See Wilson’s _Ar. Antiq._ pp. 179-182; V. de Saint-Martin, _Étude_, 21-26; Cunningham’s _Anc. Geog. of India_, pp. 19-26; Bunbury’s _Hist. of Anc. Geog._ i. 490-492; Weber’s _Die Griechen in Indien_; and Hardy’s _Manual of Buddhism_, p. 516. NOTE B.—NIKAIA This is a Greek word meaning _victorious_, and may possibly be a translation of the indigenous name of the place. Wilson (_Ar. Antiq._ p. 183) takes this view, and fixes the site of Nikaia on the plain of Begrâm at a spot with ruins about some eighteen miles distant from Houpiân. The original name of the place may have been _Jayapura_, which means _the city of victory_. According to others, Nikaia is a transliteration of _Nichaia-gram_, a place said to be in Kafîristân—that is, in the upper part of the valleys which slope away from the Hindu-Kush and carry their waters to the Kâbul river on its left. A belief was at one time current that the Kafîrs of Bajour were descended from the Macedonians whom Alexander had left there when he passed through the country on his way to India. They had, it was said, many points of character in common with the Greeks. They were celebrated for their beauty and their European complexions. They worshipped idols, drank wine in silver cups or vases, used chairs and tables, and spoke a language unknown to their neighbours. Elphinstone during his Kâbul mission (in 1808) caused inquiries to be made as to the truth of these reports, which had greatly excited his curiosity. It was found that though they were in the main correct, yet the fact that the people had no certain traditions of their own as to their origin, while the languages spoken by the different tribes were all of them closely allied to Sanskrit, showed the theory of their Greek origin to be untenable. In the list which was furnished to the envoy of the names of their tribes and villages, Nisa is the only one in which any similarity to Nikaia can be traced. In Lassen’s opinion, Nikaia was not built on the site of any previously existing town, but was first founded by Alexander, who named it the _victorious_ in anticipation of the triumphs which awaited him in India. General Abbott identified it with Nangnihar, a place about four or five miles west of Jalâlâbâd, which he thought Curtius took to be the point where Alexander first entered Indian territory. General Cunningham again, like Ritter and Droysen, thinks that Nikaia must have been Kâbul, otherwise that important town, through which Alexander must have marched, would be passed over by his historians without mention. He cites in proof a passage from the _Dionysiakê_ of Nonnus, in which Nikaia is described as a stone city situated near a lake. The lake, he says, is a remarkable feature which is peculiar in Northern India to Kâbul and Kâshmîr. The authority of Nonnus, however, on such a point is of no worth whatever. Wilson’s view that Nikaia occupied the site of Bagrâm seems preferable to any other. It is the view also which Bunbury favours.