Fingerprints of the Gods: by Graham Hancock.

After finishing this one, with a few books read in between, I happened to pick up Chariots of Gods by Daniken, and was surprised - first, that I had not read it before (seen and heard about it often, though without anybody mentioning anything about its contents), and second, that this book is like an exercise at checking out various facts mentioned by Daniken in Chariots of Gods - Hancock goes into all of it at length and gives a different theory about it, one more suited to present times with more known about space and universe, albeit just as novel for standard scholars of the subjects; then he recants it all in a chapter after the book itself is finished, chapter giving an interview on BBC.

The following is the original review as I wrote it, with the above as it ought to occur, as a postscript - except that Chariots of Gods did come first and so does deserve to be mentioned before, which is why the paragraph above is left where it is at risk of duplication.
(May 6, 2011)

It is taking long to finish not because it is not attractive but on the contrary - it gives so much to think and mull over, one needs time to go over and go back to the book again before reading more, rather than finishing it like a racy read all at one go.

Gives a lot of information and raises a great many questions too, about various parts of the world that were supposed to be unknown until comparatively recently in human history.

Wednesday, August 18, 2010
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This book was in reading for nearly two years, perhaps longer, when the above was written; one reading over, I suspect it could take another or more before a good comprehension of all that goes into the theory formed here is well understood in detail. It is an intriguing theory, or rather, a banquet of many many theories brought together with much detail of facts around the world from archeological and legendary nature investigated.

When one finishes reading this, one would like to go on and know more and investigate more about the various possibilities. And then one goes on to read the BBC interview where the author reverses much of his revolutionary thinking, and whether in an attempt to placate the historians or otherwise simply bows down to the establishment and their comfortable assertions about age of civilisation et al.

This is where the cursory nature of his looking at legends around this world by whatever name comes in. Fact is people of various disciplines - sciences, history, archeology, whatever - of western establishment, and therefore of most of the world, do not dare to cross the church even when they are against all religion and avowed rationalists according to their own affirmations; their subconscious plays tricks and does not allow them to disobey several dicta of the institution that once burned people alive for daring to disagree, forever calling them heretics and making it sound like that was the greatest atrocity one could think of. So they might claim they do not care for religion or church but would face a huge wall of opposition all the more for the crossing of various bases of church dogma, which of course includes the age of civilisation.

And yet, by what miracle of meditation could another civilisation halfway around the world have known of the fact that the Himaalaya rose out of the ocean, or have a theory of evolution (cloaked in story of Divine appearances or Descent on the earth in successive stages), millennia before Darwin, is a question worth asking.

Moreover there is the engineering feat as well of bringing down Himaalayan mighty river Gangaa by one man, a legend firmly established and worth investigating.) This contradicts the theory that the civilisation is only a few millennia old like the church says. (Alternative, after science in recent decades having established the fact of the rising of Himaalaya from the ocean - just like the old, old legend goes in India since ancient times, is that India knows of such facts due to the sheer brilliance of its thinkers and seers who have extraordinary perception into knowledge west cannot imagine how, since very ancient times; which could be all too correct as well!

Although one must say this author too does the usual callous thing of taking an immense trove of knowledge and taking a few things and attempting to fit them to his own theory - for example, the interpreting of Samudramanthan (churning of oceans - by Gods and their opponents) as the apparently turning of heavens observed from an earth in process of the crust slipping over the core. This interpretation is suited to the theory of the author, but he forgets the churning is supposed to have brought up Himaalaya out of the oceans on the earth, not the Milky Way as the author interprets the ocean. So one needs to think over the discrepancy of the new interpretation and the known and understood one.

So never mind the recanting of the whole cataclysms periodically destroying advanced civilisations theory by the author for various reasons of his unknown to the reader, fact is some of it is known to be true and some seems to fit in with the various stories and legends. Precession of the axis of rotation is true and the changeover from Pisces to Aquarius is expected soon (although he does not make it clear how it happens, does the spring equinox shift to 21 February suddenly or is Aquarius already close to rising with the sun on 21 March, for one thing; and how is this related to the precession of the equinoxes, or is it separate, for another; and so forth); and so is the periodic shifting of the poles, even reversing, while the magnetic poles are already known to have been shifting and are away from the geographic poles. The author mentions and semi explains some of this, repeating but not explaining some parts very well.

Earth crust development theory is startling, unsettling, and one must admit it gives sleepless nights all the more so with a possible next date (21 December 2012) provided with ancient unexplained calculations from Mayan or older civilisations for the end of this civilisation as we know it. Global warming unsettling the earth is yet another factor known to scientists as well as people who do not live with their minds blinkered by the unwillingness to change gas guzzling habits. The latter makes the former seem plausibly loom on the horizon.

Why the author - having established after strenuous arguments that the engineering feats of the older buildings in Egypt and Mexico and Peru and so forth, with details of monoliths placed interlocking in huge structures and so on - now turns around and says they are the work of the known civilisations after all (who produced much inferior structures soon thereafter, which was his first argument for a much older and lost civilisation with tremendous knowledge of various kinds), is unclear - since he merely recants and gives no argument other than being convinced by the establishment after all with its theories he has fought so valiantly through the book.

All in all, much food for thought.
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After finishing this one, with a few books read in between, I happened to pick up Chariots of Gods by Daniken, and was surprised - first, that I had not read it before (seen and heard about it often, though without anybody mentioning anything about its contents), and second, that this book is like an exercise at checking out various facts mentioned by Daniken in Chariots of Gods - Hancock goes into all of it at length and gives a different theory about it, one more suited to present times with more known about space and universe, albeit just as novel for standard scholars of the subjects; then he recants it all in a chapter after the book itself is finished, chapter giving an interview on BBC.
(May 6, 2011)