I.-EGYPT AND ETHIOPIA. In the afternoon they came unto a land, -TENNYSON: Lotus Eaters. EGYPT was originally a colony of the Hindus. It appears that about seven or eight thousand years ago a bony of colonists from India settled in Egypt, where they established one of the mightiest empires of the old world. Colonel Olcott says: "We have a right to more than suspect that India, eight thousand years ago, sent a colony of emigrants who carried their arts and high civilization into what is now known to us as Egypt. This is what Brugsch Bey, the most modern as well as the most trusted Egyptologer and antiquarian, says on the origin of the old Egyptians. Regarding these as a branch of the Caucasian family having a close affinity with the Indo-Germanic races, he insists that they migrated from India long before historic memory, and crossed that bridge of nations, the Isthmus of Suez, to find a new fatherland on the banks of the Nile.' The Egyptians came, according to their own records, from a mysterious land (now shown to lie on the shore of the Indian ocean), the sacred Punt; the original home of their gods who followed thence after their people who had abandoned them to the valley of the Nile, led by Amon, Hor and Hathor. This region was the Egyptian 'Land of the Gods,' Pa-Nuter, in old Egyptian, or Holyland, and now proved beyond any doubt to have.. been quite a different place from the Holyland of Sinai. By the pictorial hieroglyphic inscription found (and interpreted) on the walls of the temple of the Queen Haslitop at Der-el-babri, we see that this Punt can be no other than India. For many ages the Egyptians traded with their old homes, and the reference here made by them to the names of the Princes of Punt and its fauna and flora, especially the nomenclature of various precious woods to be found but in India, leave us scarcely room for the smallest doubt that the old civilization of Egypt is the direct outcome of that of the older India.”1 Mr. Pococke says: "At the mouths of the Indus dwell a seafaring people, active, ingenious, and enterprising as when, ages subsequent to this great movement, they themselves, with the warlike denizens of the Punjab, were driven from their native land to seek the far distant climes of Greece. The commercial people dwelling along the coast that stretches from the mouth. of the Indus to the Coree, are embarking on that emigration whose magnificent results to civilization, and whose gigantic monuments of art, fill the mind with mingled emotions of admiration and awe. These people coast along the shores of Mekran, traverse the mouth of the Persian Gulf, and again adhering to the sea-board of Oman, Hadramant, and Yeman (the Eastern Arabia), they sail up the Red Sea; and again ascending the mighty stream that fertilises a land of wonders, found the kingdoms of Egypt, Nubia, and Abyssinia. These are the same stock that, centuries subsequently to this colonization, spread the blessings of civilization over Hellas and her islands."2 1 See the Theosophist for March 1881, p.123. 2India in Greece, p. 42. Mr. Pococke thus summarises his researches: "I would now briefly recapitulate the leading evidences of the colonization of Africa from North-western India and the Himalaya provinces. First, from the provinces or rivers deriving their names from the great rivers of India; secondly, from the towns and provinces of India or its northern frontiers; thirdly, from the Ruling Chiefs styled Ramas (Rameses), &c. ; fourthly, similarity in the objects of sepulture; fifthly, architectural skill and its grand and gigantic character; and sixthly, the power of translating words, imagined to be Egyptian, through the medium of a modified Sanskrit." Mr. Pococke then proceeds to subjoin "the opinions of men of sound judgment in connection with the Indian colonization of Egypt." The name "Nile" was given to the great river of Egypt by the Indian settlers there. "For about 10 miles. below the Attock," says a critic, "the Indus has a clean, deep and rapid current, but for above a hundred miles further down to Kalabagh it becomes an it becomes an enormous torrent. The water here has a dark lead colour, and hence the name Nilab or Blue river given as well to the Indus as to a town on its banks, about 12 miles below Attock." As Aboasin (a classical name for the Indus) gave its name to Abusinia (Abyssinia) in Africa, so here "we now observe the Nilab (the blue water) bestowing an appelation on the farfamed "Nile" of Egypt. This is one of those facts which prove the colonization of Egypt to have taken place from the coast of Scinde." 1 India in Greece, p. 201. Apart from historical evidence there are ethnological grounds to support the fact that the ancient Egyptians were originally an Indian people. Professor Heeren is astonished at the "physical similarity in colour and in the conformation of the head" of the ancient Egyptians and the Hindus. As regards the latter point, he adds: "As to the form of the head, I have now before me the skulls of a mummy and a native of Bengal from the collections of M. Blumenbach; and it is impossible to conceive anything more striking than the resemblance between the two, both as respects the general form and the structure of the firm portions. Indeed the learned possessor himself considers them to be the most alike of any in his numerous collections."1 After showing the still more striking similarity between the manners and customs, in fact, between the whole, social, religious and political institutions of the two peoples, Professor Heeren says: "It is perfectly agreeable to Hindu manners that colonies from India, i.e., Banian families should have passed over into Africa, and carried with them their industry, and perhaps also their religious worship."2 He adds: "It is hardly possible to maintain the opposite side of the question, viz, that the Hindus were derived from the Egyptians, for it has been already ascertained that the country bordering on the Ganges was the cradle of Hindu civilization. Now, the Egyptians could not have established themselves in that neighbourhood, their probable settlement would rather have taken place on the Coast of Malabar." Heeren's Asiatic Nations, Vol. II, p. 303. 2 Heeren's Historical Researches, Vol. II, p. 309. The learned professor concludes: "Whatever weight may be attached to Indian tradition and the express testimony of Eusebius confirming the report of migrations from the banks of the Indus into Egypt, there is certainly nothing improbable in the event itself, as a desire of gain would have formed a sufficient inducement." Decisive evidence of the fact, however, may be found in Philostratus and Nonnus. For further information on the subject, vide Religion. After tracing the descent of Philippos of Macedon and his son, Alexander, from Bhili-Pos or Bhil-Prince and Hammon in Afghanistan, Mr. Pococke continues : "And these same Bhils, i.e., the Bhil Brahmans planted this same Oracle of Hammon in the deserts of Africa, whither I have already shown that they had sailed; where they founded Philai, i.e., Bhailai, the city of the Bhils, in lat. 24° North, long. 33° East.1 Mr. Pococke, who made the subject his life-long study, says: "The early civilization, then, the early arts, the indubitably early literature of India are equally the civilization, the arts and literature of Egypt and of Greece for geographical evidences, conjoined to historical fact and religious practices, now prove beyond all dispute that the two latter countries are the colonies of the former."2 Ethiopia, as is universally admitted now, was colonised by the Hindus. Sir W. Jones says: Ethiopia 1India in Greece, p. 65. 2India in Greece, p. 74. 66 3 The ancient geographers called by the name of Ethiopia all that part of Africa which now constitutes Nubia, Abyssinia, Sanaor, Darfur, and Dongola."-Theogony of the Hindus, p. 44, |