at The Library of Congress

Man: So where are the best places to study vedanta like in southern India?
Woman: Well in my opinion, if you can get into Swami Dayananda Sarasvati’s ashrams… He has one in Coimbatore
Man: Say that again.
Woman: Coimbatore.
Man: What state is that in?
Woman: Tamil Nadu.
Man: Uh-huh.
Woman: And one in Rishikesh.
Man: That is where I am going.
Woman: Yes. And one in Pennsylvania and if you go to Rishikesh now, why don’t you just go and look it up?
Man: I will.
Woman: It is called Kailash.
Man: Kailash.
Woman: Kailash Ashram. Write his name. Swami Dayananda Sarasvati. I think all the pundits around Rishikesh will be able to direct you to it because it is not exactly in the main area of Rishikesh.
Man: Swami Daya..?
Woman: It is Daya D A Y A N A N D A
Man: Dayananda.
Woman: Dayananda
Man: Swami Dayananda Sarasvati.
Woman: Yes.
Man: Kailash Ashram, Rishikesh.

at Tambako

Mark: So John..
John: Yeah.
Mark: You are working on a dissertation for a PhD. That is for an American university?
John: Yeah, that is right. It is a university in San Francisco, California
Mark: And what is the area?
John: I am studying..It is philosophy but with an emphasis on Buddhist studies, you know, and Buddhist philosophy.
Mark: In any particular country?
John: Well, yeah, I am mainly interested in Thailand even though I live in Japan, you know. I like Thailand’s version of Buddhism better.
Mark: Is that theravada?
John: Yeah. That is right.
Mark: Ok. So are you studying any particular temple or any particular aspect of Buddhism?
John: Yeah. I am doing research on a couple of temples there in Thailand. One is called Suen Mok, which is pretty famous. It is got a very good program for ten day meditation retreats and they are geared for teaching foreigners meditation; meditation techniques.
Mark: What is the other temple?
John: The other one is north of Bangkok about three hours bus ride and it is called Tam Krabok.
Mark: Uh-huh.
John: And it is… Well it does different things but one thing it does is it helps addicts recover, you know. It has probably cured about one hundred thousand addicts; mostly heroin or opium addicts, you know, and so I am really interested in how meditation can replace an addiction. You know what I mean?
Mark: Wow! So they are like teaching people to meditate and overcome the problems that caused them to become addicted to drugs?
John: Right. Exactly.
Mark: Wow! Isn’t that a wonderful thing. A hundred thousand.
John: Yeah.
Mark: Wow! That is really amazing. You have been to the temple?
John: Yeah and interviewed several of the head monks and some of the other people there and it is just a really really, to me, an effective way of applying Buddhism, you know?
Mark: Right.
John: To eliminate our addictions and work toward something more significant
Mark: Right excellent. That is really…That is great. Like. To use something like that to…That is really good.
John: A real practical form of Buddhism. As I understand it to try to help people live better lives and things like that and this seems to be a real, you know, obvious way to do it.
Mark: Drug addiction is a big problem in a lot of different countries.
John: Yeah.
Mark: And if they are finding something they can do about, it that is really great.
John: Yeah I agree totally there. And it was a big problem in Thailand. You know until 1959 opium was legal in Thailand.
Mark: Really?
John: And suddenly they made it illegal and all these people who would take it as a normal part of their life suddenly were illegal addicts.
Mark: Wow!
John: And so this place has really done something that I think is really important.
suddenly they made it illegal
Mark: What is the name of the temple again?
John: Tam Krabok. It means cave of the “prabok”.  It is kind of like “telling it like it is” or something like that. Originally it was just a group of monks and they lived in caves
Mark: Wow!
John: And then they started making a big temple out of it.
Mark: The caves of truth.
John: Yeah. That would be a good way to translate it. (laughs)

at ton3vita

An American Guy: One of the critical events (in his life) was when he was looking up in the sky and the sky split like a scrim .. you know… like a … there was a scrim of reality and then the whole thing split apart…
An Australian Guy: I don’t know that word. “Scrim.” What is a “scrim“?
The American Guy: A “scrim” is what you find when you got a stage. You got the actors on a stage and you got a band behind it or something. And they are playing the music. There is a scrim there that keeps you from seeing the band.
The Australian: A sort of a screen. Ah right ok.
The American: Yeah. I guess it is related to the word “screen” but it is associated with theatrical life and things like that. He saw… and this was his words
The Australian: Ok.
The American: The heavens parted like a scrim and behind it he saw the grand being..
The Australian: Wow.
The American: You know and this is like have you ever read Swedenborg?
The Australian: No.
The American: Swedenbourg’s “Grand Man”.
Australian: I have read about him a lot but..
The American: Swedenbourg is fantastic but what he called the grand man was the …you know..the paragon of all man what you might call “christ” or ..what you might call…whatever religion you are talking about. What he saw …what he saw… He saw the heavens part…and he saw this as a constellation … and there was a constellation of billions of stars and what it formulated was a man with his face upturned in utter ecstasy. And this was what…the thing… that probably determined and formulated his seeking and his life from that time on.
Australian: Mmm.

(the sound of laughter)

at irp

Mark: So you are making a documentary?
French Guy: Yes.
Bjorn: Yeah right.
Mark: Yes? Where are you from?
Bjorn: The basic crew is from Germany.
Mark: M-hm.
Bjorn: I am from Switzerland. Our main re-enactor is from France. And another protagonist is also from France.
Mark: Right so you are French, Swiss and German.
Bjorn: Yes. It is basically German. It is a German crew.
Mark: Everybody is speaking English though (able to speak English).
French Guy: Yes.
Bjorn: Yes.
Mark: What part of Switzerland do you come from?
Bjorn: I am from Bern. The Swiss-German part.
Mark: So you are a German (speaker)?
Bjorn: Yeah. Swiss-German and I have been living for fifteen years in Munich.
Mark: What is the documentary about?
Bjorn: Ok. The documentary is about the character of Henri Le Saux. He is a French monk born in 1910.
Mark: Uh-huh.
Bjorn: In forty-nine he moved in a mission for the Benedictine…
Mark: Ah He is a Christian.
Bjorn: Yeah. Christian monk. Benedictine monk from Brittany in France. He moved to India in order to mission the Hindus.
Mark: Right.
Bjorn: In order to understand the deeper meaning of hinduism.
Mark: M-hm
Bjorn: He went deeper and deeper into the Vedas and eventually turned sanyasin.
Mark: Really?
Bjorn: However without leaving his Benedictine..
Mark and Bjorn: Order.
Mark: Right.
Bjorn: It would not be such an amazing case but he left a lot of writings and he wrote a lot of books about this ambiguity and this sort of being torn between two religions but eventually he did not want to serve any of the religions but he wanted to look for God.
Mark: To serve God. Right.
Bjorn: To serve God. Yeah. So he lived here from forty-nine to seventy-three. He never went back.
Mark: Right
Bjorn: Although he was invited to lots of times. He led a very simple and full life and he left a lot of writings and so we… This is the third time we have been in India. We have been here two years ago in Rishikesh. We were last year in south India in Tiranamalai ..where the ashram of Ramana Maharshi is; where he was a scholar.
he had his self realization through Ramana Mahashi. So he had a really deep religious and spiritual experience in his ashram there.
Mark: Great.
Bjorn: And later on he moved to northern India.
Mark: Uh-huh.
Bjorn: And he made a sort of pilgrimage to the source of the Ganges…to Gangotri where we just have just been re-enacting lots of things with Christian, our re-enactor of Henri le Saux.
Mark: Right.
Bjorn: So we are trying to get bits and things together on this small indie movie level.
Mark: It is just an independent movie?
Bjorn: Yeah it is an independent movie and we are trying to put together a ninety minute documentary.
Mark: When do you think you will finish?
Bjorn: I think honestly it is going to be another one and a half years.
Mark: Well. Good luck!
Bjorn: Thank you.

at irp

Mark: Poetry is the Rigveda?
Swami: Poetry is the Rigveda because it has a specific number of characters with a form and a syntax and it has a rhythm and a rhyme.
Mark: Specific number of syllables?
Swami: Ah. (Telegu for “yes”) It is called “chandis”. So poetry is Rig-veda. “Rig” itself means “a verse”, “a chant”, “a mantra”.
Mark: M-hm.
Swami: Rik. Rig. Somebody who chants the Vedas is called a ” rik-trik” in Vedic terminology. “Rik” is the basic word. “Rig-veda”. “Rik” plus “Veda” becomes “Rigveda”.
Mark: Mm-hm.
Swami: In Sanskrit it is called “sandi”. “Sandi” means “joint”. When you join two words, the joining word; its tone; it changes. “Rik” plus “veda” is “rig-veda” Rig-veda as you said is poetry. And “yajus”. “Yajus” means “sentence”. It just means a sentence. It takes the form of a sentence. It doesn’t have the poetic style. But it goes sometimes long, sometimes short.
Mark: So this is prose.
Swami: That is Yajurveda. That you can say is prose. In prose you have sometimes beautiful descriptions, long long sentences. Sometimes you have simple words. A sentence where you have just two or three words. It has no specific syntax or length.
Mark: Or rhythm.
Swami: Or rhythm. So that is prose. Yaju- veda is mostly prose.
Mark: M-hm.
Swami: Samurveda. “Samur” in Sanskrit also means “friendship”. “Samur” also means “harmony”.
Mark: M-hm.
Swami: So Samurveda is music. It has tone. It has up-beat, low-beat. It has sometimes elongation.

Swami: (Sanskrit)

Swami: It has music.
Mark: Mm. Beautiful.
Swami: It has music. It has music. That is Samurveda. And the fourth one is Atharvaveda. Atharvaveda is the name of a rishi; a sage called Atharva. Through his form it came. Atharvavedas are very powerful mantras. Those mantras; they follow the style of Rig-veda.
Mark: M-hm.
Swami: Atharvaveda. You can say it is a combination of the Rig-veda and the other three. The mantras are very powerful. Whether to…They affect nature and have natural effects.
Mark: M-hm.
Swami: And whether to cure, whether to curse. Whether to bless. They are very powerful mantras. Atharvaveda is the fourth one.
Mark: Mm.
Swami: So these are the four. Vedas were one. Vedas are one. Vedas will always be one! It is in this age of Kali for human beings of limited intellect; they have written a lot; the old rishis have had such powerful (?); such supreme mental intellects. The supreme mental capability wants to hear…the entire Vedas; they used to remember. But how to use what mantras. Their essence. Which god? The entire thing they knew by heart. They were living encyclopedias. They were walking encyclopedias! They were mobile encyclopedias. The old rishis.
Mark: The rishis.
Swami: This was so even till just five thousand years ago. Just five thousand years ago when Lord Krishna came into being, all the rishis were like that and Vedas were one!
Mark: Mm.
Swami: Then came the sage Vyerda-Vyasa. Vyasa-rishi.
Mark: Mahabharata.
Swami: Correct! The author of Bhagavad-gita. The author of Bhagavad-Gita. Mahabharata, Bhagavad-gita and Vishnu……is part of the… Mahabharata…it comes in the war.
Mark: In the middle.
Swami: In the middle somewhere. He is the author of Srimad Bhagavatam, the story of Lord Krishna. And he is the author of the eighteen Puranas. The eighteen Puranas of all the gods. Vishnupurana. Lord Vishnu. Shivapurana. Lord Shiva. Purana. All the Puranas. Eighteen Puranas. And he is the one who classified the Vedas into four.
Mark: Mm.
Swami: (He said) here you; your clan of sages you will practise this veda. This is the Samurveda. And you specialize in this Atharvaveda. And even in these four vedas there are sub-branches. It is called “sherkar”. “Sherkar” is like a tree.
Mark: M-hm.
Swami: The Vedas are but the same eternal tree .. and we have the four main branches …the four Vedas… and the sub-branches; you have “sherkars” so this line of rishis; they will practise this part of the of the rig-veda. They will practise this line of Rigveda. They will practise this line of Rig-Veda.They say even this perception; even this calculation, is perhaps erroneous; under-estimated (But!) They say we have today hardly one per cent of the original vedas. The rest have become extinct.
Mark: Mm.
Swami: The rest have become extinct. The Vedas were not put in computer. they were not put on papyrus.
Mark: Not recorded.
Swami: For a long time. Sruti. The other name for vedas is “sruti” the other name for vedas is sruti. “Sruti-mani” means “that which you have heard”. Sruti. Srutum. Sruti-mani. That which is heard. So they used to hear (listen) and the next generation; they catch on so they are chanting and (it is) not recorded anywhere (laughs)
so with the deterioration of the intellect of the human down the ages down lakhs of ages how many years we do not know. Vedas came into being at
Mark: Mm.
Swami: So All this Vidya; all this wisdom has got lost.
Mark: Mm.
Swami: So today they say approximately not more than maybe not more than one per cent; only a fraction of the original vedas are still alive (in existence). And it can be said that what you have even if you make use of that, that is good for every human being on earth to sustain the creation to carry on from now. What is left is much more than what we need today. Even that.
Mark: So the creation is sustained by prayer?

at Irp

Swami: So you have the five senses.
Mark: Mm. Mm.What is the relationship between Atman and Brahman?
Swami: Brahman and Atman are the same thing.
Mark: Mm.
Swami: Brahman is the lingua franca… is the terminology for “the formless infinite” as described in the Upanishads. Upanishads are the end of the Vedas. “Vedas” means “Knowledge”.
Mark: Mm.
Swami: The essence of all Vedas; ultimately the culmination; the genitor; the innermost, subtle most; the essence of the highest truth is contained in Upanishads.
Mark: Refined.
Swami: Ah. In Upanishadic terminology. In “Upanishadic” or “Vedic” terminology “Brahman” is the eternal formless infinite.
Mark: Mm.
Swami: “Atman” is used to attribute it when you want to classify “Brahman” as “Param-atman” (the supreme self), “Jiv-atman” (the individual self). So it is for the sake of creation; for the sake of differentiation; for the sake of explanation that the word “Atman” has been introduced. Again in the Vedas.
Mark: Mm.
Swami: Like that.
Mark: Mm.
Swami: That is the difference between “Brahman” and “Atman”. When we say “Param-atman”, we mean “Brahman”. The ultimate reality as said in the Upanishads.
Swami: All this is getting recorded?
Mark: Yes. Yes.
Swami: Wonderful.
Mark: I want to put this on the internet so many people can hear this knowledge.
Swami: Wonderful. We can put a lot of things that way and…

at el rabbit

A group of friends start to talk about Dogon villages in Africa and end up talking about nationalism.

Mark: What is the Dogon village like?
Luis: They are clay… and they are…
Mark: Clay houses?
Luis: Clay houses.
Mark: Round houses?
Luis: No.
Mark: Square?
Luis: No, they are more square and a little bit…. They bring to mind (remind me) a lot the houses of the Navajo Indians.
Mark: In the southwest US?
Luis: Yeah exactly. Actually many things are really very very similar. There is something very particular. The Dogon worshiped another people who were occupying the same area; La Fales de Bandiagara; the Bandiagara Escarpment.
Mark: Say that again.
Luis: The Bandiagara. It is the area. Escarpment. It is like a cliff.
Mark: Right. Ok. Sorry.
Luis: So in this cliff but hanging on the cliff there are a lot of villages, which were abandoned ten centuries ago.
Mark: Uh-huh.
Luis: And these were inhabited by the Tellem.
Mark: The Tellem?
Luis: The Tellem people.
Mark: And the Dogon worship the Tellem?
Luis: No, they do not exactly worship the Tellem. They developed a system of beliefs, which is supposed to be the same one the Tellems had. Of course they do not know if the Tellem did or not. It is a mythical knowledge.
Mark: A mythical story. Yeah.
Luis: And they try to explain the monuments of the Tellem because they really built some very strange things. Actually the Tellem villages are the ones which are exactly like Navajo.
Mark: Uh-huh.
Luis: Or Pueblo villages.
Mark: The Dogon … the Dogon have some connection with Sirius 5, the dog-star, some…
Luis: Yeah,. actually there is something very strange and very funny. This kind of thing which happens, well, with the prepotence of the west. The Dogons for many years, for centuries; they were saying that they came from a star. Sirius, I think. Yeah. They have their own cosmography and their own..
Mark: Cosmology.
Luis: Cosmology yeah. They have this astrological knowledge.
Mark: Mm. Thats right yeah. They know about stars and planets which were only recently discovered by the Hubble telescope.
Luis: Yeah. That is the thing. So everybody was thinking…
Mark: Hubble bubble telescope.
Luis: It is not a star. It is just a myth of the Dogon. And then the prepotent west discovered that there was a star exactly in the same place as where these people were saying.
Mark: The what west?
Luis: The prepotent.
Mark: Prepotent west.
Luis: Prepotent west.
Mark: It is not a common word.
Luis: Ok but in Spanish it would be very common.
Mark: What does it mean then? Prepotent? Like?
Luis: Prepotent. Ahm.
Mark: Arrogant?
Luis: Exactly. The arrogant west.
Mark: The arrogant west. We are arrogant. The west is arrogant.
Luis: The west thinks the west is the best.
Mark: For a long time though…I mean when I lived in other countries I thought to myself, people are arrogant. Like, nationalism… Everybody thinks that their country is the best. Everybody.
Alex: I don’t.
Axel: Yeah everyone knows Australia is the best. (irony)
Mark: The ugliest shittiest places I have ever been; everybody thinks that it is the best place in the world because they were born there. Everybody.
Alex: I know but not me.
Mark: Nationalism. It is silly. hey?
Alex: Not me.
Mark: Not you?
Axel: Yeah I have met lots of people like that.
Alex: I was born in just…
Mark: Australians are the same. They are very nationalistic. They say you know Australia is the best country in the world but they have never been to the rest of the world. They do not know.
Luis: Well they know. They should know because actually Australians travel a lot.
Alex: Australians travel.
Mark: Yeah, some of them do.
Axel: But then there are like the country ones.
Luis: No. Traveling in Asia there are Australians everywhere.
Alex: What is the best? What does it mean?
Mark: What does it mean? Everybody loves family. Everybody loves mountains and rivers and sky and sunshine and beaches and nature. Everybody likes food, natural food.
Alex: I know that France is a very nice country but I hate to live there. When I stay there after three months, you know…
Luis: Exactly the same has happened to me in Spain.
Alex: But I like to go back you know. I go back I…Sometimes I feel sad at the end of my trip and I think about the place I am going back to and it makes me happy.
Luis: To me actually to finish (traveling) in my city; Granada to me it is the perfect place to come back to. Which means it is also the perfect place to live.
Alex: Yeah. I agree.
Luis: No, to me it is the perfect place to come back to. I like it a lot to come back but to come back you first have to leave. It is not enough to leave for just three days…Actually I know people who live in awful places; awful cities.

at Irp

Mark: What are the five elements?
Swami: The first is earth.
Mark: Earth.
Swami: The most solid. Rough is the earth.
Mark: Matter.
Swami: Matter. Matter. Subtler than that is water.
Mark: Water.
Swami: Subtler than water is fire.
Mark: Earth, water, fire.
Swami: Subtler than fire and invisible is air.
Mark: Air.
Swami: And then the fifth one is …you cannot see …you cannot perceive and that is space.
Mark: Or ether.
Swami: Ether.
Mark: Yeah.
Swami: First ether is born from the supreme self; from the atman; the supreme self; the formless infinite, which is the highest truth. From that comes first the space; the concept of space. Let there be space. Ok. This entire millions of miles of …square miles of area. So let me speak on space.
Mark: Mm
Swami: There is space. There is nothing there in that. And from space slowly the wind starts blowing and that is considered as wind. Wind you cannot see.
Mark: Mm.
Swami: Space you cannot even feel but wind you can feel because it touches you.
Mark: Mm.
Swami: Space you can only hear. In space if there is a sound …ooouuu…some sound… some vibration only is visible. You can only perceive through the ear… space… and through space… in space …slowly the wind blows. The wind blows. You can see the…the vision of the wind.. .also the blowing…also you can hear. And also it can touch you. If there is a cool breeze we feel “Oh there is wind. Oh it is windy.” So you have two perceptions. You can hear and you can touch. Two. And from wind comes fire. Hydrogen is but a form of wind.
Mark: Fire?
Swami: Air. Wind. Air. A form of air. Wind is air and if that burns you can see form. The nitrogen..acetylene gases and this cooking gas. Cooking gas; it is only gas. It is only like a wind.
Mark: Mm.
Swami: It is also like a wind. But if it burns you can see the form also.
Mark: Mm.
Swami: And when fire is burning, DRRRR you hear the sound.
Mark: Mm. Crackling.
Swami: And and and. The sound effects.
Mark: Mm
Swami: Hot air
Mark: The heat.
Swami: You have two senses and the third one is you can see the form.
Mark: Mm.
Swami: The glowing form. There is a form you can see. So your eyes have come into operation.
Mark: Mm.
Swami: Your ears were in operation for space for ether to hear the sound. Your skin was in operation.
Mark: For the wind.
Swami: For the wind to feel the touch.
Mark: Mm.
Swami: And now your eyes have come into operation and you can see the form.
Mark: Mm.
Swami: Three.
Mark: Mm.
Swami: And from fire comes water.
Mark: Water.
Swami: Water. When water flows, firstly you can see the streams are giving the sound. The first element is air and water; you can feel. Water; you feel wet if you put water on the body, you feel water. Two. And water you can see the form. Water is a liquid If you hold it in a … It can take the form of a river. It can take the form of an ocean. It can take the form of a small lake. It can take the form of your bowl in which you take it; in the form of a glass.
Mark: Mm.
Swami: Whatever form in which you can contain, it is in that form flexible. So water has form. And water has taste. You can drink it. Fire you cannot drink. Wind; there is no taste. Space anyway you cannot taste so you have the fourth sense of perception and that is the perception of taste. Your tongue has come into operation.

(Hindi or Pahari?)

Swami: Four. You have four elements. Water. And from water has ensued the earth.
Mark: Taste. Taste. Taste.
Swami: The earth. Water is sense of taste. Ok. Water is the fourth element. The fifth element is the earth, solid earth, which is the support for human beings to exist. It is support for these mountains. It is support for this vegetation. It is support even for water.
Mark: Mm.
Swami: Oceans rest on the earth.
Mark: Mm.
Swami: That is the fifth element; the earth. And the earth has… the earth can sound because … when mountains… when the earth moves you can hear the sound…. The earth has the sense of sound of the first elements.
Mark: Mm.
Swami: And the earth also has the sense of touch because if a stone hits you…If a stone hits you, you can see. You can feel too. And the earth’s form is there. You can see the form. These are all the forms of the earth; mountains, vegetation; everything is earthly form. And the earth you can touch also. You can taste also. It can be tasted because when you are tasting vegetation, you are tasting a piece of the earth.
Mark: Mm:
Swami: When we eat this sabji, when we eat this daal, when we eat this roti, it is but the earth. It is a produce of the earth only.
Mark: Mm.
Swami: It can be tasted and you can…and you can smell; the sense of smell; it is the fifth sense. The earth is… so your nose has come into operation. So you have the five senses.
Mark: Mm.

at lee benjamin

Mark: I am in Phnom Penh and I am talking to Elder Swenson. You are from Utah?
Elder Swenson: I am actually from Montana.
Mark: Right. Ok. But you are a Mormon?
Elder Swenson: I am.
Mark: So there are Mormons outside Utah?
Elder Swenson: There are. There are Mormons all over the world.
Mark: Right. I thought most of them lived in Utah.
Elder Swenson: There is a large number of Mormons in Utah but they are not all in Utah.
Mark: Right. Ok. So you are doing..like…you are away for a year?
Elder Swenson: It is actually two years and they call it a mission.
Mark: Ok
Elder Swenson: Right now what I am doing is I am serving my mission here in Cambodia.
Mark: Um-hm.
Elder Swenson: And teaching people in Cambodia about my church.
Mark: Right. So you’ve learned Cambodian?
Elder Swenson: I have.
Mark: Is it very difficult?
Elder Swenson: It is very difficult. But I feel for the Cambodians who are trying to learn English.
Mark: How long have you been here now?
Elder Swenson: I have been in country for about nine months so… and then I studied Cambodian in America for three months. So I have got about one year left. Altogether I have been out about twelve months.
Mark: What do you want to do at college?
Elder Swenson: I want to study biology and I want to become a dentist.
Mark: Wow! Great.

at grabthar

Syrian Guy: There. What happened there? You know?
Mark: You were talking about Ishtar. The old Assyrian goddess.
Syrian Guy: Ishtarte. Ishtarte.
Mark: Ishtarte. Yeah.
Syrian Guy: She was the goddess of the sun. The sun-goddess.
Mark: Right. This is in ancient Assyria.
Syrian Guy: Ancient Syria and there was Baal.
Mark: Yeah.
Syrian Guy: Baal too. There were like a few gods. You know?
Mark: Yeah.
Syrian Guy: There were even older gods. One of them was (phew!) I forgot but they were really old (huh!) like the Babylonians and old stuff.
Axel: I heard that the Carthaginians worshiped a god called Baal.
Mark: Ishtar Astarte.
Syrian Guy: Where?
Axel: The Carthaginians.
Mark: That was a colony of Phoenicia.
Syrian Guy: They were Phoenicians too.
Mark: Yeah yeah yeah yeah.
Syrian Guy: So they had to worship the same gods.
Mark: They had Baal, Ishtar, Astarte.
Syrian Guy: Hani-Baal! Hannibal. You know Hannibal?
Mark: Hannibal. Yeah. yeah.
Syrian Guy: He is from there.
Mark: Ah right. Ok. The name is connected.
Syrian Guy: Yeah. And he went to…anyway…You have seen the movie? You have seen the movie about him?
Axel: Ah, N..
Mark: Hannibal?
Syrian Guy: Yeah, Hannibal. The real Hannibal, not Hannibal the…
Mark: The historical Hannibal.
Axel: Oh yeah. Yeah.
Syrian Guy: Not that movie, the horror movie: Hannibal.
Mark: Hannibal and the elephants.
Syrian Guy: So yeah? Where were we?