Topic started by vaidyanathanan (@ dialpool-210-214-208-226.maa.sify.net) on Mon Apr 14 17:27:58 .
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READ THE QUOTES BELOW CAREFULLY AND OBSERVE HOW THESE POOR FOLKS WERE DESTROYED:
The Celtic-Vedic Connection
Source: Hinduism Today
1) Celtic cosmology cognizes four interrelating worlds of existence: netherworld, earth realm; heavenly realm of dead and demi-gods; white realm of supreme Deities and energy source of stars.
Vedic cosmology perceives three interrelating worlds-physical; astral world of dead and demi-gods; causal universe of Deities, Supreme Being and primal energy; plus a fourth netherworld.
2) These worlds further divided into lands and cities occupied by spirits and disincarnate people of similar character. Time is slower in these realms.
The three worlds divide into loka habitats of existence, occupied by spirits and like-minded disincarnate people. Time is dilated in the lokas.
3) Celtic earth realm is called bitus. Celtic Gods are called deuos, meaning "shining one."
Vedic earth world is called bhu. Gods of Vedas are invoked as deva, meaning "shining one."
4) Departed souls dwelled in refined or hellish lands until their next reincarnation as a human or animal.
At death, souls continue existence in subtle or hellish realms until entry into the next human or animal body.
5) Celtic priests taught that human souls were indestructible, but the universe ends and rebuilds through fire and water in a repeating cycle.
The universe existence span-called kalpa-ends in a repeating creation/destruction cycle through fire and water, symbolic of primal light and sound.
6) Celtic deities included Gods who actualized nature forces, promulgated ethics, justice, knowledge, speech, arts, crafts, medicine, harvests, gave war courage and battled forces of darkness, and Goddesses of land, rivers and motherhood. Gods often did multiple functions.
The early Vedic pantheon included deities of fire, solar, atmospheric and nature forces, ritual stimulants, speech, crafts, arts, harvests, medicine, justice, ethical/ecological order, war, battlers of malevolent beings, river Goddesses. Gods often had overlapping functions.
Regardless, Christianity obviously won in the end, but not necessarily because of religious beliefs or tenets. The Roman emperors and Senate arguably used Christianity as a political cats-paw or tool to subjugate the Celts. After Rome had conquered Gaul and Britain, there were a number of Celtic uprisings. The Druids are often seen as the main motivators for these uprisings. Being of the highest class in Celtic society they were the ones in power, who held the most sway over the Celtic tribes. "
7) Celtic God of thunder was Taranus who carried thunderbolts. God of fire is Aedh (pronounced uh-ee), meaning fire. The sun Deity is Sulios. The Celtic word for invocation is gutuater.
Vedic God of rain and thunder was Indra who carried thunderbolts. Vedic God of fire is Agni, meaning fire. The solar Being is Surya. The Sanskrit term for invocation is hotar.
8) Celtic cosmology conceived of cosmic creation as a primal Person sacrifice. The Celt term for breath is anal. For soul, the Celt word is anam.
Vedic cosmology describes cosmic creation as the sacrifice of Primal Being. The Vedic word for breath is prana. The soul in the Vedas is atman.
9) The central Celtic ritual was the fire sacrifice, conducted in geometric pits with offerings of herbs, mead and flour cakes, conducted by chanting druids, the Celtic priests.
The central Vedic ritual was the fire sacrifice, performed in geometric pits with offerings of ghee, spices, rice-conducted by hymn- and-mantra-chanting brahmins.
10) Celtic priests were called druids, meaning "knowers of the tree, or truth." They memorized the entire knowledge of the Celts and passed it on orally, forbidding written transmission. They were divided into several classes: seers, judges, royal advisors, hymn chanters, poet bards, sacrificers. They were also astronomers, healers and magicians.
The Vedic priesthood-the brahmins-memorized the scriptural and societal law knowledge of the Hindus, passing it on orally, forbidding writing. Brahmins formed several divisions associated with the fire ritual duties. Enlightened brahmins became rishi seers. Others advised kings and some specialized in medicine and astronomy/astrology.
11) Druids studied for 20 years in strict discipleship to master their oral, ritual, law, science and psychic arts.
Brahmins studied for 12 years in a gurukulam to master oral, ritual, mathematical, astronomical knowledge.
12) Druids memorized extremely lengthy poetic sagas that communicated spiritual metaphysics and civic laws. The poetic metre was a fixed syllable line, free form, with 3-part cadence at end.
Bards of the Vedic literature memorized lengthy poetic sagas conveying spiritual knowledge and dharmic duty. The poetic metre was a fixed syllable line, free form, with 3-part cadence at end.
13) Druids practiced breathing, posture and meditation techniques that gave degrees of ecstasy, often accompanied by intense heat in the body.
Vedic ascetics practiced breathing, posture and meditation skills in a spiritual unfoldment process called tapas (heat), generating high body heat.
14) Celtic society was divided into three hierarchical stratas of life: priests, warriors and producers (inclusive of merchants). Druids advised warrior-kings known as rix. Upward progression through classes was possible.
Vedic society divided into four hierarchical castes: priests, warriors, merchants, workers. Brahmins counseled warrior-kings (rajas). Upward mobility was sanctioned in Vedas, but later frozen in societal law books.
15) Celts prized the magical power of telling truth, honor/piety among men and eloquence in conversation and oration.
Vedic society prized the supernatural power of truth-saying, piety and honor, and eloquence in gatherings.
16) Celts honored women, guarded their virtue, and allowed by law daughters of sonless fathers to inherit property or to marry kinsmen to bear male heirs to the father. Seeresses were sanctioned, and priestesses for Goddesses favored.
Vedic Hindus prized womanly virtues, and by law sonless fathers could bequeath property to daughters or arrange her marriage to relatives for male heirs. Female seers were countenanced, and female ascetics tended Goddess rites.
17) Celts recognized 8 forms of marriage from arranged to love to abduction. A bride gift was given by the groom.
Vedic Hindus followed 8 forms of marriage from arranged to love to abduction. The groom paid a bride price.
18) Celts defined life stages, columns of age: infancy (0-1), boyhood (2-11), adolescence (12-18), young adult (19-45), old age (46-65), decrepitude (65+) in which enlightening inspiration is sought.
Vedic society taught four ashrama stages of life: studentship (12- 24); family life (25-48); elder advisor (49-72); religious solitaire (72+), in which the individual seeks enlightenment.
19) The Celtic ideal measure of life was to live 100 years.
The Vedic ideal of a fulfilled life was to live 100 autumns.
20) Celt family unit was a group of four generations from a great- grandfather.
The ancient Hindu family unit is four generations from a great- grandfather.
21) One Celt calendar was based on 62 lunar months (5 years +) intercalated to a 3-year solar cycle for solstice correction. Druids studied stellar motion, navigation and contemplated such abstracts as the size and nature of the universe.
Vedic astronomy is based on lunar months daily aligned to star positions and related to 3-year and 5-year solar cycles. Vedic astronomy was applied to astrology, and the rishi seers contemplated the universe's nature and genesis.
22) By Celt law a man owed money could fast at the door of the debtor- who must join the fast-forcing the debtor to pay or enter an arbitration.
By Hindu law, a creditor could fast at the door of the past due debtor, who then was obligated to protect the health of the creditor and pay the debt.
Irish Scholars: Irish and Indian the Same People
Source: THE CELTS By Gerhard Herm
Bryan Mcmahon, historian, scholar of folklore, teacher, a well known poet and much else besides, likes to test his favorite theories in practice and to retail them with all the skill and timing of a seasoned performer. He told me: Whenever I meet an Indian I take him to one side and hum the first lines of an Irish folk-song. Then I ask him to continue the melody as he likes; and, believe it or not, almost every time he will sing it to the end as if he already knew the song. Isn't that astonishing?
For me it is an indication that Indians and Irishmen have a common past; that, as I put it in one of my plays, "We Celts came from the Mysterious East."
The late Myles Dillon, formerly Prof of Celtic at U of Dublin cites a whole series of further astonishing parallels between the culture of the Aryan Indians and the Irish Druids. (Druid from Dru = Oak, Wid or Ved = Wisdom) His main contention is that in both cases there was a distinct class of scholars; the Brahmins in India, the highest reps in the Varna system; while in Ireland there were the 'wise men of the oak'. Dillon reckons that the Brahmins and the Druids should be equated because they carried out their profession-teaching and study, poetry and law-in a similar way.
There is evidence that this is so.
The principles by which justice was administered were similar, indeed identical with those in India. There a father with daughters but no sons could order one of them to take a man of his choice and produce a legal heir. Beyond the Hindu Kush mountains, such a girl was called putrika (she who takes the son's place) and in old Ireland ban-chomarba (female-heir). But who if not the Continental Celts can have told the Irish what was going on in the far east? Dillon further notes similarities: in both cultures there were 8 different forms of marriage, from arranged marriages, marriage by purchase and love- matches to kidnapping. In both cultures there was a strict distinction between inherited and earned property and when contracts were drawn up there was an exact statement as to who was to provide what guarantees before obtaining what he wanted. In one case it was the Brahmins and in the other the Druids who administered these principles.
All this, Dillon says, suggests that the Celtic Druids indeed represented the same tradition as the Hindu Brahmins... If we continue to feel our way along the parallels between India and Gaul, sooner or later we sense that the Druids were also political leaders, just as the Brahmins clearly stood above generals and warriors.
The Druids, Caesar says, taught that "souls do not disappear but wander from one body to another". Lucan in his Pharsalia - a verse epic about the Roman civil war - addressed them with the words: "If we understand you aright, death is only a pause in a long life." Does the fact that according to Scythian custom, crests depicted eagles, wolves, bears as ancestors reflect the conviction of these people that the spirit of the dead goes through many life-forms, human and animal, as the Hindus believe?
...Ancient author Diodorus's own most adventurous suggestion - "they still hold Pythagoras's belief in the immortality of the soul and rebirth." ...But since Pythagoras, with his strong influences from the east, was among the few great Hellenic philosophers who believed in the possibility of life after death, they could only conclude that his belief was related to the blonde barbarians (the Celts) or that they had taken theirs from him.
"With the spread of Christianity, Christians dubbed female Druids as witches in order to make their power seem evil such as the witches of ancient times to the native Celtic people. The Christians feared the Druids and Druidesses not only because they were a source of great religious power and the center of knowledge for their people, but also many of them preached strongly against conversion to Christianity (Ellis, The Druids, p.72). Consequently, the Christians began to write down information, which put Druids and Druidesses in a bad light and helped perpetuate their ultimate downfall. In Medieval times Christians altered stories Druidess heroines to evil witches. In this manner, the Christians effectively began to sway the opinion of the clergy and the people that knowledgeable women and the Druid order itself were wicked. Such stories such as Dahud-Ahes, daughter of the six century king Kernev, whom Ellis says was "undoubtedly a Druidess adhering to the old religion, [and] who [was] then transformed into a sorceress by Christian scribes" (Ellis, The Druids, p.104). She was strongly opposed to Christianity, and therefore her city of Ker-Ys was destroyed by a flood and she was turned into a mermaid "as she sinks beneath the waves, proving that [St. Guénolé's] magic is just as good as any Druid['s]" (Ellis, The Druids, p.104). Professor Markle states:
Apart from representing paganism in opposition to Christianity, however, she [Dahud-Ahes] also symbolizes the rebellion against masculine authority...The full significance of this act becomes clear when one considers her dissolute life as contrary to the teachings of the Christian Church, here represented by St Gwénnolé, himself the very symbol of masculine authority (Ellis, The Druids, p.104).
However, it is interesting to note that in Ker-Ys today, the myth places Duhad-Ahes] as a "good witch" (Ellis, The Druids, p.104).
The manipulation of literature, which made powerful women into evil creatures only, furthered the fall of Druidism and the place of women in Celtic society. "
"Regardless, Christianity obviously won in the end, but not necessarily because of religious beliefs or tenets. The Roman emperors and Senate arguably used Christianity as a political cats-paw or tool to subjugate the Celts. After Rome had conquered Gaul and Britain, there were a number of Celtic uprisings. The Druids are often seen as the main motivators for these uprisings. Being of the highest class in Celtic society they were the ones in power, who held the most sway over the Celtic tribes. Much of Rome was still pagan when Roman armies marched on Gaul, but with Christianity quickly spreading through the Mediterranean, it gave Roman officials a marketable justification to eradicate the Druids. The question has even been raised whether or not Christianity would have become so popular if Rome had not used it as military propoganda. "
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