Freemasonry connection with ancient India?

Mackey holds that Indian philosophies do not coincide with masonic philosophy at any point, maintaining that no origins of the Craft trace their roots to India 1.

Within the Scottish Rite, Albert Pike takes a different view, suggesting that the ancient Mysteries originated in India before passing through Chaldea, Egypt, and Greece 2. Pike characterizes Buddha as an early masonic legislator who established a society of prophets acknowledging a single uncreated God 2. He also points to detailed parallels between ancient Indian cavern initiations—such as those recorded at Elephanta and Salsette—and masonic ritual forms, including three presiding officers situated in the East, West, and South representing a triune deity, along with symbolic light-seeking and circumambulations 2.

W.L. Wilmshurst reads the symbolic journey from East to West as an allegory for the historical migration of Indo-European peoples from the Himalayan region of northern India across Europe to the British Isles and the Americas 3.

Historically, modern structured Freemasonry was established in India during the early 18th century, with the first recorded lodge constituted at Fort William, Calcutta, in 1730, as the Grand Lodge of India records. An article on the Grand Lodge of India website notes that while speculative ideas regarding a Supreme Architect existed throughout ancient history, structured masonic practice traces its heritage to King Solomon's Temple. Connections between the construction of that First Temple and the ancient Indian trade port of Muziris in Kerala are also noted by the United Grand Lodge of England.