ITALY, AND INDIA. 259 



the city of NaifJiada, or Nyfa, called by the Grecian 

 geographers Dionyfopolis, and univerfally celebrated in 

 the Sanjcrit poems ; though the birth-place of Rama is 

 fup po fed to have been Ayddhyd, or Audh. That ancient 

 city extended, if we believe the Bra/mans, over a line 

 often Yojans, or about forty miles; and the prefent 

 city of Lac'hnau, pronounced Lucnow* was only a lodge 

 for one of its gates, called Lac/hmanadwdra, or the gate 

 of Lac/Jiman, a brother of Rama. M. Sonnerat fuppofes 

 Ayddhyd to have been Siam ; a moft erroneous and un- 

 founded fuppofition ; which would have been of little 

 confequence, if he had not grounded an argument on it, 

 that Rama was the fame perfon with Buddha, who mult 

 have appeared many centuries after the conqueft of 

 Lancd. 



The fecond great divinity, Chri/Iina, paffed a life, ac- 

 cording to the Indians, of a moft extraordinary and 

 incomprehenfible nature. He was the fon of Devaciby 

 Vafudeva ; but his birth was concealed through fear of 

 the tyrant Can fa, to whom it had been predicted, that 

 a child born at that time, in that family, would deftroy 

 him : he was foft>-red, therefore, in Mat'hurd by an 

 honeft herdfman, furnamed Ananda, or Happy ; and his 

 amiable wife Yafddd, who, like another Pales, was con- 

 ftantly occupied in her paftures and her dairy. In their 

 family were a multitude of young Gdpas, or Cowherds, 

 and beautiful Gdpis, or milkmaids, who were his play- 

 fellows during his infancy; and, in his early youth, he 

 fele6ted nine damfels as his favourites, with whom he 

 paffed his gay hours in dancing, fporting, and playing 

 on his flute. For the remarkable number of his Gdpis 

 I have no authority but a whimlical picture, where nine 

 girls are grouped in the form of an elephant, on which 

 he fits and pipes; and, unfortunately, the word nava 

 fignifies both nine and new, or young; fo that, in the 

 fallowing ftanza, it may admit of two interpretations: 



tar a- 



