“Blinded ignorance does mislead us
O!Wretched mortals open your eyes”
These words were said by the famous painter LEONARDO DA VINCI,
the creator of the world famous paintings like The Mona Lisa , the Last Supper,
the Vtruvian man etc. He was an expert in many fields. It is said that Da Vinci has left
many codes in his paintings.
In the year 2003, a novel by DAN BROWN established that Da Vinci has certainly left
many secrets. The book was none other than THE DA VINCI CODE. It is a fiction featuring
Robert Langdon, a symbologist and Sophie Neveu, a cryptologist who deals with numerical code breaking. The story starts with a murder. The curator of The Louvre Jacques Saunere’s murder and the message left by him Langdon and Neveu towards a new world of thousands of years old secrets.
Although the number of characters are limited,each one plays a definite role. The language and style of writing is incredible. The main theme of the book is the journey towards the Priory keystone which leads one to the Holy grail and many other well hidden secrets. According to the myth, only the members of the Priory of Sion, a secret society knows the exact location of the Holy grail.
Da vinci being one of the grandmasters of the secret society wanted the world to know the truth and hence left many clues in his paintings. One such striking trait is visible in The last supper. Da vinci has assigned certain feminine characters to disciple John seated next to Jesus Christ. Holy grail happen to be the cup in which Jesus had wine during The last supper. Mary Magdalene is also referred to as The Holy Grail. It is said that Da Vinci has painted John as Mary Magdalene to show Jesus’s intimacy towards her.
Mary Magdalene, a prostitute who joined Christ and later became of his favorite disciple. In the book the author establishes that Jesus had relationship with Mary Magdalene
and that their bloodline exists to this century.
A huge uproar was roused by this very book. The church and many disciples of the church launched protests against the book and movie alike. In many places the authorities were forced to ban the book. The reason put forth was that The Da Vinci Code hurts their religious sentiments. To be more precise, in the book it is said that
- The Christians overpowered the Pagan religion to establish Christianity all over the world.
- Jesus Christ was selected as ‘ Son Of God’ by mutual voting
- Jesus’ relationship with Magdalene proves to be a major point of controversy.
- In the book a monk named Silas murders the members of The Priory of Sion with the help given by a bishop.
Despite many controversies the book happen to be a best seller throughout the world. Anyone who thinks a fiction can never affect your religious beliefs may go ahead and read the book without hesitation.
Reviewed by
By KARTHIKA.P.
11A
SECOND SHIFT
