I recently read a book by Dr Ved Prakash " Muhammad in Hindu Scriptures". Dr Ved Prakash Upadhyay was a well known scholar of Sanskrit and he studied the ancient Hindu scriptures and came to some startling conclusions. The fact is that for long these books were under wraps as they were in sanskrit and hardly anyone in India knew Sanskrit except for some pandits. An enterprising Englishman, Sir william Jones learnt sanskrit and was the first to translate these books into English and later into Hindi. Sir Jones died in 1794 and is buried at the Park cemetery at Calcutta. 

To understand what Dr Ved has written we must understand that there are 4 ancient books on Hinduism that form the bedrock of Hindu beliefs . They are the Vedas, The Upanishads, The Puranas and the Brahmanas. The Upanishads are held in high esteem as also the The Puranas. 

The Puranas consist of 18 volumes and one of them is the Bhavishya Purana. In effect this granth gives forecasts of the future. it is in this book we find mention of Muhammad.  The prophecy clearly states that a man would be born in Arabia and he will be a meat eater, who will eat everything except swine. He will destroy evil doers and wage a war and thus his followers will be known as Musalmans. He will be fond of dates and prunes. The forecast also says that the name of the man will be Muhammad. He will bathe in the sacred river Ganga and be purified. He will be like Raja Bhoj.

The Bhavishya Purana thus makes startling revelations. These are corroborated in the Vedas also. One can read the translations of the Bhavishya Purana and the Vedas to access the exact chapters and verses that make these revelations. Hindu scriptures also refer to Makkah, Kaaba, Arabia and Mohammad at many places. 

Dr Ved Prakash also in an earlier article proves that 3/4 of the Vedas,  draw inspiration from ancient Hebrew scriptures and the names in the Vedas and the Hebrew mythology are common. This is a very interesting phenomena and points to a deep link between the Middle East and ancient Hinduism .That perhaps is the reason that a Muslim friend told me that the Kaaba is in fact a Shiva lingam.

Coming to the forecasts in the Bhavishya Purana, they cannot be dismissed out of hand. What does this forecast mean? Does it mean that the 10th Avatar of Vishnu   who is to come, was actually Muhammad ?. Dr Zakir Naik a Muslim scholar is firmly of the view that the Hindu scriptures clearly foretell the arrival of Muhammad as the apostle of god. This is confirmed by Ghulam Ahmed, spiritual head of the Ahmadiyya sect of Islam.

I do not take a negative view of this  forecast and am convinced that Hindu thought and philosophy by these forecasts establishes itself as of divine origin. I cannot however explain the link with Muhammad. Perhaps MahaRishi Vyasa who compiled the Puranas had divine power and could see into the future and he saw the arrival of Muhammad.

I am wonderstruck that a book written 2000 years before the birth of Muhammad could so accurately forecast the birth of Muhammad as a slayer of evil doers.