CAG Report on missing monuments – ASI searching for, found and lost; how and why they are missing, hiding, getting lost etc?

CAG Report on missing monuments  – ASI searching for, found and lost; how and why they are missing, hiding, getting lost etc?

CAG Report on the function of ASI and missing monuments: Whether, 2013 or 2023, the picture does not change, as the monuments, “protected monuments,” listed monuments have been missing from the sites, monuments and paces. As India Today[1] sarcastically noted, “Persons go missing. Valuables, watches, cellphones, pens go missing. Sometimes even coal block allocation files go missing. Now monuments have gone missing; the Ministry of Culture and the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) admit to 35 lost and not found. And it gets worse”. The government has been caught lying to Parliament on this number[2]. The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) had indicted the culture ministry and ASI for furnishing incorrect data to Parliament on the number of national monuments that are missing. This has not been new in the ASI history or Indian history or history of archaeology[3]. Just to satisfy, a committee would be formed to trace the missing monuments and they declare that some missing monuments were found[4]. Whenever CAG Report or Audit objections come, every government office used to give some preliminary report and then detailed report as a matter of routine. Interestingly, these issues are discussed for the competitive exams entrance exam coaching classes also.

How monuments in India are missing, hiding, getting lost etc: The media has been describing the issue with its own way in a different manner and with narratives.

• In a scene from Satyajit Ray’s mystery-adventure film Sonar Kella (The Fort of Gold), 1971, one of the antagonists says Rajasthan is a state where every nook and cranny hides a fort or monument, and it will be nearly impossible to know which one is the golden fort[5]. The actors of Ray’s cult classic endure several gruelling adventures before they finally realise that they are looking for the Jaisalmer Fort[6]. Ray’s film reveals an intriguing truth about monuments in India.
• Despite their near-ubiquitous presence in both urban and rural areas, monuments are not always the easiest structures to locate.
• Sometimes it is the stories that blur the maps; at other times they are simply missing.
• Take the tomb of Razia Sultan in Delhi, for instance. The resting place of one of the most-storied women rulers of the medieval India, is an unassuming cluster of weathered sandstones hidden in the packed bylanes of Old Delhi, surrounded by the walls of neighbouring houses, and no roof overhead. The responsibility of its upkeep is on the shoulders of a tiny adjoining mosque with few visitors.
• In Telkupi, a village in West Bengal’s Purulia district, the construction of Panchet dam over the Damodar river submerged a set of six to eight 11th-century stone temples. Only a few remain visible above the surface of water.
• In Karnataka, about 18 km from the Thirthahalli taluk, the 9th-century Kavaledurga Fort valiantly fights off surrounding jungle’s persistent overgrowth. Despite attempts and restoration and maintenance by several succeeding dynasties and kingdoms over the centuries, as well as central and state governments, the fort remains neglected and hidden beneath overgrown shrubs.

Since 2006, the CAG has been pointing out about the missing monuments: The CAG report says that on more than one occasion the culture minister has told Parliament that 35 of its monuments have gone missing. When the CAG checked about 1,655 protected monuments and sites-comprising 45 per cent of the total-they found 92 monuments missing. This is more than 2.5 times the number of its monuments have gone missing. When the CAG checked about 1,655 protected monuments and sites-comprising 45 per cent of the total-they found 92 monuments missing. This is more than 2.5 times the number being provided by the culture ministry since 2006. Since the CAG verification covers about half the total number of monuments, the total figure would be much higher if the inspection covered all monuments. The CAG report has brought the boom down on the ASI for hiding facts, quoting instances where some monuments “missing” in Delhi from the 1970s have not even been listed by the ASI as such. The story of General Nicholson’s statue, a protected monument near Kashmere Gate in the Capital at the time of Independence, is as good an example of the ASI’s inertia as any. The statue was gifted by the government to Ireland in the 1960s, but the ASI has been unaware of the transfer till recently. Of course, the statue still features in the list of protected monuments.

The vested commercialization and politicization lead to encroachments and disappearance of monuments: The CAG audit has found that the premier custodian of our heritage does not even know the number of monuments it is supposed to protect. It has been found that the ASI does not even possess notification documents for many of its monuments. This document is the legal basis of the boundary of a monument, and is the prime tool to beat back encroachments, the bane of common properties and public spaces in India. The CAG audit also says that these valuable monuments across the country are sites of neglect, marred as they are by encroachments and unauthorised constructions. Once again, the auditor has caught the ASI sleeping, as it notes that in its inspection of 1,655 of centrally protected monuments there were encroachments in around 546 monuments as against 249 intimated by the ASI. The nation’s showpiece monuments-the Taj Mahal and Red Fort- are not better off, the report says. Red Fort in Delhi has poorly maintained gardens, and its water channels have yet to be made operational. An illegal mazaar and temple have come up inside Red Fort in recent years; prayers are being offered at both places. Similarly, only one of 24 unauthorised constructions near the Taj Mahal has been removed. The more the tourist flow, the more the shops, hotels, touts, agents and all sorts of related activities. The more the space encroached near to the monuments, the more the profits, where all deals start and thus, the ASI Acts and Rules are simply forgotten.

In India, for everything and anything, there have been hundreds of Acts and Rules: To oversee archaeological excavations and conservation, the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) was founded in 1869. Numerous protected monuments were placed under the ASI’s care between the 1920s and the 1950s. The Antiquities and Art Treasure Act of 1972 is also governed by it. James Cunningham, a British Army engineer who had a passion for Indian archaeology, founded it in 1861. After gaining independence, it became a statutory body under the AMASR Act of 1958. The Director-General of the ASI is in charge, and New Delhi serves as its headquarters. The Government of India’s Ministry of Culture is home to the Archaeological Survey of India, or ASI. It works to protect and preserve the nation’s historic buildings and archaeological sites as well as conduct archaeological research. The provisions of the 1958 Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act (AMASR Act) are used by ASI to regulate all archaeological activities carried out in the nation. Following independence, the functioning of ASI was hampered by the poor policies of the succeeding governments, which placed a greater emphasis on infrastructure, education, and health than on preserving cultural heritage.

How monuments, temples, sculptures etc have been missing or made to miss: The ASI officials claim that activities like encroachments, the building of dams and reservoirs, and rapid urbanisation have slowly sunk many monuments and heritage sites. Yes, but, why ASI has not been able to implement its authority is surprising. When for infrastructure development, the government has been keen to put road, construct dam, dug a tunnel, break mound, and so on.so when such activities are planned and they go through their decided areas, the planners ignore the “monuments” and only think about “development.” Of course, in the tender, MOU, agreement etc., there have been hundreds of conditions printed in the documents running to 200-300 pages and one should have patience to go through and understand. In spite of all conditions, when the project starts, many trees are cut, temple walls demolished, why even temples were demolished silently during night times under the guise of shifting or promising to relocate and so on[7]. If few people are there, they can be easily managed and none would know, except, when pilgrims come to identify, knw and declare that the temple is missing.

The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Transport, Tourism, and Culture received the report, “Issues Relating to Untraceable Monuments and Protection of Monuments in India.”50 of India’s 3,693 centrally protected monuments under ASI, according to the Union Ministry of Culture’s submission to the Parliament, are now untraceable, raising serious concerns. ASI safeguards and preserves more than 3500 protected monuments and archaeological sites of national significance.

• 14 monuments have been engulfed by rapid urbanisation, according to the ASI submission in Parliament.
• By building dams and reservoirs, as many as 12 monuments have been submerged, and 24 have vanished.
• Only 248 of the 3,693 monuments are reportedly guarded, according to the report. Due to financial limitations, the government could only afford to provide 2,578 security personnel at 248 locations, according to the report.
• Eleven monuments are missing from Uttar Pradesh, two from each of Delhi and Haryana, and others are missing from Assam, West Bengal, Arunachal Pradesh, and Uttarakhand, among other states.
• Other missing monuments include:
  • the Guns of Emperor Sher Shah, Tinsukia (Assam);
  • the Ruins of Copper Temple, Paya, Lohit (Arunachal Pradesh); Kos Minar, Mujesar, Faridabad (Haryana);
  • Kutumbari Temple, Dwarahat, Almora (Uttarakhand);
  • Rock Inscription, Satna (Madhya Pradesh);
  • Old European Tomb, Pune (Maharashtra);
  • 12th Century Temple, Baran (Rajasthan); and
  • Telia Nala Buddhist ruins, Varanasi (Uttar Pradesh).

According to the Ministry, untraceable monuments are those that, despite numerous ASI efforts, could not be located on the ground for a sizable period of time. As cited by the Indian Express, the ASI officials claim that no physical surveys of any monuments were ever done following Independence. Nevertheless, according to a Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report from 2013, the nation’s at least 92 centrally protected monuments were believed to be missing. The CAG report claims that the ASI lacked information on the precise number of monuments it was responsible for protecting[8]. The CAG report recommended that ASI officers conduct routine inspections of each protected monument. Even though the Ministry approved the proposal, there was little evidence of appropriate action[9]. In 2017 itself, Minister of Culture (in charge of archaeology etc) gave a list of monuments[10].

© K. V. Ramakrishna Rao

30-04-2023

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[1] India Today, CAG discovers 92 protected monuments missing, slams ASI for negligence, Edited By: At Migration, Published On: Aug 24, 2013.

[2] https://www.indiatoday.in/india/north/story/cag-discovers-protected-monuments-missing-slams-asi-174812-2013-08-23

[3] The Hindu, Special ASI committee to trace 24 ‘missing’ monuments, THE HINDU BUREAU, February 05, 2023 10:40 pm | Updated February 06, 2023 07:51 am IST – New Delhi

[4] https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/special-asi-committee-to-trace-24-missing-monuments/article66474342.ece

[5] Business Standard, Withering legacies: A curious tale of India’s ‘missing’ monuments, Debarghya SanyalNew Delhi, Last Updated : Feb 15 2023 | 12:04 PM IST

[6] https://www.business-standard.com/article/current-affairs/withering-legacies-a-curious-tale-of-missing-india-s-monuments-123021301558_1.html

[7] Here, perhaps the Idol smugglers and the related persons might have a nexus, as they only knew which temples were demolished, how many parts, pillars, sculptures, idols etc., were removed, delivered safely and faithfully, damaged and missing.

[8] India Times, Explained: How Did 50 ASI-Protected Monuments Disappear?, Hera Rizwan, Updated on Jan 08, 2023, 11:24 IST.

[9] https://www.indiatimes.com/explainers/news/explained-how-did-50-asi-protected-monuments-disappear-589674.html

[10] Unstrred question no.5913 answered on 10-04-2017 about the survey conducted about the missing of documents: https://eparlib.nic.in/bitstream/123456789/701331/1/52351.pdf

The proceedings of the 81st session of the Indian History Congress held at Chennai from December 27th to 29th , 2022 (1)

The proceedings of the 81^st session of the Indian History Congress held at Chennai from December 27^th to 29^th , 2022 (1)

The 81^st session of the Indian History Congress (IHC) was held at the Madras Christian College (MCC): The 81^st session of the Indian History Congress (IHC) was held at the Madras Christian College (MCC) campus in Chennai between December 27 and 29, 2022, as decided. The principal met the CM earlier and invited him officially and got his consent. About 1,500 delegates attended the session from all parts of India, as one on-line news reported[1]. For the delegates, the “list of papers” was not given. More than 1,000 papers were presented at IHC’s 81^st session, held after a gap of two years due to the pandemic. After Kannur in 2019, sessions were not held in 2020 and 2021. In his presidential address, titled ‘New Sensibilities, New Expression: Passages to a New Formation,’ Kesavan Veluthat argued that the ‘early medieval’ period was indeed a distinct phase in the history of India. The sectional presidents read their papers [already printed and circulated] at their respective sessions.

Registration of the delegates

Registration of the delegates…

The venue – Madras Christian College[2]: Madras Christian College was established in 1837 as General Assembly School by Rev. John Anderson of the Free Church of Scotland. Rev. William Miller’s indefatigable efforts led to the upgrading of the school into a college in 1865. A succession of Scottish missionaries developed the college around the core values of academic excellence, spiritual vitality and social relevance. Dr. Chandran D.S. Devanesen, the Head of the Department of History, became the first Indian Principal of the College in 1962. He was also the Founding Vice Chancellor of the Northeastern Hill University. The College was one of the earliest institutions to be conferred with autonomous status in 1978. Presently the college has 34 academic departments offering courses ranging from the under graduation to research degrees. In addition, there are a number of units involved in extension activities.  

Department of history and historians of this college: The Department of History is one of oldest in the college. Rev. George Patterson, the first Professor of History joined the college in 1876. The Department of History was founded in 1887. A galaxy of eminent Professors such as Rev. E.M. Macphail, Rev. Frederick William Kellet, Prof. Ferrend Edward Corley, Prof. Ernest John Bingle, Dr. Chandran D.S. Devanesen, Dr. M. Sargurudoss, Dr. M. Abel, Dr. Chiranjeevi J. Nirmal, Dr. S. Krishnaswamy and others have been among its many institution builders. The Department has produced distinguished historians such as Sardar K.M. Panikkar, K.A. Nilakanta Sastri, C. Minakshi, K.V. Raman, M.G.S. Narayanan, S. Manickam and K. Nambi Arooran among others. Its alumni have also excelled in various professions such as academics, civil service, archaeology, politics, business, etc.

In six different sessions, papers were presented: Mahalakshmi Ramakrishnan, the sitting secretary of IHC, reported that 1,002 rigorously researched academic papers were presented at the event. The papers were presented in six simultaneous sessions, namely Ancient India, Medieval India, Modern India, Countries other than India, Archaeology and Contemporary India. The technical sessions were chaired by prominent historians –

1. Malini Adiga (Ancient India),
2. Ishrat Alam (Medieval India),
3. Salil Misra (Modern India),
4. Bishnupriya Basak (Archaeology),
5. Margit Koves (Countries Other than India) and
6. Sudha Pai (Contemporary India).

Again, as usual, only “five minutes” were given to the paper readers. However, the “chosen ones” were allowed to read taking more time. In some sessions, many were asking and discussing in Hindi and obviously, those who do not know Hindi, cannot follow what they discussed. The papers have been also of the same nature revolving around certain issues that are repeatedly discussed again and again. Instead of giving any solution to problems, they are analyzed, discussed and elaborated on with verbose. Retired Prof Deepak Kumar, Jawaharlal Nehru University, delivered the SC Misra Memorial Lecture.

DMK cadre waiting for M.K. Stalin with flags etc.,

DMK cadre controlling members awaiting for their leaders….

Leader has arrived……..

Dravidian stock, Dravidian model etc.,…………..

Ironically, the announcer told that the “National anthem and Tamilttai vazthu would be sung and all are requested to be seated….”

And then corrected herself. National anthem first sung, followed by “Tamilttai vazhthu,” and ended with “amen”!

Incidentally after “Tamilttai vazhthu,” the VIPs on the stage and delegates started sitting, but, signalled to stand, as Wilson started his “sermon”ending with “amen.”

Ironically, all including Stalin sat down,……

but, suddenly, prayer started and they started to get up and stand. ..

s the choir started, they again stood up……………………….the principal secretary was annoyed and told something and Wilson was smiling with awkwardness…….

After the welcoming of Wilson, a documentary about the MMC was shown on the screen.

Ramnujam, invites…………………

Stalin releasing the IHC Kannur proceedings..

Audience during the inaugural session…

audience LHS

Audience – delegates…..

The “Dravidian stock” CM gave a lengthy speech in Tamil: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin on Tuesday 27-12-2022 termed as a ”danger”, distortion of history and warned against falling for ”imaginary stories” being floated by some as history[3]. In his address at the 81st annual session of the Indian History Congress here, Stalin also stressed on the need for a government to remain secular[4]. The Chief Minister said many wondered if studying history would ensure them a lucrative career but doing so is not just about getting a degree and salary. ”We should study history to know ourselves. Only those who have studied the past can create history in the present; can predict the future. Such history should be a science-based fact. Some people are talking about imaginary stories as history. One should not get fooled by believing them and they should not be accepted,” he said. A knowledgeable society will not accept such theories, Stalin added. ”The danger that has engulfed the country today is this distortion of history. The dignity of the Constitution should be safeguarded in education, language, culture, authority, economy and administration,” he said[5]. He carefully read from the paper.

S. R. Bommai v. Union of India: Citing a 1994 ruling of the Supreme Court, he underscored the need for a government to remain secular and rein in forces that divided people of different faiths[6]. S. R. Bommai v. Union of India ([1994] 2 SCR 644 : AIR 1994 SC 1918 : (1994)3 SCC1) was a landmark judgment of the Supreme Court of India, where the Court discussed at length provisions of Article 356 of the Constitution of India and related issues. This case had a huge impact on Centre-State Relations. The Indian landscape was so (secular) once upon a time but ”the differences are the ones created by some persons later.” Pointing out at the various archaeological excavations underway in Tamil Nadu, including at Keeladi and Kodumanal, Stalin said ”we are speaking proudly about our historic specialities only based on scientific facts.” For instance, Keeladi studies have shown that urbanisation and literacy prevailed in the Tamil landscape as early as the 6th Century BC[7]. Such studies, undertaken by the DMK government since 2021 in seven locations in the state, are being done in association with various other agencies, he pointed out[8]. Many efforts to highlight the historical importance of such places, like setting up of museums are on, the Chief Minister informed[9]. ”History should not be a document that talks only about kings, their lifestyle and victories. History should also reflect people from all walks of life. This is our view,” Stalin said[10].

Stalin claimed that History should start from Tamilnadu: Pointing to the recent archaeological excavations that have thrown up evidence of urban settlements having existed in the state at least 2,600 years ago, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin on Tuesday said it will be apt to “rewrite” the history of the Indian subcontinent from the Tamil landscape[11].  This, he has been telling many times within two years. Contending that history should not be a document that talks only about kings, their lifestyle and victories, but should also reflect people from all walks of life[12], Stalin pushed the need to write “real history” and not ones that are “distorted.” However, it is not known how the IHC would take this point and react to “rewriting history.”

© K. V. Ramakrishna Rao

30-12-2022

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[1] News Click, Stalin Opens Indian History Congress, Says ‘False History Should be Sidelined’, Sruti MD | 30 Dec 2022

https://www.newsclick.in/stalin-open-indian-history-congress-false-history-sidelined

[2]  As per the circular issued by the Local Seretary of the IHC.

[3] DtNext, Distortion of history a danger engulfing the country: Stalin, PTI, Published on :  27 Dec, 2022, 2:19 pm. https://www.dtnext.in/city/2022/12/27/distortion-of-history-a-danger-engulfing-the-country-stalin

[4] https://www.dtnext.in/city/2022/12/27/distortion-of-history-a-danger-engulfing-the-country-stalin

[5] PTI, Distortion of history a danger engulfing the country, says Stalin, Updated: Dec 27 2022 2:07 PM.

[6] https://www.ptinews.com/news/national/distortion-of-history-a-danger-engulfing-the-country-says-stalin/483667.html

[7] NDTV, MK Stalin Says Distortion Of History A ‘Danger’ Engulfing The Country, India News, Press Trust of India, Updated: December 27, 2022 2:38 pm IST.

[8] https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/mk-stalin-says-distortion-of-history-a-danger-engulfing-the-country-3641486

[9] Siasat, Distorting history is dangerous phenomenon: Stalin , Photo of Indo-Asian News Service, Indo-Asian News Service|  Published: 27th December 2022 3:46 pm IST

[10] https://www.siasat.com/distorting-history-is-dangerous-phenomenon-stalin-2489285/

[11] National Herald, Distortion of history a danger engulfing the country: MK Stalin, Amarabati Bhattacharyya, Published: 27 Dec 2022, 5:00 PM

[12] https://www.nationalheraldindia.com/india/distortion-of-history-a-danger-engulfing-the-country-mk-stalin

Horse, killing and eating of Horse, Deification of Horse: The mythologization and demythologization of Horse-God theology in the world civilizations! (3)

Horse, killing and eating of Horse, Deification of Horse: The mythologization and demythologization of Horse-God theology in the world civilizations! (3)

Hayagriva faith[1] spread to Tibet, China and Japan: The Himalayan valley range have yielded fossils of elephants, horses etc., as pointed out by the geologists. The Indian poets could not have imagined and lied while describing horses of battle scenes involved etc[2]. The Gangetic Valley had been subjected to plate-tectonic processes, floods etc., and therefore, there have been surface and stratigraphical disturbances. After settling down, the Gangetic Valley Civilization flourished with culture, tradition, and heritage.  The Horse-God faith has been spread to Tibet, China and Japan also[3]. The wind horse is an allegory for the human soul in the shamanistic tradition of East Asia and Central Asia. In Tibetan Buddhism, it was included as the pivotal element in the centre of the four animals symbolizing the cardinal directions and a symbol of the idea of well-being or good fortune. It has also given the name to a type of prayer flag that has the five animals printed on it. This matches with the Vedic description of the parts of Vishnu body fell oriented with the cardinal points of cosmos. Ratnasambhava, Avalokiteswara, and other depictions in sculpture, icons and paintings show the dominant presence of a horse.

In China, the Hayagriva, Peiping, probably found in the old city of Peiping, now known as Peking, the Capital. The Horse-God has been the God of wisdom. The Chinese incorporated horse as the seventh in their year cycle / zodiac. The Vajikukh or horse representation of tantric practices could have reached Peiping through Buddhism. In the Paintings, the Yama had been the king and the two gate-keepers have been horse-faced and ox-faced guards. They punish the wicked as per the directions of the King Yama.

In the Korean temples, mausoleums and monuments, the horse-guard has been prominently depicted.

In the respective literature, whether written in Tibetan, Chinese, Pali or Sanskrit, the Indian presence is easily noted as the names, slokas and ritualization have not been changed. Only, the tantric formation differs from the normal bakti India worship. Thus, when the horse myth was carried to outside India, through Buddhism, it became oriented towards tantric mode, whereas, when it spread to the south, it was converted into bakti mode, as could be noted from the liturgy and the literature.

Hayagriva in the Southeast Asian cultures: It is quite natural that the Hayagriva worship and later tantric practices spread to, flourished and settled with the Hindu, Buddhists and the local population. The god with the equine head played a significant role in the belief system of pre-Ankorean Cambodia[4]. The most well know statuary of this deity was found at Sambor Prei Kuk by the ex-colonial French governor Adhemard Leclere around 1860. The statue was transported to Paris, France and is now housed at the Gumiet Museum shown far right bottom row[5]. There is no mention of this deity in Cambodia or in any of the literature and is not even mentioned in Lawrence Palmer Brigg’s definitive work”The Khmer Empire”. However, there have been other statuary of Hayagriva found in Cambodia testifying to the prominence this deity once had for the devotees of Vishnu Narayana.

Hellen Jessup and Therry Zephur in their book “Sculpture of Angkor and Ancient Cambodia” show a 135cm high deity with a horses head, top row far left, which is now housed at the National Museum of Cambodia in Phnom Penh. The stance of this piece shows a very pronounced posture of kindness and one of overseeing his world. Elsewhere an exceptional piece of Hayagriva is housed at the Royal Ontario Museum in Canada in their new Asia Galleries. A 106cm statute of Vajimukha was found at Prasat Neang Khmau, in Cambodia, and it is from the first quarter of the 10th century. Thus, the dating of Hayagriva here during the pre-Angkorian period is significant.

Indo-Aryans, horses and related theories and hypotheses: During the 19^th-20^th centuries, the scholars, archaeologists and historians have been believers of race theories and therefore, they were interpreting historical processes in their discourses accordingly. The pure Aryan race developed somewhere in northern Europe and from where, it spread down to other countries. Even, B.C.Tilak believed such hypotheses and recorded in his book “Arctic Home of Aryans.” The evidences of domesticated horses were found in the horse sculptures in the Volga and Dnieper regions around 4,500 BCE. The Dereivka settlement yielded the earliest remains of domestic horses dated to c.4350-3675 BCE. Therefore, when they reached Indus Valley to form an advanced civilization, it is not known as to why they had forgotten their knowledge of horses, chivalry, chariots etc. The pro-Dravidian enthusiastic researchers also do not bother and they have been silent about the Dravidian bards started composing “Sangam literature” immediately, around c.500-300 BCE period., when they were driven down to South India. In their literature, they mentioned horses, chariots etc. Therefore, the movement of racial groups as proposed by the non-Indian experts has not been consistent. Having accepted that there was no race, no racial Aryans and Dravidians, still they are not able to arrange the events historically and chronologically. Now, the Dravidian protagonists have been confusing with the incomplete Keeladi evidences. Thus, the horse question and other issues question many inconsistent, contradicting and incompatible hypotheses and theories.

Conclusion: A comprehensive, comparative and matching study of Horse-God, Horse-headed God, foaled God, association with “fallen angels,” “sons of god,” Centaurus myth etc., prove the origin of myth in India, rather than at the northern parts of Europe or Arctic region.

1. As European scholarship itself accepted at one point about the Ganges oigin of Indian literature, then, the Itihasa’ description of spreading of degraded Khastriyas to other areas of the world, after the “Great War,” or Mahabharat could be considered. In fact, J. B. Bury[6], Edward Pocokoke[7], Colonel Todd[8] and others have pointed out the Indian origin of the Greek civilization.
2. Of course, William Jones was also engaged in such Comparative study. As now the archaeological evidences of the Ganges Valley go back to c. 5,500 BCE, it is safely taken for the comparative study.
3. Nowadays, there have been many experts posing as “inter-religious dialoguers,” professors of “Comparative Religion”, and “Comparative theology” etc., who have been producing tonnes of research papers and books, but with bias, prejudice and preconceived notions. They set the goal or result and proceed to get their goal or result.
4. Had they taken these “horse” studies, then, they could change their viewpoint.
5. Therefore, they still treat the literature of others as heathenish. Therefore, such an attitude should change to do research in the Horse-God narratives also.
6. All the legends can be demythologized to find out the mythistory hidden behind, from which, historical details could be culled out.
7. Then, it is clearly pointed out that the Hayagriva – horse god myth was developed on the banks of the Ganges and then spread to other cultures from there through Jainism and Buddhism and later incorporated in the other branches of faiths of Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity and Mohammedanism.

© K. V. Ramakrishna Rao

06-08-2020

[1]  Instead of “cult,” the expression faith is preferred, as it is not fad, craze or unusual trend for any religious group that believed in godhead or not..

[2] van der Geer, Alexandra, Michael Dermitzakis, and John de Vos, Fossil Folklore from India: The Siwalik Hills, 2008.

[3] Shahar, Meir. The Tantric Origins of the Horse King: Hayagrīva and the Chinese Horse Cult., in Chinese and Tibetan Esoteric Buddhism. Brill, 2017. Pp. 147-190.

[4] http://www.earthportals.com/Portal_Messenger//vadavamukhagallery.html

[5] 10th century statue in Pre Rup style Vajimukha from Prasat N7, Sandstone, MG. 18099 at the Musée national des arts asiatiques‐Guimet, Paris

[6] J. B. Bury, History of the Greece,  Macmillan & Co., U.K, p.821.

[7] Edward Pocoke, Indian in Greece, Orient Publishers, New Delhi, 1976.

[8] Colonel Tod, The Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, Motilal Banaraidas, New Delhi.

Horse, killing and eating of Horse, Deification of Horse: The mythologization and demythologization of Horse-God theology in the world civilizations! (2)

Horse, killing and eating of Horse, Deification of Horse: The mythologization and demythologization of Horse-God theology in the world civilizations! (2)

The mythologization and demythologization of Madhu-Kaitabhas: Madhu (Sanskrit: मधु) and Kaitabha (Sanskrit: कैटभ) are two rakshasas (demons) in Sanatan Scripture and are associated with Hindu religious cosmology. They both originated from the earwax in God Vishnu’s ears while he was in the meditative deep sleep state of Yoganidra. From his navel, a lotus sprouted on which Brahma, the creator, was found sitting and contemplating the creation of the world, plants and cosmos. Mahabharata explains their origin. Bhagavata Purana states that during the creation, the demons Madhu and Kaitabha stole the Vedas from Brahma and deposited them deep inside the waters of the primaeval ocean. Vishnu, in his manifestation as Hayagriva, Hore-headed God killed them, and retrieved the Vedas. The bodies of Madhu and Kaitabha disintegrated into 2 times 6 — which is twelve pieces (two heads, two torsos, four arms and four legs) and these are considered to represent the twelve seismic plates of the Earth. Thus, the geographical and geological concepts were mythologized by the Puranic composers for a particular time and place and they have to be demythologized now in 2020.

• The sculptural representations of the two rakshasas have been different starting from the post-Mauryan, Gupta periods onwards. They are all kept in the Mathura Museum.
• In the Mahabalipuram cave temple sculptures, the Madhu-Kaitabha pair has been depicted as normal warriors.
• In the Kashmir sculpture dated to c.800 CE, Madhu and Kaitabh appear human, may be in the dwarf form. (Jammu and Kashmir, Kashmir region, circa 800 CE Sculpture).
• In paintings, they are depicted as animals, evidently, because of the tantric influences.

The myth of Madhu-Kaitabh has been similar to that of “fallen angels,” “sons of God” etc.

Hayagira, Jwarasura, Sakti worship etc: Recently, Elisa Freschi has summarized the research work done so far[1]. According to Suvira Jaiswal (Jaiswal 1981), Hayagrīva had a local origin in Assam as a demon connected with fever and was only later incorporated in Mantrayāṇa Buddhism and then in pan-Indian Hinduism in general and Vaiṣṇavism in particular. The killing of by Jwarasura Hayagriva is related to Sakta worship and the details are found in the Devi Mahathmyam. The Kalika Purana narrates that Visnu-Hayagriva killed the fever-demon (Jvarasura) and took up his abode on the Manikuta hill; between the hills of Manikuta and Gandhamadana flowed the river Lauhitya . In Assam, the Vaisnava shrine of Hajo dedicated to Lord Visnu is popularly known as Hayagriva Madhava is on an isolated hill, popularly known as Manikut Parvat, this temple was rebuilt in CE 1583 by Koch king Raghudeva (CE 1581- 1603), over the foundation of the ancient temple ruins of 10^th-11^th century CE, as reflected in the plinth through mouldings of friezes of elephants (Gajatharas) and geometrical designs of low relief in the basement. The Hayagriva Upanishad tells us that Hayagriva is worshipped as a wrathful form of Avalokiteshwara, who has around 108 forms and is capable of curing skin diseases. Horse dealers of Tibetan origin believe that Hayagriva is capable of driving away horse thieves by neighing loudly. It is said that the loud neighs of Hayagriva drive away Maya and bring truth to the forefront. Hayagriva has some degree of popularity in Japan, and is known by the name Bato Kannon there.

The struggle among the Vedic and non-Vaidic groups over the Vedic scriptures: As Bhagavata Puranam, Devi Bhagawatam,  Devi Mahathyam and Kalikapuranam have rival claims of conquering Rakshasas, demons etc. Incidentally, the Madhu and Kaitabha were the gate-keepers of the residence of Vishnu and therefore, when their owner was sleeping, it is quite natural that they planned to kill him or steal away valuables from him. Thus, they were stealing Vedas and hiding. During the Jaina and Buddhist periods, there had been a long battle between the Vedic and non-Vedic (Jaina, Buddhist etc) to acquire the manuscripts of Vedas. As the Vedic seers had been very particular that they should not fall into their hands, as they try to manipulate, misinterpret and corrupt, they were hiding their scriptures. It is well-known that the Jaina and Buddhist groups had arisen criticizing certain Vedic concepts, but accepting most of the philosophical concepts. It is well-known that none could criticize any scripture without reading carefully, understanding properly and mastering the fundamentals. Though, they opposed God, idol worship etc., they themselves split into various groups to accommodate the same. However, they could not win over the Vedic concepts completely and thus, they were making attempts to steal the scriptures applying different methods, by joining Gurukulas as disciples, women and others. They were indulged in “Mantra-tantra-yantra” mode of worship involving women leading to vamachara and other extreme practices. Thus, the mantras were changed to accommodate new Goddesses for the purpose leading to the production of more tantric works. The Purana stories have been plenty in this regard. Of course, Jataka tales, Katha Sarit Sagar and other literature too vouchsafe the fact. During such period only, the interpolations like “Women and Shudras should not learn Vedas” etc., occurred. As the Brahmins had been a demand in China, Japan and SEA regions for various ceremonies, the Buddhists also floated a counter that, “Brahmins should not cross the sea / Oceanic waters.” These have been discussed in the “Kali vrajya” texts of the medieval period[2].

The Horse-God of the Mycenaeans, Minoans, Greeks and other people: Poseidon has been a horse, the god of horses, the god of waters, sea and so on in the Greek mythology. He used to take the form of / appear as a horse. The worship of Poseidon-Hippos was popular among the Mycenaeans, Minoans, Greeks and other people. Horses were sacrificed to Poseidon for occasions. Horses were used to control cattle.  Researchers like S. Bokonyi, Nobuo Komita pointed out that the horse was introduced into Greece by the invading Indo-Europeans during the Middle Hellenic period. The Mycenaeans considered horse as a sacred and precious animal. However, it is not known as to the Mycenaeans, Greeks, Chinese, Japanese, the people of SEA are still celebrating any festival connected with a horse or remembering the birth of horse god etc., every year, as Indians do. Pegasus (Greek: Πήγασος, Pḗgasos; Latin: Pegasus, Pegasos) is a mythical winged divine horse, and one of the most recognized creatures in Greek mythology. Usually depicted as pure white, Pegasus is the offspring of the Olympian god Poseidon. He was foaled / converted into a horse by the Gorgon Medusa (a goddess resembling Indian) upon her death, when the hero Perseus decapitated / beheaded her. Pegasus is the brother of Chrysaor[3] and the uncle of Geryon[4].

Pegasus was caught by the Greek hero Bellerophon, near the fountain Peirene, with the help of Athena and Poseidon. Pegasus allowed Bellerophon to ride him in order to defeat the monstrous Chimera, which led to many other exploits. Bellerophon later fell from the winged horse’s back while trying to reach Mount Olympus. Afterwards, Zeus transformed Pegasus into the eponymous constellation. The Centaurus myth has also been equally popular among the Greeks. The stories of Pegasus, Gorgon Medusa, Perseus, Chrysaor, Geryon resemble the Vedic description of Dadhyanc Atharvana, in which Vishnu is beheaded, parts of the body fell in four directions, horse head fixed, Hayagriva created etc.

The Norse and the Greek mythology of horse: In both ancient Greek and Norse[5] mythology, too, there are supernatural horses. The winged stallion Pegasus is the offspring of the god Poseidon and the Gorgon Medusa, from whose neck he was born when she was beheaded by Perseus, as already pointed out. After taming Pegasus, the Corinthian hero Bellerophon attempts to ride the horse to the gods’ home on Mount Olympus. But Zeus compels the horse to buck, sending Bellerophon back to Earth as punishment for his pride. Pegasus continues his journey heavenward to live in Zeus’ stables and carry his thunderbolts. Zeus also set Pegasus in the sky as a constellation marking the arrival of spring. Odin, the powerful Norse god of war, poetry, knowledge, and wisdom, also has a divine horse in his service. Renowned for his speed, the eight-legged horse Sleipnir carries Odin on his journeys through the Nine Worlds that are the homelands of the elements found in the Norse worldview—humanity, tribes of gods and goddesses, giants, fire, ice, dwarves, elves, and death. If we take the dating of the literature, the Norse literature is dated to 9^th to 13^th centuries, whereas, the Greek to c.500-300 BCE period. Thus, the spread could be in the reverse direction.

© K. V. Ramakrishna Rao

06-08-2020

[1] Freschi, Elisa, The reuse of the iconography of Hayagrīva in texts and images., 2015.

[2] Batuknath Bhattacharya, The Kalivarjyas or Prohibitions in the Kali Age, University of Calcutta, Calcutta, 1943.

[3] In Greek mythology, Chrysaor (Greek: Χρυσάωρ, Chrysáor, gen.: Χρυσάορος, Chrysáoros; English translation: “He who has a golden sword” (from χρυσός, “golden” and ἄορ, “sword”)), the brother of the winged horse Pegasus, was often depicted as a young man, the son of Poseidon and the Gorgon Medusa. Chrysaor and Pegasus were not born until Perseus chopped off Medusa’s head.

[4] In Greek mythology, Geryon (/ˈdʒɪəriən/ or /ˈɡɛriən/; also Geryone; Greek: Γηρυών, genitive: Γηρυόνος), son of Chrysaor and Callirrhoe, the grandson of Medusa and the nephew of Pegasus, was a fearsome giant who dwelt on the island Erytheia of the mythic Hesperides in the far west of the Mediterranean. A more literal-minded later generation of Greeks associated the region with Tartessos in southern Iberia. Geryon was often described as a monster with either three bodies and three heads, or three heads and one body, or three bodies and one head. He is commonly accepted as being mostly humanoid, with some distinguishing features (such as wings, or multiple bodies etc.) and in mythology, famed for his cattle.

[5] Norse is a demonym for Norsemen, a medieval North Germanic ethnolinguistic group ancestral to modern Scandinavians, defined as speakers of Old Norse language from about the 9th to the 13th centuries.

Horse, killing and eating of Horse, Deification of Horse: The mythologization and demythologization of Horse-God theology in the world civilizations! (1)

Horse, killing and eating of Horse, Deification of Horse: The mythologization and demythologization of Horse-God theology in the world civilizations! (1)

Horse meat a taboo in the US and European countries: In recent years, there have been a lot of speeches and writings about beef eating, the right to eat and so on in India. However, the taboo of horse-meat has never been whispered here in India or discussed. Horse meat was also eaten as part of Germanic pagan religious ceremonies in Northern Europe, particularly ceremonies associated with the worship of Odin. It is not a generally available food in some English-speaking countries such as the United Kingdom, South Africa, Australia, Ireland, the United States, and English Canada. It is also taboo in Brazil, Israel, and among the Romani people and Jewish people the world over. Horse meat is not generally eaten in Spain, except in the north, but the country exports horses both as live animals and as slaughtered meat for the French and Italian markets. Horse meat is consumed in some North American and Latin American countries, but is illegal in some others.

Why the Americans abhors horse meat or Chevaline? No Aswamedha in USA!: Very often, Indians are / have been blamed for having medieval barbaric, heathenish and even satanic practices. How the “beef politics” has been going on is well known. However, historians, researchers and other experts do not tell Indian why the Americans do not eat horse meat or Chevaline! Killing and eating Chevaline (Aswamedha, अश्वमेध ) in the USA has been a taboo. Mohammedans have a taboo about pork and crow stew. The American media has plenty of information for hating horse meat giving the reasons for[1]:

1. Horses became taboo meat in the ancient Middle East, possibly because they were associated with companionship, royalty, and war[2].
2. The Book of Leviticus rules out eating horse, and in 732 CE, the Pope Gregory III instructed his subjects to stop eating horse because it was an “impure and detestable” pagan meat.
3. By the 16^th century, hippophagy—the practice of eating horse meat—had become a capital offence in France.
4. America banned it, as the Pilgrims had brought the European prohibition on eating horse flesh, inherited from the pre-Christian tradition.
5. Besides, horse meat was considered un-American. Nineteenth-century newspapers abound with ghoulish accounts of the rise of hippophagy in the Old World. In these narratives, horse meat is the food of poverty, war, social breakdown, and revolution—everything new migrants had left behind.
6. In early September 2006, the Horse Slaughter Prevention Act passed the U.S. House, with Republican John Sweeney calling the horse meat business “one of the most inhumane, brutal and shady practices going on in the United States today.”
7. The 2014 Obama budget once more ruled out a revival. Meanwhile, the horses continued to be shipped to Mexico and Canada.

The horse-meat politics of the USA has been worse than the beef politics of India, but none points out[3] . And still none has gusts to lift the ban equivocally[4]. There also, very often questions are raised[5].

Till the 19^th century, horse sacrifice was there in Europe: Dr David Anthony gives the reasons why American and Europeans have been uncomfortable in eating horse-meat[6]. The aversion felt by most modern Americans and Europeans originated as a religious taboo in the early Middle Ages. The sacrifice of a horse and the consumption of its sanctified flesh were central parts of very widespread pagan rites in ancient Europe. The early Christian church forbade the consumption of horseflesh because it was so regularly associated with pre-Christian ceremonies. Pope Gregory III (731-741CE) banned the eating of horses as “an unclean and execrable act.” Although the papal ban seems to have greatly reduced the consumption of horseflesh in most of Europe, the ritual sacrifice of horses continued for a surprisingly long time. Horses were slaughtered at the funerals of King John of England in 1216 and the Holy Roman Emperor Karl IV in 1378[7]. As recently as 1781, during the funeral of cavalry General Friedrich Kasimir at Trier, his horse was killed and deposited in his grave. Even more surprising, churches were sanctified with horse sacrifices, perhaps conducted secretly by the workmen who built the church buildings. Modern construction workers found horse bones embedded in the floor of St. Botolph’s at Boston, Lincolnshire, and in the belfry of a church at Elsdon, Northumberland. Eight horse skulls were discovered in 1883 in the stonework of the pulpit at Bristol Street meeting house in Edinburgh, Scotland; others were discovered embedded in the foundation of the choir stalls at Llandraff Cathedral, Wales. As late as the 18th century, Dutch peasants would place a horse skull on the roof to keep bad luck away from the home. Therefore, it is evident that horses were sacrificed before and after the completion f the construction of the Churches, as a practice followed.

The system of belief, non-belief etc: In every believing system, whether theistic or atheistic, agnostic or Gnostic or otherwise, certain beliefs, ideas and viewpoints have been kept in tight, whether they are questioned by others or not. Invariably, the atheistic, agnostic, and such other non-believing ideologies only make a huge noise, as if their belief is superior to others. It is well-known that any person, whether he knows the subject or not, he can go on asking questions, because, he is not bothered about getting any rational, scientific or acceptable answer to his questions, but, interested in asking more questions. Thus, the Indian belief-system has been under attack by many other belief-systems, ideologists and dogmatic experts. And modern, ideologized and politicized Indians have been more fashioned to ask questions. A stage reaches, where, the questioner himself loses his logic of “point of no return,” but, starts again from the beginning.

Horse-headed Deity in Hindu religion: Indians have been celebrating today – 03-08-2020 as Hayagriva Jayanti to commemorate the birth of Horse-God Vishnu! But, the horse was considered as divine by many civilizations. Irish, German, Etruscan, Mycenaean, Minoan, Etruscan, Greek, Chinese, Japan considered horse divine. However, it is not known why they are not celebrating such festivals, every year in their respective cultures and countries. The Horse-headed incarnation of God is traced back to the Vedas by the scholars[8]. The narratives continued through Agama and tantric texts, because of the Jaina and Buddhist intrusion, interpretation and adoption in their worship, rites and rituals. The iconic, sculptural and painting representations also varied accordingly. In the Vedic myth of Dadhyanc Atharvana (Dadhyanc son of Atharvan, horse-headed Vedic Seer) the horse-head is connected with the idea of secret knowledge[9].

The Pravargya Brahmana of Shathapatha narrates a story in which Vishnu himself cuts off of his head and it is replaced with a horse-head. His head becoming Sun, and other parts going to other cardinal points etc., prove cosmic and geological aspects happened figuratively. It also gives these details[10], “The devas were sacrificing and toiling with the headless yagnya. Dadhyanc atharvaNa knew the secret of putting back the head of the sacrifice and hence completing it. Indra warned Dadynac that if he revealed this secret to anybody, he would cut his head off. Ashvins wanted to learn the secret and hence they approached Dadhyanc. He told them about Indra’s warning and hesitated. They told him that they would cut his head off, replace it with a horse’s head and then he can teach them. Once, Indra cuts the head (i.e. the horse’s head), they would fix back the original head. Agreeing to this, Dadhyanc revealed the secret to the Ashvins after they replaced his head with the horse’s head. Indra did as he warned and the ashvins put back his original head.”

Initially, in the Vedic period and literature, there was no sacrifice, but, later, such intrusions were found. It has been interpreted that Brahmans opposed sacrifices. Actually, these narratives could be interpolated and misinterpreted by the Jains and Buddhists to suit their “Matra-tantra-yantra” practices. This points to the important role to be played by Hayagrlva in Tantrism, as was described more by the Dutch scholar H. van Gulik[11]. That the Hayagriva concept could penetrate into the Tibetan, Chinese and Japanese culture through Buddhism proves the impact of Indian philosophy and way of life. The transmission might have taken place through the Buddhist missionaries and the traders through the well-accepted trade routes.

© K. V. Ramakrishna Rao

06-08-2020

[1] The Atlantic,The Troubled History of Horse Meat in America , Susanna Forrest, JUNE 8, 2017.

[2] https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/06/horse-meat/529665/

[3]  USA Today, Ban on slaughtering horses for meat gets last-minute renewal in spending law Trump signed, Erin Kelly, Published: March 16, 2018, 4.12 pm.

[4] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/03/26/ban-slaughtering-horses-meat-gets-last-minute-renewal-spending-law-trump-signed/459076002/

[5] The Washington Post, Could Congress put horsemeat back on the menu in America?, By Maura Judkis, July 14, 2017 at 11:38 p.m. GMT+5:30

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/food/wp/2017/07/14/could-congress-put-horsemeat-back-on-the-menu-in-america/

[6] Dr David Anthony, Let them eat horses, http://silkroadfoundation.org/artl/horsemyth.shtml

[7] Duch, Anna Maria. The Royal Funerary and Burial Ceremonies of Medieval English Kings, 1216-1509. Diss. University of York, 2016.

[8]  D. Sridhara Babu, Hayaagriva – The Horse-Headed Deity in Indian culture, Sri Venkateswara University, Oriental Research Institute, Tirupati, 1990.

[9] The horse is head, the source of transcendent knowledge, symbolic of time.Dadhyañc Ātharvaṇa is mentioned in RV in the context of Pravargya (lost head of the then incomplete yajna. The legend is narrated in Jaiminiya Brahmana 3.64 9in fusion with Cyavana legnd in JBr. 3.120-128) and ŚatBr. 14.1.1.1 ff. The JBr.

[10] K. Amshuman, A yajur-vedic legend from shathapatha brAhmaNa, http://www.ibiblio.org/sripedia/ramanuja/archives/oct03/msg00009.html

[11] Robert Hans van Gulik, Hayagrīva: The Mantrayānic Aspect of Horse-cult in China and Japan, Briill, Leiden, Netherlands, 1935.

Tortoises and Turtles: myth and reality, their Scientific importance in the traditional cultures of the world! [2]

Tortoises and Turtles: myth and reality, their Scientific importance in the traditional cultures of the world! [2]

Maharashtra calls off turtle festival: In Maharashtra’s Velas and Anjarle villages in the state’s Ratnagiri district along the Konkan coast, the gram panchayat (village committee) and local community members were unanimous in calling off the turtle festivals that span through March each year, in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak. In Ratnagiri out of 14 nesting sites, the festival is organized only in two villages, Velas and Anjarle, The turtle festival was initially started as a one-day event by SNM in 2006 in Velas as part of community conservation. Along the Konkan coast where the nesting happens, local communities would eat the turtle eggs. Thus, the contradiction is exposed. How the tamasha of celebration of protection of turtles, eggs etc., at one end and eating of turtle eggs could go together. In Assam, the nature-lovers have found a method of leaving “Black turtles” in the temple tanks, so that they grow easily and freely.

Importance of Olive Ridley Turtle:  Hindu Mythology worships sea / oceanic turtles as incarnation of God. Thus, most fishing communities do not consume turtle’s eggs or meats for this reason.  Modem science shows that sea turtles have been swimming the ocean for well over 100 million years even predating many Dinosaurs.  It symbolizes in mythologies of many indigenous cultures. Thus proving the antiquity of the tortoises and turtles. It represents creation, longevity and wisdom.  It forms an integral part in maintaining marine eco-system.  It is an indicator of the vitality of the overall marine environment. Even, in international turtle day and other depictions, the impact can be noticed that turtles and tortoises are always associated with the globe, cardinal points and oceans. But, all these factors are easily taken into account when they are made as God, that too, incarnation of Vishnu. That many saints, Ramanujacharya, Narahari Thirtha, Caitanya and others had been visiting these sacred places for centuries prove that all these eco-factors were already taken care of by them.

Difference between Tortoise and Turtle:  Many many not know the difference between tortoise and turtle, but, they have specific differences as follows:

Tortoise	Turtle
Tortoise live primarily on land	Turtle, live primarily in sea and freshwater
Tortoises are herbivorous	Turtles are omnivorous
Shell of Tortoise is dome-shaped and heavier	The shell of Turtles is more or less flat and lighter
Tortoise generally does not swim and dive and generally stay in one area	turtle swim, dive and migrate from one area to other.
The tortoise can withdraw the entire part inside the shell	Turtle cannot do so.
Tortoise is having normal feet without webbing	Turtle is having webbed toes with a flipper to facilitate swimming
On an average Tortoise lays 1-12 eggs	whereas Turtle lays 100-150 eggs.

The Global Positioning System (GPS): That turtles would return to the same place has already been pointed out as mentioned in the Indian literature, whereas, scientists have proved now. Scientists have long known that the turtles, like many animals, navigate at sea by sensing the invisible lines of the magnetic field, similar to how sailors use latitude and longitude[1]. But they didn’t know how the turtles were able to return to the very spot where they were born[2]. They reported that it was because the turtles rely on Earth’s magnetic field to find their egg-laying beach. Each part of the coastline has its own magnetic signature, which the animals remember and later use as an internal compass. Sea turtles use the earth’s magnetic fields to navigate back to the area where they were born decades earlier, according to a new study that used loggerhead genetics to investigate their travels[3]. The turtles can perceive both the magnetic field’s intensity and its inclination angle, the angle that the field lines make with respect to the Earth’s surface, earlier research has shown[4]. It is good that science and religion go together.

World ancient civilizations and cultures had the myth of earth supported by a turtle: According to the North American folklore, the continent of America is referred to as “Turtle Island,” as they believed that the weight of the continent was carried on a turtle’s back. The Wyandot thought that earthquakes were caused by the turtle’s shifting of his weight when got tired. Iroquoian belief that earth is supported by a turtle has been discussed by many anthropologists. In Chinese mythology, the turtle is the only living sacred animal and considered a symbol of wisdom, longevity, and wealth. They also believed that the shell of a turtle has markings of heaven, earth and the universe. They even used turtle shells at ceremonies to predict the future. According to Converse and Parker, the Iroquois faith shared with Hindu and other religions the “belief that the earth is supported by a gigantic turtle.” Here, the point has been that the turtles and tortoises resemble men, teach lessons and exhibit proof for their integrity and honesty. They live with the earth withstanding all-natural disturbances and disasters. They come to their places, lay eggs, hatch and go away, but, again come back to the same places.

Indians had their own educational methodology to teach difference audiences: That Indians had Vedas, Vedangas, Upanishads, Itihasas, Puranas, Siddhantas etc., prove that they had various audience or students for learning different subjects[5]. The Puranas had / have been to address different types of common men with varied interests, avocations and vacations. Thus, the choice of a temple for Kurmam has been well thought of by the experts and accommodated in their religious sacraments, rituals and pujas, during the first centuries and well developed in the medieval period. Of course, the disturbances of the Mohammedans and Colonial forces have been more than that of the natural disturbances and disasters and hence, it has been very difficult to demythologize and understand and bring out history. Throughout the world, the tortoise has been used as a base or supporting the upper portion of statue, sculpture etc., can be seen in many monuments. Now, other people might forget their significance. But, in India, in the temple worship itself, it is preserved and continued. And that is why, if a careful study is conducted, the facts are being verified, confirmed and made matching with the ancient literature. In India, it is possible even today. The colonial forces and the western expertise in Indology knew very well about the scientific content couched inside the puranic garb. But they wanted to dub them as myth, characterizing the devout Hindus as four blind men describing an elephant idiotically. Whereas, the elephant and tortoise myth many more scientific studies conducted, but, perhaps, suppressed from or known less among Indians, as none of the material evidences are here.

The fossil background of the Tortoise, Siwalik range etc: Col. Wilford, F. E. Pargiter, D. C. Sircar, S. M. Ali[6], Maya Prasad Tripathi[7], and others have dealt with the geography, geology and cosmology as described in the Itihasas and the Puranas. They have shown that the authors of the Puranas have been updating and incorporating the geographical and geographical knowledge in the Puranas, in their own way. D. C. Sircar[8] has used inscriptions also to locate ancient cities and places. D. N. Wadia has shown the geological approach to study India and recorded the presences of fossils of men, fauna and flora also. Hugh Falconer[9] (1808-1865) discovered a fossil of a huge tortoise at the Himalayan range and he explained its significance with the “Hindu mythology”. The Siwalik Fossil Fauna contained monkeys, camels, giraffes, mixed with Anoplotherium, Sivatherium and other mammiferous remais[10].  Though his findings, interpretations and drawings were discussed, they are not known in India[11]. In fact, the material evidences and his papers have also been not accessible to Indian researchers. The particular genus Megalochelys, known as Colossochelys fossil of a tortoise, has spread to coasts of Bay of Bengal down to SEA countries till Timor islands. Thus, it explains the maritime contacts of these countries since early times. Pratik Chakrabarti and Joydeep Sen have pointed out the work done by Falconer and the significance Kurma in Indian context[12].

The exploitation of tortoise in modern days: The concept, precept and global orientation of tortoise have been incorporated in the many ancient cultures. The Jain and Buddhist literature, paintings and sculptures vividly depict such features. The caityas and stupas incorporate the Kurma concept of cardinal points. Now, Vastu experts exploit the concept of a tortoise. The conduct and celebration of “International Turtles Day” have been the commercialization of the periodical egg-laying acts of tortoises coming back to their places. Just like “”Jallik kattu,” it is explotied, in the sense, as the supporters of “Jallikkattu” eat beef etc., of cattle, they cannot be vegetarians and sathvigavdi. Irony has been, those who eat all sorts of meat and flesh propagate “Jeevakarunyam,” i.e, showing utmost sympathy, empathy and feelings towards all living things on the earth. That “Turtle” celebrates eat turtles themselves has been pointed out above. Therefore, instead of making tall claims, at least one can show a little sympathy to living creatures or keep quite.

© K. V. Ramakrishna Rao

24-05-2020

[1] National Geographic, How Do Sea Turtles Find the Exact Beach Where They Were Born?, BY CARRIE ARNOLD, PUBLISHED JANUARY 16, 2015.

[2] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/1/150115-loggerheads-sea-turtles-navigation-magnetic-field-science/

[3] New York Times, Sea Turtles Use Magnetic Fields to Find Their Birthplace Beach, By Karen Weintraub, April 13, 2018.

[4] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/13/science/sea-turtles-magnetic-field.html

[5] It is not that the student of history should not read the books of mathematics or astronomy and vice versa, but, they may not understand without knowing and understanding the fundamentals.

[6] S. M.Ali, Geography of Puranas, New Delhi, 1966.

[7] Maya Prasad Tripathi, Development of Geographic Knowledge in Ancient India, Varanasi, 1969.

[8] D. N. Wadia, Geology of India, MacMillan, London, 1944.

[9] Probey T. Cautley (ed.), Fauna Antiqua Sivalesis being the Fossil Zoology of the Sewalik Hills in the North of India, Smith, Elder and Co, London, 1846.

 

[10] Article V, Abstract of a Discourse by Falconer on the Fossil Fauna of the Sewalik Hills, in Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, John Paker, London, 1866, Volume 8, pp.107-113.

[11] Charles Murchison (ed.), Palaeontological memoirs and notes of H. Falconer, with a biographical sketch of the author, Robert Hardicke, London, 1868, Vol.I.

[12] Chakrabarti, Pratik, and Joydeep Sen. “‘The World Rests on the Back of a Tortoise’: Science and mythology in Indian history.” Modern Asian Studies 50.3 (2016): pp. 808-840.

Tortoises and Turtles: myth and reality, their Scientific importance in the traditional cultures of the world! [1]

Tortoises and Turtles: myth and reality, their Scientific importance in the traditional cultures of the world! [1]

How I got the interest in maritime studies, Cholas, turtles etc: When I was studying in the Sri Ramakrishna Mission Higher Secondary School[1], Mahalakshmi Street [South Branch], I used to participate in the drawing competition. My competitor was P. V. Ganesh. Every year, we used to get first or second prize and in one year, for the first prize, I was given “Mungil kottai” a historical novel by Sandilyan. Of course, the writer Sandilyan [Bhashyam Iyengar] was residing in one of the houses, opposite to our school. Whenever, any exigency arose, the school authorities would go to him and invite him to preside over functions. Thus, he came and presented the book. I read it completely. Interested by the historical background, I went to the Local Library authority Library[2] and asked for a book written by Chandilyan. The librarian [Murugesan] shouted at me, “What, you are school boy, you want to read Chandilyan?” I told, “Yes, I got a book written by him as a prize. I am told, he wrote some book on shipping etc, I want that book.” He was abusing me, grumbling and finally, he brought “Kadal pura” from the shelf and gave to me with a grim face, of course with a warning also, “All these are not good, boy!” [If you read or imagine in Tamil his reaction could be understood.]

Candilyan’s Kadal pura [Historical novel] quoting the book of Radhakumud Mookerji on Indian shipping…….

Kadal pura, the Puranas and the aquatic species: For the whole day, I read it continuously and completed by evening. I got a fascination for the ship, captain “Agutha”, ocean, travelling by ship, boat, fish, tortoise, whale etc. As it was the first part, I rushed to the library asking for the second part. He was so furious shouting, “Do you think that we do not have any other work here………………go away………I shall cancel your membership………….” I was simply standing there….The closing time was approaching. I was struggling to request him with fear, “Sir…………………” He started locking book bureau one by one.  He came to me, “Go and come tomorrow, we can give only one book a day.” I returned with disgust, but, thinking of more about tortoises, kurmavatara etc., as I already read the Puranas in Tamil written by Srivatsa Somadeva Sarma[3] of “Vaithika Dharma Varthini”.

Sri Kurmanatha Swamy temple – pillars with inscriptions.

Sandilyan’s methodology of writing a historical novel: Anyway, I could read all the three volumes of “Kadal pura” and “Yavana Rani” also. Sandilyan used to give references of books, he relied upon to write the novels and also record, where those books were available. For example, he mentioned, “Radhakumud Mukherjee, Indian shipping available at Connemara library,” in the footnote in Kadalpura. I started insisting my uncle to take me to Connemara Library and get the book. He asked me mildly, “You cannot read such books, as the (English) language would be very difficult for you to understand.” As I continuously harassed me with my pranks, he took me to the library and got the book also. He taught me English and used to correct my papers. Thus, my interest in shipping, waters, fish etc. Once I got down into our well, but could not climb up. I was inside for one hour, then, “Thurwar-persons”[4] came and brought out of the well. During 1980s, I took a full-fledged interest in the Cholas and their maritime activities.

The location of Sri Kurmanatha Swamy temple, very near to the coast of Bay of Bengal or the Cholas lake. And it is near to Orissa cities on the coast, where the turtles lay eggs during the March season.

The location of Srikurmam, Sun temple, Rushikula river etc…The Sweta Pusjkarni is shown below:

A turtle coming out of sea waters.

A turtle coming out of sea waters and reaching the sand.

A turtle coming out of sea waters and reaching the sand. It roams for a while and turns towards sea……

going back to sea-waters……………

We see them one taking rest on the beach…….

We touch to know……………………………..

We touch to know……………………………..

Another delegate / friend wants to touch………………….

Decoding the myth of Kurmavatara: Earlier, I read all Puranas, Itihasas and related books in Tamil till school and then in English after college. Definitely, the Kurma Purana gives intrinsic and clear-cut details about the creation of the world, life, animate and inanimate things, etc., particularly, how they were brought out of the darkness. Interestingly, Kurma Purana has been translated into the major European languages including English, German and French. The extant Kurma-Purana, has been classified as a 15^th Mahapurana and is dated to 4^th to 9^th centuries period CE, considering the interpolations. The Puranas mention five characteristics or main topics of a Purana[5] (especially of a Mahapurana), viz –

sarga (creation),

pratisarga (dissolution and re-creation),

vamsa (dynastic lists or genealogy of kings, sages and gods),

Manvantara.’s (periods of Manu-s each being equal to 71 Mahayuga-s) and

the vamsanucarita (accounts of individual kings, ‘sages, and gods mentioned in the genealogical lists).

In Kurmapurana, all details are available. The Khurma / Tortoise was taken figuratively for the flat surface of the earth with its cardinal points. These details have been found in the ancient literature of all other ancient civilizations. But, after the medieval period and colonization, most of the literature and medieval evidences were destroyed and hence they are not discussed. As the earth floats in the cosmos with its oceanic waters, mountains etc., attracted towards its centre with the force of gravitation, the tortoise too controls and protects its body by withdrawing all its limbs within the shell. The mathematics of Srichakra and Mahmeru are also linked, as the 3D structure is carried on its back. The idea conveyed is that these figures are perfect to be obtained in reality.

Visiting sea coasts, temples connected with turtle etc: I had an opportunity to visit Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore, and the Maldives to attend conferences. At those times, I went to maritime museums, beaches and interacted with the local people enquiring details about the medieval maritime activities connected with the Cholas. Only a few could give details about the past, as most of the guides and local people either they deny that they do anything or avoid discussion and go away apologetically. I visited Bengal, Assam, Megalyaya, Tripura, and Orissa many times to attend conferences and seminars. I could find the Cholas connection with Orissa and Bengal. When I started visiting Andhra Pradesh, now Telangana also to attend APHC and THC also, I could visit many coastal cities and towns up to Orissa / Odhissa. . Along with some delegates of APHC, in January  8^th to 10^th, 2016, when I was in Srikakulam, visited the temples situated near to the coast and the beach also. But, as modernization goes fast in the construction of buildings, roads and others, slowly, the temple surroundings are changing. Everybody is interested in commercialization of everything, forgetting the past.

Sri Kurmam, Kurmanatha Swamy Temple: Sri Kurmam is a village in the Gara Mandal of Srikakulam, located approximately 13 km east of Srikakulam town near the sea. It is located at a latitude of 18° 16′ N, a longitude of 84° 1′ E and an altitude of 17 meters (59 feet), thus puts the temple about 3 km from the Bay of Bengal. According to inscriptions in the temple dated 1281 CE, the Kürmakshetra was re-established by Sri Ramanujacharya under the influence of Jagannatha Deva at Jagannatha Puri. Later the temple came under the jurisdiction of the king of Vijayanagara. The visit of Ramanuja in the eleventh century created a religious fervour among the people both in Orissa and Andhra Pradesh towards Vaisnava movement.

The temple is dedicated to Sri Kurmanatha, the second avatar of Lord Vishnu, Kurma Avatar. Srikurmam inscription mentions that the daughters of certain Nayak families of Kalinga were accepted as dancing girls in the temple of Srikurmam which was encouraged by Narasinghadev I. The first known identification of the deity of Puri temple as Jagannatha comes from the Srikurmam inscription[6] of Bhanudeva II, which is dated to 1309 CE. Incidentally, Bhanudeva – II has been mentioned with an epithet, “viswabhara-bhara-vahana-mahaniya” –  that is just like Vishnu-Purushottama, he carried the burden of the earth on the back in the form of a tortoise[7].  Narahari Tirtha (d. 1333 CE) was a scholar and one of the disciples of Madhvacharya (1238-1317 CE), who patronized the temple. Traditionally, Narahari is also considered to be the founder of Yakshagana and Bayalata, a dance form which still flourishes in parts of Karnataka and Kasargod in present-day Kerala.

Narahari Thirth in Kalinga from 1264-1294 CE: Many inscriptions at Srikurmam and Simhchalam refer to Narahari Bhrathi, Narahari Maphada or Narahari Tirth giving authentic information about his activities in Kalinga. The accession of Bhanudeva I to the Ganga throne in 1264 coincided with the arrival of Narahari Thirtha in Kalinga after his initiation to Dvaita philosophy by Madhva. He remained in Kalinga till 1294 and wielded considerable influence during the reign of Bhanudeva I and his son Narasiroha II. Narahari Thirtha left Kalinga in 1294 during the reign of Narasimha II. He constructed a temple of Yogananda Narasimha in front of the temple of Srikurmam in 1281. Generally, it is done to reduce the “ugra” (great effect, affecting certain devotees). Before Narahari Tirtha left Kalinga he installed the idols of Rama, Sita and Laxmana in the premises of Srikurmam temple. A. K. Mohanty[8] has rightly pointed out, “The humble beginning made by Ramanuja culminated into a cultural revolution by the activities of Narahari Tirtha. Ramanuja had simply converted Srikurmam and Simhachalam temples as Vaisnava shrines but Narahari Tirtha raised these two places as great centres of Vaisnava religion and faith…… Ramanuja and Sri Chaitanya came and left, but Narahari Tirtha remained with the people, spent 30 years with them,……”. Thus, the great services of Narahari Tirtha have to be remembered. In the temple itself, there as been a space for tortoises to roam and they are protected.

Rushikulya river and the place, where turtles visit to lay eggs: The eastern Indian state of Odisha is known worldwide for seasonally hosting olive ridley sea turtles (Lepidochelys olivacea) en masse as they visit the seashore along the Bay of Bengal for mass nesting[9]. This spring (March 2020), however, heralded a surprise for the marine conservationists and state forest department, who witnessed mass nesting of the species during the day after nearly seven years[10]. Rushikulya is situated in the Ganjam district of Odisha along the Bay of Bengal and is one of the most prominent locations for olive ridley mass nesting, an annual feature where female turtles arrive on the beach to prepare their nests and lay their eggs[11]. Such mass nesting events are called arribadas (a Spanish word meaning arrival).

Nesting of olive ridley turtles, Odisha – March 14 to 21:  Coming to the turtles laying eggs, hatching, preservation etc., the efforts taken are discussed. The olive ridley turtle is considered the most abundant sea turtle in the world, with an estimated 8,00,000 nesting females annually[12]. The olive ridley is globally distributed in the tropical regions of the South Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans. They are listed as vulnerable in the IUCN Red list and are also protected under the Wildlife Protection Act of 1972. According to wildlife experts, in India, while states like Maharashtra, Goa, and the offshore Andaman islands witness sporadic nesting of olive ridley turtles, Odisha is the only state in India that sees mass nesting of olive ridley turtles. Rushikulya and Gahirmatha are the two principal mass nesting sites at this point in Odisha. the Rushikulya rookery hosted 330,000 olive ridleys during this mass nesting phase. The breeding season for the turtles spreads from November to May including mating, nesting, and hatching. Each turtle can lay between 100 to 160 eggs in an hour,” explained Sahu. At Gahirmatha marine sanctuary, as many as 407,194 olive ridley turtles laid eggs from March 14 to March 21. Combined with the number of turtles that nested at Rushikulya, government officials claim close to 800,000 turtles have come to nest.  As per the Forest Department, till the second week, more than 2,78,502 female turtles have nested at the coast[13]. This year, they have estimated that at least 4.75 lakh turtles would come out to nest on the Rushikulya beach alone[14]. According to estimates, more than six crore eggs would be laid this year 2020. The Gahirmatha Beach in Kendrapara district of Odisha (India), which is now a part of the Bhitarkanika Wildlife Sanctuary, is the largest breeding ground for these turtles. Between 1993 and 2003, more than 100,000 olive ridley turtles were reported dead in Odisha, India from fishery-related practices[15]. Another major project, in India involved in preserving the olive ridley sea turtle population, was carried out in Chennai, where the Chennai wildlife team collected close to 10,000 eggs along the Marina coast, of which 8,834 hatchlings were successfully released into the sea in a phased manner[16]. Under the guise of preserving the turtles etc., these activities have been going on. Who is sponsoring for the activities, etc., are not known. How the common people of India are going to get benefitted also not known. But, in the concept of “Kurmavatara,” the tortoises and turtles have been divinized and even made God and hence respected, venerated and protected in the sanctum sanctorum.

© K. V. Ramakrishna Rao

24-05-2020

[1] Sri Ramakrishna Mission Higher Secondary School has three branches – Main (opposite to Panagal Park), North (Next to NTR House) and South (Mahalakksmi st) – all in T. Nagar.

[2]  At that time it was situated just opposite to the “National Theatre,” Lake View Road, West Mambalam, Madras.

[3] His house was there in the Station Road, West Mambalam. I used to go to him to buy books and magazine.

[4] The experts, who could jump into well waters, scoop out dirt and make water good. They would come with ropes and assistants.

[5] Ahibhushan Bhattacharya, The Kurma Purana (with English translation), All India Kashi Raj Trust, Varanasi, 1972, Introduction, pp.i-iii.

[6] Epigraphia Indica, Vol. V, p. 35. Also see D.C. Sircar, “Ganga Bhanudeva II and PurushottamaJagannatha”, Journal of the Kalinga Historical Research Society, Vol. 1, No. 3, p. 251-53.

[7] JASB, Vo.XVII, p.195.

[8] Mohanty, Abhay Kumar, Narahari Tirtha a study of his life and work, PhD thesis, Utkal University, 1993

[9] Mongabay, Olive ridleys day-nest in Odisha after seven years, but no link to lockdown say experts, by Manish Kumar, Sahana Ghosh on 1 April 2020

[10] https://india.mongabay.com/2020/04/olive-ridleys-day-nest-in-odisha-after-seven-years-but-no-link-to-lockdown-say-experts/

[11] The Hindu, Undisturbed mass nesting of Olive Ridleys at Odisha’s Rushikulya rookery, Sib Kumar Das, BERHAMPUR, MARCH 25, 2020 21:43 IST, UPDATED: MARCH 26, 2020 09:55 IST

[12] https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/energy-and-environment/coronavirus-lockdown-undisturbed-mass-nesting-of-olive-ridleys-at-odishas-rushikulya-rookery/article31166566.ece

[13] Times of India / India Times, Turtles return to Odisha’s coast for nesting as humans are locked inside, TRAVEL NEWS, ORISSA, Mar 27, 2020, 11.31 IST

[14] https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/travel/destinations/lakhs-of-endangered-olive-riley-turtles-return-to-odishas-coast-for-nesting-as-humans-are-locked-inside/as74841524.cms

[15] Deccan Chronicle, Over 8,000 turtle hatchlings released, DC Correspondent, Published May 23, 2014, 12:01 pm IST; Updated Apr 1, 2019, 6:22 am IST

[16] https://www.deccanchronicle.com/140523/nation-current-affairs/article/over-8000-turtle-hatchlings-released

The Lost City of the Monkey God – myth or reality? From 1927 to 2017, the changing narratives of the experts, explorers and enterprising book writers [3]

The Lost City of the Monkey God – myth or reality? From 1927 to 2017, the changing narratives of the experts, explorers and enterprising book writers [3]

‘Sites in almost every valley’: Rather than being a lone citadel in an untrammeled jungle or some mysterious civilization forgotten to time, almost “every river valley will typically have some archaeological find” in Mosquitia, Begley said. Begley welcomed the ways Lidar and new technology will help home in on new sites, but said that indigenous people such as the Pech provide invaluable knowledge in explaining ancient life. “It’s like driving versus flying, or walking versus flying,” he said. “You see all these connections that you’d miss if you’d just gone in on a helicopter. On the ground, they always say there’s another place we can see just around the bend, just a few days more.” “People might say we’re sour grapes, but I think none of us was contacted because most of us object to this kind of presentation,” Begley added. “This time we decided we’re going to call this out.” “If you asked the Pech, ‘Did you know about this lost civilization?’ they’d say, ‘Well, no, but we know about the ones our ancestors built,’” Begley said, adding that he thought them the likely descendants of people who were eventually scattered by factors including disease, war and slavery brought by the Spanish. Here, the usefulness and the real key-role played by the local people are implied. Actually, the local people, particularly, the old ones know much than the others. The oral tradition passed on from one generation to another has been an important one. Some people preserve some antiques also as a memento.

Not Mayan, but who?: With the Pech, Begley has documented many similar sites to those reported by National Geographic last week: communities, dating back from 800AD to 1200AD[1], somewhere between villages, towns and cities, with ballcourts, terraces, large structures and locations at a “cultural crossroads” of the Americas. So while the identities of who built the new sites remains a mystery pending excavation, clues abound, the archaeologists said. Many of Honduras’ ancient sites feature Mayan-like ballcourts, paved roadways and large public buildings, but the people who lived there seem to have lacked the Maya’s intense hierarchy of kings and elites, Joyce and Henderson said. In some of these settlements, artwork and Spanish documents suggest women were as likely as men to have held positions of power, Joyce theorizes. In contrast to Mayan society where men had authority in most roles, women sometimes appear on the ceremonial jaguar benches (whose effigies represented spiritual power), denoting status as “ritual specialists, with knowledge of the supernatural, or healing,” she said. Joyce also said colonial texts describe men and women both playing the region’s ancient ballgame and that the surfeit of intricate artwork suggests a prosperous society in which relatively wealthy elites could sponsor craftsmen, in a system not unlike medieval Europe or ancient Greece – without feudal lords or the idea of states. “It’s like a chain of smaller cities where institutionalized power had not excluded so many people,” she said. “And you look at the Maya and ask how did they manage to do this trick, getting the general population to support such inequality and hierarchy – a question which obviously has relevance today.” “One of the things that fascinate me about all this is how it’s driven by not having a label for these settlements,” Henderson said. It is intriguing to note only patriarchal issue has been taken to differentiate, instead of taking the mathematical, astronomical and other excellence of the Aztec, Maya and Inca civilizations.

City or not city, another debate: “They’re not Maya so they must be unknown, is the thinking, but the category of Maya really constrains how we think about these questions.” Nearly all the anthropologists and archaeologists expressed high hopes for increased research in Central America, concern for the deforestation that threatens sites there, and wishes that the steady drain of funding for universities and grants stops and reverses soon. All agreed that it would take years more research, teamwork and debate to find answers to their questions, although they sometimes disagreed how they should work in those years to come. “Archaeology has a real problem because our funding is drying up, and science, in general, has a huge language issue because we’re not communicating very well why our work is important,” Fisher said. “If someone wants to argue with me about the definition of a city, great, I’ll buy them a beer and we’ll talk for hours,” he said. “But this is such a reminder that there’s so much out there that’s still unknown and waiting for us to find out.” So, if the experts have their own status problem, professional bias, social snobbery etc., then, others cannot do anything. Instead of taking them to remote places to discover cities, they can be taken to bars in their own cities.

Archaeologists cringe for good reason: The Verge reported, “Until recently, many archaeologists were shockingly insensitive and arrogant in the way they conducted fieldwork, riding roughshod over the feelings, religious beliefs, and traditions of indigenous people[2]. They dug up burials without permission, put human remains and sensitive grave goods on public display in museums, hauled off sacred objects to which they had no legal right of ownership[3]. Today the profession has reacted against this dark history and tried to make fundamental changes in the way they conduct fieldwork and work with local people”. In other words, unofficial and illegal excavations have been going on in these areas for various vested interests[4]. Others have also expressed their concern over such activities[5]. If no observer is there or the excavations are monitored and videographed, anybody can claim anything and what they destroyed, recovered and carried away also not known. Moreover, for selling their books, if the authors adapt and adopt such strategies, no real research would be there.

The lost city of white or Monkey God by Charles Lindbergh forgotten.

The lost city Monkey God discovered by Theodore Morde was forgotten.

Now, a city of Jaguars has been found!

The Lost City of the Monkey God changed to the City of the Jaguar: A True Story is a 2017 nonfiction book by Douglas Preston. It is about a project headed by documentary filmmaker Steve Elkins that used lidar to search for archaeological sites in the Río Plátano Biosphere Reserve of the Gracias a Dios Department in the Mosquitia region of eastern Honduras. The expedition was a joint Honduran-American multidisciplinary effort involving Honduran and American archaeologists, anthropologists, engineers, geologists, biologists and ethnobotanists. Elkins’ search was inspired by rumours of La Ciudad Blanca, also known as the White City. Preston cites mentions by Spanish conquistadors and others. The title of the book derives from four expeditions launched in the 1930s by the Museum of the American Indian (Heye Foundation) in which Honduran informants described to explorers, including Theodore Morde, sensationalized stories of a lost city with a pyramid topped by a giant stone statue of a monkey god somewhere in the Mosquitia region. Preston’s book debunks Morde’s claim of having found a city. After a privately funded lidar survey revealed complex archaeological sites under the rainforest cover, Preston accompanied a joint Honduran-American expedition to do ground-truthing of the lidar results. They were able to confirm the presence of large abandoned prehispanic settlements and to document plazas, terracing, canals, roads, earthen structures including a pyramid, and concentrations of artefacts, among them, decorated cylindrical stone vessels and metates, confirming the existence of an ancient city. The official name of the principal archaeological site that was mapped has been changed to the City of the Jaguar. So, the “Monkey God” myth has to be buried again, that is all. But, Preston too confirms that there was a city, but, it is named after Jaguar, as “the city of Jaguar”!

Conclusion: Whether Charles Lindbergh lied or Theodre Morde announced wrongly to suppress his gold hunt or otherwise, the US media has downplayed many details from 1020s to 2017. Jason Colavito concludes everything that is not comfortable to them has been dubbed as myth[6]. His small book on the “America,” refuting the discovery of city hypothesis and theories, is not convincing at all. If anything that is connected with India, the US experts need not be allegertic, as facts have to be accepted. Waddell, Mackenzie and others have already pointed out that there were connections between the Indian and the Aztec-Maya-Inca civilizations of the Americas. Even ordinary tourists or common-men, who happen to see the sculptures of these civilizations, they could easily find out the similarity. Such resemblance, likeness and comparison have been natural without any hint or suggestion. As day by day, the evidences of the ancient civilizations have been disappearing, vandalized and destroyed, it is an honest duty of any historian, archaeologist or researcher to preserve that is available today. The US and the other central and South American states may have other problems of emigration, drug mafia, antique smuggling, gold hunting and so on and they need not be mixed with the academician. If the academicians, archaeologists, explorers and historians have also been biased, accusing each other and producing such literature, then, the people of other countries, cultures and heritages may suffer heavily in getting reliable data and information. After all, now, a situation has come that knowledge is open to all. Therefore, there should be honesty in such areas of revealing, preserving and exchanging data and information for researchers. Whether the US writers have been producing books for sensation to support their business, business promotion and future enterprises, the researchers of other countries are not worried, but, all need not be mixed together to affect others adversely.

© K. V. Ramakrishna Rao

22-05-2020

[1] It is surprising that these notations are still used instead of CE.

[2] The Verge, Finding a lost city, and also a flesh-eating illness, with Douglas Preston- Abandoned cities, deadly snakes, and flesh-eating diseases, By Andrew Liptak, Feb 4, 2017, 10:00 am EST.

[3] https://www.theverge.com/2017/2/4/14502606/the-lost-city-of-the-monkey-god-interview-honduras-civilization

[4] Business Insider, People hadn’t set foot in this ancient ‘lost city’ in the Honduran jungle for 500 years – until now, Erin Brodwinmar 7, 2017, 00:51 IST

[5] https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/people-hadnt-set-foot-in-this-ancient-lost-city-in-the-honduran-jungle-for-500-years-until-now/articleshow/57503708.cms

[6] How the myth was developed is explained here –

http://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/on-the-development-of-the-ciudad-blanca-myth

The Lost City of the Monkey God – myth or reality? From 1927 to 2017, the changing narratives of the experts, explorers and enterprising book writers [2]

The Lost City of the Monkey God – myth or reality? From 1927 to 2017, the changing narratives of the experts, explorers and enterprising book writers [2]

Charles Lindbergh reportedly claimed that he saw the expansive white remains of an ‘amazing ancient metropolis’ when he flew over the region in 1927: Wild animals routinely wandered through their camp, clearly never having encountered humans before. Even without excavation, the scientists found 52 artefacts sticking out from the ground with many more clearly lying in the earth and vegetation beneath[1]. They included stone ceremonial seats and finely carved vessels decorated with snakes, vultures and zoomorphic / animal-like figures[2]. The most arresting find was a viciously fanged stone head, part-man and part-beast.  Fisher believes it to be not a ‘were-wolf’ but a spirit-like ‘were-jaguar’— the giant cat still prowls the jungles — representing a priest in a transformed state. The ancient culture that created the city, say the scientists, is so little known that it doesn’t even have a proper name — although Morde called its people the Chorotegans. He was just one of many men to search for the ruins after the aviator Charles Lindbergh reportedly claimed that he saw the expansive white remains of an ‘amazing ancient metropolis’ when he flew over the region in 1927. In the Thirties, George Heye, the multi-millionaire founder of New York’s Museum of the American Indian, paid for two expeditions to find it led by a pith-helmeted Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society named Capt R. Stuart Murray. He found nothing except dark rumours that the natives were ‘devil worshippers’ who spoke of a lost ‘City of the Monkey God’. And there was another myth — that the Monkey God had produced offspring, a half-man and half-simian race dubbed the ‘hairy people’. Thus, for some reasons, the US-experts have been adding myth over myth creating a new myth.

It was Yucatan structures, he photographed.

Of course, he photographed mounds like this also.

The huge mound, the place of sacrifice: Locals believed apes from the jungle had long ago stolen virgins from their villages to produce the mongrel offspring; they also insisted the ruins were cursed[3]. Theodore Morde was the leader of Heye’s third expedition and, as he explained later, after months of starvation, sickness and exhaustion, they were about to give up when he saw something from the top of a small cliff[4]. It was the stone ruins of a walled ‘great city . . . that at its height must have held many thousands of inhabitants’, he wrote. The jungle-choked city walls originally would have risen, he estimated, to 30ft and on almost everything he found, said Morde, was carved the likeness of a monkey. While they were there, he said, real spider monkeys peered curiously at the expedition’s team from the trees above. Although the vegetation was too thick to see much, local guides showed him a huge mound they said lay at the centre of the city. Buried deep within was an enormous temple with a vast staircase leading to a ‘high stone dais on which was the statue of the Monkey God himself’. This, they claimed, had been ‘the place of sacrifice’.

Monkeys sacrificed to Monkey God: As to what had been sacrificed, Morde and ethnologists he consulted were convinced the people had practised a barbaric tradition that was later adopted by the warlike Aztecs to the north in Mexico. Every year, a physically perfect young man, usually a priest, would be selected to be the Monkey God for that year. He would be worshipped, pampered and given the most beautiful girls. But after 12 months, he would be ritually slaughtered at the top of the pyramid temple, his heart torn out and his body thrown down the steps where it would be cut into pieces. Priests would distribute it among the worshippers who would each take a small piece home to eat. One night Morde watched a group of natives perform a morbid ritual dance in which each of them brandished a spear on which were impaled three spider monkeys. The monkeys were roasted over a fire in such a way that their limbs contracted and writhed in the flames as if still alive, and the whole tribe settled down later to eat them. Officiating was the local head medicine man or shaman — the Dama Suk-ya Tara. This type of narratives have been added to show that the natives were cannibals, thus, they were barbarians, uncivilized and idolaters.

Monkey sacrifice, curse affecting the explorers: Naked except for a loincloth and his body painted with white chalk, the priest made a blood-curdling spectacle with a necklace laced with the minute skulls of unborn monkeys, yellow human teeth and the poison sacks of lethal jungle snakes. To his fingertips, he had fixed the fangs of huge alligators. At one point he brandished a long arrow on which was impaled a large spider monkey. At another, he stuck a hollow bamboo rod into the eye socket of each roasted monkey, ritually sucking out their brain fluid. Was this monstrous man the spiritual successor to the chief priest of the Monkey God? The natives said the ceremony was a dance of revenge for the theft by monkeys of their virgins all those years ago. Morde spent just two days at the ruins because the monsoon season started suddenly, forcing him to leave the place before conducting any excavations which might have enabled him to prove his theories[5]. Only now, with this new expedition, does it look like his discovery may finally be verified. And if The White City really is cursed, as the natives had warned Morde, he may have belatedly paid the price. He committed suicide in circumstances that have never been satisfactorily explained[6]. Note, how his death is mentioned differently – first, they informed died in a car crash, died under suspicious circumstances, then, committed suicide!

The shama priest – Dama Suk-ya Tara, who sacrificed monkeys……

He fried the monkeys in fire…….

British SAS (Special air service), reportedly discovered remains of a city in the Mosquitia region (2015): The Honduran-American expedition, aided by former members of the British SAS, reported that they had discovered the extensive remains of a city in the Mosquitia region, some 32,000 square miles of virgin rainforest in eastern Honduras which is largely only accessible by air. Alongside artefacts such as the stone “were-jaguar” – a half-human, half-feline representation of a transformed shaman – was a cache of sculptures which had laid untouched since the city was abandoned around 1,000 years ago. The tops of 52 artworks were found protruding from the jungle floor, prompting expedition members to calculate that many more lie below along with stone ceremonial seats and elaborately carved vessels decorated with snakes and vultures. The artefacts were located at the base of an earthen pyramid which was mapped by the team along with a network of plazas, mounds and earthworks. The National Geographic Society, which accompanied the expedition and today revealed its findings, said: “This vanished culture has been scarcely studied and it remains virtually unknown. Archaeologists don’t even have a name for it.” Thus, after 1997, another expedition was reported in 2015, after 8 years.

Was it a pre-Columbian civilization?: The scientists, who have documented their findings but had to leave the priceless artefacts in situ, believe their discoveries in a hidden valley in the swampy jungle of Mosquitia suggest not only a lost city but potentially an entire pre-Columbian civilisation whose settlements are scattered throughout the surrounding mountains. According to one estimate, the artefacts date back to between the tenth and 14th centuries. But the vanishingly rare revelation of a lost world brought with it a warning that it may not remain so for long. Deforestation for cattle farming has brought modernity to within 12 miles of the discovery site and Honduran archaeologists are worried the site is at risk of being overrun by the illegal ranching operators. The Europeans and Americans did not want it to be known or called as “Indian or Hindu related” issue or civilization. Definitely, the books like “Hindu America” were not taken seriously by them, though, the books of Charles Berlitz, Eric Von Daniken, Desmond Drake and others are liked. These books give credit to Indian civilization for its highest civilized status.

Archaeologists condemn National Geographic over claims of Honduran ‘lost cities: More than two dozen archaeologists and anthropologists have written an open letter of protest against the “sensationalisation” of their fields, with one accusing National Geographic of reverting to “a colonialist discourse” in announcing researchers had found two city-like sites in the deep jungles of Honduras[7]. They also say National Geographic has ignored decades of research that suggests Honduras was home to a vibrant chain of kingless societies, which merged qualities of the Maya to the north with other people’s less stratified, more equal cultures[8]. The scholars criticise National Geographic and the media for what they describe as the aggrandisement of a single expedition at the expense of years of research by scientists and decades of support from indigenous people of the dense rainforests in Honduras’ Mosquitia region. John Hoopes, a signatory and professor of anthropology at the University of Kansas, said that National Geographic had shown “a disrespect for indigenous knowledge”. The expedition was co-coordinated by two American film-makers, National Geographic and Honduras’ national institute of anthropology. “Any words like ‘lost’ or ‘civilization’ should set off alarm bells,” said Rosemary Joyce, a professor of anthropology at the University of California at Berkeley and also a signatory, for the same reasons that the word “discover” is no longer acceptable to discuss Columbus’s arrival in the Americas. “It’s a colonialist discourse which disrespects them,” Hoopes said. However, they did not want to mention about the earlier visitors, settlers or others of the region. That is, one has to forget the past.

‘Colonialist discourse’ v ‘political correctness’: Joyce, Hoopes and others also noted that, like the Maya, the descendants of ancient Central Americans survive in sizable numbers today, even if researchers do not know who exactly they are and must still piece together what life was like a millennium ago. Chris Fisher, the lead American archaeologist on the expedition, expressed bafflement at the sudden backlash, largely because “the stakes are so low”. “We never said it’s Ciudad Blanca or the city of the lost monkey god,” Fisher said, referring to two legendary, likely non-existent sites. “The articles aren’t scientific papers though, and we don’t deny that local people might have knowledge of these sites. But the area was unoccupied and relatively undisturbed after all these centuries.” National Geographic defended its coverage in a statement, saying in part that “it does not give credence to [the] ‘fantastic’ statements” of the eccentric journalist Theodore Morde, who claimed to have discovered a city in the Honduras jungle around 1940. Cornell’s Dr John Henderson, who neither signed the letter nor took part in the expedition, said the charge of colonialist rhetoric “strikes me as political correctness”. “The most offensive part is that there’s an awful lot that’s known that National Geographic left out,” he said. The area is so rich with sites, Henderson said, that “you’re going to point your Lidar” – the infrared surveying device that the expedition used via plane to find the site – “at almost any valley and you’re going to find something like what these guys find.” “But what they’ve done is modest in comparison with what Chris Begley has done there for all these years,” he said, bringing up the Transylvania University anthropologist hailed by his peers for his 24 years of work in this part of Honduras.

© K. V. Ramakrishna Rao

22-05-2020

[1] National Geographic, Exclusive: Lost City Discovered in the Honduran Rain Forest, BY Douglas Preston, Published March 2, 2015.

[2] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/03/150302-honduras-lost-city-monkey-god-maya-ancient-archaeology/

[3] CBS NEWS, Curse of the “Lost City of the Monkey God”?, January 8, 2017, 10:02 AM,

[4] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/curse-of-the-lost-city-of-the-monkey-god/

[5] The Daily Mail, Cannibals. Human sacrifice. Have explorers finally found the fabled lost City of the Monkey God?, By Tom Leonard, FOR THE DAILY MAIL, PUBLISHED: 01:31 BST, 6 March 2015 | UPDATED: 19:53 BST, 6 March 2015.

[6]https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2982044/Have-explorers-finally-fabled-lost-City-Monkey-God.html

[7] The Guardian, Archaeologists condemn National Geographic over claims of Honduran ‘lost cities’, Alan Yuhas, @alanyuhasPublished on Wed 11 Mar 2015 18.22 GMT

[8] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/11/honduras-lost-cities-open-letter-national-geographic-report

The Lost City of the Monkey God – myth or reality? From 1927 to 2017, the changing narratives of the experts, explorers and enterprising book writers [1]

The Lost City of the Monkey God – myth or reality? From 1927 to 2017, the changing narratives of the experts, explorers and enterprising book writers [1]

Introduction: The story of the discovery of “The Lost city of the Monkey God,” could naturally evoke an Indian, after going through the narratives, pictures and the books. The pictures of Virgil Finkay[1] (1914-1971) captured the imagination of many and started believing that there was such a city existed in the Central America. However, after reading the data and information available, it is found that the US explorers, experts, archaeologists and writers have been changing their narratives from 1927 to 2017 from their reports. For the reasons known to them, they have been sensationalized, theologized and ideologized also. Though, the experts involved have been supposedly interested in bringing out the truth about the lost city, have abruptly stopped their explorations and abandoned their “discovered city.” As they started accusing each other, attributing other factors, the bias exhibited has been open. Thus, all the narratives have been compiled and put together in the context of bringing out the facts. Some comments have been added in between for clarification and understanding.

Charles Lindbergh (1902-1974) found the “Lost city of Monkey God”: In 1927 / 1929, aviator Charles Lindbergh reported seeing a “white city” while flying over eastern Honduras. Some of his aerial photographs were also published. The news appeared on the first page of “the New York Times” in detail. Later, it was pointed out that Lindbergh must have misunderstood the Yucatan, British Honduras (Belize), and other Central American locations, where he identified several hitherto unknown Maya sites. However, this flight, under the auspices of the Carnegie Institution, was one of the first successful demonstrations of aerial reconnaissance in archaeology. In 2015, “The Independent” described, “The mossy carving had lain undisturbed for up to a millennium in some of the remotest jungle on Earth. It is a powerful effigy of a “were-jaguar” but also the pristine legacy of a vanished and – until now – unknown civilisation. National Geographic has reported that an archaeological expedition to Honduras[2] has emerged from the depths of a Central American wilderness to declare the discovery of the ruins of a lost culture sought by explorers since Cortes and hitherto known only by the slightly preposterous title of City of the Monkey God[3]. Although supposedly spotted from the air in the 1920s by Charles Lindbergh (1902-1974) and the subject of repeated attempts to reach it, no-one had offered irrefutable proof of the existence of the mythical Ciudad Bianca or White City and some archaeologists had dismissed it as the wishful imaginings of gentleman explorers”[4]. In 1997, “The New Yorker” reported an expedition to the “unknown, vanished, mysterious” civilization of Mosquitia[5]. So from 1939 to 1997 what happened, none knew or knows and none had gone on an expedition searching for gold or written any books.

Theodore Morde (1911-1954) claimed to have located the White City in 1939: American adventurer Theodore Morde claimed to have located the White City in 1939 – but died before he could reveal its whereabouts. Of course, it was called as La Ciudad Blanca, the Lost City of the Monkey God and so on. Virgilio Paredes Trapero, director of the Honduran Institute for Anthropology and History (IHAH), said: “If we don’t do something right away, most of this forest and valley will be gone in eight years. The Honduran government is committed to protecting this area, but doesn’t have the money. We urgently need international support.” The confirmation of the existence of the mystical City of the Monkey God is the culmination of centuries of on-and-off endeavour by explorers to locate remains which the Spanish explorer Hernan Cortes predicted in 1526 would “exceed Mexico in riches”. In 1939, a swashbuckling American adventurer called Theodore Morde claimed to have finally located the White City and said he had been told by indigenous Indians that a giant statue of a monkey was buried there. He then died in a car crash before revealing its location. The final discovery was made possible after an American film-maker and amateur archaeologist raised £980,000 from private backers in 2012 to fund mapping of the forest using state-of-the-art technology which bombarded the canopy with lasers and revealed the unmistakable straight lines of human construction. Now that the site has been “ground-truthed” by the expedition further work is being planned to secure its contents while its location is kept secret to protect it from looters. Mark Plotkin, the expedition’s ethnobotanist, said: “This is clearly the most undisturbed rain forest in Central America. The importance of this place can’t be overestimated.” Note, here it has been mentioned that, “He then died in a car crash before revealing its location”!

July 12, 1940 – ‘City of the Monkey God is believed located: Expedition reports success in Honduras exploration: The headline in the New York Times was tantalisingly mysterious: ‘City of the Monkey God is believed located: Expedition reports success in Honduras exploration’. If readers were a little puzzled as to the huge significance of this announcement, they were soon put right by the man who had made it. The date was July 12, 1940, and American explorer Theodore Morde had just emerged from the darkest jungles of Central America with an incredible story about what he’d found there. Morde, a real-life Indiana Jones who later became a wartime U.S. spy, had been recruited by the founder of New York’s prestigious Museum of the American Indian to try to find a mythical lost ‘White City’ dripping in gold that had been founded by a mysterious civilisation as great as the Aztecs and the Mayans. Adventurers had been searching for La Ciudad Blanca for centuries, ever since Spanish conquistador and explorer Hernando Cortes conquered Central America in the early 16^th century and heard rumours of its riches. But it remained hidden for hundreds of years until Morde insisted he had found it deep in the rain forests of Mosquitia, more than 32,000 square miles of hellishly inhospitable wilderness in Honduras and Nicaragua. He described how, armed only with a revolver and a machete, he and a companion named Lawrence Brown had spent four months hacking their way through ‘almost inaccessible’ jungle, swamps, rivers and mountains before coming upon a hidden valley that contained the remains of a white-stoned, walled city.

Described wildly about the cult of Monkey God: There, the local Indians told him (Morde), a long-vanished people, who were contemporaries of the Ancient Mayans, had once worshipped a strange Monkey God whose giant statue was still buried under centuries of vegetation. They made bloody human sacrifices to their simian deity, then ate the victims in an act of ritualised cannibalism. Morde said that on his own brief visit he had himself seen a disturbing rite in which local natives ritually slaughtered and ate monkeys in a twisted hangover from the cult. He has written all details published in “The Malkawakee Sentinel”. His observations about “Hanuman” and other details are also found[6]. However, in the US media, it was downplayed. To back his astonishing claims, Morde — who was only 29 but had already sailed around the world five times — brought back several thousand artefacts to America such as stone utensils and tiny carved monkey masks. He never revealed the precise location of the ruined city for fear it would be looted before he could go back. However, he never returned and died mysteriously in 1954, taking the secret of its location with him. Here, it is mentioned that he “died mysteriously”!

The archaeologists have surveyed and mapped ‘extensive plazas, earthworks, mounds and an earthen pyramid belonging to a culture that thrived 1,000 years ago, and then vanished’: It remained a compelling mystery, seemingly lifted from the pages of H. Rider Haggard.  Generations of adventurers plunged into the jungle to search for the city, and experts dismissed Morde’s discovery as a self-promoting fantasy. Explorers who reported glimpsing the tops of white buildings peeking through the forest canopy were told they were just limestone cliffs. But now the sceptics may have to eat their words. A team of U.S. and Honduran archaeologists have just returned from La Mosquitia. They have announced that — like Morde — they have discovered the remains of what they believe to be the City of the Monkey God, in a crater-shaped rainforest valley encircled by steep mountains. According to the National Geographic magazine, which accompanied the expedition, the archaeologists have surveyed and mapped ‘extensive plazas, earthworks, mounds and an earthen pyramid belonging to a culture that thrived 1,000 years ago, and then vanished’. The team also discovered a breathtaking collection of stone sculptures that had lain untouched since the city was abandoned. Christopher Fisher, an archaeologist from Colorado State University and team member, believes the sculptures — found at the base of the pyramid — may have been offerings to the Monkey God. The team first found the ruins nearly three years ago (2012) during an aerial survey using a high-tech scanner that was able to pierce the jungle canopy with laser light and reveal archaeological features. It showed ruins that stretched for more than a mile along a river through the valley. The remote, rugged area is a major cocaine smuggling route and the scientists, who were ferried to the site by helicopter, were accompanied by Honduran special forces and former members of Britain’s SAS.

© K. V. Ramakrishna Rao

22-05-2020

[1] Virgil Finlay (July 23, 1914 – January 18, 1971) was an American pulp fantasy, science fiction and horror illustrator. He has been called “part of the pulp magazine history … one of the foremost contributors of original and imaginative art work for the most memorable science fiction and fantasy publications of our time.” While he worked in a range of media, from gouache to oils, Finlay specialized in, and became famous for, detailed pen-and-ink drawings accomplished with abundant stippling, cross-hatching, and scratchboard techniques. Finlay created more than 2600 works of graphic art in his 35-year career.

[2] UNESCO has named the Río Plátano as a Biosphere Reserve, but it has been nibbled away by illegal logging and cattle ranching operations. It was placed on the UN’s “Danger List” in 2011. The southern border of the rainforest keeps shifting north as ranchers cut down the forest. Many said this was happening to produce beef for the US fast-food market.

https://blog.ted.com/mark-plotkin-shares-tales-of-the-lost-city-he-and-his-team-just-rediscovered/

[3] The Independent, The City of the Monkey God: Archaeologists claim to have found city lost for 1,000 years in remote Honduran jungle, Fabled ‘White City’ is now under threat from illegal cattle ranchers, Cahal Milmo @cahalmilmo, Tuesday 3 March 2015 19:33

[4] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/archaeology/the-city-of-the-monkey-god-archaeologists-claim-to-have-found-city-lost-for-1000-years-in-remote-10083356.html

[5] The New Yorker, The Lost City, Douglas Preston, October 13, 1997; Published in the print edition of the October 20, 1997, issue. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1997/10/20/the-lost-city

[6] The Milwaukee Sentinel, September 22, 1940.