The Temple Era-Tenth Century AD

Chapter10-The Singing Saints-1400AD

Chapter11-Reality and Myths in 20th Century

Author's Page

Foreword

This book is neither a treatise on authenticated history, nor is a result of archaeological research, but makes an attempt to conceptualize sequences of events, leading to creation of religious myths. This semi-fictional book, based on historical and traditional information about past events, is an effort to understand these myths rationally, as these have affected and are affecting, even today, billions of humans, living in the eastern part of our planet.

I have tried to take the reader through 7000 years of human existence, with an aim to analyze, why mythical stories forming basis of religion, in most of the countries cannot be rejected out rightly, as some of the locations and sites related to these myths are in existence even today. These mythical stories may appear as true historical narratives to the faithful but do not appeal to a modern rational mind.

We all have, an inborn desire to be competitive, this has probably originated, out of survivor instincts and human beings, whether educated or not, will like to put their future in hands of unknown forces, believing that same will give them deserved or undeserved benefits, even if, it is at the cost of others beings. As such any rational investigation by others to investigate, truth about their beliefs and faiths, in these unknown forces, is encountered by a strong opposition.

The book provides an insight to our religious beliefs, without disturbing the foundation of our faiths, and thus answers many questions, which crop up in modern young analytical minds, wanting to measure, truth in each issue.

~ Author

Chapter1

Prologue

Humans started living in communities more than 10,000 years ago and it was primarily started as an insurance against vagaries of weather, unpredictable disasters and regular natural calamities. Safety of human lives, further depended on animals and creatures, stronger than them, leading them to conclude that these more powerful animals like snakes, lions, elephants and even big sea life, probably control natural forces too. Therefore to safeguard their lives and assets, they started inventing methods, to please these stronger forces and this led to worshipping of some particular animals, or mix of them as super forces or Gods.

These methods or procedures called rites and rituals were mastered by certain individuals in each tribe, clan or community .These specialists called priests, or by any other name were feared people, as they were thought to be intermediaries between super forces and humans and any story or event narrated by them, was considered to be authoritative and was not normally questioned. This situation led to creation of myths from small real initial stories, and their vastly exaggerated versions, being handed down as actual happenings.

At times surfacing of prehistoric mammoth skeletons, due to odd excavation or natural calamities like earthquake, flooding or erosion, have further added support to these myths, conveyed as absolute truths, by these religious teachers, preachers or storytellers and they took full poetic liberties while narrating these or putting them down in lyrical form and acceptance of these myths by a community, eventually took shape of a faith or a religion, stated to be ordained from the skies. Such is the power of myths, that they have affected human behavior throughout their existence, created political divisions resulting into fights ,battles and wars.

However, due to development of science and dawn of age of reasoning, these myths have now become responsible for jeopardizing the faith of new generations in every supernatural phenomenon, including existence of God, even though there are arguments in favour as well as against it. Scientific evidence as on date, does exclude existence of an almighty judge who keeps inequality among human beings, but loves all. Even this conviction though supported by many, does not seem true, as it is unable to answer, existence of a mighty creation of cosmos with billions of galaxies, stars with planet, and the whole universe, does seem to follow some laws and as such some intelligent force has to be there, to start this creation and create those laws.

Existence of God further gets fortified by the fact, that the whole creation is multi- dimensional. Human brains are able to perceive physical reality in three dimensions only. In early twentieth century Einstein did establish that cosmos, consisting of many universes is four dimensional. Now it is mathematically established, that this cosmos, that is our existence, is not only four, but has many more dimensions. The capacity of human mind is limited and it is not capable of creating or even imagining any reality, having more than three dimensions, therefore it cannot perceive certain aspects of existence, of which we are a part, leaving enough possibility of existence of a higher intelligent power, but existence of myths in almost all faiths have been a big hurdle in looking at these issues rationally, in spite of developments, in science and technology during past many millenniums.

Placing of a certain story in a particular period, as mentioned in this book, may look improbable to some western minds, because western world, due to technical lead from 1500 AD onwards, has successfully reared a conviction that they were always ahead of other races in innovation and techniques whether it was prehistoric period or historic period. So any revelation to the contrary, in old non-western cultures, is looked with disbelief and evidence is built or found to prove that none other than western worlds were ahead, in all areas of knowledge, so postdating of events in non-western cultures is done by them, many times to prove this conviction.

In the Mahabharata epic, accepted by many to have been first written around 500 BC, starry combinations of many major events have been mentioned and astronomical calculations for occurrence of these combinations confirm occurring of the Mahabharata episode in start of third millennium. Keeping above in view, the author concluded that why should our thinking be clouded by western opinions, regarding occurrence of these events on later dates, especially when their projected reality about Aryan aggression into Indian soil is now proving to be false. Western nations especially Germans have created this myth, that they were a superior and most advanced race in the whole world and as original Aryans, they were responsible for teaching barbarians, spread all over the globe, and the ways of leading a civilized life. Further due to the fact that Rama`s story occurred earlier than Krishna`s and discovery of archaeological finds near Narmada river dating back to sixth millennium BC indicating habitat of Rishis and sages, has prompted placing of Rama`s story in fourth millennium period, the date of its probable happening.

Chapter2

The Mortal Gods-5000 BC

Mesopotamia a land located between two famous rivers Tigris and Euphrates situated in present Iraq had become a land of organized agriculture in fifth millennium BC, matching with same type of development in Indus valley area in those days. The name Mesopotamia originated from Greek word, meaning land lying between two waters. The southern lower reaches where these two rivers were converging, had a delta called Sumer. This delta was plain and devoid of any stones or metal minerals, but it constituted a very fertile soil, easy to cultivate and comfortable for settling down because of abundance of water and fish. The agriculture potential was further enhanced, due to fertile alluvial soil, brought by rivers and existence of many small river channels.

Due to this favorable environment, the settlements in this area went on growing and by fourth millennium BC, large urban centers including huge agriculture systems with extensive farming had got established. This process further led to domestication of animals like ox and cows. Clay being available in abundance, it became major material for use in making bricks and vessels, leading to development of Potter’s wheel, probably the first mechanical device created by humans. The wheel concept gave rise to creation of chariots for carrying material and use of clay, led to easy method of making tablets for keeping some type of writing and record of agriculture produce and other wealth.

However due to lack of forests and minerals these settlers had no choice but to bring timber and metallic minerals from far off areas like Lebanon, Syria and Egypt. The existence of rivers, opening up to sea proved to be a further blessing and Sumerians started developing boats for traveling in these rivers and started traveling along the sea coast, right up to Indus Valley area and other parts of Asia Minor and Indian subcontinent. This led to interaction of skills and as a result, these people were able to master process of making agricultural tools of bronze and to some extent iron. In fact original home of these Sumerian settlers is considered to be east, but whether they came by sea route or land route is not known. The discovery in Indus valley of coin like seals, similar in shape to those, used in Sumer testifies to close contacts between Indus valley settlers and Sumer delta settlers as early as 4000 years before birth of Christ.

Sumerians had a conviction that world was controlled by Gods and Goddesses and these entities were responsible for controlling all natural phenomenon like storm, floods, rains, crops, including birth and death. They created seats of these Gods by making abodes or temples and people visited these abodes, and made offerings. They further considered that antigods or demons were creatures with human bodies and animal heads. Sumerian Gods were supposed to have physical bodies like humans and did have emotions and whims as well as aggressiveness and remorse and Sumerians thought that it was possible to talk to them and get favors as these Gods were considered, patriarchs of people residing in a particular city or settlement.

Priests called Ens were considered intermediary between Gods and Humans and these priests used to control abodes and possessions of these Gods, created by collection from people as offerings or tax. Priests on behalf of these Gods were responsible for administration of city state, dedicated to a particular deity, as it was supposed to be owned by that God and its very existence was attributed to protection of that deity, he being owner of that city state. The above thinking or culture had developed due to frequent floods, rise and fall in water levels of different rivers in delta, resulting into frequent highs and lows in agricultural wealth and river produce, consisting of fish, there being no other source of generating wealth. The priests lived in temple complexes, these being administrative headquarters and they managed all matters including judiciary of the small city states, as well as distribution of land for cultivation and distribution of water, through man-made channels as representatives of owner deity of a particular city.

It was also accepted, that Gods created humans as servants to serve them, but due to big increase in number of humans, they became unmanageable, so they had to be separated to another land, that is earth. The Sumerians had a dozen major Gods, but total, including minor Gods was 3600, that is sixty into sixty, a figure used in their arithmetic and time computation. But out of all Gods, Enlil the God of Air, Enki God of Water and Fertility, Nanna the Moon God, were considered most important.

Sumerians believed that cosmos consists of a closed half sphere with a far-away astral dome, a flat earth and a world under the earth called Netherworld or Pataal. All these three components of cosmos had Gods and demons residing in them and this total creation was surrounded by primordial sea. The God of primordial sea was named Nammu. The God of heavens or astral dome was named as God An and Goddess of Earth was called Ki . It was further stated that Nammu, God of the primordial sea was having salty water spread everywhere and he created An and Ki. Enlil the Air God was born out of union of An, God of Heavens, and Ki. Goddess of Earth and to create more space and powers for himself, he requested his father to carry heaven far-away and he himself carried his mother Ki the Earth, away from heaven.

While in other civilizations, scriptures have been created based on imaginary or small real stories and they were vastly modified and exaggerated, till these were penned down centuries later, Sumerians started putting down their stories as mini epics on clay tablets in third millennium BC. These clay tablets detailed stories and episodes and these could be classified as Sumerian scriptures, no different than scriptures of other religions, where these type of stories are considered as sacred words of God and Prophets and accepted as absolute truths by followers. Some of these poetic narrations written on clay tablets describe in detail many episodes major and minor, about their Gods.

In one of the episodes about Enlil, the God of Air and a major God, it is mentioned that Enlil has a junior female counterpart, the Goddess of Wind called Ninlil. The mother of Goddess Ninlil warns her daughter not to take bath in the canal, because Enlil the God of Air will see her and will like to make love to her. In spite of this warning Ninlil goes down the canal next day, to take a dip. Enlil sees her and asks her for a kiss. Ninlil refuses, stating that she is not mature enough to make love. Seeing this Enlil takes a boat, reaches her and rapes her and impregnates her, being fully aware that Moon God named Nanna or Sin will be born out of this forced union. Other Gods on hearing about this outrageous act get angry with Enlil and as a punishment, he is asked to leave the city.

Enlil leaves his kingdom and rushes towards Netherworld but Ninlil considering him to be her lover and having become his queen due to impregnation, follows him. Enlil does not want his son to be born in Netherworld and to stop her from entering Netherworld, impersonates as a gateman, and on her asking him about whereabouts of her lover, the impersonated lover dodges her. She then asks river in charge about her lover and this being second impersonation of Enlil, no assistance is offered to her, finally she requests a ferryman, this being third impersonation of Enlil, she is once again spurned away. However due to her adamant requests, all three impersonations agree to help her, if she agrees to have sex with each one of them. The purpose of Enlil being that he will be able to produce three deities, those who will reside in this Netherworld as substitutes for his first son and Nanna the Moon will be free to rise to heavens where he belongs. Ninlil agrees to copulate with three lowly workers of Netherworld immediately and eventually locates her lover hiding in Netherworld. The God Enlil is elated at the end of this episode, because he succeeds in his mission to ensure escape of his son Moon from Netherworld to heavens above. Parents of this Moon God named Nanna assign him duty to travel in a cave called Gufa