■S 2 ^ ; N Egy.pt and THE N I L -e 



Sanc'ha'sura was ravaging -one fide of the continent, Cracacha, kino* 

 ofCrauncha-dw!p, iff id to defolate the ether ; both armies confiflir.p- of 

 favages and cannibals, who, when they met, fought together with brutal 

 ferocity, and thus changed the moft fertile of regions into a barren defer*. 

 In this diftrefs the few .natives, who Survived, raifed their hands and hearts 

 to Bhagava'n, and exclaimed : * Let Kim, who can deliver us from thefe 

 * difafters be our king, 8 ufing the wcrd Ft, which re-echoed through the 

 whole country. At that infbnt arofe a violent ftorm, and the waters of 

 the Call were ftrangely agitated, when there appeared from the waves of the 

 river, a man, afterwards called Tt, at the head of a numerous army, faying 

 abkayam, or there is no fear ; and, on his appearance, the Diityas descended 

 into Pa 'tala, the demon Sanc'ha'su-ra plunged into the .ocean, and the 

 favage legions preferved themfelves by precipitate flight. The king 1% a 

 fubordinate incarnation of MrIra, re-eftablifhed peace and profpejrhy 

 through all Sanchadwipa, -through B-irbara-defa, Nif-a-fihdn, and Arva 

 Jl'hdn, or Arabia j -the -tribes of Cutila-cefas and Hdfyasilas returned to their 

 former habitation, andjuflice prevailed through the whole extent of his 

 dominions : the place, near which he fprang from the middle of the A7/i, 

 is named I'ta, or Vrfl'hdn, and the capital of his empire, Mrira or MrU 

 ra-fl'hdn, Kis defcendants are called Ait, in the derivative form, and their 

 country, Aiteya ; the king himfelf is generally denominated Ait, and was 

 thus erroneoufly named by my Pandit and his friends, till after a long fearch 

 they found the paffage, in which his adventure is recorded. The Greeks^ 

 in whofe language "ae'tos means an Eagle, were very ready, as ufual, to find 

 an etymology for Ait: they admit, however, that the Nile was firft called 

 Aitos, after a dreadful fwelling of the river, which greatly alarmed the 

 Ethiopians (a) .j and this is conformable to what we read in the Saiva-ratnd* 



(0) Diod. Sic. B,_>p 



