Note 20 — CHAPTER 2

This deception practised by the Bhatti chief to obtain land on which to erect a fortress is not unknown in other parts of India, and in more remote regions. Bhatner owes its name to this expedient, from the division (bantna) of the hide. The etymology of Calcutta is the same, but should be written Khalkata, from the cuttings of the hide (khal). Byrsa, the castle of Carthage, originates from the same story. If there existed any affinity between the ancient Pali languages of India and the Punic or Phoenician (as the names of its princes and their adjuncts of bal would indicate), and the letters B and Ch were as little dissimilar in Punic as in Sanskrit, then Byrsa would become charsa, ‘hide’ or ‘skin,’ which might have originated the capital of the African Mauritania, as of the Indian Maruthan. Thus Marocco may be from Maruka, of or belonging to Maru, the desert, also probably the origin of the Merv of Iran. The term Moor may likewise be corrupted from Mauri, an inhabitant of Maruka, while the Sahariya of our Indian desert is the brother in name and profession of the Saracen of Arabia, from Sahra, a desert, and zadan, to assault. The Nomadic princes of Mauritania might therefore be the Pali or shepherd kings of Maruthan, the great African desert. And who were these Philita or Pali kings of Barbary and Egypt? It is well known that the Berbers who inhabited Abyssinia and the south coast of the Red Sea, migrated to the northern coast, not only occupying it, as well as Mount Atlas, but pushing their tribes far into the grand sahra, or desert. To those colonists, that coast owes its name of Barbary. From the days of Solomon and his contemporary Shishak, an intimate communication subsisted between the eastern coast of Africa and India; and I have already hazarded the opinion, that we must look to this coast of Aethiopia and Abyssinia for the Lanka of the Rameses (Rameswar) of India; and from the former country the most skilful archaeologists assert that Egypt had her mythology, and more especially that mystery—the prominent feature of both systems—the Phallic rites, or worship of the lingam. Berber, according to Bruce, means a shepherd, and as ber is a sheep in the language of India, Berber is a shepherd in the most literal sense, and consequently the synonym of Pali. It has been asserted that this race colonized these coasts of Africa from India about the time of Amenophis, and that they are the Hyksos, or ‘shepherd-kings,’ who subjugated Egypt. On this account a comparison of the ancient architectural remains of Abyssinia and Aethiopia with those of the ancient Hindus is most desirable. It is asserted, and with appearance of truth, that the architecture of the Pyramids is distinct from the Pharaonic, and that they are at once Astronomic and Phallic. In India, the symbolic pinnacle surmounting the temples of the sun-god are always pyramidal. If the forthcoming history of the Berbers should reveal the mystery of their first settlements in Abyssinia, a great object would be attained; and if search were made in the old cave-temples of that coast, some remains of the characters they used might aid in tracing their analogy to the ancient Pali of the East; an idea suggested by an examination of the few characters found in the grand desert inhabited by the Tuaregs, which have a certain resemblance to the Punic, and to the unknown characters attributed to the Indo-Scythic tribes of India, as on their coins and cave-temples. Wide asunder as are these regions, the mind that will strive to lessen the historical separation may one day be successful, when the connexion between Aethiopia (qu. from aditya and contracted ait, the Sun?) and Surashtra, ‘the land of the Sun,’ or Syria of India, may become more tangible. Ferishta (vide Briggs’ translation, vol. iv. p. 402), quoting original authorities, says, “the inhabitants of Selandip, or the island of Ceylon, were accustomed to send vessels to the coast of Africa, to the Red Sea, and Persian Gulf, from the earliest ages, and Hindu pilgrims resorted to Mecca and Egypt for the purpose of paying adoration to the idols. It is related also that this people trading from Ceylon became converts to the true faith at so early a period as the first caliphs”; all which confirms the fact of early intercourse between Egypt and India.—See Vol. II. p. 702. [It is unnecessary to criticize in detail the etymologies suggested in this note, a good instance of the Author’s manner. The etymology of Calcutta is unknown, the most recent suggestion being that it is Khālkata, ‘a place where a flood cut a creek’ (Yule, Hobson-Jobson, 2nd ed. 146; Hoernle, JASB, 1898, p. 48 f.; K. Blechynden, Calcutta Past and Present, 1905, p. 5). Bhatner means ‘city of the Bhattis.’ Berber is either Greek βάρβαροι, or a tribal term, Barabara; that of Aethiopia is unknown (EB, 11th ed. iii. 764, ix. 845). The story of fixing the limits of a territory by riding round it or by encircling it with strips of hide, as in the story of Carthage, is common in India (Bradley-Birt, Chota Nagpore, 16 f.; Brett, Chhattisgarh Gazetteer, i. 192; BG, xiii. Part i. 169, and many others).others).]