Jodhpur Radiation

When searching the title (and "Jodhpur radioactive") I didn't find a thread in the top 3 that started recently, and I believe I have a unique enough perspective on it. The origins of the oldest (organized) religion are most important; enough to automatically render suspect any tales in/of subsequent religions (as I see it). Here's today's blog entry:

Strange how I just became of aware of this recently; and strangely in tandem with my reading Salman Rushdie's MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN (set in and largely about India): There's a 3-square-miles area of HIGHLY radioactive ash 10 miles west of Jodhpur, Rajasthan. It appears to verify the ancient Mahabharata; a forerunner of Vedic (Hindu) scripture. (Oldest is the Rig Veda). Here's the relevant (alleged?) quote:

"A single projectile charged with all the power in the Universe...An incandescent column of smoke and flame as bright as 10,000 suns, rose in all its splendor...it was an unknown weapon, an iron thunderbolt, a gigantic messenger of death which reduced to ashes an entire race.

"The corpses were so burned as to be unrecognizable. Their hair and nails fell out, pottery broke without any apparent cause, and the birds turned white.

"After a few hours, all foodstuffs were infected. To escape from this fire, the soldiers threw themselves into the river."

The account purportedly or apparently describes the genocide/extinction of the Vrishni and Andakha "races."

The implication of this unprecedented find (if true) is astronomically bigger than virtually everyone (globally) is aware of now: We have, for the first time ever, hard evidence to verify a significant component of truth (of a staggeringly powerfully unexplained event) in an ancient writing of an organized religion! Of course it makes most sense that the oldest religion would most qualify... THERE ARE SIMILAR ENOUGH VEDIC ACCOUNTS OF ATOMIC DEVASTATION! Even if the Mahabharata has been or will be (convincingly) debunked, the radiation evidence still applies to Hindus; therefore humanity.

[That's not putting Hinduism as we know it on a pedestal. The godawfully oppressive caste system (that's supposed to be illegal) and other horrors like female infanticide can safely prevent any notions of Gandhi-like "godliness" having major influence among Hindu Indians... Any scientific breakthrough the magnitude of formally Contacting a nonhuman intelligence (at least eventually) will far transcend any organized/named religion].

The obvious 2, entirely scientific/normal possibilities of the Jodhpur find are: time travel (by someone decidedly evil/amoral in this case) from our nuclear age to their time or, even more incredibly (to me), a similarly-evolved civilization as ours (that apparently existed alongside primitive people) of which, somehow, there is almost ZERO evidence (at least as yet) of its existence!

Could I possibly be making a fool of myself? Is this too good to be true? If the radiation is as it appears, and it doesn't bolster the overall anti-nuclear position, I don't know what else would.

lightworth.blogspot.com...

reply to post by Lightworth

I do think there was a nuclear exchange. The vedic discriptictions of the battle are poetic in any language. I suspect the science of the ancients involved less in the way of materialism so out side of the obvious radiation fall out sights and a few cryptic verses in holy books not much of the great civilizations of the past will be found. Also, there is a plot by the keepers of the past civilizations wisdom to keep it out of the hands of the people who come after them.

reply to post by eradown


Well I don't know to what degree I could ever be considered fully "going after them," but I'm all for going for whatever can be gone for... I ain't scared o' no kind o' secretive bastages.

there's all kinds of weird prehistoric nuclear stuff out there.

for instance, there's a fossil site that has all these fused dinosaur bones, like a Hiroshima of the Jurassic or something.

So... could aliens have been messing with the planet for millions of years, first wiping out the indigenous beasties so they could work properly, then genetically enhancing hominids to do the grunt work?

and I think it doesn't take much but a few generations of the poorly educated to erase an entire civilization, even one as advanced as ours.

The romans and greeks were very very close to our level of mechanical sophistication, perhaps even a little smarter in that they didn't find any use for combustion engines of any kind, even though they knew about them.

it took 1k years for us to re-learn all that stuff, after the barbarian assaults on rome.

reply to post by MegaTherion

No one has ever reproduced Greek fire. Of course that is probably a good thing.It does make me wonder how technology just disappears. I don't think it is all an accident. I see the murder of Archimedes and the burning of the library of Alexandria as part of a plot to keep people in the dark about ancient technology.

I've been to Jodhpur, a fascinating city of blue-painted buildings with a very beautiful fort containing, amongst other wonders, a clockwork train set made of ivory, preserved in a glass case.

Jodhpur is also home to an Indian defence laboratory where a lot of nuclear research is carried out. And the city lies on the edge of the Thar desert, where India conducted nuclear tests some years ago. The name of the village nearest those tests (obviously still very far away) is Pokhra.

Maybe that's inspired the begetter of this little fantasy. Because I'll tell you what Jodhpur doesn't have: what Jodhpur doesn't have is a pile of radioactive ash anywhere in the neighbourhood.

And while we're at it...

...a few historical and literary notes.

The Mahabarata isn't a forerunner of the Vedas; it is younger than they. The best date for its written composition is no later than 400BCE in its current form, but even the core 8,000 verses or so were recorded no earlier than 900BCE.

By comparison, even the youngest of the Vedas dates back before 1,000BCE. the Rigveda had achieved its final form by 1,500BCE - or, probably, somewhat earlier.

The 'brighter than a thousand suns' quote is from the Baghavad-gita (a religious poem incorporated within the Mahabharata), and what it actually says is

If there should rise
Suddenly within the skies
Sunburst of a thousand suns*
Flooding earth with rays undeemed-of,
Then might be that Holy One’s
Majesty and glory dreamed of!

- Bhagavad Gita, trans. Swami Nikhilananda, chapter 11

Nothing, as you see, about people's hair and teeth falling out. Here's the relevant chapter - it's actually about Krishna's divinity, not nuclear bombs.

I seriously doubt whether the quotations in the OP are from the Mahabharata or any other ancient Indian text. I'm willing to bet their real origin is this piece of waffle from the Stone Age of the Internet.

If anyone wants to find out for themselves, here's the whole Mahabharata in a rather cosy Victorian translation. Good luck: you will be searching one of the longest epic poems (if not the longest) ever written.

Lightworth, you said

THERE ARE SIMILAR ENOUGH VEDIC ACCOUNTS OF ATOMIC DEVASTATION!

Could you quote me one, please? I'd be much obliged. And don't forget to include a reference to chapter and verse so I can look it up for myself. Thank you kindly...


*Oppenheimer was, of course, misquoting. The whole Western world has got the lines garbled in consequence. But you can't blame him; it was a tense moment, after all.

reply to post by Astyanax


Sorry I can't quote chapter and verse regarding (apparent) nukes in the Vedas, but I took a chance that an article I read recently and a TV documentary I saw a long time ago that mentioned the (very apparent) atomic devastation (that admittedly isn't a literal description in the scientific sense) is true. While the Vedas aren't mentioned specifically, this article mentions "Indian sacred writings" that I assumed are Vedic or related. (See particularly "A Historian Comments"):

www.geocities.com...

I wish I could remember what TV documentary it was several years back that showed an ancient stone carving of a very apparent mushroom cloud.

If the radiation 10 MILES WEST of Jodhpur is related to the nuclear research lab in the city, it would have to have been an UNDERGROUND test conducted no more than a few decades ago. (The radiation was discovered fairly recently when there was a housing project being developed in the area). We can assume India as we know it has never seen an above ground nuke explosion. Or am I missing something? What are the usual ground level effects of underground testing?

Add: And forgive my insensitivity for even implying that Indians would be dumb enough to start a housing project anywhere near an underground test site.

[edit on 1-7-2008 by Lightworth]