History of Kumaon has many symbols of Mahabharata and other spritual links. The places in Kumaon division has many stories its seft according to Hindu mythology. In Kumaon history The Assyrians of Babylon who had been riding high, meet with their nemesis at the hands of Cyrus the Great of Persia, in 538 BC. A new people, further East, the Persians, rose under king Cyrus, who had united Medes under one Crown and Sceptre. Cyrus, according to antiquarians, is Kuru and Medas, the Medas of the Mahabharata. In Babylon the era of the Semetic race, or Asuras, ended. Deported from Babylonia by the Parthians, Medes and Persians, they turned their feet towrds Inda by land and sea. These Assyrians wer ethe same people, or race, mentioned in Hindu mythology as the Asuras. The Assyrian ruler, Asur – Ban – Pal (768 – 726 BC) was Asur – Ban, father of Usha, who captivated Pradyuman, grandson of Shri Krishna, relates the “Harivansh Purana.
Kali Kumaon and Kummuh the immigrant Asuras, according to Shatpath Brahmin of the Yajurveda, founded many small kingdoms throughout northern India and as far east as Magadh in the first milennium BC. The names of their temples, God Bel or Bal at Ramak, Balar, Bahditya and Asur (Sun), Baraditya, Bhaumaditya, the names of river Lohawati (river of blood), in and around Kali Kumaon, proclaim the fact that Kummuh was inhabited by Assyrian immigrants. Their ancient capital Ninevah, which has been excavated, had been called Shantipur in the “Harivansh Purana” and the “city of blood”, in the old Testament, is Nahum. The names around Kali Kumaon can be found in the ancient geography of Assyria : Sor (Pithoragarh), Sria and Elam. Sor was to the north of Ninevah.
The valley of Champawat was given the name 'Kummuh', after the ancestral homeland of the Kassite Assyrians. In 700 BC, there was also a hilly tract in the north-eastern corner of the Mediterranean Sea, near the source of the Euphrates river, called Kummuh. To the east Assyria was the very ancient country of Elam-still the name of a region to the east of Kali Kumaon, in Nepal. The Kumaon language has many words of the East Semetic origin, even having the same meaning as those on the tablets unearthed form the excavations of the sites that were a part of the ancient Assyrian Empire.
Persian Pursue Success the Persians pursued their advantage by going east and the valley of the Indus, in what was the Punjab of those days, had in the 5th century BC, passed under the authority of the Persian Empire. Organised as a satrapy or province, it was named by the Emperor “India”. In the foot-hills of the Himalayas, where the Khasas and Assyrians had settled down, the future Budha was born in 566 BC to the chief of the Sakya clan, Suddhodana.
Buddha's Birth in Grove of “Sal”
Gautam Buddha, whose message of self-abnegation and universal love still electrifies the world, was born Prince Siddhartha. His father had married two sisters of the Kliyan tribes, local aborigines, and neighbours of the Sakyas. The Kolyans, in a primitive stage of tribal existence, had as a tribal totem, the Kol Tree (Zisyphus jujuba) with some following the personal rites of the bull totem, which led them often to be counted among the Nagas.
Defeat of Persian Empire – India Meets Europe
In 330 BC, the legendary Greek conqueror Alexander the Great, at the age of 33, conquered Darius, Emperor of Persia; the empire was at his feet and so was the Indian satrap of the Persian Kings. This was the first encounter between Europe and India. Alexander's soldiers were homesick, however, so after the battle with king Puru or Porus, as named by Alexander, he turned back without going into the rest of the country. Taking advantage of the prevailing confusion in the country, Chandragupta, a discontented young scion of the Nanda Dynasty, then ruling in Magadh, raised an national army to drive out the Greek garrisons that remained, and with it marched to the capital, magdh, in the Gangetic valley, and proclaimed himself king, founding the Maurya Dynasty in the 323 BC.
Defeating Selecus Nikator, Alexander's viceroy, he annexed the territory now know as Afghanistan.
Outside Pressures Develop
With the decay of the Mauryan power and the removal of a central authority, outside pressures began to mount on the frontiers of India. Ashoka's faith as expressed in stone, knew no bounds. He erected over 84,000 stupas and polished-stone pillars, lustrous to this day. The Mauryas were followed by the Sungas, who kept up the tradition and built strong railings at Sanchi.
The Sunga Empire of North India, too fell apart and Greek and Parthian rulers moved in taking over for 400 years, (2nd century BC 2nd AD). They followed, or adopted Buddhism, but remained nationally conscious. Hellenism met Buddhism, giving birth to Greco-Buddhist art, known as the Gandhara school. Buddha became a magnificent easternised Apollo, complete with toga. Appolo is the most beautiful of Greek Gods the Mighty Kushans.
The Goddess Nanda
A Vedic world for mother, Nanda was the main Goddess of Ur and Naina or nana was the name of the Goddess of the Kassites, deported from Elam by the Assyrians. A clan Nainwal Brahmins claim to be the ancient Thokdars in Pali, sub-division of Almora. They are probably descended form the Kassite priests of Goddess Naini (Nana), the same as ancient Kasar Devi and Jakhmi (Yakshini) Devi of Almora.
Seven kilometers from Almora is the ancinet inscription to Goddess Kasar Devi, Etched on rock, it was inscribed in the 2nd century BC, and the very name leaves no doubt about its Khas origin. Upreti Khola in Almora was, till recently, known as Khasia Tola.
After the great king, Kanishka, the Kushans began to decline and India was again open to invasion from Asia. In the Gangetic valley, the powerful kingdoms were not strong enough to revive the Imperial tradition. The orthodox Hindus had, however re-established themselves and Sanskrit was revived.
The majestic Himalayan ranges, with their broken slopes and forests have always offered shelter to the depressed and oppressed, defeated fleeing population for the invasion prone Gangetic plains. The oncoming hordes of migrating peoples brought with them their different kinds of cultural, racial, linguistic, ethnic and religious groupings resulitng in admixtures of varying proportions in different valleys.