Biodata Presiden - Presiden RI

Biodata Presiden - Presiden RI
Ir. Soekarno



Nama: Ir. Soekarno
Nama Panggilan: Bung Karno
Nama Kecil: Kusno.
Lahir: Blitar, Jatim, 6 Juni 1901
Meninggal: Jakarta, 21 Juni 1970
Makam: Blitar, Jawa Timur
Gelar (Pahlawan): Proklamator
Jabatan: Presiden RI Pertama (1945-1966)
Isteri dan Anak: Tiga isteri delapan anak
Isteri Fatmawati, anak: Guntur, Megawati, Rachmawati, Sukmawati dan Guruh
Isteri Hartini, anak: Taufan dan Bayu
Isteri Ratna Sari Dewi, wanita turunan Jepang bernama asli Naoko Nemoto, anak: Kartika.

Ayah: Raden Soekemi Sosrodihardjo
Ibu: Ida Ayu Nyoman Rai
Pendidikan:
HIS di Surabaya (indekos di rumah Oemar Said Tokroaminoto, politisi kawakan pendiri Syarikat Islam)
HBS (Hoogere Burger School) lulus tahun 1920
THS (Technische Hoogeschool atau sekolah Tekhnik Tinggi yang sekarang menjadi ITB) di Bandung lulus 25 Mei 1926

Ajaran: Marhaenisme
Kegiatan Politik: Mendirikan PNI (Partai Nasional Indonesia) pada 4 Juli 1927
Dipenjarakan di Sukamiskin, Bandung pada 29 Desember 1929
Bergabung memimpin Partindo (1931)
Dibuang ke Ende, Flores tahun 1933 dan Empat tahun kemudian dipindahkan ke Bengkulu.
Merumuskan Pancasila 1 Juni 1945
Bersama Bung Hatta memproklamasikan kemerdekaan RI pada 17 Agustus 1945





H.M. Soeharto




Nama: H. Muhammad Soeharto
Lahir: Kemusuk, Argomulyo, Godean, 1 Juni 1921
Meningal : 27 Januari 2008
Agama: Islam

Jabatan Terakhir: Presiden Republik Indonesia (1966-1998)
Pangkat: Jenderal Besar (Bintang Lima)

Isteri: Ibu Tien Soeharto ( Siti Hartinah)

Anak:
Siti Hardiyanti Hastuti (Mbak Tutut)
Sigit Harjojudanto
Bambang Trihatmodjo
Siti Hediati
Hutomo Mandala Putra (Tommy)
Siti Hutami Endang Adiningsih

Ayah: Kertosudiro
Ibu: Sukirah





B.J. Habibie




Nama: Prof. Dr.Ing. Dr. Sc.h.c. Bacharuddin Jusuf Habibie
Lahir: Pare-Pare, 25 Juni 1936
Agama: Islam
Jabatan : Presiden RI Ketiga (1998-1999)
Pendiri dan Ketua Dewan Pembina The Habibie Center
Istri: dr. Hasri Ainun Habibie (Menikah 12 Mei 1962)
Anak: Ilham Akbar dan Thareq Kemal
Cucu: Empat orang
Ayah: Alwi Abdul Jalil Habibie
Ibu: R.A. Tuti Marini Puspowardoyo
Jumlah Saudara: Anak Keempat dari Delapan Bersaudara

Pendidikan :
1. ITB Bandung, tahun 1954
2. Rheinisch Westfalische Technische Hochscule (RWTH), Aachen, Jerman, dengan gelar Diplom-Ingenieur, predikat Cum laude pada Fakultas Mekanikal Engineering, Departemen Desain dan Konstruksi Pesawat Terbang (1955-1960).
3. Rheinisch Westfalische Technische Hochscule (RWTH), Aachen, Jerman, dengan gelar doktor konstruksi pesawat terbang, predikat Summa Cum laude, pada Fakultas Mekanikal Engineering, Departemen Desain dan Konstruksi Pesawat Terbang (1960-1965).
4. Menyampaikan pidato pengukuhan gelar profesor tentang konstruksi pesawat terbang di ITB Bandung, pada tahun 1977.

Pekerjaan :
1. Kepala Riset dan Pengembangan Analisis Struktur pada perusahaan Hamburger Flugzeugbau Gmbh, Hamburg, Jerman antara tahun 1965-1969.
2. Kepala Divisi Metode dan Teknologi pada Pesawat Komersial dan Angkut Militer MBB Gmbh, di Hamburg dan Munchen antara 1969-19973
3. Wakil Presiden dan Direktur Teknologi pada MBB Gmbh, Hamburg dan Munchen tahun 1973-1978
4. Penasehat Senior Teknologi pada Dewan Direksi MBB tahun 1978.
5. Pulang ke Indonesia dan memimpin Divisi Advanced Technology Pertamina, yang merupakan cikal bakal BPPT, tahun 1974-1978.
6. Penasehat Pemerintah Indonesia di Bidang Pengembangan Teknologi dan Pesawat Terbang, bertanggungjawab langsung kepada Presiden Republik Indonesia Soeharto pada tahun 1974-1978.
7. Menteri Negara Riset dan Teknologi (Menristek) sekaligus Ketua Badan Pengkajian dan Penerapan Teknologi (BPPT) tahun 1978-1998.
8. Wakil Presiden R.I. pada 11 Maret 1998-21 Mei 1998.
9. Presiden RI 21 Mei 1998-20 Oktober 1999.

Organisasi:
Pendiri dan Ketua Umum ICMI

Penghargaan:
Theodore van Karman Award





Abdurrahman Wahid (Gus Dur)




Nama: Abdurrahman Wahid
Lahir : Denanyar, Jombang, Jawa Timur, 4 Agustus 1940.
Orang Tua: Wahid Hasyim (ayah), Solechah (ibu).
Istri : Sinta Nuriyah
Anak-anak : Alisa Qotrunada Zannuba Arifah Anisa Hayatunufus Inayah Wulandari
Pendidikan :
• Pesantren Tambak Beras, Jombang (1959-1963)
• Departemen Studi Islam dan Arab Tingkat Tinggi, Universitas Al-Azhar, Kairo, Mesir (1964-1966)
• Fakultas Surat-surat Universitas Bagdad (1966-1970)
Karir:
• Pengajar Pesantren Pengajar dan Dekan Universitas Hasyim Ashari Fakultas Ushuludin (sebuah cabang teologi menyangkut hukum dan filosofi)
• Ketua Balai Seni Jakarta (1983-1985)
• Penemu Pesantren Ciganjur (1984-sekarang)
• Ketua Umum Nahdatul Ulama (1984-1999)
• Ketua Forum Demokrasi (1990)
• Ketua Konferensi Agama dan Perdamaian Sedunia (1994)
• Anggota MPR (1999)
• Presiden Republik Indonesia (20 Oktober 1999-24 Juli 2001)
Penghargaan
• Penghargaan Magsaysay dari Pemerintah Filipina atas usahanya mengembangkan hubungan antar-agama di Indonesia (1993)
• Penghargaan Dakwah Islam dari pemerintah Mesir (1991)





Megawati Sukarno Putri





Nama : Dr (HC) Hj. Megawati Soekarnoputri
Nama Lengkap : Dyah Permata Megawati Setyawati Soekarnoputri
Lahir : Yogyakarta, 23 Januari 1947
Agama : Islam
Suami : Taufik Kiemas
Anak: 3 orang, (2 putra, 1 putri)

Karir :
:: Presiden Ke-5 RI (2001 - 2004)
:: Wakil Presiden RI (1999- 2001)
:: Anggota DPR/MPR RI (1999)
:: Anggota DPR/MPR RI (1987-1992)

Pendidikan :
:: SD s/d SMA Perguruan Cikini
:: Fakultas Pertanian, Universitas Padjadjaran (1965-1967)
:: Fakultas Psikologi Universitas Indonesia (1970-1972).

Organisasi :
:: Aktivis GMNI, 1965-1972
:: Ketua Partai Demokrasi Indonesia (PDI) Cabang Jakarta Pusat
:: Ketua Umum DPP PDI, 1993-1998, Hasil Munas 1993, 22 Desember 1993-1998
:: Ketua Umum DPP PDI Perjuangan, 1998-April 2000, Hasil Kongres 1998, Sanur, Bali, 8-10 Oktober 1998
:: Ketua Umum DPP PDI Perjuangan, April 2000-2005, Hasil Kongres PDI-P, Semarang, Jawa Tengah, April 2000
:: Peserta Konvensi Wanita Islam International di Pakistan, 1994

Penghargaan
:: “Priyadarshni Award” dari lembaga Priyadarshni Academy, Mumbay, India, 19 September 1998
:: Doctor Honoris Causa dari Universitas Waseda, Tokyo, Jepang, 29 September 2001





Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono




Nama : Jenderal TNI (Purn) Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono
Lahir : Pacitan, Jawa Timur, 9 September 1949
Agama : Islam
Istri : Kristiani Herawati,
putri ketiga almarhum Jenderal (Purn) Sarwo Edhi Wibowo
Anak : Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono dan Edhie Baskoro Yudhoyono

Pangkat terakhir :
Jenderal TNI (25 September 2000)
Pendidikan:
= Akademi Angkatan Bersenjata RI (Akabri) tahun 1973
= American Language Course, Lackland, Texas AS, 1976
= Airbone and Ranger Course, Fort Benning , AS, 1976
= Infantry Officer Advanced Course, Fort Benning, AS, 1982-1983
= On the job training di 82-nd Airbone Division, Fort Bragg, AS, 1983
= Jungle Warfare School, Panama, 1983
= Antitank Weapon Course di Belgia dan Jerman, 1984
= Kursus Komando Batalyon, 1985
= Sekolah Komando Angkatan Darat, 1988-1989
= Command and General Staff College, Fort = Leavenwort,Kansas, AS
Master of Art (MA) dari Management Webster University, Missouri, AS

Karier:
- Dan Tonpan Yonif Linud 330 Kostrad (1974-1976)
- Dan Tonpan Yonif 305 Kostrad (1976-1977)
- Dan Tn Mo 81 Yonif Linud 330 Kostrad (1977)
- Pasi-2/Ops Mabrigif Linud 17 Kujang I Kostrad (1977-1978)
- Dan Kipan Yonif Linud 330 Kostrad (1979-1981)
- Paban Muda Sops SUAD (1981-1982)
- Komandan Sekolah Pelatih Infanteri (1983-1985)
- Dan Yonif 744 Dam IX/Udayana (1986-1988)
- Paban Madyalat Sops Dam IX/Udayana (1988)
- Dosen Seskoad (1989-1992)
- Korspri Pangab (1993)
- Dan Brigif Linud 17 Kujang 1 Kostrad (1993-1994)
- Asops Kodam Jaya (1994-1995)
- Danrem 072/Pamungkas Kodam IV/Diponegoro (1995)
- Chief Military Observer United Nation Peace Forces (UNPF) di Bosnia-Herzegovina (sejak awal November 1995)
- Kasdam Jaya (1996-hanya lima bulan)
- Pangdam II/Sriwijaya (1996-) sekaligus Ketua Bakorstanasda
- Ketua Fraksi ABRI MPR (Sidang Istimewa MPR 1998)
- Kepala Staf Teritorial (Kaster ABRI (1998-1999)
- Mentamben (sejak 26 Oktober 1999)
- Menko Polsoskam (Pemerintahan Presiden KH Abdurrahman Wahid)
- Menko Polkam (Pemerintahan Presiden Megawati Sukarnopotri) mengundurkan diri 11 Maret 2004

Penugasan:
Operasi Timor Timur (1979-1980), dan 1986-1988

Penghargaan:
- Adi Makayasa (lulusan terbaik Akabri 1973)
- Honorour Graduated IOAC, USA, 1983
- Tokoh Berbahasa Lisan Terbaik, 2003.

SUMBER : KAPANLAGI.COM

Misteri Negara Atlantis mulai tersingkap ?

Dari Peradaban awal manusia di Atlantis (Nusantara) ke Plato lalu kembali Indonesia kini.

benua Sunda Land“Setiap umat mempunyai batas waktu (ajal-nya), makakala ia telah tiba, maka mereka tidak akan bisa mengundurkannya sesaat pun, tidak pula mereka bisa memajukannya.” (QS 7:34)

Bulan-bulan ini bangsa Indonesia diharu-biru oleh berbagai isu, ketegangan konflik dan meningkatnya suhu politik, serta berbagai perilaku aneh para politisi dan kontestan pemilu caleg yang gagal. Ada yang stress, depresi berat, lalu gila. Ada yang ‘mutung’ mengambil kembali barang bantuannya yang sudah diberikannya ketika kampanye tapi gagal menang pileg. Bahkan tidak sedikit yang bunuh diri, dan-atau melakukan pembunuhan.

Fenomena-fenomena aneh dalam praktek kehidupan sosial dan sistem politik bangsa Indonesia saatgarudapancasila ini semakin memperlihatkan praktek dan perwujudan cara berfikir (filsafat/pandangan dunia) yang jauh dari realisasi asasi nilai-nilai luhur Panca Sila: “Kerakyatan yang dipimpin oleh hikmah kebijaksanaan dalam permusyaratan-perwakilan”. Jelasnya hampir semua (sebagian besar) perilaku sosial-politik bangsa Indonesia kini didominasi kendali paham pikir keserakahan materialistis. Prinsip falsafah Pancasilais: ”Ketuhanan Yang Maha Esa” dan ”Kemanusiaan yang adil dan beradab” telah tergusur oleh falsafah ”Keuangan yang maha kuasa” dan ”Kebinatangan yang zalim dan biadab”.

Praktek kehidupan sosial-politik dan ekonomi anak bangsa tak lagi terpimpin oleh semangat kerakyatan yang dipimpin oleh Hikmah-Kebijaksaan. Demokrasi masih menjadi sekedar menjadi alat formal-prosedural pengumpul legitimasi untuk berkuasanya para elite politik-ekonomi. Paling tidak itulah yang dirasakan oleh beberapa pengamat dan tokoh-tokoh yang prihantin dengan kondisi bangsa Indonesia saat ini.

plato statueLalu apa hubungannya dengan Plato, filosof kelahiran Yunani (Greek philosopher) yang hidup 427-347 Sebelum Masehi (SM)? Plato adalah salah seorang murid Socrates, filosof arif bijaksana, yang kemudian mati diracun oleh penguasa Athena yang zalim pada tahun 399 SM. Setelah kematian gurunya, Plato sering bertualang, termasuk perjalanannya ke Mesir.

Pada tahun 387 SM dia kembali ke Athena dan mendirikan Academy, sebuah sekolah ilmu pengetahuan dan filsafat, yang kemudian menjadi model buat universitas moderen. Murid yang paling terkenal dari Academy tersebut adalah Aristoteles yang ajarannya punya pengaruh yang hebat terhadap filsafat sampai saat ini.

Demi pemeliharaan Academy, banyak karya Plato yang terselamatkan. Kebanyakan karya tulisnya berbentuk surat-surat dan dialog-dialog, yang paling terkenal adalah Republic. Karya tulisnya mencakup subjek yang terentang dari ilmu pengetahuan sampai kepada kebahagiaan, dari politik hingga ilmu alam.

Dua dari dialognya, Timeaus and Critias, memuat satu-satunya referensi orsinil tentang pulau Atlantis (the island of Atlantis).

Plato menyatakan bahwa puluhan ribu tahun lalu terjadi berbagai letusan gunung berapi secara serentak, menimbulkan gempa, pencairan es, dan banjir. Peristiwa itu mengakibatkan sebagian permukaan bumi tenggelam. Bagian itulah yang disebutnya benua yang hilang atau Atlantis.

coverbukuatlantisthumbPenelitian mutakhir yang dilakukan oleh Prof. Dr. Aryso Santos, menegaskan teorinya bahwa Atlantis itu adalah wilayah yang sekarang disebut Indonesia. Setelah melakukan penelitian selama 30 tahun, ia menghasilkan buku Atlantis, The Lost Continent Finally Found, The Definitive Localization of Plato’s Lost Civilization (2005). Santos menampilkan 33 perbandingan ciri-ciri dari 12 lokasi di muka bumi yang diduga para sarjana lain sebagai situs Atlantis, seperti luas wilayahnya, cuacanya, kekayaan alamnya, gunung berapinya, dan cara bertaninya, dll. yang akhirnya Santos menyimpulkan bahwa Atlantis itu adalah Indonesia sekarang. Salah satu buktinya adalah sistem terasisasi sawah yang khas Indonesia, menurutnya, ialah bentuk yang diadopsi oleh Candi Borobudur, Piramida di Mesir, dan bangunan kuno Aztec di Meksiko.

Aryso Santos juga menerapkan analisis filologis (ilmu kebahasaan), antropologis dan arkeologis dalam penelitiannya. Dia banyak mendapatkan petunjuk dari reflief-relief dari bangunan-bangunan dan artefak bersejarah dan piramida di Mesir, kuil-kuil suci peninggalan peradaban Maya dan Aztec di Amerika Selatan, candi-candi dan artefak-artefak bersejarah peninggalan peradaban Hindu di lembah sungai Hindustan (Peradaban Mohenjodaro dan Harrapa). Juga dia mengumpulkan petunjuk-petunjuk dari naskah-naskah kuno, kitab-kita suci berbagai agama seperti the Bible dan kitab suci Hindu Rig Veda, Puranas, dll.

(Catatan Penulis: Berhubung bagan di bawah ini tak lengkap isinya maka silahkan melihat di situs aslinya. Klik ling di bawah ini:

http://www.atlan.org/articles/checklist/ )
FEATURE(Numbers inside parentheses are active links to corresponding items
in the explanatory footnotes below)
Atlantic Location (1)
Navigation / Irrigation Canals (2)
Elephants (Mammoths?) (13)
Continental Size (3)
Tropical Climate (5)
Coconuts / Pineapples (5)
Perfumes and Incenses (5)
Large Population (5)
Horses and War Chariots (12)
Human Presence at the Epoch (6)
Megalithic Construction (11)
Volcanism and Earthquakes (4)
Sunken Continent (10)
Innavigable Seas (9)
Beyond Pillars of Hercules (8)
Outer Continents Beyond (8)
Many Islands Beyond (8)
Site of Paradise (Eden) (3)
Evidences of Cataclysm (14)
Pyramid Cult (4)
Sargasso Sea Beyond (9)
Transoceanic Commerce (15)
Riches in Metals (16)
Superior Technology (17)
Terraced Mountain Cultivation (18)
Sacred Geometry (3); (4); (7)
Holy Mountain and Volcanoes (4); (7)
Date Compatible (13); (14); (15)
Two Crops a Year (5)
Metals (16); (17)
O-Blood Group (19)
Writing / Alphabet (17)
Scores (% Right) 97 25 59 56 16 13 38 13 38 41 38 100

Konteks Indonesia Secara Geologis dan Geografis

Menurut Prof. Dr. H. Priyatna Abdul Rasyid, Ph.D. Direktur Kehormatan International Institute of Space Law (IISL), Paris-Prancis: bukanlah suatu kebetulan ketika Indonesia pada tahun 1958, atas gagasan Prof. Dr. Mochtar Kusumaatmadja melalui UU No. 4 Perpu tahun 1960, mencetuskan Deklarasi Djoeanda. Isinya menyatakan bahwa negara Indonesia dengan perairan pedalamannya merupakan kesatuan wilayah nusantara. Fakta itu kemudian diakui oleh Konvensi Hukum Laut Internasional 1982. Merujuk penelitian Santos, pada masa puluhan ribu tahun yang lalu wilayah negara Indonesia merupakan suatu benua yang menyatu. Tidak terpecah-pecah dalam puluhan ribu pulau seperti halnya sekarang.

Santos menetapkan bahwa pada masa lalu itu Atlantis merupakan benua yang memben-tangkarakatau-mletus dari bagian selatan India, Sri Lanka, Sumatra, Jawa, Kalimantan, terus ke arah timur dengan Indonesia (yang sekarang) sebagai pusatnya. Di wilayah itu terdapat puluhan gunung berapi yang aktif dan dikelilingi oleh samudera yang menyatu bernama Orientale, terdiri dari Samudera Hindia dan Samudera Pasifik.

cracatoaTeori Plato menerangkan bahwa Atlantis merupakan benua yang hilang akibat letusan gunung berapi yang secara bersamaan meletus. Pada masa itu sebagian besar bagian dunia masih diliput oleh lapisan-lapisan es (era Pleistocene) . Dengan meletusnya berpuluh-puluh gunung berapi secara bersamaan yang sebagian besar terletak di wilayah Indonesia (dulu) itu, maka tenggelamlah sebagian benua dan diliput oleh air yang berasal dari es yang mencair. Di antaranya letusan gunung Meru di India Selatan dan gunung Semeru/Sumeru/ Mahameru di Jawa Timur. Lalu letusan gunung berapi di Sumatera yang membentuk Danau Toba dengan pulau Samosir, yang merupakan puncak gunung Toba yang meletus pada saat itu. Letusan yang paling dahsyat di kemudian hari adalah gunung Krakatau (Krakatoa) yang memecah bagian Sumatera dan Jawa dan lain-lainnya serta membentuk selat dataran Sunda.

Kata Atlantis berasal dari bahasa Sanskrit Atala, yang berarti surga atau menara peninjauan (watch tower), Atalaia (Potugis), Atalaya (Spanyol). Plato menegaskan bahwa wilayah Atlantis pada saat itu merupakan pusat dari peradaban dunia dalam bentuk budaya, kekayaan alam, ilmu pengetahuan-teknologi, dan lain-lainnya. Plato menduga bahwa letak Atlantis itu di Samudera Atlantik sekarang. Pada masanya, ia bersikukuh bahwa bumi ini datar dan dikelilingi oleh satu samudera (ocean) secara menyeluruh.Ocean berasal dari kata Sanskrit ashayana yang berarti mengelilingi secara menyeluruh. Pendapat itu kemudian ditentang oleh ahli-ahli di kemudian hari seperti Copernicus, Galilei-Galileo, Einstein, dan Stephen Hawking.

Santos berbeda dengan Plato mengenai lokasi Atlantis. Ilmuwan Brazil itu berargumentasi, bahwa pada saat terjadinya letusan berbagai gunung berapi itu, menyebabkan lapisan es di muka bumi mencair dan mengalir ke samudera sehingga luasnya bertambah. Air dan lumpur berasal dari abu gunung berapi tersebut membebani samudera dan dasarnya, mengakibatkan tekanan luar biasa kepada kulit bumi di dasar samudera, terutama pada pantai benua. Tekanan ini mengakibatkan gempa. Gempa ini diperkuat lagi oleh gunung-gunung yang meletus kemudian secara beruntun dan menimbulkan gelombang tsunami yang dahsyat. Santos, dengan mengutip teori para geolog, menamakannya sebagai Heinrich Events, bencana katastrop yang berdampak global. Beberapa artikel resume dari buku Aryso Santos ini dipublikasikan di situs internetnya di http://www.atlan.org.

Menurut Santos, dalam usaha mengemukakan pendapat mendasarkan kepada sejarah dunia, tampak Plato telah melakukan dua kekhilafan, pertama mengenai bentuk/posisi bumi yang katanya datar. Kedua, mengenai letak benua Atlantis yang katanya berada di Samudera Atlantik yang ditentang oleh Santos. Penelitian militer Amerika Serikat di wilayah Atlantik terbukti tidak berhasil menemukan bekas-bekas benua yang hilang itu. Oleh karena itu tidaklah semena-mena ada peribahasa yang berkata, “Amicus Plato, sed magis amica veritas.” Artinya,”Saya senang kepada Plato tetapi saya lebih senang kepada kebenaran.”

Priyatna mengatakan: ”Namun, ada beberapa keadaan masa kini yang antara Plato dan Santos sependapat. Yakni pertama, bahwa lokasi benua yang tenggelam itu adalah Atlantis dan oleh Santos dipastikan sebagai wilayah Republik Indonesia. Kedua, jumlah atau panjangnya mata rantai gunung berapi di Indonesia. Di antaranya ialah Kerinci, Talang, Krakatoa, Malabar, Galunggung, Pangrango, Merapi, Merbabu, Semeru, Bromo, Agung, Rinjani. Sebagian dari gunung itu telah atau sedang aktif kembali.”

Ketiga, soal semburan lumpur akibat letusan gunung berapi yang abunya tercampur air laut menjadi lumpur. Endapan lumpur di laut ini kemudian meresap ke dalam tanah di daratan. Lumpur panas ini tercampur dengan gas-gas alam yang merupakan impossible barrier of mud (hambatan lumpur yang tidak bisa dilalui), atau in navigable (tidak dapat dilalui), tidak bisa ditembus atau dimasuki. Dalam kasus di Sidoarjo, pernah dilakukan remote sensing, penginderaan jauh, yang menunjukkan adanya sistim kanalisasi di wilayah tersebut. Ada kemungkinan kanalisasi itu bekas penyaluran semburan lumpur panas dari masa yang lampau.

Menurut Priyatna, bahwa Indonesia adalah wilayah yang dianggap sebagai ahli waris Atlantis, tentu harus membuat kita bersyukur. Membuat kita tidak rendah diri di dalam pergaulan internasional, sebab Atlantis pada masanya ialah pusat peradaban dunia. Namun sebagai wilayah yang rawan bencana, sebagaimana telah dialami oleh Atlantis itu, sudah saatnya kita belajar dari sejarah dan memanfaatkan perkembangan ilmu pengetahuan mutakhir untuk dapat mengatasinya.

Koran Republika, Sabtu, 18 Juni 2005 menulis bahwa para peneliti AS menyatakan bahwa Atlantis is Indonesia. Hingga kini cerita tentang benua yang hilang ‘Atlantis’ masih terselimuti kabut misteri. Sebagian orang menganggap Atlantis cuma dongeng belaka, meski tak kurang 5.000 buku soal Atlantis telah ditulis oleh para pakar.

Bagi para arkeolog atau oceanografer moderen, Atlantis tetap merupakan obyek menarik terutama soal teka-teki di mana sebetulnya lokasi sang benua. Banyak ilmuwan menyebut benua Atlantis terletak di Samudera Atlantik.

Sebagian arkeolog Amerika Serikat (AS) bahkan meyakini benua Atlantis dulunya adalah sebuah pulau besar bernama Sunda Land, suatu wilayah yang kini ditempati Sumatra, Jawa dan Kalimantan. Sekitar 11.600 tahun silam, benua itu tenggelam diterjang banjir besar seiring berakhirnya zaman es.

”Para peneliti AS ini menyatakan bahwa Atlantis is Indonesia,” kata Ketua Lembaga Ilmu Pengetahuan Indonesia (LIPI), Prof Umar Anggara Jenny, Jumat (17/6), di sela-sela rencana gelaran ‘International Symposium on The Dispersal of Austronesian and the Ethnogeneses of the People in Indonesia Archipelago, 28-30 Juni 2005.

Kata Umar, dalam dua dekade terakhir memang diperoleh banyak temuan penting soal penyebaran dan asal usul manusia. Salah satu temuan penting ini adalah hipotesa adanya sebuah pulau besar sekali di Laut Cina Selatan yang tenggelam setelah zaman es.

Hipotesa itu, kata Umar, berdasarkan pada kajian ilmiah seiring makin mutakhirnya pengetahuan tentang arkeologi molekuler. Tema ini, lanjutnya, bahkan menjadi salah satu hal yang diangkat dalam simposium internasional di Solo, 28-30 Juni 2005

Menurut Umar, salah satu pulau penting yang tersisa dari benua Atlantis — jika memang benar — adalah Pulau Natuna, Riau. Berdasarkan kajian biomolekuler, penduduk asli Natuna diketahui memiliki gen yang mirip dengan bangsa Austronesia tertua.

Bangsa Austronesia diyakini memiliki tingkat kebudayaan tinggi, seperti bayangan tentang bangsa Atlantis yang disebut-sebut dalam mitos Plato. Ketika zaman es berakhir, yang ditandai tenggelamnya ‘benua Atlantis’, bangsa Austronesia menyebar ke berbagai penjuru.

Mereka lalu menciptakan keragaman budaya dan bahasa pada masyarakat lokal yang disinggahinya dalam tempo cepat yakni pada 3.500 sampai 5.000 tahun lampau. Kini rumpun Austronesia menempati separuh muka bumi.

Ketua Ikatan Ahli Arkeologi Indonesia (IAAI), Harry Truman Simanjuntak, mengakui memang ada pendapat dari sebagian pakar yang menyatakan bahwa benua Atlantis terletak di Indonesia. Namun hal itu masih debatable.

Yang jelas, terang Harry, memang benar ada sebuah daratan besar yang dahulu kala bernama Sunda Land. Luas daratan itu kira-kira dua kali negara India. ”Benar, daratan itu hilang. Dan kini tinggal Sumatra, Jawa atau Kalimantan,” terang Harry. Menurut dia, sah-sah saja para ilmuwan mengatakan bahwa wilayah yang tenggelam itu adalah benua Atlantis yang hilang, meski itu masih menjadi perdebatan yang perlu diverifikasi secara ilmiah oleh berbagai pihak yang berwenang (otoritatif), misalnya Badan Arkeologi Nasional RI.

Dominasi Austronesia

Menurut Umar Anggara Jenny, Austronesia sebagai rumpun bahasa merupakan sebuah fenomena besar dalam sejarah manusia. Rumpun ini memiliki sebaran yang paling luas, mencakup lebih dari 1.200 bahasa yang tersebar dari Madagaskar di barat hingga Pulau Paskah di Timur. Bahasa tersebut kini dituturkan oleh lebih dari 300 juta orang.

”Pertanyaannya dari mana asal-usul mereka? Mengapa sebarannya begitu meluas dan cepat yakni dalam 3500-5000 tahun yang lalu. Bagaimana cara adaptasinya sehingga memiliki keragaman budaya yang tinggi,” tutur Umar.

Salah satu teori, menurut Harry Truman, mengatakan penutur bahasa Austronesia berasal dari Sunda Land yang tenggelam di akhir zaman es. Populasi yang sudah maju, proto-Austronesia, menyebar hingga ke Asia daratan hingga ke Mesopotamia, mempengaruhi penduduk lokal dan mengembangkan peradaban.

Apa yang diungkap Prof. Dr. Umar Anggara Jenny dan Harry Truman tentang sebaran dan pengaruh bahasa dan bangsa Austronesia ini dibenarkan oleh Prof.Dr. Abdul Hadi WM, budayawan dan sastrawan terkemuka Indonesia.

Konteks Indonesia secara Filosofis dan Spiritual

Secara filosofis dan historis, apa yang telah dirumuskan oleh para Founding Fathers Republik Indonesia menjadi Panca Sila, apakah secara langsung atau tidak, mungkin terinspirasi atau ada kemiripan (paralelisme) dengan konsep Plato tentang “Negara Ideal” yang tertulis dalam karyanya “Republic”. Konsep Plato tentang sistem kepemimpinan masyarakat dan siapa yang berhak memimpin bangsa, bukanlah berdasarkan sistem demokrasi formal-prosedural yang liberal ala demokrasi Barat (Amerika) saat ini. Secara sederhana konsep kepemimpinan Platonis adalah “King Philosopher” atau “Philospher King”. Konsep ini Plato dapatkan dari kisah tentang sistem pemerintahan dan negara Atlantis.

Menurut Plato suatu bangsa hanyalah akan selamat hanya bila dipimpin oleh orang yang dipimpin oleh “kepala”-nya (oleh akal sehat, ilmu pengetahuan dan hati nuraninya), dan bukan oleh orang yang dipimpin oleh “otot dan dada” (arogansi), bukan pula oleh “perut” (keserakahan), atau oleh “apa yang ada di bawah perut” (hawa nafsu). Hanya para filosof, yang dipimpin oleh kepalanya, yaitu para pecinta kebenaran dan kebijaksanaan-lah yang dapat memimpin dengan selamat, dan bukan pula para sophis (para intelektual pelacur, demagog) seperti orang kaya yang serakah (tipe Qarun, “manusia perut” zaman Nabi Musa), atau tipe Bal’am (ulama-intelektual-penyihir yang melacurkan ilmunya kepada tiran Fir’aun). Plato membagi jenis karakter manusia menjadi 3: “manusia kepala” (para filosofof-cendikiawan-arif bijaksana), “manusia otot dan dada” (militer), dan “manusia perut” (para pedagang, bisnisman-konglomerat). Negara akan hancur dan kacau bila diserahkan kepemimpinannya kepada “manusia otot-dada” atau “manusia perut”, menurut Plato.

Dr. Jalaluddin Rakhmat menjelaskan dalam konteks terminologi agama mutakhir: Islam, istilah Philosophia atau Sapientia, era Yunani itu identik dengan terminologi Hikmah dalam al-Qur’an. Istilah Hikmah terkait dengan Hukum (hukum-hukum Tuhan Allah SWT yang tertuang dalam Kitab-Kitab Suci para Nabi dan para Rasul Allah, utamanya Al-Qur’an al-Karim, dan Sunnah Rasulullah terakhir Muhammad SAW, yang telah merangkum dan melengkapi serta menyempurnakan ajaran dan hukum rangkaian para nabi dan rasul Allah sebelumnya. Hukum yang berdasarkan dan bergandengan dengan Hikmah, bila ditegakkan oleh para Hakim dalam sebuah sistem Hukumah (pemerintahan) inilah yang akan benar-benar dapat merealisasikan prinsip Ketuhanan Yang Maha Esa, kemanusiaan yang adil dan beradab, Persatuan Indonesia, Kerakyatan yang dipimpin oleh Hikmah-kebijaksanaan dalam permusyawaratan-perwakilan, serta Keadilan sosial bagi seluruh rakyat Indonesia.

Maka semakin jelaslah mengapa konsep kepemimpinan berdasarkan Panca Sila itu terkait erat dengan konsep kepemimpinan negara versi Plato, karena ia mengambilnya dari peradaban tertua yang luhur dari peradaban umat manusia pertama (Adam As dan keturunannya) yang mendapat hidayah dan ilmu langsung dari Tuhan YME: Allah SWT. Dan entah benar atau tidak, lokasinya adalah di Nusantara (Asia Tenggara).

Surga Atlantis, Yunani dan Indonesia

Plato mendapatkan ilham filsafat politiknya serta informasi tentang peradaban dan perikehidupan bangsa antik yang luhur Atlantis, dari Socrates gurunya, juga dari jalur kakeknya yang bernama Critias. Di mana Critias mendapatkan berita tentang Atlantis dari Solon yang mendapatkannya dari para pendeta (ruhaniawan) di Mesir kuno.

tsunami-krakatoa1Menurut penelitian Aryso Santos, para pendeta (rohaniwan) Mesir kuno ini, mewarisi informasi tentang Atlantis ini dari para leluhurnya yang berasal dari Hindustan (India yang merupakan peradaban Atlantis ke-2) dari peradaban bangsa Atlantis pertama di Sunda Land (Lemuria) atau Nusantara. Aryso Santos juga menemukan banyak informasi-informasi yang mengarahkan kesimpulannya dari artefak-artefak dan situs bersejarah di Mesir.

Aryso Santos juga menemukan bahwa cerita tentang Atlantis terkait dengan kisah para “dewa’ dalam mitologi Yunani dan perikedupan manusia pertama, keluarganya dan masyarakat keturunannya,. Cerita ini ada kemiripan dengan kisah Zeus dalam mitology dan legenda Yunani, juga dengan kisah dalam kitab suci Hindu Rig Veda, Puranas, dll. “All nations, of all times, believed in the existence of a Primordial Paradise where Man originated and developed the fist civilization ever. This story, real and true, is told in the Bible and in Hindu Holy Books such a the Rig Veda, the Puranas and many others. That this Paradise lay “towards the Orient” no one doubts, excepting some die-hard scientists who stolidly hold that the different civilizations developed independently from each other even in such unlikely, late places such as Europe, the Americas or the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. This, despite the very considerable contrary evidence that has developed from essentially all fields of the human sciences, particularly the anthropological ones. It is mainly on those that we base our arguments in favor of the reality of a pristine source of human civilization traditionally called Atlantis or Eden, etc.” tulis Aryso Santos.

Yang cukup mengejutkan adalah bahwa Peradaban kuno Atlantis, yang kemungkinan adalah peradaban pertama umat manusia, justru sudah beradab (civilized) dan punya kemampuan sains dan teknologi, dan sistem kemasyarakatan dan ketatanegaraan ideal yang cukup maju yang tak terbayangkan oleh kita sekarang itu dapat terjadi 11.600 tahun yang lalu. Dari sudut pandang umat Islam, hal ini tidaklah mengherankan, karena Nabi Adam, sebagai manusia (kalifatullah) pertama telah diajari Allah semua ilmu pengetahuan tentang nama-nama (QS 2 : 30)

Sebuah bangsa kepulauan, yang menurut anggapan Plato berlokasi di tengah Samudra Atlantik, dihuni oleh suatu ras manusia yang mulia dan sangat kuat (noble and powerfull). Rakyat tanah air tersebut sangat makmur sejahtera yang sangat bersyukur atas segala karunia sumber daya alam yang diketemukan di seantero kepulauan mereka. Kepulauan itu adalah sebuah pusat perdagangan dan kegiatan komersial. Pemerintahan negeri itu memperjalankan para penduduknya untuk memperdagankan hasil buminya sampai ke Afrika dan Eropa

Negara Atlantis.

Menurut cerita Plato Atlantis adalah wilayahnya Poseidon, dewa laut. Ketika Poseidon jatuh cinta kepada wanita yang bisa mati, Cleito, dia membuat sebuah sumur di puncak bukit di tengah-tengah pulau dan membuat kanal-kanal air berbentuk lingkaran cincin di sekitar sumur tersebut untuk melindungi istrinya itu. Cleito melahirkan lima pasang anak kembar laki-laki yang menjadi penguasa pertama Atlantis. Negeri pulau itu dibagi-bagi di antara para saudara laki-lakinya. Yang tertua, Atlas, raja pertama Atlantis, diberi kontrol atas pusat bukit dan area sekitarnya.

Pada puncak tengah bukit, untuk menghormati Poseidon, sebuah bangunan candi, kuil atau istana dibangun yang menempatkan sebuah patung emas raksasa dari Poseidon yang mengendarai sebuat kereta yang ditarik kuda terbang. Di sinilah para penguasa Atlantis biasa mendiskusikan hukum, menentapkan keputusan dan memberi penghormatan kepada Poseidon.

Untuk memfasilitasi perjalanan dan perdagangan, sebuah kanal (saluran) air dibuat memotong cincin-cincin kanal air yang melingkari wilayah, sehingga terbentuk jalan air sepanjang 9 km ke arah selatan menuju laut.

Kota Atlantis menduduki tempat pada wilayah luar lingkaran cincin air, menyebar di sepanjang dataran melingkar sepanjang 17 km. Inilah tempat yang padat penduduk di mana mayoritas pendudukanya tinggal.

Di belakang kota terhampar seuatu lahan subur sepanjang 530 km dan selebar 190 km yang dikitari oleh kanal air lain yang digunakan untuk memngumpulkan air dari sungai-sungai dan aliran air pengunungan. Iklimnya memungkinkan mereka dapat 2 kali panenan dalam setahun. Pada saat musim penghujan, lahan disirami air hujan dan pada musim panas/kemarau, lahan diairi irigasi dari kanal-kanal air.

Mengitari dataran di sebelah utaranya ada pengunungan yang menjulang tinggi ke langit. Pedesaaan, danau-danau dan sungai dan meadow menandai titik-titik pengunungan.

Disamping hasil panenan, kepulauan besar tersebut menyediakan semua jenis tanaman herbal, buah-buahan dan kacang-kacangan, dan sejumlah hewan termasuk gajah, yang memenuhi kepulauan.

Dari generasi ke genarasi orang-orang Atlantean hidup dengan sederhana, hidup penuh dengan kebaikan. Namun lambat-laun meerka mulai berubah. Keserakahan dan kekuasaan mulai mengkorupsi mereka. Ketika Maha Dewa Zeus melihat ketidakdapatmatian (immortality) para penduduk Atlantis, maka Dia mengumpulkan para dewa lainnya untuk menentukan sebuah hukuman yang layak bagi mereka.

Segera, dalam sebuah bencana besar mereka lenyap. Kepulauan Atlantis, penduduknya, dan ingatan-ingatanya musnah tersapu lautan.

Ringkasan cerita yang dikisahkan Plato ini sekitar tahun 360 SM dalam dialognya Timaeus and Critias. Karya tulis Plato ini adalah satu-satunya referensi yang diketahui mengenai Atlantis. Ini telah menimbulkan kontroversi dan perdebatan lebih dari 2 ribu tahun lamanya.

Replika Situs Atlantis telah diketemukan di Sumatra ?

Beberapa orang yang penulis temukan secara tak sengaja, antara Maret-Mei tahun ini telah mengaku menemukan jejak-jejak situs yang diduga kemungkinan besar adalah replika situs Atlantis. Menurut pengakuan mereka, mereka terdorong oleh ilham dan mimpi serta cerita-cerita tambo, mitos dan legenda yang diwarisi dari leluhur mereka tentang cerita istana Dhamna yang hilang di tengah pulau Sumatra, di sekitar perbatasan Propinsi Sumatra Barat, Jambi dan Riau.

Sekitar 6 bulan mereka melakukan riset dan ekspedisi ke lokasi, dengan partisipasi seorang arkeolog dan panduan beberapa tokoh masyarakat adat setempat mereka menemukannya di tengah bukit dan hutan yang sukar dijangkau manusia. Di tempat yang sekarang dikenal sebagai Lubuk Jambi itu konon telah diketemukan oleh masyarakat setempat berbagai artefak dan sisa bangunan peninggalan kerajaan Kandis, yang diduga Atlantis itu di dekat sungai Kuantan Singgigi. Beberapa foto dirimkan oleh mereka kepada penulis sebagai bukti hasil ekspedisi mereka. Namun demikian, menurut mereka, tempat tersebut dijaga dan dipelihara, selain oleh masyarakat adat setempat juga oleh kekuatan makluk supra natural tertentu yang menjaganya ribuan tahun. Bahkan menurut mereka, jarum kompas yang mereka bawa ke tempat itu pun tidak bisa berfungsi lagi, karena pengaruh kutub magnetis bumi pun menjadi hilang di sana. Salah satu dari tim ekspedisi itu mengaku melihat dan merasakan kehadiran semacam siluman macan/harimau yang menjaga tempat itu. Wallahu ‘alam bi shawab.

Namun terlepas dari benar tidaknya pengakuan mereka, ada juga beberapa pihak yang mengaitkan diketemukannya bukti-bukti situs Atlantis sebagai peradaban umat manusia pertama dengan sejarah kehidupan Nabi Adam As dan anak-cucu keturunannya, dengan prediksi kebangkitan kembali agama-agama dan spiritualisme dunia menjelang akhir zaman. Ini konon terhubung dengan persiapan kedatangan Imam Mahdi dan mesianisme kebangkitan kembali Nabi Isa al-Masih, sebelum kiamat tiba.

Inilah yang mungkin masih menjadi pertanyaan tersirat ES Ito yang menulis novel Negara Kelima. Bagaimanakah revolusi menuju negara ke lima itu mendapatkan jalannya?

Nusantara, Indonesia sekarang, menurut Tato Sugiarto, telah dipersiapkan Tuhan YME sebagai negeri tempat persemaian dan tumbuh kembangnya kearifan ilahiah dan shopia perennialis yang berevolusi melalui berbagai agama dunia dan kearifan-kearifan lokal nusantara, yang merefleksikan falsafah Bhineka Tunggal Ika. Menurut pria kelahiran 1937, mantan tea taster dan market analisis PT perkebunan I – IX Sumatara Utara – Aceh, walau terjadi paradoks –di balik krisis lingklungan seiring dengan krisis peradaban global, mengutip Alvin Tofler, terjadi pula gejala-gejala kebangkitan agama-agama, yang paralel dengan kebangkitan spiritualisme menurut John Naisbit. Ini menutut Tato, adalah pertanda masa transisi proses kebangkitan umat manusia menyosong tranformasi menuju “Kebangkitan Peradaban Mondial Millenium Ketiga”.

Gejala ini juga terlihat jelas di kawasan Nusantara ini, dan pesan-pesannya pun dipahami para ahli makrifat yang waskita. Walau fenomena ini tampil paradoksal, namun sesungguhnya bersifat komplementer, merupakan survival instinct manusia. Ini merupakan peringatan dini dalam mengatisipasi apocaliptic threats yang akan hadir di masa datang. Prophetic intelegence yang relevan dengan itu berabad-abad yang lampau sebenarnya telah diisyaratkan dalam Injil dan al-Qur’an sebagai nubuat (ramalan) Kebangkitan Isa al-Masih (QS 3: 55, QS 19:33) ataupun yang dalam pagelaran wayang purwo ditampilkan sebagai mitos “Kresna Gugah”.

Tato Sugiarto menjelaskan: Wayang Purwo warisan Wali Songo adalah “tontonan dan tuntunan” adiluhung yang cocok dengan semua agama. Tampil sebagai seni budaya yang sarat dengan muatan aneka ilmu pengetahuan. Medium pendidikan massal ini dikemas sebagai total arts, yang kehadirannya mewakili pagelaran seni makrifat atau meditative arts. Kini wayang purwo telah melampaui batas wilayah Nusantara, lalu diakui sebagai warisan dunia, yaitu sejak dinyatakan oleh UNESCO (PBB) sebagai “A Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible heritage of Humanity” pada tgl 7 November 2003 di Paris Perancis.

Dalam ungkapan seorang aktifis urban sufism di Jakarta, Rani Angraini, “karena di sinilah peradaban luhur pertama umat manusia berawal, maka di sini pula peradaban umat manusia bangkit kembali dan berakhir di penghujung zaman.” Wallahu ‘Alam bi shawab.

SUMBER : AL-HIKMAH

Benua Atlantis yang Hilang itu ternyata Indonesia

Benua Atlantis itu (Ternyata) Indonesia

Oleh Prof. Dr. H. PRIYATNA ABDURRASYID, Ph.D.
http://www.atlan.org/articles/egyptian_temple1/
http://www.atlan.org/articles/old_world.html

atlantis-indonesia-map-3.jpg MUSIBAH alam beruntun dialami Indonesia. Mulai dari tsunami di Aceh
hingga yang mutakhir semburan lumpur panas di Jawa Timur. Hal itu
mengingatkan kita pada peristiwa serupa di wilayah yang dikenal
sebagai Benua Atlantis. Apakah ada hubungan antara Indonesia dan
Atlantis?

Plato (427 – 347 SM) menyatakan bahwa puluhan ribu tahun lalu terjadi
berbagai letusan gunung berapi secara serentak, menimbulkan gempa,
pencairan es, dan banjir. Peristiwa itu mengakibatkan sebagian
permukaan bumi tenggelam. Bagian itulah yang disebutnya benua yang
hilang atau Atlantis.

atlantis-indonesia-map.jpgPenelitian mutakhir yang dilakukan oleh Aryso Santos, menegaskan bahwa
Atlantis itu adalah wilayah yang sekarang disebut Indonesia. Setelah
melakukan penelitian selama 30 tahun, ia menghasilkan buku Atlantis,
The Lost Continent Finally Found, The Definitifve Localization of
Plato’s Lost Civilization (2005). santos-atlantis.jpgSantos menampilkan 33 perbandingan,
seperti luas wilayah, cuaca, kekayaan alam, gunung berapi, dan cara
bertani, yang akhirnya menyimpulkan bahwa Atlantis itu adalah
Indonesia. Sistem terasisasi sawah yang khas Indonesia, menurutnya,
ialah bentuk yang diadopsi oleh Candi Borobudur, Piramida di Mesir,
dan bangunan kuno Aztec di Meksiko.

Konteks Indonesia

Bukan kebetulan ketika Indonesia pada tahun 1958, atas gagasan Prof.
Dr. Mochtar Kusumaatmadja melalui UU no. 4 Perpu tahun 1960,
mencetuskan Deklarasi Djoeanda. Isinya menyatakan bahwa negara
Indonesia dengan perairan pedalamannya merupakan kesatuan wilayah
nusantara. Fakta itu kemudian diakui oleh Konvensi Hukum Laut
Internasional 1982. Merujuk penelitian Santos, pada masa puluhan ribu
tahun yang lalu wilayah negara Indonesia merupakan suatu benua yang
menyatu. Tidak terpecah-pecah dalam puluhan ribu pulau seperti halnya
sekarang.

Santos menetapkan bahwa pada masa lalu itu Atlantis merupakan benua
yang membentang dari bagian selatan India, Sri Lanka, Sumatra, Jawa,
Kalimantan, terus ke arah timur dengan Indonesia (yang sekarang)
sebagai pusatnya. Di wilayah itu terdapat puluhan gunung berapi yang
aktif dan dikelilingi oleh samudera yang menyatu bernama Orientale,
terdiri dari Samudera Hindia dan Samudera Pasifik.

Teori Plato menerangkan bahwa Atlantis merupakan benua yang hilang
akibat letusan gunung berapi yang secara bersamaan meletus. Pada masa
itu sebagian besar bagian dunia masih diliput oleh lapisan-lapisan es
(era Pleistocene) . Dengan meletusnya berpuluh-puluh gunung berapi
secara bersamaan yang sebagian besar terletak di wilayah Indonesia
(dulu) itu, maka tenggelamlah sebagian benua dan diliput oleh air asal
dari es yang mencair. Di antaranya letusan gunung Meru di India
Selatan dan gunung Semeru/Sumeru/ Mahameru di Jawa Timur. Lalu letusan
gunung berapi di Sumatera yang membentuk Danau Toba dengan pulau
Somasir, yang merupakan puncak gunung yang meletus pada saat itu.
Letusan yang paling dahsyat di kemudian hari adalah gunung Krakatau
(Krakatoa) yang memecah bagian Sumatera dan Jawa dan lain-lainnya
serta membentuk selat dataran Sunda.

Atlantis berasal dari bahasa Sanskrit Atala, yang berarti surga atau
menara peninjauan (watch tower), Atalaia (Potugis), Atalaya (Spanyol).
Plato menegaskan bahwa wilayah Atlantis pada saat itu merupakan pusat
dari peradaban dunia dalam bentuk budaya, kekayaan alam,
ilmu/teknologi, dan lain-lainnya. Plato menetapkan bahwa letak
Atlantis itu di Samudera Atlantik sekarang. Pada masanya, ia
bersikukuh bahwa bumi ini datar dan dikelilingi oleh satu samudera
(ocean) secara menyeluruh.

Ocean berasal dari kata Sanskrit ashayana yang berarti mengelilingi
secara menyeluruh. Pendapat itu kemudian ditentang oleh ahli-ahli di
kemudian hari seperti Copernicus, Galilei-Galileo, Einstein, dan
Stephen Hawking.

Santos berbeda dengan Plato mengenai lokasi Atlantis. Ilmuwan Brazil
itu berargumentasi, bahwa pada saat terjadinya letusan berbagai gunung
berapi itu, menyebabkan lapisan es mencair dan mengalir ke samudera
sehingga luasnya bertambah. Air dan lumpur berasal dari abu gunung
berapi tersebut membebani samudera dan dasarnya, mengakibatkan tekanan luar biasa kepada kulit bumi di dasar samudera, terutama pada pantaibenua. Tekanan ini mengakibatkan gempa. Gempa ini diperkuat lagi oleh
gunung-gunung yang meletus kemudian secara beruntun dan menimbulkan
gelombang tsunami yang dahsyat. Santos menamakannya Heinrich Events.

Dalam usaha mengemukakan pendapat mendasarkan kepada sejarah dunia,
tampak Plato telah melakukan dua kekhilafan, pertama mengenai
bentuk/posisi bumi yang katanya datar. Kedua, mengenai letak benua
Atlantis yang katanya berada di Samudera Atlantik yang ditentang oleh
Santos. Penelitian militer Amerika Serikat di wilayah Atlantik
terbukti tidak berhasil menemukan bekas-bekas benua yang hilang itu.
Oleh karena itu tidaklah semena-mena ada peribahasa yang berkata,
“Amicus Plato, sed magis amica veritas.” Artinya,”Saya senang kepada
Plato tetapi saya lebih senang kepada kebenaran.”

Namun, ada beberapa keadaan masa kini yang antara Plato dan Santos
sependapat. Yakni pertama, bahwa lokasi benua yang tenggelam itu
adalah Atlantis dan oleh Santos dipastikan sebagai wilayah Republik
Indonesia. Kedua, jumlah atau panjangnya mata rantai gunung berapi di
Indonesia. Di antaranya ialah Kerinci, Talang, Krakatoa, Malabar,
Galunggung, Pangrango, Merapi, Merbabu, Semeru, Bromo, Agung, Rinjani.
Sebagian dari gunung itu telah atau sedang aktif kembali.

Ketiga, soal semburan lumpur akibat letusan gunung berapi yang abunya
tercampur air laut menjadi lumpur. Endapan lumpur di laut ini kemudian
meresap ke dalam tanah di daratan. Lumpur panas ini tercampur dengan
gas-gas alam yang merupakan impossible barrier of mud (hambatan lumpur
yang tidak bisa dilalui), atau in navigable (tidak dapat dilalui),
tidak bisa ditembus atau dimasuki. Dalam kasus di Sidoarjo, pernah
dilakukan remote sensing, penginderaan jauh, yang menunjukkan adanya
sistim kanalisasi di wilayah tersebut. Ada kemungkinan kanalisasi itu
bekas penyaluran semburan lumpur panas dari masa yang lampau.

Bahwa Indonesia adalah wilayah yang dianggap sebagai ahli waris
Atlantis, tentu harus membuat kita bersyukur. Membuat kita tidak
rendah diri di dalam pergaulan internasional, sebab Atlantis pada
masanya ialah pusat peradaban dunia. Namun sebagai wilayah yang rawan
bencana, sebagaimana telah dialami oleh Atlantis itu, sudah saatnya
kita belajar dari sejarah dan memanfaatkan perkembangan ilmu
pengetahuan mutakhir untuk dapat mengatasinya. ***

Penulis, Direktur Kehormatan International Institute of Space Law
(IISL), Paris-Prancis

Benua Atlantis &

Peradaban Awal Umat Manusia

Ada di Indonesia ?

Pengantar

JAKARTA, Republika, Sabtu, 18 Juni 2005

– Para peneliti AS menyatakan bahwa Atlantis is Indonesia. Hingga kini cerita tentang benua yang hilang ‘Atlantis’ masih terselimuti kabut misteri. Sebagian orang menganggap Atlantis cuma dongeng belaka, meski tak kurang 5.000 buku soal Atlantis telah ditulis oleh para pakar.

Bagi para arkeolog atau oceanografer moderen, Atlantis tetap merupakan obyek menarik terutama soal teka-teki dimana sebetulnya lokasi sang benua. Banyak ilmuwan menyebut benua Atlantis terletak di Samudera Atlantik.

Sebagian arkeolog Amerika Serikat (AS) bahkan meyakini benua Atlantis dulunya adalah sebuah pulau besar bernama Sunda Land, suatu wilayah yang kini ditempati Sumatra, Jawa dan Kalimantan. Sekitar 11.600 tahun silam, benua itu tenggelam diterjang banjir besar seiring berakhirnya zaman es.

”Para peneliti AS ini menyatakan bahwa Atlantis is Indonesia,” kata Ketua Lembaga Ilmu Pengetahuan Indonesia (LIPI), Prof Umar Anggara Jenny, Jumat (17/6), di sela-sela rencana gelaran ‘International Symposium on The Dispersal of Austronesian and the Ethnogeneses of the People in Indonesia Archipelago, 28-30 Juni 2005.

Kata Umar, dalam dua dekade terakhir memang diperoleh banyak temuan penting soal penyebaran dan asal usul manusia. Salah satu temuan penting ini adalah hipotesa adanya sebuah pulau besar sekali di Laut Cina Selatan yang tenggelam setelah zaman es.

Hipotesa itu, kata Umar, berdasarkan pada kajian ilmiah seiring makin mutakhirnya pengetahuan tentang arkeologimolekuler. Tema ini, lanjutnya, bahkan akan menjadi salah satu hal yang diangkat dalam simposium internasional di Solo, 28-30 Juni.

Menurut Umar, salah satu pulau penting yang tersisa dari benua Atlantis — jika memang benar — adalah Pulau Natuna, Riau. Berdasarkan kajian biomolekuler, penduduk asli Natuna diketahui memiliki gen yang mirip dengan bangsa Austronesia tertua.

Bangsa Austronesia diyakini memiliki tingkat kebudayaan tinggi, seperti bayangan tentang bangsa Atlantis yang disebut-sebut dalam mitos Plato. Ketika zaman es berakhir, yang ditandai tenggelamnya ‘benua Atlantis’, bangsa Austronesia menyebar ke berbagai penjuru.

Mereka lalu menciptakan keragaman budaya dan bahasa pada masyarakat lokal yang disinggahinya dalam tempo cepat yakni pada 3.500 sampai 5.000 tahun lampau. Kini rumpun Austronesia menempati separuh muka bumi.

Ketua Ikatan Ahli Arkeologi Indonesia (IAAI), Harry Truman Simanjuntak, mengakui memang ada pendapat dari sebagian pakar yang menyatakan bahwa benua Atlantis terletak di Indonesia. Namun hal itu masih debatable.

Yang jelas, terang Harry, memang benar ada sebuah daratan besar yang dahulu kala bernama Sunda Land. Luas daratan itu kira-kira dua kali negara India. ”Benar, daratan itu hilang. Dan kini tinggal Sumatra, Jawa atau Kalimantan,” terang Harry. Menurut dia, sah-sah saja para ilmuwan mengatakan bahwa wilayah yang tenggelam itu adalah benua Atlantis yang hilang, meski itu masih menjadi perdebatan.

Dominasi Austronesia Menurut Umar Anggara Jenny, Austronesia sebagai rumpun bahasa merupakan sebuah fenomena besar dalam sejarah manusia. Rumpun ini memiliki sebaran yang paling luas, mencakup lebih dari 1.200 bahasa yang tersebar dari Madagaskar di barat hingga Pulau Paskah di Timur. Bahasa tersebut kini dituturkan oleh lebih dari 300 juta orang.

”Pertanyaannya dari mana asal-usul mereka? Mengapa sebarannya begitu meluas dan cepat yakni dalam 3500-5000 tahun yang lalu. Bagaimana cara adaptasinya sehingga memiliki keragaman budaya yang tinggi,” tutur Umar.

Salah satu teori, menurut Harry Truman, mengatakan penutur bahasa Austronesia berasal dari Sunda Land yang tenggelam di akhir zaman es. Populasi yang sudah maju, proto-Austronesia, menyebar hingga ke Asia daratan hingga ke Mesopotamia, mempengaruhi penduduk lokal dan mengembangkan peradaban. ”Tapi ini masih diperdebatan

the true history of atlantis








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Note: The cataclysms of fire and water of worldwide extent of which we speak in this essay are strictly scientific. They are widely attested in the geological record, being generally accepted by modern Geology. So are the massive extinctions of all sorts of species, and particularly of the large mammals which took place at the end of the Pleistocene Ice Age, some 11,600 years ago. Some 70% of the former species of great mammals which existed in the former era became extinct then, including, in all probability, two species of humans, the Neandertals and the Cro-Magnons, which became extinct more or less at this epoch.

Only the mechanism for the end of the Pleistocene Ice Age — which is a certain fact, but is so far unexplained by Science — is new and our own. We propose that this dramatic event was caused by a huge explosion of the Krakatoa volcano (or perhaps another one), which opened the Strait of Sunda, separating the islands of Java and Sumatra, in Indonesia.

[FOOTNOTE: This text was written some ten years ago, and is only now being revised and updated (Jan. 2002). Many of its finds and predictions have recently been empirically confirmed by Science since, then. One such is the dramatic confirmation of the existence of a now sunken giant continent to the south of Southeast Asia and China, precisely as predicted by ourselves. This confirmation was obtained by the spy satellites of NASA an NOAA, and was only recently declassified, as we comment in this site. Moreover, as we now discuss, its shape and features are precisely the ones predicted by ourselves on entirely different grounds (bathymetric soundings).

Another important fact was the discovery that the date of the cataclysm which caused the end of the Pleistocene Ice Age — very probably a Heinrich Event, as is fast becoming clear — was not only sudden and brutal, but occurred at the date stipulated by Plato, that of 11,600 years ago. So, it seems the old philosopher was right after all, despite the fact that scientists still adamantly refuse to believe in the reality of the Flood cataclysm. The nature of the cataclysm which caused the end of the Pleistocene Ice Age — the Heinrich Events just mentioned — also seem to be the result of the events preconized by ourselves some 20 years ago, that is, the result of giant maritime invasions caused by giant tsunamis, themselves caused by explosive supervolcanic eruptions, as discussed in this text.

Scientists have not yet realized the real cause of Heinrich Events, but I am sure they soon will, when they realize the utter impossibility of the mechanism now held to have been responsible for them: the breaking open of giant lakes dammed by the glaciers themselves. As some geologists of note have remarked, this damming is impossible for several good reasons, one of them the lack of mechanical resistance on their part. The reduction of glacier albedo by soot deposition has also been proposed as a possible cause, just as we predicted it would be. In other words, though no prophets, our predictions turned out to be quite accurate. In fact, they are obvious on hindsight, since they are so logical. And they are, though non-canonical, all strictly scientific, as I am a professional scientist myself, and quite used to doing science, conventional or not. In time, my theory will create a new paradigm for both Science and Religion that seems to be on the coming for this new millennium of ours. It is a bit poignant, however, to be some sort of Cassandra, fated to be disbelieved by one and all, despite the correctness of my prophecies. Domine, non sum dignus.]

This giant explosion is widely attested in all sorts of myths and traditions such as those concerning Atlantis and Paradise, indeed located in this region of the world. It is universally remembered as the explosion of the Mountain of Paradise (= Mt. Krakatoa, Atlas, Sinai, Zion, Alborj, Qaf, Golgotha, Meru, etc.) and of the deluge it caused, of which they all speak obsessively as the Universal Flood and the Universal Conflagration.

tsunami-krakatoaThe explosion of Mt. Krakatoa caused a giant tsunami, which ravaged the lowlands of Atlantis and Lemuria. It also triggered the end of the last Ice Age by covering the continental glaciers with a layer of soot (fly ash) which precipitated their melting by increasing the absorption of sunshine. The giant tsunami it caused also resulted in a maritime invasion of the continents surrounding the Pacific region and, above all, of the Antarctic region. The result was that the glaciers were floated by these invading waters and carried back to the ocean, when these waters returned to it. This process has recently been confirmed by geological and oceanographic research, and is called Heinrich Events. These are associated with the cataclysm end of the Pleistocene Ice age, and are sudden and brutal.

imageskutubselatanThe meltwaters of these glaciers — covered by soot or carried off as glaciers and banquises — flowed into the oceans, raising sea-level by about 100-150 meters. This huge rise in sea level created tremendous strains and stresses in the crust of the earth due to the extra weight on the seafloor and the isostatic rebound of the continents, alleviated of the colossal weight of the mile-thick glaciers which formerly covered them. The crust then cracked open in the weak spots, engendering further volcanic eruptions, and further earthquakes and tsunamis which fedback (positively) the process, furthering it to completion. The result was the dramatic end of the Pleistocene Ice Age and the so-called Quaternary Extinctions which we mentioned above.

introduction

All nations, of all times, believed in the existence of a Primordial Paradise where Man originated and developed the fist civilization ever. This story, real and true, is told in the Bible and in Hindu Holy Books such a the Rig Veda, the Puranas and many others. That this Paradise lay “towards the Orient” no one doubts, excepting some die-hard scientists who stolidly hold that the different civilizations developed independently from each other even in such unlikely, late places such as Europe, the Americas or the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. This, despite the very considerable contrary evidence that has developed from essentially all fields of the human sciences, particularly the anthropological ones. It is mainly on those that we base our arguments in favor of the reality of a pristine source of human civilization traditionally called Atlantis or Eden, etc..

[FOOTNOTE: We emphasize, once again, that our theory, though superficially reembling those of the Theosophists, the Velikovskians, Pole-Shiftists and son, has nothing to do with them, as they are all strictly scientific and founded on actual fact, rather than on religion or Tradition alone. Theosophists derive their wisdom from Mme. Blavatsky, a Russian lady who, in the 1860's moved to India, where she founded the theosophical Society, which had a considerable following among the intellectuals of the time. Blavatsky was an extremely intelligient person, and soon amassed an immense mass of knowledge of Hindu and other esoteric tradition, which she published in books such as The Secret Doctrine and the Veil of Isis, which became extremely popular, even today. But her writings seem an undigested version of the esoteric doctrines of Buddhism, Hinduism, and other religions and Occult doctrines,mingled to some pseudo-science which she obtained from the geological textbooks of the time, which would allprove wrong in the course of time.

Pole Shift is sheer unscientific bumcombe that holds no water. It is impossible on both physicaland geological grounds, as we explain elewhere in detail. These ideas were originally ppularized by Charles Hapgood, and survive in writers such as John White and Graham Hancock. Rather than scientists, these authors are journalists, whose specialty is precisely rendering palatable to the public what are usually government lies and propaganda. White has — as indeed most such proponents of the theory, Hapgood included — publicly recanted from his former views on PoleShift, which henow recognizes as an unscienific concept. We hope Graham Hancock will soon do the same, particularly because he now dropped his proposalof an Antarctic Atlantis, in favour of our own hypothesis of a Far Eastern one.

Velikovsky is another unusual character. A Russian Jew and an emigré to the US, his books became the delight of all inquisitive persons who, in the 1950's,were discontent with the obscurities of Academic Science. Among these, I should be counted, as his books opened my eyes to the inconsistencies of theories such as Darwin's Uniformitarian Geology and his theory ofEvolution, based on precisely this false premise. The problem of Velikovsky was taking the catastrophic events he proposed as the literal truth. Moreover, as an orthodox Jew, Velikovsky also believed the dates and events of the Bible — ridiculously small by geological standards — to be actual facts which should be implicitly believed by all. Of course, most of his proposals proved to be false, excpt insofar as Catastrophism seems indeed to be one important feature not only of Evolution, but also of geology, in contrast to what Drawin and Lyell so emphatically argued. But his books — like the ones of Blavatsky and even Graham Hancock are a good read even today, as long as they are considered what they indeed are: pleasant Sci Fi, based on ill-digested pseudo-Science.

]

It was in the Orient, and beyond, that agriculture (of rice and grains) and animal domestication were invented. These two crucial inventions allowed Man’s fixation to the soil, and the resulting prosperity led to civilization and the founding of the first cities. It is exactly this fact that is related in the Bible, that attributes the foundation of the first city — called Henok or Chenok, (“the Abode of the Pure”, in Dravida) — to Cain (Gen. 4:17). This end at the completion of its allotted time is what is meant by Henok’s lifespan of “365 years”.

This name (“Pure Land”) of the very first of all cities is the same in Hindu traditions (Shveta-dvipa, Sukhavati, Atala, etc.). Even in the Amerindian traditions, Yvymaraney “the Land of the Pure”, is the legendary birthplace of the Tupi-Guarani Indians of Brazil, just as Aztlan is the land of origin of the ancient Aztecs of Mexico, and Tollán is the one of the Mayas of Yucatan. Man — or, more exactly, the anthropoid simians that were our ancestors — in fact arose in Africa some 3 million years ago. But these anthropoids soon spread all over Eurasia and beyond, reaching the Far Orient and Australia, inclusive, by about 1 million years ago or even more.

indonesia, the site of eden

It was in Indonesia and the neighboring lands that Man, after emigrating from the semi-desertic savannas of Africa, first found the ideal climatic conditions for development, and it was there that he invented agriculture and civilization. All this took place during the Pleistocene, the last of the geological eras, which ended a scant 11,600 years ago. Though long by human standards, this is but a brief moment in geological terms.

The Pleistocene — a name which is Greek for “most recent” — is also called Anthropozoic Era or Quaternary Era or, yet, the Ice Age. During the Pleistocene and, more exactly, during the glacial episodes that happened at intervals of about 20 thousand years, sea level was about 100-150 meters (330-500 feet) below the present value. With this, a large coastal strip — the so-called Continental Platform (with a width of about 200 km = 120 miles) — became exposed, forming land bridges that interconnected many islands and regions.

The most dramatic of such exposures took place in the region of Indonesia, precisely the spot where humanity first flourished. The vast expansion of the South China Sea then formed an immense continent, indeed “larger than Asia Minor and Libya put together”. This is, as we shall see below, precisely what Plato affirms in his discourse on Atlantis, the Critias.

With the end of the Pleistocene Ice Age, the immense glaciers that covered the whole of the northern half of North America and Eurasia melted away. Their waters drained to the sea, whose level rose by the estimated amount of about 100-150 meters quoted above. With this rise, Atlantis sunk away and disappeared for good, along with most of its population, which we estimate, based on Plato’s data, at about 20 million people, huge for the epoch in question.

eden was the same as lemurian atlantis

More exactly, this sunken continent was Lemurian Atlantis, the larger of the two Atlantises mentioned by Plato. Lemuria was the vast prairie which the Greeks called Elysian Fields and which the Egyptians named “the Field of Reeds” (Sekhet Aaru) or, yet, “the Ancestral Land” (To-wer), the overseas Paradise where they formerly lived, in Zep Tepi (“Primordial Time”). The sunken continent became the Land of the Dead, the dreadful, forbidden region where no mariner ever ventured to go, for it was “the Land of No Return”.

Interestingly enough the name “Ancestral Land” (or Serendip) is precisely the Dravidian name of Taprobane (Sumatra), the island where the Hindus placed their pristine Paradise, likewise sunken in a cataclysm. The gloomy, pestilential place that remained above the water was named Sheol (“Hell”) by the Jews, and, in the spared spots, “Island of the Blest” (Makarion nesos) or Hades by the Greeks, Amenti or Punt by the Egyptians, Dilmun by the Mesopotamians, Hawaiki by the Polynesians, Svarga by the Hindus, and so on.

The Celts — whose legends are perhaps the best recollection of the sunken golden realm — called the place Avallon, Emain Abbalach or, yet, Ynis Wydr (“Island of Glass”). They also associated the eerie place with the Holy Grail and the resurrection of their dead heroes, as we detail in other, forthcoming articles of ours. And we already mentioned above the Yvymaraney of the Tupian Indians of Brazil, or the Aztlan or Aztatlan of the Aztecs of Mexico, or the Tollán of the Mayas of Yucatan, the submerged land from which these Indians were obliged to flee, when it sunk underseas, disappearing forever.

the seminal exodus

The greatest of all Lemurian colonies was Atlantis, founded in India, already during the heydays of Lemuria, and which, in time, reached the apex of human grandeur. Atlantis and Lemuria had prospered for a full zodiacal era (2,160 years), when the great cataclysm destroyed their common world, at the end of the Pleistocene, some 11,600 years ago.

The scant survivors of the cataclysm that sunk Lemuria away were forced to flee their destroyed Paradise, moving first to India, the site of Atlantis, which had been spared in its northern, loftier portion. But the global catastrophe had also caused the end of the Pleistocene Ice Age, and the melting of the Himalayan glaciers caused huge floods of the rivers of Asia, rendering the region unfit for human habitation. These floods ravaged this remainder of Atlantis, already greatly destroyed by the original cataclysm, the giant conflagration of the Indonesian volcanoes and the huge tsunamis they caused, as well as by the plague that ravaged their country in their wake.

Again, this doomed people was obliged to flee, emigrating, along the ensuing millennia, to remote places such as Egypt, Mesopotamia, Palestine, North Africa, Europe, North Asia, the Near Orient and even Oceania and the Americas. Some came on foot, in huge hordes like those of the Israelite exodus. Others came by ship, like Noah in his Ark or Aeneas with his fleet, to found the great civilizations of the ancient world.

The great civilizations that we know of, in the Indus Valley, in Egypt, in Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, Greece, Rome, Mexico and even the Americas were all Atlantean colonies founded by the survivors of the cataclysm that destroyed the twin Paradises of Atlantis and Lemuria. These colonists, of course, attempted to recreate their Eden in their new homeland.

The newcomers named each topographical feature after the archetypes of the pristine abode just as immigrants will do the same nowadays. Such is the reason why we keep finding vestiges of Atlantis everywhere, from Brazil and North America to Spain, Crete, and even Africa and North Europe. All these ancient civilizations spoke of Civilizing Heroes such as Manu, Noah, Aeneas, the Oannés, Hotu Matua, Quetzalcoatl, Kukulkan, Bochica and, of course, Atlas and Hercules, the omnipresent Twins that founded civilizations everywhere.

the reality of the civilizing heroes

Interestingly enough, the only place so far unclaimed among the literally hundreds of sitings of Atlantis is Indonesia. Of course, no solid evidence of the existence of Atlantis and, even more so, of Lemuria, has ever been found. The reason for this absence is easy to explain: the experts have all been searching Atlantis in the wrong sides of the world.

The legends of all peoples tell of Civilizing Heroes, Angels, Gods, or even Demons and Monsters who were their civilizers and who taught them religion, law, agriculture, metallurgy and the alphabet. These are the Fallen Angels, the same all too human heroes who fell desperately in love with the beautiful native girls, the Daughters of Man (Gen. 6). These fallen gods were not Astronauts, nor Sprites, but saintly men who came as missionaries from Atlantis. How else could they mate with human females and breed children?

The mysterious “Sons of God” (ben Elohim) of Gen. 6 are precisely the same ones identified by Plato with the Atlanteans. Their sin with the Daughters of Men — and, more probably, the rejection and enslavement of their hybrid offspring — led to the Flood. This is indeed the mysterious Original Sin that resulted in the destruction of Paradise (Atlantis) and the Fall of Man. This sin is the one ritually “washed” by the Baptism, itself an allegory of the Flood, as St. Jerome and other Church Patriarchs explicitly acknowledge.

Plato quotes precisely this cause for the destruction of Atlantis by God (Zeus) in his (unfinished) dialogue on Atlantis, the Critias. And the same story, in allegorized form, is also told by Homer concerning the Phaeacian “Sons of God”. It also figures in the Celtic myths concerning Mererid, the sinful daughter of King Gradlon, whose scabrous conduct led to the sinking of the land of Ys. So, in the Americas (Bochica, etc.) and elsewhere.

If we read the Bible attentively, we note that it also speaks of two creations, exactly as Plato also tells of two different Atlantises (cf. Gen. 1 and 2). Moreover, the Bible also tells of two destructions of the world by the Deluge. These two different narratives are quaintly embroidered on each other in Gen. 6, and comprise the Elohist and the Jahvist accounts of the Flood, which relate two visibly different events.

the bible is right after all

We see, then, that the tradition (or traditions) narrated by Plato exactly coincides with the Biblical lore. Moreover, as we said above, the two traditions also exactly agree with the prehistoric events observed in the geological and the archaeological records. And, when we trace the worldwide legends to their source, we always end up in India and Indonesia, the two Atlantises of legend, no matter where we start from.

In truth, continents don’t sink. It is the sea that rises, flooding entire continents, as it did in Lemurian Atlantis and, to a great extent, in the Indus Valley, the site of the second Atlantis. Relativists will say that both events — sea level rise and continental sinking — are one and the same thing, at least from the point of view of the observers. But geologists will hotly debate the issue, and claim, as they have long done, that actual sunken continents are a geological impossibility. It is all a matter of perspective, of relativistic illusion. But the best ancient sources — say, for instance that magnificent Hindu saga, the Mahabharata — speak of sea level rising rather than of continents sinking.

the elusive sunken continent revealed

However, anyone who inspects a chart of the oceanic bottoms in the region of Indonesia such as the Ice Age Map of Indonesia shown in Fig. 1 below, will readily concede that the South China Sea encircled by Indonesia indeed formed a continent during the last glaciation, which ended some 11,600 years ago. This chart clearly shows the sunken continent of Lemurian Atlantis in Indonesia, as well as the extensive sunken strip of Indian Atlantis at the Indus Delta.

Fig. 1 - Map of Atlantis During the Ice Ages (click to enlarge)The map leaves no room for doubt about the reality of what we are affirming concerning Lemurian and Indian Atlantis, one almost wholly sunken, and the other sunken to a very considerable extension. We remark that this map — in contrast to most others presenting proposed sites for Atlantis and/or Lemuria — is purely scientific, rather than an invention of ours or of others. It is based on the detailed geophysical reconstruction of the seafloors in the region in question, and portrays the areas of depth under 100 meters, which were obviously exposed during the Ice Age, when sea level dropped by that amount and even more.

In fact, several strictly scientific, similar maps exist, and can be seen elsewhere, inclusive in the Internet. One of these maps, was published in the National Geographic Magazine (vol. 174, No. 4, Oct. 1988, pg. 446-7) and is reproduced, for comparison, in Fig. 2 below. It shows the world as it was some 18,000 years ago, at the peak of the last glaciation of the Pleistocene Ice Age. As can be seen, this map corresponds quite closely with ours, shown in Fig. 1.

Fig. 2 - Map by National Geographic Magazine of the Ancient World During the Ice Age (18,000 years ago) (click to enlarge).In particular, please note the huge chunk of land, of continental dimensions, to the south of Southeast Asia, and which became sunken when sea level rose, at the end of the Pleistocene. Another sizable piece of land in the Indus Delta, the site of the second Atlantis, also disappeared likewise, at that occasion. No other regions of the world display a similar event, including the Americas (not shown). The conclusion is that Atlantis, if Plato was in fact speaking truthfully, could only have been located in that region of the world.

As both maps above show, a huge extension — of continental size — prolonged Southeast Asia all the way down to Australia. This continental-sized land was indeed “larger than Asia [Minor] and Libya [North Africa] put together”, exactly as Plato affirms. It is seen to have been about two or three times larger than continental-sized India. It was also far larger than Australia, shown exaggerated due to the peculiarities of the projection utilized.

The Indonesian Islands and the Malay Peninsula that we nowadays observe are the unsunken relicts of Lemurian Atlantis, the lofty volcanic mountains that became the volcanic islands of this region, the true site of Paradise in all ancient traditions. The sunken portion of continental extension now forms the muddy, shallow bottoms of the South China Sea. It is encircled by Indonesia and forms the boundary of the Indian and the Pacific Oceans.

Then, as now, Indonesia formed the divide of the New and the Ancient Worlds; what the ancients called Ultima Thule (“Ultimate Divide”). Thule also corresponded to what our elders named the Pillars of Hercules, which, according to Plato, were placed “just in front of Atlantis” (hyper ten Heraklei Nyssai).

The Pillars of Hercules were also the impassable frontier between the Old and the New Worlds, also called Orient and Occident. These two are sundered by the volcanic island arc of Indonesia, truly the boundary of the Tectonic Plates that form the Ancient and the New Worlds. This barrier to navigation, in the region of Atlantis is also insistently mentioned in Plato and other ancient sources on Atlantis.

the great rift and the khasma mega of hesiod

The great rift that came to separate the islands of Java and Sumatra, caused by the subsidence of the Krakatoa volcano turned into a giant submarine caldera, which now forms the Sunda Strait. This great rift was very well known of the ancients. Hesiod called it Khasma Mega (“Great Rift”), a designative he learnt from the Hindus. This people called it (in Sanskrit) by names such as Abhvan (“Great Abyss”), Kalamukha (“Black Hole”), Aurva (“Fiery Pit”) Vadava-mukha (“Fiery Submarine Mare”), and so on. This Great Abyss is also the same one that the Egyptians called Nun, and which the Mesopotamians named Apzu (“Abyss”).

Hesiod and several other ancient authorities place this Khaos (“Divide”) or Khasma Mega (“Giant Abyss”) at the world’s divide, at the very entrance to Hell (Tartarus). Hesiod also places Atlas and his Pillar (Mt. Atlas) at this gloomy spot where the ancient navigators such as Ulysses and the Argonauts met their doom. As we said above, this terrifying Black Hole — the archetype of all such that haunt Man’s imagination — is indeed the Krakatoa’s fiery caldera, ready to revive at doom, at least in Hindu traditions on the Vadava-mukha.

what happened during the pleistocene?

Let us recapitulate what happened during the Pleistocene Ice Age, for its true significance seems to have escaped the notice of all Atlantologists thus far.

This is how Ice Ages start. Converted into clouds by the sun, sea water is carried into the continents by the wind, where it pours down as either rain, hail or snow. If conditions are right, as they were then, this downfalling water is retained in glaciers that end up covering the temperate regions with a shroud of ice that is one or two miles thick. Sea level consequently drops by 100-150 meters or even more, exposing the shallow bottoms of the sea.

Such was the case of the South China Sea, whose depth seldom exceeds 60 meters or so, as we show in the Map of Fig. 1. When the Ice Age ends, the process is reverted. The glaciers melt away, and their meltwater quickly drains into the sea. In consequence, the bottoms previously exposed as dry land become submerged once again.

As we see, the world works as a kind of flip-flop or swing, forever oscillating between the extremes of cold and heat. Interestingly enough, it is Life itself that equilibrates the balance, introducing a negative feedback that counteracts the tendency for the world to freeze or to sizzle. For instance, if carbon dioxide (CO2) increases in the atmosphere, the temperature tends to go up with the so-called Hothouse Effect. This is precisely what we observe in sizzling Venus, whose atmosphere is almost pure CO2. In gelid Mars, whose atmosphere (and Life) was almost all lost in a tremendous cataclysm – probably caused by the fall of a meteorite of planetoidal size — the opposite swing took place.

Wherever Life exists, as on Earth, increased CO2 contents of the atmosphere also results in increased photosynthesis. Plants grow more luxuriously, fixing the excess carbon dioxide in themselves, and alleviating the situation. The opposite process happens if the CO2 content of the atmosphere is reduced for some reason. Photosynthesis is consequently reduced and plant matter – mainly the plankton in the seas, rather than the tropical forests — decreases, liberating CO2. This increases the atmospheric content, tending to increase earth’s temperature back to its normal value.

However, this compensation only works within rigid limits, and any excessive perturbation can trigger an Ice Age or a Hot Age. Like with flip-flops and balances, the transition is enhanced by positive feedback, and quickly leads to the extreme situations that are, again, stable and permanent until triggered back on again. For instance if the seas warm up, the solubility of CO2 is decreased, and its atmospheric content increases, tending to further increase earth’s temperature, and vice-versa.

Moreover, an ice cover effectively reflects sunlight back towards outer space, reducing the amount of solar heat absorbed by the earth. Its temperature consequently drops, and the glaciers further increase, until they cover all the temperate regions of earth. In the absence of Life, we have the two extremes instanced by our two neighboring planets, Venus and Mars. As we said above, Venus is as hot as hell, whereas Mars is completely frozen up, as if to vividly exemplify to us all the two extremes of lifeless conditions.

the cause of the ice ages

The causes of the Ice Ages and of the periodic advance and retreat of the continental glaciers is not well known. But, to believe the myths, the end of the Pleistocene Ice Age was due to the cataclysmic explosion of Mt. Atlas, the one which wiped the twin Atlantises out of the map.

Mount Atlas — “the Pillar of Heaven” that decorated Lemurian Atlantis — was an immense volcanic peak in the region that now corresponds to the island arc of Indonesia. To be more precise, this volcano was the terrible Krakatoa, even today still alive and very active, despite its monumental explosion in Atlantean times. After its colossal explosion, the Krakatoa volcano sunk away underseas, becoming the giant caldera that now forms Sunda’s Strait between Java and Sumatra.

This giant caldera — fully 150 km across — is the “Fiery Submarine Mare” (Vadava-mukha) that we commented above. The giant explosion of the Holy Mountain is attested not only by the worldwide myths that recount the end of Paradise (Atlantis). Similar cataclysms in this remote region of the world are also testified by the tektite belt and the volcanic ash layer that covers most of the South Indian Ocean, Australia, Indonesia and Southeast Asia.1

The ashes and dust liberated by the gigantic explosion were carried away by the winds, and covered the glaciers of North Asia and North America with a dark veil of carbonized matter. The result was an increased absorption of sunlight and a quick melting away of the glaciers that covered the continents beyond the Tropical Regions.

thermal runaway and the quaternary extinctions

The process of glacier melting was far from uniform, as many geologists of the Darwinian school tend to think. The meltwater of the glaciers quickly flowed into the seas, creating huge stresses between the overloaded sea bottom and the alleviated continents. Earth’s crust cracked and rifted at many places, originating volcanoes, earthquakes and tsunamis of unprecedented proportions. And the violent process continued, impelled by its own momentum, until it was finally complete and the earth had quit the Ice Age. In this terrible event — the same one that the myths call the Flood — some 70% of the species of great mammals became extinct.

This self-sustaining, degeneratively increasing process is what physicists call “positive feedback”, and is identical to the one that causes the transitions of electronic flip-flops in electronic computers and such. It also corresponds to another physical process called “thermal runaway”, which happens, for instance, on a global scale in the Hothouse Effect. Increased temperature of the earth tends to liberate the CO2 (carbonic gas) dissolved in sea water to the atmosphere, since its solubility decreases with temperature.

The extra atmospheric CO2 further tends to increase global warming, liberating further amounts of CO2, and so on until all of it is liberated to the atmosphere, and the earth becomes overheated. This is possibly what happened on sizzling Venus, perhaps billions of years ago. And it may well be the case that Venus also had Life, as Mars apparently did too, as we are starting to learn.

Geologists call the widespread mortality that took place at the end of the Pleistocene by the name of Quaternary Extinctions. But they are foiled at explaining their cause, and none of the literally dozens of scientific theories hereto proposed to explain the cause of Ice Ages have been consensualy accepted by the scientific community. Among the extinct species we had several magnificent animals: the mammoth, the mastodon, the saber-toothed tiger, the cave bear, the giant sloths, dozens of species of camelids, cervids, cavalids and, very probably, the Neandertal and the Cro-Magnon men, who became extinct at about this date for some unexplained reason that can only have been linked to this one.

No, the ancient myths in no way overstate the universal extent and violence of the Flood cataclysm. The worldwide mass extinctions of the end of the Quaternary (the Pleistocene Ice Age) attest, most unequivocally, that the brutality of the cataclysm was truly Velikovskian in extent, if not in nature.

And the instances of both Mars and Venus are Celestial witnesses of what may indeed happen to the Earth if we persist in abusing her the way we presently do. Are these two planets the Two Witnesses mentioned in the Book of Revelation (11:8), “their corpses exposed in the streets of the Great City (the skies?) for all to see and marvel”? I would not know, but I fear they could well be so. Aren’t these witnesses of permanent death on a planetary scale indeed perhaps the scariest thing in the entire sky?

the collapse of the holy mountain of osiris

borobudurMount Atlas is the same Holy Mountain of Paradise represented by the Great Pyramid. Osiris dead, reposing inside the Holy Mountain, represents the dead Atlantis or, rather, the dead of Atlantis, buried and entombed by the gigantic explosion of the Holy Mount Atlas. Mount Atlas is the same as the Mount Meru of the Hindus, the pyramid-shaped mountain that there served as the sky’s support.

mandborobudurIndeed, the Egyptian word for pyramid, M’R was most probably read MeRu as in the Hindu name of the mountain simulated by the monument. The ancient Egyptians did not spell out the vowels in their hieroglyphs, so the above reading probably corresponds to the actual one of Mt. Meru, the exploded Mountain of Paradise.

In Hindu traditions, Mt. Meru served as the Stambha, the Pillar of Heaven. Mt. Meru (or Kailasa = “Skull” = Calvary”) also served as the support of the Cosmic Tree where the Cosmic Man (Purusha) was crucified, like Christ on the Cross. Mt. Meru is also the Holy Mountain of Paradise, endlessly portrayed in India during its explosion, in beautiful mandalas such as the Shri Yantra. By the way, the Golden Lotus often shown with them portrays the “atomic mushroom” of the cosmic explosion, as we argue in detail in our work entitled “The Secret of the Golden Flower“.

In consequence of the giant explosion, Mt. Meru (or Atlas), voided of its magma, collapsed like a sort of punctured balloon. Its enormous peak sunk underseas, turning into a giant caldera. Our researches into the ancient world legends have shown that this volcano is indeed the Krakatoa, the same one that still castigates the region whenever it again erupts explosively, as it did in 1883 and other occasions.

the meaning of the primordial castration

The Krakatoa is now a submarine volcano located inside the gigantic caldera that now forms the Sunda Strait separating Sumatra from Java. In Hindu myths, its explosion and subsequent fate are allegorized as the Primordial Castration which turned the Cosmic Phallus (Linga) into the Cosmic Yoni (or Vulva). And Earth’s Yoni is the same as the Khasma Mega of Hesiod, mentioned further above.

We see how the apparently absurd traditions of the ancients indeed make far more sense than those of the crude attempts at explanation by the modern experts of all sorts. It is also precisely to this fact that refers the legend of Atlas, the Pillar of Heaven. Unable to bear the load of an earth overpopulated with gods, Atlas collapsed, and let the sky fall dawn over the earth, destroying it.

The name of Atlas indeed derives from the Greek radix tla meaning “to bear”, preceded by the negative affix a, meaning “not”. Hence, the name of Atlas literally means “the one unable to bear [the skies]“. Such is the reason why Atlas (and other Titans like himself) are often portrayed with weak, serpentine legs. The collapse of the skies is, of course, a clever allegory of the fall of volcanic dust and debris from the afar explosion of Mt. Atlas. In Hindu myths, one layer buries the former one, giving rise to a new heaven and a new earth, just as we read in Revelation.

atlantis and the rising of the phoenix

garudapancasilaThe above is, of course, exactly the message of St. John’s Revelation (21:1) concerning the New Jerusalem. The New Jerusalem is Atlantis, reborn from its cinders, as a sort of Phoenix, the bird that personifies Paradise in Greek myths. These myths were indeed copied from Egypt who, in turn, cribbed them from India. India and, more exactly, Indonesia, is the true land of the Phoenix, as is relatively easy to show, since it is from there that comes the name of the Benu bird of the Egyptians and that of the Phoenix of the Greeks.

This mystic bird was called Vena in the Rig Veda. So, if the Phoenix indeed symbolizes Atlantis-Paradise resurging from its own cinders, as we believe it does, there can be little doubt that the legend is originally Vedic, and originated in the Indies. The name means nothing that makes sense in either Egyptian or Greek. But in the holy tongues of India it means the idea of Eros (Love) and, more exactly, the Sun of Justice that symbolizes Atlantis rising from the waters of the primordial abyss. This myth forms the essence of the one of the Celestial Jerusalem, as well as, say, those of the Orphic Cosmogonies, those of the Egyptians, and those of most other ancient nations.

egypt and the origin of the legend of atlantis

cosmic_manPlato concedes that he learnt the legend of Atlantis from Solon who, in turn, got it from the Egyptians. But those, in their turn, learnt it from the Hindus of Punt (Indonesia). Punt was the Ancestral Land (To-wer), the Island of Fire whence the Egyptians originally came, in the dawn of times, expelled by the cataclysm that razed their land. From there also came the Aryans, the Hebrews and Phoenicians, as well as the other nations that founded the magnificent civilizations of olden times.

It is from the primordial Lemurian Atlantis that derive all our myths and religious traditions, the very ones that allowed the ascent of Man above the beasts of the field. From Atlantis derive all our science and our technology: agriculture, cattle herding, the alphabet, metallurgy, astronomy, music, religion, and so forth. These inventions are so clever and so advanced that they seem as natural as the air we breath and the gods we worship. But they are all incredibly advanced inventions that came to us from the dawn of times, from the twin Atlantises we utterly forgot.

It is in India and in Indonesia, that, even today, we find the secret of Atlantis and Lemuria hidden behind the thick veil of their myths and allegories. The crucial events are disguised inside the Hindu and Buddhic religious traditions, or told as charming sagas like those of the Ramayana and the Mahaharata. The error that led the ancients, along with the modern researchers, into believing that Atlantis lay in the Atlantic Ocean is easy to understand now that we know the true whereabouts of the sunken continent. When humanity moved from Indonesia into the regions of Europe and the Near East, the “Occidental Ocean” of the Hindus became the Oriental Ocean, for it then lay towards the east.

The (Hindu) myths that told of Atlantis sinking in the Occidental Ocean became interpreted as referring to the Atlantic Ocean, western in regards to Europe, their new residence. The Hindus called the sunken continent by the name of Atala (or Atalas) a name uncannily similar to that of Atlas and of Atlantis (by the appending of the suffix tis or tiv = “mountain”, “island”, in Dravida, and pronounced “tiw”). It is from this base that names such as that of the mysterious Keftiu of the Egyptians, the “Islands in the Middle of the Ocean (the “Great Green”)” ultimately came (Keftiu = Kap-tiv = “capital island” or “Skull Island” = “Calvary” in Dravida, the pristine language of Indonesia). But this is a long story which we tell elsewhere, presenting the detailed evidence for this uncanny allegation of ours.

the reversal of the oceans and the cardinal directions

It is to this “reversal” of the Cardinal Directions just mentioned that Plato and Herodotus make reference, along with other ancient authorities. Interestingly enough, even the Amerindians — who came in, at least in part, from Indonesia into South America via the Pacific Ocean impelled by the Atlantean Cataclysm — often confuse the direction of their primeval homeland, which they sometimes place in the east, sometimes in the west. But, strangely enough, they never place it towards the north, as they should, if they came in via the Bering Strait.

The ancient Greeks attempted to mend their myths calling, by the name of “Atlantic”, the whole ocean that encircles Eurasia and Africa. But the result was even worse than before and the confusion only grew. Herodotus used to laugh at this ridiculous attempt by the geographers of his time (Hist. 2:28). Aristotle, in his De Coelo, is also very specific on the fact that the name of “Atlantic Ocean” — that is, the “Ocean of the Atlanteans” — was the whole of the circular, earth-encompassing ocean.

So, we able to conclude that Atlantis can legitimately be localized either in the ocean we presently call by that name, or, even more likely, in the ocean where the ancients placed their legends and their navigations, the Indian Ocean. This ocean they named Erythraean, Atlantic, and so on, names which are indeed related with that of Atlantis, “the land of the Reds”, the Primordial Phoenicia or Erythraea, whose names mean “the red one”.

It should perhaps be emphasized that it is the name of the Atlantic Ocean (or “Ocean of the Atlanteans”) that derives from that of Atlantis, and not vice-versa. And that name far predates Plato, being mentioned, f. i., by Herodotus, who wrote his History fully a century before Plato wrote the Critias. Moreover, as Herodotus explains, the name of “Atlantic Ocean” originally applied to the Indian Ocean, rather than the body of water now so named. So, it is on that side of the world, and not on ours that we should expect to find Atlantis.

atlas, hercules, atlantis, and the itinerary of the heroes

Greek myths often embody the confusion of east and west that we just pointed out. The itineraries of Greek heroes such as Hercules, Jason, Ulysses and the Argonauts are all absurd when placed in the Mediterranean or even in the Atlantic Ocean. But they all make a lot of geographical and mythical sense if we place them in the Indian Ocean, as we should. And that is indeed what we do, in other more specialized works of ours on this fascinating subject.

Likewise, the Titan Atlas and his mountain, Mt. Atlas, were placed just about everywhere, from Hesperia (Spain), the Canaries and Morroco to the Bosporus and the Far Orient, at the confines of Hades (Hell). The result was a profusion of Atlantises and of Pillars of Atlas (or of Hercules) that makes no sense al all. Indeed, the two heroes who personified the World’s Pillars represented the two Atlantises we discussed further above. They are personified as Atlas and Hercules, the primeval Twins whom we encounter in all Cosmogonies.

In Plato’s dialogues concerning Atlantis (the Critias and the Timaeus), Hercules is called Gadeiros or Eumelos, names that correspond to something like “Cowboy” or, rather “Fencer of Cattle”. This name is a literal translation of that of Setubandha, the Sanskrit appellation of Indonesia. This name is due to the fact that Indonesia indeed “fences out” the seas, dividing the Pacific from the Indian Ocean.

the ultima thule, the twins, and the war of doomsday

Indonesia was, as we said above, the Ultima Thule (or “Ultimate Boundary“) of the ancients, the last frontier which should not be crossed by the navigators. There lay the Pillars of Hercules and of Atlas, the two primordial Twins. In another guise, the two correspond to the twins of Gemini (Castor and Pollux), directly derived from the Ashvin Twins of the Hindus. In Egypt they corresponded to Seth and Osiris, and were commemorated by the two obelisks posted at the entrance of Egyptian temples.

Hercules is, of course, a Phoenician deity (Baal Melkart), in turn derived from Bala or Bala-Rama (“the Strong Rama”), the twin brother of Krishna. Bala means “Strong” or “Strength” in Sanskrit, being called the same (Bias = “Strength”) in Greek and other tongues. Krishna is the World’s Pillar, clearly the personification of Atlantis.

More exactly, the Twins personify the two races of blondes (Aryo-Semites) and brunets or “reds” (Dravidas), fated to fight wherever they meet. Both shades are originally from Eden (Lemuria), the primordial Paradise where humanity originally arose. Osiris, the Egyptian god, also played the role of Cosmic Pillar (Djed), a role he shared with Seth, his twin and dual. But this mythical symbolism ultimately derives from that of Shiva as the Sthanu, the “Pillar of the World” and that of Shesha (or Vritra), the Cosmic Serpent who was the archetype of Seth-Typhon.

the battle of the sons of light and the sons of darkness

The Twins — like the Devas and Asuras of the Hindus and the Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness of the Essenians — are always the personifications of the two races that dispute world hegemony since the dawn of times. It was their war, according to Plato — who calls them “Greeks” and Atlanteans — that led to the destruction of Atlantis.

There is no reason to doubt that the great philosopher was indeed transmitting ancient traditions faithfully. For, we are starting to learn all over again that global wars can indeed lead to the world’s end. In fact, it is the same endless war that menaces us now as it did at the dawn of times. This frightening reality is told in the Ramayana, in the Mahabharata and in the Iliad, not to mention the other myths and traditions.

But the war of Atlantis is also the War of Armageddon narrated in the Book of Revelation. This war is in reality a repetition or replica of the worldwide, primordial battle between Gods and Devils. These mighty beings were the same as the so-called Titans (or Giants) in Greece. Their war was, as Plato and his commentators explain in detail, the same as the one of Atlantis.

Armageddon means (in Hebrew) the same as Shambhalla (in Sanskrit), “the Plains of Gathering”. There the armies of the world will gather, in the end of times, for “the war that is to end all wars”, for it will close the Kali Yuga. The perspective indeed seems frighteningly real, doesn’t it indeed? Fables or Reality? Religion or Profanity? Science or Superstitious Nonsense? We are inclined to believe that our ancestors spoke in earnest, and that the war of Armaggedon and the end of the world are fast becoming all too real possibilities.

are mars and venus a celestial example?

We do not want to seem alarmists, as our message is indeed one of hope and salvation, and not of “Bible thumping”. The recent discovery of vestiges of extinct life in Mars brings a memorable lesson that is worth detailing. Earth has been, in the past, the victim of countless catastrophes that nearly wiped out Life altogether. These cataclysms were due to different causes such as cometary and asteroidal falls or volcanic cataclysms bringing on or off the Ice Ages. Not impossibly, wars such as the War of Atlantis and the Battle of the Gods can have indeed happened in a far, utterly forgotten past that lives on in our myths and holy traditions from everywhere.

Perhaps our wars just continue these and others that possibly took place on Mars and Venus, destroying Life there, if not in other Solar Systems as well. It may even be the case that Big Bangs and Creations are indeed cyclic processes that recur periodically, just as the traditions of the Hindus on Cyclical Eras affirm in detail. The extinction of the dinosaurs, and the origin of the Moon — pulled out of the Earth by a planetoidal impact — are instances of such sobering cataclysms. Thousands of giant craters — as large as those on the Moon, though almost effaced by erosion — are still observable on the earth, as scientists are starting to discover. Hundreds of times in the past we have had massive extinctions of Life on earth.

Many times in the past our world nearly became as “empty and dark and devoid of form” as at Creation, when God reshaped the earth for the last time. The Uniformitarianism of Darwin and Lyell is no more than a naive belief in the Panglossian doctrine that “all things only happen for the better, in the best of all possible worlds”.

Fossils and extinctions are here to prove, just as do Geology and other sciences, that Catastrophism is a feature of Nature as much, and possibly even more, than Uniformitarian phenomena. Thousands of Apollo and Amor objects swarm across earth’s orbit, ready to strike us at a moment’s notice with a force of a million Megatons and over. The idea that God favors humans “above the beasts of the field” is just our own naive, self-centered notion of what God should look like. More likely, He regards all Life as sacred, as His own handiwork, if He exists at all. That is what Nature indisputably demonstrates in practice all the time.

Mars, with its dead residues of Life, with its oceans empty and dry, with its terrible dust storms sweeping across the endless void and devastation, is here to prove to all that God — or, as some will, Nature or Mother Earth — sometimes loses his/her temper and extinguishes Life altogether. This almost happened at the Flood, as the myths tell us. The victimizing of Atlantis — perhaps because they sinned, perhaps because they warred — almost took the rest of us along. Venus is another instance, in reverse, that planets can indeed die and become as sterile as the Moon. And perhaps, earth itself was just “reset back to zero” some four billion years ago, when the Moon was pulled out of it by a giant meteoritic impact of planetoidal size.

atlantis and the illusion of darwinian uniformitarianism

As we just said, Darwin’s Theory of Uniformitarian Evolution is just an illusion of die-hard scientists. What the world presents us daily is an endless series of ever larger cataclysms, ranging from atom smashing to the Big Bang. We recently watched a comet hitting Jupiter and opening a gash on that planet as big as the whole earth. Mars shows all signs of having been hit by a planetoidal sized body, which opened a huge crater on one side and pushed up Olympus Mons on the opposite one. Perhaps it was this cataclysm that extinguished Life on the Red Planet. Venus too presents vestiges of similar catastrophes. Perhaps we are only stranded here on earth, fated to become extinct when our allotted time expires who knows when?

Life is an illusion, as all things, as the Hindus teach us. According to them, even the gods eventually die, and are replaced by better, more evolved godly forms. An illusion is also the suprematist theory that affirms that Civilizations first arose in an Occidental Atlantis that never was, out of Europoid stock. But Civilization evolved at a time when the whole of Europe was almost fully covered by a mile thick glacier that rendered survival very meager and scant.

Plato’s Atlantis is, in contrast, described as a luxurious tropical Paradise, bedecked with metals, horses, elephants, coconut, pineapples, perfumes, aromatic woods and other features that were an exclusivity of India and Indonesia in the ancient world. Was the great philosopher dreaming, or was he indeed basing himself on Holy Books now lost in the bonfires of the Holy Inquisition ?

The Atlantic Atlantis is an illusion too, just as are the Cretan, the African, the American, the North European and the Black Sea ones. The true Atlantis, the archetype of all other Atlantises is Indonesia, or rather, the extensive sunken continent rimmed by this island arc. It is there that we had Plato’s “innavigable seas”, the same one mentioned by navigators. such as Pytheas, Himilco, Hanno and others. It was this primordial Atlantis that served as a model for the second Atlantis — the one of the Indus Valley — as well as for the myriad other similar Paradises that we encounter in all ancient religious traditions and mythologies.

the krakatoa volcano and the “innavigable seas” of atlantis

Another central, unique feature of Atlantis were its seas, rendered “innavigable” as the result of the cataclysm, as reported by Plato and other ancient authorities. As we mentioned further above, the seas of Atlantis were innavigable because they were covered thick with giant banks of floating, fiery pumice-stone. This pumice was ejected by the giant explosion of volcanic Mt. Atlas, the one which caused the foundering of the Lost Continent..

A similar phenomenon indeed happened — in a far lesser scale, but one big enough to be one of the world’s largest catastrophes — at the explosion of the Krakatoa volcano that we mentioned further above. The formation of pumice — a sort of stony “froth” made of siliceous glass — is characteristic of the Indonesian volcanoes, and is indeed the cause of their explosive eruptions of incomparable force. The phenomenon is quite similar to the “popping” of popcorn. The water-soaked siliceous magma of the submarine volcano (the primeval Krakatoa) built up tremendous pressures under the weight of the crust and the overlying sea water. Eventually, the topping crust which formed the volcanic peak gave, and the eruption occurred, explosively.

Thus released, the overheated water dissolved in the hot magma turned instantly into vapor, literally bursting like popcorn, except that in a worldwide scale. The sea was impelled, in a huge tsunami that was the event mythified as “the Flood from below”. Simultaneously, the ashes and debris were thrown up into the stratosphere, as “soot”. This fly ash eventually fell back to the earth and the sea, choking all life in the region, and causing the enormous quantities of rain, “the Flood from above”. Further away, it settled over the Ice Age glaciers, causing their melting and triggering the end of the Pleistocene, precisely as related above.

Interestingly enough, the Hindus associate this sort of stuff — this vitreous “seafroth” — with Krishna and Balarama, the archetypes of Hercules and Atlas. Balarama is the alias of the Serpent Shesha, whose name means (in Sanskrit) “residue” and, more exactly, the kind of foam such as ambergris or pumice stone thrown over the beaches by the seas. The whole story is a clever allegory of the explosion of Mt. Atlas, the World’s Pillar, ejecting the huge amounts of pumice stone and fly ash that covered the soil and the seas of Atlantis, and choking out all its paradisial forms of life.

The Titans — and Atlas in particular — were likened to Serpents (or Dragons), and to “weak-legged”, anguipedal, Civilizing Heroes such as Erychthonios, Cadmus, Hercules, Quetzalcoatl, Kukulkan, etc.. All such indeed derive from the Nagas (“Serpent-people”, “Dragons”) of India and Indonesia, as we argue elsewhere.

the illusory, chimerical atlantises

As we said above, the Cretan “Atlantis” of certain authorities is an illusion, as are all others outside the two Indies. Nevertheless, the explosion of the Thera volcano closely parallels the one of the Krakatoa of 1883, as some have noted. But it is far too small and far too wrongly sited in relation to the Pillars of Hercules for to be the right time and the right place.

Moreover, Crete lacked the size and the importance that Plato attributes to Atlantis, being puny in comparison to, say, the contemporary civilizations of Egypt, Babylon and Mycenian Greece. And the Theran cataclysm never sunk Crete underseas, or even hampered its existence in any notable way. In fact, the name of Crete (Kriti) means “swept”, rather than “sunken one”, as does the name of Atlantis in the holy tongues of India. So, Crete was recognizedly “swept” by the Theran cataclysm, but not indeed “sunken” by it, as Atlantis was.

The prehistoric explosion of the Krakatoa volcano that sundered open the Strait of Sunda was, by comparison a million times stronger. If the Theran explosion could sweep away the considerable extent of Minoan Crete, we are led to conclude that the one of the Indonesian volcano could well have wiped out an entire continental-sized civilization, and have triggered the chain of events that culminated in the end of the Pleistocene Ice Age.

Equally illusory are the Atlantises of the Bosporus (Moreau de Jonnés), of Spain (R. Hennig), of Libya (Borchardt), of Benin, in Africa (Leo Frobenius) and the even less likely one of the North Sea (Olaus Rudbeck), the Americas (several authors) and Antactica (idem). Even more impossible are the Atlantises located in sunken islands of continents of the Atlantic Ocean and, particularly, the Sargasso Sea, for they are not even geophysical possibilities.

the mid-atlantic ridge and donnelly’s atlantis

There are no sunken continents at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, as an extensive study of this region has unequivocally shown. What this detailed research disclosed is the existence of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, a vast submarine cordillera that divides the Atlantic Ocean at the middle. This feature corresponds to the rift from whence the Tectonic Plates issue, causing the continents to drift away from the spot, at the rate of a few centimeter per year.

Hence, despite the brilliant plea of Ignatius Donnelly, this ridge corresponds not to a sunken continent, but to land that is slowly rising out of the sea bottom. Such rifts and ridges in fact exist in all oceans. They rise above sea level in certain spots forming island arcs, as in Indonesia and at the Indus Valley. Where they do, they cause the kind of terrible volcanoes and earthquakes that we have been discussing above. It is no coincidence that the two Atlantises we mentioned are located precisely at such spots where the Mid-Oceanic Ridges rise above the surface of the sea.

When we inspect the map of Fig. 1, we also note that a sizable chunk of India disappeared at the end of the Ice Age at the Indus Delta. This region is now known as the Rann of Kutch (“Marshes of Death”) and is in fact still sinking underseas, even today. This region is deemed a sort of Hell, and has been clearly flooded by some sort of terrible cataclysm that also took place at the end of the Pleistocene, just as did the one of Lemurian Atlantis.

lemurian atlantis and the four rivers of paradise

At this occasion, that of the demise of Atlantis, the Himalayan glaciers melted in the greater part, pouring its waters down the Indus Valley, in floods that were hundreds of times larger than the ones of today, even when the monsoon storms castigate the region. Such is clearly the record left by the tempest that swept away the second Atlantis (Hesperus), throwing it into the sea during the second of the Biblical Floods.

The same thing also happened at the other side of the Himalayas, whence issue the rivers that irrigate South Asia, China and Southeast Asia, such as the Huang-ho, the Yangtzé, the Mekong, the Irrawaddy, the Brahmaputra, the Ganges. These are indeed the Four Rivers of Eden (Lemurian Atlantis), as we argue in detail elsewhere. There can be very little doubt that the Lemurian Atlantis — as well as its successor, the Indian Atlantis — are sacred traditions based on real facts which were in no way exaggerated by our ancestors.

the civilizing heroes and heroines are atlantean escapees

The cataclysms in question caused the mass migrations of nations which later were to form civilizations of the past such as those of the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Cretans and the Mesopotamians. These also included the Jews, the Phoenicians, and the Aryans, driven away from their ancestral lands in Indonesia and Southeast Asia. At first they settled in India, but were driven out by the locals, moving to the places just mentioned.

Such mass migrations are told in the Bible and in similar Holy Books of all nations, in legends such as those of Moses and the Israelites, Aeneas and the Romans, Hercules and his Greek “cattle” (armies), of Cain’s expulsion from Eden, of Quetzalcoatl’s arrival in Mexico, of that of Viracocha and the Incas in Peru, of the Fomorians and the Tuatha de Danaan arriving in Britain, and so on.

These legends disguise real facts under the veil of allegories, and personify or deify the nations in question under the figures of heroes such as Noah, Manu, Hercules, Kukulkan, Abraham, Quetzalcoatl, and a myriad others, or in heroines like Venus, Demeter, Dana, Danu, Vesta, Hathor, Isis, Hecate and so on. Lemuria was indeed the Great Black Mother of Gods and Men. She is the same goddess that we know by names such as Kali, Parvati, Demeter, Hera, Isis, Ishtar, Venus, Cybele and even the Virgin Mary.

The paradoxical virginity of the Great Mother refers to the fact that she bore the Lemurian civilization on her own, in an autochthonous manner, without the help of an “inseminator” civilization. In contrast, all other civilizations evolved by being seeded from outside by the Civilizing Heroes, the Angels, the Gods, the Devils, etc.. These were the Lemurian Sons of God that, though , illuminated the world with the Light of our Great Mother.

The second Atlantis, India, is our Great Father. The Father is the inseminating god known as Shiva in India, Jahveh in Israel, Zeus in Greece, Viracocha in Peru, Quetzalcoatl in Mexico, Bochica in Colombia, and so on. He is the god that is castrated and dies but who resurrects from among the dead, whole and virile as ever. The image is not without analogy with an immortal volcano such as the Krakatoa that explodes and vanishes from sight, but keeps shining underneath the ocean, until the time comes for it to rise and shine again, perhaps at God’s command.

the many aspects of god

As we just said, myths work at several levels, and a parallel such as the Atlantean one is just a facet of God’s myriad aspects. In other words, volcanoes are manifestations of God’s power, the weapon he often chooses to castigate the nations and to force Evolution to follow its course. The Hindus call this force by the name of vajra, a Sanskrit word meaning both “hard as diamond”, as well as “thunderbolt”. The vajra is the thunderbolt weapon used by almighty gods such as Baal (Hercules’ archetype), Zeus, Indra, Haddad, and a myriad others. In fact, God is neither the vajra nor the volcano, but the force behind it, its impeller and wielder.

For the vajra is indeed the flail of the gods, the Celestial weapon He uses in order to quicken Evolution and to stir Nature into action, in the endless parade of life forms that characterizes Life. Perhaps all this has a purpose in the divine conscience, though I don’t really know for sure. But there is no doubt whatsoever in my mind that Catastrophism is God’s way, if He indeed has any. Moreover, it is also Nature’s way, let no one doubt it. The ancients well knew that, and so do I, having learnt from them. For instance, they often portrayed the vajra as a flail or a lash, or even a hammer or a mace wielded by the god in order to stir Nature into action.

Gods like Christ are not the only ones to die and to rise again from the dead. By the way, Christ too is the wielder of the “iron rod”, the hardest of metals being a metaphor for “diamond” and, hence, for the vajra. Christ was preceded by many aliases, and the conception of “dying-resurrecting” gods akin to the Sun of Justice dates from oldest antiquity. Among the many archetypes of Christ we can mention, offhand, Osiris, Attis, Tammuz, Adonis, Shiva, Kronos, Saturn, Dionysos, Serapis, Mithra and, of course, Krishna, in his infinite series of avatars, and Hercules, the great hero, in his fiery apotheosis that figured the Atlantean Conflagration.

1 Tektites are glass beads and concretions resulting from giant meteoritic (or cometary) falls or, perhaps, from gigantic volcanic explosions as well. These collisions scatter tektites far and wide, as in the above case. The ones in question are called Indochinites, in an allusion to the region where they abound the most. The Indochinites were dated at 700 kyears (one kiloyear = one thousand years). The explosion of Lake Toba took place 75 kyears ago. The even larger one of Lake Taupo took place at some 100 kyears ago or so.

These giant explosions — which all occurred in the region of Indonesia, volcanically the most active in the whole world — are easily large enough to trigger an Ice Age. However, whether one is indeed caused depends on other conditions, probably dictated by insolation and other variables, astronomical or not. As we just said, the region of Indonesia has literally hundreds of active or dormant volcanoes, and has been very little researched so far, due to its remoteness.

Further research of the Indonesian region will, now that its connection with the birthplace of Mankind is being pointed out, certainly confirm the reality of what we are claiming. Our research is based on very detailed local traditions and is the fruit of many years of study of the myth of Atlantis-Eden from a scientific though unbiased, point of view. We push no religious, scientific, philosophic or mercenary point, and our interest lies solely in establishing Truth. As the Romans used to say, Amicus Plato, magis amica Veritas.

SUMBER : AL-HIKMAH