Ramayana, the ancient Hindu epic is carved on the walls of Prambanan temple in Indonesia. This is the story of Rama and Sinta, still quite famous in Indonesia and is performed as Ballet and Puppet Shows. There are considerable differences between Indonesian Ramayana and Indian Ramayana. But the Prambanan Ramayana is even more different.
#praveenmohan #ramayanam #indonesia #hinduism #prambanan
A giant statue has been beheaded. Can we find the head? Is Buddha’s head still here? We are at Ayutthaya Historical Park, Thailand. Let’s save ancient statues no matter where they are and no matter what religion they belong to. Let’s protect history.
#praveenmohan #buddha #savehistory #thailand #stopviolence
The Wat Ratchaburana Temple in Ayutthaya, Thailand has one of the most ancient ancient and the largest underground crypts. As we enter this underground chamber, we can see 3 different levels of vaults. What will we find inside? Gold? Lingams? Buddha? Secret Symbols? YES.
#praveenmohan #undergroundtemple #buddha #treasure #thailand
An Underground Chamber goes at least 40 feet deep and you can see the steps going inside. Looters found more than 100 kilograms of Gold inside multiple levels of this chamber. This is found in Wat Rachaburana temple in Ayutthaya city of Thailand. Ayutthaya is Ayodhya (the Birthplace of Lord Rama) according to South East Asians, but this temple is deemed a Buddhist temple.
#PraveenMohan #undergroundchamber #undergroundtemple #treasure #gold #Ayodhya
#praveenmohan #indonesia #Indonesiantemple #shivatemple #prambanan #Earthquake
Hey guys, here you can see an ancient carving of Lord Shiva, doing his cosmic dance. But there is something weird about this. How many legs does he have? 3. And also notice his hands, how many hands does he have? That’s right, 3 hands. Let us look at another carving of Shiva. Here too, he is dancing, but notice that he has 3 legs, not 2. So, we can see him in 3 different leg positions: 1, 2 and 3. But again, notice that he also has 3 hands. And if you focus on the hands alone you will get 3 different hand positions: 1, 2 and 3. But what happens when you start looking at the carving with the hands and legs, the result is mesmerizing. This is dancing position number 1, dancing posture 2, 3rd position looks like this, this is position number 4, this is the 5th position, and this is the last of 6th position. For humans, this is 3 + 3 so a total of 6 positions, but may be Lord Shiva uses three times three, so may be, he is capable of these three postures as well. If this is not enough, look at this carving, it not only shows Shiva with 3 legs and 3 hands, he even has 3 heads. How many positions would you get with this carving? 9? 12? 18?
Now, Forget Shiva, let’s look at his guards, see how he has 2 giant guardian doorkeepers. The guardian of Shiva is called Nandhi, and this is how he is carved here. But if you are a Hindu, you will say wait a minute, that is not how Nandhi is usually shown, he is usually shown as a Bull, right? This is how a typical Nandhi is carved, but this guardian does not look like a bull. Are you sure about that? Look carefully, and you will see the bull’s face on his body. This is a very stealthy optical illusion, 99% of the people who visit this temple, will not even realize that this is a bull’s face. See how the nipples make up his eyes, and his belly fat makes up the bull’s mouth. You can even see how the horns are going up. You can see this carved on the other guardian on that side as well. I call them Ninja Nandhis, because this is a very stealthy, secretive way of hiding in plain sight.
And look at this one, this is also a Nandhi, it looks somewhat human, but when we zoom out, you realize there are 2 faces, there is also a bull overlapping the human-like face. If you want to see a human, you will see a human, and if you want to see the bull, you can see the bull. And if you look at the side view, the sculptor has carved the entire bull’s body with the hump and all 4 legs, so this is a spectacular carving of the Ninja Nandhi.
But Nandhi is not the only Ninja hiding in plain sight, when you visit ancient Indian temples, you can miss the illusions that are right before your eyes. Unlike ancient builders, modern human beings are not designed to absorb 100% of the information they see. Look at this carving, what do you see? A calf is drinking milk from its mother, and the cow is licking its baby. What else do you see? Why does the cow have an unusually thick leg in the front? Is there some Maya, some illusion hiding in this carving? Let us look at a similar carving in Mahabalipuram. This is 1300 years old, so it has faded a little bit, but it shows the same thing, a cow licking its calf while the baby is drinking milk, right? But again, there is something different about the front legs, right? If you cover this part of the carving, suddenly you can see an elephant, a mother elephant, with a baby elephant standing between her legs. This is probably the world’s oldest optical illusion and it is 1300 years old. Again, 99% of visitors would never guess that this is an optical illusion. There are many such stealthy optical illusions in ancient temples, they are hiding in plain sight. I don’t think modern humans have the vision to seek and find them.
Here you can see a warrior on a horse, throwing a spear. And there is a guy standing on the ground level, defending the spear with his sword. But his face is not visible and we only see a large, round shield. But look inside the shield. What do you see? Is that a monkey? Is it holding a baby monkey by its tail?
Here you can see Lord Krishna, playing his magical flute and flanked by 2 women. Even a snake is shown dancing at the bottom, as though it is hypnotized by his flute. And look at this illusion, the animal, a dog is also howling, basically singing along with the music, and you can see its movement, look at the moving outline of its body. And the women are also mesmerized by him, you can see this woman pointing at him. And on top, you can see 2 goats together, almost shown loving each other. Very rare to see such a sight in real life, but the idea is to show that the music coming out of Krishna’s flute would sound like a mating call for every animal and bird. On top, you can see all the saints getting enchanted with this, and on this side, you can see a couple also hypnotized by Lord Krishna. While everyone is mesmerized by Lord Krishna, there is someone who is inspired by him. Look at this monkey, he is using this opportunity to steal butter from this pot. This guy is so enchanted by Krishna’s music he is not noticing anything. In the same temple, you can see Krishna himself stealing butter from pots hanging from the ceiling. His friends know that he will get the butter and share it with them. But here is a clever rat – it knows some butter would spill on the floor and he can feast on it. Ancient texts are full of stories about how Krishna stole butter, but here the monkey is stealing butter right in front of him, does Krishna know that he is stealing, right in front of him? Right now, we are not mesmerized by Krishna’s music, we are actually mesmerized by the artistic talent of ancient builders.
But the real illusion lies below. You see this row of tiny carvings. What are they? Are they monkeys? Isn’t there something strange about them? But it is not clear, so let me show you a similar carving I found nearby.
What is going on? At first sight, this is quite confusing. We can see 3 monkey heads but there seems to be a lot more bodies attached to them. Initially I thought the carving was broken on top, but no, this is the whole carving and we can see a very odd scene here. These 2 monkeys seem to be holding something on the top, while the monkey at the bottom is holding the tail of the monkey in the front. This is a rare optical illusion because the 2 monkeys on the left and right are not part of the illusion, only the monkey in the center is doing the magic. First, the monkey appears to be sitting, squatting on the floor, holding the tail of the monkey in the front, but then, it also appears that he is standing on all four legs, again holding the tail of the monkey in the front. But there is a third position, the monkey is doing a headstand, this is a very unique posture. Because he is standing on just one hand, and the other hand is still holding the other monkey’s tail, I don’t think he can balance himself like that, with just one hand. This is why his friends are helping him, by holding his legs in the air. It is also funny how he has kept his feet, he is almost doing Namaste with his feet, feels like he is ridiculing the traditional Namaste of Humans. But wait, there is one more position that is even more crazy. Look at how he is doing acrobatics, he is bending over backwards, and in this position, he appears to be holding his own tail. Almost like a circus trained monkey.
Now, let’s take a look at this carving, it is kind of strange, isn’t it? There are only 2 heads, but there are 4 bodies. Look at that monkey face, this is Lord Hanuman, the monkey or Ape God. In this position, he is flying in the air, he is described as being capable of flight. In this position, he appears to be sitting and looks like he is eating, and in this position, he is lying down, but his spine is really curved, and in this position, he is upside down, doing Yoga. Here is another carving with the similar theme, except that this carving also shows 2 tails shared between the 4 monkeys.
And I found this carving which is even better. In the center there is an illusion I have already shown you. There are 2 monkey heads but there are 4 bodies connected to them. But around them, you can see 6 large monkey heads. But when we zoom in on their bodies, we are blown away. Let us just take this monkey head at the bottom. This monkey is in the crouching position, then he appears to be standing on all fours, and the third position is bending over backwards, but notice how each body is shared between the monkeys. If you see this body, then the body of the other cannot be seen. This is an extraordinary stone carving found in an ancient temple, but no one even bothers to document these carvings.
The problem is, there are illusions hiding everywhere, it appears that we need to look at ancient temples in a totally different angle. When seen with naked eyes, many things appear to be just decorative patterns. This appears like a floral pattern and this appears to be a circle with 4 lines, but when we zoom in, this is not a floral pattern, there are 2 monkeys holding each other’s limbs, as though they are doing some kind of acrobatics and this is not a circle, there are 4 elephants carved and they appear to be drinking water out of a circular pond.
What about this elephant carved on a temple tower? Why does he look like that? Does he have some kind of a weird skin disease or something? If we zoom in, we can see that its body is made parrots or peacocks. Look at the tusks of the elephant, see how skillfully the sculptor has carved the birds inside to make it look like tusks. Nearby, we can see a similar carving. What about these birds? What are they doing? They are carved to make the shape of a horse. From the ground level, all you will see is a horse, but if you a sharp eyesight, or if you zoom in with a camera, then you get to see the birds.
In this carving, there are 2 women carrying a palanquin on their shoulders and inside the palanquin, there is a warrior, he is holding a bow and arrow. But there is something weird about the palanquin, the palanquin is not made of wood or metal, it is made of 2 human bodies, it is made of 2 women. This is really weird. You can see how their arms are outstretched on these 2 sides, and how their legs make up the base of the palanquin.
The ancient Hoysaleswara temple is known for its strange mysteries. But in this temple, there is a beautiful carving of Lord Krishna, who is the master of illusions. There is so much information packed in this one carving, we can talk about it for hours. Lord Krishna has just lifted up a hill called Govardhana. You can see a variety of animals, including monkeys and big cats, various types of trees are shown, a hunter is actively hunting on the hill, and when Krishna lifted up the mountain, all the snakes hiding under the rocks have now dropped down to bite the person who has destroyed their natural habitat, but after seeing Krishna’s beauty they are mesmerized by him. The locals, both men and women, have all come about to see this spectacle, and they are all hypnotized by him, even the cows have stopped giving milk to the calves, and the calves have also forgotten about their hunger and are satiated by just looking at Lord Krishna. And so are we, mesmerized by this great carving. Because, wait, what is this video about? Optical illusions, right? In this carving, these three dancers have, just 4 legs. There are 3 people, so they are supposed to have a total of 6 legs, but they only have four. And you can imagine them as you please. By the way, I don’t think anybody knows about this optical illusion. No historian, no archeologist, nobody would have noticed this, because this is such a tiny little detail, in this giant carving. And this temple has thousands of carvings like this, so it becomes impossible to notice this detail. So, ancient builders put such stealthy optical illusions everywhere, even if they are right in front of your eyes, you will never notice them, because your attention is absorbed in other details.
Look at this guy, what is he doing to this woman? And why is this woman trying to stop him, by holding his hand? And you may have completely missed the missing leg here because you are lost in the drama. And if you noticed this illusion right away, that means you are brilliant, but if you noticed this illusion too, call me, I need researchers like you.
Here you can see 4 people, but they only have 7 legs, one leg is missing because these 2 guys believe that sharing is caring. Here we have 3 people, and they only have 5 legs, because these 2 people are sharing legs. Here you can see three people, and they only have 4 legs, because they are all sharing legs. If you use your imagination, every dancer will appear happy and complete, but in reality, 2 full legs are missing. I have seen this type of carving in many many temples and I still keep finding it. These are dancing humans, but we can also see dancing demons, you can see the fangs on them sometimes, and sometimes they are overweight or deformed. And you will see three dancing demons but they only have 4 legs. But the demons are also very good at Maya, they are tricking us right now, because we are not looking at their hands. Let’s count, there are only 4 hands for these 3 bodies. While humans do not share hands, the demons are also sharing their hands, and this is why you should never trust demons. And if we do the permutations and combinations on this carving for example, this can produce some crazy illusions, if you watch closely, you will start understanding the genius of ancient builders.
I found this carving online, it is low quality, but what is this? Conjoined triplets or something?
Here is a strange carving in a Hindu temple, it appears to be showing Siamese twins. But they are shown with some strange features. They have a weird smile and they have 7 hands, yeah 7 hands, it is not even symmetric.
And here is a woman, she is a spider-woman because she is got 6 legs. And of course, she doesn’t really have 6 legs, the carving just shows the different positions of her legs. She is dancing. And then here is another carving with the same theme, you can see her 6 legs, but if you look carefully, you can also see 2 more legs, yeah, she is doing a split for us. So, she has actually got 8 legs. But here is another carving that shows 10 legs. I mean this is just getting crazier and crazier, it is as if the ancient sculptors were competing with one another. Here is another carving that is also shown with 10 legs, there is a little bit of variation in this one, but if you ever find a 12-legged woman, let me know.
And sometimes, the dancers are shown with just 2 legs, but they are shown with a lot of hands. A lot of people, even Hindus may think these are multi-armed Gods. But in fact, many times, they are just regular dancers and the sculptor wanted to show a variety of hand movements and such. In this carving, you can see about 8 hands and if you make them in reasonable combinations, you will get a lot of different views, because the hands can be put in a variety of permutations and combinations and you get a bunch of different postures. If you really start looking at the various combinations, you start to understand the real beauty of this ancient carving, it almost appears as though she is dancing, right in front of your eyes.
But this makes us wonder if the Gods really had multiple hands, or were the sculptors merely trying to show their different postures or the various weapons and tools they used. When you saw the 8-legged woman, you didn’t actually think she had 8 legs, you understood that the sculptor was just showing her different positions. But when we look at a God like this, why do we think he has 12 hands? Is it possible that the sculptor was just trying to show all the tools and weapons and how powerful the Deity was? What do you think?
This is the weirdest carving in this entire video. It shows a dancing woman with 2 legs, 2 hands and one head. This is just a normal woman, and look at it, it is just so weird that there is no Maya in this, no illusions, and you are now filled with a deep sense of disappointment.
Here you can see a giant statue of a warrior seated on a horse. But at the bottom, something strange is carved. What is that? Is that a dog? Does it have 3 heads? See how it is shown with three heads to show its head movement. We don’t know if it is carved this way to show its movement, or if it is a three-headed dog called Sharvara mentioned in Hindu texts. This is also very similar to Cerberus, a three-headed dog mentioned in ancient Greek texts. Also, notice what it is standing on, this is very strange, isn’t it?
This is a cow, raising its head, and you can see how the sculptor has depicted that using 2 heads. Here you can see a cow with 2 heads. If you hide one head, you will see the cow licking a lingam at the bottom, and if you hide the other head, you will see the cow giving milk to the lingam. The implication is that the cow has become mesmerized with the lingam, and takes care of it like a baby. This is a three headed cow, this is not a bull, some Indian cows do have humps, and if you hide these 2 faces, you can see the cow standing upright. And if you cover these heads, you can see a grazing cow, it is just enjoying some grass, and if you cover these 2 faces, you can see that it is licking its own belly. So, it’s not a mythical three headed cow or something, the sculptor is merely showing the cow’s movement. Today we would show it as a video, but in ancient times, they were just showing it like this.
And this is a very beautiful optical illusion. There are only 2 birds, 2 peacocks. I mean they only have 2 bodies and 2 heads, and nothing seems to be shared between them. But the way the necks are carved is very odd. They are so devious that we can interchange the heads on the birds. So we get different views by altering our imagination.
But there are some strange carvings found in ancient temples, sometimes you will see a two headed bird. It seems like an illusion, where you hide one head, you see the bird like this, and if you hide the other head, it looks like this. But this two headed bird is called Gandaberunda and it has a very interesting story behind it. See what it is doing with its 2 legs, and also its 2 beaks? Yeah, it is holding an elephant in each of its leg and its beak. But we missed an important detail. If you look carefully, you will see this animal as well. It looks like a lion, but it is actually an animal called Yali.
Some say it is mythical, and some say it is an extinct prehistoric animal. And you can see these Yalis in many many ancient temples. There are also many variations of Yalis, this is Simha Yali which looks more like a lion, and this is Gaja Yali which has the face of an elephant. Some Yalis also have wings and are capable of flight. And if you talk to elderly people in India, there are many strange stories about Yalis. These Yalis used to have their nests on remote mountain tops, and they also laid eggs, like other birds. When a baby Yali hatched out of an egg, the mother or the father Yali would fly to the ground level, and grab as many elephants as possible and take them back to the mountain top. Why? These elephants were fed to the baby Yali, just like how young chicks are fed to a baby eagle. This is a fantastic story and we don’t know if this is true or not, but this story reveals something interesting, it shows the size of the Yali. If a newborn Yali could eat an elephant, imagine how big an adult Yali was. And if the 2 headed bird could pick up a Yali in one leg or its beak, imagine how big, the 2 headed bird would have been.
The Yali itself is carved with many heads in some temples. Here is a very fascinating carving where the Yali appears to be sitting in a squatting position, it has a lion like face, but it also horns like a ram. However, look at the sides, you can see there are Yalis carved on the sides as well sharing the head. You can see this Yali here, and the neck is quite long, but it is sharing the face with the Yali in the center. On the other side, you can see the same detail, so there are 3 Yalis sharing one head here.
Here is another carving. From the front, it has a strange Yali like face. And on the sides, you can see 2 human like faces. It appears as if he is turning left and right and checking if someone is watching him.
We can see an ancient pole dancer here. But he is a man. He is shown with one head, but 2 bodies. And you can see how he is moving left and right without shaking his head, because he is balancing a pot on top of his head.
But this guy is nothing compared to this pole dancer. In the first position, he is kind of hugging the pole, in the second position, he is shown standing in a relaxed way, and in the last position, he is shown with both legs in the air, using the pole as a support. A brilliant carving showing several moves of the pole dancer.
Here you can see a carving of 2 fish, but they are sharing their heads, and if you hide the body of any one fish, you can see the other fish fully. But this is not just limited to 2 fish, but you can also carvings of three fish sharing just one head in the center. This seems to a popular carving in ancient Indian temples, I have found several of them, and my favorite carving is this one. This type of fish seems to have an elongated snake like body. It is not an eel, but it has a twisted, flexible body, and the optical illusion looks quite beautiful and really well made. Did you like the illusion of the monkey? No, the monkey? The monkey.
You have seen a lot of optical illusions so far, but have you ever wondered why the sculptors carved them. Let’s look at some of the reasons behind such carvings. Here, you can see a monkey with just one head, but it has 4 bodies. Superficially, it looks like a nice artistic, optical illusion, but if you take a closer look, there is a deep philosophy hiding inside. This actually shows the lifecycle of humans. During your young age, you spend most of your time playing. In the second stage of your life, you are obsessed with romance and making love. The third stage of your life is spent as an effect of your romance, you spend it raising your children. Notice the difference between the second stage and third stage, they look similar but they are not the same. Look at the tail here, and see how this young kid is sitting on the back of its parent. The last stage is when you are really old, tired and you just wait to meet your maker. Such deep meanings of life are embedded in ancient Indian carvings.
But sometimes optical illusions are carved, not for art or philosophy. Sometimes, they show an event. Here is a beautiful carving, can you tell me what is going on here? From the front view, it just appears as though a baby is drinking milk from a woman. But when you look at it from the side, you see something weird. There is another body lying down. The lower body is shared between these 2 figures. What is the meaning of this?
This woman’s name is Putana. According to ancient Indian texts, she is actually a demon disguised as a woman who wanted to kill baby Krishna. She filled her breasts with poisonous milk and began breastfeeding him. But baby Krishna was resistant to all sorts of poison, and he started sucking the life out of her. So the first stage, shows her trying to kill Krishna, and the second stage shows her lying lifeless.
Here is a carving, immediately you may be reminded of the three-legged dancing Shiva I showed you before. But this is not Shiva, this is Lord Vishnu, and he is not dancing. This is a story where Vishnu sends this king to the underworld, see how is shown half sunk into the earth. Using the other 2 legs, Vishnu is measuring the earth and the sky. And look at this figure, who is he, what is he doing?
Let’s take a look at this carving. You can see an illusion where this woman is shown standing upright in the first stage, and shown buckling and falling down in the second stage. How do we decode what is going on? The first thing we notice is that this is not woman, she is a demoness with her teeth coming out, furry eyebrows large eyes popping out. And look at her hands, what is she holding in both hands? Stones. Yes, she is going to throw stones at this person who is shooting an arrow on her. This is mentioned in the ancient text of Ramayana, where a demoness by the name of Tadaka throws stones on Lord Rama, and he kills her with a single arrow. Unless you have read this ancient text, it will appear as a simple battle scene between 2 people. So, you will see a lot of optical illusions like this carved in ancient temples, but you won’t understand the story unless you have read ancient Indian texts.
Sometimes, ancient optical illusions were not made, to show philosophy or a story, sometimes they were made for practical purposes. If you look at the corner of this ancient temple, you will see this elephant. And if you see it from the other side, you will see another elephant. But they are sharing one head. Why? Because it saves space. Ancient builders have effectively used the corner space available by sharing the head between the 2 bodies.
But there are some carvings which have never been fully decoded. They contain some esoteric ancient secrets. Look at it, what do you see? Do you see a snake & frog? Do you see a monkey feeding its baby? Or do you see a Lingam? Found in an ancient temple at Hampi, this carving is just one example of many esoteric, ambiguous carvings. What are we supposed to infer from it?
What about this carving? How many faces do you see? How many of them are animals? How many of them are human? What is the meaning of this carving?
Sometimes, there is a figure with 5 bodies, but has just one head. There are multiple versions of this optical illusion in different temples. But the underlying meaning is this. There are 5 elements called Panchabhoota which make up our world: Air, water, earth, fire and space and God is the shared face, the linking factor between all of them.
And this carving is considered a lucky charm, some people say if you look at it, it will bring you some good fortune within the next 7 days. But, is it a Bull? Or is it an elephant? A modern version of this illusion is all over the internet. Is it a Duck or rabbit, or both? This illusion is called Rishabakunjara, and in every carving you can see a bull and an elephant, but their faces are fused together. Why do they have so many carvings of these Bull-Elephant illusion in so many temples?
I hope you enjoyed watching more than 100 ancient optical illusions from India.
-Praveen Mohan
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