OF THE HINDUS. $£3 



called Sulgheda ; its fituation anfwers exactly to the 

 defcription given of it by Alexander s hiftorians. The 

 kings of Sangala arc known in the Perfian hiilory 

 by the name of Schangal, one of them ai'llued Afra- 

 [tab againft the famous Caicqfru; but to return from 

 this digrcfiion to Patali putra. 



The true name of this famous place is, p.diali-pura; 

 which means the town of Patali, a form of Devi wor- 

 shipped there. It was the relidence of an adopted ion 

 of the goddefs Patali, hence called PatalUputra, or the 

 ion of Patali. Patali-putra and Bali-putra are abfo- 

 lutely inadmirTable, as Sanfcrit names of towns and 

 places ; they are uied in thatfenfe, only in the fpoken 

 dialccls ; and this, of itfelf, is a proof, that the poems 

 in queition arc modern productions. Patali-pura, or 

 the town of Patali, was called limply Patali, or cor- 

 ruptly Pattiali, on the invafion of the Muflulmans : 

 it is mentioned under that name in Mr. Dows trans- 

 lation of FenJJita^s hiitory. It is, I believe', the Pa- 

 tali of Pliny* From a pafTage in this author com- 

 pared with others from Ptolemy, Mar nanus, Hera eh 

 and Arrian in his Periplus, we learn that the merchants, 

 who carried on the trade from the Gangetic Gulph, 

 or Bay of Bengal, to Perimula, or Malacca, and to 

 Bengal, took their departure from feme place of 

 rendezvous in the neighbourhood of Point Godavery, 

 near the mouth of the Ganga Godavery. The fhips 

 ufed in this navigation, of a larger conitruclion than 

 common, were called by the Greek and Arabian 

 failors, colandrbphonta, or in the Hinduftani dialect* 

 coilan-di-pota, cqllan boats or Jhips: for pet a in Sanf- 

 crit, ilgnifies a boat or a ihip ; and di or da, in the 

 weftern par tsof India, is either an adjeclive form, or 

 the mark of tlie genitive cafe, pliny has preferved to 

 us the track of the merchants who traded to Bengal 

 from Point Godavery. 



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