As he wrote about his experiences within Uganda Winston Churchill declared 'the kingdom of Uganda is a fairy tale, the scenery is different, the climate is different and most of all the people are different from anything in the whole range of Africa' he goes on to say 'for magnificence, for variety of form and colour, for profusion of brilliant life, bird, insect, reptile, beast, for vast scale, Uganda is truly the pearl of Africa'.

 

Churchill was not the first to describe Uganda as the 'pearl of Africa' as in the 19th century Henry Morton Stanley ( stanley i presume ) also described Uganda as the 'pearl of Africa' and to describe something as a pearl means one is attributing great value as seen in the Bible where it advises one 'not to cast ones pearls before swine' and the kingdom of heaven is described as 'a pearl of great price'.

 

Pearls are very much a part of the culture of the Massai who embroider them into their dress, each colour having specific meaning as white expresses divine love, blue reflects god and heaven and green represents peace and nature and the women wear an accumulation of pearls including rank, age, and clan while for the men such pearls represent ones merits, social status and courage.

 

 

Within the lands of Tanzania it seems this pearl standard may have been the name for Africas highest mountain 'Kilimanjaro' a name which possesses the prefix 'kili' and 'kiri' which we see within other mountains such as 'Kilimambogo' 'Kirinyaga' 'Kilimangombe' and whose meaning is 'mountain' and 'hill'.

 

Sanskrit has the word 'giri' whose meaning is 'mountain' and 'hill' and 'giri' and 'kiri' and 'kili' are very much the same and the second part of the word 'manjaro' may well be 'manjara' a word from Sanskrit whose meaning is 'pearl' as in the pearl ( manjara ) mountain ( kili ) an appropriate name for this beautiful snow topped mountain.

 

Kilimanjaro lies opposite 'Manyara' a lake which Ernest Hemingway described as the most beautiful lake within Africa and when we consider how the 'Y' and the 'J' are interchangeable its reasonable to suggest a relationship with 'manjara' a word from Sanskrit meaning 'pearl' and nearby we find the regions of 'Karatu' and 'Madukani' names which can also be found within Sanskrit.

 

 

'Arusha' as shown above is a beautiful vista residing between Kilimanjaro and Manyara and a name which is found within the Vedas describing 'Usas' the goddess of the dawn as its meaning is the rising ( aruh ) sun ( usas ) and we find that Arusha sits at the foot of 'Mount Meru' the fifth highest mountain within Africa and just as Arusha is the dawn goddess of the Vedas so Mount Meru is the Vedic cosmic mountain and home of the gods.

 

Within his book 'The Venus Blueprint' the author writes 'the ancient name for Egypt was 'Tomera' and the written name for the great pyramid was 'Mr' the root for meru, myrrh, mihr, mithra and in this way the Meru archetype was the mountain symbol behind Egyptian cosmology." Wallis Budge, an Egyptologist, also writes 'Meru means mountain in Egyptian language, Tomera is the land mera, Egypt and Tamerau is the people of the land of the Nile floods - the Egyptians'.

 

In her book "The Wonderful Ethiopians Of The Ancient Cushite Empire" American historian Drusila Dunjee Houston writes "In those primitive days, the central seat of Ethiopia was not the Meroe of our day, which is very ancient, but a kingdom which preceeded it by many ages, that was called Meru. Lenormant spoke of the first men of the ancient world as 'men of Meru'. Sanskrit writers called Indra, chief god of the Hindus 'king of Meru' he was deified and became the chief representative of the Supreme being".

 

 

The glories of Meru can be seen throughout the world as seen above within the monumental structure of Angkor Wat, one of the great wonders of the world which is found within the jungles of Cambodia and where we see the mandalas represented by the walls and moats all surrounding the central pivot, the cosmic axis known as 'Mount Meru'.

 

We also have 'Borobudur' which resides in Java within the lands of Indonesia, the largest temple of the Buddhist world as it rises up into the sky through a series of mandalas which once again surrounds a central pivot which is the cosmic axial mountain, the land of the gods known as 'Mount Meru'.

 

'Meru' can also be found upon the island of Bali some 1000 metres in the air within the 2000 year old temple of Mount Agung as its stepped terraces lead onwards to its central pivot which is Mount Meru and within Thailand its found some 2000 feet above Sea level as the 'Prasat Preah Vihear' whose Sanskrit name means the temple ( prasad ) of the beloved ( priya ) abode ( vihara ) a reflection of the celestial Mount Meru.

 

 

Mount Meru within the lands of Tanzania stands as testimony to the Vedic influence of Africa and another fingerprint can be found upon the above map where we see 'Sagara' a lake of Africa whose name is quite clearly from the language of Sanskrit whose meaning is 'marine' 'sea' 'ocean' as seen in 'ksira sagara' meaning the ocean ( sagara ) of milk ( ksira ) as seen in 'Man Sagar' the lake of Jaipur and within Indonesia we find 'Segara Anak' the crater ( anak ) lake ( segara ).

 

Sagara is mentioned in the Gita spoken some 5000 years ago by Krsna where we find the line 'mrtyu samsara sagarat' meaning the ocean ( sagara ) of birth and death ( samsara ) and as well as meaning 'ocean' the word 'sagara' is associated with 'lake' hence in the lands of Tanzania we have 'Mount Meru' and we have 'Lake Sagara' names which are fully Sanskrit.

 

And so throughout the lands of Tanzania we have 'Mount Meru' which is definitely Sanskrit, we have 'Kilimanjaro' which is at least half Sanskrit, we have 'Lake Sagara' which is definitely Sanskrit, we have 'Lake Manyara' which is probably Sanskrit and we have the plains of 'Arusha' which is definitely Sanskrit.

 

 

Within the African lands of Tanzania we also find the Tarangire national park whose name is derived from the Tarangire river and from a Sanskrit perspective we see two words 'tara' whose meaning is 'crossing' and 'giri' whose meaning is 'mountain' and 'hill' as in that which crosses ( tara ) the hills ( giri ) which is quite appropriate as this river flows through the hills of the East African Rift Valley.

 

Compare this with 'Kitangiri' a lake we find within Tanzania and logic says the 'giri' and 'gire' are the same and when we include other regions such as 'Kinyangiri' and 'Buigiri' i think we can conclude that 'giri' is not only the uncorrupted form but also a suffix which may mean 'mountain' or 'hill' and throughout Africa we find 'Giri' as the name of a town, the name of a river and the name of a hill.

 

'Tara' is an ancient name which can be seen as the Tara of Buddhism who helps one 'cross' over at the time of death, it can be seen as golden Tara of the Slavic tradition which gave us the kingdom of Tartary, it can be seen as Taranis the Celtic god of thunder, its the Egyptian and Hebrew Tara whose meaning is 'gateway' and 'portal' its source is the Sanskrit Tara meaning 'crossing' and it may be seen here forming the name of 'Tarangire'.

 

 

'Soma' plays a rich part within the ancient Vedic culture of India where its mentioned throughout the Vedas as an elixir whose potency was said to bestow the gift of immortality and it just may be that this ancient culture of 'Soma' may be seen within the lands of Tanzania.

 

'Somanga' is a region of Tanzania whose name is similar to 'Somangala' a village of India whose meaning is the auspicious ( mangala ) moon ( soma ) and we also have the Tanzanian region of 'Somanda' whose original name was 'Somandala' and of course if you can shorten 'Somandala' to 'Somanda' we must consider that the Tanzanian region of 'Somanga' may have once been 'Somangala' whose meaning is the auspicious ( mangala ) moon ( soma ).

 

'Soma' can also be seen within Mozambique as 'Mount Soma' and along this same coast we find the republic of 'Somalia' a name which the mundaners translate as 'go and get the milk' and when we consider how Somalia was once part of the Ethiopian Nagas its reasonable to suggest a connection. Nobody within Africa knows what Soma means yet within the African country of Angola we find the city of 'Soma' within Mali we find the city of 'Soma' within Zambia we find the region of 'Soma' within the Congo we find the region of 'Soma' within Gambia we find the region of 'Soma' and within Kenya we find 'Soma Kutva' a hill whose peak is 1000 metres above sea level, yet nobody within Africa knows what the word Soma means.

 

Standing upon the tip of Cape Comorin we look to the left and observe Indonesia and the Indonesian ocean whose culture has been influenced for thousands of years by the Vedic culture of India and when we look to the right we see an African continent whose Vedic influence is not as obvious but its still there in the form of the Merus and the Kilimanjaros, in the form of the Sagaras and the Arushas and throughout Africa we find the Nagas of Ethiopia, the Kundas of Gambia and the Mandara mountains of Cameroon, all testimony to the once widespread influence of the Vedic culture of India.