Mahabharata and Pre-Flood, Revisited

Resuming genealogies from Mahabharata article:

Vichitravirya and Ambikā are parents of Dhritarāshtra, Dhritarāshtra and Gāndhāri of the Kauravas.

Vichitravirya and Ambālikā are parents of Pāndu, who is father of the Pandavas. Kunti is mother of Yudhishthira, Bhima and Arjuna, Mādri is mother of Nakula and Sahadeva.

Now two quotes, about Pāndu and about Dhritarāshtra:

Pāndu was an excellent archer and Maharathi.

After Vichitravirya's death, his mother Satyavati sent for her first born, Ved Vyas. According to his mother's wishes, he visited both the wives of Vichitravirya to grant them a son When Vyasa visited Ambika, she saw his dreadful and forbidding appearance with burning eyes. In her frightened state, she closed her eyes and dared not open them. Hence her son, Dhritarāshtra, was born blind.

Dhritarāshtra blind and Pāndu archer? How about a blind archer anywhere? We have one in Norse mythology, but foremost this, Tubal-Cain is in some traditions said to have induced a blind archer into unwittingly killing his ancestor Kain:

The Talmud and Midrash present an extensive legend, told, for example, by Rashi, in which Lamech first loses his sight from age, and had to be led by Tubal-Cain, the seventh generation from Cain. Tubal-Cain saw in the distance something that he first took for an animal, but it was actually Cain (still alive, due to the extensive life span of the antediluvians) whom Lamech had accidentally killed with an arrow. When they discovered who it was, Lamech, in sorrow, clapped his hands together, which (for an unclear reason) kills Tubal-Cain. In consequence, Lamech's wives desert him.

But more, there is also a set of two half brothers in the descent of Cain:

Genesis 4:[18] And Henoch begot Irad, and Irad begot Maviael, and Maviael begot Mathusael, and Mathusael begot Lamech: [19] Who took two wives: the name of the one was Ada, and the name of the other Sella. [20] And Ada brought forth Jabel: who was the father of such as dwell in tents, and of herdsmen. [21] And his brother' s name was Jubal; he was the father of them that play upon the harp and the organs. [22] Sella also brought forth Tubalcain, who was a hammerer and artificer in every work of brass and iron. And the sister of Tubalcain was Noema. [23] And Lamech said to his wives Ada and Sella: Hear my voice, ye wives of Lamech, hearken to my speech: for I have slain a man to the wounding of myself, and a stripling to my own bruising. [24] Sevenfold vengeance shall be taken for Cain: but for Lamech seventy times sevenfold.

This situation of two sets of half brothers could have led in pre-Flood times to exactly the scenario which Mahabhrata describes.

And what happens to Draupadi is so evil, and so are a lot of other things, that it could be resumed like this:

Genesis 6:[5] And God seeing that the wickedness of men was great on the earth, and that all the thought of their heart was bent upon evil at all times, [6] It repented him that he had made man on the earth. And being touched inwardly with sorrow of heart, [7] He said: I will destroy man, whom I have created, from the face of the earth, from man even to beasts, from the creeping thing even to the fowls of the air, for it repenteth me that I have made them.

As to the family situation of Draupadi, Our Lord indirectly commented on it, because the woman at the well in Sichar had the "same" situation:

John 4:[16] Jesus saith to her: Go, call thy husband, and come hither. [17] The woman answered, and said: I have no husband. Jesus said to her: Thou hast said well, I have no husband: [18] For thou hast had five husbands: and he whom thou now hast, is not thy husband. This thou hast said truly.

But other things may be even worse. Suppose some details show the Kurukshetra war (if pre-Flood) involved the use of Uranium, both as bomb and as poisonous radioactivity, would it have been wise of the precursors of Moses to write details in the Genesis?

It was far wiser to resume this with words like "the wickedness of men was great on the earth".

However, all descendants of Noah were not equally wise. These details were retold in a tradition which is first known as Bharata (a poem of 24,000 shlokas), then as Maha-Bharata (extended version of previous, the longest verse epic on earth known today).

This will have inspired the making of the atomic bomb.

Julius Robert Oppenheimer is among those who are called the "father of the atomic bomb" for their role in the Manhattan Project, the World War II project that developed the first nuclear weapons used in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The first atomic bomb was detonated on July 16, 1945, in the Trinity test in New Mexico; Oppenheimer remarked later that it brought to mind words from the Bhagavad Gita: "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."

So, Oppenheimer was aware of Hindoo lore.

I think it does reflect genuine memories of the pre-Flood world, and I think the hero Krishna, whose divinity is a matter of dream, and some dreams are deceptive, and of Bhagavad Gita, but that could be a polytheist post-Flood addition, but whose heroism in noble choices is rather well documented, could have lived when the Hindoo tradition says he lived, namely dying 3102 BC - 145 years before the Flood.

My personal reconstruction of how Hindoos remodelled memories from pre-Flood is this: a hero called Kush (which is Hebrew for Krishna), is a noble participant of wars in the Nodian civilisation. His descendant, or perhaps Arjuna's, is the woman who marries Ham. After Flood, but before Babel, she names her son Kush after the Kurukshetra War hero. His son Regma is called Rama by Hindoos, and he called his sons Lova and Kusha ... but already forgetting it means "the black one". And who would Hanuman be? My tip is, he might have been Nemrod, in his youth, while he was still a goodie. Here is how his early carreer is described in Jasher 7:

[Update : the sequence I am posing contradicts temporal sequence of Hindoo tradition, see disuccion in comment section. 1:st Sunday of Advent, Church Year 2017, Civil Year 2016.]

27 And in their going out, Ham stole those garments from Noah his father, and he took them and hid them from his brothers.

28 And when Ham begat his first born Cush, he gave him the garments in secret, and they were with Cush many days.

29 And Cush also concealed them from his sons and brothers, and when Cush had begotten Nimrod, he gave him those garments through his love for him, and Nimrod grew up, and when he was twenty years old he put on those garments.

30 And Nimrod became strong when he put on the garments, and God gave him might and strength, and he was a mighty hunter in the earth, yea, he was a mighty hunter in the field, and he hunted the animals and he built altars, and he offered upon them the animals before the Lord.

31 And Nimrod strengthened himself, and he rose up from amongst his brethren, and he fought the battles of his brethren against all their enemies round about.

32 And the Lord delivered all the enemies of his brethren in his hands, and God prospered him from time to time in his battles, and he reigned upon earth.

No doubt Regma, like Nimrod, was a son of Kush, and no doubt Hanuman helped Rama ... I think this willingness to help out at length came with too great a price, he "began to be a giant". Here is how Josephus describes his works a little later on:

1. Now the sons of Noah were three, - Shem, Japhet, and Ham, born one hundred years before the Deluge. These first of all descended from the mountains into the plains, and fixed their habitation there; and persuaded others who were greatly afraid of the lower grounds on account of the flood, and so were very loath to come down from the higher places, to venture to follow their examples. Now the plain in which they first dwelt was called Shinar. God also commanded them to send colonies abroad, for the thorough peopling of the earth, that they might not raise seditions among themselves, but might cultivate a great part of the earth, and enjoy its fruits after a plentiful manner. But they were so ill instructed that they did not obey God; for which reason they fell into calamities, and were made sensible, by experience, of what sin they had been guilty: for when they flourished with a numerous youth, God admonished them again to send out colonies; but they, imagining the prosperity they enjoyed was not derived from the favor of God, but supposing that their own power was the proper cause of the plentiful condition they were in, did not obey him. Nay, they added to this their disobedience to the Divine will, the suspicion that they were therefore ordered to send out separate colonies, that, being divided asunder, they might the more easily be Oppressed.

2. Now it was Nimrod who excited them to such an affront and contempt of God. He was the grandson of Ham, the son of Noah, a bold man, and of great strength of hand. He persuaded them not to ascribe it to God, as if it was through his means they were happy, but to believe that it was their own courage which procured that happiness. He also gradually changed the government into tyranny, seeing no other way of turning men from the fear of God, but to bring them into a constant dependence on his power. He also said he would be revenged on God, if he should have a mind to drown the world again; for that he would build a tower too high for the waters to be able to reach! and that he would avenge himself on God for destroying their forefathers !

3. Now the multitude were very ready to follow the determination of Nimrod, and to esteem it a piece of cowardice to submit to God; and they built a tower, ...

My reconstruction : Nimrod wanted to build a space ramp, like Cape Canaveral, and he still knew of Uranium, he wanted to propel the space rocket (a kind of non-divine Ark, as space rockets have since then been depicted in futuristic space operas, like Aniara) with it, which would have been disastrous.

While main portion of humanity was huddling together around him, he sent out expeditions to find Uranium, but God sent the Ice Age* to foil the attempt and of the expeditions we find some fragmentary remains, called by archaeologists the Palaeolithic. They did not represent the best of human know how, they were very rudimentary expeditions, instead of the colonies which would have been agricultural and would have been free peoples and which God would have wanted.

Only later, after the Tower breaks down in an abortive attempt, do these really separate and start making the peoples we know.

Meanwhile, though Hindoos had done some collaboration with Nimrod and were therefore struck by confusion of tongues, nevertheless they had some distaste for what came next, in Assyria, and some nostalgia for earlier things, both pre-Flood ones, as recorded in Mahabharata, and post-Flood ones, as recorded in Ramayana. They broke off to cultivate memories and one first measure was to try to suppress the memory of the Flood, and therefore count years from death of the earlier Kush - now called Krishna by them, after confusion of tongues - instead of from Flood. Part of this effort was also the attempt of the Kuru tribe to portray themselves as pretty direct descendants of Arjuna. Totally suppressing the memory of the Flood proved impossible, but then they moved the Flood story backward, to before the times of "Krishna" as they now called him.

And as the stories became more and more detailed, one started needing a new way of doing mnemonics, just learning a short piece of prose by heart would not do any more, as it had been suffificient for Sethite handling of early Genesis chapters or for Christian laymen learning the Creed by heart. They invented the Shloka. While this is per se a good measure against inadvertent changing of a line (as is the Greek hexameter), it cannot totally prevent forgetting of entire lines or deliberate adding of them. Both by reconstruction and by forgery.

Therefore, not all of Mahabharata need be exactly what happened in pre-Flood times, some characters may have behaved worse in reality and some better, than how Mahabharata shows them. Some may be composite and some may be split.

Bharat seems to have been a confusion of the two Henochs, the Cainite King and the Sethite prophet.

Meanwhile, Hebrews kept pre-Flood history in a shorter and less detailed, but more accurate and more discreet form, which Moses as final hagiographer of Genesis validated. And did not turn any pre-Flood heros, nor Regma, nor Nimrod into false gods.

And when Tower of Babel was abandoned, Ice Age started abating. Biblical age, some time 529 - 868 after the Flood (which was 2957 BC). Carbon dated as 10,000 BC.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre University Library
Feast of Pope St Cletus
second of those after St Peter
martyred under Domitian
26.IV.2016

* This might also have involved raising C14 level to present stable level, see these articles on CMI [creation.com] : Are cosmic rays affecting high-latitude winter cyclones? [by Jake Hebert] · Two possible mechanisms linking cosmic rays to weather and climate [idem] · Apparent difficulties with a CMAS cosmic ray–weather/climate link [idem] · God’s global warming worked just fine [by Russ Humphreys] · Solar activity, cold European winters, and the Little Ice Age [J. H. again, 29.IV.2016]