India's Vedic Culture - Was It Really Older Than 5,500 Years?

  The most archaic Sanskrit (Devanagari) is that of the Vedas, multiple books written in thousands of hymns and verses arranged in song cycles. The Vedas say that "God-men" brought Sanskrit to Earth men as a language of musical tones.

 

Above on the left is a comparison of the numerals 1 through 10 in Devanagari Sanskrit compared to Arabic. On the right are some examples of Devanagari vowels and diphthongs.

Sources: The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th Edition © 1993 and Sanskrit Keys to the Wisdom Religion © 1968 by Judith Tyberg.

 Ever since the 19th Century, there has been a huge debate about the actual history of India. When the Europeans first came there, they noticed that the people in India who had the Sanskrit language as the main language of their literature - they noticed that the European languages were similar (in word concepts), so that meant the Europeans and East Indians had to be related. The 19th Century scientists also noticed that the Sanskrit culture or Vedic culture, as it is sometimes called after the ancient Indian literature, Vedas, which means knowledge, so sometimes the ancient Indian culture is called the Vedic culture or Vedic civilization. The literature is called the Vedic literature. So, the scientists noticed that it appeared to be older than the European cultures. Since the European languages were related to the Indian language Sanskrit of the Vedas that could only mean that the European peoples had to have come out of India somehow and then gone to Europe with their languages that differentiated into Russian, English, Spanish, German and the rest of them. The European investigators didn't like that idea because it would have given the Vedic culture a position superior to their own. So, these early cities in the Indus Valley like Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro have been identified by archaeologists such as Richard Meadows and others as being non-Vedic. They think the Vedic culture came into India maybe 3500 years ago.

Isn't that inconsistent with the concept of the Vedas of the Krishna character who comes and says the universe is teeming with life and appears to have knowledge about other habitations in the cosmos and is talking from an age that would go back at least 9,500 years?

In these ancient Sanskrit writings, there is no hint at all that the culture came from anywhere else.

And if they are the prime source and if the Vedic literature can be taken literally, then it implies that there were cities there inhabited at least several thousand years ago.

Yes, and there has been other research going on in that area. For example, the Rg Veda, which is one of the earliest Vedic literatures, talks about a mighty river called the Saraswati that flowed from the Himalayan mountains down to the Arabian Sea, down in that area of northwestern India. And such a river doesn't exist there today. So, what happened is that people thought therefore the Rg Veda cannot be talking about India. It has to be talking about some other place outside of India where there was some kind of river.

But what happened that is quite interesting a few years ago is that archaeologists in India started studying the satellite photographs from American satellites like LANDSAT had been providing and they noticed there was a dry river channel that began up in the Himalayas, a huge river that went down almost to that Bay of Khambaht (Cambay) we are talking about (the location of the underwater city site). And then later, they found that on the banks of that river there were 800 to 1000 urban sites, archaeological sites.

So, it does appear that what the Rg Veda was talking about, a mighty river lined with cities in India over 5,000 years ago - that has to be true. The last time that river had water in it was over 5,000 years ago?

Is there a possibility that there could have been some sort of non-human co-habitation on the continent of India let's say
50,000 years ago that could explain all of the Vedas?

Yes. In Kashmir, the valley of Kashmir, it appears it was many years ago a lake. Now, there is an ancient Sanskrit manuscript that tells of a lake that existed in that area, so that account is there in some ancient writings. Now, according to modern geological reporting, about 40,000 years ago Kashmir was indeed a lake in the valley of Kashmir in northern India. It was covered by a huge lake and it was blocked on the southern end by a little range of mountains. And at a certain point, something happened and it broke open and the lake drained out. That happened about 40,000 to 50,000 years ago. So, it is interesting that you've got this ancient historical record that talks about this lake. And if it is to be taken literally, then it means that somebody must have seen this lake as it existed 50,000 years ago and wrote about it."

Sunken City Off India Coast -
7500 B. C.?
© 2002 by Linda Moulton Howe

February 16, 2003

Surat, India - A month ago in mid-January, marine scientists in India announced they had sonar images of square and rectangular shapes about 130 feet down off the northwestern coast of India in the Gulf of Khambhat (Cambay). Not only are their sonar shapes with 90-degree angles, the Indian Minister of Science and Technology ordered that the site be dredged. What was found has surprised archaeologists around the world and was the subject of a private meeting two weeks ago attended by the Indian Minister in charge of investigating the underwater site about thirty miles off the coast from Surat.

An American who traveled to that private meeting was Michael Cremo, researcher in the history of archaeology for the Bhakti Vedanta Institute in India and author of the book Forbidden Archaeology. I talked with him today in India about the dredging operation, what the ocean engineers found and the implications of first carbon dating of artifacts at more than 9,000 years.

Michael Cremo, Researcher of Ancient Archaeology
and Author, Forbidden Archaeology:

"Within the past few months, the engineers began some dredging operations there and they pulled up human fossil bones, fossil wood, pieces of pottery, swords and a shatterd chariot that indicated that it indeed was a human habitation site that they had. And they were able to do more intensive sonar work there and were able to identify more structures. They appeared to have been laid out on the bank of a river that had been flowing from the Indian subcontinent out into that area.

According to the news releases, they have done a radiocarbon testing on a piece of wood and sword from the underwater site that is now yielding an age of 9,500 years which would place it near the end of the last Ice Age. The texts found were in Sanskrit. Both mentioned a shaloka in praise of Lord Rama.

 Yes, those are the indications that are coming. There were actually two radiocarbon dates: one about 7500 years old and another about 9500 years old. The 9500 year old one seems to be the strongest one. That's the one they are going with.

 An another American archaeologist, Richard Meadows of Harvard University, purposed there should be an international effort here. And he got his chance. He looked quite satisfied with work done by Indians. He said I double checked the tests. Further R. Meadows said its quite clear with tests that city is older than 7,500 years but we have to recheck again that what India claims is 9,500 years old.

 Cultural Background of People At Underwater Site?

We have some indication that cltural background of the people is, vedic and if it does happen to be a city that is 9500 years old, that is older than the Sumerian civilization by several thousand years. It is older than the Egyptian, older than the Chinese. So it would radically affect our whole picture of the development of urban civilization on this planet.