[11]. Vela is the general term for a climber, sacred to the Indian Bacchus (Baghes, Adiswara, or Mahadeva), whose priests, following his example, are fond of intoxicating beverages, or drugs. The amarbel, or immortal vela, is a noble climber.
[12]. [“In the Tūmān of Zohāk and Bāmiān, the fortress of Zohāk is a monument of great antiquity, and in good preservation, but the fort of Bāmiān is in ruins. In the mountain-side caves have been excavated and ornamented with plaster and paintings. Of these there are 12,000 which are called Sumaj, and in former times were used by the people as winter retreats. Three colossal figures are here: one is the statue of a man, 80 yards in height; another that of a woman, 50 yards high, and the third that of a child measuring 15 yards. Strange to relate, in one of the caves is placed a coffin containing the body of one who reposes in his last sleep. The oldest and most learned of antiquarians can give no account of its origin, but suppose it to be of great antiquity. In days of old the ancients prepared a medicament with which they anointed corpses and consigned them to earth in a hard soil. The simple, deceived by this art, attribute their preservation to a miracle” (Āīn, ii. 409 f., with Jarrett’s notes). For Bāmiān see EB, iii. 304 f.]
[13]. Nishadha is mentioned in the Purana as a mountain. If in the genitive case (which the final syllable marks), it would be a local term given from the city of Nissa. [Nysa has no connexion with Nishadha. It probably lay near Jalalabad or Koh-i Mor (Smith, EHI, 53).]
[14]. Meru, Sanskrit, and Koh, Persian, for a ‘hill.’
[15]. Asiatic Researches, vol. vi. p. 497. Wilford appears to have borrowed largely from that ancient store-house (as the Hindu would call it) of learning, Sir Walter Raleigh’s History of the World. He combines, however, much of what that great man had so singularly acquired and condensed, with what he himself collected, and with the aid of imagination has formed a curious mosaic. But when he took a peep into “the chorographical description of the Terrestrial Paradise,” I am surprised he did not separate the nurseries of mankind before and after the flood. There is one passage, also, of Sir Walter Raleigh which would have aided his hypothesis, that Eden was in Higher Asia, between the common sources of the Jihun and other grand rivers: the abundance of the Ficus Indica, or bar-tree, sacred to the first lord, Adnath or Mahadeva.
“Now for the tree of knowledge of good and evil, some men have presumed further; especially Gorapius Bocanus, who giveth himself the honour to have found out the kind of this tree, which none of the writers of former times could ever guess at, whereat Gorapius much marvelleth.”
——“Both together went
Into the thickest wood; there soon they chose
The fig tree; not that kind for fruit renowned,
But such as at this day, to Indians known