Table of Contents
On Danny Jones’s show, Praveen Mohan says ancient India left signs of city-killing weapons and of stonework beyond hammers. Mohenjo-daro, which he glosses as a mound of the dead, and Harappa turned up by chance in regions he ties to old stories. In his Rama telling, a weapon like a nuclear charge is fired away from a living city. He reports high radiation and rock turned glassy by heat applied very fast. Grouped skeletons look like people struck at once rather than buried. As he retells the passages, there is a sunlike blast, a ruined city, barren ground for years, sudden death, and later illness. He then describes a temple cut down from one igneous hill. A first visit convinced him that ordinary labor could not explain it. Dates he gives the mainstream, about twelve to fourteen centuries ago, assume chisels and hammers. Possible, he says, is not the same as practical. Halls, pillars, and a bridge were freed from a single mass, so the whole design had to exist before the first cut.
Key points
- Mohenjo-daro and Harappa are tied to a weapon episode in the Rama story.
- High radiation and glassy rock are read as the trace of sudden extreme heat.
- The brahmastra is his name for a city-killing blast described in the old texts.
- A temple scooped from one hill is, for him, impractical with chisels alone.
- Because nothing was added, the bridge and halls had to be designed before carving began.
- He treats later icon damage as deliberate attack on a monument that was hard to destroy.
Short quotes
they found very high levels of radiation
Praveen Mohan, Indian weapons and hill temples
This is his report of what excavators measured at the Indus sites he links to the weapon. Watch at 4:11
there were no plants or trees growing for the next 12 to 25 years
Praveen Mohan, Indian weapons and hill temples
He is paraphrasing the texts on how long the land stayed barren after the blast. Watch at 8:51
there is no way that a temple could be built this way
Praveen Mohan, Indian weapons and hill temples
His first reaction to the hill temple was that ordinary building practice could not explain it. Watch at 21:46
you had to plan everything before you even started carving anything
Praveen Mohan, Indian weapons and hill temples
A bridge cut from the same rock means the whole design had to be final at the start. Watch at 35:02
Video by Best of Danny Jones. Watch on YouTube.