In his famous book, The Arctic Home in the Vedas, Bal Gangahar Tilak begins by bringing up two points for the consideration of the reader: That the Arctic area had a tropical climate at one point, and that the sea level was lower, exposing more land mass.
The typical argument justifying a tropical climate for the Arctic area is that of a pole shift, that the Arctic might have enjoyed a different latitude in the past. This is possible. It is also possible that a cloud mantle, as Venus enjoys, could have brought about both effects- a warmer climate as well as a lower sea level.
So let us consider the model of the planet Venus which mainstream astronomy has given us. Supposedly, the cloud mantle around Venus has caused a greenhouse effect such that the temperatures are reported to be around 900* F. Even so, the Venera Nine probe sent a smaller probe to the surface of Venus by parachute. This is unlikely as the material of any parachute would not have survived such temperatures. (Or maybe the temperatures are unlikely) Also, the atmosphere of Venus is reported to be permeated with sulfuric acid. Sulfuric acid at those temperatures would leave the surface of Venus looking like a “blob” (Joseph H. Cater) due to chemical erosion, rather than exhibiting the sharp features which radar-mapping probes have sent back to us.
The idea that such a cloud mantle around the Earth or any planet would have the effect of distributing the heat evenly in terms of latitude has been espoused by Joseph H. Cater in his book The Ultimate Reality. Mr. Cater goes outside of the parameters of mainstream science in order to explain the effects of such a mantle. He tells us that the photons from the Sun, passing through such a mantle miles thick, would become transformed by sticking together and forming photon-aggregate electrons.
The higher content of photon-aggregate electrons in the atmosphere would have many effects, one of them being the absorption of heat. Thus a cloud canopy miles thick would not only diminish the sea levels below by transferring a significant amount of the water held in the oceans to the atmosphere, but a canopy would regulate and distribute the heat as well.
And not only would a cloud mantle with an interior atmosphere with a high content of photon aggregates distribute the heat in terms of latitude, but in terms of altitude as well. If we considered that gravity effects are due to an electromagnetic radiation, then an atmosphere ionized by photon-aggregate electrons would exhibit a more uniformly-distributed density. This explains the puranic descriptions of mild climates in the Himalayan regions, such as Kashmir. Again, the surface conditions on each planet are dependent on the atmospheric shell, and a thick cloud mantle suspended in the middle of the atmosphere would create different conditions from those which we now experience.
The falling of the cloud mantle might explain the Biblical account of a forty days and forty nights rain. It might also explain how the effects of Kali Yuga were brought about; with no cloud canopy, an atmosphere characterized by photon-aggregate electrons would no longer be generated below, and the surface of the planet would be exposed to the unrefined rays of the Sun, thereby degrading the condition of life on the surface.
The explanations above are necessary to establish that the descriptions which Tilak attributed to the Arctic Home of the Vedas could easily have been spoken from the Arctic areas to which he attributed them.
And what were those descriptions? Let us begin by looking at chapter four, page 57, of Tilak's book:
“We shall
therefore, next quote the Mahabharat, which gives such a clear description of
Mount Meru, the lord of the mountains, as to leave no doubt its being the North
Pole, or possessing the polar characteristics. In chapters 163 and 164 of
Vanaparvan, Arjuna’s visit to the mount is described in detail and we are
therein told, ‘at Meru the Sun and the Moon go around from left to right (Pradadakshinam)
every day and so do all the stars.’ From the normal, inhabited longitudes on the
surface of the earth, the Sun and Moon don't rise and travel left and right,
only above one's head. According to how one turns, the rising could be left or
right, frontal or from the back. Only from the Arctic could the rising of the
Sun be from left to right, and it can ONLY be from left to right. So what region
is being referred to in this description of Meru's placement?
The explorer Admiral Mac Millan reported seeing a mountain range as clearly as
could be from a point not far from the opening to the hollow earth, as we shall
soon see.
Later on, the Mahabharat informs us: ‘the mountain, by its luster, so overcomes the darkness of night, that the night can hardly be distinguished from the day.’”
This is a wonderful description, the only problem being that there is no land mass – what to speak of a Mount Meru- near the North Pole to justify this explanation. (That is, even if the area were warm enough to support life) More correctly, there is no land mass that we commonly know of. But there were reports from the Arctic explorers earlier on - before the time of censorship began in earnest - of sightings of land.
Admiral
Mac Millan’s book Four Years in the White North contains testimony, not only of
the admiral himself; but from others, testimony which he compiled in an appendix
to his book. (We have attached the entire appendix to the end of this chapter)
But this collection of varied testimony is just the tip of the iceberg when
compared with the testimony of Admiral Peary, a discoverer of the North Pole,
the testimony of Admiral MacMillan himself, and Doctor Frederick A Cook, another
discoverer of the North Pole. These three were all active around the Northern
tip of Ellesmere Island, which is also the Northernmost tip of Canada, and which
lies right next to the tip of Greenland. The area is only about 6* from the
Pole. From various points of elevation, as well as from across the ice, as much
as ten years apart, these three men observed a mountainous land mass which they
described as filling up a third of the horizon, about 120* around them. Admiral
Peary mentioned white summits distinctly on June 28th, 1906. Admiral Macmillan
organized an expedition which traveled across the ice 130 miles after seeing
this continent from the heights of Ellesmere Island and wrote that his
observations resembled in every particular an immense land while observing in
clear weather with powerful binoculars. He went on to describe hills, valleys
and snow-capped peaks, all this in April of 1914.
Which
brings the reader to the testimony of Dr. Frederick A Cook. Dr. Cook also
observed this land mass while traveling across the ice. He made a round trip to
the Pole and choose a much more Western route, bringing him closer to the
sighting. Dr. Cook also made entries in his log book just as the other explorers
did. Additionally, however, he took some photographs. The significance of this
is that, first of all, we have some visual evidence to consider, and that
second, we actually have a picture of a land mass which is not exactly on the
surface of the Earth, but rather, which fingers its way up to the rim from
within. It is amazing that evidence such as this could exist. The photographic
plates formed a part of the Cook collection in the U.S. Library of Congress, but
by an ironic coincidence, they are missing. Even so, one single picture remains
with us because it is in the book by Doctor Cook. It was scanned with good
resolution by Jan Lamprecht and included in his book Hollow Planets as Plate 31.
The points to be made with reference to the picture are that it cannot be
confused with sea ice on the horizon, nor with ice islands that typically have
ice mounds atop them, (such do exist). It is a picture of a land mass, confirmed
by Eskimo testimony, and its profile answers to some specific descriptions in
the doctor's log book.
The sighting seems to have been a mirage, but this is not to say that it was
false. A mirage is actually a reflection which is carried over long distances
through thermal layers of air, and over-the-horizon mirages are practically
common in the Arctic. This effect would become very exaggerated if the mirage
were to originate from a curved, funnel-like opening; this would play havoc with
our ability to estimate distances. Therefore, it seems reasonable to hypothesize
that the observations seen by Cook, Peary and Mac Millan could have had their
origin as much as a few hundred miles away, near the neck of the opening to the
hollow portion of the Earth.
The description from Mahabharat mentions a mountain which: “by its luster, so overcomes the darkness of night, that the night can hardly be distinguished from the day.” Tilak ascribes this quality to the aurora, but the aurora as we commonly understand it hardly overcomes the darkness of night. Consider the words of an Arctic explorer, as quoted by Marshall B. Gardner: “H.D. Northrop, though, notes that the light of the aurora is continuous during the Arctic night, and he says that the arch which is ... such a prominent feature of the aurora is only part of a ring of light which is elevated considerably above the surface of our globe, and whose center is situated in the vicinity of the pole.” The mountainous land mass sighted by Admiral Mac Millan and then Lt. Commander Green had to have been quite inside the downward-sloping portion of the opening to the hollow earth, maybe near the neck of the opening. From this inward location, the mountains could experience constant illumination from within, as described by Northrop and apparently by the Mahabharat. Thus we have justified the existence of some type of illuminated mountain at the top of the Earth, which, "by its luster, so overcomes the darkness of night, that the night can hardly be distinguished from the day."
In relation to the Rig Veda, Tilak quotes the following on page 102:
“Thus in I.32.10, Vritra, the traditional enemy of Indra, is said to be engulfed in long darkness … and in V.32.5, Indra is described as having placed Shushna, who was anxious to fight, in ‘ the darkness of the pit ’”
We don’t usually think of the Arctic basin as having any pits, nor of being pit-like. But if there is an opening to the hollow portion, then the curvature is going to slope inwards towards the opening and form a doughnut-like funnel towards the neck, until it flares out on the other side. Actually, the whole Arctic basin is itself a depression. This fact goes along way towards accounting for the long Arctic night. Were the Earth only to flatten its curvature around the polar extremes, this effect would not nearly be the same. The Arctic night and the midnight Sun effect is due to the fact that the Arctic basin is a depression.
In order to understand this situation, the reader can look at pictures taken of the horizon as seen from Texas or Oklahoma or some place like those. Pictures from those places show a horizon that just stretches on and on. At the North Pole, where the curvature is supposed to flatten out a bit, the horizon should stretch out even further than in Texas or Oklahoma. Instead, the opposite can be seen in pictures taken from the polar area. Such pictures show that the horizon drops off shortly.
The
documented experiences of the Arctic explorers Peary and Cook bear out the fact
that the Arctic basin is a depression. As they approached the North Pole, they
both reported exaggerated sledding speeds (Siberian husky dogs). Why? Because
the terrain not only flattened, but was curving inwards rather sharply. So a
little distance covered made for an apparent more-than-normal upwards progress,
rather than along the orthodox concept of curvature of the Earth. This is
something that affected their celestial latitude calculations, and something
which was symptomatic of change from an outer to an inward slope. The abnormal
sledding speeds increased as Peary approached and departed from the immediate
proximity of the Pole. Right as he left, he covered 153 miles in 48 hours, over
Arctic ice, on a sled, running over rough ice terrain and such. This is hardly
believable- one could hardly imagine dogs covering such distances even on nature
trails in a warm climate.
He did not lie, though. It is just that the sharp curvature played havoc with
his latitude calculations, exaggerating his reports of latitude progress.
The opening is somewhere between the the Severnaya Zemlya Penninsula and Baffin
Bay between Ellesmere and Greenland. That means that the more that you approach
the Pole from Greenland and Northern Canada, the sharper that the inward
curvature gets. This is what Peary and Cook experienced without realizing it.
And there were other explorers who experienced the same without being able to
interpret the effect.
At the risk of repetition, here is what is gathered together on this subject
from the page entitled Seven Days North of Tibet. You will notice that curvature
anomaly has been documented from northwards above the New Siberian Islands, as
well as northwards from Northern Canada. If the inward curvature continues from
opposite sides of the Arctic circle, what happens in the middle? The curvature
funnels downward until it opens up into the hollow world, that's what. From
Seven Days North of Tibet:
"At this time, their position was just a little above 78* 15 North, only 12*
from the polar opening. (They felt that they had temporarily back drifted from
where they had originally reached the ice) The fact that the Sun had disappeared
below the horizon, introducing the long Artic night, at that time and from that
latitude, indicates that the grade of the Earth's curvature diminishes at the
poles, which is something that science certainly accepts- such flattening can
even be seen in astronomical photographs of other planets. But what is not
understood by most is that such flattening is indicative of a curvature which
continues to round gradually inwards."
...
"On page 126 of Nansen's book, disappointment is described as the navigator all
of the sudden determines the ships position to be various degrees South of where
they had calculated. Now, it is not reasonable to assume that an error had
existed all this time, which was not caught until that moment. Their navigator
was Sugurd Scott Hansen, an officer of the Norwegian Navy and an academy
graduate: Could it be that the current had the ship straddling the rim of the
funnel-like opening, North and back South, falsely indicating exaggerated
movements in terms of latitude? It seems that the curvature of the polar opening
was playing havoc with the angle of their sextant, and the indications derived
from the readings."
...
"Now we touch on the anomaly of curvature again-
Page 288: [ April 6th ] It became more and more of a riddle to me that we did
not make greater progress Northward. I kept on calculating and adding up our
marches later on, but always with the same result ... we must be far above the
86th parallel. It was becoming only too clear to me that the ice was moving
southward.
"Page 291: [ April 14th ] I find that we should yesterday have come farther
South than 86* 53 North; ... I cannot explain it in any other manner than by the
surmise that we have been drifting rapidly northward, which is very good for the
Fram, but less so for us [on foot].
"It was between these two log entries that Dr. Nansen and Johansen had turned
back. Here we find that within the space of a few days, Nansen blames his
navigational anomalies on the ice drifting southward then northward. More
likely, they were very close to the rim of the doughnut-like opening into the
hollow portion, and the curvature changes were confusing Dr. Nansen, indicating
paucious northward movements, and rendering his sextant unreliable. There was a
Northward current at the time because the ship Fram, which was still in the
vicinity, had drifted Northwards. This current would account for the retarded
southward progress of Dr. Nansen and Johansen. But their scant northward
progress prior to the turn-back had to have been due to travel over the rim of
doughnut-like opening where there was zero slope.
"Lt. Greely (Later General) also indicated curvature anomalies, from hundreds of
miles away, and to the other side of the basin from Nansen; Nansen was now on
the Russian side above Franz Josef Land, and Greely had been over towards the
tip of Greenland and Canada. Lt. Greely's description, since he had landmarks at
his disposition, specifically smacks of foreshortening of the horizon, such that
spurs of land at the horizon seemed high and out of proportion, and cut off the
view beyond. In our "curving, doughnut-like polar opening" scheme of things,
this blocking-of-the-view would simply be due to an exaggerated bulging and
pinching of the horizon as it angles towards the opening. At this point, Greely
was near the tip of Greenland, near the Pole (a few hundred miles) and near the
opening. Let us consider his comments:
Culled from The Hollow Earth, page 104:
"The deep interest with which we had hitherto pursued our journey was now
greatly intensified. The eye of civilized man had never seen, or his feet
trodden, the ground over which we were traveling. A strong, earnest desire to
press forward at our best speed seized us all. As we neared each projecting spur
of the land ahead, our eagerness to see what was beyond became so intense at
times as to be painful. Each point we reached brought a new landscape in sight,
and always in advance was a point which cut off a portion of the horizon and
caused a certain disappointment."
If Greely and his companions were advancing towards the interior of the Earth,
they would certainly find that the Earth has a greater curve the further North
they got; ... Foreshortening of the horizon can also be seen in photographs of
the North Pole area; the horizon seems to come up closer than it should.
Admiral Peary made a similar observation: "The black cliffs peer up over the ice
caps." This indicates an exaggerated curvature, sloping inward towards the
North, that in the near distance, only the peaks of the hills popped up into
view above the horizon.
"Due to polar anomalies in terms of compass (longitude) and curvature
(latitude), Dr. Nansen and crew had been unable to precisely calculate their
position since the first moment that they had lodged their ship into the ice. At
this point, trekking on foot down from the Pole, he and Johansen were still
quite unsure of their position thanks to the curvature anomalies just described,
and to the drunken compass readings along the rim of the opening. They remained
unsure for a long time as they headed straight down South on the Russian side of
the Pole. As they descended from near the Pole, however, the nature of their
navigational difficulties took on a different nature. They became problems in
terms of longitude because they had let their watches run down- not latitude.
Their difficulties in determining their longitude at this point were not
anomalous. ( As an example, by June 14th, Nansen recorded his position to be 57*
40 of longitude but, later on, once he got back to civilization, he felt that it
had been more like 6* further East of that. ) As he and Johansen headed South
towards Franz Josef Land, Dr. Nansen wasn´t even sure on which side of the
archipelago they would come down on!"
Thus we can see that the whole Arctic basin on the Siberian/Alaskan side is a
depression, and maybe it is the description of this phenomenon that is being
translated by Indologists as being a “pit.”
Back to B.G. Tilak, in the fourth chapter of his book, on page 55:
“The idea that the day and night of the gods are each of six months duration is so widespread in the Indian literature, that we examine it here at some length, and, for that purpose, commence with the post Vedic literature and trace it back to the most ancient books. It is found not only in the Puranas, but also in astronomical works, and as the latter state it in a more definite form, we shall begin with the later siddhantas. Mount Meru is the terrestrial North Pole of our astronomers, and the Surya Siddhanta, XII, 67, says: ‘At Meru gods behold the Sun after but a single rising during the half of his revolution beginning with Aries.’ Now, according to the Puranas, Meru is the home or seat of all the gods, and the statement about their half-year long night is thus easily and naturally explained ….“
The only problem with this interpretation by Tilak is that, even though there is mountainous terrain near the top of the world, it doesn’t answer to the description of Meru, and there don’t seem to be any demigods there.
Maybe part of the problem lies with the concept that we have of the Rig Veda, that every word is the complete absolute truth. When we think of Vedic scholars debating over the meaning of the Vedic hymns, the image gets conjured up of pundits invoking rules of grammar and focusing on the suffices of words and exact meanings and such. The Vedic literature, however, has been passed down to us for 5,000 years through the hands of imperfect human beings. There are definite indications of some concepts having gotten mixed up.
For example, scholars agree that a revision of the Puranas took place in the neighborhood of 2,000 years ago. There are parts of the Puranic literature written in the older, Vedic style, and parts written in the Sanskrit of the post-Vedic era. For example, Dr. Richard L. Thompson, in his book Mysteries of the Sacred Universe, shows how astronomical descriptions in the Puranas have some degree of disagreement with each other.
It is very possible that the mountain referred to at the top of the Earth where, due to the midnight Sun effect, one day is equal to six months, the mountainous terrain at the opening to the hollow earth is referred to as Meru. Not that it is the actual Meru which is the abode of the gods such as Brahma. The situation would be analogous to York and New York, Brunswick and New Brunswick, et cetera. Five thousand years from now, researchers and scholars of the future may not be able to distinguish between which was which, or if they were really one in the same. In other words, the real Meru and a mountain named after it, which is located at the top of the world, seem to have gotten confused in the Vedic literature as it exists today.
And what about the gods? According to the verse quoted above, the abode of the gods is a world where one day is equal to six months, and where the Sun rises once per day. These conditions exist in the higher, Arctic latitudes. It is this term ”gods“ in the Vedic literature which seems to be surrounded by a great amount of confusion.
For example, the Moon is supposed to be a heavenly planet. But consider this definition of the residents of the Moon by A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami, Prabhupada. In the purport to Canto 4, Chapter 22, Text 54, he writes: " The Vedic literature, however, repeatedly informs us that the Moon is full of highly elevated inhabitants who are counted amongst the demigods. We are therefore always in doubt about what kind of moon adventure the modern scientists of this Earth have undertaken." He doesn’t outright define the residents of the Moon as demigods, he says that they are “ highly elevated inhabitants who are counted amongst the demigods.” The inhabitants of the Moon are supposed to have a duration of life of 10,000 years. Although it is a long duration of life by our Sun-bred measurement of time, it is paltry compared to the longevity of millions of years which is assigned to demigods such as Brahma and Shiva. In the Bhagavat Purana, Canto 4, Chapter 20, Text 35 - 36, a reference is made to the way in which Maharaj Prithu, a king of the Earth, paid his respects to visitors from various celestial planets, and then a reference is made to the inhabitants of the earthly planets- “earthly planets“ in the plural. The term Bhu Mandala refers to the orbital plane of the planets in the solar system. If the Moon –and Venus, too- have been referred to as celestial planets, then how can they be grouped together as “earthly” planets of the Bhu Mandala circle, too, in the same body of literature? How could it be that an earthly king such as Maharaj Prithu received the leaders of those planets if they were heavenly? It is obvious that there are different gradations of demigods, which is a general, catch-all term, and it is also obvious that there has been hodge-podging in the Puranic descriptions. After all, we are 5,000 years into the Kali Yuga, and we shouldn’t be surprised.
Where does this leave us in regards to the descriptions of gods in the Arctic regions? It leaves us right on the mark, it is just that the residents of the hollow portion of the earth have also been perceived as gods. And why wouldn’t they be? Olaf Jansen was a Norwegian youth when, in 1829, his father Jens dragged him off in their family-fishing sloop to the warm lands of the gods, to the North, of Scandinavian folklore. (The Scandinavian folklore regards the hollow earthers as gods, too) They passed through the icebergs, and through the opening which lies above the New Siberian Islands into the hollow portion. They were received well by the inhabitants there, and Olaf reported that the inhabitants spoke a language similar to Sanskrit, were a good 12 – 14 feet in height, and that they had a longevity of 800 years or so. He reported of their world that an apple was the size of a man’s head and that flowers were extremely fragrant. Would not people such as these be perceived as god-like by surface dwellers living close to the opening in the Arctic circle, maybe back when the sea level was lower, more land exposed and the temperatures milder and better distributed?
Thus, the seeming contradictions in the Rig-Veda which were first addressed by Bal Gangadhar Tilak in The Arctic Home in the Vedas, in other words: the location of a Mount Meru at the top of the world; the fact that the mountain is engulfed in luster; the location of the abode of “gods“ being there – where one day equals six months and the Sun rises only once per day; and where there is a “pit“- have all been given a congruent explanation thanks to the Hollow Earth in the Puranas Theory, along with some understandings from Joseph H. Cater, which can help to justify puranic statements regarding previous climates and atmospheric conditions of the Earth and other planets.
· From Fours Years in the White North:
”Captain Richardson, in his work The Polar Regions; says: The Eskimos of Point
Barrow have a tradition, reported by Dr. Simpson, surgeon of the Plover ( in the
year 1832 ), of some of their tribe having been carried to the North on ice
broken up in a southerly gale, and arriving, after many nights at a hilly
country inhabited by people like themselves, speaking the Eskimo language, and
by whom they were well received. After a long stay, one spring in which the ice
remained without movement they returned without mishap to their own country and
reported their adventures. An obscure indication of land to the north was
actually perceived from the masthead of the Plover when off Point Barrow.[This
could easily have been a mirage of land which really existed even further to the
North. Such superior mirages are common in the Artic and can be perceived over
long distances, as we shall see]
‘’In 1850, Captain Mc Lure, when off the Northern coast of Alaska, wrote in his
journal that judging from the character of the ice and a light, shady tint in
the sky, there must be land to the north of him.
” ' Marcus Taker, writing in the National Geographic Magazine, 1894, under a
title of An Undiscovered Land off the Coast of Alaska, says: It is often told
that natives wintering between Harrison and Camden Bays have seen land to the
North in the bright clear days of spring. In the winter of 1886 1887 Uxharen, an
enterprising Eskimo of Ootkearie was very anxious for me to get some captain to
take him the following summer, with his family canoe and outfit, to the
North-east as far as the ship went, and then he would try to find this
mysterious land of which he had heard so much; but no one cared to bother with
this venturesome Eskimo explorer.
”The only report of land having been seen in this vicinity by civilized man was
made by Capt. John Keenan, of Troy, New York, in the Seventies ( 1870s ), at
that time in command of the whaling-bark Stamboul, of New Bedford. Captain
Keenan said that after taking several whales the weather became thick, and he
stood to the North under easy sail and was busily engaged in trying out and
stowing down the oil taken. When the fog cleared off, land was distinctly seen
to the North by him and all the men of his crew, but as he was not on a voyage
of discovery, and there were no whales in sight, he was obliged to give the
order to keep away to the South in search of them.
”In June, 1904,'Dr. R. A Harris, of the United States Coast and Geodetic survey,
published in the National Geographic Magazine his reasons for believing that
there must he a large body of undiscovered land or shallow water in the polar
regions. He based his theory upon the report that Siberian driftwood had been
picked up in South Greenland, upon the observations of drifting polar ice, upon
the drift of the ship Jeannette, and upon numerous tidal observations made along
the Northern coast of Alaska and Eastward.'
