()RITE or Horitse, among the ancient Greeks, a barbarous people to the west of Indus, called Nesteritm by Diodorus. Curtius notices the Horitat in India, and Diodorus states that generally they resemble the Indians. According to Arrian, they were an Indian nation who extended west of the Indus for 150 miles parallel to the sea.
They wore the dress and arms of the other Indians, but differed from them in language and manners. General Cunningham supposes them to be the people on the Aghor river. In the bed of this river there are several jets of liquid mud, which from time immemorial have been known as Ram Chandar ki kup, or Ram Chandar's wells.' There are also two natural caves,—one dedicated to Kali, and the other to Hingulaj or Hingula Devi, that is, the red goddess,' who is now regarded as a form of Kali. But the principal objects of pilgrimage in the Aghor valley are connected with the history of Rama. The pilgrims assemble at the Rambagh, because Rama and Sita are said to have started from this point, and proceed to the Gorakh tank, where Rama halted. ; and thence to Tonga-bhera, and on to the point where Rama was obliged to turn back in his attempt to reach Hingulaj with an army. General Cunningham identifies Rambagh with the Rambakia of Arrian, Tonga-bhera with the river Tonberos of Pliny, and the Toinerus of Arrian. At Rambakia, therefore, he thinks we must look for the site of the city founded by Alexander, which Leonatus was left behind to complete. He thinks it probable that this is the
city which is described by Stephanus of Byzantium as the sixteenth Alexandria near the Bay of Melane.' Nearchus places the western boundary of the Oritm at a place called Malana, which he takes to be the Bay of Malan, to the east of Ras Malan or Cape Malan of the present day, about twenty miles to the west of the Aghor river. The occurrence of the name of Rambagh at so great a distance to the west of the Indus, and at so early a period as the time of Alexander, shows not only the wide extension of Hindu influence in ancient times, but also the great antiquity of the story of Rama. He deems it highly impro bable that such a name, with its attendant pilgrimages, could have been imposed on the place after the decay of Hindu influence. During the flourishing period of Buddhism, many of the provinces to the west of the Indus adopted that Indian religion, which must have had a powerful influence on the manners and language of the people. But the expedition of Alexander pre ceded the extension of Buddhism ; and General Cunningham therefore only attributes the old name of Rambakia to a period anterior to Darius Hystaspes. Hingulaj (Khingalatchi) is mentioned by the Tibetan Taranath (see Vaasilief, French translation, p. 45) as a Rakshasa in the west of India, beyond Barukacha or Baroch.—Cunning ham's India, p. 304 ; Elphin. p. 232.