Thoth and Dattareya with 4 Dogs ( Four Vedas)

By: Santanam Swaminathan

“ Egyptian priests had come from the Nile to the Ganges and Yamuna to visit the Brahmins of India, as the Greeks visited them at a later time, rather acquire knowledge than to impart knowledge”-wrote a scholar centuries back.

There was a god in ancient Egypt who was called THOTH. If anyone reads the attributes of this God, every line will show one attribute of a Hindu god. Here are the amazing similarities:

“ The Egyptian god Thoth is represented with a head of an Ibis (water bird) and surmounted by a crescent moon. As the inventor of Hieroglyphs, he was named LORD OF THE HOLY WORDS. He was said to have accomplished the work of Creation by the sound of his voice alone”.

The above passage is taken from an encyclopaedia. This is what we say about Brahma (represented by the water bird Swan) in Hindu mythology. He created the world from sound (Aum=Sabda Brahmam).

“ The Egyptian Goddess of writing SESHAT was Thoth’s principal spouse”, says encyclopaedia. Seshat is nothing but SARASWATI of Hindus.

“Thoth authenticated decisions and legalised the name chosen for the pharaoh by writing it on the tree of history in the temple. He checked the balance of the scales on the day of judgement of the dead. He was the Supreme scribe and the patron of human scribes”.

This we attribute to Brahma’s writing on our head and Chitragupta, Yama’s messenger, checking our balance of Papa and Punya (merits and demerits).

“ Thoth was master of the languages. The special offering made to him was a writing desk. He was the master of language and speech”.

This is attributed to Saraswati by the Hindus.

“ Thoth created what he desired simply by desiring it”---This is exactly what Hindus say about Brahma and his Manasa Putras= Sons created by Mind/thought.

Upanishad Quotes

The Rosetta Stone (which helped us to decipher the Hieroglyphs) compares Egyptian God Thoth to the Greek God Hermes Trismegistus. My interpretation is this is nothing but Hindu God Dattatreya. Read what the encyclopaedia says:

“He was the inventor of Arts and Sciences. And also the initiator of practices whose aim was to restrain the divinity and to give to initiate some sort of omnipotence by comparing him to God—YOU ARE I AND I AM YOU. The Hermeatic Body was regarded as having been written by him. He gathered together many dissimilar beliefs with different origins and was involved in magic, astrology and alchemy.”

The above passage is from an encyclopaedia which says Thoth and Hermes Trismegistus are one and the same.

My interpretation: Trimegistus is three in one=Dattatreya. He was Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva according to Ramayana and Mahabaharata. And we see the Upansihad Vakyas: Tat Tvam Asi= You are That and Aham Brahma Asmi= I am God in the above description. So we can safely conclude Hindu’s Dattatreya (three-headed ancient Hindu deity), Hermes Trismegistus of Greece and Thoth of Egypt are one and the same God. The Temple of Thoth is in Khemnu in Egypt. Greeks called this Hermopolis. Tris in Greek means Three.

(Please read my post-Let Nature be your Teacher: Dattatreya and Wordsworth)

Soul in the form of a Bird

In the Indus valley civilization, we see peacocks in the funerary pots. This is the Atma/soul. In the Upanishad story, two birds are symbolised as Jeev (Eve) Atma and Parama Atma (Adam of the Bible).

(Please read my post Three Apples That Changed the World for full details)

Egyptians represented the soul (called BA) with a bird. A dead man’s soul is leaving the body was painted in the Ani papyrus of the 19th Dynasty. It is in the British Museum. Tamil poet Tiruvalluvar in his Tirukkural (Tamil Veda) compares the Atma for a bird (Tirukkural 338).

Ankh and Pavithram

Ankh is a key like symbol carried by Egyptian Gods. This is what Wikipedia says about it: “The origin of the symbol remains a mystery to Egyptologists, and no single hypothesis has been widely accepted. One of the earliest suggestions is that of Thomas Inman, first published in 1869:[2]

It is by Egyptologists called the symbol of life. It is also called the "handled cross", or crux ansata. It represents the male triad and the female unit, under a decent form. There are few symbols more commonly met with in Egyptian art. In some remarkable sculptures, where the sun's rays are represented as terminating in hands, the offerings which these bring are many a crux ansata, emblematic of the truth that a fruitful union is a gift from the deity”.

My interpretation it is the PAVITHRAM of Hindus. Hindus, particularly Brahmins, wear this key like symbol ‘Pavithram’ made up of Dharba grass during every ritual or Puja. Like Egyptian Gods get or give energy with Ankh, Hindus get energy from the sun by wearing Pavitham. The above passage can be interpreted as Lingam and Yoni of Saivism as well.

Breaking the Vessels

Hindus break all the mud pots after using them in a funeral. They are made up of clay and painted red. Egyptians also broke all the red colour ceramic vessels at the end of the burial ritual. This was done to ensure that they were not reused.

Bhumi Puja (Earth Ritual)

Hindus make offerings to Earth Goddess and other Gods before commencing any building work. We follow this custom until this day. Ancient Egyptians made offerings at important construction projects such as Pyramids. A few symbolic objects including certain sacrifices—so called foundation deposits—were usually laid in a hole in the foundation.

Muslim invaders who invaded India knew that Hindu temples had such foundation deposits of most expensive gems and gold in the world and plundered the Hindu temples after demolishing them. The best known example is the 17 time invasion of Mohmed of Gazni against Somanathpur Shiva Temple in Gujarat.

Western scholars have pointed out the following aspects that have got parallels in Hinduism:

1.Egyptians believed that all beings sprang from the tears of Sun God Ra. Hindus believed all the beings came from the tears of Prajapati.

2. Horus, like Brahma, was born of a Lotus petal. Lotus flower is a common feature in the architecture of Hindu and Egyptian temples.

3. In Egypt there were seven castes. In ancient India we had four castes.

4. According to Eusebius and Syncellus, some people from the River Indus settled in the neighbourhood of Egypt in the reign of Amenophis. Many Egyptians banned by their princes settled in other countries and went as far as India.

5. Both the Hindus and Egyptians had also the same division of time into weeks and they denominated each of the days by the name of the same planets.

6. Both believed that the souls of men existed in a prior state, and went into other bodies after death.

7. Several religious ideas and customs were common to both the countries. Egyptians represented the world under the figure of an egg, which came from the mouth of Cneph and this resembled the Brahmandam of Hindus.

8.Both of them had same belief about eclipses. Hindus believed Rahu and Ketu are swallowing the Sun and Moon and Egyptians ascribed it to Typhon.

9.Egyptians at certain festivals carried the images of heir gods in the procession. Herodotus says they drew one of them in a carriage with four wheels, and the same was done by the Hindus. Egyptians held cows in much greater veneration than any other animals. They were sacred to Isis and never sacrificed. Bull was also respected.

10.Eswara was adored as Osiris in Egypt and Bacchus in Greece. Diodorus said that the title of Thriambus was assumed by the Greek deity in his triumph after the conquest of India (Triambka is one of the names of Lord Shiva).