Book Review

Suns of God: Krishna, Buddha and Christ Unveiled
Acharya S
Adventures Unlimited (815-253-6390), 2004.

Review by Joan d'Arc

Amidst the global chaos of George Bush's War on Terror, largely founded on religious intolerance and simplistic notions of good and evil, Acharya S is the voice of reason. Weaving an incredible tale that begins in the dawn of time - with the personification of the sun and the replication of the born-again sun-god meme the world over - Acharya S shows us that the "Christian way of life" we are dying to protect is actually a fable of ancient propagandists. If you want to understand how humanity has been doomed to a cycle of war, division and chaos, read Acharya S's Suns of God. There will be no escape from the conclusion that we're now living in an "Armageddon" of our own making. We have become part of the machine. - Joan d'Arc, Paranoia Magazine.

Readers of Paranoia will likely be familiar with Acharya S. from her articles in Paranoia (issues 30, 32). Her long-awaited book, Suns of God, continues in the vein of its predecessor, The Christ Conspiracy: The Greatest Story Ever Sold. Copiously footnoted and meticulously researched, Suns of God makes the uncomfortable, to some blasphemous, claim that Jesus is not a historical person but is one of many confabulated "godmen" of the ancient world derivative of the Egyptian sun god, Osiris. Acharya discusses all the major gods of this solar pantheon, including Osiris, Horus, Dionysus, Hercules, Apollo, Mithra, Krishna, Buddha and Christ. They are all, she explains, solar deities who represent aspects of the sun.

Suns of God focuses largely on the Vedic god, Vishnu, a.k.a. Krishna (Cristna), whom she refers to as the "defining deity within Hinduism and one of the most popular godmen in the world." In particular, the traits shared by Christ and Cristna are quite remarkable, among them, their births in a cave or underground chamber and their ability to talk shortly after birth. In fact, she writes, "Krishna's mother was a virgin, to whom it was announced by an angel that she would miraculously conceive." Krishna's birth was also marked by a star and attended by wise men. Krishna's mother saw the universe in her child's open mouth, apparently while he was yammering on and on.

Acharya writes, Krishna is a "shepherd god," and there are pictures of him lying in a manger surrounded by oxen and asses. As a child, Krishna healed a leper, gave sight to the blind, and raised the dead. In fact, she tells us, the apocryphal text, Gospel of the Infancy of the Savior, parallels in many ways the Hindu holy text of the childhood of Krishna, the Bhagavat Purana. The parallels are so detailed that in both stories the foster father goes to the city to pay a tax! In fact, Krishna was an incarnation of God who came to Earth as a redeemer of sins, born of the virgin Devaki on December 25 and crucified. Krishna also traveled with 12 disciples. This, Acharya points out, is a solar motif revolving around the sun and the 12 signs of the zodiac.

The name Christ comes from the Greek word "Christos," which means "the anointed one." The word Krishna in Greek means the same. Indeed, Krishna says of himself, "I am the self abiding in the heart of all creatures; I am their beginning, their middle, and their end." Krishna also declares, "I am the light in the sun and moon... the light of lights." He is also called, "the Resurrection and the Life."

Both Krishna and Christ provided salvation or liberation to their followers, as is described by the Hindu word, Avatar. As Acharya asserts, "the Supreme Being coming to Earth as a human was an idea in existence long prior to the Christian era, and therefore is not original with the Christ myth." So which myth was borrowed? Well, conservative Western authorities, like the Catholic Encyclopedia, date the Vedas at about 3200 years before present. However, Indian scholars date the Vedic religion to 12,000 to 10,000 years ago, based on archeological, astronomical and topographical observances noted therein. Acharya notes that Christian scholars like Max Muller's conservative chronology of Indian texts may be based on the "Aryan Invasion Theory."

Although the Krishna myth was not fully developed in the texts at such an early time, she notes, Greek historian Megasthenes (c. 350-290 BCE) identified Krishna with Hercules. She also quotes scholar J.M. Robertson that, "The myths of Krishna's birth and youth are not only pre-Christian but pre-historic." Christian defenders of their own avatar, believing him to be unique, accuse the "lying Brahmin priests" of plagiarizing the tales from their books. But nothing can be further from the truth, as Acharya demonstrates by quoting a wealth of scholarly sources.

The cross, in fact, is an ancient pagan artifact that symbolized the sun and which existed in the most primitive of cultures across the globe. In pre-Christian times, the cross was an emblem of the solar deity. The "cruciform" image of a god or human with arms extended dates back to the Greek Prometheus, who was nailed to an upright beam with extensions in the form of a cross. Some stories have him fastened to a rock. In even more primitive times, gods were crucified on trees. The godman crucified on a tree and wounded in the side is a pagan motif predating Christ.

Although she will be reviled by some for her conclusions, Acharya shows that Buddhism, "despite protestations to the contrary, was largely influential in the creation of Christianity." She argues further that, like the other dying and rising godmen who represent the sun, Jesus never really existed, but is derivative of the ancient practice of Astrotheology, the worship of the sun, moon, stars and planets. In fact, discussions of the bloodline of Christ, the Holy Grail and the Merovingians, in books such as The Dragon Legacy and The Da Vinci Code, are cast in doubt by the impressive research contained in this book. As Acharya states on her website (www.truthbeknown.com), "The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off." But don't take it out on her. She's just the messenger.

For more information and writings see Acharya's website, www.truthbeknown.com.