About Santa Claus

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SANTA CLAUS AND VEDIC CONNECTION

 

Round the 5th of December the Batavians (now Holland) had a festival

dedicated to Wodan/Odin (Varuna) and his son Thor (Indra), who would ride

through the sky on Wodan's eight legged, white horse Sleipnir, announcing

the change of year. Later their names changed into Kunne Klaas and Tijl, and

during the Christian era into Sinterklaas (from Sint Nicolaas). (One of the

strategies used by the Christians for the conversion of heathens in Europe.)

 

His white horse was still there, but now with four legs, and his son

had disappeared. Now he was supposed to simply have come from Spain for

chastising the naughty children and rewarding the brave ones with gifts from

his never ending sack of presents, stuffing them through the chimneys while

riding his sledge on the rooftops. Of course he also had a huge book in

which everything was noted down about the kids and a bunch of black, dwarfy

helpers (supposed to be Moors from Spain). Still later Sinterklaas and his

entourage were banished to the North Pole, to become the fatty Santa Claus

and his dwarfs of modern times.

 

 

GRANDFATHER FROST IS A VEDIC GOD

 

Dadan Upadhyay

Copyright 2000

Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.

 

MOSCOW, DECEMBER 30:

A Russian scholar says red Russia's fairy tale Grandfather Frost, or Ded

Moroz, is none other than Varuna, the god of seas in Hindu mythology.

 

Grandfather Frost, who is currently taking rest at his Moscow

residence, gives children presents just as Santa Claus does but is

associated with New Year's, the most universally observed Russian holiday.

He flew to the capital from the northern Vologda region town of Veliky

Ustyug, his official hometown, 800 kms east of Moscow, along with his

assistant Snegurochka, or the Snow Maiden, as the festivities kicked off on

the Christmas.

 

In the year 2003, which marks the beginning of the astrological age

of Aquarius, Grandfather Frost is expected to shed his dear-old-man mask and

allow the people of the world to see him as he truly is Varuna, the supreme

Vedic god of water.

 

According to Vologda State University ethnologist, Svetlana

Zharnikova, the Frost legend originated in the Russian north, the cradle of

Indo-European civilization.

 

"All the original paradigms of Indo-European culture grew out of

Polar Europe, and one of them is the image of Grandfather Frost," claims

Zharnikova. "Because the Indo-European peoples originated within the Arctic

circle, which was 30 degrees further south at the end of the Stone Age," she

said. Characters related to cold and winter became an integral part of Vedic

mythologies.

 

Varuna was both the source of life and death, and was described in

Vedic writings as holding the tree of life, an image reminiscent of

Grandfather Frost standing next to a Christmas tree, says the ethnologist.

 

The mythical hero of Russian children's New Year celebrations is

said to emerge from the forest, deliver presents, then disappear to some

uncertain destination.

 

www.hvk.org/articles/1200/202.html

 

© 2001-2003 VEDA-Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, authors and Jan Mares

(from the site www.veda.harekrsna.cz)