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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)

In the following context it is used as a national term:

• Herodotus wrote about the Dravidians: "The whole of India is traversed by rivers. . . . As for the people of India, those in the south are like the Aethiopians in colour, although they are like the rest in respect to countenance and hair (for on account of the humidity of the air their hair does not curl), whereas those in the north are like the Egyptians." (Herodotus: The Geography of Strabo - Book XV (excerpts)

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, however, took up this connection between Dravidians and Ethiopians in order to claim a direct racial and cultural link between the two people. 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): {{cquote|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)}

This theory is not widely accepted and known by a lot of people. It has been stated that the Dravidians were a separate race of people and have no connection with the Ethopians of Africa or the Egyptians. It and also that Helena Petrovona Blavatsky's theory isn't proven thoroughly by science and could be proven but a minisule amounts of evidence have been submitted.

However, modern genetic studies that show any connection between Dravidian and African can only be attributed to common journey of Homo Sapiens. Even the darkest Dravidian with curly hair shared a common ancestor with Africans around 50,000 to 70,000 years ago just like his light skinned, straight haired compatriot. The male lineages, defined by Y-chromosome Haplogroups are exclusive between Indian and African populations. So there is some connection between the two ethnic groups but it is incorrect to say they belong to the same race family as the Dravidians further have caucasoid skulls and race is based on the basis on skull-structure.

Since the word 'Ethiopian' was applied to any racial group with dark skin, a member of any race is an Ethiopian in the Greek and Roman usage in this context. The term 'Ethopian' can was similarly applied to Egyptians because they tended to have much darker skin compared to the Greeks and Romans.

The appearance of the inhabitants is also not very different in India and Ethiopia: the southern Indians are rather more like Ethiopians as they are black to look on, and their hair is black; only they are not so snub-nosed or woolly-haired as the Ethiopians; the northern Indians are most like the Egyptians physically.

See also

• Dravidian people

References

1. Cite error: The named reference hg was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
2. Ancient Greco-Roman descriptions of Egyptians

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