Friday 24 November 2017

THE CITY OF LIMA, PERU - THE SRI RAMA, SANSKRIT & TAMIL CONNECT

The city of Lima is the capital and the largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillon, Rimac and Lurin rivers, in the central coastal part of the country, overlooking the Pacific Ocean. According to early Spanish chronicles, the Lima area was once called Itchyma, named after its original inhabitants. However, earlier than that there existed a famous oracle in the Rimac valley which was mispronounced as Limaq by the Spanish visitors. Limaq happens to mean 'talker' in Quechua, the meaning was transposed to the river name Rimac, and today the name Rimac is also wrongly believed to mean 'talker'.

Where then did the ancient name 'Rimac' or 'Rimak' appear from. In his book 'The Lost Realms', Zecharia Sitchin states, "The Rimac region was a focal point in antiquity as it is nowadays. It was there, just south of Lima, that the largest temple to a Peruvian deity had stood... It was dedicated to Pacha Camac meaning 'Creator of the World'.... Pilgrims came to it from far and near. The central figure ... was always that of a deity holding a wand in one hand and a thunderbolt in the other and wearing a horned or a rayed crown. The Indians called him Rimac.... His name meant 'The Thunderer" and thus in meaning and phonetically Rumac is akin to the nickname 'Raman' by which Adad was known to the Semitic peoples...". 

However, there are other clues that point to the fact that the name Raman appeared in the Semitic texts and languages as well as in the Mayan and Incan tradition from an Indic source. One pointer lies in the name of most important Incan festival - 'Rama-Sitva' which in all probability predates the appearance of the Incan themselves. Sir William Jones (1744 - 1794) stated in his papers published by the Asiatic Society that the Incan festival 'Rama-Sitva' celebrated on the Winter Solstice Day gets its name from the Hindu God King, Sri Rama and his wife, Goddess Sita. 

In his book 'India in Greece' Edward Pococke has quoted Sir William Jones thus, "Rama is represented as a descendant from the sun, as the husband of Sita, and the son of a princess named Causelya. It is very remarkable that Peruvians, whose Incas boasted of the same descent, styled their greatest festival Rama-Sitva; whence we may take it that South America was peopled by the same race who imported into the farthest of parts of Asia the rites and the fabulous history of Rama."

The 'Rama' of the 'Rama- Sitva' festival had to be Sri Rama, and no one else. In Peruvian mythology, not Raman but another deity appears who holds a thunderbolt. His name is Viracocha, such that both these Peruvian deities are represented as 'bearers of a thunderbolt'. In Hindu texts however it is Indra who bears the thunderbolt or the vajra, and Sri Rama carries is an entirely different weapon - the dhanusha.


The River Rimac originates in Lake Titicaca.
Lake Titicaca is the highest navigable lake in the world.

The River Rimac originates in lake Titicaca located on the borders of Peru and Bolivia. About the name Titicaca, Gene Matlock has this to say," There is evidence that Titicaca was once a saltwater sea. Its shoreline is littered with millions of fossilized seashells. The marine fishes and seahorses in the lake are all oceanic types found only in salt water." On its banks lie the ruins of the ancient city of Tiwanaku.

Matlock adds, "Researchers are convinced that these 3 miles high ruins once lay at sea level. Therefore, an incredibly devastating earthquake could have torn the city asunder, lifting Tiwanaku and the lake to where they are now. How can this be proven? The answer lies in the name of Lake Titicaca itself-linguistic proof no one can deny and in
two of the most ancient languages in the world: Sanskrit and Tamil. The word Titicaca has no meaning in any of the Andean languages." Most Indic scholars trace the word Tiwanaku to Sanskrit Devanaku or 'the Mountain of the Deva-s". According to Grimm's Laws of Sound Shift the sounds 'd' and 't' are phonetically the same because of the closeness in the way the two letters are pronounced. Hence, the Sanskrit 'denta' or the Latin 'dente' appear as 'teeth' in English.

Gene Matlock was of the view that it was the south Indian language Tamil, which was carried to South America by Tamil sailors from India during Ramayanic times, that had an influence on the languages spoken there.  Hence, in tracing the etymology of the word Titicaca he says, "In Sanskrit, the word GaGga, (GAHG-gah) means "river," but not just any river. It means a river as sacred as or related to the Ganges. In Tamil, it is KaGkai (KAHG-ky), meaning the same. In Sanskrit, Diti was the wife of the god Kasyapa (sea tortoise). Titi is the Tamil equivalent. Therefore, Titikagkai=Ditigagga=Titicaca." 

The name Rama also appears in the ancient name of Brazil - which was known as Pindo-Rama in antiquity and though it is said that Pindo-Rama translates as 'Land of Palms' from Tupi, an ancient American-Indian language, there is much evidence that indicates that Sri Rama, the God-King of Ayodhya was worshipped in that part of the world. In short, the the Paracas Trident of Peru, the sculpture of the Howler Monkey God in Honduras, the Piedras Nigres sculpture in Guatemala and ancient Brazilian inscriptions all point towards a connect with Vedic India and with the lore of Sri Rama. For more on this subject click here. 

The natives believe that the Pachacamac temple was constructed by a race of giants that once inhabited the earth. Here is one of the panels depicting a giant who like Ganesha may be described as 'maha-kaya' or 'large-bodied. Notice the mouse as the vehicle in this panel from South America. The 'mushaka' was also Sri Ganesha's vehicle.


On an ancient Incan panel you find a central figure, considerably larger than the other two figures, seated on a 'mushaka' or mouse. Is that Sri Ganesha? He was known as 'Mahakaya' (महाकाय) on account his being 'large bodied'. And his vehicle was a 'mouse.
From vediccafe.blogspot.in dated 19th March, 2014

Then there are ancient Ganesha-like artifacts from the Incan and Aztec cultures of South America.



Ancient Ganesha-like artifacts from South America.

The name Rama appears in other parts of South America. There is a river by the name of Rama which flows through Nicaragua.The ancient name of Brazil, that is Pindorama, is also related to an ancient tribe of Brazil by the name 'RamaRama'. The RamaRama were a Tupi speaking group of considerable size living in the Brazilian Amazonian area in a place called Rondonia. 

As far the name Icthyma is concerned it is said that it is a distortion of the name Vichama, who was an ancient Peruvian deity. Vichama, like Pacha Camac or Raman is also the son of the Sun-God. In Peruvian myth Vichama is considered as the half-brother of Pacha Camac or Raman. Vichama may hence be a deviation of the name Lakshman

Suggested Links:
1. The Lost Realms
2. Two Sides to the Coin:A History of Gold

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