134 
Jones on the Gods of Italy, Greece, and India), their 
religious belief, and that in the metempsychosis, are all 
points of coincidence, which we cannot believe to be acci- 
dental. 
That it was not so, we know from the relations of ancient 
historians; Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus, as quoted by 
Heeren, state that the Pharaohs were conquerors, as well 
in Ethiopia as in Bactria and India. Xenophon, in the 
Cyropasdia, mentions alliances between the people and 
states, from the banks of the Nile to those of the Oxus, 
Indus, and Ganges. The paintings on the monuments of 
Thebes are considered to refer to wars in Assyria, Bactria, 
and India : as, Indians, and also Asiatic Ethiopians, or at 
least some southern Asiatic nation, are depicted on the palace 
of Osymandyas and at Medinet-Abou. The great river or 
sea, which is always introduced, is supposed to be the 
Euphrates : it may be the Indus, or the gulf of Persia, 
or perhaps some part of the Indian ocean, as Sesostris is 
described as having conquered some Indian islands (v. 
Heeren. vi. p. 235-317). That Indians were sometimes the 
aggressors is apparent from a quotation made by Heeren 
from Syncellus, p. 120. ed Venet. which he translates, 
" iEthiopes, ab Indo fluvio profecti, supra jEgyptum 
sedem sibi eligerunt," stating that as this was during the 
most brilliant period of Thebes, in the reign of Amenophis 
the Memnon of the 18th dynasty, B.C. 1430, they could 
not have given origin to the people, nor to their civi- 
lization. Sir Wm. Jones on the contrary mentions, that 
he is " strongly inclined to believe that Egyptian priests 
have actually come from the Nile to the Ganga and Yamuna 
(Ganges and Jumna), which the Brahmans most assuredly 
would never have left. They might, indeed, have come 
either to be instructed or to instruct ; but it seems more 
probable that they visited the Sarmans of India, as the 
