Page:The Ancient Geography of India.djvu/207
name was Bâlnâth-ka-Tila. Both of these are derived from the temple on the summit, which was formerly dedicated to the sun, as Bdlndth, but is now devoted to the worship of Gorakhndlh, a form of Siva. The latter name, however, is very recent, as Mogal Beg, who surveyed the country between A.D. 1784 and 1794, calls the hill "Jogion-di-Tibi, or tower of the Jogis, whose chief is called Bilnât." Abul Fazl[1] also mentions the "Cell of Balnât," and the attendant Jogis, or devotees, from whom the hill is still sometimes called Jogi-tila. But the name of Balnath is most probably even older than the time of Alexander, as Plutarch[2] relates that, when Porus was assembling his troops to oppose Alexander, the royal elephant rushed up a hill sacred to the Sun, and in human accents exclaimed, "O great king, who art descended from Gegasios, forbear all opposition to Alexander, for Gegasios himself was also of the race of Jove."
The "Hill of the Sun " is only a literal translation of Bâlnâth-ka-Tila, but Plutarch goes on to say that it was afterwards called the "Hill of the Elephant," which I take to be another proof of its identity with Bâlnâth, for as this name is commonly pronounced Bilnât by the people, and is so Titten by Mogal Beg, the Macedonians, who had just come through Persia, would almost certainly have mistaken it for Fil-nath, or Pil-nath, the "Elephant." But wherever Alexander's camp may have been, whether at Jhelam or Jalâlpur, this remarkable hill, which is the most commanding object within fifty miles of the Hydaspes,