Saw on the net, posted in another thread:
Hindu and Celtic Culture Are One
Druuis Belenios Ategnatos
As humanity begins to break free of the Dark Age caused by Christian Europe’s conquest (military, political and cultural) of much of the world, it becomes obvious that the history taught by their culture leaves much to be desired. This includes the history of Europe itself which also had its own Christian invasion, conquest and colonization. Finally, scholars within Western culture are beginning to recognize what the scholars and other leaders of traditional societies have been saying all along, for many centuries.
I am going to briefly describe some of the latest findings regarding Indo-European culture. Some of this is theoretical. Some of it is proven to exacting standards. In the interest of brevity, I shall not attribute the following information to the proper academic form. Much of the material used is yet to be published, and is cutting-edge, but should become available soon.
My particular topic is the relationship between the Celtic peoples of Europe, their origin, their relationship with the Vedic culture, and a few other relevant facts and theories.
The Celtic peoples are defined for the purpose of this article as referring to those people who in the past spoke a language of the Celtic branch of the Indo-European language family and also lived according to the ancient culture considered to be that of the speakers of Celtic as based upon Celtic traditions and stories and on archeology. Archeological and linguistic evidence traces them to the Danube river valley in Europe back to around 6000 BCE, and further back to the region of the Aral Sea of Central Eurasia. In Western China in particular, there is much evidence for a culture of people who physically looked like the Celts of Europe until the Turkic Uighur people and others moved into the region about the eighth century. Mummies with European features have been found in that region going back to 1500 BCE.The occasional red hair or green eyes found in that and neighboring regions is taken as evidence that these people related to the Celts were absorbed into various people still living in the areas in question, including Xinjiang, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Tibet and Nepal. Interestingly, I know a person of Irish ancestry who converted to the Sikh religion, and in his turban, he is sometimes mistaken for a northern Indian by Indians. It is also said that Genghis Khan had red hair and gray eyes; I have even read reports of tribes of red-haired people in the steppes and deserts in or near these regions, from the eighteen hundreds.
In traditional histories of India like the Puranas and Brahmanas, it is pointed out that in addition to the kingdoms in northern India, there were kingdoms north of the Himalayas with the same culture as in India, which would be in the regions that we are considering for the Celtic peoples. Most important is the famous land of the Uttara Kurus, described as a spiritual paradise north of the Himalayas. Comparison of European Celtic culture with Hindu culture shows a large number of similarities between them. Some of these were shown in a two part article that appeared in the May and June issues of the magazine Hinduism Today. Therefore, we have cultural evidence to back up the traditions and the archaeology.
Religiously, these red-haired northern Vedic people are known to have some point taken up Buddhism. Certain traditional sources indicate that they learned Buddhism from the Buddha previous to Siddhartha Gautama, who was named Kashyapa. A Kashyapa rishi also appears as one of the oldest Vedic rishis and as associated with northern regions like Kashmir, that was originally called Kashyapa Mira or Kashyapa’s lake. Tibetan literature, I have been told, indicates that they learned their Buddhism, not from India, but from "Shamballa" which is placed exactly where these people lived.
However, the European Celts clearly practiced, and a few still do, more orthodox Vedic type religions, with similar traditions of chanting, rituals, deity worship, mantra and meditation, with direct parallels to most of the ancient and modern orthodox Hindu sects found in India. As such, it is theorized by some scholars that the two branches split because the Celts maintained the older dharma, whereas the people who stayed in the regions north of the Himalayas accepted Buddhism, perhaps from Kashyapa Buddha.
One of the hallmarks of Celtic culture is the use of the sacred Ogham (pronounced Oh-wum) alphabet by the Druuids, who are Celtic Brahmins. Many scholars believe that Ogham was only used by the Irish, and not by other Celts. However, this is clearly disproved by many Ogham inscriptions appearing in different places, including France, Iberia (Spain and Portugal), the Danube valley, and the Tocharian regioins. Furthermore, inscriptions of Ogham have been found in ancient sites in Japan, some of them megalithic. One Japanese scholar who studies these inscriptions and the sites they are found in believes that the inscriptions indicate that some of the Buddhist monks who brought Buddhism to Japan were Tocharians, or had maintained the use of the sacred writing system of the Tocharians.
There is also extensive evidence of many sorts that Celts crossed the Atlantic from Europe to North American millennia ago, long before the Viking excursions into North America, who perhaps followed Celtic routes. The evidence is archeological, epigraphical, linguistic, folkloric, among other forms. American Indians with more European type features were reported by early European colonists into the region.
There is much more that could be told, it will have to wait for another time. I must apologize for any errors or omissions’ this article is an imperfect attempt to review a wide range of relevant information in a limited space.
This information has inspired the beginning of a move for unity among Hindus and traditional Celts, as branches of the same culture. Any readers interested in more information in this area are invited to correspond with the author at:
Aballonas
PO Box 120149
Staten Island NY 10312- 0149
The following are some of the main scholars working on the issue of Celtic and Hindu commonality and history: David Frawley, M.G. Boutet, Professor Yoshida, J. Monard, and Alain LeGoff. Many thanks to them and any others whom I may have missed.
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