We went on a holiday to Italy from 26^th December to 1^st January 2013. We were looking for Hindu symbols, links etc in various parts of Italy like Venice, Naples, Pompei and Rome. To be honest we did not find much more than Hindu symbol Swastika and Jesus in Namasthe pose. We also saw huge paintings of Romans travelling in a chariot drawn by peacocks and a Roman travelling on eagle like our Vishnu. We photographed big confession boxes, at least eight inside the Vatican Church St Peters Basilica.( I am writing separately about the Hindu origin of confession). In addition to this we played Vedas (Rudram and Chmakam) in the hotel rooms. As usual I did my Brahminical duties of Sandhya Vandhanam with the help of a plastic cup and plastic spoon. So Gayatri Mantra with Om (aum) reverberated in the rooms on the banks of river Tiber in Rome and Grand canal in Venice. We did Gayatri in the Vatican church as well in addition to Abirami Andhati. I always recite Hindu slokas (hymns) whenever I am in a place of worship. Whether it is a church or a mosque or a temple they have some mysterious power.

Read more interesting bits below:

Picture of Gondola with Romantic Couple

400 Bridges + 150 Canals: Floating City

We ( a group of eight people from two families) went to Venice first. It is definitely one of the wonders of the world. It is a floating city with 150 canals and 400 bridges. The water touches every building along the route. Thousands of huge and historical monuments are on either side of the canals. I heard from the people that the water enters the buildings during flooding periods. And yet they stand without much damage for hundreds of years at least for 700 years.

Venice is on the shores of Adriatic Sea. It was once hundreds of islands on the lagoons. Slowly the water level rose and made it a floating city. The main transport of the city is by Waterbuses called Vaporetto. Like we buy bus tickets in our cities we buy tickets and go to any part of the city. For Romantic travellers like newly married young couple, there are traditional decorated long boats called GONDOLAS. We saw young and old lovers happily boating and the gondola boatman singing loudly in Italian.

St Marco is a known land mark with a beautiful church. All the churches in Italy are huge like our Meenakshi temple of Madurai or Big temple of Thanjavur. The only difference is that these churches came in to existence at least thousand years later. The paintings, stained window glasses and architecture are beautiful. The next famous land mark is Rialto bridge, one among the 400 bridges. This is famous for its statues and shopping. We saw the famous Opera House only from outside.

Doges Palace with Vishnu’s Garuda

Doges means the chief magistrates who ruled Venice area from 7^th century AD. The palace is huge with lot of paintings and statues. I saw huge pillars like our Tirumalai Nayak Place in Madurai, Tamil Nadu. The interesting thing about the paintings is there is lot of Hindu influence. Like Lord Skanda, a lady was riding a chariot drawn by peacocks. Peacocks are Indian birds imported by Babylonia and Rome for thousands of years. So it is definitely a Hindu theme. Another character was flying on an eagle like Vishnu on Garuda. Famous Italian paintings are mostly modern. They were started during the Renaissance in fifteenth century.

Venice is famous for its glass industry. Beautiful and colourful figures are available in all the shops.

Picture of Jesus doing Namasthe, John holding Danda like Shankaracharya

Jesus doing Namasthe

I have already written about the 39 amazing similarities between the Bible and Hindu scriptures in two parts under the title “SANSKRIT IN BIBLE”. Now I have found out one more. Jesus disappeared when he was a teenager and came back to history when he was 32+ according to the Bible. Great thinkers knew that he studied Upanishads at the feet of Indian Rishis during this period and his parables echoed the Upanishads. Some people also believe he did spend his later life in the Himalayas and he did not die on the cross. He belonged to a tribe called Esannes which has similarities with the Hindus. Now I saw two huge paintings in Rome depicting the baptism of Jesus from John. First of all, water is used for this like Hindus. There is no Hindu ceremony without water. The second thing is Jesus like every Hindu devotee before his Guru, brought two hands together and do Namaste! One of the paintings is in Sistine Chapel, Vatican City.

Like Hindus use Sanskrit inside temples, Vatican uses only Latin. Pope delivers his speeches in Latin. One of the world’s wonder is Sistine Chapel where we can see the huge and beautiful paintings of Michelangelo. They became more popular after Dan Brown’s book and film The Da vinci Code and the Lost Symbol. We said “amazing” and my American colleagues said “awesome”. Though we saw the world famous paintings for the second time everything looked new to us. We can call it the Ajanta of the Western World!

SWASTIKA in Etruscan Museum

I have already written an article about the “ETRUSCAN- HINDU/TAMIL LINK”. But I wanted to see in person about what I read in the books. The museum was huge with thousands of artefacts. We had to finish it in two hours because of our other commitments. To my disappointment photography was banned inside the museum like many museums. And there were no books on the museum or Etruscans in English at the Bookshop attached to the Museum!!! But I managed to take one or two shots of pots (Amphorae) with Swastika on it. Whenever I saw swastika pots I read that was the oldest pot belonging to seventh century BC!

Swastika signs were found in all old cultures around the world including Indus, Egyptian and Babylonian. They were considered solar symbols. But the Sanskrit word SWASTI (auspiscious) is accepted by all the scholars.

About other hundreds of attractions like Colosseum, Pantheon, Spanish Steps, Plzza del Popollo, Plazza della Republicca,  I have nothing new to say. The tourist websites are good enough for anyone.

In Pompeii, a big lively city was buried under the volcanic ash. Indian ivory figures were found there.

Krishna 13 Restaurant in Rome

Last time we went to Rome and Florence in 2007. We suffered a lot because we couldn’t get anything Indian like rice or chapathi. Being strict vegetarians we had to eat Pizza and Pasta for seven days! This time thanks to a Sikh vendor in front of Colosseum in Rome we came to know about a Hindu restaurant next to the main Railway station Termini. Just outside the metro station Vittorio Emanuel we found Krishna 13 restaurant. It is a veg and non-veg restaurant. We had very tasty Rice, Naan and Sabjis. To our surprise that was the lowest bill we paid in Rome and Venice. The chef was a Nepalese. The owner couple were from Bombay and Kashmir. They were very nice.

The big difference I noticed in Italy was the crowd. We visited Italy during Christmas last time as well. But now the crowd has swollen like anything. I felt as if I was inching my way through Madurai Chitra festival crowd. Everywhere there were huge crowds and long queues. We couldn’t even take photos without human heads. The trains were jam packed like Bombay suburban trains.

Picture of Hindu Style Shastanga Namaskar to Jesus

Japanese crowd

Another difference we noticed was a huge Japanese presence. Everywhere Japanese were going in big groups buying all expensive goods like Prada, Gucci, Georgio Armani. No one can compete with them!