1 The Panjab con-
2 quered by foreigners.
3 Osiris teaches
4 Indians the art of
5 ploughing land,
6 Ife is worshipped as
7 a god.
8 Semiramis succeeds
9 to the throne of Assy-
10 rin, 900 Bec.
11 I
12 Her expedition to
13 tdi
14 Sri Satguru J agjit Singh Ji eLibrary
15 52 HISTORY OF THE PANJAB.
16 mentioned, he found the Indians leading a primitive, pastoral life, wandering
17 in the plains and mountains, unacquainted with tillage and unaccustomed
18 to the art of war. ‘The Indians assembled in immense numbers, from all
19 quarters, to defend their country, and with their rude weapons opposed the
20 progress of the invading army. Among the attendants at the court of
21 Dionysius were a number of female devotees, who acted as priestesses.
22 These, under the impulse of inspiration and divine phrensy, made the plains
23 resound with the acclamation, “Io! Bacche, Io! Triumphe.” They, as
24 well as the soldiers of the army, were furnished with lances and spears.
25 The Indians offered but a feeble resistance, and their ranks being soon
26 broken, the plains of the Panjab fell, for the first time, into the possession
27 of a foreign conqueror. The invader pushed his conquests to the mouth of
28 the Ganges and, after a three years’ stay in India, returned to his native
29 land. He is said to have erected pillars to commemorate his victory, and to
30 have left monuments descriptive of his triumphs; but these have not sur-
31 vived the wreck of time. ;
32 I have already said that, when Dionysius entered India, he found the
33 people in a state of ignorance and barbarism. He taught them the art
34 of cultivating the ground andthe worship of the Gods. For the blessings
35 he conferred on the people of India he obtained immortal honour in that
36 country and was worshipped asa god. Cities were founded in his name,
37 and Megasthenes tells us that places were pointed out to him in the country
38 which this benefactor of the human race had visited. Plutarch, in his treatise
39 on Isis and Osiris, informs us that, to commemorate the far-famed expedition
40 of Dionysius to India, those games were established which in Egypt were
41 called Pamylia, in Greece Dionysia and in Rome Bacchanalia. His work
42 establishes beyond dispute that the Egyptian Isis and Osiris are the Isu
43 and Iswdra of the Hindus. His worship has spread extensively and his
44 festivals are celebrated with music and song. .
45 INVASION OF THE PANJAB BY SEMIRAMIS, QUEEN OF
46 ASSYRIA.
47 When the ancient empire of Babylonia was absorbed in that of Assyria,
48 Ninus, the founder of Nineveh, is recorded to have become its first sovereign.
49 On his death, about the ninth century 3B. c., Semiramis, his queen,
50 succeeded to the vast monarchy which his valour had acquired. She was
51 endowed with martial talents as well as great beauty. Impelled by ambi-
52 tion and tempted by the immense riches of India, by the unrivalled beauty of
53 its scenery and the luxurious fertility of its soil, she undertook her celebrated
54 expedition to this country, an expedition which, from the exaggerated
55 nature of the accounts that have been given of it by historians, is regarded
56 as romantic and fabulous. Yet, according to Diodorus, the particulars of
57 this great enterprise were extracted by Ctesias from the archives of
58 Babylon. Moreover, the various forms in which it has been narrated by
59 classical writers, and the great fame which, from a remote antiquity, has
60 attached to it, when put to the test of recent investigations, bear unequivocal
61 testimony to the fact that the expedition was really undertaken, Semiramisis
62 Peroes to be a eS Rama of the Hindu Puranas and is worshipped by the
63 scope as . eck : er favourite dwelling is the sacred soma tree, round
64 aes es the Vevatas exult. She is described as having made her first ap-
65 P ceat Aschalausth4n in Syria. The classical writers of the East repre-
66 sent her as having been fed b ‘ °
67 earth in the an of “ ae oves in a desert and having departed from the
68 ; According to the Purd he d itself
69 oe a 7 es g : uranas, the dove itse
70 ifestation of Sami Ramdé. The dove isan emblem of Assyria in
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