Talk:Alain Daniélou

Removed quotes

These quotes I removed earlier as I thought they were non-notable:

• Symbolically, Ganesha represents the basic unity of the macrocosm and microcosm, the immense being (the elephant) and the individual being (man). This highly implausible identity is however a fundamental reality and the key to all mystic or ritual experience as well as to Yogic possibilities. Without being aware of Ganesha, and without worshipping him, no accomplishment is possible.
  • Alain Daniélou, in Gods of Love and Ecstasy: The Traditions of Shiva and Dionysus (1992), p. 90.

• India whose ancient borders stretched until Afghanistan, lost with the country of seven rivers (the Indus Valley), the historical center of her civilization. At a time when the Muslim invaders seemed to have lost some of their extremism and were ready to assimilate themselves to other populations of India, the European (British) conquerors, before returning home, surrendered once more to Muslim fanaticism the cradle of Hindu civilization.
  • Alain Danielou, Histoire de l'Inde - Alain Danielou p. 355

Sources needed

He also noted as early as 1947 that "the Egyptian myth of Osiris seemed directly inspired from a Shivaite story of the Puranas and that at any rate, Egyptians of those times considered that Osiris had originally come from India mounted on a bull (Nandi), the traditional transport of Shiva." Alain Danielou a.k.a Shiv Sharan (1907-1994)

The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, written in the first century tells of the founding of the city of Endaemon, or modern Aden: "In the early days of the city when the voyage was not yet made from India to Egypt, and when they did not dare to sail from Egypt to the ports across the ocean (those of India), but all came together at this place, it received the cargoes from both countries." The Periplus indicates that Endaemon had been founded by Indian merchants, the Minas, whom Strabo calls Minaeans. Pliny speaks of the Minaeans as the most ancient of trading peoples and mentions relations between the Minaeans and King Minos of Crete. The prophet Ezekiel relates that their trading expeditions reached as far as the Phoenician city of Tyre.

According to Sergi, "the Egyptians and all other Hamitic peoples came out of Asia," while according to Haddon, "at the beginning of history, some Asians came to Egypt, first from the south, eventually bringing with them bronze and probably also the plough and wheat."

In the seventh century, St. Isidore made a summary in his Encyclopedia of knowledge derived from ancient Greek and Latin authors, many of whose works have now disappeared. He also speaks of "Ethiopians" in his Etymologiarium (IX.2.128): "They came in ancient times from the River Indus, established themselves in Egypt between the Nile and the sea, towards the south, in the equatorial regions. They became three nations: the Hesperians to the west, the Garamantes in Tripolitania, and the Indians in the east. (The Hesperians" are the ancient inhabitants of Spain; "Garamantes" can be connected to Karama "city in Dravidian); and "the Indians" refers to the inhabitants of Ethiopia, who were also mistaken in ancient literature for the inhabitants of India."

Between the 6th and the first millennium B.C.E., relations between India and the Near East are evident. Precious stones - amazonite - coming from Nilgiri in southern India have been found at Ur prior to the Jemder Nasr period (3000 B.C.E). Indian seals have been found in Bahrain and in Mesopotamia in pre-Sargonic levels (2500 B.C.E). Traces of Indian cotton have been found, and there are archaeological indications of sea trade with India in the Larsa period (2170 to 1950 B.C.E). The beams of the Temple of the Moon, at Ur of the Chaldees, and those of the palace of Nebuchadnezzar (6th century B.C.E.) were of teak and cedarwood coming from Malabar in southern India.

(source: A Brief History of India - By Alain Danielou p. 12 - 20).

Alain Danielou (1907-1994), author of numerous books on philosophy, religion, history and arts of India, remarks that: "the Greeks were always speaking of India as the sacred territory of Dionysus and historians working under Alexander the Greek clearly mentions chronicles of the Puranas as sources of the myth of Dionysus."