There are several studies and papers on the issue replete with hypotheses and conjectures. It is extremely difficult to separate facts from fiction. Indian history is baffling as much of our hoary past is neither well documented nor backed by reliable archaeological and other evidence.

Dr. Pankaj Jain in an article in The Huffington Post (20 Aug.2011) has underlined: “Since the Vedas remain an unravelled mystery even today due to the archaic Sanskrit in which they were composed, much of the ancient social history is derived from the extrapolation from the later history of Indian society”.  

He also added: “The Varna system illustrates the spirit of comprehensive synthesis, characteristic of the ancient Indian mind with its faith in the collaboration of races and the cooperation of cultures. Paradoxical as it may seem, the system of Varna was the outcome of tolerance and trust”.

But which “ancient Indian mind”? Was there an India then? Not only the Vedic era; there are a whole lot of mysteries wrapped in enigma about the pre-Vedic era in this sub-continent. How old is our civilization? From which era can it be counted? The Indus Valley Civilization is only one of its facets. Since the origin and development of Vedic civilization has not been fully established, many hypotheses abound.

Were the Vedic people the original inhabitants of this land or did they come from somewhere else? Why the inscriptions on the Harappan seals have still not been deciphered if the Vedic people lived there in the yore? There are some claims that the inscriptions were a precursor of Sanskrit while the bull on some seals supports the claim of Dravidian culture of Jallikattu. The theory of Aryan invasion is now largely discounted. What is more prevalent is that this area was invaded and conquered by nomadic light-skinned Indo-European tribes from Central Asia around 1500-100 BC who overthrew an earlier and more advanced civilization.

These original people have not yet been clearly identified, most likely they were Dravidian. There is yet another view that they were local tribals whose descendants can be found among the people in eastern parts of the country. The Vedic culture seems to be an amalgam of several cultures. Newer archaeological evidence unearthed recently also tends to support the first hypothesis. These people were agrarian, settled along the banks of Saraswati River and due to the drying up of the river, moved to the Southern part of India.

The moot question is neither who the original inhabitants were nor what forms of Vedic social order developed in India. It is also not material here as to wherefrom that culture came. The query in this article is related specifically to the line of reasoning that Jews are Brahmins and they originally inhabited the banks of the Saraswati River and that the Brahmins in India are actually Jews.

The dominant view the world over is that Jews originated as a national and religious group in the Middle East during the second millennium BCE.  But there are views that hold that the Jews are linked to India. Gene D. Matlock points out that Jewish scholar Flavius Josephus in his History of Jews, pointed out that Aristotle had declared: “These Jews are derived from the Indian Philosophers; they are named the Indian Calani.”

Some others also said the same citing, that Megasthenes who came to India about 300 years before Christ had reported that the Jews “were an Indian tribe or sect called Kalani” (Anacalypsis by Godfrey Higgins).

In India, too, there are some views that Jews and Brahmins are interlinked. Kajan Lakhan, a researcher, believes that there is a connection specifically between Jews and Saraswat Brahmins. In support of the premise, he cites the common link between the Jews and the Brahmins underlined in the research study of Prof. Madan Mohan Shukla, published in the Vishveshvaranand Indological Journal in 1976. Prof. Shukla said that the “lost tribe” travelled around three thousand miles to reach India taking several centuries during which “Abraham” – the progenitor of the Jews and the father of Judaism -- mutated into “Brahma” and “Sarai” to “Saraswati”.

Shukla pointed out: We all know that the Hindu God “Brahma” is married to “Saraswati”. The birth of Saraswati is attributed to Brahma going into meditation and splitting into male and female forms. Brahma married his other half Saraswati. Abraham, it may be noted, had also married his half-sister Sarai. A connection is also attempted to be established between the Assyrians who captured and enslaved the “lost tribes” and with the “Asuras” in Vedic scripts as well.

It is further pointed out in his study that “we all know that when Moses descended from Mount Sinai with the Ten Commandments, he found the Jews worshipping the golden calf”, alluding to the fact that the Vedic society also worshipped cows.

Another angle was given to this Jews and Brahmins linkage is by Shobha Narayan. In a report in the MINT on June 11, 2016, she pointed to a possible connection between Jews and Chitpavan Brahmins of Konkan coast. She wrote that in 175 BC some Jews fled from the persecution of the Hellenistic empire but their ships crashed, due to a massive storm, on the coast of Konkan. All but seven men and seven women died. These survivors were the ancestors of Chitpavan Brahmins.

Chitpavans themselves reportedly believe that they are the descendants of dead people thrown ashore and revived by Parasuram, the Brahmin warrior, who made them Chitpavan Brahmins to strengthen his Brahmin forces to fight the Khastriyas.

Similarities have been observed in many religious practices among the Jews of Konkan who call themselves Bene Israel (children of Israel) and certain religious practices of Chitpavan Brahmins. Some Bene Israelis have titles like Aptekar while Chitpavan Brahmins have surnames like Apte in Maharashtra.

Historian Kuttikhat Purushothama Chon has a different view. In his book Remedy the Frauds in Hinduism he backs the Aryan invasion theory. He says that Abraham, the founder of Jews, was driven out of India and affirms that the Aryans, unable to defeat the Asuras (the mercantile caste that once ruled in the Indus Valley or Harappans) spent so many years fighting covertly against the Asuras, destroying their huge system of irrigation lakes causing destructive flooding, that Abraham and his kindred just gave up and marched to West Asia. That makes Abraham belonging to Asuras.

Therefore, the Asuras, besides being forced to move out of Northern India by floods, were also attacked by the Aryans, if they were the invaders. The Aryans forced Indian merchants, artisans, and educated classes to flee to West Asia, as per Chon. But then where are signs of such wanton destruction, as Chon claims?

There is yet another view that there have been large scale exodus of refugees from India at different times. These are not mentioned in history but these groups are described as Kassites, Hittitites, Syrian, and Assyrians etc. This view maintains that we have been wrongly taught to regard them as ethnicities indigenous to West Asia or to call them Indo-Europeans.

“The people of India came to realize their social identity in terms of Varna and Jati (societal functions or caste); not in terms of races and tribes” (Foundations of Indian Culture, p.8).

There are many Jews in different parts of India besdies Konkan. There are the Malabar Jews in Cochin as well as Baghdadi Jews in West Bengal and Gujarat, Chennai Jews in Tamilnadu, Goanese Jews and Karachi Jews (who fled to Maharashtra after the partition), besides Jews in some north-eastern parts of India in Mizo and Kuki inhabited areas. Some Jews are also settled in and around Delhi.

Many of these Jews arrived in India much later with King Solomon’s merchants and also with other Jewish traders. Most of these settled Jews have become Indians and have had intermarriages with non-Jews.

How far the assertions about the Jews and Brahmins belonging to the same category are reliable is a major question. There does not seem to be any firm evidence to support such assertions. What are the established facts?

Detailed studies have shown that Israelis were divided into 12 tribes and Jews are an offshoot of the Israelis. Ten of these tribes were lost after they were persecuted and driven out. Research has also found that Jews share a genetic bond with Cypriot and Druze people. The result of these researches has been published in British Journal NATURE. The report says that the Jew community originated in the Near East. In most Jewish populations, it has been found in DNA studies that the male line of Jews ancestors is mainly Middle Eastern but the female line had many mixed lines.

The genealogy of Jews in India is distinctly different. The Bene Israel and Cochin Jews of India, Beta Israel of Ethiopia, and a portion of the Lemba people of Southern Africa, more closely resemble the local populations of their native countries, not the host countries.

Similarities of some words in Hebrew and Sanskrit cited by a few researchers do not necessarily indicate a common origin of Jews and Brahmins. Similar words can be found in many languages. For example, the Sanskrit word “Agni” sounds almost similar in Russian as Ogen, in Lithuanian Ugnis, in Macedonian Ugan, in Polish Ogień, in Azerbaijani Yangin and so on.

It is wellknown that there is a great deal of similarities between old Latin and Sanskrit. That is to be expected as most modern languages have grown from Latin and Sanskrit. The similarities between Jews and Brahmins like worship of cows, three times prayers, similarities of some words in Hebrew and Sanskrit in Shukla’s study can also not be considered as particularly strong evidence.

Further, on the issue of Jews and Brahmin linkage, comparison has been made with Noah’s Ark and a huge boat made by Manu that saved the humans and other living beings from a great flood. It has been asserted they were the same persons. But Noah belonged to the Mesopotamia region of ancient Egypt while Manu belonged to the Indian subcontinent.

Also if Manu in his boat carried the Vedas, Manu’s family and seven sages to safety, then he was surely much older than Noah as Vedas date back over 5000 BC, while modern Biblical creationists conclude that Noah's flood occurred exactly 1,656 years after the Creation, which would pinpoint the date of the flood occurring in 2348 BC.

The story of Noah and Manu saving people from the deluge is not unique. There is a similar story of a great flood during the Sumerian civilisation where King Gilgamesh saved his people from a massive flood. That epic was written c.2150-1400 BC. There is even an Aztec folklore that speaks of a great flood and how a couple hid in the hollow of a vast tree with two ears of corn while the great flood and storm drowned the wicked of the land. There are other stories of great floods and geological evidence thereof in different parts of the world at different times.

There is another big question mark. If the repression of Hellenistic empire forced the Jews to migrate, and some of them came to India, that period was around 175 BC. Thus, it is a much later development than the Indus Valley Civilisation which is about 8000 years old. Second, this sort of assumption demolishes all the accepted views on Vedas, Upanishads, Puranas and also the social classifications made in Vedic culture.

The two assumptions, one that a branch of Saraswati River bank inhabitants migrated to Israel who are now Jews and the other that the shipwreck of the “lost tribes” gave birth to Chitpavan Brahmins in Konkan also clearly contradict each other.

Neither history, nor geography nor science supports such assertions. The Brahmins by all counts are indigenous to this country. They are not a separate people implanted on Vedic civilisation nor are they a part of the Jewish community. They have emerged out of the Vedic society.