Apart from the passage in Manu,' describing the origin of the ancient Persians, there is another argument to support it. Zoroaster, the Prophet of the Ancient Persians, was born after the emigrants from India had settled in Persia, long enough to have become a separate nation. Vyasa held a grand religious discussion with Zoroaster at Balkh in Turkistan, and was therefore his contemporary. Zanthus of Lydia (B.C. 470), the earliest Greek writer, who mentions Zoroaster, says that he lived about six hundred years before the Trojan War (which took place about 1800 B.C.). Aristotle and Endoxus place his era as much as six thousand years before Plato, others five thousand years before the Trojan War (see Pliny: Historia Naturalis, XXX, 1-3). Berosos, the Babylonian historian makes him a king of the Babylonians and the founder of a dynasty which reigned over Babylon between B.C. 2200 and B.C. 2000. It is, however, clear that the Hindu colonization of Persia took place anterior to the Great War. In the first chapter (Fargard) of the part which bears the name Vendidad of their sacred book (which is also their most ancient book), Hurmuzd or God tells Zapetman (Zoroaster): "I have given to man an excellent and fertile country. Nobody is able to give such a one. This land lies to the east (of Persia), where the stars rise every evening." "When Jamshed (the leader of the emigrating nation), came from the highland in the east to the plain, there were neither domestic animals. nor wild, nor men." "The country alluded to above from which the Persians are said to have come can be 1 Manusmriti is admittedly much older than the Mahabharata. no other than the North-west part of ancient IndiaAfghanistan and Kashmir-being to the east of Persia, as well as highland compared to the Persian plains."1 Mr. Pococke says: "The ancient map of Persia, Colchis, and Armenia is absolutely full of the most distinct and startling evidences of Indian colonization, and, what is more astonishing, practically evinces, in the most powerful manner, the truth of several main points in the two great Indian poems, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. The whole map is positively nothing less than a journal of emigration on the most gigantic scale."2 1Theogony of the Hindus. 2India in Greece, p. 47. III.-ASIA MINOR. The Colchian virgin, whose bold hand -ESCHYLUS: Prometheus. THE Chaldeans were originally migrators from India. Chaldea is a corruption of cul (family or tribe) and deva (a god or brahman.) The country, colonized by the tribe of Devas or Brahmans, was called Chaldea, whence the word Chaldeans. Count Bjornstjerna says: "The Chaldeans, the Babylonians and the inhabitants of Colchis derived their civilization from India."1 Mr. Pococke says: "The tribe 'Abanti' who fought most valiantly in the Trojan War were no other than the Rajputs of 'Avanti' in Malwa."2 The Assyrians, too, were of Hindu origin. Their first king was Bali, Boal or Bel. This Boal or Bali was a great king of India in ancient times. He ruled from Cambodia to Greece. Professor Maurice says: "Bali . . . was the puissant sovereign of a mighty empire extending over the vast continent of India." Mr. Pococke says: "Thus, then, at length, are distinctly seen-firstly, the identical localities in the Indian and Tartarian provinces whence Palestine was colonized; secondly, the identity of idolatry is proved between India, the old country, and Palestine the new; thirdly, the identity of the Rajput of India and of Palestine; fourthly, the positive notification of the distinct tribe which the Israelites encountered and overthrew."3 1 Theogony of the Hindus. p. 168. 2 Ind a in Greece, p. 33. IV. GREECE. The mountain looks on Marathon- And musing there an hour alone, I dream'd that Greece might still be free. -BYRON: Don Juan. THE Hindu emigrations to Greece have already been mentioned. The subject, is of such fascinating interest that eminent scholars and archaeologists have devoted their time and learning to unravel the mystery connected with the origin of the race, whose splendid achievements in peace and war yet stand unrivalled in Europe. Colonel Tod and Colonel Wilford laid the foundations of a system of enquiry in this branch of historical research, on which Mr. Pococke has raised the marvellous structure of "India in Greece," which stands firm and solid, defying the violence and fury of the windy criticism of ignorant critics and the hail and sleet of certain writers on Indian Archæology, blinded by inveterate prejudices. Mr. Pococke quotes chapter and verse in proof of his assertions, and proves beyond all shadow of doubt the Hindu origin of the ancient Greeks. After describing the Grecian society during the Homeric times, Mr. Pococke says: "The whole of this state of society, civil and military, must strike everyone as being eminently Asiatic, much of it specifically Indian. Such it undoubtedly is. And I shall demonstrate that these evidences were but the attendant tokens of an Indian inization with its corresponding religion and language. I shall exhibit dynasties disappearing from Western India to appear again in Greece: clans, whose martial fame is still recorded in the faithful chronicles of North-western India, as the gallant bands who fought upon the plains of Troy." "But, if the evidences of Saxon colonization in this island (Great Britain)-I speak independently of AngloSaxon history-are strong both from language and political institutions, the evidences are still more decisive in the parallel case of an Indian colonization of Greece-not only her language, but her philosophy, her religion, her rivers, her mountains and her tribes; her subtle turn of intellect, her political institutes, and above all the mysteries of that noble land, irresistibly prove her colonization from India."2 "The primitive history of Greece," adds the author, "is the primitive history of India.' There are critics who concede the derivation of Greek from the Sanskrit, but stop short of the necessary inference that the people who spoke the former language were the descendants of those who spoke the latter. Of such, Mr. Pococke asks: "Is it not astonishing that reason should so halt half-way in its deduction as to allow the derivation of the Greek from an Indian language, and yet deny the personality of those who spoke it; or, in other words, deny the settlement of an Indian race in Greece ?"3 The word Greek itself signifies the Indian origin of the ancient Greeks. The royal city of the Magedhanians or Kings of Magadha was called "Raja Griha." "The people or clans of Griha were, according to the regular patronymic form of their language, styled 1 India in Greece, p. 12. 2India in Greece, p. 19. 3 India in Greece, p. 145. |