Date: January 13th 2007

From: kalyan97 <kalyan97@gmail.com>; Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2007

26 April, 1998 First published in WEO in 1993. This version is a drastically revised one.

The story of the Jews: Insights from Hindu mythology.

S. K Balasubramanian.

This year the Jewish State of Israel celebrates the 50th year of its formation. This is the second time that a Jewish state had been established in Palestine. The Jews are credited by the western historians to have been the first people to have had a written history. They are also said to be keenly aware of their history since the history of the people is identified and closely interwoven with their religion. The Hindus on the other hand had been dismissed as a people without any sense of history and their mythology had been treated as fiction. It is therefore of interest to be able to trace Jewish history from Hindu mythology, as this article hopes to do.

The Background
The Hindus divided humanity into three 'races': the "Aditya"s or the Hindu Gods , the "Daitya"s and the "Danava"s. The last two were held to be inimical to the Hindu Gods. All three were step-brothers derived from the same father Kashyapa. The mother of the Gods was Aditi, meaning the unlimited one, while the other two were derived from Diti, the limited one and Danu.

The Westerners (and Egyptians) were called Danavas in Sanskrit. The Greeks were known in Latin as Danao. 'O' is normally pronounced as 'v'. (Deo and Dev; Deodhar for Devadharu etc.) There is a Latin proverb "Timeo Danao et donos ferrentes; which means Beware of the gift bearing Greek. I relate the meaning as follows

(Timeo-be afraid. English derivative is timid. Donos is donation or gift. Ferrentes is the root of English word ferry or to bring)

A reference to a Latin dictionary could confirm the interpretation of Danao.

The Alexandrian Greeks were called Yavana in Sanskrit. This is derived from Ionia (o = v), the regions near the Ionian sea, south west of Turkey or the Macedonian (part of Yugoslavia) coast. The Russian name Ivan has a similar derivation as Yavana.

The term Yavana refers to the peoples in regions north of Greece, Macedonia for example and in general to the Slavs of today.( Serb, Czech, Slovaks, Rumanian, Bulgarian and Russian etc.)

The southern people {The Greeks of Greece and Anatolia (Turkey) and the people of Egypt} were known as Danava. (The present day Turkey has more monuments of ancient Greece than Greece itself. The famous towns like Troy, Lydia, Delphia are all in Turkey.) In Sanskrit mythology the Danava were known as great architects and builders. The Pandava Palace at Indraprastha was designed by a Danava architect, Maya. It contained materials not known in ancient India, like glass and other Egyptian artifacts.

The Danava were the descendants of Daksha's daughter Danu. The European names such as Danube, Denmark and the river Don in Russia are in some manner related to Danu.

The Egyptians were regularly trading with India. Indian sandalwood had been found in Egyptian tombs. India was referred to in Egyptian annals as Punt (pronounced Punti = puneet or Holy Land). The names of Pharaoh such as Rameses (Rameswar, a southern town in India), Ptah (the progenitor, Sanskrit equivalent Pita) Re (Sun God = Ravi), Menes (an early Pharaoh = Manu) show the links clearly. In Abu Simbel the four huge statues of Rameses {Four sons of Dasharata, (known to north Syrian Mittani kings as Dushratta)} have images of baboons in the cornices. (The Monkey associates of Rama in Ramayana.). Nile, pronounced NEEL, is a Sanskrit word for blue.

The Mesopotamians were known as Daityas (descendants of Diti) or Asuras or the Assyrians. (The Bible refers to an Ashurbanipal = the pala or protector of Asura vani or asura edict) The Hebrew King Sargon's grandson was Naram Sinh, the Hindu Nara Simha or the man-lion which appears as Sphinx in Egyptian lore.

There are references to the Hindu Gods Indra, Varuna and Mitra in the treaties of Mittani Kings (of North Syria) The Mittani dynasty had marital relationships with the Egyptian monarchy.

The Zorastrian names are even closer. Thus the Supreme Ahura Mazda is Asura Mahat. Even today the Parsees pronounce Surat as Hudat, Sindhu as Hindu. Jamshed is the Dharma raja or Yama. (Y=J).

The Parsee religion was long recognized to be an offshoot of Hinduism. I had related Zoraster's father, Pourushaspa, to the Hindu Pururuva who was married to the Gandharva (Kandahar in Afghanistan) woman Urvasi (the Vasi or resident of Ur, the capital of Sumer, the land of the Hindu Soma or the Moon God).

The Mahabharata speaks of Antioch (Antaki), Rome (Roma) and "Greek cities". Sahadeva is said to have collected tributes from these cities through ambassadors before the Rajasuya yagna of Yudishtira.

Eastern regions in Hindu Mythology.

The following is a description of the Eastern regions known to the ancient Hindus.

In Ramayana Sugriva gave directions to the Vanara chiefs going to different regions to search for Sita. He mentions fires underwater or submarine volcanoes below the seas in the east. That was the limit of monkey knowledge. The reference is to the Pacific islands (Hawaii and other south pacific islands) formed from undersea volcanic eruptions. Significantly monkeys were not known in the Americas.

There is also reference to a freshwater lake perhaps to the lake at Angkor Vat where a huge Vishnu temple existed. Cambodian king Norodom Sihanouk in French is Sanskrit Narottama Simhan. His son is Ranariddh meaning skilled in warfare.

The old capital of Siam (Thailand) was Ayuthaya (Ayodhya). The King was a Rama. The present King is Bhumibal Adulyatej or Bhumipala Atulyatej meaning in Sanskrit ruler of the earth of incomparable brilliance.

Indonesia was also a Hindu country. Bali island is still Hindu. These societies adopted Buddhism after Ashoka. They were also weakened by Buddhist ideology which did not recognize external evil and the challenge it posed to the society.

To sum up: all the Western Europeans and the earlier Egyptians were known to the Hindus by the name Danava. Several geographical names such as Danube, Don and Denmark were derivatives of Danao or its root. The Hindu scriptures held the Danavas to be friendly to the Hindu Gods.
The Daityas lived in the regions known by the Sanskrit appellation Hiranya (for Gold ) referring to the golden land of Mesopotamia. The name Iran is derived from the Sanskrit word. The Name Daitya is derived from Diti another daughter of Daksha.

The Jewish story:

Yayati ruled over all the three regions. He had married the daughter of the Guru of the Danava clan (Shukra acharya =Socrates in Greek or Danava language. Both died of poison mixed with wine). He was seduced by the daughter of the Danava king who was serving his wife as a maid. The moonlighting king was cursed to premature old age by his irate father-in-law. He was however shown the concession that he could exchange his old age with the youth of any of his willing sons. The children of his first wife did not agree to the exchange. Though they were the elder ones, they were deprived of their right of succession by their angry father. The eldest son Yadu was the main sufferer. The youngest son of the maid, Puru, agreed to the exchange and was blessed with the right of succession. Yayati enjoyed the pleasures of youth for some more years and took back his old Yayati was highly respected by the Hindu Gods and was taken into heaven by them. His discourses on spirituality occupy several chapters in Mahabharata. He was the first one to postulate a singular causative agent for the Universe. One day he compared himself to the head of the heaven, Indra and as a punishment for his impudence, was thrown out of the heaven. His son Yadu received him with respect and vowed to keep alive the memory of the King and to avenge the injustice to him. The expulsion of Yayati and his fall from the heaven are described in vivid detail in the Mahabharata..

Yadu's descendants were the Yahudis or the Jews. They constructed a theology of antithesis and an antipodal pantheon was to be the foundation of the new religion. The plurality of the Hindu pantheon was replaced by a single God who was the deified version of Yayati and was named Yahweh, as a memorial for Yayati. The Hindu Supremo or the Progenitor, Brahma, was demoted, as an underling of the God, to a patriarch, Abram which meant anti-Brahm. Brahma's other name, Chaturanan, meaning four headed, was profaned as the devil, Satan. Another Hindu God with royal attributes, Vishnu, became Beelzebub or the prince of the devils.

The mutual expulsions crystallized the animosities. Judaism took on the intolerant route trying to destroy every bit of ancient memory in the name of its God and instituted a religion of a chosen people always at war with their immediate environment under the dictates of a jealous taskmaster, their God. The demand for implicit obedience made mindless martyrdom the mania of the Jew.

But Yayati did not withdraw his anointing of Puru as the head of the clan. The descendants of Puru would be known in Sanskrit as "Paurava". They were the Pharaohs of Egypt (perhaps pronounced Paravah; o = v; The terminal ending in 'h' is typical of Sanskrit nouns). The Jews found themselves under the suzerainty of the successive Pharaohs till Moshe, the Sanskrit equivalent being Moksha or liberation, took them out of Egypt.

Yayati's wives were transferred to Abram in the Jewish version. The first wife, Sarai or Sarah, carried the name of Brahma's consort Saraswati. The second wife in the Jewish story was also a slave. The story of Isaac is drawn from two Hindu sources. The first is the story of Daksha the son of Brahma who lost his head to the God Shiva and was revivified with a goat's head. Isaac, in Abraham's story was replaced by a ram for sacrifice at the bidding of God. The name Isaac is related to Eesha the Sanskrit word for the divine. The second story related to Isaac is the one of Ikshvaku who wanted to eat fresh meat on his death-bed and ordered his son to go on a hunt. The young man committed a minor infraction in rituals and was deprived of his right of succession. Isaac under similar conditions was persuaded by deception to pass on the mantle to Jacob who was later anointed Israel.

Noah was the Hindu Manu . The story of the Ark was a reproduction of the Hindu story of Matsyavatara or the fish incarnation, during the period of the Satyavrata Manu. The Jews called themselves Semites as descendants of Shem the son of Noah. Shem is perhaps derived from the Sanskrit term Shivam for pure. It is also the quality of another God, Shiva.

Skb

PS: The derivation given above depends on etymology, or the comparison of words in different languages. A wholesale compatibility as shown above could not be the result of either an accident or coincidence. It must have deeper meaning. I believe the stories have implications in prehistory. An abstract of comparisons is given below:


Urvasi Resident of UR

TheHinduname Jewish or other deriva Yavana Ivanian
-tion


Yayati YHWH (Yahweh)


Brahma Abram (anti-Brahma)

Sarasawati Sarai

Ikshvaku Ishaq or Isaac

Moksha Moshe

Hiranya (Golden) Iran (Euphrates basin)


Sapta (Seven) Sabbath

(Hebrew Sabt)

Rameshwar Rameses(Egyptian)


Pita Ptah (Egypt)

Manu Menes (Egypt)

Noah or Nhu(Koran)

Danava Danao (Latin)

Eesha (God) Zeus (Jesus)

Pitr Jupiter (Latin) Peter

Pala (Ruler) Paul

Ravi Re (Egypt)

Shukracharya Socrates(Greek)

Pururavas Paurushaspa (Parsi)

Added 26 August 02:

Further shlokas from Mahabharata Adiparva.

On the descendants of Yayati's sons:

Yadosthu Yadava jatah, Turvaso Yavanah sutah

Dhruhyosthu sutha Bhojah anosthu Mlecchjathayah

Poorosthu Pauravavamsho yatra jathosi Parthiva.

From Yadu were born Yadhavas; Of Tuvasu Yavana were the sons

Bhjas were the sons of Druhyu and the Mleccha jatis were born of Anu.

Pauravas were born in the dynasty of Pooru where to do you belong O King!


Mleccha is a Sanskrit word of contempt for a foreigner. Its root is the Jewish Melech that means Messiah. The Bible speaks of Abhimelech. The prefix Abhi in Sanskrit is used to denote exaggeration. Abhiram, is an example.

This is addressed to Janamejaya

The dynasty is as follows :Ila+Budha > Pururava + Urvashi > Aayu, et al.

Aayu> Nahusha>Yayati>Puru>Pravira+Syeni > Manasyu

The Mahabharata says about Mansyu:

Manasyurabhavattasmacchurah syenih sutah prabhuh ( Adiparva 89, sl-6.)

The lord Mansyu, the hero, was born to him (Pravira) of Syeni

Mansyu was an early Pharaoh known in Egyptian annals as Menes.

Skb. "DR SK BALASUBRAMANIAN" <smanian@sancharnet.in>;,