The Krishna Key- Ashwin Sanghi(2012)

The Krishna Key- Ashwin Sanghi(2012)

His third book- ‘The Krishna Key’ by Abhishek Sanghi disappoints at so many levels. 

His narrative skills are pretty ordinary, and if he is being called ‘Dan Brown of India’, then it's a big insult to the American author. With Dan Brown himself generally panned by critics for his unimaginative style of writing, one may surmise where that leaves Abhishek Sanghi.

However in this blog, I intend to only consider various theories floated by the author on the supposed time period of Vedic civilization in India. 

The author pushes back the date of Vedic civilization by a couple of millennium to 3500 BCE, and the Indus Valley civilization is recast as the greatest Vedic community on Earth. 

Considering that the consensus date for the Vedic civilization amongst historians is 1800 BCE and the Indus Valley civilization is considered pre-Vedic, this theory is interesting. 

The various ‘evidences’  cited is certainly food for thought, all right, but to consider them as conclusive proof is stretching it a bit too far.

The Unique Alignment of Planets Theory

In the Mahabharatha, Sage Vyasa met Dhritharashtra on the eve of the battle and warned him of the terrible planetary omens that he had seen:-

- Conjunction of Saturn with Aldebaran.

- Retrograde Mars before reaching Antares.

- Lunar eclipse near Pleiadus(or the seven sisters).

Apparently all three astronomical events can occur simultaneously only in two possible years- 3067 BCE or 2183 BCE. However taking into consideration the month of death of Bhishma, (Magha, which occurs after winter solstice), the only possible year is 3067 BCE.

Account of Megasthenes

Megasthenes, the Greek ambassador in the court of Chandragupta Maurya, made the first  ever written reference to Krishna, the mythical God.      

Krishna is called Heracles in his account, the Greek usage influenced by the term Hari.

Krishna is recorded as having lived a hundred and thirty eight generations before the times of Alexander and Chandragupta Maurya.

Considering the Chandra Gupta Maurya’s reign as being around 307 BCE, the approximate period of Krishna’s existence would be 3067 BCE.

The theory is certainly interesting. However Vishnu or Krishna is very sparingly mentioned in the Vedas, the main Gods being Agni, Indra, Rudra etc. Vishnu or Krishna attains prominence only in the Puranic period (generally post 200 BCE). Vishnu is a minor deity in the Vedas.

The popular practices of Hinduism today is based on the Puranas, with the Vedic religious practices almost extinct in a way in modern day India.
 
So why does a Greek historian give so much importance to Krishna( or Heracles) whenever our own Vedas does not?

Theory 3- Surya Siddhanta Dates

Surya Siddhanta, the ancient work on astronomy that provides the foundation for all Hindu and Buddhist Calendars, provides a few timelines which are interesting. 

Kaliyuga is slated to have started on 18 Feb 3102 BCE.

The belief is that human civilization degenerates spiritually during Kaliyuga – almost a dark age – because people moved away from God.

The first event to distance mankind from God was the death of Krishna, thus pushing back the Vedic period by a couple of millennium.

To nitpick, however, one can bring out a few flaws in the dates set forth.

Firstly, the dates for Mahabharatha is given as 3067 BCE as per the planetary alignments. But if Krishna died in 3102  BCE , then Krishna could not have existed during the period of Mahabharatha as the battle occurs after his death, which is clearly not acceptable.

Secondly again, why no mention of the epics of Mahabharatha or Ramayana in the Vedas? Why is Vishnu treated as a minor deity in the Vedas?

Even in Manusmriti, which is treated as a classic treatise on Hindu social laws, written somewhere in 300 BCE, and giving valuable insights into life in India of that era,does not mention of any of the Gods of the epics. Vishnu or Krishna is not even talked about. The emphasis is on the Vedic rituals and Vedic Gods.

Also why did Kaliyug start after the death of Krishna? Of the ten Avatars of Vishnu, Krishna is the eighth, Buddha the ninth and then Kalki.

In the first place Buddha as one of the Avatars of Vishnu is not acceptable to most Buddhists. So treating the period in which Buddha was alive as a Kaliyug, which has negative connotations, would be seriously objectionable to Buddhists.

Theory 4- Archeological Evidence

The archeological evidences, according to the book, proves without any doubt  that the Indus valley Civilization was the greatest Vedic Community on Earth and it was the inhabitants who wrote the Vedas and Upanishads.

What are these archeological evidences?

In Kalibangan, fire altars were discovered here proving that this was a Vedic settlement.

In Mohanjodaro, discovery of ‘The great bath’ which was used for ritual bathing is another hallmark of Vedic settlement.

Also hundreds of seals have been recovered with images of swastika – a symbol of Vedic origin in addition to seals depicting yogic meditation.

The facts enumerated above are interesting. However there is a flip side.

The Vedas are replete with mentions of horses(there are 792 mentions of Asva or horse in Rig-Veda as per one study), but the Indus valley civilization did not have horses. 

Light horse chariots with spoke wheels are mentioned in the Vedas, but the Indus civilization had only cattle drawn solid wheel carts, as seen in numerous depictions.

The Indus Civilization script recovered from the ruins is yet to be deciphered, but the consensus is that these symbols are some form of hieroglyphics and not a script of any sophisticated language.So where did Sanskrit come from?

On the other hand however, it is a well known that the Rig Vedic Sanskrit and  the language spoken in Asia minor (modern day Turkey) in the 1^st millennium BCE( about 1500 BCE) were more or less similar, indicating common ancestors supporting the Aryan migration theory in respect to the Vedic people.

In the book, however there is a further theory suggesting that India was the cradle of civilization and not Mesopotamia as widely believed.

When Sarasvati started drying up around 3200 BCE, it split up the Indian civilization.  Some people moved eastwards towards the Ganges and some westwards in the direction of Tigris- Euphrates

The people who moved eastwards were called Devas and those who moved westwards were called Asuras. The Zoroastrians( of Persia) viewed the Ahuras( or asuras ) as good people and the Devas as the villains, the exact opposite of Vedic civilization.

Further the founder of Judaism is Abraham, and his name is similar to Brahma and is only separated by a single letter – ‘A’. Also Abraham’s consort and Brahma’s consort have almost the same names – Sara and Saraswati.

Unfortunately apart from these phonetic word play, there is no other empirical proof in the book. 

On the other hand, archaeological evidences abound with regards to the move of Indo- Europeans to India from the West.

The various attempts at reconstructing the ‘glorious past’ of India by co-opting even the Indus Valley civilization as Vedic had received a fillip with the growing Hindutva movement. 

It was difficult for the Hindutva brigade to accept foreign roots of the Vedic civilization and Sanskrit language and hence re-branding the Indus civilization as Vedic fit into their scheme of things.

For this purpose ‘archeological evidence’ was cooked up with a picture of a terracotta seal with a horse in it, cited as the final ‘proof’ that the Indus civilization was indeed Vedic. The same was published in all  BJP led states in NCERT school text books in 2000.

However the grand scheme came a cropper when it was revealed that the horse seal was a simple fraud based on computerized distortion of a seal of a unicorn bull.

It is difficult to fathom as to why the Hindutva zealots are bent upon twisting historical facts and being complicit in obvious frauds and lies, to advance the ‘indigenous theory’ of the Vedic civilization.

Why this insecurity? How does it matter where the Vedic people came from -  the fact that they flourished in India is what is important. 

And there are many important mathematical and science treatises between 800 BCE to 500 CE of which Indians can be justifiably proud of. 

For instance The Baudhayana Sulbasutra had worked out the Pythagoran theorem in 800 BCE, 400 years before Pythagorus. 

But in the book, the author is not happy with such mundane achievements. He alludes to the depth of  ‘scientific knowledge ‘ by claiming that the ancient Vedic people knew among other things, the making of a nuclear bomb, Stem cell research, cloning, nuclear transmutation and that the lost city of Atlantis is Dwaraka, Mount Kailash is actually a man made pyramid......


It would have been really funny if it wasn’t so sad.

The USA is less than 300 years old, but it doesn’t stop them from believing that they are the best.

We need to stop sinking to lame attempts at reinventing history. We were a great civilization. Period.

Of course the present state is somewhat less than glorious. And we should probably we focusing on getting that right.