"This is a curious subject to be engraved on an ancient Pagan temple : if Jain or Buddhist, the interest would be considerably enhanced."** … The same mythos, as the Romish Dr. Geddes calls Genesis, is at the bottom of the religions of Moses, India, and Egypt, with such small variations only as time and circumstance may be expected to produce. …

In India, in very ancient times, there was a state of great power. Its capital was in lat. 26º 48' N., 82º 4' E., of prodigious extent, being one of the largest in Hindostan, anciently called Ayodhya or Oude. It was, and yet is, a place celebrated for its sanctity, to which Pilgrims resort from all parts of India. The Hindoo history states that it was the seat of power, of a great prince called Dasaratha, the father of Rama, and of Rama, the brother of Cristna. Dasaratha extended his conquests as far as Ceylon, which he subdued. … Ayodhia or Iyodhya is nothing but Judia, and Oude, Juda. Iyodhia is Iyo-di-ia—country of the sacred Iou, or Jud. …

I feel little doubt that the tribe of Iaoud was expelled from this kingdom, perhaps from Maturea, from which place they took their names. Every difficulty will be removed if we suppose that the religious wars of the sects of the Ioni and Linga were long, and had alternate success; and this perfectly agrees with the Hindoo histories, which represent the wars to have been long, and of this description. The cities above-named are situated a little Westward of Tibet. The tribe of Ioud or the Brahmin Abraham, was expelled from or left the Maturea of the kingdom of Oude in India, and, settling at Goshen, or the house of the Sun or Heliopolis in Egypt, gave it the name of the place which they had left in India, Maturea. …

… Thus we shall connect Maturea, Judah, and Abraham together, and, as I have suggested, the doctrines of Cristna or the Lamb.

Abraham came from Mesopotamia of the Chaldees.* This precisely answers to the situation of Mutra or Maturea on the Jumna. It is the country of the ancient kingdom of Oude between the two rivers Ganges and Indus, and is called Duab or Mesopotamia, as I have before stated. He probably came just before the change of the worship took place, from Taurus to Aries, from Buddha to Cristna.

The river Chelum, or Jalum, or Jhylun, or Behut, or Jenaut* has on its West side the country of the Joudis, at the foot of the mountains of Joud. There is also a place or district in this country called Seba or Siba. There is also a tribe called Jajoohahs, which descended from the Joudis. Here are the Jews, descended from Judah. In the mountains of Solomon are found a tribe of people called Judoons,** (that is, Judæans,) and a place called Gosa, (that is, Gaza,) and a people called Jadrauns, and another called Jaujees (Jews).*** The mountains of Solomon, or Solimaun, have this name in the old books, though they are not commonly known at this time by it. These mountains are higher than the Andes. One of the mounts of the chain is called Suffaid Coh. The Sofees of Persia are called Suffrarees. In this country, also, is the city of Enoch, the Anuchta of Ptolemy.

… The notice of Rannæ, by Ptolemy, shews that the tribe was in existence before the dispersion of the Jews in the time of Vespasian. In the attempt to discover the truth in questions of this kind, it is very seldom that a proof of a fact can be obtained, but I think it is obtained respecting the RANNÆ of Oudipore. They were evidently here in the time of Ptolemy, and they are yet remaining. There can be no shadow of pretence to set up that they have been destroyed by the Mohamedans, and the city of Oude or Oudi-pore built by Mohamedans, and since that time a new tribe of Rannæ set up. The city of Gagasmera or Ajimere confirms this. The city of Oudepore is very large, and carries on the face of it marks of extreme antiquity. …

In lat. 26, 31 N. long. 74, 28 E., is the city called Ajimere or Gazamere, the Gazamera of Ptolemy adjoining to a large lake. Here is Gaza, of Syria, and the old English word mere for a lake. …

Col. Tod explains the word Jerusalem to mean Mer-Jesul or Hill of Jessul. The double meaning of the word Mer arises from all these sacred mounts being imitative Merus. Thus they might be all called Mer. Meru, we must recollect, was a hill in a sea, or surrounded by an oceanus. …

About lat. 27 N. and long. 71 E. on Col. Tod's map will be found the place called JESULMER. I learnt from the Colonel's work, that it is a place of very great antiquity, and in a peculiar manner sacred among the Buddhists. In one of the temples is a very large library, and in the centre of it, suspended by a chain of gold in a golden case, is a most sacred, holy manuscript, which is expressly forbidden to be read or even looked upon. It is believed that any person reading it would be instantly struck blind. … and now I beg my reader to transpose the letters of this word Jesulmer, and he will find they make Jeruselm. Take this by itself and the fact would be of little consequence, but couple it with all the other circumstances—with the names of the other towns which I have pointed out, and I defy the unprejudiced reader to divest his mind of a strong suspicion, that the Jerusalem of the West is the Jesulmer of the East, or vice versa.* Jesulmer changed into Jeruselm, is nothing but an example of the practice called Themeru or changing, of the tribe of Ioudi of writing words in the way called anagrammmatical.** …

Mount Olympuses are found in many places. These, I apprehend, are the high places reprobated in scripture; but they were all known under different names, the same as the Merus of India, and the Tecte Soleimans. …

Salivahana was King of Pratishtana, called also Saileyadhara, or simply Saileyam in a derivative form.* An ancient treatise of authority says, that Salivahana would appear at Saileya-d'hara, or the city firmly seated on a rock, which compound alludes to the city of Sion, whose foundations are upon the holy hills; "the city of our God, even upon his holy hill." Saileyam would be a very appropriate name, for it is also, in a derivative form, from Saila, and is really the same with Saileya-dhara : and the whole is not improbably from the Arabic Dar-al-salem, or Dar-es-salem, the house of peace, and the name of the celestial Jerusalem, in allusion to the Hebrew name of the terrestrial one. The Sanscrit names of this city of the King of Saileyam or Salem imply its being a most holy place, and consecrated apart, and that it is firmly seated upon a stony hill.**

In the traditions of the Afghauns, noticed by Elphinston,* the name Saul (from whom they say they are descended,) may be found, as also many circumstances similar to those in the Jewish history; …

The Turks, who conquered the Arabians or Saracens in modern times, have, in a great measure, adopted their language. When these pagans arrives from Tartary they found the countries which they over-ran chiefly occupied by two races of men,—the Christians and the Mahomedans. The mortifying fact has been concealed as much as possible, but the truth is, that the conquerors adopted the religion of the latter, not of the former. … why the Mohamedan, under the peculiar circumstances of the two, should gain the preference, there is yet another to be found in the language. It is reasonable to expect that (if I be right and that the Ioudi and Arabians were sectaries, from Afghanistan and Rajapoutana, which comprehend what was called the Indian Tartary or Indian Scythia) the languages of the Turks and Arabians should be nearly the same, and very different from the Greek, the prevailing language of the Christians. This was the fact, and it remains so to this day. The Arabic, the language of the Koran, is, in some measure, a learned language of the Turks, though they probably find no great difficulty in it, as "the Turkish contains ten Arabic or Persian words for on originally Scythian."* This agrees extremely well with what we might expect to find, if I be right in my theoty. …

… The countries of the Afghans and of the Rajpouts are so intermingled, that it is impossible, with any precision, to separate them. But in addition to the above, it is a most important fact, that a large district on the Indus was called Arabia, and its inhabitants Arabi.

A very learned man, Mr. Cateret Web, has given it as his opinion, that the country about Bactria was, in primitive times, the seat of the arts, and that thence science was propagated to Persia, Assyria, India, and even to China. …

Bactria* is the same as Bucharia, and Bochara, which Abulghazi Khan** says, means country of learned men, and was a place to which persons went from all quarters to acquire knowledge. It was a most beautiful country, abounding in the richest productions of the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms. Perhaps, upon the whole earth, a situation more proper for the birthplace of man could not have been selected.

… I am of the opinion that the Afghans were driven out from the kingdom of Oude or Juda, (probably at the same time part of their sect came Westwards,) to the mountainous country where they are found, and from which their sectarian opponents could not expel them. Thus Jews or Ioudi are found in Afghanistan; but in Oude there are only towns formerly occupied by them.

I suppose that the tribe of Ioudi were driven out of Rajaputana when the religion of Cristna or Kanyia prevailed. In consequence of this we find the religion of Kanyia in this country; but it was not driven out of Afghanistan or the mountains, but remained there in the situation of the 65 tribes of black Jews without Pentateuchs, found by Dr. Buchanan, until the arrival of the Saracens, when they instantly accepted their religion, for which, in fact, they would be in a very peculiar manner prepared, by having the patriarchs' statues which were of old in the temple at Mecca. The country of Cristna has statues and remains of the same patriarchs, but they have not the least relation now to its religion; they are quite obsolete—only antiquarian curiosities.

It has been thought that the story of the descent of the Afghans from Saul is true; among other reasons, because there was a tribe called Khyber in the East, and one, professing the Jewish religion, in Arabia, in the time of Mohamed. … If the Jewish history is to be received, the pious David murdered all Saul's children by the hands of the Gibeonites.* From Mr. Elphinston's account, the traditions of the Jews of Western Syria, and those of the Afghans of Cabul, appear, though now much varied, to have been derived from a common source.

Ferisha accounts for the likeness between the Jews and Afghans by saying, that, "The Afghans were Copts ruled by Pharaoh, many of whom were converted to the laws and religion of Moses; but others who were stubborn in their worship to their Gods, fled towards Hindostan, and took possession of the country adjoining the Koh-i-Sooliman."* … In deriving the Afghans from the time of Moses, Ferishta admits their Jewish existence long before the time of Mohamed. … And it appears also that they were equally common with the Moguls, when they first marched to attack Delhi.

Not far from Oude, on the banks of a river called Gagra, by Colonel Wilford, are shewn the icons of Noah, Ayub (Job), and Shis or Sish (Seth). … The idea of the Mohamedans being the authors of these monuments is quite ridiculous, as they could never bear the idea of an image. …

Along with the similarity of language, of laws, of names of places and men, almost all travellers have noticed the similarity of personal character in these people to that of the Jews. The Mohamedans could not cause this. The Adim of India, which, in Sanscreet, means the first, is plainly the Adam of the first book of Genesis. The Nuh or Noah is Menu, who, after the flood, repeopled the renovated world; and the history of Noah and his family are precisely the same in the Sanscreet as in the Hebrew Bible.*

In lat. 28, 29, and long. 72, will be found an extensive country called Daoudpotra, which means Country of the sons of David. In it will be seen a town called Ahmed-poor—City of Ahmed, the name of Mohamed, and by which his followers say he was foretold. But this was an Arabian name of description before Mohamed was born, or he could not have been foretold by it. Besides, the fact of some person being foretold by it in the Prophet Haggai, shews it to be an ancient and sacred name.* This has a tendency to confirm the histories of the Brahmins, which say, that the Temple of Mecca was founded by a colony of Brahmins from India, and that it was a sacred place before the time of Mohamed, and that they were permitted to make pilgrimages to it several centuries after his time.** Its great celebrity as a sacred place long before the time of the prophet cannot be doubted.

Not far from the Indus, in Rennell's map, will be found a place in lat. 36, long. 67, called Dura-Yoosoof; also in lat. 32, long. 71, a place on the Indus called DERA-ISMAEL-Kahn. This is the native country of the Olive. Col. Wilford has observed that the name of Abdala is not derived from the Persian word Abdal, the servant of God; but from the name of an ancient tribe of Upper India,* before the time of Mohamed.

Col. Wilford says, that there are followers of Brahma in Arabia, at this time, who are supposed to be descendants of Hindoos. The greatest part of the old names of places in Arabia are either Sanscrit or Hindi; …

In the Old Testament we read anathemas in almost every page against high places. These were, I apprehend, imitative Merus. Nimrod has observed, that of this character were all the different Olympuses or sacred mounts of this and other names in Greece. There is none more striking than Pindus on its western side.

… In short, in the Western as in the Eastern nations, the countries were divided into districts, each having its sacred mount, its trinity of towns, &c., &c. Sir William Drummond, by shewing that almost all the ancient Hebrew names of the Holy land had astronomical meanings, has shewn that it was like all the others. It had its high place at Gerizim in Samaria, and after the schism tool place in the time of the man we and his followers call Dud or David, another was set up at Jerusalem. …

If I understand Gale rightly, he and Vossius suppose that Mount Sinai was called Nyssa or Nysa. Vide Exod. xvii. 15, Jehovah Nissi.*

Near the Indus is a river called Nile, one of the branches of which is called Choaspes and Cophes; this river is said to pass through an opening in the mountains, called Gopha. I think it probable that the Nile of Egypt was called Guptus, from the river Cophes or Gopha : and the Gupts or Copts from the same : and that they crossed from the neighbourhood of Mecca or Sheba or Saba to E-gupt-ia. They were, if I be right, correctly Ethiopians and Egyptians. The word Gupta in Sanscrit means Saviour. …

The explanation that the Guptus or Coptos was derived from the Cophrenes of India, is confirmed by the singular circumstance that the Nile, on flowing into the Delta of Egypt, is said to flow from the Cow's belly. The Ganges is said to flow from a sacred place, a gorge in the mountains called Cow's mouth—and the word Cophrenes, Mr. Rennell says, means Cow.* One of the river of the Punjab was called Nilad—this is evidently Nile-aub, river Nile. … On the Indian Nile above named, is a city called Ishmaelistan. We have just observed, that the city of Mecca is said by the Brahmins, on the authority of their old books, to have been built by a colony from India; and its inhabitants from the earliest era have had a tradition that it was built by Ishmael, the son of Agar. This town, in the Indian language, would be called ISHMAELISTAN.

The salutation of the Afghans is correctly Hebrew : Assalaum Alaikoom—Peace be with you.*

The Afghan mode of government by tribes, bears a striking resemblance to that of the Israelites under the Judges. … The natives have a code of criminal law different from the Mohamedan, such as one would suppose to have prevailed before the institution of civil government.* …

Mr. Maurice and Mr. Halhed have observed a very close similarity between many of the institutes of Menu and the Mosaic code, and that not consisting merely in precepts of morality, but in examples of artificial refinement, which could not be discovered by the principles of common sense, like many moral laws—for instance the law against Murder. Of this, the order to a brother to take the widow to raise up seed to his brother, is one out of a vast number of examples from which a judgment may be formed of the remainder, without occupying more of the reader's time.*

We have in India, as already shewn, a mount of Solomon, a country of Juda, and another of the sons of David, and a Mount Moriah or Meru, and places and persons without number called Isis or Jesse.

Col. Tod* remarks, the annals of the Yadus of Jesulmer state, that the Yadus and Yutis,** whose resemblance, he says, is more than nominal, soon after the war of the Mahabharat,*** held dominion from Guzni to Samarkland; that the race of Ioude was still existing near the Indus in the emperor Baber's time, who describes them as occupying the mountains in the first Do-ab, the very place the annals of the Yadus state them to have occupied twelve centuries before Christ, and thence called Iadu or Yadu-ca-dang, the hills of Iadu or Yadu. The circumstance of Yadu being said to be the father of Cristna,**** seems to imply that the tribe of Yadu or Ioudi arose before Cristna, or before the Sun entered Aries. This exactly agrees with the way I have accounted for the Afghans being Mohamedans, in Chapter V.

This name IE, corrupted into ia, Iy, Iu, Yu, Ya, occurs unceasingly in the Hindoo names of Gods, and often in their sacred ceremonies, where they sing or chaunt IEYE. How can any thing be more convincing than the exclamation of this word IEYE, the meaning of which they may probably have lost ?

No one can deny that it is very extraordinary, and it is to me an unaccountable, circumstance, that Herodotus, writing the History of Babylon, of Egypt, and of Syria, and travelling across these countries, should have known nothing of the magnificent empire of King Solomon, or of the emigration of two millions of Jews from Egypt, and the destruction of the hosts of Pharaoh. How was this ignorance possible, if there be a word of truth in the Jewish histories ? Did Pythagoras and Plato never hear of the glories of Solomon ? Would not their followers have told Herodotus if they had known of them ? …

He was (Solomon), probably, the prosperous king of a petty tribe, and had a mystic name given to him, though he oppressed his people, an ignorant, priest-ridden race, to erect a very fine palace and temple; and it is no way wonderful that when the energies of a whole tribe, though not a very great one, are directed for a great number of years to the raising and adorning of one building, that it should be very magnificent. The very same effect followed the same cause in the states of central India, whence the Jews had emigrated, as the prints of several of the temples in Col. Tod's history clearly prove. If any thing can be deduced from the style of the architecture, the Indian temples are of the same date with the temples at Pæstum : and as the most ancient and most important of the Hindoo emblems were found there by Col. Tod, it is probable that they were erected by the same race.

"Major Orme* reckons eighty-four castes in India, each of which has a physiognomy peculiar to itself. The more civilized tribes," he says, "are more comely in their appearance. The noble order of the Brahmins are the fairest and the most comely. The mountaineers most resemble Negroes in their countenances and their hair. The natives of the hilly districts of Bengal and Bahar can hardly be distinguished by their features from the modern Ethiopians."** All this accords very well with my theory respecting the black Buddha. Probably at the time the black Jews divided from their countrymen, they were black—and, from being always few in number and low in rank, and breeding entirely in their own caste, they have kept their ancient sable complexion. It has been observed, that the figures in all the old caves of India have the appearance of Negroes.*** This tends to prove not only the extreme antiquity of these caves, but also the original Negro character of the natives.

Dr. Pritchard has most clearly proved, as I have stated in Book V. Chap. XIII. Sect. 2, that the ancient Egyptians were Negroes. He observes that "the Greeks writers always mention the Egyptians as being black in their complexions. … Herodotus, who was well acquainted with the Egyptians, mentions the blackness of their complexions more than once. …*

For the truth of the theory which I have advanced—that the Jews did originally come from India, in addition to the circumstantial evidence, I have as good proof as it is possible for written records to afford. This I say roundly of the testimony of Megasthenes. He cannot be supposed to have had any prejudice against the Jews : his observations respecting their being an Indian tribe seems to have fallen from him merely as illustrative of the character of the Hindoos. The Hindoos were the object of the book, not the Jews. He had no interested motive to induce him to misrepresent or to deceive; and the priests cannot here set up even their hackneyed argument of hatred of the Jews to account for or obviate any thing which is unfavourable to them, as his assertion is merely confirmatory of Mose's narrative—that they came from the East, and is in praise of them or their system. The passage, which I have noticed before, where he observes that the Indians and the Jews were the only people who had any true idea of chronology and the nature of the creation of the world, is very striking, when coupled with what I have just laid before the reader. It all tends strongly to prove the close connexion between the Indians and the Jews.

Another reason for the continuance of the dark complexion of the Jews, and their marked national character, is to be found in their ancient law, which forbade them from marrying out of their own tribe. This law was long anterior to Moses, and was only re-enacted by him. We have, perhaps, the first appearance of it, in the esoteric history of Jacob and Esau. … and he was excluded that his children might not inherit.* The same thing happened to Moses, who married an Ethiopian woman, as I have before pointed out, and therefore his children did not inherit; but the supreme power and the priesthood descended to the sons of Aaron, his nephews. …

The Jews, as a race, are very handsome; they take after their ancestor Cristna. Nothing is more easy than to distinguish a thorough-bred Jew or Jewess. And it is very greatly to the honour of the Jewish matrons that the family likeness or national peculiarity should have continued so long. …

The result of all my inquiries comes to this : that about the time of the change of the Vernal Equinox from Taurus to Aries, several emigrations took place from the Mesopotamia of India to the West, in consequence of the great civil wars which then prevailed. One of these emigrations was of the tribe of Ioudi, who constituted the Jews, Arabians, and African Ethiopians. Another emigration about the same time, but probably a little earlier, was that of the sect of the Ionians. These, I think, also came from the Duab or Mesopotamia. Long after these succeeded the tribe of Tartars or Scythians, mentioned by Ezekiel, who came down between the Black and Caspian seas, and overran southern Asia. These probably came from the North of the Duab spoken of above. After a long series or years, the Arabian descendants returned, under the Mohamedan Califs, and reconquered India, crossing the Duab or Mesopotamia in their progress, and partly conquering it. Here they found the rudiments of their language, and the names of towns similar to those which their ancestors had carried to the West, and a mythology in great part similar to their own—the Judahs, Jacobs, Noahs, Shems, Japhets, &c., &c. … Again, after the lapse of another long series of years, the descendants of the North-eastern Tartars, spoken of above as having come down from the North of the Duab under the name of Scythians, advanced towards the West—and, under the name of Turks, conquered the Saracens or Arabians in Syria, Arabia, and Greece, and took Constantinople, and Mount Hæmus, which has retaken its old name of Balk-an and Chumla. These people brought with them a language radically the same as that of the Arabians, yet, as might well be expected after a separation of so many years, considerably changed; nevertheless not so much changed, but that, with very little difficulty, they understood the Arabians. The close similarity of the Turkish and Arabian languages is a striking proof of my whole theory. …

Pandion was king of Athens,* whose son, by the famous Medea, was called Medus, and became king of the Medes. Perseus was the cousin of Medus, and the nephew of Pandion.**

When I consider all the circumstances detailed above respecting the Pans, I cannot help believing that, under the mythos, a doctrine or history of a sect is concealed. Cunti, the wife of Pandu (du or God, Pan), wife of the generative power, mother of the Pandavas or devas, daughter of Sura or Syra the Sun—Pandæa only daughter of Cristna or the Sun—Pandion, who had by Medea a son called Medus, the king of the Medes, who had a cousin, the famous Perseus—surely all this is very mythological—an historical parable !

I think Pandeism was system; … We have seen that though Cristna was said to have left many sons, he left his immense empire, which extended from the sources of the Indus to Cape Comorin, (for we find a Regio Pandionis near this point,) to his daughter Pandæa; but, from finding the icon of Buddha so constantly shaded with the nine Cobras, &c., I am induced to think that this Pandeism was a doctrine, which had been received both by Buddhists and Brahmins.

The case, I apprehend, was this : in early times the Gods were known by their names of Bala, Rama, Cristna, &c. : by these holy names the princes, (as we know was the fact in later times,) were called, and the bards or family genealogists filled up the picture. Thus we have great numbers of princes who trace their pedigree from the same Gods. I think there can be no doubt that sects may be traced by their significant names. Thus we find Ionas every where. We have them in India, in Syria, in Asia Minor, in Thrace, in Britain. Can any one believe that this peculiar and significant name is found in all these places by accident ? Again : we have Pandions, Pan-dis, Pan-deas, Pandus, at Cape Comorin and Tanjore, in Upper India, in Asia Minor, and at Athens. … Every very ancient town has two or three names. Every ancient person of eminence has the same. He has one, which is his patronymic name, another his sacred, astrological, or lucky name; and he has generally a third given him from his supposed qualities or character. This added to the frauds of the genealogists, renders all history a riddle. …

… The histories of Brahma, of Genesis, and of Troy, cannot properly be called frauds, because they were not originally held out as histories; but as covers for a secret system. But in later times they were mistaken for history, and lamentable have been the effects of the mistake. The history of Lazarus in the Gospel is not true, but it is not a fraud.

A few pages back, I said that the Jews were the latest emigrants from India, with one exception, of which I should presently treat. … The subject to which I alluded was that of the Gypsies. … It is now acknowledged by all, that they are of oriental origin. I have been told by two gentlemen who had returned from India, that they understood of the Gypsies when they spoke it, and that it was the Hindostannee. A strong circumstance of corroboration of this is given by a German called Grellman,* who has written the best account of them which I have seen, though mixed with much nonsense. Mr. Marsden has proved the language of the Gypsies to be mostly Hindostannee and Bengalee.**

Their complexion, like that of the Jews, proves the Gypsies also to be oriental. … I consider them to a tribe, like that of the Jews, from India. The difference in the fortunes of the two tribes is this : one continued together till it became strong enough to create jealousy, which caused its expulsion from Egypt, and it continued united, having fortunately a leader skilled, by accident, in all the learning of the Egyptians, who took command, and under whom it conquered and became a nation. The other was not so fortunate. It had no child accidentally adopted and educated by a princess, or other circumstances favouring it as they did the Jewish tribe; it has, therefore, continued miserable and dispersed. … That the Gypsies were a Buddhist tribe is proved, in part at least, by one singular remnant of the religion of Buddha, which they yet retain. It is contrary to their faith to kill animals to eat, but if they find them dead, they are permitted to eat them. … Like the Jews, they couple only in their tribe, and thus their national cast of countenance continues.

The Jews were originally believed to have a peculiar power of extinguishing fire: this is continued to the Gypsies.* The Jews were believed to eat children : this was formerly also believed of the Gypsies. The oldest accounts which we have of them, given by themselves, state them to be emigrants on account of religion.** If ever their history shall be sought into diligently by a philosopher, which has never yet been done, I think they will be found to be a tribe from Upper India—Afghans perhaps.*** …