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Gauracandra

Raising the Egyptian Obelisks

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A few days ago on PBS (Public Broadcasting System in the U.S.) they aired a program where various people were trying to determine how to engineer the raising of the obelisks similar to those found in Egypt. Of course these stone monuments were much smaller than the originals, but they wanted to try to do is from a theoretical angle.

 

One thing that was funny was an engineer who kept criticizing the other team's approach. He developed this complex pulley system based on his modern engineering education, and honestly thought thats how the Egyptians did it. His approach failed. The other team slowly descended the obelisk on sand, then scooped the sand out from around the object.

 

I also remember seeing a program about a year ago on a temple in South India. Apparently the top dome of this temple is made out of 1 solid rock weighing many tons (don't remember the exact specs). So this team was trying to analyze how this could be done since it was way high up. There was a cliff off in the distance, perhaps 1 mile. They concluded that the Indians filled the entire 1 mile stretch from the cliff top to the temple top with sand, then rolled the Stone to the temple. Personally I just don't see this being done. For one thing, where was all the sand to come from? Its one thing in the Egyptian desert, but South India is another story. Needless to say they didn't try it out Posted Image

 

Gauracandra

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Originally posted by Gauracandra:

I also remember seeing a program about a year ago on a temple in South India. Apparently the top dome of this temple is made out of 1 solid rock weighing many tons (don't remember the exact specs). So this team was trying to analyze how this could be done since it was way high up. There was a cliff off in the distance, perhaps 1 mile. They concluded that the Indians filled the entire 1 mile stretch from the cliff top to the temple top with sand, then rolled the Stone to the temple. Personally I just don't see this being done. For one thing, where was all the sand to come from? Its one thing in the Egyptian desert, but South India is another story. Needless to say they didn't try it out Posted Image

This temple is the Brihat-isvara temple in Tanjavur. The diety is a huge Shiva Linga, maybe 10-15 feet wide.

 

 

The top stone is carved somewhat like a pyramid (four side forming in a triangle), but with steps so to speak (not flat). The shadow of this stone doesn't fall on the rest of the temple, which is another engineering wonder.

 

The ideas how they put the stone up there is really funny. One theory suggests they made a 30 km long ramp! Personally I think it is an even more amazing feat to build a 30 km ramp then to move the stone. Of course the idea that they made a huge bridge out of sand is another funny idea.

 

The traditional explanation comes from the mantra shastras, where it explains how to change the density of stone by invoking mantras. The process is to merge each of the pancha-bhutas back into the previous, thereby removing the corresponding qualities. The mantra shastras explain that this process is also used to move the granite deities from the sculpting place to the main temple hall. There are different methods described. One involves merging the pancha-bhutas into ether, and as a result the object ceases to exist in the physical perceivable realm. In that state it is possible to move the object through the mind and then reverse the process. The second method involves merging the lower elements into air. As a result the object becomes as light as cotton, and can easily be moved by asingle man.

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This is interesting. I also remember a program a few years back about a man made island. I don't remember exactly where it was located, but I'm thinking around Thailand, or Malaysia...I just can't remember. Anways, the entire island was said to have been inhabited by several thousands of people, but the entire island was made up of piles of stones slabs (from the ocean floor up). It was kind of odd looking. The manmade island was big. The program was also trying to figure out how they did this. A few interesting points were that the rocks could have only been quarried at a location hundreds of miles away as those kinds of rock were nowhere to be found in the area. The other point is as you mentioned about this South Indian temple. The native story is that the priests of this land would recite mantras that made the stones as light as air, then moved them to this location. Kind of odd that two separate cultures have this same principle. If I remember correctly they believed in Ocean gods who gave them their knowledge (don't recall the details though).

 

Gauracandra

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