FROM GODDESS TO KING
A History of Ancient Europe from the
OERA LINDA BOOK
By Anthony Radford
CHAPTER 11
THE SETTLEMENT OF THE PUNJAB
The next section contains some startling information about Europe’s awareness of India. It has long been suspected that each country had some knowledge of the other but not in the detail here related. It has been the theme of this book to show how the Oera Linda Book can revise our present understanding of ancient history but in this chapter it is, in the main, new information. The most significant revision is one of giving us a greater appreciation for the capabilities of our Western ancestors.
It was the sea-king Jon who brought Minerva to the Mediterranean after her encounter with Kalta (Sijred). If Jon settled the islands and was using them for pirating about 1615 BC, then we have to surmise that Minerva had died and was succeeded by Geert as the new Mother in the region of Attica. A date of between 1600 and 1580 BC can therefore be assigned to a new earthquake here recorded. This quake closed the ancient predecessor of the Suez Canal or possibly a tributary of the Nile that ran into the Red Sea and permitted navigation beyond the Mediterranean. Both a canal and a tributary were known in ancient times but it is difficult to date them. It is not likely this quake was the Mt. Thera explosion but it could have been related to the disturbances that are known to have happened in that age. In Greece, Crete and Egypt there were many large quakes over several hundred years remembered in history. The Thera quake, for all its notoriety was probably very local with its effect felt mostly through fallout and possibly a tsunami. It is now assumed to have been before the date of the fire and destruction of Crete’s city of Knossos, the end of the Late Minoan-A period. But the latest dating methods are themselves subject to changes of interpretation not to mention the very suspect Egyptian calendar used to relate all local events. This question is explored in Chapter 23, entitled, "The Atlantis Question".
This story, assumed to be from Minno’s writings, mentions Egypt for the first time in 400 years since Teunis considered hiring his services to the Pharaoh about 2000 BC. This more recent age was about the era when Egyptian influence had reached and maintained for a dynasty its most northerly boundary in conjunction with the Hittite Empire. A land army behind Tyre and Sidon would have had much influence as it is recorded that the Egyptian priest Cecrops could sway the Thyriers to invade Athens, which was under siege from Attica. The Thyriers who were descendants of the settlers of Teunis, were obviously no allies of the Joniers but nevertheless still respected Frisian beliefs and did not want their wild mountain soldiers to pillage and rape their distant cousins.
Greece was not ready at that time for freedom or democracy. It would take another thousand years and then only the slave owning minority of citizens would be briefly free, but it can be surmised that Minerva had sown the seeds for democracy. After the death of Minerva the priests did not want another mother, but the settlers chose Geert anyway, a daughter of a respectable Frisian. A rebellion was incited resulting in the evacuation of Athens.
In reading on, we learn that the Frisians of Attica and Tyre joined once again to sail 115 ships through the Red Sea and settle in far off India with their women and children. They took with them the Mother Geert and her maidens. That they reached India and made a successful settlement there probably shows they had knowledge of that geography, the legacy of the sea-kings who had traded that far in the past. Over a thousand years later in the fourth century BC, this group enters standard recorded history with the coming of Alexander to India (327 BC). Europe had forgotten them but they had not forgotten Europe and had maintained their Frisian ways.
When Nyhellenia died, we wished to choose another mother, and some of us wished to go to Texland to look for her; but the priests, who were all powerful among their own people, would not permit it, and accused us before the people of being unholy.
This is About the Geertmen:
When Hellenia or Minerva died, the priests pretended to be with us, and in order to make it appear so, they deified Hellenia. They refused to have any other mother chosen, saying that they feared there was no one among her maidens whom they could trust as they had trusted Minerva, surnamed Nyhellenia.
But we would not recognize Minerva as a goddess, because she herself had told us that no one could be perfectly good except the spirit of Wr-Alda. Therefore we chose Geert Pyre’s daughter for our mother. When the priests saw that they could not fry their herrings on our fire (have everything their own way), they left Athens, and said that we refused to acknowledge Minerva as a goddess out of envy, because she had shown so much affection to the natives. Thereupon they gave the people statues of her, declaring that they might ask of them whatever they liked, as long as they were obedient to her. By these kinds of tales the stupid people were estranged from us, and at last they attacked us; but as we had built our stone city wall with two horns down to the sea, they could not get at us. Then, lo and behold! an Egyptian high priest, bright of eye, clear of brain, and enlightened of mind, whose name was Cecrops, came to give them advice.
When he saw that with his people he could not storm our wall, he sent messengers to Tyre. Thereupon there arrived three hundred ships full of wild mountain soldiers, which sailed unexpectedly into our haven while we were defending the walls. When they had taken our harbor, the wild soldiers wanted to plunder the village and our ships - one had already ravished a girl - but Cecrops would not permit it; and the Thyrian sailors, who still had Frisian blood in their veins, said, "If you do that we will burn our ships, and you shall never see your mountains again."
Cecrops, who had no inclination towards murder or devastation, sent messengers to Geert, requiring her to give up the citadel, offering her free exit with all her live and dead property, and her followers the same. The wisest of the citizens, seeing that they could not hold the citadel, advised Geert to accept at once, before Cecrops became furious and changed his mind. Three months afterwards Geert departed with the best of Frya’s sons, and seven times twelve ships. Soon after they had left the harbor they fell in with at least thirty ships coming from Tyre with women and children. They were on their way to Athens, but when they heard how things stood there they went with Geert.
The sea-king of the Thyriers brought them altogether through the strait which at that time ran into the Red Sea. At last they landed at the Punjab, called in our language the Five Rivers, because five rivers flow together to the sea. Here they settled, and called it Geertmania.
The King of Tyre afterwards, seeing that all his best sailors were gone, sent all his ships with his wild soldiers to catch them, dead or alive. When they arrived at the strait, both the sea and the earth trembled. The land was up-heaved so that all the water ran out of the strait, and the muddy shores were raised up like a rampart. This happened on account of the virtues of the Geertmen, as every one can plainly understand.
That they reached India is well recorded in the Book. We now include the following description of the land at the mouth of the Indus River where they settled and also of the neighboring regions. It is not in the correct historical sequence because the description comes from a time twelve hundred years later when ships from that region returned to Friesland bringing Liudgert, the king of the descendants of those settlers. Liudgert the Geertman settled in Western Europe and wrote the following account of the Punjab.
He asserts how the mythic origins of the Indian people correspond to Frisian beliefs about inception, but that in the same stories from time immemorial in all cultures, priests corrupted these early beliefs into power tools by using fear. They defended their power by denunciation and indoctrination until they totally controlled the populace.
These priests "who came from another country" could be a reference to the Aryan invasion of India that is generally credited to about 1500 BC, the same time as the arrival of the Geertmen. They were not the same people, but tradition links them to the Iranians and their fire culture. This became a culture of sacrifice and elaborate rituals that were codified in the early Vedic texts defining the ever more complicated sacrifices, temple and home procedures; obviously a priestly device.
We are told that back in Iran, the sacred fire tradition now associated with Zoroaster of a thousand years more recent had been very pure and personal whereas the version that had taken root in India was corrupted by priests. These priests exiled groups of opponents, to the west, while other people simply fled to avoid the rituals and monstrous graven images. Those who fled gave the name Hindu to those that stayed behind because they were as submissive before their princes as "hinds before wolves". This Germanic word further links the Persians with the Europeans.
The flat lands, between the Indus and the Ganges, were all forest and fields, very fertile, but that did not prevent famines from occurring as a result of oppressive taxation. Wild animals are then described in detail, mostly recognizable with today’s names and many fruits and nuts are also described. Some of these would appear like tall tales back in Texland but we now know what was being described.
Among my father’s papers I found a letter from Liudgert the Geertman. Omitting some passages which only concern my father, I proceed to relate the rest:
Punjab, that is five rivers, and by which we travel, is a river of extraordinary beauty, and is called Five Rivers, because four other streams flow into the sea by its mouth. Far away to the eastward is another large river, the Holy or Sacred Ganges. Between these two rivers is the land of the Hindus. Both rivers run from the high mountains to the plains. The mountains in which their sources lie are so high that they reach the heavens and therefore these mountains are called Himalayas.
Among the Hindus and others of these countries there are people who meet together secretly. They believe that they are pure children of Finda, and that Finda was born in the Himalayan mountains, whence she went with her children to the lowlands. Some of them believe that she, with her children, floated down upon the foam of the Ganges, and that is the reason why the river is called the Sacred Ganges. But the priests, who came from another country, traced out these people, and had them burnt, so that they do not dare to declare openly their creed.
In this country all the priests are fat and rich. In their churches there are all kinds of monstrous images, many of them of gold. To the west of the Punjab are the Yren, or morose, the Gedrosten, or runaways, and the Urgetten, or forgotten. These names are given by the priests out of spite, because they fled from their customs and religion.
On their arrival our forefathers likewise established themselves to the east of the Punjab, but on account of the priests they likewise went to the west. In that way we learned to know the Yren and other people. The Yren are not savages, but good people, who neither pray to nor tolerate images; neither will they suffer priests or churches; but as we adhere to the light of Fasta, so they everywhere maintain fire in their houses.
Coming still further westward, we arrive at the Gedrosten. Regarding the Gedrosten: They have been mixed with other people, and speak a variety of languages. These people are really savage murderers, who always wander about the country on horseback hunting and robbing, and hire themselves as soldiers to the surrounding princes, at whose command they destroy whatever they can reach.
The country between the Punjab and the Ganges is as flat as Friesland near the sea, and consists of forests and fields, fertile in every part, but this does not prevent the people from dying by thousands of hunger. The famines, however, must not be attributed to Wr-Alda or Irtha, but to the princes and priests. The Hindus are timid and submissive before their princes, like hinds before wolves. Therefore the Yren and others have called them Hindus, which means hinds. But their timidity is frightfully abused.
If strangers come to purchase corn, everything is turned into money, and this is not prevented by the priests, because they, being more crafty and rapacious than all the princes put together, know very well that all the money will come into their pockets. Besides what the people suffer from their princes, they suffer a great deal from poisonous and wild beasts. There are great elephants that sometimes go about in whole herds and trample down corn-fields and whole villages. There are great black and white cats which are called tigers. They are as large as calves, and they devour both men and beasts.
Besides other creeping animals there are snakes from the size of a worm to the size of a tree. The largest can swallow a cow, but the smallest are the most deadly. They conceal themselves among the fruits and flowers, and surprise the people who come to gather them. Any one who is bitten by them is sure to die, as Irtha has given no antidote to their poison, because the people have so given themselves up to idolatry. There are, besides, all sorts of lizards, tortoises and crocodiles.
All these reptiles, like the snakes, vary from the size of a worm to the trunk of a tree. According to their size and fierceness, they have names which I cannot recollect, but the largest are called alligators, because they eat as greedily the putrid cattle that float down the stream as they do the living animals that they seize.
On the west of the Punjab where we come from, and where I was born, the same fruits and crops grow as on the east side. Formerly there existed also the same crawling animals, but our forefathers burnt all the underwood, and so diligently hunted all the wild animals, that there are scarcely any left. To the extreme west of the Punjab there is found rich clay land as well as barren heaths, which seem endless, occasionally varied lovely spots on which the eye rests enchanted.
Among the fruits there are many that I have not found here. Among the various kinds of corn some is as yellow as gold. There are also golden apples, of which some are as sweet as honey, and others as sour as vinegar. In our country there are nuts as large as a child’s head. They contain cheese and milk. When they are old oil is made from them. Of the husks ropes are made, and of the shells cups and other household utensils are made. I have found in the woods here bramble and holly berries. In my country we have trees bearing berries, as large as your limetrees, the berries of which are much sweeter and three times as large as your gooseberries.
When the days are at the longest, and the sun is in the zenith, a man’s body has no shadow. If you sail very far to the south and look to the east at midday, the sun shines on your left side as it does in other countries on the right side. With this I will finish. It will be easy for you, by means of what I have written, to distinguish between false accounts and true descriptions.
Your Liudgert.
The above section was written in the fourth century BC. It attests to a southern expedition to Ceylon by the Geertmen that was done at the bidding of Alexander the Great. The reader will recognize the description of oranges, lemons, coconuts and mango trees.
