In'dia (Ileb. Iloddu', !l^h, for ^r]':^, i. e. Hindu, of Sanscrit origin ; see Gesenius, Thesaur. Iltb. p. 366 ; Sept. '\vL)iKr],Yn\g. India), occurs in the Bible onlj-^ in Esther i, 1 ; viii, 9, where the Persian king is described as reigning "from India unto Ethiopia, over a himdred and seven and twenty provinces;" the names of the two countries are similarly connected by Herodotus (vii, 9). It is found again, however, in the Apocrypha (compare Esther xiii, 1), where India is mentioned among the countries which the Romans took from Antiochus and gave to Eumenes (1 Mace, viii, 8). It is also with some reason conceived that in the list of foreign Jews present at the Pentecost (Acts ii, 9) we should read 'Irciav, In- dia, and not 'lovdaiav, Judeea ; but the still more prob- able reading is 'icovfiaiav, Idumcea, if indeed the com- mon reading ought to be changed at all (see Kuincil, Comment, ad loc). The Hebrew form " Iloddu" is an abbreviation of Ilonadu, which is identical with the in- digenous names of the river Indus, " Hindu," or " Siu- dhu," and again with the ancient name of the country as it appears in the VentUdad, " Hapta Hendu." The native form " Sindus" is noticed by Pliny (vi, '23). The India of the book of Esther is not the peninsula of Hin- dostan, but the country' surrounding the Indus — the Punjab, and pcrhajis Scinde — the India which Herodo- tus describes (^iii, 98) as forming part of the Persian em- pire under Darius, and the India which at a later period was conquered by Alexander the (ireat. The name oc- curs in the inscriptions of Persepolis and Xakhsh-i- Rustam, but not in those of Behistun (Rawlinson. Herod. ii, 485). In 1 Jlacc. viii, 8, it is clear that India proper cannot be uudersto'jd, inasmuch as this never belonged
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either to Antiochus or Eumenes. At the same time, none of the explanations oifered by commentators are satisfactory : the Eneti of Paphlagonia have been sug- gested, but these people had disappeared long before (Strabo, xii, 53-1) : the India of Xenophon (Cyrop. i, 5, 3 ; iii, 2, 25), which may have been above the Carian stream named Indus (Pliny, v, 29 ; probably the Calbis), is more likely; but the emendation "Mysia and Ionia" for Media uud India oifers the best solution of the diffi- culty. See Ionia. A more authentic notice of the country occurs in 1 IMacc. vi, 37, where Indians are no- ticed as the drivers of the war-elephants introduced into the army of the Syrian king (see also 1 Esdras iii, 2 ; Esther xvi, 1). See Elephant.
But, though the name of India occurs so seldom, the people and productions of that coimtry must have been tolerably well known to the .Jews. There is midoubted evidence that an active trade was carried on between India and Western Asia : the Tyrians estabUshed their depots on the shores of the Persian Gulf, and procured " horns of ivory and ebony," " broidered work and rich apparel" (Ezek. xxvii, 15, 24), by a route which crossed the Arabian desert by land, and then followed the coasts of the Indian Ocean by sea. The trade opened by Sol- omon with Ophir through the Eed Sea chiefly consisted of Indian articles, and some of the names even of the articles, algummivi, " sandal wood," Tiophim, '• apes," tukhiim, "peacocks," are of Indian origin (Humboldt, Kosmos, ii, 133) ; to which we may add the Hebrew name of the " topaz," pitdah, derived from the Sanscrit pita. There is a strong probability that productions of yet greater utility were furnished by India through SjTria to the shores of Europe, and that the Greeks de- rived both the term Kuaairepor (compare the Sanscrit kastira), and the article it represents, "tin," from the coasts of India. The connection thus established with India led to the opinion that the Indians were included under the ethnological title of Cush (Gen. x, 6), and hence the Syriac, Chaldee, and Arabic versions fre- quently render that term by India or Indians, as in 2 Chron. xxi, 16 ; Isa. xi, 11 ; xviii, 1 ; Jer. xiii, 23 ; Zeph. iii, 10. For the connection which some have sought to establish between India and Paradise, see Eden.
The above intimations, and, indeed, all ancient histo- ry, refer not to the whole of Hindostan, but chiefly to the northern parts of it, or the comitries between the Indus and the Ganges ; although it is not necessary to assert that the rest of that peninsula, particularly its western coast, was then altogether unknown. It was from this quarter that the Persians and Greeks (to whom we are indebted for the earliest accounts of India) invaded the country; and this was consequently the region which first became generally known. The countries bordering on the (Janges continued to be involved in obscurity, the great kingdom of the Prasians excepted, which, sit- uated nearly above the modern Bengal, was dimly dis- cernible. The nearer we approach the Indus, the more clear becomes our knowledge of the ancient geography of the country ; and it follows that the districts of which at the jiresent day we know the least, were anciently best known. Besides, the western and northern boun- daries -were not the same as at present. To the west, India was not then bounded by the river Indus, but by a chain of mountains which, mider the name of Koh (whence the Grecian appellation of the Indian Cauca- sus), extended from Bactria to Makran, or Gedrosia, in- closing the kingdoms of Candahar and Cabul, the mod- ern kingdom of Eastern Persia, or Afghanistan. These districts anciently formed part of India, as well as, fur- ther to the south, the less perfectly known countries of the Arabi and Haurs (the Arabitre and Orita; of Arrian, vi, 21), bordering on Gedrosia. This western boundary contuiued at all times the same, and was removed to the Indus only in consequence of the victories of Nadir Shah. Towards the north, ancient India overpassed not less its present limit. It comprehended the whole of the mountainous region above Cashmir, Badakshan,