Maybe if I’d known about this when I was a teen, I wouldn’t have spent ten years killing people and thinking that was the only thing I was good at.
“We know now that a number of the ancient myths we associate with the religions and folk beliefs of cultures worldwide are based on rock-solid historical truth, like most of what we called history until a few decades ago.” Shay pressed a button on the remote in her hand. The PowerPoint slide with her lecture title An Indian Atlantis: A Revised History Examination of Old Dwarka was replaced by a map of southern Asia and the Middle East. An island was marked just off the western coast of India.
Shay nodded toward the screen. “India is one of the oldest centers of civilization on Earth. Setting aside our previous archaeologist examinations of the ruins of ancient cultures there, we also have various Hindu scriptures and epics providing evidence.
“Before Oriceran, most non-Hindu scholars interpreted these sources as mere metaphors or reinterpretations of non-supernatural events, but we now know that at least some of these events did occur, and were magical in nature. Although there remains significant controversy about the exact meaning and truth of specific incidents in ancient legend and religion, we can’t, no matter our personal beliefs, so easily set aside traditional explanations of events without risking missing out on the fundamental truth of ancient events.”
She advanced a slide, revealing an elaborate image of the blue-skinned Lord Krishna sitting on a throne with a flute, a satisfied smile on his face.
A few images here and there were the spice of a lecture, but like a meal, too much spice could make things hard to swallow. She preferred to rely on her words.
Shay nodded toward the slide. “An ancient myth speaks of a mighty city, Dwarka, off India’s Saurashtra coast. A modern city bears that name, but this was an older city, that I’ll refer to as Old Dwarka. The city was on an island that was alleged to have earned the wrath of Lord Krishna around four thousand years ago. As a result of his displeasure, he let the entire island sink into the Arabian Sea as a lesson to all who would make a mockery of their dharma, which I’ll horribly simplify here and reduce to the right way of living according to the cosmic order. So, this was, in a sense, a city being punished for being sinful if you want to think of it that way.”
The ever-eager Mary, who was sitting in the front row, shot her hand up.
“Yes, Mary?”
The girl furrowed her brow. “And there’s no overlap between this and the legend of Atlantis? It’s not just the other legend being reworked to fit in with local culture? The parallels are amazing.”
Shay shook her head. “Some scholars in the past argued that it was the result of some sort of cultural diffusion via Macedonian transmission of existing Greek legends of Atlantis, but the details are different, and now we know for certain that these refer to discrete events which just happened to be similar. The timing of the appearance of the legends and the events they reference is different.
“If you think about it, there’s a lot of water on the Earth, and the oceans are pretty deep. Even if you ignore cities being teleported wholesale using magic and that kind of thing, there’s just a lot of land that the oceans have swallowed, and we’re now just finding out about it. Atlantis and Dwarka aren’t the only cities lost to the hungry maw of the sea.”
Shay advanced a slide. A radar satellite image highlighted a submerged island just off the coast of India.
“Thanks to modern technology, we now know there’s definitely a lost city in the sea near the present-day Dwarka. Originally, archaeologists thought the cities were part of the same settlement, but more recent data indicate that the sea ruins have numerous architectural and other material differences that reveal they are somewhat independent sites. There was a clear and cataclysmic break in the material and social nature of local civilization, which is consistent with the sudden sinking of an island containing a city-state as detailed in the legend.
“Ancient cities had a lot more than just buildings, people, and livestock, especially powerful and advanced ancient cities, though, so I’m going to talk about what I think you are really interested in.” Shay advanced a slide to a picture of piles of jewels, idols, and gold.
The students murmured and let out a few appreciative laughs. One frat boy in the back clapped.
“Now for the fun part.” Shay grinned. “As I hinted, the island and city didn’t just go down with a few boring buildings and some sheep. The legends state they went down with a pile of Lord Krishna’s treasure. This was alleged to have been purposeful to reflect his concern over the shortsightedness of the inhabitants.” She shrugged. “That said, very little of said treasure has been recovered in the decades since the discovery of the older city.”
A student raised his hand in the back. Shay pointed at him.
“How do we even know there is any treasure?” the student asked. “I mean, anyone can claim there’s treasure somewhere, but that doesn’t mean there is.”
“Good question, and good point. They have found just enough to make them think there is more, especially in terms of precious metals and jewels. Given the nature of magic and people’s different understandings concerning magical artifacts at different points in history, we can’t be certain that magical items weren’t looted from the site previously. Some magical surveys have suggested residual pockets of magic energy that might be associated with artifacts, which naturally leads us to ask about what else can we glean from ancient sources about this mysterious lost city?”
Shay walked over to her lectern and
