He was the son of MAYA, or the general _attracting_ power, and married to RETTY, or _Affection_, and his bosom friend is BESSENT, or _Spring_. He is represented a a beautiful youth, sometimes conversing with his mother and consort in the midst of his gardens and temples; sometimes riding by moonlight on a parrot or lory, a attended by dancing girls or nymphs, the foremost {239} whom bears his colours, which are a _fish_ on a red ground. His favourite place of resort is a large tract of country round _Agra_, and principally the plains of _Matra_, where KRISHEN also, and the nine GOPIA, who are clearly the _Apollo_ and _Muses_ of the Greeks, usually spend the night with music and dance. His bow of sugar-cane or flowers, with a string of bees, and his _five_ arrows, each pointed with an Indian blossom of a heating quality, are allegories equally new and beautiful. It is possible that the words _Dipuc_ and _Cupid_, which have the same signification, may have the same origin; since we know that the old Hetrurians, from whom great part of the Roman language and religion was derived, and whose system had a near affinity with that of the Persians and Indians, used to write their lines alternately forwards and backwards, as furrows are made by the ploughs.--Sir W. JONES. Mahadeva and Parvati were playing with dice at the ancient game of Chaturanga, when they disputed, and parted in wrath; the goddess retiring to the forest of Gauri, and the god repairing to Cushadwip. They severally performed rigid acts of devotion to the Supreme Being; but the fires which they kindled blazed so vehemently as to threaten a general conflagration. The Devas, in great alarm, hastened to Brahma, who led them {240} to Mahadeva, and supplicated him to recall his consort; but the wrathful deity only answered, That she most come by her own free choice. They accordingly dispatched Gunga, the river goddess, who prevailed on Parvati to return to him, on condition that his love for her should be restored. The celestial mediators then employed Cama-Deva, who wounded Mahadeva with one of his flowery arrows; but the angry divinity reduced him to ashes with a flame from his eye. Parvati soon after presented herself before him in the form of a Cirati, or daughter of a mountaineer, and seeing him enamoured of her, resumed her own shape. In the place where they were reconciled, a grove sprang up, which was named Camavana; and the relenting god, in the character of Cameswara, consoled the afflicted Reti, the widow of Cama, by assuring her that she should rejoin her husband when he should be born again in the form of Pradyumna, son of Crishna, and should put Sambara to death. This favourable prediction was in due time accomplished, and Pradyumna having sprung to life, he was instantly seized by the demon Sambara, who placed him in a chest, which he threw into the ocean; but a large fish, which had swallowed the chest, was caught, in a net, and carried to the palace of a