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Joining The Dots
I have now published my new book, Joining The Dots, which offers a fresh look at the Atlantis mystery. I have addressed the critical questions of when, where and who, using Plato’s own words, tempered with some critical thinking and a modicum of common sense.Read More »
Francis Wilford
Atala
Atala is the name given by ‘Asiatic-Indians’ to Meso-America, according to Gene Matlock. This Sanskrit word is used in Hindu traditions to describe a sunken paradise in the Far East. While Matlock uses the word to bolster his claim that Atlantis was located in Mexico, Col. Francis Wilford, an early (1808) translator of the ancient Asiatic Indian Vishnu Purana, claimed[114] that the original text (Book II, Chaps i, ii, and iii) placed Atala at a latitude of between 24° and 28° north. R. Cedric Leonard used this as an endorsement of his Mid Atlantic Ridge location for Atlantis.
Although it has been pointed out that this matches the latitude of the Canaries, without a mention of the longitudinal position, it could just as easily have been in central or northern Mexico.
Dennis Brooks disingenuously cites Leonard(a) as if they were in agreement, but then uses the Atala co-ordinates to support his preferred site for Atlantis, namely, Florida, claiming that they match the location of the Plain of Florida. However, the Coastal Plain of Florida lies mainly outside the co-ordinates, north of the 28° parallel.
The ‘White Island’ inhabitants, according to the Mahabharata (??nti Parva, Section CCCXXXVII), is described as having complexions as white as the rays of the moon. The Greek historian Herodotus (450 BC) describes a tribe of Atlantes who “never dream and eat no living thing” (History, Book IV.184). A possible explanation for this is to be found in the second paragraph of the entry for Herodotus.
There is no firm connection between Atala and the ‘White Island’.
[See Attala]
(a) Atlantis of the Sands – Beyond Imagination | Historic Mysteries (archive.org)