IN SEARCH OF THE CRADLE OF CIVILIZATION Georg Feuerstein, »ubhash Kak & David Frawle IN SEARCH OF THE CRADLE OF CIVILIZATION IN SEARCH OF THE CRADLE OF CIVILIZATION NEW LIGHT . ON ANCIENT INDIA GEORG FEUERSTEIN, SUBHASH AND DAVID FHA^UEY Quest Books Theosophical Publishing House Ihm ton, lllnu'i? ♦ ^ liennai (Macira~), India Copyright © 1995, 200 1 by Georg Feuerstein, Subhash Kak. and David Frawley Second Edition, 200 I Second Printing, 2011 All rights reserved. No part o f this book may be reproduced in any manner without written pennission except for quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For additional infonnation write to Quest Books Theosophical Publishing House P. 0 . B o x 2 7 0 Wheaton, Illinois 60187-0270 www.questbooks.net Copyright acknowledgment for illustrations: S. P. Gupta: Figs. 7 -1 1 , 1 4 -1 6 ,1 8 -2 0 , 23 -2 4 , 29; Hinduism Today: Figs. 3, 5, 32, 48; Foundation for Cultural Preservation: Fig. 17; Jan Fairservis: all illustrations used for chapter openings; Matthew Greenblatt: Figs. 36, 47; Jean-Fran^is Jarrige: Fig. 33; Ramakrishna Vivekananda Center: Fig. 35; Rosemary Clark: Fig. I; Georg Feuerstein: all maps and other illustrations. Every effort has been made to secure pennission to reproduce the images in this book. Any additional copyright holders are invited to contact the publisher so that proper credit can be given in future editions. The Library of Congress has catalogued the Quest hardcover edition as follows: Feuerstein, Georg. In search o f the cradle o f civilization: new light on ancient India I Gcorg Feuerstein, Subhash Kak, and David Frawley. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8356-0720-9 1. India— Antiquities. 2. India— Civilization. I. Kak, Subhash. II. Frawley, David. Ill. Title. DS418.F35 1995 934— dc20 95-6906 CIP First Quest Hardcover Edition 1995 First Quest Paperback Edition 2001 Quest Paperback ISBN 978-0-8356-0741-4 Book and cover design by Beth Hansen-Winter Printed in the United States o f America jW w CONTENT; List of Illustrations ix Introduction to the Second Edition x iii Preface xiX Acknowledgments xxv Part One Journeying Back in Time: An Eight-Thousand-Year Adventure C hapter 1: Revisioning the Past, Envisioning the Future 3 C hapter 2: The Vedas: Pyramids qfthe Spirit 13 C hapter 3: The Aryans: Exploding a Scientj/ic Myth 45 C hap ter 4: An Archaeological Surprise: The Cities qfthe Indus Valley 61 C hapter 5 : The Great Catastrophe and the Reconstruction qfthe Early Indic Civilization 77 C hapter 6: The Vedic Peoples in the Land qfthe Seven Rivers: The Literary Perspective 101 C hap ter 7: Deciphering the Indus-Sarasvati Script 127 C h ap ter 8: The Dawn qfthe Indic Civilization: The Neolithic Town qfM ehrgarh 143 C h ap ter 9 : Why the Aryan Invasion Never Happened: Seventeen Arguments 153 Part Two The Splendor efA ncient India: Its Cultural and Spiritual Legacy Chapter 10: The Spiritual Heritage qfAncient India 165 Chapter 11: The Birth q fScience in Ritual 195 Chapter 12: Vedic Myths and Their Astronomical Basis 229 Chapter 13: India and the West 249 Chapter 14: T h e Vedas and Perennial Wisdom 269 N otes 2 8 7 Select Bibliography 305 In d ex 3 1 3 ftffww ILLUSTRAT! 0 N, Maps India iv -v Map 1: Early civilizations clustering around the Tropic of cancer xix Map2: Eurasia with recently proposed homelands for the original Indo-Europeans 52 Map 3: Select settlements of the Indus and Sarasvati Rivers 88 Map 4: Location of the early Indic civilization after the great catas­ trophe of circa 1900 B.C. 97 Map 5: Known and probable sea routes of the Indus-Sarasvati merchants 109 Tables Table 1 : The first ten numbers in various languages of the Indo- European family 47 Table 2: Grammatical phrases showing the close relationship be­ tween Sanskrit and various European languages 48 Table 3: Hymns and groups in the Rig-Vedic books 204 Table 4: Rig-Vedic altar o f books 204 Illustrations Fig. 1: The Sphinx, oriented toward the rising sun 5 Fig. 2: The Temple of the Magician at Uxmal, Yucatan, the only ovoid Mayan pyramid 9 Fig. 3: South Indian priest performing a fire ceremony (pzga) 16 x IN SEARCH OF THE CRADLE OF CIVILIZATION Fig. 4: The major categories of Vedic and Hindu literature and their interconnection 29 Fig. 5: South Indian Shaiva priests and young acolytes perform­ ing a rain-making ceremony around a fire altar 33 F ig. 6: Max Müller ( 1823-1900), one of the principal architects of the now refuted Aryan invasion theory 43 Fig. 7: A street block in Mohenjo-Daro showing a mazework of houses 60 Fig. 8: Mohenjo-Daro's citadel, with living quarters in the fore­ ground 64 Fig. 9: The Great Bath in Mohenjo-Daro 65 Fig. 10: View of a typical street in Mohenjo-Daro 65 Fig. 11: A close-up view of the brickwork characteristic of many buildings in Mohenjo-Daro and other towns 65 Fig. 12: Ten still undeciphered glyphs found on a wooden sign­ board in the town of Dholavira 67 Fig. 13: Roughly modeled clay figurine from Mohenjo-Daro 68 Fig. 14: Soapstone image of a bearded man found in Mohenjo-Daro 68 Fig. 15: Beautifully sculpted male torso found in Mohenjo-Daro 69 Fig. 16: Mohenjo-Daro figurine dubbed the "Dancing Girl” 70 Fig. 17: The so-called “Vasishtha Head" 71 Fig. 18: Soapstone seal depicting what is very likely an early repre­ sentation of God Shiva as Lord of Beasts ( Pashupati) 72 Fig. 19: Finely tooled scale and a range of weights used by Mohenjo- Daro merchants 73 Fig. 20: Highly stylized male head found i n Kalibangan 7 4 Fig. 21: The Hindu Goddess Sarasvati, the deity of learning and the a rts 90 Fig. 22: Sanskrit text of the opening hymn of the Rig-Veda 104 Fig. 23: Soapstone seal showing the kind of ship used by the mer­ chants of Mohenjo-Daro and other early Indic towns 115 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Fig. 24: Seal combining two favorite motifs—tree and unicorn 122 Fig. 25: Seal depicting the enigmatic bull-unicorn 123 Fig. 26: A sampling of words or phrases found on Harappan seals in the still undeciphered script 128 Fig. 27: Sanskrit text of the famousgayatà-mantra 129 Fig. 28: Seal showing the bull-unicorn 132 Fig. 29: Statue of a bull found in Mohenjo-Daro 133 Fig. 30: Seal depicting a ritualistic or mythological scene 134 Fig. 31: An edict of Emperor Ashoka in the Brahmi script 137 Fig. 32: Tamil manuscripts of the T im kkural, a sacred text 141 Fig. 33: Male and female clay figurines found in Mehrgarh 146, 147 Fig. 34: Traditional Hindu representation of a cow, held sacred since ancient times 149 Fig. 35: Swami Vivekananda ( 1863-1902) 166 Fig. 36: A contemporary sad h u (virtuous one) 168 Fig. 37: Sculpture of God Krishna and Goddess Radha, the divine couple 185 Fig. 38: The sacred syllable om 187 Fig. 39: A contemporary representation of God Shiva 193 Fig. 40: Basic form of the Vedic fire altar 202 Fig. 41: Round variant of the Vedic fire altar 202 Fig. 42: Bird variant of the Vedic fire altar 203 Fig. 43: The subtle channels (n ad i) of the human body 215 Fig. 44: Contemporary drawing of Krishna and Arjuna's chariot, having a deep symbolic meaning 222 Fig. 45: Drawing explaining the astronomical phenomenon of the precession 238 Fig. 46: South Indian temple 244 Fig. 47: The finely crafted Gundestrup cauldron 266 ®ITOD I ntroduction t o t h e Seco n d E d it io n IN THE IMAGINATION OF THE WEST, INDIA IS THE LAND of magic and mystery, wisdom and religiosity, tra­ dition and ritual. India has long held exotic appeal; its arts, literature, music are distinct. But, at the same time, there are aspects of Indic culture that speak straight to the heart of the West, which should not surprise us because India and the West have had a shared histoty going back many thousands of years. Sanskrit is the oldest of any of the Indo-European languages. The ancient Vedic culture of India resembles the ancient European, par­ ticularly the Celtic, which had similar orders of priests and bards. The question of whether the Indic peoples and the Europeans shared the same homeland in remote antiquity has been the grist of ceaseless speculation. Today many Indians are still connected to the glorious past of their country, keeping alive an ancient stream of knowledge and wisdom. We may ask: Is India also a doorway to the long-forgot­ ten past of the West? Columbus set out to find a new sea route to India and ended up discovering America. Since then, the West and India have met in the realm of the mind. Thus, in the last century, Mohandas Gandhi’s ideas influenced the human rights movement. Most recently, Hindu wisdom about Yoga, mind-body connection, and self-knowledge has swept the Western hemisphere. It appears that, by understanding the heart of India’s great civilization, we are nearing the time when the quest of Columbus will be taken to its logical conclusion. Indic spirituality, which goes back to a distant past in unbroken sequence, xiv @ IN SEARCH OF THE CRADLE OF CIVILIZATION holds a special fascination for Westerners. It is a spirituality that is universal and addresses the deepest questions of meaning and knowl­ edge, and thus also speaks to humanity’s innermost concerns in the present Age of Science.