Customer Reviews:
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 Proof of Vedic culture's Global Existence July 6, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Superbly done and it's time for the world to know truth about the origins of their cultures.
 Not for the faint hearted :) February 24, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
This book would be condemned by dogmatic readers as it provides new information that may contravene their beliefs. I highly recommend this book for readers that are open-minded and are searching for the truth about early civilisation.
I had the urge to find out about the beginnings of mankind and had a good idea that it started out in the east as the oldest evidence and highest populations lie in these regions...
Stephen Knapp takes us through a wordwide journey and startles us with some hidden truths substantiated with evidence (can you imagine the difficulty associated in providing evidence for an era thousands of years ago..?)
An excellent read!
Where there is smoke there is fire November 18, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I did not read this book, but I browsed thru this and some of Knapp's books and many of the reviews here. It is difficult for people in the west (especially religious ones) to accept that their language and possibly even some of their ancestors have roots in ancient northern India from thousands of years ago, given the present poor condition of India in comparison to the west. Although in recent times, after 60 years of independence from British, it has made remarkable progress; may once again become one of the global powers as it was before the arrival of Islam and British into India. There has to be a common thread, whether that thread originated in India or else where. There is no evidence that great civilizations and thought existed in the west, 5000 years ago. So, how could they have come to India from the west, as English led us all to believe. When one reads ancient Bhagavatam, it is clear that the Vedic kings before 5000 years ago were global rulers, it was a different era and these ancient books need a close look without any pride and prejudice. According to bible, the world is only 5000 years old, these ancient books of India go back to hundreds of thousands of years and even millions of years in time line, right there, there is a conflict with Judeo, Christian, Islamic beliefs. So, how can majority of the people who belong to these religions will ever study these ancient books of India and try to find the truth. I admire Stephen Knapp's courage and will to study these ancient books and write mainly for westerners. Granted that there may be a stretch in certain cases, but unless there is fire there is no smoke, we can see Vedic signatures thru out the world.
Intriguing, easy read but evidence is ? December 17, 2006
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
An interesting story of the Indo-European language originating within the Pakistan-India region then spreading throughout Europe. This origin is a plausible hypothesis, but confirming evidence is missing. True, Sanskrit shares many words with most European languages, and Sanskrit is an ancient language but is Sanskrit closer to Endo-European than any other language of Europe? A conventional hypothesis is that Indo-European originated nearer the Caucasus region; though evidence for this is not conclusive.
 Worthless December 13, 2006
15 out of 25 found this review helpful
To put it bluntly, this book should be shown the way to the trashcan.
This is yet another attempt from ISKCON to write books about fantastic evidence supporting their religious views of an ancient world which was centered around their religious beliefs. The other such attempt by ISKCON is by Richard Thompson and Michael Cremo - both Hare Krishnas - just like Stephen Knapp.
These books are good examples of "pseudo-science". The authors lack background in science and yet are presumptious enough to question the crediblity of time tested scientific methods like archaeology and linguisitics, simply because these approaches do not assign the kind of fantastic dates to the ancient world as iskcon would like to.
As is the case with creationists and other adherents of pesudo-scentific methods, Stephen Knapp is also looking more for believers to support his position than to uncover facts and discover truth. He starts from the premise that his religious sources provide correct history (for example, the entire world following the vedas at one time) and then sets out to uncover physical evidence to establish this fact. Obviously, since this is not what mainstream history has to say, it must be false per Stephen Knapp's binary logic.
It must be noted that ISKCON in reality does not follow any of the four vedas and instead adopts other peripheral texts. Yet, it markets its religious belief as Vedic and claims to follow a vedic culture thus misleading the general public especially in the western world, where people are not aware of the basics of Indian religion. The Vedic culture was about worshipping fire, now obsolete Vedic Gods such as Indra, Varuna, etc and sacrificing animals. This culture died out in India a long time ago and has hence been supplanted by what we now call Hinduism which is primarily based on idol worship and non-vedic Gods for the most part. ISKCON worships idols and does not worship fire or any of the vedic Gods thus making it non-vedic in every sense.
In short, this book abounds in mistakes and is not worth the paper it is printed on. For a professional review of this book, refer to Mark Newbrook's review which can be found online.
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