Chili

Not sure about this, but if Arjuna was Mary, Krishna was Christos, and I use past tense only to say that the likeness in appearance is what counts, and so neither is mortal as human.

Zwaarddijk

Don't divert the claim - she makes a claim of there being a perfect similarity in their names (viz. that Bengali for Krishna is Christos), and she uses this 'factoid' as further supporting evidence for Jesus and Krishna being the same mythical person.

(If you don't know what "Bengali" is, it is a language. A sentence along the lines of "The Bengali for Krishna is Christos" quite obviously means that the word in Bengali that signifies Krishna is "Christos". That is what that sentence means and there's no getting out of that, and your post talks of something entirely different - no matter if Arjuna was Mary and Krishna is Christos, this has no bearing on whether the Bengali (word) for Krishna is Christos whatsoever.)

Sure, they might be the same figure - I will not actually oppose that claim, but this piece of supporting evidence for that claim should be withdrawn as it is _bullshit_. Is it ok to make up bullshit supporting evidence? In that case, do I get to make up bullshit supporting evidence for my contention that she's a fraud too? Why not?

Chili

I see, and I noticed that U used the dictionary for support and then she should know better, for sure.

Zwaarddijk

I also asked a handful of native speakers. She doesn't even provide a source for her claim - not even to the effect of "private correspondence with ...", which sometimes does occur in academic papers.

Robert Tulip

Before impugning Acharya's scholarship on the Bengali name of Krishna, it is worth checking. http://hinduism.about.com/od/lordkri...st_krishna.htm looks to me a reasonable source on this topic. It states "A colloquial Bengali rendering of Krishna is 'Kristo', which is the same as the Spanish for Christ — 'Cristo'."

Perhaps Zwaarddijk will say Kristo and Christos are completely different, even though they are close homonyms. That is a thin thread to support his argument.

Etymology is a controversial topic. My own MA thesis was on Martin Heidegger, whose claims about language were sometimes controversial but who nonetheless was regarded by some as a great philosopher.

I find the idea of an etymological connection between Christ and Krishna plausible. The reason is that the relation between Indian religion and the monotheisms of the Abrahamic traditions is like a parent-child relation, with India as the source. Scientific knowledge on this topic is patchy. There is strong conflict about Muller's influential thesis of the Aryan invasion of India as the basis for the linguistic connection. I prefer the argument that Indian myth is extremely old and indigenous to India, and provided a cultural mother lode for the evolution of Biblical ideas.

If we see the Abrahamics as literally a-brahmanic - out of India, then we should expect the Jewish savior myth of Jesus Christ to also hold a relation to the equivalent myth in India, Krishna. So, exploring the mythic function of Christ and Krishna is a necessary first step, before resorting to the dictionary, in guiding assessment of possible connections. See for example the discussion of similarities at http://hinduism.about.com/od/lordkri...st_krishna.htm

The Aryan Hypothesis and Indian Identity: A Case Study in the Postmodern Pathology of National Identity by J. Randall Groves, Professor of Humanities, Ferris State University, http://www.freewebs.com/randoc/ presents an extremely interesting analysis of how views about mythology and history are commonly subordinated to social interests and assumptions. Colonial views of Indian incompetence were central to Max Muller's racist claim that everything good in India came from Europe. An analysis of the political drivers of such cultural ideologies was presented powerfully by Martin Bernal in Black Athena. Bernal's thesis of Greek dependence on older cultures remains marginal more because of prejudice against it than any rational reason.

Considering Indian sources for Abrahamic myth, we find
Dyaus Pita = Deus Pater = Zeus Patera = Jupiter
Abraham = out of Brahma; Sarah = Sarasvati; Haggai = Ghaggar
Noah's Ark = Argo = Agastya
These correspondences support the Christ = Krishna parallels.

J Randall Groves explains in his essay on the Aryan hypothesis that the 'out of India' view of mythic evolution has been attractive to theosophists. Here we find a cultural alarm bell regarding the work of Acharya S, with the subtitle of her book Suns of God - Krishna, Buddha and Christ Unveiled bearing more than passing resemblance to Blavatsky's Isis Unveiled. But before people start ranting about Atlantis, the issue here is that the complex interplay between myth and science discussed in theosophy cannot be rejected by simply pointing to some of its errors. There is a substantive argument, grounding spirit in nature, which deserves respectful dialogue as a core contribution to the advancement of learning.

Zwaarddijk

See how he AGAIN refuses to answer the relevant bit.

Is the preponderance of mistaken claims not a problem? This isn't about etymology - this is about a word she claims is present in a MODERN language of India, where native speakers disagree with her claim. You just keep trying to confuse the issue even more.

Zwaarddijk

Uh, noah's ark in the original version was tevah, תבה, not anything like an agastya. The word "ark" only enters the story when it was translated to Latin by Jerome.

andrewcriddle

This Catalogue of Zodiacs dates the Lyons cathedral example as 14th century.

I'll add that a medieval zodiac can be purely astronomical without astrological implications.

Andrew Criddle

Roger Pearse

The text is here, as put online by Andrew Criddle (thank you). The relevant section is:

Robert Tulip

Zwaarddijk, please see edit to my post regarding Bengali use of Kristo as a name for Krishna, which I added before I saw your response. Native speakers agree with Acharya's claim. You are wrong (again).