The Antiquity of Vedic Civilization

Posted by Dwaipayan De | Feb 10, 2016 | 2,799 views

In his Discourse on Sanskrit and Its Literature, given at the College of France,
Professor Bournouf states, We will study India with its philosophy and its
myths, its literature, its laws and its language. Nay it is more than India, it is a
page of the origin of the world that we will attempt to decipher.
In History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature, Max Mueller observed, In the Rigveda we shall have before us more real antiquity than in all the inscriptions of
Egypt or Ninevah. . the Veda is the oldest book in existence

On a more personal note, another famous German thinker, Schopenhaur,

remarked in his book, The Upanishads, In the whole world there is no study
so beneficial and so elevating as that of the Upanishads. It has been the solace
of my life (and) it will be the solace of my death.

What are the Vedas ?

Before beginning our discussion on the antiquity of the Vedic civilization, we
should first of all understand what the Vedas are. The Sanskrit root vid means
to know. Hence Veda means knowledge. The term Vedic refers to the
literature and teachings of the Vedas. The Vedic scriptures are the spiritual
literature of the ancient Indian culture, written in the Sanskrit language. They
comprise of a huge collection of books which include material (mundane),
religious (ritualistic) as well as spiritual (monotheistic) knowledge.
The Vedas are immense in both their size and scope. Quantitatively , the Bible
and the Koran do not compare , and the Vedas easily surpass the lengthy
ancient works such as Homers epics and the sacred cannon of China. For
example,Mahabharata, one of the Vedic Historical texts, has 110,000 four line
stanzas, making it the worlds largest poem approximately eight times as old
as Iliad and Odyssey combined. Ramayana, another vedic history, on the other
hand , consists of 24,000 couplets. The Vedic literature comprise not only of
the Rig, Yajur,Atharva and the sama vedas but also of Upanishads,Puranas,
Bhagavad Gita and itihasas like Ramayana & Mahabharata. It encompasses all
literature that uphold the Vedic tradition and culture.
Talking about the Vedic scope, it includes the nature, the universe, and a
grand hierarchy of living beings nonhumans, humans & humanoids. There is
a large section of the Vedic literature , dealing with the detailed descriptions of
the non-material worlds beyond the entire fabric of time and space.
For the earthly humans, however, the Vedas prescribe a balance between their
spiritual and material lives. The Vedic social system combines the material
impetus with the spiritual dynamics, and places a great emphasis on
civilization as a precise tool for both material and spiritual upliftment.

Digging into the Past: A City Dating Back to 7500 BC

As was announced on January 16, 2002 from New Delhi , that the Indian
scientists found pieces of wood, remains of pots, fossil bones ,etc near the
coast of Surat ,Indian Science and Technology Minister Murli Manohar Joshi
told a news conference. He said, Some of these artifacts recovered by the
National Institute of Ocean Technology from the site, such as the log of wood
date back to 7500 bce, which is indicative of a very ancient culture in the
present Gulf of Cambay, that got submerged subsequently. Current belief is
that the first cities appeared around 3500 bce in the valley of Sumer, where
Iraq now stands. We can safely say from the antiquities and the acoustic
images of the geometric structures that there was human activity in the region
more than 9,500 years ago (7500 BC), said S.N. Rajguru, an independent
archaeologist.
Michael A. Cremo, historian of archeology , claims that all the history textbooks
would have to be rewritten if this ancient find proves to be of Vedic origin.
According to Cremo, The ancient Sanskrit writings of India speak of cities
existing on the Indian subcontinent in very primeval times. Although historians
tend to dismiss such accounts as mythological, these new discoveries promise
to confirm the old literary accounts.

Discovering River Saraswati

The legend of the mighty Saraswati river has lived on in India since time
immemorial. The Vedic scriptures are full of tantalizing hymns about it being
the life-stream of the people.
An Indian and French archaeological field team on the ground, coordinating
with a French SPOT satellite in space , has ascertained that the Saraswati River
, as described in the Vedas, is fact, not mythology. Vividly exposing the
signatures of old rivers and their branches, data from SPOT shows that the
Saraswati did exist.The Satellites sensors and pointable optics reveal the dried
bed of a river extending from the present Ghaggar River and flowing four miles
wide, in the region of India, west of what is now Delhi. In what is now Punjab,
the Satellite imagery has shown the Saraswatis bed to be twelve miles wide.

From space, researchers can detect that Saraswati had several tributaries,
watering an immense area of fertile soil. Traces of artificial canals watering
remote agricultural locations are also visible.

Ancient Hindu Temples Found worldwide

A Siva Lingam monument, a relic from the lost Champa Kingdom, stands
proudly at the My Son site in Vietnam. Images depicting the Yoni and Lingam
can be found in Hindu-influenced cultures across the entire Asian region.
A Cangkuang villager hunting for termites under a tree discovered a sharp
hand-carved stone. Further investigation revealed that the location was the
site of an ancient Vedic/Hindu temple. ony Djubiantono, head of West Javas
Bandung Archeology Agency says, Based on a preliminary finding of various
remains there are indications that this is a Hindu temple built in the seventh or
eighth century.
The ancient Nandeeshwara temple(dedicated to lord Shiva) at Malleswaram
was discovered only three years ago, but it has stood for 7,000 years on that
spot. Being buried over the years hasnt diminished its aura at all. The temple
was discovered recently when the land was being dug up and it was found that
the temple had remained untouched over the years .
Nearly 40 kilometers from the Thai-Cambodia border the Chen Sran temple
has been discovered in the jungle of the northern Preah Vihear province. It
was built in the ninth or tenth century, and is dedicated to the Vedic tradition.
The temple stands 15 meters tall, and is 150 meters in length by 100 meters
wide. Nearly 50 percent of the structure is damaged and most of its artifacts
have been plundered, even though there is no decent road to the temple.
Archaeologists have found a statue of Nandi, the sacred bull that carried the
Hindu god Shiva, among the ruins of what is believed to be an ancient temple
at an excavation site in Yogyakarta in Indonesia.
In south Germany, a prehistoric idol of lion-man has been discovered which
has caused amazement to scientists around the world. It is made out of tusk of

a mammoth in the form of a human body with a lion head. Amazingly it is

dated to be 32000 years old. The artifact was discovered in a cave named
Stadel-Hhle im Hohlenstein in the Lonetal of the Swabian Alps, Germany. The
figure was found exactly at the place in the cave where day and night meet,
about 20 meters away from the entrance and buried 1.20 meter deep under
the ground. The Vedic scriptures tell us that Krishna appeared in the divine
form of a half-man, half-lion with a lion face, to protect His devotee Prahlad
and to stop irreligion, personified by the demon Hiranyakasipu. A description of
a standing Deity form of Nrsimha Avatara of the Lord is found in the agama
Silpa Shastra, and is referred to as kevala-narasimha.

Major Anthropology Find Reported in India

Scientists report they have found evidence of the oldest human habitation in
India, dating to 2 million years, on the banks of the Subarnarekha River. The
30-mile stretch between Ghatshila in the province of Jharkhand and
Mayurbhanj in Orissa has reportedly yielded tools that suggest the site could
be unique in the world, with evidence of human habitation without a break
from 2 million years ago to 5,000 B.C. which makes it more important than
even the Aldovai Gorge in East Africa, the Somme Valley of France,
Stonehenge in England or the Narmada basin in Madhya Pradesh.
Anthropologist S. Chakraborty told the Calcutta Telegraph: There are no signs
of terra incognito (a break in the continuum) in the Subarnarekha valley,
unlike any other site in India. Some of the heavier tools resemble those found
in the East African stone-age shelters, used by the Australopithecus.

Ancient Vishnu Deity Found in Russia

An ancient Vishnu idol (Vishnu is an incarnation of the Supreme God, as
mentioned in the Vedas) has been found during excavation in an old village in
Russias Volga region, raising questions about the prevalent view on the origin
of ancient Russia.
The idol found in Staraya (old) Maina village dates back to VII-X century AD.
Staraya Maina village in Ulyanovsk region was a highly populated city 1700

years ago, much older than Kiev, so far believed to be the mother of all
Russian cities.
We may consider it incredible, but we have ground to assert that Middle-Volga
region was the original land of Ancient Rus. This is a hypothesis, but a
hypothesis, which requires thorough research, Reader of Ulyanovsk State
Universitys archaeology department Dr Alexander Kozhevin told state-run
television Vesti .
Dr Kozhevin, who has been conducting excavation in Staraya Maina for last
seven years said that every single square metre of the surroundings of the
ancient town situated on the banks of Samara, a tributary of Volga, is studded
with antiques.
Prior to unearthing of the Vishnu idol, Dr Kozhevin has already found ancient
coins, pendants, rings and fragments of weapons. (Times of India, Dec 2006)

Tamil Brahmi Script Found in Egypt

A broken storage jar with inscriptions in an ancient form of Tamil script, dated
to the first century BCE., has been excavated in Egypt.
Dr. Roberta Tomber, a pottery specialist at the British Museum, London,
identified the fragmentary vessel as a storage jar made in India. Iravatham
Mahadevan, a specialist in Tamil epigraphy, has confirmed that the inscription
on the jar is in Tamil written in the Tamil Brahmi script of about the first
century. (The Hindu, November 2007)

Vedic Culture and Todays World

The above evidences clearly hint at the existence of a worldwide flourishing
Vedic civilization, not so long ago, signifying the importance and authenticity of
the Vedic scriptures. It shows, that our forefathers walked the Vedic path to
attain the higher essential spiritual goals of life.

As a matter of fact, the Vedic civilization, being the oldest , has influenced
every major culture and religion around the world that we know today, and can
be declared as the parent of humanity.
The philosopher and researcher Edward Pococke also wrote about this
conclusion in his book India in Greece (page 251). He states: Sir William
Jones concluded that the Hindus had an immemorial antiquity with the old
Persians, Ethiopians and Egyptians, the Phoenicians, Greeks and Tuscans, the
Scythians or Goths, and the Celts, the Chinese, Japanese and Peruvians.
Pococke continues in his observation: Now the whole of the society of Greece,
civil and military, must strike one as being eminently Asiatic, much of it
specially Indian. I shall demonstrate that these evidences were but the
attendant tokens of Indian colonization with its corresponding religion and
language. I shall exhibit dynasties disappearing from India, western India, to
appear again in Greece, clans who fought upon the plains of Troy. Therefore,
since Greece is supposed to be the origins of European culture, and since
Greece displays much of the same culture as India, we can say that the preChristian culture of Europe was Vedic.
William Durant, author of the 10-volume Story of Civilization, wrote, India
was the motherland of our race, and Sanskrit the mother of European
languages. She was the mother of our philosophy, of our mathematics, of the
ideals embodied in Christianity, of self-government and democracy. Mother
India is in many ways the mother of us all.
The above quotes would indicate that the Vedic culture was a global faith, a
world influence. This may be given further credence in the remarks of Ctesias,
the Greek writer that The Hindus were as numerous as all the other nations
put together.
This is further corroborated in P. N. Oaks World Vedic Heritage (p. 506) in
which he presents evidence that, In pre-Christian times the temples of Vedic
Deities such as Vishnu, Shiva, the Mother goddess, Rama, Hanuman, and
Krishna used to abound in all regions of the world. Evidence of this is found in
the works of ancient authors such as Megasthenes, Strabo, and Herodotus. All

those names are of Vedic origin, too. The term Megasthenes is Megh-Sthaneesh, i.e. the Lord of the Region of the clouds. The name Herodotus is Haridootus, i.e. Messenger of [Hari] God.
In Some Missing Chapters of World History P. N. Oak also explains that Shiva
was worshiped all over the world, even in the Vatican. The word vatican comes
from the Sanskrit word vatica, which means a bower or sylvan hermitage. He
explains that even the premises of the Vatican have many Shiva emblems
buried in their walls and cellars. Many such emblems have been dug up in
other parts of Italy as well. And some of those found in the Vatican are still
preserved in the Vaticans Etruscan museum.
Similarly, there is striking similarity in all major religions in the world and by
careful comparison, we can trace back the essence in all of them to the
teachings of the Vedic literature. We can understand how the Vedic culture
influenced Zoroastrianism, which influenced Judaism, which influenced
Christianity, which influenced Islam. However, each succeeding religion
became more distant from the original spiritual teachings and understanding,
until each one thought that, rather than offering truths and processes to be
followed, they promoted the idea that they were the only way, superior to all
else. This topic however is outside the scope of this article and I shall deal with
it some other day.

The Universal Message of the Vedas

The Vedas are compared to a desire tree because they contain all things
knowable by man. They deal with mundane necessities as well as spiritual
realization. The Vedas contain regulated principles of knowledge covering
social, political, religious, economic, military, medicinal, chemical, physical,
metaphysical subject matter and above all specific directions for spiritual
realization.
The real essence of Vedic literatures can be categorized into three headings:
Sambandha: Understanding the answers to the questions, Who am I? Who is
God? What is my relation with God?

Abhideya: The process of reviving our relationship with God

Prayojana: The mature result: attainment of love of God.
Thus the three subject matters described in the Vedic literature are: the
Supreme Personality of Godhead is the central point of all relationships,
acting in devotional service to Him is ones real occupation and attainment of
love of God is the ultimate goal of life.
Further the Bhagavad-gita (4.34) enjoins the sincere seekers to approach a
bonafide spiritual master for this purpose and Inquire from him submissively
and render service unto him. The self-realized soul can impart knowledge unto
you because he has seen the truth.