Zechariah's name itself is one more conclusive demonstration of the fact that ancient Judaism and Hinduism were one and the same religion. The name of the Jewish prophet Zechariah in Peshitta Aramaic is Zakharya [from sections 5835-5839 of the Peshitta Aramaic web site on the web], which is simply the term acharya with a Z.  An acharya, as all students of Hinduism know, is a Hindu holy teacher, one who knows the rules or divine laws.  Other sections of this study show that the Sadducees, the Sadduki or Zadduki in ancient Hebrew, were originally the Saddhus, or holy men of Israel. However, by the time the name has relevance to most students of religion, namely the time of the New Testament events, the Sadducees had degenerated, just as Judaism had degenerated, from a health-inducing vegetarian and egalitarian religion, to a religion of carnivorism, animal sacrifices, and human slavery.  So too, the significance of Zechariah's name has been lost, because those who revised the Tanakh demonized the very traditions from which Judaism had sprung.
 

    It is precisely because Zechariah knew the original rules of Judaism, which included treating all creatures as sacred creations of Deity, that many orthodox Christian and Jewish scholars describe his language as allegorical or symbolical. Orthodoxies don't want you to accept scriptures literally that denounce animal sacrifices, which is exactly what the Book of Zechariah does.  And the number seven that permeates the book of Zechariah was his personal attempt to indelibly mark himself and his words as the teacher of the ways of Shiva, whose name in ancient Hebrew, Sheba, means seven, and who is known as the compassionate Lord of Creatures.  Sheba is the etymological root of the Shabbath, the Sabbath. Shiva like Krishna later was known among Hindus as Pasupati, Lord of Creatures. Shiva and Krishna were both also known as the Protector of Cattle.

    The Z preceding acharya in Zakharya's name is the seventh letter in the Hebrew alphabet, Zayin, and its symbol is a form of Egyptian scepter.  The figure Z is also seen as a double seven. The scepter and the double seven in context of Shiva and the notion of the acharya suggest the aggressive mission of Zechariah, to abolish the killing of animals. Jesus' statement, "I bring not peace but a sword," and his cleansing of the temple in order to manifest his mission to abolish the animal sacrifices, should be juxtaposed with Zechariah's extremely strong denunciation of animal sacrifices. Both men demonstrated the Animal Liberation attitude that was typical of the pure Jewish remnant, beginning with Cain, who killed an oppressor of God's creatures (that was the original story) a pure remnant that we can trace throughout the Old Testament, and that manifested itself in a particularly strong fashion in the  the Essenes, Nazarenes, Ebionites and Canaaneans (the zealots) in Jesus' time.

   The term acharya is also seen in the name of Azariah, a transliteration of acharya, in the apocryphal work, "The Prayer of Azariah," inserted in some versions of the Book of Daniel. Though the prayer has been revised in one section to make it appear that animal sacrifices, though less desirable to God than a contrite heart, are still acceptable, the later part of the work known as "The Song of Three Jews" adulates the creatures of God to such an extent that the objective reader understands that animal sacrifices are condemned. And the condemnation of animal sacrifices, a corollary of seeing all creatures as sacred, has been, since remote antiquity, and still is, the tradition of Hindu acharyas. So too, the song, like the Book of Daniel, is in harmony with the teachings of Enoch.

   Zechariah regarded those raising cattle to be slaughtered as offending God's command to be compassionate to other creatures which is implicit in the vegetarian covenant of Gen. 1:29.  While reading the following condemnation of animal sacrifices, one should go beyond one's orthodox prejudices and understand that Cain shared the same compassionate view of creation, and felt the same righteous indignation that was later felt by Zechariah, just as Isaiah did when he said "He who kills an ox is as he who kills a man."  The name and person of Cain is redeemed when one realizes that he was regarded as El Kana incarnate originally, and that the person of Cain was influential in extremely positive ways by promulgating vegetarianism and agricultural knowledge throughout the ancient world.  Sitchin has much research documenting Cain's influence in the Yucatan.  And Marge Beckwith's Myths and Legends of Hawaii speaks of the immense influence of Kana, a supreme male deity of Hawaii and Polynesia.  There is little doubt that Cain or Kana named Hawaii after his mother Eve, (or Hawwah in ancient Hebrew,) and that the Hogman and Shark deities of the ancient Hawaiians were a manifestation of Krishna's incarnations as a boar and sea creature. And the kahunas, the priests of ancient Hawaii, are named after the cohen, the priests of ancient Israel.  And the Napali area on the north-east of Kauai was no doubt named after the tribe of Napthali.

   In the original story of Cain and Abel, God is consistent with His command for humans to be vegetarian in Genesis 1: 29, and Cain is simply an avenging priest who kills Abel, because Abel transgressed God's command to respect all creatures, and instead killed them.  That is why Cain's name, which relates to El Kana, is also the root of kanna im, the term for zealot and avenging priest in the Talmud, which was precisely Cain's function in killing the transgressor of God's Vegetarian Covenant. The Cananeans are the zealots in the New Testament, and for those who are not aware of the fact, the land of Canaan, the Cananeans, El Kana and El Chanon, and Channuka are all named after the Tamil Hindu name for Krishna, Kannan.

   And we can see the logic of Cain's militance towards the bad shepherd Abel in the following quotations from Zechariah.

Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, against the man who stands next to me," says the Lord of hosts.  "Strike the shepherd, that the sheep may be scattered."  13: 7.

My anger is hot against the shepherds...10: 3.

...and I will make an end of the pride of Philistia.  I will take away its blood from its mouth, and its abominations from between its teeth; it too shall be a remnant for our God.  9: 6-7.

And on that day, says the Lord of hosts, I will cut off the names of the idols from the land, so that they shall be remembered no more; and also I will remove from the land the prophets and the unclean spirit.  And if any one again appears as a prophet, his father and mother who bore him will say to him, `You shall not live, for you speak lies in the name of the Lord'...13: 2-3.

On that day every prophet will be ashamed of his vision when he prophesies; he will not put on a hairy mantle in order to deceive, but he will say, "I am no prophet, I am a tiller of the soil..."  13: 4-5.

But now I will not deal with the remnant of this people as in the former days, says the Lord of hosts.  For there shall be a sowing of peace; the vine shall yield its fruit, and the ground shall give its increase, and the heavens shall give their dew; and I will cause the remnant of this people to possess all these things.  8: 11-12.

On that day the Lord their God will save them for they are the flock of his people...they shall shine on his land...Grain shall make the young men flourish, and new wine the maidens.  9: 16-17.

Ask rain from the Lord in the season of the spring rain, from the Lord who makes the storm clouds, who gives men showers of rain, to every one the vegetation in the field.  10: 1.

"Thus said the Lord my God: "Become shepherd of the flock doomed to slaughter.  Those who buy them slay them and go unpunished; and those who sell them say, `Blessed be the Lord, I have become rich'; and their own shepherds have no pity on them." 11: 4-5.

   The number seven occurs numerous times in the Book of Zechariah, and we know that Shiva's name in ancient Hebrew, Sheba, actually means seven, and that Shiva is known as Lord of the Seven Worlds.  Shiva's names in ancient Hebrew include Sheba, Seba, and Saba. The number seven is of course recognized as a sacred number throughout the Old and New Testaments as well as in the Ethiopic Book of Enoch, which, we shall see, was deemed apocryphal precisely because it told the truth about the Fall and the animal sacrifices and the Deluge as punishment for all creatures who did not follow the covenant in Genesis 1: 29-30.  And the image of seven heavens are found in a number of Hindu scriptures.

    Looking ahead to the study of Christianity, St. Saba was even the name of a Christian saint in the early days of Christianity. When Christianity was introduced to China it was done so using a Shiva Lingam, a pillar, which shows that the earliest Christians recognized themselves as Shaivites (or as Shaivites and Vaishnavas).  Jesus' name to the Tibetans and Hindus and Muslims was Issa or its variant Iesa. Issa aka Isa is a name of Shiva. Shiva Pasupati was Lord of the Creatures and commanded compassion towards all of them.

   The pure remnant of Judaism obeyed the command to be compassionate to all creatures. Those who sacrificed animals broke Shiva's command. But since they wanted people to believe that their brutality and profit making was sanctioned by God, they revised the scriptures so that it appeared that God himself desired animal sacrifices, and that is what most of the scriptures in the Pentateuch assert, even though these scriptures directly contradict what even the orthodox admit: That vegetarianism was God's first dietary covenant, as is indisputably seen in "Genesis" 1: 29-30, which commands vegetarianism not only for humans but for all creatures.  In other words, animals are not seen as "creatures of instinct, meant to be killed and eaten," but as conscious creatures with freedom of choice. This itself is constantly ignored, because these scriptures reveal a Hindu belief that other creatures have will and consciousness, and not the general belief of orthodox Jews, Christians, and Muslims, namely, that animals have no souls, and only instincts, and no free will.
 

   Zechariah denounces animal sacrifices and those profiting from them so strongly that the editors of some versions of the Old Testament describe his words as allegorical, not literal. Zechariah's indisputable condemnation of killing animals is the reason that his words are interpreted as symbolic or allegorical.  Otherwise the orthodox, who eat the animal sacrifices, would be criticizing their own behavior and diet as immoral. Raised as a Roman Catholic, and getting my bachelor's degree from a Jesuit university, I don't remember ever having heard a priest quote Zechariah's condemnation of the shepherds who allow the creatures in their flock to be sacrificed, just as I never heard a priest explain the cleansing of the temple as an act that was creature oriented, rather than, or as well as, human oriented.  And most of the time when I show the scriptures of  Zechariah 11: 4-5  to people who claim to know the scriptures, they act surprised.

"Thus said the Lord my God: "Become shepherd of the flock doomed to slaughter.  Those who buy them slay them and go unpunished; and those who sell them say, `Blessed be the Lord, I have become rich'; and their own shepherds have no pity on them." 11: 4-5.

     As indicated above, Zechariah's strong denunciation of the animal sacrifices should be seen in context of Cain killing Abel, of Isaias stating that the killing of an ox was equivalent to the killing of a man, and as the rationale of Jesus when he cleansed the temple of animals to be sacrificed.