Antipope Innocent II

Sanskrit: "Prajapati vai idam agra asit. Tasya vak dvitiya asit. Vag vai paramam Brahman"
(Krishna Yajurveda, Kathaka Samhita, 12.5, 27.1)

Translation: "In the beginning was Brahman, with whom was the Word, and the word is Brahman" (apparently)

Which seems rather close to:

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (John 1:1)

Except when I Google for information on this remarkable similarity all I get are webpages called things like "Illuminatus Observor" [sic] and "The Christ of India - Essene Christianity".

My bullshit detector is ringing loudly, but I'm not familiar enough with the Vedas to know if this is genuinely an amazing parallel that the whole of academia has missed for the last 200 years or if there's something fishy going on here.

Thoughts?

Roger Pearse

I suspect you are spot on. Anyone know sanscrit and can say?

premjan

The translation doesn't look quite right. For instance the first line includes Prajapati (creator) but no Brahman (Logos). The second line includes "vak" which does I think mean "word" or "speech". The translation may be slightly fudged to make it sound just like John 1:1.

On the other hand, the John verse refers to the Logos which is the parallel Greek notion to Brahman. So it is no surprise the thought conveyed is similar.
http://www.atmajyoti.org/med_word_that_is_god.asp#4
In Hinduism, speech is considered the sound manifestation of Brahman. The Vedas and the syllable "Om" (maybe related to Amen?) are representatives.

I guess the Veda version says in the beginning was God rather than in the beginning was the Word. Maybe the John verse just represents a minor theological disagreement with the Krishna Yajur Veda.

makerowner

Yes I think premjan is right. My very basic Sanskrit, along with an online dictionary, gives me something like this: "Prajapati was here in the beginning. Speech was with him (or "the second"?). Speech is the supreme Brahman."

premjan

More or less: "first was the creator, he spoke the word, and the word was the Logos (i.e. creation, universe, natural order etc.)."

Lugubert

Amazing parallel? No. The supposed magic of the spoken word is ubiquitous. There's from this kid asking, "Mother, if I say 'sea', will I become a sea?" to the OT practice of pronouncing your name over a field to make it legally yours.

Premjan's "In the beginning was Prajapati [God the Creator], with Him was the Word, and the Word was truly the Supreme Brahman." looks acceptable enough for a translation.

It is interesting to speculate on how much of this or that aspect of a religion depends on borrowing, or on some inherent human characteristics (the God gene?). Please find me a religion anywhere that ascribes no magic aspects to the spoken word.

The Yajurvedas like the Krishna Yajurveda are mainly concerned with the liturgy (mantras) needed to perform the sacrifices of the religion of the Vedic period. Interesting as such, but when I try to understand Vedic teachings (and paralells, if any), I push them way below other scripture to concentrate on Rg Veda.

premjan

Yeah Yajurveda is concerned with ritual aspects of religion, whereas Rig Veda is more about mystical contemplation or revelation.

Clivedurdle

But there are direct accepted connections - the classic statue of Buddha uses Greek artistic ideas, why should not Alexander et al have brought back ideas of Brahma and translated them, or Darius brought them with him?

And the silk road is much older than Alexander and Darius

http://plato-dialogues.org/tools/loc/marathon.htm

This site attempts to contextualise Plato into what was going on - like Darius whose Empire spread very far East.

premjan

The Logos originates with Heraclitus in 5th century BC.

Clivedurdle

http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi...1998.tb00501.x