The Oera Linda Book, from a Manuscript of the Thirteenth Century
History
The Oera Linda Book, from a Manuscript of the Thirteenth Century
Frisian language -- Texts
The whole contents of the book are in all respects new. That is to
say, there is nothing in it that we were acquainted with before. What
we here read of Friso, Adel, and Askar differs entirely from what
is related by our own chroniclers, or rather presents it in quite
another light. For instance, they all relate that Friso came from
India, and that thus the Frisians were of Indian descent; and yet
they add that Friso was a German, and belonged to a Persian race which
Herodotus called Germans (Germanioi). According to the statement in
this book, Friso did come from India, and with the fleet of Nearchus;
but he is not therefore an Indian. He is of Frisian origin, of Frya's
people. He belongs, in fact, to a Frisian colony which after the death
of Nijhellênia, fifteen and a half centuries before Christ, under the
guidance of a priestess Geert, settled in the Punjab, and took the
name of Geertmen. The Geertmen were known by only one of the Greek
writers, Strabo, who mentions them as Germanes, differing totally
and entirely from the Brachmanes in manners, language, and religion.
The historians of Alexander's expeditions do not speak of Frisians
or Geertmen, though they mention Indoscythians, thereby describing
a people who live in India, but whose origin is in the distant,
unknown North.
In the accounts of Liudgert no names are given of places where the
Frieslanders lived in India. We only know that they first established
themselves to the east of the Punjab, and afterwards moved to the
west of those rivers. It is mentioned, moreover, as a striking
fact, that in the summer the sun at midday was straight above their
heads. They therefore lived within the tropics. We find in Ptolemy
(see the map of Kiepert), exactly 24° N. on the west side of the Indus,
the name Minnagara; and about six degrees east of that, in 22° N.,
another Minnagara. This name is pure Fries, the same as Walhallagara,
Folsgara, and comes from Minna, the name of an Eeremoeder, in whose
time the voyages of Teunis and his nephew Inca took place.
The coincidence is too remarkable to be accidental, and not to
prove that Minnagara was the headquarters of the Frisian colony. The
establishment of the colonists in the Punjab in 1551 before Christ,
and their journey thither, we find fully described in Adela's book;
and with the mention of one most remarkable circumstance, namely,
that the Frisian mariners sailed through the strait which in those
times still ran into the Red Sea.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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