# Ancient India as described by Megasthenês and Arrian/Cap. I.

THE INDIKA OF ARRIAN.
I. The regions beyond the river Indus on the west are inhabited, up to the river Kôphen, by two Indian tribes, the Astakenoi and the Assakenoi, who are not men of great stature like the Indians on the other side of the Indus, nor so brave, nor yet so swarthy as most Indians. They were in old times subject to the Assyrians, then after a period of Median rule submitted to the Persians, and paid to Kyros the son of Kambysês the tribute from their land which Kyros had imposed. The Nysaioi, however, are not an Indian race, but descendants of those who came into India with Dionysos,—perhaps not only of those Greeks who had been disabled for service in the course of the wars which Dionysos waged against the Indians, but perhaps also of natives of the country whom Dionysos, with their own consent, had settled along with the Greeks. The district in which he planted this colony he named Nysaia, after Mount Nysa, and the city itself Nysa. But the mountain ​close by the city, and on the lower slopes of which it is built, is designated Mêros, from the accident which befell the god immediately after his birth. These stories about Dionysos are of course but fictions of the poets, and we leave them to the learned among the Greeks or barbarians to explain as they may. In the dominions of the Assakenoi there is a great city called Massaka, the seat of the sovereign power which controls the whole realm. And there is another city, Peukelaïtis, which is also of great size and not far from the Indus. These ​ settlements lie on the other side of the river Indus, and extend in a westward direction as far as the Kôphen.
* ↑ Nysa, the birthplace of the wine-god, wss placed, according to fancy, anywhere up and down the world wherever the vine was found to flourish. Now, as the region watered by the Kôphês was in no ordinary measure feracious of the joyous tree, there was consequently a Nysa somewhere upon its banks. Lassen doubted whether there was a city to the name; but M. de St.-Martin is less sceptical, and would identify it with an existing village which preserves traces of its name, being called Nysatta. This, he says, is near the northern bank of the river of Kabûl at less than two leagues below Hashṭnagar, and may suitably represent the Nysa of the historians. This place, he adds, ought to be of Median or Persian foundation, since the nomenclature is Irânian, the name of Nysa or Niśaya which figures in the cosmogonic geography of the Zendavesta being one which is far-spread in the countries of ancient Irân. He refers his readers for remarks on this point to A. de Humboldt's Central Asia, I. pp. 116 seq. ed. 1843.
* ↑ Massaka (other forms are Massaga, Masaga, and Mazaga.)—The Sanskṛit Maśakâ, a city situated near the Gauri. Curtius states that it was defended by a rapid river on its eastern side. When attacked by Alexander, it held out for four days against all his assaults.
* ↑ Peukelaïtis (other forms—Peukelaëtis, Peukolitæ, Peukelaötis). "The Greek name of Peukelaotis or Peukolaitis was immediately derived from Pukkalaoti, which is the Pâli or spoken form of the Sanskṛit Pushkalavati. It is also called Peukelas by Arrian, and the people are named Peukalei by Dionysius Periegetes, which are both close transcripts of the Pâli Pukkala. The form of Proklaïs, which is found in Arrian's Periplus of the Erythræan Sea and also in Ptolemy's Geography, is perhaps only an attempt to give the Hindi name of Pokhar, instead of the Sanskrit Pushkara." So General Cunningham, who fixes its position at "the two large towns Parang and Chârsada, which form part of the well-known Hashṭnagar, or 'eight cities,' that are seated close together on the eastern bank of the lower Swât river." The position indicated is nearly seventeen miles to the north-east of Peshawar. Pushkala, according to Prof. Wilson, is still represented by the modern Pekhely or Pakholi, in the neighbourhood of Peshâwar.