134 
M A G 
MAGOPHO'NIA, /. [from the Gr. p#yoc, a wife man, 
and ipom?, flaughter.] The name of a feaft among the an¬ 
cient Periians, held in memory of the expulfion of the Ma- 
gians. Smerdis having ufurped the throne ofPerfia, upon 
the death of Cambyfes, 521 years B. C. feven of the prin¬ 
cipal lords of the courts confpired to drive him out of it. 
Their defign was executed with good fuccefs. Smerdis 
and his brother, another Magian, called Patizithes, were 
killed. Upon which the people alfo rofe, and put all the 
Magi to the fword, infomuch that there would not one 
have efcaped, had not night come upon them. Darius, 
fon of Hyftafpes, was then elected king; and, in memory 
of this maffacre'of the Magi, a feaft was inftituted fays 
Herodotus, called Magophonia. 
MAGO'RA, a town of Walachia: fourteen miles fouth- 
eaft of Rufei. 
MAGO'RA, a feaport of Arabia, in the Red Sea: 150 
mites north-north-weft of Loheia. Lat. 17. 4.0. N. 
MAG'GT-PIE,/. [perhaps a compound of the French 
word magot and pie. ] A magpie : 
Augurs, and underftood relations, have 
By magot-pies, and choughs, and rooks, brought forth. 
The fecret’ll man of blood. Shakefpeare's Macbeth. 
MAG'OTTY CO'VE, a bay on the north coaft of Ja¬ 
maica : one mile weft of Mufketto Cove. 
MAG'PIE,yi [from pie, pica, Lat. and mag, contrafted 
from Margaret, as poll is ufed to a. parrot.] A bird fome- 
times taught to talk. See Corvus pica, vol. v.—Diffi- 
mulation is exprefied by a lady wearing a vizard of two 
faces, in her right hand a magpie, which Spenfer defcribed 
looking through a lattice. Pcacham on Drawing,- 
So have I feen, in black and white, 
A prating thing, a magpie hight, 
Majeftically Italic 
A (lately worthlefs animal, 
That plies the tongue, and wags the tail. 
All flutter, pride, and talk. Swift, 
MAG'PIE-RIV'ER, a river of Canada, which runs into 
the gulf of St. Laurence about fix miles weft from the 
mouth of the river St. John. 
MA'GRA, a barren mountain of Africa, in the road 
from Tripoli to Egypt: 150 miles weft of Cairo. 
MA'GRA, or Mag.o'ra, a river of Italy, which rifes 
in the Apennines, and runs into the fea five miles fouth 
of Sarzana. The valley through which it pafles is called 
the Valley of Magra. 
MAGRACOT'TA, a town of Hindooftan : five miles 
weft of Palicaudcherry. 
MA'GRE, a town of Hindooftan, in the Myfore coun¬ 
try, where lord Cornwallis had a camp in the year 1791. 
This is held a place of great fanftity among the Hindoos, 
and abounds in pagodas and choultries: fix miles fouth 
of Savendroog. 
MA'GRI(Dominic),a learned pried of the congregation 
of the oratory, was a native of the ifland of Malta, where 
lie was born about the year 1604.. Removing into Italy, 
he became canon of Viterbo, and died in 1672, about the 
age of fixty-eight, with the reputation of poflefling an un¬ 
common (hare of erudition, and with a high character for 
virtue and piety. He was the author, conjointly with a 
brother of his, named Charles, of a Hierolexicon, or Sacred 
Dictionary, publifhed at Rome in 1677, in folio, which is 
commended as a very ufeful afliftant to ttudents in the holy 
fcriptures ; and of a treatife in Latin, On the apparent 
Contradiftions in the Scriptures, 164.5, 12010. which has 
undergone various imprellions at different places, and 
■was publiflied in an enlarged form at Paris, by James Le 
Fevre, archdeacon ofLifieux. Father Magri was alfo the 
author of, 3. The Life of Latinus Latinius, prefixed to 
that writer’s Bibliotheca facra et profana, edited at Rome, 
by Charles Magri, in 1677, folio. 4. On the Virtue 
©f Coffee, 1671, 4-to, 5. A Journey to Mount Lebanon, 
1664, 4to. 
M A H 
MA'GROH, a town of Bengal: fifteen miles eaft of 
Nuldingah. 
MAGU'A, a town of Hindooftan, in Dowlatabad : five 
miles fouth of Beder. 
MAGUALBA'RI, or Rio das Galx'nas, a river of 
Africa, in the country of Guinea, which runs into the 
Atlantic in lat. 7. N. 
MAGUA'NA. See Mayaguana. 
MAGUELO'NE, a lake of France, in the department 
of the Gard, near the Mediterranean, with which it has a 
communication. It extends from Cette to Pecais. It 
takes its name from a town which was anciently a biftiop’s 
fee, transferred, in the year 1538, to Montpellier. This 
town was totally deftroyed by Charles Martel, as affording 
fecurity for Saracen invaders. It was rebuilt in the year 
1060; but is now a fmall place. It is fituated on a neck 
of land, between the lake and the fea, five miles fouth of 
Montpellier. Lat. 43. 50. Ion. 3. 58. E. 
MAGUI'BA, a river of Africa, which runs into the 
fea a little to the eaft of Cape Monte. 
MAGULLACON'DA, a town of Hindooftan, in My¬ 
fore : thirty miles of Chinna Balabaram. 
MAGUM'BA, a province in the north-weft part of the 
kingdom of Loango. 
MA'HA, or Ma'cou, a city of China, of the fecond 
rank, in Koei-tcheou : 952 miles fouth-fouth-weft of Pe» 
king. Lat. 26.26. N. Ion. 107. E. 
MA'HA BA'RAT, an epic poem in the Sanlkrit lan¬ 
guage, by an author very celebrated among all feds of 
Hindoos, named Vyafa, to whom alfo is afcribed the facred 
romances, the Puranas. The fubjeft of the Maha Barat 
is the heroic adventures of the five fons of Pandu, called 
hence the Pandavas. It is a work of great extent, amount¬ 
ing it is faid to upwards of a hundred thoufand metrical 
ltanzas, of which more than a third have been tranflated 
by Dr. Wilkins, librarian to the Ealt-India company. 
This learned gentleman publiflied, in 1785, an epifode of 
the great poem, under the title of Bhagavat Gita, or Dia¬ 
logues of Kriflina and Arjun. An extraft from that very 
curious work is given under the article Krishna, vol. xi. 
The Maha Barat contains the genealogy and general hif- 
tory of the houfe of Bhaurat, ho named from Bharat its 
founder, the epithet Maha, or great, being prefixed in to¬ 
ken of diftinftion 5 but its more particular objedt is to 
relate the difienfions and wars of the two great collateral 
branches of it, called from their anceltors the Kurus and 
the Pandus (fee Kuru), both lineally defcended in the 
fecond degree from Vichitravirya, their common anceftor, 
by their refpedlive fathers Dritraraflitra and Pandu. 
MA'HA BE'LI, a name, in Hindoo mythological le¬ 
gends, of a monarch, who, although reafonabiy virtuous 
on other points-, was (till fo elated by his grandeur, that 
he omitted the eflential ceremonies and offerings to the 
deities; and Viftinu found it neceffary to check the in¬ 
fluence of luch an example, by relolving to become, for 
that purpofe, incarnated in the perfon of a wretched Brah¬ 
man dwarf. This incarnation, or avatara, is one of the 
ten principal defcents of Viftinu, and is called Vamana, 
or the dwarf. (See vol. x. p. 117.) Sir William Jones 
furmifes the Belus of weftern hiftory to be the fame with 
the Beli of this article ; for the epithet of Maha prefixed, 
merely means great in the Sanfkrit language. 
MA'HA DE'VA, in Hindoo mythology, is a name 
given to the god Siva, one of the perfons in their divine 
triad. InSanflcrit it means literally the Great God ; and, 
although we might expeft to find this name thus applied 
by the feft- only who exclufively worftiip Siva, indicating 
the pre-eminence of their deity, yet it is faid to be com¬ 
monly given to him by other lefts, as well as by his own. 
MA'HA-GEN',/. A banker, or any great ftiop-keeper, 
among the Hindoos. 
MA'HA-KAL', a name of Siva, the deftruftive attri¬ 
bute of the Deity. Mr. Paterfon, in the eighth volume 
of the Afiatic Refearches, thus defcribes this perfonifica- 
tion. 
