the Vedas Revisited

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.
First of all, 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 transform by sticking together and forming photon aggragates,
a.k.a. soft particles, or prana.
The higher content of photon aggregates 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 soft particles would
exhibit a more uniformly distributed density. This explains the Puranic
descriptions of heavenly 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 Biblic 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, the soft particle, prana atmosphere 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.
Such an explanation is 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, Arjunas visit to the mount is described in detail and we
are therein told, at Meru the Sun and the Moon go round 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 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 Millans 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 shall attach 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 dont 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. Instead of that,
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 also 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 more-than-normal lateral progress, cutting straight across, so to speak,
rather than up the normal curvature of the Earth. This is something that affected
their celestial latitude calculations, and something which was symptomatic of
travel along 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 tell the truth, 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 Pole and the New Siberian Islands. 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 point subject
matter 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 a few
degrees 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 Nansens 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
navegational 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 lateral 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 also. This current would account for the retarded
Southward progress of Dr. Nansen and Johansen. But their scant
Northward/lateral progress prior to the turn-back had to have been due to travel
over the curved rim of doughnut-like opening.

" 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 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 into 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 wasnt 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 doesnt answer to the description
of Meru, and there dont 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.
Dr. Richard L. Thompson, in his book Mysteries of the Sacred Universe, quotes
Dr. Howard Resnick (Harvard), Hridayananda Das Goswami, as agreeing with
this idea. Dr. Thompson goes on to show 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 more like 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 doesnt 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 shouldnt 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 wouldnt 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 mans 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 of 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.'