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Japheth son of the Biblical Patriarch Noah

 

Also Diphath. Literal meanings are opened, enlarged, fair or light (father of the Caucasoid/Indo-Europoid, Indo-European, Indo-Germanic, or Indo-Aryan races - Japhethites). Japheth is the progenitor of seven sons:

 

Madai "middle land" (sons were Achon, Zeelo, Chazoni and Lotalso) - also Mada, Amada, Madae, Madea, Manda, Maday, Media, Madaean, Mata, Matiene, Mitani, Mitanni, Megala (Medes4, Aryans, Persians, Parsa, Parsees, Achaemenians, Manneans, Caspians, Kassites, Iranians, Kurds, Turks, East Indians, Pathans, Hazaras), including the peoples of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Azerbaijan, Khazachstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikstan and Kyrgyzstan, and other related groups; 

 

Castes were the central feature of people's identities in ancient India. Beginning soon after the Indo-European invasion, about 1500 BC, people in India began to divide everyone into one of five groups, or castes. People thought of the caste system as people's mirror of the way theuniverse worked. Just as the sunand the planets each had to follow its prescribed path, in the same way people had to live according to their caste. This parallel between the real world and the caste system made caste seem natural and impossible to change or avoid. Caste gave some people special rights and privileges that other people did not have.

 

India is a country in South Asia whose name comes from the Indus River.  Archaeological excavations have discovered artifacts used by early humans, including stone tools, which suggest an extremely early date for human habitation and technology in the area. While the civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt have long been recognized for their celebrated contributions to civilization, India has often been overlooked, especially in the West, though her history and culture is just as rich.

 

Archaeological excavations in the past fifty years have dramatically changed the understanding of India’s past and, by extension, world history. A 4000 year-old skeleton discovered at Balathal in 2009 CE provides the oldest evidence of leprosy in India. Prior to this find, leprosy was considered a much younger disease thought to have been carried from Africa to India at some point and then from India to Europe by the army of Alexander the Great following his death in 323 BCE. 

 

Some of the early genealogy of the various peoples is mentioned in the Bible:

6 The sons of Ham were Cush, Mizraim, Put, and Canaan. 7 The sons of Cush were Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Raamah, and Sabtechah; and the sons of Raamah were Sheba and Dedan. 8 Cush begot Nimrod; he began to be a mighty one on the earth (Genesis 10:6-8).

 

The Hebrew word for Ethiopia is Cush, not actually the nation of Ethiopia. The eastern branch of which has been identified with India. The Hebrew word for Libya is Put and its eastern branch, like Cush, also has been identified with India:

 

Ham and his wife...One of their sons was named Cush (Gen. 10:6) which means "black" in Hebrew and is often translated into English as "Ethiopia" because the Greeks first called the children of Cush "Ethiopians." But not all Cushites live in the modern nation of Ethiopia.

 

Cush first settled around ancient Babylon (Gen. 10:8-10). From Babylon, Cush spread far and wide. Most of the black children of Cush migrated across central Arabia and around its southern coast to East Africa. The Egyptians called East Africa south of Syene, "Kosh." The Chaldeans and the Assyrians called it "Kushu" ("Cush" and "Ethiopia," International Standard Bible Encyclopedia).

 

Cush also had sons who went east into Asia rather than into Africa. Herodotus wrote:

The Ethiopians from the sun-rise . . . were marshalled with the Indians, and did not at all differ from [them] in appearance but only in their language, and their hair. For the eastern Ethiopians are straight-haired; but those of (Africa) have hair more curly than that of any other people. These Ethiopians from Asia were accounted (almost the same as the Indians [of India]) (Polymnia, Section 20).

 

The brown people of southern India and Ceylon are also descendants of Cush. Historians call them Dravidians; the ancients called them Sibae (Smith's Classical Dictionary). Their Bible name was Seba (Gen. 10:7). Josephus recognized an eastern and a western Cush--one in Asia, the other in Africa (Antiquities, Book 1, VI, 2). Herodotus calls them "Asiatic Ethiopians" (Thalia, Section 94). "Ethiopia" in Ezekiel 38:5 should be translated "Cush." It refers primarily to the Asiatic Cush, which is India today.

 

In India the highest castes were not only called Brahmins, but also Rajputs. "Rajput" means "king or chief of Put" (Raja," Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th ed.). "Phut" or "Put" means a "warrior" in Hebrew. The Rajputs are the most noted warriors in India...Of the four sons of Ham, only Cush bears a name that means "black." Just as some of the sons of Cush are brown, so some of the children of Phut are black. The Indians of central and northern India vary from light to dark brown. (Personal Correspondence Department. Letter L270, L270-688. Worldwide Church of God)

 

The Bible specifically teaches that all peoples, including those now considered to be Indian, were together and of the same language until after the tower of Babel:

 

Now the whole earth had one language and one speech...

 

And the LORD said, "Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them. Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another's speech." So the LORD scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city. Therefore its name is called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of all the earth; and from there the LORD scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth. (Genesis 11:1,6-9).

 

Thus, until God confused human language and scattered people abroad, all humans were together and spoke the same language. They then dispersed around the world and settled in various places.

 

By the name "India" (from the Hebrew word transliterated as Hoduw, apparently related to the term "Hindu"), India is mentioned twice in the Bible in the Book of Esther:

 

Now it came to pass in the days of Ahasuerus (this was the Ahasuerus who reigned over one hundred and twenty-seven provinces, from India to Ethiopia) (Esther 1:1).

 

So the king's scribes were called at that time, in the third month, which is the month of Sivan, on the twenty-third day; and it was written, according to all that Mordecai commanded, to the Jews, the satraps, the governors, and the princes of the provinces from India to Ethiopia, one hundred and twenty-seven provinces in all, to every province in its own script, to every people in their own language, and to the Jews in their own script and language (Esther 8:9).

Hence there are several biblical connections with the peoples of Indian ancestry.

 

The Indus Valley Civilization dates to 5000 BCE and grew steadily throughout the lower Ganetic Valley region southwards and northwards to Malwa. The cities of this period were larger than contemporary settlements in other countries, were situated according to cardinal points, and were built of mud bricks, often kiln-fired. Houses were constructed with a large courtyard opening from the front door, a kitchen/work room for the preparation of food, and smaller bedrooms. Family activities seem to have centred on the front of the house, particularly the courtyard and, in this, are similar to what has been inferred from sites in Rome, Egypt, Greece, and Mesopotamia.

 

Trade was an important source of commerce and it is thought that ancient Mesopotamian texts which mention Magan and Meluhha refer to India generally or, perhaps, Mohenjo-Daro specifically. Artifacts from the Indus Valley region have been found at sites in Mesopotamia though their precise point of origin in India is not always clear.

 

The people of the Harappan Civilization worshipped many gods and engaged in ritual worship. Statues of various deities (such as, Indra, the god of storm and war) have been found at many sites and, chief among them, terracotta pieces depicting the Shakti (the Mother Goddess) suggesting a popular, common worship of the feminine principle. In about 1500 BCE it is thought another race, known as the Aryans, migrated into India through the Khyber Pass and assimilated into the existing culture, perhaps bringing their gods with them. While it is widely accepted that the Aryans brought the horse to India, there is some debate as to whether they introduced new deities to the region or simply influenced the existing belief structure. The Aryans are thought to have been pantheists (nature worshippers) with a special devotion to the sun and it seems uncertain they would have had anthropomorphic gods.

 

At about this same time (c. 1700-1500 BCE) the Harappan culture began to decline. Scholars cite climate change as one possible reason. The Indus River is thought to have begun flooding the region more regularly (as evidenced by approximately 30 feet or 9 metres of silt at Mohenjo-Daro) and the great cities were abandoned. Other scholars cite the Aryan migration as more of an invasion of the land which brought about a vast displacement of the populace. Among the most mysterious aspects of Mohenjo-Daro is the vitrification of parts of the site as though it had been exposed to intense heat which melted the brick and stone. This same phenomenon has been observed at sites such as Traprain Law in Scotland and attributed to the results of warfare. Speculation regarding the destruction of the city by some kind of ancient atomic blast (possibly the work of aliens from other planets) is not generally regarded as credible.

 

 

THE GREAT EMPIRES OF ANCIENT INDIA

 

Persia held dominance in northern India until the conquest of Alexander the Great in 327 BCE. One year later, Alexander had defeated the Achaemenid Empire and firmly conquered the Indian subcontinent. Again, foreign influences were brought to bear on the region giving rise to the Greco-Buddhist culture which impacted all areas of culture in northern India from art to religion to dress. Statues and reliefs from this period depict Buddha, and other figures, as distinctly Hellenic in dress and pose (known as the Gandhara School of Art). Following Alexander’s departure from India, the Maurya Empire (322-185 BCE) rose under the reign of ChandraguptaMaurya (322-298) until, by the end of the third century BCE, it ruled over almost all of northern India.

 

The country splintered into many small kingdoms and empires (such as the Kushan Empire) in what has come to be called the Middle Period. This era saw the increase of trade with Rome (which had begun c. 130 BCE) following Augustus Caesar’s conquest of Egypt in 30 BCE (Egypt had been India’s most constant partner in trade in the past). This was a time of individual and cultural development in the various kingdoms which finally flourished in what is considered the Golden Age of India under the reign of the Gupta Empire (320-550 CE).

 

The Gupta Empire is thought to have been founded by one Sri Gupta (`Sri’ means `Lord’) who probably ruled between 240-280 CE. As Sri Gupta is thought to have been of the Vaishya (merchant) class, his rise to power in defiance of the caste system is unprecedented. He laid the foundation for the government which would so stabilize India that virtually every aspect of culture reached its height under the reign of the Guptas. Philosophy,literature, science, mathematics, architecture, astronomy, technology, art, engineering, religion, and astronomy, among other fields, all flourished during this period, resulting in some of the greatest of human achievements.

 

In 712 CE the Muslim general Muhammed bin Quasim conquered northern India, establishing himself in the region of modern-day Pakistan. The Muslim invasion saw an end to the indigenous empires of India and, from then on, independent city states or communities under the control of a city would be the standard model of government. The Islamic Sultanates rose in the region of modern-day Pakistan and spread north-west. The disparate world views of the religions which now contested each other for acceptance in the region and the diversity of languages spoken, made  the unity and cultural advances, such as were seen in the time of the Guptas, difficult to reproduce. Consequently,  the region was easily conquered by the Islamic Mughal Empire. India would then remain subject to various foreign influences and powers (among them the Portuguese, the French, and the British) until finally winning its independence in 1947 CE.

 

The Jews of India

 

There are two distinct ancient Jewish communities in India. The CochinJews of South India, and the Beni Israel of West India.  The Cochin community may reach back to Biblical times. The merchant ships of King Solomon reached ports of the East, returning with spices, precious stones and rare flora and fauna. The ancient contacts between the land of Israel and India are supported by the several Hebrew words, which are common to the Indian Sanskrit and Tamil languages. The Cochin Jews have a tradition that tens of thousands of Jews arrived there after the destruction of the Second Temple.

 

For centuries the Cochin Jews never lost contact with mainstream Judaism. Their location near the ports of South India provided opportunities for outside interaction with travelers and merchants from Europe and the Middle East.

Documents found in the Cairo Geniza - book depository - indicate that between the 10th and 12th centuries commercial ties existed betweenCochin Jews and Mediterranean communities.

 

In 1948, the community of some 2,500 Cochin Jews left to Israel. Presently, less than 100 Jews remain, living a twilight existence near the only functioning synagogue.

 

The origins of the Beni Israel Jews of West India are somewhat obscure. According to their tradition, their ancestors arrived by sea from the north, becoming shipwrecked and established the community near Bombay. For centuries they lived in isolation, until the middle of the 18th century, when they were discovered by a Cochin Jew, David Rahabi.

 

The Beni Israel had maintained many vestiges of Jewish practices -Shabbat and Holidays, some laws of Kashrut, and the prayer Shema Yisrael. Although they are Indian in appearance, speak an Indian language, and have been influenced by the surrounding culture, they have nonetheless maintained a quite separate existence from the other Indian groups in the area. Today the Beni Israel are the only sizable Jewish group in India. Several thousand of them still live in and around Bombay, though most have immigrated to Israel.

 

The Shinlung - Bene Menashe

 

In the mountainous region which lies on both sides of the Indian-Burmese border dwells the Shinlung Tribe, or as they call themselves, the Bene Menashe - sons of the Tribe of Menashe. They believe themselves to be descendants of the exiled Tribes who traveled east. Their origin story is that from Central Asia they migrated to the Tibet region and then into southern China, dwelling in caves. From China they immigrated to the Burma-Indian highlands centered in Manipur and Mizaram, where they have lived for centuries.

 

Their collective memory is that they are of Israelite descent. Their religious practices are different from surrounding peoples. Their tradition includes many Biblical aspects such as levirate marriage (a brother marries his deceased brother's childless wife), agricultural tithes, incest prohibitions, burial rather than cremation, and celebrating three major annual festivals.

 

In the early 1900's English missionaries converted the Shinlung to Christianity. However, since the 1950's, following a revelation to Mela Chala - a local farmer and mystic - that the Shinlung were truly the lost biblical Tribe of Menashe and soon they would be gathered to their ancestral homeland, many have begun to reactivate their Jewish connection.

 

Although thousands of Shinlung acknowledge their tribal legend of Israelite descent, most remain in India living as Christians. Five thousand or so have made a full return to Judaism, observing Shabbat, Kashrut and circumcision. These Bene Menashe are deeply Zionistic, with a strong love for Israel and a desire to live in the "Promised Land."

 

In recent years, hundreds of these Asian-looking people have returned to Israel, undergone a full-halachic conversion and have been integrated into settlements throughout the country.