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Know_files/FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS.pdf - D Ank Unlimited

Know_files/FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS.pdf - D Ank Unlimited

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Graham Hancock – <strong>FINGERPRINTS</strong> <strong>OF</strong> <strong>THE</strong> <strong>GODS</strong><br />

For example, early Jesuit scholars who were among the first Europeans<br />

to visit China had the opportunity in the Imperial Library to study a vast<br />

work, consisting of 4320 volumes, said to have been handed down from<br />

ancient times and to contain ‘all knowledge’. This great book included a<br />

number of traditions which told of the consequences that followed ‘when<br />

mankind rebelled against the high gods and the system of the universe<br />

fell into disorder’: ‘The planets altered their courses. The sky sank lower<br />

towards the north. The sun, moon and stars changed their motions. The<br />

earth fell to pieces and the waters in its bosom rushed upwards with<br />

violence and overflowed the earth.’ 26<br />

In the Malaysian tropical forest the Chewong people believe that every<br />

so often their own world, which they call Earth Seven, turns upside down<br />

so that everything is flooded and destroyed. However, through the<br />

agency of the Creator God Tohan, the flat new surface of what had<br />

previously been the underside of Earth Seven is moulded into mountains,<br />

valleys and plains. New trees are planted, and new humans born. 27<br />

A flood myth of Laos and northern Thailand has it that beings called the<br />

Thens lived in the upper kingdom long ages ago, while the masters of the<br />

lower world were three great men, Pu Leng Seung, Khun K’an and Khun<br />

K’et. One day the Thens announced that before eating any meal people<br />

should give them a part of their food as a sign of respect. The people<br />

refused and in a rage the Thens created a flood which devastated the<br />

whole earth. The three great men built a raft, on top of which they made<br />

a small house, and embarked with a number of women and children. In<br />

this way they and their descendants survived the deluge. 28<br />

In similar fashion the Karens of Burma have traditions of a global<br />

deluge from which two brothers were saved on a raft. 29 Such a deluge is<br />

also part of the mythology of Viet Nam, where a brother and a sister are<br />

said to have survived in a great wooden chest which also contained two<br />

of every kind of animal. 30<br />

Several aboriginal Australian peoples, especially those whose traditional<br />

homelands are along the tropical northern coast, ascribe their origins to a<br />

great flood which swept away the previous landscape and society.<br />

Meanwhile, in the origin myths of a number of other tribes, the cosmic<br />

serpent Yurlunggur (associated with the rainbow) is held responsible for<br />

the deluge. 31<br />

There are Japanese traditions according to which the Pacific islands of<br />

Oceania were formed after the waters of a great deluge had receded. 32 In<br />

Oceania itself a myth of the native inhabitants of Hawaii tells how the<br />

26<br />

Reported in Charles Berlitz, The Lost Ship of Noah, W. H. Allen, London, 1989, p. 126.<br />

27<br />

World Mythology, pp. 26-7.<br />

28<br />

Ibid., p. 305.<br />

29<br />

Folklore in the Old Testament, p. 81.<br />

30<br />

Ibid.<br />

31<br />

World Mythology, p. 280.<br />

32<br />

E. Sykes, Dictionary Of Non-Classical Mythology, London, 1961, p. 119.<br />

191

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