_Āryāvarta_, or the land of promise or virtue, cannot extend to the flat plains of India south of the Himavat; for this is styled in the _Purānas_ the very reverse, _kukarma des_, or land of vice. [Āryāvarta is the land bounded by the Himalaya and Vindhya, from the eastern to the western seas (Manu, _Laws_, ii. 22).] Footnote 2.1.16: Hindu, or Indu-kush or koh, is the local appellation; ‘mountain of the moon.’ [Hindu-kush is said to mean ‘Hindu-slayer’ or ‘Indian Caucasus.’] Footnote 2.1.17: Solar and lunar. Footnote 2.1.18: Meru, ‘the hill,’ is used distinctively, as in Jaisalmer (the capital of the Bhatti tribe in the Western Desert), ‘the hill of Jaisal’; Merwara, or the ‘mountainous region’; and its inhabitants Meras, or ‘mountaineers.’ Thus, also, in the grand epic the Ramayana (Book i. p. 236), Mena is the mountain-nymph, the daughter of Meru and spouse of Himavat; from whom sprung two daughters, the river goddess Ganga and the mountain-nymph Parbati. She is, in the Mahabharata, also termed Saila, the daughter of Sail, another designation of the snowy chain; and hence mountain streams are called in Sanskrit _silletee_ [?]. Saila bears the same attributes with the Phrygian Cybele, who was also the daughter of a mountain of the same name; the one is carried, the other drawn, by lions. Thus the Greeks also metamorphosed _Parbat Pamer_, or ‘the mountain Pamer,’ into Paropamisan, applied to the Hindu Koh west of Bamian: but the _Parbat pat Pamer_, or ‘Pamer chief of hills,’ is mentioned by the bard Chand as being far east of that tract, and under it resided Hamīra, one of the great feudatories of Prithwiraja of Delhi. Had it been Paropanisan (as some authorities write it), it would better accord with the locality where it takes up the name, being near to Nyssa and Meru, of which Parbat or Pahar would be a version, and form Paronisan, ‘the Mountain of Nyssa,’ the range Nishadha of the Puranas. [The true form is Paropanisos: the suggested derivation is impossible.] Footnote 2.1.19: _Haya_ or _Hi_, in Sanskrit, ‘horse’—_El_, ‘sun’: whence ἵππος and ἕλιος. Ηλ appears to have been a term of Scythian origin for the sun; and Hari, the Indian Apollo, is addressed as the sun. Hiul, or Jul, of northern nations (qu. _Noel_ of France?), is the Hindu Sankrānti, of which more will be said hereafter. [The feast was known as Hvil, Jul, or Yule, and the suggested derivation is impossible.] Footnote 2.1.20: Mallet’s _Northern Antiquities_. ----- CHAPTER 2