Author: Dan Brown
Genre:Religion,Thriller,Crime,Fiction,Mystery novel
Publisher:Doubleday (U.S.) &Bantam (UK)
Pages: 454 pages
ISBN: 0-385-50420-9
Year: 2003

The Da Vinci Code has helped perpetuate popular interest in speculation concerning theHoly Grail legend and the role ofMary Magdalene in the history of Christianity. According to the premise of the novel, theVatican knows it is living a lie, but continues to do so to keep itself in power.

It is a worldwidebestseller with more than 60.5 million copies in print (as of May 2006) and has been translated into 44 languages. It is thought to be the thirteenthbest-selling book of all time.
As explained byLeigh Teabing toSophie Neveu, the figure at the right hand ofJesus is supposedly not theapostle John, butMary Magdalene.

According to the bookMary Magdalene was the wife ofJesus Christ and was in fact pregnant with his child when Jesus wascrucified.

The absence of achalice in the painting supposedly indicates that Leonardo knew that Mary Magdalene was actually theHoly 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", allegedlycode forMary Magdalene (see alsoSecond 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 Jesus's right, you will see his head fits perfectly onto Jesus' shoulder as if to lay her head on his shoulder.

According to the novel, the secrets of theHoly Grail, as kept by thePriory of Sion, are as follows: The Holy Grail is not a physical chalice, but a woman, namelyMary Magdalene, who carried thebloodline 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 ofMary Magdalene.

The Grail relics ofMary Magdalene were hidden by thePriory of Sion in a secret crypt, perhaps beneathRosslyn 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 thesacred 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 JewishHouse of Benjamin) and was the wife ofJesus, of theHouse of David. That she was aprostitute wasslander invented by theChurch to obscure their true relationship.

At the time of theCrucifixion, she was pregnant. After the Crucifixion, she fled toGaul, where she was sheltered by theJews ofMarseille. She gave birth to a daughter, namedSarah. The bloodline of Jesus and Mary Magdalene became theMerovingian dynasty ofFrance.

The existence of the bloodline was the secret that was contained in the documents discovered by theCrusaders after they conqueredJerusalem in 1099 (seeKingdom of Jerusalem). ThePriory of Sion and theKnights Templar were organized to keep the secret.

The secrets of the Grail are connected, according to the novel, toLeonardo 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 inThe Last Supper, in which no actual chalice is present at the table. The figure seated next toChrist is not a man, but a woman, his wifeMary Magdalene.

Most reproductions of the work are from a later alteration that obscured her obvious female characteristics.

The androgyny of theMona 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 ofAncient Egyptian religion (namelyAmun andIsis).

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. Their names are now part of the common culture of conspiracy writers, however only two decades ago, whenHoly Blood, Holy Grail was written, the names were never mentioned.

The royal descents that lie at the heart of The Da Vinci Code mysteries 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.

Part of the advertising campaign for the novel was that the artwork in the American version of the bookjacket held variouscodes, 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.

That the back of the book jacket concealslatitude andlongitude coordinates, written in reverse, light red on dark red. Adding one degree to the latitude gives the coordinates of the headquarters of theCentral Intelligence Agency inNorthern Virginia, which is the location of a mysterious sculpture calledKryptos. 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".
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 toFreemasonry).

The words "only WW knows" can be seen on the back cover. This too is a reference to part 2 of the Kryptos sculpture.

A circle with numbers, when combined with text from the book, reveals a secret message.
There is reverse writing on the cover of the book, which is the riddle for the first cryptex.
Brown, both viahis 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 thesimplified 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 ininvisible ink next to the dead body in the museum which kicks off the plot of the entire novel.

David A. Shugarts was the first to expose this in his book 'Secrets of the Widow's Son: The Mysteries Surrounding the Sequel to The Da Vinci Code'.

The novel is part of the exploration of alternative religious history. Its principal source book is listed as per the court case,Lynn Picknett andClive Prince'sThe Templar Revelation, as well as the books byMargaret Starbird.

Holy Blood, Holy Grail was stated by Dan Brown not to be amongst his primary research material for the book.

It has been claimed that The Da Vinci Code is a romanticised version of this work, which was itself based on a series of documentaries that ran on theBBC in the 1970s, all written and/or directed byHenry Lincoln.

The main similarity includes the idea that theMerovingian kings of France were descendants from the bloodline ofJesus Christ andMary Magdalene. In reference to Richard Leigh and Michael Baigent (two of the authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail), Brown named the principal Grail expert of his story "Leigh Teabing" (an anagram of "Baigent Leigh").

Brown confirmed this during the court case. In reply to the suggestion that Lincoln was also referenced, as he has medical problems resulting in a severe limp, like the character of Leigh Teabing, Brown stated he was unaware of Lincoln's illness and the correspondence was a coincidence.

After losing before theHigh Court in July 12, 2006, Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh appealed, unsuccessfully, to theCourt of Appeal. Following the trial, it was found that the publicity had actually significantly boosted UK sales ofHoly Blood, Holy Grail.

Brown has reworked themes and characters from his own earlier novelAngels and Demons, specifically the main character, Robert Langdon.

European readers and critics noted some striking similarities between the "Da Vinci Code" and a Norwegian novel, "Sirkelens ende" ("Circle's End") byTom Egeland, published in 2001 (two years before the Da Vinci code).

Like the "Da Vinci Code", "Circle's End" involves an ancient mystery and a worldwide conspiracy, the discovery that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene, and an albino as one of the central characters.

Umberto Eco's earlierFoucault's Pendulum also deals with conspiracies, codes, a chase around the monuments of Paris, including the Holy Blood conundrum (which is mentioned in passing) and the Knights Templar, but does so in a more critical fashion — it is in fact asatire about the futility of conspiracy theories and the people who believe them. Foucault's Pendulum has since been dubbed "the thinking man's The Da Vinci Code".

Foucault's Pendulum itself is reminiscent in plot, theme and structure to the earlierThe Illuminatus! Trilogy, byRobert Shea andRobert Anton Wilson, published 13 years earlier.
Opus Dei was then cast in the role of the "evil opposition", used to destroy the bloodline. As the bloodline has never proven to be real, but merely a theory proposed in "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail", there is no direct inspiration for this.

It is believed Opus Dei's alleged controversial past allowed Brown to weave the organisation into his novel. On a symbolic level, thePriory of Sion (male and female membership and leadership, "good") and theOpus Dei (male-only leaders, "bad") are at opposite sides of the scale.

The latter is thus depicted as the attack dog of theCatholic Church, seeking to destroy the former and maintain the status quo. According to the novel, man needs woman for wholeness and, in fact, for experiencing the divine by means of sex (see theHieros Gamos ritual)--for example, in one's orgasm, there is a short period of time when a person's mind is completely empty, when one makes contact with God.

The book generated criticism when it was first published, due to speculations and misrepresentations of core aspects of Christianity, the history of theCatholic Church, and descriptions of European art, history, and architecture. The book has received mostly negative reviews from Catholic and other Christian communities, as well as historians.

On Febrary 22, 2004, an article titled "The Last Word: The Da Vinci Con" appeared in the New York Times by writer Laura Miller. Miller attacks the Da Vinci Code on multiple levels referring to it as "based on a notorious hoax", "rank nonsense", and "bogus", as she points out how heavily the book rests on the fabrications ofPierre Plantard who in 1953 was arrested and convicted for just such frauds.

Dan Brown himself dilutes the suggestion of some of the more controversial aspects being fact on his web site: "The "FACT" page makes no statement whatsoever about any of the ancient theories discussed by fictional characters. Interpreting those ideas is left to the reader".

However, it also says that "these real elements are interpreted and debated by fictional characters", "it is my belief that some of the theories discussed by these characters may have merit." and "the secret behind The Da Vinci Code was too well documented and significant for me to dismiss." It is therefore entirely understandable why there would continue to be confusion as to what is the factual content of the book.

US Catholic bishops launched a website rebutting the key claims in the novel. The bishops are concerned about what they perceive as errors and serious mis-statements in The Da Vinci Code.