Apr 03, 2013 — BRAZIL (SUN) —
In the Krsna Book by His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, there is a narration from the Tenth Canto of the Bhagavat Purana, a.k.a. Srimad Bhagavatam concerning Jambhavan, who is defined as the "King of the Gorillas." The narration explains that Jambhavan had found a lost jewel known as the Shamantaka Jewel, and had given it to his young child to play with as a toy:
"… Satrajit's younger brother, in order to display the opulence of the family, took the jewel, put it on his neck and rode on horseback into the forest, making a show of his material opulence. While the brother of Satrajit, who was known as Prasena, was moving here and there in the forest, a big lion attacked him, killing both him and the horse on which he was riding, and took away the jewel to his cave. The news was received by the King of the Gorillas, Jambavan, who then killed that lion in the cave and took away the jewel. Jambavan had been a great devotee of the Lord since the time of Lord Ramacandra, so he did not take the valuable jewel as something he very much needed. He gave it to his young son to play with as a toy."
And the narration goes on to explain, among other things, that Shri Krishna:
"…knew that the inhabitants of Dvaraka would be afraid to enter the tunnel; therefore He asked them to remain outside, and He Himself entered the dark tunnel alone to find Rksa, Jambavan. After entering the tunnel, Krsna saw that the very valuable jewel known as Syamantaka had been given to the son of Riksa as a toy, and in order to take the jewel from the child, He went there and stood before him. When the nurse who was taking care of Riksa's child saw Krsna standing before her, she was afraid, thinking the valuable Syamantaka jewel might be taken away by Him. She began to cry loudly out of fear."
Well, it is already of interest for us to know that this "gorilla", Jambhavan, was known as a king, that he had a nanny to take care of his child, and that he would do things such as give his child a toy. But then it is explained that Jambhavan had at first fought with Shri Krishna, and then, realizing who Shri Krishna was, it's explained that Jambhavan offered very eloquent and philosophical prayers to Him. (This is unusual for a gorilla. By the way, the term "king" implies a kingdom and subjects.)
At current times, in the same general geographical region of the planet as the Jambhavan narration, we have information of hairy bipeds known as almas, and even as abominable snowmen. At other parts of the globe, their sightings have been reported and they are variously called yowies, big foot and sasquatch. More technically, they are called hairy bipeds. They are described as being as tall as seven feet, extremely muscular, hairy, and that they walk on two feet. So it is not surprising that they are equated with gorillas, but there are actually characteristics of these creatures that are described as being quite human. For example, in Forbidden Archaeology by Michael Cremo, pp 615 - 616, there is the account about Zana:
"We shall now consider reports about the almas from the Caucasus region. According to testimony from villagers from Tkhina, on the Mokvi River, a female almas was captured there during the nineteenth century, in the forests of Mount Zaadan. For three years she was kept imprisoned, but then became domesticated and was allowed to live in a house. She was called Zana. Shackley stated 'Her skin was a grayish-black color, covered with reddish hair, longer on her head than elsewhere. She was capable of inarticulate cries but never developed a language. She has a large face with big cheek bones, muzzle-like prognathous jaw and large eyebrows, big white teeth and a fierce expression.'"
And further accounts:
"In the Caucasus region, the almas is sometimes called Biaban-guli. In 1899, K.A. Satunin, a Russina zoologist, spotted a female Biaban-guli in the Talysh hills of the southern Caucasus. He stated that the creature has fully 'fully human movements'" (Shackley).
"In 1980, a worker at an experimental agricultural station, operated by the Mongolian Academy of Sciences at Bulgan, encountered the dead body of a wildman: 'I approached and saw a hairy corpse of a robust humanlike creature dried and half-buried by sand. I had never seen such a humanlike being before covered by camel-colour brownish-yellow short hairs and I recoiled, although in my native land in Sinkiang I had seen many dead men killed in battle .... The dead thing was not a bear or ape and at the same time it was not a man like a Mongol or Kazakh or Chinese or a Russian. The hair on its head was longer than on its body'" (Shackley 1983, p. 107).
"The Pamir mountains, lying in a remote region where the borders of Tadzhikistan, China, Kashmir, and Afghanistan meet, have been the scene of many almas sightings. In 1925, Mikhail Stephanovitch Topilski, a major general in the Soviet army, led his unit in an assault on an anti-Soviet guerilla force hiding in a cave in the Pamirs. One of the surviving guerillas said that while in the cave he and his comrades were attacked by several apelike creatures. Topilski ordered the rubble of the cave searched, and the body of one such creature was found. Topilski reported (Shackley 1983, pp. 118-119): 'At first glance I thought the body was that of an ape. It was covered with hair all over. But I knew there were no apes in the Pamirs. Also, the body itself looked very much like that of a man. We tried pulling the hair, to see if it was just a hide used for disguise, but found that it was the creature's own natural hair. We turned the body over several times on its back and its front, and measured it. Our doctor made a long and thorough inspection of the body, and it was clear that it was not a human being.'"
In the 1800s and early 1900s, there were not a few reports of hairy bipeds across the continent of North America. Here is one from Jerome Clark's book Unexplained! . It is a significant report in that it took place within a cave setting, not on the surface where the hairy bipeds sometimes scavenge for food.
"Near Vernon, Indiana, circa Spring 1891: 'Recently, Alexander Shepard and a friend from Vernon, while strolling through hills in that vicinity, discovered the opening of a cave, and providing themselves with a lantern, they explored the interior until they found themselves confronted with a form resembling that of a gorilla or wild man, covered with a rough coat of brown hair. The strange creature looked at them for a second and then ambled off, and the gentlemen were too much alarmed to follow. While retracting their steps the explorers found a storeroom partially filled with potatoes, corn and wheat, with bones of fowl, etc. Farmers in the vicinity have frequently complained of the loss of farm products, and it is believed that a clue has been found to the thievery.'" (Galveston Daily News, Texas, April 10, 1891)
Back to the account from the Pamir Mountains in Afghanistan:
"'The body,' continued Topilski, 'belonged to a male creature 165-170 cm [about 5 1/2 feet] tall, elderly or even old, judging by the greyish colour of the hair in several places. The chest was covered with brownish hair and the belly with greyish hair. The hair was longer but sparser on the chest and close- cropped and thick on the belly. In general the hair was very thick, without any underfur. There was least hair on the buttocks, from which fact our doctor deduced that the creature sat like a human being. There was most hair on the hips. The knees were completely bare of hair and had callous growths on them. The whole foot including the sole was quite hairless and was covered by hard brown skin. The hair had gotten thinner near the hand, and the palms had none at all but only callous skin.'"
"Topilski added: 'The colour of the face was dark, and the creature had neither beard nor moustache. The temples were bald and the back of the head was covered by thick, matted hair. The dead creature lay with its eyes open and its teeth bared. The eyes were dark and the teeth were large and even and shaped like human teeth. The forehead was slanting and the eyebrows were very powerful. The protruding jawbones made the face resemble the Mongol type of face. The nose was flat, with a deeply sunk bridge. The ears were hairless and looked a little more pointed than a human being's with a longer lobe. The lower jaw was very massive. The creature had a very powerful chest and well developed muscles .... The arms were of normal length, the hands were slightly wider and the feet much wider and shorter than man's.'"
The medical doctor who accompanied Topilski's unit certainly lent authority to the report.
The fact that Zana never developed the ability to speak suggests that the hairy biped race of the region has suffered the same kind of degradation that human beings suffered at the beginning of the Kaliyuga. In the previous yuga, the Dvarapa, it is described that human beings were nine to eleven feet tall, had photographic memory, and lived as long as a thousand years. We are merely a shadow of our former selves! And so are the hairy-biped descendents of Jambhavan, because Jambhavan was described as offering very articulate prayers, although Zana never developed the ability to speak.
Why should we assume that the hairy bipeds so often sighted in the Hindu Kush and the Caucasus are of the same species as Jambhavan? Well, first of all, they're from the same region. And second of all, the almas are not typically seen, only once in a while, but when they were encountered and when they made a stand and fought, they were in a cave. How telling this is! They are dwellers of the deep cavern systems below, just like Jambhavan was; his cavern existence was described as being very deep, through "a great tunnel." This explains why the almas came forward to face the incoming rebels who were running from the Russians; they, too, were dwellers of the cavern worlds below and were defending their turf. They are from the same region as Jambhavan indeed; from the inner worlds below!
The Sanskrit word used in the Bhagavat Purana to describe Jambhavan is riksha, and this term has been variously translated as 'gorilla' or 'bear'. To tell the truth, it doesn't seem that this riksha Jambhavan exactly corresponds to what we define as gorillas or bears on the surface. Even before the advent of the Kaliyuga, before the cloud canopy fell, (40 days and 40 nights of rain), neither bears nor gorillas were described in the puranic literature as having enough intelligence to act in anything similar to a civilized manner and compose eloquent prayers! As a case in point, in the same canto of the Bhagavat Purana as this narration involving Jambhavan, the hand-to-hand combat between Dvivida Gorilla and Shri Krishna's brother, Shri Balaram, is written; and this gorilla not only showed little intelligence, but he behaved himself just like one would expect a monkey to behave. This lends credence to the interpretation that Jambhavan could have been an ancestor of the hairy bipeds of the Hindu Kush, who have facial characteristics akin to a man's, except that they have hair and fur all over, including in the facial area; and who have humanlike movements. Back in the Dvapara Yuga, they could have been endowed with enough intelligence to live in a civilized manner and compose eloquent prayers because they are/were almost human.
Hairy bipeds have typically been sighted all over the world. In North America, for example, Theodore Roosevelt had an up-close encounter with one when he was traveling in the Idaho-Montana region. But their social units, their tribes, have never been found, nor their habitats. How can they exist out and about but not have a place where they can live, where they can breed? Their camps or settlements or colonies have never been found, but we can easily surmise that they are deep dwellers; scripture has described these beings as living in the cavern worlds below.
(There are various sources of testimony to the effect that not simply caverns, but entire cavernous worlds, exist below our feet within the Earth's crust. These cavern worlds are reported to have omnipresent illumination, water and lush vegetation. They are different than the Hollow Earth, which is known as the Madhyasthan in the Bhagavat, where the city of Shambhalla is located.)
Is it important that the half-human bipeds are descendents of Jambhavan? To the degree that this lends substance to the puranic version, yes.
But there is something else that has just been substantiated, and it is the fact that the puranic narrations are interwoven with story lines that are defined as taking place in subterranean worlds. This is so in the Bhagavat Purana, certainly in regards to this narration about Jambhavan; and it is much more obvious in other Puranas. For example, the Bhagavat Purana relates the pastime of the Sons of Sagara in two verses; the Brahmanda Purana relates it in a rather long chapter as involving their trips in and out of the hollow world in search of the sacrificial horse, and how they finally found that horse there, in the hollow portion of the Earth, in the hermitage of Kapila Rishi.
The Gaudiya Vaishnava community makes one of its principal presentations from the Bhagavat Purana, and stands by the overall puranic version. The fact that members of Gaudiya Vaishnavism aren't aware of the descriptions of pastimes in subterranean worlds and that they cannot explain or substantiate them is dangerous for their work of promulgation - the issue is a time bomb. What is going to be people's reaction when they read the Bhagavat Purana? How are devotees going to react when they finally confront themselves and face the fact that their dearmost Bhagavat, and other puranas, are replete with hollow-earth and cavern-world lore? Will their faith be suddenly shaken?
When the British first went to India and translated Vedic literature, specifically the historical narrations of the puranas and itihasas into English, they came across narrations that were too incredible to fathom. They read about arrows which followed their prey, flying vimanas, weapons activated by mantras and telepathy such as Sanjaya possessed; so preposterous was this to their limited understanding that they branded the Vedic literature as an absurdity. Nowadays, we actually see radar guided missiles, all kinds of flying vehicles including UFOs, voice-activated weapons systems and telecommunications. So the puranic version has been vindicated but, alas, a bit too late; the Hindus have already been humiliated and estranged from their culture and scripture.
In a similar way, after the Apollo landing there were very few voices that were raised in protest. And one of those voices that was raised, that of A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, was silenced because the Bhaktivedanta Institute simply dropped the subject after his passing away. Later on, many others took up the cause and now the message that Apollo was a hoax is simply everywhere; it is all over the Internet and there are images available that have been analyzed down to the pixels, there are videos and quite a few very revealing books on the subject. It's a shame that ISKCON could not have spearheaded the truth on Apollo and could not have seen it through; this would have brought ISKCON much credit with the people in general. Now it is too late.
The Hollow Earth Theory is different in that it has been around for a long time. The ancient Nordics were familiar with the Arctic orifice and with the beings that lived within; their folklore is full of tales about Indo-European giants with incredibly long life spans and mystic abilities, such as the Santa Claus (santa = holy) tale. The Scotsman Smithson bequeathed his wealth to the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C., in order to fund an expedition to the hollow earth and to build a museum to house any artifacts and fauna brought back. But the expedition never took place (go figure).
This writer was the first one to present the descriptions of inner worlds in the puranic literature to the Gaudiya community in the original VNN around the turn of the millennia, and in his book Hollow Earth in the Puranas; it didn't catch on immediately in any venue, anywhere, but now the awareness of inner worlds and of the hollow nature of planets is spreading like wildfire. The hollow nature of planets is currently found all over the Internet, there are several fine satellite images which reveal the existence of the orifices, and the polar evidence has been extensively written about. It's just a shame that the Gaudiya community was presented with evidence of inner worlds from its own scriptures back when not many people were aware, and just went along its merry way, showing nothing but a Churchill reaction: "Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had ever happened."
We should try to defend the fact that planets have inner worlds, just like we have to defend the fact that the Moon is inhabited, full of opulent structures (seen on analyzed Apollo clips), and greenery; because this is the puranic version. If we can't do so, then the Vedic philosophy and religion become vulnerable; after all, who will accept the Vedic version if the Vedic and puranic descriptions are deemed to be ridiculous and pathetically absurd? But those descriptions are there, and nobody is going to remove the shlokas. Can the reader defend them, or even understand them?
Some readers may feel that the comments about subterranean worlds are nebulous. For example, some confusion exists about the term "subterranean", that it only refers to worlds which exist below the orbital plane of the planets of our solar system. For these cases, this writer can point out the Brahmanda Purana description in which it is stated that the Sons of Sagara went to the northern ocean and descended into the hollow world through the orifice with great delight. And there is no doubt in the minds of the Gaudiya community, nor in the Hindu community at large, that the Sons of Sagara pastime took place on the Earth planet (and in it).
Also, the description of King Ritudwaj in the Datta Purana goes as far as to describe a "deep" cavern world within the crust, only arrived at after "some time" by a Vedic king on horseback on his way to rescue a damsel in distress, that was cavernous enough to hold the opulent palace of a rakshasha and that had enough space for a demon army, no less, to fight it out with the king. And that king was an earthly king, too; it wasn't described that he was wandering around on horseback on the planet Mars that day!
By the way, when Jambhavan attacked Shri Krishna and fought with Him at his home, which is specifically described in the Bhagavat as being "at the end of the great tunnel", and at a place in the proximity of Dvaraka, it is described that they uprooted tree trunks to use against each other as if they were clubs. Practically no deduction is required to understand that the subterranean environment surrounding Jambhavan's home was possessed of vegetation, light and water.
Once again, the theory of inner worlds is revindicated in the puranas!
