PART
5 –
Ch.XXXIII.17
The
Pelasgians or proto – Latins (Arimii)
(The
Pelasgians from the northern parts of the Danube and the Black Sea)
XXXIII.
17. Migrations of the Arimii in the vast peninsula of India.
The Arimii had
formed, even from a very remote age, the dominant and civilizing element in the
two large parts of the Indian peninsula, India from this side of
the river Ganges, and India from beyond the
river Ganges.
The most ancient
epic poem of India glorifies one
so-called Rama (5th
century bc), in whom Visnu, the good spirit, which penetrates the entire
universe, had been incarnated.
According to Indian
legends, Rama had been a son of the Indian king Dasaratha (whose ancestor had
been the Sun), and he had fought successful wars against the peoples led by the
evil spirit, Ravana.
The Greek historian
and geographer Megasthenes, who had
lived in the 3rd century bc, tells us that in his times existed in India three important
peoples, who lived according some religious and philosophical precepts. Their
names were Brachmanes, Garmanes and Pramnae (Strabo, lib. XV. 1. 59 seqq).
Among these peoples the most religious were
the Brachmanii. They led a frugal life, lived only with fruit and water, were
men devoted to philosophy, venerated especially the sun, spent all their life
under the open sky, and considered death as a birth into a happier life.
The Brachmanii had
from the most remote times the social supremacy and religious superiority in
the Indian peninsula. The Brachmanii did not form a simple caste, or religious
sect, but constituted a very numerous people divided in a number of nations (Pliny, lib. VI. 21. 9).
From them derive
the prodigious constructions of India, and the temples
cut in live rock. Their main city was called, according to Diodorus, Harmatelia
(lib. XVII. 102).
From the point of
view of etymology, the names Brachmani, Garmani and Pramni seem to be only a
corrupt form of the older terms (H)Armani,
Rahmani and Ramni. The
Brachmanii appear under the name Rachmane
with the Russian chronicler Nestor
(Ed. Schlozer, c. 13), while Clemens
Alexandrinus calls the Garmanii, Sarmanae
(Ed. Potter, p. 359).
Ptolemy, who had lived in the 2nd
century ad, mentions in the western parts of Indus a population with
the name Ramnae (lib. VI. 21).
Another tribe with the same name Ramnae
had its dwellings in the central regions of India, near the mountain
Vindius (Ptolemy, lib. VII. 1. 65).
Pliny also mentions another mountain of India, with the name Oromenus, renowned for its salt mines
(lib. XXXI. 39. 3), and probably there was also a tribe with the name Oromeni.
In the southern
parts of India, facing the island of Ceylon, is the region Ramnad, which had once formed a powerful principality; on its
seaside the peninsula Ramnad ends in the shape of a lance tip with the
promontory called even today Ramen (Reclus, Nouv. Geogr. Univ. VIII. 575).
A part of the
prehistoric forms of a number of Latin words, have still been preserved in the
ancient language of India, called Sanskrit, which represented the sacred
language spoken by the Brachmanii. This language though, as presented in the
ancient literary monuments of India, seems to have
been altered through the influences of other foreign idioms, the foreigners who
spoke them having destroyed the Pelasgian society here, as they had also
destroyed it in other places.
The Sanskrit
language, as presented by the sacred books of India, is neither the
mother, nor the sister of the Latin language. It contains sufficient elements
though, to let us conclude that the most ancient tribes of the Brachmanii had
formed in the beginning an Arimic people.
From this idiom we
extract here the following words of Latin origin (Eichhoff, Parallele des langues de l’Europe et de l’Inde, Paris, 1836).
These words will
show what the forms of this language were like, in the moment when a new
invasion of various peoples had spread across India, and the ancient
language of the Brachmanii, Rachmanii, or Ramnii became extinct.
The river Indus, which springs in the northern
parts of Himalaya, and has a very long course, was called Sindus in the language of the indigenes
(Pliny, lib. VI. 23. 1). Alexander
the Great, as his historians said, had barely ended the navigation on the Indus
only after five months and a few days, although he traveled 600 stades (110km)
each day.
Along this river
dwelt on both its banks a large number of Scythian populations, and this entire
vast region had once been called Indo-Scythia
(Ptolemy, I. VII. 1; Dionysius Per. v. 1088; Eustathius, ad Dionys, ibid; Cf. Avienus, Descr. Orb. v. 1287).
It seems that from
these parts of India had emigrated the Sindii settled near the Meotic lake (Hellanicus, fragm. 92; Strabo, lib. XII. 2. 11), the Sindii from the Istru (Apollonius Rh. IV. 322), the Sintii from Thrace (Strabo, lib. XII. 3. 19; VII. fr. 36),
and the so-called Sinties, who
worshipped Vulcan in the island of Lemnos, about whom even Homer speaks (Iliad, I. v. 590; Odyssey, VIII. 294; Hellanicus, fr. 112, 113; In Transilvania,
Banat and Romania we find even today names of villages like Sint – Turda, with supposed prehistoric
graves, Sintesci – Caras, Sintesci – Ialomita, and Sintesci – Ilfov).
In the lower parts
of the Indus also dwelt the peoples so-called Umbrae, Umbrittae and Mesae (Pliny, lib. VI. 23, 6-7), some strong groups of which, as their
name shows us, had gone away during the Pelasgian migration, and had settled on
the continent of Europe, under the names of the Umbrii and the Mesii.
We cannot know for
sure if the ancient Arimic populations of India had been
indigenous, or had emigrated there from other parts of Asia. Diodorus Siculus
tells us that India, being so vast and inhabited by different peoples, all
those nations considered themselves indigenous, so that neither of them had
come from anywhere else, but on the other hand, that neither had sent colonies
outside of India (Diodorus, lib. II.
38; Arrianus, Indica, c. 9; Pliny, lib. VI. 6. 17).
The historical value
of these traditions rests on a single positive fact though, that all these
various populations of India had been settled
there even since the most archaic times. It is very probable though that the
Brachmanii or Ramnii had been just a simple migration, but very ancient, from
the Asiatic Sarmatia.
When the Roman
legions crossed the Euphrates and passed victorious through Armenia, Assyria and Mesopotamia, the Brachmanii
and the kings of India declared
themselves as natural allies of the Romans, exactly like the Remii of Gallia
had done in the times of Caesar.
The emperor
Augustus mentions in his testament that the kings of India had often sent him
ambassadors (Monum. Ancyr. – C. I. L.
III, p. 796 – c. 31), and the Greek historian Nicolaos Damascenos tells us that he had met in Antioch with a
legation sent by the Indians to Augustus. In the epistle written in Greek on
parchment, Porus was saying that, although he reigned over 600 kings, he valued
the friendship of the emperor very much, and he was ready to accord him entry
into his country, through any point he wanted, and to help him in all good
enterprises. Among the various gifts which Porus had sent to the emperor
Augustus was also one Herman (‘Erman),
whose arms had been severed ever since he had been a child. This legation was
also accompanied by an Indian philosopher, called Sarmanus (Strabo, lib.
XV. 1. 4, 74), meaning that he was from the nation of the Sarmanii or Garmanii.
The expeditions of
Bachus, Hercules and Alexander the Great towards this remote country, from the
eastern regions of Asia, renowned for its customs, laws, institutions and
civilization, seem to have been only the expression of some national feelings,
to unite, if possible, all the Pelasgian ethnic groups, under a single government.
The emperor Trajan
was also thinking to India. After defeating
the Partii, he navigated on the Tigris, down to the
Ocean, and there, seeing a ship sailing in front of him towards India, he exclaimed:
“Oh! If I were any younger, I would go to India as well” (Dio Cassius, lib. LXVIII. c. 29).
And in truth, as Eutropius tells us (lib. VIII. 2), he
ordered the building of a fleet in the Persian Gulf, to go and
devastate (conquer) India. But upon
receiving news that the provinces which he had subjected earlier had started to
revolt, he returned to Babylon.