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“Osiris was adored in Egypt, and Bacchus in Greece, under the emblem of the Phallus. It is under the same emblem that he is still venerated in Hindustan; and Phalla is one of the names of Iswara in the dictionary of Amara Singha. The bull was sacred to him in Egypt. Plutarch assures us that several nations of Greece depict Bacchus with a bull’s head; and that when he is invoked by the women of Elis they pray him to hasten to their relief on the feet of a bull. In India he is often seen mounted on a bull; hence one of his Sanscrit names Vrishadwaja, signifying, whose ensign is a bull.
’ The Ganges in like manner is fabled by the Hindoos to flow from the tresses of Siva; hence another of his names, Gangadhara, the supporter of the Ganges.
Siris, the Egyptian name of the Nile, is synonymous with Osiris.
Siris from the Sanscrit word śiras (शिरस्) primarily means head or skull.
Isis is the consort of Osiris; Isa that of Iswara, or Siva. The attributes of the goddesses might be shown to correspond as precisely as those of their lords.
The attendants of Iswara resemble, in their frantic demeanour, the furious Bacchants of the god of Naxos. Many tribes of imaginary beings compose his train. The Pramatha, whose name denotes intoxication; and the Jacchi, from whom he derives the appellation of Jaccheo, or lord of the Jacchi, corrupted into Jacchus, by his western votaries. It is remarkable that many of the appellations by which the Greeks distinguish Bacchus, are also used by the Hindus; but instead of applying them to Baghesa himself, the latter refer them to his son, whilst both nations have their legends to account for them. Thus the Greeks name Bacchus, Dimeter, having two mothers; the Hindus call Scandha, the son of Baghesa, Divimatri, with the same signification. Pyrigenes, born from fire; and its equivalent in Sanscrit-Agnija, are respectively Greek and Indian appellatives of Bacchus and of Scandha. The title of Thriambus we are told by Diodorus, was assumed by the Greek Deity in his triumph after the conquest of India. Tryambo, in like-manner, is one of the most common appellations of the Indian Bacchus, but we are not aware of its signification.