Maheshvar and Krishan Bhoomi

[Namo Narayana]

Gill, are you someone who visit India often ? did you visit the huge temple in london ? I have heard about it that it is very pretty.

[Gill Harley]

I visited India up until 1999. After that, my guru (Sai Baba) came to me in a dream and told me to stay in the UK. So I haven't been back since. He communicates with me now by dream and telepathically and in other sorts of astral ways. So I no longer have to go to India to receive his teachings.

Which temple in the UK do you mean?

[Namo Narayana]

do you know reason why he wanted u to stay in UK. are you talking about puttaparthi sai baba ?

very interesting to know about your confidence of expression about your dreams. i studied in erode in tamil nadu. there is a temple for Bhavani amman and lord shiva. it is called kooduthurai where kauveri and bavani mingles and hence the name. there , it is written on the wall that one of the british general stationed there during colonial times was given darshan by Bhavani Amman herself and the general worshipped the goddess thru a small hole in the wall . he did not come into the temple for some reason. Very intrigued indeed. there are other stories like this indeed. But this is one that stayed in my mind.

[Gill Harley]

yes, Puttaparthi Sai. No, I don't know the reason why he told me to stay in UK, but it has strengthened my inner relationship with him and showed me that he is not just the physical body in Puttaparthi.

[Namo Narayana]

i think only you can interpret your dreams. last time i went to india. i had lord ganesha in my dream. i never got a hindu god in my dream before. i was sleeping with my face towards the ganesha temple few blocks away from my home and i used to visit the temple as often as i could.

so i just thought he wanted me to come and pray him. I did so.

[Devibhakta]

Namaste, very late in this thread, I just wanted to mention I enjoyed the description of Hinduism as the human default setting!

[Gill Harley]

A good friend of mine has just sent me this about the Harappan civilisation in the Indus Valley (circa 3,000 BC):

Dilmun (sometimes transliterated Telmun) is one of archaeological sites on the islands of Bahrain in the Persian Gulf. Because of its location along the sea trade routes linking Mesopotamia with the Indus Valley Civilization, Dilmun developed in the Bronze Age, from ca. 3000 BC, into one of the greatest entrepôts of trade of the ancient world.

There is both literary and archaeological evidence for the trade between Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley (probably correctly identified with the land called Meluhha in Akkadian). Impressions of clay seals from the Indus Valley city of Harappa were evidently used to seal bundles of merchandise, as clay seal impressions with cord or sack marks on the reverse side testify. A number of these Indus Valley seals have turned up at Ur and other Mesopotamian sites. "Persian Gulf" types of circular stamped rather than rolled seals, known from Dilmun, that appear at Lothal in Gujarat, India, and Failaka, as well as in Mesopotamia, are convincing corroboration of the long-distance sea trade. What the commerce consisted of is less sure: timber and precious woods, ivory, lapis lazuli, gold, and luxury goods such as carnelian and glazed stone beads, pearls from the Persian Gulf, shell and bone inlays, were among the goods sent to Mesopotamia in exchange for silver, tin, woolen textiles, olive oil and grains. Copper ingots, certainly, bitumen, which occurred naturally in Mesopotamia, may have been exchanged for cotton textiles and domestic fowl, major products of the Indus region that are not native to Mesopotamia— all these have been instanced.

Mesopotamian trade documents, lists of goods, and official inscriptions mentioning Meluhha supplement Harappan seals and archaeological finds. Literary references to Meluhhan trade date from the Akkadian, the Third Dynasty of Ur, and Isin - Larsa Periods (ca. 2350 - 1800 BC), but the trade probably started in the Early Dynastic Period (ca. 2600 BC). Some Meluhhan vessels may have sailed directly to Mesopotamian ports, but by the Isin - Larsa Period, Dilmun monopolized the trade. By the subsequent Old Babylonian period, trade between the two cultures evidently had ceased entirely.[end of extract from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilmun)

So it looks as though the ancient Babylonians referred to the Indus Valley as "Meluhha". Does anyone know where that name might have come from?

It may seem a moot point but if we discover that Meluhha is derived from Sanskrit then that is a very indication that there was a Sanskrit-speaking population in the Indus Valley that traded with Ur circa 3000 BC. This will then be proof that never was an Aryan invasion, well, certainly not one in 1200 BC anyway, and that the Vedas is much much older than that.

[sarabhanga]

Namaste Gill,

In Sumerian, me-luh-ha indicates “the people whose rule is to wash” ~ and Meluhha certainly refers to the ancient Sindhu-Sarasvati civilization.

[Gill Harley]

Once again, Sri Sarabhanga, I am in your debt for this most invaluable information!