Without straightaway raising doubts of credibility, the following raises some questions of curiosity, on the scientific interpretation of the tales, for there is no religion called Hinduism, but an ancient encoded documentation, the encryption of which is the natural course of an artificial language, translated here in brief as an English poetry.
Disclaimer : Do not believe what I say, unless you contemplate yourself, for the following is a way to extract history out of mythology, following the premise – “if there is smoke, then there is fire and the smoke becomes thinner as it moves further, not to mention the fog at a distant dawn that mixes it into a smog.”
Completing prior creation, as Creator fell asleep,
Out from His mouth, the Vedas did seep.
My Interpretation :
- “Creator fell asleep” : Like new versions of a software, Hinduism proposes that the act of creation is repeated. It gauges the duration of one cycle of creation with one day of Creator that ends at night with destruction. As multiple day-and-nights come one after another, so is this global event meant to be naturally repetitive, like glaciation-and-deglaciation, instead of accidental like meteor shower.
- “Vedas, coming out of mouth” : Vedas are not books, which supports the notion that Hinduism is not a religion of book.
Veda-less Creator be insentient and rest;
By end of creation, not Devas be manifest.
My Interpretation :
- “Creator be rest” : If creation is not doable by Creator without the Vedas, then could Vedas mean the knowledge or manual for creation ?
- “End of creation” : Moreover, a lack of Veda as a manual, cannot trigger destruction of creation, unless Veda is the very machinery of universe, whose specifications are partly recorded in today’s four books, so-called holy scriptures viz. Rig, Sam, Yajur, Atharv.
Same place, same time, was a horrid, Hoygreev,
Thinking such, the great Veda, did the Daitya thieve.
My Interpretation :
- “Hoygreev” : Personifying the cause of the destruction, is obviously a demon, who metaphorically stole the essence of creation, but why such a name Hoygreev (or Hayagriv), which literally means “Hoy” = “horse” , “greev” = “neck” i.e. horse-necked !
- Only neck like a horse implies rest not like one-toed ungulate modern horse, Equus ferus caballus, therefore akin to an evolutionary ancestor of the same. Reference.
- Study by paleontologists determined that the fossils of “Plesippus shoshonensis“, alternatively called “Equus simplicidens“, described as zebra-like with a donkey-like head shape, represented the oldest remains of the genus Equus, found on a Pliocene site, having the latest/closest evolutionary ancestor of true equines. Reference.
- The geological timeline of Pliocence epoch consists of only 2 ages viz. Reference
- Piacenzian age between between 3.6 ± 0.005 Ma (million years) and 2.588 ± 0.005 Ma, and
- Zanclean age between 5.332 ± 0.005 Ma and 3.6 ± 0.005 Ma
- In Asia, elephants, gomphotheres and stegodonts were successful, whereas dominated by hoofed animals, was Africa while primates continued their evolution, with australopithecines (some of the first hominins) appearing in the late Pliocene.
By the river Krtmaalaa, performing libation,
Was Satyavrata, the Manu of seventh occasion.
My Interpretation :
- “Krtmaalaa” : The word “Krt” implies an adjective, “that which is done/worked”. The word “mala” implies “flower/cascade”. So, Krtmala implies causality, as in the series of karma, that would lead to the new era “Krt-Yug” (Krita-yuga/Satya-yuga).
- “Satyavrata” : This name refers to the one who has “vowed (‘vrata’) for truth (‘satya’)”, aligned with the name of next era “Satya-Yug”, of which Manu is deemed the patriarch or first man. Alternatively, he is also called Vaivasvatha Manu. Unlike the figurative demon Hoygreev, the mention of Manu could be very real instead of symbolic, which later led to authoring of the script, “Manusmriti” (lit. Manu memory).
History penned by science, when painted by art, becomes a mythology.
It is not a task for the brain of science, but also the mind of art, to decrypt Hinduism.
My Conjecture :
- This Puran refers to an incident in Africa, keeping in mind that it says about end of world, not limited to India, thereby allowing for inclusion of other continents on earth.
- As per the timeline of Krta Yug i.e. 4.32 * (9/10) million yrs back viz. 3.88 Ma, it does conincide with Pliocence epoch.
- Australopithecus has a crucial role to play, noting the misunderstandings presumed by researchers earlier, as given below
- It was once assumed that large brain size had been a precursor to bipedalism, but the discovery of Australopithecus with a small brain but developed bipedality upset this theory. Reference.
- It was once thought that Australopithecus could not produce tools like Homo, until the discovery of A. garhi .
- Does this mean, modern men are underestimating their capabilities as that of apes ? How much cranial capacity is needed to do what modern Homo Sapiens does using only less than 10% of brain capacity ? Cranial capacity indicates memory, but is it not cortical convolution that indicates performance IQ ? Reference.
- Dental microwear studies show Au. afarensis individuals ate soft foods like plants and fruit. Further microwear studies show that eating hard foods did not coincide with dry seasons of little vegetation. Reference.
- Does this mean, they knew ways to grow plants for food ? That’s really not a rocket science, if you just put seeds into soil and water them regularly under the sun, especially since the mid-Pliocene (3.3 Ma–3 Ma) was 2–3°C higher than today, having global sea level 25 meters higher. Reference.
- A fresh look at brain size, hand morphology and earliest technology suggests that a number of key Homo attributes may already be present in generalized species of Australopithecus, and that adaptive distinctions in Homo are simply amplifications or extensions of ancient hominin trends. Reference.
- “Later australopith specimens have a larger endocranial volume than that of some early Homo fossils.” – greater than Homo ! Would it be then a long shot to consider that the Manu was such an exceptional Australopithecus ?
The Obtuse Objective View 