The Source Of The Abrahamic Peoples

Dear Reader,

This is a real "Where do I come from, Daddy?" story!

There have been many plausible attempts to identify the location of the Biblical Garden of Eden and, after my research over the last three years, I can now present what seems to be (to me, at least) the most likely story. This account is based on a combination of two important sources, one ancient (again from India!) and one from modern research into an ancient source.

Having discussed, in my last three posts, the topic of the importance of India in the development of western thought over a very long period of time, the question could be asked why it was that while Europe was apparently evolving out of a Stone Age, India (and Egypt for that matter) was in an advanced state of civilisation?

The answer, partly at least, is because India and Egypt and surrounding lands were not in the grip of the Ice Age that caused the very northern parts of Europe to be uninhabitable for a long stretch of time. The various people that populated those warm climes had evolved to a peak way before Europe was able to warm itself to think properly.

But it turns out that there is somewhat more to it than that, and it appears to be down to the big topic of evolution. Not quite along Darwinian lines (though he came close on many points) but the overall evolutionary plan for mankind. Now, that may seem too big a mountain for me or any normal person to try to navigate their way, but certain matters seem to be quietly revealing themselves to explain more on this topic. However, I am in no way going to try to explain all of the Great Story.

The part of all this that most of us might be interested in is more recent and relates to the records contained in what the West now tends to regard as 'old hat' and irrelevant - the chapter of Genesis in the Old Testament, which is also part of Jewish scripture. Amazingly, however, I have only recently come to find that the story of Adam in Genesis is also recorded in a significant book in Indian scripture!

The main Indian scripture is contained in the four books of the Vedas, which are structured in such a way to each contain explanations described as the Upanishads. They relate to the primary knowledge of what is and the how and why of spiritual practise in the Hindu Way, but there are various other scriptures too, and one set is called the Puranas. In this set is one called the Bhavishwa Purana, where 'Bhavishwa' means 'the future'.

This Purana, therefore, was written by a highly-evolved sage as a statement of things to come, and we will soon find that it must have been passed on (orally or written) - unbelievable as it may sound - beyond 10,000 years ago! But let us remind ourselves that Indian civilisation probably goes back 40,000 years - at least.

I state "beyond 10,000 years ago" because if that scripture was dictated as a statement of things to come, then it will have preceded the Biblical story of Genesis, which we now appear to be able to point to as starting in the 9th millennia BC. I will come back to the sources for this calculation.

Meanwhile, let us recall that knowledge of ancient historical timescales in around 1950 was still primitive by today's standards, and when I was quite young (perhaps 7 or 8) my parents bought the only book of knowledge they ever brought into the house (other than the Bible) - it was an encyclopedic dictionary. It was a thick single-volume book, and I recall clearly a timeline at the rear of that book that stated that effective history began in 4004 BC with the advent of Adam! Yes, I did say that in my childhood we were still rooted in old concepts of knowledge!

That year was calculated in the 19th c., of course, based on the summation of the lengths of the lives of Adam and his progeny as given in Genesis. But, of course, they did not have all the required data to hand. And the Biblical Adam was clearly not the first man to exist on Earth, of course.

Before coming back to my sources for the 9th millennia BC beginning of the Biblical Adam and his progeny, I should ask the reader to recall that in India the age of the universe and its evolutionary procession is based on a notion of time divided into four yugas - each of which is a vast period of time. When it is taken into account that each four-yuga period is cyclically repeated, the Indian timescale is much more in accord with modern science. Again, ancient Indian knowledge shows its supremacy over that in Europe, until very recent times.

According to the previously mentioned Bhavishwa Purana, the people of Adam (called Mlechchas in Indian scripture) would become famous when 2,800 years remained of the last Dwarapa Yuga. This is a prediction, you will recall. Now, this Yuga ended in 3,102 BC (when began the current Kali Yuga), so 2,800 years preceding that gives an approximate date of 5,902 BC. But we must add time before that to achieve the time of the Biblical Adam himself, which most likely gives us the time of the 9th millennia BC (8,000-something BC).

The place of the Mlechcha people was defined as "beyond the River Sind and to the west", which is not altogether definitive, of course, but it does draw us more towards the Middle East and away from other hypothetical locations for Eden that have been proposed elsewhere.

That is not a statement of an exact time as being the creation of Adam (and Eve), nor of the geographical location, but to expand and give substance to those statements I now draw upon the research of Christian O'Brien, who - after vast practical research based on the work of others - published books where he assiduously shows his considerable scholarly achievement in his re-decipherment of Sumerian tablet texts in the 1970s and 1980s. See this page for an intro and menu of related topics.

The Book of Genesis is these days often mistakenly translated into English to represent Elohim and Jehovah as, simply, 'God'. In the case of 'Elohim', it is a plural term anyhow. Fortunately, O'Brien - as a result of freshly translating ancient tablets - was able to get to the identity of the Elohim, who are key to all the ancient developments of the traditional 'Holy Land', and, indeed, the Middle East, followed by other major places around the Globe from the time the beings known as the Elohim appear to have arrived at Mount Harmon in Lebanon ca.8,300 to 8,100BC, or even earlier.

So, O'Brien provides us with a correlation to the preceding mention of 9th millennia BC (following the Ice Age), and O'Brien did the considerable groundwork to validate the place of Eden as being in south Lebanon and significantly in the vicinity of Mount Hermon. From the Sumerian tablets, he identified the place as called Kharsag, and was actually able to identify physical remnants of the actual site of Eden, which the link provided (above) shows in various images. 

Location of Kharsag/Eden (circled in red)

To add, O'Brien deduced that a proper translation of 'Elohim' would be 'The Shining Ones'. For this purpose, 'The Shining Ones' is a hierarchy of spiritual beings consisting of Archons, Archangels and Angels. O'Brien wrote:

The Old Testament does not specify who, or what, these Shining Ones were; but, fortunately, the ancient Sumerian records do. And, certain alternative Hebrew documents which are not well understood by biblical scholars, provide confirmatory evidence of a remarkable kind.

The names of the Archangels that O'Brien says were involved (according to Sumerian tablets) seem to include names that are readily recognisable to many (note the 'el' suffix, meaning 'of God'): Micha-el, Gabri-el, Uri-el, Rapha-el. But these are but a few. It is noteworthy that Islamic tradition says that the transmission of the Qur'an (meaning 'recite!') to Prophet Muhammed was achieved through Archangel Gabri-el.

Echoing the findings of O'Brien (or vice versa!), this portion of the Bhavishwa Purana is paraphrased as saying (much like the Biblical chapter of Genesis): 

The Supreme Deity built a delightful garden in the East of Eden measuring about sixty-four square miles. There, Adam went to see his wife under the shade of the Tree of Sin. Presently, the Devil arrived there in the form of a snake. The cunning Devil deceived Adam and Eve into violating the commands of Vishnu, and thereby eating the fruit of the tree, which brought them down into this worldly life. There they ate the leaves of the Guier tree and begat many children, who were then called Mlechchas. Adam lived for nine hundred and thirty years.

The Bhavishwa Purana went on to prophesy about great prophets that would emanate from Adam's lineage, including Noah, Abraham, Moses and Jesus and also seems to indicate Muhammad, and if so affirming that Islam was to be a valid religion of intrinsic wisdom to suit the Yuga era in which it has flourished - the current Kali Yuga, which is known in India as the densest and most prone to evil of the four yugas. 

My feeling is that as Jesus did not come to found a new religion ('Christianity' is essentially a man-made, but probably well-intended, construction), his purpose was to make clear what was the real goal of religion (through sacrifice), and hence why Jesus is a revered teacher in India and a revered prophet in Islam and why his real spiritual teaching has been continued in the work of the Sufis according to time and place, as well as by certain Christian saints.

But all this is a mere episode in the evolution of man that will culminate in the cyclical return to the purity of the next iteration of the first yuga of the four-yuga cycle - the Sathya Yuga - following the appearance of the tenth great Avatar or a being that all the major religions expect to herald in a new age.

In addition to these quite substantial indications of the development of different lineages of man (the Biblical Adam being the beginning of one), I feel it more than worthwhile to mention the greatly maligned work of Helena Blavatsky. Before the creation of the Theosophical Society (of which she was co-founder), she produced two mammoth written works on the historical development of man, the races of man and their purpose. 

As time goes on, the world seems to be finding out, more and more, that what is contained in Blavatsky's works is based on truth. Having read a reliable account of her life (When Daylight Comes by Howard Murphet), then it all becomes plausible. To me at least.

But, whether all this is regarded as just interesting or not, the history of man is worthless unless we try to derive some meaning from it, and from that to direct our lives accordingly. Remembering, however, that the temporary body is merely a vehicle for the permanent soul; man ultimately needs to live in the present and to transcend his ordinary life, no matter how difficult it may be. Today's world situation demands it.

Thank you for reading this.