Actually, Bali (“Strong One”) is a pseudonym of Ravana, the great monarch of Lanka’s worldwide empire. And Lanka is the same as (archetypal) Taprobane, alias Atlantis. The name of Bali (or Bala or Balarama) also gave the Phoenician name of Hercules (Baal) as well as several others such (Belus, Bel, Bol, Belenus, etc.).
The Hindus consider Yama as a sort of god whose passion and resurrection they yearly commemorate, very much as we do the one of Christ. The Hindu story of the great dispute between Bali and Vamana is normally told in connection with Vishnu’s fifth avatar, the one of the Dwarf (Vamana). Bali was defeated by Vamana, and became the Lord of the Dead, in Patala. But he periodically rises from among the dead, and comes up to visit the living on the day of his festival.
Hesperia (Spain), the Land of Sunset, was sometimes distinguished from its dual, Ethiopia, the Land of Sunrise. This one was located in the Far East, where the day starts by an ancient convention. This is explicitly affirmed in this fragment of Mimnermus (fragm. 10, Diehl):
Helios... rises at dawn in the land of rosy-fingered Aurora (Dawn or Eos), where he abandons the Ocean and climbs to the sky. He is transported there, during the night, across the waves, in his charming concave bed made by Hephaistos, winged and fashioned of precious gold. He is speedily carried, while asleep, over the surface of the waters, from the abode of the Hesperides to the Land of the Ethiopians, where his speedy chariot and his horses are detained until the arrival of Dawn, daughter of Morning. Only then rises to his chariot the son of Hyperion.
This passage is quite unequivocal in its esoteric meaning. The sun sets in Spain (Hesperia) and during the night crosses the Ocean in the Solar Cup, until it reaches Ethiopia, the Land of Dawn, on the opposite bank of the great sea. Once there, the sun again rises from the Ocean, climbs to the sky in his winged chariot, and crosses over the earth, until it again sets, in Gibraltar.
This voyage is the nocturnal portion of the sun’s daily trip around the earth. The diurnal trip is very clearly illustrated in the remarkable Egyptian vase we already discussed above in our figures section, in Part II. As is now clear, we actually had two Hesperias or Ethiopias in Classical antiquity, one on each bank of the wide Ocean.
Moreover, the Ocean was believed to be unimpeded throughout, reaching all the way from Europe to the East Indies, the Land of Dawn.
Or perhaps the sun was believed to round the Americas on the far south, more or less as later done by both Magellan and Drake. Otherwise, how could the sun navigate from one side of the Ocean to the opposite one, in Taprobane?
Very noticeably, the Greek myth derived from the Egyptian one just mentioned. And this Egyptian myth is of course far older than Greece, and even precedes the rise of that nation itself. But Egypt in turn obtained the myth from India, where it is even older.
In India, Dawn is called Ushas (“shiny, dawn, aurora”). This word is cognate with others such as Eos, Hestia, Vesta and so forth. Even the Latin Aurora (earlier form: Ausosa) ultimately derives from this very base. Ushas is a personification of the Great Mother.
Her figure dates from the Rig Veda, where she figures most centrally. Rather than the Morning Star itself or the Sun, Eos-Ushas is its terrestrial counterpart, the same as the Fallen Sun. And the Fallen Sun is really the volcano, as we now know.
Another ancient fragment – this time due to Stesichorus (fragm. 6:1-4, Diehl) – repeats essentially the same story as the one told by Mimnermus. But it adds that after crossing the Ocean (Okeanoio perasas), the sun reaches “the depths of Night, sacred and somber”. The gloomy realm of Night was the same as Tartarus or Hades. And it is here placed on the opposite shore of the Ocean, in the East Indies, as usual.
What is perhaps the clearest allusion to the fact that the Garden of the Hesperides and the Golden Apples it contained lay beyond the ocean, in the Far East, is Apollodorus’ account of Hercules’ Twelfth Labor (Libr. 2:5:11). This labor consisted in fetching these precious apples from the Garden of the daughters of Atlas. ↑166
It seems that Apollodorus here closely followed the account due to Pherecydes of Syros. Pherecydes is the famous pre-Socratic philosopher from Syros, and his version of the story was preserved by a scholiast of Apollonius of Rhodes. According to tradition, Pherecydes was the instructor of Pythagoras, having instructed himself in Phoenician books and traditions.
The extant accounts of Hercules’ itinerary to Hesperia are all extremely garbled, to the despair of all the exegetes who attempt to decipher its real meaning. As if to compound the difficulty, Apollodorus identifies Hesperia to Hyperborea, which most experts believe to have been located in the far north, rather than in the west. But this is sheer exoterism intended to confuse the profanes.
Hyperborea is actually the same as Hesperia, the Garden of the
Gods and the site of Paradise. Hyperborea is Apollo’s Paradise, and is
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also called Ortygia and Delos. As we have managed to show, the Boreas in question here is not the north wind which blows from the Alps, but its Indonesian counterpart, also called Boreas or Aquilon by the Classical authors such as Pliny and Solinus.
The name of the Boreas derives from the Dravida vaţa, where the ţ is cerebral, and sounds like IE r. Hence, we had the following linguistic evolution: vaţa > vara > bara > boreas. This wind blows from the north in the region of Taprobane, and is specifically designated Boreas or Aquilon by the Classical authors just named, along with others.
When the Etruscans moved from India to the Alps region in Europe, they brought along the name of their north wind, which they transferred to the local one. And it was thus that the confusion of Hyperborea’s site became permanent. No matter what, Apollo being the Sun God, it is hard to believe that his tropical Paradise would be located in the chilly far north, as some experts believe.
Most exegetes were never able to make any sense out of these garbled accounts, and have given up the trip as purely mythical. But what interests us here is the fact that, in order to get to Hesperia, Hercules actually embarked in the Solar Cup, together with the Sun itself.
This he did in Mauritania, and then crossed the Ocean in it, until he got to the far shore, where the famous garden was located. Now, Mauritania is Morocco, near the region of Gibraltar. Hardly would the great hero embark in the Solar Cup, cross the ocean in it, and then return to Gibraltar in order to get to the fabled garden where the life-giving Golden Apples grew.
In an unusual attempt to solve the puzzle, some specialists have concluded that the Garden of the Hesperides was located on an island such as the Canaries, the Azores, the Madeiras, etc..
But even this forcing of the hand will not solve the essential difficulty. Both Pherecydes and Apollodorus are categorical in that Hercules actually crossed the Ocean to its far shore. Otherwise, why would the hero embark in the Ocean-spanning Solar Cup, as we just saw in Mimnermus fragment quoted above? What else can this remarkable tradition actually mean?
Moreover, the fabled garden seems to have been located on firm land rather than on a shore. In fact, it was said to have been located on the slopes of Mt. Atlas, itself situated on the shores of the Ocean rather than in its middle, as would be the case in this alternative.
Nereus’ reluctance to reveal the site of the famous garden also betrays the secrecy surrounding the true whereabouts of Paradise. And such is also the reason why the accounts of authors such as Apollodorus and Pherecydes, or others who have written on the matter, are so garbled and confusing.
Hercules’ Twelfth Labor
This confusion is visibly purposeful. It closely parallels the ones of Plato, Homer, Hesiod, Apollodorus, Pliny and other ancient authorities such as the writers commented above. No one ever disclosed the secret of the Mysteries which remained unsolved down to the present time.
And, as is now obvious, this secret centered on the actual reality and location of Paradise and its identity with Atlantis itself as a worldwide empire of the former era, the Pleistocene. Paradise was wiped out so completely by t
he Flood that even its former memory was utterly forgotten, except in the sacred traditions of the Mysteries themselves.
Curiously enough, Hercules’ twelfth labor is quite similar to the tenth, at least in matters of geography and location. Perhaps, the two labors are really variants of the same story, told under different allegories. In both cases the hero’s itinerary is highly obscure. In both labors the hero crosses the wide Ocean in the Solar Cup in order to get to the place intended, and so on.
Nor is the identification of the Golden Apples of the Hesperides with the Golden Cattle of the Sun so preposterous as it might seem at first. Diodorus Siculus mooted out this fact when he remarked that in Greek, the word mêlon applies both to “apples” and to “cattle”.
So, it is quite possible that the Golden Apples, the Golden Fleece and Golden Cattle (phoinikes boes) of Geryon all refer to an ultimate reality common to all these concepts.
Moreover, in Hindu mythology, these fabulous cows – the Cows-ofPlenty – yield not ordinary milk but the Elixir itself. And, as we already argued, both these “apple trees” and these “cows-of-plenty” are ultimately allegories of the volcano of Atlantis-Eden, as we just showed.
In its tame, normal mood, the volcano is the bringer of abundance and felicity to all. But when it goes berserk, it explodes and collapses, bringing death to its own children.
It is precisely this image which is often associated with the Great Goddess herself, generally a cow: Hathor, Nut, Isis, Kama-dhenu, Gauri, and so forth. And it is often the Great Mother herself who brings on the carnage of the Flood. Such is, for example, the case of Hathor-Nut in Egypt.
Returning to the theme of the Golden Apples proper. According to Pherecydes – here visibly followed by Apollodorus – these precious fruit were presented by Gaia (the Earth Goddess) to Hera, on the day of her wedding to Zeus. The goddess was extremely pleased with them, and had them planted in her garden, at the foot of Mt. Atlas.
Hera later charged the Hesperides or Atlantides – the seven daughters of Atlas – with taking care of the precious fruit. But the girls started to pilfer the golden apples, so that the goddess further placed a hundredeyed dragon (Ladon) to watch the tree where these apples grew.
Supporting Apollodorus, Hesiod (Theog. 215) also refers to: “the Hesperides who guard the rich, golden apples and the trees bearing fruit beyond glorious Ocean” (my emphasis). The word here used by Hesiod perên (“beyond”) leaves no doubt on the fact that the Garden of the Hesperides in reality lay beyond the Ocean, on its shore antipodal to both Spain and Gibraltar. ↑167
However, this word is related with par’ which Hesiod also used in a similar context, as we showed further above. The idea here seems to be exactly the same.
So, the best we can make of these incongruous pieces of information is that we had two Hesperias and two Gardens of the Hesperides. The real one was located in the East Indies, the true site of the Garden of Eden, and the fake one in Spain (Hesperia) in the region of Gibraltar.
Some mythographers further add that the Garden of the Hesperides was located quite near the place where the Titan Atlas supported the Pillar of Heaven, obviously in Atlantis itself.
Moreover, since this fabled garden is also an allegory of Atlantis itself as the Garden of Eden, we are again led to conclude that we also had two Atlantises: a real one in the East (Taprobane) and a phony one in Gibraltar, where most people think it was really located.
According to Apollodorus, in the course of his twelfth labor, Hercules crossed the Ocean in order to get to the Garden of the Hesperides. There he met the giant Atlas, supporting the sphere of heaven. Prometheus, whom the hero had earlier rescued, had advised Hercules not to go to the garden himself, but to ask Atlas to do so in his stead.
The cunning Titan gladly agreed to do so, if only Hercules would hold up the skies for him during his absence. Hercules also agreed, and cheerfully picked it up.
Atlas then went to the garden, plucked three golden apples and brought them back to Hercules. But then he changed his mind, and said he would deliver the apples to Eurystheus himself, leaving the task of supporting the skies to Hercules.
Hercules feigned agreement, if only Atlas would pick it up while he arranged the carrying-pad on his head. The Titan fell for the ruse, and Hercules simply picked up the golden apples, leaving Atlas with the ponderous burden which he was condemned to bear up on his back.
The Legendary Cassiterides and the Mysterious Source of Tin
This story of Hercules and Atlas taking turns in bearing up the world is extremely interesting. It shows their intrinsic dualism in this role as world-bearers, one on each side of the world. In fact, Atlas and Hercules correspond to the figures of Atlas and Gadeiros, the twins who, according to Plato’s account of the myth, were the main rulers of Atlantis.
The disputes of the two brothers would eventually become very serious, ultimately leading to the Great War of Atlantis. This war was really a civil war pitting brother against brother, in this case the Dravidian moiety against the Aryo-Semitic one. These two races of India would later become the Pelasgians or Etruscans and the Greeks proper, of Aryo-Semitic extraction.
One of the greatest unsolved mysteries of antiquity concerns the sources where the Phoenician merchants obtained the vast amounts of tin which rendered the Bronze Age a reality. It is known that these sources were located in the Cassiterides, the fabled “Islands of Tin”.
But the problem is that the astute Phoenicians never disclosed their site to anyone so that even today no one has any idea of where these mysterious islands were really located. Kultepe, a place in Turkey has been recently proposed. But the mines there are very meager, and could never do as the vast sources of the precious metal.
It is also pertinent to note that the Hesperides were sometimes identified to the Cassiterides As such, they were also confused with Tartessos, or Tarshish, the place where tin and bronze were also said to originate, and which many people confuse with Spain. But these were mere Phoenician lies intended to hide their true sources of tin.
Spain never produced a single ounce of tin, so that we are forced to look somewhere else for the true Hesperides or Cassiterides which sourced the crucial metal. Even the British Islands (Scilly and Cornwall) will never do, as the deposits there were only discovered by the Carthaginians after the Bronze Age was through. Besides, Cornwall is no island, and the Scilly Islands have no tin.
Hence, these islands or lands could never have provided the enormous amounts of tin which made the Bronze Age possible. Bronze is an alloy of copper with tin (about 10% of total) and cannot be produced without this important but rare component metal.
And it is also logical that bronze could only have been invented in a place endowed with the two essential metals: copper and tin. We must not forget that Plato specifically affirms that Atlantis abounded in all metals, tin included. So, Atlantis would be a prime candidate for this remarkable metallurgical invention.
We have also demonstrated in other, more technical works of ours that the true Tarshish – the place whence bronze and tin really came in antiquity – was located in Indonesia, rather than in Spain or England or some other Mediterranean location. Hence, the equation Indonesia = Atlantis is once again apparently inescapable.
Even today, most of the world’s tin is produced in the region of Indonesia and Southeast Asia, also its probable main source in antiquity. Copper is also abundant there, and so are nickel and other precious and semi-precious metals. Moreover, no other ancient viable sources of tin but the Far East have ever been identified so far, all being too late in time or insufficient.
Even the name Tarshish – and hence Tartessos – really means “tin” in Dravida, the local language of Indonesia in antiquity. So does the name of Taprobane, itself composed of tamra, a name variously designating “tin, copper, bronze, gold” and other such dark or ruddy metals, and parna meaning “branch, bough, leaf, wing” and, by extension, “peninsula”.
Hence, Taprobane was not
only the Golden Bough itself, but also the fabulous “Peninsula of Gold” (or Tin or Copper). This name invariably applied to Indonesia, a fact directly attested in Flavius Josephus and innumerous other ancient authors. And it seems logical to conclude that the fabulous Golden Apples were produced in the Peninsula of Gold.
This place was also named Cassiterides (“Islands of Tin”), even though the actual site of these mysterious islands was never divulged by the Phoenicians, who held the monopoly of this lucrative commerce during the entire Bronze Age.
The name of the Cassiterides itself derives from kassiteros, meaning “tin” in Greek. But even this word in turn ultimately derives from the Sanskrit kassita, also meaning the same thing.
Where else but in India itself would the ancient Greeks – or the Phoenicians, their suppliers – have picked up the Indian name of the precious metal which they in fact imported from there? These are issues which, when closely meditated, leave no room for doubting the existence of a second Hesperia – or Tartessos or Tarshish or Cassiterides, etc. – in the Far East, in the region of Taprobane.
And its “western” location also becomes logical, as soon as we realize that, the world being round, beyond the farthest west lay the farthest east, and vice-versa. Euripides (Hipp.742) also refers to the Hesperides as located in the Far East: ↑168
“To the apple-bearing shore of the Hesperides, famous singers, would I go my way, there where the lord of the deep-blue mere forbids further passage to sailors, fixing the sacred boundary of the skies, the pillar held up by Atlas. There founts immortal flow by the place where Zeus lay [with Hera], and holy Earth with her gifts of blessedness makes the gods’ prosperity wax great.”
Euripides does not actually say on which side of the Ocean the Hesperides were located. But that the far shore is intended is clear from his text. The chorus (who is speaking here) is saying they would like to be a bird to fly over to the other side of the ocean, where the true Hesperides really are, along with their precious Golden Apples.
Atlantis the Lost Continent Finally Found Page 33