First Civilisations

The First Civilisation 1

ADAPTED FROM THE BOOK " DANCING SHADOWS " BY AOUMIEL, A PAGAN HISTORIAN

Many historians & scholars, among them, John Marshall, Josef W.Hall, J. Hawks, Will Durant, Cottie Burland, Alain Danielou, Charles Picard, A. Ross & Aoumiel believe that the earliest known civilisation came not from Mesopotamia or Egypt, but from an area larger than either - from the Indus Valley. Situated across from modern Oman at the north end of the Arabian Sea, the cities of the Indus were the source of inspiration for those developing in the Near East, & trade between these regions included not only goods but Gods. The Indus culture, which predates the Egyptian, Babylonian & Sumerian cultures, is known as Harappan [after the northern most city in the valley, which although it was built after Mohenjo-daro in the southern region of Sind, survived the longest] or Dravidic, a name so ancient no one knows where it came from, but Klaus K. Klostermair in his book," A SURVEY OF HINDUISM", traces it from an Indian ethnic group back to the original inhabitants of the Indus & it is this latter name by which it will be referred to in these notes.

The Indus civilisation stretched from the Himalayan Mountains to the Arabian Sea. Hawkes notes that some historians have theorised that the vast expanse was actually two regions united by a highly centralised government, with the major cities being Harappa in the north, below the Himalayas in the region called Punjab, & Mohenjo- daro in the south. However a third city has recently been discovered, & this along with 70 other settlements in the area of Sind, indicates that rather than capital cities in the north & south, there were a network of co-operative cities & towns, or city states.

Seals typical of Mohenjo-daro have been found in Sumeria, & the early Indian cobra wisdom symbols, known as the Naga, have been incorporated into the seals of early Mesopotamia. The Sumerian references to a land called Melukka are believed to refer to the Indus Valley. Sumeria imported goods from the Indus, but did not export to the Valley which is a classical colony arrangement. Historian Gordon V. Childe went so far as to describe the Mohenjo- daro of 4000 B.C.E. as having a Golden Age that would compare to that of Athens under Pericles & certainly to any town in Medieval Europe. Childe concluded that there is sufficient evidence to declare that the most ancient Near East civilisation, that of the Sumerians, came from the Indus as a colony & this would make the Indus Valley the " cradle of civilization." Archaeological evidence shows that the Indus Valley has been inhabited since 470,000 B.C.E. By 30,000 B.C.E. cave paintings in Sind were depicting people with scimitars, swords at their waists, bows & arrows, double headed drums, wheat, metal working, the wheel & both domesticated & wild animals, where as in European cave paintings did not come into existence for another 10,000 years [20,000 B.C.E.] & those do not show swords or daggers etc. By tracing language, it is possible to see the extent of Indus influence in history. Danielou, in " GODS OF LOVE & ECSTASY: THE TRADITIONS OF SHIVA & DIONYSUS," writes that the Dravidic language & culture had spread to the Mediterranean, leaving traces in the surviving cultures & languages of the Basques, Georgians & Baluchistanis. The Sumerian language is seen as related to the Dravidic, as are the languages of the Lydians, Etruscans & the early people of Crete. The Dravidic based languages of the Pelasians of southern Italy were referred to by Herodotus in his "HISTORIES " as Barbarian & related to the Etruscan & Lydian languages, in other words, not of Aryan descent. The same appellation is given to the language of the people of Malt a in 69 C.E. by the Apostle Paul when he was ship wrecked there.

R.F. Willets notes in " CRETAN CULTS & FESTIVALS " that the language of early Crete & Greece is non Greek & was found throughout the south-western part of Asia Minor before the advent of the Aryan tribes of Acheans & Dorians, while Danielou adds that the still spoken Dravidic language of southern India has not been considered by linguists yet as an aid to deciphering the ancient Mediterranean languages. The bias against changing the focus of civilization away from the Near East is strongly ingrained by the Judaic- Christian tradition.

The Minoan civilization of Crete contains the elements of the Indus Worship of Shiva, with bulls, snakes, phallic images, horns, circular domed funeral chambers built like those of the Indus & Yoga positioning of the dead, as still done in modern India among the Shivaites. The Minotaur is a creature of Shivan background, a guardian, & can be seen in Shivan temples in India today. The Achaen Aryans conquered Crete around 1600 B.C.E. & took with them the Minoan religion of Shiva to the Peloponnese Peninsula & from this came the basis for the Mycenaen culture.

The proper place to begin in rediscovering the roots of religious beliefs is with the earliest known evidence of worship & the Deities around whom this worship was / is centred. The surprising thing is that the first known worshipped God & Goddess of mankind have continued to be the objects of veneration to over 660 million people today. They can be traced into the religions of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, Malta, Crete, Rome & Europe, from ancient to modern times, they have left their indelible mark on religious development in one way or the other. These Deities are dated back to at least 28,000 B.C.E. & are Shiva & Shakti, the God & Goddess of the Dravidic Indus Valley, & of modern Hinduism.

By 28,000 B.C.E. the God Shiva was being depicted in cave paintings as Lord of the Beasts, with horns on His head & animals around Him. He is seated on a low stool in what is considered a Yoga position, with souls of the feet touching & He is ithyphallic [ depicted with an erect penis.] Here is a God familiar to the Old religion of Europe where He was known by many names, Pan, Dianus, Atho, Dionysus, The Green Man, The Horned God, Janicot, Puck, Duvel, Silenus, Faunus, Silvanus, Priapus, Freyr . Shesmi, Hapi, Bes, The Dagda, Hu Gardarn, Hern The Hunter, Cernnunos, Janus, The Oak King, Dis, Green jack, Clootie, Osirus & Jingo to name some. In His earliest portrayal, as erotic ascetic, a God of life, sexual activity, fertility, the growing Corn, wisdom & the hunt, He is the All Father, who is the All, But He is not alone. His partner is literally His other half, for Shiva is also portrayed in ancient times as half male & half female. His female half is known as Shakti, the Goddess of Power, Shiva the male side is the God of Grace. Shakti is UMA, by which name She is worshipped in Mesopotamia, & She is The All Mother, sometimes shown as pregnant or holding an infant in Her arms or sheaves of wheat as the Corn Mother. As Her aspect of Corn Mother Her worship would spread through out the Western world. Where as the Dravidians had two deities who were so close they were seen as the two sides of the same Being, Their multiple aspects were understood to be different representations of The All. Modern mainstream religionists, people of Judaic, Christian & Islamic faiths continue to refer to this system as polytheistic. It is more accurately monotheistic, because Shiva & Shakti are Shiva Ardhanari is depicted in sculpture as divided down the centre, from head to toe, exactly half male [ right side] & half female. [ left side] The Dravidic structure can be seen in Neo-Paganism today with the usual divisions of the modern Wiccan altar setting. [ As the practitioner faces it.] Placing the Goddess on the left, the God on the right & both being present at the centre.

The He / She Deity found expression in the union of the AUM & UMA commonly known today as Shiva & Shakti, these two names come down to us from the time of the Aryan conquest & the later Vedic writings of 1000 B.C.E. referring to events of 1500 B.C.E. , it is possible, but not certain, that they go back to the beginning of the Indus civilisation. Of the two aspects of Deity, it was the female that received many different names to express Her various attributes, but the male retained His name & had attributes listed afterward. There is Shiva Natarja, Lord of the Dance of Life, Shiva Digambara, Sky-clad or clothed in space, unseen One, Shiva Pasupati, Lord of the animals, or beasts, Shiva Linga, phallic or Creator / fertility God, & Shiva Mahayogi, Great teacher, God of wisdom, to name but a few of the 1,000 listed names of Shiva.

The Goddess, however, became known by specific names. Shakti is power, Devi or Mahadevi is Great Goddess & is the Supreme Being, Durga the inaccessible is a War Goddess, Anapurna is the bestower of much food & prosperity, Jaganmatri is the Divine Mother, Parvati is the Earth Mother, & Kali is the Black Mother ,who represents the dark side of nature, for all life passes through death to enter into new life & Kali is that passage. This too, is only a partial listing of the numerous names for the Goddess, yet the names belong to one Deity.

The Horned God, Lord of animals is traditionally matched to the Lady of the Mountains / Earth. Shiva & Shakti were known as Zagreus & Cybele in Crete, as well as throughout the near East by various names. Their symbols, the bull & snake, the tiger & lion, the phallus & yoni are prevalent from the Neolithic Age onward.

The emblems of the Aryan Deities who came after the dual Deity, related not to nature & animalistic or pantheistic views, but to natural phenomena such as lighting, fire & rain & to a personification of what were considered human virtues, such as honour, sharing of goods etc. Where as the Older religion was based on nature & humanity's place therein. The Aryan religion was centred on man as apart from his natural surroundings, with the Gods being called upon for security & success in dominating others. Nature was something to be propitiated through sacrifice, rather than to be celebrated as part of the unity of humanity & the Universe. Danielou, who spent many years in India & became an initiate in a Shivan sect, wrote that Shiva was also called Ann in prehistoric India & Ann represented His Feminine half & this name can be traced to the Hittite Ann, the Canaanite Anat, & the Celtic Ana, Anu, Annan, Ann, Dana, Danu, Danann, Don, Domnu, Nann, & Nanna, & the Norse Nanna, Anna & Inanna. In Sumer She was Inanna, Anu & Ama. In Japan She was Ainu, in Ireland She was Cat-Anna & Aine, & later Morrigu & Morgan [ Kali aspect, known as Hecate in Greece & Hequet /Hekat in Egypt.] Ann has become Saint Ann with Christianity [ Brittany] & the name appears as the mother of the Virgin Mary.

The Deities of Sind will be referred to as Shiva & Shakti for the most part, but one must keep in mind that aspects of either, especially the Goddess have come to be proper names. This does not reflect a multitude of Goddesses or Gods, but one Goddess & God co-joined & approachable in different ways, for different purposes, under different names, depicting different aspects. The duality of the God & Goddess is a monotheistic religion that recognises the inherent Oneness in nature that results from a natural twosome or attraction of opposite poles, a whole has two halves, yet remains a whole, & the whole may be divided into numerous segments [ aspects ] yet remain a whole. Modern Paganism still uses this system today. When the early Christians were converting the Pagans, the Pagan could understand the Oneness of God, but still used the various aspects to pray to according to his / her needs. The church tried to stop this from happening but failed. The church then took these aspects of the Old Gods & made them Saints or Devils, later new pedigrees for them were concocted. The Orthodox churches also attracted Pagans in by taking over Goddess Sites & Temples & naming them after Mary, who the new Christians saw as their Goddess. Later Mary was demoted, then totally rejected by the Reformation movement. The name Ardhanari means All, yet both Shiva & Shakti, the Tantric definition of AUM, which is collectively the sound of the name of God pronounced to include all vowels, gives meaning to each letter.

A- is grace & is male.

U- is power & is female.

M- is the ALL & is both male & female in union.

The letters of UMA have the same definition, but it is the U that comes first to express the Goddess of Power, then as M in union with Her Consort, who is A the God of Grace. Either emphasis is acceptable, it depends on one's needs & preferences. The AUM was & is used in meditation to contemplate the two as One, with the focus on the M, the All.

UMA was / is used in Tantric sexual rites. [The Great Rite of Wicca] This system of using letters to represent a Being or attribute of Deity was passed along to the religious traditions of other peoples through Dravidian contacts, migrations, & later Aryan conquests.

The First Civilization 2

The mythic patterns of the God & Goddess spread from the Indus with their symbols still intact. The concept of Trinity for example, was derived from both Deities. Shiva had the Trident & is still portrayed as three faced [ Shiv Tri-murti, with " mur ti " referring to form or embodiment ] & in this " Three-in-One" aspect can be found the source of modern Christian belief. Holger Kersten in his work, focusing on the similarity between Hinduism & Christianity sees the Christian Trinity derived from the Vedic, with God the Father as Brahma, Vishnu as God the Son, [ that aspect which becomes incarnate from time to time], & Shiva / Shakti as the Holy Spirit, the element of Deity that makes all the rest possible & which in the Judeo-Christian tradition is not to be blasphemed. One may curse in God's name or that of his Son, but never by the Holy Spirit. Thus is the reverence of Shiva / Shakti preserved today in the West. [In the Liberal Catholic Church today, the Holy Spirit is still recognised as " Mary Queen of Heaven & Earth, Holy Mother Of God."]

Shiva is also called Three -Eyed, capable of destroying & creating & this relates again to His Position as the source of the three aspects of the Trinity, but it is Shakti who is more often manifested in the Trinity. As Devi, She is Mother of the Universe who divided Herself into three Mother Goddess forms, Sarasvati, Lakshmi & Parvati. She is also Maiden, Mother & Crone as Sati, Parvati & Kali. There are a number of female Trinities that have come down to Western Civilization, including THE THREE FATES, Lachesis, Clotho & Atroppos, THE MORRIGU, Ana, Badb & Macha, THE NORNS,[ Triple Moon Goddesses] Urd, Berdthandi & Skuld & THE TRIPLE EARTH GODDESSES, Persephone, Demeter & Hecate, the latter was known as the " Triple Hecate " & She held a dual position of Earth & Moon, which was not uncommon for a Goddess who could represent both the Earth & the magic power used to direct the Earth's energies as the Moon directs the Earth's tides. The original female Trinities entered into the later Aryanized religions of India & the Near East, & they resulted in a conflict between Goddess worshippers & the Aryan conquerors.

In the purest form of the Aryan religion, the only thing that could remotely be considered a Trinity involved three male Deities, the Father God, The Law Giver & the Great Warrior. In Vedic Hinduism, these were initially Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the Preserver, & Indra the Great Warrior. [As seen in the Northern European system, the Gods were Odin, King of the Gods, Tyr the Law giver & Thor the Great warrior.] Then as the religion merged with the Dravidic, Indra was deposed by Shiva the Destroyer. Along with Shiva came His other half Shakti, & so the Dravidic Goddess infiltrated into the Aryan Hinduism at the side of Her consort the Dravidic Shiva. For centuries the elevation of the Goddess in the Dravidic strongholds of India was considered a heresy. Between 700 & 1000 C.E. worship of Shiva / Shakti predominated in India. The Aryans excepted Shiva but would not tolerate the belief of two in One. There were numerous purges in various regions of India depending upon which emphasis the ruler followed. Followers of each group slaughtered the other. The Vedic Aryans demoted the Goddess & Her aspects into dutiful mates of the Gods, tending to domestic chores, it was a practice echoed by the northern Tribes of Goths, Teutons, Germans, Anglo- Saxons & Gauls in Europe. But the Aryans did have an earlier tradition from the days before their expansions, when the Mother Goddess was honoured & this caused a split in their ranks with some still honoring the Goddess as She was. But an elitism had evolved among the leaders & warriors of Aryan society & so She had to be eliminated or demoted, & this was the beginning of the cast system in India. The God & Goddess of the Indus were represented by the Sun & Moon. The Vedic Shiva is typically depicted as having the crescent moon in His hair, but this may have come from Aryan influence, showing the Moon Goddess as a smaller part of the male Deity. Shakti's aspect as Parvati was excepted into Hinduism, as a part of Shiva, She was fertility, the seasonal changes of Solstices & Equinoxes, the phases of the Moon & the schedules for planting & harvesting, all became part of the cycle of life that was the basis for the first religion of Sind & became part of the new one.

Nothing has changed, not since the original idea from 28,000 B.C.E. The names of the Deities may be altered, the reasons for the observances redefined, but it is still the same whether the Winter Solstice is the Wiccan celebration of Yule, the Christian celebration of Christmas [ Mass for Christ to honor his birth as the Son /Sun.] or the Jewish Festival of Lights, Chanukah or Hanukkah, it is the return of the Sun God that is celebrated. This applies to most religious holidays of today. From the Aryan point of view, the worship of a Phallic God was disgusting. They failed at first glance to recognise that there was a greater concept involved than mere penis worship, one that encompassed the veneration of the creative forces in the Universe, which created, destroyed & created & destroyed again & again in a continuing cycle or spiral. The male element as Linga could be represented by anything from a standing stone to a tree stump, & was the symbol of the creative energy that dances in each & every living thing in the form of dynamic molecules.

The female element as Yoni, generally represented by a ring stone [ holey stone] or one with depressions or a cleft, & gave expression to that energy in the shape of the life it produced. The Linga depicts an understanding of the workings of nature & the Earth on a Cosmic & Microscopic scale. The Dravidians were not ignorant, they had sciences that are only now being rediscovered, after centuries of burial under restrictions imposed b y religious rulers. Shiva's dance is the motion of Cosmic energy, just as it was known that the molecules in every thing that appears to be solid are actually in a state of constant excitement. Shakti through the Yoni, defines the form of these dancing molecules to be a tree, a rock, or a person & thus everything that contains this energy is alive in one way or another, even " living rock'. Today science knows that the molecules are being traded off with those of other objects, that there is a constant interaction between molecular structures, which make the concept of pantheism all the more rational. The concept of the Linga & Yoni are seen in the Chinese Yin & Yang, evidence that the religion of Sind travelled there as well. The Ithy- phallic Horned God seated in the Yoga position or standing have been found across Europe from 6000 B.C.E. At times the Deity is depicted as a stag, a man with stags horns, a bull, a bull with a human face or a phallus, or a phallus with a human face, all these are images of the first God Shiva. These images have also been found in Italy, Greece, Crete, Portugal, Yugoslavia, France, Britain, Ireland, Malta, Russia & the whole of Northern Europe. They were also found in South East Asia & are reflected in the religions of Cambodia, Java, & Bali.

From the Dravidic expression, the Linga is the source of the energy, while the Yoni determines what energy creates, for the Goddess takes the energy into Her womb & gives birth to things. For this reason She is called power. It was in order to detract from the Goddess that the concept of " matter " being evil arose in the Aryan based systems & cosmologies. The pre- Vedic system saw that energy & matter were interrelated, God & Goddess in Union & that matter was not the lesser or evil, but the form the God took in substance. To label matter as evil would be to label God's creation as evil, & that would make God unworthy of devotion. This problem has tormented the Judeo-Christian theologians for 2,500 years, & the only purpose such negation of substance serves is to authorise the subservience of woman & perpetuate the persistent view of inequality.[ The reason for Mary's demotion, & one dimensional aspect.]

The First Civilization 3

The Vedic religion today is an orthodoxy, began in 1000 B.C. E. & continued through 500 B.C.E., that blended Aryan & Dravidic traditions. Until that time, the two systems functioned as rival denominational fractions, the latter being considered inferior by the ruling Brahmans, & with many regulations of Aryan tradition being imposed upon the Dravidic. The original religion of Sind, while not the same as Hinduism, can never the less be found in the religions influenced first by the original Dravidic faith, & then by the Aryan influence that followed & the migration from the regions of Sind. Hinduism also had / has many dominations, but unless the domination is Tantric or Shivaism [ often spelled Saivism] & dedicated to the God Shiva / Shakti, it will have a pronounced Aryan basis. With the melding of the Dravidic & Aryan, the mythology improved the status of Shiva & Shakti [ as Parvati & Devi], & there was a reaction from the Brahmin caste against the Dravidic incursions into the Aryan faith. The initial intent of the conquering Aryans was to establish their domination over the large population they ruled through precise & complex rituals that would invalidate the religion of their new subjects, but this just led to many different forms of Hinduism. The Dravidic Deities were mocked in mythology & degraded in terms of what they represented. Parvati was described as being ridiculed by Shiva for having dark skin, & She had to practise Yoga to acquire a golden colour that then pleased Her husband. Shiva was described as a Lord of vampires, terror & thievery, one who haunted the burning places covered in ashes.[ Aryans cremated their dead & imposed this practise on the Dravidians who buried their dead in a sitting Yoga position.] He was a beggar & a seducer of women, unfaithful to His wife, yet too intent on yogi practice to create the world when ordered to by Brahma. But somehow, Shiva & Shakti always managed to turn things around to their favour in the storyline, & the unpleasant aspects given to them simply did not have the intended impact with the common people who understood the many aspects of Godhead. Shiva & Shakti have continued to be shown as Deities of compassion, love, & understanding. It was as though they smiled with tolerance upon their enemies until at last, Shiva the Unperturbed & Shakti the Mother overpowered the Aryans with kindness. This is not to say that there were not some sects that developed from the Aryanization of the Two as demonic. There were indeed blood sacrifices & assassin sects born from the initial meddling of the Aryans. The Christians experienced the same thing later with the Christian sect of Satanism. It is because of this that modern Hinduism has different denominations of Shivaism & Shaktism, & some of these are banned because of their brutality.

The advent of Buddhism 624-544 B.C.E. is the most resent concentrated attempt to remove Shiva & Shakti from the Aryan faith of India. The Buddhist reform movement sought to purge Hinduism of Dravidic elements & coincided with the reformational writings of the Pentateuch occurring at nearly the same time. Buddhism is today considered a heresy of Hinduism, which is why there are not many Buddhists in India & why there is warfare between Buddhists & Hindu Tamils [ardent Shivaites with ethnic Dravidic background] in Sri Lanka. The earlier shunning of Shiva & Shakti did not prevent the people from slowly elevating their native Deities within an imposed worship system & today, Shiva is seen as the One Alone, having successfully moved from the role of ridiculed outsider to that of Supreme Deity. He is considered the One in Whom resides all aspects of matter & being, & in Whom the Universe dissolves & appears in many forms. But Buddha & other Brahmins like him were dissatisfied with the inclusion of Dravidic influences in whatever form because this undermined the position of the priesthood. Buddhism too, developed new forms, but even with the return of Sind elements in the practices of Tantric Buddhism, the role of the female is diminished in accordance with Aryan tradition. Buddha restated Hinduism with an emphasis on the caste system, multiple forms of sexual discrimination against woman, domination of women by men, alienation of women from religious participation except as subservient to men & the superiority of the ruler & warrior caste over everyone else. All of these elements were absent in the devotion of Shiva, but can be found in Buddhist societies, such as in Japan with its Samurai tradition & the low status of woman. The later development of Tantric Buddhism is considered a heresy, as it attempts to bridge the Aryan & Sind ideals. The concept of any power in the female, however, was unthinkable in the original Buddhism.

The First Civilization 4

The Brahmin religious rituals were secrets handed down from fathers to sons, & the sons were required to carefully learn the proper procedures for each ritual, lest anything be done wrong & ruin the ceremony. If words were garbled or stumbled over, if one thing were done out of proper sequence, the entire ritual was ruined, no matter how far along it had progressed, it would have to be started over at the beginning. These ceremonies were costly & time consuming as they were, but to repeat them could be more than the participant could afford or handle. The very fate of the dead depended on the ceremony for cremation, with preliminary rites, & later the benedictions being done exactly right, or the departed would suffer the consequences. The same adherence to detail has been passed along into the methodology of Cabalistic ritual in ceremonial magic, & the celebration of the Catholic mass & other sacraments. Buddhism was all but exterminated in India, with many Buddhist priests being tortured to death or consigned to vats of boiling oil & Hinduism was able to continue its development towards even more Dravidic acceptance & emphasis. In the denomination of the " Heroic Shiva " [ the self -realised adept sees the whole body as the expression of various aspects of the Divine, ] arose between 1100 & 1400 C.E. & took on a program of economic & social reform that included the abolition of caste & sutee, the burning of living widows on the funeral pyres of their dead husbands & a return to the Sind practice of burial of their dead.

A strong missionary movement was launched [just as Europe began to experience its first " Renaissance " in the 12th century, ] by this Lingayat denomination, [ so called because its adherents wear a Linga symbol around their necks, much as the Christians wear a cross] & its impact is still being felt today.

The Lingayats originated in an attempt to return to a purer Dravidic faith, just as the Brahmins tried to restore the Aryan elements of faith in Hinduism through Buddhism, but the Heroic sect gained power in various regions & became the state religion in the province of Mysore in 1498 C.E. Dominational warfare existed between the followers of Vishnu & Shiva who disputed over which Deity was Supreme in the years that followed. Yet the Shivaite principle of freedom of worship has been officially accepted in modern India today, although the actual practise is always a point of dispute.

When the Western religious experience is viewed as a whole, it becomes apparent that there are two basic patterns of belief at work. At one time, at the earliest level, there was only one pattern that of Duel Deity. This system evolved naturally & reflected the environment of nature & the place of nature within it. From the beginnings, as indicated in the Biblical book of Genesis, humans were one with the world in which they lived. It was a sort of paradise, not because everything was perfect, b ut because humans knew who they were & how they fitted into the scheme of things. This was a triumph of human metaphysics. It was also the religion of a communal society & the religion of Sind. Not until the formation of a Ruling Warrior Class did the concept of Deity change. For this reason the Father God who was Lawgiver & the Warrior God are not natural, but a political development that reflected the need to legitimise the change in society from Communal to Hierarchical. Aryan society was reorganise to meet the challenges of population growth & subsequent territorial expansion.

Leaders were supported by their warriors, & in time the society became segmented between those who fought & those who tilled the earth, tended the flocks, & created goods necessary for living. In the Dravidic system women worked the lands & made goods, men hunted & both men & women went to war. In the Aryan system the women had to lay down their arms for it was seen as the ultimate insult for a Warrior to be killed by a "soulless one " even if he was an enemy. [Woman in the Israeli Army if caught are instantly put to death by their Arab enemies for this very reason. Though in modern times Arab Terrorist Groups have recruited females & used them in suicide mission & to carry arms & explosives.] The reason the laws moved in this direction was to distance the practice of worshipping the Political Deities from that of the Natural Deities. All segments of society initially practised the same religion, but with the advent of a political system, theology became politicised. Those who were not of the top segments of the structure of rulers & warriors did not have ready access to the Deities of the upper classes. As the power of the upper classes increased, so did the power of their Gods, until, at last, the Duel Deity became a lesser form of religion in the Aryan society, & the ordinary people could only approach the Greater Gods through their emissaries, the Warrior Priests & their God King. [ examples: Catholic Church, Judaism, & Islam.]

The priesthood that came into being was magic orientated, as the priests administered the sacred duties insuring the obligation of obedience from the common people to their rulers. At this point in time the Priestesses of the Dravidian system became known as prostitutes by the upper classes who no longer sent their sons to be initiated into the rite of manhood by a priestess who represented the Goddess, the common folk soon followed. [ known commonly as keeping up with the Jones's] Since the God & Goddess were obvious in nature, it was necessary to create a cause for which people would have to turn to another set of Gods & from this need came the concept of salvation. This meant the Dual Deity was no longer enough for human religious expression & was pushed aside in Aryan Theology. During the conquests of other lands still practising the original form of worship, the Aryans named the local religions as anathema [cursed, dammed & evil] & worked hard to exercise the Older Deities from popular veneration by preaching against them & changing the myths with time.

The power of the priesthood depended upon the power of the rulers & warriors, & they were all members of the same class. This has become expressed in modern India as the caste system, while in Europe the clergy generally came from the nobility, as the church was considered a good place to put extra sons who could not look forward to a legacy or title nor do well enough in battle to support the King at arms. There were variations, even within the upper classes, with some members being inferior, & they became friars who tended herb gardens for medicines & made wine, a job done by women in the past & now forbidden to them. Even within the monastery the caste system was used, those who came from poor backgrounds did the cooking & cleaning, those who were from better backgrounds were the scribes & the first male healers. The upper class moved from priest to bishop & archbishop through a political system, but only true nobility could buy their way to the superior cardinal & even to the secular rulership of Pope. The nobility could also rid themselves of unwanted daughters by paying the church smaller dowries than perhaps a potential husband would take for a daughter who happened to be number 7,8 or 9 in line. These woman were placed in convents & were kept separate from the men as they were the originators of the " original sin " which dammed mankind forever. The spent their time praying for forgiveness & doing penance for the rest of mankind, which often took the form of self scourging & wearing of spiked & horsehaired under garments. The church eventually became incredibly rich as time passed due to this system & then another system was introduced at this time that added to the coffers, that of making the common folk pay for their salvation & all life initiations, birth, death & marriage. In time this money was not enough to keep the hungry army on the road to save souls from the " Old Ways " & taxes were introduced which the now converted peasants had to pay.

The First Civilization 5

In Europe, the original religion was relegated to a position of tolerated lesser faith, a country faith of superstition & old practices, rather than an elevated level of religion typical of the higher strata of society. In India the Aryan faith became infiltrated by the Old Religion of Sind. This happened because the conquered Dravidians were not part of the Aryan society, did not function & grow with the class system, & were the original inhabitants of the land wherein the ancient religion of the God & Goddess had evolved. By the time the Aryans had arrived in the Indus valley, Shiva & Shakti were the living & socially entrenched deities of the Dravidians. By remaining in the Indus, the Arayans became more settled & found their religion changing to adapt to the land & its people. But the Arayan warrior tribes did not stop in India, they moved on into Asia Minor & the Near East, taking the lessons learned from the Indus experience with them.

This is where the great divergence takes place, then. It did not happen in Europe, where country faith & noble faith, the natural religion & the political religion, had a livable arrangement of tolerance, nor in India where the ancient beliefs held fast & merged with the Aryan faith over time, to the point of re-establishing the Duel Deity as Supreme.

But it occurred in the Near East & this becomes the heritage of modern Western religion, the battle between pure Aryanism & the religion of Sind spread throughout the Near East.

From this conflict evolved Judaic, Christian & Islamic faiths. Their basis is not Near Eastern, but a branch of North European, devoid of the naturally evolved Deities & solely based on the secularly created gods of nobility. To achieve a pure Aryan religion with the God of the Bramins, the Aryans had to repudiate & denounce the practices that had undermined their system in the Indus Valley.

It is not a coincidence that, as Kirsten points out: Moses comes from the Sanskrit word Manu, " Lawgiver" & that this name is the root for Mises, Manes, & Minos. These names are not individuals but positions of authority in Aryan societies. That the Judaic tradition is descended from Abrahham- a Brahmin, as Merlin Stone shows in her work, WHEN GOD WAS A WOMAN- should come as no surprise. Nor is it a coincidence that the timing of the historical beginnings of the Israelites [ 1232 B.C.E.] is soon after the fall of Myceanean Kingdoms [ 1250 B.C.E.] .

When one looks at the larger picture rather than focusing only on the near East & Mediterranean, it becomes clear that after the continued invasions of the Indus [ from 2150 to 1200 B.C.E. when the last Indus city fell to the Aryans], the events of the Near East were triggered by the sudden collapse of this last line of resistance. Warriors were free to spill into the Near East at a tremendous rate, &by 884 B.C.E. the Assyrian Empire was their new stronghold.

Merlin Stone details the movement of the Aryan tribe of Luvites across Anatolia into the land of Canaan. There in accordance with archaeological evidence as reported by Neil Asher Silberman, they encountered the Canaanite refugees from the fall of the Mycenean Kingdoms- " Israelite" nomads who made calf artifacts of worship, revered snakes, & had re-established themselves on hilltops after deserting their cities in the valley. The Luvites became the Levite rulers of the Hebrews, & two centuries later, the Aryan Buddhist reform movement began in India,during this time Jewish colonists were known to be living in Egypt, where a missionary site of Buddhists was located in Alexandria. The succession of historical events involved great activity from the Aryan people, including the rise of the Persian Empire, whose people are today's Iranians & acknowledged by historians & anthropologists to be an Aryan speaking race.

The building of the Templein Jerusalem was actually constructed under the rule of Persians in 520 B.C.E., & it fits in perfectly with the need to promote the Aryian faith & dismantle that of the old Gods. The Temple was a concession to the needs of the Israelites being ruled by Aryan Levites. The Levites themselves were separate from other srealites, were forbidden to inter marry with them, recieved the fruits of all harvests, had property rights that amounted to fiefdoms & were by law the only ones permitted extravagant dress & displays of wealth. These same regulations that applied to the Brahmins of India, to keep them separate from, & in power over, the Dravidians they had conquered.

Today the Jewish faith still has a cast system, with some tribes being inferior to others. The Levites are still the priestly cast, found in surnames like Levy, Levenstein, Lewis etc. Woman are not allowed to worship with the men, & are separated from them by walls or different levels. Woman are seen only as bearers of sons, with little or no rights. Orthodox women have to shave their heads once they marry, & this is still practised today. Women who are menstruating are considered unclean & may not share their husbands beds, until they have had a ritual cleansing bath.

And so the Goddess was demoted through Her Earthly counterparts. Today all Jews regardless of their Tribe, are forbidden to marry anyone not of their religion.