Gods of Maya

"Gods of Maya" was the topic of lecture by Alejandro Garay, a Guatemalan archaeologist at the National Museum, New Delhi today morning.

This was one of the best Latin American lectures in India and an eye opener on Mayan culture.

Garay made an impressive, structured, clear and eloquent presentation on the gods of Maya, the Mayan culture, art and crafts. Garay has come prepared with good amount of knowledge of India. He explained the myths with research findings from archaeology, monuments, carvings and sculptures. 

Highlights of the lecture:

The god of maize (corn) is the most important god of Mayans. According to the Mayan myths, god created human beings to prepare food for them and thats the reason many rituals involve offerings of food to gods.

Mayan Calendar is based on the evolution of human being from conception to delivery (9 months) and not on the stars or planets. According to them, the world was created in 3114 BC.

The classical period in which Mayan culture flourished was between 300 and 1000 AD.

Mayas had developed the most complex system of writing in the Americas. It was developed around 300 AD and has 800 signs and is pictorial like the Japanese letters. The Mayans used ink for writing.

The Mayans have also had zero as number like the Indians. Their numerals are the easiest to learn, as seen in the image below. one dot for 1, two, three and four dots for 2,3 and 4. Five is written as a horizontal line.. for 6.7,8 and 9 it is the line with the number of dots above. For 10, it is two horizontal lines.. and for 15 three lines. For 11-14 and 16-19 lines plus dots. so easy a system..

The Mayans believed that everything including wood and stone had spirit in them. There are carvings (like animations) with images of stones speaking to the human beings.

There was a large appreciative audience of students of art, archaeology and culture, who asked intelligent questions.

Garay is the first ever Latin American archaelogist to be invited by ICCR to India. He is visiting Nalanda, Humpi, Jaipur, Agra and Hydedarabad too..

I advised Garay to do a comparative study of Indian and Mayan gods. I told him about the Tamil book " South American Tamils" in which the author has claimed that Mayas, Aztecs and Olmeds are Tamils who went from Tamilnadu and got lost there..

I suggested to the National Museum Institute to organise a seminar on the similiarities between Indian and the Latin American Inca, Aztec and Mayan Indian cultures..