Excerpt from the Introduction to To Be or Not To Be...brahman or Abrahman / The World Turned Upside-Down

 Imagine living in a world where many “Theists” look to someone who was called “Atheist” as their “Father,” and who worship a god who their ancestors knew as the Lord of Death and Hell.  Imagine a religious construction that endeavors to make the world believe that the God of Nature, the God of the ancient ancestors, is “the Evil One,” the supposed source of all evil.  Imagine a system that is based on a rejection and sometimes even intentional inversion of the wisdoms and knowledges and even rituals of the ancestors, a novel system that was thus, at its inception, based on presenting something of an antithesis of those ancient knowledges passed down over the ages.  Imagine a view of the world which sees everyone who is not of their particular way of belief or practice (or do not convert to their group) as a lesser sort of being than those of their own group, as not “chosen,” and perhaps even bound to go to “Hell” else to some lesser eternal destination than the self-entitled so-called “chosen” do.  This revolt against the ancient order then proceeded to obscure or destroy all evidences of what understandings and teachings came before them which could not be readily incorporated into their new system of belief, obviously out of a profound insecurity at their rebellion against the ancient ways, an endeavor that sought to literally flip the paradigm and faith of the ancient ancestors upside-down. 

            Over the course of centuries, this paradigm based on the systematic rejection and symbolic opposition to the ancient ways ironically developed rather as would be predicted by the old paradigm, and in fact over time developed into multiple religions which, perhaps despite themselves, very much seem in some guise or other to mirror or mimic the constructions of the ancient ancestors which were rejected by their patriarch so long before.  These religions that developed from an opposition to and inversion of the ancient ways became so bound to playing the role of “the opposition” that they soon began to seek other opponents, to view so many “others” as enemies, and even to create divisions amongst their own and then to fight against one another, as their base modus operandi was rooted in being against something or someone.  Identities constructed via conflict tend to continue to understand themselves in terms of opposition, certainly to the detriment of their own well-being and to the well-being of others and not unlikely to their own self-destruction.

            If it isn't obvious, the patriarch I am referring to is Abraham, who a number of ancient and recent historians and thinkers including Aristotle, Megasthenes, Flavius Josephus, Clearchus of Soli, Voltaire and Godfrey Higgins believed was originally a “Hindu” or “of the philosophers of India,” and the religions I am referring to are the “Abrahamic religions,” Judaism, Christianity and Islam.  It seems very likely thus, assuming the aforementioned assertions of those thinkers is valid, that Abraham's name is derived from the Sanskrit word Abrahman which translates as “unfaithful one” or literally as “atheist,” corresponding to the tellings of the Old Testament which clearly acknowledge that Abraham's father “worshiped other gods,” and that thus Abraham was an “unfaithful one” to his ancestral religion, an “atheist” to his father’s Gods.  

            If indeed Abraham was an apostate “Hindu”—as again and to reiterate, the Torah/Old Testament acknowledges that Abraham's father/ancestors worshiped other gods—it seems very likely that the original name given Abram by his god “Yahweh” was actually “Abrahman,” a Sanskrit word meaning “unfaithful one,” or literally “atheist.”  In Sanskrit, Abrahma means “ind. up to or including Brahman [“God”],”[i] likely indicating Abram was originally of the brahmin (priestly) caste.  Abrahman means “one who does not know or rejects brahman/the Universal Divine.”  The Hebrew “Yahweh” is thus very likely in actuality (else was at least derived from) him who Hinduism and much of Asia figure as Deva (God/god) Yama, the Lord of Death and Hell and Judge of the Dead, in concert with his priest and friend Lord Agni the God of Fire, who is called “Yahva” in the Rig Veda, the oldest scriptures of any extant religion, as Yama is put in charge of those who are “Abrahman.”

According to the teachings of sanAtana dharma, those who do not know or who reject brahman (the Universal Divine Self/Nature/“God”/the Oneness of Being), i.e., those who are “Abrahman,” therefore place themselves under the authority of Deva (god) Yama.  Lord Yama was himself a mortal who was “the first to have died,” and thus the Devas made him to be one of Them, gave him title as the “Lord of Death and Hell and Judge of the Dead,” and charge over those mortals who do not know or reject brahman/the Guru/“God”/Nature/Being, over those who are Abrahman.  For someone who was mortal, “a human,” to be made the Judge of deceased mortals exhibits the equity of the Devas, who chose one who had lived a mortal life to fairly judge other mortals’ actions.  Yama also presides over the hell realm known as Naraka-Loka and over the heaven realm called Pitṛah Loka (“Fathers/Ancestors-Location,” the heaven realm of the ancestors).  Again, Yama’s friend and priest, Deva Agni, the god of fire, is called “yahva” (“active”) in the Rig Veda, a collection of sacred songs intoned for thousands of years before inscribed in writing and from long before Abraham’s lifetime—despite Eurocentric scholarship endeavoring to deny the genuine antiquity of “Hinduism” by claiming a rather recent date to the introduction of the Vedas.

 

Sanskrit           yahva  mf(%{I4}) n. restless, swift, active (applied to Agni, Indra and Soma) RV.; continually moving or flowing (applied to the waters) ib. (= %{mahat} Sa1y.); m. = %{yajamAna}, a sacrificer Un2. i, 134 Sch.; (%{I}) f. du. heaven and earth RV.; pl. the flowing waters (with %{sapta}, `\" the seven great rivers \"\')

                        Yahva (यह्व).—a. Ved. 1) Great, powerful. 2) Active, restless, continually moving. -m. An employer of priests for sacrifices

Yahva (यह्व).—m. (-hvaḥ) A sacrificer, an institutor of sacrifices.[ii]

 

Exemplary of the Abrahamic/Abrahmanic religions’ propensity for and addiction to conflict, the Hebrew word satan translates as “adversary,” and though at first did not refer to a supernatural entity, became an overarching evil being hundreds of years after Abraham’s time via a Zoroastrian influence.  The elevation of “the adversary” to a transcendent evil enemy is emblematic of the dualistic basis and proclivities of the Abrahamic religions, of their quite sick need for an enemy, as an addiction or crutch.  “The Devil” is derived from the Zoroastrian daeva (“demon”), an inversion of the Sanskrit/Hindu designation Deva/Devi (“God/Goddess”), as the Zoroastrian religion had developed in opposition to the Vedic religion and the Devas, as the Abrahamic religions did.  Rather ironically, Deva is in fact root else closely related to a number of European names for “God” (Latvian Dievs, Lithuanian Dievas, Latin Deus, Italian Dio, Spanish Dios, Portuguese Deus, French Dieu, Corsican Diu, Catalan Deu, Welsh Duw, Irish Dia, Old Irish Dé and Greek Theos), as well as being root to the term “Devil” via the Zoroastrian daeva.

            That the Hebrew language and tradition changed the pronunciation and meaning and even the supposed etymology of the names/designations Abrahman to “Abraham,” Yama/yahva Agni to “Yahweh,” satan as a general term for “accuser or adversary” (likely from/related to the Sanskrit sapatna m. a rival, adversary, enemy RV[iii] [Rig Veda]) to a proper name designating “The Evil One,” and Deva (“God”) to “the Devil” is scarce a stretch at all.  Consider the Hebrew word babel.  Though originally derived from the Akkadian bab-ili, “the Gate of God,” the Hebrew language claims the word babel as designating “confusion,” conflated with the similar sounding Hebrew word balal.[iv]  Often as words from other tongues are incorporated into a given language the original meaning is changed to suit the new context and mythology, sometimes only leaving a phonetic skeleton of the original word—something to keep in mind as I examine European, African and American placenames and terms in relation to Sanskrit and other ancient Indian languages and placenames in later pages. 

Also of note, the Hebrew name for their god “El” is cognate to the Tamil word el.  The Hebrew word El (אל) comes from a Semitic root word meaning "might, strength, power"[v] or “god.”  Though not a “Semitic” language, the Tamil usage is not unlikely the most ancient rendering of the word “el” in said guise:  Tamil “el   1. lustre, splendour, light; 2. sun; 3. sunshine; 4. day time; 5. day of 24 hours; 6. vehemence; strength.”[vi]  The term “Jew” comes from the Hebrew word Yehudhi, as the tribe of “Judah” is pronounced “Yĕhūdhī” ("thanksgiving" or "praise") in Hebrew, and is thus likely derived from the Sanskrit juhoti (“burnt oblations, sacrifice, a wish to sacrifice”[vii]).  Fire sacrifice was central to the Hebrew religion before their temples were destroyed.  The Hebrew and specifically the Kabalistic tradition attributes the feminine aspects of the divine to “Shekinah,” rather obviously related to and however directly derived from the Sanskrit Shakti, the Feminine Divine/Goddess/“Power.”  And to reiterate, the Hebrew “Yahweh” is almost certainly derived from or closely related to the Sanskrit yahva.  And thus the Jewish people are shown to be directly related to—or even apostate to—the more ancient and abiding traditions of sanAtana dharma, aka “Hinduism.”

            Regardless of the particulars of his break with the ways of his father and ancestors, Abraham's move to Palestine was part of a greater migration of the people out of Indus Valley/Saraswati Civilization and its periphery generally during that period of time, a civilization that more and more evidence indicates was Vedic, i.e., “Hindu.”  Abraham and his tribe were likely part of a community of Indus Valley/Sarasvati/Indian merchants that had lived in “Ur of the Chaldees” for generations, and were almost certainly of the brahmins, the priestly and scholarly caste, whether or not “Ur of the Chaldese” is the Ur in Mesopotamia or no.  Mesopotamian Civilization had at most 1.5 million inhabitants at the time of Abraham, whereas Indus/Sarasvati Civilization had a population of over 5 million people at its peak, many of whom migrated out of the Sarasvati region from around 2000 BCE and thereafter, about the time Abraham and his tribe went west to Palestine.

There are indeed some rather strong indications that the Ur mentioned in the Hebrew scriptures/Old Testament was not the Ur of the Euphrates delta, as the site identified as Ur in southeastern Iraq is in fact not “beyond the Euphrates” as touted in the Old Testament of “Ur of the Chaldees,” but is in fact on the same side of the Euphrates River as Palestine.  The name or prefix “Ur” was not uncommon in the place names of Asia at the time, and thus the Biblical “Ur of the Chaldees” might well have been a place called “Ur” that lay within the expanse of Indus Valley/Sarasvati Civilization or thereabout, somewhere actually “beyond the Euphrates.”  There is a city in northern Iran called Ur, actually “beyond the Euphrates,” that is inhabited to this day.  “Ur” in Tamil is defined as “1.going, riding; 2.village, town, city; 3.place; 4.resident population,”[viii] and is found in Sanskrit, Prakrit and Dravidian language inscriptions, often denoting placenames.  From the Tamil language definition:

 

Ūr.—(ASLV), the assembly of a non-Brāhmaṇa village, that of a Brāhmaṇa village being called sabhā or mahāsabhā. Note: ūr is defined in the “Indian epigraphical glossary” as it can be found on ancient inscriptions commonly written in Sanskrit, Prakrit or Dravidian languages.[ix]

 

Nonetheless, regarding the place called Ur in modern-day Iraq (whether or not the Ur that was the original home of Abraham), the Seven Sages that the Sumerians touted brought them knowledge and science, the Apkallu, are quite analogous to the ancient Saptarishi (“Seven Sages”) of the Hindus.  The Sumerian myth tells that the Apkallu came to them from the sea, and thus by their use of “Ur” for the name of a number of cities in Mesopotamia (Ur, Uruk, Ura, Urayj, Ur Nasiriyah) it seems not unlikely that their “Seven Sages” were from a Tamil speaking region, i.e., South India or perhaps Sri Lanka.  Traditions of ancient India and the Sangams of South India are the only claims of an ancient civilization which might have existed before Akkadian and Sumerian civilization and would have been found anywhere in proximity to Mesopotamia’s only seashore, the Euphrates Delta, where that river’s flow meets the waters of the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean.  Indicative of the antiquity of Tamil nautical prowess, teak, sandalwood, spices and peacocks, all products from India or Southeast Asia, are mentioned in the Old Testament since the time of Solomon, and would likely have been conveyed to the Levant by Tamil merchant fleets.

The Sumerian word apkallu means “wise, sage or expert,” likely related to the Tamil apicatan (Tamil apicAtan  1. worthy person; 2. wise man[x]).   The first of the Apkallu, him who emerged from the waters of the sea to teach the Mesopotamian people science and civilization, was known as Oannes/Uanna.  If the name Oannes/Uanna were by chance from an Indian language, the Sanskrit unmiS is phonetically quite close and would be a likely candidate (Sanskrit unmiS … to open the eyes, draw up the eyelids … to open (as eyes or buds) … to come forth, rise, originate … to shine forth, become brilliant[xi]). 

Western scholarship has acknowledged that there is indeed some certain connection or affiliation between Tamil and the Mesopotamian languages, though most often claim the Mesopotamian as the more ancient source, as yet again, academia generally endeavors to claim the origins of civilization and culture to somewhere closer to Europe, and further from the dark-skinned, “polytheist” peoples of India.  Another example of this propensity to figure the source of good things to nearer to Europe is the case of “Damascus steel,” a high-quality steel that was actually manufactured in India as ukku or wootz since before 500 BCE, then shipped to Damascus to be fashioned into the legendary “Damascus steel” blades that were so coveted in Europe. 

Just this year, 2025, an excavation at a site nigh the tip of South India called Sivagali, Tamil Nadu, India uncovered a number of iron objects including knives, arrowheads, rings, chisels, axes, and swords, as well as various other evidences of iron smelting that date to 3,345 BCE, well over 5,000 years ago!![xii]  This means the Iron Age started in India over two-thousand years before the Hittites were touted to have first worked with iron in Anatolia!!  Though as yet little acknowledged by the academy, a number of apparent gold-tipped ink pen pendants and kernoi ink wells were discovered at various Indus/Sarasvati Civilization sites from around 2500 BCE, only preceded by the rather primitive reed pens of Egypt which date to 3200 BCE, according to Dr. Srinivasan Kalyanaraman, the Chair of the Taksha Indic Sarasvati-Sindhu Civilization (TISSC) Center.[xiii]  How slow “the West” is in acknowledging that “the East,” and especially Indian civilization, are very much our elders, if not our progenitors!

 

Indus/Sarasvati ink pen pendant with Indus/Sarasvati script written thereupon with colored paint, and partial kernoi found at Mohenjo Dara with traces of iron oxide, a substance used as ink.[xiv]  Thanks to Srinivasan Kalyanaraman for granting rights to reproduce the images above.  See Kalyanaraman’s voluminous work on the Indus/Sarasvati Civilization script at Academia.com for more insights on that ancient and mysterious civilizations’ script.

 

As a glimmer of light in the academic study of Indian languages, despite the dark and dim colonialist past, a 12-volume etymological dictionary soon to be published by Oxford University Press is currently being composed to include some of the obvious Tamil contributions to the Indo-European languages, contributions that have heretofore been overlooked or rejected, largely as British colonialism sought to divide and conquer India by fomenting the dichotomy of Sanskrit (and thus North India) vs Tamil (South India and the so-called “Dravidian languages”).  In light of the history of “divide and conquer” colonialism as pressed upon India and upon the academic study of India, I see this acknowledgement of Tamil as a significant contributor to the Indo-European languages as evidence that the good fruits of “critical theory” are at least beginning to influence the still Eurocentric academic establishment towards a more balanced and less colonialist and racist view of history and language, etc.

Mesopotamian sages were later rendered as human and were called Ummanu[xv] (wise, expert, craftsman or scholar[xvi]), very close to the Sanskrit sandhi (word combination) of um (Sanskrit um “a particle implying assent” or Tamil “um 1. connective particle implying … speciality whether of superiority or inferiority[xvii]) plus manu (Sanskrit “manu   mfn. thinking, wise, intelligent … m. `\" the thinking creature(?) \"\', man, mankind,”[xviii] root to the English word “man,” and is the name of the author of the “Code of Manu” who was also Hinduism’s “Noah”).  The name given the ancient Sumerian overlords/gods, the “Anunnaki” (also called “Anunna”), is very likely a sandhi (word combination) of the Sanskrit anUna (Sanskrit “anUna   mf(%{A}) n. or %{an-Unaka} [L.] mfn. not less, not inferior to (abl) Ragh.; whole, entire; having full power”[xix]) and nakin (Sanskrit nakin m. `\" having (i.e. dwelling in) heaven \"\', a god”[xx]).  Thus the Anunnaki/Anunna are touted as “Not inferior to those who dwell in heaven/the Gods.” 

There are indeed many clues it may have been South Indians who anciently brought civilization to Mesopotamia, such as the Saptarishi “Seven Sages” rendered as the Apkallu “Seven Sages,” etc., else at least that their respective myths and cultures were closely related.[xxi]  Variations of the Saptarishi, “The Seven Sages,” are also found in Chinese, Greek and Roman myths, as well as being likely root to the “Seven Archangels” of Judeo-Christian lore, the Seven Buddhas of Antiquity (Sanskrit saptatathāgata, one of which is called Kassapa, obviously derived from Kashyapa, among the most noted of the Hindu saptarishi) and very possibly echoed in Native American “Teachings of the Seven Grandfathers.”

 

 

Hindu Goddess Durga (also known as Isvari, “Goddess”) with lion,[xxii] Sumerian Goddess Ishtar with lion[xxiii] and Goddess Mother with two lions found at Çatalhöyük, Turkey (6000 BCE).[xxiv]

---

[i] Cologne Digital Sanskrit Lexicon (from Monier-Williams' 'Sanskrit-English Dictionary'), s.v. “abrahm,” accessed June 2, 2024, https://www.sanskrit-lexicon.uni-koeln.de/scans/csl-santam/php/index.html.

[ii] Wisdom Library Search the Database: Glossary, Wisdom Library Peace-Love-Dharma, s.v. “yahva,” accessed July 29, 2025, https://www.wisdomlib.org/definition/yahva.

[iii] Cologne Digital Sanskrit Lexicon (from Monier-Williams' 'Sanskrit-English Dictionary'), s.v. “sapatna,” accessed June 2, 2024, https://www.sanskrit-lexicon.uni-koeln.de/scans/csl-santam/php/index.html.

[iv] Jeff A. Benner, “Babel,” Ancient Hebrew Research Center, Jeff A. Benner, accessed 2/2/2021, https://www.ancient-hebrew.org/names/Babel.htm.

[v] John J. Parsons, “Hebrew Names of God, El and El Constructs given in Tanakh,” Hebrew for Christians, accessed June 2, 2024, https://www.hebrew4christians.com/Names_of_G-d/El/el.html#loaded.

[vi] Cologne Digital Sanskrit Lexicon (from Monier-Williams' 'Sanskrit-English Dictionary'), s.v. “el,” accessed June 2, 2024, https://www.sanskrit-lexicon.uni-koeln.de/scans/csl-santam/php/index.html.

[vii] Cologne Digital Sanskrit Lexicon (from Monier-Williams' 'Sanskrit-English Dictionary'), s.v. “juhoti,” accessed December 8, 2024, https://www.sanskrit-lexicon.uni-koeln.de/scans/csl-santam/php/index.html.

[viii] Cologne Digital Sanskrit Lexicon (from Monier-Williams' 'Sanskrit-English Dictionary'), s.v. “ur,” accessed May 7, 2023, https://www.sanskrit-lexicon.uni-koeln.de/scans/csl-santam/php/index.html.

[ix] Wisdom Library Search the Database: Glossary, Wisdom Library Peace-Love-Dharma, s.v. “ur,” accessed February 20,2024, https://www.wisdomlib.org/definition/ur.

[x] Cologne Digital Sanskrit Lexicon (from Monier-Williams' 'Sanskrit-English Dictionary'), s.v. “apicatan,” accessed July 4, 2024, https://www.sanskrit-lexicon.uni-koeln.de/scans/csl-santam/php/index.html.

[xi] Cologne Digital Sanskrit Lexicon (from Monier-Williams' 'Sanskrit-English Dictionary'), s.v. prefix “unmis,” accessed March 6, 2025, https://www.sanskrit-lexicon.uni-koeln.de/scans/csl-santam/php/index.html.

[xii] “Where Did the Iron Age Begin?” Archaeology Magazine, January 27, 2025, https://archaeology.org/news/2025/01/27/where-did-the-iron-age-begin/

[xiii] Srinivasan Kalyanaraman, “World’s oldest inkstands & gold-pen nibs of Sarasvati-Sindhu Civilization, ca. 2500 BCE,” Bharatkalyan97 A homage to Hindu civilization, accessed July 30, 2025, Permission granted September 13, 2025, https://bharatkalyan97.blogspot.com/2022/05/worlds-oldest-inkstands-gold-pen-nibs.html.

[xiv] Ibid.

[xv] “Apkallu,” Wikipedia, last edited April 16,2024, accessed July 4, 2024, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apkallu.

[xvi] “Category: Ummanu,” Samizdat, Blog, August 23, 2015, https://therealsamizdat.com/category/ummanu-2/.

[xvii] Cologne Digital Sanskrit Lexicon (from Monier-Williams' 'Sanskrit-English Dictionary'), s.v. prefix “um,” accessed July 4, 2024, https://www.sanskrit-lexicon.uni-koeln.de/scans/csl-santam/php/index.html.

[xviii] Cologne Digital Sanskrit Lexicon (from Monier-Williams' 'Sanskrit-English Dictionary'), s.v. “manu,” accessed June 23, 2024, https://www.sanskrit-lexicon.uni-koeln.de/scans/csl-santam/php/index.html.

[xix] Cologne Digital Sanskrit Lexicon (from Monier-Williams' 'Sanskrit-English Dictionary'), s.v. prefix “anu,” accessed December 2, 2024, https://www.sanskrit-lexicon.uni-koeln.de/scans/csl-santam/php/index.html.

[xx] Cologne Digital Sanskrit Lexicon (from Monier-Williams' 'Sanskrit-English Dictionary'), s.v. prefix “nak,” accessed May 7, 2023, https://www.sanskrit-lexicon.uni-koeln.de/scans/csl-santam/php/index.html.

[xxi] London Swaminathan, “Mysterious Fish Gods around the World,” Tamil and Vedas, October 27, 2012, https://tamilandvedas.com/tag/oannes/.

[xxii] Renju George, “Is this Goddess Durga?” Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0, February 27, 2007, https://www.flickr.com/photos/randompiks/404311961/.

[xxiii] Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin, “Terracotta plaque showing the Goddess Ishtar standing on a lion. From Iraq. 18th-17th century BCE. Pergamon Museum,” Wikimedia Commons, CC 4.0 International, September 10, 2020, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Terracotta_plaque_showing_the_Goddess_Ishtar_standing_on_a_lion._From_Iraq._18th-17th_century_BCE._Pergamon_Museum.jpg.

[xxiv] Nevit Dilmen, “Seated Woman of Çatalhöyük on black background,” Wikimedia Commons, CC Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported, 2.5 Generic, 2.0 Generic and 1.0 Generic, March 27, 2014, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Seated_Woman_of_%C3%87atalh%C3%B6y%C3%BCk_on_black_background.jpg.