The Journey Of Jagannath From India To Egypt: The

Untold Saga Of The Kushites

Dr Udaty Dokras
Hindu deities are the gods and goddesses in Hinduism. The terms and epithets for deity within
the diverse traditions of Hinduism vary, and
include Deva, Devi, Ishvara, Ishvari, Bhagavān and Bhagavati.
The deities of Hinduism have evolved from the Vedic era (2nd millennium BCE) through the
medieval era (1st millennium CE), regionally within Nepal, India and in Southeast Asia, and
across Hinduism's diverse traditions. The Hindu deity concept varies from a personal god as
in Yoga school of Hindu philosophy, to 33 Vedic deities to hundreds of Puranics of
Hinduism. Illustrations of major deities
include Vishnu, Lakshmi, Shiva, Parvati, Brahma and Saraswati. These deities have distinct and
complex personalities, yet are often viewed as aspects of the same Ultimate Reality
called Brahman. From ancient times, the idea of equivalence has been cherished for all Hindus,
in its texts and in early 1st millennium sculpture with concepts such as Harihara (Half Vishnu,
Half Shiva)[10] and Ardhanārīshvara (half Shiva, half Parvati), with myths and temples that
feature them together, declaring they are the same. Major deities have inspired their own Hindu
traditions, such as Vaishnavism, Shaivism and Shaktism, but with shared mythology, ritual
grammar, theosophy, axiology and polycentrism. Some Hindu traditions, such as Smartism from
the mid 1st millennium CE, have included multiple major deities as henotheistic manifestations
of Saguna Brahman, and as a means to
realizing Nirguna Brahman. In Samkhya philosophy, Devata or deities are considered as “natural
sources of energy” who have Sattva as the dominant Guna.
Hindu deities are represented with various icons and anicons, in paintings and sculptures,
called Murtis and Pratimas. Some Hindu traditions, such as ancient Charvakas, rejected all
deities and concept of god or goddess, while 19th-century British colonial era movements such
as the Arya Samaj and Brahmo Samaj rejected deities and adopted monotheistic concepts similar
to Abrahamic religions. Hindu deities have been adopted in other religions such as Jainism, and
in regions outside India, such as predominantly Buddhist Thailand and Japan, where they
continue to be revered in regional temples or arts.

Jagannath
Jagannath (Jagannātha; lit. ''lord of the universe''; formerly English: Juggernaut) is a deity
worshipped in regional Hindu traditions in India and Bangladesh as part of a triad along with his
brother Balabhadra and sister, devi Subhadra. Jagannath within Odia Hinduism is the supreme
god, Purushottama, Para Brahman. To most Vaishnava Hindus, particularly the Krishnaites,
Jagannath is an abstract representation of Krishna, and Mahavishnu, sometimes as
the avatar of Krishna or Vishnu. To some Shaiva and Shakta Hindus, he is a symmetry-
filled tantric form of Bhairava, a fierce manifestation of Shiva associated with annihilation.

1
The Jagannathism (a.k.a. Odia Vaishnavism)—the particular sector of Jagannath as a major deity
—was emerged in the Early Middle Agesand later became an independent state regional temple-
centered tradition of Krishnaism/Vaishnavism.
The idol of Jagannath is a carved and decorated wooden stump with large round eyes and a
symmetric face, and the idol has a conspicuous absence of hands or legs. The worship
procedures, sacraments and rituals associated with Jagannath are syncretic and include rites that
are uncommon in Hinduism. Unusually, the icon is made of wood and replaced with a new one
at regular intervals.

This is a montage created from the following

wikimedia common files: by Sarah Welch
WLA haa Brahma Uttar Pradesh.jpg
Saraswati Sarasvati Swan Sculpture.jpg
A powerful deity in her own right, Shri
Lakshmi herself.jpg
God_Vishnu.jpg
Shiva meditating Rishikesh.jpg
Durga Mahisasuramardini.JPG
Vishnu and Shiva in a combined form, as
"Hari-hara,".jpg
Ardhanarishvara at Sampurnanand Sanskrit
University.jpg

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The origin and evolution of Jagannath worship is unclear. Some scholars interpret hymn
10.155.3 of the Rigveda as a possible origin, but others disagree and state that it is a
syncretic/synthetic deity with tribal roots. The English word juggernaut comes from the negative
image of the deity presented by Christian missionaries in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Jagannath is considered a non-sectarian deity. He is significant regionally in the Indian states
of Odisha, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Bihar, Gujarat, Assam, Manipur and Tripura.
[22]
 He is also significant to the Hindus of Bangladesh. The Jagannath temple in Puri, Odisha is
particularly significant in Vaishnavism, and is regarded as one of the Char Dham pilgrimage
sites in India. The Jagannath temple is massive, over 61 metres (200 ft) high in
the Nagara Hindu temple style, and one of the best surviving specimens of Kalinga architecture,
namely Odisha art and architecture. It has been one of the major pilgrimage destinations for
Hindus since about 800 CE.
The annual festival called the Ratha yatra celebrated in June or July every year in eastern states
of India is dedicated to Jagannath. His image, along with the other two associated deities, is
ceremoniously brought out of the sacrosanctum (Garbhagriha) of his chief temple in Jagannath
Puri . They are placed in a chariot which is then pulled by numerous volunteers to the Gundicha
Temple, (located at a distance of nearly 3 km or 1.9 mi). They stay there for a few days, after
which they are returned to the main temple. Coinciding with the Ratha Yatra festival at Puri,
similar processions are organized at Jagannath temples throughout the world. During the festive
public procession of Jagannath in Puri lakhs of devotees visit Puri to see Lord Jagganath in
chariot.

The Journey Of Jagannath From India To Egypt: The Untold Saga

Of The Kushites
Brought here by Dr Uday Dokras
AUTHOR- BIBHU DEV MISRA  ON JANUARY 27, 2012  ARTICLE, INDIAN CULTURAL DIFFUSION

There are many similarities between Amun, the all-powerful Creator god of the ancient
Egyptians (with his primary center of worship at Thebes), and Krishna, the Supreme Creator of
the Indians. Both of them were blue-complexioned, wore “feathers in their head-dress” and were
depicted with a “sacred river” emerging from their feet. In addition, the grand Opet festival of
Karnak, which was celebrated over a period of 24-27 days during the season of the flooding of
the Nile, is identical in form and spirit to the Jagannath Ratha Yatra festival that is still
celebrated every year at the coastal town of Puri, India. I had discussed these connections in
detail in a previous article titled “Krishna Worship and Rathyatra Festival in Ancient Egypt?".

The worship of Krishna (or Jagannath) and the observance of the Ratha Yatra festival are
quintessentially Indian festivals, which have been observed for thousands of years prior to the
establishment of the cult of Amun at Thebes. This implies that the triad of divinities – Krishna,
Balarama and Subhadra – must have been transferred from India to Egypt sometime prior to the
beginning of the New Kingdom in c. 1550 BC.

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 Fig 1: The Theban triad of divinities and the Opet festival are echoes of the Puri triad
and the Ratha Yatra festival.
The Theban and the Puri Triad
On further investigation I found more similarities between these two ancient deities – Amun and
Krishna. A number of hymns from the ancient Coffin Texts of Egypt associate Amun with the
falcon-headed god Horus, while in Hindu myths Krishna is associated with the eagle-headed
deity Garuda, who acts as his vahana i.e. carrier. 

Even the etymology of the name Amun has close associations with Krishna. In Egyptian, Amun
is written as Ymn, which has been reconstructed by Egyptologists to “Yamanu”, and sometimes
also spelled as “Yamun”. “Yamanu” or “Yamun” is very closely related to the sacred river
“Yamuna” in India, which is intimately tied up with the childhood of Krishna, who grew up on
the banks of the river Yamuna. The waters of the Yamuna are of a dark-blue color, which has
been likened to the complexion of Krishna, and the river is regarded as the source of love,
compassion and spiritual capabilities. It is possible that the Egyptian Ymn, may actually be a
reference to the Yamuna, which became shortened to Yamun, and subsequently to Amun.

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At a metaphysical level as well, Amun and Krishna are quite similar. Amun was regarded as the
“hidden one”, and the epithet, "he whose name is hidden", was frequently applied to him.
Amun’s form was “unknown”, and it was said that no-one could behold or understand him,
except Amun himself. 

The Boulaq Papyrus from the XVIII Dynasty (1552-1295 BC) describes Amun as the “Greatest
in Heaven…Lord of all, who is in all things.” Amun abides in all; everything happens in him,
and nothing exists outside him. He is the Supreme Creator: “The One maker of all things,
Creator and Maker of beings, From Whose eyes mankind proceeded, From Whose mouth the
Gods were created.” He was, “The One Whose forms are greater than every God, In Whose
Beauty the Gods jubilate.”  

 Krishna, like Amun, abides in the heart of all creatures as the indestructible “Self”, and his
“unknowable form” pervades the entire cosmos. The birth and dissolution of the cosmos itself
take place in Krishna: “There is nothing that exists separate from me, Arjuna. The entire
universe is suspended from me as my necklace of jewels”[iii]. Although, Krishna remains
unknowable and invisible, the multifarious celestial beings of this created world reflect his
various divine attributes: “Wherever you find strength, or beauty, or spiritual power, you may be
sure that these have sprung from a spark of my essence.”[iv] 

Yet, no-one could understand the real nature of Krishna, for Arjuna tells Krishna, “Neither gods
nor demons know your real nature. Indeed, you alone know yourself, O Supreme Spirit.”[v] This
is similar to the Egyptian texts which assert that no-one could behold or understand Amun,
5
except Amun himself. Krishna further confirms this: “I know everything about the past, the
present, and the future, Arjuna; but there is no one who knows me completely”[vi].

Amun was also the “champion of the poor” and he became the “personal savior” of anyone who
took him into his heart.
“[Amun] who comes at the voice of the poor in distress, who gives breath to him who is
wretched…You are Amun, the Lord of the silent, who comes at the voice of the poor; when I call
to you in my distress You come and rescue me.”[i] 
Lord Jagannath of Puri is also the savior of the poor, destitute and downtrodden. His epithet
“Patita Pavan” means “Saviour of the Fallen”. Krishna is “Karuna Seendhu” (sea of compassion)
and “Deena Bandhu” (the friend of the poor), who responds to a devotee’s call instantly. In
the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna asks Arjuna to regard him as his only protector, for, he says,
“Remembering me, you shall overcome all difficulties through my grace.”[ii] 

In fact, the entire Theban triad of Amun, Mut and Khonsu, are related to the triad of divinities –
Krishna, Balarama and Subhadra - worshipped at the Jagannath temple at Puri, India. Krishna’s
brother, the fair-skinned Balaram, is considered to be an incarnation of “Ananta-Sesha” - the
primeval serpent of the abyss, in whose coils Vishnu rests in the middle of the cosmic Milky
Ocean. Ananta-Sesha is himself a powerful agent of creation, and he co-exists with Vishnu at the
beginning and end of the creative cycle. 

We find the same imagery associated with Khonsu, the son of Amun. On one of the walls at
Karnak, a cosmogony is depicted in which Khonsu is described as the “Great Snake who
fertilizes the  Cosmic Egg  in the creation of the world”. In addition, Mut (who is believed to have
been the wife of Amun), and Subhadra, the sister of Krishna, were both regarded as
manifestations of the great Mother Goddess.

So, the question is how did an entire pantheon of deities, along with associated ceremonies, rites
and rituals migrate from India to Egypt, at a time when the existing pantheon and religious
beliefs of the Egyptians was already well formulated? What historical events could have led to
this?

The Trinity of Ethiopia

In order to understand this sudden influx of Indian beliefs into the religious practices of the
ancient Egyptians, it is important to recount a critical event that took place before the beginning
of the New Kingdom in Egypt i.e. prior to 1550 BC. Sometime during 1700 BC, Egypt had been
overrun by a group of irreligious, nomadic invaders known as the Hyksos (which means “rulers
of foreign countries”). The term was chiefly used during the Middle Kingdom to refer to the
nomadic Semitic tribes of Canaan and Syria. As per the Egyptian accounts, the Hyksos had burnt
the Egyptian cities to the ground, destroyed all their temples and had led their women and
children into slavery. 

This was a time of great suffering for the Egyptian people. During this time, the Egyptian
pharaohs had been forced to retreat south, driven into the neighbouring kingdom of Kush
(Nubia), which was also referred to as “Ethiopia” by the classical Greek historians (although this
region now falls within the boundaries of modern Sudan). 

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The pharaoh Ahmose secured the favor of the Kushites by marrying Nefertari, the black princess
of Ethiopia. She was of a very dark complexion, and was the most venerated woman in all of
Egyptian history. Egyptologist George Rawlinson, in his book  Ancient Egypt, says about King
Ahmose (referred to as Aahmes):
“He married a princess, who took on the name of Nefet-ari-Aahmes , or “the beautiful
companion of Aahmes,” and who is represented on the monuments with pleasing features, but a
complexion of ebon blackness. It is certainly wrong to call her a “negress;” she was an
Ethiopian of the best physical type; and her marriage with Aahmes may have been based upon a
political motive. The Egyptian Pharaohs from time to time allied themselves with the monarchs
of the south, partly to obtain the aid of Ethiopian troops in their wars, partly with a view of
claiming, in the right of their wives, dominion over the Upper Nile region. Aahmes may have
been the first to do this; or he may simply have followed the example of his predecessors, who,
forced by the Hyksos to the south, had contracted marriages with the families of Ethiopian
rulers.”
Armed with the financial and military help of the Kushites, the Hyksos invaders of Egypt were
finally evicted from the country after 200 years of occupation. During this time, the pharaohs
Kamose and Ahmose had fought under the banner of their new-found god: Amun. This event,
which took place at around 1550 BC, signified the beginning of the 18th dynasty, which
is acknowledged as the greatest royal family of Egypt.

Ahmose became the first pharaoh of the 18th dynasty. Amun became the supreme protector god
of the monarchy and the state, and his priesthood gained immense power. Magnificent temple
complexes dedicated to Amun were established in Karnak. Since Amun came to the aid of the
Egyptian people at the time of their greatest distress and ignominy, his cult became all powerful,
and dwarfed all the other gods and goddesses of the Egyptian pantheon.

This historical event indicates that the worship of Amun passed on to Egypt from the  Kushites
of Ethiopia. This fact was known to the early Egyptologists. George St. Clair in his
book Creation Records Discovered in Egypt: Studies in the Book of the Dead (1898, p 404),
states that Amun-Mut-Khonsu were "Gods of foreign derivation" and the "Trinity of Ethiopia":

“These are Amen, Mut and Khonsu, often spoken of as the Triad of Thebes, or the Trinity of
Ethiopia. . . . E. A. Wallis Budge tells us that the Theban triad had nothing whatever to do with
The Egyptian Book of the Dead, and we may suspect that they were either gods newly come
up  or gods of foreign derivation. For some good reason, the orthodox Egyptian of the old school
kept them out of his sacred books. They were the divinities of Thebes, and that city was hundreds
of miles south of Heliopolis;  they were the Trinity of Ethiopia and not of Egypt.”
The 18th dynasty pharaohs continued to maintain strong matrimonial connections with their
Kushite neighbours, and Kushite priests held sway at the temple complex at Karnak. This
sequence of events imply that the worship of the Theban triad made its way to Egypt from
Ethiopia. The question, therefore, is how did the worship of Jagannath make its way to ancient
Kush from India?

7
 The
Ethiopians and the Indians
It was widely known in the ancient times that the kingdom of Kush (or Ethiopia) was colonized
by the Indians. The earliest Ethiopian tradition says that they came from a land situated near the
mouth of the Indus, and this has been confirmed by the testimony of Eusebius and Philostratus.
Eusebius informs us that, “a numerous colony of people emigrated from the banks of the Indus,
and crossing the ocean, fixed their residence in the country now called Ethiopia.”[vii] These
earliest Ethiopians were a people highly civilized, and full of virtue and piety; their laws, their
institutions, and especially their religion were celebrated far and wide. 

Apollonius of Tyana, a charismatic philosopher from the 1st century CE, had travelled
extensively throughout the world and held discussions with a large number of philosophers. In a
conference with the southern Ethiopians, finding that they spoke much in praise of the Indians in
general, Apollonius told them, "you speak much in favour of every thing relating to the Indians;
not considering that originally you were Indians yourself".[viii] Nilus the Egyptian had told
Apollonius that, “the Indi of all people in the world were the most knowing; and that the
Ethiopians were a colony from them, and resembled them greatly."[ix] 

8
 Fig 2: Map of Africa in 400 BC, showing the kingdom of Kush and its neighbouring countries.
The river Nile flows through Kush and Egypt. Kush was also known as Nubia

It is for this reason that the Ethiopians were also called Indi by the ancient writers. Jacob Bryant
writes in An Analysis of Ancient Mythology (1776) that: "Aelian, in describing the Libyans of
interior Africa, says that they bordered upon the Indi; by which were meant the Ethiopians." (p.
216-17) He further writes that: "The Africans, who had the management of elephants in war,
were called Indi, as being of Ethiopic origin. Polybius says in the Passing of the Rhone: “it
happened that Hannibal lost all the Indi; but the elephants were preserved.”" (p. 213-14)

The ancient poets and writers often spoke of two nations which were called Ethiopia. Homer
says: “Neptune was now visiting the Ethiopians, who reside at a great distance: those Ethiopains,
who are divided into two nations, and are the most remote of mankind. One nation of them is
towards the setting sun; the others far in the east, where the sun rises.”The Encyclopaedia
Brittanica confirms this: “all the ancients, both poets and historians, talk of a double race of
Ethiopians; one in India and another in Africa”. The kingdoms of the Indians, the Egyptians and
ancient Kush were widely regarded as part of one large global empire, and "India, taken as a
whole, beginning from the north and embracing what of it is subject to Persia, is a continuation
of Egypt and the Ethiopians."[x] 

Even now, the culture and traditions of the Ethiopian people bear a closer resemblance to that of
India, than to the rest of Africa. The traditional dress and ornaments of the womenfolk, the rich
musical traditions along with the use of the bamboo flute and the tabla, the presence of the caste
system, the respect shown to elders, the spicy cuisine, mostly vegetarian, flavoured with exotic
spices, and most importantly their national food injera, which is a flat sourdough pancake just
like the Indian dosa – all of this invoke memories of an enduring connection between Ethiopia
and India. Even physically, many Ethiopian men and women, with their straight dark hair, sharp

9
noses, and a complexion slightly lighter than that of other Africans, very closely resemble the
people of Central and Southern India.

Fig 3: Ethiopians resemble Indians to a great extent.

The strong similarities between the Ethiopian script Ge’ez and Indian scripts such as Brahmi
provide even more evidence in this direction. Both scripts are written from left to right and
follow the practice of tagging a vowel to a consonant by modifying the consonant’s shape, in
addition to other similarities. Philip Baker writes in the Atlas of Languages of Intercultural
Communication in the Pacific, Asia, and the Americas (Vol 2, 2011, p 664-665) that,

"The beginnings of an awareness that there were some striking resemblances between the
underlying principles of the vocalized Ethiopic script and the family of semi-syllabic scripts
currently or  formerly used all over the Indian subcontinent, in parts of Central Asia, and
throughout most of South East Asia dates from the first half of the 19th century…
If the Ethiopic script shared one or even two of the characteristics listed above with the Asian
scripts, this might be put down to independent innovation. The sharing of all four, cannot be
so explained…The problem is to explain how a Christian people speaking a Semitic language
developed a similar system in the Horn of Africa. It is one thing to identify similarities
between the Ethiopic and Indian scripts, as Lepsius apparently did as long ago as 1836. It is
quite another to explain how the knowledge of the underlying principles of one or more of the
Indian scripts could have reached influential, literate speakers of Ge'ez and inspired them to
develop the Sabaean consonantal script along similar lines. To the best of my knowledge, no
explanation has yet been offered which goes beyond Bender's (1992: 53) suggestion, on which
he does not elaborate that, "the innovation of a modification for vowels...may be the result of
stimulus diffusion from India."

The timeless familiarity of the ancient Indians with the kingdom of Kush is further borne out by
the detailed information about the geography of Ethiopia that is contained in ancient Sanskrit
texts. When Lieutenant John Hanning Speke was planning his discovery of the source of the Nile
in 1858, he relied on a map that had been reconstructed by Lieutenant Wilford from information

10
 contained in the ancient Puranic texts, with the assistance of some Pundits of Varanasi. In this
map, the river Nile, referred to as the “Great Krishna” (because of its deep blue waters), was
traced from a great lake called “Amara”. Speke later found that the name “Amara” is actually the
native name of a district bordering Lake Victoria Nyanza. The map also mentioned that the real
source of the Nile was the twin peaks known as Somagiri – “Soma” in Sanskrit stands for
“moon” and “Giri” means “peak”. Somagiri, therefore, refers to the fabled “Mountains of the
Moon” in Central Africa! Speke says in his book Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the
Nile (1863):

“Colonel Rigby now gave me a most interesting paper, with a map attached to it, about the Nile
and the Mountains of the Moon. It was written by Lieutenant Wilford, from the "Purans" of the
ancient Hindus. As it exemplifies, to a certain extent, the supposition I formerly arrived at
concerning the Mountains of the Moon being associated with the country of the Moon, I would
fain draw the attention of the reader of my travels to the volume of the "Asiatic Researches" in
which it was published. It is remarkable that the Hindus have christened the source of the Nile
Amara, which is the name of a country at the north-east corner of the Victoria N'yanza. This, I
think, shows clearly, that the ancient Hindus must have had some kind of communication with
both the northern and southern ends of the Victoria N'yanza.”[xi]

Therefore, when we talk of the Indians and the Ethiopians, it is not just one thing but a string of
ancient connections that come up one after the another. One can scarcely doubt that Kush must
have been a colony of the ancient Indians, as attested by various ancient historians. Even the
name of the capital city of the Kingdom of Kush - Meroe - is possibly derived from Meru - the
central axis-mundi in Hindu-Buddhist cosmology. 

All of this leads one to wonder what could have led the Indus people to colonize a land that was
so far from their ancestral homeland.

The Migration of the Kushites

Philostratus mentions that the Ethiopians, an Indian race, dwelt in India under the rulership of
King Ganges.[xii] But when they slew their king they were inflicted by a host of natural
calamities which forced them to leave their homeland. They founded sixty cities along the path
of their emigration, until they settled in the fertile land of Kush. This suggests that the
colonization of Ethiopia may have been triggered by a large-scale emigration of people from the
Indus Valley due to various environmental catastrophes. 

At its peak at around 2500 BC, the Indus Valley civilization included the whole of Pakistan,
parts of Northern India, Afghanistan, and southern Iran, covering an area of roughly 1.2 million
sq.km with a population of over 5 million, and constituted the largest urban settlement of the
ancient world. 

Current research indicates that sometime around 1900 BC the Indus Valley civilization was
plagued by a series of calamities. There was a long and devastating drought, followed by a series
of cataclysmic earthquakes. Substantial portions of the Ghaggar Hakra river system (the
“Saraswati” of the Rig Vedas) disappeared, and the Indus River changed its course. The princely
state of Rajasthan turned into a desert. Parts of the civilization relocated to other sites along the
11
Indus, and others migrated further eastwards to the fertile plains along the Ganges, and towards
the southern parts of India. By around 1700 BC, most of the cities of the Indus Valley
civilization were abandoned.

Fig 4: Map of the Indus Valley civilization, showing some of the important sites.

There was a large-scale westward migration of various Indus tribes during this time. One of the
migrating Indus tribes was the Kassites (or Kussites, Kushites, Cushites) who first appear in
Western Iran at about 1800 BC, when they attacked Babylonia in the 9th year of the reign
of Samsu-iluna, the son of Hammurabi. The Kushites subsequently captured Babylon in the
16th century BC and ruled over it without any interruption for over 400 years. The Kushite
pantheon of deities included Suriash (from Sanskrit Surya meaning the Sun), Maruttash (from
Sanskrit Marut, a storm god) and Indas (from Sanskrit Indra, the king of the gods). Names of
gods also appear in the names of Kushite kings, as is very typical among the Vedic people.
Kushite kings established trade and diplomacy with far-flung kingdoms - Assyria, Egypt, Elam,
and Hittites – and established royal alliances with them. They also governed with order,
introduced advanced technologies, and followed the Vedic policy of honoring the customs and
religious beliefs of the peoples whose land they occupied.

Although it is clear that the Kushites belonged to the Indo- Iranian stock of people, and
worshipped Vedic deities, their exact point of origin still remains in question. The early
Babylonian texts portray them as migrants from the “eastern mountains”. This was interpreted by
some historians as a reference to the Zagros Mountains in south-western Iran. This is now
doubted, since the Zagros Mountains could not have been the original homeland of the
migrating Indus tribes, and may simply have been one of the mountains that they crossed during

12
their westward expansion. 

According to Strabo (13.3.6), the Kassites, also referred to as "Kossaei", lived in the mountains
to the east of Media and were one of several mountain tribes that regularly extracted gifts from
the Achaemenid Persians (approx. 5th century BC). "Media" refers to the Median Kingdom of
Iran, beginning in the late second millenium BC. Therefore, the "Cossaean mountains" must be
to the east of Iran. Now, if we travel to the east of Iran, we run into the majestic Hindu
Kush mountain range, an offshoot of the mighty Himalayas, stretching between Afghanistan and
Pakistan. For centuries, the Hindu Kush was recognized as the “mountains of India” or the
“boundary of India”. It is of interest to note that the term “Hindu” is derived from the term
“Sindhu”, which is the Sanskrit name of the river Indus; while the term “Kush” was always used
in reference to the Kushites (or Kassites). This means that the term Hindu Kush could be a
reference to the mountain range which defines the “domain of the Kushites on the banks of the
Indus” – the erstwhile Indus Valley Civilization. 

Many Sumerian inscriptions often refer to the Kassites as “Meluha-Kasi”. It is now an accepted
fact that “Meluha” (or Malaha, Meluhha, Mehluha) was a term used in the Sumerian region for
the Indus Valley civilization. The Sumerian cuneiform texts of the times of the Akkadian king
Sargon (c. 2334 - 2279 BC) shows that Babylon had extensive trade with its neighboring
countries, including Meluhha. Meluhha was described as a land of exotic commodities, and a
wide variety of objects produced in the Indus region have been found at sites in Mesopotamia.
Thus “Meluha-Kasi” must be a reference to the ancient Kushites (or Kassites) of the Indus
Valley.

From a mythological perspective as well, the Kushites find mention in the ancient Indian texts.
The Puranas say that the Kushites were the descendants of King Kusha-nabha who ruled in the
Satya Yuga (Golden Age), and one their illustrious descendants was the king-turned-sage
Vishwamitra, the preceptor of Rama. Later, the Kushites rallied around Kusha, the son of Rama,
and the Kashi tribe played a significant role in Ayodhya, the capital of Rama’s kingdom.

There is, however, a surprising lack of scholarly resources regarding the expansion of the
Kushites, although ancient traditional sources constantly extol their numerous achievements. 
One of the few scholarly works which addresses this topic is the book, History of civilizations of
Central Asia, which was commissioned by the UNESCO, and included participating scholars
from Iran, Afghanistan, India, China, Pakistan, Russia and Mongolia and a panel of experts from
USA, UK, Turkey, Japan and Hungary . This monumental study concludes that the, “invasion of
Babylonia by the Kassites – which caused the fall of the first Babylonian dynasty – was already
obviously connected with the migrations of the Proto Indians.”[xiii] The presence of the Indo-
Aryan linguistic terms in the Kassite language, “speaks clearly for the assumption that the people
of war-charioteers, which had induced the Kassites to invade Babylonia, belonged to the Proto-
Indians.” The study further states that:

“It seems very likely that simultaneously with the movement of the Kassites – and in any case
before 1700 BC at the latest, or perhaps even earlier, at the end of the third millennium BC – the
immigration of Proto-Indian groups into Hurrian territory began, led by the class of war-
charioteers (maryannu). They brought with them a new species of horse, more suitable for the

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war-chariot, a new method for horse training, described by Kikkuli, the man of Hurri, in a
treatise written in Hittite, and a perfected form of the chariot. Through these important elements
of their civilizations the Proto-Indians gave an impetus to the development of Hurrian society
and, and to the organization of the Mitanni kingdom, many kings of which bore Proto-Indian
names. The Proto-Indian tribal aristocracy spread also to Syria and Palestine where it brought
about the formation of stage organization based on the class of war-charioteers. Proto-Indian
linguistic influence was considerable on the vocabulary of horse-breeding, horse-training, social
life and religion as shown by the following list of Proto-Indian terms borrowed by the Hurrians
and other peoples of western Asia.”[xiv]
The Kassites were not the only Indus tribe that migrated westward, as a consequence of the
major cataclysms in the Indus Valley.  The Hittites appeared in the upper Tigris-Euphrates basin
and ruled from their capital at Hattusa from around 1800 BC. To their south was the Mitanni,
who ruled from their capital at Wassukanni (c.1475 BC). The Hittites and Mitanni had concluded
a treaty in c. 1380 BCE, which we know as the Suppiluliuma-Shattiwaza Treaty, which invokes
the Vedic deities Mitra, Varuna, Indra and the Nasatyas. However, the Indian antecedents of the
Kushites and the Mitanni continue to be ignored by modern academia. In the History of
civilizations of Central Asia, the editor Vadim Mikhailovich Masson laments that, “In the
present writer’s opinion recent research tends to underestimate or even to deny the role played by
Proto-Indians in Mesopotamia in general and in the Mitanni kingdom in particular.”

Of all the Proto-Indian tribes that had migrated westward, however, the Kushites were the ones
who had left their indelible footprints over vast swathes of Central and West Asia, and Africa.
Hundreds of towns and cities came to be named after them – Kissia, Kossea, Kussara, Kashan,
Kashband, Kashgar, Kashmir, Kashi and many many more. Iarchus of India told Apollonius of
Tyana that, “almost in every place, where their (Kushites) history occurs, the name of Indi will
be found likewise.”

Jacob Bryant writes about them in the book An Analysis of Ancient Mythology (1776): "I have
mentioned that the Cushites sent out many colonies; and partly by their address and superiority
in science, and partly by force, they got access among various nations. In some places they
mixed with the people of the country, and were nearly absorbed in their number: in other parts,
they excluded the natives, and maintained themselves solely and separate."[xv] 

He further writes: "The sons of Cush are said to have come under the titles of Cafus and Belus
into Syria and Phoenicia, where they founded many cities...the extreme settlement of this people
was in Spain, upon the Baetis, near Tartessus and Gades: and the account given by the natives,
according to the historian Ephorus, was, that colonies of Ethiopians traveled a great part of
Africa: some of which came and settled near Tartessus; and others got possession of different
parts of the sea coast...” (p 183).

On the basis of various traditional sources, it is possible to conjecture that the Kushites

conquered the southern part of Mesopotamia called Sumer and reached the southern part of the
Arabian Peninsula, where they founded many kingdoms, including that of Sheba (present day
Yemen). The Kushites then crossed the Red Sea into Northeast Africa and established the
renowned African kingdom of Kush. David Gibson mentions that “the descendants of Cush may
have split, one part remaining in Asia, the other migrating to Africa to become the Ethiopia we

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still know to this day.”[xvi] Hence, (as per the Encyclopaedia Britannica), “it cannot be doubted
that the tribes on both sides of that branch of the sea were kindred nations.”[xvii] 

Some of the Kushites (presumably those living near the mouth of the Indus) may have taken the
sea-route to Kush and Egypt. Orientalist Edward Pococke may have been referring to them,
when he says: "At the mouths of the Indus dwell a seafaring people, active, ingenious, and
enterprising...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 Yemen (the Eastern Arabia),
they sail up the Red Sea; and again ascending mighty stream that fertilizes a land of wonders,
found the kingdom of Egypt, Nubia and Abyssinia."[xviii]

Kush attained its greatest power and cultural energy between 1700 and 1500 BC, during the
Second Intermediate Period of Egypt. This is nearly a 100 years after the Kussites first emerged
in western Iran in c.1800 BC. This was the time when Egypt was run over by the Hyksos, and the
Egyptian pharaohs had retreated to Kush. We know that Amun was the principal god of the
Kushites of Ethiopia. Here he remained a national deity for centuries, with his priests at Meroe
regulating the whole government of the country via an oracle, choosing the ruler, and directing
military expeditions. The pharaohs Kamose and Ahmose would have been introduced to this new
cult at this time, and had carried it into Egypt after evicting the Hyksos. In this manner, the
worship of Jagannath would have travelled the long distance from its ancient homeland to the
kingdom of Kush, from where it was adopted by the victorious pharaohs of the 18th dynasty. 

We can also find footprints of Vedic temple architecture in the grand temple complexes set up by
the 18th dynasty pharaohs. The magnificent temple complex of Luxor, whose construction
started at c.1400 BC (during the reign of Amenhotep III) after the beginning of the New
Kingdom, incorporated advanced Vedic knowledge. The Egyptologist R.A.Schwaller de Lubicz
had conducted as 15 year on-site study of the Luxor Temple complex in 1952 and had concluded
that the,

“the various sections of the human body had been incorporated into the proportions of the
temple. He found that specific locations within the temple correspond to the seven Hindu
Chakras (energy centers) in the human body. These locations actually stimulate experiences and
feelings that dowsers and meditators are able to perceive consciously.”[xix]
Thus, the onset of the New Kingdom in Egypt was marked by a sudden influx of Vedic ideas,
which we find reflected in its religion, art and architecture.

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 Fig 5: An aerial view of the Kushite pyramids at Meroe, the capital of ancient Kush
The Land of Punt
Some ancient writers believed that Egypt had also received migrants from India in the distant
past. Jacob Bryant mentions in An Analysis of Ancient Mythology (1776) that: "Egypt itself was
in some degrees an Indic nation; having received a colony of that people, by whom it was named
Ait, or Aetia. Hence it is said that, Osiris was an Indian by extraction." (p. 216-17) As to when
this may have happened is not known, but scientific studies suggest that it may predate the
Predynastic period of Egypt.

Scientific evidence linking Predynastic Egypt with ancient India comes to us from the study
of cranial features. In 1924-25, an expedition of the British School of Archaeology in Egypt, led
by Sir Flinders Petrie, excavated 59 skulls at Badari, the site of the pre-dynastic Badarian culture
in Upper Egypt, which flourished from around 5000 BC. These skulls were studied by Miss
Stoessiger at University College, London, who concluded that: 

"Badarian skulls differ very little from other less ancient pre-dynastic skulls; they are just a bit
more prognathous. Next to these, they most resemble primitive Indian skulls: Dravidians and
Veddas. They also present a few affinities with Negroes, due no doubt to a very ancient
admixture of Negro blood."[xx] 
In 1972, another study by Berry and Berry cluster Egyptians closer to each other than any other
group, but find some similarities with Asian Indians. A craniofacial study by C. Loring Brace et

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al. (1993) concluded that: 

"The Predynastic of Upper Egypt and the Late Dynastic of Lower Egypt are more closely related
to each other than to any other population. As a whole, they show ties with the European
Neolithic, North Africa, modern Europe, and, more remotely, India, but not at all with sub-
Saharan Africa, eastern Asia, Oceania, or the New World.”[xxi]
Interestingly, the Egyptians themselves referred to an ancestral homeland called “Punt” (also
called “Pwenet”), which, as per the opinion of some historians may be India. Punt was referred
to as “Ta netjer” meaning the “Land of the Gods” or the “Land of Gods and Ancestors”. 

Most scholars agree that Punt was located to the south and east of Egypt, and could be reached
leading off the Red Sea, in a south-east direction. India too can be reached from Egypt by sailing
in a south-east direction by following the ancient maritime trade routes, popularly known as
the Silk Route, which led from Egypt to the flourishing ports on the coasts of India.

Fig 6: The Silk Route.

The first mention of Punt comes to us from the Palermo Stone of the Old Kingdom, during the
reign of King Sahure at around 2500 BC. This expedition returned with huge quantities of myrrh,
which is a resin used for making incense that the Egyptians used for their temple rituals, along
with precious wood, and electrum (an alloy of silver and gold). The journey to Punt was regarded
by the Egyptians as "long and dangerous" and was attempted very infrequently, roughly once per
dynasty. Between the 12th and 18th dynasties, for a period of nearly 500 years, not a single
expedition to Punt was undertaken.

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The most detailed description of the expedition to Punt has been preserved in the reliefs in
Hatshepsut's mortuary temple at Deir el-Bahri in Thebes. Hatsheptsut’s expedition had been
headed by her Chancellor Senmut, accompanied by a fleet of five ships. They received a warm
welcome from the rulers of Punt, King Parahu and Queen Ati, and subsequently returned with
ships laden with heaps of myrrh resin, fresh myrrh trees, ebony and pure ivory, gold, cinnamon
wood, khesyt wood, incense, cosmetics, along with apes, monkeys, dogs, skins of the southern
panther (which the priests of the Egyptian temples wore), and with natives and their children.

The primary export of Punt to Egypt i.e. myrrh for producing incense, was used extensively in
India for all religious purposes. Hatshepsut's list depicts "cassia and cinnamon", which were
native to the East, being found in the region between China and Sri Lanka. "Ebony" is another
item in the list that was native to Southern India and Srilanka.

Of particular interest in this regard is the depiction of the Great Indian one-horned

rhinoceros   which is found only in the north-eastern part of India! Hatshepsut's list also depicts
"tame elephants" which points to India since African elephants cannot be tamed. The fishes of
Punt depicted in Hatshepsut's list are those of the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, which indicates
that Punt was situated beyond the Red Sea, and somewhere in the Indian Ocean.

In the context of this study, what is even more interesting is the connection between Punt and
Amun. Punt was considered as a “personal pleasure garden” of the god Amun, whom we have
already identified with Krishna (or Jagannath). The Boulaq Papyrus from the XVIII Dynasty
(1552-1295 BC) describes Amun as the “Sovereign of Punt...Whose fragrance the Gods love
When He comes from the land of Punt.” 

The expedition of Hatshepsut to the land of Punt was done primarily with the objective of
acquiring incense and a number of exotic goods for her “divine father Amun”, and was
conducted with the blessing of the god Amun:
“Said by Amen, the Lord of the Thrones of the Two Land: 'Come, come in peace my daughter,
the graceful, who art in my heart, King Maatkare [i.e. Hatshepsut]...I will give thee Punt, the
whole of it...I will lead your soldiers by land and by water, on mysterious shores, which join the
harbours of incense...They will take incense as much as they like. They will load their ships to
the satisfaction of their hearts with trees of green [i.e. fresh] incense, and all the good things of
the land.'[xxii]
Queen Hatshepsut had returned with many species of trees from her expedition to Punt,
specifically myrrh trees. On the walls of her mortuary temple at Deir el-Bahri she mentions that
she had complied with the wish of the god Amun-Re, her father, to have a grove of myrrh trees
“for ointment for the divine limbs”. She says: "I have hearkened to my father...commanding me
to establish for him a Punt in his house, to plant the trees of God's Land beside his temple, in his
garden."[xxiii] 

This association between Amun and Punt is quite compelling, for we have already identified
Amun with Krishna (Jagannath) whose homeland was in India. By extension, therefore, Punt
should be in India.

Finally, I will wrap up this analysis with this interesting discovery made in 2003, by a team of

18
British and Egyptian conservators under the aegis of the British Museum, working on the tomb
of Elkab's 17th dynasty (c.1600-1550 BC) governor Sobeknakht. They “stumbled upon an
inscription believed to be the first evidence of a huge attack from the south on Elkab and Egypt
by the Kingdom of Kush and its allies from the land of Punt, during the 17th dynasty”[xxiv]. This
is during the same time that the pharaohs Kamose and Ahmose were in exile in Kush, preparing
to launch an attack on the Hyskos. It seems quite possible that the “allies from the land of
Punt” is a reference to the Kushites who had migrated to Kush around this time from the banks
of.the Indus.

The migration of the Kushites from the Indus Valley to the Nile, sometime around 1700 – 1600
BC, or even earlier, as a result of the cataclysmic events in the Indus Valley, represents a
forgotten, and often ignored, episode of human history which explains some remarkable
similarities between the ancient civilizations of India, Egypt, the Middle East and West Asia. Of
course, there were close economic ties between these nations, for many thousands of years.
However, the transfer of an entire pantheon of deities, along with associated rites and customs,
was possible only because of an extensive process of migration spanning over many centuries.
The hypothesis is well-supported with evidence from various sources, and will hopefully be
investigated by historians in further detail.

References

[i] Ancient Egyptian Literature: Volume II: The New Kingdom, Miriam Lichtheim, p105-106,
University of California Press, 1976
[ii] The Bhagavad Gita 18.57 – 18.58, translated by Eknath Easwaran, Penguin Books
[iii] Ibid 7.6 – 7.7
[iv] Ibid 10.41
[v] Ibid 10.14 – 10.15
[vi] Ibid 7.26
[vii] Encyclopaedia Britannica, Vol XVI, p 309
[viii] An Analysis of Ancient Mythology, Jacob Bryant, Vol III, p 217
[ix] An Analysis of Ancient Mythology, Jacob Bryant, Vol III, p 218
[x] Itinerarium Alexandri
[xi] Journal of the Discovery of The Source of the Nile, Lieutenant John Hanning Speke, 1863
[xii] Life of Apollonius of Tyana, Philostratus, Book 3, from livius.org
[xiii] History of civilizations of Central Asia, Volume 1, Vadim Mikhaĭlovich Masson, Motilal
Banarsidass Publ., 1999, p 370
[xiv] History of civilizations of Central Asia, Volume 1, Vadim Mikhaĭlovich Masson, Motilal
Banarsidass Publ., 1999, p 372
[xv] An Analysis of Ancient Mythology, Jacob Bryant, Vol III, p 192
[xvi] The Land of Eden Located, David J. Gibson, 1964, Chapter four
[xvii] Encyclopaedia Britannica, Vol XVI, p 308
[xviii] India in Greece, Edward Pococke, 1856, p. 42
[xix] Martin Gray, Sacred Earth, Sterling Publishing, 2007, p 112
[xx] Emile Massourlard, "Prehistoire et Protohistoire d'Egypt" 1949, p. 394
[xxi] Brace et al., 'Clines and clusters versus "race"', 1993

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[xxii] The Life and Monuments of the Queen in T.M. Davis (ed.), the tomb of Hatshopsitu, E.
Naville, London: 1906, pp.28-29
[xxiii] Immanuel Velikovsky, Ages in Chaos I: From the Exodus to King Akhnaton, p 140
[xxiv] Elkab's hidden treasure, Al-Ahram Weekly Online, 31 July - 6 August 2003, Issue No.
649, http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/649/he1.htm
 Article, Indian Cultural Diffusion
OLMEC YOGIS WITH HINDU BELIEFS: DID THEY MIGRATE FROM
ANCIENT CHINA?
 https://www.bibhudevmisra.com/2012/01/journey-of-jagannath-from-india-to.html

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