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<a href="[
www.uforq.asn.au] excerpt</a> from The Epics of Ancient India - Their Relevance to Ufology by Colin Biggs
* In my opinion, the nadir of deceptive misrepresentation is attained not by Leslie but by Charles Berlitz in his 1974
* book The Bermuda Triangle (chapter 8), in which occurs the following: 'A description of a special weapon launched
* against an opposing army goes as follows:" thence comes this lengthy quotation from the Mahabharata:
* 'A single projectile charged with all the power of the universe. An incandescent column of smoke and flame, as bright
* as 10,000 suns, rose in all its splendour…. It was an unknown weapon, and iron thunderbolt, a gigantic messenger of
* death which reduced to ashes the entire race of the Vrishnis and Andhakas…. The corpses were so burned as to be
* unrecognisable. 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 in streams to
* wash themselves and all their equipment.'
* I have reproduced this quotation exactly as it appears in Berlitz's book in order to illustrate my point. Readers could
* naturally assume that Berlitz was quoting one single passage with a few superfluous words omitted here and there, which
* on face value reads like an ancient writer's account of an atomic explosion and its aftermath. How wrong they would be.
* What Berlitz has done is to collate various totally unrelated excerpts from different chapters of the Mahabharata and
* weave them into one apparently seamless fabric, but a dissection of the passages in question reveals the truth. The
* front part, 'a single projectile --- all its splendour' has its origin in Karna Parva, section 34. The second part, 'it
* was an unknown weapon --- Andhakas' derives from Mausala Parva section 1, reconnecting events which occurred no less
* than 36 years after the great battle which is the central focus of the Mahabharata. A third part 'the corpses ---
* unrecognisable' refers back in time to the much earlier Drona Parva section 201, and the already mentioned Agneya
* weapon. The fourth part, 'the hair and nails --- infected' leaps forward in time once again to Mausala Parva, section 2.
* In the fifth part, 'to escape --- equipment,' we are time-warped back to Drona Parva section 197. In just one
* paragraph, Berlitz has managed to cobble and stich five unrelated excerpts, widely separated in both place and time, and
* presented them as one coherent whole allegedly representing a nuclear explosion. It is a totally dishonest cut and past
* job which does Berlitz no credit at all. It is this kind of cavalier disregard for the ancient source material and the
* search for truth which casts all serious research in this field into disrepute, and only serves as ammunition for those
* sceptics and debunkers who belittle the very notion of alien/human interaction in ancient times.
* In a final parting shot, I simply cannot pass over in silence the fourth part of the above passage, which must rank as
* a classic of selective misquotation. Hair and nails falling out, birds turning white, food being infected - all very
* evocative of radioactive contamination in the aftermath of a nuclear explosion. What section 2 of the Mausala Pareva
* actually says, however, paints a very different picture. The full passage is rather lengthy, so I have presented the
* relevant excerpts:
* 'Day by day strong winds blow and many were the evil omens that arose, awful and foreboding the destruction of the
* Vrishnis and the Andhakas. The streets swarmed with rats and mice. Earthen pots showed cracks or broken (sic) from no
* apparent cause. At night, the rats ad mice ate away the hair and nails of slumbering men. --- many birds appeared,
* impelled by death, that were pale of complexion but that had legs red of hue --- the Vrishni's, committing sinful acts,
* were not seen to feel any shame --- they insulted and humiliated their preceptors and seniors --- wives deceived their
* husbands and husbands their wives --- the sun, whether when rising or setting over the city, seemed to be surrounded by
* headless trunks of human form. In cook rooms, upon food that was clean and well boiled were seen, when it was served
* out for eating, innumerable worms of diverse kinds,' etc.
* it should be quite apparent that, as clearly and unambiguously stated at the beginning of the passage, what we have
* here is yet another example of the 'omens and portents' discussed earlier, but presented in a novel form. Hair and nails
* did not fall out, they were eaten by mice. To say that white birds appeared is quite different from birds turning white.
* (I am simply analysing this passage at face value. We need not suppose that any of this actually happened.) it is
* almost superfluous of me to ad that the destruction of said Vishnis and Andhakas does not occur until two pages after
* the above passages, not before it. The latter is not describing the effects of such destruction but rather the portents
* which preceded it.
Read the rest, it's an interesting article.
Doug</HTML>
