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Herodotus, Homer and other greek authors called the Dravidian people the Eastern Ethiopians or Eastern Æthiopians. Greek writers sometimes identified the Aethiopians of Egypt with the Eastern Aethiopians. Also the Egyptian and Indian geography were sometimes compared or identified: Arrian (vi. i.) mentions that the Indus River was thought by some ancient Greeks to be the source of the Nile.

Herodotus wrote about the Dravidians: They differed in nothing from the other Ethiopians, save in their language, and the character of their hair. For the Eastern Ethiopians have straight hair, while they of Libya are more woolly-haired than any other people in the world. (Herodotus: from The History of the Persian Wars, VII.70., c.430 BCE)

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, however, took up this connection between Dravidians, Egyptians and Ethiopians in order to claim a direct cultural link between India and Ancient Egypt. She was attempting to show that Indian culture influenced Ancient Egypt via Ethiopia. She described many parallels between Egypt and India in her works. After the discovery of the Indus Valley Civilisation Gottfried de Purucker remarked (referring to Secret Doctrine, vol.2, p.417): A highly advanced urban civilization of Mohenjo Daro has been discovered on the Indus "between Attock and Sind," exactly the location mentioned in The Secret Doctrine as the abode of the Aethiopians.(Encyclopedic Theosophical Glossary: Aethiophians).

See also

• Dravidian people

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