India

Bill. Orient. p. 447. Hend & Send p. 804.INDIA. The Indies derive their name from the river Indus, one of the largest in that country; the limits whereof are to the west Persia; to the north Great Tartary; to the east China; and to the south the Indian Sea. The Indus and the Ganges are the principal rivers belonging to this country. The soil is very fruitful in Rice, Millet, Fruits, and Spices. Silk and Cotton are very common there: There are Elephants in this country, Camels, Monkeys, and green and red Parroquets; Mines of gold and silver, Diamonds and Rubies, &c. and there are very beautiful Pearls to be fished up along their coasts.

The Eastern people divide the Indies into two parts, called Hend and Send. The word Send signifies properly the river Indus, and all that country takes its name from hence, which lies on this side of it westward, and on the other side eastward of this river, all along the current of it, and principally towards the Esth. i. 1.mouth of it. The land of Hend is to the east of Send, and extends principally along the Ganges, to the east and west of this river, from the source to the mouth of it, having the gulf of Persia to the west, the Indian Ocean to the south, to the east large desarts, which separate it from China, and to the north the country of the Azaës or Tartars. The whole country of Hend and Send taken together, is divided into three parts. The first is called Giuzurat, and by us Guzerate, or Decan; this is the most western part: the second goes by the name of Manibar, which we call Malabar; it lies to the east and south of Guzerate: the third and most eastern part Mabar or Mebar, a word which signifies in Arabic a ferry or passage, because from thence people cross over to China. It lies all intirely beyond the gulf of Bengal, and the great city of Canacor or Cancanor is the capital of it.

The Ancients sometimes comprized Ethiopia under the name of the Indies, and the Persians still at this day call an Ethiopian a black Indian. And the histories of the eastern people inform us, that the Indians desired Bishops of Symon the Syrian, Jacobite Patriarch of Alexandria¹; the Ethiopick Ocean of the Ancients, is our Indian Ocean.

There is mention of the Indies in some places of the Scripture. For example, in the book of Esther, it is said, that Abasuerus reigned from the Indies to Ethiopia; in the Hebrew from Hoddo to Cush. By the name Hoddo all Interpreters understand the Indiesמהדו ועד כוש Mehoddo vead Chusch.; and by Cush Ethiopia, or the country which separates Arabia from Egypt. It is certain that Darius the son of Hystaspes, whom we believe to be the same as Abasuerus, reigned over some Provinces in the Indies, properly so called; and that the Herodot. l. 3. c. 94. Idem. l. 3. c. 97. Job. xxviii. 16. 1 Macc. vi. 37. לא תערך לה כתםEthiopians paid certain tributes to him, which are set down in Herodotus. Job likewise speaks of India. Non conferetur tinctis Indiæ coloribus. But the Hebrew reads, It cannot be valued with the Chethem of Ophir. Now the word Chethem is taken for Gold; see Ophir. In the Maccabees, the guide of an Elephant is called an Indian, because generally true Indians were chosen to conduct these creatures. The Indian sat upon the beast’s neck, and with an iron rod, which was bent, pricked his ear, and made him turn which way he would. The best authors of antiquity do likewise commonly call the master of an Elephant, of what nation soever he may be, an Indian.

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