[world-vedic] Vedic culture and Americas (part 3)

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European Conquest and Atrocities:

 

The Mayans were the earliest people to have found a civilization there,

they moved from the Mexican plateau

into Gauatemala. They were later pushed out, by the Toltecs, who, in

turn, dislodged by the Aztecs.

 

This was an era that saw the blossoming of a

unified Central American civilization.

The Toltecs were very prosperous. They wer

accomplished architects, carpenters

and mechanics. The Aztecs also made some striking

cultural advances. They

developed a lake civilization based on the island

in Lake Texcoco, where they built

their remarkable city. Mexico-Tenochtitlan, which

was surrounded by the colorful

Chinampas, or floating gardens. The city was

described by Bernal de Diaz, the

companion of the Spanish commander Cortes, as a

dreamland which inspired the

Spanish invaders to lyrical adulation and

murderous plunder. Diaz wrote that the

Mexicans were like the Romans, and that there was

nothing in Spain to match the

royal palace of Montezuma.

 

Hernando Cortes is said to have slaughtered, in

less than two hours, six thousand

people who had gathered in a

temple patio.

Destruction of Aztec cities

was so complete that

almost everything lay in

ruins. The elite of the

Asiomericans were put to

death almost to the last

man. After his entry into the

conquered capital

Tenochtitlan, Cortes wrote

that "you could not put

down your foot without

stepping on an Indian

corpse." In addition, his

soldiery, a few years later

in the Inca Empire, driven by

lust for gold, melted

dwon irreplacable works of

art by the ton to get

the precious metal. Thus, the

Aztecs civilization

came to violent end.

 

Burning of Libraries and

records:

 

If the history of pre-Columbian America, is obscure, it is because

after the Spanish conquest, the first Bishop

of Mexico, Juan de Zumarraga, burned all the records of the Library of

Texcoco in Tlateloco market

square as "the work of the Devil," and religious fanatics destroyed

temples and statues. Zumarraga,

gloating over his success, wrote to his superiors in 1531 that he alone

had five hundred temples razed to the

ground and twenty thousand idols destroyed.

 

Diego de Landa, the second Bishop of Yucatan,

following the pattern, reduced the

Maya Library in Yucatan to ashes in 1562.

Post-Columbus history of America for 300

years was the story of ruthless destruction and

fanatics like Bishop Diego da Landa burnt

a huge bonfire of valuable documents and nothing but

the three codices of 'Chilam

Balam' could survive the holocaust....

 

These libraries contained records of ancient history,

medicine, astronomy, science,

religion, and philosophy. What Emperor Theodosious of

Constantinople did to the

library at Alexandria to save Christianity from the

Greek and Oriental pagan

knowledge deposited there, these priests did in

Central America with similar

motives but larger success.

 

The burning of manuscripts continued for decades.

Soldiers were encouraged to ransack

palaces, public buildings, and private houses to find

manuscripts. Pablo Jose de

Arriaga, the head of the Jesuit College in Peru, in almost unparalleled

fanaticism, caused the systematic

and wholesale destruction of all state archives, customs records, royal

and imperial archives, codes of laws,

temple archives, and historical records. Less than a score of

manuscripts escaped annihilation.

 

The Spaniards destroyed whatever they could,

but they could not, for

instance, burn the great Pyramid of the sun

and the remains of Teotihuacan,

which speak of the splendid bygone

civilization. This is one of the great crimes

of world cultural history

 

No matter how much historians stretch their

imagination, it will never be

possible to reconstruct a picture of these

advanced civilizations which would

do them justice, and yet be held historically

acceptable.

 

Beyond Mexico, the ancient Andean or Peruvian

civilization also suffered

an even worse fate at the hands of the

Spainards than did their neighbours in

Central America. The Spanish assault on the

Incas, the Spanish avarice of

gold, and barbarities perpetrated in the wake

of victory, including the

inhuman tortures publicly inflicted on the

Inca King, Atahuallpa, are

illustrations of savagery seldom surpassed in history.

 

The Story of Betrayal

 

The Spaniards were mistaken by Asiomericans for their legendary white

gods, who were to be made welcome

and it they inflicted suggering it was to be accepted as a divine

judgement. And by a tragic coincidence, the

Spanish conquerors invaded Mexico at about the time, in 1519, as the

Aztec priests and tradition had

predicted the return of the white gods. The Aztecs even offered the

Spanish conquistadores the vestments of

Quetzalcoatl and other gods and considered performing human sacrifice

to them in case they were fatigued

after such a long journey. Throughtout the Incas Empire, the Spainiards

were greeted as Viracocha, the Inca

name of the great White God they had been waiting for. It is only when

the Asiomericans were completely

horrified and disillusioned by the brutalities and merciless killings,

that they recognized their mistake.

The realization that the Spainards were not gods, but popolocas

(barbarians), however, came too late.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The European conquerors of South and Central America not only destroyed

practically all the records and

literature of Asiomerica, but created an utterly distorted images of

the American past by taking some ot its ugly

features out of context and magnifying them

out of proportion. For

instance, the human sacrifice practiced by

the Aztecs was repeatedly

stressed without explaining its extenuating

features, and without pointing

out that human sacrifice had not been

unknown to other peoples, such as

in Europe and Rome. Taking their technique

a step further they

contrasted this picture with that of their

own deeds in Asiomerica in which

European misdemeanour, caprice, and

criminality were soft-pedalled and

civilized and human behavior emphasized.

 

Most people believe that Asiomericans were

uncivilized hordes with an

occasional freak of knowledge, who had

contributed nothing of

permanent value to civilization by 1492.

Despite a good deal of

information to the contrary, there is resistance to accepting a change

in this image. Misconceptions multiply fast

but die slowly.

 

The Mexican Indians and the Incas of Peru were primarily

vegetarians. They were of high moral character

and hospitable and generous as a habit. They

practised astrology, and mental telepathy

was common among them. It was perhaps their

peace-loving disposition that, like the

Hindus, allowed them to be ruled by Europeans.

The Europeans, through book burning and bayonet,

successfully, "converted"

them, leaving very little trace of their noble

civilization.