Are the Sankara Stones real?

I'm confused, some people on this board said it was fiction and a few others said they were real. (Or described the stones and being real.

I'm pretty sure they are real, though they may not be as "powerful" as the movie suggests. I think it is actually a type of stone, not necessarily a few magical stones in particular. I could be wrong...

It's based on the myth of Shiva handing sacred stones to Shankara. A Hindu myth probably originated from the mahabarata, their sacred text. I don't know what they were for, but I recall them supposedly carried in battle...

Myth, MYTH?!? To hindi people that is not a myth. That's history... And When people get religion mixed up with myths... well it is probably a myth... and I hate it when my words mess up. But tell me what does a myth mean? Well it means that we don't no if the story is true or not. Why? Because it does NOT give locations, dates or anything at all.Why not? because if you have the relic than it is a lot easier to believe and people who fought just to have the stones would not be pure in heart and would be living the wrong way. SO... That means that no one can actually benefit from the stones unless you put them up on ebay,then it is the same as the grail and every other relic.

I think that a lot of the Shankara Stones were made up in ToD; i really find it hard to believe that there are loads of them in villages in India....

I think that it detracts greatly from ToD that GL practically ignores the myth (yes myth) of the stones in favour of saying almost nothing

As for the Shankara Stones being real, of course that depends on faith but no doubt there are quite a few candidates in India

Though I'm not Hindi, I was baptised a catholic, I believe that there is such thing. If you believe in the Ark, Than you HAVE to believe in the Sankara Stones. Just like that.
What do you mean made up the stones?

I think we have some illogical reasoning going on here. First off, just because a person believes in the Ark of the Covenant, doesn't mean he must believe in the "Sankara Stones." That is a fallacy of logic based on the idea that if one thing in the Indiana Jones films "exists" (I use this word loosely), that all similar things in the Indiana Jones films "exist."

I'm sure it surprises no one that there was a Sankara and there are indeed Sivalingas (or Shiva Ringas, which seem similar...correct me if I am wrong). Based on some rather lazy research I just did, five seems to have some significance to Hindis, and if our world counts as one level of the universe, and the seven levels above our world and the seven levels below our world are taken combined, then there are indeed 3 levels to the Hindi universe.

However, it also seems that the "Sankara Stones," using that nomenclature, and the existance of only 5 of them, seems to me to be something concocted by the filmmakers. Naturally, this occurs with the Ark and the Grail as well, but not nearly to the degree that the artifact in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is not very true to the religion of origin.

Well I was refering to myself, Not you guys. Like I said before, every religion is the same. If you don't believe one than you shouldn't believe yours because even though the exact same thing happened somewhere else doesn't mean it's not true. I can't see a difference between the two except for the powers: One is carried holding all the wrong things the people did, and the other has powers to bring much will to you ( I think. I'm going to look it up. They were named after Shankara I think. Some kind of philosopher.
Correct me though. I might be making a fool out of myself saying that). I'm not telling you guys are aethists because you don't believe in something that could be a myth all in all. But I'm just saying, the story is just as plausible as any kind of religious artifact.

Patrick said:

But I'm just saying, the story is just as plausible as any kind of religious artifact.

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I'll agree with that!

THANK YOU!

I'm not saying that because of "Indy" what kind of person do you think I am? It's just because what I wrote in the first part. I'm not saying oh yeah Indiana Jones beat up some people to get it they glow they're real. In fact, I had known a bit about them before I even saw ToD ( I can't get you guys to believe me on that) and so it isn't because of that. All I say ( and for some reason people have a problem with this) is that ,well why would you believe in something which's story does not give enough information to know it is real and not believe in something else that's the same? I'm not dumb. I'm trying to steer absolutely away from Indy when I write these things for they could cloud the better judgement of theology being a story made to entertain us and give us a small part of something we didn't know. You can't just watch the films and know everything because if someone asked you about them you can't say "Yeah I saw them in Indy" Because you DON'T know anything about them. Indy can INSPIRE you to have further research on the idea, but it can't exactly teach you about it since if Shortie and Willie were real characters and they were asked if they know about the Sankara stones they couldn't say "Yes" because they know about them just as much as we do. So I'm not just some Indy freak (No offence to those) Who has some illogical philosophical views just because he saw some dumb film that came out not for educating purposes. I think you misinterpreted me or I didn't write this down in the first place. If you want to find out about the stones ccc123 whoever you are, I suggest you try going into Encarta or typing in at google "the history of sankara" or something rather than watching me write this stuff down. I'm too tired to write anyhting else down

WOW... I almost have a hundred posts already...I just came here about a week ago...
Okay I reread my post about you have to believe yeah that one. Anyways I should've
put I instead of HAVE cause I was refering to me. It's hard to write anymore on this
just because my idea is simple. I remember that I wondered how can people live life
without being christians? So I came up with this idea, that indeed no matter what we
believe we can not go to hell for or beliefs and that If God wants us to forgive than
He must forgive. That's why I don't believe in hell. I'm not saying go out and kill
somebody cause God will forgive, It's just that I can't believe that he would grant
anybody eternal damnation over someone when we are forgiving people for the
same reasons of Hell. It seems to me that if you truly are sorry though you can't
get to heaven and you're spirit...I don't know. I'm not God.But I know believing
in the Sankara stones as much as I do as anything like that isn't illogical for me
to believe and anyone who doesn't agree with me there than they are saying
they have to believe what they say and that's just wrong. BUT if I say that you
have to follow my rules than that is wrong. I'm not some kind of fool who came
to say the stones are real cause Indy got them. I'm at the very most against that
and asking if they are real is more of a question of faith, more than fact, and that
"did you ever see that movie where..." type of question. I'm not a history or occult
buff but I am interested in them not because of Indy but because of Age of The Empires (I'm
kidding, I'm kidding). Actually I'm interested in it because of reading a book when I was about
10 called " The World History Atlas" and when we got cable i watched many hours of "The
History Channel" instead of watching gummy bears or something. I can't see anybody actually
saying they know all about the stones and that they believe in them only because of the movie.
I'm not insulting you if you do though...I'm just saying that thing I said a couple lines ago. Also Bob? Bob? What do you mean made up though?

The story of Shiva giving the stones to Sankara is a Story based on Hindu beliefs. In other words, its a scripture for the Hindu people.

The Shiva lingham is a stone that sits upright, (yes, a phallus) and used in ceremony. They represent the stones shiva passed down from above...

Why on earth did the film fail to mention any of this?!

GL is supposed to have a degree in folklore or something; it seems to me that the Hindu artifacts were not treated with the respect that they deserved in ToD

The reason they didn't tell us all this was because the script wouldn't allow there to be an explaining time or it would've been like the scene in Raiders where Indy explains about the Ark

bob said:

Why on earth did the film fail to mention any of this?!

GL is supposed to have a degree in folklore or something; it seems to me that the Hindu artifacts were not treated with the respect that they deserved in ToD

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I completely agree. I think ToD would have been a far superior film if the whole story of the Sankara stones were revealed. Then maybe we'd get an idea of why the were so important to recover...

I'd have to agree Bob... You can't even find it on the internet even. Don't worry though maybe in a few weeks I can find something that will explain the reason... Or I could wait till university. I love these guys!

Sorry Patrick, perhaps I was a bit too harsh...if I have offended you, then I am sorry.

Just one word of advice...don't do research on "Sankara Stones," you'll only come up with Indy stuff. Look up Sankara, Shiva lingah, etc.

Don't worry I don't even remeber your post... Yeah I have read up a bit about shankara... On encarta if you want to see some I'll post it up... It's about the philosophy. Isn't think Shiva linga supposed to be the sexual energy of Shiva?

Patrick said:

Isn't think Shiva linga supposed to be the sexual energy of Shiva?

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Yes, I believe so.