"Across five oceans the vanaras journeyed,
their memory etched in stone and mask.
From Udaya Giri to Copan’s ruins,
the Andes rise as sunrise mountains,
guarded by yakshas, whispered by rivers,
testimonies of epic memory carried across the world."
Artefacts unearthed from the ancient Mayan ruins suggest that even distant Latin America bore traces of Indian Vedic influence. In Honduras lies Copán, a once-majestic temple site now in ruins. Yet, within its weathered stones and hidden carvings remain subtle clues—echoes that resonate with verses of the Ramayana, offering a striking testimony to cultural currents that spanned continents.
In the Valmiki Ramayana, a remarkable description unfolds: a route beginning from India’s eastern coast, crossing five vast oceans, and culminating at Udaya Adri. There, the epic situates a settlement of vanara-s. This distant city is known to Sugreeva, commander of the vanara hosts, who assures Rama that in their worldwide search for the abducted Sita, he would enlist vanaras dwelling in that far-off land, scouring the mountains of Udaya Giri for her trace.
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| The Mayan Howler Monkey God Copan, Honduras, South America. His stance and the mace in his hand are remarkably close to the Hindu Monkey God Hanuman. |
Whether Copan is the site where the vanaras resided in Ramayanic times is, of course, unknown. That they did reside somewhere close to the Andes is known from the Ramayana. The name Copan is a cognate of the Sanskrit 'kapi' (कपि), which means vanara or 'monkey', and perhaps derives its name from the Sanskrit 'kapi'. However, the name Copan has been in use in current times only since 1576. Perhaps the name is much more ancient and has been present in the native folklore, and was brought back into prominence in the 1570s.
There is also another site in Honduras that fits the description of the existence of a city of vanaras. It now goes by the name 'La Ciudad Blanca' and is located in eastern Honduras in the La Moskitia or La Mosquitia area. Its exact location has been kept a secret, though it is known that it is near the Twas and Sikre rivers. The site is known to the Honduran Army and also to a team of National Geographic explorers. As for Indians who have read the Valmiki Ramayana, no information about any of these Mayan sites comes as a surprise. More about this site in a later post.
Another interesting fact that adds to the vanara lore is the existence of the 'Kaiapo' - a powerful and well-known Brazilian tribe - who live in villages along the Xingu River across the Central Brazilian Plateau. The Kaiapo call themselves Mebengokre, meaning 'the men from the water place'. The name Kaiapo was given to them by the neighbouring native tribes, and means 'resembling apes' and was given to them because their men used to dance with monkey masks on festivals and special occasions in honour of their gods and ancestors. It is interesting that 'kaipo' is a cognate of the Sanskrit kapi (कपि), which means 'monkey' - in fact, the etymological source of the English 'ape' is unknown and is sometimes attributed to the Sanskrit kapi. This is another clue that supports the information contained in Ramayana about settlements of vanaras stationed around Udaya Adri, which is an obvious reference to the Andes.
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| Kaiapo Tribesmen from the Brazilian Plateau |
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| Hanuman - The Vedic Monkey God. India |
Another name by which this site was known is Oxwitik, where the meaning of the word 'witik' is unknown. 'Ox' is said to mean three. However, since there is another Mayan site by the name Yaxachilan, it may be assumed that perhaps the word that has been decoded as Oxwitik should read Yakshhavitik (यक्षवित्त). That makes Copan a site, not only of vanaras but also of Yakhshas. Yakshas are guardians of property and do not make use of the property themselves. Various Sanskrit texts mention the kinship between the vanaras and the yakshas, the rakshasas and the kinnaras. Perhaps the Mayan sites were the residence of these exotic tribes of the ancient Hindu texts. Kubera was the lord of the Yaskshas, and in the Ramayanic times, Kubera is said to have brought many yakshas and rakshas to Meso-America.
| Ramayana Anchor | Geographic/Archaeological Site | Name/Etymology Link | Interpretive Resonance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sugreeva’s assurance to Rama: vanaras dwell near Udaya Adri after crossing five oceans | Copan (Oxwitik), Honduras | Copan ~ Sanskrit kapi (monkey); Oxwitik possibly Yakshhavitik (यक्षवित्त) | Vanara settlement; Yaksha guardianship under Kubera |
| Udaya Giri (mountains of sunrise, Andes) | La Ciudad Blanca, La Mosquitia, Honduras | Hidden “White City” near the Twas & Sikre rivers | Concealed vanara city, echoing Ramayanic lore of distant tribes |
| Vanaras as global allies in Rama’s search for Sita | Kaiapo Tribe, Brazil (Xingu River) | Kaiapo ~ kapi; tribe dances with monkey masks | Ritual memory of vanara kinship: “men from the water place” |
| Kinship of vanaras, yakshas, rakshasas, kinnaras | Mayan sites across Honduras & Guatemala | Oxwitik reframed as a Yaksha settlement | Kubera’s dispatch of yakshas and rakshasas to Meso-America |
| Five oceans crossed from India’s eastern coast | Transoceanic journey to Latin America | Epic metaphor for global reach | Ramayana as a mytho-geographic map spanning continents |
The first sculpture your site depicts is from the Maya ruins of Copan in Honduras.
ReplyDeleteMaya scholars David Freidel and the late Linda Schele (page 410) write that when the image of the Monkey God, known as God C, and meaning "divinity," is merged with another object it marks the image as "holy."
In Maya religion the monkey represents the first of the Nine Lords of the Night or Underworld. Called the Bolon Ti Ku, these gods were responsible for guiding the Sun (identified as an underworld jaguar), into the underworld to be sacrificed by underworld decapitation and reborn and deified as the new Sun, baby jaguar. The first god associated with re-birth was the Monkey (GI) and Quetzalcoatl (G9) was the last associated with death and completion. The word K'uh in Classic Mayan glyphs was assigned to the monkey god and in glyphs his monkey profile was used to describe "holy" or "sacred," referring to "divinity" or "god" (M.D. Coe 2001, p.109).
According to the Five Suns cosmogonic accounts as interpreted by Maya scholars Mary Miller and Karl Taube (1993; p.118), Quetzalcoatl in his guise as Ehecatl (the Wind God) presided over the second sun, ehecatonatiuh, the sun of wind, until it was destroyed by great winds (Note ik glyph meaning wind and spirit on scepter). The survivors of that era were turned into monkeys and Quetzalcoatl was their ruler, Finally, Susan Milbrath writes in her book on Mesoamerican archaeoastronomy entitled, Star Gods of the Maya (1999,p. 256 ), that an analysis of the Dresden Codex identifies the monkey, itself, as also related to Venus as the Morning Star.
Quoting Ethno-archaeologist Dr. Robert Heine Geldern...
"The influences of the Hindu-Buddhist culture of southeast Asia in Mexico and particularly, among the Maya, are incredibly strong, and they have already disturbed some Americanists who don't like to see them but cannot deny them....Ships that could cross the Indian Ocean were able to cross the Pacific too. Moreover, these ships were really larger and probably more sea-worthy than those of Columbus and Magellan."
At some time during the Preclassic period around 1000 B.C. (de Borhegyi S.F. 1957, 1961, 1965a) a mushroom inspired religion originated or was introduced into the Olmec influenced Maya Highlands and Pacific coastal area of Guatemala. My belief is that the cult of the divine mushroom was brought to Mesoamerica by way of transpacific contact from India or southeast Asia. The Amanita muscaria mushroom, identified by the late R. Gordon Wasson as the plant and god Soma from the Rig Veda, is I believe the metaphorical key to decoding the esoteric religions of the Americas and of Easter Island.
My online research study presents visual evidence of a divine Amanita mushroom cult in the New World, before the arrival of Columbus points directly to the Vedic inspired cult of Soma, a divine mushroom worshiped and venerated in the Vedas, which became the basic sacred literature of Hinduism. There composition may have started before 2000 B.C. even before the Aryans entered India (Wing-Tsit Chan,1969, p.13). The Amanita muscaria mushroom, or the Vedic Soma religion likely absorbed or superseded the minor religious beliefs it encountered in the New World including Easter Island, and that the mushroom's esoteric metaphors of death and rebirth may help explain the obsessive need to create megalithic stone sculptures.
The great religions of Asia in essence, are fundamentally derived from Vedism, the Vedas being the sacred texts, that were introduced into the subcontinent (invasion from Iran?) around 1500 B.C. by the Aryans (Sanskrit for noble) a so-called invasion that postdated the Harappa/Indus civilization.
Haoma, in Zoroastrian religion is the name of a sacred plant and divinity that plays a major role in Persian culture and mythology.
For more on Soma In the Americas visit, (http://www.mushroomstone.com/somaintheamericasii.htm)
Thank you for all the wonderful information. I just saw these comments after 13 years, they did not appear in my comments ever before.
Delete@ Carl de Borhegyi.... Here I want to correct some points.
ReplyDelete1. Now days Aryan Invasion theory proved to be false. Aryans never invaded India. They are the original son of the soil. This wrong theory was put by Britishers to divide Indians among Aryans and Dravidians. The Arya word was used for noble persons.
2. As per Aryan Invasion Theory, Vedas belongs to Aryans and it was written around 500-1000 BC. Vedas describes River SARASWATI many times. As per this theory this was mythological river. But satallite images has discovered its river bed. It is a proven scientific fact that this river dried around 2500BC. How Aryans can write about a river which dried more than thousand years back before their arrival.
3. In 2001 the submerged city DWARKA was found and it is described in Mahabharata (Aryan text). Earlier Britishers called it mythology. Archeological evidences found from this submerged city is dated back up to 32000 years old. It means Aryan city DWARKA found in western coast of India is very old. And Aryans were in India at least long before 32000 years ago.
You can verify the facts.