If Edward Pococke�s above three propositions are valid, then we can come to only two conclusions in this book: Atlantis existed - in Mexico! And India is the mother of both.
     Of all the frequently told myths and legends on earth, the one about ancient Atlantis has never ceased to be popular. More than 25,000 books, plus countless other articles have been written about this fabled confederation of city-states. Yet, speculation continues, especially as to where it was located. Every place on earth has become a candidate. One article I recently read on a certain website states that Atlantis existed on some planet in Outer Space. Another assures us that it existed only as a particular dimension of human awareness.
     In Timaeus (24), Plato pinpointed the location of Atlantis so clearly that I, at least, am amazed that anyone would think that it is any place other than the Americas:

     Libya was the Greek name for the whole of Africa. Both Americas are greater in size than Africa and Asia combined. In olden times, ships could sail from and to these two continents safely because the whole area was lined with a number of large and small islands between Europe and America. A ship was probably never over a day�s distance from land. After the death of Atlantis, the ancients (that is, everybody except the Phoenicians) had to cross the Pacific Ocean, which also had numerous islands and safe harbors, to reach what are now Meso- and South America.
     The names that the Incas, Nahuas, and Mayas gave to sailing vessels indicate that after the Great Flood, the Phoenicians generally went to the Americas via the Pacific Ocean. A Sampan is a seaworthy flat-bottomed sailing barge that was once common in China, Japan, India, and the South Seas. The word is derived from the Sanskrit Sam (Association; Company) plus Pan (Trade). The South American Indian coastal tribes called it Mayu (Skt: �Wealthy�) Chimpana. For the Nahuatl speakers it was Chan-Pan (Moving House). The Mayans used the East Asian version: Sam-Pan (Moving House). The Sanskrit term for �floating wooden vessel� was Van-Plu, also Va-Plu (�Floating Transport�). The Hawaiians and other South Pacific islanders� word for �rowboat� was Wa-Apa; the Incas called it Wam-Pu.
     The �boundless continent,� which Plato said Atlantis controlled, had to be both Americas. As Plato said, the Pacific Ocean separated Atlantis from other land masses lying westward. East Asia?
     Plato explained that the volcanic explosion which destroyed Atlantis had left a huge, muddy barrier, possibly a swamp, beyond the Pillars of Hercules (Gibraltar), keeping ships from going farther westward. Skeptics have used his statements to prove that he had invented the story of Atlantis. Gradually, over the centuries, this muddy swamp dissipated, worn away by the movements of the sea and tides. Even now, the 1,300 low-lying islands of the Maldives, a still visible relic of Atlantis� twin brother Lanka, are being destroyed in this fashion. Geologists say that by 2050 AD the small nation of Maldives will have sunk under the sea forevermore, just as Atlantis did.
     The huge floating expanse of aquatic salt-water plants called the Sargasso Sea also could have persuaded many sailors not to venture farther westward. Until this day authors sometimes write dismal fictional stories about ships getting tangled in those seaweeds, never to escape.
     Although Atlantis could have extended far beyond the regions I discuss in this book, as much as possible I intend to stay well within the boundaries of the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean sea; Plato said that Atlantis lay just beyond a group of smaller islands which are our present day Antilles or West Indies. It�s more than possible that Atlantis extended beyond this region. However, if this riddle is to be solved once and for all time, we must start on solid foundations, venturing eastward step by step. The existence of Atlantis can definitely be proven if we slowly move eastward from Mexico�s eastern shores.
     Etchings on Phoenician coins often contain maps of the whole world. Yes, they even include the Americas! Mark McMenanim, a geologist at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, believes that the Carthaginians cast gold coins produced between 350 and 320 BC, depicting maps of the Mediterranean world with India to the East and America to the West.
     When McMenanim enlarged pictures of some of those coins with his computer, he was amazed to note how the strange markings on them resembled maps made by Ptolemy, the Greek astronomer and geographer. The maps show what appears to emphasize the Mediterranean region, with Sardinia as a dot in the center. The north coast of Africa appears at the bottom. Europe is arched above the Phoenician homeland and India. The Strait of Gibraltar lies to the west; after that is the land mass of America. When skeptics see the enlargement of the coins, they become convinced of the correctness of this geologist�s opinions.
     For reasons we can now easily suspect, the Carthaginians, who were Phoenicians, made laws forbidding any non-Phoenician craft to venture beyond the Strait of Gibraltar. Only in the presence of a Carthaginian government representative could certain individuals venture beyond the Strait of Gibraltar. Anyone caught challenging Phoenicia�s hegemony over the Atlantic ocean was put to death. Phoenician ship captains and their crews were ordered to commit suicide and sink their ships on the open sea, rather than let others follow their secret trade routes. The Phoenicians also reinforced non-Phoenicians� superstitions about the potential perils of sailing across the Atlantic. Today, no one can understand such possessiveness. The Phoenicians, however, did not see their nationhood in terms of land boundaries, but in terms of all the oceans, seas and coastlands of the world. With huge warships and armies of Celtic mercenaries, themselves descendents of Phoenicians, they defended their right to own those oceans.
     The Greek historian Diodorus Seculus said the Carthaginians possessed a large and rich land far out on the Atlantic ocean. According to him, the Phoenicians had found it by accident when some ships got lost off the coast of Africa and were carried to the island by the Atlantic currents. Diodorus said the Carthaginians would not tell anyone the location of this island. When the Spaniards invaded the Americas, the natives told them about a mysterious nation called Cabeiri, somewhere in what is now Northern Mexico and the American Southwest. The Spanish called it La Gran Quivira (The Great Quivira).
     Plutarch (2 AD) wrote that both the Phoenicians and the Greeks had visited this island which lay on the west end of the Atlantic. The Greeks even intermarried with Native-American girls.
     Before the eastern part of Mexico (Atlantis) became the bottom of what are now the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean sea, the present narrow strip of swamps and the river Chimalap�n connecting Southern Veracruz and Oaxaca, the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, was a wide waterway uniting the Gulf of Mexico with the Pacific. About four thousand years ago, sailing vessels could and did easily cross from the east coast of Mexico to the Pacific in about two days. Hundreds of years after Atlantis submerged, Phoenician traders passed through the Isthmus from both the Pacific and the Atlantic.
     From the days of the Spanish conquest, the people of Mexico have dreamed of widening the Chimalap�n (Sheemala-pahn) river and others, reconnecting the two coasts. In North Indian languages, Shimal = �The North;� Pan = �Phoenician; Trade.� Thus, Shimal-Pan = �The North Phoenician.�
     During the 1950s, my lifelong friend Haig Kurdian and I once crossed part of this wide expanse of water-logged swamp and narrow rivers on a trip we took to Costa Rica. In those days, it was almost impossible to cross the Isthmus of Tehuantepec by auto alone. However, the railroad did go to the Guatemalan border. We had to load Haig�s auto onto a flatcar.
     Farther to the south of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, we find Panama. Its name also derives from Sanskrit or Kashmiri: Pani (Phoenician; Trader); Maha (Greater; Great). Pani-Maha = �The Greater Phoenician.� Evidently, the ancient Phoenicians and Atlanteans preferred to reach either of the two oceans via the Panama route.
     In Nahuatl, Pan or Opan means �traveling or sailing from one side to another.� However, we must take into account that the Panis named those waterways; their homes were the great seas and rivers of the world. Nahuatl Apantlaca = �People who live on the water,� the same name that the Hindus of India also called them. The Hindu holy books say, �Pani lives on water.�
     The Usumacinta (�Oo-soo-mah-SINT-ah�) River snakes between the common borders of Mexico and Guatemala. It is Mesoamerica�s largest and longest river, with a basin of 106,000 square kilometers. The sixth largest river in Latin America, it represents 30% of Mexico�s fresh water. The Usumucinta was extremely sacred to the Mayans and was a center of their culture. Several Mayan archeological sites are located on its banks. Even the word Usumacinta derives from Sanskrit or Kashmiri. Usuma could have been derived from either the Sanskrit Zamu or the Kashmiri Shuma, meaning �Peaceful; Tranquil.� Although the Usumacinta is generally peaceful and meandering, its color is a brackish brown. Perhaps it received its Sanskrit name for its color: Shom (Dark-brown).
     Cinta (Cin-ta) is readily recognizable as the Sanskrit Sind, Sinde, or Sint, the ancient Persian word for �River.� Even in languages like German, Sint means �Sind; Indus.� Since this word Sint also means �Holy� in many languages, I am assuming that we derived Saint from Sind. For the Hindus, the Indus (Sind/Sint) river was and is equal with the Ganges in sacredness and as a center of Hindu culture.
     Several of the largest Amerindian tribes use variations of the word Hindu, Inde, or Sind in the Americas to identify themselves spiritually and culturally. I am going to separate each of these �Hindu� derivations by syllables so that you can more easily notice the relationship:

     These astonishing similarities cover a large part of both Americas - from the United States Southwest down to and including much of South America. It is highly unlikely that they are coincidences.
     If, as Plato stated, we can still cross the Atlantic ocean, inevitably reaching a place that all the Indians of Mexico once called A-tlan-tis, which is what much of Mexico still calls itself, do we need any other proof? History has proven that until now, everyone has disregarded the proofs that Plato, Diodorus, Plutarch, Herodotus, and the Phoenician maps have given us. Will I be an exception to the rule? I have my doubts.
     The pre-conquest Meso-Americans claimed that their primordial founding city was Toll�n. The original name of the Toltec ruins of Tula, Hidago, on which the Mayan city of Chich�n Itz� was modeled, is also Toll�n. However, similar place names omitting the �O� exist all over Mexico: Atl�n, Autl�n, Mazatl�n, Cihuatl�n, Cacatl�n, Tecaltitl�n, Atitl�n, Zapotl�n, Minititl�n, Ocotl�n, Miahuatl�n, Tecaltitl�n, Tepatitl�n, Tihuatl�n, Texiutl�n, and the like. Notice that the Nahuatl Tl�n root of these place names is exactly like the Tlan in �Atlantis.� Toll�n is just another variety of �Tlan� and the Sanskrit word Talan. The �n� part of both the Mexican and Sanskrit equivalents means �People.� Even in our English language, we do the same thing: America(n); Europe(an); Mexica(n); Russia(n). In both what were once North India (Southern Russia, Chinese Turkestan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc.) and Meso-America, the �n� suffix was often omitted, especially if the name of the place ended in Tal/Tala. In Mexico we find places like Tlaxcala; Mixquiahuala; Sinaloa; Guatemala; Cosal�; Ayutla; Mitla; Tonal�; Chapala; etc. Similar endings, from Southern Russia down to Pakistan, are Nepal; Coushala; Sinhala; Bhopal; Tal; Shawl; Kabul; etc.
     Besides the Tl�n root, other Meso-America place names end in T�n and An: Yucat�n; Juchit�n; Champot�n; Celest�n; Comit�n; Tehuant�n; Rost�n; Mexcaltit�n; Tehuant�n, etc. The regions from Southern Russia down to Pakistan, once part of India, also have place names ending in Tan and An: Afgh