Taken from: Wikipedia - The Da Vinci Code
Introduction
The Da Vinci Code is a 2003 mystery-detective fiction novel written by American author Dan Brown and published by the
Doubleday Group in the United States and Bantam Books in the United Kingdom. It follows symbologist Robert Langdon as he
investigates a murder in Paris's Louvre Museum and discovers a battle between the Priory of Sion and Opus Dei over the
possibility of Jesus Christ of Nazareth having been married to and fathering a child with Mary Magdalene.
The title of the novel refers to, among other things, the fact that the murder victim is found in the Denon Wing of the
Louvre, naked and posed like Leonardo da Vinci's famous drawing, the Vitruvian Man, with a cryptic message written beside
his body and a pentacle drawn on his stomach in his own blood.
The novel has provoked a popular interest in speculation concerning the Holy Grail legend and Magdalene's role in the
history of Christianity. The book has been extensively denounced by Roman Catholics and other Christians as a dishonest
attack on the Catholic Church. It has also been criticized for historical and scientific inaccuracy.
Brown's novel was a major success in 2004 and was outsold only by J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Order of the
Phoenix. It was the winner of Book Sense's 2004 Book of the Year Award in the Adult Fiction category. It spawned a
number of offspring works and drew glowing reviews from The New York Times, People, and The Washington Post. It also
reignited interest in the history of the Catholic Church. Additionally, The Da Vinci Code, itself preceded by other Grail
books such as The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln; and Umberto Eco's
Foucault's Pendulum, has inspired a number of novels very similar to it, including Raymond Khoury's The Last Templar and
The Templar Legacy by Steve Berry. It also borrows heavily from Stuart Urban's 2001 film Revelation.
It is a worldwide bestseller that had 60.5 million copies in print by May 2006 and that has been translated into 44
languages. Combining the detective, thriller, and conspiracy fiction genres, the book is Brown's second to include the
character Robert Langdon, the first being his 2000 novel Angels & Demons. In November 2004 Random House published a
"Special Illustrated Edition" with 160 illustrations. In 2006, an eponymous film adaptation was released by Sony's Columbia
Pictures.
Plot summary
This book describes the attempts of Robert Langdon, Professor of Religious Symbology at Harvard University, to solve the
murder of renowned curator Jacques Saunière of the Louvre Museum in Paris. A baffling cipher is found near his body.
Saunière's granddaughter, Sophie Neveu and Langdon attempt to sort out the bizarre riddles and are stunned to discover a
trail of clues hidden in the works of Leonardo Da Vinci.
The unraveling of the mystery requires solutions to a series of brain-teasers, including anagrams and number puzzles. The
ultimate solution is found to be intimately connected with the possible location of the Holy Grail and to a mysterious
society called the Priory of Sion, as well as to the Knights Templar. The story also involves the Roman Catholic
organization Opus Dei.
These are the principal characters that drive the plot. Some have names that are puns, anagrams or hidden clues:
Robert Langdon, Jacques Saunière, Sophie Neveu, Bezu Fache, Silas, Manuel Aringarosa, André Vernet, Leigh Teabing, Rémy
Legaludec, Jérôme Collet, Marie Chauvel Saint-Clair.
Jacques Saunière was the Grand Master of the Priory of Sion and therefore knew the hidden location of the "keystone", which
leads to the Holy Grail and documents which would shake the foundation of Christianity and the Church. He was murdered by
Silas (acting on behalf of someone known only as The Teacher) in an attempt to extract this information from him as well as
eliminating the top members of the Priory of Sion. The police summon Langdon to the murder scene at the Louvre and Fache
pretends that he wants Langdon's help in solving the murder. In fact, Fache suspects that Langdon himself is the murderer.
As a police cryptographer, Neveu shows up at the murder scene and quickly gains Langdon's trust.
The reason that Sophie Neveu disassociated herself from her grandfather is that she discovered him participating in a pagan
sex ritual (Hieros Gamos) at his home in Normandy, when she made a surprise visit there during a break from boarding school.
(That she had observed something is mentioned and hinted at several times throughout the complicated story, but what it is
that she saw is revealed to no one, including the reader, until near the end when she reveals it to Robert.)
The other three lines of Saunière's blood message are anagrams. The first line are the digits of the Fibonacci sequence out
of order. The second and third lines ("O, Draconian devil!" and "Oh, lame saint!") are anagrams respectively for "Leonardo
da Vinci" and "The Mona Lisa" (written in English, because her grandfather did everything with her in English). These clues
were meant to lead to a second set of clues. On the glass over the Mona Lisa, Saunière wrote the message "So dark the con
of Man" with a curator's pen that can only be read in ultra-violet light. This clue is an anagram for Madonna of the Rocks,
another Da Vinci painting hanging nearby. Behind this painting, Saunière hid a key. By deciphering her grandfather's clues,
Neveu finds the key. On the key, written with the curator's pen, is an address. Working together, Langdon and Neveu trick
the police, flee the scene and figure out the secret of the key.
The key opens a safe deposit box at the Paris branch of the Depository Bank of Zurich. Saunière's account number at the bank
is a 10-digit number listing the digits of the first eight Fibonacci numbers: 1 1 2 3 5 8 13 21.
The instructions that Saunière revealed to Silas at gunpoint are actually a well-rehearsed lie, namely that the keystone is
buried in the Church of Saint-Sulpice beneath an obelisk that lies exactly along the ancient "Rose Line" (the former Prime
Meridian which passed through Paris before it was redesignated to pass through Greenwich). The message beneath the obelisk
simply contains a reference to a passage in the Book of Job (38:11a, KJV) which reads in part "Hitherto shalt thou go and
no further". When Silas reads this, he realizes he has been duped.
The keystone is actually a large cryptex, a cylindrical device supposedly invented by Leonardo Da Vinci for transporting
secure messages. In order to open it the combination of rotating components must be arranged in the correct order. If the
cryptex is forced open an enclosed vial of vinegar ruptures and dissolves the message, which was written on papyrus. The
rosewood box containing the large cryptex contains clues to the combination of the cryptex, written in backwards script in
the same manner as Leonardo's journals.
Newton's grave in Westminster AbbeyStill being chased by the police, Langdon and Neveu figure out how to open the cryptex,
but the large cryptex actually contains a second smaller cryptex with a second riddle that reveals its combination. The
riddle, which says to seek the orb that should be on the tomb of "a knight a pope interred", refers not to a medieval
knight, but rather to the tomb of Sir Isaac Newton, who was buried in Westminster Abbey, and was eulogized by Alexander
Pope (A. Pope). The missing orb refers to the apple which, in popular legend, fell on Newton and inspired the development
of his theory of gravity, therefore the combination to the second cryptex is "A-P-P-L-E".
The Teacher is Sir Leigh Teabing. He learns of the identities of the leaders of the Priory of Sion, bugs their offices and
has Silas assassinate them. Rémy is his collaborator. It is Teabing who contacted Bishop Aringarosa, hiding his identity,
and duped him into financing the plan to find the Grail. He never intended to hand the Grail over to Aringarosa but is
taking advantage of Opus Dei's resolve to find it. Teabing believes that the Priory of Sion has broken its vow to reveal the secret of the Grail to the world at the appointed time. He plans to steal the Grail documents and reveal them to the world himself. It was he who informed Silas that Langdon and Sophie Neveu were at his chateau. He did not seize the keystone from them himself because he did not want to reveal his identity. He summoned Silas to seize the keystone in his house, but himself thwarted Silas, in order to gain Langdon and Sophie's further help with decoding the cryptex. Subsequently, the police raided the house, having followed the tracking device in the truck Langdon had stolen. Teabing led Neveu and Langdon to the Temple Church in London, knowing full well that it was a dead end, in order to stage the hostage scene with Rémy and thereby obtain the keystone without revealing his real plot to Langdon and Neveu. The call Silas received while riding in the limousine with Rémy is in fact Teabing, surreptitiously calling from the back of the limousine.
In order to erase all knowledge of his work, Teabing kills Rémy by giving him cognac laced with peanut powder, knowing Rémy has a deadly allergy to peanuts. Thus, Rémy dies of an anaphylactic shock. Teabing also anonymously tells the police that Silas is hiding in the London headquarters of Opus Dei.
In a showdown with Teabing in Westminster Abbey, Langdon secretly opens the second cryptex and removes its contents before destroying it in front of Teabing. Teabing is arrested and led away while fruitlessly begging Langdon to tell him the contents of the second cryptex and the secret location of the Grail.
Bishop Aringarosa and Silas believe they are saving the Church, not destroying it.
Bezu Fache finds out that Neveu and Langdon are innocent after Bishop Aringarosa contacts him privately to confess. Fache
then cancels the warrants for the arrest of Neveu and Langdon.
Silas accidentally shoots Aringarosa outside the London headquarters of Opus Dei while fleeing from the police. Realizing
his terrible error and that he has been duped, Aringarosa tells Bezu Fache to give the bearer bonds in his briefcase to the
families of the murdered leaders of the Priory of Sion. Silas dies of fatal wounds.
The final message inside the second keystone actually does not refer to Rosslyn Chapel, although the Grail was indeed once
buried there, below the Star of David on the floor (the two interlocking triangles are the "blade" and "chalice", i.e.,
male and female symbols).
The docent in Rosslyn Chapel is Sophie's long-lost brother. Sophie had been told as a child that he was killed with her
parents in a car accident.
The guardian of Rosslyn Chapel, Marie Chauvel, is Sophie's long-lost grandmother, and the wife of Jacques Saunière. She is
the woman who participated in the sex ritual with Jacques Saunière. It is revealed that Sophie is a descendant of Jesus
Christ and Mary Magdalene. The Priory of Sion hid her identity in order to protect her from possible threats to her life.
Even though all four of the leaders of the Priory of Sion are killed, the secret is not lost, since there is still a
contingency plan (never revealed) which will keep the organization and its secret alive.
The real meaning of the last message is that the Grail is buried beneath the small pyramid (i.e., the "blade", a male
symbol) directly below the inverted glass pyramid of the Louvre (i.e., the "chalice", a female symbol, which Langdon and
Sophie ironically almost crashed into while making their original escape from Bezu Fache). It also lies beneath the "Rose
Line," which is similar to "Rosslyn." Langdon figures out this final piece to the puzzle in the last pages of the book, but
he does not appear inclined to tell anyone about this. See La Pyramide Inversée for further discussion.
Secret of the Holy Grail
As explained by Leigh Teabing to Sophie Neveu, the figure at the right hand of Jesus is supposedly not the apostle John,
but Mary Magdalene. According to the book, Mary Magdalene was the wife of Jesus Christ and was in fact pregnant with his
child when Jesus was crucified. The absence of a chalice in the painting supposedly indicates that Leonardo knew that
Mary Magdalene was actually the Holy Grail (the bearer of Jesus' blood). This is said to be reinforced by the letter "V"
that is created with the bodily positions of Jesus and Mary, as "V" is the symbol for the sacred feminine. The apparent
absence of the "Apostle John", under this interpretation, is explained by identifying John as "the Disciple Jesus loved",
allegedly code for Mary Magdalene (see also Second Apocalypse of James). The book also notes that the color scheme of their
garments are inverted: Jesus wears a red blouse with royal blue cape; John/Mary wears a royal blue blouse with red cape —
perhaps symbolizing two bonded halves of marriage. Also, if you move John/Mary to left of Jesus, you will see his/her head
fits perfectly onto Jesus' shoulder, as if to affectionately lay that head on his shoulder.
According to the novel, the secrets of the Holy Grail, as kept by the Priory of Sion, are as follows:
- Jesus is not the divine son of God, but a human prophet of God.
- The Holy Grail is not a physical chalice, but a woman, namely Mary Magdalene, who carried the bloodline of Christ.
- The Old French expression for the Holy Grail, San gréal, actually is a play on Sang réal, which literally means "royal
blood" in Old French.
- The Grail relics consist of the documents that testify to the bloodline, as well as the actual bones of Mary Magdalene.
- The Grail relics of Mary Magdalene were hidden by the Priory of Sion in a secret crypt, perhaps beneath Rosslyn Chapel.
- The Church has suppressed the truth about Mary Magdalene and the Jesus bloodline for 2000 years. This is principally because
they fear the power of the sacred feminine in and of itself and because this would challenge the primacy of Saint Peter as
an apostle.
- Mary Magdalene was of royal descent (through the Jewish House of Benjamin) and was the wife of Jesus, of the House of David.
- That she was a prostitute was slander invented by the Church to obscure their true relationship. At the time of the
Crucifixion, she was pregnant. After the Crucifixion, she fled to Gaul, where she was sheltered by the Jews of Marseille.
She gave birth to a daughter, named Sarah. The bloodline of Jesus and Mary Magdalene became the Merovingian dynasty of
France.
- The existence of the bloodline was the secret that was contained in the documents discovered by the Crusaders after they
conquered Jerusalem in 1099 (see Kingdom of Jerusalem). The Priory of Sion and the Knights Templar were organized to keep
the secret.
The secrets of the Grail are connected, according to the novel, to Leonardo Da Vinci's work as follows:
- Leonardo was a member of the Priory of Sion and knew the secret of the Grail. The secret is in fact revealed in The Last
Supper, in which no actual chalice is present at the table. The figure seated next to Christ is not a man, but a woman,
his wife Mary Magdalene. Most reproductions of the work are from a later alteration that obscured her obvious female
characteristics.
- The androgyny of the Mona Lisa reflects the sacred union of male and female which is implied in the holy union of Jesus and
Mary Magdalene. Such parity between the cosmic forces of masculine and feminine has long been a deep threat to the
established power of the Church. The name Mona Lisa is actually an anagram for "Amon L'Isa", referring to the father and
mother gods of Ancient Egyptian religion (namely Amun and Isis).
- A number of different authors also speculate about the possibility of Jesus becoming a father. There are at least three
children attributed to him, a daughter Tamar, born before the Crucifixion, and two sons Jesus (the Jesus Justus from the
New Testament) and Josephes, both born after the Resurrection. Although their names are now part of the common culture of
conspiracy writers, only two decades ago, when The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail was written, the names were not mentioned.
The royal descents that lie at the heart of The Da Vinci Code mystery centre on the family of Josephes, who is supposed to
be the grandfather of Aminadab del Graal, first of the "Fisher Kings". However the genealogies that are quoted in Grail
lore appear to record too few generations, with children regularly being born to fathers in their 40s.
The mystery within the mystery
Part of the advertising campaign for the novel was that the artwork in the American version of the bookjacket held various
codes, and that the reader who solved them via the author's website would be given a prize. Several thousand people actually
solved the codes, and one name was randomly chosen to be the winner, with the name announced on live television, Good
Morning America, in early 2004. The prize was a trip to Paris.
The five hidden puzzles reveal:
- That the back of the book jacket conceals latitude and longitude coordinates, written in reverse, light red on dark red.
Adding one degree to the latitude gives the coordinates of the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency in Northern
Virginia, which is the location of a mysterious sculpture called Kryptos. The coordinates were taken from part of the
decrypted text of part 2 of the sculpture (part 4 has never been solved). When Brown has been asked why the coordinates
are one degree off, his reply has been, "The discrepancy is intentional".
- Bold letters are present on the book jacket. There is a secret message hidden in the text of the book flaps. The message:
Is there no help for the widow's son (a reference to Freemasonry).
- The words "only WW knows" can be seen on the back cover. It is a phrase printed invertedly, in the torn part of the book
cover. This too is a reference to part 2 of the Kryptos sculpture.
- A circle with numbers, between the Doubleday logo and the barcode, reveals a secret message. These are the chapter numbers
where the initial letters are arranged in Caesar box format.
- There is reverse writing on the cover of the book, which is the riddle for the first cryptex.
Brown, both via his website and in person, has stated that the puzzles in the bookjacket give hints about the subject of
his next novel, The Solomon Key. This repeats a theme from his earlier novels. For example, Deception Point had an encrypted
message which, when solved, said, "The Da Vinci Code will surface".
In the simplified Chinese version of The Da Vinci Code, the cover has a secret text; however, this text can be easily seen.
It reads: "13-3-2-1-1-8-5 O, Draconian devil! Oh, Lame Saint! P.S. Find Robert Langdon." This is the multiply encrypted
clue written in invisible ink next to the dead body in the museum which kicks off the plot of the entire novel.