RELATING TO THE INDIANS. 611 



town of Nyktea may have a similar origin, being borrowed from the city 

 Nysa, the birth-place of the Indian Bacchus, and the tvibe Nysoei, whom the 

 fabulous writers amongst the Greeks considered to be a colony settled in 

 India by Bacchus on his invasion of that country. It is important to 

 remark, however, that the reading of Nonnus is Nikcea, not only after the 

 nymph, but after vnaj victory, and we might fancy this a translation of 

 some Jay a pura in the west of India ; but to admit this reading, would be 

 fatal to speculations founded on the earlier terms Nusa or Nysa, NWa. It 

 is not easy to trace, in original authors, any Sanscrit terms equivalent for 

 Nysa or Nyscei in the sense in which they are used by the Greeks. The 

 identity of Naishada and Nysa intimated by Sir William Jones, cannot be 

 readily recognised, especially as the former was in the South and the latter 

 in the North of India. Neither of them was the birth-place of Rama, nor 

 entitled to the designation Dionysiopolis, even if Rama bore such an appel- 

 lation as Dionysos; but none of his names approach to such a denomination. 

 Wilfoud's Deva-Nahusha is not a whit more admissible, as although the 

 latter be the name of a king, it is never compounded with Deva — nor has 

 the history of Nahusha any thing in common with that of Bacchus. 

 How far, indeed, the ancient legend of the Deity's invasion of India, 

 or of his origin, and that of his emblems, his worship, and the use 

 of wine, from thence, are traceable in Sanscrit writers, is yet to be 

 investigated. To all attempts to illustrate the subject by reference to 

 Siva, in his Pauranic or Tantrika character, it is a serious objection 

 that the authorities which depict him in the light of a Bacchanal, are 

 probably of comparatively recent date, and subsequent to the aera of 

 Christianity. The name of Bdgisa I have never been able to meet with, 

 except in Sir Wm. Jones's remarks, and in its etymological purport, 

 ' Lord of Speech,' it has little connexion with either Siva or Bacchus. 



In the beginning of the seventeenth book, Bacchus again enters India, 

 where he is hospitably received by Buonchus, a pastoral Chief, inhabiting 



