When myths, archaeology, history and reality diverge: Jins and Aliens

By Lilia Sinaga

Confinement due to Covid pandemic has given us a hard time but it still has its silver lining; it gives us ample time to perform digital or online research on subjects dear to our heart. Data on the internet are sufficiently reliable I assume if they are published by reputable organizations or institutions so we can feel like absorbing knowledge and being entertained at the same time.

So it happened, one day I read an amusing article about Kailasha temple, the largest rock-cut Hindu temple at the Ellora Caves, in Aurangabad District, Maharashtra, India. It was built in 8th century C.E, a megalith carved from a rock cliff face, it is considered one of the most remarkable cave temples in the world because of its size, architecture and construction process. It is considered as “the climax of the rock-cut phase of Indian architecture” with 32.6 meters (107 ft) deep at the innermost site, 85,34 meter (280 ft) length and 48,768 meter (160 ft) width. Archaeologists believe it was made from a single basalt rock and interestingly until now people still didn’t know the whereabouts of the debris and scraps of the hewn temple.

If one asks why is it so necessary to dump the debris and scraps of majestic granite building to unknown and far away place; the answer is to create the effect of pure magic and wonder.

This case of missing debris is indeed interesting and challenging, so the sleuthing and investigation shall be launched by me. A field-site for qualitative research is certainly impossible now but digital research methods are actually exciting too.

Like many other people, I will certainly take a scientific approach in solving this problem by researching and devouring as much information as possible from other people’s research papers or journals. But then I am a muslim. I am one of 1.9 billions of muslims who believe we coexist with other supernatural beings like demons and jinns. There are many verses in Al Qur’an that explain the interaction with these invisible entities. One of the well known personages who could collaborate with the jinns was Prophet and King Solomon; we call him Sulaiman alaihissalam.

We can get some information from verses of the Qur’an, chapter Saba:

(34:12) And We subdued the wind to Solomon: its morning course was a month’s journey and its evening course was a month’s journey. We gave him a spring flowing with molten brass, and We subdued for him jinns who, by his Lord’s permission, worked before him. Such of them as swerved from Our commandment, We let them taste the chastisement of the Blazing Fire. (34:13) They made for him whatever he would desire: elevated chambers, statues, bowls like reservoirs, and stationary kettles. We said, “Work, O family of David, in gratitude.” And few of My servants are truly grateful.”

Also chapter Shad verses 36-37:
Then We subjected to him the wind: it ran gently by his command wherever he directed.
And We subjected to him every builders and divers of the jinns.

If we read ancient stories and chronicles it seemed common in the ancient era to collaborate with jinns in creating huge masterpiece buildings like temples or castles. Especially in India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and other Asian countries, it’s very common to find myths and legends where it was said that many spectacular ancient buildings were built by gods or Rakshas or Raksasa (giants).

We will see more details about this later.

It crossed my mind that the stones of Kailasha were transported by the jinns to some remote place on earth; but where? Did I presume that Kailasha temple was built by the help of the jinns? Yes, sort of, unless human beings had acquired highly advanced technology thousands of years ago. More bizarre tales can be heard from India, Indonesia, Japan and some other countries where temples could be built in one night only. For examples from India they have the temples : Govind Dev Ji Mandir, Devghar Mandir, Hathiya Deval, Kakanmath, Bhojeshwar Mandir, Shri Panchganga Mandir.

INDONESIA

From Indonesia they have the Prambanan or Roro Jonggrang temple which was reputedly built in one night too, from Japan they have Sunomata Ichiya Castle, from Great Britain; Tŷ unnos (one night house) an old Welsh tradition that has parallels in other folk traditions in other areas of the British Isles.

Let’s go back to the Kailasha temple inquiry; the construction of the temple must have produced thousands of tons of stone debris and to make the debris vanish it must be carried by strong people to far away places. If the workers were jinns they could transport them by airlifting or teleportation. Wow…UFO?, teleportation ?

If we read more about the story of King Solomon for reference, we will know that he had workers and subordinates who could perform it. So logically it’s doable by other nations too. From Qur’an chapter An Naml verses 38-40 we can get some references:

Solomon said, “O assembly [of jinn], which of you will bring me her throne before they come to me in submission?”
A powerful one from among the jinn said, “I will bring it to you before you rise from your place, and indeed, I am for this task strong and trustworthy.”

One with knowledge of the Scripture, said: “I will bring it to you within the twinkling of an eye!” Then when he saw it placed before him, he said: “This is by the grace of my Lord – to test me whether I am grateful or ungrateful! And whoever is grateful, truly, his gratitude is for himself; and whoever is ungrateful, certainly my Lord is Rich, Bountiful.

From the above verses we can imply that the expertise of teleportation can be performed by a human being who got the knowledge from the scripture. The jinns in the above narrative can transport things by physical power but a human can do better by using mental or intangible power.

KING SOLOMON

King Solomon, who reigned in about 970–931 BCE, believed by the Jews built the first Jerusalem temple 3,000 years ago. The sizes of the stones on this temple were beyond ordinary humans to handle. The smallest stone’s weight was between 2 to 5 tons while the largest stone of them all – possibly the largest building stone in antiquity – was 13.6 meters long, 4.6 meters thick and 3.3 meters high, and was estimated to weigh 570 tons. It’s logical to admit that the jinns were involved in erecting the magnificent temple as corroborated by the Holy Books (in plural since it was also corroborated in Torah,Talmud and Bible too).

Assuming that teleportation (instantaneous travel between two locations without crossing the intervening space) was used in removing the Kailasha stones, now I have to search the world for finding a huge pile of boulders or scraps of hewn megalith. Well, after a few times of browsing the internet I found an interesting place: Black Mountain (Kalkajaka), a 781-hectare (1,930-acre) National Park in Queensland, Australia.

Black Mountain covers an area of about 1597 hectares or around 16 square kilometers (km2) (3945 acres) with mount height 212 meters. This mountain of boulders structure was said to appear around 260 million years ago, a mass of molten rock (magma) slowly solidified deep below the earth’s surface, forming a body of hard granite rock.

The solid granite core of the mountain now lies beneath the jumbled cover of boulders that looks like something that was intentionally dumped here by giant hands. Long heavily associated with bizarre unexplained phenomena and intertwined with dark folklore, feared by the indigenous people, and the region is made no less ominous by sightings of strange creatures, unexplained lights, and the numerous people who have come here but never to return.The Kuku Nyungkal people of the region have long shunned the mountain, calling it Kalkajaka, meaning “the place of the spear” and sometimes translated simply as “The Mountain of Death.”

As a matter of fact, the boulders look obviously artificial and the entire mountain seems like boulders laid down by some ancient lost civilization millennia ago.

Alas, Black Mountain is made of granite stones while Kailasha temple was made of basalt stone. It didn’t match. So I diverted my perspective by changing my angle of observation. Now I have to find ancient temples or structures that were made of granite stones. From diligently browsing the internet again I found out many ancient edifices that were made of granite stones, i.e. from India, Egypt, Sudan, Sri Lanka and Cambodia.

INDIAN WONDERS

From India we can see; Meenakshi Temple which was built 2000 years ago; Sree Virupaksha Temples were built between 1336 and 1570 CE; Mahabalipuram Temples were built between 700 and 728 CE; Brihadeeswara Temple was built in 1010 CE and the entire temple structure was made out of granite.

Many other Hindu and Jain temples used granite for Garba Griha or the innermost sanctuary of the temples, and Ardhamandapa; the entrance porches or half-open hall.

Vettuvan Koil Temple in Tamilnadu was a rock cut temple from the 7th-8th century which was carved out of a single piece of granite stone. And then there’s Lomas Rishi cave which was carved into hard monolithic granite rock.

From Sri Lanka there’s a huge Statue of Buddha in Polonnaruwa which was built in the 12th century from granite stone. Then there’s also Sigiriya, or Lion Rock, a natural geological feature – a grand granite monolith plateau which was believed to be the site of Ravana’s majestic palace. While others claimed that Sigiriya was built by the fifth-century King Kashyapa I, who ruled the native Sinhalese dynasty, the Moriya.

From Sudan there’s the 4,600 years old pyramids of Meroë which were built in Nubian style, marked by steep slopes and small bases.The pyramids are built of granite and sandstone. The Meroë Pyramids of Sudan are 2,000 years older than Egypt’s pyramids.

From Cambodia there’s the Phnom Da Temple built in the 11th century with granite outcrops. From Italy we can see the Pantheon which was built in 27 BCE with entrances and porticos supported by a large Corinthian order of granite columns.

From Egypt we can see Osirion Temple which was built of granite and believed to have been founded around 3470 BCE. Then there’s Serapeum which was built in 1400 BCE with gallery chambers containing granite and diorite and 24 giant sarcophagi with some sarcophagi weighing up to 70 tons. Also there are hundreds granite statues of Pharaohs, most by Ramses II who reigned from 1279 to 1213 BCE. In other parts of Egypt the pyramids of Khafre and Menkaure and the royal chamber tomb in the pyramid of Cheope were covered with granite slabs. While the interior of the famous Big Pyramid of Giza was entirely built of heavy granite monoliths, where each monolith weighs nearly hundred tons.The Great Pyramid consists of an estimated 2.3 million blocks. Approximately 5.5 million tons of limestone, 8,000 tons of granite, and 500,000 tons of mortar were used in the construction. While the part which was called the king’s chamber, was built entirely from granite. Even more, Egyptian obelisks were also usually made of granite.

Indeed I have a strong conviction that Black Mountain in Queensland Australia is a huge pile of debris of stones which were gathered from many spectacular projects around the world in the bygone era. Or the other alternative; maybe the Black Mountain was a huge ancient factory where giants or jinns were creating prefabricated granite structures before transporting them to all over the world. I really hope one of these hypotheses is correct. It is more interesting and exciting than to accept that Black Mountain was only a cooled ancient lava.

Many experts from interdisciplinary studies need to see and examine this unique phenomenon.

Lilia Sinaga, a 54 years old woman from Indonesia who works as a writer and contributor.