Did China spark the Italian Renaissance? (Part 1)

“In 1434 a sophisticated Chinese delegation visited Italy. After that date the authority of Aristotle and Ptolemy was overturned, and Chinese knowledge ignited the work of geniuses such as da Vinci, Copernicus and Galileo. China’s influence sparked the Renaissance. The course of Western civilisation was changed forever.

Following on the bestselling 1421, Gavin Menzies’ controversial new book 1434 charts the final voyage of the Imperial Chinese fleet. His astonishing discoveries about China’s legacy in Europe rewrite the history of our modern world.”

The above are from the back cover of ‘1434: The year a magnificient Chinese fleet sailed to Italy and ignited the Renaissance.’

Credible? A Western historian is on record saying that he had difficulty suspending his misbeliefs about Menzies’ tentative conclusions. About what? The gifts of new knowledge to the then Pope from the Emperor of China delivered by Admiral Cheng Ho (Zheng He); and how the Renaissance arose from the spread if this high-value knowledge.

Anyone who had read the book will be impressed by the vast scope of Menzies’ investigations. His details about the principal players in this drama, what they did or contribute, and their relationships with one another are incredible. So much research!

Menzies is a former mariner, who “visited 120 countries, over 900 museums and libraries, and every major sea port of the later Middle Ages” in the course of researching his previous book ‘1421.’ Through the massive investigations by his research teams into the pathways the contribution by China seem to have led to the Renaissance in Italy, Menzies has again drawn upon the work of many earlier reputable researchers and relevant documents in major libraries.

Disbelief and probable Eurocentrism are one side of the coin. The other side requires demonstrating an alternative explanation for Italy’s sudden Renaissance in the realm of the technologies, maps, art, etc., etc. which Menzies refers to.

Is there any value in just asking “Where’s the evidence?” That allegedly happened when some historians in Australia examined ‘1421: The year China discovered the world.’ Most of the evidence is obviously in China. Go look!

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University degree vs. vocational training.

Forty-five percent of all Australian youths should attend a university – so decided the federal government. Such a move would obviously keep the job-seeker level low for a while. Yet, the same government allows the entry of a very large number of immigrants and refugees each year. The belief-theory underlying this entry policy is that the consumer demand generated would benefit the economy. What of development?

Australia is already deficient in necessary infrastructure and needed housing. Development, however, requires investment by entrepreneurs and qualified tradespeople. Would the 30 or so universities which are re-badged vocational colleges produce the needed tradespeople?

An article in the 28 Feb. 2018 issue of the Sydney Morning Herald by Ross Gittins is pertinent. Ross is an account who explains economics more clearly than many of the economists I have read. In his article ‘Back to school with job training,’ he wrote “Don’t be so sure that going to university is the best way to get a good job.”

He points out that:
• Less than 10% of the increase in employment forecast by the government will be for those with no post-school qualifications
• 43% of the jobs will require a bachelor or higher degree (In what?)
• 47% will therefore require trade qualifications
• Median pre-tax earnings by employees with a bachelor degree was $1280/week whereas an employee with a trade qualification would earn $1035/week.
• While funding for trade training was reduced, university entrance was ‘demand-driven.’ “The vice-chancellors couldn’t believe their luck. Particularly, those at regional and outer suburbs unis went crazy, lowering their admission standards and admitting largely increased numbers.” (And competing with one another.)
• “It’s likely that many of those extra students will struggle to reach university standards – unless, of course, exams have been made easier to accommodate them.” (Multiple-choice questions for first degrees, and no essay for a postgraduate degree?)
• “Those who abandon their studies may find themselves lumbered with … debt without much to show for it.”
• Trade and related training was then exposed to “competition from private providers of ‘vocational education and training.’ To attract … more entrepreneurial for-profit training providers, the feds extended … a version of the uni system of deferred loans to cover tuition fees.”
• “… the supposed trainers could get paid upfront by a federal bureaucracy that took an age to realise it was being done over.”
• “Far too little is being done to get TAFE (Technical & Further Education) training properly back in business after most of the for-profit providers have folded into the night.”
• There is a need for a “thoroughgoing review of our malfunctioning post-school education arrangements.”

(Comment: Could a nation which has no forward plans be expected to avoid the mess its bureaucrats had allowed to happen?)

Child prodigies represent evidence of reincarnation

To me, only soul memory after being reincarnated can explain how a 5-year old asks to play the violin, and by 10, is able to play at such a high level of competence that I am reminded of Vengerev, a Russian violinist. Vengerev plays the violin in a manner which he claims reflects the intention of the composer. I found his style most impressive.

There have been so many examples of little children, normally under the age of 6 to 8, who display musical skills of a very high level, to suggest that their souls simply required expression in their current lives.

I am inclined to this view not only because of the very substantial evidence of past-life memories of children all over the world, obtained by competent researchers, but also by intimations of my past life as a Muslim warrior (confirmed by a clairvoyant spontaneously) – while I remain a metaphysical Hindu in this life. Explanation? Replace war with peaceful consultation and co-operation. I am still learning.

Here are 2 examples of past skills surfacing early in life, which I obtained from the Internet (“Are child prodigies evidence of reincarnation?”)

“ Akrit Jaswal is a Punjabi adolescent who has been hailed as a child prodigy who has gained fame in his native Punjab (India) as a physician, despite never having attended medical school.”

“Kim Ung-Yong was a guest student of physics at Hanyang University from the age of 3 until he was 6.[1]. At the age of 7 he was invited to America by NASA.[1]. He finished his university studies, eventually getting a Ph.D. in physics at Colorado State University [1] before he was 15. In 1974, during his university studies, he began his research work at NASA[1] and continued this work until his return to Korea in 1978.”
Convinced?

Was Hercules an Indian?

The following extracts are from the Graham Hancock website displaying an article by Bibhu Dev Misra (published in 2014).

“This article is a continuation of a couple of previous articles that I have written on the topic of Hercules and Balarama, and their Egyptian counterpart Khonsu. In this two-part article, I shall explore the lasting impact that Hercules had on the institution of Kingship in ancient Egypt. But, before I begin, here is a brief outline of what I had discussed in the previous two articles.

In the first article article titled “Hercules and Balarama: The Symbolic and Historical Connections”i, I have pointed out that the Greek historians such as Arrian and Diodorus Siculus (who were quoting from the still earlier works of Megasthenes) have represented Hercules as a native of India, who was depicted amongst the Indians with his club and lion’s hide, and was worshipped by the Surasena tribe at the city of Mathura, on the banks of the Yamuna river. These descriptions suggest that the Grecian Hercules was Balarama, the elder brother of Krishna. A number of Oriental scholars of the early 19th century, including Captain Francis Wilford and Colonel James Tod, have provided further insights in support of this association, and my own research has led me to identify some more commonalities between these heroic personalities.”

“ In a subsequent article titled “Balarama and Khonsu: Comparisons between the Indian and Theban Hercules”ii, I have investigated the purport of Arrian’s statement that the “Indian Hercules shares the same habits with the Theban Hercules”, and come to the conclusion that the Theban Hercules was Khonsu, who was one of the members of the Theban triad of divinities, along with Amun and Mut. Herodotus referred to Khonsu as Heracles-Khonsu, and a shrine to Heracles-Khonsu was found in the submerged ruins of Heracleion in the Abu Qir bay, located off the cost of Alexandria. Khonsu, like Hercules and Balarama, was regarded as a great “Traveler”, a “Protector” and a “Defender of the King”; as a god of fertility, agriculture, and virility; as a great healer; and as the Great Serpent which took part in cosmic creation.”

“While Khonsu shares many symbolic elements with Hercules and Balarama, the ancient Egyptian sources do not tell us whether he performed any heroic deeds like Hercules. The ancient Greek historians, however, provide us with some accounts of the events that transpired on the arrival of Hercules in Egypt, many thousands of years back.”

(Comment: Food for thought?)

 

Yavanas in India

The following are pertinent extracts from ‘Early India: From the origins to AD 1300’ by Emeritus Prof. R. Thapar. They should put to rest any exaggerated claims about Hellenic Greek influence in ‘India.’ The author distinguishes between Greeks from the Mediterranean (Hellenic) and Hellenistic culture in West Asia. She also makes clear that the word ‘Yavana’ applied (until recently) to all Westerners in the Punjab to terrain further East.

“In 327 BC Alexander, continuing his march across the empire of Darius, entered the Indian provinces. The Greek campaign in north-western India lasted for about two years. It made little lasting impression historically or politically in India, and not even a mention of Alexander is to be found in any Indian source.”

“A significant outcome of Alexander’s campaign, that was neither political nor military, was that he had with him literate Greeks who recorded their impressions of India … They sometimes provide a corrective to the fantasies in other Greek accounts, even though in these the imagination of the authors is not always curbed.”

“One of the enduring images was that of Alexander in conversation with sophists … This image was seminal to the view that Indian ideas entered the Hellenistic and Mediterranean world subsequent to Alexander and contributed to various schools of thought that did not necessarily conform to established views in the European tradition.”

“Indians, on the other hand, did not say much about the Greeks, and what they did say varies. The term used for them was Yavana … Yavana became a generic term for people coming from the West and was used as recently as the last century. Some later brahmanical texts were bitterly uncomplimentary and hateful about the Yavanas, perhaps because of a lingering memory of Alexander’s hostility to the brahmans during his campaign …” (Note: allegedly, he had a large number of them put to death.)

“The mingling of Hellenistic Greeks and Indians in the second century BC came about through the Hellenistic kings, who ruled in the north-west as successors to those who had succeeded Alexander. Some differentiate between the Greco-Bactrians who ruled over Bactria and the Indo-Greeks who included India in their domain; others refer to them as Indo-Bactrian Greeks or use Indo-Greeks in a more general sense. Indian sources refer to them as Yavanas.

This term makes no distinction between what some would call the Hellenic Greeks, living on the mainland of the peninsula of Greece, and the Hellenistic Greeks. The latter were those of Greek descent or of mixed descent, but broadly conforming to Greek Culture and living in the eastern Mediterranean and West Asia. Hellenistic culture drew on Greco-Roman culture of the Eastern Mediterranean, as well as Iranian sources and some Central Asian influence, and can be regarded initially as Greco-Roman colonial culture.”

“The Greek settlements in Bactria traced their origins to the Achaemenid period (c. fifth century BC) when the Persian kings settled Greek exiles in the region. These were reinforced by Greek artisans settling in the cities of Bactria.”

“The history of the Indo-Greeks has been reconstructed mainly on the evidence of their coins. … The coins are symbolic of an intermingling of Hellenistic with Indian or Iranian cultures.”

Pascoe’s ‘Dark Emus Black Seeds’

Here are the reviews contained in the book. White Australian supremacists, who seem to be thick on the ground, will not like what they say. What explains the derogatory views expressed publicly by white Aussies? A sense of collective guilt? No! One cannot feel guilty on behalf of one’s forebears. ‘Why can’t they be like us?’ is a better explanation.

Since the Irish Catholics were allowed to be a separate people, with their own systems of education and charity, should not the Australian Aborigines (who was here first) be a separate people within an integrated ethno-culturally diverse population?

Would that mean recognising them as First Nation People? Yes, but over the dead bodies of many a whitey. What about giving them a right to have a say in how they are now to be uplifted societally and integrated? Since terra nullius was proven false, could white-man superiority not be up to a requisite standard to ‘bridging the gap’ (a favourite mantra of politicians who prefer words to effective action)?

The reviews:
• “in 156 pages, Pascoe has inverted almost everything I thought I knew about pre-colonial Australia. Importantly, he’s not relying on oral history, which runs the risk of being too easily bunked; his sources are the journals of notable explorers and surveyors, of pastoralists and protectors. He quotes them verbatim, describing all the signs of a complex civilisation but viewed through the blinkered lens of appropriation and White superiority. As a teacher – I recommended it as essential reading for any educator.” Lisa Hill, blogger and educator.
• “This very readable, strongly argued study turns the accepted nation of the Aborigines as a hunter-gatherer people completely on its head” Steven Carroll, Sydney Morning Herald.
• “He has done a great service by bringing this material to students and general readers, and in such a lively and engaging fashion.” Richard Broome, Agora Magazine.
• “This is an important book that advances a powerful argument for re-evaluating the sophistication of Aboriginal peoples’ economic and socio-political livelihoods, and calls for Australia to embrace the complexity, sophistication and innovative skills of Indigenous people into its concept of itself as a nation … an important and well-argued book.” Dr. Michael Davis, Honorary Research Fellow at Sydney University.
• “A remarkable book.” Max Allen, The Australian.

The literary quality of Pascoe’s book about the settled lives of his ancestral people is demonstrated by being short-listed for the Queensland Literary Award and the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award, both in 2014; the 2016 NSW Premier’s Literary Award as ‘Book of the Year’, and the 2016 NSW Premier’s Literary Award as winner.

(Comment: The Bradshaw cave paintings show that the Chinese had visited the Kimberleys.

Regrettably, prejudice against the Aborigines by many of the movers and shakers of Australia is quite strong.) 

A settled First Nation People

Australian Aborigines were a settled people long before the invasion by Britain, contrary to the crap peddled after the invasion, killing, and societal and cultural despoliation (destruction). Clever administrators looked for a fresh dumping ground for those disadvantaged by their government’s cultural cleansing, since North America was no longer available.

Rapacious settlers ‘cleared’ the land they occupied so ruthlessly. Pseudo-historians turned historiography on its head by finding no documentation in Britain authorising the settlers to take whatever they wanted by killing the natives; therefore, no killing had occurred.

A settled people, who had survived in a harsh land for thousands of years, were now made nomadic by Britain. Terrible things were done to the women and children. The behaviour of some explorers casts doubt on their morality. While missionaries were busily gathering black souls to the bosom of their coloured Saviour, one has to wonder at the depth of belief in Christianity within the white communities.

And, quite naturally, white men were opportunistically busy creating a creole (hybrid) people. That seemingly led officialdom to believe that black skin could be bred out in time; “Fuck them white” was reportedly part of the policy encouraging the natives to “become like us.”

Now, an aboriginal researcher and writer, Bruce Pascoe, has recently published ‘Dark Emu Black Seeds: agriculture or accident?’ He has drawn upon the journals and diaries of explorers. The bibliography listed in his book is vast. The superior-white ‘foghorns’ (on radio) and their acolytes in politics and elsewhere will have great difficulty in countering Pascoe’s book.

My impression, after 70 years of a highly interactive and contributory life in Australia, is that ordinary people are more tolerant and understanding about the plight of their indigenous people. A retired history-teacher friend of mine bought a copy of Pascoe’s book for each of her many grandchildren. Truth will out!

In this context, it is worth noting that the redoubtable Prof. Henry Reynolds has pointed out that Australia’s Aboriginals had never ceded their lands, or their sovereignty.

From the back cover of Pascoe’s most impressive book: “If we look at the evidence presented to us by the explorers and explain to our children that Aboriginal people did build houses, did build dams, did sow, irrigate and till the land, did alter the course of rivers, did sew their clothes, and did construct a system of pan-continental government that generated peace and prosperity, then it is likely that we will admire and love our land all the more.” – Bruce Pascoe.

Reviews of the book were most positive.

Parallel pharmaceutical treatments

“Balance aggravated Vata”; “Tonify aggravated essence”; “Enrich kidney Jing”; ‘”Promote water metabolism”; “Engender fluid”; “Disinhibit water”; “Soften hardness”; “Open body orifices”; “Extinguish Damp-Cold”; “Expel stagnant heat”. These are some of the permitted indications (claimed purpose or benefit) from which complementary medicine companies must draw when registering, and later labelling, their products.

An article by Esther Han, Health Reporter, on 9 Feb. 2018 in the Sydney Morning Herald states that:
• On advice from its Therapeutic Goods Administration, the federal proposes legislation to ‘restrict vitamin and herbal medicine companies to making only government-approved health claims on their products.’
• When lacking scientific evidence, ‘traditional use complementary medicines would be required to carry mandatory statements such as ‘traditionally used in Chinese medicine.’’
• ‘Australia has endorsed the WHO (World Health Organisation) … that traditional medicines have a valid function in modern medicinal frameworks.’
• Doctors and consumer interests have criticised the proposed approvals.

Other considerations in this matter are:
• Whether Australia’s trade agreements require minimal interference by participatory governments in any inter-country trade which reflects cultural practices and their underlying values.
• How effective are some prescriptions by doctors which may have been influenced by pharmaceutical company representatives? (‘Try this’ has been said to me by more than one Aussie doctor.)
• Just as some approved medicinal treatments are not equally effective on all patients, some complementary treatments can, and do, benefit the consumer.
• Are foreign nations influencing, if not dominating, Australia’s national policies through trade and/or defence agreements?

The fabrication of Ancient Greece

Over the years, I have read that:

• Greece was established as a nation only in the 1980s
• Its first king was a Dane
• Way back in time, Athens had been established by Egyptians
• At some point in time, half of the population of Athens had been Egyptians
• Many Greeks (Greek-speaking people) had studied in Egypt
• Pythagoras, in particular, had studied in Egypt for 8 years
• Egyptian gods had been worshipped by the Greeks in their Egyptian names
• The Phoenicians (who were Semites from the Levant) had also contributed to the development of Greek culture
• The rise of European colonialism then led to a claim that no ‘black’ people had contributed to the development of Western (including Greek) cultures
• The then leaders of Christianity also denigrated the role of Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Persia, all with durable cultures, in the civilisation of mankind in the Aegean and the Middle East; especially that Egyptian gods had been revered in Greece in their Egyptian names
• European colonialism, having proven its ability to conquer and damage (if not destroy) ‘native’ cultures all over the world, began to assert the genetic superiority of the ‘white race’ (whatever that is) over all other ‘races.’
• Confronted with the longevity of the advanced civilisations of India and China, certain European scholars dated the People of the Book (the followers of Judaism) as historically earlier than these Asian cultures.
• Greece then became the intellectual ancestor of Western colonial nations (presumably the Greeks were adequately white in colour).

The title of this post was borrowed by me from the book ‘Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilisation’ by Prof. Martin Bernal, a multi-disciplinary scholar.

It seems to me that Greece’s rise in status was incidental to the power-grab by that terrible combination of authoritarian Christianity and the rapacity of half a dozen small nations in Western Europe.

Where lies the truth – of what had been done to whom, for whom, and by whom? Refer my posts ‘Reviews of Bernal’s Black Athena’ and ‘Extracts from Martin Bernal’s Black Athena.’

 

Some effects of cosmic catatrophes

“… cosmogenic isotope data suggest that 41,000 years ago a supernova exploded about 200 light-years (60 parsecs) from Earth. Initially, a flash of lightning lasting a few seconds would have dazzled observers, even with their eyes closed, on one side of Earth facing the supernova. The experience would have been much like that of a Hiroshima survivor, except that no blast wave followed.

Instead, the sky burst into an array of colours as the enormous wave of cosmic rays lit up the atmosphere. A new giant star, larger than the moon, appeared in the sky, visible night and day, and became increasingly brighter for twenty-one days as the cloud of dust ejected from the supernova expanded and thinned.”

“The remnants of the supernova remained visible in the night sky for about a decade, growing dimmer as it faded from view.”

“The era around 40,000 years ago was a period of major changes in the evolution of mankind. Neanderthals began to decline, and Cro-Magnon people mysteriously evolved into modern humans. … In addition, a mutation in human brain size appeared at that time that coincided with the emergence of traits such as art and music, religious practices, and sophisticated tool-making practices.”

“Major changes in species, including humans, occur through mutations, and the high cosmic ray rate from the supernova would have accelerated the mutation rate dramatically. One example which appears to bear this out is the evolution of blood types in human beings. Our early ancestors had only type O blood.”

“DNA evidence suggests that B type blood probably originated in Central Asia or Africa, where the percentage is uniformly highest.” … “For type A blood, the picture is more complicated, with apparent origins in Europe, Canada, and Australia.” … “Although type O blood is common everywhere, it is nearly universal among natives of South and Central America, and much more common in North America than in Asia or Europe.”

“The supernova may have a link to at least two of the races, Asian and Caucasian, as suggested by Nei (1982) and Gong and associates (2002). They presented genetic evidence showing that the two races split off from each other about 41,000 years ago, meaning that some major mutation occurred at that time.”

“… intense radiation is capable of producing the major mutations that account for the skin colour we see in the Asian and Caucasian races.”

“… at the time of the mutation, art, music, and advanced tool-making suddenly appeared to flourish, suggesting that there was a direct connection.”

“That brilliant burst of radiation silently re-arranged humankind’s DNA and unleashed a burst of brilliant cultural creativity that progressed from launching innovative new mammoth spears to launching innovative new rockets to the moon.”

Comment: Is there not a difference between creating new tools enabling survival, and technological tools directed to exploiting any minerals which may be found in outer space or, worse still, to exercise control of fellow humans on Earth who are ‘not us’ but ‘them’?
The extracts above are from ‘The cycle of cosmic catastrophes: Flood, fire, and famine in the history of civilisation’ by Firestone, West and Warwick-Smith.