[614] Lassen, as already remarked, opposes Nishada and Parapanishada as the upper and lower mountain range. Nearly in the same region, but apparently in the range between Cashmere and the kingdom of Paurava (supra, p. 391), i. e. to the east of the Indus, legend speaks of the Utsavasanketa, who, as their name implies, passed their lives in feasting and conviviality (utsava, festival; sanketa, meeting). Lassen, 2, 135; Wilson, Vishnu-Purana, p. 167 ff.; and the places in the Mahabharata, in Lassen, loc. cit. Modern travellers maintain that some tribes in the Hindu Kush are very partial to the wine which is produced abundantly in the mountains, and lead a life of joviality. Ritter, "Asien," Th. 4. Bd. 1, 450, 451.
[615] Strabo, p. 689. Arrian, "Ind." 5, 9.
[616] Strabo, p. 688, 699, 710.
[617] Muir, "Sanskrit Texts," 4, 195. "Vishnu-Purana," ed. Wilson, p. 591.
[618] Infra, chap. viii.
[619] Lassen, loc. cit. 2, 110.
[620] Ctesias, "Ind. ecl." 8.
[621] Strabo, p. 709. Arrian, "Ind." 17, 4.
[622] Strabo, p. 709.
[623] Megasthenes in Athen. p. 153, ed. Schweigh.