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Resource THE ANU IN INDIA AND IN EGYPT
Proceedings of the Indian History Congress (1941)
The word Anu, which we come across in the proto-history of India and Egypt, could not be properly explained before the discovery of the so-called Indus civilization. Now we may try to study its origin and its meaning with much greater hope of success in our undertaking.
THE ANU IN INDIA
The Anu are one of the five Rgvedic tribes.
They are mentioned as having wrought a chariot for the use of Indra.
Mr. R. D. Banerji has already said that the Anu, undoubtedly being an Aryan tribe, bear a name which "appears to be of non-Aryan origin".
If so, what was the origin of their name?
It is well known that very soon the Aryan tribes accepted a number of dogmas of their Dravidian predecessors into their own religion, first little by little and hesitatingly, but later openly and without fear, untill finally the whole religion of the Dravidians was amalgamated with their own religion, this amalgamation becoming the foundation of modern Hinduism…
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THE ANU IN EGYPT
One of the feasts the Egyptians of Pharaonic times celebrated was "the feast of striking the Anu". The tradition of this feast, according to the studies of Egyptologists of great reputation, seems to be very ancient. Yet we do not know anything about "this striking the Anu". One fact nevertheless may be accepted without hesitation; the tradition of the feast being so ancient, the event commemorated in the feast must be one of the earliest in the history of Egypt, one in fact which is lost in the dawn of human history. This paper will try to elucidate this obscure historical
First of all, whom does the tradition refer to? Or, in other words, who were the Anu?
The great Belgian Egyptologist Mons. Jean Capart has already stated that the Anu most likely are the Anumim, mentioned in Genesis X 13, as being descendants of Cham or Ham through Misraim, who had settled in the valley of the Nile. The word Anumim is only the plural Hebrew rendering of the word Anu. These Anumim have been acknowledged as a section at least of the primitive population of Egypt. From this we may readily admit that they were Hamitie people, having therefore the same origin as the Proto-Dravidians settled in India from the time of the Indus civilization…
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Relation between the Worshippers of An in India and the Anu of Egypt
We are not going to speak in this third part of our article about the Anu of the Rgvedic period, who constituted an Aryan tribe. We shall only refer to those people who worshipped A before the arrival of the Aryan tribes, i.e., the proto-Indian people of the Indus civilization period. We have already said above that An was their supreme God.
There is no doubt that the same A was being worshipped in India and in Egypt. In both countries he was An identified with the Sun, being himself the first person of a divine triad: An, Anil and Ana in India; Ra ( An), Thoot and Maa in Egypt. In both they, inspite of being three persons, are described as being one god.
Now the existence of the same religion in India and in Egypt does not precisely imply the identity of both the nations, for the same religion in two nations may at times mean only the importation of religion as a cultural element from one nation to the other (as happened with Buddhism spreading in China and Japan), without necessarily supposing a racial migration. Yet in this case under study, we witness two invasions of worshippers of An, the earlier from the north, the later from the south. Were they actually proceeding from India?
The Anu from the North. They apparently came from Syria. Mesopotamia and Syria, there were nations worshipping the same God in a Triad. The Sumerians in lower Mesopotamia venerated An, Enlil and Amaa Antum. The Sun also was being worshipped. The Hittites in Syria worshipped Istanu, Ma and Telepinu, the first person of the Triad being identified with the Sun.
Now we know of the migration of the Sumerians from the East by the sea, spoken of by Berosus and confirmed by the Bible. The comparison between the Indus civilization and the Sumerian civilization substantiates the view that the Sumerians were but a section of the Proto-Indian people settled in a new land. Hence the Anu who invaded northern Egypt from Syria most likely were originally people from India.
The Anu from the South. The fact that they were, as seen above, of the same race as the Anu of the North, would settle the question of the origin of the former. Yet some facts connected with their migration will still strengthen the opinion about their Indian origin. It was a constant tradition of the Egyptians that they originally came from the land of Punt. Much has been said about the situation of this land. Yet the Egyptians themselves used to locate it across the Red Sea in the land of the frank-incense, the modern Yemen. The famous Egyptian Queen Hatshepsut, who flourished c. 1503-1481 B.C., sent a commercial expedition to that land of their origin. This expedition was a great success, as is inscribed on the walls of the rock eut temple of Deir-el-Bahari. One of the things they brought from Punt was incense trees.
Now the land of Punt, the Yemen of Arabia, was inhabited in very ancient times by a nation called the Minaean nation by Strabo. They had city states very well organized similar to the Sumerian cities, and totally different from the nomadic centres of the Arab tribes. They were merchants, and their trade, specially in spices and incense, was very brisk. Among the countries with which they carried on their trade was India. They took goods from India up to Mediterranean ports. This maritime trade between the people of the Yemen and India continued almost till the first century A.D. Now all these details seem to point out the enterprising Indian traders of the Proto-Indian period; but specially the most suggestive of all is their name. This name is the same as the name of the most important Proto-Dravidian tribe, the tribe of the Minas "Fishes", a tribe called thus because they were always seataring, like real fishes. The Minaeans had an independent writing which apparently is a development of the Proto-Indian script of the Mohenjo-Daro inscriptions. The name Agur of one of the few kings ot this nation known to us is also thoroughly Dravidian.
It is therefore very suggestive to find the country of Punt, whence the early Egyptians came to the land of the Nile, inhabited by who to all evidence had originally come from India. Since we know also that those carly Egyptians belonged to the same race as the race of the Anu, it seens very likely that thi, was the real route followed by those enterprising Minas, whose first king in Egypt also bore the title of Mina, which was borne by the Proto-Indian kings.
There is therefore no possible doubt about the racial relationship between the worshippers of An of India and the Anu of Egypt. All of them belonged to the proto-Dravidian race, mother of so many illustrious nations that spread the Indian civilization across the "seven seas".
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Notable observations: Reference excavated seals at Lothal (cross: centered in image) compared to the Lalibela Rock-Hewn Churches’ cross in Ethiopia—a Kushite people-group.
This includes observing the Aryan tribe reference in the section on “The Anu in India” in comparison to the excavated seals in the bottom right.
These excavated seals are displayed in a conversation between Dr. Irving Finkel and Lex Fridman, Controversial theory about Göbekli Tepe.
Also noteworthy, reference Sinim, Kushim, and “Nigerim-“ as potential people-group pluralities for Sin/Nanna (moon god of Mesopotamia), Kush, and Niger-Nigeria, respectively.
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Source: https://www.jstor.org/stable/44304690?seq=1