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Kanchi Sri Shankaracharya |
Kanchi Sankaracharya Sri Chandrasekarendra Saraswathi (1894-1994) who lived for one hundred years and attained Samadhi in 1994 was a great scholar, a voracious reader and a good speaker. His great scholarship is seen in his speeches that were published in seven volumes in Tamil. Some of his lectures were translated in to English. He was very fluent in Tamil, Sanskrit and English. He was met by famous leaders and prominent writers like Mahatma Gandhi, Indra Gandhi, Arthur Koestler, Paul Brunton, Milton Singer and the Queen of Greece to mention a few. Mr R Venkatraman, former President of India was a devotee of Sankaracharya.
Sri Sankaracharya made a passing remark about California (USA) in his talk on 12th of October 1932 in Chennai. His talks were published in 1933 ( by Sri Kamakoti Kosathanam, Chennai).
When he gave a lot of examples to show Hinduism prevailed in different parts of the globe he also happened to mention California. He narrated the Puranic story of King Sagara and the incident where his horse was stolen by Indra during a yajna (fire sacrifice). When he sent all his 60,000 sons in search of the horse they travelled to the Patala Loka.(Please read my article about the ancient idioms and phrases under the title Is Brahmastra a Nuclear Weapon? in which I have explained sixty thousand means innumerable, countless, a lot).
When Sagara's sons reached the netherworld (all the places down south of the Indian Sub Continent were called Patala Loka in Sanskrit literature) they saw the horse near the seer Kapila who was in deep meditation. They thought that he was the one who took the horseand abused him. When Kapila opened his eyes all Sagara's sons were burnt to ashes. King Sagara felt very sad. Baghiratha who was a descendant of Sagara vowed to bring the river Ganges to earth to dissolve the ashes so that they would go to heaven. Baghiratha tried for a very long time and ultimately succeeded. That is why the ocean is called 'Sagar' and Ganges was called 'Bhagirathi'(please read my article GreatEngineers of Ancient India in which I explained the symbolic language used by our forefathers about Ganges and Bhagiratha).
Kanchi Sankaracharya Swamiji, after narrating this story pointed out that a Horse Island and an Ash island near California. He humorously explained how the residents of Madurai call the city Marudai and how a Tamil folk called a Kuthirai (horse) Kuruthai - interchanging the letters. He continued to say that the words KAPILA ARANYA might have been misspelt as KALIFO ARANYA (California). Ash Island was the place where the sons of Sagaras were burnt to ashes. Horse Island was the place where they found the horse. But he never reopened this topic in his future lectures.
Now let us analyse it. English people who have migrated to USA, Canada, South Africa and Australia named the new places after their native towns or states. Now we have duplicates of those place names all over these countries. So it is possible that ancient Indians who went to different parts of the globe by planned voyages or by shipwrecked and washed ashore might have named them after the Sagara story. The modern atlas shows the existence of an Ash Island in Oregon, USA and aHorse Island in California. Oregon is the neighbouring state of California.
A lot of research is going on about the link between the Mayas and the Hindus and the Red Indians and the Hindus. So far the researchers have found out amazing similarities between the North American and South American tribes and the Hindus. It may not be outright migration of the Hindus. But a few wayward adventurers might have gone there and left some indelible Hindu marks on those civilizations.
(I will explain the Hindu-Maya links in another article)
No one can miss the fact that Hinduism is the only religion without a name because it was the only one prevailed in the olden times. Foreigners named it as the Hindu religion. We call this nameless religion Sanatana Dharma (the Eternal Truth). Sanskrit is the only language which is not named after people because it was one of the oldest languages and spoken by all. All other languages were spoken only by their own people and so are named after that particular community.
http://swamiindology.blogspot.in/2011/10/is-california-usa-kapila-aranya-kanchi.html ============================================================
( hari krishnamurthy K. HARIHARAN)"
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