December 06, 2005
Why Dan Brown should pursue the "Jesus Lived In India" Theory
I read the DaVinci code last year. I was at New Delhi's airport facing a long flight to Frankfurt without anything to read. I rushed to an airport bookshop and bought it. I tend to avoid popular books - it's my intellectual pretentiousness, you see :-) - but it seemed an easy read for a flight and I wanted to see what everyone was talking about.
I enjoyed it immensely. Like I enjoy popcorn-eating-hollywood movies when I'm in the mood for it.
When some friends and colleagues started talking to me about it I was amazed to discover how everyone took it rather seriously ("Dan Brown did a lot of research for it", "There are several historians who say it's a very well written book with solid proof", "maybe it's all true", etc.,etc.)
I had fun reading it. The scholarly, conspiratory tone only made it more fun. Accurate or not, it doesn't matter. Like reading a magazine horoscope. Or it's like reading a much poorer version of some of Arturo Pérez-Reverte entertaining adventure novels.
And I'm not even a religious person, I'm not offended by some of the assumptions the book makes, I was quite amused by them.
So, I was relieved to read this article by Umberto Eco:
"G K Chesterton is often credited with observing: "When a man ceases to believe in God, he doesn't believe in nothing. He believes in anything." Whoever said it - he was right. We are supposed to live in a sceptical age. In fact, we live in an age of outrageous credulity.
The "death of God", or at least the dying of the Christian God, has been accompanied by the birth of a plethora of new idols. They have multiplied like bacteria on the corpse of the Christian Church -- from strange pagan cults and sects to the silly, sub-Christian superstitions of The Da Vinci Code.
It is amazing how many people take that book literally, and think it is true. Admittedly, Dan Brown, its author, has created a legion of zealous followers who believe that Jesus wasn't crucified: he married Mary Magdalene, became the King of France, and started his own version of the order of Freemasons. Many of the people who now go to the Louvre are there only to look at the Mona Lisa, solely and simply because it is at the centre of Dan Brown's book.
The pianist Arthur Rubinstein was once asked if he believed in God. He said: "No. I don't believe in God. I believe in something greater." Our culture suffers from the same inflationary tendency. The existing religions just aren't big enough: we demand something more from God than the existing depictions in the Christian faith can provide. So we revert to the occult. The so-called occult sciences do not ever reveal any genuine secret: they only promise that there is something secret that explains and justifies everything. The great advantage of this is that it allows each person to fill up the empty secret "container" with his or her own fears and hopes."
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In the same aiport bookshop I bought another popular book in India: "Jesus lived in India" (synopsis here). It's even more outrageous which makes it even more fun than Dan Brown's fantasies. It's so far fetched I swear I wish it was true :-)
I had read Catherine Clément's "Jesus at the stake" in which she writes about these jesus-lived-in-India theories in fictional terms. I found it very interesting and amusing that Jesus had had tibetan buddhist teachings, survived the crucifixion by practising yoga and fled to Kashmir, dying there of old age. As a secular humanist, it seemed as good explanation as the Vatican's :-). When I went to India I had the chance to ask some Indians about this theory. All of them said: "Of course he lived and died here! Everyone knows that! His tomb is up there in Srinagar...go see it for yourself!" - rather mockingly. Too bad that Srinagar is in Kashmir and that I'm rather cowardly or else I would have gone there.
"Ahmadi Muslims believe that the physical ascension of Jesus to Heaven is a later interpolation. The term "heaven" is used for spiritual bliss which the righteous enjoy after a mortal life.
Jesus was sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel (Matt. 15:24). Out of twelve tribes of Israel, only two were in the region where Jesus preached. The other ten tribes, as a result of exile, were domiciled in the eastern countries, especially in Afghanistan and Kashmir. It was imperative for Jesus to migrate eastwards to complete his mission.
There is overwhelming evidence that the people of Afghanistan, Kashmir and neighbouring regions are of Israelite ancestry. Their physical features, languages, folklore, customs, and festivals attest to their Israelite heritage. Evidence also comes from the names they give to their villages, their monuments, and ancient historical works and inscriptions.
The presence of Jesus in India is recorded in the ancient Indian literature, and records of Kashmir. Jesus came to Kashmir from the Holy Land during the reign of Raja Gopadatta (49-109 AD) to proclaim his prophethood to the Israelites. He was known as Yusu (Jesus) of the children of Israel. It is recorded that great number of people recognized his holiness and piety and became his disciples. " - more here.
They're making a documentary on it in India.
"According to legend Jesus Christ's tomb lies at Rozabal in Srinagar's old town . "Rozabal" is an abbreviation of Rauza Bal, meaning "tomb of a prophet". Isa (the Islamic name for Christ) was in fact also known as Yuz Asaf (Leader of the Healed). At the entrance there is an inscription explaining that Yuz Asaf is buried along with another Moslem saint. Both have gravestones which are oriented in North-South direction, according to Moslem tradition. However, through a small opening the true burial chamber can be seen, in which there is the Sarcophagus of Yuz Asaf in East-West (Jewish) orientation.
According to advocates of this theory there are carved footprints on the grave stones and when closely examined, carved images of a crucifix and a rosary. The footprints of Yuz Asaf have what appear to be scars represented on both feet, if one assumes that they are crucifixion scars, then their position is consistent with the scars shown in the Turin Shroud (left foot nailed over right). Crucifixion was not practised in Asia, so it is quite possible that they were inflicted elsewhere, such as the Middle East. The tomb is called by some as "Hazrat Issa Sahib" or "Tomb of the Lord Master Jesus". Ancient records acknowledge the existence of the tomb as long ago as 112AD.
Thus the legend that Jesus Christ Himself is buried in Kashmir!"
More books about it here.
Posted by claudia Permalink
November 03, 2005
The Center
"This illustration from William Cuningham's The Cosmographical Glasse (1559) represents Ptolemy's conception of the universe. Atlas, dressed like an ancient king, bears on his shoulders an armillary sphere representing the universe. In the center of the sphere is earth, made up of the elements of earth and water. Surrounding the earth are two more elemental spheres, for air and for fire. Other bands represent the spheres of the planets, the firmament of fixed stars, the crystalline sphere, the primum mobile, and the signs of the zodiac. Below Atlas are lines on cosmological themes from Virgil's Aeneid." ----taken from world treasures of the Library of Congress
I've always been so much fond of the Ptolemaic conception of the Universe. And it is accurate in conceptual terms if not scientific: the Earth is currently the center of my Universe! :-)
Posted by claudia Permalink
October 31, 2005
Memoraphilia
"Simonides was engaged to recite a poem at a banquet, given by one of his patrons, and after doing so the room fell in, burying all in its debris, and disfiguring the bodies so as to render identification impossible. Simonides, however, had noted the position each guest had occupied, and was thus able to point out the remains of each. Cicero and Quintilian both refer to his system and advocate its use; and we may add that it is the basis of most modern methods. Simonides found that to fix a number of places in the mind in a certain order was a great help to the natural faculty. His plan was to form in the mind a building which was divided and subdivided into distinct parts arranged in a certain order. The order of these parts were to be thoroughly learnt. As many words as there were parts were then symbolised by the images of living creatures, and when a number of things were to be committed to memory in certain order, mental images representing them were to be placed regularly in the several parts of the building.."
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"The Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci went to China in 1582 and spent the remaining 32 years of his life there.
In 1596, Ricci wrote A Treatise on Mnemonics, in Chinese, for the governor of Jiangxi Province. In it he recreated the medieval European idea of a memory palace - an edifice you build in your mind and furnish with mnemonic devices. Recollection is a process of walking through the rooms and associating information with their contents. Those contents must be distinct and dramatic."
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Johannes Romberch, Congestorium artificiosae memeoriae, 1533
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Robert Fludd, Utriusque Cosmi, 1619
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Giulio Camillo, the Theatre of Memory
"Various accounts describe the structure as a building which would allow one or two individuals at a time within its interior. The insides were inscribed with a variety of images, figures, and ornaments. It was full of little boxes arranged in various orders and grades. Upon entering the Theater, the spectator will be able to discourse on any subject no less fluently than Cicero as he stands on a stage looking out towards the auditorium where the images are placed among seven pillars or grades. Each grade representing the expanding history of divine thought. In the first grade there were the 'seven essential measures' depicted by the 'seven known planets' which were the First Causes of creation and from which all things depended. The highest grade of the Theatre was the seventh level, which was assigned to all the arts, 'both noble and vile,' and is represented by Prometheus who stole the technology of fire from the gods."
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"Ireneo began by enumerating, in Latin and Spanish, the cases of prodigious memory cited in the Historia Naturalis: Cyrus, king of the Persians, who could call every soldier in his armies by name; Mithridates Eupator, who administered justice in the twenty-two languages of his empire; Simonides, inventory of mnemotechny; Metrodorus, who practised the art of repeating faithfully what he heard once. With evident good faith Funes marvelled that such things should be considered marvellous. He told me that previous to the rainy afternoon when the blue-tinted horse threw him, he had been - like any Christian - blind, deaf-mute, somnambulistic, memoryless. (I tried to remind him of his precise perception of time, his memory for proper names; he paid no attention to me.) For nineteen years, he said, he had lived like a person in a dream: he looked without seeing, heard without hearing, forgot everything - almost everything. On falling from the horse, he lost consciousness; when he recovered it, the present was almost intolerable it was so rich and bright; the same was true of the most ancient and most trivial memories. A little later he realized that he was crippled. This fact scarcely interested him. He reasoned (or felt) that immobility was a minimum price to pay. And now, his perception and his memory were infallible."
-- Jorge Luis Borges, Funes the Memorious
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"Memory is, therefore, neither Perception nor Conception, but a state or affection of one of these, conditioned by lapse of time. As already observed, there is no such thing as memory of the present while present, for the present is object only of perception, and the future, of expectation, but the object of memory is the past. All memory, therefore, implies a time elapsed; consequently only those animals which perceive time remember, and the organ whereby they perceive time is also that whereby they remember."
-- Aristotle, On Memory and Reminiscence
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"One of the things for which I am still grateful is the way in which we were taught to memorize. Most Tibetans have good memories, but we who were training to be medical monks had to know the names and exact descriptions of a very large number of herbs, as well as knowing how they could be combined and used. We had to know much about astrology, and be able to recite the whole of our sacred books. A method of memory training had been evolved throughout the centuries. We imagined that we were in a room lined with thousands and thousands of drawers. Each drawer was clearly labelled, and the writing on all the labels could be read with ease from where we stood. Every fact we were told had to be classified, and we were instructed to imagine that we opened the appropriate drawer and put the fact inside. We had to visualize it very clearly as we did it, visualize the "fact" and the exact location of the "drawer". With little practice it was amazingly easy to - in imagination - enter the room, open the correct drawer, and extract the fact required as well as all related facts."
-- Lobsang Rampa, The third eye
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"But when from a long-distant past nothing subsists, after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered, taste and smell alone, more fragile but more enduring, more unsubstantial, more persistent, more faithful, remain poised a long time, like souls, remembering, waiting, hoping, amid the ruins of all the rest; and bear unflinchingly, in the tiny and almost impalpable drop of their essence, the vast structure of recollection."
-- Marcel Proust, À la recherche du temps perdu
"Nothing is more memorable than a smell. One scent can be unexpected, momentary and fleeting, yet conjure up a childhood summer beside a lake in the mountains; another, a moonlit beach; a third, a family dinner of pot roast and sweet potatoes during a myrtle-mad August in a Midwestern town. Smells detonate softly in our memory like poignant land mines hidden under the weedy mass of years. Hit a tripwire of smell and memories explode all at once. A complex vision leaps out of the undergrowth."
-- Diane Ackerman, A Natural History of the Senses
Posted by claudia Permalink
July 26, 2005
The Vimanika Shastra
In the Vedic literature of India, there are many descriptions of flying machines that are generally called Vimanas. The word Vimana originates from the Sanskrit words Vi-Mana, Vi meaning Bird and Mana meaning like.
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from the Third Chapter - Mirrors
"We now consider the Kuntinee mirror. The wise say that the mirror by the glare of whose rays people's minds get deranged is Kuntinee mirror. Paraankusha says that in the region of the solar electric heat waves of the sky, seven streams of poisonous whirl-winds derange the mind. Scientists have discovered the Kuntinee mirror as a protection against that evil effect.
Fat, blood, flesh, marrow, bone, skin, intelligence are adversely affected by the evil wind currents known as gaalinee, kuntinee, kaalee, pinjulaa, ulbanaa, maraa, in the electric heat wave regions of the upper sky.
The manufacture of this mirror is thus explained in "Darpana-prakarana":
5 parts of sowraashtra earth, 7 parts of snake's slough, 3 of sea-foam, 5 of shanmukha seeds, 8 of zinc, 3 parts of rhinoceros' nails, 8 of salts, 7 of sand, 8 of mercury, 4 of conch, 6 parts of matrunna, 3 parts of yellow orpiment, 4 of elephant and camel salts, 7 parts of suranghrikaa, 5 of gingelly oil, 8 of pearl-shells, 3 of sea-shells, 4 parts of camphor, purified and filled in shinjikaa crucible, and placed in shinjeera furnace and boiled to 700 degrees, the fluid poured into the Darpanaasya yantra, will form into a morning sun-like kuntinee mirror."
The text of the Vimanika Shastra is available at Sacred Texts Archive. More on vimanas at A tribute to hinduism.
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"Thereupon arrived the car, adorned all over with gold, having fine upper rooms, banners, and jewelled windows, and giving forth a melodious sound, having huge apartments and excellent seats.
Beholding the car coming by force of will Rama attained to an excess of astonishment. And the king got in, and the excellent car, at the command of Raghira, rose up into the higher atmosphere. And in that car, coursing at will, Rama greatly delighted." - from the Ramayana.
Posted by claudia Permalink
November 03, 2003
Symbols of Freemasonry
In the Cemetery of Pleasures there are several mausoleums where freemasonry symbols can be found.
One of their principal symbols is the square and compasses, tools of the trade, so arranged as to form a quadrilateral. The square is sometimes said to represent matter, and the compasses spirit or mind. The compass is an ancient symbol of spirituality and spiritual creativity. Some medieval paintings show God creating the Universe with compasses.
Another common freemasonry symbol is the Eye of God. It's an emblem reminding us that we are constantly in God's presence.
This is harder to find: a double headed eagle with the number 33 on its chest. The 33rd degree is the highest rank a freemason can reach which entitles him to have on his aperon an embroidering of a double headed eagle of Lagash (a sumerian city). These are symbols of the Scottish Rite.
Another not so common one is the beehive, symbolic of systematized industry and meaning that what one may not be able to accomplish alone may be easily performed when all work together at one task.
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