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NEWS October 2024
OCTOBER 2024 The recent cyber attack on the Internet Archive is deplorable and can be reasonably compared with the repeated burning of the Great Library of Alexandria. I have used the Wayback Machine extensively, but, until the full extent of the permanent damage is clear, I am unable to assess its effect on Atlantipedia. At […]Read More »
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 »
Hinduism
Mahabharata
The Mahabharata and The Puranas are two of the ancient epics of Hinduism that refer to events dated between 1500 and 1000 BC and probably developed into their present form between 400 BC and 200 AD. However, Dr Manish Pandit has written three books advocating a date of 3067 BC for the Mahabharata War(e).
These epics make mention of Attala, the white island, a continent located in the western ocean. This vague similarity with the name of Atlantis may be purely coincidental, but it is regularly produced as ‘evidence’ of pre-Platonic reference to Plato’s flooded island.
A brief, but highly speculative attempt to link Atlantis with the Mahabharata is offered by Santosh Kumar(c).
A quite radical suggestion has come from the Italian writer, Michele Manher, who has proposed(a) that Homer’s Iliad originated in India where elements of it can be identified in the Mahabharata!
Wikipedia notes(d) that “the Greek writer Dio Chrysostom (c.40–c.120 CE) reported that Homer’s poetry was being sung even in India. Many scholars have taken this as evidence for the existence of a Mahabharata at this date, whose episodes Dio or his sources identify with the story of the Iliad.”
The website(b) supporting the ‘Atlantis in Indonesia’ theory of Arysio dos Santos has an extensive article with the self-explanatory title of The Hindu Origin of the Myth of Atlantis.
>Sloppy research involving the Mahabharata, produced one of the most dramatic claims of the 20th century, namely, that atomic warfare had taken place in ancient India. In response to thls Joanna Gillan published an article giving a potted history of Mohenjo Daro and including a critical review of those, including David Davenport, who have tried to prove that the site was the location of an ancient nuclear war. Supporters of this idea have pointed to quotations from the Mahabharata in support of this idea. However, Gillan revealed that “Rather than being entirely fictitious, the passage is composed of a merging together of various unrelated passages scattered throughout the 200,000-verse epic, some of which are also questionable English translations of a questionable French translation of the original Sanskrit. When viewed in their original context, they are a little less convincing.”(f)<
(a) https://www.migration-diffusion.info/article.php?id=100
(b) The Hindu Origin of the Myth of Atlantis | Atlantis (archive.org)
(e) https://astronomyofindia.wordpress.com/2020/12/29/3067bce-dissection-of-theories-on-the-mahabharata/
(f) Was the Mohenjo Daro ‘Massacre’ Real? | Ancient Origins (ancient-origins.net) *