The Russian-Indian interconnections of the time of the Indo-Slavic community

The main cultural interconnections of Ancient Russia and Ancient India after the adoption of Christianity were carried out in the translated literature tradition, including translations from Arabic. In order to study the earlier stages of forming the Slavic community on the territory of the Russian Plain, researchers traditionally use the works of Arab, Greek and European travelers and historians. The few studies indicate that many of modern Russian toponyms and hydronyms are derived from Sanskrit. Some of them make reference to the ancient Indian mythological figures. This paper proposes to use the chapters of “The Book of the Forest”, the third book of the ancient Indian epic “Mahааbhааrat”, in which five pааndavas and their common wife make a pilgrimage to Mount Gandha-mааdana as a source of information about the period of the Indo-Slavic community. The interconnections are based on the north-south orientation of this mountain, its underground wealth (ores and precious stones), numerous lakes and polar realities of the Northern Urals. The analysis reveals a community of motives in “The Mahааbhааrata” and the Russian epics “Father of Svyatogor and Ilya Muromets” and “Death of Svyatogor” and indicates three sources of Svyatogor's character. It also identifies the community of the doctrine of cognition set forth during one of the meetings on Mount Gandha-mааdana and Severodvinsk painting technique. In addition, attention is paid to a remarkably accurate description of the algorithms of world military confrontation in the ancient Indian epic, expressed in the parallelism between some events of the Mahааbhааrata battle and World War II.