Another reason was the need of hiding away the true whereabouts of Paradise Lost, lest pirates and conquistadors and other such greedy adventurers invade the place and desecrate it. We note that the elephants of Sumatra are actually bigger and fiercer than any others, the African and the Indian included.
The Sumatran elephants were widely used in warfare, and were highly appreciated by foreign kings for both their enormous size and their ferocity in combat. These majestic elephants were formerly exported in large numbers, just as reported by Ptolemy, Onesicritus, Pliny and several other ancient authorities. And this exportation continued down to modern times, before ecological reasoning dawned on the world.
Sumatran elephants also produced the large amounts of ivory for which the whole region was famous in antiquity. And this place was also renowned for the gold and gemstones it produced in abundance. In fact, the very name of Taprobane means “golden peninsula” (tamra-parna; tamara-parana) in both Sanskrit and Dravida. This etymology also applies to the name of Cipango, again proving its identity with Taprobane.
The name of Taprobane also literally corresponds to the Greek one of Chryse Chersonesos and its Latin equivalent Aurea Chersonesus. These names all mean the same thing: “Golden Peninsula”. And this was precisely the ancient name of Indonesia, but never of Sri Lanka.
Sri Lanka of course never produced any gold, even though it too produces gemstones such as rubies and sapphires. And it is in fact a real island, rather than a peninsula. This in contrast to Taprobane, a name which covers both Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula and which is really a giant peninsula. So, how could Sri Lanka ever be called by a name meaning “Peninsula of Gold”?
All in all, it is now clear that the fabulous Taprobane of which the ancient traditions speak as the site of Paradise (and of Hades, etc.) and the “land where gold is born” corresponds to the site of Indonesia and Southeast Asia, rather than to Sri Lanka, a poor island at best, and fully devoid of the precious metal.
We have also managed to show that true Taprobane – called Serendip (“Island of the Seres”) by the Arabs, and Seylan (“land of gold”) by other nationals – was in fact the true location of Eden, as well as of Atlantis itself. Both these names derive from Dravida, the pristine tongue of the whole region.
It is worth noting that the connection with both gold and ivory (elephants) is again reminiscent of Atlantis, which Plato describes as abounding in both of these precious commodities.
Plato also mentions several other commodities characteristic of the region of Sumatra: coconuts, bananas, precious woods, spices, perfumes, dyes, gemstones and minerals of all sorts, metals, and so forth. It also seems that Pallas Athena – the great goddess of the Athenian Greeks – is really an alias of the Hindu goddess locally known as Kanya Kumari (“the virgin princess”), the patroness of the whole region.
Kanya Kumari is also associated with the sunken continent whence the Dravidas are said to have come in the dawn of time (Kumari Kandam). Pallas Athena too is said to have come from the Tritonides Marshes, a place long associated with Atlantis in the Greek traditions, for example the ones told by Diodorus Siculus.
Pallas Athena was also associated with both gold and ivory, as attested by her giant chryselephantine statue in the Parthenon created by Phidias, the greatest of Greek artists. This statue was wholly made of gold and ivory (chryselephantine). And this is a most strange feature, as both materials were characteristic of Sumatra, and are both utterly missing in Greece. ↑050
These two precious commodities were formerly imported from the East Indies (Sumatra) at an enormous cost and clearly had a symbolic religious character in Greece, which seems to be connected with Atlantis and the Tritonides Marshes. There, Atlantis was said to have sunk in the dawn of time. Not in Libya, but in the Far East, where, as we now know, Atlantis was truly located.
We also note that the Libyan counterpart – so often mistaken for Atlantis – is a mere replica, as is so often the case. The true Libya or Ethiopia in question here is actually Taprobane, in reality sunken by the Flood and turned into a dismal wasteland, an enormous pestilential marshland.
The Tritonian Marshes were associated with both Triton (Trita Aptya) and the Garden of the Hesperides. And this wonderful garden where the fabled Golden Apples grew, and provided the Elixir, is in fact no other than the Garden of Eden.
It is interesting to note that Hercules is originally a Hindu hero. So is also Dionysos, his dual and counterpart. In fact, Hercules and Dionysos closely correspond to Vishnu and Shiva as well as to Gadeiros and Atlas. Gadeiros – whose name corresponds to Govinda (Vishnu) is the Good Cowherd (or Shepherd) who led the hordes of survivors away from the site of Paradise Destroyed, at the dawn of the present era.
It is hence no big surprise to note that we have two heroes (Hercules and Atlas or Shiva and Vishnu) one on each side of the world, just as we also have two Ethiopias; two pairs of pillars of Atlas and/or Hercules; two Gardens of the Hesperides; two Pole (or Morning) Stars, and so forth.
Megasthenes – who was more or less a contemporary of Plato and who based himself on independent traditions – affirms that both Hercules and Dionysos were born in the East Indies. Many other traditions support this belief. Others affirm instead that these heroes were precursors of Alexander, who invaded the East Indies several millennia before the
Macedonian hero did so. ↑051
In actuality, the figure of Hercules is itself dual, as brilliantly demonstrated by Marcel Bréal in his Hércule et Caccus (Paris, 1873). The Greek Herakles is the visible dual of the Roman (or Etruscan) Hercules
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(or Hercle). One hero was Aryan, the other one Pelasgian or Etruscan, and hence pre-Greco-Roman in origin.
This one also corresponded to the Phoenician Baal or Melkhart, who in turn visibly corresponded to Bala, his Hindu archetype. Bala is the same as Bali, the mighty giant defeated by the dwarf Vamana.
Many Greco-Roman authorities concur on the foreign origin of Hercules. Herodotus speaks of several Hercules. And so does Homer, who places one avatar of the dead hero in Heaven (Olympus) and another one in Hades, where he is met by Ulysses. Cicero speaks of as many as seven different Hercules.
In reality, this profusion of heroes corresponds to the proliferation of his pillars, or those of Atlas, also to be found just about everywhere: Gibraltar; Phoenicia; the Indies; Ethiopia, and so forth. It may even be that Pandaia, the daughter of Hercules and ruler of the Indies may be his own feminine avatar.
No matter what, her name closely evokes the one of the Pandus, the celebrated heroes of the majestic Mahabharata. The name of the Pandus means “pale, white, rice, golden” in Sanskrit, suggesting a similar Greek etymology (pan-dia). This etymology corresponds to that of the name of Java and the Yavanas or Greeks. The word derives from the Dravida and has to do with the myth of the White Island (Svetadvipa), one of the many names of Paradise Lost.
The Many Pillars of Hercules
This map parallels the one made by José Imbelloni, the famous Argentinean anthropologist, in his book on Atlantis. Imbelloni was a careful, competent researcher, and his finds can hardly be put to question. In this careful compilation Imbelloni gathered together the various attributes of the Pillars of Hercules, Mt. Atlas and sites of Atlantis made by the ancient authorities.
The objective of this proliferation of Pillars of Hercules and/or of Atlas in antiquity was to confound the profanes on the true whereabouts of Paradise (Atlantis). And this was done for a series of reasons; the foremost of these was of course the fear that the greedy adventurers and conquistadors would desecrate the place, in their insatiable thirst for gold.
But there was only one real pair of pillars: the ones which flank Sunda Strait in Indonesia, allowing ingress to the interior of Taprobane, the real site of Paradise, in the Far East.
We have also embodied in this map the researches of more modern Atlantologists enjoying a good scientific reputation, such as Moreau de Jonnés, A. de Paniagua, P. Borchard,
A. Schulten, R. Hennig, L. Frobenius, and so forth. The areas in black represent the now sunken portions of several proposed sites of Atlantis. The inverted triangles correspond to those parts of proposed sites of Atlantis which, these experts claim, remained emerse in whole or in part down to the present time.
The respective Pillars of Hercules are indicated by the twin pillars, and the several Mt. Atlas by the sharp tipped triangles in black, which are indicated by the Roman numerals and explained in his seminal text: I) the Atlas in Morocco; II) the Saharan Atlas (called Mons Tale by Ptolemy); III) the Sicilian Atlas (also called Mons Aetna); IV) the Arcadian Atlas, and so forth.
Most of these attributions directly derive from ancient sources. They were often explicitly identified either with Mt. Atlas itself or with the Pillars of Hercules. To Imbelloni’s chart we have also added some of the best known Pillars of Hercules of the ancient authorities (unnumbered): the Bosphorus Thracicus; the ancient Strait of Suez and the Bab-el-Mandeb, which the great researcher omitted for some reason.
Several other known “Pillars of Hercules” lie in other regions of the world, of Indonesia in particular. For this reason, they do not fit here and are not shown in this map. We have been able to locate at least four major instances in the region of Indonesia: Sunda Strait; Malacca Strait; Lombok Strait and the Nicobar Strait, plus several others of lesser importance.
In general, these straits were named in homage of Hindu gods such as Shiva, Balarama, Krishna and Vishnu, rather than their Greek counterparts such as Dionysos, Hercules, Atlas, Kronos and Alexander. But the meaning and context is exactly the same. So, these straits and their pylons can be considered further legitimate instances of “Pillars of Hercules”.
As is clear, there was a whole multitude both of “Pillars of Hercules” and of “Mt. Atlas” in antiquity, just as indicated in Imbelloni’s map. The main objective of this profusion was the usual one of confounding the unwelcome attention of inquisitive profanes.
Of course, only the true Pillar of Heaven of Atlantis, the central one, really counted. The others were just illusions of no meaning or importance. But this pillar was double, being formed by Mt. Mashu, the Split Mountain of Paradise.
This name of “Pillar of Heaven” was generally applied to volcanoes such as the Krakatoa and the Aetna, whose volcanic plume in fact simulated a fiery pillar stretching all the way to heaven itself. Several other volcanoes were also named accordingly: the Aetna, the Vesuvius, the Thera, the Teyde, and so forth. And so were several volcanoes of the Far East, Indonesia in particular, where they are most abundant.
The remarkable symbolism of Tanit is the real reason for the name “Pillars of Hercules”. Tanit was indeed a symbol representing a triangle topped by a crossbar and a circle, and often two paps, as shown here. The triangle is the sacred cone of the Goddess, and represents a mountain and, even more exactly, a volcanic peak or island. ↑052
The circle is the sun shining on her head, much as it did in Hathor’s and other aliases of Tanit. And this “sun” is really the volcano. The crossbar represents the two raised arms of the ka symbolism of Egypt. And the
two raised arms are those of Atlas and his far famed pillars at the two sides of the world. The two “paps” yielding “milk” are frequent representations of the twin volcanoes of Paradise shedding abundance.
The two pillars or arms also correspond to the mountain said to have been ripped into two pylons or pillars by the hero, on his return from Erythea, with the cattle he had stolen from Geryon, his own former self. Said otherwise, we see that Tanit is an alias of Atlas in the castrated (or feminine) shape.
The volcanic peak also corresponds to the linga, turned into a lowly yoni or vulva after its “castration”, which turned the lofty peak into a giant caldera and the mighty god into a mighty goddess.
With this cleaving, Hercules allegedly created the twin pylons, as well as the passage, the strait which they delimited at the two sides. But this event never happened at all in the region of Gibraltar, which has been open since long before the times of Man. But it is in fact real in the region of Taprobane, where the mighty Krakatoa Volcano actually cleft open Sunda Strait, separating Java from Sumatra.
The Hindus also spoke both of twin Merus as well as of its five peaks. These five peaks formed a sort of quincunx, with the main peak at the center, and the four others at the Four Cardinal Directions (the Four Pillars of the Earth). This configuration is often attested in the Kalachakra mandalas, themselves an image of Mt. Meru. ↑053
The ancient Egyptians and several other early peoples, the Mayas and the Aztecs included, also had similar traditions. Actually, the Four Pillars of the Earth corresponded to the two pairs, one located in the far orient, the other one in the far occident. The fifth pillar is the one at the center, the true Pillar of Heaven.
We illustrated and commented on this pristine Egyptian world conception in a figure shown further above in the present section. One of these straits corresponds to Gibraltar, and the other one to Sunda Strait, in Indonesia. There the day star was said to start its daily trip, which ended in Gibraltar Strait, where the day ended.
Once there, the sun entered the Ocean, which he crossed in his golden goblet during the night. In his nocturnal voyage, the sun went back to the East Indies, reaching it just in time to start his new daily voyage across the sky (the Celestial Ocean). Of course, these are only charming metaphors, allegories intended to account for the actual phenomena.
The two straits portrayed in the remarkable Egyptian cosmogram discussed further above also correspond to the two extremities of the world mentioned in Homer’s Odyssey (I:22) as inhabited by: “the Ethiopians... who live at the world’s extremities, divided in two halves, one where the sun (Hyperion) rises, and the other where he sets.”
We will return to the theme of the Ethiopians in more detail further below, in our discussion of the globe of Crates of Mallus, to which the interested reader is now directed.
Quite clearly, these world extremities inhabited by the Ethiopians are the two straits portrayed in the Egyptian vase. And so, the tradition in question here is far older than even Homer himself, who wrote at about 1,000 BC or so. Hence, the Greeks might well have obtained the story of Atlantis and these Ethiopians from Egypt, just as Plato affirms in his dialogues on Atlantis.
It is true that the region around Gibraltar Strait is in fact inhabited by “white Ethiopians”: the Berbers, the Libyans, the Phoenicians, the Guanches, and so forth. And so is the region of Taprobane, also inhabited by other such “white Ethiopians”: the Tocharians, the Seres, the Yüeh-Chi, the Hsiung-nu (Huns), etc..
The existence of these “blond, blue-eyed Chinese” was well known to the ancients. They are the “Pious Ethiopians” of Homer (Il. I:7; Od. I:22; V:288, etc.) and the Long-Lived Ethiopians of Pliny, Solinus and Herodotus, among other ancient historians and geographers.
The historian Ephorus (405–330 BC), a contemporary of Plato, mentioned an early tradition on the Ethiopians having invaded and conquered Libya (North Africa) as far as the Atlas Mountains, and later settling there. This early tradition was certainly also known to Plato, very well informed on such matters.
Herodotus (Hist. VII:70) and Strabo (Geogr. XV:21) also speak of two Ethiopias, one eastern, the other western. One of these was placed in Africa, whereas the other one ranged with the Indians, whom they closely paralleled. Strabo (Geogr. I:2:27) further affirms the following on the Ethiopians: “I assert that the ancient Greeks, in the same way as they classed all the northern nations with which they were familiar as Scythians, etc., so, I affirm, they designated as Ethiopia the whole of the southern countries toward the ocean.... If we moderns have [wrongly] confined the appellation ‘Ethiopians’ to those only who dwell near Egypt, this must not be allowed to interfere with the ancient meaning”. Strabo’s view is supported by historical fact, as expounded here, etc.. ↑054
This lesson must be kept in mind by all of us. The ancient Greeks called “Ethiopia” all the cou
ntries south of the equator. These correspond to what Crates of Mallus called “Antoeci” and “Antipodes” in his globe. These peoples are often confused with the Blacks. But this is wrong. The Ethiopians in question here are in reality the White Ethiopians. The modern mistake of identifying them with the Black peoples is a result similar to the confusion just denounced by Strabo.
Ephorus further adds that: “The Ethiopians were considered as occupying all the south coasts of both Asia and Africa, divided by the Erythraean into Eastern and Western Asiatic and African.” These two regions correspond precisely to those actually occupied by the White Ethiopians of Homer and others, if we interpret the Erythraean as the Global Ocean, as we should here.
Plug in the Indian Ocean, and you come out with the wrong answer which places Ethiopia in the country formally called Abyssinia, in East Africa, which recently usurped the name of Ethiopia. It seems, from the text of Herodotus just linked, and others, that the Ethiopic invasion in question here is the mythical one attributed to Osiris, but in reverse: from Egypt to the East Indies.
Diodorus Siculus (Hist. III:2:4), specifically affirms: “They (the Ethiopians) also say that the Egyptians are colonists sent out by the Ethiopians, Osiris having been the leader of the colony.”
This relation is extremely curious, as it reverses the usual traditions on Osiris – or Dionysos (his alias), Hercules, etc. – having invaded India, a fact which never occurred. Perhaps the ancient Greeks mythified the real events, inverting them in order to reduce the humiliating defeat they actually suffered at the hands of the Eastern Ethiopians according to these unequivocal reports.
Atlantis the Lost Continent Finally Found Page 17
