China in the 15th Century AD

“We, Zheng He and companions, at the beginning of Zhu Di’s reign received the Imperial Commission as envoys to the barbarians. Up until now seven voyages have taken place and, each time, we have commanded several tens of thousands of government soldiers and more than a hundred oceangoing vessels. We have … reached countries of the Western Regions, more than three thousand countries in all.

We have … beheld in the ocean huge waves like mountains rising sky high, and we have set eyes on barbarian regions far away, hidden in a blue transparency of light vapours, while our sails, loftily unfurled like clouds, day and night continued their course, rapid like that of a star, traversing those savage waves.”

(Stone inscriptions in the Palace of the Celestial Spouse Chiang su and Liu Shia Chang, dated 1431)

“On 8 March 1421 the biggest fleet the world had ever seen sailed from its base in China. The ships, huge junks nearly five hundred feet long and built from the finest teak, were under the command of Emperor Zhu Di’s eunuch admirals. Their mission was to proceed all the way to the end of earth to collect tribute from the barbarians beyond the seas and unite the whole world in Confucian harmony. That journey would last over two years and circle the globe.”

“… They had also discovered Antarctica, reached Australia three hundred and fifty years before Cook and solved the problem of longitude three hundred years before the Europeans.”

The above are from ‘1421. The year China discovered the world’ by Gavin Menzies. He is a retired Royal Navy Submarine Commanding Officer, born in China. He spent 15 years tracing the astonishing voyages of Admiral Zheng He’s fleets.

The book contains many pages of supporting evidence; eye witness diaries; key charts “describing the first navigation of the world”; and the “determination of longitude by the Chinese in the early 15th century.” A somewhat comprehensive presentation.

As said on the inside front cover “His compelling narrative pulls together ancient maps, precise navigational knowledge, astronomy and the surviving accounts of Chinese explorers and the later European navigators. It brings to light the artefacts and inscribed stones left behind by the emperor’s fleet, the evidence of sunken junks along the route and the ornate votive offerings left by the Chinese sailors wherever they landed, in thanks to Shao Lin, goddess of the sea.”

The reviews shown by amazon.co.uk had an average rating of 4 (out of 5) from more than 500 reviewers.

Eurocentric readers, fed on Columbus and Magellan (both of whom had maps to follow), will need to rely on the achievements of European colonialism from the 15th to the 20th century AD, and today’s neo-colonialism. Ironically, the former colonial powers are now led by a new nation created by European emigrants within this colonial period.

Advertisement

Pre-history readable through the zodiac?

I have had real-life experiences to convince me that horoscope reading by experienced Indian astrologers, based on the minute of birth (and its geographic location) enable probabilistic conclusions about a broad view of an individual’s future. However, I am not persuaded that horoscope reading in Western nations like Australia, based on one of the 12 constellations of the zodiac, are reliable. Projected personalities do not match real-life personalities.

Paul LaViolette, a multi-disciplinary scientist and mythologist suggests that the sequence of cosmic ‘houses’ on the zodiac are not in their proper relationship positions.

Nevertheless, does the zodiac as we know it enable us to read pre-history? This is a crucial question. For instance, it appears that the Sphinx in Egypt had a lion’s head originally. Could it have been constructed in the zodiac Age of the Lion? If so, would we now have a date (within a span of 2,160 years for each Age) for its origin? It could be 8,000 BC to 10,000 BC.

I remember reading that a description of a cosmic event in Hinduism’s Vedas (whose oral origin is asserted as before time as we know it) had been dated at about 8,000 BC. Or, could the associated constellation of the zodiac (the ‘house’ against which the sun rises for 2,160 years each time) refer to the previous zodiac cycle 25,920 years before? Why not indeed! Do we know enough to reject this probability?

In the event, could we then focus on the culture or civilisation which produced the Sphinx? In the light of the very limited technology available in that period to mankind, as claimed by the protectors of the current explanatory paradigm,  could we contemplate the probability of extraterrestrial assistance? This may have come from a watery planet from the 3-star Sirius complex – because a moat apparently surrounded the Sphinx originally.

Or, were our then human ancestors so highly civilised and technologically advanced as to be able to cut, lift, shape, and place the huge and heavy stones (the megaliths) – which we are yet unable to handle.

Thus, we have an interesting choice: extraterrestrial involvement or highly civilised and technologically superior human ancestors. While neither seems credible, a choice has to be made.

As to whether the zodiac placed at the ecliptic enables human pre-history to be read depends on what the zodiac actually means, who conceived it, and why it seems to be embedded in a number of cultures of the past. Apart from the link with the precession of Earth, and the apparent usefulness of knowing when to expect the equinoxes and solstices (for agricultural or spiritual purposes?), what does the zodiac tell us? The next probable cosmic catastrophe?

When Earth was rolled over

Was Earth rolled over relatively recently?  Was it tilted to about 45% about 13,000 years ago?  My reasons for suggesting that it was are as follows:

• During my boyhood (a very long time go) I was told that Siberia had been a warm and luscious tropical region; and that, at the onset and prevalence of frigid conditions, the people there had migrated to Central Asia, creating a great civilisation there
• Antarctica has been described (without credible challenge) as having once been in the tropic/temperate zone
• Evidence has been found of stone buildings in the Arctic, now covered by ice (which is fast melting)
• There was a massive world-wide flood, the Universal Flood (about 13,000 years ago), referred to in so many folk beliefs all across the globe; and this had buried an incredible mix of humans, animals, and flora – and silt – in caves all the way north
• A very large ‘chunk’ of solid space material is believed to have been blown out into space through a supernova explosion; and that this material had entered and travelled through our solar system
• This gigantic space material had caused perturbations in this system, dislodging satellites, destroying a planet, reversing the spin of one of our planets, etc., etc
• The gravitational pull of this space material (named Vela by two researcher/authors) could have pulled Earth, through gravity, to rotate in the direction of the transit of Vela (to the sun)
• The lands in the east would have been moved closer to the north pole, and the lands in the west would have been moved to the south pole
• Such a strong gravitational pull would have emptied the seas, causing the moving waters to rise very high indeed, and to flow in the direction of the assumed Vela
• When Vela had moved to its ultimate absorption by the sun, Earth would have naturally remained in its new position
• Earth’s planets, believed to have been aligned East/West before the arrival of this space material, would now be aligned North/South (as they are today), with Siberia and Antarctica now in frigid conditions
• Released from Vela’s gravity, the waters of Earth would have flowed back gradually, filling all the spaces available
• The sudden onset of extreme cold in Siberia, which spot-froze all the animals, and the re-location of Antarctica, can thus be explained.

Cultures everywhere refer to a Universal Flood. It is not for us to know better; or to ask for ‘scientific’ evidence for possible causes and outcomes. We have yet to come up with adequate explanations which suit our theories of how things should have been.

Neither plate tectonics nor crustal slippage (the moving orange-peel effect) offer an explanation of the known disruptions mentioned above. Cosmic catastrophes of a horrifying magnitude seem to be taboo.

Avoiding any attribution to cosmic catastrophes as contributing to such developments as the sudden arrival of fully-formed new or modified species on Earth; of the onset of artistic creativity in known historic ‘cave-men’; of the sudden flowering of conceptual capacities of Early Man; of the whitening of human skin in a band (from East to West) in the northern hemisphere; in the ‘sky falling’ and ‘the stars being scrambled’; the sun not moving for many days (ask the Chinese and the Meso-americans); and so on, is not likely to lead us to understand the long-term history of mankind.

Having Earth tilt would have effectively destroyed the then civilisation. The survivors (Quetzalcoatl and Viracocha, for example), possibly reflecting a high culture prevailing in the pre-Flood era, could have guided mankind as best as possible, calling upon the knowledge, skills, tools and technology which survived the Deluge. Refer Meso-american and Peruvian beliefs.

That there had been a Golden Age prior to the Deluge all over the globe is credible, were it accepted that the continents had previously been lying east to west. Most, if not all, human-occupied terrain would then have been in the temperate and tropical zones!

That Earth was rolled over and tilted recently seems credible. Do we need an Edgar C. Cayce to tell us what happened?

A civilisation more spiritually advanced?

In ‘Fingerprinting the Gods,’ Douglas Kenyon states that “(Graham) Hancock presents breakthrough evidence of a forgotten epoch in human history that preceded, by thousands of years, the presently acknowledged cradles of civilisation in Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the Far East. Moreover, he argues, this same lost culture was not only highly advanced but also technologically proficient, and was destroyed more than 12,000 years ago by the global cataclysm … “

He cites “Evidence of comprehensive ancient knowledge of the 25,776-year precession of the equinoxes (unmistakably encoded into ancient mythology and building sites … )“ and “Evidence that the monuments of the Giza Plateau were built in alignment with the belt of Orion at circa 10,500 BCE … “

Kenyon goes on to say “Hancock believes the entire Giza site was constructed after the crust of the earth had stabilized following a 30-degree crustal displacement that destroyed most of the high civilisation then standing.” As well, “The Giza complex was built, Hancock speculates, as part of an effort to re-map and re-orient civilisation. … The pyramids are a part of saying this is where it stopped. That is why the perfect alignment, for example, to due north, of the Great Pyramid is extremely interesting, because they obviously would have had a new north at that time.”

Here is the punch-line. “Despite a determination to stick with the hard evidence, Hancock is not uncomfortable with the knowledge that his work is serving to corroborate the claims of many intuitive and mystics. … Our whole cultural conditioning is to deny those elements of intuition and mystery in ourselves. But all the indications are that these are, in fact, vital facts in human beings, and I suspect that the civilisation that was destroyed, although technologically advanced, was much more spiritually advanced than we are today.”

This is not difficult to believe. Materiality over-rides spirituality.

(This article by Kenyon is included in “Forbidden History” edited by Kenyon.)

Unexplained constructions

“The author of more than a score of works on ancient mysteries, sacred geometry, UFOs, unexplained phenomena, and the like, (John) Mitchell … … argues that across much of the earth are ancient earthworks and stone monuments built for an unknown purpose, and that their shared features suggest that they might be part of a worldwide system … … .

Mitchell suggests, in this connection, that the most significant modern discovery is that of leys, a mysterious network of straight lines that link the ancient places of Britain and have their counterparts in China, Australia, South America, and elsewhere. … …

In detailed descriptions of phenomena such as the precise terrestrial and celestial alignments of ancient monuments along long ley lines, advanced ancient scientists of numbers and sacred geometry, and sophisticated prehistoric engineering, Mitchell paints a picture of a vast and coherent world-wide order beyond anything imaginable today. … …

The question of technology becomes more pressing, but even more difficult to answer, when one considers the giant stones of ancient sites which were actually cut, tooled, and moved. ‘It is a mystery, actually,’ he concedes, ’this incredible precision. And again in megalithic times, the extraordinary weights involved – raising blocks of one hundred tons or more, transporting them, and setting them up. They used terrific labour ingenuity and, no doubt, principles that are not recognised today.’

Could such principles have included some kind of levitation? ‘There are very persistent references from the Classical writers to the power of sound,’ he says, ‘of the use of song and music and tone to make things lighter, work songs where there’s a rhythm got up, where you can move things without a lot of effort.’”

These extracts are from Douglas Kenyon’s ‘Megalith England: The Atlantean Dimensions’ – A conversation with John Mitchell.
The following extract is from Christopher Dunn’s ‘The Obelisk Quarry Mystery’
Both articles are from ‘Forbidden History: prehistoric technologies, extraterrestrial intervention, and the suppressed origins of civilisation,’ edited by Douglas Kenyon.

“On the base of Hatshepshut’s pair of obelisks are inscriptions that tell us that the pair were quarried and raised into position in a seven-month period. To merely quarry the raw block in such a time would mean that the cutting rate would need to be increased at least thirty-seven times. Tools capable of such efficiency are not part of the archaeological record. … … the ancient Egyptians were much more advanced than what we have allowed in the past.”

So, what’s new? The evidence is probably deep under water, covered by a vast amount of volcanic lava. Refer the cosmic cataclysm and the following universal deluge (which would have drowned much of the evidence we need) about 13,000 years ago.

The birth of human civilisation

“At the heart of the controversy are the mysteries surrounding the birth of civilisation. Did we, as the academic establishment insists, emerge from the Stone Age about 5,000 years ago and only then begin the slow and painful ascent to our present ‘lofty’ heights? Or was there, in remote antiquity, a fountainhead of civilisation that rose to levels of sophistication equal if not superior to our own, and yet which vanished so completely that hardly a trace of it remains?”

So asks Douglas Kenyon in ‘Pushing back the portals of civilisation’ in ‘Forbidden History’ (edited by Kenyon).

“Titillating fragments of anomalous evidence suggest a pervasive if not advanced seafaring or even airborne culture having once existed in ancient India – for example, the identical nature of the Indus Valley script to that found at Easter Island on the other side of the Pacific Ocean. Initial reports suggest, it should be noted, that the script found recently on the Gulf of Cambay resembles the Indus Valley script. According to certain south Indian researchers, the indecipherable scripts are written in a proto-Tamil language, which would link the culture of distant Easter Island and its famous megalithic statues with ancient southern India, Kumari Kandam – an idea echoed in the lore of Easter Islanders about a lost continent to the West from which their people originated.”

“Southern India, a land whose cultural roots are said by some to stretch into an even more profound antiquity than do those of the north, suffered a similar fate. Speakers of a proto-Dravidian language, the forerunner of a family of languages spoken in the south – and some say of Sanscrit itself – entered from the northwest, the Western scholars insist. … invasion theories were necessitated by Western beliefs, at first about the Garden of Eden theory of origins and then, with the arrival of the Darwinians, beliefs about the widely held out-of-Africa theory.

But the Aryan invasion theory has been debunked. … satellite imagery now shows that the ancient Harappan civilisation of the Indus Valley, and Mohenjo-Daro, probably declined and disappeared due to climatic changes, the drying of the mythical Saraswati River, rather than to the descent of imaginary invaders. … If Sanscrit predates the world’s other languages, and if ancient civilisations existed where there are now seas, how can history be explained in modern Western terms?”

“… ancient India dates to the times out of which the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, and the ancient traditions of Tamil Nadu in the south grew. The Tamil Nadu was a land whose culture is said by some to predate that of the north, having once existed as part of Kumari Kandam and dating to a staggering 30,000 BCE. A deluge inundated Kumari Kandam, obscure texts of the Siddhanta tradition of Tamil Nadu reportedly say.”

These paragraphs are extracts from ‘The Enigma of India’s origins’ by David Lewis from ‘Forbidden History’ edited by Douglas Kenyon.

The antiquity of human civilisation, as suggested by these extracts, may now be credible. How developed, how proficient – technologically, astronomically, culturally – were the pre-Deluge civilisations?

Culture-heroes post-Deluge

“It is surely pertinent that almost all traditions which refer to culture-heroes (virtually every one of whom was active immediately after the Deluge) describe them as white, tall, bearded and invariably superior to the aboriginal peoples among whom they appeared – often suddenly – to impart laws, crafts and useful information.

One such culture-hero, Caboy by name, allegedly brought the ancestors of the Brazilian Karaya Indians out of a ‘subterranean world’ following the Great Flood. Elsewhere, another culture-hero, using a spade-like implement, dug Amerindian Deluge survivors out of a blocked-up cavern. The hill tribes known as the Pankhoos and Bungogees, who inherit the Chittagong area of Bangladesh, preserve a similar tradition. They recall how, after the recession of the Deluge waters, ‘… their ancestors came out of a cave in the earth, under the guidance of a chief named Tlandrokpah.’

The early post-diluvian activities of this culture-bearing white race are chronicled in numerous traditions distributed globally.”

“Statements like those of the Mandan Indians, who aver that shortly after the Deluge their forefathers were visited by a mysterious bearded white culture-hero who arrived in a huge wooden ship made with ‘metal tools,’ appear as valuable if fragmentary confirmation of prehistoric technological abilities.”

“Strangely enough, there is a large corpus of evidence, both circumstantial and factual, indicating that civilised communities existed on Earth before the shocking calamity.

Many of the previously-cited traditions refer unmistakably to various antediluvian structures (for example, houses, temple, towers, canals), land vehicles (carts, chariots), aquatic vessels (rafts, canoes and arks) and implements (ploughs, bows, arrows, spades).”

The above extracts are from ‘Cataclysm’ by Allan & Delair (refer also my earlier posts).

All this is suggestive – but not conclusive – that before the Great Deluge killed almost all life, somewhere between 11,500 and 13,000 years ago, most of the capabilities and skills allegedly triggered and enabled in humanity by a sudden burst of a massive cosmic radiation about 41,000 years ago (refer my earlier posts) had eventually resulted in high civilisations all over the globe.

Is there any purpose in denying the probability of such development, having regard to the so-called myths of ancient history? Are our predecessors to be denied the right to tell their stories through folklore?

Any evidence of advanced cultures in pre-history?

“Over the past two centuries, researchers have found bones and artefacts showing that people like ourselves existed on Earth millions of years ago. But the scientific establishment has suppressed, ignored or forgotten these remarkable facts. Why? Because they contradict the now predominant view of humans origins, which holds that humans like ourselves evolved within the past 100,000 years from more apelike ancestors.”

So say the publishers of a book ‘The Hidden History of the Human Race” by Cremo and Thompson. What comes to my mind is that child who will not look under his bed in case he finds the hobgoblin that he suspects has set up home there.

In a wide-ranging book, the authors have described ‘Evidence for advanced culture in distant ages,’ which include ‘only a sample of the published material available’ to them. The authors also say that ‘some of the objects described do give hints of unexpected accomplishments’; and that the ‘reports of this extraordinary evidence emanate, with some exceptions, from non-scientific sources.’

Here are some of the finds:

• Coins, handles or hammers, and other tools or fragments of tools, and a broken board used by masons and quarrymen, at a depth of 40 to 50 feet.
• A marble block with letter-like shapes cut into it, at 50 to 60 feet below.
• A nail firmly embedded in a block of sandstone – about 360 to 408 million years old.
• Gold thread embedded in stone (about 320 to 360 million years old) at a depth of 8 feet.
• A metallic vase, in 2 parts, with chasing, carving, and inlaying in silver, of flowers, at a depth of 15 feet.
• A round ‘chalk ball,’ 246 feet below the surface. If humans made the ball, it would be 45 to 35 million years ago.
• A coin-like object, of uniform thickness, at 125 feet below the surface.
• A large copper ring (or ferrule), an iron spear-shaped hatchet, and stone pipes and pottery, from 50 to 120 feet below the surface.
• A clay image of a female figure, from a 300-foot well, about 2 million years ago.
• A small gold chain, 10 inches long, 8-carat gold, of ‘antique and quaint workmanship.’

And so on. Read Chapter 6 of the book. Then there are the anomalous skeletal remains.

Perhaps it is wiser not to look under one’s bed!

After the Deluge

Those who survived the famine and thirst would not have turned feral overnight. Most would surely have retained their values and technical skills. Allan & Delair point out that ‘there is a large corpus of evidence, both circumstantial and factual, indicating that civilised communities existed on Earth before that shocking calamity.’

‘Many … traditions refer … to various antediluvian structures (for example, houses, temples, towns, canals), and vehicles (charts, chariots), aquatic vessels (rafts, canoes and arks) and implements (ploughs, bows, and spades).’
‘Among the physical evidence for exceedingly early civilisation are the innumerable stone walls retaining agricultural terraces … Cyclopean stone ruins … seem to be equally ancient. Their enormous size and extent testify eloquently to markedly different environmental conditions and population densities …’

They also instance certain handiwork of early cultured peoples: a carved figure under lava in Idaho; vessels of vesicular basalt in California; a mortar, a polished stone hatchet, and carved stone utensils also in the USA; portion of an iron chain, fragment of a paved road or causeway, and a copper coin-like object, all in the USA as well.

After the Deluge, forced by the need for relocation, nomadic lifestyles and, subsequently, pastoral communities would have developed. Some communities are known to have subsisted on shell-fish. And so mankind started on another phase of civilisation.

And here we are, building and destroying simultaneously. Reminds me of the depiction of the Hindu Shiva’s dance of Nataraja. The dancer is shown under a ring of fire with one arm offering creation, the other promising death, and a third arm indicating a possible blessing. There is a 2-metre copy donated by the Indian Government outside CERN’s building in Geneva.

Should we not seek to avoid this implicit cyclic path of existence? Indeed, Firestone, West, and Warwick-Smith, in the their ‘The Cycle of Cosmic Catastrophes’ assert that we are already living in the period known as the Sixth Extinction, having survived five major extinctions in the last 500 million years!

What do we really know about the universe?

When one of my grandsons was 7 years old, he was interested in my collection of photos of galaxies and other objects in the sky. The scenes were most colourful. One scene showed a beam of light coming out of what was described as a black hole. His immediate response was “ Nothing can come out of a black hole.” I explained that the light must have been visible, but that the so-called black hole was something that scientists had imagined. Since he is a bright lad, I went on to say that objects like black holes are inferred, in order to explain certain events; and that they may not exist at all.

The current theory is that no particles can escape the so-called event horizon of a black hole. But, would light, in its waveform, be unable to escape? Further, I pointed out that the vocabulary of the stakeholders in cosmology is profoundly as exotic as is the language of academic philosophers; and that media persons may simplify their descriptions to enable us ordinary folks to glimpse, if not to grasp, that which is being discussed.

But then, as with the Big Bang theory of cosmogony, writers for public consumption may portray theories – which are tentative and transient – as proven fact. Currently, we are flooded with wormholes linking (possible) multiple universes and, worse still, that (as also claimed recently by some spiritualists I met) there a number of each one of us in the multiverse Cosmos. Dear me! How many carbon copies can there be? Could some of me be silicon-based?

An important question – are the colours depicted on photographs of galaxies actually visible, or are they painted – on the basis of frequencies (of vibration) captured through non-visible means? That is, in the dark of space, is there visible colour?