Return to the Stars: Evidence for the Impossible (18 page)

The University of Bangalore, which benefits from overseas aid, is magnificently equipped and full of forward-looking intellects. Professors and students work together on solving new scientific problems.

Specialist professors of Sanskrit such as Ramesh J. Patel from the Cultural Centre at Kochrab and T. S. Nandi from the University of Ahmedabad gave me their valuable time. Generally a single phone-call was enough to fix the time and place for a conversation.

I asked about the age of Vedas and epics. Scholars were unanimous in telling me that the Mahabharata, the national epic of the Indians with more than 80,000 couplets, must have originated in its first established form about 1500 B.C. But when I inquired about the original core of the epic, the answers were either 7016 or 2604 B.C. The unusual precision for datings lying so far back in the past was due to specific astronomic constellations mentioned in connection with a battle described in the Mahabharata. In spite of these astronomical data, the specialists have not yet agreed on the age of the epic. As with the Old Testament, the original author of the Mahabharata is unknown. It is suspected that a legendary figure, Vyasa, was the original creator, but it is said with considerable assurance that the last oral narrator, Sauti, also prepared the first complete written version.

For the benefit of the mathematicians who will have to feed their computers with data to find out the time dilation on interstellar flights, I may mention two numbers that I noted in Bangalore. In the Mahabharata 1,200 divine years equal 360,800 human years!

How furious I was that I could not read Sanskrit! Everyone was most helpful; I was told exactly in which texts and in which passages I should find the 'super-weapons', 'flying weapons' and 'flying machines' I was looking for. People got on the phone and warned librarians of my imminent arrival and the texts I wished to see; they gave me willing students to accompany me and make sure I found exactly what I wanted. And then when I expectantly held the answer to my questions in my hands, the essential thing was written in Sanskrit or some other Indian language. Disappointed by the meagre results, I decided to keep up the contacts I had made and return one day a wiser man.

I still had hopes that one authority would be able to satisfy my curiosity by telling me about the texts in greater detail. I had corresponded from Switzerland with Professor Dr T. S. Nandi, Sanskrit scholar in the University of Ahmedabad. I consulted him in India and through him I met Professor Esther Abraham Solomon, who is his chief. She has a vast knowledge of Sanskrit. She has been Head of the Sanskrit Department for six years and scholars throughout India look up to her as one of the greatest experts on the subject.

Ahmedabad is an old cotton town with many important mosques and tombs from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It lies right on the River Sarbarmatic, has more than 1-2 million inhabitants and today is famous for the University of Gujerat founded in 1961.

Ahmedabad has a special tourist attraction, the Shaking Towers. They are the two tall minarets of a mosque, massively built and climbable inside by a spiral staircase right to the top—barefoot, of course. These towers have a peculiarity that is unique in the world. If a small group of people sets one tower in motion by a rhythmical to-and-fro movement, the other tower begins to swing too. So far the towers have easily stood up to these constant tourist antics and they look as if they will survive the leaning tower of Pisa.

Professor Nandi had arranged for me to meet Professor Esther Solomon at noon and told me: 'Go up to the first floor; her name is on the door, go in and make yourself comfortable.'

I set off in the blazing midday sun—it was November. The University was a modern functional two-storeyed limestone building with no unnecessary external trimmings. I waited in the vestibule. To a European the encouragement: 'Go in and make yourself comfortable' is very unusual. While I was waiting, I watched professors and students going into the various offices without knocking as if it was the most natural thing in the world and observed how politely and informally they mixed with each other.

Professor Solomon arrived about one o'clock. She had been kept at a seminar. She wore a simple white sari. I estimated her age at about fifty. She greeted me like an old friend, obviously because Professor Nandi had told her about me. We carried on our conversation in English and she allowed me to tape it on my portable tape-recorder.

This was our conversation: 'Professor, am I interpreting the information of your colleagues correctly if I say that Sanskrit scholars consider the old Indian Vedas and epics to be older than the Old Testament?'

'We cannot and should not make such absolute claims. Neither the ancient Indian texts nor those of the Old Testament can be dated exactly. Although we are inclining more and more to date the oldest parts of the Mahabharata to around 1500 B.C., it is a very cautious estimate and an assumption that refers to the oldest, central core of the epic. Naturally there were many additions and elaborations that were not made until "A.D.". Even today exact datings must still be made with reservations. The original nucleus of the Mahabharata may well be a hundred and more years older than 1500 B.C. You know that the oldest texts were written on the bark of palm trees, yet before these palm texts originated, the texts had already been handed down orally for many generations. There are also inscriptions on stone, but they are comparatively rare in India.'

'In your work have you come across parallels between the texts of the Old Testament and the original Indian texts?'

'Undoubtedly there are some parallels, but in my opinion these similarities can be observed in some form or other in most peoples' legends. You have only to think of an event like the Flood or the story of the gods who created men, or the heroes who were snatched up to heaven, or the constant references to the weapons they used.'

'But it is the old Indian and Tibetan texts in particular that teem with science-fiction weapons. I am thinking of the divine lightning and ray weapons, of a kind of hypnotic weapon, like the one mentioned in the Mahabharata, and of the discus which the gods threw and which always returned to them like a boomerang, and of the texts that seem to be referring to bacteriological weapons. What do you think about them?'

'They are just exaggerations of fanciful descriptions of an imaginary divine power. The ancients undoubtedly felt the need to endow their leaders and kings with a mystical, mysterious nimbus. They certainly invented the incredible and invulnerable attributes later—multiplying them with each new generation.'

'Can these fantastic conceptions be reconciled with the world of ideas of primitive times?'

'Obviously. But we ourselves are always being confronted with puzzles!'

'Flying objects called Vimanas are continually being described in Indian and Tibetan texts. What do you think about them?'

'To be quite honest, I don't know what to make of them. The descriptions obviously mean something like aeroplanes, in which the gods fought in the sky.'

'Then can we or should we simply classify these traditions as myths and dispose of them like that?'

Professor Solomon thought for a moment before she answered, almost with resignation:

'Yes, we should.'

'And supposing these texts were descriptions of very remote real events?'

'That would be fantastic!'

'But would it be impossible?'

After a pause:

'I don't know, I really don't know.'

Outside I was assailed again by the intolerable heat. I strolled slowly back to the town over a bridge that seemed to be needless. The river had dried up to a narrow stream. Carpet makers had laid out their colourful products to dry in the river bed as far as the eye could see. Again and again I tried to recapitulate the conversation. Even this highly intelligent woman could not give a satisfactory answer to my questions.

But it is precisely what Professor Solomon could not clearly confirm that has driven me for more than a decade to compare the oldest books of mankind with my theory in mind and to track down parallels in descriptions of specific events.

Back in my hotel, the air-conditioning in my room put some life into me again. I opened the Mahabharata at random and came across this passage:

'Brighu, asked about the dimensions of the tent of the sky, answered:

"Infinite is that space inhabited by the blessed and the divinities, delightful it is, studded with many dwellings, and its boundary is unattainable.

"Above its sphere of power and below, the sun and moon are no longer seen, there the gods are their own light, shining like the sun and flashing like fire.

"And even they do not see the boundary of the mighty outspread tent of the heavens, because this is hard to reach, because it is infinite... But upwards and ever upwards that universe that cannot even be measured by the gods is filled with flaming, self-illuminating beings." '

The accounts in the Mahabharata still belong to the unsolved riddles of the past, even in India where this ancient text is subjected to the most minute and even pedantic scholarly scrutiny.

Ever since man has been able to think and use language, he has invented myths and legends, which, after being told for millennia, have been written down at some point in time. It is puzzling why some of these old traditions became religious or basic philosophies governing mankind's actions and others were rejected and remained without influence. A common feature of all ancient traditions is that their contents are not demonstrable, and that those which have been elevated to religions are 'believed'. When we try to interpret old texts from new standpoints today, no new versions are available to us, so we have only the old 'believed' or rejected texts to go on. Nevertheless, they provide us with startling information. But apparently it is not done to call traditionally 'believed' dogma in question or to take mythical accounts as reports of real events.

In the library of the Sorbonne in Paris I buried myself in the complete seven-volume edition of the Cabbala. Before I describe the fruits of my reading, I must say briefly that the Cabbala is certainly the most comprehensive and puzzling secret doctrine in the world. A start on writing it down is supposed to have been made around A.D. 1200. It is also said that it originated as a reaction against the realism and materialism of the Talmud.

The Cabbala interprets mysterious pronouncements in the Old Testament and comments for a circle of initiates on the encoded messages in old Jewish laws. The cabbalists say that the book was written down at God's command. It contains secret signs, symbols and mathematical formulae, and links all occult data with the mystical power of various gods. Those who belong to the small circle of initiates and have fully mastered the secrets of the Cabbala are supposed to be given the power to perform miracles.

Just as I am in the habit of considering the descriptions in other ancient texts as real, I have also taken the stories in the Cabbala as factual accounts written down after the event. It is the only way to penetrate the occult ideas of the Cabbala and find a real trace that leads from our earth to the 'gods'.

The 'seven other worlds' of the Cabbala, with their inhabitants, are described in great detail in a number of passages. Here are some extracts of which I reproduce the general sense:

'The inhabitants of the world of Geh sow and plant trees. They eat everything from trees, but know no wheat or any kind of cereal. Their world is shadowy and there are many large animals in it.

'The inhabitants of the world of Nesziah eat shrubs and plants, which they do not have to sow. They are small in stature and instead of noses have two holes in their heads through which they breathe. They are very forgetful and when doing a job of work often do not know why they began it. A red sun is seen in their world.

'The inhabitants of the world of Tziah must not eat what other beings eat. They constantly seek for underground watercourses. They are very fair of face and have more faith than all other beings. There are great riches and many handsome buildings in their world. The ground is dry and two suns are visible.

'The inhabitants of the world of Thebel eat everything from the water. They are superior to all other beings and their world is divided into zones in which the inhabitants differ facially and in colour. They make their dead to live again. The world is far away from the sun.