The Earth is Flat - A Preview

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The Earth is Flat



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The Earth is Flat

V.H.RAM



NotionPress

5 Muthu Kalathy Street, Triplicane, Chennai - 600005

First Published by NotionPress

Copyright © V.H.RAM 2013

All Rights Reserved.

ISBN: 978-81-924555-6-3

This book is sold subject to condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold or hired out,

circulated and no reproduction in any form, in whole or

in part (except for brief quotations in critical articles or

reviews) may be made without written permission of the

publishers.

This book has been published in good faith that the work of the author is original. All efforts have been taken to

make the material error-free. However, the author and the

publisher disclaim the responsibility for any inadvertent

errors.



Let us bring our minds to dwell in the

glory of the divine truth

And may this truth kindle our

thoughts and reflections

- The Gayathri Hymn from the Rig

Veda





Contents

1 1The Earth is Flat

2 4Indo-European

3 45Enjoying Music - The Essence of Music

4 55Taking Sides versus Objectivity

5 57The Essence of Religion or the True Religion

6 65Jesus Christ

7 88Understanding Religion

8 103The Making of Christianity

9 123The Bhagavad Gita

10 140The Messenger and His Message

11 165The Horror of the Forties

12 210Terrorism!

13 216Matter of Faith

14 226The Fate of the Princes

15 242The Ultimate Reality

16 283Conclusions290Bibliographic References

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1The Earth is Flat

There are some subjects about which I want to talk to you. There must be some reason why I want to do thistalking and why I want you to listen to me. If you are

to understand this I would like you to accompany meinto an imaginary situation.

We enter a posh lounge in a posh club in a big, modernmetropolis which can be anywhere in the world. Theintellectuals of this city are members of this club andit is their wont to sit around, eat biscuits and snacks,sip coffee and converse on various topics which mightengage their interest, ranging from history to currentsporting events, from the national economic policies tothe role of religion and so on. Today it so happens thatastronomy is the subject of their conversation.

“The Earth is absolutely flat, ” says the doctor, but theprofessor does not appear to be sure. “You know, ”

says the professor, “I’ve heard that the Earth is round.”“Nonsense, ” interjects the lawyer, “if the Earth wereround, all the waters of the oceans would slide out,and at night, when the Sun goes down, it will spillon it and extinguish it!” “Certainly not, ” objects thediplomat, “the Sun is too very big.” The historian waxessarcastic, “I know some people say that the Sun is very big, as big as our entire city, and it can’t be extinguished

like that.” “Of course, seeing it is so far away, it mustbe big. But certainly not as big as our city, ” opinesthe industrialist. “I believe, ” says the engineer, “thatthe Sun is much bigger than our Earth and the Earthactually goes around the Sun.” “I’ve heard that silly



theory also, ” says the architect, “but on the face of it

the whole idea is stupid. Actually, there is a blue canopy called the sky to which the moon, stars and the sunare attached. And when the canopy turns the Sun goesaround with it…”

Now, as I have said, this is an imaginary situation in which an imaginary conversation is reported. We willnot come across people talking like this today in the

21st Century. Supposing, however, we do hear suchconversation, not only in the club lounge, but all thetime and everywhere, what would our reaction be?Obviously we would feel impelled to take pen in handand write an essay for popular consumption about thebasics of astronomy. We would write about Copernicus,the planetary laws of Kepler, the apparent retrograde

motion of the planet Saturn, Newton’s laws, gravitationand so on.

In actual fact, however, any schoolboy today knowsabout our solar system. The basic facts of astronomy are common knowledge and there is therefore no needto write about the Earth being a ball and orbitingaround the Sun and so on. Consequently this chapter

about the flatness or otherwise of the Earth shall remainunwritten.

There are, however, some topics of very commonknowledge and interest wherein a lot of misconceptionsprevail. and you will therefore now understand why I

wish to write about them and try to eliminate thesemisconceptions. The following essays will take us ona journey into many fields: linguistics, religion, music,history, science…

In spite of the existing misconceptions, I would nothave felt the urge to clarify them if the subjects in

2 The Earth is Flat



question had been obscure and of interest only to a few

specialists instead of being, as is actually the case, of interest to all and sundry. and being talked about allthe time without proper knowledge and with traditionalignorance.

I must point out that I have not discovered any newfacts and the following discussions are based on facts asthey are already known and regarding which there are

no controversies. The general understanding regardingthe subjects on which these facts bear – unlike theunderstanding of basic astronomy – is, however, quite

warped, sometimes hazy, and often inaccurate. My only aim therefore is to get some of these records straight.

So then we start with ---

The Earth is Flat 3



2Indo-European

There is a lot of confusion about the term ‘Aryan’, which is used widely and inaccurately. Many peoplelike to consider themselves ‘Aryan’ like Brahmins, North

Indians, Iranians, Germans and so on. Then we havethe term ‘Indo Germanic’. I have heard a lot of silly talk about this. Some people have asked me whether thereis a strong similarity between German and Sanskrit.

Another misconception is that the original Aryans, those who invaded India and sang the hymns of the Rig Veda, were brown people like us. But if that is so,

then why are Germans white? Or were we Brahmins,once upon a time a white race? Also, what is thisrelationship between languages and what are Aryanlanguages? Moreover, what has language got to do withrace? And talking of races, which itself is such an ill-defined term, do Aryans have any special relationship

with the Germans, as opposed to other Europeans?

The basic question we shall discuss here is therelationship between languages because this is whatcaused the whole confusion. Our central theme istherefore the science of comparative linguistics (whichis a branch of philology), with some excursions into thefields of religion, race and also geography.

Philology, including comparative linguistics, is a science.

The word ‘science’ itself means knowledge, but it is a very special type of knowledge. It is a knowledge thatcan be communicated between and understood in thesame way by different human beings – an objectiveunderstanding as it were.



Some fields of natural science like physics, astronomy

and chemistry have no definite points of origin.Comparative linguistics, however, started from a specificdiscovery. An Englishman who was sent as judge toCalcutta during the early years of the British Rajdiscovered that Sanskrit was related to the Europeanlanguages, and this discovery started off the science of comparative linguistics. A lot of work on this subject

was then done in the 19th

and early 20th

centuries,mostly by German scholars.

This science is basically concerned with thedetermination of relationship between two languages.There can be several types of relationships, but here wemean only a genetic relationship. In other words, twolanguages are said to be related if they are descended,

that is evolved, from a common parent language.

Let us suppose that a long time ago (I stress the words‘long time ago’ for reasons which will become apparentlater on), a group of people lived together in a certainregion and spoke a common language. Later, they separated into two groups and wandered away fromtheir original home and settled in two places far away

from each other. Over the centuries and millennia theirlanguages would develop and grow, but differently.Let us further assume that there is no documentary,i.e., historical, evidence of these two groups of peoplesever having come from one single original homeland.We now have before us only two different languages.The question is – will it be possible to determine by examining these two languages whether they originatedfrom the same ancient language?

It was precisely this science which started with thediscovery by the Englishman, Sir William Jones, thatSanskrit was related to the European languages. The

Indo-European 5



methodology was subsequently refined and applied to

other languages and language groups, and as a result we now have the following picture of the grouping of the major languages of the world into families based ontheir discovered relationships.

TableTable 11

Family Family LanguagesLanguages

1. Chinese-Tibetan Chinese, Burmese andTibetan

2. Japanese-Korean Japanese and Korean

3. Ural – AltaicTurkish, Hungarian,Finnish, Eskimo

4. Dravidian

Tamil, Telegu, Canarease,

Malayalam

5. Hamito-Coptic

Languages of ancientEgypt and Semeticlanguages such as Arabic,Hebrew, Aramaic,Ethiopian

6. Polynesian

The native languages of Malaya, Indonesia,Philippines, Hawaii andMadagascar

7. Indo-EuropeanGreek, Sanskrit andEnglish…

In addition, there are some minor groups, like forinstance Basque (in Spain) and the original languagesof the Americas.

6 The Earth is Flat



These languages of the major family groups evolved

from nine parent languages that existed over fivethousand years ago. That means that five thousand years ago there were only nine languages about which we know. If there had been more languages, they alldied without leaving descendants, and we know nothingabout them.

Strictly speaking, it would be more logical for me to

explain how the philologists discovered the relationshipamong the Indo-European languages before describingwhat they discovered; but I find it is more convenientto proceed the other way about.

The first thing to understand is that a language developsin time. There are two components in this development.The first component is morphological, that is, existing

words change meaning and pronunciation (sound) andnew concepts are denoted by changes of existing (i.e.old) words or by combinations of existing words toexpress new ideas. Example: The word ‘socialism’ came

into English early in the 19th

century to denote a newpolitico-economic concept. This word is the same as‘sociable’ and ‘society’ with an ‘ism’ added on. The word

‘woodscrew’ is made up of two already existing words‘wood’ and ‘screw’, put together to form a new concept.

The second component of development is borrowing.We can think of numerous examples in English like‘Pundit’, ‘Kindergarten’, ‘tea’, ‘coffee’ and so on – all

words borrowed into English along with the concepts which they denote. After the British introduced railwaysin India, the word ‘rail’ has been borrowed into Hindiand other Indian languages. Thus ‘rail’ is as much aHindi word as ‘pundit’ is an English word.

Indo-European 7



Thus language develops. It develops or evolves like a

biological species, because evolution is the very natureof a living (i.e. spoken) language. This means that alanguage would look different at different times in thepast same as a biological species would.

Let us now consider our good old English. Here weare, in New Delhi, early in the morning, glancing atthe ‘Times of India’ over a cup of coffee. We are

reading English, which is our language and which weshare with Americans, New Zealanders, Australians andEnglishmen. We now get a sudden urge to see how thisEnglish appeared in the past at intervals of roughly half a millennium and trace it back to its very source. So

we get into a time machine, à la H. G. Wells, and takeour first step into the past. After half a millennium of travel into the past, we get out of the machine and findthat we are now in the reign of the Lodi dynasty. Wesearch around for our English but, not surprisingly, wedo not find it. I say ‘not surprisingly' because we knowfrom history that there was no English here in Indiaat the time of the Lodi dynasty. We also know, againfrom history, where our English came from and so wenow move in space to that far away island from which

the people came to introduce their language into ourcountry. We are now in England at the time when thebarons were fighting against each other in the Wars of the Roses. Well, we soon find plenty of English, and

what is surprising is that it seems to be pretty muchthe same English that we know. Except for some quaint

words and idioms, the English is easily understandable.If, however, we reflect that it was only a little later thatShakespeare wrote his plays and sonnets which we readand enjoy today without much ado, we can’t be thatsurprised.

8 The Earth is Flat



Having made the acquaintance of our English during

the Wars of the Roses we get into our time machinefor the second leap into the past, which takes us tothe time of Alfred the Great. Now we are in Englandand we sample the English spoken there then. Thistime the change is remarkable, almost shattering. TheEnglish we find is quite unlike the English we knowtoday. We would have expected some change, of course,as much in fact as we found after the first jump,

seeing that the separation in time is about the same –roughly half a millennium. But this time we seem tohave landed upon an entirely new language. Here again

we should not be too surprised since history comes toour aid and tells us that between the first and secondleaps there intervened the Norman Conquest in 1066. A group of Frenchified Danes, called Normans, conquered

England and imposed their language, Norman-French,on England. and hence our original Alfred the Great’sEnglish experienced a drastic change with the inductionof French. This is the main reason why those whostudy French find French and English quite similar. Theborrowed component became high. To give an example,

when King Alfred called his army to fight the Danes, he would not have used the modern English word ‘army’.

He would have used a word sounding something like‘here’, which is the same word as the modern German

word ‘Heer’ for army. This is because English comesfrom the original Germanic stock and the English of

Alfred the Great’s time was very much like German.

After sampling the English of Alfred the Great’s time we get into our time machine for our third leap back in time. When we stop the machine after this leap, weare of course in England, in the time of King Arthurand his bold knights. We now get out of the machineto sample the English of King Arthur, but we are infor a nasty surprise. Search as we might, we do not

Indo-European 9



find any English! What, no English in England? Did not

King Arthur speak English? The answer is, no English was spoken in England, which, at that time, was calledBritain. Neither King Arthur nor any of his subjectsspoke English. Well, what language did they speak them? We will see that later.

This is now like our first step that we took in India anddid not find any English at the time of the Lodi dynasty.

In the same way English was introduced into India,it was also introduced into England. The people whointroduced English into England were migrating tribescalling themselves Jutes and Angels. The people of thesetribes had names like Wilfried, Alfried, Wolfgagner,Ulrica, not to mention Hengist and Horsa – all Germanicnames. For these were Germanic tribes from Germany

who settled down in Britain and introduced in thiscountry their Germanic language, English.

The Angels gave the name England to the place wherethey settled. These migrations started at just about thetime or soon after the reign of King Arthur, which wehave reached. So now we have to go to Germany inquest of our English. After our first step we moved from

India to England, so now, after our third step, we movefrom England to Germany.

In Germany then we find our ‘English’, a very primitiveGermanic language of which there is no historicalrecord. Now we take our fourth leap back to the time of Jesus Christ. We are still in Germany and our ‘English’is still there as primitive and possibly without much

change.

But now enough of these short leaps. Let us take abold leap of two millennia backward and reach the timeof 2000 years before Christ. We are now in Germany,

10 The Earth is Flat



remember? But our English has disappeared. There is no

trace of English even in Germany! We deduce thereforethat it must have come from outside Germany. Butfrom where? Where do we have to go now in spaceto find our English, which is no longer in Germany?Here history is of no help because we have enteredpre-history – remember we are now in 2000 BC andoutside of Egypt there is no historical record. However,an analysis of the Indo-European languages gives us

some clues, some hints (which we shall discuss later) asto where we should now go in search of our English.

There is some evidence that our English started its journey from the steppe lands of south central Russia,and thither we go from Germany. Here we find ourEnglish in the year 2000 BC. To many of us Indians,particularly Brahmins, what a delightful surprise is instore! This English is very familiar to us – it is thesame language we use today when we lead our bridesseven times around the sacred fire, when we take ourdear departed relatives to the cemetery to say our lastfarewell in the set, formalized language, and when werecite our immortal Gayatri . Yes, this ‘English’ is nothingelse but our ancient Sanskrit language of the Vedas, this

English of 2000 BC!

By this time it should be evident to the reader that we would have reached this language of the Vedas if westarted, not from English as we did, but from Italian,Russian, Greek or Sanskrit. This is the parent languageand the language of the Vedas is practically the same,being only slightly later, and kept frozen in that state

by being handed down from generation to generationtill today. What was the name of this original parentlanguage and of the people who spoke it and lived inthe steppes? We do not know and there is absolutely

no evidence from any of the descendent languages by

Indo-European 11



which this name could be inferred. Therefore scholars

have agreed to give to this language and to the speakersthereof the name 'Indo-European’ because thedescendent languages are spoken in a wide regionextending from Europe to India. The Germans useinstead the term ‘Indo-Germanic’ for the same concept.

Four thousand years ago our planet was sparsely inhabited with little contact between the various

regions. We can therefore safely assume that theoriginal Indo-Europeans constituted a homogenousgroup of people. During those early periods of humansocieties, a language belonged to one group more orless.

After reaching the steppes of Russia in the year 2000 BCto find the Indo-European people and their language,

let us now go forward in time to see what happened tothis group of people and their language. It appears thata great separation took place. By about 1500 BC, theIndo-Europeans split up and wandered over vast areasand settled down at various places far away from theoriginal home, from the Iberian Peninsula in the west toIndia in the east. Now, however, we have passed into

the early dawn of history and know the names of the various groups. They were the Italic, Celtic, Germanic,Slavonic, Hellenic and Aryan peoples and other minorgroups. In the west the Celtic people settled down inthe Iberian Peninsula, France and the British Isles. TheBritish spoke the Celtic tongue at the time of King

Arthur. There was at that time some influx in Britain of Latin because of the Roman conquest of Britain. When

the Germanic peoples invaded Britain from the souththey pushed the Celtic peoples north and west, andtoday the Celtic language is represented by Scottish,Welsh, Irish and Manx. The Indo-Europeans who settledin Iran called themselves ‘Aryans’, and from there they

12 The Earth is Flat



spread over gradually into Northern India eastward till

the river Yamuna. In India, the Aryans encountered theHarappan city-based civilization, which they conqueredand subjugated, then spread over the Punjab, the landof the five rivers, where the hymns of the Rig Veda werecomposed. The Aryans were horsemen and charioteers,hard drinking, gambling and extrovert and the Rig Vedaresounds with the din of battle as the Aryans penetrateddeeper and ever deeper into our country. The Aryans

did not establish a single empire, but they had any number of local chieftains, called rajas, to lead their

various clans. The Bharatas were one of the strongest of these clans, and it is after them that India is also knownas Bharat. The clans took the names of the rajas andpriests who led them, and that is how we get the namesof our gotras such as Sankritis, Bharadwaj, Kashyap,

Kaushik and so on. These clans not only fought againstthe local people, but quite often among themselves, andthe Kurukshetra battle was one of them. It must havebeen famous at that time for the epic of Mahabharata

was composed around it. The events of the other epic,Ramayana, must have taken place later on when the

Aryans had penetrated farther eastwards. The rakshasas

figuring in the Ramayana must have been the local,

dark skinned forest dwellers set upon by the newmasters of India, the Aryans. The land they conqueredand occupied was called ‘Aryavarta’, meaning the regionof the Aryans.

Thus we have around about the year 1000 BC distinctgroups of the original Indo-European stock settled overa wide area - as Aryans in India and Iran, Germanicin Germany, Italic in Italy, Hellenic in Greece and Celtsin France and Britain. The Aryan languages in Iranand India later became stylized and standardized as

Avesta and Sanskrit, respectively. These Indo-Europeanlanguages then split further and evolved into the

Indo-European 13



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