B A C 



175 



B A C 



Bacchus, their laws, out of respect to Dionysus." Arrian. 

 1 / ' Exp. Alex. 1. v. p. 196. 



But Sir William Jones, in his dissertation on the 

 gods of Greece, Italy, and India, has shevyn, beyond 

 the possibility of a doubt, that the worship of Bac- 

 chus was not only common in India, in the time of 

 Alexander, but actually is so at the present day ; 

 and has demonstrated, that the Greeks must either 

 have derived it from that country, or at least from 

 some common source. As his observations on this 

 subject are both curious and interesting, we shall 

 give them in his own words : 



" Two incarnate deities of the first rank, Rama 

 and Crishna, must now be introduced. The first of 

 them, I believe, was the Dionysus, or Bacchus, of 

 the Greeks, whom they named Bromius, without 

 knowing why ; and Bugenes, when they represented 

 him horned ; as well as Lijaios, and Eleutherios, the 

 Deliverer; and Triambos, or Dithyrambos, the Trium- 

 phant. Most of these titles were adopted by the Ro- 

 mans, by whom he was called Bruma, Tauriformis, 

 Liber, Triumph us : and both nations had records, or 

 traditionary accounts, of his giving laws to men, and 

 deciding their contests ; of his improving navigation 

 and commerce ; and, what may appear yet more ob- 

 servable, of his conquering India, and other countries, 

 with an army of satyrs, commanded by no less a 

 personage than Pan. It were superfluous, in a mere 

 essay, to run any length in the parallel between this 

 European god and the sovereign of Ayodhya, whom 

 the Hindoos believe to have been an appearance on 

 earth of the Preserving Power ; to have been a con- 

 queror of the highest renown, and to have command- 

 ed in chief a numerous and intrepid race of those 

 large monkeys which our naturalists have denomina- 

 ted Indian satyrs. His general, the prince of sa- 

 tyrs, was named Hanumat : and with workmen of 

 such agility, he soon raised a bridge of' rocks over 

 the sea, part of which, say the Hindoos, yet remains ; 

 and it is probably the series of rocks to which the 

 Mussulmans and Portuguese have given the foolish 

 name of Adam's (it should be called Rama's) Bridge. 

 Might not this army of satyrs have been only a race 

 of mountaineers, whom Rama, if such a monarch ever 

 existed, had civilized ? However that may be, the 

 large breed of Indian apes is at this moment held in 

 high veneration by the Hindoos, and fed with devo- 

 tion by the Bramins, who seem, in two or three 

 places on the banks of the Ganges, to have a regular 

 endowment for the support of them : they live in 

 tribes of 300 or 400 ; they are wonderfully gentle, 

 (I speak as an eye witness,) and appear to have some 

 kind of order and subordination in their little sylvan 

 polity. We must not omit, that the father of Ha- 

 numat was the god of wind, named Pavan, one of 

 the eight genii ; and as Pan improved the pipe, by 

 adding six reeds, so one of the four systems of In- 

 dian music bears the name of Hanumat, as its inven- 

 tor, and is now in general estimation." 



Sir William afterwards observes, " the first poet 

 of the Hindoos was the great Valmic; and his Ra- 

 mayan is an epic poem on the subject of Rama, 

 which, in unity of action, magnificence of imagery, 

 and elegance of style, far surpasses the learned and 

 elaborate work of Nonnus, entitled Dionysiaca : and 



I am confident, that an accurate comparison of the two Bachelor, 

 poems would prove Dionysus and Rama to have been 

 the same person : and I incline to think that he was 

 Rama the son of Cush, who might have established 

 the first regular government in this part of Asia. I 

 had almost forgotten, that Meros is said by the 

 Greeks to have been a mountain of India, on which 

 their Dionysu6 was born, and that Meru is also a 

 mountain near the city of Naishada, or Nysa, called 

 by the Grecian geographers Dionysopolis, and uni- 

 versally celebrated in the Sanscrit poems." 



These extracts throw great light on Grecian my- 

 thology. They prove clearly that the Greeks de- 

 rived the history of their Dionysus from India : they 

 seem to account for the veneration paid to fauns and 

 satyrs ; and the mountain Meru, near Nysa, seems to 

 have given rise to the ridiculous story of Bacchus 

 being sewed into the thigh, (firing, meros) of Jupi- 

 ter. The difficulty, however, is only removed one 

 step farther back ; for the Indian fables respecting 

 Rama are still involved in impenetrable darknes6v 

 Perhaps, however, some farther light may yet be 

 thrown on this subject from the stores of oriental li- 

 terature. See Bryant's Mythology/, vol. iv. 250, 

 273; v. 94; vi. 141. Asiatic Researches, vol. i. (g) 

 BACHELOR, or Batchelor, (in the Latin of 

 the middle age, Baccalaureus,) a term which, in its 

 various applications, seems to have been appropriated 

 to those who were in the first stage of advancement 

 towards some particular honour. 



In the ages of chivalry and of feudal government, 

 those knights were styled bachelors, whose possessions 

 were too small to entitle them to have their own 

 banner displayed in battle; or who, being yet under 

 age, were obliged to march under another's standard, 

 though rich and powerful enough themselves to rank 

 in the order of bannerets. Camden describes bachelors 

 as persons superior to esquires or gentlemen, but in- 

 ferior in age and standing to knights. Others main- 

 tain, that this was the common appellation of persons 

 in all degrees between gentlemen and barons; an 

 opinion which seems to be supported by a clause in 

 an ancient statute-book, in which it is enacted, that 

 " when the admiral rideth to assemble a shippe of 

 war, or other, for the business and affairs of the 

 realm, if he be a bachelor he shall take for his day- 

 wages four shillings sterling ; if he be an earl or 

 baron, he shall take wages after his estate and de- 

 gree." 



The title of bachelor was likewise given to the 

 young cavalier, who had received the military girdle, 

 in consequence of finishing his first campaign ; and 

 tc him who, in his first tournament, was so fortunate 

 as to triumph over his antagonist, (fi) 



BACHELORS, Knights, in Heraldry. See 

 Knights Bachelors. 



BACHELOR, in colleges, is the title by which 

 those are distinguished who have obtained the bacca 

 laureate, the first literary degree. Before the degree 

 of bachelor of arts can be obtained at Oxford, it is 

 necessary to have studied there four years; three 

 years more to become master of arts ; and seven more 

 to commence bachelor of divinity. At Cambridge, 

 the student must have been admitted near four years 

 before he can take the degree of bachelor of arts ; 



