A brief summary about the origins of the Roma, after an abstract of Sandor Avraham

Myths and Facts about the Roma People

In the 11th century, the city of Kannauj was ruled by the Pratihara dynasty, who were not Indo-Aryans but Gujjar, namely, Khazars. According to linguistic rules, the Indo-Aryan terms "Gujjar" and "Gujrati" are derived from the original name "Khazar" through the standard rules of phonetic change: Indo-Aryan languages, lacking the "kh" and the "z" phonemes, transcribe them respectively as "g" and "j". Consequently, if Roma were the inhabitants of Kannauj, they were not Indo-Aryans but closely related to the present-day Hungarians, Bulgarians, a small part of the Ashkenazi Jews, Bashkir, Chuvash and some other peoples of the Caucasus and the Volga Basin... The designation "Hungarians" by which they are commonly known in most western countries would not be so inaccurate after all - more exact than "Indian", anyway.
Roma have not  adapted the Indian religions nor stayed in India until the eleventh century A.D. as most scholars failed to prove anyway, and also any they would have certainly practised the most widespread religion in that area, or anyway they would have absorbed many cultural elements of brahmanism, especially if being a brahmin from Kannauj is a so prestigious pedigree. Yet, there is not the slightest trace of brahmanist tradition in Romany spirituality and culture; on the contrary, there is nothing farthest from "Romaimós" (Gypsyhood) than hinduism, jainism, sikhism or any other Indian-originated "-ism".

  Roma were in Iran long before the rise of Islam, when the fire-worship was still the dominant religion in those lands. Roma were in Iran before reaching India, and their culture was already fully defined when they arrived there. There is one people that had exactly the same characteristics: the Israelites of the Kingdom of Samaria exiled in Media, that kept their Mosaic heritage but adopted some practices of the Magi, and only one thing they did not keep: their original language (as also Southern Jews did not; Hebrew has not been spoken by Jews until the State of Israel was founded again in 1948 c.e.). Indian Jews speak Indian languages, yet, they are Jews, not Indo-Europeans.

The Northern Israelites - after their separation from Judah, they lost the Levites and therefore, no special Tribe was appointed for priesthood. There were notables, artists, craftsmen, warriors and every kind of social status among Israelites, but no priests. What is also interesting, Israelite notables were very appreciated in the heathen kings' courts, and as they had a particular prophetic gift, many Israelites became Magi in Persia.

Many exiled peoples kept the different languages they adopted in exile for long time instead of their original one, for example, Mizrachi Jews still speak Assyrian Aramaic; Sephardi Jews speak Ladino, a medieval Spanish that they keep after six centuries of having been expelled from Spain; Ashekenazi Jews speak Yiddisch, and Roma speak Romanes, the language they adopted in exile.

Sanskrit-related tongues were spoken in a vast area of the Middle East, including Kanaan: the biblical Horites (Hurrites) dwelled in Negev, Yevusites and Hivvites, two Hurrian tribes, in the area of Judah and Galilea. Northern Israelites were initially relocated by Assyrians in "Hala, Havur, Guzana and the cities of the Medes" (2Kings 17:6) - that is exactly the land of Hurrites. After the fall of Nineveh under Babylon, most Hurrians, with part of the exiled Israelites, emigrated eastwards and founded Khwarezm, from where they furtherly colonized the Indus Valley and the upper Ganges region. It is interesting that some particular words in Romany language are ancient Hebrew or Aramaic, words that can have never been acquired in a later period on their way through the Middle East to Europe, but only in a very early stage of their history, before their arrival in India. A very important one and never considered by the "Indian-origin-theory" scholars is Roma's self-ethnonym: "Rom". There is no mention in any Sanskrit document of any Rom people. The word itself meaning "man", has only one reference: ancient Egyptian, rom=man. According to the Bible, Northern Israelites had some dialectal differences from Judahites, and were more attached to the Egyptian culture as well as to the Kanaanite environment. God ended through the commandments that He entrusted to Moses the Eyptian calf-worship, and the Israelite religion was entirely freed from its Egyptian slavery.

Roma's belief shows the following characteristics:
•Strict monotheism, without the slightest trace of any alleged past polytheistic or pantheistic religion.
•The very personal character of God, Who is accessible and with Whom it is possible to have an argument (Hebrew conception) - not unapproachable like Allah and not even relatively accessible like in the Christian faith, that usually needs a Mediator for a personal contact with Him.
•The existence of a spiritual world, consisting in pure and impure spirits (Hebrew conception) representing good and evil who fight each other - this is also originally Hebrew, but with a marked Zoroastric influence that is typical result of the Assyrian/Babylonian/Persian exile and developed in the same way as Kabbalistic Judaism, showing a contemporaneous evolution of Roma spirituality and Mystic Judaism, within the same environment.
•The belief in death as a definitive passage to the spiritual world (Hebrew). Not the slightest trace of any idea of reincarnation.
•The dead person is impure during his/her journey to the realm of the souls (Hebrew concept), and all the items connected with his/her death are impure, as well as his/her relatives during the period of mourning (Hebrew concept). Further details under the next topic, "marimé".
•Roma's destiny after death is Paradise, while Gadje are redeemed and deserve Paradise only if they have been good towards Roma - identical to the Jewish concept of "righteous among the Goyim".

There are founded reasons to presume that Roma were Christians since the first century c.e., that is, before they arrived in India or during the first period of their sojourn there, and that is why they did not adopt any hinduist element in their religious conception. It appears that Roma were very well aware of what Christianity consisted in when they entered Europe, even though they had no possibility of having ever read the Bible. There is something mysterious in Romany spirituality that in the last decades led them to a genuine approach to the Evangelical movements (the form of Christianity closer to Judaism, without saints and image-worship) and lately a further step to Messianic Judaism. There is no other people in the world having experimented such a massive number of conversions in such a short time. The interesting fact is that this phenomenon is not the result of missionary work but of spontaneous, autonomous will (indeed, Gadje would have hardly dared to evangelize "Gypsies", devoted to occult arts and witchcraft, according to their prejudiced views). Against all odds, Roma from different countries in roughly the same time, without connection to each other, experimented conversions and began to read the Bible. Now the missionary work among Roma and Sinti is carried on by themselves. This may be explained by understanding that there is an atavic legacy that is unique feature of Romany spirituality. Most Roma are now abandoning the ancestral fire-worship elements and the practices forbidden by Torah, like pomana, divination and other things related to it.
The biblical Magi were the first, who worshipped and recognised the child Jesus of Nazareth; evidently, they were not  Persian fire-worshippers, but people that followed the signs in the promise of the Messiah for Israel, therefore, Israelites of the Northern Kingdom that at that time were fully immersed in the Zoroastrian cult, but waiting for the redemption of their people. Historic accounts report that in the first century A.D.I.C., massive conversions took place in Assyria, where the disciples went to rescue the "lost sheep" of the House of Israel, as many were still in that region. Some of the disciples reached India in search of them. A curious fact is that the recently discovered Israelites of India were almost all Christian, not Hindu, as there is a complete absence of any Hindu elements in the Roma faith.

Cill Naofa Ros/Roma Abbey of the Holy Rose/Kangeri Develesko Roazius

The key to God's eternal home is through Jesus Christ as the eternal cornerstone of QUSHTA, the truth alone, under God's blue dome.
In the Name of the Father, the Son and of the Holy Spirit, in the Name of the Holy Trinity may you live and speak the truth and dwell in its heavenly peace also on earth, wherever you are, at your kitchen hearth.

Kangeri o Develeskero Ceadda/Cill Naomh Ceadda/ Roma Abbey of St Chad/
The key to God's eternal home is through Jesus Christ as the eternal cornerstone of QUSHTA, the truth alone, under God's blue dome.
In the Name of the Father, the Son and of the Holy Spirit, in the Name of the Holy Trinity may you live and speak the truth and dwell in its heavenly peace also on earth, wherever you are, at your kitchen hearth. AKATHISTOS, AKATHISTOS, AKATHISTOS, for IESOUS CHRISTOS! OPRE! GELEM! GELEM!