Vergil, both in the Aeneid and in the Georgics, has taken the name of Bacchus(Dionysus) as Father of the Wine; and mentions Parnasus as bay-tree; all lines blossom collectively in Vergil’s epic-poems, and thrive to put ‘whole’ of the living world in a single cup of the primordial geography that sees heights of  Rome, the ‘fairest of the fair world’ in ‘the unwarlike Indian’..soil, … hail! Land of Saturn. Vergil mentions on ‘triumph-pomp of Romans to the temple of Gods’ which identifies the pompa-sarovara of Saracena attached to the ‘fame and rumour’ of this ancient city.

While describing the wine-producing places of the ancient world, Vergil has taken the names of places like, Thasian, Mareotids, Psithian, Lageos, Rhaetians, Falernian, Aminnanean, Tmolian, Argitis and Rhodes. The latter variety is being more liked by the gods. In a sense, as Mt Meru was the first home’ of the ancient vineyard, and as birthplace of Dionysus, all the above mentioned places are to be found out in ancient India itself.

Name of Parnasus is seen in the Matsya purana(ch.114); and also in the Mahabharata(Drona, ch.92,3). This name appears in the Iliad where Odysseus developed the scar on his leg due to an attack by a bear when he was with his uncle here. This scar identified him after his return to Ithica by his nurse. Arian calls it Parnas. People of this region were called Pausanias(de Situ Graeciae, VI, 26-9), and their names appear in the Periplus as identifying the region of the Erythraean Sea, having islands, ‘Abasa, and Sacaea’ . Pliny and other ancient writers mention Asachae as living south of Meroe, and known as elephant-hunters, and their stronghold was called Oppidum Sacae.

Dog-star which receives its name from the name of the Kukura country identifies ancient India as well as ancient Jerusalem as it as neighbourly to this place on the south. Vergil sings on this star when he says, ‘’dog-star that burns up the thirsty Indians blazed in heaven….’. This speaks of Yamapura or the place of worship of King of Death, the other name of Jerusalem as same as Hade of Homer’s epics. that identifies the region of ‘hada’ or the ‘bones’.

Georgics recognise the Gargis of Indian puranas, a group of ascetics who were then living on the banks of the river Ganges. Vergil mentions a ‘seer’ who was then living in the Gulf of Carpathian where Neptune also dwells. Vergil thus writes :

‘In Neptune’s gulf Carpathian dwells a seer

Caerulean Proteus, he who metes the main,

With fish-drawn chariot of two-footed steeds

Now visits he, his native home once more,

Pallene and the Emathian ports; to whom we

Nymphs do reverence, ay, and Nereus old;

For all things knows the seer, both those which are

And have been, or which time hath yet to bring,

So willed it Neptune, whose portentous flocks,

And loathy sea-claves ‘neath the surge of feeds,

Him first, my son, behoves thee seize an d bind..’

xxx

Behind a rock’s huge barrier, Proteus hides, here in close covert out of sun’s eye’.

Vergil speaks of the wonders this seer makes ;

‘Transforms himself to every wondrous things,

Fire and a fearfyl beast and flowing streams

But whenno trickery found a path for flight…’

Vergil sees the river Ganges as ‘fair’ near the ‘Mede-land with ‘wealth of woods’. A dynasty in this name is also seen in history. Pliny mentions a river by the name of Prinas along with Jomanes. Its real geographical identity is hidden within the name of Paropamisos or Paropanisos in the region of Mt Caucasus. Georgics describes the land of honey, and bee-keepings giving a detailed scene of such bee-rearing in ancient times.

Bible like most of the ancient texts, finds this honey-land along with the milk-flowing land which is known to ancient world as Moab, or Madhu-vana of Indian puranas. The land of the rivers Phais and Euphrates where also flow the Ganges and the Jomanes or Jamuna, describe this honey-producing region. Vergil has taken names of these rivers in his Georgics. While Phasi river marks Alexander’s India invasion limit, which his soldiers feared to cross and fight against the Vespasians; similarly, Euphrates identifies its branch river Balakhila which adopted the name of the Baal deities, same as the pygmies of the ancient world; this river received this name from the place which it was passing through and where these wonderful one-finger-height yogis were then living.

Vergil also mentions the name of Hellespont, or the meeting point of the seven rivers which Alexander faced difficulties to cross; it was a this place that Achaeans anchored their ships near Troy. According to Vergil, Priapus was its lord.

Vergil’s poems describe not only the ‘inhabited world’ but also with it comes alive the ancient India which India does not know