I am pretty much around, and intend to continue putting up posts on this blog :)
For now, though, I’ll just point out a peculiar passage from the play “The Suppliants” by the great Greek dramatist Aeschylus.
Anybody reading this will see how translations can completely distort, or even conceal, a precious little nugget of information.
This is a completely unplanned blogpost, btw.
It just cropped up in my mind, and I wrote it without any preparation.
Yes, I’m very much interested in the Indian-African connection.
It has been “automatically” assumed, that the original, Vedic “Aryans” were white-skinned or fair-skinned.
There isn’t the faintest, flimsiest evidence for this.
The present day Brāhmaṇas of India are generally fair, or at any rate, comparatively fairer, than the Non-Brāhmaṇas.
The same may be said about the “Thakurs” {Kṣatriya caste} as well as the “Baniyas” {Vaiśya caste}.
Basically, the “higher castes” tend to be fair, or fairer than the others.
This has led many people to think that these folks are mongrelized, corrupted, miscegenated descendants of very beautiful, blue-eyed, blonde-haired Caucasian originals.
That is the sum and substance of the abominable, reductive, racist “Aryan Invasion” Theory.
No evidence.
Well, wherever these fair-skinned “higher castes” came from, there’s no reason to think that the original “Brahmins” of India were overwhelmingly or predominantly fair.
There might have been fair ones – but all the evidence I’ve seen points to a number of complexion types.
I see the same in Egypt, same in murals from Knossos, same in the tombs of the Etruscans, same in the frescoes of the Romans.
Fact is there is no necessary connection at all, between being a “Brahmin” and being “fair”, in Indian art & literature itself.
This is all gobbledygook concocted in the 19th century.
The simplistic propaganda is that Shiva is a Pre-Aryan, “Dravidian” God who was craftily incorporated into the Vedic-“Aryan”-Brahmanical corpus.
Except that Shiva is always associated with the Himalayas – which mountains are in North-East India.
Very Non-“Dravidian”.
And ... Shiva is White-skinned!
Also not very “Dravidian”!
Shiva is tolerated by the Liberals, because he’s supposed to be “originally” a Non-“Aryan”, Pre-Vedic God of dark-skinned “Dravidians”.
Viṣṇu and His incarnations are hated by Liberals, because He is supposed to be a more authentic “Aryan” God of the “invaders” who segregated themselves from the dark-skinned “Dravidian” “aborigines” by inventing the caste-system.
But, alas, the “Dravidian” Shiva and His incarnations are fair, but the “Aryan” Viṣṇu and His incarnations are dark!!
Even the serpent Ananta Sesha, associated with Shiva, is not a black cobra, but a white cobra!!
Turns out, the aliens, the foreigners, the invaders – were dark!!
Seriously, the whole thing is a total farce, a total sham, a sordid joke.
It is very clear that the people who authored the Vedas lived in North-West India.
No part of South India is mentioned in the Ṛg Veda.
{I don’t think any part of, say, Odisha, West Bengal, or Maharashtra, is mentioned either, but then I don’t remember every verse of the vast, majestic text.}
Whether they originally came from the North-West region or not isn’t clear.
It seems plausible, but there’s no absolute reason to think so.
But what if they came – “originally” – from Africa, not the Caucasian Mountains?
If the Vedic Āryas came from Africa, they would have followed more or less the same route as the fabricated fair-skinned branch of the Germanic, Teutonic, Nordic “Aryan” hordes, invented in the 19th century, of whom nobody had ever heard anything ever before.
They would’ve most likely emerged from Egypt into the Middle East – thence to Mesopotamia – thence to present-day Iran – thence to present-day Afghanistan – thence to Pakistan – thence to the Indian Subcontinent.
So the authors of the Ṛg Veda could well be Black-skinned Africans.
Mind you, I’m not an advocate of this theory.
My conviction points to a further South-Eastern origin of the Vedic Āryas –the area of Indonesia.
But the Out-of-Africa hypothesis is at least as good as the “Aryan” :)
Better, in my opinion.
Much better.
I am not antagonistic to the Out-of-Africa hypothesis.
I love Africa.
I love African culture.
I immensely respect the passionate quest of Africans to find the truth about their own history & race.
All power to their courageous endeavour to challenge the narrative of the past 200 years.
But I’m not totally convinced about the world civilization coming either from Inner Africa or Egypt.
That said, I see a very deep relationship between India & Africa.
The intellectual elite, Liberal or otherwise, has deliberately avoided drawing comparisons between India and Egypt, and Indian customs, art & beliefs, and African customs, art & beliefs.
There can be some amazing similarities.
We’ll come to those later.
Coming back to the original subject.
Aeschylus’s drama contains a very curious bit of information, that seems to have been suppressed, or at any rate distorted, by some translations.
And that curious bit of information precisely pertains to the Indian-African connection.
The play centers around the daughters of a mythical figure Danaos, known as the Danaids, who have run away from Egypt, with their father, and arrived at Argos, where they encounter Pelasgos, the King of the Pelasgians.
The Danaids claim to be Argives – originally from the land of Argos.
This surprises Pelasgos, because {according to the text} they look nothing like the people of Argos.
This is from the translation by Theodore Alois Buckley, made in 1849.
Going by this text, it’s highly probable that the Danaids are dark-skinned, because they are said to look like
1. Lybians
2. inhabitants of the Nile region, which I take to be Egyptians
3. Amazons
4. Indians, who are said to live alongside Ethiopians.
What are Indians doing in/around/close to Ethiopia?
Mister Buckley made his translation in 1849 – quite before the “Aryan-vs-Semitic/Aryan-vs-
Fast forward to 1922, when the “Aryan” craze had spread worse than the Bubonic Plague – with more lamentable consequences for mankind.
This is the translation by Herbert Weir Smyth.
“Foreign maidens, your tale is beyond my belief—how your race can be from Argos. For you are more similar to the women of Libya and in no way similar to those native to our land.
The Nile, too, might foster such a stock, and like yours is the Cyprian impress stamped upon female images by male craftsmen.
And of such aspect, I have heard, are nomad women, who ride on camels for steeds, having padded saddles, and dwell in a land neighboring the Aethiopians.
And had you been armed with the bow, certainly I would have guessed you to be the unwed, flesh-devouring Amazons.
But inform me, and I will better comprehend how it is that you trace your race and lineage from Argos.”
“nomad women”?
What happened to the Indians??
Obliterated in translation!!
Rewind.
Back to the translation made by Robert Potter, in 1777 – though I think this edition was published in 1833.
Again, Potter mentions INDIANS, not NOMADS.
{Strangely enough, the much older translation by Potter mentions Colchians – i.e. people of Colchis – not Cyprians.}
In 1886, however, Anna Swanwick makes a translation, and writes, more honestly:
“Incredible, O strangers, sounds your tale,
That this your race from Argos is derived;
For Libya's daughters ye resemble most,
In no wise like to women native here;
Such progeny might Neilos rear perchance;
Such too the Cyprian character impressed
In female moulds by male artificers.
Of nomad Indian women too I hear,
Who, pannier-borne, on steed-like camels ride,
Dwellers in land hard by the Æthiops’ home.
Haply, if armed with bows, I you had deemed
Unlorded flesh-devouring Amazons.
Instructed, I shall better understand
How ye descent and race from Argos claim.”
It should be very evident, that Aeschylus meant Indians, out here.
It’s not as if Indian women were nomads, in Africa.
But since the people being addressed – the Danaids – are women, the translator has chosen the words “nomad Indian women” as a point of comparison.
Fast forward to 1922 again, and look at another translation, made by some G.M. Cookson:
“Women—strange women, ye compose a tale
Not credible. How can ye be of Argive blood,
More like to Libyans than our womankind?
Yea, such a plant might grow on Nilus’ bank;
Methinks, these forms were coined in Cyprian mint
Struck to the life by your progenitors.
Stay: I have heard that nomads of your sex,
Horsed upon camels ride in cushioned selles
Along the coasts of Æthiopia:
They should resemble ye; or, on my life,
Had ye but bows I could have ta'en an oath
That ye were the unlorded Amazons
That fare on flesh. Ye must instruct me further;
I am to know more of this history
And how ye are a seed of Argive strain.”
Indians wiped out of the picture.
So, we come back to the original point.
The Daughters of Danaos are compared to
« Libyans,
« at least some inhabitants of the Nile region, i.e. Egyptians,
« Indians who unsurprisingly {for me} live in Africa alongside the Ethiopians,
« Amazons,
and cryptically,
« to Cyprians.
{Cryptically, because Pelasgos says that male artists portray Cyprian women as being similar to Libyans & Egyptians.
Whether said ladies are actually like Libyans is a moot point.}
This is most intriguing and fascinating.
It is not necessary that they are dark-skinned, but that seems to be the most plausible scenario.
Were the Libyans fair-skinned?
I don’t think so.
It is rational enough to conclude that the Danaids are dark-skinned, because they are explicitly compared with the Libyans.
Do note that – for what it’s worth – Pelasgos says that the Nile may produce such people – i.e. people with the characteristics of the Danaids.
If our fundamental assumption is correct, it means that the Nile does have dark-skinned people, but not necessarily so.
In other words, Egyptians were not necessarily dark.
This follows from all translations.
But let’s not forget that Aeschylus was a Greek dramatist of the 6th century BCE.
How much of an accurate historian he was, we may never know.
He was writing a play, not a book of history.
His knowledge of the history of Egypt & India thousands of years before his time, or even in his time, would be limited, if not false.
However, being the stupendous genius that he is, I’d consider his input to be invaluable if not absolute revelation.
For Indians, the most significant bit of information is that there were Indians in Africa living alongside Ethiopians.
At any rate, there is a community of people living close to the Ethiopians, who were called Indians.
This does not mean that Indians were Africans.
This does not mean that Africans were Indians.
However, it does indicate a much deeper, unacknowledged connection between the two – and that there were at least Indians living in Africa – whether in the time of Aeschylus himself {the 6th-5th century BCE} or at the time the events of the drama took place, according to Aeschylus.
Whether dark-skinned or not, the Indians & many Africans {if not all} were racially similar.
Most probably, they were dark-skinned.
Because, as we’ve already pointed out, they’re said to be racially similar to Libyans, whom we spontaneously assume to be dark-skinned.
And they’re said to be racially similar to a chunk of Egyptians.
Mind you, Aeschylus DOES NOT CONFUSE Indians with Ethiopians or Egyptians.
He quite clearly says that Indians live alongside the Ethiopians.
Quite opposite to the Out-of-Africa hypothesis, this could also indicate that Ethiopians and a part {the dark-skinned part?} of the Egyptians came from India – but the fact is that, at least in this play, in these lines, the three communities are similar but distinct, and not confused & mixed up.
The exact relation between the African-Ethiopians and Indians is not clearly identifiable.
But there is a relationship – a close relationship.
And it would be worth examining this relationship further.
