Until the Mahabharat war, humanity was united under a universal administration. All people followed the Vedic way of life and spoke Sanskrit from the start of creation, i.e. from the Kruta Yug to the end of the Dwapar Yug and the beginning of Kali Yug.

The 5000-Year Barrier

P N Oak (1917 - )

P N Oak is a controversial figure, and while The Bhaktivedantas do not subscribe to everything he has written, he has uncovered evidence that merits further investigation and research into the world's original Vedic civilization.

All modern historical research in any direction seems to stumble into some mysterious, incognizable 5000-year barrier.

Talking about the Indus Valley civilizatin or of Egypt or the Hittites or China, our search proceeds only up to 5000 years at the most and no more.

In some other respects we even meet with a sub-barrier of 2500 to 3000 years. Thus Maxmueller placed the Vedas at no more than 1200 BC. The Japanese talk of their royal line to be 2500 years ancient. The Chinese, the Koreans and several others trace back their known history more or less to that same length of time.

That historians tracing back the history of any country or civilization are unable to see beyond 3000 to 5000 years seems surprising when humanity is believed to be millions of years ancient.

What is that 5000-year curtain beyond which humanity draws a blank?

That 5000-year barrier is the catclysmic Mahabharat war. That war resulted in nuclear destruction on a vast scale. Besides, that war was also followed by a number of other calamities such as earthquakes and storms. Those great upheavals almost wiped out earlier records and history from public memory.

Some sketchy history of that millions-of-years stretch beyond the Mahabharat war, reaching back to the time of the creation, has come down to us recorded in the Sanskrit Puranas (i.e. ancient histories).

Lord Krishna had undertaken a special peace mission in a last-moment effort to avoid that highly destructive conflict. He appealed to the Kaurava prince Duryodhan to relent. He foresaw a cataclysmic disaster for humanity as a whole. But his appeal fell on deaf ears. The war did follow. Nuclear and biological weapons and fire-arms were used by the combatants on a colossal scale, and a gigantic section of humanity was wiped out.

A number of natural disasters also followed. The magnificent Dwarka, the city of gold, was swallowed by the sea soon after Lord Krishna, its divine ruler, died.

The Yadavas (i.e. the Judaists alias the Jews) had to evacuate the Dwarka region and migrate to the Sur and Asur (i.e. Syria and Assyria) regions to begin life anew in what we known today as the Mosul tract on the border of Iran and Iraq. Later they had again to move on to Palestine, Jerusalem and Egypt.

Until the Mahabharat war, humanity was united under a universal administration. All people followed the Vedic way of life and spoke Sanskrit from the start of creation, i.e. from the Kruta Yug to the end of the Dwapar Yug and the beginning of Kali Yug.

The Vedic civilization and Sanskrit language have thus pervaded the world for millions of years prior to the Mahabharat strife.

It was the destruction caused by that war which led to the fragmentation of the unitary, universal Vedic system. Likewise that war also led to the breakdown of the universal Gurukul system of Sanskrit education. Therefore local variations of Sanskrit hardened into modern languages. This is what explains their linkage with Sanskrit.

Later, with the imposition of Christianity over Europe by the Roman army and of Islam over West Asia by Arab armies, humanity was further estranged from its pre-Mohamed and pre-Christian past. These two religions denounced and destroyed all previous historical record as heathen, pagan and therefore disgusting and unwanted.

Thus ancient history was curtained off first by the Mahabharat war. Later destructive Christian and Muslim hysteria further narrowed the scope of knowledgeable history. That is why we are constrained to reconstruct that history from scant relics of traditional memories handed down from generation to generation and from stray archaeological remains. It is an exercise like that of school children who are required to figure out the missing words in a broken sentence so that it may make some sense. Reconstructing maimed, missing or distorted history calls for similar skill. In fact, the classroom exercise of supplying the most plausible missing words in a broken sentence is a practice lesson for acquiring the requisite skill during adulthood to supply the missing links in gaps of historical evidence to reconstruct the story of the past.

According to some calculations, public historical memory at any given moment does not extend to more than 24800 years or so. It is also believed that earthly civilization has undergone colossal destruction by fire or water, famine or war 64,000 times. The Ramayanic and Mahabharat civilizations are some of those we know through the two epics written about them and of earlier rulers we know from the Puranas.

Each era has its own ups and downs of scientific advancement and decline. The law of waxing and waning fortunes applies as much to civilizations as to individuals. Therefore past accounts which talk of aircraft, magic missiles and contacts with beings from other planets must not be disbelieved. When in our own times we have television and space craft, we must deduce from similar references in ancient writings that in past ages too humanity must have made similar progress.

Since the cosmos consists of innumerable satellites, planets, stars and galaxies separated by great distances, there is no reason why humanity could not have established both physical and radio contacts with other planets in different eras. Similarly, there is no reason why there couldn't be other heavenly bodies with human or super-human civilizations.

Historians may make use of such deductive logic to draw wider conclusions instead of confining themselves merely to some written statements and their interpretations.

This excerpt is taken from the 2003 edition of World Vedic Heritage (ISBN: 81-88388-23-8), published by Hindi Sahitya Sadan, New Delhi.

Contact Info: –

P N Oak
Plot No. 10, Goodwill Society
Aundh, Pune 411007
India

Hindi Sahitya Sadan
2 B D Chambers, 10/54 D B Gupta Road
Karol Bagh, New Delhi-5
India
Tel: 011-51545969, 9811115461
indiabooks@rediffmail.com

About the author: –

P N Oak (born at 9:54am on March 2, 1917 in Indore), having made some far-reaching discoveries in history, is the founder president of the Institute for Rewriting World History. His latest finding is that in pre-Christian times Vedic culture and Sanskrit language held full sway throughout the world.

P N Oak was born in a Maharashtrian Brahmin family in which his father talked to him only in Sanskrit, mother only in English, relations in Marathi and town-folk in Hindi. That gave him fluency in these four languages from childhood.

After obtaining his B.A. degree from Agra University and completing M.A., LL.B courses of the Bombay University, Oak worked for a year as tutor in English at the Fergusson College, Pune, and later having joined the army was posted to Singapore at the age of 24.

There, after the British surrender, Oak was one of the organizers of the Indian National Army, a director and commentator at the Free India Radio, Saigon, and later a co-worker of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose.

After the end of World War II, Oak hitch-hiked from Singapore to Calcutta across the border jungles of several countries.

From 1947 to 1974 his profession has been mainly journalism, having worked on the editorial staffs of the Hindustan Times and the Statesman, as a class 1 officer in Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India, and as editor in the American Embassy's information service, all in New Delhi.

Around 1959, Oak developed a curious new insight into history, which led him to some stunning discoveries as a result of his absorbing hobby of visiting historic sites. He then founded (June 14, 1964) the Institute for Rewriting Indian History and wrote several books.

Oak's historical acumen led him to discover further that even world history has gone wrong. His discoveries have therefore outgrown the name and scope of the Institute for Rewriting Indian History. Having discovered that from time immemorial up to the Mahabharat War Vedic culture and Sanskrit pervaded the whole world, Oak is keen to find a world Vedic Heritage University to educate the world in the primordial Vedic unity of all humanity. To that end he invites correspondence from all those willing to help.