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 THE 
 
 WORKS 
 
 OF 
 
 SIR WILLIAM JONES. 
 
 IN SIX VOLUMES. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 PRINTED FOR G. G. AND J. ROBINSON, PATER-NOSTER-ROW ; 
 AND R. H. EVANS (SUCCESSOR TO MR. EDWARDS), NO, 26, PALL-MALL. 
 
 MDCCXCIX.
 
 J h 
 
 V- 1 
 
 TO THE HONOURABLE 
 
 THE DIRECTORS OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY, 
 
 WHO HAVE HONOURED THE MEMORY 
 
 OF THE AUTHOR 
 
 WITH DISTINGUISHED MARKS OF RESPECT AND ESTEEM, 
 
 THESE VOLUMES 
 
 ARE GRATEFULLY DEDICATED 
 
 BY THE EDITOR.
 
 " He was a pearl too pure on earth to dwell, 
 " And wafte his fplendor in this mortal fhell." 
 
 Frtm the ArabUk, Vol. II. p. 520. 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 a 
 
 The befl monument that can be ere6ted to a man 
 of literary talents, is a good edition of his works." 
 
 Such was the opinion of Sir William Jones. In- 
 trufted with his Manufcripts, the Editor has therefore 
 long regarded it as a facred duty to publifh the vo- 
 lumes now offered to the world. Various circum- 
 ftances have delayed the publication ; but fhe trufts to 
 the indulgence of the feeling, and the candid, when 
 they confider the difficulty of colle6ting papers fo 
 widely difperfed ; and alfo thofe habits of inadivity, 
 and indecifion, which afflidion impofes on a mind that 
 
 has been deeply wounded. 
 
 The
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 The Editor referves to herfelf the Hberty of giving, 
 at a future period, any pofthumous papers, or biogra- 
 phical anecdotes, of a chara6ler, which fhe beheves to 
 be fcarce lefs interefting to the publick, than dear to 
 herfelf! The prefent colledion confifts of all the 
 works printed during the Author's life, and of fome 
 others, which, though not corredled by him for the 
 prefs, evidently appear to have been intended for pub- 
 lication. To thefe, the Editor thinks fhe may, with 
 much propriety, prefix Sir John Shore's* admirable 
 difcourfe, delivered before the Afiatick Society in Cal- 
 cutta, in May, 17^4 ; both as a mark of her refpe6l for 
 the writer, and becaufe it gives the mofi: accurate, and 
 comprehenfive account, yet extant, of Sir William 
 Jones's enlarged views, and literary labours ; and tends 
 to illuftrate a chara6ter already endeared to mankind, 
 wherever Religion, Science, and Philofophy, prevail! 
 
 A. M. J. 
 
 * Lord Teignmouth.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 TO 
 
 THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 A PAGE 
 
 DISCOURSE delivered at a Meeting of the Afiatick Society, 
 
 in Calcutta, on the 2 2d of May, 1 794, by the Honourable Sir 
 
 John Shore ____----- i 
 
 A Difcourfe on the Inftitution of a Society for Inquiring into the 
 Hiftory, civil, and natural, the Antiquities, Arts, Sciences, and 
 Literature, of Afia -------- 1 
 
 The Second Anniverfary Difcourfe, delivered 2-4th of February, 
 
 1785 --- _-9 
 
 The Third Anniverfary Difcourfe, on the Hindus, delivered 2d of 
 
 February, 17B0 - - -IQ 
 
 The Fourth Anniverfary Difcourfe, on the Arabs, delivered 15th 
 
 of February, 1787 - ------- 35 
 
 The Fifth Anniverfary Difcourfe, on the Tartars, delivered 2 1 ft of 
 February, 1788 51 
 
 The Sixth Anniverfary Difcourfe, on the Perfians, delivered 1 gth 
 of February, l/SQ- - - - - - - -73 
 
 The Seventh Anniverfary Difcourfe, on the Chinefe, delivered 
 
 25 th of February, 1790 -------95 
 
 The Eighth Anniverfary Difcourfe, on the Borderers, Moun- 
 taineers, and Iflanders of Afia, delivered 24th of February, 1791 1^3 
 
 The Ninth Anniverfary Difcourfe, on the Origin, and Families of 
 Nations, delivered 23d of February, 1792 - - - - 129 
 
 The
 
 CONTENTS TO THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Tenth Anniverfary Difcourfe, on Afiatick Hiftory, civil, and 
 
 natural, delivered 28th of February, 17Q3 - - - - 143 
 
 The Eleventh Anniverfary Difcourfe, on the Philofophy of the 
 
 Afiaticks, delivered 20th of February, 1794 _ _ - isg 
 
 A Differtation on the Orthography of Afiatick Words in Roman 
 Letters - - __ _ _ - _ _ -175 
 
 On the Gods of Greece, Italy, and India ----- 229 
 
 On the Chronology of the Hindus - - - - -281 
 
 A Supplement to the Effay on Indian Chronology - - - 315 
 Note to Mr. Vanfittart's Paper on the Afghans being defcended 
 from the Jews - - - - - - - - 331 
 
 On the Antiquity of the Indian Zodlack ----- 333 
 
 On the Literature of the Hindus, from the Sanfcrit - - _ 349 
 On the Second Clafhcal Book of the Chinefe _ - _ - 3O5 
 
 The Lunar Year of the Hindus - - - - - -375 
 
 On the Mufical Modes of the Hindus - - - - - 413 
 
 On the Myftical Poetry of the Perfians and Hindus - - 445 
 
 Gitagovinda, or the Song of Jayadeva - - _ _ _ 463 
 
 Remarks on the Ifland of Hinzuan, or Johanna - - - 485 
 
 A Converfation with Abram, an AbyfTmian, concerning the city of 
 Gwender, and the Sources of the Nile - - - - 515 
 
 On the Courfe of the Nile - _ _ _ _ -5in 
 
 On the Indian Game of Chefs - - - _ _ -5 21 
 
 An Indian Grant of Land, found at Tanna - - - - 529 
 
 Infcriptions on the Staff of Firuz Shah - - _ _ ^SQ 
 
 On the Baya, or Indian Grofs-beak - - - - -543 
 
 On the Pangolin of Bahar - - - _ _ -545 
 
 On the Loris, or flow-paced Lemur - - _ _ - 5. is 
 
 On the Cure of the Elephantiafis - - - - _ 54Q 
 
 On the Cure of the Elephantiafis, and other Diforders of the Blood 55 3 
 
 A DISCOURSE
 
 DISCOURSE 
 
 DELIVERED AT A MEETING OF THE 
 
 ASIATICK SOCIETY, 
 
 IN CALCUTTA, 
 
 ON THE 
 
 TWENTY-SECOND OF MAY, 1794. 
 
 BY THE HONOURABLE 
 
 SIR JOHN SHORE, BART*. 
 
 PRESIDENT. 
 
 * Since Lord Teignmouth. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 DISCOURSE, &c. 
 
 GENTLEMEN, 
 
 I 
 
 F I had confulted my competency only, for the ftation which your 
 choice has conferred upon me, I muft without hefitation have declined 
 the honour of being the Prefident of this Society ; and although I moft 
 cheerfully accept your invitation, with every inclination to affift, as far 
 as my abilities extend, in promoting the laudable views of your affocia- 
 tion, I muft ftill retain the confcioufnefs of thofe dilqualifications, which 
 you have been pleafed to overlook. 
 
 It was lately our boaft to pofTefs a Prefident, whofe name, talents, 
 and charadter, would have been honourable to any inftitution ; it 
 is now our misfortune to lament, that Sir William Jones exifts, but 
 in the afFe6lions of his friends, and in the efteem, veneration, and 
 regret of all. 
 
 B 2 I cannot.
 
 [ Jv ] 
 
 1 cannot, I flatter myfelf, offer a more grateful tribute to the Society, 
 than by making his charader the fubjeft of my firft addrefs to you ; and 
 if in the delineation of it, fondnefs or affeftion for the man fhould ap- 
 pear blended with my reverence for his genius and abilities, in the fym- 
 pathy of your feelings I fhall find my apology. 
 
 To define with accuracy the variety, value, and extent of his literary 
 attainments, requires more learning than I pretend to polTefs, and I 
 am therefore to Iblicit your indulgence for an imperfed (ketch, rather 
 than expe6l your approbation for a complete defcription of the talents, 
 and knowledge, of your late and lamented Prefident. 
 
 1 fhall begin with mentioning his wonderful capacity for the acqul- 
 fition of languages, which has never been excelled. In Greek and Roman 
 literature, his early proficiency was the fubjedl: of admiration and ap- 
 plaufe; and knowledge, of whatever nature, once obtained by him, was 
 ever afterwards progreflive. The more elegant dialedls of modern ^wro^t-, 
 the French, the SpaniJJj, and the Italian, he fpoke and wrote with the 
 greateft fluency and precifion ; and the German and Portuguefe were 
 familiar to him. At an early period of life his application to Oriental 
 literature commenced ; he fludied the Hebrew with eafe and fuccefs, 
 and many of the mofl learned Afiaticks have the candour to avow, that 
 his knowledge of Arabick and Perjian was as accurate and extenfive as 
 their own ; he was alfo converfant in the TurkiJJo idiom, and the Chmeje 
 had even attraded his notice, fo far as to induce him to learn the ra- 
 dical characters of that language, with a view perhaps to farther im- 
 provements. It was to be expefted, after his arrival in /Ww, that he 
 would eagerly embrace the opportunity of making himfelf mafler of the 
 Sanfcrit; and the mofl enlightened profeffors of the do6trines of Brahma 
 confefs with pride, delight, and flirprife, that his knowledge of their 
 facred dialed was moft critically corred and profound. The ra?idiis, 
 
 who
 
 [ ^ ] 
 
 who were In the habit of attending him, when I faw them after his 
 death, at a pubUc Durbar^ could neither furprefs their tears for his lofs, 
 nor find terms to exprefs their admiration at the wonderful progrefs he 
 had made in their Iciences. 
 
 Before the expiration of his twenty-fccond year, he had completed his 
 Commentaries on the Poetry of the yljiaticks, although a confiderable 
 time afterwards elapfed before their publication ; and this work, if no 
 other monument of his labours exifted, would at once furnifli proofs of 
 his confummate (kill in the Oriental dialeds, of his proficiency in thofe 
 of Rome and Greece, of tafte and erudition far beyond his years, and of 
 talents and application without example. 
 
 But the judgement of Sir William Jones was too difcerning to con- 
 fider language in any other light than as the key of fcience, and he 
 would have defpifed the reputation of a mere linguift. Knowledge 
 and truth, were the objedl of all his fludies, and his ambition was to 
 be ufeful to mankind ; with thefe views, he extended his refearches to 
 all languages, nations, and times. 
 
 Such were the motives that induced him to propofc to the Go\ ern- 
 ment of this country, what he juftly denominated a work of national 
 utility and importance, the compilation of a copious digefl: of Hindu and 
 Mahommedan Law, from Sanfcrit and Arabick originals, with an offer 
 of his fervices to fuperintend the compilation, and with a promile to 
 tranflate it. He had forefeen, previous to his departure from Europe, 
 that without the aid of fuch a work, the wife and benevolent inten- 
 tions of the legiflature of Great Britain, in leaving, to a certain extent, 
 the natives of thefe provinces in pofTeflion of their own laws, could not 
 be completely fulfilled ; and his experience, after a fhort refidence in 
 India, confirmed what his lagaclty had anticipated, that without prhi- 
 
 ciples
 
 [ vi 1 
 
 ciples to refer to, in a language familiar to the judges of the courts, ad- 
 judications amongft the natives muft too often be fubjeft to an uncer- 
 tain and erroneous expofition, or wilful mifinterpretation of their laws. 
 
 To the fuperintendance of this work, which was immediately un- 
 dertaken at his fuggertion, he affiduoufly devoted thofe hours which he 
 could fpare from his profeflional duties. After tracing the plan of the 
 digeft, he prefcribed its arrangement and mode of execution, and fele6l- 
 ed from the moft learned Hindus and Mahommedatis fit perfons for the 
 talk of compiling it; flattered by his attention, and encouraged by his 
 applaufe, the Pandits profecuted their labours with cheerful zeal, to a 
 fatisfa6lory conclufion. The Molavees have alfo nearly finiflied their 
 portion of the work, but we muft ever regret, that the promifed tran- 
 (lation, as well as the meditated preliminary difTertation, have been 
 fruftrated by that decree, which fo often intercepts the performance of 
 human purpofes. 
 
 During the courfe of this compilation, and as auxiliary to it, he was 
 led to ftudy the works of Menu, reputed by the Hindus to be the oldeft, 
 and holicft of legiflatures ; and finding them to comprize a fyftem of 
 religious and civil duties, and of law in all its branches, fo compre- 
 henfive and minutely exaft, that it might be confidered as the Inftitutes 
 of Hindu law, he prefented a tranflation of them to the Government 
 of Bengal. During the fame period, deeming no labour exceflive or 
 fuperfluous that tended, in any refpe61, to promote the welfare or hap- 
 pinefs of mankind, he gave the public an Englip verfion of the Arabick 
 text of the Sirajiyah, or Mahommedan Law of Inheritance, with a 
 Commentary. He had already publifhed in England, a tranflation of a 
 Traft on the fame fubjeft, by another Mahommedan Lawyer, containing, 
 as his own words exprefs, " a lively and elegant epitome of the law of 
 Inheritance, according to Zaid." 
 
 To
 
 [ vii ] 
 
 To thefe learned and important works, fo far out of the road of 
 amufement, nothing could have engaged his appHcation, but that de- 
 fire which he ever profelfed, of rendering his knowledge ufeful to his 
 nation, and beneficial to the inhabitants of thefe provinces. 
 
 Without attending to the chronological order of their publication, 
 I fhall briefly recapitulate his other performances in Afiatick Litera- 
 ture, as far as my knowledge and recoUeftion of them extend. 
 
 The vanity and petulance of Anquetil du Perron, with his il- 
 liberal reflexions on fome of the learned members of the Univerfity of 
 Oxford^ extorted from him a letter, in the French language, which has 
 been admired for accurate criticifm, jufl: fatire, and elegant compofition. 
 A regard for the literary reputation of his country, induced him to 
 tranflate, from a Perfian original into French^ the life of Nadir Shah, 
 that it might fiot be carried out of England, with a refle6lion, that no 
 perfon had been found in the Britifh dominions capable of tranflating 
 it. The fludents of Perjtan literature muft ever be grateful to him, 
 for a grammar of that language, in which he has fhown the poffibility 
 of combining tafte, and elegance, with the precifion of a grammarian; 
 and every admirer of Arabkk poetry, muft acknowledge his obligations 
 to him, for an E7iglijh verfion of the icv^n celebrated poems, fo well 
 known by the name of Moallakat, from the diftindion to which their 
 excellence had entitled them, of being fufpended in the temple of 
 Mecca : I (hould fcarcely think it of importance to mention, that he 
 did not difdain the office of Editor of a Sanfcrit and Perfian work, if 
 it did not afford me an opportunity of adding, that the latter was 
 publifhed at his own expence, and was fold for the benefit of in- 
 folvent debtors. A fimilar application was made of the produce of the 
 
 SiRAJIYAH. 
 
 Of
 
 [ viii i 
 
 Of his lighter produftions, the elegant amufements of his leifure 
 hours, comprehending hymns on the Hindu mythology, poems confift- 
 ing chiefly of tranflations from the AJiatick languages, and the verfion 
 of Sacontala, an ancient Indian drama, it would be unbecoming to 
 fpeak in a ftyle of importance which he did not himfelf annex to them. 
 They fhow the aftivity of a vigorous mind, its fertility, its genius, 
 and its tafte. Nor fhall 1 particularly dwell on the difcourfes addrefTed 
 to this Society, which we have all perufed or heard, or on the other 
 learned and interefling diflertations, which form fo large, and valuable 
 a portion of the records of our Refearches ; let us lament, that the 
 fpirit which didated them is to us extind, and that the voice to 
 which we liftened with improvement, and rapture, will be heard by us 
 no more. 
 
 But I cannot pafs over a paper, which has fallen into my pofleffion 
 fince his demife, in the hand-writing of Sir William Jones himfelf, 
 entitled Desiderata, as more explanatory than any thing I can fay, 
 of the comprehenfive views of his enlightened mind. It contains, as 
 a perufal of it will (how, whatever is mofl: curious, important, and at- 
 tainable in the fciences and hiftories of India, Arabia, China, and Tar- 
 tary ; fubjefts, which he had already mofl amply difcuffed in the dif- 
 quifitions which he laid before the Society. 
 
 DESIDERATA. 
 
 INDIA. 
 
 I. — The Ancient Geography of India, &c. from the Puranas. 
 2. — A Botanical Defcription of Indian Plants, from the Cofhas, &c. 
 ^. — A Grammar of the Sanfcrit Language, from Panini, &c. 
 4. — A Diftionary of the Sanfcrit Language, from thirty-two original 
 Vocabularies and Nirufti. 
 
 5— On
 
 [ ix ] 
 
 5. — On the Ancient Mufic of the Indians. 
 
 6. — On the Medical Subftances of India, and the Indian Art of 
 Medicine. 
 
 7. — On the Philofophy of the Ancient Indians. 
 
 8. — A Tranflation of the Veda. 
 
 9. — On Ancient Indian Geometry, Aftronomy, and Algebra. 
 
 10. — A Tranflation of the Puranas. 
 
 II. — A Tranflation of the Mahabbarat and Ramayan. 
 
 12. — On the Indian Theatre, &c. &c. &c. 
 
 13. — On the Indian Conftellations, with their Mythology, from the 
 Puranas. 
 
 14. — The Hiftory of India before the Mahommedan conqueft, from 
 the Sanfcrit-Cafhmir Hifl:ories. 
 
 ARABIA. 
 
 15. — The Hiflory of Arabia before Mahommed. 
 J 6. — A Tranflation of the Hamafa. 
 17. — A Tranflation of Hariri. 
 18. — A Tranflation of the Facahatul Khulafa- 
 Of the Cafiah. 
 
 PERSIA. 
 
 19. — The Hifl:ory of Perfia from Authorities in Sanfcrit, Arabick, 
 Greek, Turkifh, Perfian, ancient and modern. 
 Firdaufi's Khofrau nama. 
 20. — The five Poems of Nizami, tranflated in profe. 
 A Didlionary of pure Perfian. Jehangire. 
 
 CHINA. 
 
 2 1 . — A Tranflation of the Shi-kins. 
 
 22. — The text of Can-fu-tfu verbally tranflated. 
 
 VOL. I. C TARTARY.
 
 [ X ] 
 
 TARTARY. 
 
 23. — A Hiftory of the Tartar Nations, chiefly of the Moguls and 
 Othmans, from the Turkifli and Perfian. 
 
 We are not authorifed to conclude, that he had himfelf formed a 
 determination to complete the works which his genius and knowledge 
 had thus Iketched ; the tafk feems to require a period, beyond the pro- 
 bable duration of any human life ; but we, who had the happinefs to 
 know Sir William Jones, who were witnefles of his indefatigable per- 
 feverance in the purfuit of knowledge, and of his ardour to accomplifh 
 "whatever he deemed important ; who faw the extent of his intelle61ual 
 powers, his wonderful attainments in literature and fcience, and the 
 facility with which all his compofitions were made, cannot doubt, if 
 it had pleafed Providence to protraft the date of his exiftence, that 
 he would have ably executed much, of what he had fo extenfively 
 planned. 
 
 I have hitherto principally confined my difcourfe to the purfuits of 
 our late Prefident in Oriental literature, which, from their extent, might 
 appear to have occupied all his time ; but they neither precluded his 
 attention to profeffional ftudies, nor to fcience in general : amongft his 
 publications in Europe, in polite literature, exclufive of various com- 
 pofitions in profe and verfe, I find a tranflation of the fpeeches of 
 IsjEUS, with a learned comment ; and, in law, an Effay on the Law of 
 Bailments : upon the fubjeft of this laft work, I cannot deny myfelf the 
 gratification of quoting the fentiments of a celebrated hiflorian : " Sir 
 " William Jones has given an ingenious and rational eflay on the law 
 ** of Bailments. He is perhaps the only lawyer equally converfant with 
 
 " the
 
 [ xi ] 
 
 " the year books of Wejiminjler, the commentaries of Ulpian, the 
 " Attic pleadings of Is^EUS, and the fentences of Arabian and Perfian 
 " Cadhis." 
 
 His profeffional fludies did not commence before his twenty-fecond 
 year, and I have his own authority for aflerting, that the firft book of 
 Englijh jurifprudence which he ever fludied, was Fortescue's eflay ia 
 praife of the laws of England. 
 
 Of the ability and confcientious integrity, with which he difcharged 
 the fundions of a Magiftrate, and the duties of a Judge of the Supreme 
 Court of Judicature in this fettlement, the public voice and public re- 
 gret bear ample and merited teftimony. The fame penetration which 
 marked his fcientific refearches, diftinguilhed his legal inveftigations and 
 decifions ; and he deemed no inquiries burthenfome, which had for their 
 obje6l fubftantial juftice under the rules of law. 
 
 His addreffes to the jurors, are not lefs diftinguillied for philanthropy, 
 and liberality of fentiment, than for juft expofitions of the law, per- 
 fpicuity, and elegance of didlion ; and his oratory was as captivating as 
 his arguments were convincing. 
 
 In an epilogue to his commentaries on Afiatick poetry, he bids farewell 
 to polite literature, without relinquifhing his afFedlion for it ; and con- 
 cludes with an intimation of his intention to ftudy law, exprelTed in a 
 wifh, which we now know to have been prophetic. 
 
 Mihi fit, oro, non inutilis toga. 
 
 Nee indiferta lingua, nee turpis manus ! 
 
 c 2 I have
 
 [ xii ] 
 
 1 have already enumerated attainments and works, which, from their 
 diverfity and extent, feem far beyond the capacity of the moft enlarged 
 minds ; but "the catalogue may yet be augmented. To a proficiency in 
 the languages of Greece, Rome, and jijia, he added the knowledge of the 
 philofophy of thofe countries, and of every thing curious and valuable 
 that had been taught in them. The dcxStrines of the Academy, the 
 Lyceum, or the Portico, were not more familiar to him than the tenets 
 of the Vedas, the myflicifm of the Siifis, or the religion of the ancient 
 Perjians; and whilfl: with a kindred genius he perufed with rapture 
 the heroic, lyric, or moral compofitions, of the moft renowned poets of 
 Greece, Rome, and AJia, he could turn with equal delight and know- 
 ledge, to the fublime fpeculations, or mathematical calculations, of 
 Barrow and Newton. With them alfo, he profefTed his convi6tioa 
 of the truth of the Chrijlian religion, and he juftly deemed it no incon- 
 iiderable advantage, that his refearches had corroborated the multiplied 
 evidence of revelation, by confirming the Mojaic account of the pri- 
 mitive world. We all recoiled, and can refer to, the following fen- 
 timents in his eighth anniverfary difcourfe. 
 
 ** Theological inquiries are no part of my prefent fubjedl: ; but I can- 
 " not refrain from adding, that the colle6tion of tra61s, which we call 
 " from their excellence the Scriptures, contain, independently of a di- 
 " vine origin, more true fublimity, more exquifite beauty, purer mo- 
 " rality, more important hiftory, and finer ftrains both of poetry and 
 *' eloquence, than could be colle6led within the fame compafs from all 
 " other books, that were ever compofed in any age, or in any idiom. 
 " The two parts, of which the Scriptures confift, arc conneded by a 
 " chain of compofitions, which bear no refemblance in form or fl-yle 
 " to any that can be produced from the flores of Grecian,. Indian, Perfian, 
 " or even Arabian learning j the antiquity of thole compofitions no
 
 [ xili ] 
 
 " man doubts, and the unftrained application of them to events long 
 " fubfequent to their publication, is a folid ground of belief, that they 
 " were genuine predidions, and confequently infpired." 
 
 There were in truth few fciences, in which he had not acquired con- 
 fiderable proficiency ; in moft, his knowledge was profound. The 
 theory of mufic was familiar to him ; nor had he neglefted to make 
 himfelf acquainted with the interefting difcoveries lately made in chy- 
 miftry ; and I have heard him affert, that his admiration of the ftruc- 
 ture of the human frame, had induced him to attend for a feafon to a 
 courfe of anatomical lectures delivered by his friend, the celebrated 
 Hunter. 
 
 His laft and favourite purfuit, was the fludy of Botany, which he 
 originally began under the confinement of a fevcre and lingering dif- 
 order, which with moft minds, would have proved a dilqualification 
 from any application. It conftituted the principal amufement of his 
 leifure hours. In the arrangements of Linn.s;us he difcovered fyftem, 
 truth, and fcience, which never failed to captivate and engage his at- 
 tention; and from the proofs which he has exhibited of his progrels in 
 Botany, we may conclude that he would have extended the difcoveries 
 in that fcience. The laft compofition which he read in this Society, 
 was a defcription of fele6i: Indian plants, and I hope his Executors will 
 allow us to fulfil his intention of publifhing it,, as a number in our 
 Refearches. 
 
 It cannot be deemed ufelefs or fuperfluous to inquire, by what arts 
 or method he was enabled to attain to a deo-ree of knowledge almoft 
 univerfal, and apparently beyond the powers of man, during a life little 
 exceeding forty-feven years. 
 
 The
 
 [ xiv ] 
 
 The faculties of his mind, by nature vigorous, were improved by 
 conftant exercife ; and his memory, by habitual pradice, had acquired 
 a capacity of retaining whatever had once been imprefled upon it. To 
 an unextinguiflied ardour for univerfal knowledge, he joined a perfe- 
 verancein the purfuit of it, which fubdued all obftacles; his ftudies 
 beo-an with the dawn, and during the intermiflions of profeffional duties, 
 were continued throughout the day ; reflexion and meditation ftrength- 
 ened and confirmed what induftry and inveftigation had accumulated. 
 It was a fixed principle with him, from which he never voluntarily 
 deviated, not to be deterred by any difficulties that were furmountable, 
 from profecuting to a fuccefsful termination, what he had once deli- 
 berately undertaken. 
 
 But what appears to me more particularly to have enabled him to 
 employ his talents fo much to his own and the public advantage, was 
 the reo-ular allotment of his time to particular occupations, and a fcru- 
 pulous adherence to the diftribution which he had fixed ; hence, all his 
 ftudies were purfued without interruption or confufion : nor can I here 
 omit remarking, what may probably have attrafted your obfervation as 
 well as mine, the candour and complacency with which he gave his at- 
 tention to all perfons, of whatfoever quality, talents, or education ; he 
 iuftly concluded, that curious or important information, might be 
 o-ained even from the illiterate ; and wherever it was to be obtained, 
 he fousrht and feized it. 
 
 Of the private and fecial virtues of our lamented Prefident, our 
 hearts are the beft records ; to you, who knew him, it cannot be ne- 
 ceflary for me to expatiate on the independance of his integrity, his 
 humanity, probity, or benevolence, which every living creature par- 
 ticipated ; on the affability of his converfation and manners, or his 
 modcft unaffuming deportment : nor need I remark, that he was 
 
 totally
 
 [ XV ] 
 
 totally free from pedantry, as well as from arrogance and felf-fuffi- 
 ciency, which fometimes accompany and difgrace the greateft abihties ; 
 his prefence was the delight of every fociety, which his converfa- 
 tion exhilarated and improved ; and the public have not only to lament 
 the lofs of his talents and abilities, but that of his example. 
 
 To him, as the founder of our Inftitution, and whilft he lived, its firmeft 
 fupport, our reverence is more particularly due ; inftrufled, animated, 
 and encouraged by him, genius was called forth into exertion, and 
 modeft merit was excited to diftinguifh itfelf. Anxious for the reputa- 
 tion of the Society, he was indefatigable in his own endeavours to 
 promote it, whilft he cheerfully affifted thofe of others. In lofmg 
 him, we have not only been deprived of our brighteft ornament, but 
 of a guide and patron, on whofe inftru6lions, judgment, and candour, 
 we could implicitly rely. 
 
 But it will, I truft, be long, very long, before the remembrance of 
 his virtues, his genius, and abilities, iofe that influence over the mem- 
 bers of this Society, which his living example had maintained ; and 
 if previous to his demife he had been alked, by what pofthumous 
 honours or attentions we could beft fhow our refpedl: for his me- 
 mory ? I may venture to afTert he would have replied, " By exerting 
 " yourfelves to fupport the credit of the Society ;" applying to it, per- 
 haps, the dying wifh of father Paul, " efto perpetua !" 
 
 In this wifh we muft all concur, and with it, I clofe t/ois addrefs 
 to you.
 
 A 
 
 DISCOURSE 
 
 ON THE 
 
 IJV^STITUTIOJ^ OF A SOCIETY, 
 
 FOR INaUISING INTO THE 
 
 HISTORY, CIVIL and NATURAL, 
 The antiquities, ARTS, SCIENCES, and LITERATURE, 
 
 OP 
 
 ASIA. 
 
 By the PRESIDENT. 
 
 GENTLEMEN, 
 
 VV HEN I Avas at fea laft Augufl, on my voyage to this country, 
 which I had long and ardently defired to vifit, I found one evening, 
 on inlpeding the obfervations of the day, that Ltdia lay before us, and 
 Perjia on our left, whilfi; a breeze from Arabia blew nearly on our 
 flern. A fituation fo pleafing in itfelf, and to me fo new, could not 
 fail to awaken a train of reflexions in a mind, which had early been 
 accuftomed to contemplate with delight the eventful hiftories and 
 agreeable fidions of this eaflern world. It gave me inexpreflible plea- 
 voL. I. D furc
 
 2 THE PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE. 
 
 fure to find myfelf in the midft of fo noble an amphitheatre, ahuofl 
 encircled by the vaft regions of Afia, which has ever been eflieemed 
 the nurfe of fciences, the inventrefs of delightful and ufeful arts, the 
 fcene of o-lorious adions, fertile in the produftions of human genius, 
 aboundino- in natural wonders, and infinitely diverfified in the forms of 
 relio-ion and government, in the laws, manners, cuftoms, and lan- 
 o-uaees, as well as in the features and complexions, of men. I could 
 not help remarking, how important and extenfive a field was yet un- 
 explored, and how many folid advantages unimproved ; and when I 
 confidered, with pain, that, in this fluftuating, imperfeft, and limited 
 condition of life, fuch inquiries and improvements could only be made 
 by the united efforts of many, who are not eafily brought, without 
 fome preffing inducement or ftrong impulfe, to converge in a common 
 point, I confoled myfelf with a hope, founded on opinions which it 
 might have the appearance of flattery to mention, that, if in any 
 country or community, fuch an union could be efFeded, it was among 
 my countrymen in Bengal^ with fome of whom I already had, and 
 with moft was defirous of having, the pleafure of being intimately 
 acquainted. 
 
 You have realized that hope, gentlemen, and even anticipated a 
 declaration of my wifhes, by your alacrity in laying the foundation of 
 a fociety for inquiring into the hiftory and antiquities, the natural 
 produ6tions, arts, fciences, and literature of Afia. I may confidently 
 foretel, that an inftitution fo likely to afford entertainment, and con- 
 vey knowledge, to mankind, will advance to maturity by flow, yet 
 certain, degrees ; as the Royal Society, which at firft was only a 
 meeting of a few literary friends at Oxford, rofe gradually to that 
 fplendid zenith, at which a Halley was their fecretary, and a Newton 
 their prefident. 
 
 Although
 
 TIJE PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE. 3 
 
 Although it is my humble opinion, that, in order to enfure our fuc- 
 cefs and permanence, we muft keep a middle courfe between a languid 
 remilTnefs, and an over zealous a6livity, and that the tree, which you 
 have aulpicioufly planted, will produce fairer bloflToms, and more ex- 
 quifite fruit, if it be not at firft expofed to too great a glare of fun- 
 fliine, yet I take the liberty of fubmitting to your confideration a few 
 general ideas on the plan of our fociety ; affuring you, that, whether 
 you rejeft or approve them, your corre6tion will give me both pleafure 
 and inftruftion, as your flattering attentions have already conferred on 
 me the highefl honour. 
 
 It is your defign, T conceive, to take an ample fpace for your learned 
 inveftigations, bounding them only by the geographical limits oi AJia\ 
 fo that, confidering Hindujian as a centre, and turning your eyes in 
 idea to the North, you have on your right, many important kingdoms 
 in the Eaftern peninfula, the ancient and wonderful empire of China 
 with all her Tartarian dependencies, and that of Japan, with the 
 clufler of precious iflands, in which many fmgular curiofities have too 
 long been concealed : before you lies that prodigious chain of moun- 
 tains, which formerly perhaps were a barrier againft the violence of 
 the fea, and beyond them the very interefting country of Tibet, and 
 the vaft regions of Tartary, from which, as from the Trojan horfe of 
 the poets, have iffued fo many confummate warriors, whofe domain 
 has extended at leaft from the banks of the Ilijfus to the mouths of the 
 Ganges : on your left are the beautiful and celebrated provinces oi Iran 
 o\- Perfia, the unmeafured, and perhaps unmeafurable deferts oi Ara- 
 bia, and the once flourifliing kingdom of Yemen, with the pleafant ifles 
 that the Arabs have fubdued or colonized ; and farther weftward, the 
 Afiattck dominions of the Turkiflo fultans, whofe moon feems approach- 
 ing rapidly to its wane. — By this great circumference, the field of your 
 uleful refearches will be inclofed ; but, fince Egypt had unqueftionably 
 
 D 2 an
 
 4 THE PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE. 
 
 an old connexion with this country, if not with China, ^mce. the lan- 
 guage and literature of the AhyJJinians bear a manifeft affinity to thofe 
 of Ajia, lince the Arabian arms prevailed along the African coail: of 
 the Mediterranean, and even ercfted a powerful dynafty on the conti- 
 nent of jE«ri?/>(', you may not be difplcafed occafionally to follow the 
 ftreams oi AJiatick learning a little beyond its natural boundary ; and, 
 if it be nccelfary or convenient, that a Ihort name or epithet be given 
 to our ibciety, in order to diflingullh it in the world, that oi AJiatick 
 appears both claflical and proper, whether we confider the j)lace or 
 the object of the inftitution, and preferable to Oriental, which is in 
 truth a word merely relative, and, though commonly uled in Europe^ 
 conveys no very diftinft idea. 
 
 If now it be aflccd, what are the intended obie6Is of our inquiries 
 within thefe fj)acious limits, we anfwer, MAN and NATURE ; 
 whatever is performed by the one, or produced by the other. Human 
 knowledo^e has been cle2:antly analvlcd accordinsr to the three grreat 
 faculties of the mind, memory, reafon, and imagination, which we con- 
 fbantly find employed in arranging and retaining, comparing and dil- 
 tinguidiing, combining and diverhfying, the ideas, which we receive 
 through our fenfes, or acquire by rcflcftion ; hence the three main 
 branches of learning are hijlory, fcience, and art : the firft comprehends 
 cither an account of natural produftions, or the genuine records of 
 empires and flates ; the fecond embraces the whole circle of pure and 
 mixed mathematicks, together with ethicks and law, as far as they 
 depend on the reafonlng faculty ; and the third includes all the beauties 
 of imagery and the charms of invention, dil'played in modulated lan- 
 guage, or reprefented by colour, figure, or lound. 
 
 Agreeably to this analyfis, you will inveftigate whatever is rare in 
 the ftupendous fabrick of nature, will corred the geography of Ajia 
 
 bv
 
 TFIE PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE, 5 
 
 by new obfervations and difcoveries ; will trace the annals, and even 
 traditions, of thole nations, who from time to time have peopled or 
 defolated it ; and will bring to light their various forms of government, 
 with their inftitutions civil and religious ; you will examine their im- 
 provements and methods in arithmetick and geometry, in trigonometry, 
 menfuration, mechanicks, opticks, aftronomy, and general phyficks ; 
 their fyftems of morality, grammar, rhetorick, and dialedick ; their 
 fkill in chirurgery and medicine, and their advancement, whatever it 
 may be, in anatomy and chymiftry. To this you will add relearches 
 into their agriculture, manufadures, trade ; and, whilft you inquire 
 with pleafure into their mufick, archite6ture, painting, and poetry, 
 will not negleft thofe inferiour arts, by which the comforts and even 
 elegances of focial life are fupplied or improved. You may obferve, 
 that I have omitted their languages, the diverfity and difficulty of 
 which are a fad obftacle to the progrefs of ufeful knowledge ; but I 
 have ever confidered languages as the mere inftruments of real learn- 
 ing, and think them improperly confounded with learning itfelf : the 
 attainment of them is, however, indifpenfably neceflary ; and if to the 
 Per/ian, Armenian, Turki/lj, and Arabick, could be added not only the 
 Sanfcrit, the treafures of which we may now hope to fee unlocked, but 
 even the Chinefe, Tartarian, Japanefe, and the various infular diale6ts, 
 an immenfe mine would then be open, in which we might labour 
 with equal delight and advantage. 
 
 Having fubmitted to you thefe imperfect thoughts on the limits and 
 objeBs of our future fociety, I requefl your permiflion to add a icw 
 hints on the conduct of it in its prefent immature flate. 
 
 LuciAN begins one of his fatirical pieces againfl hiftorians, with 
 declaring that the only true propofition in his work was, that it fhould 
 contain nothing true ; and perhaps it may be advifable at firfi:, in 
 
 order
 
 d THE PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE. 
 
 order to prevent any difFerence of lentiment on particular points not 
 immediately before us, to eftablifh but one rule, namely, to have no 
 rules at all. This only I mean, that, in the infancy of any fociety, 
 there ought to be no confinement, no trouble, no expenfe, no unne- 
 celTary formality. Let us, if you pleale, for the prefent, have weekly 
 evening meetings in this hall, for the purpoie of hearing original 
 papers read on fuch fubjecls, as fall within the circle of our inquiries. 
 J^ct all curious and learned men be invited to fend their trafts to our 
 fecretary, for which they ought immediately to receive our thanks ; 
 and if, towards the end of each year, we fhould bg fupplied with a 
 fufficiency of valuable materials to fill a volume, let us prefent our 
 Afiatick mifcellany to the literary world, who have derived fo much 
 pleafure and information from the agreeable work of Kcempfer, than 
 which we can fcarce propofe a better model, that they will accept 
 with eagernefs any frefh entertainment of the fame kind. You will 
 not perhaps be difpofed to admit mere tranflations of confiderable 
 length, except of fuch unpiiblifhed effays or treatifes as may be tranf- 
 mitted to us by native authors ; but, whether you will enrol as mem- 
 bers any number of learned natives, you will hereafter decide, with 
 many other queftions as they happen to arife ; and you will think, I 
 prefume, that all queftions fhould be decided on a ballot, by a majority 
 of two thirds, and that nine members fhould be requifite to conftitute 
 a board for fuch decifions. Thefe points, however, and all others I 
 fubmit entirely, gentlemen, to your determination, having neither wifh 
 nor pretenfion to claim any more than my fingle right of fufFrage. 
 One thing only, as elTential to your dignity, 1 recommend with ear- 
 neftnefs, on no account to admit a new member, who has not exprefTed 
 a voluntary defire to become fo; and in that cafe, you will not require, 
 I fuppofe, any other qualification than a love of knowledge, and a zeal 
 for the promotion of it. 
 
 Your
 
 THE PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE. 7 
 
 Your inftitution, I am perfuaded, will ripen of itfelf, and your 
 meetings will be amply fupplied with interefting and amufing papers, 
 as foon as the obje6l of your inquiries fhall be generally known. 
 There are, it may not be delicate to name them, but there are many, 
 from whofe important fludies I cannot but conceive high expeftations ; 
 and, as far as mere labour will avail, 1 fincerely promife, that, if in 
 my allotted fphere of jurifprudence, or in any intelle6tual excurfion, 
 that I may have leifure to make, I fhould be fo fortunate as to coUeft, 
 by accident, either fruits or flowers, which may feem valuable or 
 pleafuig, I fhall offer my humble Nezr to your fociety with as much 
 refpedful zeal as to the greateft potentate on earth.
 
 THE SECOND 
 
 ANNIVERSARY DISCOURSE, 
 
 DELIVERED 24 FEBRUARY, 1785, 
 
 BT 
 
 The president. 
 
 GENTLEMEN, 
 
 J. F the Deity of the Hindus, by whom all their juft requefts are be- 
 lieved to be granted with fingular indulgence, had propofed laft year 
 to gratify my warmeft wifhes, 1 could have defired nothing more ar- 
 dently than the fuccefs of your inftitution ; becaufe I can defire nothing 
 in preference to the general good, which your plan feems calculated 
 to promote, by bringing to light many ufeful and interefting trads, 
 which, being too fhort for feparate publication, might lie many years 
 concealed, or, perhaps, irrecoverably perifh : my wifhes are accom- 
 plifhed, without an invocation to Ca'madhe'nu; and your Society, 
 having already paffed its infant ftate, is advancing to maturity with 
 every mark of a healthy and robuft conflitution. When I refledt, in- 
 deed, on the variety of fubje6ts, which have been difcufled before you, 
 concerning the hiftory, laws, manners, arts, and antiquities of AJia^ 
 I am unable to decide whether my pleafure or my furprife be the 
 VOL. I. E greater ;
 
 10 THE PRESIDENT'S SECOND 
 
 greater ; for I will not difTemble, that your progrefs has far exceeded 
 my expedations ; and, though we mufl: ferioufly deplore the lofs of 
 thofe excellent men, who have lately departed from this Capital, yet 
 there is a profped ftill of large contributions to your flock of Afiatick 
 learning, which, I am perfuaded, will continually increafe. My late 
 journey to Benares has enabled me to alfure you, that many of your 
 members, who refide at a diftance, employ a part of their leifure in 
 preparing additions to your archives ; and, unlefs I am too fanguine, 
 you will foon receive light from them on feveral topicks entirely new 
 in the republick of letters. 
 
 It was principally with a defign to open fources of fuch information, 
 that I long had meditated an expedition up the Ganges during the fuf- 
 penfion of my bufinefs ; but, although I had the fatisfa6lion of vifiting 
 two ancient feats of Hindu fuperftition and literature, yet, illnefs hav- 
 ing detained me a confiderable time in the way, it was not in my 
 power to continue in them long enough to purfue my inquiries j and I 
 left them, as ^neas is feigned to have left the fhades, when his 
 guide made him recoiled the fwift flight of irrevocable time, with a 
 curiofity raifed to the height, and a regret not eafy to be defcribed. 
 
 Whoever travels in Afia, efpecially if he be converfant with the 
 literature of the countries through which he paffes, muft naturally re- 
 mark the fuperiority of European talents : the obfervation, indeed, is 
 at leaft as old as Alexander ; and, though we cannot agree with the 
 fage preceptor of that ambitious Prince, that "the Afiaticks are born to 
 be flaves," yet the Athenian poet feems perfe6lly in the right, when he 
 reprefents Europe as a fovereign Princefs, and Afla as her Handmaid: 
 but, if the miftrefs be tranfcendently majeftick, it cannot be denied 
 that the attendant has many beauties, and fome advantages peculiar to 
 herfelf. The ancients were accuflomed to pronounce panegyricks on 
 
 their
 
 ANNIVERSARY DISCOURSE. 1 1 
 
 their own countrymen at the expenfe of all other nations, with a po- 
 litical view, perhaps, of ftimulating them by praife, and exciting them 
 to ftill greater exertions ; but fuch arts are here unnecefTary ; nor 
 would they, indeed, become a fociety, who feek nothing but truth 
 unadorned by rhetorick ; and, although we muft be confcious of our 
 fuperior advancement in all kinds of ufeful knowledge, yet we ought 
 not therefore to contemn the people of ^a, from whofe refearches 
 into nature, works of art, and inventions of fancy, many valuable 
 hints may be derived for our own improvement and advantage. If 
 that, indeed, were not the principal objedt: of your inftitution, little 
 elfe could arife from it but the mere gratification of curiofity ; and I 
 fhould not receive fo much delis^ht from the humble fhare, which vou 
 have allowed me to take, in promoting it. 
 
 To form an exa6l parallel between the works and adtions of the 
 Weftern and Eaftern worlds, would require a traft of no inconfiderable 
 length ; but we may decide on the whole, that reafon and tafte are 
 the grand prerogatives of European minds, while the Afiaticks have 
 foared to loftier heights in the Iphere of imagination. The civil hif- 
 tory of their vaft empires, and of India in particular, mufl: be highly 
 interefting to our common country ; but we have a ftill nearer intereft 
 in knowing all former modes of ruling thefe inejlhnable provifices, on 
 the profperity of which fo much of our national welfare, and individual 
 benefit, feems to depend. A minute geographical knowledge, not only 
 of Bengal and Bahar, but, for evident reafons, of all the kingdoms bor- 
 dering on them, is clofely conne6ted with an account of their many 
 revolutions : but the natural produ6lions of thefe territories, efpecially 
 in the vegetable and mineral fvftems, are momentous obje6ls of refearch 
 to an imperial, but, which is a charader of equal dignity, a com- 
 mercial., people. 
 
 E 2 If
 
 12 THE PRESIDENT'S SECOND 
 
 If Botany may be defcribed by metaphors drawn from the fcience 
 itfelf, we may juflly pronounce a minute acquaintance with plants^ 
 their claffes, orders, kinds, and /pedes, to be its flowers, which can 
 only produce fruit by an application of that knowledge to the purpofes 
 of life, particularly to diet, by which difeafes may be avoided, and to 
 medicine, by which they may be remedied : for the improvement of 
 the laft mentioned art, than which none furely can be more beneficial 
 to mankind, the virtues of minerals alfo fhould be accurately known. 
 So highly has medical Ikill been prized by the ancient Indians, that 
 one of the fourteen Retna's, or precious things, which their Gods are 
 believed to have produced by churning the ocean with the mountain 
 Mandara, was a learned phyfician. What their old books contain on 
 this fubje61, we ought certainly to difcover, and that without lofs of 
 time ; left the venerable but abftrufe language, in which they are 
 compofed, fliould ceafe to be perfectly intelligible, even to the beft 
 educated natives, through a want of powerful invitation to ftudy it. 
 Bernier, who was himfelf of the Faculty, mentions approved medical 
 books in Sanfcrit, and cites a few aphorifms, which appear judicious and 
 rational ; but we can expeft nothing fo important from the works of 
 Hindu or Mifelman phyficians, as the knowledge, which experience muft 
 have given them, oi fimple medicines. I have feen an Indian prefcrip- 
 tion oi fifty -four, and another oi fixtyfix, ingredients ; but fuch com- 
 pofitions are always to be fufpefted, fince the efFeft of one ingredient 
 may deftroy that of another ; and it were better to find certain ac- 
 counts of a fingle leaf or berry, than to be acquainted with the moft 
 elaborate compounds, unlefs they too have been proved by a multitude 
 of fuccefsful experiments. The noble deobftruent oil, extracted from 
 the Eranda nut, the whole family of Balfams, the incomparable fto- 
 machick root from Columho, the fine aftringent ridiculoufly called 
 Japan earth, but in truth produced by the deco£lion of an Bidian plant, 
 have long been ufcd in Jfia ; and who can foretel what glorious dif- 
 
 coveries
 
 ANNIVERSARY DISCOURSE. 13 
 
 coveries of other oils, roots, and falutary juices, may be made by your 
 fociety ? If it be doubtful whether the Peruvian bark be always effi- 
 cacious in this country, its place may, perhaps, be fupplied by fome 
 indigenous vegetable equally antifeptick, and more congenial to the 
 climate. Whether any treatifes on Agriculture have been written by 
 experienced natives of thefe provinces, I am not yet informed ; but 
 fince the court of Spain expeft to find ufeful remarks in an Arabick 
 traft preferved in the Efcurial, on the cultivation of land in that kingdom, 
 we fhould inquire for fimilar compofitions, and examine the contents 
 of fuch as we can procure. 
 
 The fublime fcience of Chymiflry, which I was on the point of 
 calling divine, muft be added, as a key to the richeft treafuries of na- 
 ture ; and it is impoflible to forefee how greatly it may improve our 
 manufaBures, efpecially if it can fix thofe brilliant dyes^ which want 
 nothing of perfe61; beauty but a longer continuance of their fplendourj 
 or how far it may lead to new methods oi jluxing and cotnpounding me- 
 tals, which the Indians, as well as the Chinefe, are thought to have 
 praftifed in higher perfe6lion than ourfelves. 
 
 In thofe elegant arts, which are called^«^ and liberal, though of lefs 
 general utility than the labours of the mechanick, it is really wonderful 
 how much a fingle nation has excelled the whole world : I mean the 
 ancient Greeks, whole Sculpture, of which we have exquifite remains 
 both on gems and in marble, no modern tool can equal ; whofe Archi- 
 teSlure we can only imitate at a fervile diftance, but are unable to 
 make one addition to it, without deftroying its graceful iimplicity j 
 whole Poetry ftill delights us in youth, and amules us at a matiu'er 
 age J and of whofe Painting and Mujick we have the concurrent rela- 
 tions of fo many grave authors, that it would be ftrange incredulity to 
 doubt their excellence. Painting, as an art belonging to the powers 
 
 of
 
 1 4 THE PRESIDENT'S SECOND 
 
 of the imagination, or what is commonly called Genius, appears to be 
 yet in its infancy among the people of the Eaft : but the Hindu fyftem 
 of mufick has, I believe, been formed oia truer principles than our 
 own ; and all the Ikill of the native compofers is direfted to the 
 great objeft of their art, the natural exprejion of Jirong pajjions, to 
 which melody, indeed, is often facrificed : though fome of their tunes 
 are pleafing even to an European ear. Nearly the fame may be truly 
 alFerted of the Arabian or Perjian lyflem ; and, by a correct explana- 
 tion of the beft books on that fubjeft, much of the old Grecian theory 
 may probably be recovered. 
 
 The poetical works of the Arabs and Perjians, which differ fur- 
 prifingly in their flyle and form, are here pretty generally known ; 
 and, though taftes, concerning which there can be no difputing, are 
 divided in regard to their merit, yet we may fafely fay of them, what 
 Abulfazl pronounces of the Mahdbhdrat, that, " although they 
 " abound with extravagant images and defcriptions, they are in the 
 " higheft desrree entertainino- and inflruftive." Poets of the greateft 
 
 COO o 
 
 genius, Pindar, ^schylus, Dante, Petrarca, Shakespear, 
 Spenser, have moft abounded in images not far from the brink of 
 abfurdity ; but, if their luxuriant fancies, or thofe of Abulola, Fir- 
 dausi, Niza^mi, were pruned away at the hazard of their ftrength 
 and majefl:y, we fhould lofe many pleafures by the amputation. If 
 we may form a jufl: opinion of the Sanfcrit poetry from the fpecimens 
 already exhibited, (though we can only judge perfe6tly by confulting the 
 originals), we cannot but thirft for the whole work of Vya'sa, with 
 which a member of our focicty, whofe prefence deters me from faying 
 more of him, will in due time gratify the publick. The poetry of 
 Mathura, which is the Parnajfian land of the Hindus, has a fofter and 
 lefs elevated flrain ; but, fince the inhabitants of the diftricls near 
 Agra, and principally of the Duab^ are faid to furpafs all other Indians 
 
 in
 
 ANNIVERSARY DISCOURSE. 15 
 
 in eloquence, and to have compofed many agreeable tales and love- 
 fbngs, which are ftill extant, the Bhajhd, or vernacular idiom of Vraja, 
 in which they are written, fhould not be negle6led. No fpecimens of 
 genuine Oratory can be expefted from nations, among whom the form 
 of government precludes even the idea of popular eloquence; but the 
 art of writing, in elegant and modulated periods, has been cultivated 
 in ^Jia from the earlieft ages : the Veda^s^ as well as the Alcoran, are 
 written iu meafured profe ; and the compofitions of Isocrates are 
 not more highly pollfhed than thofe of the beft Arabian and Perjian 
 authors. 
 
 Of the Hindu and Mufelman architedure there are yet many noble 
 remains in Bahar, and fome in the vicinity of Malda; nor am I un- 
 willing to believe, that even thofe ruins, of which you will, I truft, be 
 prefented with correal delineations, may furnifh our own architefts 
 with new ideas of beauty and fublimity. 
 
 Permit me now to add a few words on the Sciences, properly fo 
 named ; in which it muft be admitted, that the AJiaticks, if com- 
 pared with our Weftern nations, are mere children. One of the mofl 
 fagacious men in this age, who continues, I hope, to improve and 
 adorn it, Samuel Johnson, remarked in my hearing, that, " if 
 " Newton had tlourifhed in ancient Greece, he would have been 
 " worfhipped as a divinity :" how zealoufly then would he be adored 
 in Hindujlan, if his incomparable writings could be read and compre- 
 hended by the Pandits of Cajhmir or Benares I I have feen a mathema- 
 tical book in Sanfcrit of the higheft antiquity ; but foon perceived from 
 the diagrams, that it contained only fimple elements : there may, in- 
 deed, have been, iu the favourable atmofphere of Afia, fome diligent 
 obfervers of the celeltlal bodies, and fuch obfervations, as are re- 
 corded, fliould indifputably be made publick ; but let us not expe6l 
 
 any
 
 1 THE PRESIDENT'S SECOND 
 
 any new methods, or the analyfis of new curves, from the geometricians 
 of Iran, Turkijlan, or India. Could the works of Archimedes, the 
 Newton of Sicily, be reftored to their genuine purity by the help of 
 Arabick verfions, we might then have reafon to triumph on the fuccefs 
 of our fcientifical inquiries ; or could the fucceffive improvements and 
 various rules of Algebra be traced through Arabian channels, to which 
 Cardan boafted that he had accefs, the modern Hiflory of Mathema- 
 ticks would receive confiderable illuftration. 
 
 The Jurifprudence of the Hindus and Mufelmans will produce more 
 immediate advantage ; and, if feme ftandard laiv-traSis were accu- 
 rately tranflated from the Sanfcrit and Arabick, we might hope in time 
 to fee fo complete a Digeft of Indian Laws, that all difputes among 
 the natives might be decided without uncertainty, which is in 
 truth a difgrace, though fatirically called a glory^ to the forenfick 
 fcience. 
 
 All thefe obje6ls of inquiry mull: appear to you. Gentlemen, in fo 
 ftrong a light, that bare intimations of them will be fufficient ; nor is 
 it neceffary to make ufe of emulation as an incentive to an ardent pur- 
 fuit of them : yet I cannot forbear expreffing a wifh, that the adivity 
 of the French in the fame purfuits may not be fuperior to ours, and 
 that the refearches of M. Sonnerat, whom the court of Verfailles 
 employed for feven years in thefe climates, merely to colleft fuch ma- 
 terials as we are feeking, may kindle, inftead of abating, our own 
 curiofity and zeal. If you affent, as I flatter myfelf you do, to 
 thefe opinions, you will alfo concur in promoting the objeft of 
 them ; and a few ideas having prefented themfelves to my mind, I 
 prefume to lay them before you, with an entire fubmiflion to your 
 judgement. 
 
 No
 
 ANNIVERSARY DISCOURSE. \y 
 
 No contributions, except thoie of the literary kind, will be requifite 
 for the fupport of the fociety ; but, if each of us were occafionaliy to 
 contribute a fuccindl defcription of fuch manufcripts as he had perufed 
 or infpe6led, with their dates and the names of their owners, and to 
 propofe for folution fuch quejlions as had occurred to him concerning 
 Afiatick Art, Science, and Hiflory, natural or civil, we Ihould poffefe 
 without labour, and almoft by imperceptible degrees, a fuller catalogue 
 of Oriental books, than has hitherto been exhibited, and our corre- 
 fpondents would be apprifed of thofe points, to which we chiefly direft 
 our inveftigations. Much may, I am confident, be expeded from the 
 communications of learned natives^ whether lawyers, phyficians, or 
 private fcholars, who would eagerly, on the firft invitation, fend us 
 their Mekdmdt and Rifdlahs on a variety of fubjefts ; fome for the fake 
 of advancing general knowledge, but mofl of them from a delire, 
 neither uncommon nor unreafonable, of attra6i:ing notice, and recom- 
 mending themfelves to favour. With a view to avail ourfelves of this 
 difpofition, and to bring their latent fcience under our infpeftion, it 
 might be advifable to print and circulate a fhort memorial, in Perjian 
 and Hindi, fetting forth, in a ftyle accommodated to their own habits 
 and prejudices, the defign of our inftitution ; nor would it be impoffiblc 
 hereafter, to give a medal annually, with infcriptions, in Perfian o\\ 
 one fide, and on the reverfe in Sanfcrit, as the prize of merit, to the 
 writer of the beft efTay or diflertation. To infl:ru6l others is the pre- 
 fcribed duty of learned Brahmans, and, if they be men of fubflance, 
 without reward ; but they would all be flattered with an honorary 
 mark of diftindion ; and the Mahomedans have not only the permiffion, 
 but the pofitive command, of their law-giver, to Jearch for learning 
 even in the remotejl parts of the globe. It were fuperfluous to fuggeft, 
 with how much corrednefs and facility their compofitlons might be 
 tranflated for our ufc, hnce their languages are now more generally 
 VOL. I. F and
 
 18 
 
 and perfectly underftood than they have ever been by any nation of 
 Europe. 
 
 I have detamed you, I fear, too long by this addrefs, though it has 
 been my endeavour to reconcile comprehenfivenefs with brevity : the 
 fubjeds, which I have lightly Iketched, would be found, if minutely 
 examined, to be inexhauftible ; and, fnice no limits can be fet to 
 your refearches but the boundaries of yifia itfelf, I may not impro- 
 perly conclude with wifhing for your fociety, what the Commentator 
 on the Laws, prays for the conflitution, of our country, that it may 
 
 BE PERPETUAL, 
 
 THE
 
 THE THIRD 
 
 ANNIVERSARY DISCOURSE, 
 
 DELIVERED 2 FEBRUARY, 1786- 
 
 BY 
 
 The president. 
 
 JLN the former difcourfes, which I had the honour of addreflina: to 
 you, Gentlemen, on the injlitution and objeSis of our Society, I con- 
 fined myfelf purpofely to general topicks ; giving in the firft a diftant 
 profped of the vaft career, on which we were entering, and, in the 
 fecond, exhibiting a more difFufe, but ftill fuperficial, fketch of the 
 various difcoveries in Hiftory, Science, and Art, which we might juflly 
 expe6t from our inquiries into the literature of j(/ia. I now propofe 
 to fill up that outline fo comprehenfively as to omit nothing effential, 
 yet fo concifely as to avoid being tedious ; and, if the ftate of my 
 health fhall fuffer me to continue long enough in this climate, it is my 
 defign, with your permiflion, to prepare for our annual meetings a 
 feries of fhort diflertations, unconnefted in their titles and fubjeds, 
 but all tending to a common point of no fmall importance in the pur- 
 suit of interefting truths. 
 
 K 2 Of
 
 20 THE THIRD DISCOURSE, 
 
 Of all the works, which have been publilhed in our own age, or, 
 perhaps, in any other, on the Hiftory of the Ancient World, and the 
 
 Jirjl population of this habitable globe, that of Mr. Jacob Bryant, whom 
 I name with reverence and affedion, has the beft claim to the praife 
 of deep erudition ingenioufly applied, and new theories happily illuf- 
 trated by an aflemblage of numberlefs converging rays from a moft ex- 
 tenfive circumference : it falls, neverthelefs, as every human work 
 muft fall, fhort of perfeftion ; and the leaft fatisfa6tory part of it 
 feems to be that, which relates to the derivation of words from Afiatick 
 languages. Etymology has, no doubt, fome ufe in hiftorical re- 
 fearches ; but it is a medium of proof fo very fallacious, that, where 
 it elucidates one fa61:, it obfcures a thoufand, and more frequently bor- 
 ders on the ridiculous, than leads to any folid conclufion : it rarely 
 carries with it any internal power of convidtion from a refemblancc 
 of founds or fimilarity of letters ; yet often, where it is wholly un- 
 aflifted by thofe advantages, it may be indlfputabjy proved by extrin- 
 
 Jick evidence. We know a pojleriori, that both Jitz and hijo, by the 
 nature of two feveral dialefts, are derived irovajilius ; that uncle comes 
 irom avus, and ftranger from extra; that Jour is deducible, through 
 the Italian, from dies ; and rojjignol from lufcinia, or the Jinger in groves ; 
 that fciuro, e'cureuil, and fquirrel are compounded of two Greek words 
 defcriptive of the animal j which etymologies, though they could not 
 have been demonftrated a priori, might ferve to confirm, if any 
 fuch confirmation were ncceffary, the proofs of a connexion between 
 the members of one great Empire ; but, when we derive our hanger, or 
 
 Jljort pendent /word, from the Perjian, becaufe ignorant travellers thus 
 mis-fpell the word khatijar, which in truth means a different weapon, 
 or fandal-wood from the Greek, becaufe we fuppole, that fandals were 
 fometimes made of ir, we gain no ground in proving the affinity of 
 nations, and only weaken arguments, which might otherwife be 
 firmly fupported. That Cu's then, or, as it certainly is written in 
 
 one
 
 ON THE HINDU'S. 21 
 
 one ancient dialed^, Cu't, and in others, probably, Ca's, enters into 
 the compofition of many proper names, we may very reafonably be- 
 lieve ; and that Algeziras takes its name from the Arabick word for 
 an ijland, cannot be doubted ', but, when we are told from Europe, 
 that places and provinces in India were clearly denominated from 
 thofe words, we cannot but obferve, in the firfl inftance, that the 
 town, in which we now are affembled, is properly written and pro- 
 nounced Calicdta ; that both Cdtd and Cuf unqueftionably mean p/acej 
 of Jlrength, or, in general, any inclofures ; and that Gujarat is at leaft 
 as remote from Jezirah in found, as it is in fituation. 
 
 Another exception (and a third could hardly be difcovered by any 
 candid criticifm) to the Analyjis of Ancient Mythology^ is, that the 
 method of reafoning and arrangement of topicks adopted in that learned 
 work are not quite agreeable to the title, but almoft vj\\o\\y fynthetical ; 
 and, though fynthejis may be the better mode in pure fcience, where 
 the principles are undeniable, yet it feems lefs calculated to give com- 
 plete fatisfaftion in hijlorical difquifitions, where every poftulatum will 
 perhaps be refufed, and every definition controverted : this may feem 
 a flight objedion, but the fubjeft is in itfelf fo interefling, and the full 
 convi6tion of all reafonable men fo defirable, that it may not be loft 
 labour to difcufs the fame or a fimilar theory in a method purely ana- 
 lytical, and, after beginning with fa6ts of general notoriety or undif- 
 puted evidence, to inveftigate fuch truths, as are at firft unknown or 
 very imperfedlly difcerned. 
 
 The Jive principal nations, who have in different ages divided 
 among themfelves, as a kind of inheritance, the vaft continent oi AJia, 
 with the many iilands depending on it, are the Indians, the Chinefe, 
 the Tartars, the Arabs, and the Perjians : who they feverally were, 
 whence, and when they came, where they now are fettled, and what 
 
 advantage
 
 22 THE THIRD DISCOURSE, 
 
 advantage a more perfed knowledge oi them all may bring to oui 
 European world, will be Ihown, I truft, m Jive diilinft effays ; the laft 
 of which will demonftrate the connexion or diverfity between them, 
 and folve the great problem, whether they had any common origin, 
 and whether that origin was the fame, which we generally afcribe 
 to them, 
 
 I begin with India, not becaufe I find reafon to believe it the true 
 centre of population or of knowledge, but, becaufe it is the country, 
 which we now inhabit, and from which we may bell: furvey the re- 
 gions around us ; as, in popular language, we fpeak of the rijing fun, 
 and of his progrefs through the Zodiack, although it had long ago been 
 imagined, and is now demonftrated, that he is himfelf the centre of 
 our planetary fjftem. Let me here premife, that, in all thefe inquiries 
 concerning the hiftory of India, I fliall confine my refearches down- 
 wards to the Mohammedan conquefts at the beginning of the eleventh 
 century, but extend them upwards, as high as poffible, to the 
 earlieft authentick records of the human Ipecies. 
 
 India then, on its mod enlarged fcale, in which the ancients appear 
 to have underflood it, comprifes an area of near forty degrees on each 
 fide, including a fpace almofl: as large as all Europe ; being divided on 
 the weft from Perfia by the Arachofan mountains, limited on the eaft by 
 the Chinefe part of the farther peninfula, confined on the north by the 
 wilds of Tartary, and extending to the fouth as far as the ifles of Java, 
 This trapezium, therefore, comprehends the flupendous hills o{ Potyid 
 or Tibet, the beautiful valley of Cajlmiir, and all the domains of the 
 old Indofcythians, the countries of Nepal and Butdnt, Cdmriip or Afam, 
 together with Siam, Ava, Racan, and the bordering kingdoms, as far 
 as the China of the Hindus or Sin of the Arabian Geographers ; not to 
 mention the whole weficrn peninfula with the celebrated ifland of 
 
 Sinhala,
 
 ON THE HINDU'S. 23 
 
 Sinhala, or Lion-like men, at its fouthern extremity. By India, in 
 fliort, I mean that whole extent of country, in which the primitive 
 religion and languages of the Hindus prevail at this day with more 
 or lefs of their ancient purity, and in which the Ndgari letters are 
 Itill ufed with more or lefs deviation from their original form. 
 
 The Hindus themfelves believe their own country, to which they 
 give the vain epithets of Medhyama or Central, and Punyabhmii, or the 
 Land of Virtues, to have been the portion of Bharat, one of nine 
 brothers, whofe father had the dominion of the whole earth ; and they 
 reprefent the mountains of Himalaya as lying to the north, and, to the 
 weft, thofe of Vindhya, called alfo Vindian by the Greeks; beyond 
 which the Sindhu runs in feveral branches to the fea, and meets it 
 nearly oppofite to the point of Dwdraca, the celebrated feat of their 
 Shepherd God : in the fouth-eajl they place the great river Saravatya ; 
 by which they probably mean that of u4va, called alfo Aird'vati in 
 part of its courfe, and giving perhaps its ancient name to the gulf of 
 Sahara. This domain of Bharat they confider as the middle of the 
 Jambtidwipa, which the Tibetians alio call the Land of Zambii ; and 
 the appellation is extremely remarkable ; for Jambu is the Sanfcrit 
 name of a delicate fruit called yAman by the Mufelmans, and by us 
 rofe-apple ; but the largeft and richeft fort is named Amrita, or hn- 
 mortal; and the Mythologifts of Tibet apply the fame word to a ce- 
 leftial tree bearing ambrojial fruit, and adjoining to four vaft rocks 
 from which as many facred rivers derive their feveral ftrcams. 
 
 The inhabitants of this extenfive tra£l are defcribed by Mr. Lord 
 with great exaftnefs, and with a pifturefque elegance peculiar to our 
 ancient language : " A people, fays he, prelented themfelves to mine 
 " eyes, clothed in linen garments fomewhat low defcending, of a 
 
 gefture and garb, as 1 may fay, maidenly and well nigh effeminate, 
 
 " of
 
 24 THE THIRD DISCOURSE, 
 
 " of a countenance fhy and fomewhat eftranged, yet fmiling out a 
 " glozed and bafhful familiarity." Mr. Orme, the Hii^orian oi India, 
 who unites an exquifite tafte for every fine art with an accurate know- 
 ledge of Afiatick manners, obferves, in his elegant preliminary Difler- 
 tation, that this " country has been inhabited from the earlieft an- 
 " tiquity by a people, who have no refemblance, either in their figure 
 " or manners, with any of the nations contiguous to them," and that, 
 " although conquerors have eftablifhed themfelves at different times 
 " in different parts of India, yet the original inhabitants have loft very 
 " little of their original charader." The ancients, in fa61, give a de- 
 fcription of them, which our early travellers confirmed, and our own 
 perfonal knowledge of them nearly verifies ; as you will perceive from 
 a paffage in the Geographical Poem of Dionysius, which the Analyft 
 of Ancient Mythology has tranflated with great fpirit : 
 
 " To th' eaft a lovely country wide extends, 
 
 *' India, whofe borders the wide ocean bounds ; 
 
 *' On this the fun, new rifing from the main, 
 
 *' Smiles pleas'd, and fheds his early orient beam. 
 
 *' Th' inhabitants are fwart, and in their locks 
 
 " Betray the tints of the dark hyacinth. 
 
 *' Various their fundions ; fome the rock explore, 
 
 " And from the mine extradl the latent gold ; 
 
 *' Some labour at the woof with cunning ikill, 
 
 " And manufafture linen ; others Ihape 
 
 " And polifh iv'ry with the niceft care : 
 
 " Many retire to rivers fhoal, and plunge 
 
 " To feek the beryl flaming in its bed, 
 
 " Or glitt'ring diamond. Oft the jafper's found 
 
 " Green, but diaphanous ; the topaz too 
 
 " Of ray ferene and pleafing ; laft of all 
 
 " The
 
 ON THE HINDU'S. 25 
 
 " The lovely amethyft, in which combine 
 
 " All the mild (hades of purple. The rich foil, 
 
 *' Wafh'd by a thoufand rivers, from all fides 
 
 " Pours on the natives wealth without control." 
 
 Their fources of wealth are ftill abundant even after fo many revolu- 
 tions and conquefts ; in their manufactures of cotton they ftill furpafs all 
 the world; and their features have, moft probably, remained unaltered 
 fince the time of Dionysius ; nor can we reafonably doubt, how dege- 
 nerate and abafed fo ever the Hindus may now appear, that in fome early 
 age they were fplendid in arts and arms, happy in government, wife in 
 legiflation, and eminent in various knowledge : but, fince their civil 
 hiftory beyond the middle of the nineteenth century from the prefent 
 time, is involved in a cloud of fables, we feem to poflefs only four 
 general media of fatisfylng our curiofity concerning it ; namely, firft, 
 their Languages and Letters ; fecondly, their Philofophy and Religion ; 
 thirdly, the adual remains of their old Sculpture and Archite6lure ; 
 and fourthly, the written memorials of their Sciences and Arts. 
 
 I. It is much to be lamented, that neither the Greeks^ who attended 
 Alexander into India, nor thofe who were long connefted with 
 it under the BaBrian Princes, have left us any means of knowing with 
 accuracy, what vernacular languages they found on their arrival in 
 this Empire. The Mohammedans, we know, heard the people of proper 
 Hindujlan, or India on a limited fcale, fpeaking a Bhdjl:d, or living 
 tongue of a very fingular conftrudlion, the pureft diale6l of which 
 was current in the diftridts round Agra, and chiefly on the poetical 
 ground of Mat'hura ; and this is commonly called the idiom of Vraja, 
 Five words in fix, perhaps, of this language were derived from the 
 Sanfcrit, in which books of religion and fcience were compofed, 
 and which appears to have been formed by an exquifite grammatical 
 
 VOL. I. G arrangement f
 
 20 THE THIRD DISCOURSE, 
 
 arrangement, as the name itfelf implies, from fome unpolifhed idiom ; 
 but the bafis of the Hindujlani, particularly the inflexions and regimen 
 of verbs, differed as widely from both thofe tongues, as Arabick differs 
 from Perftan, or German from Greek. Now the general effeft of con- 
 quefl is to leave the current language of the conquered people un- 
 changed, or very little altered, in its ground-work, but to blend with 
 it a confiderable number of exotick names both for things and for 
 adlions ; as it has happened in every country, that I can recolledt, 
 where the conquerors have not preferved their own tongue unmixed 
 with that of the natives, like the Turks in Greece, and the Saxons in 
 Britain ; and this analogy might induce us to believe, that the pure 
 Hindi, whether of Tartarian or Chaldean origin, was primeval in Upper 
 India, into which the Sanfcrit was introduced by conquerors from other 
 kingdoms in fome very remote age ; for we cannot doubt that the 
 language of the Veda's was ufed in the great extent of country, which 
 has before been delineated, as long as the religion of Brahma has 
 prevailed in it. 
 
 The Satifcrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful 
 rtrudture ; more perfecft than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, 
 and more exquifitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a 
 ftronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and in the forms of grammar, 
 than could pofhbly have been produced by accident j fo flrong indeed, 
 that no philologer could examine them all three, without believing 
 them to have fprung from fome common fource, which, perhaps, no 
 longer exifts : there is a fimilar reafon, though not quite fo forcible, 
 for fuppofing that both the Gothick and the Celtick, though blended 
 with a very different idiom, had the fame origin with the Sanfcrit ; 
 and the old Perjian might be added to the fame family, if this were 
 the place for difcufTing any queftion concerning the antiquities of 
 Perjia. 
 
 The
 
 ON THE HINDU'S. 27 
 
 The charaBerSy in which the languages of India were originally 
 written, are called Ndgari, from Nagara, a City, with the word Deva 
 fometimes prefixed, becaufe they are believed to have been taught by 
 the Divinity himfelf, who prefcribed the artificial order of them in a 
 voice from heaven. Thefe letters, with no greater variation in their 
 form by the change of flraight lines to curves, or converfely, than the 
 Cufick alphabet has received in its way to India, are ftill adopted in 
 more than twenty kingdoms and ftates, from the borders of Cafigar 
 and Khoten, to Rama's bridge, and from the Sindhu to the river of Siam ; 
 nor can I help believing, although the polifhed and elegant Devanagari 
 may not be fo ancient as the monumental charaders in the caverns of 
 Jarafandha, that the fquare Chaldaick letters, in which moft Hebrew 
 books are copied, were originally the fame, or derived from the fame 
 prototype, both with the Indian and Arabian charadters : that the Phe- 
 nician, from which the Greek and Roman alphabets were formed by 
 various changes and inverfions, had a fimilar origin, there can be little 
 doubt ; and the infcriptions at Candrah, of which you now poflefs a moft 
 accurate copy, feem to be compounded of Ndgari and Ethiopick letters, 
 which bear a clofe relation to each other, both in the mode of writing 
 from the left hand, and in the fingular manner of connedling the 
 vowels with the confonants. Thefe remarks may favour an opinion 
 entertained by many, that all the fymbols of found, which at firft, 
 probably, were only rude outlines of the different organs of fpeech, had 
 a common origin : the fymbols of ideas, now ufed in China and Japan, 
 and formerly, perhaps, in Egypt and Mexico, are quite of a diftindt 
 nature; but it is very remarkable, that the order oi founds in the 
 Chinefe grammars correfponds nearly with that obferved in Tibet, and 
 hardly differs from that, which the Hindus confider as the invention of 
 their Gods. 
 
 G 2 II. Of
 
 28 THE THIRD DISCOURSE, 
 
 II. Of the Indian Religion and Philofophy, I Ihall here fay but little j 
 becaufe a full account of each would require a feparate volume : it will 
 be fufficient in this differtation to afTume, what might be proved beyond 
 controverfy, that we now live among the adorers of thofe very deities, 
 who were worfliipped under different names in old Greece and Italy, and 
 among the profeffors of thofe philofophical tenets, which the lonick and 
 Attkk writers illuflrated with all the beauties of their melodious 
 language. On one hand we fee the trident of Neptune, the eagle 
 of Jupiter, the fatyrs of Bacchus, the bow of Cupid, and the 
 chariot of the Sun ; on another we hear the cymbals of Rhea, the fongs 
 of the Mufes, and the paftoral tales of Apollo Nomius. In more 
 retired fcenes, in groves, and in feminaries of learning, we may per- 
 ceive the Bi'dhmans and the Sarmanes, mentioned by Clemens, dif- 
 puting in the forms of logick, or difcourling on the vanity of human 
 enjoyments, on the immortality of the foul, her emanation from the 
 eternal mind, her debafement, wanderings, and final union with her 
 fource. The Jix philofophical fchools, whofe principles are explained 
 in the Derfana Sdjira, comprife all the metaphyficks of the old Aca-, 
 demy, the Stoa, the Lyceum ; nor is it poffible to read the Veddnta, or 
 the many fine compofitions in illuftration of it, without believing, that 
 Pythagoras and Plato derived their fublime theories from the 
 fame fountain with the fages of India. The Scythian and Hyperborean 
 doctrines and mythology may alfo be traced in every part of thefe eaflern 
 regions ; nor can we doubt, that Wod or Oden, whofe religion, as 
 the northern hiflorians admit, was introduced into Scandinavia by a 
 foreign race, was the fame with Buddh, whofe rites were probably 
 imported into India nearly at the fame time, though received much 
 later by the Chincfe, who foften his name into FO'. 
 
 This may be a proper place to afcertain an important point in the 
 Chronology of the Hindus; for the priefts of Buddha left in Tibet 
 
 and
 
 ON THE HINDU'S. 29 
 
 and China the precife epoch of his appearance, real or hnaghied, in 
 this Empire ; and their information, which had been preferved in 
 writing, was compared by the Chrijlian Miflionaries and fcholars with 
 our own era. Couplet, De Guignes, Giorgi, and Bai lly, differ 
 a little in their accounts of this epoch, but that of Couplet feems the 
 moft corredl : on taking, however, the medium of the four feveral 
 dates, we may fix the time of Buddha, or the ninth great incarnation 
 of Vishnu, in the year one thonfand and fourteen before the birth of 
 Christ, or tivo thonjand feven hundred and ninety-nine years ago. Now 
 the Cdjhmirians, who boall: of his defcent in their kingdom, affert that 
 he appeared on earth about two centuries after Crishna the Indian 
 Apollo, who took fo decided a part in the war of the Mahdbhdrat ; 
 and, if an Etymologift were to fuppofe, that the Athenians had em- 
 bellifhed their poetical hiftory of Pan D ion's expulfion and the reftor- 
 ation of .^geus with the AJiatick tale of the Pa'ndus and YuD- 
 HISHTIR, neither of which words they could have articulated, I 
 fhould not haftily deride his conjefture : certain it is, that Pdndumandel 
 is called by the Greeks the country of Pan d ion. We have, there- 
 fore, determined another interefting epoch, by fixing the age of 
 Crishna near the three thoufandth year from the prefent time j and, 
 as the three firft Avatars, or defcents of Vishnu, relate no lefs clearly 
 to an Univerfal Deluge, in which eight perfons only were faved, than 
 X^t fourth ^nA.ffth do to the puniJJ?ment of impiety and the humiliation of 
 the proud, we may for the prefent affume, that the fecond, or filver, 
 age of the Hindus was fubfequent to the difperfion from Babel; fo 
 that we have only a dark interval of about a thoufand years, which 
 were employed in the fettlement of nations, the foundation of ftates or 
 empires, and the cultivation of civil fociety. The great incarnate 
 Gods of this intermediate age are both named Ra'ma but with dif- 
 ferent epithets ; one of whom bears a wonderful refemblance to the 
 Indian Bacchus, and his wars are the fubjed of feveral heroick poems. 
 
 He
 
 30 THE THIRD DISCOURSE, 
 
 He is reprefented as a defcendent from Su'rya, or the Sun, as the 
 hufband of Si'ta', and the fon of a princefs named Cau'selya': 
 it is very remarkable, that the Peruvians, whofe Incas boafted of the 
 fame defcent, ftyled their greatell feftival Ramafitoa ; whence we may 
 fuppofe, that South America was peopled by the fame race, who im- 
 ported into the fartheft parts of AJia the rites and fabulous hiftory of 
 Ra'ma. Thefe rites and this hiftory are extremely curious; and, 
 although I cannot believe with Newton, than ancient mythology 
 was nothing but hiftorical truth in a poetical drefs, nor, with Bacon, 
 that it confifted folely of moral and metaphyfical allegories, nor with 
 Bryant, that all the heathen divinities are only different attributes 
 and reprefentations of the Sun or of deceafed progenitors, but conceive 
 that the whole fyftem of religious fables rofe, like the Nile, from fe- 
 veral diftincft fources, yet I cannot but agree, that one great fpring 
 and fountain of all idolatry in the four quarters of the globe was the 
 veneration paid by men to the vaft body of fire, which " looks from 
 his fole dominion like the God of this world ;" and another, the im- 
 moderate refpeft fhown to the memory of powerful or virtuous an- 
 ceftors, efpecially the founders of kingdoms, legiflators, and warriors, 
 of whom the Sun or the Moon were wildly fuppofed to be the parents. 
 
 III. The remains of architeSiure and fculpture in India, which I 
 mention here as mere monuments of antiquity, not as fpecimens of 
 ancient art, feem to prove an early connedlion between this country 
 and Africa : the pyramids of Egypt, the colofTal ftatues defcribed by 
 Pausanias and others, the fphinx, and the Hermes Cams, which 
 laft bears a great refemblance to the Vardhdvatar, or the incarnation 
 of Vishnu in the form of a Boar, indicate the ftyle and mythology of 
 the fame indefatigable workmen, who formed the vaft excavations of 
 Cdndrah, the various temples and images of Buddha, and the idols, 
 which are continually dug up at Gayd, or in its vicinity. The letters 
 
 on
 
 ON THE HINDU'S. 31 
 
 an many of thofe monuments appear, as I have before intimated, partly 
 of Indiaii, and partly of Aby£inian or Ethiopick, origin ; and all thefe 
 indubitable fails may induce no ill-grounded opinion, that Ethiopia 
 and Hinduftan were peopled or colonized by the fame extraordinary 
 race ; in confirmation of which, it may be added, that the moun- 
 taineers of Bengal and Bahar can hardly be diftinguifhed in fome of 
 their features, particularly their lips and nofes, from the modern Abyf- 
 fmians, whom the Arabs call the children of Cu'sh : and the ancient 
 Hindus, according to Strabo, differed in nothing from the Africans^ 
 but in the flraitnefs and fmoothnefs of their hair, while that of the 
 others was crifp or woolly ; a difference proceeding chiefly, if not en- 
 tirely, from the refpeftive humidity or drynefs of their atmofpheres : 
 hence the people who received thejirjl light of the rijing fun, according 
 to the limited knowledge of the ancients, are faid by Apuleius to be 
 the Ar'u and Ethiopians, by which he clearly meant certain nations of 
 India; where we frequently fee figures of Buddha with curled hair 
 apparently defigned for a reprefentation of it in its natural ftate. 
 
 IV. It is unfortunate, that the Silpi Sdjlra, or colleSlion of treatifes on 
 Arts and MamfaSlures, which muft have contained a treafure of ufe- 
 ful information on dying, painting, and metallurgy, has been fo long 
 negled:ed, that few, if any, traces of it are to be found j but the 
 labours of the Indian loom and needle have been univerfally celebrated; 
 and fne linen is not improbably fuppofed to have been called Sindon, 
 from the name of the river near which it was wrought in the higheft 
 perfedlion : the people of Colchis were alfo famed for this manufa<5ture, 
 and the Egyptians yet more, as we learn from feveral pafTages in 
 fcripture, and particularly from a beautiful chapter in Ezekial con- 
 taining the moft authentick delineation of ancient commerce, of which 
 Tyre had been the principal mart. Silk was fabricated immemorially 
 by the Indians, though commonly afcribed to the people of Serica or 
 
 lanciit.
 
 32 THE THIRD DISCOURSE, 
 
 Tancut, among whom probably the word Ser, which the Greeks ap- 
 plied to the. ftlk-worm, lignified gold ; a fenfe, which it now bears in 
 Tibet. That the Hindus were in early ages a commercial people, we 
 have many reafons to believe ; and in the firfl of their facred law-tradls, 
 which they fuppofe to have been revealed by Menu many millions of 
 years ago, we find a curious paflage on the legal interejl of money, 
 and the limited rate of it in different cafes, with an exception in regard 
 to adventures at fea ; an exception, which the fenfe of mankind ap- 
 proves, and which commerce abfolutely requires, though it was not 
 before the reign of Charles I. that our own jurifprudence fully ad- 
 mitted it in refpedl of maritime contradls. 
 
 We are told by the Grecian writers, that the Indians were the wifefl 
 of nations ; and in moral wifdom, they were certainly eminent : their 
 Niti Sdjlra, or Syjiem of Ethicks, is yet preferved, and the Fables of 
 ViSHN USER MAN, whom we ridiculoufly call Pilpay, are the mofi: beau- 
 tiful, if not the mofi: ancient, collection of apologues in the world : 
 they were firft tranflated from the Sanfcrit, in ih.e.Jixth century, by the 
 order ofBuzERCHUMiHR, or Bright as the Sun, the chief phyfician 
 and afterwards Vezir of the great Anu'shireva'n, and are extant under 
 various names in more than twenty languages ; but their original 
 title is Hitopadefa, or Amicable InJlruBion ; and, as the very exiftence 
 of Esop, whom the Arabs believe to have been an AbyJJiniaji, appears 
 rather doubtful, I am not difinclined to fuppofe, that the firfb moral 
 fables, which appeared in Europe, were of Indian or Ethiopian origin. 
 
 The Hindus are faid to have boafted of /-6r^^ inventions, all of which, 
 indeed, are admirable, the method of inftrudling by apologues, the 
 decimal fc ale adopted now by all civilized nations, and the game of 
 Chefs, on which they have fome curious treatifes ; but, if their numer- 
 ous v/orks on Grammar, Logick, Rhetorick, Mufick, all which are 
 
 extant
 
 ON THE HINDU'S. 3 
 
 •t 
 
 extant and acceffible, were explained in fonie language generally known, 
 it would be found, that they had yet higher pretenfions to the praifc 
 of a fertile and inventive genius. Their lighter Poems are lively and 
 elegant -, their Epick, magnificent and fublime in the higheft degree ; 
 their Purdnas comprife a feries of mythological Hiftories in blank 
 verfe from the Creation to the fuppofed incarnation of Buddha ; and 
 their Vedas, as far as we can judge from that compendium of them, 
 which is called Upanipjat, abound with noble fpeculations in metaphy- 
 ficks, and fine difcourfes on the being and attributes of God. Their 
 moft ancient medical book, entitled Chereca, is believed to be the 
 work of Siva ; for each of the divinities in their Triad h^s at leaft one 
 facred compofition afcribed to him ; but, as to mere human works on 
 Hijiory and Geography, though they are faid to be extant in Capjnir^ 
 it has not been yet in my power to procure them. What their ajlro- 
 nomical and mathematical writings contain, will not, I trufl, remain 
 long a fecret : they are eafily procured, and their importance cannot 
 be doubted. The Philofopher, whofe works are faid to include a 
 fyftem of the univerfe founded on the principle of AttraBion and the 
 Central ^o^vivon of the fun, is named Yavan Acha'rya, becaufe he 
 had travelled, we are told, into Ionia : if this be true, he might have 
 been one of thofe, who converfed with Pythagoras; this at leaft is 
 undeniable, that a book on aftronomy in Sanfcrit bears the title of 
 Yavana Jdtica, which may fignify the Io7iic Se£i ; nor is it improbable, 
 that the names of the planets and Zodiacal ftars, which the Arabs 
 borrowed from the Greeks, but which we find in the oldeft Indian re- 
 cords, were originally devifed by the fame ingenious and enterprizing 
 race, from whom both Greece and India were peopled ; the race, who, 
 as DiONYsius defcribes them. 
 
 firft aflayed the deep. 
 
 * And wafted merchandize to coafts unknown, 
 VOL. I, H « Thofe,
 
 34 " THE THIRD DISCOURSE. 
 
 ' Thofe, who digefted firfl the ftarry choir, 
 
 * Their motions mark'd, and call'd them by their names.' 
 
 Of thefe curfory obfervations on the Hindus, which it would re- 
 quire vohimes to expand and illuftrate, this is the refult : that they 
 had an immemorial affinity with the old Perfians, Ethiopians, and 
 Egyptians, the Phenicians, Greeks, and Tufcans, the Scythians or Goths, 
 and Celts, the Chitiefe, "JapaJiefe, and Peruvians; whence, as no reafon 
 appears for believing, that they were a colony from any one of thofe 
 nations, or any of thofe nations from them, we may fairly conclude 
 that they all proceeded from fome central country, to invefligate which 
 will be the obje6t of my future Difcourfes ; and I have a fanguine hope, 
 that your colledlions during the prefent year will bring to light many 
 ufeful difcoveries ; although the departure for Europe of a very in- 
 genious member, who lirft opened the ineftimable mine of Sanfcrit 
 literature, will often deprive us of accurate and folid information con- 
 cerning the languages and antiquities of India, 
 
 THE
 
 THE FOURTH 
 
 ANNIVERSARY DISCOURSE, 
 
 DELR'ERED 15 FEBRUARY, 1787. 
 
 BT 
 
 The president. 
 
 GENTLEMEN, 
 
 1 HAD the honour lafl: year of opening to you my intention, to dif- 
 courfe at our annual meetings on the^-y^ principal nations, who have 
 peopled the continent and iflands of AJia ; fo as to trace, by an hifto- 
 rical and philological analyfis, the number of ancient flems, from 
 which thofe five branches have feverally fprung, and the central region, 
 from which they appear to have proceeded : you may, therefore, exped:, 
 that, having fubmitted to your confideration a few general remarks on 
 the old inhabitants of In^ia, I fhould now offer my fentiments on fomc 
 other nation, who, from a fimilarity of language, religion, arts, and 
 manners, may be fuppofed to have had an early connexion with the 
 Hindus ; but, fince we find fome Afiatick nations totally diflimilar to 
 them in all or moft of thofe particulars, and fince the difterence will 
 ftrike you more forcibly by an immediate and clofe comparifon, I defign 
 at prefent to give a (hort account of a wonderful people, who feem in 
 
 H 2 every
 
 36 THE FOURTH DISCOURSE, 
 
 every refpecH: fo ftrongly contrafted to the original natives of this coun- 
 try, that they miifl have been for ages a diftind and feparate race. 
 
 For the purpofe of thefe difcourfes, I confidered India on its largeft 
 fcale, defcribing it as lying between Perjia and China, Tartary and 
 ^ava ; and, for the fame purpofe, I now apply the name of Arabia, 
 as the Arabian Geographers often apply it, to that extenfive Peninfula, 
 which the Red Sea divides from Africa, the great Ajfyrian river from 
 Iran, and of which the Erythrean Sea wafhes the bafe ; without ex- 
 cluding any part of its weftern fide, which would be completely mari- 
 time, if no ifthmus intervened between the Mediterranean, and the Sea 
 of Kolzom : that country in fhort I call Arabia, in which the Arabick 
 language and letters, or fuch as have a near affinity to them, have been 
 immemorially current. 
 
 Arabia, thus divided from India by a vaft ocean, or at leaft by a 
 broad bay, could hardly have been conne(fted in any degree with this 
 country, until navigation and commerce had been confiderably im- 
 proved : yet, as the Hindus and the people of Yemen were both com- 
 mercial nations in a very early age, they were probably the firft inftru- 
 ments of conveying to the weftern world the gold, ivory, and perfumes 
 oi India, as well as the fragrant wood, called dlliiiowa in Arabick and 
 aguru in Sanfcrit, which grows in the greatefl perfe<3:ion in Anatn or 
 Cochinchina. It is poflible too, that a part of the Arabian Idolatry 
 might have been derived from the fame fource with that of the Hindus ^ 
 but fuch an intercourfe may be confidered as partial and accidental 
 only ; nor am I more convinced, than I was fifteen years ago, when 
 I took the liberty to animadvert on a pafiage in the Hiftory of Prince 
 Kant EMIR, that the 'Turks have any juft reafon for holding the 
 coaft of Yemen to be a part of India, and calling its inhabitants Yellow 
 Indians^ 
 
 The
 
 ON THE ARABS. 37 
 
 The Arabs have never been entirely fubdued ; nor has any impreffion 
 been made on them, except on their borders % vv^here, indeed, the 
 Phenicians, Perjians, Ethiopians, Egyptians, and, in modern times, the 
 Othman Tartars, have feverally acquired fettlements ; but, with thefe 
 exceptions, the natives of Hejaz and Yemen have preferved for ages the 
 fole dominion of their deferts and paftures, their mountains and fertile 
 valleys : thus, apart from the reft of mankind, this extraordinary peo- 
 ple have retained their primitive manners and language, features and 
 charadler, as long and as remarkably as the Hindus themfelves. All 
 the genuine Arabs of Syria whom I knew in Europe, thofe of Ye/nen, 
 whom I faw in the ifle of Hinzuan, whither many had come from 
 Majkat for the purpofe of trade, and thofe of Hejaz, whom I have 
 met in Bengal, form a ftriking contraft to the Hindu inhabitants of thefe 
 provinces : their eyes are full of vivacity, their fpeech voluble and arti- 
 culate, their deportment manly and dignified, their apprehenfion quick, 
 their minds always prefent and attentive ; with a fpirit of independence 
 appearing in the countenances even of the loweft among them. Men 
 will always differ in their ideas of civilization, each meafuring it by 
 the habits and prejudices of his own country ; but, if courtefy and ur- 
 banity, a love of poetry and eloquence, and the pradlice of exalted 
 virtues be a jufter meafure of perfeft fociety, we have certain proof, 
 that the people of Arabia, both on plains and in cities, in republican 
 and monarchical ftates, were eminently civilized for many ages before 
 their conqueft of Perfia, 
 
 It is deplorable, that the ancient Hiftory of this majeftick race 
 fhould be as little known in detail before the time of Dhu Tezen, as 
 that of the Hindus before Vicramaditya ; for, although the vaft hifto- 
 rical work of Alnuwairi, and the Murujuldhahab, or Golden Meadows, 
 of Almajuudi, contain chapters on the kings of Himyar, Ghafan, and 
 Hirah, with lifts of them and fketches of their feveral reigns, and 
 
 although
 
 o 
 
 8 THE FOURTH DISCOURSE, 
 
 although Genealogical Tables, from which chronology might be better 
 afcertained, are prefixed to many compofitions of the old Arabian 
 Poets, yet moft manufcripts are fo incorredl, and fo many contradidions 
 are found in the beft of them, that we can fcarce lean upon tradition 
 with fecurity, and muft have recourfe to the fame media for invefti- 
 gating the hiflory of the Arabs, that I before adopted in regard to that 
 of the Indians ; namely, their language, letters, and religion, their an- 
 cient monuments, and the certain remains of their arts ; on each of 
 which heads I fliall touch very concifely, having premifed, that my 
 obfervations will in general be confined to the ftate of Arabia before 
 that fingular revolution, at the beginning of the feventh century, the 
 effedls of which we feel at this day from the Pyrenean mountains 
 and the Danube, to the farthefl; parts of the Indian E?npire, and even 
 to the Eaflern Iflands., 
 
 I. For the knowledge, which any European, who pleafes, may at- 
 tain of the Arabia)! language, we are principally indebted to the 
 univerfity of Leyden ; for, though feveral Italians have afliduoully la- 
 boured in the fame wide field, yet the fruit of their labours has been 
 rendered almofi: ufelefs by more commodious and more accurate works 
 printed in Holland ; and, though Pocock certainly accomplifhed much, 
 and was able to accomplifli any thing, yet the Academical eafe, which 
 he enjoyed, and his theological purfuits, induced him to leave unfiniflied 
 the valuable work of Maiddm, which he had prepared for publica- 
 tion ; nor, even if that rich mine of Arabian Philology had feen the 
 light, would it have borne any comparifon with the fifty differtations 
 of Hariri, which the firft Albert Schultens tranflated and ex- 
 plained, though he fent abroad but few of them, and has left his 
 worthy grandfon, from whom perhaps Maiddni alfo may be expefted, 
 the honour of publifhing the reft: but the palm of glory in this 
 branch of literature is due to GoLius, whofe works are equally 
 
 profound
 
 ON THE ARABS. 39 
 
 profoLind and elegant ; fo perfpicuous in method, that they may always 
 be confulted without fatigue, and read without languor, yet fo abundant 
 in matter, that any man, who fhall begin with his noble edition of the 
 Grammar compiled by his mafter Erpenius, and proceed, with the 
 help of his incomparable didlionary, to fludy his Hiftory of Taimur by 
 Ibni Arabfidh, and fhall make himfelf complete mafter of that fublime 
 work, will underftand the learned '-^r^^Vy^ better than the deepeft 
 fcholar at Conjiantmople or at Mecca. The Arabkk language, there- 
 fore, is almoft wholly in our power ; and, as it is unqueftionably one 
 of the moft ancient in the world, fo it yields to none ever fpoken by 
 mortals in the number of its words and the precifion of its phrafes j 
 but it is equally true and wonderful, that it bears not the leaft refem- 
 blance, either in words or the ftrucfture of them, to the Sa7ifcrit, or 
 great parent of the India?! dialedls ; of which diffimilarity I will men- 
 tion two remarkable inftances : the Sanfcrk, like the Greek, Perjiariy 
 and German, delights in compounds, but, in a much higher degree, 
 and indeed to fuch excefs, that I could produce words of more than 
 twenty fyllables, not formed ludicroufly, like that by which the buffoon 
 in Aristophanes defcribes a feaft, but with perfedl ferioufnefs, on 
 the moft folemn occafions, and in the moft elegant works ; while the 
 Arabkk, on the other hand, and all its fifter dialedls, abhor the com- 
 pofition of words, and invariably exprefs very complex ideas by cir- 
 cumlocution ; fo that, if a compound word be found in any genuine 
 language of the Arabian Peninfula, fzenmcrdah for inftance, which 
 occurs in the HamdfahJ it may at once be pronounced an exotick. 
 Again i it is the genius of the Sanfcrit, and other languages of the 
 fame ftock, that the roots of verbs be almoft univerfally biUteral, fo 
 that jive and twenty hundred fuch roots might be formed by the com- 
 pofition of xhcjifty Indian letters ; but the Arabick roots are as univer- 
 fally triUteral, fo that the compofition of the twenty-eight Arabian letters 
 would give near two and twenty thoufand elements of the language : and 
 
 this
 
 40 THE FOURTH DISCOURSE, 
 
 this will demonftrate the furprifing extent of it ; for, although great 
 numbers of its roots are confefledly lofl:, and fome, perhaps, were 
 never in ufe, yet, if we fuppofe ten thoufand of them (without 
 reckoning quadriliterals ) to exift, and each of them to admit only Jive 
 variations, one with another, in forming derivative nouns, even then a 
 iptT^edL, Arabic k dictionary ought to conti.\n Jifty thoufajid words, each 
 of which may receive a multitude of changes by the rules of grammar. 
 The derivatives in Sanfcrit are confiderably more numerous : but a 
 farther comparifon between the two languages is here unneceffary ; 
 fmce, in whatever light we view them, they feem totally diftinifl, and 
 muft have been invented by two different races of men ; nor do I re- 
 colled a fingle word in common between them, except Siiriij, the 
 plural of Siraj, meaning both a lamp and the fun, the Sanfcrit name of 
 which is, in Bengal, pronounced Surja ; and even this refemblance 
 may be purely accidental. We may eafily believe with the Hindus, 
 that not even Indra hiinjelf and his heavenly baJids, much lefs ariy 
 mortal, ever comprehended in his mind fuch an ocean of words as their 
 f acred language contains, and with the Arabs, that no man uninfpired 
 was ever a complete mailer oi Arabick: in fadl no perfon, I believe, 
 now living in 'Europe or AJia, can read without ftudy an hundred 
 couplets together in any colleftion of ancient Arabian poems ; and 
 we are told, that the great author of the Kdmiis learned by accident 
 from the mouth of a child, in a village of Arabia, the meaning of 
 three words, which he had long fought in vain from grammarians, 
 and from books, of the higheft reputation. It is by approximation 
 alone, that a knowledge of thefe two venerable languages can be ac- 
 quired ^ and, with moderate attention, enough of them both may be 
 known, to delight and inftrudl us in an infinite degree : I conclude this 
 head with remarking, that the nature of the Ethiopick dialed feems to 
 prove an early eftablifhment of the Arabs in part of Ethiopia, from 
 which they were afterwards expelled, and attacked even in their owfi 
 
 country
 
 ON THE ARABS. 41 
 
 country by the AbyJJinians, who had been invited over as auxiliaries 
 againft the tyrant of Yemen about a century before the birth of Mu- 
 
 HAMMED. 
 
 Of the charafters, in vv^hich the old compofitions of Arabia were 
 written, we know but little; except that the Koran originally appeared 
 in thofe of Ciifah, from which the modern Arabian letters, with all 
 their elegant variations, were derived, and which unqueftionably had 
 a common origin with the Hebrew or Chaldaick ; but, as to the Himya- 
 rick letters, or thofe which we fee mentioned by the name of Ahnufnad, 
 we are ftill in total darknefs ; the traveller Niebuhr having been un- 
 fortunately prevented from vifiting fome ancient monuments in Temen, 
 which are faid to have infcriptions on them : if thofe letters bear a 
 flrong refemblance to the Ndgar}, and if a ftory current in India be 
 true, that fome Hindu merchants heard the Sanfcrit language fpoken in 
 Arabia the Happy, we might be confirmed in our opinion, that an in- 
 tercourfe formerly fubfifled between the two nations of oppofite coafts, 
 but fliould have no reafon to believe, that they fprang from the fame 
 immediate flock. The tirft fy liable of Hamyar, as many Europeans write 
 it, might perhaps induce an Etymologift to derive the Arabs of Temen 
 from the great ancellor of the Indians; but we muft obferve, that 
 Hitnyar is the proper appellation of thofe Arabs ; and many reafons 
 concur to prove, that the word is purely Arabick : the fimilarity of 
 fome proper names on the borders of India to thofe of Arabia, as the 
 river Arabius, a place called Araba, a people named Aribes or Arabies, 
 and another called Sabai, is indeed remarkable, and may hereafter fur- 
 nifli me with obfervations of fome importance, but not at all incon- 
 liftent with my prefent ideas. 
 
 II. It is generally aflerted, that the old religion of the Arabs was 
 
 entirely Sabian ; but I can otiir fo little accurate information concern- 
 
 voL. I. I ing
 
 42 THE FOURTH DISCOURSE, 
 
 ing the Sabian faith, or even the meaning of the word, that I dare not 
 yet fpeak on the fubjeft with confidence. This at leaft is certain, that 
 the people of Yemen very foon fell into the common, but fatal, errour 
 of adoring the Sun and the Firmament ; for even the third in defcent 
 from YoKTAN, who was confequently as old as Nahor, took the 
 furname of Abdushams, or Servant of the Sun ; and his family, we 
 are alfured, paid particular honours to that luminary : other tribes 
 worfhipped the planets and fixed ftars ; but the religion of the poets 
 at leaft feems to have been pure Theifm ; and this we know with cer- 
 tainty, becaufe we have Arabian verfes of unfufpedled antiquity, v/hich 
 contain pious and elevated fentiments on the goodnefs and juftice, the 
 power and omniprefence, of Allah, or the God. If an infcrip- 
 tion, faid to have been found on marble in Yemen, be authentick, the 
 ancient inhabitants of that country preferved the religion of Eber, and 
 profefl'ed a belief in miracles and a future Jlate. 
 
 We are alfo told, that a ftrong refemblance may be found between 
 the religions of the pagan Arabs and the Hindus ; but, though this may 
 be true, yet an agreement in worfliipping the fun and ftars will not prove 
 an affinity between the two nations : the powers of God reprefented as 
 female deities, the adoration oi fones, and the name of the Idol Wudd, 
 may lead us indeed to fufpeft, that fome of the Hindu fuperftitions had 
 found their way into Arabia ; and, though we have no traces in Ara- 
 bian Hiftory of fuch a conqueror or legillator as the great Sesac, who 
 is faid to have raifed pillars in Yemen as well as at the mouth of the 
 Ganges, yet, fince we know, that Sa'cya is a title of Buddha, 
 whom I fuppofe to be Woden, fince Buddha was not a native of 
 India, and fince the age of Sesac perfedlly agrees with that of Sa'cya, 
 we may form a plaufible conjefture, that they were in fadl the fame 
 pcrfon, who travelled eaftward from Ethiopia, either as a warriour or 
 as a lawgiver, about a thoufand years before Christ, and whofe rites 
 
 we
 
 ON THE ARABS. 43 
 
 wc now fee extended as far as the country of N/fon, or, as the Chinefe 
 call it, Japiien, both words fignifying the Rijing Sun. Sa'cya may 
 be derived from a word meaning power, or from another denoting 
 vegetable food ; fo that this epithet will not determine, whether he was 
 a hero or a philofopher ; but the title Buddha, or wife, may induce us 
 to believe, that he was rather a benefadlor, than a deftroyer, of his 
 fpecies : if his religion, however, was really introduced into any part 
 of Arabia, it could not have been general in that country j and we 
 may fafely pronounce, that before the Mohammedan revolution, the 
 noble and learned Arabs were Theifls, but that a flupid idolatry pre- 
 vailed among the lower orders of the people. 
 
 I find no trace among them, till their emigration, of any Philofophy 
 but Et hicks; and even their fyftem of morals, generous and enlarged as 
 it feems to have been in the minds of a few illuftrious chieftains, was 
 on the whole miferably depraved for a century at leaft before Muham- 
 MED : the diftinguifhing virtues, which they boafled of inculcating and 
 pradlifing, were a contempt of riches and even of death ; but, in the 
 age of the Seven Poets, their liberality had deviated into mad profufion, 
 their courage into ferocity, and their patience into an obftinate fpirit 
 of encountering fruitlefs dangers ; but I forbear to expatiate on the 
 manners of the Arabs in that age, becaufe the poems, entitled Almodl- 
 lakdt, which have appeared in our own language, exhibit an exadt 
 piifture of their virtues and their vices, their wifdom and their folly; 
 and fliow what may be conflantly expelled from men of open hearts 
 f.nd boiling paflions, with no law to control, and little religion to re- 
 ftrain, them. 
 
 III. Few monuments of antiquity are preferved in Arabia, and of thofe 
 few the beft accounts are very uncertain ; but we are afTured, that in- 
 fcriptions on rocks and mountains are ftill feen in various parts of the 
 
 I 2 Peninfula ;
 
 44 THE FOURTH DISCOURSE, 
 
 Peninfula J which, if they are in any known language, and if corredl 
 copies of them can be procured, may be decyphered by eafy and in- 
 falhble rules. 
 
 The firll: Albert Schultens has preferved in his Ancient Memo- 
 rials of Arabia, the moll: pleafing of all his works, two little poems in 
 an elegiack ftrain, which are faid to have been found, about the middle 
 of the feventh century, on fome fragments of ruined edifices in Hadra- 
 milt near Aden, and are fuppofed to be of an indefinite, but very remote, 
 age. It may naturally be afked: In what charafters were they written? 
 Who decyphered them ? Why were not the original letters preferved 
 in the book, where the verfes are cited ? What became of the marbles, 
 which Abdurrahman, then governor of Yemen, moft probably fent to the 
 Khalifah at Bagdad'? If they be genuine, they prove the people of 
 Yemen to have been ' herdfmen and warriours, inhabiting a fertile and 
 ' well- watered country full of game, and near a fine fea abounding with 
 • fi{h, under a monarchical government, and drefled in green filk or 
 ' vefts of needlework,' either of their own manufafture or imported 
 from India. The meafure of thefe verfes is perfedlly regular, and the 
 dialedt undiftinguilhable, at leafl by me, from that of Kuraijh ; fo that, 
 if the Arabian writers were much addicted to literary impoflures, I 
 ftiould ftrongly fufpeil: them to be modern compofitions on the infta- 
 bility of human greatnefs, and the confequences of irreligion, illuftrated 
 by the example of the Himyarick princes ; and the fame may be fuf- 
 pedted of the firft poem quoted by Schultens, which he afcribes to 
 an Arab in the age of Solomon. 
 
 The fuppofed houfes of the people called Thamud zxe. alfo ftill to be 
 feen in excavations of rocks j and, in the time of Tabrizi the Gram- 
 marian, a caftle was extant in Yettien, which bore the name of Alad- 
 JBAT, an old bard and warriour, who firft, we are told, formed his army, 
 
 thence
 
 ON THE ARABS. 45 
 
 thence called dlkhamh, in Jive parts, by which arrangement he de- 
 feated the troops of Himyar in an expedition againft Sanaa. 
 
 Of pillars eredled by Sesac, after his invafion of Yemen, we find no 
 mention in Arabian hiftories ; and, perhaps, the ilory has no more 
 foundation than another told by the Greeks and adopted by Newton, 
 that the Arabs worfhipped Urania, and even Bacchus by name, 
 which, they fay, means great in Arabick ; but where they found fuch 
 a word, we cannot difcover : it is true, that Beccah fignifies a great 
 and tumultuous crowd, and, in this fenfe, is one name of the facred 
 city commonly called Meccah. 
 
 The Cdbahy or quadrangular edifice at Meccah, is indifputably fo 
 ancient, that its original ufe, and the name of its builder, are loft in a 
 cloud of idle traditions. An Arab told me gravely, that it was raifed 
 by Abraham, who, as I afTured him, was never there : others afcribe 
 it, with more probability, to Ismail, or one of his immediate de- 
 fendants ; but whether it was built as a place of divine worfhip, as a 
 fortrefs, as a fepulchre, or as a monument of the treaty between the 
 old pofTefTors of Arabia and the fons of Kidar, antiquaries may dif- 
 pute, but no mortal can determine. It is thought by Reland to have 
 been the manjion of fame ancient Patriarch, and revered on that account 
 by his pojierity ; but the room, in which we now are aflembled, would 
 contain the whole Arabian edifice ; and, if it were large enough for 
 the dwelling-houfe of a patriarchal family, it would feem ill adapted to 
 the paftoral manners of the Kedarites : a Perfian author infifts, that the 
 true name of Meccah is Mahcadah, or the Temple of the Moon ; but, 
 although we may fmile at his etymology, we cannot but think it pro- 
 bable, that the Cabah was originally defigned for religious purpofes. 
 Three couplets are cited in an Arabick Hiftory of this Building, which, 
 from their extreme fimplicity, have lefs appearance of impofture than 
 
 other
 
 4(3 THE FOURTH DISCOURSE, 
 
 other verfes of the fame kind: they are afcribed to As ad, a Tobba, or 
 king by fuccefjion, who is generally allowed to have reigned in Yemen 
 an hundred and twenty-eight years before Christ's birth, and they 
 commemorate, without any poetical imagery, the magnificence of the 
 prince in covering the holy temple with Jlriped cloth and fine linen, and in 
 making keys for its gate. This temple, however, the fandiity of which 
 was reftored byMuHAMMED, had been flrangely profaned at the time 
 of his birth, when it was ufual to decorate its walls with poems on all 
 fubjeds, and often on the triumphs oi Arabian gallantry and the praifes 
 of Grecian wine, which the merchants of Syria brought for fale into 
 the defer ts. 
 
 From the want of materials on the fubjed of Arabian antiquity, we 
 find it very difficult to fix the Chronology of the Ifmailites with accu- 
 racy beyond the time of Ad nan, from whom the importer was de- 
 fcended in the twe}ityfirji degree ; and, although we have genealogies 
 of Alkamah and other Himyarick bards as high as t\\Q thirtieth de- 
 gree, or for a period of nine hundred years at leaft, yet we can hardly 
 depend on them fo far, as to eftablifli a complete chronological fyftem : 
 by reafoning downwards, however, we may afcertain fome points of 
 confiderable importance. The univerfal tradition of Yemen is, that 
 Yoktan, the fon of Eber, firft fettled his family in that country; 
 which fettlement, by the computation admitted in Europe, muft have 
 been above three thoujand fix hundred years ago, and nearly at the time, 
 when the Hindus, under the conduft of Rama, were fubduing the firfl 
 inhabitants of thefe regions, and extending the Indian Empire from 
 Ay6dhyh or Audh as far as the ifie of Sinhal or SiVan. According to this 
 calculation, Nuuman, king of Yemen in the ninth generation from 
 Eber, was contemporary with Joseph ; and, if a verfe compofed by 
 that prince, and quoted by Abulfeda, was really preferved, as it 
 miaht eafiiy have been, by oral tradition, it proves the great antiquity 
 
 " ^ of
 
 ON THE ARABS. A^j 
 
 of the Arabian language and metre. This is a literal verfion of the 
 couplet : * When thou, who art in power, condudleft affairs with 
 
 * courtefy, thou attaineft the high honours of thofe, who are moft ex- 
 
 * alted, and whofe mandates are obeyed.' We are told, that, from an 
 elegant verb in this diftich, the royal poet acquired the furname of 
 Ahnuddfer, or the Courteous. Now the reafons for believing this verfe 
 genuine are its brevity, which made it eafy to be remembered, and the 
 good fenfe comprized in it, which made it become proverbial ; to 
 which we may add, that the dialedl is apparently old, and differs in 
 three words from the idiom of Hejdz : the reafons for doubting are, 
 that fentences and verfes of indefinite antiquity are fometimes afcribed 
 by the Arabs to particular perfons of eminence ; and they even go fo 
 far as to cite a pathetick elegy of Adam himfelf on the death of Abel, 
 but in very good Arabick and corredl meafure. Such are the doubts, 
 which neceffarily muft arife on fuch a fubjed: ; yet we have no need of 
 ancient monuments or traditions to prove all that our analyfis requires, 
 namely, that the Arabs, both of Hejdz and Yemen, fprang from a ftock 
 entirely different from that of the Hindus, and that their firft eftablifli- 
 ments in the refped:ive countries, where we now find them, were 
 nearly coeval. 
 
 I cannot finilh this article without obferving, that, when the King 
 of Denmark's minifters infl:ru(fled the Danijh travellers to colle<ft hijio- 
 rical books in Arabick, but not to bufy themfelves with procuring Ara- 
 bian poems, they certainly were ignorant, that the only monuments of 
 old Arabian Hiftory are colledlions of poetical pieces and the commen- 
 taries on them ; that all memorable tranfadlions in Arabia were re- 
 corded in verfe ; and that more certain fadts may be known by reading 
 the Hamdfah, the Diicdn of Hudhail, and the valuable work of Obai- 
 dullah, than by turning over a hundred volumes in profe, unlefs indeed 
 thofe poems are cited by the hiflorians as their authorities. 
 
 IV. The
 
 48 THE FOURTH DISCOURSE, 
 
 IV. The manners of the Hejaxi Arabs, which have continued, we 
 know, from the time of Solomon to the prefent age, were by no 
 means favourable to the cultivation of <3r/j- ; and, zi iofciences, we have 
 no reafon to believe, that they were acquainted with any ; for the mere 
 amufement of giving names to flars, which were ufeful to them in 
 their paftoral or predatory rambles through the deferts, and in their 
 obfervations on the weather, can hardly be confidered as a material part 
 of aftronomy. The only arts, in which they pretended to excellence, 
 (I except horfemanfliip and military accomplifliments) were poetry and 
 rhetorick : tliat we have none of their compofitions in profe before the 
 Koran, may be afcribed, perhaps, to the little fkill, which they feem to 
 have had, in writing; to their prediledlion in favour of poetical mea- 
 fure, and to the facility, with which verfes are committed to memory ; 
 but all their ftories prove, that they were eloquent in a high degree, 
 and poflefTed wonderful powers of fpeaking without preparation in 
 flowing and forcible periods. I have never been able to difcover, what 
 was meaned by their books, called Raivdsim, but fuppofe, that they 
 were colledtions of their common, or cuftomary, law. Writing was fo 
 little pradlifed among them, that their old poems, which are now ac- 
 ceffible to us, may almoft be confidered as originally unwritten ; and I 
 am inclined to think, that Samuel Johnson's reafoning, on the ex- 
 treme imperfedtion of unwritten languages, was too general ; fince a 
 language, that is only fpoken, may neverthelefs be highly polifhed by 
 a people, who, like the ancient Arabs, make the improvement of their 
 idiom a national concern, appoint folemn aflemblies for the purpofe of 
 difplaying their poetical talents, and hold it a duty to exercife their 
 children in getting by heart their moft approved compofitions. 
 
 The people of Temen had poflibly more mechanical arts, and, perhaps, 
 movt fcience ; but, although their ports mu ft have been the emporia of 
 confiderable commerce between Egypt and India or part of Perjia, yet 
 
 we
 
 ON THE ARABS. 4Q 
 
 we have no certain proofs of their proficiency in navigation or even in 
 manufaftures. That the yirah of the defert had mufical inftruments, 
 and names for the different notes, and that they were greatly dehghted 
 with melody, we know from themfelves ; but their lutes and pipes 
 were probably very fimple, and their mufick, I fufped:, was little more 
 than a natural and tuneful recitation of their elegiack verfes and love- 
 fongs. The fingular property of their language, in fhunning compound 
 words, may be urged, according to Bacon's idea, as a proof, that 
 they had made no progrefs in arts, * which require, fays he, a variety 
 
 * of combinations to exprefs the complex notions arifmg from them ;' 
 but the Angularity may perhaps be imputed wholly to the genius of the 
 language, and the tafte of thofe, who fpoke it j fince the old Germans, 
 who knew no art, appear to have delighted in compound words, which 
 poetry and oratory, one would conceive, might require as much as any 
 meaner art whatfoever. 
 
 So great, on the whole, was the ftrength of parts or capacity, either 
 natural or acquired from habit, for which the Arabs were ever dif- 
 tinguillied, that we cannot be furprized, when we fee that blaze of 
 genius, which they difplayed, as far as their arms extended, when they 
 buriL, like their own dyke of Arim, through their ancient limits, and 
 fpread, like an inundation, over the great empire of Ira?t. That a 
 race of Tdzh, or Coiirfers as the Perfians call them, * who drank the 
 
 * milk of camels and fed on lizards, fliould entertain a thought of fub- 
 
 * duing the kingdom of Feridun' was confidered by the General of 
 Yezdegird's army as the ftrongeft inftance of fortune's levity and 
 mutability; but Firdausi, a complete mailer oi Afiatick manners, and 
 Angularly impartial, reprefents the Arabs, even in the age of Feridun, 
 as * difclaiming any kind of dependence on that monarch, exulting in 
 
 * their liberty, delighting in eloquence, adls of liberality, and martial 
 
 * achievements, and thus making the whole earth, fays the poet, red as 
 
 VOL. I. K * wine
 
 50 THE FOURTH DISCOURSE. 
 
 • wine with the blood of their foes, and the air like a foreft of canes with 
 
 * their tall fpears.' With fuch a charafter they were likely to conquer 
 any country, that they could invade ; and, if Alexander had invaded 
 their dominions, they would unqueftionably have made an obllinate, 
 and probably a fuccefsful, refiftance. 
 
 But I have detained you too long, gentlemen, with a nation, who 
 have ever been my favourites, and hope at our next anniverfary meeting 
 to travel with you over a part of Afia, which exhibits a race of men 
 diftinft both from the Hindus and from the Arabs. In the mean time 
 it fhall be my care to fuperintend the publication of your tranfadions, 
 in which, if the learned in Europe have not raifed their expeftations 
 too high, they will not, I believe, be difappointed : my own imperfed: 
 eflays I always except j but, though my other engagements have pre- 
 vented my attendance on your fociety for the greateft part of laft year, 
 and I have fet an example of that freedom from reftraint, without which 
 no fociety can flourifh, yet, as my few hours of leifure will now be 
 devoted to Sanfcrit literature, I cannot but hope, though my chief ob- 
 jedl be a knowledge of Hindu Law, to make fome difcovery in other 
 fciences, which I fliall impart with humility, and which you will, I 
 doubt not, receive with indulgence. 
 
 THE
 
 THE FIFTH 
 
 ANNIVERSARY DISCOURSE, 
 
 DELIVERED 21 FEBRUARY, 1788. 
 
 BY 
 
 The president. 
 
 J\.T the clofe of my laft addrefs to you, Gentlemen, I declared my 
 defign of introducing to your notice a people of ^a, who feemed as 
 different in moft refpeds from the Hindus and Arabs, as thofe two na- 
 tions had been fhown to differ from each other ; I meaned the people, 
 whom we call Tartars : but I enter with extreme diffidence on my pre- 
 fent fubjedl, becaufe I have little knowledge of the Tartarian dialedls ; 
 and the grofs errours of European writers on Afiatick literature have long 
 convinced me, that no fatisfadlory account can be given of any nation, 
 with whofe language we are not perfecflly acquainted. Such evidence, 
 however, as I have procured by attentive reading and fcrupulous in- 
 quiries, I will now lay before you, interfperfing fuch remarks as I 
 could not but make on that evidence, and fubmitting tlie whole to your 
 impartial decilion. 
 
 K 2 Conformably
 
 52 THE FIFTH DISCOURSE, 
 
 Conformably to the method before adopted in defcriblng Arabia and 
 India, I confider Tartary alfo, for the purpofe of this difcourfe, on 
 its mofl extenfive fcale, and requeft your attention, whilft I trace the 
 largefl: boundaries that are affignable to it : conceive a line drawn from 
 the mouth of the Ohy to that of the Dnieper, and, bringing it back 
 eaftward acrofs the Eiixine, fo as to include the peninfula of Krim, ex- 
 tend it along the foot of Caucrfiis, by the rivers Ciir and Aras, to the 
 Cafpian lake, from the oppofite fliore of which follow the courfe of the 
 yaihu7i and the chain of Caucafean hills as far as thofe of Imaus : 
 whence continue the line beyond the C/iinefe wall to the White Moun- 
 tain and the country of Yetfo ; fkirting the borders of Perjia, India, 
 China, Corea, but including part of RitJ/ia, with all the diftrifts which 
 lie between the Glacial fea, and that of Japan. M. De Guignes, 
 whofe great work on the Huns abounds more in foiid learning than in 
 rhetorical ornaments, prefents us, however, with a magnificent image 
 of this wide region ; defcribing it as a ftupendous edifice, the beams 
 and pillars of which are many ranges of lofty hills, and the dome, one 
 prodigious mountain, to which the Chinefe give the epithet of CeleJUaly 
 with a confiderable number of broad rivers flowing down its fides : if 
 the manfion be fo amazingly fublime, the land around it is proportion- 
 ably extended, but more wonderfully diverfified ; for fome parts of it 
 are incrufted with ice, others parched with inflamed air and covered 
 with a kind of lava j here we meet with immenfe trads of fandy deferts 
 and foreft;s almoft impenetrable ; there, with gardens, groves, and 
 meadows, perfumed with muflc, watered by numberlefs rivulets, and 
 abounding in fruits and flowers ; and, from eaft to wefl:, lie many con- 
 fiderable provinces, which appear as valleys in comparifon of the hills 
 towering above them, but in truth are the flat fummits of the higheft 
 mountains in the world, or at leaft the higheft in Afia. Near one 
 fourth in latitude of this .extraordinary region is in the fame charming 
 climate with Greece, Italy, and Provence ; and another fourth in that 
 
 of
 
 ON THE TARTARS. 53 
 
 of England, Germany, and the northern parts of France ; but the Hy- 
 perborean countries can have few beauties to recommend them, at leaft 
 in the prefent ftate of the earth's temperature : to the fouth, on the 
 frontiers of Iran are the beautiful vales of Soghd with the celebrated 
 cities of Samarkand and Bokhara ; on thofe of Tibet are the territories 
 of Cajhghar, Khoten, Chcgil and Khdta, all famed for perfumes and for 
 the beauty of their inhabitants ; and on thofe of China lies the country 
 of Chin, anciently a powerful kingdom, which name, like that of 
 Khdta, has in modern times been given to the whole Chinefe empire, 
 where fuch an appellation would be thought an infult. We muft not 
 omit the fine territoiy of 'Tancut, which was known to the Greeks by 
 the name of Serica, and confidered by them as the farthefl eaftern 
 extremity of the habitable globe. 
 
 Scythia feems to be the general name, which the ancient Europeans 
 gave to aS' much as they knew of the country thus bounded and de- 
 fcribed ; but, whether that word be derived, as Pliny feems to inti- 
 mate, from Sacai, a people known by a fimilar name to the Greeks 
 and Perjians, or, as Bryant imagines, from Cuthia, or, as Colonel 
 Vallancey believes, from words denoting navigation, or, as it might 
 have been fuppofed, from a Greek root implying wrath and ferocity, 
 this at leaft is certain, that as India, China, Perfia, yapan, are not ap- 
 pellations of thofe countries in the languages of the nations, who in- 
 habit them, fo neither Scythia nor Tartary are names, by which the 
 inhabitants of the country now under our confideration have ever dif- 
 tinguiflied themfelves. Tdtdrijidn is, indeed, a word ufed by the 
 Perfians for the fouth-weftern part of Scythia, where the mufk-deer is 
 faid to be common ; and the name Tatar is by fome confidered as that 
 of a particular tribe ; by others, as that of a fmall river only -, while 
 Tiirdn, as oppofed to Iran, feems to mean the ancient dominion of 
 Afra'sia'b to the north and eaft of the Oxus. There is nothing more 
 
 idle
 
 54 THE FIFTH DISCOURSE, 
 
 idle than a debate concerning names, which after all are of little confe- 
 quence, when our ideas are diftind: without them : having given, there- 
 fore, a correal notion of the country, which I propofed to examine, I 
 lliall not fcruple to call it by the general name of Tartary ; though I 
 am confcious of ufing a term equally improper in the pronunciation and 
 the application of it. 
 
 Tartary then, which contained, according to Pliny, an innumerable 
 multitude of nations, by whom the reft of yljia and all Europe has in 
 different ages been over-run, is denominated, as various images have 
 prefented themfelves to various fancies, the great hive of the northern 
 fwarms, the niirfery of irrefifiible legions, and, by a ftronger metaphor, 
 thefoundery of the human race; but M. Bailly, a wonderfully inge- 
 nious man and a very lively writer, feems firft to have confidered it as 
 the cradle of our [pedes, and to have fupported an opinion, that the whole 
 ancient world was enlightened by fciences brought from the moft nor- 
 thern parts of Scythia, particularly from the banks of the fenifea, or 
 from the Hyperborean regions : all the fables of old Greece, Italy, Perfia, 
 India, he derives from the north ; and it muft be owned, that he 
 maintains his paradox with acutenefs and learning. Great learning and 
 great acutenefs, together with the charms of a moft engaging ftyle, 
 were indeed neceflary to render even tolerable a fyftem, which places 
 an earthly paradife, the gardens of Hefperus, the iflands of the Macares, 
 the groves of Rlyfium, if not oi Eden, the heaven of Indra, the Pe- 
 rijlan, or fairy-land, of the Perfian poets, with its city of diamonds and 
 its country of Shddcam, fo named from Pleafure and Love, not in any 
 climate, which the common fenfe of mankind confiders as the feat of 
 delights, but beyond the mouth of the Oby, in the Frozen Sea, in a 
 region equalled only by that, where the wild imagination of Dante led 
 him to fix the worft of criminals in a ftate of punifliment after death, 
 and of which he could not, he fays, even think without Jlnvering. A 
 
 very
 
 ON THE TARTARS. 55 
 
 very curious pafTage in a tradt of Plutarch on the figure in the Moon s 
 orb, naturally induced M. Bailly to place Ogygia in the north, and he 
 concludes that ifland, as others have concluded rather fallacioufly, to 
 be the Atlantis o^'^i.kto, but is at a lofs to determine, whether it was 
 I/eland or Greenland, Spitzberg or New Zembla : among fo many charms 
 it was difficult, indeed, to give a preference ; but our philofopher, 
 though as much perplexed by an option of beauties as the fhepherd of 
 Ida, feems on the whole to think Zembla the moft worthy of the 
 golden fruit ; becaufe it is indifputably an ifland, and lies oppofite to a 
 gulph near a continent, from which a great number of rivers defcend 
 into the ocean. He appears equally diflreffed among five nations, real 
 and imaginary, to fix upon that, v/hich the Greeks named Atlantes ; 
 and his conclufion in both cafes muft remind us of the fliowman at 
 Kton, who, having pointed out in his box all the crowned heads of the 
 world, and being afked by the fchoolboys, who looked through the 
 glafs, which was the Emperor, which the Pope, which the Sultan, 
 and which the Great Mogul, anfwered eagerly, * which you plcafe, 
 • young gentlemen, which you pleafe.' His letters, however, to Vol- 
 taire, in which he unfolds his new fyftem to his friend, whom he 
 had not been able to convince, are by no means to be derided j and his 
 general propofition, that arts and fciences had their fource in Tartary, 
 deferves a longer examination than can be given to it in this difcourfe: I 
 fhall, neverthelefs, with your permiffion, flwrtly difcufs the queftion 
 under the feveral heads, that will prefent themfelves in order. 
 
 Although we may naturally fuppofe, that the numberlefs commu- 
 nities of Tartars, fome of whom are eflabliihed in great cities, and 
 fome encamped on plains in ambulatory manfions, which they remove 
 from pafture to pafture, muft be as different in their features as in 
 their dialers, yet, among thofe who have not emigrated into another 
 country and mixed with another nation, we may difcern a family like- 
 
 nefs,
 
 56 ■ THE FIFTH DISCOURSE, 
 
 nefs, efpecially in their eyes and countenance, and in that configuration 
 of lineaments, which we generally call a Tartar face j but, without 
 making anxious inquiries, whether all the inhabitants of the vaft region 
 before defcribed have fimilar features, we may conclude from thofe, 
 whom we have feen, and from the original portraits of Taimu'r and 
 his defcendants, that the Tartars in general differ wholly in com- 
 plexion and countenance from the Hindus and from the Arabs ; an ob- 
 fervation, which tends in fome degree to confirm the account given by 
 modern Tartars themfelves of' their defcent from a common anceftor. 
 Unhappily their lineage cannot be proved by authentick pedigrees or 
 hiftorical monuments J for all their writings extant, even thofe in the 
 Mogul dialtS:, are long fubfequent to the time of Muhammed ; nor is 
 it poflible to diftinguilh their genuine traditions from thofe of the 
 Arabs, whofe religious opinions they have in general adopted. At 
 the beginning of the fourteenth century, Khwdjah Rashi'd, furnamed 
 Fad'lu'll AH, a native of Kazvm ; compiled his account of the Tartars 
 and Mongals from the papers of one Pu'la'd, whom the great grandfon 
 of HoLAcu' had fent into Tdtarijian for the fole purpofe of colledling 
 hiflorical information ; and the commiffion itfelf fhows, how little the 
 Tartarian Princes really knew of their own origin. From this work 
 of Rashi'd, and from other materials, Abu''lgha'zi', King of 
 Khwdrezvi, compofed in the Mogul language his Genealogical Hijlory, 
 which, having been purchafed from a merchant of Bokhara by fome 
 SwediJJj officers, prifoners of war in Siberia, has found its way into 
 feveral European tongues : it contains much valuable matter, but, like 
 all Muhammedan hiftories, exhibits tribes or nations as individual 
 fovereigns ; and, if Baron De Tott had not flrangely neglecfted to pro- 
 cure a copy of the Tartarian hiftory, for the original of which he un- 
 neceffarily offered a large fum, we fliould probably have found, that it 
 begins with an account of the deluge taken from the Koran, and 
 proceeds to rank TuRc, Chi'n, Tata'r, and Mongal, among the 
 
 fons
 
 ON THE TARTARS 5y 
 
 fons of Ya'fet. The genuine traditional hiilory of the Tartars, in 
 all the books that I have infpeded, feems to begin with Oghu'z, as 
 that of the Hindus does with Ra'ma : they place their miraculous 
 Hero and Patriarchyowr thoufand yt^ivs before Chengiz Kha'n, who 
 was born in the year 1 1 64, and with whofe reign their hiftorical period 
 commences. It is rather furprizing, that M. Bailly, who makes 
 frequent appeals to Etymological arguments, has not derived Ogyges 
 from Oghu'z and Atlas from Altai, or the Golden mountain o£ Tar- 
 tary : the Greek terminations might have been rejedled from both 
 words ; and a mere tranfpofition of letters is no difficulty with an 
 Etymologift. 
 
 My remarks in this addrefs, gentlemen, will be confined to the 
 period preceding Chengiz ; and, although the learned labours of M. 
 DeGuignes and the fathers Visdelou, Demailla, and Gaubil, 
 who have made an incomparable ufe of their Chinefe literature, exhibit 
 probable accounts of the Tartars from a very early age, yet the old 
 hiftorians of China were not only foreign, but generally hoftile, to them, 
 and for both thofe reafons, either through ignorance or malignity, may 
 be fufped:ed of mifreprefenting their tranfaftions : if they fpeak truth, 
 the ancient hiftory of the Tartars prefents us, like moft other hiftories, 
 with a feries of affaffinations, plots, treafons, maflacres, and all the na- 
 tural fruits of felfifli ambition. I fliould have no inclination to give you 
 a fketch of fuch horrors, even if the occafion called for it ; and will 
 barely obferve, that the firft king of the Hyumnu s or Huns began his 
 reign, according to Visdelou, about three thouf and five hundred and 
 fixty years ago, not long after the time fixed in my former difcourfes 
 for the firft regular eftablifliments of the Hindus and Arabs in their 
 feveral countries. 
 
 VOL. I. L 1. Our
 
 58 THE FIFTH DISCOURSE, 
 
 I. Our firft inquiry, concerning the languages and letters of the Tar- 
 tars, prefents us with a deplorable void, or with a profpeft as barren 
 and dreary as that of their deferts. The Tartars, in general, had no 
 literature : (in this point all authorities appear to concur) the Turcs had no 
 letters : the Hufts, according to Procopius, had not even heard of 
 them: the magnificent Chengiz, whofe Empire included an area of 
 near eighty fquare degrees, could find none of his own Mongals, as the 
 beft authors inform us, able to write his difpatches ; and Tai'mu'r, 
 a favao-e of flrong natural parts and paffionately fond of hearing hifto- 
 ries read to him, could himfelf neither write nor read. It is true, that 
 Ibnu Arabshah mentions a fet of charadlers called Dtlberjin, which 
 were ufed in Khata : ' he had feen them, he fays, and found them to 
 
 * confift o£ forty-one letters, a diftindt fymbol being appropriated to each 
 
 * long and fliort vowel, and to each confonant hard or foft, or otherwife 
 
 * varied in pronunciation ;' but K/idta was in fouthern Tartary on the 
 confines of India ; and, from his defcription of the charaders there in 
 ufe, we cannot but fufped: them to have been thofe of Tibet, which 
 are manifeftly Indian, bearing a greater refemblance to thofe of Bengal 
 than to De'vanagar). The learned and eloquent y^rab adds, « that the 
 ' Tatars of Kbdta write, in the Dilberjin letters, all their tales and 
 ' hiftories, their journals, poeriis, and mifcellanies, their diplomas, re- 
 
 * cords of ftate and juftice, the lav/s of Chengiz, their publick re- 
 
 * gifters and their compofitions of every fpecies :' if this be true, the 
 people of Klidtd muft have been a polifhed and even a lettered nation; 
 and it may be true, without affefting the general pofition, that the 
 Tartars were illiterate; but Ibnu Arabsha'h was a profefled rheto- 
 rician, and it is impoflible to read the original paflage, without full 
 convidlion that his objedl in writing it, was to difplay his power of 
 words in a flowing and modulated period. He fays further, that in 
 Jagbatai the people of Oighiir, as he calls them, ' have a fyftem of 
 'fourteen letters only, denominated from themfelves Oighurl;' and thofe 
 
 are
 
 ON THE TARTARS. 59 
 
 are the charaders, which the Mongals are fuppofed by moil authors to 
 have borrowed: Abu'l'ghazi' tells us only, that Chengiz employed 
 the natives of Eighur as excellent penmen ; but the Chinefe affert, that 
 he was forced to employ them, becaufe he had no writers at all among 
 his natural-born fubjedls ; and we are affured by many, that Kublaik- 
 ha'n ordered letters to be invented for his nation by a I'ibetian, whom he 
 rewarded with the dignity o? chiti Latna. The fmall nnmhtr o^ Eighuri 
 letters might induce us to believe, that they were Zend or Pahlavt, 
 which muft have been current in that country, when it was governed 
 by the fons of Feridu'n ; and, if the alphabet afcribed to the Eighti- 
 rians by M. Des Hautesrayes be correift, we may fafely decide, that 
 in many of its letters it refembles both the Zend and the Syriack, with 
 a remarkable difference in the mode of connefting them ; but, as we 
 can fcarce hope to fee a genuine fpecimen of them, our doubt muft 
 remain in regard to their form and origin : the page, exhibited by Hyde 
 as Khatayan writing, is evidently a fort of broken Ciifick ; and the fine 
 manufcript at Oxford, from which it was taken, is more probably a 
 Mendean work on fome religious fubjed: than, as he imagined, a code 
 of Tartarian laws. That very learned man appears to have made a 
 worfe miflake in giving us for Mongal charaders a page of writing, 
 which has the appearance of Japanefe, or mutilated Chinefe, letters. 
 
 If the Tartars in general, as we have every reafon to believe, had no 
 written memorials, it cannot be thought wonderful, that their languages, 
 like thofe of America, fliould have been in perpetual fluctuation, and 
 that more than fifty dialedts, as Hyde had been credibly informed, 
 fliould be fpoken between Mofcow and China, by the many kindred 
 tribes or their feveral branches, which are enumerated by Abu'lgha'zi'. 
 What thofe dialedls are, and whether they really fprang from a common 
 flock, we fliall probably learn from Mr. Pallas, and other indefa- 
 tigable men employed by the Ri/Jian court ; and it is from the RuJ}:ans, 
 
 that
 
 ()0 THE FIFTH DISCOURSE, 
 
 that we muft expedl the moft accurate information concerning their 
 uijiatick fubjedrs : I perfuade myfelf, that, if their inquiries be judici- 
 oufly made and faithfully reported, the refult of them will prove, that 
 all the languages properly Tartarian arofe from one common fource ; 
 excepting always the jargons of fuch wanderers or mountaineers, as, 
 having long been divided from the main body of the nation, muft in a 
 courfe of ages have framed feparate idioms for themfelves. The only 
 Tartarian language, of which I have any knowledge, is the Turkijh of 
 Conjiantinople, which is however fo copious, that whoever (hall know 
 it perfedtly, will eafily underiland, as we are affured by intelligent 
 authors, the dialedls oi Tatar iji an ; and we may colledt from Abu'l- 
 gha'zi', that he would find little difficulty in the Calmac and the 
 Mogul : I will not offend your ears by a dry catalogue of fimilar words 
 in thofe different languages } but a careful invefligation has convinced 
 me, that, as the Indian and Arabian tongues are feverally defcended 
 from a common parent, fo thofe of Tartary might be traced to one 
 ancient flem effentially differing from the two others. It appears, in- 
 deed, from a flory told by Abu"lgha'zi', that the Virats and the 
 Mongals could not underfland each other ; but no more can the Danes 
 and the Englijh, yet their dialedls beyond a doubt are branches of the 
 famie Gothic k tree. The dialed: of the Moguls, in which fome hiflo- 
 ries of Taimu r and his defcendants were originally compofed, is 
 called in India, where a learned native fet me right when I ufed another 
 word, Ttircl -, not that it is precifely the fame with the Turkip of the 
 Othfndnlus, but the two idioms differ, perhaps, lefs then Swedijh and 
 German, or Spanijlo and Portuguefe, and certainly lefs than Welch and 
 L'ijh: in hope of afcertaining this point, I have long fearched in vain 
 for the original works afcribed to Taimu'r and Ba'berj but all the 
 Moguls, with whom I have converfed in this country, refemble the 
 crow in one of their popular fables, who, having long affedled to walk 
 like a pheafant, was unable after all to acquire the gracefulnefs of that 
 
 elegant
 
 ON THE TARTARS. (jl 
 
 elegant bird, and in the mean time unlearned his own natural gait : 
 they have not learned the dialedt of Perfia, but have wholly forgotten 
 that of their anceftors. A very confiderable part of the old Tartarian 
 language, which in AJia would probably have been loft, is happily pre- 
 ferved in Europe ; and, if the groundwork of the weftern Ttirkijh, when 
 fcparated from the Perjian and Arabick, with which it is embellifhed, 
 be a branch of the loft Oghuzian tongue, I can aflert with confidence, 
 that it has not the leaft refemblance either to Arabick or Sanfcrit, and 
 muft have been invented by a race of men wholly diftincfl from the 
 Arabs or Hindus, This fad: alone overfets the fyftem of M. Bailly, 
 who confiders the Sanfcrit, of which he gives in feveral places a moft 
 erroneous account, as * a fine monument of his primeval Scythians, the 
 
 * preceptors of mankind and planters of a fublime philofophy even in India ;' 
 for he holds it an inconteftable truth, that a language, which is dead, 
 
 fuppofes a nation, which is defrayed ; and he feems to think fuch reafon- 
 ing perfe<ftly decifive of the queftion, without having recourfe to aftro- 
 nomical arguments or the fpirit of ancient inftitutions : for my part, 
 I defire no better proof than that, which the language of the Brdh- 
 mans affords, of an immemorial and total difference between the 
 Savages of the Mountains, as the old Chinefe juftly called the 'Tartars, 
 and the ftudious, placid, contemplative inhabitants of thefe Indian plains. 
 
 II. The geographical reafoning of M. Bailly may, perhaps, be 
 thought equally ftiallow, if not inconfiftent in fome degree with itfelf. 
 
 * An adoration of the fun and of fire, fays he, muft neceffarily have 
 
 * arifen in a cold region : therefore, it muft have been foreign to India, 
 
 * Perfia, Arabia; therefore, it, muft have been derived from Tartary.' 
 No man, I believe, who has travelled in winter through Bahar, or has 
 even paff!ed a cold feafon at Calcutta within the tropick, can doubt that 
 the folar warmth is often defirable by all, and might have been con- 
 fidered as adorable by the ignorant, in thefe climates, or that the return 
 
 of
 
 62 THE FIFTH DISCOURSE, 
 
 of fpring deferves all the falutations, which it receives from the Perjian 
 and Indian poets ; not to rely on certain hiflorical evidence, that An- 
 TARAH, a celebrated warriour and bard, adlually periflied with cold on 
 a mountain oi Arabia. To meet, however, an objedlion, which inight 
 naturally be made to the voluntary fettlement, and amazing population, 
 of his primitive race in the icy regions of the north, he takes refuge 
 in the hypothefis of M. Buffon, who imagines, that our wh9le globe 
 was at firft of a white heat, and has been gradually cooling from the 
 poles to the equator ; fo that the Hyperborean countries had once a 
 delightful temperature, and Siberia itfelf was even hotter than the climate 
 of our temperate zones, that is, was in too hot a climate, by his firft pro- 
 pofition, for the primary worfliip of the fun. That the temperature of 
 countries has not fuftained a change in the lapfe of ages, I will by no 
 means infift ; but we can hardly reafon conclulively from a variation of 
 temperature to the cultivation and diftufion of fcience : if as many fe- 
 male elephants and tigrefTes, as we now find in Be7igal, had formerly 
 littered in the Siberian forefts, and if their young, as the earth cooled, 
 had fought a genial warmth in the climates of the fouth, it would not 
 follow, that other favages, who migrated in the fame diredlion and on 
 the fame account, brought religion and philofophy, language and writ- 
 ing, art and fcience, into the fouthern latitudes. 
 
 We are told by Abu"lgha'zi', that the primitive religion of human 
 creatures, or the pure adoration of One Creator, prevailed in Tartary 
 during the firfl generations from Ya'fbt, but was extind: before the 
 birth of Oghuz, who reftored it in his dominions; that, fome ages 
 after him, the Mongah and the T^iircs relapfed into grofs idolatry ; but 
 that Chengiz was a Theift, and, in a converfation with the Muham- 
 medan Doftors, admitted their arguments for the being and attributes 
 of the Deity to be unanfwerable, while he contefhed the evidence of 
 their Prophet's legation. From old Grecian authorities we learn, that 
 
 the
 
 ON THE TARTARS. 03 
 
 the Majfagetce worfliipped the fun ; and the narrative of an embaffy 
 from Justin to the Khdkan, or Emperor, who then refided in a fine 
 vale near the fource of the IrtiJJo, mentions the Tartarian ceremony of 
 purifying the Roman Ambafiadors by conducing them between iwojires : 
 the Tartars of that age are reprefented as adorers of the four elements, 
 and behevers in an invifible fpirit, to whom they facrificed bulls and 
 rams. Modern travellers relate, that, in the feftivals of feme Tartarian 
 tribes, they pour a few drops of a confecrated liquor on the ftatues of 
 their Gods ; after which an attendant fprinkles a little of what remains 
 three times toward the fouth in honour of fire, toward the weft and 
 eaft in honour of water and air, and as often toward the north in ho- 
 nour of the earth, which contained the reliques of their deceafed an- 
 ceflors : now all this may be very true, without proving a national affi- 
 nity between the Tartars and Hindus ; for the Arabs adored the planets 
 and the powers of nature, the Arabs had carved images, and made 
 libations on a black ftonc, the Arabs turned in prayer to different 
 quarters of the heavens ; yet we know with certainty, that the Arabs 
 are a diftind: race from the Tartars ; and we might as well infer, that 
 they were the fame people, becaufe they had each their Nomades, or 
 wanderers for pajlure, and becaufe the Turcmans, defcribed by Ibnu- 
 ARABSh'ah and by him called Tatar s, are, like moji Arabian tribes, 
 pafloral and warlike, hofpitable and generous, wintering and fummer- 
 ing on different plains, and rich in herds and flocks, horfes and camels j 
 but this agreement in manners proceeds from the fimilar nature of 
 their feveral deferts and their fimilar choice of a free rambling life, 
 without evincing a community of origin, which they could fcarce 
 have had without preferving fome remnant at leaft of a common lan- 
 guage. 
 
 Many Lamas, we are affured, or Priefls of Buddha, have been 
 found fettled in Siberia -, but it can hardly be doubted, that the Lamas 
 
 had
 
 (34 THE FIFTH DISCOURSE, 
 
 had travelled thither from Tibet, whence it is more than probable, that 
 the religion of the Bauddhds was imported into fouthern, or Chinefe, 
 Tartary ; fince we know, that rolls of Tihetian writing have been 
 brought even from the borders of the Cafpian. The complexion of 
 Buddha himfelf, which, according to the Hindus, was between white 
 and ruddy, would perhaps have convinced M. Bailly, had he known 
 the Indian tradition, that the laft great legiflator and God of the Eafl 
 was a Tartar ; but the Chinefe confider him as a native of India, the 
 Brdhmans infift, that he was born in a foreft near Gayd, and many 
 reafons may lead us to fufpedl, that his religion was carried from the 
 weft and the fouth to thofe eaftern and northern countries, in which it 
 prevails. On the whole we meet with few or no traces in Scythia of 
 Indian rites and fuperftitions, or of that poetical mythology, with which 
 the Sanfcrit poems are decorated j and we may allow the Tartars to 
 have adored the Sun with more reafon than any fouthern people, with- 
 out admitting them to have been the fole original inventors of that 
 univerfal folly : we may even doubt the originality of their veneration 
 for the four elements, which forms a principal part of the ritual intro- 
 duced by Zer'atusht, a native of 7?rt/ in Perfia, born in the reign 
 of GusHTASP, whofe fon Pash'uten is believed by the Pdrjt's 
 to have refided long in Tartary at a place called Cangidiz, where a 
 magnificent palace is faid to have been built by the father of Cyrus, 
 and where the Perfian prince, who was a zealot in the new faith, 
 would naturally have difleminated its tenets among the neighbouring 
 lartars. 
 
 Of any Philofophy, except natural Ethicks, which the rudeft fo- 
 ciety requires and experience teaches, we find no more vefliges in 
 yjfatick Scythia than in ancient Arabia ; nor would the name of a Phi- 
 lofopher and a Scythian have been ever connected, if Anacharsis had 
 not vifited Athens and hydia for that inftru(ftion, which his birthplace 
 
 could
 
 ON THE TARTARS. Q5 
 
 Could not have afforded him : but An ach arsis was the fon of a Grecian 
 woman, who had taught him her language, and he foon learned to 
 defpife his own. He was unqueftionably a man of a found underftand- 
 ing and fine parts ; and, among the lively fayings, which gained him 
 the reputation of a wit even in Greece, it is related by Diogenes La- 
 ERTius, that, when an Athenian reproached him with being a Scythian, 
 he anfwered : * my country is, indeed, a difgrace to me, but thou art 
 * a difgrace to thy country.' What his country was, in regard to man- 
 ners and civil duties, we may learn from his fate in it ; for when, on 
 his return from Athens, he attempted to reform it by introducing the 
 wife laws of his friend Solon, he was killed on a hunting party with 
 an arrow fhot by his own brother, a Scythian Chieftain. Such was the 
 philofophy of M. Bailly's Atlantes, the firft and moft enlightened of 
 nations ! We are aflured, however, by the learned author of the Da- 
 bijian, that the Tartars under Chengiz and his defcendants were lovers 
 of truth J and would not even preferve their lives by a violation of it : 
 De Guignes afcribes the fame veracity, the parent of all virtues, to 
 the Huns ; and Strabo, who might only mean to lafh the Greeks by 
 praifing Barbarians, as Horace extolled the wandering Scythians merely 
 to fatirize his luxurious countrymen, informs us, that the nations of 
 Scythia deferved the praife due to wifdom, heroick friendfhip, and 
 juftice; and this praife we may readily allow them on his authority, 
 without fuppofing them to have been the preceptors of mankind. 
 
 As to the laws of Zamolxis, concerning whom we know as little as 
 of the Scythian Deucalion, or of Abaris the Hyperborean, and to 
 whofe ftory even Herodotus gave no credit, I lament, for many rea- 
 fons, that, if ever they exifted, they have not been preferved : it is 
 certain, that a fyftem of laws, called Ydfdc, has been celebrated in 
 Tartary fince the time of Chengiz, who is faid to have republiflied 
 them in his empire, as his inftitutions were afterwards adopted and 
 
 VOL. I. M enforced
 
 QQ THE FIFTH DISCOURSE, 
 
 enforced by Taimu'r ; but they feem to have been a common, or 
 traditionary, law, and were probably not reduced into writing, till 
 Chengiz had conquered a nation, who were able to write. 
 
 III. Had the religious opinions and allegorical fables of the Hindus 
 been adlually borrowed from Scythia, travellers muft have difcovered in 
 that country fome ancient monuments of them, fuch as pieces of grot- 
 tefque fculpture, images of the Gods and Avatars, and infcriptions on 
 pillars or in caverns, analogous to thofe, which remain in every part 
 of the weftern peninfula, or to thofe, which many of us have feen in 
 Bahar and at Bandras ; but (except a few detached idols) the only 
 great monuments of Tartarian antiquity are a line of ramparts on the 
 weft and eaft of the Cafpian, afcribed indeed by ignorant Mufelmans to 
 Tdjuj and Mdjuj, or Gog and Magog, that is to the Scythians, but ma- 
 nifeftly raifed by a very different nation in order to ftop their predatory 
 inroads through the pafles of Caiicafus. The Chinefe wall was built or 
 finifhed, on a fimilar conftrudion and for a fimilar purpofe, by an Em- 
 peror, who died only two hundred and ten years before the beginning 
 of our era j and the other mounds were very probably conftrudled by 
 the old Perjians, though, like many works of unknown origin, they 
 are given to Secander, not the Macedonian, but a more ancient Hero 
 fuppofed by fome to have been Jemshi'd. It is related, that pyramids 
 and tombs have been found in Tdtdrijlan, or weftern Scythia, and fome 
 remnants of edifices in the lake Saifan -, that veftiges of a deferted city 
 have been recently difcovered by the Rujjians near the Cafpian fea, and 
 the Mountain of Eagles j and that golden ornaments and utenfils, 
 figures of elks and other quadrupeds in metal, weapons of various 
 kinds, and even implements for mining, but made of copper inftead of 
 iron, have been dug up in the country of the TJJmdes ; whence M. 
 Bailly infers, with great reafon, the high antiquity of that people : 
 but the high antiquity of the Tartars, and their eftablifhment in that 
 
 country
 
 ON THE TARTARS. 67 
 
 country near four thoufand years ago, no man difputes ; we are inquir- 
 ing into their ancient religion and philofophy, which neither ornaments 
 of gold, nor tools of copper, will prove to have had an affinity with 
 the religious rites and the fciences of Inc/ia. The golden utenfils might 
 poffibly have been fabricated by the Tartars themfelves ; but it is pof- 
 fible too, that they were carried from Rome or from C/bhia, whence 
 occalional embaffies were fent to the Kings of Eig/iiir. Towards the 
 end of the tenth century the Chinefe Emperor dilpatched an ambaf- 
 fador to a Prince, named Ersla'n, which, in the Turkijh of Conjlan- 
 tinople, fignifies a lioriy who relided near the Golden Mountain in the 
 fame ftation, perhaps, where the Romans had been received in the mid- 
 dle of the fixth century j the Chinefe on his return home reported the 
 Eighuris to be a grave people, with fair complexions, diligent workmen, 
 and ingenious artificers not only in gold, filver, and iron, but in jafper 
 and fine ftones ; and the Romans had before defcribed their magnificent 
 reception in a rich palace adorned with Chinefe manufaftures : but thefe 
 times were comparatively modern ; and, even if we fliould admit, that 
 the Eighiirls, who are faid to have been governed for a period of two 
 thoufand years by an I'deciit, or fovereign of their own race, were in 
 fome very early age a literary and polifhed nation, it would prove nothing 
 in favour of the Huns, Turcs, Mongals, and other favages to the north 
 of Pekin, who feem in all ages, before Muhammed, to have been 
 equally ferocious and illiterate. 
 
 Without actual infpeftion of the manufcripts, that have been found 
 near the Cafpian, it would be impofTible to give a correal opinion con- 
 cerning them ; but one of them, defcribed as written on blue lilky 
 paper in letters of gold and filver not unlike Hebrew, was probably a 
 Tibetian compofition of the fame kind with that, which lay near the 
 fource of the Irtijh, and of which Cassiano, I believe, made the firft 
 accurate verfion: another, if we may judge from the defcription of it, 
 
 was
 
 68 THE FIFTH DISCOURSE, 
 
 was probably modern Turktjh ; and none of them could have been of 
 great antiquity. 
 
 IV. From ancient monuments, therefore, we have no proof, that the 
 Tartars were themfelves well-inftrudled, much lefs that they inflrudted 
 the world -, nor have we any ftronger reafon to conclude from their ge- 
 neral manners and charadler, that they had made an early proficiency 
 in arts and fciences : even of poetry, the mort: univerfal and mofl: na- 
 tural of the fine arts, we find no genuine fpecimens afcribed to them, 
 except fome horrible warfongs exprefled in Ferjian by Ali' of Tezd, 
 and pofTibly invented by him. After the conqueft of Ferfia by the 
 Mongah, their princes, indeed, encouraged learning, and even made 
 aftronomical obfervations at Samarkand ; as the Turcs became polifhed 
 by mixing with the Perjians and Arabs, though their very tiature, as 
 one of their own writers confelles, had before been like an incurable dif- 
 temper, and their minds clouded with ignorance : thus alfo the Man- 
 cheu monarchs of China have been patrons of the learned and ingenious, 
 and the Emperor Tien-Long is, if he be now living, a fine Chinefe 
 poet. In all thefe inftances the Tartars have refembled the Romans, 
 who, before they had fubdued Greece, were little better than tigers in 
 war, and Fauns or Sylvans in fcience and art. 
 
 Before I left Europe, I had infifled in converfation, that the Tuzuc, 
 tranflated by Major Davy, was never written by Taimu'r himfelf, 
 at leaft not as C^sar wrote his commentaries, for one very plain 
 reafon, that no Tartarian king of his age could write at all ; and, in 
 fupport of my opinion, I had cited Ibnu Arabsha'h, who, though 
 juftly hoftile to the favage, by whom his native city, Damafcus, had 
 been ruined, yet praifes his talents and the real greatnefs of his mind, 
 but adds : " He was wholly illiterate ; he neither read nor wrote any 
 " thing i and he knew nothing of Arabick , though of Ferfian, Turkifi, 
 
 " and
 
 ON THE TARTARS. 69 
 
 ** and the Mogul dialed, he knew as much as was fufficlent for his 
 " purpofe, and no more : he ufed with pleafure to hear hiftories read 
 " to him, and fo frequently heard the fame book, that he was able by 
 " memory to corredt an inaccurate reader." This pafTage had no effedt 
 on the tranflator, whom great and learned men in India had ajfuredy it 
 feems, that the work was anthentick, by which he meaned compofed by 
 the conqueror himfelf: but the great in this country might have been 
 unlearned, or the learned might not have been great enough to anfwer 
 any leading queftion in a manner that oppofed the declared inclination 
 of a Britijh inquirer; and, in either cafe, fince no witneffes are named, 
 fo general a reference to them will hardly be thought conclufive evidence. 
 On my part, I will name a Mufelman, whom we all know, and who 
 has enough both of greatnefs and of learning to decide the queftion both 
 impartially and fatisfadlorily : the Nawwab Mozaffer Jang informed 
 me of his own accord, that no man of fenfe in Hindujlan believed the 
 work to have been compofed by Taimu'r, but that his favourite, fur- 
 named Hindu Sha'h, was known to have written that book and others 
 afcribed to his patron, after many confidential difcourfes with the Emtr, 
 and, perhaps, nearly in the Prince's words as well as in his perfon ; a 
 ftory, which Ali' of Yezd, who attended the court of Taimu'r, and 
 has given us a flowery panegyrick inftead of a hiftory, renders highly 
 probable, by confirming the latter part of the Arabian account, and by 
 total filence as to the literary productions of his mafter. It is true, 
 that a very ingenious but indigent native, whom Davy fupported, has 
 given me a written memorial on the fubjeft, in which he mentions 
 Taimu r as the author of two works in Turkifi ', but the credit of his 
 information is overfet by a ftrange apocryphal ftory of a king of Yemen, 
 who invaded, he fays, the Emir's dominions, and in whofe library the 
 manufcript was afterwards found, and tranflated by order of Ali'shi'r, 
 firft minifter of Taimu'r's grandfon ; and Major Davy himfelf, be- 
 fore he departed from Bengal, told me, that he was greatly perplexed 
 
 by
 
 ;0 THE FIFTH DISCOURSE, 
 
 by finding in a very accurate and old copy of the Tt/zuc, which he de- 
 figned to repubUfli with confiderable additions, a particular account, 
 written unquejlmiably by Taimu'r, of his own death. No evidence, 
 therefore, has been adduced to fhake my opinion, that, the Moguls and 
 Tartars, before their conqueft of India and Perfia, were wholly unlet- 
 tered ; although it may be poflible, that, even without art or fcience, 
 they had, like the Hicns, both warriours and lawgivers in their own 
 country fome centuries before the birth of Christ. 
 
 If learning was ever anciently cultivated in the regions to the north 
 of India, the feats of it, I have reafon to fufped, muft have been 
 Eighiir, Capgbar, Khata, Chin, Tanciit, and other countries of Chi- 
 nefe I'artary, which lie between the thirty-fifth and forty-fifth degrees 
 of northern latitude; but I fhall, in another difcourfe, produce my 
 reafons for fuppofing, that thofe very countries were peopled by a race 
 allied to the Hindus, or enlightened at leaft by their vicinity to India 
 and China; yet in Tanciit, which by fome is annexed to Tibet, and even 
 among its old inhabitants, the Seres, we have no certain accounts of 
 uncommon talents or great improvements : they were famed, indeed, 
 for the faithful difcharge of moral duties, for a pacifick difpofition, and 
 for that longevity, which is often the reward of patient virtues and a calm 
 temper ; but they are faid to have been wholly indifferent, in former 
 ages, to the elegant arts and even to commerce ^ though Fadlu'llah 
 had been informed, that, near the clofe of the thirteenth century, many 
 branches of natural philofophy were cultivated in Cam-cheu, then the 
 metropolis of Serica. 
 
 We may readily believe thofe, who afllire us, that fome tribes of 
 wandering "Tartars had real fkill in applying herbs and minerals to the 
 purpofes of medicine, and pretended to fkill in magick ; but the ge- 
 neral charadler of their nation feems to have been this : they were 
 
 profefTed
 
 ON THE TARTARS, 7I 
 
 profeffed hunters or fifhers, dwelling on that account in forefts or near 
 great rivers, under huts or rude tents, or in waggons drawn by their 
 cattle from ftation to flation ; they were dextrous archei'S, excellent 
 horfemen, bold combatants, appearing often to flee in diforder for the 
 fake of renewing their attack with advantage ; drinking the milk of 
 mares, and eating the flefli of colts ; and thus in many refpedls re- 
 fembling the old ylrabs, but in nothing more than in their love of in- 
 toxicating liquors, and in nothing lefs than in a tafte for poetry and the 
 improvement of their language. 
 
 Thus has it been proved, and, in my humble opinion, beyond con- 
 troverfy, that the far greater part of AJia has been peopled and imme- 
 morially poiTefTed by three confiderable nations, whom, for want of 
 better names, we may call Hindus, Arabs, and Tartars ; each of them 
 divided and fubdivided into an infinite number of branches, and all of 
 them fo different in form and features, language, manners, and religion, 
 that, if they fprang originally from a common root, they mufl have 
 been feparated for ages : whether more than three primitive flocks can 
 be found, or, in other words, whether the Chmefe, Japanefe, and Per- 
 Jians, are entirely diflindl from them, or formed by their intermixture, 
 I fhall hereafter, if your indulgence to me continue, diligently inquire. 
 To what conclufions thefe inquiries will lead, I cannot yet clearly dif- 
 cern ; but, if they lead to truth, we fhall not regret our journey through 
 this dark region of ancient hiflory, in which, while we proceed flep by 
 flep, and follow every glimmering of certain light, that prefents itfelf, 
 we mufl beware of thofe falfe rays and luminous vapours, which mif- 
 lead Afiatick travellers by an appearance of water, but are found on a 
 near approach to be deferts of fand.
 
 THE SIXTH 
 
 DISCOURSE; 
 
 O.V THE 
 
 PERSIANS, 
 
 DELIVERED 19 FEBRUARY, lySQ. 
 
 GENTLEMEN, 
 
 J. TURN with delight from the vafl mountains and barren deferts of 
 Turan, over which we travelled laft year with no perfedl knowledge 
 of our courfe, and requeft you now to accompany me on a literary jour- 
 ney through one of the moft celebrated and moft beautiful countries in 
 the world ; a country, the hiftory and languages of which, both ancient 
 and modern, I have long attentively ftudied, and on which I may 
 without arrogance promife you more pofitive information, than I could 
 poffibly procure on a nation fo difunited and fo unlettered as the Tar- 
 tars : I mean that, which Europeans improperly call Perjia, the name 
 df a fmgle province being applied to the whole Empire of Iran, as it 
 is correftly denominated by the prefent natives of it, and by all the 
 learned Miijelmans, who refide in thefe BritiJIo territories. To give you 
 an idea of its largeft boundaries, agreeably to my former mode of de- 
 fcribing India, Arabia, and Tartary, between which it lies, let u5 
 VOL. I. N begin
 
 74 THE SIXTH DISCOURSE, 
 
 begin with the fource of the great AJfyrian flream, Euphrates, (as tlie 
 Greeks, according to their cuftom, were pleafed to mifcall the ForatJ 
 and thence delcend to its mouth in the Green Sea, or Perjian Gulf, 
 including in our line fome confidsrable diftriifls and towns on both fides 
 the river ; then coafling Perfia, properly fo named, and other Iranian 
 provinces, we come to the delta of the Sindhic or Indus ; whence 
 afcending to the mountains of CaJJ.ig/jar, we difcover its fountains and 
 thofe of the Jai/jun, down which we are conducfted to the Cqfpian, which 
 formerly perhaps it entered, though it lofe itfelf now in the fands and lakes 
 of Khwdrezm : we next are led from the fea of Khozar, by the banks of 
 the Cur, or Cyrus, and along the Caucafean ridges, to the fliore of the 
 Euxine, and thence, by the feveral Grecian feas, to the point, whence we 
 took our departure, at no confiderable diftance from the Mediterranean. 
 We cannot but include the lower AJia within this outline, becaufe it was 
 unqueftionably a part of the Perfian, if not of the old AJjyrian, Empire ; 
 for we know, that it was under the dominion of Caikhosrau ; and 
 DiODORUS, we find, aflerts, that the kingdom of Troas was dependent 
 on Ajfyria, fince Priam implored and obtained fuccours from his 
 Emperor Teutames, whofe name approaches nearer toTAHMu'RAS, 
 than to that of any other Ajfyrian monarch. Thus may we look on 
 Iran as the nobleft IJland, (for fo the Greeks and the Arabs would have 
 called it), or at leafi; as the nobleft peninfula, on this habitable globe; 
 and if M. Bailly had fixed on it as the Atlantis of Plato, he 
 might have fupported his opinion with far ftronger arguments than any, 
 that he has adduced in favour of New Zembla: if the account, indeed, 
 of the Atlantes be not purely an Egyptian, or an Utopia?!, fable, I 
 fliould be more inclined to place them in Iran than in any region, with 
 which I am acquainted. 
 
 It may feem ftrange, that the ancient hiftory of fo diftinguiflied an 
 Empire fhould be yet fo imperfeJlly known ; but very fatisfadlory 
 
 reafons
 
 ON THE PERSIANS. 75 
 
 reafons may be affigned for our Ignorance of it : the principal of 
 them are the fuperficial knowledge of the Greeks and Jews, and the 
 lofs of Perjian archives or hiftorical compolitions. That the Gre- 
 ctan writers, before Xenophon, had no acquaintance with Perjia, and 
 that all their accounts of it are wholly fabulous, is a paradox too extra- 
 vagant to be ferioully maintained ; but their connexion with it in war 
 or peace had, indeed, been generally confined to bordering kingdoms 
 under feudatory princes ; and the firft Perfian Emperor, whofe life 
 and character they feem to have known with tolerable accuracy, was 
 the great Cyrus, whom I call, without fear of contradidlion, Caik- 
 HOSRAU ; for I fhall then only doubt that the Khosrau of Firdausi' 
 was the Cyrus of the firft Greek hiftorian, and the Hero of the old eft 
 political and moral romance, when I doubt that Louis ^latorze and 
 Lewis the Fourteenth were one and the fame French King : it is utterly 
 incredible, that two different princes of Perjia fhould each have been 
 born in a foreign and hoftile territory ; fhould each have been doomed to 
 death in his infancy by his maternal grandfather in confequence of 
 portentous dreams, real or invented ; fhould each have been faved by 
 the remorfe of his deftined murderer, and fliould each, after a fimilar 
 education among herdfmen, as the fon of a herdfman, have found 
 means to revifit his paternal kingdom, and having delivered it, after a 
 long and triumphant war, from the tyrant, who had invaded it, fhould 
 have reftored it to the fummit of power and magnificence. Whether 
 fo romantick a ftory, which is the fubjedl of an Epick Poem, as 
 majeftick and entire as the Iliad, be hiftorically true, we may feel per- 
 haps an inclination to doubt ; but it cannot with reafon be denied, that 
 the outline of it related to a fingle Hero, whom the Afiaticks, con- 
 verfmg with the father of European hiftory, defcribed according to 
 their popular traditions by his true name, which the Greek alphabet 
 could not exprefs : nor will a difference of names affed: the queftion ; 
 fince the Greeks had little regard for truth, which they facrijiced will- 
 ingly
 
 70 THE SIXTH DISCOURSE, 
 
 ingly to the Graces of their language, and the nicety of their ears ; and, 
 if they could render foreign words melodious, they v/ere never folicit- 
 ous to make them exadl ; hence they probably formed Camsyses from 
 Ca'mbakhsh, or Granting dejiresy a title rather than a name, and 
 Xerxes from Shi'ru'yi, a Prince and warriour in the Shalmdrnali, or 
 from Shi'rsha'h, which might alfo have been a title; for the AJiatick 
 Princes have conftantly alTumed new titles or epithets at different 
 periods of their lives, or on different occafions ; a cuftom, which we 
 have feen prevalent in our own times both in Irhi and Hindiijidn, and 
 which has been a fource of great confufion even in the fcriptural 
 accounts of Babylonian occurrences : both Greeks and Jews have in fad; 
 accommodated Perfian names to their own articulation ; and both feem 
 to have difregarded the native literature of Iran, without which they 
 could at moft attain a general and imperfedl knowledge of the country. 
 As to the Perfians themfelves, who were contemporary with the Je^^s 
 and Greeks, they muft have been acquainted with the hiftory of their 
 own times, and with the traditional accounts of paft ages ; but for a 
 reafon, which will prefently appear, they chofe to confider Cayu'- 
 MERS as the founder of the empire ; and, in the numerous diftradions, 
 which followed the overthrow of Da'ra', efpecially in the great revo- 
 lution on the defeat of Yezdegird, their civil hiflories were loft, as 
 thofe of India have unhappily been, from the folicitude of the priefts, 
 the only depofitaries of their learning, to preferve their books of law 
 and religion at the expenfe of all others : hence it has happened, that 
 nothing remains of genuine Perjian hiftory before the dynafty of 
 Sa'sa'n, except a few ruftick traditions and fables, which furnillied 
 materials for the Shdhndmah, and which are ftill fuppofed to exift in 
 the Pahlavi language. The annals of the Pijhdddt, or Ajjyrian, race 
 muft be confidered as dark and fabulous ; and thofe of the Caydni 
 £miily, or the Medes and Perfians, as heroick and poetical ; though 
 the lunar eclipfes, faid to be mentioned by Ptolemy, fix the time 
 
 of
 
 ON THE PERSIANS. 77 
 
 of GusHTASP, the prince, by whom Zera'tusht was prote<fled : 
 of the Parthian kings defcended from Arshac or Arsaces, we 
 know little more than the names ; but the Safdnis had fo long an 
 Intercourfe with the Emperors of Home and Byzantium., that the 
 period of their dominion may be called an hiftorical age. In attempt- 
 ing to afcertain the beginning of the AJfyrian empire, we are deluded, 
 as in a thoufand inftances, by names arbitrarily impofed : it had been 
 fettled by chronologers, that the firft monarchy eftabliflied in Perjia 
 was the A[jyrian; and Newton, finding fome of opinion, that it rofe 
 in the firft century after the Flood, but unable by his own calculations 
 to extend it farther back than feven hundred and ninety years before 
 Christ, rejected part of the old fyftem and adopted the reft of it; 
 concluding, that the Affyrian Monarchs began to reign about two hundred 
 years after Solomon, and that, in all preceding ages, the government 
 of Iran had been divided into feveral petty ftates and principalities. Of 
 this opinion I confefs myfelf to have been ; when, difregarding the 
 wild chronology of the Miifelmans and Gabrs, I had allowed the utmoft 
 natural duration to the reigns of eleven PiJJjdddi kings, without being 
 able to add more than a hundred years to Newton's computation. It 
 feemed, indeed, unaccountably ftrange, that, although Abraham had 
 found a regular monarchy in Egypt, although the kingdom of Yemen 
 had juft pretenfions to very high antiquity, although the Chinefe, in the 
 twelfth century before our era, had made approaches at leaft to the 
 prefent form of their extenfive dominion, and although we can hardly 
 fuppofe the firft Indian monarchs to have reigned lefs than three 
 thoufand years ago, yet Perfia, the moft delightful, the moft com- 
 padl, the moft defirable country of them all, fhould have remained 
 for fo many ages unfettled and difunited. A fortunate difcovery, for 
 which I was firft indebted to Mir Muhammed Husatn, one of the 
 moft intelligent Mufelmans in India, has at once difilpated the cloud, 
 
 and
 
 78 THE SIXTH DISCOURSE, 
 
 and caft a gleam of light on the primeval hiftory of Iran and of the 
 human race, of which I had long defpaired, and which could hardly 
 have dawned from any other quarter. 
 
 The rare and interefting tra6l on twelve different religions, entitled 
 the Dabijlan, and compofed by a Mohammedan traveller, a native of 
 Cajhniiry named Mohsan, but diftlngulihed by the ailumed furname 
 of Fa'ni', or Perijl.uible, begins with a wonderfully curious chapter on 
 the religion of Hu'sH AN G, which was long anterior to that of Zera'- 
 TUSHT, but had continued to be fecretly profeffed by many learned Per- 
 Jians even to the author's time ; and feveral of tlie moil eminent of 
 them, dllTentlng in many points from the Gabrs, and perfecuted by the 
 ruling powers of their country, had retired to India ; where they com- 
 piled a number of books, now extremely fcarce, which Mohsan had 
 perufed, and with the writers of which, or with many of them, he had 
 contradled an Intimate friendfhip : from them he learned, that a power- 
 ful monarchy had been eftabllflied for ages in Iran before the acceffion 
 of Cayu'mers, that It was called the Mahdbadian dynafly, for a rea- 
 fon which will foon be mentioned, and that many princes, of whom 
 feven or eight only are named In the Dabijlan, and among them Mah- 
 BUL, or Maha' Beli, had raifed their empire to the zenith of human 
 glory. If we can rely on this evidence, which tp me appears unex- 
 ceptionable, the Iranian monarchy mufl have been the oldeft In the 
 world ; but it will remain dubious, to which of the three flocks, Hindu, 
 Arabian, or Tartar, the firfl Kings of Iran belonged, or whether they 
 fprang from a fourth race diftind from any of the others ; and thefe 
 are queflions, which we fhall be able, I imagine, to anfwer preclfely, 
 when wc have carefully inquired into the languages and letters, religion 
 2,nd philofophy, and incidentally into the arts and/ciences, of the ancient 
 Perjians. 
 
 I. In
 
 ON THE PERSIANS. 79 
 
 I, In the new and important remarks, which I am going to offer, on 
 the ancient languages and chambers of Iran, I am fenfible, that you 
 mufl give me credit for many affertions, which on this occafion it is 
 impoffible to prove j for I Ihould ill deferve your indulgent attention, it 
 I were to abufe it by repeating a dry lift of detached words, and pre- 
 fenting you with a vocabulary inftead of a differtation ; but, fince I 
 have no fyftem to maintain, and have not fuffered imagination to delude 
 my judgement ; fmce I have habituated myfelf to form opinions of men 
 and things from evidence, which is the only folid bafis of civil, as ex- 
 periment is of natural, knowledge ; and fmce I have maturely con- 
 fidered the queftions which I mean to difcufs ; you will not, I am per- 
 fuaded, fufpedl my teftimony, or think that I go too far, when I affure 
 you, that I will affert nothing pofitively, which I am not able fatif- 
 faftorily to demonftrate. When Muhammed was born, and Anu'shi- 
 rava'n, whom he calls the Juji King, fat on the throne of Pej-Jia, 
 two languages appear to have been generally prevalent in the great 
 empire of Ira?t ; that of the Court, thence named Der), which was 
 oiily a refined and elegant dialed: of the Pdrsi, fo called from the pro- 
 vince, of which Shirdz is now the capital, and that of the learned, in 
 which moft books were compofed, and which had the name of Fahlavl, 
 either from the heroes, who fpoke it in former times, or from Pahlu, a 
 tradl of land, which included, we are told, fome coniiderable cities of 
 Irak : the ruder dialeds of both were, and, I believe, ftill are, fpoken 
 by the rufticks in feveral provinces ; and in many of them, as Herat, 
 Zdbul, Sijlan and others, diftindl idioms were vernacular, as it hap- 
 pens in every kingdom of great extent. Befides the Fdrs\ and Pahlavi, 
 a very ancient and abftrufe tongue was known to the priefts and philo- 
 fophers, called the language of the Zend, becaufe a book on religious and 
 moral duties, which they held f^cred, and which bore that name, had 
 been written in it j while the Pdzend, or comment on that work, was 
 compoled in Pahlav\, as a more popular idiom ; but a learned follower 
 
 of
 
 80 THE SIXTH DISCOURSE, 
 
 of Zera'tusht, named Baiiman, who lately died at Calcutta, where 
 he had lived with me as a Perjian reader about three years, aflured me, 
 that the letters of his prophet's book were properly called Zend, and the 
 language, Avejla, as the words of the Veda's are Sanfcrit, and the 
 charadlers, Nagan ; or as the old Saga''sznA poems of Ifeland were ex- 
 prefTed in Runick letters : let us however, in compliance with cuftom, 
 give the name of Zend to the facred language of Perfia, until we can 
 find, as we fhall very foon, a fitter appellation for it. The Zend and 
 the old Pahlavi are almofl extind: in Iran ; for among fix or kvcn 
 thoufand Gabrs, who refide chiefly at Yezd, and in Cirman, there are very 
 few, who can read Pahlavi, and fcarce any, ^vho even boaft of know- 
 ing the Zend; while the Pars), which remains almofl: pure in the 
 Shdhndmah, has now become by the intermixture of numberlefs Arabick 
 words, and many imperceptible changes, a new language exquifitely 
 polifhed by a feries of fine writers in profe and verfe, and analogous 
 to the different idioms gradually formed in Europe after the fubver- 
 fion of the Roman empire : but with modern Perjian we have no con- 
 cern in our prefent inquiry, which I confine to the ages, that preceded 
 the Mohammedan conqueft. Having twice read the works of Firdausi' 
 with great attention, fince I applied myfelf to the fludy of old Indian 
 literature, I can affure you with confidence, that hundreds of Pdrsi 
 nouns are pure Sanfcrit, with no other change than fuch as may be 
 obferved in the numerous bhdjhas, or vernacular dialeds, of India ; that 
 very many Perjian imperatives are the roots of Sanfcrit verbs j and that 
 even the moods and tenfes of the Perjian verb fubftantive, which is the 
 model of all the reft, are deducible from the Sanfcrit by an eafy and 
 clear analogy : we may hence conclude, that the Pdrsi was derived, like 
 the various Indian dialedls, from the language of the Brdhtnans ; and I 
 muft add, that in the pure Perfian I find no trace of any Arabian tongue, 
 except what proceeded from the known intercourfe between the Per- 
 Jians and Arabs, efpecially in the time of Bahra'm, who was educated 
 
 in
 
 ON THE PERSIANS. 81 
 
 in Arabia, and whofe Arabick verfes are ilill extant, together with his 
 heroick line in Deri, which many fuppofe to be the firft attempt at Perfuin 
 verfification in Arabian metre : but, without having recourfe to other 
 arguments, the compofttion of words, in which the genius of the Perjian 
 delights, and which that of the Arabick abhors, is a decifive proof, that 
 the Parsi fprang from an Indian, and not from an Arabian, ftock. Confi- 
 dering languages as mere inilruments of knowledge, and having ftrong 
 reafons to doubt the exiflence of genuine books in Zend or Pahlavt 
 (efpecially fince the well-informed author of the Dabijian affirms the 
 work of Zera'tusht to have been loft, and its place lupplied by a 
 recent compilation) I had no inducement, though I had an opportunity, 
 to learn what remains of thofe ancient languages ; but I often converfed 
 on them with my friend Bahman, and both of us were convinced 
 after full confideration, that the Zend bore a ftrong refemblance to 
 Sajifcrit, and the Pahlavt to Arabick. He had at my requell tranflated 
 into Pahlavl the fine infcription, exhibited in the Gulijian, on the 
 diadem of Cyrus ; and I had the patience to read the lifl of words 
 from the Pdzend in the appendix to the Farhangi Jehdngirt : this exa- 
 mination gave me perfedl conviftion, that the Pa/i/avt was a dialed: of 
 the Chaldaick ; and of this curious fadl I will exhibit a fliort proof. By 
 the nature of the Chaldean tongue mofl words ended in the firfl long 
 vowel like Jljemid, heaven ; and that very word, unaltered in a lingle 
 letter, we find in the Pdzend, together with lailid, night, meyd, water, 
 nird, fire, matrd, rain, and a multitude of others, all Arabick or Hebreiv 
 with a Chaldean termination : fo zamar, by a beautiful metaphor from 
 pruning trees, means in Hebrew to compofe verfes, and thence, by an ealy 
 tranfition, tofng them j and in Pahlavt we fee the verb zamruniten, to 
 fing, with its forms zamrunemi, \fng, iindzamrmid, he fang ; the verbal 
 terminations of the Perfian being added to the Chaldaick root. Now all 
 thofe words are integral parts of the language, not adventitious to it 
 like the Arabick nouns and verbals engrafted on modern Per/ian ; and 
 VOL. I. o this
 
 82 THE SIXTH DISCOURSE, 
 
 this diftin<5tion convinces me, that the dialed: of the Gabrs, which they 
 pretend to be that of Zera'tusht, and of which Bahman gave me a 
 variety of written fpecimens, is a late invention of their priefts, or fubfe- 
 quent at leaft to the Mufelman invalion ; for, although it may be poflible^ 
 that a few of their facred books were preferved, as he ufed to aflert, in 
 flieets of lead or copper at the bottom of wells near Tezd, yet as the 
 conquerors had not only a fpiritual, but a political, intereft in perfecuting 
 a warlike, robuft, and indignant race of irreconcilable conquered fub- 
 jedts, a long time muft have elapfed, before the hidden fcriptures could 
 have been fafely brought to light, and few, who could perfeftly 
 underftand them, muft then have remained; but, as they continued 
 to profefs among themfelves the religion of their forefathers, it be- 
 came expedient for the Mubeds to fupply the loft or mutilated works 
 of their legiflator by new compofitioiis, partly from their imperfeft re- 
 colledlion, and partly from fuch moral and religious knowledge, as they 
 cleaned, moft probably, among the ChriJUans, with whom they had an 
 intercourfe. One rule we may fairly eftablilh in deciding the queftion, 
 whether the books of the modern Gabrs were anterior to the invafion of 
 the Arabs : when an Arabick noun occurs in them changed only by the 
 fpirit of the Chaldean idiom, as werta, for tverd, a rofe, daba, for dhahab, 
 gold, or deincin, for z.eman, time, we may allow it to have been ancient 
 Fahlavi ; but, when we meet with verbal nouns or infinitives, evidently 
 formed by the rules of Arabian grammar, we may be fure, that the 
 phrafes, in which they occur, are comparatively modern ; and not a 
 fingle pafliige, which Bahman produced from the books of his religion., 
 v/ould abide this teft. 
 
 We come now to the language of the Zend; and here I muft impart 
 a difcovery, which I lately made, and from which we may draw the 
 moft interefting confequences. M. An que til, who had the merit of 
 undertaking a voyage to India, in his earlieft youth, with no other view 
 
 than
 
 ON THE PERSIANS. 83 
 
 than to recover the writings of Zera'tusht, and who would have 
 acquired a brilliant reputation in France, if he had not fullied it by his 
 immoderate vanity and virulence of temper, which alienated the good 
 will even of his own countrymen, has exhibited in his work, entitled 
 Zenddvejia, two vocabularies in TLend and Pablavt, which he had found 
 in an approved collection of Rawdyat, or Traditional Pieces, in modern 
 Perjian : of his Pahlavi no more needs be faid, than that it flrongly 
 confirms my opinion concerning the Chaldaick origin of that language ; 
 but, when I perufed the Zend gloffary, I was inexpreffibly furprized to 
 find, that fix or feven words in ten were pure Sanfcrit, and even fome 
 of their inflexions formed by the rules of the Vydcaran ; as yuflomdcam, 
 the genitive plural oi yujlomad. Now M. Anquetil moft certainly, 
 and the Perfian compiler moft probably, had no knowledge of Sanfcrit ; 
 and could not, therefore, have invented a lift of Sanfcrit words : it is, 
 therefore, an authentick lift of Zend words, which had been preferved 
 in books or by tradition ; and it follows, that the language of the Zend 
 was at leaft a dialedl of the Sanfcrit, approaching perhaps as nearly to 
 it as the Prdcrit, or other popular idioms, which we know to liave 
 been fpoken in India two thoufand years ago. From all thefe fadls it 
 is a necefi^ary confequcnce, that the oldeft difcoverable languages of 
 Perfia were Chaldaick and Sanfcrit ; and that, when they had ceafed to 
 be vernacular, the Pahlavi and Zend were deduced from them refpec- 
 tively, and the Pars} either from the Zend, or immediately from the 
 diale(£l of the Brdhmans ; but all had perhaps a mixture of 7'artarian ; 
 for the heft lexicographers afiert, that numberlefs words in ancient Per- 
 Jian are taken from the language of the Cimtnerians, or the Tartars of 
 Kipchdk ; fo that the three families, whofe lineage we have examined in 
 former difcourfes, had left vifible traces of themfelves in Iran, long 
 before the Tartars and Arabs had ruflied from their deferts, and returned 
 to that very country, from which in all probability they originally pro- 
 ceeded, and which the Hindus had abandoned in an earlier age, with 
 
 pofitive
 
 84 THE SIXTH DISCOURSE, 
 
 pofitive commands from their legiflators to revifit it no more. I clofe 
 this head with obferving, that no fuppolition of a mere poUtical or com- 
 mercial intercourfe between the different nations will account for the 
 Sanfcrit and Chaldakk words, which we find in the old PerfiaJi tongues ,- 
 becaufe they are, in the firft place, too numerous to have been intro- 
 duced by fuch means, and, fecondly, are not the names of exotick 
 animals, commodities, or arts, but thofe of material elements, parts of 
 the body, natural objefts and relations, affedions of the mind, and 
 other ideas common to the whole race of man. 
 
 If a nation of Hindus, it may be urged, ever pofTeifed and governed 
 the country of Iran, we fliould find on the very ancient ruins of the 
 temple or palace, now called the throne of ]emshi'd, fome infcriptions 
 in Dcvandgart, or at leaft in the charafters on the flones at Elephanta, 
 where the fculpture is unqueflionably Indian, or in thofe on the Staff of 
 Fi'ru'z Sha'h, which exifi: in the heart oi India ; and fuch infcriptions 
 we probably fliould have found, if that edifice had not been erefted 
 after the migration of the Brdhmans from Iran, and the violent fchifm 
 in the Perfian religion, of which we fhall prefently fpeak ; for, although 
 the popular name of the building at IJlakhr, or Perfcpolis, be no certain 
 proof that it was raifed in the time of Jemshi'd, yet fuch a fad: might 
 eafily have been prefervcd by tradition, and we fhall foon have abundant 
 evidence, that the temple was pofteriour to the reign of the Hindu mo- 
 narchs : the cyprejj'es indeed, which are reprefented with the figures in 
 proceflion, might induce a reader of tiie Shdhndmah to believe, that the 
 fcLilptures related to the new faith introduced by Zera'tusht; but, 
 as a cyprefs is a beautiful ornament, and as many of the figures appear 
 inconfiftent with the reformed adoration of fire, we mull: have recourfe 
 to ftronger proofs, that the Takhti Jemshi'd was ereded after Cayu'- 
 MERs. The building has lately been vifited, and the charaders on it 
 examined, by Mr. Francklin ; from whom we learn, that Niebuhr 
 
 has
 
 ON^THE PERSIAxNS. 80 
 
 has delineated them with great accuracy : but without fuch teftimony I 
 fliould have fufpe(fted the corredlnefs of the deUneation j becaufe the 
 Danijh traveller has exhibited two infcriptions in modern Perfmn, and 
 one of them from the fame place, which cannot have been exadlly 
 tranfcribed : they are very elegant verfes of Niza'mi' and Sadi' on the 
 injf ability of human greatnefs, but fo ill engraved or fo ill copied, that, 
 if I had not had them nearly by heart, I fliould not have been able to 
 read them; and M. Rousseau o^ Isfahan, who tranflated them with 
 fhameful inaccuracy, mufl have been deceived by the badnefs of the 
 copy; or he never would have created a new king Wakam, by form- 
 ing one word of Jem and the particle prefixed to it. AlTuming, how- 
 ever, that we may reafon as conclufively on the charadlers publilhed by 
 NiEBUHR, as we might on the monuments themfelves, were they now 
 before us, we may begin with obferving, as Char din had obferved on 
 the very fpot, that they bear no refemblance whatever to the letters 
 ufed by the Gabrs in their copies of the Vendidad : this I once urged, in 
 an amicable debate with Bahman, as a proof, that the Zend letters 
 were a modern invention ; but he feemed to hear me without furprize, 
 and infilled, that the letters, to which I alluded, and which he had 
 often feen, were monumental characters never ufed in books, and in- 
 tended either to conceal fome religious myfteries from the vulgar, or to 
 difplay the art of the fculptor, like the embellifhed Cufick and Ndgari 
 on feveral Arabian and Indian monuments. He wondered, that any man 
 could ferioully doubt the antiquity of the Pahlavt letters ; and in truth the 
 infcription behind the horfe oi Rujlam, which Niebuhr has alfo given 
 us, is apparently Pahlavi, and might with fome pains be decyphered : 
 that charafter was extremely rude, and feems to have been v/ritten, like 
 the Roman and the Arabick, in a variety of hands ; for I remember to 
 have examined a rare colledtion of old Perfian coins in the Mufeum of 
 the great Anatomift, William Hunter, and, though I believed the 
 legends to be Pahlavh and had no doubt, that they were coins of Par- 
 thian
 
 S() THE SIXTH DISCOURSE, 
 
 tfnan kings, yet I could not read the infcriptions without wafting more 
 time, than I had then at command, in comparing the letters and afcer- 
 taining the proportions, in which they feverally occurred. The grofs 
 Pablavl was improved by Zera'tusht or his difciples into an elegant 
 and pcrfpicuous charafter, in which the Zenddz-ejia was copied ; and 
 both were written from the right hand to the left like other Chaldaick 
 alphabets ; for they are nianifeftly both of Chaldean origin ; but the 
 Zend has the fingular advantage of expreffing all the long and fliort 
 vowels, by diftindl marks, in the body of each word, and all the words 
 are diftinguifhed by full points between them ; fo that, if modern Per- 
 fian were unmixed with Arabick, it might be written in Zend with the 
 greateft convenience, as any one may perceive by copying in that cha- 
 radler a few pages of the Shdhnatnah. As to the unknown infcriptions 
 in the palace of Jemshi'd, it may reafonably be doubted, whether they 
 contain a fyftem of letters, which any nation ever adopted : in five of 
 them the letters, which are feparated by points, may be reduced to 
 forty, at leaft I can diftinguifli no more effentially different ; and they 
 all feem to be regular variations and compofitions of a ftraight line and 
 an angular figure like the head of a javelin, or a leaf (to ufe the language 
 of botanifts) hearted mid lanced. Many of the Runkk letters appear to 
 have been formed of fimilar elements ; and it has been obferved, that 
 the writing at Perfepolis bears a ftrong refemblance to that, which 
 the Irijh call Ogham: the word Again in Sanfcrit means myfie- 
 rious knowledge; but I dare not affirm, that the two words had a 
 common origin, and only mean to fuggeft, that, if the charaders in 
 queftion be really alphabetical, they were probably fecret and facer- 
 dotal, or a mere cypher, perhaps, of which the priefts only had the 
 key. They might, I imagine, be decyphered, if the language were 
 certainly known ; but, in all the other infcriptions of the fame fort, the 
 charadlers are too complex, and the variations of them too numerous, 
 to admit an opinion, tliat they could be fymbols of articulate founds ; 
 
 for
 
 ON THE PERSIANS. 87 
 
 for even the Kagnri fyilem, which has more diftincl letters than any- 
 known alphabet, confills only of forty-nine fimple charadlers, two of 
 which are mere fubftitutions, and four of little ufe in Sanfcrit or in any 
 other language ; while the more complicated figures, exhibited by 
 NiEBUHR, muft be as numerous at leaft as the Chinefe keys, which are 
 the ligns of ideas only, and fome of which refemble the old Perfian 
 letters at IJiakhr : the DaniJJo traveller was convinced from his own ob- 
 fervation, that they were written from the left hand, like all the cha- 
 radlers ufed by Hindu nations ; but I muft leave this dark fubjedt, 
 which I cannot illuminate, with a remark formerly made by myfelf, 
 that the fquare Chaldaick letters, a few of which are found on the Per- 
 fian ruins, appear to have been originally the fame with the Devandgart, 
 before the latter were enclofed, as we now fee them, in angular frames. 
 
 II. The primeval religion of Iran, if we rely on the authorities ad- 
 duced by MoHSANi Fa'ni', was that, which Newton calls the oldefl 
 (and it may juftly be called the noblefl:) of all religions ; " a firm be- 
 " lief, that One Supreme God made the world by his power, and con- 
 " tinually governed it by his providence ; a pious fear, love, and ador- 
 " ation of Him ; a due reverence for parents and aged perfons ; a 
 " fraternal affeftion for the whole human fpecies, and a compaffionate 
 " tendernefs even for the brute creation." A fyftem of devotion fo 
 pure and fublime could hardly among mortals be of long duration ; and 
 we learn from the Dabijidn, that the popular worfliip of the Irdniam 
 under Hu'shang was purely Sabian ; a word, of which I cannot offer 
 any certain etymology, but which has been deduced by grammarians 
 from Saba, a hoji, and, particularly the bojl of heaven, or the celeftial 
 bodies, in the adoration of which the Sabian ritual is believed to have 
 confifled : there is a defcription, in the learned work juft mentioned, 
 of the feveral Perfian temples dedicated to the Sun and Planets, of the 
 images adored in them, and of the magnificent proceffions to them on 
 
 prefcribed.
 
 88 THE SIXTH DISCOURSl-:. 
 
 prelcribed fellivals, one of which is probably reprelented by Iculpture 
 in the ruined city of Jemshi'd ; but the planetary v/orfliip in Perf^a 
 feems onlv a part of a fir more complicated religion, which we now 
 find in thefe Indian provinces ; for Mohsan allures us, that, in the opi- 
 nion of the beft informed Perjians, who profelfed the faith of Hu'shang, 
 diftinguilhed from that of Zera'tusht, the firil monarch oi Iran and 
 of the whole earth was Maha'ba'd, a word apparently Sanfcrit, v/ho 
 divided the people into four orders, the religious, the military, the com- 
 mercial, and the fervile, to which he affigned names unqueflionably the 
 fame in their origin with thofe now applied to the four primary ckfles 
 of the Hindus. They added, that He received from the creator, and 
 promulgated among men, a /acred book in a heavenly language, to which 
 the Mufelman author gives the Arabick title of defdtir, or regulations, 
 but the original name of which he has not mentioned ; and that four- 
 teen Maha'ba'ds had appeared or would appear in human fliapes for 
 the government of this world : now when we know, that the Hindus 
 believe va fourteen Menu's, or celeftial perfonages with fimilar functions, 
 xhefrji of whom left a book oi regulations, or divifie ordinances, which 
 they hold equal to the Veda, and the language of which they believe 
 to be that of the Gods, we can hardly doubt, that the firfl: corruption 
 of the pureft and oldeft religion was the lyftem of Lidian Theology, in- 
 vented by the Brdhmans and prevalent in thefe territories, where the book 
 of Maha'ba'd or Menu is at this hour the flandard of all religious 
 and moral duties. The acceOion of Cayu'mers to the throne of Per- 
 fia, in the eighth or ninth century before Christ, feems to have been 
 accompanied by a confiderable revolution both in government and reli- 
 gion : he was moft probably of a different race from the Mahdbadians, 
 who preceded him, and began perhaps the new fyftem of national faith, 
 which Hu'shang, whofe name it bears, completed; but the reforma- 
 tion was partial; for, while they rejecfted the complex polytheifm of 
 their predeceflbrs, they retained the laws of Maha'ba'd, with a fuper- 
 
 flitious
 
 ON THE PERSIANS. SQ 
 
 ftitious veneration for the fun, the planets, and fire; thus refembling 
 the Hhii/u fedls, called Saura's and Sdgm'ca's, the fecond of which is 
 very numerous at Banares, where many agnihotras are continually blaz- 
 ing, and where the Sdgmcas, when they enter on their facerdotal office, 
 kindle, with two pieces of the hard wood Semi, a fire which they keep 
 lighted through their lives for their nuptial ceremony, the performance 
 of folemn facrifices, the obfequies of departed anceftors, and their 
 own funeral pile. This remarkable rite was continued by Zera'- 
 TUSHT; who reformed the old religion by the addition of genii, or 
 angels, prefiding over months and days, of new ceremonies in the 
 veneration (hown to fire, of a new work, which he pretended to have 
 received from heaven, and, above all, by eftablilhing the adlual adora- 
 tion of One Supreme Being : he was born, according to Mohsan, in 
 the diftridl of Rai ; and it was He, not, as Ammianus aflerts, his pro- 
 tedlor GusHTASB, who travelled into Lidia, that he might receive in- 
 formation from the Brdhmans in theology and ethicks. It is barely 
 poffible, that Pythagoras knew him in the capital oi Irak ; but the 
 Grecian fage mufl then have been far advanced in years, and we have 
 no certain evidence of an intercourfe between the two philofophers. 
 The reformed religion of Perfia continued in force, till that country 
 was fubdued by the Miifelmans ; and, without ftudying the Zend, we have 
 ample information concerning it in the m.odern Pcrfian writings of 
 feveral, who profeifed it. Bahman always named Zera'tusht, with 
 reverence j but he was in truth a pure Theift, and ftrongly difclaimed 
 any adoration of the^r^ or other elements : he denied, that the doftrine 
 of two coeval principles, fupremely good and fupremely bad, formed 
 any part of his faith ; and he often repeated with emphafis the verfes of 
 FiRDAUsi on the proftration of Cyrus and his paternal grandfather be- 
 fore the blazing altar : " Think not, that they were adorers of fire ; for 
 " that element was only an exalted objeft, on the luftre of which they 
 " fixed their eyes ; they humbled themfelves a whole week before 
 VOL. I, P " God ;
 
 go THE SIXTH DISCOURSE, 
 
 *♦ God ; and, if thy underftanding be ever fo little exerted, thou muft 
 " acknowledge thy dependence on the being fupremely pure." In a 
 flory of Sadi, near the clofe of his beautiful Bujian, concerning the 
 idol of So'mana't'h, or Maha'de'va, he confounds the religion of 
 the Hindus with that of the Gabrs, calling the Brahmans not only 
 Moghs, (which might be juftihed by a paflage in the Mef)iaviJ but 
 even readers of the Zend and Pdzend : now, whether this confufion 
 proceeded from real or pretended ignorance, I cannot decide, but am as 
 firmly convinced, that the dodlrines of the Zend were diftindl from thofe 
 of the Veda, as I am that the religion of the Brahmans, with whom we 
 converfe every day, prevailed in Per/ia before the acceflion of Cayu'- 
 MERs, whom the PdrsYs, from refpedl to his memory, confider as the 
 firil of men, although they believe in an imiverfal deluge before his 
 reign. 
 
 With the religion of the old Perjians their philofophy (or as much as 
 we know of it) was intimately connedted ; for they were affiduous ob- 
 fervers of the luminaries, which they adored, and eftablilhed, accord- 
 ing to Mohsan, who confirms in fome degree the fragments of 
 Berosus, a number of artificial cycles with difiindl names, which 
 feem to indicate a knowledge of the period, in which the equinoxes ap- 
 pear to revolve : they are faid alfo to have known the moft wonderful 
 powers of nature, and thence to have acquired the fame of magicians 
 and enchanters ; but I will only detain you with a few remarks on that 
 metaphyfical theology, which has been profefled immemorially by a 
 numerous fedl of PerJiaJis and Hindus, was carried in part into Greece, 
 and prevails even now among the learned Miifelmans, who fometimes 
 avow it without referve. The modern philofophers of this perfuafion 
 are called Sitji's, either from the Greek word for a /age, or from the 
 woollen mantle, whicli they ufcd to wear in fome provinces of Perfia: 
 their fundamental tenets are, that nothing exifts abfolutely but God : 
 
 that
 
 ON THE PERSIANS. pi 
 
 that the human ibul is an emanation from his eflence, and, though 
 divided for a time from its heavenly fource, will be finally re-united with 
 it ; that the higheft poffible happinefs will arife from its reunion, and 
 that the chief good of mankind, in this tranfitory world, confifts in as 
 perfecft an union with the Eternal Spirit as the incumbrances of a mortal 
 frame will allow ; that, for this purpofe, they fliould break all connexion 
 (or tadlluk, as they call it), with extrinlick objedls, and pafs through 
 life without attachments, as a fwimmer in the ocean flrikes freely with- 
 out the impediment of clothes ; that they fliould be flraight and free as 
 the cj'prefs, whofe fruit is hardly perceptible, and not fink under a load, 
 like fruit-trees attached to a trellis ; that, if mere earthly charms have 
 power to influence the foul, the idea of celeflial beauty mufl overwhelm 
 it in extatick delight ; that, for want of apt words to exprefs the divine 
 perfediions and the ardour of devotion, we mufl borrow fuch expreffions 
 as approach the nearefl to our ideas, and ipeak of Beauty and Love in a 
 tranfcendent and myflical fenfe ; that, like a reed torn from its native 
 bank, like ivax feparated from its delicious honey, the foul of man be- 
 wails its difunion with melancholy mufick, and flieds burning tears, like 
 the lighted taper, waiting pafTionately for the moment of its extinction, 
 as a difengagement from earthly trammels, and the means of returning 
 to its Only Beloved. Such in part (for I omit the minuter and more 
 fubtil metaphyficks of the Sujis, which are mentioned in the Dabijlan) 
 is the wild and enthufiaftick religion of the modern Perjian poets, efpe- 
 cially of the fweet Ha'fiz and the great Maulavt : fuch is the fyflem 
 of the Vt'ddnti philofophers and befl lyrick poets of India ; and, as it 
 was a fyftem of the higheft antiquity in both nations, it may be added 
 to the many other proofs of an immemorial afHnity between them. 
 
 III. On the ancient monuments of Perjian fculpture and architedture 
 we have already made fuch obfervations, as were fufficient for our pur- 
 pofe i nor will you be furprized at the diverfity between the figures at 
 
 Elcphajzta,
 
 Q2 THE SIXTH DISCOURSE, 
 
 Elephanta, which are manifeftly Hindu, and thofe at Pcrfepolis, which 
 are merely Sabian, if you concur with me in believing, that the Takhti 
 "iemjhid was eredted after the time of Cayu'mers, when the Brahmans 
 had migrated from Iran, and when their intricate mythology had been 
 fuperfeded by the fimpler adoration of the planets and of fire. 
 
 IV. As to xhcfciences or arts of the old Ferfians, I have little to fay ; 
 and no complete evidence of them feems to exifl. Mohsan fpeaks 
 more than once of ancient verfes in the Pahlavt language ; and Bah- 
 MAN affured me, that fome fcanty remains of them had been preferved : 
 their mufick and painting, which Niza'mi celebrated, have irreco- 
 verably perifhed; and in regard to Ma'ni', the painter and impoflor, 
 whofe book of drawings called Artang, which he pretended to be 
 divine, is fuppofed to have been deftroyed by the Chinefe, in whofe 
 dominions he had fought refuge, the whole tale is too modern to throw 
 any light on the queflions before us concerning the origin of nations 
 and the inhabitants of the primitive world. 
 
 Thus has it been proved by clear evidence and plain reafoning, that 
 a powerful monarchy was eftablifhed in Iran long before the AJJyrian, 
 or FiJlxUdi, government ; that it was in truth a Hindu monarchy, 
 though, if any chufe to call it Cujian, Cafdean, or Scythian, we fliall 
 not enter into a debate on mere names; that it fubfifted many centuries, 
 and that its hiflory has been ingrafted on that of the Hindus, who 
 founded the monarchies of Ayodhya and Indraprejlha ; that the language 
 of the firft Perjian empire was the mother of the Sanfcrit, and confe- 
 quently of the Zend, and Parfj, as well as of Greek, Latin, and Gothick ; 
 that the language of the AJfyrians was the parent of Chaldaick and 
 Pahlavi, and that the primary Tartarian language alfo had been current 
 in the fame empire ; although, as the Tartars had no books or even 
 letters, we cannot with certainty trace their unpolillied and variable 
 
 idioms.
 
 ON THE PERSIANS. 93 
 
 idioms. We difcover, therefore in Perfia, at the earliefl dawn of hif- 
 tory, the three dillinA races of men, whom we defcribed on former oc- 
 cafions as pofleffors of India, Arabia, Tartary ; and, whether they were 
 colledled in Iran from diftant regions, or diverged from it, as from a 
 common centre, we fhall eafily determine by the following confidera- 
 tions. Let us obferve in the firfl place the central pofition of Iran, 
 which is bounded by Arabia, by Tartary, and by India ; whilft Arabia 
 lies contiguous to Iran only, but is remote from Tartary, and divided 
 even from the flcirts oi India by a confiderable gulf; no country, there- 
 fore, but Perjia feems likely to have fent forth its colonies to all the 
 kingdoms of Afia : the Brahmans could never have migrated from India 
 to Iran, becaufe they are exprefsly forbidden by their oldeft exifting 
 laws to leave the region, which they inhabit at this day ; the Arabs 
 have not even a tradition of an emigration into Perjia before Moham- 
 med, nor had they indeed any inducement to quit their beautiful and 
 extenfive domains ; and, as to the Tartars, we have no trace in hiftory 
 of their departure from their plains and forefls, till the invafion of the 
 Medes, who, according to etymologifts, were the fons of Madai, and 
 even they w^ere condud:ed by princes of an AJfyrian family. The three 
 races, therefore, whom we have already mentioned, (and more than 
 three we have not yet found) migrated from Iran, as from their common 
 country ; and thus the Saxon chronicle, I prefume from good authority, 
 brings the firfl- inhabitants of Britain from Armenia ; while a late very 
 learned writer concludes, after all his laborious refearches, that the 
 Goths or Scythians came from Perjia ; and another contends with great 
 force, that both the IriJJo and old Britons proceeded feverally from 
 the borders of the Cafpian ; a coincidence of conclufions from different 
 media by perfons wholly unconnedled, which could fcarce have hap- 
 pened, if they were not grounded on folid principles. We may there- 
 fore hold this propolition firmly eftabliflied, that Iran, or Perjia in its 
 largeft Icnfc, was the true centre of population, of knowledge, of 
 
 languages.
 
 ()| THE SIXTH DISCOURSE. 
 
 lano-uao-es, and of arts; which, inftead of travelhng weftvvard only, as 
 it has been fancifully fuppofed, or eaftward, as might with equal reafon 
 have been aflerted, were expanded in all direcflions to all the regions of 
 the world, in which the Hindu race had fettled under various deno- 
 minations : but, whether Afia has not produced other races of men, 
 diftuKft from the Hindus, the Arabs, or the 'Tartars, or whether any 
 apparent diverfity may not have fprung from an intermixture of thofe 
 three in different proportions, muft be the fubjed: of a future inquiry. 
 There is another queftion of more immediate importance, which you, 
 gentlemen, only can decide : namely, " by what means we can preferve 
 " our Society from dying gradually away, as it has advanced gradually 
 " to its prefent (fliall I fay flourifliing or languifliing ?) flate." It has 
 fubfifted five years without any expenfe to the members of it, until the 
 firft volume of our Tranfadiions was publiflied ; and the price of that 
 large volume, if we compare the different values of money in Bengal 
 and in Etigland, is not more than equal to the annual contribution to- 
 wards the charges of the Royal Society by each of its fellows, who may 
 not have chofen to compound for it on his admiffion : this I mention, 
 not from an idea that any of us could objeft to the purchafe of one 
 copy at leaft, but from a willi to inculcate the neceffity of our common 
 exertions in promoting the fale of the work both here and in Lofidon. 
 In vain rtiall we meet, as a literary body, if our meetings fhall ceafe to 
 be fupplied with original differtations and memorials ; and in vain fhall 
 we coUedl the moil: interefting papers, if we cannot publilh them occa- 
 lionally without expofing the Superintendents of the Company's prefs, 
 who undertake to print them at their own hazard, to the danger of a 
 confiderable lofs : by united efforts the French have compiled their ffu- 
 pendous repofitories of univerlal knowledge; and by united efforts only 
 can we hope to rival them, or to diffufe over our own country and the 
 reft of Europe the lights attainable by our Afiatick Refearches. 
 
 THE
 
 THE SEVENTH 
 
 ANNIVERSARY DISCOURSE, 
 
 DELIVERED 25 FEBRUARY, 1790. 
 
 BY 
 
 The president. 
 
 GENTLEMEN, 
 
 XJlLTHOUGH we are at this moment confiderably nearer to the 
 frontier of China than to the fartheft limit of the BritijJ.^ dominions in 
 Himltijidn, yet the firfl ftep, that we fliall take in the philofophical 
 journey, which I propofe for your entertainment at the prefent meeting, 
 will carry us to the utmoft verge of the habitable globe known to the 
 beft geographers of old Greece and Egypt ; beyond the boundary of 
 whofe knowledge we Ihall difcern from the heights of the northern 
 mountains an empire nearly equal in furface to a fquare of fifteen de- 
 grees j an empire, of which I do not mean to affign the precife limits, 
 but which we may confider, for the purpofe of this differtation, as em- 
 braced on two fides by Tartary and India, while the ocean feparates its 
 other fides from various Afiatick ides of great importance in the com- 
 mercial fyftem of Europe : annexed to that immenfe tradt of land is the 
 
 peninfula
 
 ()(3 THE SEVENTH DISCOURSE, 
 
 peninfula of Career, which a vail oval bafon divides from N/fon or 'Japan, 
 a celebrated and imperial iiland, bearing in arts and in arms, in ad- 
 vantage of fituation but not in felicity of government, a pre-eminence 
 among eaftern kingdoms analogous to that of Britain among the nations 
 of the weft. So many climates are included in fo prodigious an area, 
 that, while the principal emporium of China lies nearly under the tro- 
 pick, its metropolis enjoys the temperature oi Samarkand ; fuch too is 
 the diverfity of foil in its fifteen provinces, that, while fome of them are 
 exquifitely fertile, richly cultivated, and extremely populous, others are 
 barren and rocky, dry and unfruitful, with plains as wild or mountains 
 as rugged as any in Scythia, and thofe either wholly deferted, or peopled 
 by favage hordes, who, if they be not ftill independent, have been very 
 lately fubdued by the perfidy, rather than the valour, of a monarch, 
 who has perpetuated his own breach of faith in a Ciwiefe poem, of 
 which I have feen a tranflation. 
 
 The word China, concerning which I fliall offer fome new remarks, 
 is well known to the people, whom we call the Cbinefe ; but they never 
 apply it (I fpeak of the learned among them) to themfelves or to their 
 country: themfelves, according to Father Visdelou, they defcribe as 
 t\\Q people of Ha^, or of fome other illuflrious family, by the memory of 
 whofe aftions they flatter their national pride ; and their country they 
 call Cbmi-cue, or the Central Kingdom, reprefenting it in their fymbo- 
 lical characters by a parallelogram exaftly biffe<fled : at other times they 
 diflinguifh it by the words Tien-hia, or What is under Heaven, meaning 
 all that is valuable on Earth. Since tliey never name themfelves with 
 moderation, they would have no right to complain, if they knew, that 
 European authors have ever fpoken of them in the extremes of applaufe 
 or of cenfure : by fome they have been extolled as the oldeil: and the 
 wifert, as the moft learned and moft ingenious, of nations ; whilft others 
 have derided their pretenfions to antiquity, condemned their government 
 
 as
 
 ON THE CHINESE. 97 
 
 as abominable, and arraigned their manners as inhuman, without allowing 
 them an element of fcience, or a fingle art, for which they have not 
 been indebted to fome more ancient and more civilized race of men. 
 The truth perhaps lies, where we ufually find it, between the extremes; 
 but it is not my delign to accufe or to defend the Chinefe, to deprefs or 
 to aggrandize them : I fliall confine myfelf to the difcuflion of a queftion 
 conneded with my former difcourfes, and far lefs eafy to be folved than 
 any hitherto ftarted. " Whence came the Angular people, who long 
 " had governed China, before they were conquered by the Tartars ^i" 
 On this problem, the folution of which has no concern, indeed, with 
 our political or commercial interefts, but a very material connection, if 
 I miftake not, with interefts of a higher nature, four opinions have been 
 advanced, and all rather peremptorily aflerted, than fupported by argu- 
 ment and evidence. By a few writers it has been urged, that the Chi- 
 nefe are an original race, who have dwelled for ages, if not from eternity, 
 in the land, which they now pofTefs ; by others, and chiefly by the mif- 
 fionaries, it is infifted, that they fprang from the fame ftock with the 
 Hebrews and yirabs j a third afi^ertion is that of the Arabs themfelves 
 and of M. Pauw, who hold it indubitable, that they were originally 
 Tartars defcending in wild clans from the fteeps oi Imaus ; and a fourth, 
 at leaft as dogmatically pronounced as any of the preceding, is that of 
 the Brdhmens, who decide, without allowing any appeal from their de- 
 cifion, that the Chinas (for fo they are named in Sajifcrit) were Hindus 
 of the Cpatriya, or military, clafs, who, abandoning the privileges of 
 their tribe, rambled in different bodies to the north-eaft o£ Benga/; and, 
 forgetting by degrees the rites and religion of their anceftors, eftabliflied 
 feparate principalities, which were afterwards united in the plains and 
 valleys, which are now pofiefied by them. If any one of the three laft 
 opinions be juft, the firft of them muft neceffarily be reUnquifiied ; but 
 of thofe three, the firft cannot pofilbly be fuftained ; becaufe it refts 
 on no firmer ftipport than a foolifh remark, whether true or falfe, that 
 VOL. I. Q^ Sem
 
 Q8 THE SEVENTH DISCOURSE, 
 
 Sem in Chtncfe means life and procreation ; and becaufe a tea-plant is 
 not more different from a palm, than a Chinefe from an Arab: they are 
 men, indeed, as the tea and the palm are vegetables ; but human faga- 
 city could not, I believe, difcover any other trace of refemblance be- 
 tween them. One of the Arabs, indeed, an account of whofe voyage 
 to India and China has been tranflated by Ren Au dot, thought the 
 Chinefe not only handfomer (according to his ideas of beauty) than the 
 Hindus, but even more like his own countrymen in features, habili- 
 ments, carriages, manners and ceremonies ; and this may be true, without 
 proving an adlual refemblance between the Chinefe and Arabs, except 
 in drefs and complexion. The next opinion is more connefted with 
 that of the Brdhmens, than M. Pauw, probably, imagined j for though 
 he tells us exprefsly, that by Scythians he meant the Turks or Tartars ; 
 yet the dragon on the ftandard, and fome other peculiarities, from 
 which he would infer a clear affinity between the old Tartars and the 
 Chinefe, belonged indubitably to thofe Scythians, who are known to 
 have been Goths ; and the Goths had manifeftly a common lineage with 
 the Hindus, if his own argument, in the preface to his Refearches, on 
 the fimllarity of language, be, as all men agree that it is, irrefragable. 
 That the Chinefe were anciently of a Tartarian ftock, is a propofition, 
 which I cannot otherwife difprove for the prefent, than by infixing on 
 the total diffimilarity of the two races in manners and arts, particularly in 
 the fine arts of imagination, which the Tartars, by their own account, 
 never cultivated; but, if we fliow ftrong grounds for believing, that 
 the nrft Chinefe were adlually of an Indian race, it will follow that M. 
 Pauw and the Arabs are miilaken : it is to the difcuffion of this new 
 and, in my opinion, very interefting point, that I Ihall confine the 
 remainder of my difcourfe. 
 
 In the Sanfcrit Inftitutes of Civil and Religious Duties, revealed, as 
 the Hindus believe, by Menu, the fon of Brahma', we find the fol- 
 lowing
 
 ON THE CHINESE. gp 
 
 lowing curious pafiage : " Many families of the military clafs, having 
 " gradually abandoned the ordinances of the Veda, and the company of 
 " Brdhmens, lived in a ftate of degradation ; as the people of Pundraca 
 " and Odra, thofe of Dravira and Cambdja, the Tavanas and Sacas, 
 " the Pdradas and Pablavas, the Chinas and fome other nations." A 
 full comment on this text would here be fuperfluous ; but, lince the 
 teftimony of the Indian author, who, though certainly not a divine per- 
 fonage, was as certainly a very ancient lawyer, moralift, and hiftorian, 
 is diredl and pofitive, difmterefted and unfufpedled, it would, I think, 
 decide the queflion before us, if we could be fure, that the word China 
 fignified a Chinefe, as all the Pandits, whom I have feparately con- 
 fulted, aflert with one voice : they allure me, that the Chinas of 
 Menu fettled in a fine country to the north-eaft of Gaiir, and to the 
 eaft of Cdmarhp and Nepal ; that they have long been, and ftill are, 
 famed as ingenious artificers ; and that they had themfelves (ttn old 
 Chinefe idols, which bore a manifeft relation to the primitive religion of 
 Lidia before Buddha's appearance in it. A well-informed Pandit 
 Ihowed me a Saiifcrit book, in Caflmnrian letters, which, he faid, was 
 revealed by Siva himfelf, and entitled SaBifangama : he read to me a 
 whole chapter of it on the heterodox opinions of the Chinas, who were 
 divided, fays the author, into near two hundred clans. I then laid 
 before him a map of Afia ; and, when I pointed to Cafmnir, his own 
 country, he inftantly placed his finger on the north-weflern provinces 
 of China, where the Chinas, he faid, firft efhablifhed themfelves ; but 
 he added, that Mahdchina, which was alfo mentioned in his book, 
 extended to the eaftern and fouthern oceans. I believe, neverthelefs, 
 that the Chinefe empire, as we now call it, was not formed when the 
 laws of Menu were colledled ; and for this belief, fo repugnant to the 
 general opinion, I am bound to offer my reafons. If the outline of 
 hiftory and chronology for the laft two thoufand years be correftly 
 traced, (and we muft be hardy fcepticks to doubt it) the poems of 
 
 Ca'lida's
 
 100 THE SEVENTH DISCOURSE, 
 
 Ca'lida's were compofed before the beginning of our era: now it is 
 clear, from internal and external evidence, that the Ramayan and 
 Mahdbharat were confiderably older than the produdlions of that poet ; 
 and it appears from the ftyle and metre of the Dherma Sdjlra revealed 
 by Menu, that it was reduced to writing long before the age of 
 Va'lmic or Vya'sa, the fecond of whom names it with applaufe : 
 we fhall not, therefore, be thought extravagant, if we place the com- 
 piler of thofe laws between a thoufand and fifteen hundred years be- 
 fore Christ j efpecially as Buddha, whofe age is pretty well afcer- 
 tained, is not mentioned in them ; but, in the twelfth century before 
 our era, the Chtnefe empire was at leaft in its cradle. This faft it is 
 neceffary to prove; and my firft witnefs is Confucius himfelf. I 
 know to what keen fatire I fhall expofe myfelf by citing that philofo- 
 pher, after the bitter farcafms of M. Pauw againft him and againft the 
 tranflators of his mutilated, but valuable, works ; yet I quote without 
 fcruple the book entitled Lim Tii, of which I poflefs the original with 
 a verbal tranflation, and which I know to be fufficiently authentick 
 for my prefent purpofe : in the fecond part of it Con-fu-tsu declares, 
 that " Although he, like other men, could relate, as mere lefibns of 
 " morality, the hiftories of the firft and fecond imperial houfes, yet, 
 "for want of evidence, he could give no certain account of them." 
 Now, if the Chinefe themfelves do not even pretend, that any hiflorical 
 monuments exifted, in the age of Confucius, preceding the rife of 
 their third dynafty about eleven hundred years before the Chrijiian 
 epoch, we may juftly conclude, that the reign of Vu'vam was in the 
 infancy of their empire, which hardly grew to maturity till fome ages 
 after that prince ; and it has been afferted by very learned Europeans, 
 that even of the third dynafty, which he has the fame of having raifed, 
 no unfufpecfted memorial can now be produced. It was not till the 
 eighth century before the birth of our Saviour, that a fmall kingdom 
 was eredied in the province of Shcn-si, the capital of which flood nearly 
 
 in
 
 ON THE CHINESE. 101 
 
 in the thirty-fifth degree of northern latitude, and about five degrees to 
 the weft of Si-gan : both the country and its metropolis were called 
 CAin ; and the dominion of its princes was gradually extended to the 
 eaft and weft. A king of CMn, who makes a figure in the Shahndmah 
 among the allies of Afra'siya'b, was, I prefume, a fovereign of the 
 country juft mentioned} and the river of Chin, which the poet fre- 
 quently names as the limit of his eaftern geography, feems to have been 
 the Tellow River, which the Chinefe introduce at the beginning of their 
 fabulous annals : I fhould be tempted to expatiate on fo curious a fub- 
 jedl ; but the prefent occafion allows nothing fuperfluous, and permits 
 me only to add, that Mangukhdn died, in the middle of the thirteenth 
 century, before the city of Chin, which was afterwards taken by 
 KuBLAi, and that the poets of /r«« perpetually allude to the diftridls 
 around it which they celebrate, with Chegil and Khoten, for a number 
 of mulk-animals roving on their hills. The territory of Chin, fo called 
 by the old Hindus, by the Petfians, and by the Chinefe (while the 
 Greeks and Arabs were obliged by their defedtive articulation to mifcal 
 it Sin) gave its name to a race of emperors, whofe tyranny made their 
 memory fo unpopular, that the modern inhabitants of China hold the 
 word in abhorrence, and fpeak of themfelves as the people of a milder 
 and more virtuous dynafty ; but it is highly probable that the whole 
 nation defcended from the Chinas of Menu, and, mixing with the 
 Tartars, by whom the plains oi Honan and the more fouthern pro- 
 vinces were thinly inhabited, formed by degrees the race of men, whom 
 we now fee in poffeiTion of the nobleft empire in Afia. 
 
 In fupport of an opinion, which I offer as the refult of long and 
 anxious inquiries, I Ihould regularly proceed to examine the language 
 and letters, religion and philofophy, of the prefent Chinefe, and fub- 
 join fome remarks on their ancient monuments, on their fciences, and 
 on their arts both liberal and mechanical : but their fpoken language, 
 
 not
 
 102 THE SEVENTH DISCOURSE, 
 
 not having been preferved by the ufual fymbols of articulate founds, 
 mud have been for many ages in a continual flux j their letters, if we 
 may fo call them, are merely the fymbols of ideas ; their popular 
 religion was imported from India in an age comparatively modern ; and 
 their phi.hfopby feems yet in fo rude a ilate, as hardly to deferve the 
 appellation ; they have no ancient moiiuments, from which their origin 
 can be traced even by plaulible conjedlure ; their fciences are wholly 
 exotick ; and their mechanical arts have nothing in them charafteriftick 
 of a particular family ; nothing, which any fet of men, in a country fo 
 highly favoured by nature, might not have difcovered and improved. 
 They have indeed, both national mufick and national poetry, and both 
 of them beautifully pathetick ; but of painting, fculpture, or architec- 
 ture, as arts of imagination, they feem (like other Afiaticks) to have 
 no idea. Inftead, therefore, of enlarging feparately on each of thofe 
 heads, I fliall briefly inquire, how far the literature and religious 
 pradlices of China confirm or oppofe the propofition, which I have 
 advanced. 
 
 The declared and fixed opinion of M. de Guignes, on the fubjed 
 before us, is nearly connefted with that of the Brahmens : he main- 
 tains, that the Chinefe were emigrants from Egypt ; and the Egyptians^ 
 or Ethiopians, (for they were clearly the fame people) had indubitably 
 a common origin with the old natives of India, as the affinity of their 
 languages, and of their inftitutions, both religious and political, fully 
 evinces ; but that China was peopled a few centuries before our era by 
 a colony from the banks of the Nile, though neither Perjians nor Arabs, 
 Tartars nor Hindus, ever heard of fuch an emigration, is a paradox, 
 which the bare authority even of fo learned a man cannot fupport ; and, 
 fince reafon grounded on fafls can alone decide fuch a quefl:ion, we have 
 a right to demand clearer evidence and fl:ronger arguments, than any 
 that he has adduced. The hieroglyphicks of Egypt bear, indeed, a 
 
 ftrong
 
 ON THE CHINESE. 103 
 
 ftrong refemblance to the mythological fculptures and paintings of 
 India, but Teem wholly diffimikr to the fymbolical fyftem of the 
 Chinefe, which might cafily have been invented (as they aflert) by an 
 individual, and might very naturally have been contrived by the firfl 
 Chinas, or out-caft Hitzdus, who either never knew, or had forgotten, 
 the alphabetical characfters of their wifer anceftors. As to the table 
 and bufts of Isis, they feem to be given up as modern forgeries; but, 
 if they were indifputably genuine, they would be nothing to the pur- 
 pofe ; for the letters on the bull: appear to have been defigned as alpha- 
 betical ; and the fabricator of them (if they really were fabricated in 
 EuropeJ was uncommonly happy, fmce two or three of them are ex- 
 ad:ly the fame with thofe on a metal pillar yet flanding in the north of 
 India. In Egypt, if we can rely on the teftimony of the Greeks, who 
 ftudied no language but their own, there were two fets of alphabetical 
 charadlsrs ; the one popular, like the various letters ufed in our Indian 
 provinces ; and the other facerdotal, like the DJvandgar), efpecially that 
 form of it, which we fee in the Veda ; befides which they had two 
 forts oi facred fculpture ; the one fimple, like the figures of Buddha 
 and the three Ra'mas j and the other, allegorical, like the imao-es of 
 Gane'sa, or Divine Wifdotn, and Isa'ni', or hature, with all their 
 emblematical accompaniments; but the real character of the Chinefe 
 appears wholly diilinct from any Egyptian writing, either myfterious or 
 popular; and, as to the fancy of M. de Guignes, that the complicated 
 fymbols of China were at firft no more than Phenician monograms, let 
 us hope, that he has abandoned fo wild a conceit, which he flarted pro- 
 bably with no other view than to difplay his ingenuity and learning. 
 
 We have ocular proof, that the few radical charaders of the Chinefe 
 were originally (like our aftronomical and chymical fymbols) the pic- 
 tures or outlines of vifible objeds, or figurative figns for fimple ideas, 
 which they have multiplied by the moft ingenious combinations and 
 
 the
 
 104 THE SEVENTH DISCOURSE, 
 
 the liveliefl: metaphors ; but, as the fyftem is peculiar, I believe, to 
 themfelves and the Japanefe, it would be idly oftentatious to enlarge on 
 it at prelent ; and, for the reafons already intimated, it neither corro- 
 borates nor weakens the opinion, which I endeavour to fupport. Tlie 
 lame may as truly be faid of their fpoken language; for, independently 
 of its conftant fludluation during a feries of ages, it has the peculiarity 
 of excluding four or five founds, which other nations articulate, and 
 is clipped into monofyllables, even when the ideas expreffed by them, 
 and the written fymbols for thofe ideas, are very complex. This has 
 arifen, I fuppofe, from the fingular habits of the people ; for, though 
 their coinmon tongue be fo miifically accented as to form a kind of re- 
 citative, yet it wants thofe grammatical accents, without which all 
 human tongues would appear monofyllabick : thus Amita, with an ac- 
 cent on the firft fyllable, means, in the Sanfcrit language, immeafurable ; 
 and the natives of Bengal pronounce it Omito ; but, when the religion 
 of Buddha, the fon of Ma'ya', was carried hence into China, the 
 people of that country, unable to pronounce the name of their new 
 God, called him Foe, the fon of Mo- ye, and divided his epithet 
 Amita into three fyllables 0-mi-to, annexing to them certain ideas of 
 their own, and expreffing them in writing by three diflind: fymbols. 
 We may judge from this inflance, whether a comparifon of their fpoken 
 tongue with the dialedls of other nations can lead to any certain con- 
 clufion as to their origin ; yet the inflance, which I have given, fupplies 
 me with an argument from analogy, which I produce as conjedtural 
 only, but which appears more and more plaufible, the oftener I con- 
 fider it. The Buddha of the Hindus is unqueflionably the Foe of 
 China ; but the great progenitor of the Chinefe is alfo named by them 
 Fo-Hi, where the fecond monofyllable fignifies, it feems, a viSlim : now 
 the anceflor of that military tribe, whom the Hindus call the Chandra- 
 vanfa, or Children of the Moon, was, according to their Pur anas or 
 legends, Budha, or the genius of the planet Mercury, from whom, in 
 
 the
 
 ON THE CHINESE. 105 
 
 the Jifth degree, defcended a prince named Druhya ; whom his father 
 Yaya'ti fent in exile to the eaft of Hindiijidn, with this impreca- 
 tion, " may thy progeny be ignorant of the Veda.'' The name of the 
 bani/hed prince could not be pronounced by the modern Chinefe ; and, 
 though I dare not conjedlure, that the lafl: fyllable of it has been 
 changed into YaOj I may neverthelefs obferve that Yao was the 
 //}& in defcent from Fo-hi, or at leafl the fifth mortal in the firft im- 
 perial dynafty ; that all Chinefe hiftory before him is confidered by Chi- 
 nefe themfelves as poetical or fabulous? that his father Ti-co, hke the 
 Indian king Yaya'ti, was the firft prince who married feveral women ; 
 and that Fo-hi, the head of their race, appeared, fay the Chinefe, in a 
 province of the weft, and held his court in the territory of Chin, where 
 the rovers, mentioned by the Indian legiflator, are fuppofed to have 
 fettled. Another circumftance in the parallel is very remarkable : ac- 
 cording to father De Premare, in his tracft on Chinefe mythology, the 
 mother of Fo-hi was the Daughter of Heaven, furnamed Flower-loving; 
 and, as the nymph was walking alone on the bank of a river with a 
 fimilar name, flie found herfelf on a fudden encircled by a rain-bow ; 
 foon after which ftie became pregnant, and at the end of twelve years 
 was delivered of a fon radiant as herfelf, who, among other titles, had 
 that of Su'i, or Star oftheYear. Now in the mythological fyftem of the 
 Hindus, the nymph Ro'hini', who prefides over the fourth lunar manfion, 
 was the favourite miftrefs of So'ma, or the Moon, among whofe numer- 
 ous epithets we find Cumiidanayaca, or Delighting in a fpecies of water- 
 flower, that bloflbms at night; and their offspring was Budha, regent 
 of a planet, and called alfo, from the names of his parents, Rauhine'ya 
 or Saumya : it is true, that the learned miffionary explains the word 
 Su'i by Jupiter ; but an exaft refemblance between two fuch fables 
 could not have been expecfled ; and it is fufficient for my purpofe, that 
 they feem to have a family likenefs. The God Budha, fay the Indians, 
 married Ila', whofe father was preferved in a miraculous ark from an 
 VOL. I. R univerfal
 
 106 THE SEVENTH DISCOURSE, 
 
 univerfal deluge : now, although I cannot infill: with confidence, that 
 the rain-bow in the Chinefe fable alludes to the Mofaick narrative of the 
 flood, nor build any folid argument on the divine perfonage Niu-va, 
 of whofe charadler, and even of whofe fex, the hlftorians of China 
 fpeak very doubtfully, I may, neverthelefs, affure you, after full in- 
 quiry and confideration, that the Chinefe, like the Hindus, believe this 
 earth to have been wholly covered with water, which, in works of 
 undifputed authenticity, they defcribe as f owing abundantly, then fub- 
 fiding, and Jeparating the higher from the lower age of mankind ; that the 
 divifion of time, from which their poetical hiftory begins, juft preceded 
 the appearance of Fo-hi on the mountains of Chin, but that the great 
 inundation in the reign of Yao was either confined to the lowlands of 
 his kingdom, if the whole account of it be not a fable, or, if it con- 
 tain any allufion to the flood of Noah, has been ignorantly mifplaced 
 by the Chinefe annalifts. 
 
 The importation of a new religion into China, in the firfl: century of our 
 era, muft lead us to fuppofe, that the former fyftem, whatever it was, 
 had been found inadequate to the purpofe of reftraining the great body 
 of the people from thofe offences againft confcience and virtue, which 
 the civil power could not reach j and it is hardly poflible that, without 
 fuch refliridlions, any government could long have fubfifl:ed with felicity; 
 for no government can long fubfifl; without equal juftice, and iufl:ice 
 cannot be adminifl:ered without the fandlions of religion. Of the reli- 
 gious opinions, entertained by Confucius and his followers, we may 
 glean a general notion from the fragments of their works tranflated by 
 Couplet : they profefled a firm belief in the fupreme God, and gave a 
 demonftration of his being and of his providence from the exquifite 
 beauty and perfeftion of the celefl:ial bodies, and the wonderful order 
 of nature in the whole fabrick of the vifible world. From this belief 
 they deduced a lyfl.em of Ethicks, which the philofopher fums up in 
 
 a few
 
 ON THE CHINESE. IQJ 
 
 a few words at the clofe of the Liim-yu: "He," fays Confucius, 
 " who fhall be fully perfuaded, that the Lord of Heaven governs 
 " the univerfe, who fliall in all things chufe moderation, who fhall 
 " perfectly know his own fpecies, and fo ad; among them, that his life 
 " and manners may conform to his knowledge of God and man, may be 
 " truly faid to difcharge all the duties of a fage, and to be far exalted 
 " above the common herd of the human race." But fuch a religion 
 and fuch morality could never have been general ; and we find, that the 
 people of China had an ancient fyftem of ceremonies and fuperftitions, 
 which the government and the philofophers appear to have encouraged, 
 and which has an apparent affinity with fome parts of the oldeft Indian 
 worfliip : they believed in the agency of genii or tutelary fpirits, pre- 
 fiding over the ftars and the clouds, over lakes and rivers, mountains, 
 valleys, and woods, over certain regions and towns, over all the ele- 
 ments (of which, like the Hindus, they reckoned ^i;^^ and particularly 
 GWQxfire, the mofl brilliant of them : to thofe deities they offered viftims 
 on high places ; and the following palfage from the Shi-cin, or Book of 
 Odes, is very much in the flyle of the Brdhmans : " Even they, who per- 
 " form a facrifice with due reverence, cannot perfedly affure themfelves, 
 " that the divine fpirits accept their oblations ; and far lefs can they, 
 " who adore the Gods with languor and ofcitancy, clearly perceive their 
 " facred illapfes." Thefe are imperfedt traces indeed, but they are 
 traces, of an affinity between the religion of Menu and that of the 
 Chinas, whom he names among the apoftates from it: M. Le Gentil 
 obferved, he fays, a flirong refemblance between the funeral rites of the 
 Chitiefe and the Srdddha of the Hindus ; and M. Bailly, after a learned 
 invefligation, concludes, that " Even the puerile and abfurd flories of 
 " the Chinefe fabulifls contain a remnant of ancient Indian hiflory, with 
 " a faint fketch of the firfl Hindu ages." As the Bauddhas, indeed, 
 were Hindus, it may naturally be imagined, that they carried into China 
 many ceremonies pradifed in their own country; but the Bauddhas 
 
 pofitively
 
 108 THE SEVENTH DISCOURSE, 
 
 pofitively forbad the immolation of cattle ; yet we know, that various 
 animals, even bulls and men, were anciently facrificed by the Chinefe ; 
 befides which we difcover many fingular marks of relation between 
 them and the old Hindus : as in the remarkable' period oi four hundred 
 and thirty two thoiifand, and the cycle oi fixty, years ; in the predilec- 
 tion for the myftical number nine; in many fimilar falis and great 
 feftivals, efpecially at the folilices and equinoxes j in the jufl-men- 
 tioned obfequies confiiling of rice and fruits offered to the manes of 
 their anceftors ; in the dread of dying childlefs, left fuch offerings 
 fhould be intermitted ; and, perhaps, in their common abhorrence of 
 r^^objeds, which the Indians carried fo far, that Menu himfelf, where 
 he allows a Brahmen to trade, if he cannot otherwife fupport life, 
 abfolutely forbids " his trafficking in any fort of red cloths, whether 
 " linen or woollen, or made of woven bark." All the circumftances, 
 which have been mentioned under the two heads of literature and reli- 
 gion ^ feem colledively to prove (as far as fuch a queffion admits proof) 
 that the Chinefe and Hindus were originally the fame people, but having 
 been feparated near four thoufand years, have retained few ftrong fea- 
 tures of their ancient confanguinity, efpecially as the Hindus have 
 preferved thek old language and ritual, while the Chinefe very foon loft 
 both, and the Hindus have conftantly intermarried among themfelves, 
 while the Chinefe, by a mixture of Tartarian blood from the time of 
 their firft eftablifliment, have at length formed a race diftindl: in ap- 
 pearance both from Indians and Tartars. 
 
 A fimilar diverfity has arifen, I believe, from fimilar caufes, between 
 the people of China and fapan -, on the fecond of which nations we 
 have now, or foon fliall have, as corredl and as ample inftruiftion as can 
 poffibly be obtained without a perfed: acquaintance with the Chinefe 
 charadlers. K^mpfer has taken from M. Titsingh the honour of 
 being the firft, and he from K.'empfer that of being the only. Euro- 
 
 pean.
 
 ON THE CHINESE. 10c> 
 
 peaut who, by a long relidence in Japan, and a familiar intercourfe 
 with the principal natives of it, has been able to colledt authentick ma- 
 terials for the natural and civil hillory of a country fccluded, as the Ro^ 
 mans ufed to fay of our own ifland, from the reji of the world : the 
 works of thole illuflrious travellers will confirm and embellifh each 
 other J and, when M. Titsingh fliall have acquired a knowledge of 
 Chinefe, to which a part of his leifure in Java will be devoted, his 
 precious colledlion of books in that language, on the laws and revolu- 
 tions, the natural produdlions, the arts, manufadiures, and fciences of 
 Japan, will be in his hands an inexhauflible mine of new and important 
 information. Both he and his predeceflbr allert with confidence, and, 
 I doubt not, with truth, that the Japanefe would refent, as an infult 
 on their dignity, the bare fuggeflion of their defcent from the Chinefe, 
 whom they furpafs in feveral of the mechanical arts, and, what is of 
 greater confequence, in military fpirit ; but they do not, I underftand, 
 mean to deny, that they are a branch of the fame ancient flem with 
 the people of China ; and, were that fadl ever fo warmly contefled by 
 them, it might be proved by an invincible argument, if the preceding 
 part of this difcourfe, on the origin of the Chinefe, be thought to con- 
 tain juft reafoning. Jn the firft place, it feems inconceivable, that the 
 Japanefe, who never appear to have been conquerors or conquered, fliould 
 have adopted the whole fyftem of Chinefe literature with all its incon- 
 veniences and intricacies, if an immemorial connexion had not fubfilied 
 between the two nations, or, in other words, if the bold and ingenious 
 race, who peopled Japan in the middle of the thirteenth century before 
 Christ, and, about fix hundred years afterwards, eftablilhed their 
 monarchy, had not carried with them the letters and learning, which 
 they and the Chinefe had pofiefled in common ; but my principal argu- 
 ment is, that the Bindu or Egyptian idolatry has prevailed in Japan 
 from the earliefl: ages ; and among the idols worfliipped, according to 
 K^MPFER, in that country, before the innovations of Sa'cya or 
 
 Buddha,
 
 1 10 THE SEVENTH DISCOURSE, 
 
 Buddha, whom the Japanefe alfo call Amida, we find many of tliofe, 
 which we fee every day in the temples of Bengal ; particularly the 
 goddefs with many arms, reprefenting the powers of Nature, in Egypt 
 named Is is and here Isa'ni' or Isi', whofe image, as it is exhibited by 
 the German traveller, all the Brdhmans, to whom I fliowed it, imme- 
 diately recognized with a mixture of pleafure and enthufiafm. It is 
 very true, that the Chinefc differ widely from the natives o^ Japan in 
 their vernacular dialedls, in external manners, and perhaps in the 
 flrength of their mental faculties ; but as wide a difference is obfervable 
 among all the nations of the Got hick family j and we might account even 
 for a greater diffimilarity, by confidering the number of ages, during 
 which the feveral fwarms have been feparated from the great Indian 
 liive, to which they primarily belonged. The modern Japanefe gave 
 K^MPFER the idea of polilhed Tartars ; and it is reafonable to believe, 
 that the people of Japan, who were originally Hindus of the martial clafs 
 and advanced farther eaflward than the Chinas, have, like them, in- 
 fenfibly changed their features and charad:ers by intermarriages with 
 various Tartarian tribes, whom they found loofeJy fcattered over their 
 ifles, or who afterwards fixed their abode in theni. 
 
 Having now fliown in five difcourfes, that the Arabs and Tartars 
 were originally diftind races, while the Hindus, Chincfe, and Japanefe 
 proceeded from another ancient flem, and that all the three flems may 
 be traced to Iran, as to a common centre, from which it is highly 
 probable, that they diverged in various diredlions about four thouiand 
 years ago, I may feem to have accompliflied my defign of invefligating 
 the origin of the Afiatick nations ; but the queftions, which I undertook 
 to difcufs, are not yet ripe for a flridl analytical argument ; and it will 
 firll be neceffary to examine with fcrupulous attention all the detached 
 or infulated races of men, who either inhabit the borders of India, 
 Arabia, Tartary, Perfa, and China, or are interfperfed in the mountainous 
 
 and ■
 
 ON THE CHINESE. 1 1 1 
 
 and uncultivated parts of thofe extenfive regions. To this examination 
 I fliall, at our next annual meeting, allot an entire difcourfe ; and if, 
 after all our inquiries, no more than t/jree primitive races can be found, 
 it will be a fubfequent confideration, whether thofe three ftocks had 
 one common root, and, if they had, by what means that root was pre- 
 ferved amid the violent fhocks, which our whole globe appears evidently 
 to have fuflained.
 
 THE EIGHTH 
 
 ANNIVERSARY DISCOURSE, 
 
 DELIVERED 24 FEBRUARY, 1791. 
 
 The president. 
 
 GENTLEMEN, 
 
 W E have taken a general view, at our five laft annual meetings, of 
 as many celebrated nations, whom we have proved, as far as the fub- 
 jedt admits of proof, to have defcended from three primitive flocks, 
 which we call for the prefent Indian, Arabian^ I'artarian ; and we have 
 nearly travelled over all A/ia, if not with a perfedl coincidence of 
 fentiment, at leaft, with as much unanimity, as can be naturally ex- 
 pefted in a large body of men, each of whom muft aflert it as his right, 
 and confider it as his duty, to decide on all points for himfelf, and 
 never to decide on obfcure points without the befl evidence, that can 
 poffibly be adduced: our travels will this day be concluded, but our 
 hiftorical refearches would have been left incomplete, if we had pafled 
 without attention over the numerous races of borderers, who have 
 long been eftabliftied on the limits of Arabia, Perjia, India, China, and 
 VOL. I. s Tartary i
 
 114 ON THE BORDERERS, MOUNTAINEERS, 
 
 Tartary; over the wild tribes refiding in the mountainous parts of thofe 
 extenfive regions ; and the more civilized inhabitants of the iflands 
 annexed by geographers to their Afiatick divifion of this globe. 
 
 Let us take our departure from Idiime near the gulf of Elanitis, and, 
 having encircled y^Jia, with fuch deviations from our courfe as the fubjedl 
 may require, let us return to the point, from which we began ; en- 
 deavouring, if we are able, to find a nation, who may clearly be fhown, 
 by jufl: reafoning from their language, religion, and manners, to be 
 -neither Indians, Arabs, nor Tartars, pure or mixed ; but always remem- 
 bering, that any fmall family detached in an early age from their parent 
 ftock, without letters, with few ideas beyond objedls of the firft necef- 
 fity, and confequently with few words, and fixing their abode on a 
 range of mountains, in an ifland, or even in a wide region before unin- 
 habited, might in four or five centuries people their new country, and 
 would necefiarily form a new language with no perceptible traces, per- 
 haps, of that fpoken by their anceftors. Kdotn or Idiimey and Erythra 
 or Phcenice, had originally, as many believe, a fimilar meaning, and 
 were derived from words denoting a red colour ; but, whatever be their 
 derivation, it feems indubitable, that a race of men were anciently 
 fettled in Idiime and in Median, whom the oldeft and beft Greek authors 
 call Erythreans ; who were very diftindt from the Arabs; and whom, 
 from the concurrence of many ftrong teflimonies, we may fafely refer 
 to the Indian Hem. M. D'Herbelot mentions a tradition (which he 
 treats, indeed, as a fable), that a colony of thofe /^z;;«^tf«j- had migrated 
 from the northern fliores of the Erythrean fea, and failed acrofs the 
 Mediterranean to Europe, at the time fixed by Chronologers for the 
 pafiage of Evander with his Arcadians into Italy, and that both 
 Greeks and Romans were the progeny of thofe emigrants. It is not on 
 vague and fufpeded traditions, that we muft build our belief of fuch 
 events i but Newton, who advanced nothing in fcience without 
 
 demonftration.
 
 AND ISLANDERS OF ASIA. i 1 5 
 
 demonftration, and nothing in hiftory without fuch evidence as he 
 thought conclufive, afferts from authorities, which he had carefully 
 examined, that the Idumean voyagers " carried with them both arts 
 " and fciences, among which were their aflronomy, navigation, and 
 *' letters ; for in Idume, fays he, they had letters, and names for conjlel- 
 *' Jations, before the days of Job, who mentions them." Job, indeed, or 
 the author of the book, which takes its name from him, was of the 
 Arabian ftock, as the language of that fublime work inconteflably 
 proves ; but the invention and propagation of letters and aflronomy are 
 by all fo juilly afcribed to the Indian family, that, if Strabo and 
 Herodotus were not grofsly deceived, the adventurous Idumeans, who 
 firft gave names to the ftars, and hazarded long voyages in fhips of their 
 own conftrudtion, could be no other than a branch of the Hindu race : 
 in all events, there is no ground for believing them of a fourth diftindt 
 lineage ; and we need fay no more of them, till we meet them again, 
 ■on our return, under the name of Phenicians. 
 
 As we pafs down the formidable fea, which rolls over its coral bed 
 between the coaft of the Arabs, or thofe, who fpeak the pure language 
 of Ismail, and that of the Ajams, or thofe, who mutter it barbaroufy, 
 we find no certain traces, on the Arabian fide, of any people, who were 
 not originally Arabs of the genuine or mixed breed : anciently, perhaps, 
 there were Troglodytes in part of the peninfula, but they feem to have 
 been long fupplanted by the Nomades, or wandering herdfmen ; and who 
 thofe Troglodytes were, we fliall fee very clearly, if we deviate a few 
 moments from our intended path, and make a fhort excurfion into coun- 
 tries very lately explored on the Weftern, or African, fide of the Red Sea. 
 
 That the written Abyfjinian language, which we call Ethiopick, is a 
 dialeft of old Chaldean, and a fifter of Arabick and Hebrew, we know 
 with certainty, not only from the great multitude of identical words, 
 
 but
 
 1 1 5 ox THE BORDERERS, MOUNTAINEERS, 
 
 but (which is a far flronger proof) from the limilar grammatical arrange- 
 ment of the feveral idioms : we know at the fame time, that it is 
 written, like all the Indian characters, from the left hand to the right, 
 and that the vowels are annexed, as in Devandgan, to the confonants ; 
 with which they form a fyllabick fyftem extremely clear and conve-^ 
 nient, but difpofed in a lefs artificial order than the fyftem of letters 
 now exhibited in the Sanjcrit grammars ; whence it may juftly be in- 
 ferred, that the order contrived by Pa'nini or his difciples is compara- 
 tively modern ; and I have no doubt, from a curfory examination of 
 many old infcriptions on pillars and in caves, which have obligingly 
 been fent to me from all parts of India, that the Ndgari and Ethiopian 
 letters had at firfl: a fimilar form. It has long been my opinion, that the 
 Abyjjinians of the Arabian flock, having no fymbols of their own to 
 reprefent articulate founds, borrowed thofe of the black pagans, whom 
 the Greeks call Troglodytes, from their primeval habitations in natural 
 caverns, or in mountains excavated by their own labour : they were 
 probably the firft inhabitants of Africa, where they became in time 
 the builders of magnificent cities, the founders of feminaries for the 
 advancement of fcience and philofophy, and the inventors (if they were 
 not rather the importers) of fymbolical charaders. I believe on the 
 whole, that the Ethiops of Meroe were the fame people with the firft 
 Egyptians, and confequently, as it might eafily be fliown, with the 
 original Hindus. To the ardent and intrepid Mr. Bruce, whofe travels 
 are to my tafle uniformly agreeable and fatisfadtory, though he thinks 
 very differently from me on the language and genius of the Arabs, we 
 are indebted for more important, and, I believe, more accurate, infor- 
 mation concerning the nations eftablifhed near the Nik from its foun- 
 tains to its mouths, than all Europe united could before have fupplied ; 
 but, fince he has not been at the pains to compare the (tvtn languages, 
 of which he has exhibited a fpecimen, and lince I have not leifure to 
 make the comparifon, I muft be fatisfied with obferving, on his 
 
 authority,
 
 AND ISLANDERS OF ASIA. 1 1 7 
 
 authority, that the dialedls of the Gafots and the Gallas, the Agoivs of 
 both races, and the Falapas, who muft originally have ufed a Chaldean 
 idiom, were never preferved in writing, and the Amharick only in 
 modern times : they muft, therefore, have been for ages in fludluation, 
 and can lead, perhaps, to no certain conclufion as to the origin of the 
 feveral tribes, who anciently fpoke them. It is very remarkable, as Mr. 
 Bruce and Mr. Bryant have proved, that the Greeks gave the appel- 
 lation of Indians both to the fouthern nations of Africk and to the peo- 
 ple, among whom we now live j nor is it lefs obfervable, that, accord- 
 ing to Ephorus quoted by Strabo, they called all the fouthern 
 nations in the world Ethiopians, thus ufing Indian and Ethiop as con- 
 vertible terms : but we muft leave the gymnofophifts of Ethiopia, who 
 feem to have profefled the doctrines of Buddha, and enter the great 
 Indian ocean, of which their Afiatick and African brethren were pro- 
 bably the firft navigators. 
 
 On the iflands near Temen we have little to remark : they appear 
 now to be peopled chiefly by Mohammedans, and afford no marks of dif- 
 crimination, with which I am acquainted, either in language or manners; 
 but I cannot bid farewel to the coaft of Arabia, without aflliring you, 
 that, whatever may be faid of Ommdn, and the Scythian colonies, who, 
 it is imagined, were formerly fettled there, I have met with no trace in 
 the maritime part of Temen, from Aden to Majkat, of any nation, who 
 were not either Arabs or AbyJJinian invaders. 
 
 Between that country and Iran are fome iflands, which, from their 
 infignificance in our prefent inquiry, may here be negledted j and, as to 
 the Curds, or other independent races, who inhabit the branches of 
 Taurus or the banks of Euphrates and Tigris, they have, I believe, no 
 written language, nor any certain memorials of their origin : it has, 
 indeed, been aflTerted by travellers, that a race of wanderers in Diydrbecr 
 
 yet
 
 lis ON THE BORDERERS, MOUNTAINEERS, 
 
 yet fpeak the Chaldaick of our fcripture ; and the rambling Turcmdns 
 have retained, I imagine, fome traces of their Tartarian idioms ; but, 
 fince no veftige appears, from the gulf of PerJJa to the rivers Ciir and 
 ylras, of any people diftindl from the Arabs, Perfians, or Tartars, we 
 may conclude, that no fuch people exifts in the Iranian mountains, 
 and return to thofe, which feparate Iran from India. The principal 
 inhabitants of the mountains, called Pdrjici, where they run towards the 
 weft, Parveti, from a known Sanfcrit word, where they turn in an 
 eaftern dire<5tion, and Paropamjfns, where they join Imaus in the north, 
 were anciently diftinguifhed among the Brahmans by the name of De- 
 radas, but feem to have been deftroyed or expelled by the numerous 
 tribes of Afghans or Patans, among whom are the Ba/ojas, who give 
 their name to a mountainous diftricft ; and there is very folid ground for 
 believing, that the Afghans defcended from the 'Je'ws; becaufe they 
 fometimes in confidence avow that unpopular origin, which in general 
 they feduloufly conceal, and which other Mufelmans pofitively aflert ; 
 becaufe Hazaret, which appears to be the Afareth of Esdras, is one 
 of their territories ; and, principally, becaufe their language is evidently 
 a dialedt of the fcriptural Chaldaick. 
 
 We come now to the river Sindhu and the country named from it : 
 near its mouths we find a diftrid, called by Nearchus, in his journal, 
 Sangada; which M. D'Anville juftly fuppofes to be the feat of the 
 Sanganians, a barbarous and piratical nation mentioned by modern tra- 
 vellers, and well known at prefent by our countrymen in the weft of 
 India. Mr. Malet, now refident at Puna on the part of the Brittjlo 
 government, procured at my requeft the Sanganian letters, which are a 
 fort of Ndgar), and a fpecimen of their language, which is apparently 
 derived, like other Indian dialers, from the Sanfcrit; nor can I doubt, 
 from the defcriptions, which I have received, of their perfons and man- 
 ners, that they are Pdmeras, as the Brahmans call them, or outcaft 
 
 HinduSf
 
 AND ISLANDERS OF ASIA. lig 
 
 Hijidus, immemorially feparated from the reft of the nation. It feems 
 agreed, that the fingular people, called Egyptians, and, by corruption, 
 Gypjies, paffed the Mediterranean immediately from Egypt; and their 
 motley language, of which Mr. Grellmann exhibits a copious voca- 
 bulary, contains fo many Sanfcrit words, that their Indian origin can 
 hardly be doubted : the authenticity of that vocabulary feems eftablillied 
 by a multitude of Gypfy words, as angar, charcoal, cdpith, wood, pdr^ 
 a bank, bbu, earth, and a hundred more, for which the colleftor of 
 them could find no parallel in the vulgar diale<^ of Hindujldn, though 
 we know them to be pure Sanfcrit fcarce changed in a fingle letter. A 
 very i.igenious friend, to whom this remarkable h&. was imparted, fug- 
 gefted to me, that thofe very words might have been taken from old 
 Egyptian, and that the Gyp/ies were I'roglodytes from the rocks near 
 'Thebes, where a race of banditti ftill refemble them in their habits and 
 features ; but, as we have no other evidence of fo ftrong an affinity be- 
 tween the popular dialeds of old Egypt and India^ it feems more proba- 
 ble, that the Gypfies, whom the Italians call Zingaros, and Zinganos, were 
 no other than Zinganians, as M. D'Anville alfo writes the word, 
 who might, in fome piratical expedition, have landed on the coaft of 
 Arabia or Africa, whence tliey might have rambled to Egypt, and at 
 length have migrated, or been driven into Europe. To the kind- 
 nefs of Mr. Malet I am alfo indebted for an account of the Boras ; a 
 remarkable race of men inhabiting chiefly the cities of Gujarat, who, 
 though Mz^/e-Zw^Kj- in religion, are Jews in features, genius, and manners: 
 they form in all places a diftin£t fraternity, and are every where noted 
 for addrefs in bargaining, for minute thrift, and conftant attention to 
 lucre, but profefs total ignorance of their own origin ; though it feems 
 probable, that they came firft with their brethren the Afghans to the 
 borders of India, where they learned in time to prefer a gainful and fe- 
 cure occupation in populous towns to perpetual wars and laborious 
 exertions on the mountains. As to the Moplas, in the wellern parts of 
 
 the
 
 120 ON THE BORDERERS, MOUNTAINEERS, 
 
 the Indian empire, I have feen their books in Arabick, and am per- 
 fuaded, that, hke the people called Malays, they defcended fi-om Ara- 
 bian traders and mariners after the age of Mu hammed. 
 
 On the continent of hzdia, between the river Vipafa, or Hyphafts, to 
 the weft, the mountains of Tripiira and Camarupa to the eaft, and 
 Himalaya to the north, we find many races ot wild people with more or 
 lefs of that priftine ferocity, which induced their anceflors to fecede 
 from the civilized inhabitants of the plains and valleys : in the moft 
 ancient Sanfcrit books they are called Sacas, Cirdtas, Colas, Pulindas, 
 Barbaras, and are all known to Europeans, though not all by their true 
 names ; but many Hindu pilgrims, who have travelled through their 
 haunts, have fully defcribed them to me j and I have found reafons for 
 believing, that they fprang from the old Indian ftem, though fome of them 
 were foon intermixed with the firft ramblers from Tartary, whofe lan- 
 guage feems to have been the bafis of that now fpoken by the Moguls. 
 
 ■We come back to the Indian iflands, and haften to thofe, which lie to 
 tlie fouth-eaft of Sildn, or Taprobane ; for Sildn itfelf, as we know from 
 the languages, letters, religion, and old monuments of its various inha- 
 bitants, was peopkd beyond time of memory by the Hindu race, and for- 
 merly, perhaps, extended much farther to the weft and to the fouth, fo 
 as to include Lancd, or the equinodial point of the Indian aftronomers ; 
 nor can we reafonably doubt, that the fame enterprifing family planted 
 colonies in the other ifles of the fame ocean from the MaJayadwipaSy 
 which take their name from the mountain of Malaya, to the Moluccas, 
 or MalUcds, and probably far beyond them. Captain Forrest aftured 
 me, that he found the ifle of Bali (a great name in the hiftorical poems 
 of India) chiefly peopled by Hindus, who worfliipped the fame idols, 
 which he had feen in this province -, and that of Madhura muft have 
 been fo denominated, like the well known territory in the weftern penin- 
 
 fula.
 
 AND ISLANDERS OF ASIA. 121 
 
 Tula, by a nation, who underflood Sanfcrit. We need not be furprized, 
 that M. D'Anville was unable to affign a reafon, why the "Jabadiosy 
 or Tavadwipa, of Ptolemy was rendered in the old Latin verfion the 
 i^coi Barley ; but we mufl admire the inquifitive fpirit and patient 
 labour of the Greeks and Romans, whom nothing obfervable feems to 
 have efcaped : Tava means barley in Sanfcrit j and» though that word, 
 or its regular derivative, be now applied folely to 'Java, yet the great 
 French geographer adduces very ftrong reafons for believing, that the 
 ancients applied it to Sumatra. In whatever way the name of the laft 
 mentioned ifland may be written by Europeans, it is clearly an Indian 
 word, implying abundance or excellence ; but we cannot help wondering, 
 that neither the natives of it, nor the befl informed of our PanditSt 
 know it by any fuch appellation ; efpecially as it ftill exhibits vifible 
 traces of a primeval connexion with India : from the very accurate and 
 interefting account of it by a learned and ingenious member of our 
 own body, we difcover, without any recourfe to etymological conjec- 
 ture, that multitudes of pure Sanfcrit words occur in the principal 
 dialecfts of the Sumatrans ; that, among their laws, two pofitive rules 
 concerning fureties and interefi appear to be taken word for word from 
 the Indian leglflators Na'red and Ha'ri'ta; and, what is yet more 
 obfervable, that the fyflem of letters, ufed by the people of Rejang 
 and Lampun, has the fame artificial order with the Devanagarl ; but in 
 every feries one letter is omitted, becaufe it is never found in the lan- 
 guages of thofe iflanders. If Mr. Marsden has proved (as he firmly 
 believes, and as we, from our knowledge of his accuracy, may fairly 
 prefume) that clear veftiges of one ancient language are difcernible in 
 all the infular dialefts of the fouthern feas from Madagafcar to the 
 Philippines and even to the remoteft iflands lately difcovered, we may 
 infer from the fpecimens in his account of Sumatra, that the parent 
 of them all was no other than the Satifcrit ; and with this obfervation, 
 having nothing of coniequence to add on the Chineje ifles or on thofe 
 VOL. I. T of
 
 122 ON TH'E BORDERERS, MOUNTAINEERS, 
 
 o^ 'Japan, I leave the fartheft eaftern verge of this continent, and turn 
 to the countries, now under the government of China, between the 
 northern limits of India, and the extenfive domain of thofe Tartars, who 
 are flill independent. 
 
 That the people of Potyid or Tibet were Hindus, who engrafted the 
 herelies of Buddha on their old mythological religion, we know from 
 the refearches of Cassiano, who long had refided among themj and 
 whofe difquifitions on their language and letters, their tenets and forms 
 of worfliip, are inferted by Giorgi in his curious but prolix compila- 
 tion, which I have had the patience to read from the firft to the laft of 
 nine hundred rugged pages : their charadlers are apparently Indian, but 
 their language has now the difadvantage of being written with more 
 letters than are ever pronounced ; for, although it was anciently Sanfcrit 
 and polyfyllabick, it feems at prefent, from the influence of Chinefe 
 manners, to coniift of monofyllables, to form which, with fome regard 
 to grammatical derivation, it has become neceflary to fupprefs in com- 
 mon difcourfe many letters, which we fee in their books ; and thus we 
 are enabled to trace in their writing a number of Safifcrit words and 
 phrafes, which in their fpoken dialedl are quite undiftinguifliable. The 
 two engravings in Giorgi's book, from fketches by a Tibetian painter, 
 exhibit a fyftem of Egyptian and Indian mythology ; and a complete 
 explanation of them would have done the learned author more credit 
 than his fanciful etymologies, which are always ridiculous, and often 
 grofsly erroneous. 
 
 The Tartars having been wholly unlettered, as they freely confefs, 
 before their converfion to the religion oi Arabia, we cannot but fufpedl, 
 that the natives of Eighur, Tanciit, and Khata, who had fyftems of 
 letters and are even faid to have cultivated liberal arts, were not of the 
 Tartarian, but of the Indian, family ; and I apply the fame remark to 
 
 the
 
 AND ISLANDERS OF ASIA. 123 
 
 the nation, whom we call Bannas, but who are known to the Pandits 
 by the name of Brahmachinas, and feem to have been the Bracbmani 
 of Ptolemy: they were probably rambling Hindus, who, defcending 
 from the northern parts of the eaftern peninfula, carried with them the 
 letters now ufed in A'va, which are no more than a round Ndgari 
 derived from the fquare charadlers, in which the Pali, or facred 
 language of Buddha's priefts in that country, was anciently written ^ 
 a language, by the way, very nearly allied to the Sanfcrit, if we can de- 
 pend on the teftimony of M. De la Loubere ^ who, though always 
 an acute obferver, and in general a faithful reporter, of fafts, is charged 
 by Car PAN I us with having miftaken the Barma for the P^7/ letters j 
 and when, on his authority, I fpoke of the Bali writing to a young chief 
 oi Aracan, who read with facility the books of the Bar7nas, he correcfled 
 me with politenefs, and afllired me, that the Pali language was written 
 by the priefts in a much older charadter. 
 
 Let us now return eaftward to the fartheft Afiatick dominions of 
 Ru/Jia, and, rounding them on the northeaft, pafs direftly to the Hyper- 
 boreans ; who, from all that can be learned of their old religion and 
 manners, appear like the MaJJdgetce, and fome other nations ufually 
 confidered as Tartars, to have been really of the Gothick, that is of the 
 Hindu, race ; for I confidently alTume, that the Goths and the Hindus had 
 originally the fime language, gave the fame appellations to the ftars 
 and planets, adored the fame falfe deities, performed the fame bloody 
 facrifices, and profefTed the fame notions of rewards and punifhments 
 after death. I would not infift with M. Bail ly, that the people of 
 Finland were Gotbs, merely becaufe they have the word fnp in their 
 language ; while the reft of it appears w^hoUy diftindl from any of the 
 Gothick idioms : the publiflaers of the Lord's Prayer in many languages 
 reprefent the Fiiuiijh and Lapponian as nearly alike, and the Hungarian 
 
 as
 
 124 ON THE BORDERERS, MOUNTAINEERS, 
 
 as totally different from them ; but this muft be an errour, if it be true, 
 that a RuJJiaJi author has lately traced the Hungarian from its primitive 
 feat between the Cafpian and the Kiixtne, as far as Lapland itfelf ; and, 
 fmce the Hiins were confeffedly Tartars, we may conclude, that all the 
 northern languages, except the Gothick, had a Tartarian origin, like 
 that univerfally afcribed to the various branches of Sclavojtian. 
 
 On the Armenian, which I never iludied, becaufe T could not hear of 
 any original compofitions in it, I can offer nothing decifive ; but am 
 convinced, from the heft information procurable in Bengal, that its 
 bafis was ancient Perjian of the fame Indian ftock with the Zend, and 
 that it has been gradually changed lince the time, when Armenia ceafed 
 to be a province of Iran: the letters, in which it now appears, are allowed 
 to be comparatively modern -, and, though the learned editor of the 
 tradl by Carpanius on the literature oi Ava, compares them with the 
 Pali charadlers, yet, if they be not, as I fhould rather imagine, de- 
 rived from the Pahlavi, they are probably an invention of fome learned 
 Armenian in the middle of the fifth century. Moses of Khoren, than 
 whom no man was more able to elucidate the fubjedt, has inferted in 
 his hiftorical work a difquiiition on the language of Armenia, from 
 which we might colledl fome curious information, if the prefent occa- 
 lion required it j but to all the races of men, who inhabit the branches 
 of Caucafus and the northern limits of Iran, I apply the remark, 
 before announced generally, that ferocious and hardy tribes, who retire 
 for the fake of liberty to mountainous regions, and form by degrees a 
 feparate nation, muft alfo form in the end a feparate language by 
 agreeing on new words to exprefs new ideas ; provided that the lan- 
 guage, which they carried with them, was not fixed by writing and 
 fufficiently copious. The Armenian damfels are faid by Strabo to 
 have facrificed in the temple of the goddefs Anaitis, whom we know, 
 
 from
 
 AND ISLANDERS OF ASIA. 125 
 
 from other authorities, to be the Na'hi'd, or Venus, of the old Pcr- 
 Jians ; and it is for many reafons highly probable, that one and the fame 
 religion prevailed through the whole empire of Cyrus. 
 
 Having travelled round the continent, and among the iflands, oi Afia, 
 we come again to the coaft of the Mediterranean ; and the principal 
 nations of antiquity, who firft demand our attention, are the Greeks and 
 Phrygians, who, though differing fomewhat in manners, and perhaps in 
 dialed:, had an apparent affinity in religion as well as in language : the 
 Dorian, Ionian, and Eolian families having emigrated from Europe, to 
 which it is univerfally agreed that they firft palfed from Egypt, I can 
 add nothing to what has been advanced concerning them in former dif- 
 courfes j and, no written monuments of old Phrygia being extant, I fliall 
 only obferve, on the authority of the Greeks, that the grand objedt of 
 myfterious worfhip in that country was the Mother of the Gods, or 
 Nature perfonified, as we fee her among the Indians in a thoufand 
 forms and under a thoufand names. She was called in the Phrygian 
 dialed Ma , and reprefented in a car drawn by lions, with a drum in 
 her hand, and a towered coronet on her head : her myfteries (which 
 feem to be alluded to in the Mofaick law) are folemnized at the 
 autumnal equinox in thefe provinces, where flie is named, in one of her 
 charadters. Ma', is adored, in all of them, as the great Mother, is 
 figured fitting on a lion, and appears in fome of her temples with a dia- 
 dem or mitre of turrets : a drum is called dindima both in Sanfcrit 
 and Phrygian ; and the title of Dindymenc feems rather derived from 
 that word, than from the name of a mountain. The Diana of 
 Ephefus was manifeftly the fame goddefs in the charadler of produdlive 
 Nature; and the Astarte of the Syrians and Phenicians (to whom we 
 now return) was, I doubt not, the fame in another form : I may on the 
 whole afTure you, that the learned works of Selden and Jablonski, 
 on the Gods of Syria and Egypt, would receive more illuftration from 
 
 the
 
 120 ON THE BORDERERS, MOUNTAINEERS, 
 
 the little B'^nfcrh book, entitled Cbinidzy than from all the fragments of 
 oriental mythology, that are difperfed in the whole compafs of Grecian, 
 Roman, and Hebrew literature. We are told, that the Phenic'ians, like 
 the Hindus, adored the Sun, and afTerted water to be the firft of created 
 things ; nor can we doubt, that Syria, Samaria, and Phejiice, or the long 
 ftrip of land on the fhore of the Mediterranean, were anciently peopled 
 by a branch of the Indian ilock, but were afterwards inhabited by that 
 race, which for the prefent we call Arabian : in all three the oldeft 
 religion was the jJJJyrian, as it is called by Selden, and the Samaritan 
 letters appear to have been the fame at iirft with thofe of Phenice ; but 
 the Syriack language, of which ample remains are preferved, and the 
 Punick, of which we have a clear fpecimen in Plautus and on monu- 
 ments lately brought to light, were indifputably of a Chaldaick, or 
 ^rabick, origin. 
 
 The feat of the firft Phenicians having extended to Idiime, with which 
 we began, we have now completed the circuit of AJia ; but we muft not 
 pafs over in filence a mofk extraordinary people, who efcaped the atten- 
 tion, as Barrow obferves more than once, of the diligent and inquifi- 
 tive Herodotus : I mean the people oi Judea, whofe language demon- 
 ftrates their affinity with the Arabs, but whofe manners, literature, and 
 hiflory are wonderfully diftinguiflied from the reft of mankind. Bar- 
 row loads them with the fevere, but juft, epithets of malignant, unfocial, 
 obftinate, diftruftful, fordid, changeable, turbulent ; and defcribes them 
 as furioufly zealous in fuccouring their own countrymen, but impla- 
 cably hoftile to other nations; yet, with all the fottifh perverfenefs, the 
 ftupid arrogance, and the brutal atrocity of their characfter, they had the 
 peculiar merit, among all races of men under heaven, of preferving a 
 rational and pure fyftem of devotion in the midft of wild polytheifm, 
 inhuman or obfcene rights, and a dark labyrinth of errours produced by 
 ignorance and fupported by interefted fraud. Theological inquiries ai-e 
 
 no
 
 AND ISLANDERS OF ASIA. 127 
 
 no part of my prefent fubjedl ; but I cannot refrain from adding, that 
 the coUedlion of trails, which we call from their excellence the Scrip- 
 tures, contain, independently of a divine origin, more true fublimity, 
 more exquifite beauty, purer morality, more important hiftory, and 
 finer ftrains both of poetry and eloquence, than could be colledted 
 within the fame compafs from all other books, that were ever com- 
 pofed in any age or in any idiom. The two parts, of which the Scrip- 
 tures confift, are connedled by a chain of compofitions, which bear no 
 refemblance in form or ftyle to any that can be produced from the 
 (lores oi Grecian, Indian, Perjian, or even Arabian, learning : the antiquity 
 of thofe compofitions no man doubts ; and the unflrained application of 
 them to events long fubfequent to their publication is a folid ground of 
 belief, that they were genuine pr,edid:ions, and confequently infpired; 
 but, if any thing be the abfolute exclufive property of each individual, 
 it is his belief; and, I hope, I {hould be one of the laft men living, 
 Avho could harbour a thought of obtruding my own belief on the free 
 minds of others, I mean only to afTume, what, I trufl, will be readily 
 conceded, that the firft Hebrew hiftorian muft be entitled, merely as 
 fuch, to an equal degree of credit, in his account of all civil tranf- 
 adlions, with any other hiflorian of antiquity : how far that moft 
 ancient writer confirms the refult of our inquiries into the genealogy of 
 nations, I propofe to (how at our next anniverfary meeting ; when, after 
 an approach to demonftration, in the ftridl method of the old analyfis, I 
 {hall refume the whole argument concifely and fynthetically ; and fliall 
 then have condenfed in feven difcourfes a mafs of evidence, which, if 
 brevity had not been my objedl, might have been expanded into (cvexi 
 large volumes with no other trouble than that of holding the pen; but 
 (to borrow a turn of exprefiion from one of our poets) " for what I 
 " have produced, I claim only your indulgence ; it is for what I have 
 " fuppreffed, that I am entitled to your thanks."
 
 DISCOURSE THE NINTH. 
 
 ON 
 
 THE ORIGIN AND FAMILIES OF NATIONS. 
 
 DELIVERED 23 FEBRUARY, 1792. 
 
 BV 
 
 The president. 
 
 X OU have attended, gentlemen, with fo much indulgence to my dif- 
 courfes on the five AJiatick nations, and on the various tribes eflablifhed 
 along their feveral borders or interfperfed over their mountains, that 
 I cannot but flatter myfelf with an afTurance of being heard with equal 
 attention, while I trace to one centre the three great families, from 
 which thofe nations appear to have proceeded, and then hazard a few 
 conjedlures on the different courfes, which they may be fuppofed to 
 have taken toward the countries, in which we find them fettled at the 
 dawn of all geniune hiftory. 
 
 Let us begin with a fliort review of the propofitions, to which we 
 have gradually been led, and feparate fuch as are morally certain, from 
 fuch as are only probable : that the firft race of Perjians and IndianSy to 
 whom we may add the Romans and Greeks, the Gcths^ and the old 
 
 VOL. I. u Egyptians
 
 130 ON THE ORIGIN 
 
 Egyptians or Ethiops, originally fpoke the fame language and profefTed 
 the fame popular faith, is capable, in my humble opinion, of incontef- 
 table proof; that the Jevos and Arabs, the Ajfyrians, or fecond Perfian 
 race, the people who fpoke Syraick, and a numerous tribe of AbyJJi7iians, 
 ufed one primitive dialedt wholly diftindl from the idiom juft mentioned, 
 is, I believe, undifputed, and, I am fure, indifputable ; but that the fet- 
 tlers in China and "Japan had a common origin with the Hindus, is no 
 more than highly probable ; and, that all the Tartars, as they are inac- 
 curately called, were primarily of a third feparate branch, totally differ- 
 ing from the two others in language, manners, and features, may indeed 
 be plaufibly conjedlured, but cannot, for the reafons aliedged in a for- 
 mer eflay, be perfpicuoufly fliown, and for the prefent therefore mufl 
 be merely affiimed. Could thefe fails be verified by the beft attainable 
 evidence, it would not, I prefume, be doubted, that the whole earth was 
 peopled by a variety of {hoots from the Indian, Arabian, and Tartarian 
 branches, or by fuch intermixtures of them, as, in a courfe of ages, 
 might naturally have happened. 
 
 Now I admit without hefitation the aphorifm of Linn^us, that 
 '* in the beginning God created one pair only of every living fpecies, 
 " which has a diverfity of fex;" but, fince that incomparable naturalift 
 argues principally from the wonderful diffufion of vegetables, and from 
 an hypothefis, that the water on this globe has been continually 
 fubfiding, I venture to produce a fhorter and clofer argument in fupport 
 of his doctrine. That Nature, of which fimplicity appears a diftin- 
 guifliing attribute, does nothing in vain, is a maxim in philofophy j and 
 againft thofe, who deny maxims, we cannot difpute ; but // is vain and 
 fuperfluous to do by many means what may be done by fe-iver, and this is 
 another axiom received into courts of judicature from the fchools of 
 philofophers : we miijl not, therefore, fays our great Newton, admit 
 more caiifes of natural things, than thofe, which are true, and fujiciently 
 
 account
 
 AND FAMILIES GF NATIONS. 131 
 
 account for tiatural phenomena ; but it is true, that one pair at leaji of 
 every living fpecies muft at firfl have been created ; and that one human 
 pair was fufficient for the population of our globe in a period of no 
 confiderable length (on the very moderate fuppofition of lawyers and 
 political arithmeticians, that every pair of ancellors left on an average 
 two children, and each of them two more), is evident from the rapid 
 increafe of numbers in geometrical progreffion, fo well known to thofe, 
 who have ever taken the trouble to fum a feries of as many terms, as they 
 fuppofe generations of men in two or three thoufand years. It follows, 
 that the Author of Nature (for all nature proclaims its divine author) 
 created but one pair of our fpecies ; yet, had it not been (among other 
 reafons) for the devaftations, which hiflory has recorded, of water and 
 fire, wars, famine, and pellilence, this earth would not now have had 
 room for its multiplied inhabitants. If the human race then be, as 
 we may confidently afllime, of one natural fpecies, they muft all have 
 proceeded from one pair; and if perfed: juftice be, as it is moft indu- 
 bitably, an eflential attribute of GOD, that pair muft have been gifted 
 with fufficient wifdom and ftrength to be virtuous, and, as far as their 
 nature admitted, happy, but intrufted with freedom of will to be vicious 
 and confequently degraded : whatever might be their option, they muft 
 people in time the region where they firft were eftabliflied, and their 
 numerous defcendants muft neceftarily feek new countries, as inclination 
 might prompt, or accident lead, them ; they would of courfe migrate in 
 feparate families and clans, which, forgetting by degrees the language 
 of their common progenitor, would form new dialeds to convey new 
 ideas, both fimple and complex j natural affedion would unite them 
 at firft, and a fenfe of reciprocal utility, the great and only cement 
 of fecial union in the abfence of publick honour and juftice, for 
 which in evil times it is a general fubftitute, would combine them 
 at length in communities more or lefs regular ; laws would be propofed 
 by a part of each community, but enaded by the whole ; and govern- 
 ments
 
 132 ON THE ORIGIN 
 
 ments would be varioufly arranged for the happinels or mifery of the 
 governed, according to their own virtue and wifdom, or depravity and 
 folly ; fo that, in lefs than three thoufand years, the world would ex- 
 hibit the fame appearances, which we may adually obferve on it in the 
 age of the great Arabian impoftor. 
 
 On that part of it, to which our united refearches are generally con- 
 fined, we ittjive races of men peculiarly diftinguifhed, in the time of 
 MuHAMMED, for their multitude and extent of dominion ; but we have 
 reduced them to three, becaufe we can difcover no more, that efTentially 
 differ in language, religion, manners, and other known charadlerifticks : 
 now thofe three races, how varioufly foever they may at prefent be dif- 
 perfed and intermixed, muft (if the preceding conclufions be juftly 
 drawn) have migrated originally from a central country, to find which 
 is the problem propofed for folution. Suppofe it folved ; and give any 
 arbitrary name to that centre : let it, if you pleafe, be Iran. The three 
 primitive languages, therefore, muft at firft have been concentrated in 
 in Iran, and there only in fadl we fee traces of them in the earlieft 
 hiftorical age ; but, for the fake of greater precifion, conceive the whole 
 empire oi Iran, with all its mountains and vallies, plains and rivers, to 
 be every way infinitely diminiflied ; the firft winding courfes, therefore, 
 of all the nations proceeding from it by land, and nearly at the fame 
 time, will be little right lines, but without interfediions, becaufe thofe 
 courfes could not have thwarted and crofted one another : if then you 
 confider the feats of all the migrating nations as points in a furrounding 
 figure, you will perceive, that the feveral rays, diverging from Iran, 
 may be drawn to them without any interfecflion ; but this will not hap- 
 pen, if you aftume as a centre Arabia, or Egypt; India, Tartary, or 
 China: it follows, that Iran, or Perfia (I contend for the meaning, not 
 th^ name), was the central country, which we fought. This mode of 
 reafoning I have adopted, not from any affedation (as you will do me 
 
 the
 
 AND FAMILIES OF NATIONS. 133 
 
 the juftice to believe) of a fcientinck didlion, bat for the fake of con- 
 cifenefs and variety, and from a wifh to avoid repetitions ; the fubflance 
 of my argument having been detailed in a different form at the clofe of 
 another difcourfe ; nor does the argument in any form rife to demon- 
 flration, which the queftion by no means admits : it amounts, however, 
 to fuch a proof, grounded on written evidence and credible teflimony, 
 as all mankind hold fufficient for decifions affedling property, freedom, 
 and life. 
 
 Thus then have we proved, that the inhabitants of ^Jia, and confc- 
 quently, as it might be proved, of the whole earth, fprang from three 
 branches of one flem : and that thofe branches have fhot into their pre- 
 fent ftate of luxuriance in a period comparatively fhort, is apparent 
 from a fa6t univerfally acknowledged, that we find no certain monu- 
 ment, or even probable tradition, of nations planted, empires and flates 
 raifed, laws ena<fted, cities built, navigation improved, commerce en- 
 couraged, arts invented, or letters contrived, above twelve or at moft 
 fifteen or fixteen centuries before the birth of Christ, and from 
 another faft, which cannot be controverted, that feven hundred or a 
 thoufand years would have been fully adequate to the fuppofed propa- 
 gation, diffufion, and eftablifliment of the human race. 
 
 The mofl ancient hiftory of that race, and the oldefl compofition 
 perhaps in the world, is a work in Hebrew, which we may fuppofe at 
 firft, for the fake of our argument, to have no higher authority than 
 any other work of equal antiquity, that the refearches of the curious 
 had accidentally brought to light: it is afcribed to Musah ; for fo he 
 writes his own name, which, after the Greeh and Romans, we have 
 changed into Moses ; and, though it was manifeftly his objed: to give 
 an hiftorical account of a fingle family, he has introduced it with a 
 
 fhort
 
 134 ON THE ORIGIN 
 
 fhort view of the primitive world, and his introdudlion has been divided, 
 perhaps improperly, into eleven chapters. After defcribing with awful 
 fublimity the creation of this univerfe, he afferts, that one pair of every 
 animal fpecies was called from nothing into exiftence ; that the human 
 pair were ftrong enough to be happy, but free to be miferable ; that, from 
 delufion and temerity, they difobeyed their fupreme benefadlor, whofe 
 goodnefs could not pardon them confiftently with his juftice ; and that 
 they received a punifliment adequate to their difobedience, but foftened 
 by a myflerious promife to be accompliflied in their defcendants. We 
 cannot but believe, on the fuppofition juft made of a hiftory un- 
 infpired, that thefe fadts were delivered by tradition from the firft pair, 
 and related by Moses in a figurative ftyle ; not in that fort of allegory, 
 which rhetoricians defcribe as a mere affemblage of metaphors, but in 
 the fymbolical mode of writing adopted by eaftern fages, to embellifli 
 and dignify hiftorical truth ; and, if this were a time for fuch illuftra- 
 tions, we might produce the fame account of the creation and th.t fall, 
 cxpreffed by fymbols very nearly fimilar, from the Purdnas themfelves, 
 and even from the Veda, which appears to ftand next in antiquity to the 
 five books of Moses. 
 
 The fketch of antediluvian hiftory, in which we find many dark 
 paffages, is followed by the narrative of a deluge, which deftroyed the 
 whole race of man, except four pairs ; an hiftorical fadl admitted as true 
 by every nation, to whofe literature we have accefs, and particularly by 
 the ancient Hindus, who have allotted an entire Piirdna to the detail of 
 that event, which they relate, as ufual, in fymbols or allegories. I 
 concur moft heartily with thofe, who infift, that, in proportion as any 
 fa£l mentioned in hiftory feems repugnant to the courfe of nature, or, 
 in one word, miraculous, the ftronger evidence is required to induce 
 a rational belief of it ; but we hear without incredulity, that cities 
 
 have
 
 AND FAMILIES OF NATIONS. 135 
 
 have been overwhelmed by eruptions from burning mountains, territo- 
 ries laid wafte by hurricanes, and whole iflands depopulated by earth- 
 quakes : if then we look at the firmament fprinkled with innumerable 
 ilars J if we conclude by a fair analogy, that every flar is a fun, attra<fl- 
 ing, like ours, a fyilem of inhabited planets ; and if cur ardent fancy, 
 foaring hand in hand with found reafon, waft us beyond the vifible 
 fphere into regions of immenfity, difclofing other celeftial expanfes and 
 other fyftems of funs and worlds on all fides without number or end, 
 we cannot but confider the fubmerfion of our little fpheroid as an in- 
 finitely lefs event in refpeft of the immeafurable univerfe, than the de- 
 ftrudlion of a city or an ille in refpeft of this habitable globe. Let a 
 general flood, however, be fuppofed improbable in proportion to the 
 magnitude of fo ruinous an event, yet the concurrent evidences of it are 
 completely adequate to the fuppofed improbability ; but, as we cannot 
 here expatiate on thofe proofs, we proceed to the fourth important fad: 
 recorded in the Mofaick hiftory ; I mean the firft propagation and 
 early difperfion of mankind in feparate families to feparate places of 
 refidence. 
 
 Three fons of the juft and virtuous man, whofe lineage was preferved 
 from the general inundation, travelled, we are told, as they began to 
 multiply, in three large divifions varioufly fubdivided : the children of 
 Ya'fet feem, from the traces of Sklavonian names, and the mention of 
 their being enlarged, to have fpread themfelves far and wide, and to 
 have produced the race, which, for want of a corred: appellation, we 
 call Tartarian ; the colonies, formed by the fons of Ham and Shem, 
 appear to have been nearly fimultaneous; and, among thofe of the latter 
 branch, we find fo many nan;jps inconteftably preferved at this hour in 
 Arabia, that we cannot hefitate in pronouncing them the fame people, 
 whom hitherto we have denominated Arabs; while the former branch, 
 the moft powerful and adventurous of whom were the progeny of 
 
 CusH,
 
 136 ON THE ORIGIN 
 
 CusH, MisR, and Rama (names remaining unchanged in Sanfcrit, 
 and highly revered by the Hindus), were, in all probability, the race, 
 which I call Indian, and to which we may now give any other name, 
 that may feem more proper and comprehenfive. 
 
 The general introdudion to the Jewip hillory doles with a very 
 concife and obfcure account of a prefumptuous and mad attempt, by a 
 particular colony, to build a fplendid city and raife a fabrick of im- 
 menfe height, independently of the divine aid, and, it ihould feem, 
 in defiance of the divine power; a projed:, which was baffled by 
 means appearing at firft view inadequate to the purpofe, but ending in 
 violent dilTention among the projedors, and in the ultimate feparation 
 of them : this event alfo feems to be recorded by the ancient Hindus in 
 two of their Purdnas ; and it will be proved, I trufl, on fome future 
 occafion, that t/ie lion burjiing from a pillar to dejlroy a blafpheming giant, 
 and the dwarf, who beguiled and held in derifion the magnificent Beli, are 
 one and the fame ftory related in a fymbolical flyle. 
 
 Now thefe primeval events are defcribed as having happened between 
 the Oxus and Euphrates, the mountains of Caucafus and the borders of 
 India, that is, within the limits of Iran ; for, though moft of the Mo- 
 faick names have been confiderably altered, yet numbers of them remain 
 unchanged : we ftill find Harrdn in Mefopotamia, and travellers appear 
 unanimous in fixing the fite of ancient Babel. 
 
 Thus, on the preceding fuppofition, that the firfl eleven chapters of 
 the book, which it is thought proper to call Genefis, are merely a pre- 
 face to the oldefl civil hiftory now extant, we fee the truth of them 
 confirmed by antecedent reafoning, and by evidence in part highly pro- 
 bable, and in part certain ; but the comicSlion of the Mofaick hiftory 
 with that of the Gofpel by a chain of fublime prediftions unqueftion- 
 
 ably
 
 AND FAMILIES OF NATIONS. 137 
 
 ably ancient, and apparently fulfilled, mufl: induce us to think the 
 Hebrew narrative more than human in its origin, and confequently true 
 in every fubftantial part of it, though poflibly expreffed in figurative 
 language ; as many learned and pious men have believed, and as the moll 
 pious may believe without injury, and perhaps with advantage, to the 
 caufe of revealed religion. If Moses then was endued with fuper- 
 natural knowledge, it is no longer probable only, but abfolutely certain, 
 that the whole race of man proceeded from Iran, as from a centre, 
 whence they migrated at firfl; in three great colonies ; and that thofe 
 three branches grew from a common flock, which had been miracu- 
 loufly preferved in a general convulfion and inundation of this globe. 
 
 Having arrived by a different path at the fame conclufion with Mr. 
 Bryant as to one of thofe families, the mofl ingenious and enter- 
 prifing of the three, but arrogant, cruel, and idolatrous, which we both 
 conclude to be various fhoots from the Hamian or Amonian branch, I 
 fliall add but little to my former obfervations on his profound and 
 agreeable work, which I have thrice perufed with increafed attention 
 and pleafure, though not with perfedl acquiefcence in the other lefs 
 important parts of his plaufible fyflem. The fum of his argument feems 
 reducible to three heads, Firfl ; " if the deluge really happened at the 
 " time recorded by Moses, thofe nations, whofe monuments are pre- 
 " ferved or whofe writings are acceflible, muft have retained memorials 
 " of an event fo flupendous and comparatively fo recent ; but in fadt 
 ** they have retained fuch memorials :" this reafoning feems jufl, and the 
 fa(5l is true beyond controverfy : Secondly; "thofe memorials were ex- 
 " preffed by the race of Ham, before the ufe of letters, in rude fculp- 
 " ture or painting, and moftly in fymbolical figures of the ark, the 
 " eight perfons concealed in it, and the birds, which firfl were difmifTed 
 " from it : this facfl is probable, but, I think, not fufficiently afcertained." 
 Thirdly ; " all ancient Mythology (except what was purely Sabian) had 
 VOL. I. X " its
 
 138 ON THE ORIGIN 
 
 " its primary fource in thole various fymbols mifunderllood; lb that 
 " ancient Mythology ftands now in the place of fymbolical Iculpture or 
 " paintino-, and muit be explained on the fame principles, on which we 
 " flioiild begin to decypher the originals, if they now exifted :" this part 
 of the fyfcem is, in my opinion, carried too far j nor can I perfuade my- 
 felf ( togive one inftance out of many) that the beautiful allegory of Cupid 
 and Psyche, had the remotefl allufioii to the deluge, or that Hymen 
 fio-nified the veil, which covered the patriarch and his family. Thefe 
 proportions, however, are fupported with great ingenuity and folid 
 erudition, but, unprofitably for the argument, and unfortunately, per- 
 haps, for the fame of the work itfelf, recourfe is had to etymological 
 conjeiflure, than which no mode of reafoning is in general weaker or 
 more delulive. He, who profelfes to derive the words of any one lan- 
 guage from thofe of another, mull expofe himfelf to the danger of per- 
 petual errours, unlefs he be perfedlly acquainted with both ; yet my re- 
 fpedlable friend, though eminently fkilled in the idioms of Greece and 
 Rome, has no fort of acquaintance with any Afiatick dialed:, except 
 Hebreiso ; and he has confequently made miflakes, which every learner 
 of Arabick and Perfian mull inllantly deteft. Among ffty radical words 
 fma, taph, and ram being included), eighteen are purely of Arabian 
 origin, tiaelve merely Indian, and feventeen both Sanfcrit and Arabick, 
 but in fenfes totally different ; while two are Greek only, and one Egyp- 
 tian, or barbarous : if it be urged, that thofe radicals (which ought furely 
 to have concluded, inllead of preceding, an analytical inquiry) are pre- 
 cious traces of the primitive language, from which all others were 
 derived, or to which at leall they were fubfequent, I can only declare 
 my belief, that the language of Noah is loft irretrievably, and affure 
 you, 'that, after a diligent fearch, I cannot find a fingle word ufed 
 in common by the Arabian, Indian, and 'Tartar families, before the 
 intermixture of dialedts occafioned by Mohammedan conquells. There 
 are, indeed, very obvious traces of the Hamian language, and Ibme 
 
 hundreds
 
 AND FAMILIES OF NATIONS. ISq 
 
 hundreds of words might be produced, which were formerly ufed pro- 
 mifcuoufly by mofl nations of that race ; but I beg leave, as a philo- 
 loger, to enter my proteft againft conjectural etymology in hiftorical 
 refearches, and principally againft the licentioufnefs of etymologifts in 
 tranfpofing and inferting letters, in fubftituting at pleafure any con- 
 fonant for another of the fame order, and in totally difregarding the 
 vowels : for fuch permutations few radical words would be more con- 
 venient than Cus or Cush, lince, dentals being changed for dentals, and 
 palatials for palatials, it inftantly becomes coot, goofe, and, by tranf- 
 pofition, duck, all water-birds, and evidently fymbolical ; it next is the 
 goat worfliipped in Egypt, and, by a metathefis, the dog adored as an 
 emblem of SiRius, or, more obvioully, a cat, not the domeftick ani- 
 mal, but a fort of fliip, and, the Catos, or great fea-fifh, of the Dorians. 
 It will hardly be imagined, that I mean by this irony to infult an author, 
 whom I refped; and efteem ; but no conlideration fhould induce me to 
 affift by my filence in the diftufion of errour ; and I contend, that 
 almoft any word or nation might be derived from any other, if fuch 
 licences, as I am oppoling, were permitted in etymological hiftories : 
 when we find, indeed, the fame words, letter for letter, and in a fenfe 
 precifely the fame, in different languages, we can fcarce hefitate in 
 allowing them a common origin ; and, not to depart from the example 
 before us, when we fee Cush or Cus (for the Sanfcrit name alfo is 
 varioufly pronounced) among the fons of Brahma', that is, among the 
 progenitors of the Hindus, and at the head of an ancient pedigree pre- 
 ferved in the Rdmdyan ; when we meet with his name again in the 
 family of Ra'ma; when we know, that the name is venerated in the 
 higheft degree, and given to a facred grafs, defcribed as a Poa by 
 KoENiG, which is ufed with a thoufand ceremonies in the oblations to 
 fire, ordained by Menu to form the facrificial zone of the Brdhmam, 
 and folemnly declared in the Veda to have fprung up foon after the 
 deluge, whence the Paurdnicks confider it as the brijily hair cf the boar 
 
 njohich
 
 140 ON THE ORIGIN 
 
 which fupported the globe ; wlien we add, that one of the feven dwipas, 
 or great penlnfulas of this earth, lias the fame appellation, we can 
 hardly doubt, that the Cush of Moses and Va'lmic was the fame 
 perfonage and an anceflor of the Indian race. 
 
 From the teftimonies adduced in the fix laft annual difcourfes, and 
 from the additional proofs laid before you, or rather opened, on the 
 prefent occafion, it feems to follow, that the only human family after 
 the flood eftabliflied themfelves in the northern parts of Iran ; that, as 
 they multiplied, they were divided into three diftindl branches, each 
 retaining little at firft, and lofmg the whole by degrees, of their com- 
 mon primary language, but agreeing feverally on new expreffions 
 for new ideas ; that the branch of Ya'fet was enlarged in many fcat- 
 tered fhoots over the north of Europe and A/ia, difFufmg themfelves as 
 far as the weftern and eaflern feas, and, at length in the infancy of 
 navigation, beyond them both ; that they cultivated no liberal arts, and 
 had no ufe of letters, but formed a variety of dialecfls, as their tribes 
 were varioufly ramified j that, fecondly, the children of Ham, who 
 founded in Iran itfelf the monarchy of the firll Chaldeans, invented 
 letters, obferved and named the luminaries of the firmament, calculated 
 the ^nown Indian period of /o«r hundred and thirty-two thoufand years, or 
 an hundred and twenty repetitions of xh& faros, and contrived the old fyftem 
 of Mythology, partly allegorical, and partly grounded on idolatrous vene- 
 ration for their fages and lawgivers ; that they were difperfed at various 
 intervals and in various colonies over land and ocean j that the tribes of 
 MiSR, CusH, and Rama fettled in Africk and India; while fome of 
 them, having improved the art of failing, pafTed from Egypt, Phenice, and 
 Phrygia, into Italy and Greece, which they found thinly peopled by former 
 emigrants, of whom they fupplanted fome tribes, and united themfelves 
 with others ; whilft a fwarm from the fame hive moved by a northerly 
 courfe into Scandinavia, and another, by the head of the Ox«j,.and through 
 
 the
 
 AND FAMILIES OF NATIONS. 141 
 
 the palTes of Imaus, into Cajhghar and Eighur, Khatd and Khoten, as far as 
 the territories of Chin and Tancut, where letters have been ufed and arts 
 immemorially cultivated ; nor is it unreafonable to believe, that fome 
 of them found their way from the eaftern illes into Mexico and PerUy 
 where traces were difcovered of rude literature and Mythology ana- 
 logous to thofe of Egypt and India ; that, thirdly, the old Chaldean em- 
 pire being overthrown by the AJJyrians under Cayu'mers, other miera- 
 tions took place, efpecially into India, while the reft of Shem's proo-em'-, 
 fome of whom had before fettled on the Red Sea, peopled the whole 
 Arabian peninfula, preffing clofe on the nations of Syria and Phenice ; 
 that, laftly, from all the three families were detached many bold adven- 
 turers of an ardent fpirit and a roving difpofition, who difdained fubordi- 
 nation and wandered in feparate clans, till they fettled in diftant ifles or 
 in deferts and mountainous regions ; that, on the whole, fome colonies 
 might have migrated before the death of their venerable progenitor, 
 but that ftates and empires could fcarce have afllimed a regular form, 
 till fifteen or fixteen hundred years before the Chrijiian epoch, and 
 that, for the firft thoufand years of that period, we have no hiflory 
 unmixed with fable, except that of the turbulent and variable, but 
 eminently diftinguifhed, nation defcended from Abraham. 
 
 My defign, gentlemen, of tracing the origin and progrefs of the five 
 principal nations, who have peopled Afia, and of whom there were 
 confiderable remains in their feveral countries at the time of Muham- 
 med's birth, is now accompliflied j fuccindlly, from the nature of thefe 
 efFays ; imperfeftly, from the darknefs of the fubjedl and fcantinefs of my 
 materials, but clearly and comprehenfively enough to form a bafis for 
 fubfequent refearches : you have feen, as diftind:ly as I am able to fhow, 
 ivho thofe nations originally were, whence and when they moved toward 
 their final ftations j and, in my future annual difcourfes, I propofe to 
 enlarge on the particular advantages to our country and to mankind, 
 
 which
 
 142 ON THE ORIGIN, &c. 
 
 which may refult from our fedulous and united inquiries into the hiftory, 
 fcience, and arts, of thefe Afiatick regions, efpecially of the Britijh do- 
 minions in India, which we may confider as the centre (not of the 
 human race, but) of our common exertions to promote its true interefls; 
 and we fliall concur, I truft, in opinion, that the race of man, to advance 
 whofe manly happinefs is our duty and will of courfe be our endeavour, 
 cannot long be happy without virtue, nor adlively virtuous without 
 freedom, nor fccurelv free without rational knowledge. 
 
 THE
 
 THE TENTH 
 
 ANNIVERSARY DISCOURSj 
 
 DELIVERED 28 FEBRUARY, 1793. 
 
 The president. 
 ON JSUTICK HISTORY, CIVIL AND NATURAL. 
 
 XjEFORE our entrance, gentlemen, into the difquifition, promifed 
 at the clofe of my ninth annual difcourfe, on the particular advantages, 
 which may be derived from our concurrent refearches in AJia, it feems 
 neceffary to fix with precilion the fenfe, in which we mean to fpeak of 
 advantage or utility : now, as we have defcribed the five Afiatick re- 
 gions on their largeft fcale, and have expanded our conceptions in pro- 
 portion to the magnitude of that wide field, we iliould ufe thofe words, 
 which comprehend the fruit of all our inquiries, in their moft extenfive 
 acceptation ; including not only the folid conveniences and comforts of 
 focial life, but its elegances and innocent pleafures, and even the grati- 
 fication of a natural and laudable curiohty; for, though labour be clearly 
 the lot of man in this world, yet, in the midfl: of his moft adlive exer- 
 tions, he cannot but feel the fubftantial benefit of every liberal amufe- 
 
 ment.
 
 144 ON ASIATICK HISTORY, 
 
 merit, which may lull his paffions to reft, and afford him a fort of re- 
 pofe without the pain of total inadion, and the real ufefulnefs of every 
 purfuit, which may enlarge and diverfify his ideas, without interfering 
 with the principal objefts of his civil ftation or economical duties ; nor 
 fhould we wholly exclude even the trivial and worldly fenfe of utility, 
 which too many confider as merely fynonymous with lucre, but fliould 
 reckon among ufeful objedls thofe pradical, and by no means illiberal, 
 arts, which may eventually conduce both to national and to private emo- 
 lument. With a view then to advantages thus explained, let us examine 
 every point in the whole circle of arts and fciences, according to the 
 received order of their dependence on the faculties of the mind, their 
 mutual connexion, and the different fubjecfls, with which they are con- 
 verfant : our inquiries indeed, of which Nature and Man are the primary 
 objefls, muft of courfe be chiefly HiJIor/cal ; but, fince we propofe to 
 inveftigate the aSliotis of the feveral Afiatick nations, together with their 
 refpeiflive progrefs mfcience and art, we may arrange our inveftigations 
 under the fame three heads, to which our European analyfts have inge- 
 nioully reduced all the branches of human knowledge ; and my prefent 
 addrefs to the fociety fhall be confined to hiftory, civil and natural, or 
 the obfervation and remembrance of mere fads, independently of ratio- 
 cination, which belongs to philofophy, or of imitations zndfubjiitutions, 
 which are the province of art. 
 
 Were a fuperior created intelligence to delineate a map of general 
 knowledge (exclufively of that fublime and ftupendous theology, which 
 himfelf could only hope humbly to knov/ by an infinite approximation) 
 he would probably, begin by tracing with Newton the fyftem of the uni- 
 verfe, in which he would affign the true place to our little globe ; and, 
 having enumerated its various inhabitants, contents, and produdlions, 
 would proceed to man in his natural ftation among animals, exhibiting 
 a detail of all the knowledge attained or attainable by the human race ; 
 
 and
 
 CIVIL AND NATURAL. I45 
 
 and thus obferving, perhaps, the fame order, in which he had before de- 
 fcribed other beings in other inhabited worlds : but, though Bacon feems 
 to have had a fimilar reafon for placing the hiftory of Nature before that 
 of Man, or the whole before one of its parts, yet, confiftently with our 
 chief objed: already mentioned, we may properly begin with the civil 
 hiftory of the five Afiatick nations, which necellarily comprifes their 
 Geography, or a defcription of the places^ where they have afted, and 
 their aftronomy, which may enable us to fix with fome accuracy the 
 time of their adtions : we fhall thence be led to the hiilory of fuch other 
 animals, of fuch minerals, and of fuch vegetables, as they may be fuppofed 
 to have found in their feveral migrations and fettlements, and fhall end 
 with the ufes to which they have applied, or may apply, the rich afiem- 
 blage of natural fubflances. 
 
 L In the firft place, we cannot furely deem it an inconfiderable ad- 
 vantage, that all our hiftorical refearches have confirmed the Mofaick 
 accounts of the primitive world ; and our teftimony on that fubjedl ought 
 to have the greater weight, becaufe, if the refult of our obfervations had 
 been totally different, we fhould neverthelefs have publifhed them, not in- 
 deed with equal pleafure, but with equal confidence; for Truth is mighty, 
 and, whatever be its confequences, miijl always prevail: but, independently 
 of our intereft in corroborating the multiplied evidences of revealed reli- 
 gion, we could fcarce gratify our minds with a more ufeful and rational 
 entertainment, than the contemplation of thofe wonderful revolutions in 
 kingdoms and ftates, which have happened within little more than 
 four thoufand years ; revolutions, almoft as fully demonftrative of an all- 
 ruling Providence, as the flrufture of the univerfe and the final caufes, 
 which are difcernible in its whole extent and even in its minuteft parts. 
 Figure to your imaginations a moving picture of that eventful period, 
 or rather a fuccefiion of crouded fcenes rapidly changed. Three families 
 migrate in different courfes from one region, and, in about four cen- 
 
 voL. I. V turies.
 
 146 ON ASIATICK HISTORY, 
 
 turies, eftablifh very diflant governments and various modes of focietv : 
 Egyptians, Indians, Goths, Phenicians, Celts, Greeks, Latians, Chinefe, 
 Peruvians, Mexicans, all fprung from the fame immediate flem, appear 
 to flart nearly at one time, and occupy at length thofe countries, to 
 which they have given, or from which they have derived, their names: 
 in twelve or thirteen hundred years more the Greeks overrun the land of 
 their forefathers, invade India, conquer Egypt, and aim at univerfal do- 
 minion J but the Romans appropriate to themfelves the whole empire of 
 Greece, and carry their arms into Britain, of which they fpeak with 
 haughty contempt : the Goths, in the fulnefs of time, break to pieces 
 the unwieldy Coloffiis of Roman power, and feize on the whole of Bri- 
 tain, except its wild mountains ; but even thofe wilds become fubjedl 
 to other invaders of the fame Gothick lineage : during all thefe tranfac- 
 tions, the Arabs pofTefs both coafls of the Red Sea, fubdue the old feat 
 of their firft progenitors, and extend their conquefts on one fide, 
 through Africk, into Europe itfelf ; on another, beyond the borders of 
 India, part of which they annex to their flourifhing empire : in the fame 
 interval the Tartars, widely difFufed over the refl of the globe, fwarm 
 in the north-eaft, whence they rufli to complete the reduction of Con- 
 stantine's beautiful domains, to fubjugate China, to raife in thefe In- 
 dian realms a dynafty fplendid and powerful, and to ravage, like the two 
 other families, the devoted regions of Iran : by this time the Mexica?iS' 
 and Peruvians, with many races of adventurers varioufly intermixed, 
 have peopled the continent and illes of America, which the Spaniards, 
 having reflored their old government in Europe, difcover and in part 
 overcome : but a colony from Britain, of which Cicero ignorantly 
 declared, that it contained nothing valuable, obtain the poffeflion, and finally 
 the fovereign dominion, of extenfive American diftridls ; whilft other 
 Britijh fubjedls acquire a fubordinate empire in the fineft provinces of 
 India, which the vidiorious troops of Alexander were unwilling to at- 
 tack. This outline of human tranfadions, as far as it includes the limits 
 
 of
 
 CIVIL AND NATURAL. I47 
 
 oi Ajta, wc can only hope to fill up, to flrengthen, and to colour, by 
 the help of Ajiatick literature ; for in hiftory, as in law, we muft not 
 follow ftreams, when we may inveftigate fountains, nor admit any fecon- 
 dary proof, where primary evidence is attainable : I fliould, neverthelefs, 
 make a bad return for your indulgent attention, were I to repeat a dry 
 lift: of all the Mufclman hift:orians, whofe works are preferved in Arabick, 
 Perfian, and TurkiJJ.i, or expatiate on the hiftiories and medals of China 
 and Japan, which may in time be acceffible to members of our Society, 
 and from which alone we can expedl information concerning the an- 
 cient fl:ate of the Tartars; but on the hiftiory oi India, which we na- 
 turally confider as the centre of our enquiries, it may not be fuperfluous 
 to prefent you with a few particular obfervations. 
 
 Our knowledge of civil Ajiatick hiflory (I always except that of the 
 Hebrews) exhibits a {hort evening twilight in the venerable introdudlion 
 to the firft: book of Moses, followed by a gloomy night, in which dif- 
 ferent watches are faintly difcernible, and at length we fee a dawn fuc- 
 ceeded by a funrife more or lefs early according to the diverfity of 
 regions. That no Hindu nation, but the CaJIjmiriansy have left us re- 
 gular hIft:ories in their ancient language, we muft: ever lament ; but 
 from Sanjcrit literature, which our country h^s the honour of having 
 unveiled, we may ft:ill colledl fome rays of hiftorical truth, though time 
 and a feries of revolutions have obfcured that light, which we might 
 reafonably have expelled from fo diligent and ingenious a people. The 
 numerous Purdnas and Itihdjas, or poems mythological and heroick, are 
 completely in our power ; and from them we may recover fome disfi- 
 gured, but valuable, pidlures of ancient manners and governments; while 
 the popular tales of the Hindus, in profe and in verfe, contain fragments 
 of hiftory ; and even in their dramas we may find as many real charac- 
 ters and events, as a future age might find in our own plays, if all hif- 
 tories of Rngland were, like thofe of India, to be irrecoverably loft: : for 
 
 example.
 
 148 ON ASIATICK HISTORY, 
 
 example, a moft beautiful poem by So'made'va, comprifing a very long 
 chain of inftructive and agreeable flories, begins with the famed revo- 
 lution atP^/^/z))a/^rabythemurderof KingNANDA, vi^ith his eight fons, 
 and the ufurpation of Chandragupta ; and the fame revolution is the 
 fubjed: of a tragedy in Saiifcrit, entitled the Coronation of Chandra, the 
 abbreviated name of that able and adventurous ufurper. From thefe, once 
 concealed but now accefTible, compofitions, we are enabled to exhibit a 
 more accurate fketch of old Indian hiftory than the world has yet feen, 
 efpecially with the aid of well-attefted obfervations on the places of the 
 colures. It is now clearly proved, that the firft Pur ana contains an ac- 
 count of the deluge, between which and the Mohammedan conquefts the 
 hiftory of genuine Hindu government muft of courfe be comprehended j 
 but we know from an arrangement of the feafons in the aftronomical 
 work of Para's AR A, that the war of the Pa'ndavas could not have hap- 
 pened earlier than the clofe of the twelfth century before Christ, and 
 Seleucus muft, therefore, have reigned about nine centuries after that 
 war: now the age of Vicrama'ditya is given; and, if we can fix on an 
 Indian prince, contemporary with Seleucus, we fhall have three given 
 points in the line of time between Rama, or the firft Indian colony, and 
 Chandrabi'ja, the laft iJ/W« monarch, who reigned mBehdr ; fothat 
 only eight hundred or a thoufand years will remain almoft wholly dark j 
 and they muft have been employed in railing empires or ftates, in fram- 
 ing laws, in improving languages and arts, and in obferving the apparent 
 motions of the celeftial bodies. A Sanfcr it hx9ioxy of the celebrated Vi- 
 crama'ditya was infpefted at Banares by a Pandit, who would not have 
 deceived me, and could not himfelf have been deceived ; but the owner 
 of the book is dead and his family difperfed ; nor have my friends in 
 that city been able, with all their exertions, to procure a copy of it: 
 as to the Mogul conquefts, with which modern Indian hiftory begins, 
 we have ample accounts of them in Perfian, from An of Tezd and the 
 tranflations of Turkifi books compofed even by fome of the conquerors, 
 
 to
 
 CIVIL AND NATURAL. I49 
 
 to Ghula'm Husain, whom many of us perfonally know, and whofe 
 impartiality deferves the higheft applaufe, though his unrewarded merit 
 will give no encouragement to other contemporary hiflorians, who, to 
 ufe his own phrafe in a letter to myfelf, may, like him, confider plain 
 truth as the beauty of hijlorical conipofition. From all thefe materials, and 
 from thefe alone, a perfecfl hiftory o^ India (if a mere compilation, how- 
 ever elegant, could deferve fuch a title) might be collected by any flu- 
 dious man, who had a competent knowledge of Sanfcrit, Perfiati, and 
 Arabick ; but, even in the work of a writer fo qualified, we could only 
 give abfolute credence to the general outline j for, while the abftrad 
 fciences are all truth, and the fine arts all fidlion, we cannot but own, 
 that, in the details of hijlory, truth and fiftion are fo blended as to be 
 fcarce diflinguifhable. 
 
 The pradlical ufe of hiilory, in affording particular examples of civil and 
 military wifdom, has been greatly exaggerated ; but principles of aftion 
 may certainly be collecfted from it ; and even the narrative of wars and 
 revolutions may ferve as a lefibn to nations and an admonition to fove- 
 reigns : a defire, indeed, of knowing pafi; events, while the future 
 cannot be known, and a view of the prefent gives often more pain than 
 delight, feems natural to the human mind ; and a happy propenfity 
 would it be, if every reader of hiflory would open his eyes to fome very 
 important corollaries, which flow from the whole extent of it. He could 
 not but remark the conftant effect of defpotifm in benumbing and de- 
 bafing all thofe faculties, which diftinguiih men from the herd, that 
 grazes; and to that caufe he would impute the decided inferiority of 
 moft Afiatick nations, ancient and modern, to thofe in Europe, who are 
 bleft with happier governments ; he would fee the Arabs rifing to glory, 
 while they adhered to the free maxims of their bold anceftors, and fink- 
 ing to mifery from the moment, when thofe maxims were abandoned. 
 On the otiier hand he would obfcrve with regret, that fuch republican 
 
 governments
 
 1:50 OxN ASIATICK HISTORY, 
 
 governments as tend to produce virtue and happinefs, cannot in their 
 nature be permanent, but are generally fucceeded by Oligarchies, w'^hich 
 no good man would wifh to be durable. He would then, like the 
 king oi Lydia, remember Solon, the wifeil, braveft, and nofl accom- 
 pliihed of men, who afferts, in four nervous lines, that, " as hail and 
 *' fnow, which mar the labours of hufbandmen, proceed from elevated 
 " clouds, and, as the deilruftive thunderbolt follows the brilliant flajlo, 
 " thus is a free fate ruined by men exalted in power and fplendid in 
 " wealth, while the people, from grofs igiiorance, chufe rather to becojne 
 " thefaves of one tyrant, that they may efcape from the domination of 
 " many, than to preferve themfelves from tyranny of any kind by their 
 " union and their virtues." Since, therefore, no unmixed form of go- 
 vernment could both deferve permanence and enjoy it, and fmce changes 
 even from the worfl to the befl, are always attended with much tem- 
 porary mifchief, he would fix on our Britijh conftitution (I mean our 
 publick law, not the adlualy?^^^ of things in any given period) as the beil: 
 form ever eftabliflied, though we can only make diftant approaches to its 
 theoretical perfedtion. In thefe Indian territories, which providence 
 has thrown into the arms of Britain for their protedlion and welfare, the 
 religion, manners, and laws of the natives preclude even the idea of po- 
 litical freedom j but their hiftories may poflibly fuggeft hints for their 
 profperity, while our country derives eflential benefit from the diligence 
 of a placid and fubmiflive people, who multiply with fuch increafe, even 
 after the ravages of famine, that, in one colled;orf]iip out o^ twenty-four, 
 and that by no means thelargeft or beft cultivated (I mean Crlfma-nagar ) 
 there have lately been found, by an adlual enumeration, zfnillion and three 
 hundred thoijand native irihabitants ; whence it fhould fccm, that in all 
 India there cannot now be fewer than thirty millions oihXzckBritif fubjecfls. 
 
 Let us proceed to geography and chronology, without which hiflory 
 would be no certain guide, but would refemble a kindled vapour without 
 
 either
 
 CIVIL AND NATURAL. 151 
 
 either a fettled place or a fteady light. For a reafon before intimated 
 I fliall not name the various cofmographical books, which are extant 
 in Arabick and Perjian, nor give an account of thofe, U'hich the Turks 
 have beautifully printed in their own improved language, but fhall ex- 
 patiate a little on the geography and aftronomy of India ; having firft 
 obferved generally, that all the AJiatick nations muft be far better ac- 
 quainted with their feveral countries than mere European fcholars and tra- 
 vellers; that, confequently, we muft learn their geography from their own 
 writings ; and that, by collating many copies of the fame work, we may 
 corredt the blunders of tranfcribers in tables, names, and defcriptions. 
 
 Geography, aftronomy, and chronology have, in this part of Ajia, 
 fharedthe fate of authentick hiftory, and, like that, have been fo mafked 
 and bedecked in the fantaftick robes of mythology and metaphor, that the 
 real fyftem of Lidian philofophers and mathematicians can fcarce be 
 diftinguiflied : an accurate knowledge of Sanfcrit and a confidential in- 
 tercourfe with learned Brdhmens, are the only means of feparating truth 
 from fable ; and we may exped: the moft important difcoveries from 
 two of our members ; concerning whom it may be fafely aflerted, that, 
 if our fociety fliould have produced no other advantage than the invita- 
 tion given to them for the publick difplay of their talents, we fl:iould 
 have a claim to the thanks of our country and of all Europe. Lieutenant 
 WiLFOK Dhas exhibited an interefting fpecimenof the geographical know- 
 ledge deducible from the Purdnas, and will in time prefent you with fo 
 complete a treatife on the ancient world known to the Hindus, that the 
 light acquired by the Gr^^/Jj will appear but a glimmering in comparilbn 
 of that, which He will diffufe ; while Mr. Davis, who has given us a 
 diftindt idea of Indian computations and cycles, and afcertained the place 
 of the colures at a time of great importance in hiftory, will hereafter 
 difclofe the fyftems of i/;Wz^ aftronomers from Na'red andPARA'sAR to 
 Mey A, Var a'h AMIHIR, and Bha'scar, and will foon, I truft, lay before 
 
 you
 
 152 ON ASIATICK HISTORY, 
 
 you a perfedl delineation of all the Indian afterifms in both hemifpheres, 
 where you will perceive fo ftrong a general refemblance to the conftel- 
 lations of the Greeks, as to prove that the two fyftems were originally 
 one and the fame, yet with fuch a diverfity in parts, as to fliow incon- 
 teflably, that neither fyflem was copied from the other ; whence it will 
 follow, that they 7niiJ} have had fome common fource. 
 
 The jurifprudence of the Hindus and Arabs being the field, which I 
 have chofen for my peculiar toil, you cannot expeft, that I fliould greatly 
 enlarge your colle^ftion of hiflorical knowledge ; but I may be able to 
 offer you fome occafional tribute, and I cannot help mentioning a dif- 
 covery, which accident threw in my way; though my proofs muft be 
 referved for an eflay, which I have deftined for the fourth volume of your 
 Tranfacflions. To fix the fituation of that Palibothra (for there may 
 have been feveral of the name), which was vifited and defcribed by Me- 
 GASTHENES had always appeared a very difficult problem ; for, though it 
 could not have been Prayaga, where no ancient metropolis ever flood, 
 nor Canyacubja, which has no epithet at all refembling the word ufed by 
 the Greeks, nor Gaur, otherwife called Lacjhmanavati, which all know 
 to be a town comparatively modern, yet we could not confidently decide 
 that it was Fataliputra, though names and moft circumftances nearly 
 correfpond, becaufe that renowned capital extended from the confluence 
 of the Sone and the Ganges to the fcite of Patna, while Palibothra ftood 
 at the jundlion of the Ganges and Erannoboas, which the accurate M. 
 D'Anville had pronounced to be the Tamuna : but this only difficulty 
 was removed, when I found in a claffical Sanfcrit book, near two 
 thoufand years old, that Hiranyabahu, or golden-armed, which the Greeks 
 changed into Erannoboas^ or the river ivith a lovely murmur, was in fadt 
 another name for the Sona itfelf, though Megasthenes, from igno- 
 rance or inattention, has named them ieparately. This difcovery led 
 to another of greater moment; for Chan drag up t a, who, from a 
 
 military
 
 CIVIL AND NATURAL. 153 
 
 military adventurer, became, like SandracottLfs, the fovereign of 
 upper Hindujian, adlually fixed the feat of his empire at Pataliputra, 
 where he received ambafladors from foreign princes, and was no other 
 than that very Sandracottus, who concluded a treaty with Seleu- 
 cus NiCATOR; io that we have folved another problem, to which we 
 before alluded, and may in round numbers confider the twelve and three 
 hundredth years before Christ as two certain epochs between Ra'ma, 
 who conquered Silan a few centuries after the flood, and Vicrama'di- 
 TYA, who died at Ujjayhn fifty-feven years before the beginning of our era. 
 
 II. Since thefe difcuflions would lead us too far, I proceed to the 
 hiftory of Nature diftinguiflied, for our prefent purpofe, from that of 
 Man ; and divided into that of other animals, who inhabit this globe, of 
 the mineral (wh^-xncts, which it contains, and oi ih.tvegetables, which fo 
 luxuriantly and fo beautifully adorn it. 
 
 1 . Could the figure, inftindls, and qualities of birds, beads, infefts, 
 reptiles, and fifli be afcertained, either on the planof Buffon, or on that 
 of LiNN^us, without giving pain to the objedls of our examination, few 
 ftudies would afford us more folid inftrudlion or more exquifite delight ; 
 but I never could learn by what right, nor conceive with what feelings, 
 a naturalift can occafion the mifery of an innocent bird and leave ^its 
 young, perhaps, to perifli in a cold neft, becaufe it has gay plumage 
 and has never been accurately delineated, or deprive even a butterfly of 
 its natural enjoyments, becaufe it has the misfortune to be rare or beau- 
 tiful; nor fliall I ever forget the couplet of Firdausi, for which Sadi, 
 who cites it with applaufe, pours blefiings on his departed fpirit : 
 
 Ah ! fpare yon emmet, rich in hoarded grain : 
 He lives with pleafure, and he dies with pain. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 This
 
 154 ON ASIATICK HISTORY, 
 
 This may be only a confeflion of weaknefs, and it certainly is not meant 
 as a boaft of peculiar fcnfibility ; but, whatever name may be given to 
 my opinion, it has fuch an effedt on my condud, that I never would 
 fuffer the Cocila, whofe wild native woodnotes announce the approach 
 of fpring, to be caught in my garden for the fake of comparing it with 
 Buffon's defcription; though I have often examined the domeflick and 
 encao-ino- Mayana, which bids us good morrow at our windows, and ex- 
 pe(fl:s, as its reward, little more than fecurity : even when a fine young 
 Manis or Pangolin was brought me, againft my wifli, from the moun- 
 tains, I folicited his refloration to his beloved rocks, becaufe I found 
 it impoflible to preferve him in comfort at a diftance from them. There 
 are feveral treatifes on animals in Arabick, and very particular accounts 
 of them in Chinefe with elegant outlines of their external appearance ; 
 but I have met with nothing valuable concerning them in Perjian, ex- 
 cept what may be gleaned from the medical didlionaries ; nor have I yet 
 feen a book in Sanfcrit, that exprefsly treats of them : on the whole, 
 though rare animals may be found in all AJia, yet I can only recommend 
 an examination of them with this condition, that they be left, as much 
 as poflible, in a ftate of natural freedom, or made as happy as pofTible, 
 if it be neceflary to keep them confined. 
 
 2. The hiftory of minerals, to which no fuch obje<ftion can be made, 
 is extremely fimple and eafy, if we merely confider their exterior look 
 and configuration, and their vifible texture ; but the analyfis of their in- 
 ternal properties belongs particularly to the fublime refearches of Chy- 
 miftry, on which we may hope to find ufeful difquifitions in Sanfcrit, 
 fince the old Hindus unqueftionably applied themfelves to that enchant- 
 ing fludy ; and even from their treatifes on alchymy we may pofiibly 
 collect the refults of adlual experiment, as their ancient aftrological 
 works have preferved many valuable fadls relating to the Indian fphere 
 and the prccefilon of the equinox : both in Perjian and SaJifcrit there 
 
 are
 
 CIVIL AND NATURAL. 155 
 
 are books on metals and minerals, particularly on gems, which the Hindu 
 philofophers confidered (with an exception of the diamond) as varieties 
 of one cryflalline fubftance either fimple or compound : but we muft 
 not expedl from the chymifts of ^Jia thofe beautiful examples of analyfis, 
 which have but lately been difplayed in the laboratories of Europe. 
 
 3. We now come to Botany, the loveliefl and mofl copious divifion 
 in the hillory of nature ; and, all difputes on the comparative merit of 
 fyftems being at length, I hope, condemned to ojie perpetual night of 
 undijlurbed Jliimher , we cannot employ our leifure more delightfully, than 
 in defcribing all new Afmtick plants in the Linnaan ftyle and method, 
 or in correding the defcriptions of thofe already known, but of which 
 dry fpecimens only, or drawings, can have been feen by mofl European 
 botanifts : in this part of natural hiftory we have an ample field yet 
 unexplored ; for, though many plants of Arabia have been made known 
 by Garcias, Prosper Alpinus, and Forskoel, oi Perjia, by Gar- 
 ciN, oi Tartary, by Gmelin and Pallas, of China and "Japan, by 
 KcEMPFER, OsBECK, and Thunberg, of India, by Rheede and 
 RuMPHius, the two Burmans, and the much-lamented Koenig, yet 
 none of thofe naturalifts were deeply verfed in the literature of the feve- 
 ral countries, from which their vegetable treafures had been procured ; 
 and the numerous works in Sanfcrit on medical fubftances, and chiefly 
 on plants, have never been infpedted, or never at leafl underflood, by 
 any European attached to the fludy of nature. Until the garden of the 
 India Company fliall be fully flored (as it will be, no doubt, in due 
 time) with Arabian, Perjian, and Chinefe plants, we may well be fitif- 
 iied with examining the native flowers of our own provinces j but, un- 
 lefs we can difcover the Sanfcrit names of all celebrated vegetables, we 
 fhall neither comprehend the allufions, which Indian poets perpetually 
 make to them, nor (what is far worfe) be able to find accounts of their 
 tried virtues in the writings of Indian phyficiaas ; and (uhat is worfl of 
 
 all)
 
 156 ON ASIATICK HISTORY, 
 
 all) we ihall mifs an opportunity, which never again may prefent itfelf j 
 for the Pandits themfelves have almofl wholly forgotten their ancient 
 appellations of particular plants, and, with all my pains, I have not yet 
 afcertained more than two hundred out of twice that number, which are 
 named in their medical or poetical compofitions. It is much to be de- 
 plored, that the illuftrious Van Rheede had no acquaintance with 
 Sanfcrit, which even his three Brahmens, who compofed the fliort pre- 
 face engraved in that language, appear to have underftood very im- 
 perfedtly, and certainly wrote with difgraceful inaccuracy : in all his 
 twelve volumes I recolle<fl: only Punarnava, in which the Ndgari letters 
 are tolerably right ; the Hindu words in Arabian charadters are Shame- 
 fully incorre(ft ; and the Malabar, I am credibly informed, is as bad as 
 the reft. His dehneations, indeed, are in general excellent ; and, though 
 LiNN^us himfelf could not extradl from his written defcriptions the 
 natural character of every plant in the colledrion, yet we fliall be able, I 
 hope, to defcribe them all from the life, and to add a confiderable num- 
 ber oi ncvf /pedes, if not of new genera, which Rheede, with all his 
 noble exertions, could never procure. Such of our learned members, as 
 profefs medicine, will, no doubt, cheerfully affift in thefe refearches, 
 either by their own obfervations, when they have leifure to make any, 
 or by communications from other obfervers among their acquaintance, 
 who may refide in different parts of the country : and the mention of 
 their art leads me to the various ufes of natural fubftances, in the three 
 kingdoms or claffes to which they are generally reduced. 
 
 III. You cannot but have remarked, that almoft all the Jciences, as 
 the French call them, which are diftinguiflied by Greek names and ar- 
 ranged under the head of philofophy, belong for the moft part to hif- 
 tory ; fuch are philology, chymiftry, phyficks, anatomy, and even meta- 
 phyficks, when we barely relate the phenomena of the human mind ; for, 
 in all branches of knowledge, we are only hiftorians, when we announce 
 
 fads,
 
 CIVIL AND NATURAL. I57 
 
 tads, and philofophers, only when we reafon on them : the fame may 
 be confidently faid of law and of medicine, the firfl: of which belongs 
 principally to civil, and the fecond chiefly to natural, hiftory. Here, 
 therefore, I fpeak of medicine^ as fir only as it is grounded on experi- 
 ment ; and, without believing implicitly what Arabs, Perfians, Chinefe, 
 or Hindus may have written on the virtues of medicinal fubftances, we 
 may, furely, hope to find in their writings what our own experiments 
 may confirm or difprove, and what might never have occurred to us 
 without fuch intimations. 
 
 Europeans enumerate more than tivo hundred and ffty mechanical 
 arts, by which the produ<3:ions of nature may be varioufly prepared for 
 the convenience and ornament of life j and, though the Silpafdjira reduce 
 them to Jixty-four, yet Abu'lfazl had been afTured, that the Hindus 
 reckoned three hundred arts and fciences : now, their fciences being com- 
 paratively few, we may conclude, that they anciently pradlifed at leafl as 
 many ufeful arts as ourfelves. Several Pandits have informed me, that 
 the treatifes on art, which they call Upavcdas and believe to have been 
 infpired, are not fo entirely lofl, but that confiderable fragments of them 
 may be found at Panares ; and they certainly pofTefs many popular, but 
 ancient, works on that interefling fubjeft. The manufadlures of fugar 
 and indigo have been well known in thefe provinces for more than two 
 thoufand years ; and we cannot entertain a doubt, that their Sanfcrit 
 books on dying and metallurgy contain very curious fadls, which might, 
 indeed, be difcovered by accident in a long courfe of years, but w^hich 
 we may foon bring to light, by the help of Indian literature, for the be- 
 nefit of manufadurers and artifls, and confequently of our nation, who 
 are interefled in their profperity. Difcoveries of the fame kind might 
 be collefted from the writings of other Afiatick nations, efpecially of 
 the Chinefe j but, though Perfian, Arabick, Turkifi, and Sanfcrit are lan- 
 guages now fo accefTible, that, in order to obtain a fulticient knowledge 
 
 of
 
 158 ON ASIATICK HISTORY, CIVIL, L^c. 
 
 of them, little more feems required than a ftrong inclination to learn 
 them, yet the fuppofed number and intricacy of the Chhicfe chara(5lers 
 have deterred our moft diligent ftudents from attempting to find their 
 way through fo vaft a labyrinth : it is certain, however, that the dif- 
 ficulty has been magnified beyond the truth ; for the perfpicuous gram- 
 mar by M. FouRMONT, together with a copious diftionary, which I 
 pollefs, in Ckinefe and Latin, would enable any man, who pleafed, to 
 compare the original works of Confucius, which are eafily procured, 
 with the literal tranflation of them by Couplet; and, having made 
 that firft ftep with attention, he would probably find, that he had tra- 
 verfed at leafi: half of his career. But I fliould be led beyond the limits 
 afligned to me on this ooCafion, if I were to expatiate farther on the 
 hiftorical divifion of the knowledge comprifed in the literature of yijia ; 
 and I muft pofi;pone till next year my remarks on ylfiatick philofophy 
 and on thofe arts, which depend on imagination ; promifing you with 
 confidence, that, in the courfe of the prefent year, your inquiries into the 
 civil and natural hiftory of this eall:ern world will be greatly promoted by 
 the learned labours of many among our aflbciates and correfpondents. 
 
 DISCOURSE
 
 DISCOURSE THE ELEVENTH. 
 
 ON 
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE ASIATICKS. 
 
 DELIVERED 20 FEBRUARY, I794. 
 
 BY 
 
 The president. 
 
 XXAD it been of any importance, gentlemen, to arrange thefe anni- 
 verfary differtations according to the ordinary progrefs of the human 
 mind, in the gradual expanfion of its three moil; confiderable powers, 
 memory, imagination, and reafon, I (hould certainly have prefented you 
 with an eflay on the liberal arts of the five Afiatick nations, before I 
 produced my remarks on their ahJlraSl fciences ; becaufe, from my own 
 obfervation at leaft, it feems evident, that fancy, or the faculty of com- 
 bining our ideas agreeably by various modes of imitation and fubflitu- 
 tion, is in general earlier exercifed, and fooner attains maturity, than the 
 power of feparating and comparing thofe ideas by the laborious exer- 
 tions of intellecft ; and hence, I believe, it has happened, that all nations 
 in the world had poets before they had mere philofophers : but, as M. 
 D'x'\lembert has deliberately placed fcience before art, as the queftion 
 
 of
 
 ] 60 ON THE nilLOSOPHY 
 
 of precedence is, on this occafion, of no moment whatever, and as many 
 new fafts on the fubjedl oi ylfiatick philofophy are frefli in my remem- 
 brance, I propofe to addrefs you now on the fciences of Afia, referving 
 for our next annual meeting a difquifition concerning thofe fine arts, 
 which have immemorially been cultivated, with different fuccefs and in 
 very different modes, witliin the circle of our common inquiries. 
 
 By faience I mean an aflemblagc of tranfcendental propofitions dif- 
 coverable by human reafon, and reducible to firfl principles, axioms, or 
 maxims, from which they may all be derived in a regular fuccellion; and 
 there are conlequently as many fciences as there are general objedls of 
 our intelledlual powers : when man firft exerts thofe powers, his objedls 
 are himfelfznd the reft o^ nature ; himfelf he perceives to be compofed 
 of body and mind, and in his individual capacity, he reafons on the ufes of 
 his animal frame and of its parts both exteriour and internal, on the 
 diforders impeding the regular functions of thofe parts, and on the mofl 
 probable methods of preventing thofe diforders or of removing them ; 
 he foon feels the clofe connexion between his corporeal and mental 
 faculties, and when his mind is refledled on itfelf, he difcourfes on its 
 ejjence and its operations ; in his facial charadter, he analyzes his various 
 duties and rights both private and publick j and in the leifure, which the 
 fulleft difcharge of thofe duties always admits, his intelled: is diredled to 
 nature at large, to the fiibjlance of natural bodies, to their feveral pro- 
 perties, and to their quantity both feparate and united, finite and infinite j 
 from all which objedls he deduces notions, either purely abflradl and 
 univerfal, or mixed with undoubted fadts, he argues from phenomena 
 to theorems, from thofe theorems to other phenomena, from caufes to 
 effefts, from effefts to caufes, and thus arrives at the demonflration of a 
 frjl intelligent caufe ; whence his colledled wifdom, being arranged in the 
 form of fcience, chiefly confifts of phyfiology and 7!iedicine, metaphyficks 
 and logick, etblcks xnAjiirifprudenct', natural philofophy and mathematicks; 
 
 from
 
 OF THE ASIATICKS. 1 (j 1 
 
 from which the religion of nature (fince revealed religion mull; be refer- 
 red to hijiory, as alone affording evidence of it) has in all ages and in all 
 nations been the fublime and confoling refult. Without profefling to 
 have given a logical definition of fcience, or to have exhibited a per- 
 fedl enumeration of its objefts, I Hiall confine myfelf to thofe Jive 
 divilions of AJiatick philofophy, enlarging for the mofl part on the 
 progrefs which the Hindus have made in them, and occafionally intro- 
 ducing the fciences of the Arabs and Perjians, the Tartars^ and the 
 Chinefe ; but, how extenfive foever may be the range which I have 
 chofen, I fhall beware of exhaufting your patience with tedious difcuf- 
 fions, and of exceeding thofe limits, which the occalion of our prefent 
 meeting has neceffarily prefcribed. 
 
 I. The firlT: article aiTords little fcope ; lince I have no evidence, that, 
 in any language of AJia, there exifts one original treatife on medicine 
 confidered as a fcience : phyfick, indeed, appears in thefe regions to have 
 been from time immemorial, as we fee it pradlifed at^this day by Hindus 
 and Mufelmdns, a mere empirical hiJlory of difeafes and remedies ; 
 ufeful, I admit, in a high degree, and worthy of attentive examina- 
 tion, but wholly foreign to the fubjedt before us : though the Arabs , 
 however, have chiefly followed the Greeks in this branch of knowledge, 
 and have themfelves been implicitly followed by other Mohammedan 
 writers, yet (not to mention the Chinefe, of whofe medical works I can 
 at prefent fay nothing with confidence) we ftill have accefs to a number 
 of Sanfcrit books on the old Indian practice of phyfick, from which, it 
 the Hindus had a theoretical fyflem, we might eafily coiled: it. The 
 Ayurveda, fuppofed to be the work of a celeflial phyfician, is almofl 
 entirely loft, unfortunately perhaps for the curious European, but hap- 
 pily for the patient Hindu ; fmce a revealed fcience precludes improve- 
 ment from experience, to which that of medicine ought, above all 
 others, to be left perpetually open ; but I have myfelf met with curious 
 
 VOL. I. A. A fragments
 
 162 ON THE PHILOSOPHY 
 
 fragments of that primeval work, and, in the Veda itfelf, I found with 
 aflonifhment an entire TJpanipad on the internal parts of the human 
 body ; with an enumeration of nerves, veins, and arteries, a defcription 
 of the heart, fpleen, and liver, and various difquifitions on the forma- 
 tion and growth of the fetus : from the laws, indeed, of Menit, which 
 have lately appeared in our own language, we may perceive, that the 
 ancient Hindus were fond of reafoning in their way on the myfteries of 
 animal generation, and on the comparative influence of the fexes in the 
 production of perfedl offspring ; and we may colledt from the authorities 
 adduced in the learned Eflay on Egypt and the Nile, that their phyfio- 
 logical difputes led to violent fchifms in religion, and even to bloody 
 wars. On the whole, we cannot expeft to acquire many valuable 
 truths from an examination of eaflern books on the fcience of medicine; 
 but examine them we muft, if we wifh to complete the hiflory of 
 univerfal philofophy, and to fupply the fcholars of Europe with authen- 
 tick materials for an account of the opinions anciently formed on this 
 head by the philofophers of AJia : to know, indeed, with certainty, 
 that fo much and no more can be known on any branch of fcience, 
 would in itfelf be very important and ufeful knowledge, if it had no 
 other effe<ft than to check the boundlefs curiofity of mankind, and to 
 fix them in the ftraight path of attainable fcience, efpecially of fuch 
 as relates to their duties and may conduce to their happinefs. 
 
 II. We have an ample field in the next divifion, and a field almoft 
 wholly new ; fince the mytaphyficks and logick of the Brdhmens, com- 
 prifed in their fix philofophical Sdftras, and explained by numerous 
 glofles or comments, have never yet been acceflible to Europeans ; and, 
 by the help of the Sanfcrit language, we now may read the works of the 
 Saugatas, Bauddhas, A'rhatas, Jainas, and other heterodox philofophers, 
 whence we may gather the metaphyfical tenets prevalent in C/iina and 
 Japan, in the eaflern peninfula of India, and in many confiderable 
 
 nations
 
 OF THE ASIATICKS. 1 (js 
 
 nations of Tartary : there are alio fome valuable tracfts on thefe 
 branches of fcience in Perjjan and Arabick, partly copied from the 
 Greeks, and partly comprifing the dodtrines of the Sufis which an- 
 ciently prevailed, and Itill prevail in great meafure over this oriental 
 world, and which the Greeks themfelves condefcended to borrow from 
 eaflern fages. 
 
 The little treatife in four chapters, afcribed to Vydfa, is the only 
 philofophical Sajlra, the original text of which I have had leifure to 
 peruie with a Brahmen of the Veddnti fchool : it is extremely obfcure, 
 and, though compofed in fentences elegantly modulated, has more re- 
 femblance to a table of contents, or an accurate fummary, than to a 
 regular fyftematical trad ; but all its obfcurity has been cleared by the 
 labour of the very judicious and moft learned Sancara, whofe com- 
 mentary on the Vedanta, which I read alfo with great attention, not only 
 elucidates every word of the text, but exhibits a perfpicuous account of 
 all other Indian fchools, from that of Capila to thofe of the more mo- 
 dern hereticks. It is not poffible, indeed, to fpeak with too much ap- 
 plaufe of fo excellent a work ; and I am confident in afferting, that, until 
 an accurate tranflation of it fhall appear in fome European language, the 
 general hiftory of philofophy mufl remain incomplete; for I perfedlly 
 agree with thofe, who are of opinion, that one corredl vcrfion of any 
 celebrated Hindu book would be of greater value than all the dilTer- 
 tations or eflays, that could be compofed on the fame fubjed: ; you 
 will not, however, exped:, that, in fuch a difcourfe as I am now deliver- 
 ing, I fhould expatiate on the diverfity oi Indian philofophical fchools, 
 on the feveral founders of them, on the dodrines, which they refpec- 
 tively taught, or on their many difciples, who diflented from their 
 inftrudlors in fome particular points. On the prefent occafion, it will 
 be fufficient to fay, that the oldeft head of a fedl, whofe entire work is 
 preferved, was (according to fome authors) Capila ; not the divine 
 
 perfonage,
 
 164 ON THE PHILOSOPHY 
 
 perfonage, a reputed grandfon of Brahma', to whom Cri shna 
 compares himfelf in the Gita, but a fage of his name, who invented 
 the Sdnchya, or Numeral, philofophy, which Cri'shna himfelf appears 
 to impugn in his converfation with Arjuna, and which, as far as I can 
 recolleft it from a few original texts, refembled in part the metaphyficks 
 of Pythagoras, and in part the theology of Zeno : his dodrines were 
 enforced and illuflrated, with fome additions, by the venerable Patan- 
 JALI, who has alfo left us a fine comment on the grammatical rules of 
 Pa'nini, which are more obfcure, without a glofs, than the darkeft 
 oracle ; and here by the way let me add, that I refer to metaphyficks the 
 curious and important fcience of univerfal grammar, on which many 
 fubtil difquifitions may be found interfperfed in the particular grammars 
 of the ancient Hindus, and in thofe of the more modern Arabs. The 
 next founder, I believe, of a philofophical fchool was Go'tama, if, 
 indeed, he was not the moft ancient of all ; for his wife Ahaly a was, 
 according to Indian legends, reftored to a human {hape by the great 
 Ra'ma j and a fage of his name, whom we have no reafon to fuppofe a 
 different perfonage, is frequently mentioned in the Feda itfelf ; to his 
 rational dodlrines thofe of Canada were in general conformable j and 
 the philofophy of them both is ufually called Nydya, or logical, a title 
 aptly bellowed ; for it feems to be a fyftem of metaphyficks and logick 
 better accommodated than any other anciently known in India, to the 
 natural reafon and common fenfe of mankind; admitting the aftual 
 exiflence of rnatcrial fubjlance in the popular acceptation of the word 
 matter, and comprifing not only a body of fublime dialedlicks, but an 
 artificial method of reafoning, with diflind: names for the three parts of 
 a propofition, and even for thofe of a regular fyllogifm. Here I cannot 
 refrain from introducing a fingular tradition, which prevailed, accord- 
 ing to the well-informed author of the Dabijldn, in the Panjdb and in 
 feveral Perfian provinces, that, " among other Indian curiofities, which 
 " Callisthenes tranfmitted to his uncle, was a technical Jyjhm of logick, 
 
 " which
 
 OF THE ASIATICKS. I65 
 
 ** which the Brdhmens had communicated to the inquifitive Greek,'" 
 and which the Mohammedan writer fuppofes to have been the ground- 
 work of the famous Arijlotelean method : if this be true, it is one of 
 the moft interefting fails, that I have met with in yljia ; and if it be 
 falfe, it is very extraordinary, that fuch a ftory fhould have been fabri- 
 cated either by the candid Mohsani Fdni ; or by the fimple Pdrs'is 
 Pandits y with whom he had converfedj but, not having had 
 leifure to ftudy the Nydya Sdjlra, I can only allure you, that I 
 have frequently feen perfedt fyllogifms in the philofophical writings 
 of the Brdhmens, and have often heard them ufed in their verbal 
 controverfies. Whatever might have been the merit or age of 
 Go TAMA, yet the moft celebrated Indian fchool is that, with which 
 I began, founded by Vya'sa, and fupported in moft refpefts by his 
 pupil Jaimini, whofe diffent on a few points is mentioned by his 
 mafter with refpeiftful moderation : their feveral fyftems are frequently 
 diftinguiftied by the names of the firft and fecond Mimdnfd, a word, 
 which, like Nyaya, denotes the operations and conclufions of reafonj 
 but the traft of Vya'sa has in general the appellation of Veddnta, or 
 the fcope and end of the Veda, on the texts of which, as they were 
 underftood by the philofopher, who coUedled them, his dodtrines are 
 principally grounded. The fundamental tenet of the Veddnti fchool, 
 to which in a more modern age the incomparable San car a was a 
 firm and illuftrious adherent, conlifted, not in denying the exiftence of 
 matter, that is, of folidity, impenetrability, and extended figure (to 
 deny which would be lunacy), but, in corre(5ling the popular notion of 
 it, and in contending, that it has no eflence independent of mental per- 
 ception, that exiftence and perceptibility are convertible terms, that 
 external appearances and fenfations are illufory, and would vanifli into 
 nothing, if the divine energy, which alone fuftains them, were fuf- 
 pended but for a moment; an opinion, which Epicharmus and 
 Plato feem to have adopted, and which has been maintained in the 
 
 prefent
 
 106 ON THE PHILOSOPHY 
 
 prefent century with great elegance, but v/ith little publick applaufe ; 
 partly becaufe it has been mifunderftood, and partly becaufe it has 
 been mifapplied by the falfe reafoning of fome unpopular writers, 
 who are faid to have difbelieved in the moral attributes of God, 
 whofe omniprefence, wifdom, and goodnefs are the bafis of the 
 Indian philofophy : I have not fufficient evidence on the fubjedt to 
 profefs a belief in the do<5lrine of the Vedcinta, which human reafon 
 alone could, perhaps, neither fully demonftrate, nor fully difprove ; but 
 it is manifeft, that nothing can be farther removed from impiety than 
 a fyftem wholly built on the purefl: devotion ; and the inexpreffible 
 difficulty, which any man, who fhall make the attempt, will afTuredly 
 find in giving a fatisfaftory definition of material fiibjlance, muft induce 
 us to deliberate with coolnefs, before we cenfure the learned and pious 
 reftorer of the ancient Veda ; though we cannot but admit, that, if the 
 common opinions of mankind be the criterion of philofophical truth, 
 we muft adhere to the fyftem of Go' t am a, which the Bi'dhmens of 
 this province almofl univerfally follow. 
 
 If the metaphyficks of the Veddntis be wild and erroneous, the 
 pupils of Buddha have run, it is aflerted, into an error diametrically 
 oppofite ; for they are charged with denying the exiilence of pure 
 fpirit, and with believing nothing abfolutely and really to exifl but 
 material fubjiance ; z heavy accufation which ought only to have been 
 made on pofitive and inconteflable proof, efpecially by the orthodox 
 Brdhmens, who, as Buddha diflented from their anceftors in regard 
 to bloody facrijices, which the Veda certainly prefcribes, may not un- 
 juftly be fufpeded of low and interefted malignity. Though I can- 
 not credit the charge, yet I am unable to prove it entirely falfe, having 
 only read a few pages of a Saiigata book, which Captain Kirkp atrick 
 had lately the kindnefs to give me ; but it begins, like other Hindu 
 books, with the word 0'?n, which we know to be a fymbol of the 
 
 divine
 
 OF THE ASIATICKS. 1 G7 
 
 divine attributes : then follows, indeed, a myfterious hymn to the God- 
 defs of Nature, by the name of A'ryd, but with feveral other titles, 
 which the BraJunens themfelves continually beftow on their Devi ; now 
 the Brahmens, who have no idea, that any fuch perfonage exifls as 
 De'vi', or the Goddefs, and only mean to exprefs allegorically the poiuer 
 of God, exerted in creating, preferving and renovating this univerfe, we 
 cannot with juftice infer, that the diffenters admit no deity but vifible 
 nature: the Pandit, who now attends me, and who told Mr. Wilkins, 
 that the Saugatas were atheifts, would not have attempted to refifl the 
 decifive evidence of the contrary, which appears in the very inftrument, 
 on which he was confulted, if his underftanding had not been blinded 
 by the intolerant zeal of a mercenary priefthood. A literal verfion of 
 the book jurt: mentioned (if any fludious man had learning and induftry 
 equal to the tafk) would be an ineftimable treafure to the compiler of 
 fuch a hiftory as that of the laborious Brucker ; but let us proceed to 
 the morals zud jurifprudence of the AJiaticks, on which I could expatiate, 
 if the occafion admitted a full difcuflion of the fubjedl, with corredtnefs 
 and confidence. 
 
 III. That both ethicks and abftracft law might be reduced to the me^ 
 thod of fcience, cannot furely be doubted ; but, although fuch a method 
 would be of infinite ufe in a fyflem of univerfal, or even of national, 
 jurifprudence, yet the principles of morality are fo few, fo luminous, 
 and fo ready to prefent themfelves on every occafion, that the pradlical 
 Utility of a fcientifical arrangement, in a treatife on ethicks, may very 
 juftly be queftioned. The moralifts of the eaft have in general chofen 
 to deliver their precepts in fliort fententious maxims, to illuflrate 
 them by iprightly comparifons, or to inculcate them in the very 
 ancient form of agreeable apoloques : there are, indeed, both in 
 Arabick and Perjian, philofophical tradls on ethicks written with 
 found ratiocination and elegant perfpicuity : but in every part of 
 this eaftern world, from Pekin to Damafcus, the popular teachers of 
 
 moral
 
 168 ON THE PHILOSOPHY 
 
 moral wifdom have immemorially been poets, and there would be no 
 end of enumerating their works, which are ftill extant in the five prin- 
 cipal languages oi Afia. Our divine religion, the truth of which (if any 
 hiftory be true) is abundantly proved by hiflorical evidence, has no need 
 of fuch aids, as many are willing to give it, by aflerting, that the wifell 
 men of this world were ignorant of the two great maxims, that ive mujl 
 nEl in refpeSl of others y as we Jl^ould wiJJ} them to acl in refpeSl of our/elves, 
 and that, infead oi returning evil for tvil, we fiouhi confer be?iefits even on 
 thofe who injure us ; but the firfl: rule is implied in a fpeech of Lysias, 
 and exprefled in diftinft phrafes by Thales and Pittacus; and I 
 have even feen it word for word in the original of Confucius, which 
 I carefully compared with the Latin tranflation. It has been ufual with 
 zealous men, to ridicule and abufe all thofe, who dare en this point 
 to quote the Chinefe philofopher ; but, inftead of fupporting their 
 caufe, they would fhake it, if it could be fliaken, by their uncandid 
 afperity j for they ought to remember, that one great end of revelation, 
 as it is moft exprefsly declared, was not to inftrucft the wife and 
 few, but the many and unenlightened. If the converfation, therefore, 
 of the Pandits and Maulavis in this country fhall ever be attempted by 
 proteftant miffionaries, they muH: beware of afferting, while they teach 
 the gofpel of truth, what thofe Pandits and Maulavis would know to be 
 falfe : the former would cite the beautiful A'ryd couplet, which was 
 written at leafl three centuries before our era, and which pronounces 
 the duty of a good man, even in the moment of his deftrudlion, to con- 
 fift not only in forgiving, but even in a defire of benefiting, bis defrayer, as 
 the Sandal-Zri?^, in the infant of its overthrow, f^eds perfume on the axe, 
 which fells it ; and the latter would triumph in repeating the verfe of 
 Sadi\ who reprefents a return of good for good as a fight reciprocity, but 
 fays to the virtuous man, '■^Confer benefits on him, who has injured thee,'' 
 ufing an Arabick fentence, and a maxim apparently of the ancient 
 Arabs. Nor would the Mifelmans fail to recite four diftichs of Ha'fiz, 
 who has illuftrated that maxim with fanciful but elegant allufions ; 
 
 Learii
 
 OF THE ASIATICKS. 1 (J,^ 
 
 Learn from yon orient fhell to love thy foe. 
 And ftore with pearls the hand, that brings thee wo : 
 Free, like yon rock, from bafe vindiftive pride, 
 Imblaze with gems the wrift, that rends thy fide : 
 Mark, where yon tree rewards the ilony fhow'r 
 With fruit nedtareous, or the balmy flow'r : 
 All nature calls aloud : " Shall man do lefs 
 Than heal the fmiter, and the railer blefs ?" 
 
 Now there is not a fhadow of reafon for believing, that the poet of 
 Shiraz had borrowed this dodrine from the Chrijlians ; but, as the caufe 
 of Chrijlianity could never be promoted by falfehood or errour, fo it 
 will n^er be obftrudled by candour and veracity; for the leiTons of 
 Confucius and Chanacya, of Sadi^ and Ha'fiz, are unknown 
 even at this day to millions of Chinefe and Hi?idus, Perjians and other 
 Mahommedans, who toil for their daily fupport ; nor, were they known 
 ever fo perfedlly, would they have a divine fan(ftion with the multitude; 
 fo that, in order to enlighten the minds of the ignorant, and to enforce 
 the obedience of the perverfe, it is evidently a priori, that a revealed 
 religion was neceflary in the great fyftem of providence : but my prin- 
 cipal motive for introducing this topick. was to give you a fpecimen 
 of that ancient oriental morality, which is comprifed in an infinite 
 number of Perjian, Arabick, and Sanfcrit compofitions. 
 
 Nearly one half oi jurifprudence is clofely conne(Sled with ethicks ; but, 
 fince the learned of AJia confider moft of their laws as pofitive and di- 
 vine inftitutions, and not as the mere conclufions of human reafon, and 
 fince I have prepared a mafs of extremely curious materials, which I 
 referve for an introdudlion to the digeft o? Indian laws, I proceed to the 
 fourth divifion, which confifls principally o^ fcicnce tranfcendcntly fo 
 named, or the knowledge of abJirnSl quantities, of their limits, properties^ 
 
 VOL. I. B B (ind
 
 170 ON THE PHILOSOPHY 
 
 and relations, imprefled on the underftanding with the force of irrefiftibic 
 demonjl ration, which, as all other knowledge depends at beft on our fal- 
 lible fenfes, and in great meafure on ftill more fallible teftimony, can 
 only be found, in pure mental abflradlions ; though for all the purpofes 
 of life, our own fenfes, and even the credible teftimony of others, give 
 us in moll: cafes the highefl degree of certainty, phyfical and moral. 
 
 IV. I HAVE already had occafion to touch on the Indian metaphy- 
 ficks of natural bodies according to the mofl; celebrated of the AJiatick 
 fchools, from which the Pythagoreans are fuppofed to have borrowed 
 many of their opinions; and, as we learn from Cicero, that the old 
 fages of Europe had an idea of centripetal force and a principle of ««/- 
 verfal gravitation (which they never indeed attempted to demonftrate), 
 fo I can venture to affirm, without meaning to pluck a leaf from the 
 neverfading laurels of our immortal Newton, that the whole of his 
 theology and part of his philofophy may be found in the Vedas and 
 even in the works of the Sufis : that tnojl fubtil fpirit, which he fuf- 
 pefted to pervade natural bodies, and, lying concealed in them, to caufe 
 attraction and repulfion, the emiffion, refledlion, and refradlion of light, 
 ele(flricity, calefadlion, fenfation, and mufcular motion, is defcribed by 
 the Hindus as a fifth element endued with thofe very powers ; and the 
 Vedas abound with allufions to a force univerfally attradlive, which they 
 chiefly afcribe to the Sun, thence called Aditya, or the AttraSior ; a 
 name defigned by the mythologifls to mean the child of the Goddefs 
 Aditi ; but the moft wonderful paffage on the theory of attraftion oc- 
 curs in the charming allegorical poem of Shi'ri'n and Ferha'd, or the 
 Divine Spirit and a human Soul difinterefledly pious ; a work which from 
 the firft verfe to the laft, is a blaze of religious and poetical fire. The 
 whole pafl!age appears to me fo curious, that I make no apology for 
 giving you a faithful tranflation of it: " There is a ftrong propenfity, 
 " which dances through every atom, and attrads the minuteft particle 
 
 " to
 
 OF THE ASIATICKS. \J\ 
 
 " to fome peculiar obje6l ; fearch this univerfe from its bafe to its fum- 
 " mit, from fire to air, from water to earth, from all below the Moon 
 " to all above the celeftial fpheres, and thou wilt not find a corpufcle 
 " deflitute of that natural attradlibility ; the very point of the firft 
 " thread, in this apparently tangled fkein, is no other than luch a prin- 
 " ciple of attradlion, and all principles befide are void of a real bafis ; 
 " from fuch a propenfity arifes every motion perceived in heavenly or 
 *' in terreftrial bodies ; it is a difpofition to be attracfted, which taught 
 " hard fteel to rufli from its place and rivet itfelf on the magnet ; it is 
 " the fame difpofition, which impels the light ilraw to attach itfelf 
 ** firmly on amber ; it is this quality, which gives every fubflance in 
 " nature a tendency toward another, and an inclination forcibly directed 
 " to a determinate point." Thefe notions are vague, indeed, and un- 
 fatisfaftory ; but permit me to afk, whether the laft paragraph of New- 
 ton's incomparable work goes much farther, and whether any fubfe- 
 quent experiments have thrown light on a fubjedt fo abftrufe and ob- 
 fcure : that the fublime aftronomy and exquifitely beautiful geometry, 
 with which that work is illumined, fliould in any degree be approached 
 by the Mathematicians of ^Jia, while of all Europeans, who ever lived, 
 Archimedes alone was capable of emulating them, would be a vain 
 expe(5tation j but we mufl fufpend our opinion of Indian aftronomical 
 knowledge, till the Surya fiddhdnta fhall appear in our own language, 
 and even then (to adopt a phrafe of Cicero) our greedy and capacious 
 ears will by no means be fatisfied ; for in order to complete an Iiiftori- 
 cal account of genuine Hindu aftronomy, we require verbal tranflations 
 of at leaft three other Sanfcrit books; of the treatife by Parasara, 
 for the firfi: age of Indian fcience, of that by Vara'ha, with the co- 
 pious comment of his very learned fon, for the middle age, and of 
 thofe written by Bhascara, for times comparatively modern. The 
 valuable and now acceffible works of the lafl mentioned philofopher, 
 contain alfo an univerfal, or fpecious, arithmetick, with one chapter at 
 
 leaft
 
 \J2 ON THE PHILOSOPHY 
 
 lead on geometry ; nor would it, furely, be difficult to procure, through 
 our feveral refidents with the PiJJnvd and with Scindhya, the older 
 books on algebra, which Bhascara mentions, and on which Mr. 
 Davis would juftly fet a very high value; but the Sanfcrit work, from 
 which we might expedl the mofl ample and important information, is 
 entitled CJIjetraderfa, or a View of Geometrical Knowledge, and was com- 
 piled in a very large volume by order of the illuftrious Jayasinha, com- 
 prifing all that remains on that fcience in the facred language oihidia: it 
 was infpedled in the weft by a Pandit now in the fervice of Lieutenant 
 WiLFORD, and might, I am perfuaded, be purchafed at Jayanagar, where 
 Colonel PoLiER had permiffion from the Rdjd to buy the four Vedas 
 themfelves. Thus have I anfwered, to the beft of my power, the three 
 iirft queftions obligingly tranfmitted to us by profefTor Playfair ; 
 whether the Hindus have books in Sanfcrit exprefsly on geometry, whe- 
 ther they have any fuch on arithmetick, and whether a tranflation of 
 the Suryafiddhdnta be not the great defideratum on the fubjedl of Indian 
 aftronomy : to his three laft queftions, whether an accurate fummary ac- 
 count of all the Sanfcrit works on that fubjedlr, a delineation of the In- 
 dian celeftial fphere, with corredt remarks on it, and a defcription of the 
 aftronomical inftruments ufed by the ancient Hindus, would not feverally 
 be of great utility, we cannot but anfwer in the affirmative, provided 
 that the utmoft critical fagacity were applied in diftinguiftiing fuch 
 works, conftellations, and inftruments, as are clearly of Indian origin, 
 from fuch as were introduced into this country by Mufelman aftronomers 
 from Tartary and Perfa, or in later days by Mathematicians from 
 Europe. 
 
 V. From all the properties of man and of nature, from all the various 
 branches of fcience, from all the dedu<ftions of human reafon, the ge- 
 neral corollary, admitted by Hindus, Arabs, and Tartars, by Perfans, and 
 by Chinefe, is the fupremacy of an all-creating and all-preferving fpirit, 
 
 infinitely
 
 OF THE ASIATICKS. 1^3 
 
 infinitely wife, good, and powerful, but infinitely removed from the 
 comprehenfion of his moil exalted creatures ; nor are there in any lan- 
 guage (the ancient Hebrew always excepted) more pious and fublime 
 addreffes to the being of beings, more fplendid enumerations of his at- 
 tributes, or more beautiful defcriptions of his vifible works, than in 
 Arabicky Ferfian and Sanfcrit, efpecially in the Koran, the introduc- 
 tions to the poems of Sad i', Niza'm'i, and Firdaus'i, the four Vedas 
 and many parts of the numerous Puranas : but fupplication and praife 
 would not fatisfy the boundlefs imagination of the Vedanti and Sufi 
 theologifts, who blending uncertain metaphyficks with undoubted prin- 
 ciples of religion, have prefumed to reafon confidently on the very na- 
 ture and eflence of the divine fpirit, and afl'erted in a very remote age, 
 what multitudes of Hindus and Mufelmans aflert at this hour, that all 
 fpirit is homogeneous, that the fpirit of God is in kind the fame with 
 that of man, though differing from it infinitely in degree, and that, as 
 material fubftance is mere illufion, there exifts in this univerfe only one 
 generick fpiritual fubftance, the fole primary caufe, efficient, fubftantial 
 and formal of all fecondary caufes and of all appearances whatever, but 
 endued in its higheft degree, with a fublime providential wifdom, and 
 proceeding by ways incomprehenfible to the fpirits which emane from 
 it J an opinion, which Go tama never taught, and which we have no 
 authority to believe, but which, as it is grounded on the dodlrine of an 
 immaterial creator fupremely wife, and a conftant preferver fupremely 
 benevolent, differs as widely from the pantheifm of Spinoza and To- 
 land, as the affirmation of a propofition differs from the negation of it i 
 though the laft named profeffor of that iiifane philofophy had the bafe- 
 nefs to conceal his meaning under the very words of Saint Paul, which 
 are cited by Newton for a purpofe totally different, and has even ufed a 
 phrafe, which occurs, indeed, in the Veda, but in a fenfe diametrically 
 oppofite to that, which he would have given it. The paffage, to which I 
 allude, is in a fpeech of Yaruna to his fon, where he fays : " That 
 
 " fpirit,.
 
 174 ON THE PHILOSOPHY, Cic 
 
 " fpirit, from which thefe created beings proceed ; through which 
 *' having proceeded from it, they hve ; toward which they tend and 
 " in which they are ultimately abforbed, that fpirit ftudy to know; that 
 " fpirit is the Great One." 
 
 The fubjecft of this difcourfe, gentlemen, is inexhaullible : it has been 
 my endeavour to fay as much on it as poffible in the feweft words ; and, 
 at the beginning of next year, I hope to clofe thefe general difquifitions 
 with topicks meafurelefs in extent, but lefs abftrufe than that, which has 
 this day been difculfed, and better adapted to the gaiety, which feems 
 to have prevailed in the learned banquets of the Greeks, and which 
 ought, furely, to prevail in every fympofiack aflembly. 
 
 A DIS-
 
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 jnya
 
 A DISSERTATION 
 
 ORTHOGRAPHY OF ASIATICK WORDS 
 
 IN ROMAN LETTERS. 
 
 The president. 
 
 JlLvERY man, who has occafion to compofe tradis on AJiatick Litera- 
 ture, or to tranflate from the Jlfiatick Languages, muft always find it 
 convenient, and fometimes neceffary, to exprefs Arabian., Indian, and 
 Perfian words, or fenrences, in the charadlers generally ufed among 
 Europeans ; and almofl every writer in thofe circumflances has a method 
 of notation peculiar to himfelf: but none has yet appeared in the form 
 of a complete fyflem ; fo that each original found may be rendered in- 
 variably by one appropriated fymbol, conformably to the natural order 
 of articulation, and with a due regard to the primitive power of the 
 Roman alphabet, which modern Europe has in general adopted. A 
 want of attention to this objed: has occafioned great confufion in 
 Hiftory and Geography. The ancient Greeks, who made a voluntary 
 facrifice of truth to the delicacy of their ears, appear to have altered by 
 defign almofl all the oriental names, which they introduced into their 
 
 elegant,
 
 176 ON THE ORTHOGRAPHY 
 
 elegant, but romantick, Hiftories ; and even their more modern Geo- 
 graphers, who were too vain, perhaps, of their own language to learn 
 any other, have (o ftrangely difguifed the proper appellations of coun- 
 tries, cities, and rivers in j^Jm, that, without the guidance of the 
 fagacious and indefatigable M. D'Anville, it would have been as 
 troublefome to follow Alexander through the Punjab on the Ptole- 
 maick map of Agathod^mon, as adlually to travel over the fame 
 country in its prefent f!:ate of rudenefs and diforder. They had an un- 
 warrantable habit of moulding foreign names to a Grecian form, and 
 giving them a refemblance to fome derivative word in their own tongue : 
 thus, they changed the Gogra into Agoranis, or a 7-iver of the ajj'emhly, 
 XJchah into Oxydracce, or fl:>arpfighted, and Rerias into Aornos, or a rock 
 inaccejjible to birds ; whence their poets, who delighted in wonders, em- 
 bellilhed their works with new images, diftinguilhing regions and for- 
 treffes by properties, which exifted only in imagination. If we have 
 lefs livelinefs of fancy than the Ancients, we have more accuracy, 
 more love of truth, and, perhaps, more folidity of judgement ; and, if 
 our works fliall afford lefs delight to thofe, in refpe<fl of whom we 
 Ihall be Ancients, it may be faid without prefumption, that we fhall 
 give them more correcfl information on the Hiftory and Geography of 
 this eaftern world; fince no man can perfedlly defcribe a country, who 
 is unacquainted with the language of it. The learned and entertaining 
 work of M. D'Herbelot, which profefTes to interpret and elucidate 
 the names of perfons and places, and the titles of books, abounds alfo 
 in citations from the befb writers o( Arabia and Per/ia ; yet, though his 
 orthography will be found lefs defective than that of other writers on' 
 fimilar fubjedls, without excepting the illuftrious Prince Kantemir, 
 IHII it requires more than a moderate knowledge of Perfian, Arabick, 
 and Turkip, to comprehend all the paflages quoted by him in European 
 charaftersj one inftance of which I cannot forbear giving. In the 
 account of Ibnu Zaidlin, a celebrated Andahijian poet, tlie firfl: couplet 
 ■ - of
 
 OF ASIATICK WORDS. I77 
 
 of an elegy in Arabick is praifed for its elegance, and exprefled thus 
 in Roman letters : 
 
 lekad he'in tenagikom dhamairna; 
 lacdha alaina alafla laula taiUna. 
 
 *' The time, adds the tranflator, will foon come, when you will 
 ** deliver us from all our cares : the remedy is aflured, provided we 
 '* have a little patience." When Dr. Hunt of Oxford, whom I am 
 bound to name with gratitude and veneration, together with two or 
 three others, attempted at my requeft to write the fame diftich in 
 Arabian characters, they all wrote it differently, and all, in my prefent 
 opinion, erroneoully. I was then a very young ftudent, and could 
 not eafily have procured Ibnu Zaidiins works, which are, no doubt, 
 preferved in the Bodley library, but which have not fince fallen in my 
 way. This admired couplet, therefore, I have never feen in the original 
 charadlers, and confefs myfelf at a lofs to render them with certainty. 
 Both verfes are written by D' Herbelot without attention to the gram- 
 matical points, that is, in a form which no learned Arab would give 
 them in recitation ; but, although the French verfion be palpably erro- 
 neous, it is by no means eafy to corredt the errour. If dldsa or a 
 remedy be the true reading, the negative particle muft be abfurd, fince 
 tadffaina fignifies we are patient, and not we defpair, but, if dldfay or 
 afflidlion be the proper word, fomc obfcurity muft arife from the verb, 
 with which it agrees. On the whole I guefs, that the diftich fhould 
 thus be written : 
 
 
 VOL. I. c c Tecddu
 
 178 OF THE ORTHOGRAPHY 
 
 Tecadti hhina tiindjiaim d' e77iairuna 
 Takdl dlaina 'Idfay lau la tadfsina. 
 
 " When our bofoms impart their fecrets to you, anguifli would almofl 
 ** fix our doom, if we were not mutually to confole ourfelves." 
 
 The principal verbs may have a future fenfe, and the kft word 
 may admit of a different interpretation. Dr. Hunt, I remember, had 
 found in Giggeius the word dhejndyer, which he conceived to be in 
 the original. After all, the rhyme feems imperfed:, and the meafure 
 irregular. Now I afk, whether fuch perplexities could have arifen, if 
 jyHerhelot or his Editor had formed a regular fyftem of expreffing 
 Arabkk in Roman charadlers, and had apprized his readers of it in his 
 introdudlory diflertation ? 
 
 If a further proof be required, that fuch a fyflem will be ufeful 
 to the learned and effential to the fludent, let me remark, that a 
 learner of Perjian, who fliould read in our beft hiflories the life of 
 Sultan AziM, and wifli to write his name in Arabkk letters, might ex- 
 prefs it thirty-nine different ways, and be wrong at laft : the word fhould 
 be written Adzem with three points on the firfl confonant. 
 
 There are two general modes of exhibiting Afiatick words in our 
 own letters : they are founded on principles nearly oppofite, but each of 
 them has its advantages, and each has been recommended by refpedtable 
 authorities. The firft profefTes to regard chiefly the pronunciation of the 
 words intended to be expreffed; and this method, as far as it can be 
 purfued, is unqueftionably ufeful : but new founds are very inadequately 
 prefented to a {^ni^ not formed to receive them ; and the reader mufl 
 in the end be left to pronounce many letters and fyllables precarioufly ; 
 befides, that by this mode of orthography all grammatical analogy is 
 
 deftroyed.
 
 OF ASIATICK WORDS. 1 jg 
 
 dcftroyeJ, limple founds are reprefented by double charafters, vowels of 
 one denomination ftand for thofe of another -, and poffibly with all our 
 labour we perpetuate a provincial or inelegant pronunciation : all thefe 
 objeftions may be made to the ufual way of writing Kummerbiind, in 
 which neither the letters nor the true found of them are preferved, 
 while Kemerhend, or Cemerbend, as an ancient Briton would write it, 
 clearly exhibits both the original characters and the Perfian pronun- 
 ciation of them. To fet this point in a flrong light, we need only fup- 
 pofe, that the French had adopted a fyftem of letters wholly different 
 from ours, and of which we had no types in our printing-houfes : let us 
 conceive an 'EngUJI:>man acquainted with their language to be pleafed 
 with Malherbe's well-known imitation of Horace, and defirous of 
 quoting it in fome piece of criticifm. He would read thus : 
 
 * La mort a des rigueurs a nulle autre pareilles ; 
 
 * On a beau la prier : 
 
 * La cruelle qu'elle eft fe bouche les oreilles, 
 
 * Et nous laiiTe crier. 
 
 * Le pauvre en fa cabane, cu le chaume le couvre, 
 
 * Eft fujet a fes loix, 
 
 * Et la garde, qui veille aux barrieres du Louvre, 
 
 * N'en defend pas nos rois !' 
 
 Would he then exprefs thefe eight verfes, in Roman chara<fters, ex- 
 adly as the French themfelves in fad: exprefs them, or would he de- 
 corate his compofition with a paflage more refembling the dialed of 
 favages, than that of a poliflied nation? His pronunciation, good or bad, 
 would, perhaps, be thus reprefented : 
 
 Law
 
 180 ON THE ORTHOGRAPHY 
 
 * Law more aw day reegyewrs aw nool otruh parellyuh, 
 
 ' Onne aw bo law preeay : 
 
 * Law crooellyuh kellay fuh boofhuh lays orellyuh, 
 
 * Ay noo layfuh creeay. 
 
 ' Luh povre ong faw cawbawn oo luh chomuh luh coovruh, 
 ' Ay foozyet aw fay Iwaw, 
 
 * Ay law gawrduh kee velly 6 bawryayruh dyoo Loovriih 
 
 ' Nong dayfong paw no rwaw !' 
 
 The fecond fyftem of Afiatick Orthography confifts in fcrupuloufly 
 rendering letter for letter, without any particular care to preferve the 
 pronunciation ; and, as long as this mode proceeds by unvaried rules, it 
 feems clearly entitled to preference. 
 
 For the firft method of writing Perjian words the warmeft advocate, 
 among my acquaintance, was the late Major Davy, a Member of our 
 Society, and a man of parts, vv^hom the world loft prematurely at a time, 
 when he was meditating a literary retirement, and hoping to pafs the 
 remainder of his life in domeftick happinefs, and in the cultivation of 
 his very ufeful talents. He valued himfelf particularly on his pronun- 
 ciation of the Perjian language, and on his new way of exhibiting it 
 in our charadlers, which he inftrufted the learned and amiable Editor 
 of his Injiitutes of Timour at Oxford to retain with minute attention 
 throughout his work. Where he had acquired his refined articulation 
 of the Perfian, I never was informed j but it is evident, that he fpells 
 moft proper names in a manner, which a native of Perfia, who could 
 read our letters, would be unable to comprehend. For inftance : that 
 the capital of Azarbdijan is now called Tabriz, I know from the mouth 
 of a perfon born in that city, as well as from other Iranians ; and that 
 it was fo called fixteen hundred years ago, we all know from the Geo- 
 graphy
 
 OF ASIATICK WORDS. 181 
 
 graphy oi Ptolemy, yet Major Davy always wrote it Tubburaze, and 
 inilfted that it (hould thus be pronounced. Whether the natives of Se^ 
 merkand, or Samarkand, who probably fpeak the dialeft of Soghd with 
 a 'Turanian pronunciation, call their birthplace, as Davy fpelled it, 
 Summurkund, I have yet to learn ; but I cannot believe it, and am con- 
 vinced, that the former mode of writing the word exprefles both the 
 letters and the found of them better than any other combination of cha- 
 radiers. His method, therefore, has every defedt ; fince it renders nei- 
 ther the original elements of words, nor the founds reprefented by them 
 in Perjia, where alone we muft feek for genuine Ferftan, as for French 
 in France, and for Italian in Italy. 
 
 The fecond method has found two able fupporters in Mr. Halhed 
 and Mr. Wilkins; to the firfl of whom the publick is indebted for a 
 perfpicuous and ample grammar of the Bengal language, and to the fe- 
 cond for more advantages in Indian literature than Europe, or India, can 
 ever fufficiently acknowledge. 
 
 Mr. Halhed, having juftly remarked, ' that the two greateft de- 
 
 * fed:s in the orthography of any language are the application of the 
 ' fame letter to feveral different founds, and of different letters to the 
 
 * fame found,' truly pronounces them both to be * fo common in 
 
 * Englijh, that he was exceedingly embarraffed in the choice of letters 
 
 * to exprefs the found of the Bengal vowels, and was at lafl by no 
 ' means fatisfied with his own feleftion.' If any thing diffatisfies me, 
 in his clear and accurate fyftem, it is the ufe of double letters for the 
 long vowels (which might however be juftified) and the frequent inter- 
 mixture oi It a lick with Roman letters in the fame word ; which both in 
 writing and printing muft be very inconvenient : perhaps it may be 
 added, that his diphthongs are not expreffed analogoully to the founds, 
 of which they are compofed. 
 
 The
 
 182 ON THE ORTHOGRAPHY 
 
 The fyftem of Mr, Wilkins has been equally well confidered, and 
 Mr. Halhed himfelf has indeed adopted it in his preface to the Com- 
 pilation of Hindu Laws : it principally confifts of double letters to fignify 
 our third and fifth vowels, and of the common profodial marks to afcer- 
 tain their brevity or their length ; but thofe marks are fo generally ap- 
 propriated to books of profody, that they never fail to convey an idea 
 of metre ; nor, if either profodial fign were adopted, would both be ne- 
 ceflary ; fince the omiffion of a long mark would evidently denote the 
 fliortnefs of the unmarked vowel, or converfely. On the whole, I can- 
 not but approve this notation for Sanfcrit words, yet require fomething 
 more univerfally expreflive of Afiatick letters : as it is perfedt, however, 
 in its kind, and will appear in the works of its learned inventor, I iliall 
 annex, among the examples, four diftichs from the Bhdgaivat exprefled 
 both in his method and mine * : a tranflation of them will be produced 
 on another occafion ; but, in order to render this tradt as complete as 
 poffible, a fuller fpecimen of jS^^/trr// will be fubjoined with the original 
 printed in the charafters oi Bejigal, into which the Brdhmans of that 
 province tranfpofe all their books, few of them being able to read the 
 Devandgari letters : fo far has their indolence prevailed over their 
 piety ! 
 
 Let me now proceed, not prefcribing rules for others, but explaining 
 thofe which I have prefcribed for myfelf, to unfold my own fyftem, the 
 convenience of which has been proved by careful obfervation and long 
 experience. 
 
 It would be fuperfluous to difcourfe on the organs of fpeech, which 
 have been a thoufand times difledled, and as often defcribed by mufi- 
 cians or anatomifts ; and the feveral powers of which every man may 
 perceive either by the touch or by fight, if he will attentively obferve 
 
 » Plate IV, 
 
 another
 
 OF ASIATICK WORDS. 183 
 
 another perfon pronouncing the different clafies of letters, or pronounce 
 them himfelf dillincftly before a mirror : but a Oiort analyfis of articulate 
 founds may be proper to introduce an examination of every feparate 
 fymbol. 
 
 All things abound with erroiir, as the old fearchers for truth remarked 
 with defpondence ; but it is really deplorable, that our firfl ftep from 
 total ignorance flTiould be into grofs inaccuracy, and that we fliould be- 
 gin our education in England with learning to read the Jive vowels, two 
 of which, as we are taught to pronounce them, are clearly diphthongs. 
 There are, indeed, five fimple vocal founds in our language, as in that 
 of Rome; which occur in the words an innocent bull, though not pre- 
 cifely in their natural order, for we have retained the true arrangement 
 of the letters, while we capricioufly difarrange them in pronunciation ; 
 fo that our eyes are fatisfied, and our ears difappointed. The primary 
 elements of articulation are \k\&fojt and hard breathings, th&fpiritus lenis 
 2.x\A.fpiritus a/per of the Latin Grammarians. If the lips be opened ever 
 fo little, the breath fuffered gently to pafs through them, and the feebleft 
 utterance attempted, a found is formed of fo fimple a nature, that, when 
 lengthened, it continues nearly the fame, except that, by the lead 
 acutenefs in the voice it becomes a cry, and is probably the firfb found 
 uttered by infants ; but if, while this element is articulated, the breath 
 be forced with an effort through the lips, we form an a/pirate more or 
 lefs harfh in proportion to the force exerted. When, in pronouncing 
 the fimple vowel, we open our lips wider, we exprefs a found completely 
 articulated, which moft nations have agreed to place the Jirji in their 
 fymbolical fyfliems : by opening them wider flill with the corners of 
 them a little drawn back, we give birth to the Jecond of the RomoJi 
 vowels, and by a large aperture, with a farther inflexion of the lips and 
 a higherelevation of the tongue, we utter the third of them. By purfing 
 up our lips in the leafl degree, we convert the fimple element into an- 
 other
 
 1 84 ON THE ORTHOGRAPHY 
 
 other found of the fame nature with the firfi vowel, and eafily con- 
 founded with it in a broad pronunciation : when this new found is 
 lengthened, it approaches very nearly to xht fourth vowel, which we 
 form by a bolder and flronger rotundity of the mouth ; a farther con- 
 traiflion of it produces the ffth vowel, which in its elongation almoft 
 clofes the lips, a fmall paffage only being left for the breath. Thefe arc 
 all fhort vowels ; and, if an Italian were to read the words an innocent 
 hull, he would give the found of each correfponding long vowel, as in 
 the monofyllables of his own language, Ja, f, jo, fe, Ju. Between thefc 
 ten vowels are numberlefs gradations, and nice inflexions, which ufe 
 only can teach ; and, by the compofition of them all, might be formed 
 an hundred diphthongs, and a thoufand triphthongs ; many of which 
 are found in Italian, and were probably articulated by the Greeks; but 
 we have only occafion, in this tradt, for two diphthongs, which are 
 compounded of thejirjl vowel with the third, and with the Jifth, and 
 ihould be exprelTed by their conftituent letters : as to thofe vocal com- 
 pounds which begin with the third and Jifth fhort vowels, they are ge- 
 nerally and not inconveniently rendered by diftindl charadlers, which 
 are improperly ranged among the confonants. The tongue, which 
 affifts in forming fome of the vowels, is the principal inftrument in arti- 
 culating two liquid founds, which have fomething of a vocal nature ; 
 one, by ftriking the roots of the upper teeth, while the breath pafTes 
 gently through the lips, another, by an inflexion upwards with a tre- 
 mulous motion ; and thefe two liquids coalefce with fuch eafe, that a 
 mixed letter, ufed in fome languages, may be formed by the firil of them 
 followed by the fecond : when the breath is obftrudled by the prefliirc 
 of the tongue, and forced between the teeth on each fide of it, a liquid 
 is formed peculiar to the Britifi dialeft of the Celtick. 
 
 We may now confider in the fame order, beginning with the root of 
 the tongue and ending with the perfedt clofe of the lips, thofe lefs 
 
 mufical
 
 OF ASIATICK WORDS. jq 
 
 ly 
 
 mufical founds, which require the aid of a vowe/, or at Icaft of thtjimple 
 breathing, to be fully articulated; and it may here be premifed, that the 
 harjl:) breathing diflincflly pronounced after each of thefe confotjants, as 
 they are named by grammarians, conftitutes its proper a/pirate. 
 
 By the affiftance of the tongue and the palate are produced two con- 
 genial founds, differing only as hard 2sA foft ; and thefe two may be 
 formed flill deeper in the throat, fo as to imitate, with a long vowel 
 after them, the voice of a raven; but if, while they are uttered, the 
 breath be harfhly protruded, two analogous articulations are heard, the 
 fecond of which feems to charadlerize the pronunciation of the Arabs ; 
 while the nafal found, very common among the Perfians and Indians, 
 may be confidered as the /of t palatine with part of the breath paffing 
 through the nofe ; which organ would by itfelf rather produce a vocal 
 found, common alfo in Arabia, and not unlike the cry of a young ante- 
 lope and fome other quadrupeds. 
 
 Next come different clafles of dentals, and among the firfl: of them 
 fhould be placed thefibilants, which moft nations exprefs by an indented 
 figure : each of the dental founds is hard or foft, fliarp or obtufe, and, 
 by thrufting the tip of the tongue between the teeth, we form two 
 founds exceedingly common in Arabick and EngliJJ:, but changed into 
 lifping fibilants by the Perjians and French, while they on the other hand 
 have a found unknown to the Arabs, and uncommon in our language, 
 though it occurs in fome words by the compofition of the hard fibilant 
 with our laft vowel pronounced as a diphthong. The liquid nafal fol- 
 lows thefe, being formed by the tongue and roots of the teeth, with a 
 little affiftance from the other organ ; and we muft particularly remem- 
 ber, when we attend to the pronunciation of Indian dialedls, that mofl 
 founds of this clafs are varied in a Angular manner by turning the tongue 
 
 VOL. I. D D upwards.
 
 186 ON THE ORTHOGRAPHY 
 
 upwards, and almofl bending it back towards the palate, fo as to exclude 
 them nearly from the order, but not from the analogy, of dentals. 
 
 The labials form the laft feries, moft of which are pronounced by the 
 appulfe of the lips on each other or on the teeth, and one of them by 
 their perfedl clofe : the letters, by which they are denoted, reprefent in 
 moft alphabets the curvature of one lip or of both ; and a natural cha- 
 raEler for all articulate founds might eafily be agreed on, if nations 
 would agree on any thing generally beneficial, by delineating the feveral 
 organs of fpeech in the a<fl of articulation, and feledling from each a 
 diftinft and elegant outline. A perfedl language would be that, in 
 which every idea, capable of entering the human mind, might be neatly 
 and emphatically expreffed by one fpecificlc word, fimple if the idea 
 were iimple, complex, if complex ; and on the fame principle a perfedl 
 iyftem of letters ought to contain one fpecifick fymbol for every found 
 ufed in pronouncing the language to which they belonged: in this re- 
 fpedt the old Perjian or Zefid approaches to perfeiftion ; but the Arabian 
 alphabet, which all Mohammedan nations have inconfiderately adopted, 
 appears to me fo complete for the purpofe of writing Arabick, that not 
 a letter could be added or taken away without manifeft inconvenience, 
 and the fame m.ay indubitably be faid of the Devandgari fyftem j which, 
 as it is more naturally arranged than any other, fhall here be the ftand- 
 ard of my particular obfervations on Afiatick letters. Our EngUJh al- 
 phabet and orthography are difgracefully and almoft ridiculoufly imper- 
 feifl ; and it would be impoflible to exprefs either Indian, Perfian, or 
 Arabian words in Roman charadters, as we are abfurdly taught to pro- 
 nounce them ; but a mixture of new charadlers would be inconvenient, 
 and by the help of the diacritical marks ufed by the French, with a few 
 of thofe adopted in our own treatifes onJJuxions, we may apply our pre- 
 fent alphabet fo happily to the notation of all Afiatick languages, as to 
 
 equal
 
 ^ ^ % % %1 %1 ^ ^'^
 
 OF ASIATICK WORDS. 187 
 
 equal the Dc'varidgart itfelf in precifion and clearnefs, and fo regularly 
 that any one, who knew the original letters, might rapidly and unerr- 
 ingly tranfpofe into them all the proper names, appellatives, or cited 
 paflages, occurring in trafts of Afiatkk literature. 
 
 This is the iimpleil element of articulation, or firft vocal found, con- 
 cerning which enough has been faid : the word America begins and ends 
 with it ; and its proper fymbol therefore is A ; though it may be often 
 very conveniently exprefled by E, for reafons, which I fliall prefently 
 offer. In our own anomalous language we commonly mark this ele- 
 mentary found by ovlk fifth vowel, but fometimes exprefs it by a llrange 
 variety both of vowels and diphthongs ; as in the phrafe, a mother bird 
 flutters over her young \ an irregularity, which no regard to the deriva- 
 tion of words or to blind cuftom can in any degree juflify. The Nc'igart 
 letter is called Acar, but is pronounced in Bengal like our fourth fliort 
 vowel, and in the wefl oi India, like our firfi : in all the dialedls properly 
 Indian it is confidered as inherent in every confonant ; and is placed laft 
 in the fyftem of the Tibetiansy becaufe the letters, which include it, are 
 firft explained in their fchools. If our double confonants were inva- 
 riably connecfted, as in Sanfcrit, it would certainly be the better way to 
 omit the iimple element, except when it begins a word. This letter 
 anfvvers to the fat-hhah, or open found of the Arabs, and, in fome few 
 words, to the Zeber of the Perfmns, or an acute accent placed above the 
 letter ; but this Arabian mark, which was fupplied in the Pahlavi by a 
 diftin<5t charadler, is more frequently pronounced at Isfahan either like 
 our firft or our fecond fliort vowel, as in chaJJ?m ^ndferzend, and the di- 
 ftinftion feems to depend, in general, on the nature of the confonant, 
 which follows it. Two of our letters, therefore, are neceilary for the 
 
 complete
 
 188 ON THE ORTHOGRAPHY 
 
 complete notation of the acar and zeber ; and thus we may be able oc- 
 cafionally to avoid ridiculous or oifenfive equivocations in writing Orien- 
 tal words, and to preferve the true pronunciation of the Perjiafis, which 
 differs as widely from that of the Munhnans in India, as the language 
 of our Court at St. James's differs from that of the ruflicks in the Gentle 
 Shepherd. 
 
 When thcjirj} vowel, as the Pefjians pronounce it in the word bakht, 
 is doubled or prolonged as in bakht, it has the found of the fecond Nd- 
 gart vowel, and of the firft Arab'tck letter, that is, of our long vowel 
 in cajl J but the Arabs deride the Perfians for their broad pronunciation 
 of this letter, which in Iran has always the found of our vowel in call, 
 and is often fo prolated, as to refemble the fourth and even the Jifth of 
 our long vowels. Its natural mark would be the fhort A doubled; but 
 an acute accent in the middle of words, or a grave at the end of them, 
 will be equally clear, and conformable to the pradlice of poliflied na- 
 tions on the continent of Europe. The very broad found of the Arabian 
 letter, which they call extended, and which the Perfians extend yet 
 more, as in the word asan, may aptly enough be reprefented by the 
 profodial fign, fmce it is conftantly long ; whereas the mark hamzah as 
 con(k.int\Y fkortens the letter, and gives it the found of the point above, 
 or below, it ; as in the words osiil and IJldm : the changes of this letter 
 may perplex the learner, but his perplexity will foon vanifli, as he ad- 
 vances. In writing Afiatick names, we frequently confound the broad 
 a with its correfpondent fhort vowel, which we improperly exprefs by 
 an O } thus we write CoJJitn for Kaftm in defiance of analogy and cor- 
 red:nefs. Our vowel infond occurs but feldom, if ever, in Arabian, 
 Indian, or Perfan words : it is placed, neverthelefs, in the general 
 fyll:em with the fhort profodial mark, and ftands at the head of the 
 vowels, becaufe it is in truth only a variation of the fimple breathing. 
 
 Our
 
 /(>/J /'(I jfllK 
 
 /'/,,/r /// 
 
 i 
 
 6 
 
 • 
 
 
 
 J 
 
 r 
 
 d 
 
 I) 
 
 i 
 L 
 
 I 
 
 y 
 
 b 
 
 J- 
 
 r 
 
 a. 
 a 
 
 ^ 
 ^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 ji 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 b^'in U^ ^ d d 
 
 c> »€ £
 
 OF ASIATICK WORDS. 18Q 
 
 Our t/jt'rJ vowel, correftly pronounced, appears next in the Ndgari 
 fyftem ; for our fecond jfhort vowel has no place in it. This vocal 
 found is rcprefented in Arabick by an accute accent under the letter j 
 which at Mecca has almoft invariably the fame pronunciation; but, 
 fince, in the Zend, a charader like the Greek E-pfilon reprefents both 
 our fecond and third fhort vowels, the Perjians often pronounce ztr 
 like zeber, calling this country Hendy and the natives of it Hendus : 
 neverthelefs it will be proper to denote the Sanfcrit tear, and the jlra~ 
 bian cafr by one unaltered fymbol ; as in the words Indra and Imam. 
 
 The third vowtl produced or lengthened is, for the reafon before fug- 
 gefted, beft marked by an accent either acute or grave, as in Italian : 
 
 Se cerca, fe dice ; 
 L'amico dov'e ? 
 L'amico infelice, 
 Rifpondi, morl ! 
 Ah ! no ; si gran duolo 
 Non darle per me. 
 Rifpondi, ma folo : 
 Piangendo parti. 
 
 It was once my pradlice to reprefent this long vowel by two marks, 
 as in the words Lebeid and Deiwan, to denote the point in Arabick as 
 well as the letter above it -, but my prefent opinion is, that Lebid and 
 Diwan are more conformable to analogy, and to the Italian orthography, 
 which of all European fyflems approaches neareft to perfedion. 
 
 This
 
 1 go ON THE ORTHOGRAPHY 
 
 This is our ffth vowel ; for our fourth fhort one is, like our fccojidy 
 rejeSed from the pure pronunciation of the Sanfcrit in the weft: of 
 India and at Bdnaras, though the Bengakfe retain it in the iirft Nagari 
 letter, which they call ocar : to the notation of this found, our vowel in 
 full and the Perfian in gul fliould be ■conft;antly appropriated, fince it is 
 a fimple articulation, and cannot without impropriety be reprefented by 
 a double letter. It anfwers to hu-pfilon, and, hlce that, is often con- 
 founded with iota : thus miiJJ:c has the found of fni/Jjc among the modern 
 P erf am, as Nuniphaw^s pronounced Nympha by the Romans. The datnm 
 of the Arabs is, however, frequently founded, efpecially in Perfa, like 
 our fl:iort O in memory, and the choice of two marks for a variable lound 
 is not improper in itfelf, and will fometimes be found very convenient. 
 
 The fame lengthened, and properly exprefled by an accent, as in the 
 word virtu. : it is a very long vowel in Perfian, fo as nearly to treble 
 the quantity of its correfpondent ftiort one ; and this, indeed, may be 
 obferved of all the long vowels in the genuine Isfahdni pronunciation ; 
 but the letter "vdii is often redundant, fo as not to alter the found of the 
 fhort vowel preceding it ; as in khofh and khod: it may, neverthelefs, be 
 right to exprefs that letter by an accent. 
 
 A vocal found peculiar to the Sanfcrit language: it is formed by a 
 gentle vibration of the tongue preceding our third vowel pronounced 
 'very Jhort, and may be well exprefled by the profodial mark, as in 
 Rtfi, a Saint. When it is conneded with a confonant, as in Crtjhna, 
 
 JJO
 
 OF ASIATICK WORDS. igi 
 
 no part of it Is ufed but the curve at the bottom. We have a fimilar 
 found in the word merrily, the fecond fyllable of which is much fhorter 
 than the firil fyllable of riches^ 
 
 f 
 
 The fame complex found confiderably lengthened j and, therefore, 
 diftinguifliable by the profodial fign of a long voweL 
 
 In Bengal, where the ra is often funk, in the pronunciation of com- 
 pound fyllables, this letter expreffes both fyllables of our word lily; 
 but its genuine found, I believe, is /r/, a ftiort triphthong peculiar to 
 the Sanfcrit language. 
 
 Whatever be the true pronunciation of the former fymbol, this is 
 only an elongation of it, and may, therefore, be diftinguifhed by the 
 meti'ical fign of a long voweL 
 
 Our fecofjd long vowel, beft reprefented, like the others, by an 
 accent, as in Veda, the facred book of the Hindus, which is a de- 
 rivative from the Sanfcrit root i^id, to know. The notation, which I 
 recommend, will have this important advantage, that learned foreigners 
 in Europe will in general pronounce the oriental words, expreffed by 
 it, with as much corredinefs and facility as our own nation. 
 
 TJiis
 
 1Q2 :?'■ ON THE ORTHOGRAPHY 
 
 This is a diphthong compofed of ovx Jirjl and /,6/r^/ vowels, and 
 expreflible, therefore, by them, as in the word Vaidya, derived from 
 Veduy and meaning a man of the medical c aft : in Befigal it is pronounced 
 as the Greek diphthong in poimen, a fhepherd, v^'as probably founded in 
 ancient Greece. The Arabs and the Engli/Ij articulate this compofition 
 cxadlly alike, though we are pleafed to exprefs it by a fimple letter, 
 which, on the continent of Europe, has it genuine found. In the 
 mouth of an Italian the conftituent vowels in the words mai and miei do 
 not perfedtly coalefce, and, at the clofe of a verfe, they are feparated ; 
 but a Frenchman and a Perjtan would pronounce them nearly like the 
 preceding long vowel ; as in the word Mai, which at Paris means our 
 month of the fame name, and at Isfahan fignifies ivine : the Perjian 
 word, indeed, might with great propriety be written mei, as the diph- 
 thong feems rather to be compofed of ouvfecond and third Ihort vowels ; 
 a compofition very common in Italian poetry. 
 
 Though a coalition of acar and ucar forms this found in Sanfcrit^ 
 as in the myftical word om, yet it is in fa(51: a fimple articulation, and 
 t\\t fourth of our long vowels. 
 
 Here, indeed, we meet with a proper diphthong, compounded of our 
 frji znAffth vowels ; and in Perfia the conftituent founds are not per- 
 fedlly united; as in the word Firdauft, which an Italian would pro- 
 nounce exaftly like a native of Isfahan. Perhaps, in Arabick words, it 
 •may be proper to reprefent by an accent the letters ya and ivdw, which, 
 
 preceded
 
 OF ASIATICK WORDS. IQ3 
 
 preceded by the opoi vowel, form the refpedlive diphthongs in Zohdir 
 and Jauberi ; but the omiflion of this accent would occafion little in- 
 convenience. 
 
 This is no vowel, but an abbreviation, at the end of a fyllable, of 
 the nafal confonants : thus the Portuguefe write Siao for Siam with a 
 nafal termination; and the accurate M. D'Anville expreffes great 
 unwillingnefs to write Siam for the country, and Siamois for the people 
 of it, yet acknowledges his fear of innovating, * notwithflanding his 
 
 * attachment to the original and proper denominations of countries and 
 
 * places.' It appears to me, that the addition of a diftindl letter ga 
 would be an improper and inconvenient mode of expreffing the nafal 
 found, and that we cannot do better than adopt the Indian method of 
 diftinguifliing it, in Sanfcrit, Chinefe, and Perjian words, by a point 
 above the letter ; as in Sinha, a lion, CdnJiiy the name of an illuflrious 
 Emperor, and Sdmdn, a houfehold. 
 
 ^ 
 
 This too is an abbreviation or fubilitute, at the clofe of a fyllable, for 
 t\veJiro}ig af pirate, and may be diftinguillied in the middle of a word 
 by a hyphen, as in dub-c'ha, pain, though it feems often to refemble 
 the Arabian ha, which gives only a more forcible found to the vowel, 
 which precedes it, as in hhicmah, fcience. It is well known, that, 
 when {\.\c)\ Arabick words are ufed in conflrudlion, t\\c fnal afpirate 
 of the firft noun has the found of td ; but, as the letter remains un- 
 altered, it (hould, I think, be preferved in our characters, and exprefled 
 either by two points above it, as in Arabick, or by an accentual mark ; 
 
 VOL. I. E E fince
 
 104 ON THE ORTHOGRAPHY 
 
 fince if we write Zuhdahu limilc, or, the Flower of the Realm, with a 
 comma to denote the fuppreffion of the alif, every learner will know, 
 that the firfl: word fliould be pronounced Zubdat. The ha is often 
 omitted by us, when we write Perfian in EngUJlj letters, but ought 
 invariably to be inferted, as in Shdhndmah ; fince the afpiration is very 
 perceptibly founded in the true pronunciation of dergdh, rubdh, and 
 other fimilar words. The Sanfcrit charad:er before us has the Angular 
 property of being interchangeable, by certain rules, both with ra, and 
 fa ; in the fame manner as the Sylva of the Romans was formed from 
 the Molick word hylva, and as arbos was ufed in old Latin for arbor. 
 
 We come now to the firft proper confonant of the Indian fyflem, in 
 which a feries of letters, formed in the throat near the root of the 
 tongue, properly takes the lead. This letter has the found of our k 
 and c in the words king and cannibal ; but there will be great conve- 
 nience in exprefTing it uniformly by the fecond of thofe marks, what- 
 ever be the vowel following it. The Arabs, and perhaps all nations 
 defcended from Sem, have a remarkable letter founded near the palate 
 with a hard prefTure, not unlike the cawing of a raven, as in the word 
 Kdfim ; and for this particular found the redundance of our own 
 alphabet fupplies us with an ufeful fymbol : the common people in 
 Hhtjdz and Egypt confound it, indeed, with the firft letter of Gabr, 
 and the Ferfians only add to that letter the hard palatine found of the 
 Arabian kdf; but, if we diilinguifla it invariably by k, we fhall find 
 the utility of appropriating our c to the notation of the Indian letter 
 now before us. The third letter of the Roman alphabet was probably 
 articulated like the kappa of the Greeks; and we may fairly fuppofe, 
 that Cicero and Cithara were pronounced alike at Rome and at AtheJis : 
 
 the
 
 OF ASIATICK V/ORDS. lg5 
 
 the Weljh apply this letter uniformly to the fame found, as in cae and 
 cefn ; and a little pradice will render fuch words as cita^ and cinnara 
 familiar to our eyes. 
 
 We hear much of afpirated letters ; but the only proper a/pirates 
 (thofe I mean, in which a ftrong breathing is diftindlly heard after the 
 confonants) are to be found in the languages of India ; unlefs the word 
 cachexy, which our medical writers have borrowed from the Greek, be 
 thought an exception to the rule : this afpiration may be diftinguifhed 
 by a comma, as the letter before us is expreffed in the word chanitra, a 
 fpade. The Arabian, Perfian, and Tiifcan afpirate, which is formed by 
 a harfh protrufion of the breath, while the confonant is roughly arti- 
 culated near the root of the tongue, may be written as in the word 
 makhzen, a treafury. 
 
 Whatever vowel follow this letter, it ihould conflantly be exprefTed 
 as in the words gul, a flower, and gil, clay ; and we may obferve, as 
 before, that a little ufe will reconcile us to this deviation from our irre- 
 gular fyftem. The Germaiis, whofe pronunciation appears to be more 
 confident than our own, would fcarce underftand the hatin name of 
 their own country, if an Englijhman were to pronounce it, as he was 
 taught at fchool. 
 
 The proper afpirate of the laft letter, as in the word Rag' huvanfa : 
 the Perjians and Arabs pronounce their ghain with a bur in the throat, 
 
 and
 
 igO ON THE ORTHOGRAPHY 
 
 and a tremulous motion of the tongue, which gives it a found refembling 
 that of r, as it is pronounced in Northumberland \ but it is in truth a 
 compound guttural, though frequently exprefTed by a fimple letter, as 
 in Gaza, which fliould be written Ghazzab, a city of Palejline, and in 
 gazelle, as the French naturalifts call the ghazal, or antelope, of the 
 Arabians. The Perjian word migh, a cloud, is meg' ha in Sanjcrit; as 
 mtJJj, a fheep, appears alfo to be derived from mejha, by that change of 
 the long vowels, which generally diftinguiflies the Iranian from ih.Q Indian 
 pronunciation. 
 
 This is the nafal palatine, which I have already propofed to denote 
 by a point above the letter n ; fince the addition of a ^ would create 
 confufion, and often fuggefl the idea of a different fyllable. Thus ends 
 the firft feries of Ndgar} letters, confifting of the hard Sind/oft guttural, 
 each attended by its proper afpirate, and followed by a f?a/al of the fame 
 clafs; which elegant arrangement is continued, as far as poflible, through 
 the Sanjcrit fyftem, and feems conformable to the beautiful analogy of 
 nature. 
 
 The next is a feries of compound letters, as mofl grammarians confider 
 them, though fome hold them to be fimple founds articulated near the 
 palate. The firll: of them has no diftindl fign in our own alphabet, but 
 is exprefled, as in the word Chi/za, by two letters, which are certainly 
 not its component principles : it might, perhaps, be more properly de- 
 noted, as it is in the great work of M. D' Herbelot, by t/b ; but the 
 inconvenience of retaining our own fymbol will be lefs than that of in- 
 troducing a new combination, or inventing, after the example of Dr. 
 
 Franklin,
 
 OF ASIATICK WORDS. ig; 
 
 Franklin, a new charafter. China is a Sanfcrit word ; and it will be 
 convenient fo to write it, though I feel an inclination to exprefs it other- 
 wife. 
 
 The fame compofition with a llrong breathing articulated after it. 
 Harlh as it may feem, we cannot, if we continue the former fymbol, 
 avoid expreffing this found, as in the word ch'hajidasy metre. 
 
 This too feems to have been confidered by the Hindus as a flmple 
 palatine, but appears in truth to be the complex expreffion of dzh : per- 
 haps the fame letter may, by a fmall difference of articulation, partake 
 of two different founds. This at leaft we may obferve, that the letter 
 under confideration is confounded, as a fimple found, with _)'<?, and, as a 
 compound, with za, one of its conffituents: thus the ydf mm oi Arabia 
 is by us called yVz/w/w, while the fame man is Giorgi at Rome and Zorzi 
 at Venice ; or (to give an example of both in a fingle word) yug, or 
 junBion, at Bdnares, is Jug in Bengal, and was pronounced zug, or, in 
 the nominative, ziigon at Athens. We fliould, however, invariably ex- 
 prefs the letter before us hy ja. 
 
 The Arabian letters d'hald', d'ad, and d'ha are all pronounced in Perjia 
 like za, with a fort of lifp from an attempt to give them their genuine 
 found: they may be well expreffed as in fluxionary charaders, by a feries 
 of points above them, Z) z, z. 
 
 The preceding letter afpirated, as in the word J'haJI^a, a iifh.. 
 
 This
 
 igS ON THE ORTHOGRAPHY 
 
 :5 
 
 This is the Jecond nafal compofed of the former and the letter ya. As 
 the Italian word agnello and our onion contain a compofition of n and y, 
 they fliould regularly be written anyello and onyon; and the Indian found 
 differs only in the greater nafality of the firft letter, which may be dif- 
 tinguifhed, as before, by a point. A very ufeful Sanfcrit root, fignify- 
 ing to know, begins with the letter y^ followed by this compound nafal, 
 and fhould be written jny a ; whence j?2yana, knowledge; but this harih 
 combination is in Bengal foftened into gya : it is expreffed by a diilindt 
 charadler, which ftands laft in the plate annexed *. 
 
 In the curious work entitled Tohfahul Hind, or The Prefent of India, 
 this is the Jburt/j feries of Sanfcrit letters ; but in general it has the third 
 rank, more agreeably, I think, to the analogy of the fyftem. This clafs 
 is pronounced with au inflexion of the tongue towards the roof of the 
 mouth, which gives an obtufe found to the confonant, and may be dif- 
 tinguifhed by an accent above it. The firft is the Indian t'a, as in the 
 word cot'ara, a rotten tree, and is commonly expreffed in Perfian writ- 
 ings h-^ four points, but would be better marked by the Arabian ta, 
 which it very nearly refembles. 
 
 The fame with a flrong breathing after it, as in Vaicunfha, or im- 
 -ivearied, an epithet of Vi/lmic. 
 
 * Plate II. 
 
 A remark-
 
 OF ASIATICK WORDS. IQQ 
 
 A remarkable letter, which the Mujlimaris call the Indian dal ; and 
 exprefs alfo by four points over it ; but it fhould, by analogy to the 
 others, be diftinguiflied by an accentual mark as in the word dan'day 
 punifhment. When the tongue is inverted with a flight vibratory mo- 
 tion, this letter has a mixture of the ra, with which it is often, but in- 
 corredly, confounded ; as in the common word ber for bera, great. It 
 refembles the Arabian dad. 
 
 The preceding letter afpirated, as in D'hdca, improperly pronounced 
 Dacca. In the fame manner may be written the. Arabian d hdy but 
 without the comma, fmce its afpirate is lefs diftindlly heard than in the 
 Indian found. 
 
 This is the nafal of the third feries, and formed by a fimilar inverfion 
 of the tongue : in Sanfcrit words it ufually follows the letters ra and Jha 
 (as in Brahmen a, derived from Brahman , the Supreme Being ; Viflmut 
 a name of his preferving power) ; or precedes the other letters of the 
 third clafs. 
 
 Here begins xhc fourth feries, on which we have little more to re- 
 mark. The hrft letter of this clafs is the common ta, or hard dental, 
 if it may not rather be confidered as a lingual. 
 
 Its
 
 200 ON THE ORTHOGRAPHY 
 
 Its afpirate, which ought to be written with a comma, as in the 
 word Afwatt'ha, the Indian fig-tree, left it be confounded by our 
 countrymen with the Arabian found in thurayya, the Pleiads, which is 
 precifely the Englip afpiration in think ; a found, which the Perjians 
 and French cannot eafily articulate : in Perfian it fhould be expreffed 
 by s with a point above it. 
 
 The/oft dental in Devata, or Deity. 
 
 The fame afpirated as in D'herma, juftice, virtue, or piety. We 
 muft alfo diftinguifh this letter by a comma from the Arabian in 
 dhahab, gold ; a found of difincult articulation in France and Perfia, 
 which we write thus very improperly, inftead of retaining the genuine 
 Anglofaxon letter, or expreffing it, as we might with great conve- 
 nience, dhus. 
 
 The fimple nafal, founded by the teeth with a little affiftance from 
 the noftrils, but not fo much as in many French and Perfian words. 
 Both this nafal and the former occur in the name Ndrdyen'a, or 
 dwelling in water. 
 
 Next come the labials in the fame order; and firft the hard labial 
 pa, formed by a ftrong comprefTion of the lips ; which fo ill fuits the 
 
 configuration
 
 OF ASIATICK WORDS. 201 
 
 configuration of an Arabian mouth, that it cannot be articulated by an 
 Arab without much effort. 
 
 The proper afpirate of pa, as in the word JJjepherd, but often pro- 
 nounced like onr fa, as infela, inftead oi p'hela, fruit. In truth the^^ 
 is a diftindl letter ; and our pha, which in EngliJJj is redundant, iliould 
 -be appropriated to the notation of this Indian labial. 
 
 TheyS/? labial in Budd'ha, wife, and the fecond letter in mofl alpha- 
 bets ufed by Europeans ; which begin with a vowel, a labial, a pala- 
 tine, and a lingual : it ought ever to be diftinguifhed in Ndgari by a 
 tranfverfe bar, though the copyifts often omit this ufeful diilindion. 
 
 The Indian afpirate of the preceding letter, as in the word bhdJJjd, 
 or ^.fpoken dialedt. No comma is neceffary in this notation, fince the 
 found oi bha cannot be confounded with any in our own language. 
 
 This is the laft nafal, as in Me}iii, one of the iirlt created beings 
 according to the Indians: it is formed by clofing the lips entirely, 
 whilll the breath paffes gently through the nofe; and here ends the re- 
 gular arrangement of the Ndgari letters. Another feries might have 
 been added, namely, fa,Jka, za, zha, which are in the fame proportion 
 as ta, tha, da, dha, and the reft ; but the two lafl: founds are not ufed 
 in Sanfcrit. 
 
 VOL. I. F F Then
 
 202 ON THE ORTHOGRAPHY 
 
 Then follows a fet of letters approaching to the nature of vowels : 
 the firft of them feenis in truth to be no more than our third fliort 
 vowel beginning a diphthong, and may, therefore, be thought a fuper- 
 fluous chara(fler : lince this union, however, produces a kind of con- 
 fonant articulated near the palate, it is ranked by many among the con- 
 fonants, and often confounded with ja : hence Yanmna, a facred river 
 in India, called alfo the Daughter of the Siiriy is written 'Romanes by the 
 Greeks, and Jumna, lefs properly, by the EngliJJj. 
 
 The two liquids na and ma, one of which is a lingual and the 
 other a labial, are kept apart, in order to preferve the analogy of the 
 fyflem ; and the other two are introduced between the two femivowels; 
 the firft of thefe is ra, as in Rama, the conqueror of Si/an. 
 
 The fecond is /a, in Lanca, another name of that ifland both in Tibut, 
 and in India. A defeft in the organs of the common Bengalefe often 
 caufes a confufion between thefe two liquids, and even the found of 
 na is frequently fubftituted for the letter before us. 
 
 When this charadler correfponds, as it fometimes does in Smtfcrit,. 
 with our iva, it is in facfl our Jifth Jloort vowel preceding another in 
 forming a diphthong, and might eafily be fpared in our fyftem of letters; 
 but, when it has the found of va, it is a labial formed by ftriking the 
 
 lower
 
 OF ASIATICK WORDS. 203 
 
 lower lip againil; the upper teeth, and might thus be arranged in a feries 
 of proportionals, pa, Ja, ba, va. It cannot ealily be pronounced in 
 this manner by the inhabitants of Bengal and fome other provinces, who 
 confound it with ba, from which it ought carefully to be diftinguiihed ; 
 fmce we cannot conceive, that in fo perfedt a fyftem as the Sanfcrit, 
 there could ever have been two fymbols for the fame found. In fad: the 
 Monies Parveti of our ancient Geographers were (o named from Parveta, 
 not Parbeta, a mountain. The ivaw of the Arabs is always a vowel, 
 either feparate or coalefcing with another in the form of a diphthong ; 
 but in Perjian words it is a confonant, and pronounced like our 'va, though 
 with rather lefs force. 
 
 Then follow three fibilants, the firft of which is often, very inaccu- 
 rately, confounded with the fecond, and even with the third: it belongs 
 to that clafs of confonants, which, in the notation here propofed, are 
 expreffed by acute accents above them to denote an inverfion of the 
 tongue towards the palate, whence this letter is called in India the 
 palatine fa. It occurs in a great number of words, and fliould be 
 written as in palds'a, the name of a facred tree with a very brilliant 
 flower. In the fame manner may be noted the s'ad of tlie Arabs 
 and Hebrews, which laft it refembles in fhape, and probably refem- 
 bled in found ; except that in Cas'mir and the provinces bordering 
 on Perjia it is hardly diftinguifhable from the following letter. 
 
 T\iQ. fecond is improperly written ^'« in our TLnglijh fyflem, and cha, 
 ftill more erroneoufly, in that of the French ; but the form generally 
 known may be retained, to avoid the inconvenience of too great a 
 change even from wrong to right. This letter, of which fa and ba 
 
 arc
 
 204 ON THE ORTHOGRAPHY 
 
 are not the component parts, is formed fo far back in the head, that 
 the Indians call it a cerebral : either it was not articulated by the Greeks, 
 or they chofe to exprefs it by their Xi ; fince of the Pcrjian word 
 Ardajlnr they have formed Artaxerxes. 
 
 The dental fa, which refembles the Hebrew letter of the fame found, 
 and, like that, is often miftaken by ignorant copyifls for the ma. 
 
 The ftrong breathing ha, but rather mifplaced in the Ndgar} fyftem ; 
 fince it is the fecond element of articulate founds: the very hard breath- 
 ing of the Arabs may be well exprefled by doubling the mark of afpira- 
 tion, as in Muhhamtned, or by an accent above it in the manner of the 
 long vowels, as in Ahmed. 
 
 The Indian fyftem of letters clofes with a compound of ca and Jloa, 
 as in the word paricfia, ordeal : it is analogous to our x, a fuperfluous 
 character, of no ufe, that I know of, except in algebra. The Bengalefe 
 give it the found of cya, or of our k in fuch words as kind and_/5_y ; but 
 we may conclude, that the other pronunciation is very ancient, lince the 
 old Perfians appear to have borrowed their word Racjhah from the 
 Racjha, or demon of the Hindus, which is written with the letter before 
 us. The Greeks rendered this letter by their Khi, changing Dacjlnn, or 
 the fouth, into Dakhin. 
 
 All the founds ufed in Sanfcrit, Arabick, Perjian, and Hindi, are ar- 
 ranged fyilematically in the table prefixed to this diflertation * ; and the 
 
 * Plate I. 
 
 fingular
 
 OF ASIATICK WORDS. 205 
 
 lingular letter of the Arabs, which they call am, is placed immediately 
 before the confonants. It might have been claffed, as the modern "Jews 
 pronounce it, among the flrong nafals of the Indians ; but, in Arabia 
 and Perjia, it has a very different found, of which no verbal defcription 
 can give an idea, and may not improperly be called a nafal vowel: it is 
 uniformly diftinguifhed by a circumjiex either above a fhort vowel or 
 over the letter preceding a long one, as ilm, learning, adlim, learned. 
 
 Agreeably to the preceding analyfis of letters, if I were to adopt a 
 new mode of EngliJJj orthography, I fliould write Addifons defcription 
 of the angel in the following manner, diftinguifliing the Jimple breath- 
 ing, or firft element, which we cannot invariably omit, by a perpen- 
 dicular line above our firfl or fecond vowel : 
 
 So hwen sm enjel, bai divain camand, 
 
 Widh railin tempefts fliecs a gilti land, 
 
 Sch az av let or pel Britanya paft. 
 
 Calm and lirfn hi draivz dhi fyuryas blaft. 
 
 And, pliz'd dh'almaitiz arderz tu perform. 
 
 Raids in dhi hwerlwind and daired:s dhi Harm. 
 
 This mode of writing poetry would be the touchftone of bad rhymes, 
 which the eye as well as the ear would inflantly detedl ; as in the firfl 
 couplet of this defcription, and even in the laft, according to the com- 
 mon pronunciation of the v^orA. perform. I clofe this paper with fpeci- 
 mens of oriental writing, not as fixed ftandards of orthography, which 
 no individual has a right to fettle, but as examples of the method, 
 which I recommend ; and, in order to relieve the drynefs of the fub- 
 jedt, I annex tranflations of all but the firft fpecimen, which I referve 
 for another occafion. 
 
 I. Four
 
 2O0 ON THE ORTHOGRAPHY 
 
 I. 
 
 Four D'ljUchsfrom the Sr'ibha'gawat *. 
 Mr. WiLKiNs's Orthography. 
 
 ahamevasamevagre nanyadyat sadasat param 
 pafchadaham yadetachcha yovaseefhyeta sofmyaham 
 
 reetertham yat prateeyeta na prateeyeta chatmanee 
 tadveedyad atmano mayam yatha bhaso yatha tamah 
 
 yatha n:iahantee bh65tanee bhooteflioochchavachefliwanoo 
 praveeflitanyapraveellitanee tatha teflioo natefhwaham 
 
 etavadeva jeeinafyam tattwa jeejnasoonatmanab 
 anwaya vyateerekabhyam yat fyat sarvatra sarvada. 
 
 This wonderful pafTage I fliould exprefs in the following manner : 
 
 ahamevafamevagre nanyadyat fadafat param 
 pas'chadaham yadetachcha yovas ifliyeta fofmyaham 
 
 ntert'ham yat pratiyeta na pratiyeta chatmani 
 tadvidyadatmano rrtayam yat'ha bhafo yat 'ha tamah 
 
 yat'ha mahanti bhutani bhuteflnichchavachefliwanu 
 pravifh'tanyapravifh tani tat'ha telhu na tefliwaham 
 
 etavadeva jijnyafyam tattwa jijnyafunatmanah 
 anwaya vyatirecabhyam yat fyat fervatra fervada. 
 
 » See Plate IV. The Letters arc in Plate II. 
 
 II. Mo'ha
 
 lo/J /III ll'fl. 
 
 J'/nle Jl. ' 

 
 t ^,«M5f. -. '^■■•wiM^wr* ■^«^»^*f^"*«*>««i^.
 
 OF ASIATICK WORDS. 207 
 
 II. 
 
 Mo'ha Mudgara. 
 The title of this fine piece properly fignifies The Mallet of Delufion 
 or Folly, but may be tranflated A Remedy for DifraSlion of Mind : it is 
 compofed in regular anapceftick verfes according to the ftrifteft rules of 
 Greek profody, but in rhymed couplets, two of which here form a 
 s Idca^ 
 
 54^^c^r^3if chilli 3° f^3° c^t^[it?imi^° \\
 
 208 ON THE ORTHOGRAPHY 
 
 mud'ha jahi'hi dhanagamatriflin'am 
 curu tenubuddhimanah fuvitrTflindm 
 yallabhase nijacarmopattam 
 vittam tena vinodaya chittam. 
 
 c4
 
 OF ASIATICK WORDS. 20C) 
 
 ca tava canta cafle putrah 
 fanfcaroyam ativavichlttrah 
 cafya twam va cuta ayata 
 ftattwam chintaya tadidam bhratah. 
 
 ma curu dhanajanayauvanagarvam 
 harati nimefhat calah farvam 
 mayamayamidamac'hilam hitwa 
 brehmapadam previs'as'u viditwa, 
 
 nalinidalagatajalavattaralam 
 tadvajjivanamatis'aya chapalam 
 cflienamiha fajjana fangatireca 
 bhawati bhavvarnavatarane nauca. 
 
 angam galitam palitani mund'ain 
 dantavihin'am jatam tund'am 
 caradhritacampitas'obhitadand'am 
 tadapi namunchatyas'a bhand'am. 
 
 yavajjananam tavanmaran'am 
 tavajjanani jat'hare s'ayanam 
 iti fansare fp'hut'atara dolhah 
 cat'hamiha manava tava fantofliah. 
 
 dinayaminyau sayam pratah 
 s'is'iravafantau punarayatah 
 calah end ati gach'hatyayu 
 ftadapi na munchatyas'avayuh. 
 
 VOL. 1. G G fura-
 
 210 ON THE ORTHOGRAPHY 
 
 furavaramandiratarutalavafah 
 s'ayya bhutalamajinam vafah 
 fervaparigrahabhogatyagah 
 calya fuc'ham na caroti viragah. 
 
 s'atrau mitre putre bandhau 
 ma curu yatnam vigrahafandhau 
 bhava famachittah fervatra twam 
 vanch'hafyachirad yadi vifhnutwam. 
 
 afh'taculachalafeptafamudra 
 brehmapurandaradinacararudrah 
 natwam naham nayam Idea 
 ftadapl cimart'ham criyate s'ocah. 
 
 twayi mayi chanyatraico vifliiiur 
 vyart'ham cupyafi mayyafahifhnuh 
 fervam pas'yatmanyatmanam 
 fervatrotfrija bhedaj nyanam. 
 
 valaftavat crid'as'adla 
 ftarun'aftavat taruniradlah 
 vriddhaftavach chintamagnah 
 pereme brahman'i copi nalagnah. 
 
 dwadas'a pajj'hat'icabhiras efhah 
 s'ifhyanam cat'hitobhyupades'ah 
 yertiam naifba caroti vivecam 
 tefham cah curutamatirecam. 
 
 A verbal
 
 OF ASIATICK WORDS. 21 1 
 
 A verbal Tranflation. 
 
 1. Reflrain, deluded mortal, thy thirft of acquiring wealth; excite an 
 zweriion from it in thy body, underftanding, and inclination : with the 
 riches, which tliou acquire!!: by thy own adtions, with thefe gratify 
 thy foul. 
 
 2. Who is thy wife; who thy fon; how extremely wonderful is even 
 this world; whofe creature thou alfo art; whence thou cameft — medi- 
 tate on this, O brother, and again on this. 
 
 3. Make no boail of opulence, attendants, youth; all thefe time 
 fnatches av/ay in the twinkling of an eye : checking all this illufion like 
 Maya, fet thy heart on the foot of Brahme, fpeedily gaining know- 
 ledge of him, 
 
 4. As a drop of water moves tremulous on the lotos-leaf, thus is hu- 
 man life inexpreflibly flippery: the company of the virtuous endures here 
 but for a moment ; that is our fhip in pafling the ocean of the world. 
 
 5. The body is tottering; the head, grey; the mouth, toothlefs: the 
 delicate ftaff trembles in the hand, which holds it : ilill the flaggon of 
 covetoufnefs remains unemptied. 
 
 fi. How foon are ive born ! how foon dead ! how long lying in the 
 mother's womb ! How great is the prevalence of vice in this world ! 
 Wherefore, O man, haft thou complacency here below ? 
 
 7. Day and night, evening and morning, winter and fpring depart 
 and return: time fports, life paffes on; yet the wind of expectation 
 continues unreftrained. 
 
 8. To
 
 212 ON THE ORTHOGRAPHY 
 
 8. To dwell under the manfion of the high Gods at the foot of a 
 tree, to have the ground for a couch, and a hide for vefture ; to re- 
 nounce all extrinfick enjoyments, — whom doth not fuch devotion fill 
 with dehght ? 
 
 f). Place not thy affedlions too ftrongly on foe or friend, on a fon or 
 a kinfman, in war or in peace : be thou even-minded towards all, if 
 thou defirefl fpeedily to attain the nature of Vishnu. 
 
 10. Eight original mountains, and feven feas, Brahme, Indra, the 
 Sun, and Rudra, thefe are permanent : not thou, not I, not this or that 
 people ; wherefore then fhould anxiety be raifed in our minds ? 
 
 11. In thee, in me, in every other being is Vishnu; fooliflily art 
 thou offended with me, not bearing my approach : fee every foul in thy 
 own foul ; in all places lay afide a notion of diverfity. 
 
 12. The boy fo long delights in his play; the youth fo long purfues 
 his damfel ; the old man fo long broods over uneafinefs ; that no one 
 meditates on the Supreme Being. 
 
 13. This is the inftrudlion of learners delivered in twelve diftinft 
 flanzas : what more can be done with fuch, as this work fills not 
 with devotion ? 
 
 III. 
 
 The following elegy, which is chofen as a fpecimen of Arabick*, 
 was compofed by a learned Philofopher and Scholar, Mi'r Mu- 
 HAMMED HusAiN, before his journey to Haidarabad ^nih. Richard 
 Johnson, Efq. 
 
 • Plate V. and Plate III. 
 
 7m
 
 /'<•/././"> ■■/:! /'/„/,. f- 
 
 ^^^dU 
 
 yr r X( 
 
 I/if 1"-" ^''^ 
 

 
 OF ASIATICK WORDS. 21 o 
 
 ma anfa Id dnfa dllati 
 jdat ilayya dlai hadhar 
 dlnaumu dthkala jafnahd 
 wadlkalbu t'dra bihi dldhadr 
 
 ras'adat dsdwida kaumihd 
 Jatakhallafat mtnhd dlgharar 
 nazadt khaldkhildn lehd 
 dlld tufdjihd bipoar 
 
 tejkcu alt' arika lid hiilmahin' 
 fakadat bihd najma dlfahhar 
 fi lailahin kad cahhalat 
 
 bifawddihd jafna dlkamar 
 
 wa ierai dlghamdma cadjmulin' 
 terdi dlnujuma dlai djkar 
 tebci uyi'inon' lilfemdi 
 dlai h addy'ikihd alziihar 
 
 ivadlberku yebjimu thegriihu 
 djabdri Ithdtica dlghiyar 
 wadlrddu cdda yukharriku 
 aids' mdkha fi s'ummi dlh'ajar 
 
 fiihaivat tiiddnikiini wakad 
 h'adharat indki min khafar 
 wadldemu bella khududahd 
 wafakai riyad'd?i lilnad'har 
 
 cateneffafat
 
 214 ON THE OR'illOGRAPHY 
 
 ivatcneffajat id' b callamat 
 ivaramat fuivadi hidlJJjerar 
 d hallat tuddtibunei dlai 
 an jcdda It dzmu dlfafar 
 
 kdJat ddbabta fuwddand 
 waddhaktahu h'erra dlfakar 
 tads' i dwdvicra lilhawai 
 ivatiit'iuu nds'ih'aca dlghudar 
 
 watedurii min drd'in' ilai 
 drd'tri leamd terd'di dlmekarr 
 yaumdn tcsiric bica dlbihhdrii 
 watdrah' an tiir?nai bibarr 
 
 ma dhd djddaca jaiilahon' 
 h'aula dlbilddi fiwai did' ajar 
 adlifta dd hbda dlfeld 
 ivanesita drama dlbdjljer 
 
 dm kad melelta jiivdrand 
 ya ivdiha khillm kad nafar 
 fdrh'em dlai kalbi dlladhi 
 rdma dlfuhiwwa ivamd kadar. 
 
 The Tranflation. 
 
 1. Never, oh ! Jiever lliall I forget the fair one, who came to my tent 
 with tunid circumfpeiflion : 
 
 2. Sleep fat heavy on her eye-lids, and her heart fluttered with fear. 
 
 3. She
 
 OF ASIATICK WORDS. 215 
 
 3. She had marked the dragons of her tribe (the fentinels), and 
 had difmifTed all dread of danger from them : 
 
 4. She had laid afide the rings, which ufed to grace her ankles ; left 
 the found of them fhould expofe her to calamity : 
 
 5. She deplored the darknefs of the way, which hid from her the 
 morning- ftar. 
 
 6. It was a night, when the eye-lafhes of the moon were tinged with 
 the black powder (Alcohol) of the gloom : 
 
 7. A night, in which thou mightefl have it&w the clouds, like 
 camels, eagerly grazing on the ftars ; 
 
 8. While the eyes of heaven wept on the bright borders of the fky ; 
 
 g. The lightning difplayed his fhining teeth, with wonder at this 
 change in the firmament ; 
 
 10. And the thunder almoft burft the ears of the deafened rocks. 
 
 1 1 . She was defirous of embracing me, but, through modefly, de- 
 clined my embrace. 
 
 12. Tears bedewed her cheeks, and, to my eyes, watered a bower 
 of roles. 
 
 13. When file fpake, her panting fighs blew flames into my heart. 
 
 14. She continued expoftulating with me on my exceflive delire of 
 travel. 
 
 15. ' Thou
 
 210 ON THE ORTHOGR.VPHY 
 
 15. * Thou haft melted my heart, fhe faid, and made it feel Inex- 
 
 * preffible anguilli. 
 
 lO, * Thou art perverfe in thy condudl to her who loves thee, and 
 
 * obfequious to thy guileful advifer. 
 
 17- ' Thou goeft round from country to country, and art never 
 
 * pleafed with a fixed refidence. 
 
 18. ' One while the feas roll with thee; and, another while, thou 
 ' art agitated on the fliore. 
 
 IQ. * What fruit, but painful fatigue, can arife from rambling over 
 
 * foreign regions ? 
 
 20. ' Haft thou afTociated thyfelf with the wild antelopes of the de- 
 ' fert, and forgotten the tame deer ? 
 
 21. ' Art thou weary then of our neighbourhood? O wo to him, 
 ' who flees from his beloved ! 
 
 22. • Have pity at length on my afflidled heart, which feeks relief, 
 ' and cannot obtain it.' 
 
 Each couplet of the original confifts of two Dmeter lambicks, and 
 muft be read in the proper cadence. 
 
 IV. 
 
 As a fpecimen of the old Ferjian language and charadler, I fubjoin a 
 very curious paffage from the Zend, which was communicated to me 
 by Bahman the fon of Bahra m, a native of Tezd, and, as his 
 name indicates, a Panl : he wrote the paffage from memory ; fince 
 
 his
 

 
 OF ASIATICK WORDS. 217 
 
 his books in Fahlavi and Deri are not yet brought to Bengal. It 
 is a fuppofed anfwcr of I'zad or God to Zera'htusht, who had 
 afked by what means mankind could attain happinefs. 
 
 Az pid u mad che ce pid u mad ne khoflmud b\d hargiz bihijht ne vimd ', 
 be jdyi cirfah bizah vimd: mehdn ra be dzarm nic darid, cehdn ra be hich 
 gunah maydzdnd : aj kbipdvendi dervijl:) nang meddrid : ddd u venddd i 
 khdliki yeSid beh car ddrid ; az rijldkhizi ten pasin endifieh nemdyid ; 
 mabddd ce ajhii ten khiJJ:) rd duzakhi cumd, va dnche be khiJJiten najhdhad 
 be cafdn mapafettd'id va ma cumd: her che be git), cumd be mainu az aueh 
 pazirah dyed * . 
 
 A Verbal Tranllation. 
 
 *' If you do that with which your father and mother are not pleafed, 
 you fhall never fee heaven j inflead of good fpirits, you fliall fee evil 
 beings : behave with honefty and with refpeft to the great j and on no 
 account injure the mean : hold not your poor relations a reproach to you: 
 imitate the juftice and goodnefs of the Only Creator: meditate on the 
 refurredlion of the future body; left you make your fouls and bodies the 
 inhabitants of hellj and whatever would be unpleafing to yourfelves, 
 think not that pleafing to others, and do it not: whatever good you do 
 on earth, for that you fhall receive a retribution in heaven." 
 
 It will, perhaps, be fufpedled (and the language itfelf may confirm 
 the fufpicion), that this dodtrine has been taken from a religion very 
 different both in age and authority, from that of Zera'htusht. 
 
 V. 
 
 The following ftory in modern Perjian was given to me by Mirzd 
 Abdu'lrahhi'm of Isfahan: it feems extradled from one of the 
 
 * Plate VII. The Zend Letters are in Plate III. 
 
 VOL. I. H H many
 
 218 ON THE ORTHOGRAPHY 
 
 many poems on the loves of Mejnu'n and Lail'i, the Romeo and 
 Juliet of the Eafl. Each verfe confifts of a Cretick foot followed 
 by two Choriambij or a Choriambus and a Molojfus.
 
 OF ASIATICK WORDS. 21 ^ 
 
 I, y<^, ''-'Lt ;J o;^ LV::^ J^v^ ^CO^ ,
 
 220 ON THE ORTHOGRAPHY 
 
 Shirmajii feri pijldni diem 
 pevoerejh ydftehi dumeni ghem 
 
 abi rang o rokh'i laildyi joniin 
 khdli rokhjdrehi hdmun Mejnun 
 
 ydft chun rah bi cdjlmnehi ijfik 
 afitdnjlmd bideri khdnehi ijhk 
 
 berfereJJ: Jloakhs i jonun fdyah Jicand 
 kis's'ehi ddjhiki dfi gaj}:>t boland 
 
 der drab her t'arafi ghaugha Jhud 
 nakli u nokli mejdlis-hd JJmd 
 
 bud dmiri bidrab vdldjfjdn 
 s'ab'ibi micnat bfervat * bijehdn 
 
 tore tdzi ghemt hejrdn didab 
 pur guli ddghi moh'abbat cbidah 
 
 didah der t'tjiiyi khod suziferdk 
 talkhiyi zahri ferdkejlo bimezdk 
 
 * The reader will fupply the point over /, when it ftands for th. 
 
 ydft
 
 OF ASIATICK WORDS. 221 
 
 ydft chun kh's'ehian derdjigal 
 card fer man bighuldmi der h dl 
 
 ceh suyi najd kadamfdz zifer. 
 flmu beh tdjil ravdn chun s ers'er 
 
 an ceh dil bordah zi Mejniin bi nigdh 
 beh berem zud biydver hemrdh 
 
 raft dvard ghuldmac der h'dl 
 Lain an pddifiahi mulct jemdl 
 
 beh ghuldmi digarejh (hud fermdn 
 ceh to hempau bi suyt dapt ravdn 
 
 jdnihi zinati drbdbijonun 
 
 Jkemi pur nuri mohabbat Mejniin 
 
 ziid aver berem an sukhtah rd 
 an jigarsiizi ghem dndukhtah rd 
 
 raft bergajht ghuldmac chu nigdh 
 vdliyi cifivari ijhkep hemrdh 
 
 card urd chu nazar mardi amir 
 did zdri bi ghemi ijhk dsir 
 
 ber fercjhpakhs'ijonun cardah vat' en 
 zakhmi hejrdn bi tenejh pirdhen 
 
 muyi fer ber hedenejh gajl.^tah koba 
 muzah dz dbilahi pa ber pd 
 
 jhdnah
 
 222 ON THE ORTHOGRAPHX 
 
 Jhanah dz khdrt muglnldn her mujls 
 khirkah dz rigi biydbdn ber dujh 
 
 goft cd\ gomflmdahi vddiyl ghem 
 hich khwdhi ceh temenndt dehem 
 
 ferferdzat ciinam dz micnat 6 jdh 
 Laili drem biberet khdt'er khwdh 
 
 goft rit til ceh haiidejl baiid 
 zerreh rd hem nazari bd khqrjhid, 
 
 goft klnvdhi ceh com rdji bigu 
 fairi an s'afh'ahi rokhfdri mcu 
 
 yd neddri bijemdlejh mail} 
 rdJl berguyi bijdni Lai/i 
 
 goft cdi kodvahi drbdbi cerem 
 zerrahi khdci deret tdjiferem 
 
 ber dilem derd zi Laiti cdfi/i 
 khwaheJJn vas I zi bi infdfiji 
 
 bahri khorfendiyi in jozvi h'akir 
 bas buvad pertavt dz mihri tJionir 
 
 goft gardtd suy\ dajht ravdn 
 didah girydn o tnizhah djljcfjhdn 
 
 The
 
 OF ASIATICK WORDS. 223 
 
 The Tranflation. 
 1 . The tfjan, who had inebriated himfelf with milk from the nipple of 
 Anguifh, who had been nourilhed in the lap of Affliiflion, 
 
 2. Mejnu'n, mad with the bright hue and fair face of Laili, him- 
 felf a dark mole on the cheek of the defert, 
 
 3. Having found the way to the manfion of love, became jixed like 
 the threlhold on the door of love's palace. 
 
 4. Over his head the form of Madnefs had cafl her fhadow : the tale 
 of his paffion was loudly celebrated. 
 
 5 . Among the Arabs a tumult arofe on all fides : the relation of his 
 adventures was a deffert in their aflemblies. 
 
 6. A powerful Prince reigned in Arabia, pofTeffing worldly magnifi- 
 cence and riches : 
 
 7. He had feen the depredations of Grief through abfence from a be- 
 loved obje<ft : he had plucked many a black-fpotted flower from the 
 garden o/'love. 
 
 8. Even in his infancy he had felt the pain of feparation : the bitter 
 tafte of that poifon remained on his palate. 
 
 9. When he learned the llory of that afflidled lover, he inflantly gave 
 an order to a flave, 
 
 10. Saying, ♦ Make thy head like thy feet in running towards Najd ; 
 * go with celerity, like a violejit wind : 
 
 1 1 . Bring
 
 224 ON THE ORTHOGRAPHY 
 
 11.* Bring fpeedily with thee to my prefence Her, who has ftolen 
 
 * the heart of Mejnu'n with a glance.' 
 
 12. The ftriphng ran, and in a fliort time brought Laili, that 
 Emprefs in the dominion of beauty. 
 
 1 3 . To another flave the Prince gave this order : ' Run thou alfo 
 
 * into the defert, 
 
 14. * Go to that ornament of frantick lovers, Mejnu'n, the illu- 
 
 * mined taper of love. 
 
 15. * Bring quickly before me that inflamed youth, that heart-con- 
 
 * fumed anguifh-pierced lover.' 
 
 lO. The boy went, and returned, in the twinkling of an eye, accom- 
 panied by the ruler in the territories of love. 
 
 17. When the Prince looked at him, he beheld a wretch in bondage 
 to the mifery of de fire. 
 
 18. Madnefs had fixed her abode on this head: he was clothed, as 
 with a veft, with the wounds of feparation. 
 
 19. His locks flowed, like a mantle, over his body: his only fandal 
 was the callus of his feet. 
 
 20. In his hair ftuck a comb oi Arabian thorns : a robe of fand from 
 the defert covered his back. 
 
 21. ' O THOU,
 
 OF ASIATIGK WORDS. 225 
 
 21. * O THOU, l^iid the Prince, who haft been loft in the valley of 
 ' forrow; doft thou not wifli me to give thee the objedl of thy paffion, 
 
 22. * To exalt thee with dignity and power, to bring LailI before 
 ' thee gratifying thy foul ?' 
 
 23. * No, no ; anfwered he, far, far is it from my wifli, that an atom 
 ' fliould be feen together with the fun.' 
 
 24. ' Speak truly, replied the Prince, art thou not wiUing to recreate 
 
 * thyfelf on the fmooth plain of that beautiful cheek ? 
 
 25. ' Or haft thou no inclination to enjoy her charms ? I adjure 
 
 * thee, by the foul of LailI, to declare the truth!' 
 
 f 
 
 26. He rejoined : * O chief of men with generous hearts, a particle 
 
 * of duft from thy gate is a diadem on my head. 
 
 2;. ' The pain of my love for LailI is fufficient for my heart: a 
 
 * wifli to enjoy her prefence thus would be injuftice. 
 
 28. * To gratify this contemptible foul of mine, a fingle ray from 
 
 * that bright luminary would be enough.' 
 
 20. He fpake, and ran towards the defert, his eye weeping, and his 
 eye-laflies raining tears. 
 
 Thefe couplets would fully anfwer the purpofe of fhowing the method, 
 in which Perftan may be written according to the original charaders, 
 with fome regard alfo to the Isfaham pronunciation ; but, fince a very 
 ingenious artift, named Muhammed Ghau'th, has engraved a tetra- 
 
 voL. 1. I I ftich
 
 226 ON THE ORTHOGRAPHY 
 
 ftich on copper, as a fpecimen of his art, and fince no movable types 
 can equal the beauty of Perjian writing, I annex his plate *, and add 
 the four lines, which he has felecfted, in EngliJJ,^ letters : they are too 
 eafy to require a tranflation, and too infignificant to deferve it, 
 
 Huwa'l dztz 
 Chafl^mi terahlhun zi to ddrim via 
 keblah toyi ru beceh anm ma 
 h'djati ma dz to ber ayed temam 
 ddmenat dz caf naguzdnm md, 
 
 VI. 
 
 The firft fpecimen of Hindi, that occurs to me, is a little Ghazal or 
 love-fong, in a Choriambick meafure, written by Gunna' Be i gum, 
 the wife of Gha'ziu'ldin Kh an, a man of confummate abilities 
 and confummate wickednefs, who has borne an a(5tive part in the 
 modern tranfaftions of Upper Hindu/ldn. 
 
 * Plate VI. 
 
 Muddan
 
 /}'///></■ ;'L>/->" 
 
 /%?/^ /z 
 
 
 
 
 ^^, I y/'i- .oK/ ^^^ •^>i 4 fe/ 
 
 ■c^; 
 
 -"- A^^ 

 
 OF ASIATICK WORDS. 227 
 
 Muddaii hemse fokhan fdz bi Jdlusi hat 
 ab tamenna co yehan muzhede'i mdyusi bdi 
 
 ah ab cafrati ddghi g/iemi khubdti se temam 
 s aflidi sinah mera jilwdi t'dust hoi 
 
 hdi men t'arah' jigar khuni tira muddatse 
 at Kinnd cijci tujhe khwdhijln pdbusi hdi 
 
 awazi derd meze se ivah bhere Juiin sure 
 jis lebi zakham ne JhemJJAri teri chus\ hdi 
 
 tohmati ijhk abas cart} halt mujhper Minnat 
 han yeh fech milne ci khubdn se tu tuc khust hdi. 
 
 The Tranflation. 
 
 1 . My beloved foe fpeaks of me with diffimulation ; and now the 
 tidings of defpair are brought hither to the defire of my foul. 
 
 2. Alas, that the fmooth furface of my bofom, through the marks 
 of burning in the fad abfence of lovely youths, is become like the 
 plumage of a peacock. 
 
 3. Like me, O Hinnd (the fragrant and elegant fhrub, with the 
 leaves of which the nails of Arabian women are dyed crimfon), thy 
 heart has long been full of blood : whofe foot art tliou defirous of 
 kiffing ? 
 
 4. Inftead of pain, my beloved, every wound from thy cimcter fucks 
 with its lips the fweetnefs, with which it is filled. 
 
 5. The
 
 228 
 
 5. The fufplcion of love is vainly cafl on Minnat — Yes ; true it 
 is, that my nature rather leads me to the company of beautiful youths. 
 
 Thus have I explained, by obfervations and examples, my method of 
 noting in Roman letters the principal languages of AJia ; nor can I 
 doubt, that Armenian, T^iirkijl:i, and the various dialedts of Tartary, 
 may be expreffed in the fame manner v^^ith equal advantage ; but, as 
 Chinefe words are not written in alphabetical chara<5ters, it is obvious, 
 that they mufl be noted according to the beft pronunciation ufed in 
 China ; which has, I imagine, few founds incapable of being rendered 
 by the fymbols ufed in this eflay. 
 
 ON
 
 ON 
 
 THE GODS OF GREECE, ITALY, AND INDIA, 
 
 If'RITTEN IN 1784, JND SINCE RE/'ISED. 
 
 BY 
 
 The president. 
 
 VY E cannot juilly conclude, by arguments preceding the proof of 
 fadls, that one idolatrous people muft have borrowed their deities, 
 rites, and tenets from another ; fince Gods of all fliapes and dimen- 
 fions may be framed by the boundlefs powers of imagination, or by the 
 frauds and folhes of men, in countries never connedled ; but, when 
 features of refemblance, too ftrong to have been accidental, are ob- 
 fervable in different fyftems of polytheifm, without fancy or prejudice 
 to colour them and improve the likenefs, we can fcarce help believing, 
 that fome conne<5tion has immemorially fubfifted between the feveral 
 nations, who have adopted them : it is my defign in this eifay, to point 
 out fuch a refemblance between the popular worfliip of the old Greeks 
 and Italians and that of the Hindus; nor can there be room to doubt of a 
 great fimilarity between their flrange religions and that of Egypt, China, 
 Perjia, Phrygia, Phcenice, Syria; to which, perhaps, we may fifely 
 add fome of the fouthern kingdoms and even iflands of America ; while 
 the Gothick fyftem, which prevailed in the northern regions of Europe, 
 was not merely limilar to thofe of Greece and Italy, but almoil: the fame 
 
 in
 
 230 ' ON THE GODS OF GREECE, 
 
 in another drefs with an embroidery of images apparently yljiatkk. 
 From all this, if it be fatisfaftorily proved, we may infer a general 
 union or affinity between the moft diftinguillied inhabitants of the pri- 
 mitive world, at the time when they deviated, as they did too early devi- 
 ate, from the rational adoration of the only true God. 
 
 There feem to have been four principal fources of all mythology. 
 I. Hiftorical, or natural, truth has been perverted into fable by igno- 
 rance, imagination, flattery, or ftupidity ; as a king of Crete, whofe 
 tomb had been difcovered in that ifland, was conceived to have been the 
 God oi Olympus, and Minos, a legillator of that country, to have been 
 his fon, and to hold a fupreme appellate jurifdidlion over departed fouls; 
 hence too probably flowed the tale of Cadmus, as Bochart learnedly 
 traces it ; hence beacons or volcanos became one-eyed giants and mon- 
 fters vomiting flames j and two rocks, from their appearance to mari- 
 ners in certain pofitions, were fuppofed to cruili all velfels attempting to 
 pafs between them ; of which idle fiitions many other infl:ances might 
 be collecfted from the OdyJJ'cy and the various Argonautick poems. The 
 lefs we fay of "Julian ftars, deifications of princes or warriours, altars 
 raifed, with thofe of Apollo, to the bafeft of men, and divine titles 
 beftowed on fuch wretches as Cajus Octavianus, the lefs we fliall 
 expofe the infamy of grave fenators and fine poets, or the brutal folly o^ 
 the low multitude : but we may be afliired, that the mad apotheofis of 
 truly great men, or of little men falfely called great, has been the origin 
 ■ofgrofs idolatrous errors in every part of the pagan world. II. The 
 next fource of them appears to have been a wild admiration of the 
 heavenly bodies, and, after a time, the fyftems and calculations of 
 Aftronomers : hence came a confiderable portion of 'Egyptian and Grecian 
 fable ; the Sabian worfliip in Arabia ; the Perjian types and emblems of 
 Mihr or the fun, and the far extended ado ation of the elements and 
 the powers of nature ; and hence perhaps, all the artificial Chronology 
 
 of
 
 ITALY, AND INDIA. 231 
 
 of the Chincfe and Indians, with the invention of demigods and heroes to 
 fill the vacant niches in their extravagant and imaginary periods. III. 
 Numberlefs divinities have been created folely by the magick of poetry; 
 w^hofe efTential bufinefs it is, to perfonify the moft abftra<fl notions, and 
 to place a nymph or a genius in every grove and almoft in every flower: 
 hence Hygieia and Jafo, health and remedy, are the poetical daughters 
 of iEscuLAPius, who was either a diflinguiflied phyfician, or medical 
 fkill perfonified j and hence Chloris, or verdure, is married to the Ze- 
 phyr. IV. The metaphors and allegories of moralifts and metaphy- 
 ficians have been alfo very fertile in Deities ; of which a thoufand ex- 
 amples might be adduced from Plato, Cicero, and the inventive 
 commentators on Homer in their pedigrees of the Gods, and their 
 fabulous lefTons of morality : the richefl and nobleft ftream from this 
 abundant fountain is the charming philofophical tale of Psyche, or the 
 Progrefs of the Soul-, than which, to my tafte, a more beautiful, fub- 
 blime, and well fupported allegory was never produced by the wifdom 
 and ingenuity of man. Hence alfo the Indian Ma'ya', or, as the word 
 is explained by fome Hindu fcholars, " the firft inclination of the God- 
 " head to diverfify himfelf (fuch is their phrafe) by creating worlds," 
 is feigned to be the mother of univerfal nature, and of all the inferiour 
 Gods ; as a Cajhmirian informed me, when I afked him, why Ca'ma, 
 or Lo've, was reprefented as her fon \ but the word Ma'ya', or delufion^ 
 has a more fubtile and recondite fenfe in the Vedanta philofophy, where 
 it fignifies the fyfteni oi perceptions, whether of fecondary or of primary 
 qualities, which the Deity was believed by Epicharmus, Plato, 
 and many truly pious men, to raife by his omniprefent fpirit in the 
 minds of his creatures, but which had not, in their opinion, any exig- 
 ence independent of mind. 
 
 In drawing a parallel between the Gods of the Indian and European 
 heathens, from whatever fource they were derived, I fhall remember, 
 
 that
 
 232 ON THE GODS OF GREECE, 
 
 , that nothing is lefs favourable to enquiries after truth than a fyilematical 
 fpirit, and fliall call to mind the faying of a Hindu writer, " that who- 
 *' ever obftinately adheres to any fet of opinions, may bring himfelf to 
 *' believe that the freflieft fandal-wood is a flame of fire:" this will 
 effecftually prevent me from infifting, that fuch a God of LjcUa was the 
 Jupiter of Greece ; fuch, the Apollo j fuch, the Mercury : in fad:, 
 fince all the caufes of polytheifm contributed largely to the aflemblage 
 oi Grecian divinities (though Bacon reduces them all to refined allego- 
 ries, and Newton to a poetical difguife of true hiflory), we find many 
 JovES, many Apollos, many Mercuries, with difiindl attributes and 
 capacities ; nor fliall I prefume to fuggell more, than that, in one capa- 
 city or another, there exifls a flriking fimilltude between the chief ob- 
 jedls of worfliip in ancient Greece or Italy and in the very interefling 
 country, which we now inhabit. 
 
 The corhparifon, which I proceed to lay before you, mufl needs be 
 , very fuperficial, partly from my Ihort refidence in Hindujlan, partly 
 from my want of complete leifurc for literary amufements, but princi- 
 pally becaufe I have no TLuropean book, to refrefli my memory of old 
 fables, except the conceited, though not unlearned, work of Pomey, 
 entitled the Pantheon, and that fo miferably tranflated, that it can hardly 
 be read with patience. A thoufand more flrokes of refemblance might, 
 I am fure, be colledled by any, who fliould with that view perufe 
 Hesiod, Hyginus, Corn ut us, and the other mythologifls ; or, 
 which would be a fliorter and a pleafantcr way, fliould be fatisfied with 
 the very elegant Symtagtnata of Lilius Giraldus. 
 
 Difquifitions concerning the manners and conduit of our fpecies in 
 early times, or indeed at any time, are always curious at leafl; and amuf- 
 Ingj but they are highly interefling to fuch, as can fay of themfelves 
 
 with
 
 ITALY, AND INDIA, 
 
 >oo 
 
 with Chremes in the play, " We are men, and take an interelt in all 
 ** that relates to mankind :" They may even be of folid importance in 
 an age, when fome intelligent and virtuous perfons are inclined to doubt 
 the authenticity of the accounts, delivered by Moses, concerning the 
 primitive world ; fince no modes or fources of reafoning can be unim- 
 portant, which have a tendency to remove fuch doubts. Either the 
 firft eleven chapters of Genefis, all due allowances being made for a 
 figurative Eaftern ilyle, are true, or the whole fabrick of our national 
 religion is falfe ; a conclulion, which none of us, I trufl, would wilh to 
 be drawn. I, who cannot help believing the divinity of the Messiah, 
 from the undifputed antiquity and manifell completion of many pro- 
 phefies, efpecially thole of Isaiah, in the only perlbn recorded by 
 hiflory, to whom they are applicable, am obliged of courfe to believe 
 the fandity of the venerable books, to which that facred perfon refers 
 as genuine ; but it is not the truth of our national religion, as fuch, 
 that I have at heart : it is truth itfelf ; and, if any cool unbialled 
 reafoner will clearly convince me, that Moses drew his narrative 
 through Egyptian conduits from the priaieval fountains of Indian litera- 
 ture, I lliall efteem him as a friend for having weeded my mind from a 
 capital error, and promife to Hand among the foremoft in aflifling to 
 circulate the truth, which he has afcertained. After fuch a declaration, 
 I cannot but periuade myfelf, that no candid man will be difpleafed, if, 
 in the courfe of my work, I make as free with any arguments, that he 
 may have advanced, as I Ihould really defire him to do with any of 
 mine, that he may be difpofed to controvert. Having no fyftem of my 
 own to maintain, I fliall not purfue a very regular method, but fhall 
 take all the Gods, of whom I dilbourfe, as they happen to prelent 
 themfelves j beginning, however, like the Romans and the Hindus, 
 with Janu or Gane'sa. 
 
 VOL. I. K K The
 
 234 ON THE GODS OF GREECE, 
 
 The titles and attributes of this old Italian deity are fully comprized 
 in two choriambick verfes of Sulpitius ; and a farther account of him 
 from Ovid would here be fuperfluous : 
 
 Jane pater, Jane tuens, dive biceps, biformis, 
 O cate rerum fator, O principium deorum ! 
 
 " Father Janus, all-beholding Janus, thou divinity with two heads, 
 •' and with two forms ; O fagacious planter of all things, and leader 
 " of deities!" 
 
 He was the God, we fee, of Wifdom', whence he is reprefented on 
 coins with two, and, on the Hetrufcan image found at Falifci, with 
 four, faces; emblems of prudence and circumfpedlion : thus is Gane'sa, 
 the God of Wifdom in Hindujian, painted with an Elephanfs head, the 
 fymbol of fagacious difcemment, and attended by a favourite rat, which 
 the Indians confider as a wife and provident animal. His next great 
 character (the plentiful fource of many fuperftitious ufages) was that, 
 from which he is emphatically ftyled the father, and which the fecond 
 verfe before-cited more fully exprefles, the origin and founder of all 
 things: whence this notion arofe, unlefs from a tradition that he firft 
 built flirines, raifed altars, and inftituted facrifices, it is not eafy to 
 conjecture ; hence it came however, that his name was invoked before 
 any other Godj that, in the old facred rites, corn and wine, and, in 
 later times, incenfe alfo, were firft otFered to Janus ; that the doors or 
 entrances to private houfes were called Januce, and any pervious pafTage 
 or thorough-fare, in the plural number, Jani, or with two beginnings ; 
 that he was reprefented holding a rod as guardian of ways, and a key, 
 as opening, not gates only, but all important works and affairs of man- 
 kind ; that he was thought to prefide over the morning, or beginning of 
 
 day;
 
 Vol.1. 
 
 / 
 
 fl.234-
 
 ITALY, AND INDIA. 235 
 
 Jay; that, although the Roman year began regularly with March, yet 
 the eleventh month, named Januariust was confidered as Jirji of the 
 twelve, whence the whole year was fuppofed to be under his guidance, 
 and opened with great folemuity by the confuls inaugurated in his fane, 
 where his ftatue was decorated on that occafion with frelh laurel ; and, 
 for the fame reafon, a folemn denunciation of war, than which there 
 can hardly be a more momentous national adt, was made by the military 
 conful's opening the gates of his temple with all the pomp of his magi- 
 ftracy. The twelve altars and twelve chapels of Janus might either 
 denote, according to the general opinion, that he leads and governs 
 twelve months, or that, as he fays of himfelf in Ovid, all entrance and 
 accefs mufb be made through him to the principal Gods, who were, 
 to a proverb, of the fame number. We may add, that Janus was 
 imagined to prefide over infants at their birth, or the beginning of life. 
 
 The Indian divinity has preclfely the fame chara(5ter: all facrifices 
 and religious ceremonies, all addrefles even to fuperiour Gods, all ferious 
 compofitions in writing, and all worldly affairs of moment, are begun 
 by pious Hindus with an invocation of Gane'sa ; a word compofed of 
 ija, the governor or leader, and gan'a, or a company of deities, nine of 
 which companies are enumerated in the Atnarcojh. Inftances of open- 
 ing bufinefs aufpicioufly by an ejaculation to the Janus oi India (if the 
 lines of refemblance here traced will juftify me in fo calling him) might 
 be multiplied with eafe. Few books are begun without the vfovdisfalu- 
 tation to Gane's, and he is firft invoked by the Brdhmans, who con- 
 duct the trial by ordeal, or perform the ceremony of the homa, or facri- 
 fice to fire: M. Sonnerat reprefents him as highly revered on the 
 Coaft of Coromandel ; " where the Indians, he fays, would not on any 
 " account build a houfe, without having placed on the ground an image 
 " of this deity, which they fprinkle with oil and adorn every day with 
 ** flowers; they fet up his figure in all their temples, in the ftreets, in 
 
 (< 
 
 tiic
 
 230 ON THE GODS OF GREECE, 
 
 ** the high roads, and in open plains at the foot of fome tree j fo that 
 " perfons of all ranks may invoke him, before they undertake any 
 *' bufinefs,. and travellers worihip him, before they proceed on their 
 " journey." To this I may add, from my own obfervation, that in 
 the commodious and ufetul town, which now rifes at Dharmaranya or 
 Gaya, under the aufpices of the aftive and benevolent Thomas Law, 
 Efq. collector of Rotas, every new-built houfe, agreeably to an im- 
 memorial ufage of the Hindus, has the name of Game's A fuperfcribed 
 on its door ; and, in the old town, his image is placed over the gates 
 of the temples. 
 
 We come now to Saturn, the oldeft of the pagan Gods, of whofe 
 
 office and aftions much is recorded. The jargon of his being the fon of 
 
 Earth and of Heaven, who was the fon of the Sky and the Day, is 
 
 purely a confeffion of ignorance, who were his parents or who his pre- 
 
 deceflbrs ; and there appears more fenfe in the tradition faid to be 
 
 mentioned by the inquifitive and well informed Plato, " that both 
 
 " Saturn or time, and his confort Cybele, or the Earth, together 
 
 " with their attendants, were the children of Ocean and Thetis, or, 
 
 " in lefs poetical language, fprang from the waters of the great deep." 
 
 Ceres, the goddefs of harvefts, was, it feems, their daughter; and 
 
 Virgil defcribes *' the mother and nurfe of all as crowned with tur- 
 
 *' rets, in a car drawn by lions, and exulting in her hundred grand- 
 
 " fons, all divine, all inhabiting fplendid celeftial manlions." As the 
 
 God of time, or rather as time itfelf perfonilied, Saturn was ufually 
 
 painted by the heathens holding a fey the in one hand, and, in the other, 
 
 a fnake with its tail in its mouth, the fymbol of perpetual cycles and 
 
 revolutions of ages : he was often reprefented in the adl of devouring 
 
 years, in the form of children, and, fometimes, encircled by the feafons 
 
 appearing like boys and girls. By the Latins he was named Satun- 
 
 NUS; and the mofl ingenious etymology of that word is given by 
 
 Festus
 
 ITALY, AND INDIA. 237 
 
 Festus the grammarian J who traces it^ by a learned analogy to many 
 fimilar names, a fatu, from planting, becaufe, when he reigned in 
 Italy, he introduced and improved agriculture : but his dirtinguifhing 
 charadler, which explains, indeed, all his other titles and functions, 
 was expreffed allegorically by the flern of a fhip or galley on the reverfe 
 of his ancient coins; for which Ovid affigns a very unfatisfadory 
 reafon, " becaufe the divine Ilranger arrived in a fliip on the Italian 
 " coaftj" as if he could have been expe(3;ed on horfe-back or hoverino- 
 through the air. 
 
 The account, quoted by Pomey from Alexander Polyhistor, 
 cafts a clearer light, if it really came from genuine antiquity, on the 
 whole tale of Saturn; " that he predidled an extraordinary fall of 
 *• rain, and ordered the conftrudlion of a veflel, in which it was 
 " neceffary to fecure men, hearts, birds, and reptiles from a general 
 " inundation." 
 
 Now it feems not eafy to take a cool review of all thefe teftimonies 
 concerning the birth, kindred, offspring, charadler, occupations, and 
 entire life of Saturn, without affenting to the opinion of Bochart, 
 or admitting it at leail to be highly probable, that the fable was raifed 
 on the true hiflory of Noah ; from whofe flood a new period of time 
 was computed, and a new feries of ages may be faid to have fprung ; 
 who rofe frefh, and, as it were, newly born from the waves ; whofe 
 wife was in fadt the univerfal mother, and, that the earth might foon be 
 repeopled, was early blelfed with numerous and flourifliing defcendants : 
 if we produce, theretore, an Indian king of divine birth, eminent for his 
 piety and beneficence, whofe (lory feems evidently to be that of Noah 
 difguifed by AJiatick fiiflion, we may fafely offer a conjecfture, that he 
 was alfo the fame perfonage with Saturn. This was Menu, or 
 Satyavrata, whofe pratronymick name was Vaivaswata, or child 
 
 of
 
 238 ON THE GODS OF GREECE. 
 
 of the Sun ; and whom the Indians believed to have reigned over the 
 whole world in the earlieft age of their chronology, but to have refided 
 in the country of Dravira, on the coaft of the Eallern Indian Peninfula : 
 the following narrative of the principal event in his life I have literally 
 tranflated from the Bhdgavat ; and it is the fubjeft of the firfl: Purdna, 
 entitled that of the Matfya, or Fijh, 
 
 * Defiring the prcfervation of herds, and of Brdhmans, of genii and 
 
 * virtuous men, of the Vedas, of law, and of precious things, the lord 
 
 * of the univerfe afTumes many bodily fhapcsj but, though he pervades, 
 
 * like the air, a variety of beings, yet he is himfelf unvaried, fince he 
 
 * has no quality fubjedt to change. At the clofe of the laft Calpa^ 
 
 * there was a general deftrudlion occafioned by the fleep of Brahma' j 
 
 * whence his creatures in different worlds were drowned in a vaft 
 
 * ocean. Brahma', being inclined to llumber, defiring repofe after 
 
 * a lapfe of ages, the ftrong demon Hayagri'va came near him, and 
 
 * ftole the Vedas, which had flowed from his lips. When Heri, the 
 ' preferver of the univerfe, difcovered this deed of the Prince of 
 
 * Ddnavas, he took the fhape of a minute fifh, c-A\t.6.fdp'hari. A holy 
 
 * king, named Satyavrata, then reigned; a fervant of the fpirit, 
 
 * which moved on the waves, and fo devout, that water was his only 
 ' fuftenance. He was the child of the Sun, and, in the prefent Calpa, 
 
 * is inverted by Nara'yan in the office of Menu, by the name of 
 
 * Sra'ddhade'va, or the God of Obfequies. One day, as he was 
 
 * making a libation in the river Cfitamald, and held water in the palm 
 
 * of his hand, he perceived a fmall fifli moving in it. The king of 
 
 * Dravira immediately dropped the fifh into the river together with 
 ' the water, which he had taken from it ; when the fap'/iari thus 
 
 * pathetically addreffed the benevolent monarch : " How canft thou, 
 " O king, who (howeft affe«flion to the opprefl'ed, leave me in this 
 ** river-water, where I am too weak to refill the monflers of the ftream, 
 
 " who
 
 ITALY, AND INDIA. 239 
 
 * who fill me with dread ?" He, not knowing who had aflumed the 
 form of a fifh, applied his mind to the prcfervation of the fap'han, 
 both from good nature and from regard to his own foul j and, having 
 heard its very fuppliant addrefs, he kindly placed it under his pro- 
 tedlion in a fmall vafe full of water ; but, in a fingle night, its bulk 
 was fo increafed, that it could not be contained in the jar, and thus 
 again addreffed the illuftrious Prince : " I am not pleafed with living 
 
 ^ miferably in this little vafe ; make me a krge manfion, where I mav 
 
 ' dwell in comfort." The king, removing it thence, placed it in the 
 
 water of a ciflern -, but it grew three cubits in lefs than fifty minutes, 
 
 and faid : " O king, it pleafes me not to ftay vainly in this narrow 
 
 ' ciftern : fince thou haft granted me an afylum, give me a fpacious 
 
 ' habitation." He then removed it, and placed it in a pool, where, 
 
 having ample fpace around its body, it became a fifh of confiderable 
 
 fize. " This abode, O king, is not convenient for me, wha muft 
 
 * fwim at large in the waters : exert thyfelf for my iafety j and remove 
 
 * me to a deep lake ;" Thus addrefi!ed, the piou& monarch threw 
 the fuppliant into a lake, and, when it grew of equal bulk with that 
 piece of water, he caft the vaft fifb into the fea. When the fifh was 
 thrown into the waves, he thus again fpoke to Satyavrata : 
 
 * here the horned fliarks, and other monfters of great ftrength will de- 
 ' vour me ; thou fhouldft not, O valiant man, leave me in this 
 
 ocean." Thus repeatedly deluded by the fifh, who had addreffed him 
 with gentle words, the king faid : " who art thou, that beguileft 
 
 * me in that aflumed fhape ? Never before have I feen or heard of fo 
 
 * prodigious an inhabitant of the waters, who, like thee, hafl filled up, 
 
 * in a fingle day, a lake an hundred leagues in circumference. Surely, 
 'thou art Bhagavat, who appeareft before me j the great Heri, 
 
 * whofe dwelling was on the waves ; and who now, in compafilon to 
 
 * thy fervants, beareft the form of the natives of the deep. Salutation 
 
 * and praife to thee, O firft male, the lord of creation, of prcfervation, 
 
 " of
 
 240 ON THE GODS OF GRB:ECE, 
 
 " of deftruftion ! Thou art the highefl objeft, O fupreme ruler, of us 
 *' thy adorers, who piouily feek thee. All thy delufive defcents in this 
 *' world give exiilence to various beings: yet I am anxious to know, for 
 " what caufe that fliape has been aflumed by thee. Let me not, O 
 *' lotos-eyed, approach in vain the feet of a deity, whofe perfedt 
 ♦' benevolence has been extended to all; when thou hafl fliewn us to 
 " our amazement the appearance of other bodies, not in reality 
 " exifling, but fucceflively exhibited." The lord of the univerfe, 
 
 * loving the pious man, who thus implored him, and intending to 
 
 * preferve him from the fea of deftrudiion, caufed by the depravity 
 
 * of the age, thus told him how he was to aft. " In feven days from 
 " the prelent time, O thou tamer of enemies, the three worlds will be 
 " plunged in an ocean of death j but, in the midll of the deftroying 
 ♦* waves, a large veffel, fent by me for thy ufe, fliall ftand before thee. 
 " Then flialt thou take all medicinal herbs, all the variety of feeds j 
 " and, accompanied by feven Saints, encircled by pairs of all brute 
 " animals, thou fhalt enter the fpacious ark and continue in it, fecure 
 " from the flood on one immenfe ocean without light, except the 
 " radiance of thy holy companions. When the fliip fhall be agitated by 
 " an impetuous wind, thou fhalt faften it with a large fea-ferpent on my 
 " horn ; for I will be near thee : drawing the veffel, with thee and thy 
 " attendants, I will remain on the ocean, O chief of men, until a night 
 " of Brahma' fliall be completely ended. Thou flialt then know my 
 " true greatnefs, rightly named the fupreme Godhead ; by my favour, 
 " all thy queflions ihall be anfwered, and thy mind abundantly inffrudt- 
 " ed." Heri, having thus dired:ed the monarch, difappeared ; and 
 
 * Satyavrata humbly waited for the time, which the ruler of our 
 
 * fenfes had appointed. The pious king, have fcattered towards the 
 
 * Eail: the pointed blades of the grafs darbha, and turning his face to- 
 
 * wards the North, fate meditating on the feet of the God, who had 
 ' borne the form of a fifh. The fea, overwhelming its fliores, deluged 
 
 * the
 
 ITALY, AND INDIA. 241 
 
 c the whole earth; and it was foon perceived to be augmented by 
 
 * fhowers from immenfe clouds. He, flill meditating on the command 
 ' of Bhagavat, faw the veflel advancing, and entered it with the 
 ' chiefs of Brdhmans, having carried into it the medicinal creepers and 
 ' conformed to the diredlions of Heri. The faints thus addrefled him : 
 " O king, meditate on Ce'sava ; who will, furely, deliver us from 
 " this danger, and grant us profperity." The God, being invoked by. 
 
 . * the monarch, appeared again diftincftly on the vail; ocean in the form 
 
 * of a fifli, blazing like gold, extending a million of leagues, with one 
 
 * flupendoiis horn ; on which the king, as he had before been com- 
 
 * manded by Heri, tied the fliip with a cable made of a vaft fer- 
 
 * pent, and, happy in his prefervation, flood praifing the deftroyer of 
 ' Madhu. When the monarch had iinifhed his hymn, the primeval 
 
 * male, Bhagavat, who watched for his fafety on the great expanfe 
 
 * of water, fpoke aloud to his own divine eflence, pronouncing a facred 
 ' Purana, which contained the rules of the Sdnchya philofophy : but 
 
 * it was an infinite myllery to be concealed within the breafl of Saty- 
 
 * AVRATA ; who, fitting in the veflel with the faints, heard the prin- 
 
 * ciple of the foul, the Eternal Being, proclaimed by the preferving 
 
 * power. Then Heri, rifing together with Brahma', from the 
 « deftrudlive deluge, which was abated. Hew the demon Hayagri'va, 
 
 * and recovered the facred books. Satyavrata, infl:ru6ted in all 
 
 * divine and liuman knowledge, was appointed in the prefent Calpa, by 
 ' the favour of Vishnu, the feventh Me n u, furnamed Vaivaswata: 
 ' but the appearance of a horned fifli to the religious monarch was 
 
 * Maya, or delufion ; and he, who fliall devoutly hear this important 
 
 * allegorical xiarrative, will be delivered from the bondage of fin.' 
 
 This epitome of the firfl Indian Hiftory, that is now extant, I'.ppears 
 to me very curious and very important ; for the ftory, though whimfi- 
 cally drclfed up in the form of an allegory, feems to prove a primeval 
 
 VOL. I. I, L tradition
 
 242 ON THE GODS OF GREECE, 
 
 tradition in this country of the univ erf al deluge defcribed by Moses, and 
 fixes confequently the time, when the genuine Hindu Chronology adlu- 
 ally begins. We find, it is true, in the Piirdn, from which the narra- 
 tive is extr^dled, another deluge which happened towards the clofe of 
 the third :ige, when Yudhist'hir was labouring under the perfecution 
 of his inveterate foe Duryo'dhan, and when Crishna, who had 
 recently become incarnate for the purpofe of fuccouring the pious and 
 of deftroying the wicked, was performing wonders in the country of 
 Mat'hura ; but the fecond flood was merely local and intended only to 
 afFeft the people of Fraja: they, it feems, had offended Indra, the God 
 of the firmament, by their enthufiafticlc adoration of the wonderful child, 
 ** who lifted up the mountain Goverdhena, as if it had been a flower, 
 " and, by flieltering all the herdfmen and fhepherdefles from the fl:orm, 
 " convinced Indra of his fupremacy." That the Satya, or (if we 
 may venture fo to call it) the Saturnian, age was in truth the age of the 
 general flood, will appear from a clofe examination of the ten Avatars, 
 or Defcents, of the deity in his capacity of preferver ; lince of the four, 
 which are declared to have happened in the Satya yiig, the three fir Jl 
 apparently relate to fome flupendous convulfion of our globe from 
 the fountains of the deep, and the fourth exhibits the miraculous 
 punifliment of pride and impiety : firft, as we have fliown, there was, 
 in the opinion of the Hindus^ an interpolition of Providence to pre- 
 ferve a devout perfon and his family (for all the Pandits agree, that his 
 wife, though not named, mufl: be underftood to have been fiived with 
 him) from an inundation, by which all the wicked were deflroyed j 
 next, the power of the deity defcends in the form of a Boar, the fymbol 
 of ftrength, to draw up and fupport on his tiiflcs the whole earth, which 
 had been funk beneath tlie ocean ; thirdly, the fame power is repre- 
 fented as a torto/fe fuftaining the globe, which had been convulfed by 
 the violent affaults of demons, while the Gods churned the fea with the 
 mountain Mandar, and forced it to difgorge the facred things and ani- 
 mals,
 
 ITALY, AND INDIA. 2 13 
 
 mals, together with the water of life, which it had fwallowed: thefe 
 three ftories relate, I think, to the fame event, fliadovved by a mora), 
 a metaphyfical, and an aftronomical, allegory j and all three feem con- 
 ne£ted with the hieroglyphical fculptures of the old Egyptians. The 
 fourth Avatar was a hon ifluing from a burfling column of marble to 
 devour a blafpheming monarch, who would otherwife have flain his re- 
 ligious fon ; and of the remaining fix, not one has the leaft relation to 
 a deluge : the three, which are afcribed to the Tretdyug, when tyranny 
 and irreligion are faid to have been introduced, were ordained for the 
 overthrow of Tyrants, or, their natural types. Giants with a thoufand 
 arms formed for the mofh extenfive oppreffion ; and, in the Dwdparyug, 
 tlie incarnation of Crishna was partly for a fimilar purpofe, and partly 
 with a view to thin the world of unjuft and impious men, who had 
 multiplied in that age, and began to fwarm on the approach of the 
 Caliyug, or the age of contention and bafenefs. As to Buddha, he 
 feems to have been a reformer of the dodrines contained in the Vedas; 
 and, though his good nature led him to cenfure thofe ancient books, 
 becaufe they enjoined facrifices of cattle, yet he is admitted as the 
 ninth Avatar even by the Brdhmam of Cdsi, and his praifes are fung 
 by the poet Jayade'va: his charafter is in many refpedis very ex- 
 trarodinary ; but, as an account of it belongs rather to Hiftory than 
 to Mythology, it is referved for another diflertation.. The tenth Avatar ^ 
 we" are told, is yet to come,, and is expe^fted to appear mounted (like 
 the crowned conqueror in the Apocalyps) on a white horfe, with a 
 cimeter blazing like a comet to mow down all incorrigible and impeni- 
 tent offenders, who (hall then be on earth. 
 
 Thefe four Tugs have fo apparent an affinity with the Grecian and 
 Roman ages, that one origin may be naturally affigned to both fyflems : 
 the finl: in botli is diftinguifhed as abounding in gold, though Satya 
 mean truth and probity, which were found, if ever, in the times im- 
 mediately
 
 244 ON THE GODS OF GREECE, 
 
 mediately following fo tremendous an exertion of the divine power as 
 the deftrudion of mankind by a general deluge ; the next is charac- 
 terized by filvery and the third, by copper j though their ufual names 
 allude to proportions imagined in each between vice and virtue : the 
 prefent, or earthen, age feems more properly difcriminated than by iron, 
 as in ancient Europe ; fince that metal is not bafer or lefs ufeful, though 
 more common in our times and confequently lefs precious, than copper; 
 while mere earth conveys an idea of the loweft degradation. We may 
 here obferve, that the true Hiftory of the World feems obvioully divifible 
 miofour ages or periods ; which may be called, firll, the Diluvian, or 
 pureft age ; namely, the times preceding the deluge, and thofe lucceed- 
 ing'it till the mad introdudlion oi \<lo\-MYy zt Babel ; next, the Patri- 
 archal, or pure, age; in which, indeed, there were mighty hunters of 
 beafts and of men, from the rife of patriarchs in the family of Sem to 
 the fimultaneous ellablifliment of great Empires by the defcendants of 
 his brother Ha'm ; thirdly, the Mofaick, or lefs pure, age j from the 
 legation of Moses, and during the time, when his ordinances were 
 comparatively well-obferved and uncorrupted ; laftly, the Prophetical, or 
 impure, age, beginning with the vehement warnings given by the Pro- 
 phets to aportate Kings and degenerate nations, but Hill fubfilling and 
 to fubfift, until all genuine prophecies fhall be fully accompli (lied. The 
 duration of the Hiftorical ages muft needs be very unequal and difpropor- 
 tionate ; while that of the Indian Yugs is dilpofed fo regularly and arti- 
 ficially, that it cannot be admitted as natural or probable : men do not 
 become reprobate in a geometrical progrelTion or at the termination of 
 regular periods ; yet fo well-proportioned are the Yugs, that even the 
 length of human life is diminirtied, as they advance, from an hundred 
 thouiand years in a fubdecuple ratio; and, as the number of principal 
 Avatars in each decreafes arithmetically from lour, fo the number of 
 years in each decreafes geometrically, and all together conflitute the ex- 
 travagant fum of four million three hundred and twenty thoufand years, 
 
 which
 
 ITALY, AND INDIA. 245 
 
 which aggregate, multiplied by feventy-one, is the period, in which 
 every Menu is believed to prefide over the world. Such a period, one 
 might conceive, would have fatisfied Archytas, the meafurer of fea 
 and earth and the numberer of their fandsf or Archimedes, who invented 
 a notation, that was capable of expreffing the number of them ; but the 
 comprehenfive mind of an Indian Chronologift has no limits ; and the 
 reigns of fourteen Menus are only a fingle day of Brahma', fifty of 
 which days have elapfed, according to the Hindus, from the time of the 
 Creation : that all this puerility, as it feems at firil view, may be only 
 an aftronomical riddle, and allude to the apparent revolution of the fixed 
 ftars, of which the Brdhmans made a myftery, I readily admit, and am 
 even inclined to believe ; but io technical an arrangement excludes all 
 idea of ferious Hiflory. I am fenfible, how much thefe remarks will 
 offend the warm advocates for Indian antiquity; but we mufl: not facri- 
 fice truth to a bafe fear of giving offence : that the Vedas were adlually 
 written before the flood, I fliall never believe ; nor can we infer from 
 the preceding ftory, that the learned Hindus believe it ; for the allego- 
 rical flumber of Brahma' and the theft of the facred books mean only, 
 in fimpler language, that the human race was become corrupt ; but that 
 the Kdas are very ancient, and far older than other Sanfcrit compofi- 
 tions, I will venture to affert from my own examination of them, and 
 a comparlfon of their llyle with that of the Purdns and the Dherma 
 Sdjira. A fimilar comparifon juftifies me in pronouncing, that the 
 excellent law-book afcribed to Swa'yambhuva Menu, though not 
 even pretended to have been written by him, is more ancient than the 
 Bha'gavat ; but that it was compofed in the firft age of the world, 
 the Brdhmans would find it hard to perfuade me ; and the date, wliich 
 has been alligned to it, does not appear in either of the two copies, which 
 I poffefs, or in any other, that has been collated for me : in fa<fl: the fup- 
 pofed date is comprized in a verfe, which flatly contradidls the work 
 itfelf ; for it was not Menu who compofed the fyflem of law, by the 
 
 command
 
 246 ON THE GODS OF GREECE, 
 
 command of his father Brahma', but a holy perfonage or demigod,, 
 named Bhrigu, who revealed to men what Menu had delivered at the 
 requeft of him and other faints or patriarchs. In the Mdnava Saf- 
 tra, to conclude this digreflion, the meafure is fo uniform and melo- 
 dious, and the ftyle fo perfeftly S/infcn't, or Polijhed, that the book mufl 
 be more modern than the fcriptures of Moses, in which the iimplicity, 
 or rather nakednefs, of the Hebrew dialeft, metre, and ftyle, muft con- 
 vince every unbiafled man of their fuperior antiquity. 
 
 I leave etymologifts, who decide every thing, to decide whether the 
 word Menu, or, in the nominative cafe. Menus, has any connexion 
 with Minos, the Lawgiver, and fuppofed fon of Jove : the Cretans^ 
 according to Diodorus of SicUyy ufed to feign, that moft of the great 
 men, who had been deified, in return for the benefits which they had. 
 conferred on mankind, were born in their ifland ; and hence a doubt 
 may be raifed, whether Minos was really a Cretan.. The Indian legi- 
 flator v/as the firft, not the feventh. Menu, or Satyavrata, whom I 
 fuppofe to be the Saturn oi Italy : part of Saturn's charafter, in- 
 deed, was that of a great lawgiver. 
 
 Qui genus indocile ac difperfum montibus altis 
 Compofuit, lege/que dedit, 
 
 and, we may fufpedl, that all the fourteen Menus are reducible to one^, 
 who was called Nuh by the Arabs, and probably by the Hebrews^ 
 though we have difguifed his name by an improper pronunciation of it. 
 Some near relation between the feventh Menu and the Grecian Minos 
 may be inferred from the Angular charafter of the Hindu God, Yama, 
 who was alfo a child of the Sun, and thence named Vaivaswata: he 
 had too the fame title with his brother, Sra'dduade'va; another of 
 his titles was Dhermara'ja, or King ofjujiice; and a third, Pitri- 
 
 PETI,
 
 ITALY, AND INDIA. 247 
 
 PETF, or "Lord of the Patriarchs ; but he is chiefly diflinguilhed 2& judge 
 of departed fouls ; for the Hindus believe, that, when a foul leaves its 
 body, it immediately repairs to Tamapur, or the city of Yama, where 
 it receives a jufl fentence from him, and either afcends to Siverga, 
 or the firfl heaven, or is driven down to Narac, the region of ferpents, 
 or aflumes on earth the form of fome animal, unlefs its offence had been 
 fuch, that it ought to be condenmed to a vegetable, or even to a mineral, 
 prifon. Another of his names is very remarkable : I mean that of 
 Ca'la, or time, the idea of which is intimately blended with the cha- 
 radlers of Saturn and of Noah j for the name Cronos has a manifell 
 affinity with the word chronos, and a learned follower of Zera'tusht 
 affures me, that, in the books, which the Behdins hold iacred, mention 
 is made of an univerfal inundation, there named the deluge of Time. 
 
 It "having been occafionally obferved, that Ceres was the poetical 
 daughter of Saturn, we cannot clofe this head without adding, that the 
 Hindus alfo have their Goddefs of Ahundatice, whom they ufually call 
 Lacshmi', and whom they confider as the daughter (not of Menu, 
 but) of Bhrigu, by whom the firft Code of facred ordinances was pro- 
 mulgated: flie is alfo named Pedma' and Camala' from the facred 
 Lotos or Nymphcea ; but her mod remarkable name is Sri', or, in the 
 firft cafe, Sri's, which has a refemblance to the Latin, and meansy^r- 
 tune ov profperity. It may be contended, that, although Lacshmi' may 
 be figuratively called the Ceres of Hindufuin, yet any two or more 
 idolatrous nations, who fubfifted by agriculture, might naturally con- 
 ceive a Deity to prefide over their labours, without having the leaft in- 
 tercourfe with each other; but no reafon appears, why two nations 
 fhould concur in fuppofing that Deity to be a female: one at leaft of 
 them would be more likely to imagine, that the Earth was a Goddefs, 
 and that the God of abundance rendered her fertile. Befides, in very 
 ancient temples near Gaya, we fee images of Lacshmi', with full 
 
 breafts
 
 248 ON THE GODS OF GREECE, 
 
 breafts and a cord twifted under her arm like a horti of plenty, which 
 look very much like the old Grecian and Roman figures of Ceres. 
 
 The fable of Saturn having been thus analyfed, let us proceed to 
 his defcendents ; and begin, as the Poet advifes, with Jupiter, whofe 
 fupremacy, thunder, and libertinifm every boy learns from Ovidj while 
 his great offices of Creator, Preferver, and Deflroyer, are not generally 
 confidered in the fyftems of European mythology. > The Romans had, as 
 we have before obferved, many Jupiters, one of whom was only the 
 Firmament perfonified, as Ennius clearly exprefTes it: 
 
 Afpice hoc fublime candens, quem invocant omnes "Jovem. 
 
 This Jupiter or Diespiter is the Indian God of the vifible heavens, 
 called Indra, or the King, and Divespetir, or Lord of the Sky, who 
 has alfo the charadler of the Roman Genius, or Chief of the good 
 fpirits ; but moft of his epithets in Sanfcrit are the llime with thofe of 
 the Ennian Jove. His confort is named Sachi'; his celeftial city, 
 Amardvatl ; his palace, Vaijayanta ; his garden, N'andana ; his chief 
 ^\^^\i-x\\\.y Airdvat ', his charioteer, Ma'tali ; and his weapon, /^<7/>/7, 
 or the thunderbolt : he is the regent of winds and fhowers, and, though 
 the Eaft is peculiarly under his care, yet his Olympus is Meru, or the 
 north pole allegorically reprefented as a mountain of gold and gems. 
 With all his power he is confidered as a fubordinate Deity, and far in- 
 ferior to the Indian Triad, Brahma', Vishnu, and Maha'deva or 
 Siva, who are ilirct forms of one and the fame Godhead: thus the prin- 
 cipal divinity of the Greeks and Latins, whom they called Zeus and 
 Jupiter with irregular inflexions Dios and Jovis, was not merely 
 Fulminator, tlie Thunderer, but, like the deftroying power of India, 
 Magnus Divus, Ultor, Genitor ; like the preferving power. 
 Conservator, Soter, Opitulus, Altor, Ruminus, and, like the 
 
 creating
 
 WVl . 1 
 
 /' 
 
 ui. x>^fV. 

 
 ITALY, AND INDIA, 249 
 
 creating power, the Giver of Life; an attribute, which I mention here 
 on the authority of Cornutus, a confummate mailer of mythological 
 learning. We are advifed by Plato himfelf to fearch for the roots of 
 Greek words in fome barbarous, that is, foreign, foil ; but, fince I look 
 upon etymological conjedtures as a weak bafis for hiftorical inquiries, I 
 hardly dare fuggeft, that Zev, Siv, and Jov, are the fame fyllable dif- 
 ferently pronounced : it muft, however be admitted, that the Greeks 
 having no palatial fgma, like that of the Indians^ might have exprelfed 
 it by their zeta, and that the initial letters of zugon znd j'ugum are (a$ 
 the inftance proves) eafily interchangeable. 
 
 Let us now defcend, from thefe general and introductory remarks, to 
 fome particular obfervations on the refemblance of Zeus or Jupiter to 
 the triple divinity Vishnu, Siva, Brahma -, for that is the order, in 
 which they are expreffed by the letters A, U, and M, which coalefcc 
 and form the myftical word O'M ; a word, which never efcapes the 
 lips of a pious Hindu, who meditates on it in filence : whether the 
 Egyptian ON, which is commonly fuppofed to mean the Sun, be the 
 Sanfcrit monofyllable, I leave others to determine. It muft always be 
 remembered, that the learned Indians, as they are inftrudted by their 
 own books, in truth acknowledge only One Supreme Being, whom 
 they call Brahme, or the great one in the neuter gender: they 
 believe his EfTence to be infinitely removed from the comprehenfion of 
 any mind but his own ; and they fuppofe him to manifeft his power by 
 the operation of his divine fpirit, whom they name Vishnu, the Per- 
 vader, and Na'ra'YAN, or Moving on the waters, both in the mafcu- 
 line gender, whence he is often denominated the Firji Male ; and by 
 this power they believe, that the whole order of nature is preferved 
 and fupported; but the Veddntis, unable to form a diftindt idea of 
 brute matter independent of mind, or to conceive that the work of Su- 
 preme Goodnefs was left a moment to itfelf, imagine that the Deity is 
 
 VOL. I. MM ever
 
 250 ON THE GODS OF GREECE, 
 
 ever prefent to his work, and conftantly fupports a feries of perceptions, 
 which, in one fenfe, they call ilhifory, though they cannot but admit 
 the reality of all created forms, as far as the happinefs of creatures can 
 be affedled by them. When they confider the divine power exerted in 
 creating, or in giving exiftence to that which exifted not before, they 
 called the deity Brahma' in the mufculine gender alfo ; and, when 
 they view him in the light of Dejiroyer, or rather Changer of forms, 
 they give him a thoufand names, of which Siva, i'sa or i'swara, 
 RuDRA, Hara, Sambhu, and Maha'de'va or Mahe'sa, are the 
 moft common. The firft operations of thefe three Powers are varioufly 
 defcribed in the different Purdnas by a number of allegories, and from 
 them we may deduce the Ionian Philofophy oi primeval water, the doc- 
 trine of the Mundane Egg, and the veneration paid to the Nymphcea, or 
 Lotos, which was anciently revered in Egypt, as it is at prefent in Hin- 
 diijldn, Tibet, and Nepal: the Tibetians ■slvq faid to embellifh their temples 
 and altars with it, and a native of Nepal made proftrations before it on 
 entering my ftudy, where the fine plant and beautiful flowers lay for 
 examination. Mr. Holwel, in explaining his firft plate, fuppofes 
 Brahma' to be floating on a leaf of to^/ in the midft of the abyfs ; but 
 it was manifellly intended by a bad painter for a lotos-leaf or for that of 
 the Indian fig-tree ; nor is the fpecies of pepper, known in Bengal by 
 the name of Tdmbula, and on the Coafl: of Malabar by that of betel, 
 held facred, as he afferts, by the Hindus, or necefl"arily cultivated under 
 the infpedlion of Brdhmans ; though, as the vines arc tender, all the 
 plantations of them are carefully fecured, and ought to be cultivated by 
 a particular tribe of Sudras, who are thence called Tdmbults. 
 
 That water was the primitive element and firft work of the Creative 
 Power, is the uniform opinion of the Indian Philofophcrs j but, as they 
 give fo particular an account of the general deluge and of the Creation, 
 it can never be admitted, that their whole fyfliem arofc from traditions 
 
 concerning
 
 Vol.1. 
 
 /' 
 
 'la . 950.
 
 .Ill.l. 
 
 ha 
 
 <i6l. 
 
 <^^J^
 
 ITALY. AND INDIA. 25 1 
 
 concerning the flood only, and muft appear indubitable, that their doc- 
 trine is in part borrowed from the opening of Birds)t or Gcnejis, than 
 which a fublimer paffage, from the firft word to the laft, never flowed 
 or will flow from any human pen : ** In the beginning God created the 
 " heavens and the earth. — And the earth was void and wafl:e, and dark- 
 " nefs was On the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God moved upon 
 " the face of the waters ; and God faid : Let Light be — and Light 
 *' was." The fublimity of this pafllige is confiderably diminiflied by 
 the Indian paraphrafe of it, with which Menu, the fon of Brahma', 
 begins his addrefs to the fages, who confulted him on the formation of 
 the univerfe : " This world, fays he, was all darknefs, undifcernible, 
 " undiftinguifliable, altogether as in a profound fleep ; till the felf-ex- 
 ♦* iftient invifible God, making it manifefl: with five elements and other 
 *' glorious forms, perfedlly difpelled the gloom. He, defiring to raife 
 *' up various creatures by an emanation from his own glory, firfl: created 
 *' the waters, and imprefled them with a power of motion : by that 
 *' power was produced a golden Egg, blazing like a thoufand funs, in 
 *' which was born Brahma', felf-exifting, the great parent of all rational 
 ** beings. The waters are called ndra, fince they are the ofl'spring of 
 ** Nera (or i'swara); and thence was Na'ra'yana named, becaufe 
 " his firfl: ay ana, or moving, was on them. 
 
 " That which is, the invifible caufe, eternal, felf-exifl:ing, but 
 " unperceived, becoming mafculine from neuter, is celebrated among 
 ** all creatures by the name of Brahma'. That God, having dwelled 
 " in the Egg, through revolving years, Himfelf meditating on Him- 
 *' felf, divided it into two equal parts j and from thofe halves formed 
 " the heavens and the earth, placing in the midfl: the fubtil ether, 
 " the eight points of the world, and the permanent receptacle of wa- 
 «« ters." 
 
 To
 
 252 ON THE GODS OF GREECE, 
 
 To this curious defcription, with which the Manava Sdjira begins, I 
 cannot refrain from fubjoining the four verfes, which are the text of the 
 Bhdgavat, and are believed to have been pronounced by the Supreme 
 Being to Brahma': the following verfion is moft fcrupuloufly literal*. 
 
 " Even I was even at firft, not any other thing ; that, which exifls, 
 " unperceived; fupreme : afterwards I am that which is j and he, 
 " who muft remain, am I. 
 
 " Except the First Cause, whatever may appear, and may not 
 " appear, in the mind, know that to be the mind's Ma'ya' (or Delu- 
 " Ji:nJ, as light, as darknefs. 
 
 *' As the great elements are in various beings, entering, yet not enter- 
 " ing (that is, pervading, not deftroying), thus am I in them, yet not 
 " in them. 
 
 " Even thus far may inquiry be made by him, who feeks to know 
 <' the principle of mind, in union and feparation, which muft be Every 
 
 " WHERE ALWAYS." 
 
 Wild and obfcure as thefe ancient verfes mufl: appear in a naked 
 verbal tranflation, it will perhaps be thought by many, that the poetry 
 or mythology of Greece or Italy afford no conceptions more awfully 
 magnificent : yet the brevity and fimplicity of the Mofaick dicftion are 
 unequalled. 
 
 As to the creation of the world, in the opinion of the Romans, Ovid, 
 who might naturally have been expeded to defcribe it with learning and 
 
 * See the Original, p. 206- Plate IV. 
 
 elegance,
 
 Vol.l. 
 
 /' 
 
 'ui. 'i3o.
 
 ITALY, AND INDIA. 253 
 
 jclegance, leaves us wholly in the dark, which of the Gods was the aSlor in 
 it: other Mythologifts are more explicit; and we may rely on the authority 
 of CoRNUTUS, that the old European heathens conlidered Jove (not the 
 fon of Saturn, but of the Ether, that is of an unknown parent) as the 
 great Life-giver, and Father of Gods and men ; to which may be added 
 the Orphean dodlrine, preferved by Proclus, that " the abyfs and em- 
 " pyreum, the earth and fea, the Gods and Goddefles, were produced 
 " by Zeus or Jupiter." In this characfter he correfponds with 
 Brahma' J and, perhaps, with that God of the Babylonians (if we can 
 rely on the accounts of their ancient religion), who, like Brahma', re- 
 duced the univerfe to order, and, like Brahma', loft his head, with the 
 blood of which new animals were inftantly formed : I allude to the 
 common ftory, the meaning of which I cannot difcover, that BrahxMa' 
 had five heads till one of them was cut off by Na R a'ya'n. 
 
 That, in another capacity, Jove was the Helper and Supporter of all, 
 we may colledl from his old Latin epithets, and from Cicero, who 
 informs us, that his ufual name is a contradlion of Juvans Pater ; an 
 etymology, which fliows the idea entertained of his charatfter, though 
 we may have fome doubt of its accuracy. Callimachus, we know, 
 addreffes him as the be/lower of all good, and of fecurity from grief; and, 
 fmce neither wealth without virtue, nor virtue without wealth, give com- 
 plete happinefs, he prays, like a wife poet, for both. An Indian prayer 
 for riches would be diredled to Lacshmi', the wife of Vishnu, fince 
 the Hindu GoddefTes are believed to be the powers of their refpedlive 
 lords: as to Cuve'ra, the Indian Plutus, one of whofe names in 
 Paulajlya, he is revered, indeed, as a magnificent Deity, refiding in the 
 palace of Alacd, or borne through the Iky in a fplendid car named Pujli- 
 paca, but is manifeflly fubordinate, like the other i&\&n Genii, to the 
 three principal Gods, or rather to the principal God confidered in three 
 capacities. As the foul of the world, or the pervading mind, fo finely 
 
 defcribed
 
 254 ON THE GODS OF GREECE, 
 
 defcribed by Virgil, we fee Jove reprefented by feveral Roman poets ; 
 and with great fublimity by Luc an in the known fpeech of Cato 
 concerning the Ammonian oracle, " Jupiter is, wherever we look, 
 " wherever we move." This is precifely the Indian idea of Vishnu, 
 according to the four verfes above exhibited, not that the Brahmam 
 imagine their male Divinity to be the dhine Ejfencc of the great one, 
 which they declare to be wholly incomprehenfible ; but, fince the power 
 of preferving created things by a fuperintending providence, belongs 
 eminently to the Godhead, they hold that power to exift tranfcendently 
 in the preferring member of the Triad, whom they fuppofe to be every 
 WHERE ALWAYS, not in fubftance, but in fpirit and energy: here, 
 however, I fpeak of the Vaijhnavas ; for the Saiva's afcribe a fort of pre- 
 eminence to Siva, whofe attributes are now to be concifely examined. 
 
 It was in the capacity of Avenger and Deflroyer, that Jove encoun- 
 tered and overthrew the Titans and Giants, whomTYPHON, Briareus, 
 TiTius, and the reft of their fraternity, led againft the God of Olym- 
 pus; to whom an Eagle brought lightning and thunderbolts during the 
 warfare : thus, in a fimilar conteft between Siva and the Daityas, or 
 children of DiTi, who frequently rebelled againft heaven, Brahma 
 is believed to have prefented the God of Deftrudlion with Jiery Jloafts, 
 One of the many poems, entitled Ramdyan, the laft book of which has 
 been tranllated into Italian, contains an extraordinary dialogue between 
 the crow Bhujlmnda, and a rational Eagle, named Garuda, who is 
 often painted with the face of a beautiful youth, and the body of an 
 imaginary bird ; and one of the eighteen Purdnas bears his name and 
 comprizes his whole hiftory. M. Sonnerat informs us, that Vishnu 
 is reprefented in fome places riding on the Garuda, which he fuppofes 
 to be the Pondicheri Eagle of Brisson, efpecially as the Brahmans of 
 the Coaft highly venerate that clafs of birds and provide food for num- 
 ,bers of them at ftated hours : I rather conceive the Garuda to be a 
 
 fabulous
 
 Vol. 1. 
 
 /I a. tx.
 
 ITALY, AND INDIA. 255 
 
 fabulous bird, but agree with him, that the Hindu God, who rides oa 
 it, refembles the ancient Jupiter. In the old temples at Gaya, Vish- 
 nu is either mounted on this poetical bird or attended by it together 
 with a little page ; but, left an etymologift fhould find Ganymed in 
 Garud, I muft obferve that the Sanfcrit word is pronounced Garura; 
 though I admit, that the Grecian and Indian ftories of the celeftial bird 
 and the page appear to have fome refemblance. As the Olympian 
 Jupiter fixed his Court and held his Councils on a lofty and brilliant 
 mountain, fo the appropriated feat of Maha'de'va, whom the Saiva's 
 confider as the Chief of the Deities, was mount Caildfa, every fplinter of 
 whofe rocks was an ineftimable gem : his terreftrial haunts are the fnowy 
 hills of Himalaya, or that branch of them to the Eaft of the Brahmapu- 
 tra, which has the name of Chandrajic'hara, or the Mountain of the 
 Moon. When, after all thefe circumftances, we learn that Siva is be- 
 lieved to have three eyes, whence he is named alfo Trilo chan, and 
 know from Pausanias, not only that Triophthalmos was an epithet of 
 Zeus, but that a ftatue of him had been found, fo early as the taking 
 of Troy, with a third eye in his forehead, as we fee him reprefented by 
 the Hindus, we muft conclude, that the identity of the two Gods falls 
 little fliort of being demonftrated. 
 
 •♦. 
 In the charadler of Dejiroyer alfo we may look upon this Indian Deity 
 as correfponding with the Stygian Jove, or Pluto j efpecially fince 
 Ca'li', or Time in the feminine gender, is a name of his confort, who 
 will appear hereafter to be Proserpine: indeed, if we can rely on a 
 Perfan tranflation of the Bhdgavat (for the original is not yet in my 
 poffefiion), the fovereign of Pdtdla, or the Infernal Regiojis, is the King 
 of Serpents, named Se'shana'ga ; for Crishna is there faid to have de- 
 fcended with his favourite Arjun to the feat of that formidable divinity, 
 from whom he inftantly obtained the favour, which he requefted, that 
 the fouls of a Brahman s fix fons, who had been flain in battle, might 
 
 reanimate
 
 256 ON TKE GODS OF GREECE, 
 
 reanimate their refpedlive bodies ; and Se'shana'ga is thus defcribed : 
 " He had a gorgeous appearance, with a thoufand heads, and, on each 
 " of them, a crown fet with refplendent gems, one of which was larger 
 " and brighter than the reft ; his eyes gleamed like flaming torches ; 
 " but his neck, his tongues, and his body were black; the Ikirts of 
 " his habiliment were yellow, and a fparkling jewel hung in every one 
 " of his ears ; his arms were extended, and adorned with rich bracelets, 
 " and his hands bore the holy lliell, the radiated weapon, the mace for 
 " war, and the lotos," Thus Pi.uxo was often exhibited in painting 
 and fculpture with a diadem and fceptre ; but himfelf and his equipage 
 were of the blackefl: fliade. 
 
 There is yet another attribute of Maha'de'va, by which he is too 
 vilibly diftinguiflied in the drawings and temples of Bengal. To deftroy, 
 according to the Vedaniis of India, the SuJT s of Perfia., and many Phi- 
 lofophers of our European fchools, is only to generate and reproduce in 
 another form : hence the God of DeJiruBion is holden in this country to 
 prelide over Generation ; as a fymbol of which he rides on a white hull. 
 Can we doubt, that the loves and feats of Jupiter Genitor (not for- 
 getting the white bull oi Europa) and his extraordinary title of Lapis, 
 for which no fatisfa^lory reafon is commonly given, have a connexion 
 with the Indian Philofophy and Mythology ? As to the deity of Lamp" 
 Jacus, he was originally a mere fcare-crow, and ought not to have a 
 place in any mythological fyftem ; and, in regard to Bacchus, the 
 God of Vintage (between whofe a6ts and thofe of Jupiter we find, as 
 Bacon obferves, a wonderful affinity), his IthyphaUick images, meafures, 
 and ceremonies alluded probably to the fuppofed relation of Love and 
 Wine; unlefs we believe them to have belonged originally to Siva, one 
 of whofe names is Vdgis or Ba'gi's, and to have been afterwards im- 
 properly applied. Though, in an EfTay on the Gods oi India, where the 
 Brdhmam are politively forbidden to tafte fermented liquors, we can have 
 
 little
 
 Vol.1. 
 
 nn. '15 J
 
 ITALY, AND INDIA. 257 
 
 little to do with Bacchus, as God of Wine, who was probably no more 
 than the imaginary Prefident over the vintage in Italy, Greece, and the 
 lower Afia, yet we muft not omit Sura'de'vi, the Goddefs of Wine, 
 who arofe, fay the Hindus, from the ocean, when it was churned with 
 the mountain Mandar: and this fable feems to indicate, that the India?is 
 came from a country, in which wine was anciently made and confidered 
 as a bleffing ; though the dangerous effedts of intemperance induced 
 their early legiflators to prohibit the ufe of all fpirituous liquors ; and it 
 were much to be wiflied, that fo wife a law had never been violated. 
 
 Here may be introduced the Jupiter Marinus, or Neptune, of the 
 Romans, as refembling Maha'de'va in his generative character; efpe- 
 cially as the Hindu God is the hulband of Bhava'ni, whofe relation to 
 the waters is evidently marked by her image being reftored to them at 
 the conclufion of her great feflival called Durgotfava : fhe is known 
 alfo to have attributes exadlly fimilar to thofe of Venus Marina, whofe 
 birth from the fea-foam and fplendid rife from the Conch, in which flie 
 had been cradled, have afforded fo many charming fubjedis to ancient 
 and modern artifts ; and it is very remarkable, that the Rembha' of 
 Indra's court, who feems to correfpond with the popular Venus, or 
 Goddefs of Beauty, was produced, according to the Indian Fabulifls, 
 from the froth of the churned ocean. The identity of the tris'ula and 
 the trident, the weapon of Siva and of Neptune, feems to eilablifh 
 this analogy ; and the veneration paid all over India to the large buc- 
 cinum, efpecially when it can be found with the fpiral line and mouth 
 turned from left to right, brings inftantly to our mind the mufick of 
 Triton. The Genius of Water is Varuna; but he, like the reft, is 
 far inferior to Mahe's'a, and even to Indra, who is the Prince of the 
 beneficent genii. 
 
 VOL. I. N N This
 
 258 ON THE GODS OF GREECE, 
 
 This way of confidering the Gods as individual fubflances, but as 
 diflind perfons in diftindt charadlers, is common to the European and 
 Indian fyftems; as well as the cuflom of giving the higheft of them the 
 greateft number of names : hence, not to repeat what has been faid of 
 Jupiter, came the triple capacity of Diana ; and hence her petition 
 in Callimachus, that flie might be polyonymous or many-titled. The 
 confort of Siva is more eminently marked by thefe diftimflions than 
 thofe of Brahma' or Vishnu: fhe refembles the Isis Myrionymos, to 
 whom an ancient marble, defcribed by Gruter, is dedicated; but her 
 leading names and charadlers are Pa rvati, Durga', Bhava'ni. 
 
 As the Mountain-born Goddefs, or Pa'rvati, fhe has many proper- 
 ties of the Olympian ]v no: her majeftick deportment, high fpirit, and 
 general attributes arc the fame; and we find her both on Mount Cailafa, 
 and at the banquets of the Deities, uniformly the companion of her 
 hufband. One circumftance in the parallel is extremely Angular : flie is 
 ufually attended by her fon Ca'rtice'ya, who rides on 2i peacock; zndy 
 in fome drawings, his own robe feems to be fpangled with eyes; to 
 which mull: be added that, in fome of her temples, a peacock, without 
 a rider, ftands near her image. Though Ca'rtice'ya, with his fix 
 faces and numerous eyes, bears fome refemblance to Argus, whom 
 Juno employed as her principal wardour, yet,_ as he is a Deity of the 
 fecond clafs, and the Commander of celeftial Armies, he feems clearly 
 to be the Orus of Egypt and the Mars of Italy : his name Scanda, 
 by which he is celebrated in one of the Purdnas, has a connexion, I am 
 perfuaded, with the old Secander of Perfia, whom the poets ridi- 
 culoufly confound v/ith the Macedonian. 
 
 The attributes of Durga', or Difficult of accefs, are alfo confpicuous 
 in the feftival above-mentioned, which is called by her name, and in 
 
 this
 
 \ol 1 
 
 /m. ^238. 

 
 ITALY, AND INDIA. 25 g 
 
 this charadler flie refembles Minerva, not the peaceful inventrefs of 
 the fine and ufeful arts, but Pallas, armed with a helmet and fpear: 
 both reprefent heroick. Virtue, or Valour united with Wifdom; both 
 flew Demons and Giants with their own hands, and both protecfted the 
 wife and virtuous, who paid them due adoration. As Pallas, they 
 fay, takes her name from vibrating a lance, and ufually appears in com- 
 plete armour, thus Cur is, the old Latian word for a fpear, was one of 
 Juno's titles^ and fo, if Giraldus be corredt, was Hoplosmia, which 
 at Elis, it feems, meant a female drelTed in panoply or complete accoutre- 
 ments. The unarmed Minerva of the Romans apparently correfponds, as 
 patronefs of Science and Genius, with Sereswati, the wife of Brahma', 
 and the emblem of his principal Creative Power : both goddeffes have 
 given their names to celebrated grammatical works ; but the Sdrefivata 
 of Saru'pa'cha'rya is far more concife as well as more ufeful and 
 agreeable than the Minerva of Sanctius. The Minerva o^ Italy in- 
 vented thtjliite, and Sereswati prefides over melody : the protedtrefs 
 oi Athens was even, on the fame account, furnamed Musice'. 
 
 Many, learned Mythologifts, with Giraldus at their head, con- 
 fider the peaceful Minerva as the Isis of Egypt ; from whofe temple 
 at Sais a wonderful infcription is quoted by Plutarch, which has a 
 refemblance to the four Sajifcrit verfes above exhibited as the text of 
 the Bhagavat : " I am all, that hath been, and is, and fhall bej and my 
 " veil no mortal hath ever removed." For my part I have no doubt, that 
 the iswAR A and isi of the Hindus are the Osiris and Is is of the Egyptians; 
 though a diftinft eflayin the manner of Plutarch would be requifite in 
 order to demonftrate their identity : they mean, I conceive, the Powers of 
 Nature conlidered as Male and Female ; and Is is, like the other god- 
 deiTes, reprefents the adtive power of her lord, whofe eig/it forms, under 
 which he becomes vifible to man, were thus enumerated- by Ca'li- 
 da'SA near two thoufand years ago : " JVater was the firfl work of the 
 
 " Creator i
 
 260 ON THE GODS OF GREECE, 
 
 ♦* Creator; and Fire receives the oblation of clarified butter, as the law 
 *' ordains ; the Sacrifice is performed with folemnity ; the tico Lights of 
 " heaven diftinguifh time ; the fubtil Ether, which is the vehicle of 
 " found, pervades the univerfe ; the Earth is the natural parent of all 
 " increafe ; and by j4ir all things breathing are animated: may is a, 
 " the power propitioufly apparent in thefe eight forms, blefs and fuftain 
 •' you !" The five elements, therefore, as well as the Sun and Moon, 
 are coniidered as is a or' the Ruler, from which word isi may be 
 regularly formed, though isa'ni be the ufual name of his aBive Power, 
 adored as the Goddefs of Nature. I have not yet found in Sajifcrit the 
 wild, though poetical, tale of lo ; but am perfuaded, that, by means 
 of the Purdnas, v/e fliall in time difcover all the learning of the Egyp- 
 tians without decyphering their hieroglyphicks : the bull of iswara 
 feems to be Apis, or Ap, as he is more corredlly named in the true 
 reading of a paflage in Jeremiah j and, if the veneration ihown both 
 in Tibet and India to fo amiable and ufeful a quadruped as the Cow, to- 
 gether with the regeneration of the Lama himfelf, have not fome affini- 
 ty with the religion oi Egypt and the idolatry oi Ifrael, we muft at leaft 
 allow that circumftances have wonderfully coincided. Bhava'ni now 
 demands our attention; and in this character I fuppofe the wife of 
 Maha'de'va to be as well the Juno Cinxia or Lucina of the Roma?is 
 (called alfo by them Diana Sohizona, and by the Greeks Ilithyia) as 
 Venus herfelf; not the Idalian queen of laughter and jollity, who, with 
 her Nymphs and Graces, was the beautiful child of poetical imagination, 
 and anfwers to thelndian Rembha' with her celeftial train oi Apjaras, 
 or damfels of paradife; but Venus Urania, fo luxuriantly painted by 
 Lucretius, and fo properly invoked by him at the opening of a poem 
 on nature; Venus, prefiding over generation, and, on that account, ex- 
 hibited fometimes of both fexes (an union very common in the Indian 
 fculptures), as in her bearded flatue at Rome, in the images perhaps called 
 Jlermathena, and in thofe figures of her, which had the form of a coni- 
 cal
 
 Vol. 1 
 
 / 
 
 '/(1 . 9(>i'.
 
 ITALY, AND INDIA. 26 1 
 
 cal 7mrble; " for the reafon of which figure we are left, fays Tacitus, 
 " in the dark :" the reafon appears too clearly in the temples and paint- 
 ings of Hindujlan ; where it never feems to have entered the heads of 
 the legiflators or people that any thing natural could be offenfively ob- 
 fcene ; a lingularity, which pervades all their writings and converfation, 
 but is no proof of depravity in their morals. Both Plato and Cicero 
 fpeak of Eros, or the Heavenly Cupid, as the fon of Venus and Jupi- 
 ter j which proves, that the monarch of Olympus and the Goddefs of 
 Fecundity were conneifted as Maha'de'va and Bhava'ni : the God 
 Ca'ma, indeed, had Ma'ya' and Casyapa, or Uranus, for his parents, 
 at leafl according to the Mythologifts of Cafimir ; but, in moil refpeds, 
 he feems the twin-brother of Cupid with richer and more lively appen- 
 dages. One of his many epithets is Dipaca, the Lifamer, which is 
 erroneoufly written Dipuc -, and I am now convinced, that the fort of 
 refemblance, which has been obferved between his Latin and Sanfcrit 
 names, is accidental : in each name the three firil letters are the root, and 
 between them there is no affinity. Whether any Mythological connec- 
 tion fubfifted between the amaracus, with the fragrant leaves of which 
 Hymen bound his temples, and the tulasi of India, muft be left unde- 
 termined : the botanical relation of the two plants (if amaracus be pro- 
 perly tranflated marjoram) is extremely near. 
 
 One of the mofl remarkable ceremonies, in the feftival of the Indian 
 Goddefs, is that before-mentioned of carting her image into the river : 
 the Pandits, of whom I inquired concerned its origin and import, an- 
 fwered, " that it was prefcribed by the Feda, they knew not why ;" but 
 this cuftom has, I conceive, a relation to the dodlrine, that water is a 
 form of iswARA, and confequently of isa'ni, who is even reprefented 
 by fome as the patronefs of that element, to which her figure is reftored, 
 after having received all due honours on earth, which is confidered as 
 another Jorm of the God of Nature, though fubfequent, in the order of 
 
 Creation,
 
 2(32 ON THE GODS OF GREECE, 
 
 Creation, to the primeval fluid. There feems no deciflve proof of one 
 original fyftem among idolatrous nations in the worfliip of river-p-ods 
 and river-goddeffes, nor in the homage paid to their ftrcams, and the 
 ideas of purification annexed to them : fince Greeks, Italians, Egyptians, 
 and Hindus might (without any communication with each other) have 
 adored the feveral divinities of their great rivers, from which they de- 
 rived pleafure, health, and abundance. The notion of Dodlor Mus- 
 GRAVE, that large rivers were fuppofed, from their flrength and rapidi- 
 ty, to be condudted by Gods, while .rivulets only were protedled by fe- 
 male deities, is, like mofl other notions of Gi'ammarians on the genders 
 of nouns, overthrown by fadls. Moft of the great Indian rivers are 
 feminine ; and the three goddelTes of the waters, whom the Hindus 
 chiefly venerate, are Ganga', who fprang, like armed Pallas, from 
 the head of the hidian Jove ; Yamuna',, daughter of the Sun, and 
 Sereswati: all three meet at Prayhga thence called I'riveni, or the 
 three plaited locks ; but Sereswati, according to the popular belief, 
 finks under ground, and rifes at another Triveni near Hugli, where fhe 
 rejoins her beloved Ganga'. The Brahmaputra is, indeed, a male 
 river; and, as his name fignifies the Son of Brahma', I thence took 
 occafion to feign that he was married to Ganga', though I have not 
 yet feen any mention of him, as a God, in the Sanfcrit books. 
 
 Two incarnate deities of the firft rank, Ra'ma and Crishna, mull 
 now be introduced, and their feveral attributes diftinftly explained. The 
 firft of them, I believe, was the Dionysos of the Greeks, whom they 
 named Bromius, without knowing why, and Bugenes, when they 
 reprefented him horned, as well as Lyaios and Eleutkerios, the 
 Deliverer, and Triambos or Dithyrambos, the Triumphant: moft 
 of thofe titles were adopted by the Romans, by whom he was called 
 Brum A, Tauriformis, Liber, Triumphus; and both nations had 
 records or traditionary accounts of his giving laws to men and deciding 
 
 their
 
 Vol.1, 
 
 / 
 
 •ut. 26 't>. 
 
 oM^
 
 ITALY, AND INDIA. 263 
 
 their contefts, of his improving navigation and commerce, and, what 
 may appear yet more obfervable, of his conquering India and other 
 countries with an army of Satyrs, commanded by no lefs a perfonage 
 than Pan j whom LiliusGiraldus, on what authority I know not, 
 aflerts to have refided in Iberh, " when he had returned, fays the learn- 
 " ed Mythologift, from the Indian war, in which he accompanied Bac- 
 " CHUS." It were fuperfluous in a mere eflay, to run any length in the 
 parallel between this European God and the fovereign of Ayodhya, whom 
 the Hindus believe to have been an appearance on earth of the Preferv- 
 ing Power -, to have been a Conqueror of the higheft renown, and the 
 Deliverer of nations from tyrants, as well as of his confort Sir A' from 
 the giant Ra'van, king of Lanca, and to have commanded in chief a 
 numerous and intrepid race of thofe large Monkeys, which our natu- 
 ralifts, or fome of them, have denominated Indian Satyrs : his General, 
 the Prince of Satyrs, was named Hanumat, or loith high cheek-bones ; 
 and, with workmen of fuch agility, he foon raifed a bridge of rocks over 
 the fea, part of which, fay the Hindus, yet remains ; and it is, proba- 
 bly, the feries of rocks, to which the Mufelmans or the Portuguefe have 
 given the foohOi name of Adam's (it fhould be called Ra'ma's) bridge. 
 Might not this army of Satyrs have been only a race of mountaineers, 
 whom Ra'ma, if fuch a monarch ever exifted, had civilized? However 
 that may be, the large breed of Indian Apes is at this moment held in 
 high veneration by the Hindus, and fed with devotion by the Brdhmans, 
 who feem, in two or three places on the banks of the Ganges, to have 
 a regular endowment for the fupport of them : they live in tribes of 
 three or four hundred, are wonderfully gentle (I fpeak as an eye-wit- 
 nefs), and appear to have fome kind of order and fubordination in their 
 little fylvan polity. We muft not omit, that the father of Hanumat 
 was the God of Wind, named Pavan, one of the eight Genii j and, 
 as Pan improved the pipe by adding fix reeds, and " played exquifitely 
 " on the cithern a few moments after his birth," fo one of the four fyf- 
 
 tems
 
 2(54 ON THE GODS OF GREECE, 
 
 tems of Indian mufick bears the name of Hanumat, or Hanuma'n 
 in the nominative, as its inventor, and is now in general eftimation. 
 
 The war of Lanca is dramatically reprefented at the feftival of 
 Ra'ma on the ninth day of the new moon of Chaitra ; and the drama 
 concludes (fays Holwel, who had often ictn it) with an exhibition 
 of the fire-ordeal, by which the vidlor's wife Sit a' gave proof of her 
 connubial fidelity : " the dialogue, he adds, is taken from one of the 
 Eighteen holy books," meaning, I fuppofe, the Purdnas ; but the Hin- 
 dus have a great number of regular dramas at leaft two thoufand years 
 old, and among them are feveral very fine ones on the flory of Ra'ma. 
 The firft poet of the Hindus was the great Va'lmic, and his Rd?ndyan 
 is an Epic Poem on the fame fubjeft, which, in unity of adion, mag- 
 nificence of imagery, and elegance of ftyle, far furpaffes the learned and 
 elaborate work of Nonnus, entitled Diofiyjiaca, half of which, or twen- 
 ty-four books, I perufed with great eagernefs, when I was very young, 
 and ihould have travelled to the conclufion of it, if other purfuits had 
 not engaged me : I fliall never have leifure to compare the Dionyfiacks 
 with the Rdmdyan, but am confident, that an accurate comparifon of 
 the two poems would prove Dionysos and Ra'ma to have been the 
 fame perfon j and I incline to think, that he was Ra'ma, the fon of 
 Cu'sH, who might have eflablifhed the firfl: regular government in this 
 part of jyia. I had almofl forgotton, that Meros is faid by the Greeks to 
 have been a mountain oi India, on which their Dionysos was born, and 
 that Meru, though it generally means the north pole in the Indian 
 geo2;raphy, is alfo a mountain near the city of NaiJJoada or Nyfa, called 
 by the Grecian geographers Tiionyfopolis, and univerfally celebrated in the 
 Sanfcrit poems ; though the birth place of Ra'ma is fuppofed to have 
 been Ayiahya or Audh. That ancient city extended, if we believe the 
 Brd/imans, over a line of ten Yojans, or about forty miles, and the pre- 
 fent city of Lac'hnau, pronounced Lucnow, was only a lodge for one 
 
 of
 
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 ha. iV?j. 
 
 f^^ 
 
 s: 
 
 .^ j-^ 
 
 -^^ 
 
 ^■-^ 
 
 ^^Sf 
 
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 - '-'^ 
 
 ^'/^Sl^" 
 
 
 '''" '■""I'^'liir-T ir-i>in Ill 
 
 aisiai 
 
 :§^1i^^^1lJ^
 
 ITALY, AND INDIA. 265 
 
 of Its gates, called Lacpmanadwdra, or the gate of Lacshman, a bro- 
 ther of Ra'ma : M. SoNNERAT fuppofes Ayodhyd to have been Siani; 
 a moft erroneous and unfounded fuppofition ! which would have been 
 of little confequence, if he had not grounded an argument on it, that 
 Ra'ma was the fame perfon with Buddha, who muft have appeared 
 many centuries after the conquefl of Lancd. 
 
 The fecond great divinity, Crishna, pafied a life, according to the 
 Indians, of a mofl extraordinary and incomprehenfible nature. He was 
 the fon of De'vaci by Vasud'eva ; but his birth was concealed 
 through fear of the tyrant Cansa, to whom it had been predifted, that 
 a child born at that time in that family would deflroy him : he was fof- 
 tered, therefore, in Matliurd by an honefl herdfman, furnamed Anan- 
 DA, or Happy, and his amiable wife Yaso'da', who, like another 
 Pales, was conftantly occupied in her paftures and her dairy. In their 
 family were a multitude of young Gopa's or Cowherds, and beautiful 
 Gdpi's, or tnilkmaids, who were his playfellows during his infancy j and, 
 in his early youth, he felefted nine damfels as his favourites, with whom 
 he paffed his gay hours in dancing, fporting, and playing on his flute. 
 For the remarkable number of his Gdpi's I have no authority but a 
 whimfical pidlure, where nine girls are grouped in the form of an ele- 
 phant, on which he fits and pipes j and, unfortunately, the word nava 
 fignifies both nine and new or young ; fo that, in the following ftanza, 
 it may admit of two interpretations : 
 
 taran'ijdpuline navaballavi 
 perifadd faha celicutuhaldt . 
 drutavilamwitachdruvihdrinam 
 herimaham hridayena fadd vahe. 
 
 troL. I. o o *' I bear
 
 t^i 
 
 266 ON THE GODS OF GREECE, 
 
 " I bear in my bofom continually that God, who, for fportive recrea- 
 ♦* tion with a train of nine (young) dairy-maids, dances gracefully, now 
 " quick now flow, on the fands julxieft by the Daughter of the Sun." 
 
 Both he and the three Ra'mas are defcribed as youths of perfeft 
 beauty ; but the princefles of Hindujidn, as well as the damfels of Nan- 
 da's farm, were paflionately in love with Crishna, who continues to 
 this hour the darlins: God of the Indian women. The fedl of Hifidus, 
 who adore him with enthuliaftick, and almoft exclufive, devotion, have 
 broached a dcxftrine, which they maintain with eagernefs, and which 
 feems general in thefe provinces ; that he was diftinft from all the 
 Avatars, who had only an an/a, or portion, of his divinity; while 
 Crishna was the per/on of Vishnu himfelf in a human form: hence 
 they confider the third Ra'ma, his elder brother, as the eighth Avatar 
 invefted with an emanation of his divine radiance ; and, in the principal 
 Sanfcrit dictionary, compiled about two thoufand years ago, Crish- 
 na, Va'sade'va, Go'vinda, and other names of the Shepherd God, 
 are intermixed with epithets of Na'ra'yan, or the Divine Spirit. All 
 the Avatars are painted with gemmed Ethiopian, or Parthian, coro-' 
 nets ; with rays encircling their heads -, jewels in their ears ; two neck- 
 laces, one ftraight, and one pendent on their bofoms with dropping 
 gems J garlands of well-difpofed many-coloured flowers, or collars of 
 pearls, hanging down below their waifl:s ; loofe mantles of golden tifllie 
 or dyed filk, embroidered on their hems with flowers, elegantly thrown 
 over one fhoulder, and folded, like ribbands, acrofs the breafl: ; with 
 bracelets too on one arm, and on each wrift : they are naked to 
 the waifl:s, and uniformly with dark azure flefh, in alluflon, probably, 
 to the tint of that primordial fluid, on which Na'ra'yan moved in the 
 beginning of time ; but their flcirts are bright yellow, the colour of the 
 curious pericarpium in the center of the water-lily, where Nature, as 
 
 Dr.
 
 \ ol 
 
 / 
 
 •m 
 
 2^^. 
 
 %^A
 
 Aol. 1. 
 
 /UX . W7 
 
 ?«^7
 
 ITALY, AND INDIA. 267 
 
 Dr. Murray obferves, in fome degree difclofes her fecreti, each feed 
 containing, before it germinates, a few perfedl leaves : they are fome- 
 times drawn with that flower in one hand ; a radiated elliptical ring, 
 ufed as a miflile weapon, in a fecond j the facred fhell, or left-handed 
 buccinum, in a third; and a mace or battle-ax, in a fourth; but Crish- 
 NA, when he appears, as he fometimes does appear, among the Ava- 
 tars, is more fplendidly decorated than any, and wears a rich garland of 
 fylvan flowers, whence he is named Vanama'li, as low as his ankles, 
 which are adorned with firings of pearls. Dark blue, approaching to 
 black, which is the meaning of the word CriJIma, is believed to have 
 been his complexion ; and hence the large bee of that colour is confe- 
 crated to him, and is often drawn fluttering over his head : that azure tint, 
 which approaches to blacknefs, is peculiar, as we have already remark- 
 ed, to Vishnu ; and hence, in the great refervoir or cifl:ern at Cdtmdn- 
 du the capital of Nepal, there is placed in a recumbent poflure a large 
 well-proportioned image oi blue marble, reprefenting Na'ra'yan float- 
 ing on the waters. But let us return to the actions of Crishna; who 
 was not lefs heroick, than lovely, and, when a boy, flew the terrible 
 ferpent Cdliya with a number of giants and monfliers : at a more ad- 
 vanced age, he put to death his cruel enemy Cansa ; and, having 
 taken under his protection the king Yudhisht'hir and the other Pan- 
 dus, who had been grievoufly opprefl'ed by the Ciirus, and their tyranni- 
 cal chief, he kindled the war defcribed in the great Epick Poem, entitled 
 the Mahabhdrat, at the profperous conclufion of which he returned to 
 his heavenly feat in Vaicont'ha^ having left the infl:ru6tions comprifed in 
 the Git a with his difconfolate friend Arjun, whofe grandfon became 
 fovereign di. India. 
 
 In this picflure it is impoflible not to difcover, at the firfl: glance, the 
 features of Apollo, furnamed Nomios, or the Pajioral, in Greece, and 
 Opifer in Italy; who fed the herds of Admetus, and flew the ferpent 
 
 Python;
 
 268 ON THE GODS OF GREECE, 
 
 Python ; a God amorous, beautiful, and warlike : the word Govinda 
 may be literally tranflated Nomios, as Cefava is Crinitus, or with Jine 
 hair; but whether Gopdla, or the herd/man, has any relation to 
 Apollo, let our Etymologifts determine. Colonel Vallancey, whofe 
 learned enquiries into the ancient literature of Ireland are highly inte- 
 refting, allures me, that CriJJma in Irip means the Sun j and we find 
 Apollo and Sol confidered by the Roman poets as the fame deity: I 
 am inclined, indeed, to believe, that not only Crishna or Vishnu, 
 but even Brahma' and Siva, when united, and expreffed by the myfti- 
 cal word O'M, were defigned by the firfl idolaters to reprefent the Solar 
 fire; but Phcebus, or the orb of the Sun perfonified, is adored by the 
 Indiatts as the God Su'rya, whence the fedl, who pay him particular 
 adoration, are called Sauras : their poets and painters defcribe his car as 
 drawn by feven green horfes, preceded by Arun, or the Dawn, who 
 afts as his charioteer, and followed by thoufands of Genii worfliipping 
 him and modulating his praifes. He has a multitude of names, and 
 among them twelve epithets or titles, which denote his diftind: powers 
 in each of the twelve months : thofe powers are called Adityas, or fons 
 of Aditi by Casyapa, the Indian Uranus ; and one of them has, 
 according to fome authorities, the name of Vishnu or Pcrvader. Su'- 
 rya is believed to have defcended frequently from his car in a human 
 ihape, and to have left a race on earth, who are equally renowned in 
 the Indian flories with the Heliadai of Greece : it is very fingular, that 
 his two fons called Aswinau or Aswini'cuma'rau, in the dual, fhould 
 be confidered as twin-brothers, and painted like Castor and Pollux, 
 but they have each the charader of iEscuLAPius among the Gods, 
 and are believed to have been born of a nymph, who, in the form of a 
 mare, was impregnated with fun-beams. I fufpedl the whole fable of 
 Casyapa and his progeny to be aftronomical ; and cannot but imagine, 
 that the Greek name Cassiopeia has a relation to it. Another great 
 Indian family are called the Children of the Moon, or Chandra; who 
 
 is
 
 ITALY, AND INDIA. , 26Q 
 
 is a male Deity, and confequently not to be compared with Artemis 
 or Diana j nor have I yet found a parallel in India for the Goddefs of 
 the Chafe, who feems to have been the daughter of an European fancy, 
 and very naturally created by the invention of Bucolick and Georgick 
 poets : yet, fmce the Moon is 2, form of i'swara, the God of Nature, 
 according to the verfe of Ca'lid a'sa, and fmce i'sa'ni has been fhown 
 to be his confort or power, we may confider her, in one of her charac- 
 ters, as Luna ; efpecially as we fliall foon be convinced that, in the 
 fhades below% flie correfponds with the Hecate oi Europe. 
 
 The worfliip of Solar, or Veflal, Fire may be afcribed, like that of 
 Osiris and Isis, to the fecond fource of mythology, or an enthuiiaftick 
 admiration of Nature's wonderful powers ; and it feems, as far as I can 
 yet underftand the Ve'das, to be the principal worfliip recommended in 
 them. We have feen, that Maha'de'va himfelf is perfonated by Fire; 
 but, fubordinate to him, is the God Agni, often called Pa'vaca, or 
 the Purifier, who anfwers to the Vulcan of Egypt, where he was a 
 Deity of high rank; and his wife Swa'ha' refembles the younger Ves- 
 ta, or Vesti A, as the Eolians pronounced the Greek word for a hearth: 
 Bhava'ni, or Venus, is the confort of the Supreme Deflrudlive and 
 Generative Power; but the Greeks and Romans, whofe fyflem is lefs 
 regular than that of the Indians, married her to their divine artiji, whom 
 they alfo named Hephaistos and Vulcan, and who feems to be the 
 Indian Viswacarman, the forger of arms for the Gods, and inventor 
 of the agnyaflra, ov fiery JJjaft , in the war between them and the Daityas 
 or Titans. It is not eafy here to refrain from obferving (and, if the 
 obfervation give offence in England, it is contrary to my intention) that 
 the newly difcovered planet fhould unqueftionably be named Vulcan ; 
 fince the confulion of analogy in the names of the planets is inelegant, 
 unfcholarly, and unphilofophical : the name Uranus is appropriated to 
 the firmament; but Vulcan, the floweft of the Gods, and, according 
 
 to
 
 270 ON THE GODS OF GREECE, 
 
 to the Egyptian priefts, the oldefl of them, agrees admirably with an 
 orb, which muft perform its revolution in a very long period ; and, by 
 giving it this denomination, we fhall have feven primary planets with 
 the names of as many Roman Deities, Mercury, Venus, Tellus, 
 Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Vulcan. 
 
 It has already been intimated, that the Muses and Nymphs are the 
 Go'p Y A of Math'ura, and of Gdverdhan, the Parnajfus of the Hindus ; and 
 the lyrick poems of Jayade'va will fully juflify this opinion ; but the 
 Nymphs of Alufick are the thirty Ra'gini's or Female Pajjions, whofe 
 various fund:ions and properties are fo richly delineated by the Indian 
 painters and fo finely defcribed by the poets j but I will not anticipate 
 what will require a feparate Effay, by enlarging here on the beautiful 
 allegories of the Hindus in their fyflem of mufical modes, which they 
 call Ra'ga's, or PaJJions, and fuppofed to be Genii or Demigods. A 
 very diftinguifhed fon of Brahma', named Na'red, whofe adlions are 
 the fubjeft of a Purdna, bears a ftrong refemblance to Hermes or Mer- 
 cury : he was a wife legiflator, great in arts and in arms, an eloquent 
 meffenger of the Go'ds either to one another or to favoured mortals, and 
 a mufician of exquifite fkill ; his invention of the Vind^ or Indian lute, 
 is thus defcribed in the poem entitled Mdgha : " Na'red fat watching 
 " from time to time his large Vina, which, by the impulfe of the 
 " breeze, yielded notes, that pierced fucceffively the regions of his ear, 
 " and proceeded by mufical intervals." The law traft, fuppofed to have 
 been revealed by Na'red, is at this hour cited by the Pandits ; and we 
 cannot, therefore, believe him to have been the patron of Thieves; though 
 an innocent theft of Crishna's cattle, by way of putting his divinity to 
 a proof, be ftrangely imputed, in the Bhdgavat, to his father Brahma'. 
 
 The laft of the Greek or Italian divinities, for whom we find a paral- 
 lel in the Pantheon of India, is the Stygian or I'aurick Diana, other- 
 wife
 
 Yol.l. 
 
 '?<7. 970. 
 
 A- ''/
 
 ITALY, AND INDIA. 2/1 
 
 wife named Hecate, and often confounded with Proserpine; and 
 there can be no doubt of her identity with Ca'li', or the wife of Siva 
 in his character of the Stygian Jove. To this black Goddefs with a 
 collar of golden fkulls, as we fee her exhibited in all her principal tem- 
 ples, human facriftces were anciently offered, as the Vedas enjoined j but, 
 in the prefent age, they are abfolutely prohibited, as are alfo the facri- 
 fices of bulls and horfes : kids are ftill offered to her ; and, to pal- 
 liate the cruelty of the flaughter, which gave fuch offence to Buddha, 
 the Brahmans inculcate a belief, that the poor vidtims rife in the heaven 
 of Indra, where they become the mulicians of his band. Inftead of 
 the obfolete, and now illegal, facrifices of a man, a bull, and a horfe, 
 called Neramedha, Gomedha, and Aswamedha, the powers of nature are 
 thought to be propitiated by the lefs bloody ceremonies at the end of 
 autumn, when the feftivals of Ca'li' and Lacshmi' are folemnized 
 nearly at the fame time : now, if it be afked, how the Goddefs of 
 Death came to be united with the mild patronefs of Abundance, I mufl 
 propofe another queflion, " How came Proserpine to be reprefented 
 '* in the European fyflem as the daughter of Ceres ?" Perhaps, both 
 quellions may be anfwered by the propofition of natural philofophers, 
 that " the apparent deftrudlion of a lubftance is the produdlion of it in 
 " a different form." The wild mufick of Ca'li's priefls at one of her 
 fefliivals brought inflantly to my recolled:ion the Scythian meafures of 
 Diana's adorers in the fplendid opera of Iphigenia in Taiiris, which 
 Gluck exhibited at Paris with lefs genius, indeed, than art, but with 
 every advantage that an orcheflra could fupply. 
 
 That we may not difmifs this affemblage of European and Afiatick 
 divinities with a fubjecfl fo horrid as the altars of Hecate and Ca'li', 
 Vet us conclude with two remarks, which properly, indeed, belong to the 
 Indian Philofophy, with which we are not at prefent concerned. Firfl; 
 
 Elyfium
 
 2/2 ON THE GODS OF GREECE, 
 
 Elyjium (not the place, but the bhfs enjoyed there, in which fenfe 
 Milton ufes the word) cannot but appear, as defcribed by the poets, 
 a very tedious and infipid kind of enjoyment : it is, however, more ex- 
 alted than the temporary Elyjium in the court of Indra, where the 
 pleafures, as in Muhammed's paradife, are wholly fenfual ^ but the 
 AIuBi, or Elyfian happinefs of the Vedcmta School is far more fublime ; 
 for they reprefent it as a total abforption, though not fuch as to deftroy 
 confcioufnefs, in the divine effence ; but, for the reafon before fug- 
 gefled, I Jay no more of this idea of beatitude, and forbear touching 
 on the dodlrine of tranfmigration and the fimilarity of the Vcdanta to the 
 Sicilian, Italick, and old Academick Schools. 
 
 Secondly ; in the myftical and elevated character of Pan, as a perfonl- 
 fication of the Univerje, according to the notion of lord Bacon, there 
 arifes a fort of limilitude between him and Crishna confidered as Na'- 
 ra'yan. The Grecian god plays divinely on his reed, to exprefs, we 
 are tald, etherial harmony; he has his attendant Nymphs of the paftures 
 and the dairy ; his face is as radiant as the fky, and his head illumined 
 with the horns of a crefcent; whilft his lower extremities are deformed 
 and ihaggy, as a fymbol of the vegetables, which the earth produces, 
 and of the beafts, who roam over the face of it : now we may compare 
 this portrait, partly with the general charader of Crishna, the Shep- 
 herd God, and partly with the defcription in the Bhagavat of the divine 
 fpirit exhibited in the form of this Univerfal World; to which we may 
 add the following ftory from the fame extraordinary poem. The 
 Nymphs had complained to Yaso'da', that the child Crishna had 
 been drinking their curds and milk: on being reproved by his foller- 
 mother for this indifcretion, he requefted her to examine his mouth ; in 
 which, to her jufl amazement, flie beheld the ivhole imiverfe in all its 
 plenitude of magnificence. 
 
 Wc
 
 ITALY, AND INDIA. 273 
 
 We muft not be furprized at finding, on a clofe examination, that 
 the charadters of all the pagan deities, male and female, melt into each 
 other, and at laft into one or two; for it feems a well-founded opinion, 
 that the whole crowd of gods and goddeffes in ancient Rome, and modern 
 Fdrdnes, mean only the powers of nature, and principally thofe of the 
 Sun, expreffed in a variety of ways and by a multitude of fanciful 
 names. 
 
 Thus have I attempted to trace, imperfedtly at prefent for want of 
 ampler materials, but with a confidence continually increafing as I ad- 
 vanced, a parallel between the Gods adored in three very different na- 
 tions, Greece, Italy, and India ; but, which was the original fyftem and 
 which the copy, I will not prefume to decide ; nor are we likely, I be- 
 lieve, to be foon furnillied with fufficient grounds for a decifion : the 
 fundamental rule, that natural, and tnoji human, operations proceed from 
 the fimple to the compound, will afford no affiftance on this point ; fince 
 neither the Afiatick nor 'European fyftem has any fimplicity in it ; and 
 both are fo complex, not to fay abfurd, however intermixed with the 
 beautiful and the fublime, that the honour, fuch as it is, of the inven- 
 tion cannot be allotted to either with tolerable certainty. 
 
 Since E^pt appears to have been the grand fource of knowledge for 
 the wejiern, and India for the more eafiern, parts of the globe, it may 
 feem a material queftion, whether the Egyptians communicated their 
 Mythology and Philofophy to the Hindus, or converfely ; but what the 
 learned of Memphis wrote or faid concerning India, no mortal knows; 
 and what the learned of Fdrdnes have afferted, if any thing, concernino- 
 Egypt, can give us little fatisfadlion : fuch circumftantial evidence on 
 this queftion as I have been able to colleft, fliall neverthelefs be ftated ; 
 becaufe, unfatisfa<ftory as it is, there may be fomething in it not wholly 
 unworthy of notice; though after all, whatever colonies may have come 
 
 VOL. I. P P from
 
 274 ON THE GODS OF GREECE, 
 
 from the Nik to the Ganges, we fhall, perhaps, agree at laft with Mr. 
 Bryant, that Egyptians, Indians, Greeks, and Itafums, proceeded ori- 
 ginally from one central place, and that the fame people carried their 
 relio-ion and fciences into China and Japan: may wc not add, even to 
 Mexico and Peru f 
 
 Every one knows, that the true name of Egypt is Mis' r, fpelled with 
 a palatial fibilant both in Hebrew and Arabick : it feems in Hebrew to 
 have been the proper name of the firft fettler in it; and, when the 
 Arabs ufe the word for a great city, they probably mean a city like the 
 capital of Egypt. Father Marco, a Roman Miffionary, who, though 
 not a fcholar of the firft: rate, is incapable, I am perfuaded, of deliberate 
 falfehood, lent me the laft book of a Rdmdyan, which he had tranflated 
 through the Hifidi into his native language, and with it a fliort vocabu- 
 lary of Mythological and Hiftorical names, which had been explained 
 to him by the Pandits of Betiyd, where he had long refided : one of 
 the articles in his little didtionary was, " Tirut, a town and province, 
 " in which the priefts from Egypt fettled ;" and, when I afked him, 
 what name Egypt bore among the Hindus, he faid Mis'r, but obferved, 
 that they fometimes confounded it with Abyjjinia. I perceived, that 
 his memory of what he had written was corredl j for Mis'r was another 
 word in his index, " from which country, he faid, came the Egyptian 
 " priefts, who fettled in Tirut." I fufpeded immediately, that his in- 
 telligence flowed from the Mufelmans, who call fugar-candy Mifri or 
 Egyptian ; but, when I examined him clofely, and earneftly defired him 
 to recoiled: from whom he had received his information, he repeatedly 
 and pofitively declared, that " it had been given him by feveral Hindus, 
 *• and particularly by a Brahman, his intimate friend, who was reputed 
 " a confiderable Pandit, and had lived three years near his houfe." 
 We then conceived, that the feat of his Egyptian colony muft have been 
 Tirohit, commonly pronounced Tirut, and anciently called Mit'hila, the 
 
 principal
 
 ITALY, AND INDIA. 275 
 
 principal town of Janacades'a, or north Bahar ; but P^Iahe'sa PandU, 
 who was born in that very diilrid:, and who fubmitted patiently to a 
 long examination concerning Mis'r, overfet all our conclufions : h^ de- 
 nied, that the BrdJjmans of his country were generally lurnamed Misr, 
 as we had been informed; and faid, that the addition of Misra to the 
 name of Va'chespeti, and other learned authors, was a title formerly 
 conferred on the writers of mifcellanies, or compilers of various tradts on 
 religion or fcience, the word being derived from a root fignifying to mix. 
 Being afked, where the country of Af//r was, " There are two, he an- 
 " fwered, of that name ; one of them in the weji under the dominion of 
 '* Mufelmans, and another, which all the Sdjlras and Purdnas mention, 
 " in a mountainous region to the north of Ayddhyd :" it is evident, that 
 by the firll he meant Egypt, but what he meant by the fecond, it is not 
 eafy to afcertain. A country, called Tiruhut by our geographers, ap- 
 pears in the maps between the north-eaftern frontier of Audh and the 
 mountains of Nepal; but whether that was the I'irut mentioned to father 
 Marco by his friend of Betiya, I cannot decide. This only I know 
 with certainty, that Mifra is an epithet of two Brdhmans in the drama 
 of Sacontala', which was written near a century before the birth of 
 Christ ; that fome of the greatefl lawyers, and two of the finefl dra- 
 matick poets, of India have the fame title ; that we hear it frequently in 
 court added to the names of Hindu parties ; and that none of the Pandits, 
 whom I have fince confulted, pretend to know the true meaning of the 
 word, as a proper name, or to give any other explanation of it than that 
 it is afurname of Brahmans in the weJi. On the account given to Co- 
 lonel Kyd by the old Rdjd of Crijhnanagar , " concerning traditions 
 ♦* among the Hindus, that fome Egyptians had fettled in this country," 
 I cannot rely j becaufe I am credibly informed by fome of the Rajas 
 own family, that he was not a man of folid learning, though he pofleffed 
 curious books, and had been attentive to the converfation of learned 
 men : befides, I know that his fon and mofl of his kinfmen have been 
 
 dabblers
 
 276 ON THE GODS OF GREECE, 
 
 dabblers in Perfian literature, and believe them very likely, by con- 
 founding one fource of information with another, to puzzle themfelves 
 and miflead thofe, vi^ith w^hom they converfe. The word Mis'r, fpelled 
 alfo in Sanfcrit with a palatial fibilant, is very remarkable ; and, as far 
 as Etymology can help us, we may fafely derive Niliis from the Sanfcrit 
 word nila, or blue; fince Dionysius exprefsly calls the waters of that 
 river ** an azure ftream j" and, if we can depend on Marco's Italian 
 verfion of the Rdmdyan, the name of Nila is given to a lofty and facred 
 mountain with a fummit of pure gold, from which flowed a river of 
 clear ^ fweet, and frejh water. M. Sonnerat refers to a differtation by 
 Mr. ScHMiT, which gained a prize at the Academy of Infcriptions, 
 " On an Egyptian Colony cftablifhed in India:" it would be worth 
 while to examine his authorities, and either to overturn or verify them 
 by fuch higher authorities, as are now acceffible in thefe provinces. I 
 ftrongly incline to think him right, and to believe that Egyptian priefts 
 have adlually come from the Nile to the Ganga and Yamuna, which the 
 Brdhmans mofl: alTuredly would never have left : they might indeed, 
 have come either to be inflrudled or to inftrudl ; but it feems more pro- 
 bable, that they vifited the Siirmans of India, as the fages of Greece vifit- 
 ed them, rather to acquire than to impart knowledge ; nor is it likely, 
 that the felf-fufficient Brdhmans would have received them as their pre- 
 ceptors. 
 
 Be all this as it may, I am perfuaded, that a connexion fubfifled be- 
 tween the old idolatrous nations of Egypt, India, Greece, and Italy, long 
 before they migrated to their feveral fettlements, and confequently be- 
 fore the birth of Moses ; but the proof of this propolition will in no de- 
 gree affedl the truth and fandlity of the Mofaick Hiftory, which, if con- 
 firmation were neceflliry, it would rather tend to confirm. The Divine 
 Legate, educated by tlie daughter of a king, and in all refpeds highly 
 accompliflied, could not but know the mythological fyflem of Egypt ; 
 
 but
 
 ITALY, AND INDIA. 2/7 
 
 but he mufl have condemned the fuperftitions of that people, and de- 
 fpifed the fpeculative abiurdities of their priefts ; though fome of their 
 traditions concerning the creation and the flood were grounded on truth. 
 Who was better acquainted with the mythology oi Athens than Socra- 
 tes ? Who more accurately verfed in the Rabbinical doftrines than 
 Paul ? Who poffeffed clearer ideas of all ancient aflronomical fyftems 
 than Newton, or of fcholaftick metaphyficks than Locke ? In whom 
 could the Romijh Church have had a more formidable opponent than in 
 Chillingworth, whofe deep knowledge of its tenets rendered him fo 
 competent to difpute them ? In a word, who more exadtly knew the 
 abominable rites and {hocking idolatry of Canaan than Moses himfelf ? 
 Yet the learning of thofe great men only incited them to feek other 
 fources of truth, piety, and virtue, than thofe in which they had long 
 been immerfed. There is no fliadow then of a foundation for an 
 opinion, that Moses borrowed the firfl: nine or ten chapters of Genefis 
 from the literature of Egypt : ftill lefs can the adamantine pillars of our 
 Chrijiian faith be moved by the refult of any debates on the comparative 
 antiquity of the Hindus and Egyptians, or of any inquiries into the In- 
 dian Theology. Very refpeftable natives have affured me, that one or 
 two miflionaries have been abfurd enough, in their zeal for the conver- 
 fion of the Gentiles, to urge, " that the Hindus were even now almoft 
 " Chrijiians, becaufe their Brahma', Vishnu, and Mahe'sa, were no 
 " other than the Chrijiian Trinity j" a fentence, in which we can only 
 doubt, whether folly, ignorance, or impiety predominates. The three 
 poi^-ers. Creative, Prefers ative, and DeJiruBi've, which the Hindus ex - 
 prefs by the triliteral word O m, were grofsly afcribed by the firfl: idola- 
 ters to the heat, light, dinA fame of their miftaken divinity, the Sun; and 
 their wifer fuccefTors in the Eaft, who perceived that the Sun was 
 only a created thing, applied thofe powers to its creator ; but the Indian 
 Triad, and that of Plato, which he calls the Supreme Good, the Rea- 
 
 fon.
 
 278 ON THE GODS OF GREECE, 
 
 fon, and the Soul, are infinitely removed from the holinefs and fubhmity 
 cf the dodlrine, which pious Chrijiians have deduced from texts in the 
 Gofpe], though other Chrijiians, as pious, openly profefs their diflent 
 from them. Each fed; mufl be juillfied by its own faith and good in- 
 tentions : this only I mean to inculcate, that the tenet of our church 
 cannot without profanenefs be compared with that of the Hindus, which 
 has only an apparent refemblance to it, but a very different meaning. 
 One fingular faft, however, mull not be futfered to pafs unnoticed. 
 That the name of Crishna, and the general outline of his flory, were 
 long anterior to the birth of our Saviour, and probably to the time' of 
 Homer, we know very certainly; yet the celebrated poem, entitled 
 Bhdgavat, which contains a prolix account of his life, is filled with nar- 
 ratives of a moft extraordinary kind, but flrangely variegated and inter- 
 mixed with poetical decorations : the incarnate deity of the Sanfcrit ro- 
 mance was cradled, as it informs us, among Herd/men, but it adds, that 
 he was educated among them, and paifed his youth in playing with a 
 party of milkmaids ; a tyrant, at the time of his birth, ordered all new- 
 born males to be flain, yet this wonderful babe was preferved by biting 
 the breaft, inilead of fucking the poifoned nipple, of a nurfe commif- 
 fioned to kill him ; he performed amazing, but ridiculous, miracles in 
 his infancy, and, at the age of {tvtn years, held up a mountain on the 
 tip of his little finger : he faved multitudes partly by his arms and partly 
 by his miraculous powers j he raifed the dead by defcending for that 
 purpofe to the lowefl regions ; he was the meekeft and beft-tempered of 
 beings, wafhed the feet of the Brdhmans, and preached very nobly, in- 
 deed, and fublimely, but always in their favour; he was pure and 
 chafte in reality, but exhibited an appearance of excelTive libertinifm, 
 and had wives or miftrefles too numerous to be counted ; laftly, he was 
 benevolent and tender, yet fomented and conduced a terrible war. 
 This motley flory jnuft induce an opinion that the fpurious Gofpels, 
 
 which
 
 ITALY, AND INDIA. 279 
 
 which abounded in the firil: age of Chrijllanky , had been brought to In- 
 dia, and the wildeft parts of them repeated to the Hindus, who ingrafted 
 them on the old fable of Ce'sava, the Apollo oi Greece. 
 
 As to the general extenfion of our pure faith in Hindujldn, there arc 
 at prefent many fad obftaclcs to it. The Mnfelnians arc already a fort of 
 heterodox C/6ri/?/w?zj : they are Cbrijiiam, if Locke I'eafons juftly, be- 
 caufe they firmly believe the immaculate conception, divine characfter, 
 and miracles of the Messiah ; but they are heterodox, in denying ve- 
 hemently his charadler of Son, and his equality, as God, with the Fa- 
 ther, of whofe unity and attributes they entertain and exprefs the moft 
 awful ideas; while they confider our dodlrine as perfect blafphemy, and 
 infift, that our copies of the Scriptures have been corrupted both by 
 Jews and Chrijlians. It will be inexpreffibly difficult to undeceive 
 them, and fcarce poffible to diminifli their veneration for Mohammed 
 and Ali, Avho were both very extraordinary men, and the fecond, a 
 man of unexceptionable morals : the Koran fhines, indeed, with a bor- 
 rowed light, fince mofl of its beauties are taken from our Scriptures > 
 but it has great beauties, and the Mnfelmdns will not be convinced that 
 they were borrowed. The Hindus on the other hand would readily ad- 
 mit the truth of the Gofpel ; but they contend, that it is perfedly con- 
 fiftent with their Sdjiras : the deity, they fay, has appeared innumerable 
 times, in many parts of this world and of all worlds, for the falvation of 
 his creatures ; and though we adore him in one appearance, and they in 
 others, yet we adore, they fay, the fame God, to whom our fcveral 
 worfliips, though different in form, are equally acceptable, if they be 
 fincere in fubftance. We may affure ourfelves, that neither Mujelmdns 
 nor Hindus will ever be converted by any miffion from the Church of 
 Rotne, or from any other church ; and the only human mode, perhaps, 
 of caufing fo great a revolution will be to tranflate into Sanfcrit and 
 
 Perfian
 
 280 ON THE GODS OF GREECE, &c. 
 
 Perfmn fuch chapters of the Prophets, particularly of Isaiah, as are 
 indifputably Evangelical, together with one of the Gofpels, and a plain 
 prefatory difcourfe containing full evidence of the very diftant ages, in 
 which the predictions themfelves, and the hiftory of the divine perfon 
 predidled, were feverally made publick ; and then quietly to difperfe the 
 work among the well-educated natives; with whom if in due time it 
 failed of producing very falutary fruit by its natural influence, we 
 could only lament more than ever the ilrength of prejudice, and the 
 weaknefs of unaffifted reafon. 
 
 ON
 
 ON 
 
 THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE HINDUS. 
 
 WRITTEN IN JANUART, 1788, 
 
 BT 
 
 The president. 
 
 J. HE great antiquity of the Hindus is believed fo firmly by thcmfelves, 
 and has been the fubjedl of fo much converfation among Europeans, that 
 a fliort view of their Chronological Syilem, which has not yet been ex- 
 hibited from certain authorities, may be acceptable to thofe, who feeic 
 truth without partiality to receive opinions, and without regarding any 
 confequences, that may refult from their inquiries : the confequences, 
 indeed, of truth cannot but be defirable, and no reafonable man will ap- 
 prehend any danger to fociety from a general diffufion of its light ; but 
 we mufl not fuffer ourfelves to be dazzled by a falfe glare, nor miftakc 
 enigmas and allegories for hiflorical verity. Attached to no fyftem, and 
 as much difpofed to rejeft the Mofaick hiftory, if it be proved erroneous, 
 as to believe it, if it be confirmed by found reafoning from indubitable 
 evidence, I propofe to lay before you a concife account of Indian Chro- 
 nology extrad:ed from Sanfcrit books, or coUedled from converfations 
 with Pandits, and to fubjoin a few remarks on their fyftem, without 
 attempting to decide a queftion, which I ihall venture to ftart, " whe- 
 voL. I. 0^ Q^ " ther
 
 282 ON THE CHRONOLOGY 
 
 '* ther it is not in facft the fame with our own, but embelliflied and ob- 
 *' fcured by the fancy of their poets and the riddles of their aftronomers." 
 
 One of tlie moft curious books in Sanfcrit, and one of the oldeft after 
 the Veda s, is a tradt on religious and civil duties, taken, as it is believed, 
 from the oral inftrudtions of Menu, fon of Brahma', to the firft in- 
 habitants of the earth : a well-collated copy of this interefting law-tradl 
 is now before me j and I begin my differtation with a few couplets from 
 the firft chapter of it : " The fun caufes the divifion of day and night, 
 •' which are of two forts, thofe of men and thofe of the Gods ; the day, 
 •' for the labour of «// creatures in their feveral employments ; the night, 
 ♦* for their {lumber. A month is a day and night of the Patriarchs ; and 
 " it is divided into two parts ; the bright half is their day for laborious 
 " exertions ; the dark half, their night for fleep. A year is a day and 
 " night of the Gods ; and that is alfo divided into two halves ; the day 
 *' is, when the fun moves towards the north ; the night, when it moves 
 " towards the fouth. Learn now the duration of a night and day of 
 " Brahma', with that of the ages refpe(5lively and in order. Four 
 " thoufand years of the Gods they call the Crtta (or SatyaJ, age ; and 
 ♦' its limits at the beginning and at the end are, in like manner, as 
 " many hundreds. In the three fucceffive ages, together with their 
 " limits at the beginning and end of them, are thoufands and hundreds 
 " diminiflied by one. This aggregate of four ages, amounting to twelve 
 " thoufand divine years, is called an age of the Gods ; and a thoufand 
 " fuch divine ages added together muft be confidered as a day of Brah- 
 " ma' : his night has alfo the fame duration. The before mentioned 
 " age of the Gods, or twelve thoufand of their years, multiplied by 
 ** feventy-one, form what is named here below a Manwantara. There 
 •* are alternate creations and deftrudtions of worlds through innumerable 
 " Manwantara s : the Being Supremely Defirable performs all this again 
 " and again." 
 
 Such
 
 OF THE HINDUS. 283 
 
 Such is the arrangement of infinite time, whicli the Hindus believe to 
 have been revealed from heaven, and which they generally underfland 
 in a literal (enie : it feems to have intrinfick marks of being purely aftro- 
 nomical ; but I will not appropriate the obfervations of others, nor anti- 
 cipate thofe in particular, which have been made by two or three of our 
 members, and which they will, I hope, communicate to the fociety. A 
 conjedlure, however, of Mr. Paterson has fo much ingenuity in it, 
 that I cannot forbear mentioning it here, efpecially as it feems to be 
 confirmed by one of the couplets juft-cited : he fuppofes, that, as a 
 month of mortals is a day and night of the Patriarchs from the analogy of 
 its bright and dark halves, fo, by the fame analogy, a day and night of 
 mortals might have been confidered by the ancient Hindus as a month of 
 the lower world ; and then a year of fuch months will confift only of 
 twelve days and nights, and thirty fuch years will compofe a lunar year 
 of mortals ; whence he furmifes, that the four million three hundred and 
 twenty thoiijand yfss?,, of which the four Indian ages are fuppofed to con- 
 fifl:, mean only years of twelve days ; and, in fad, that fum, divided by 
 thirty, is reduced to an hundred and forty-four thoufand : now a thoufand 
 four hundred and forty years are one pada, a period in^the Hindu aftrono- 
 my, and that fum, multiplied by eighteen, amounts preeifely to twenty^ 
 five thoufand nine hundred and twenty, the number of years in which the 
 fixed ftars appear to perform their long revolution eaftward. The laft 
 mentioned fum is the produdt alfo of an hundred and forty -four, which, 
 according to M. Bailly, was an old Indian cycle, into an hundred ajid 
 eighty, or the 'Tartarian period, called Fan, and of two thoifand eight 
 hundred and. eighty into nine, which is not only one of the lunar cycles, 
 but confidered by the Hindus as a myfterious number and an emblem of 
 Divinity, becaufe, if it be multiplied by any other whole number, the 
 fum of the figures in the different produdls remains always nine, as the 
 Deity, who appears in many forms, continues One immutable effence. 
 The important period of twenty five thoifand nine hundred and twenty 
 
 years
 
 284 ON THE CHRONOLOGY 
 
 years is well known to arife from the multiplication of three hundred and 
 Jixty into feventy-two, the number of years in which a fixed ftar feems to 
 move through a degree of a great circle ; and, although M. Le Gen til 
 affures us, that the modern Hindus believe a complete revolution of the 
 ftars to be made in twenty-four t houf and yt^ivs, or Jifty-four feconds of a 
 degree to be pafled in one year, yet we may have reafon to think, that 
 the old Indian aftronomers had made a more accurate calculation, but 
 concealed their knowledge from the people under the veil oi fourteen 
 M-ENW ANT ara's, fcventy-o?2e divine ages, compound cycles, and years of 
 different forts, from thofe of Brahma' to thofe of Pdtdla, or the infernal 
 regions. If we follow the analogy fuggefted by Menu, and fuppofeonly 
 a day and night to be called a year, we may divide the number of years in 
 a divine age by three hundred and Jixty, and the quotient will be twelve 
 thoufand, or the number of his divine years in one age : but, conjecfture 
 apart, we need only compare the two periods 4320000 and 25920, and 
 we fliall find, that among their common divifors, are 0, 9, 12, &c. 18, 
 30, 72, 144, &c. which numbers with their feveral multiples, efpecially 
 in a decuple progreffion, conftitute fome of the moft celebrated periods 
 of the Chaldeans, Greeks, Tartars, and even of the Indians. We cannot 
 fail to obferve, that the number 432, which appears to be the bafis of 
 the Indian fyftem, is a Goth part of 25920, and, by continuing the com- 
 parifon, we might probably folve the whole enigma. In the preface to 
 a Vdrdnes Almanack I find the following wild ftanza : " A thoufand 
 *' Great Ages are a day of Brahma' j a thjufand fuch days are an Indian 
 " hour of Vishnu ; Jix hundred thoufand fuch hours make a period of 
 ** RuDRA; and a million of Rudra s (or two quadrillions five hundred and 
 *■' ninety-two t hoi f and trillions of lunar years), are .but 2.fecond to the Su- 
 *' preme Being." The Hindu theologians deny the conclufion of the 
 flanza to be orthodox : '' Time, they fay, exijls not at all with God -," and 
 they advife the Aftronomers to mind their own bufinefs without meddlings 
 with theology. The aflronomical verfe, however, will anfwer our pre- 
 
 fent
 
 OF THE HINDUS. 285 
 
 fent purpofci for it fliows, in the firft place, that cyphers are added at 
 pleafure to fwell the periods ; and, if we take ten cyphers from a Rudra, 
 or divide by ten thoufand miUions, we fliall have a period of 250200000 
 years, which, divided by 60 (the ufual divifor of time among the Hin- 
 dus) will give 4320000, or a Great Age, which we find fubdivided in 
 the proportion of 4, 3, 2, 1, from the notion of i;/r/«i? decreafmg arith- 
 metically in the golden, Jiher, copper, and earthen, ages. But, fhould it 
 be thought improbable, that the Indian aftronomers in very early times 
 had made more accurate obfervations than thofe of Alexandria, Bagdad, 
 or Maraghah, and ftill more improbable that they fllould have relapfed 
 without apparent caufe into error, we may fuppofe, that they formed 
 their divine age by an arbitrary multiplication of 24000 by 180 accord- 
 ing to M. Le Gentil, or of 21600 by 200 according to the comment 
 on the Siirya Siddhanta. Now, as it is hardly poffible, that fuch coin- 
 cidences Ihould be accidental, we may hold it Jiearly demonftrated, that 
 the period of a divine age was at firft merely aftronomical, and may con- 
 fequently rejedl it from our prefent inquiry into the hiftorical or civil 
 chronology of India. Let us, however, proceed to the avowed opi- 
 nions of the Hindus, and fee, when we have afcertained their fyftem, 
 whether we can reconcile it to the courfe of nature and the common 
 fenfe of mankind. 
 
 The aggregate of their four ages they call a divine age, and believe 
 that, in every thoufand fuch ages, or in every day of Brahma', /J«r- 
 teen Menu's are fucceflively invefted by him with the fovereignty of the 
 earth: each Menu, they fuppofe, tranfmits his empire to his fons and 
 grandfons during a period of feventy-one divine ages ; and fuch a period 
 they name a Manwantara ; but, (\nce fourteen multiplied hy feventy-one 
 are not quite a thoufand, we muil conclude, that fx divine ages are al- 
 lowed for intervals between the Manwantaru's, or for the twilight of 
 Brahma 's day. Thirty fuch days, or Calpas, conftitute, in their 
 opinion, a month of Brahma' -, twelve fuch mouths, one of his years > 
 
 and
 
 286 ON THE CHRONOLOGY 
 
 and an hundred fuch years, his age ; of which age they affert, that fifty 
 years have ekpfed. We are now then, according to the Hindus, in the 
 firfi; day or Calpa of the firft month of the fifty-firfl: year of Brahma''s 
 ao-e, and in the twenty-eighth divine age of the feventh Manwantara, of 
 which divine age the three firji human ages have paffed, znd four thou- 
 J and eight hundred and eighty -eight of the, fourth. 
 
 Iri'the prefent day of Brahma' the firft Menu was furnamed Swa'- 
 YAMBHUVA, or Son of the Self-exifent ; and it is He, by whom the /«- 
 Jiitutes of Religious and Civil Duties are fuppofed to have been dehvered : 
 in his time the Deity defcended at a Sacrifice, and, by his wife Sata- 
 ru'pa', he had two diftinguifhed fons, and three daughters. This pair 
 was created, for the multipUcation of the human fpecies, after that new 
 creation of the world, which the Brdhtnans call Pddmacalpiya, or the 
 Z/O^oj-creation. 
 
 If it were worth while to calculate the age of Menu's Inftitutes, ac- 
 cording to the Brdhmans, we muft multiply four million three hundred 
 and twenty thoufand by fix times feventy-one, and add to the produd: 
 the number of years already paft in the feventh Manwantara. Of the 
 five Menu's, who fucceeded him, I have icQ.n. little more than the 
 names ; but the Hindu writings are very diffufe on the life and pofterity 
 oi the feventh Menu, furnamed Vaivaswata, or Child of the Sun : 
 he is fuppofed to have had ten fons, of whom the eldeft was Icsh- 
 wa'cu ; and to have been accompanied by feven Kijhts, or holy per- 
 fons, whofe names were, Casyapa, Atri, Vasishtha, Viswa'mi- 
 TRA, Gautama, Jamadagni, and Bharadwa'jaj an account, 
 which explains the opening of the fourth chapter of the Gita : " This 
 " immutable fyflem of devotion, fays Crishna, I revealed to Vivas- 
 " WAT, or the Sun ; Vivaswat declared it to his fon Menu; Menu 
 *' explained it to Icshwa'cu : thus the Chief i^z/Z'/'j- know this fublime 
 '* doSlrine delivered from one to another." 
 
 In
 
 OF THE HINDUS. 28/ 
 
 la the reign of this Sun-born Monarch the Hindus beheve the whole 
 earth to have been drowned, and the whole human race deflroyed by 
 a flood, except the pious Prince himfelf, the (evtn Rtjhi's, and their 
 feveral wives j for they fuppofe his children to have been born after the 
 deluge. This gcncval pralayay or deftru<flion, is the fubjedl of the firft 
 Piirdna, or Sacred Poemy which conliils of fourteen thoufand Stanzas ; 
 and the ftory is concifely, but clearly and elegantly, told in the eio-hth 
 book of the Bhagawata, from which I have extradied the whole, and 
 tranflated it witli great care, but will only prefent you here with an 
 abridgement of it. *' The demon Hayagri'va having purloined the 
 " Ftdas from the cuftody of Brahma', while he was repofing at the 
 " dole of the lixth Manwantara, the whole race of men became corrupt, 
 " except the feven Rijhts, and Satyavrata, who then reigned in 
 ** Dravira, a maritime region to the fouth of Carndta : this prince was 
 ** performing his ablutions in the river Critamdla, when Vishnu ap- 
 " peared to him in the fhape of a fmall filh, and, after feveral augmen- 
 " tations of bulk in different waters, was placed by Satyavrata in 
 ** the ocean, where he thus addrell'ed his amazed votary : * \n feven days 
 
 * all creatures, who have offended me, fhall be deftroyed by a deluge, 
 
 * but thou {halt be fecured in a capacious velTel miraculoufly formed : 
 
 * take therefore all kinds of medicinal herbs and efculent grain for food, 
 ' and, together with the (tven holy men, your refpeftive wives, and 
 
 * pairs of all animals, enter the ark without fear ; then fhalt thou know 
 
 * God face to face, and all thy queftions lliall be anfwered.' Saying 
 this, he difappeared ; and, after i&vtn days, the ocean " began to 
 " overflow the coafls, and the earth to be flooded by conftant fhowers, 
 " when Satyavrata, meditating on the Deity, faw a large vellel 
 " moving on the waters : he entered it, having in all refpefts conformed 
 " to the infl:rud:ions of Vishnu ; who, in the form of a vaft fifli, fufl^ered 
 " the veflel to be tied with a great fea ferpent, as with a cable, to his 
 " meafurelefs horn. When the deluge had ceafed, Vishnu flew the 
 
 " demon.
 
 288 ON THE CHRONOLOGY 
 
 *• demon, and recovered the Vedas, inftru<5led Satyavrata in divine 
 "knowledge, and appointed him the feventh Menu by the name of 
 "Vaivaswata." Let us compare the two Indian accounts of the Crea- 
 tion and the Deluge with thofe delivered by Moses, It is not made a 
 quellion in this trad, whether the firft chapters of Genejis are to be un- 
 derftood in a literal, or merely in an allegorical, fenfe : the only points 
 before us are, whether the creation defcribed by the Jirjl Menu, which 
 the Brdhmans call that of the Lotos, be not the fame with that recorded 
 in our Scripture, and whether the ftory of the feventh Menu be not 
 one and the fame with that of Noah. I propofe the queftions, but 
 affirm nothing; leaving others to fettle their opinions, whether Adam 
 be derived from Mm, which in Sanfcrit means thtjirjl, or Menu from 
 NuH, the true name of the Patriarch ; whether the Sacrifice, at which 
 God is believed to have defcended, allude to the offering of Abel ; 
 and, on the whole, whether the two Menu's can mean any other per- 
 fons than the great progenitor, and the reftorer, of our fpecies. 
 
 On a fuppofition, that Vaivaswata, or Sun-born, was the Noah 
 of Scripture, let us proceed to the Indian account of his pofterity, which 
 I extradl from the Puranarf haprecds a, or The Purdnds Explained, a 
 work lately compofed in Sanfcrit by Ra'dha'ca'nta Barman, a Pan- 
 dit of extenfive learning and great fame among the Hindus of this pro- 
 vince. Before we examine the genealogies of kings, which he has col- 
 le(5led from the Purdnds, it will be neceffary to give a general idea of 
 the Avatdrds, or Defcents, of the Deity : the Hindus believe innu- 
 merable fuch defcents or fpecial interpofitions of providence in the af- 
 fairs of mankind, but they reckon ten principal Avatdrds in the current 
 period of four ages ; and all of them are defcribed, in order as they arc 
 fuppofed to occur, in the following Ode of Jayade'va, the great 
 Lyrick Poet of India. 
 
 1 . " Thou
 
 OF THE HINDUS. 289 
 
 1 . " Thou recovereil: the Veda in the water of the ocean of de- 
 " llru(flion, placing it joyfully in the bofom of an ark fabricated by thee ; 
 " O Ce'sava, afTuming the body of ^ Jijh : be vidlorious, O Heri, 
 ** lord of the Univerfe ! 
 
 2. " The earth ftands firm on thy immenfely broad back, which 
 " grows larger from the callus occafioned by bearing that vaft burden, 
 " O Ce'sava, afTuming the body of a torioifc : be vidlorious, O Heri, 
 ** lord of the Univerfe ! 
 
 3. " The earth, placed on the point of thy tufk, remains fixed like 
 " the figure of a black antelope on the moon, O Ce'sava, afluming 
 *' the form of a boar : be vidlorious, O Heri, lord of the Univerfe !" 
 
 4. The claw with a flupendous point, on the exquifite lotos of thy 
 lion's paw, is the black bee, that ftung the body of the embowelled 
 Hiranyacasipu, O Ce'sava, afluming the form of a man- lion : be 
 vidlorious, O Heri, lord of the Univerfe ! 
 
 5. By thy power thou beguilefl: Bali, O thou miraculous dwarf, 
 thou purifier of men with the water (of Ganga) fpringing from thy 
 feet, O Ce'sava, afluming the form of a dwarf: be vid:orious, O He- 
 ri, lord of the Univerfe ! 
 
 0. Thou batheft in pure water, confifting of the blood of CJhatriya's, 
 the world, whofe ofi^ences are removed and who are relieved from the 
 pain of other births, O Ce'sava, afl"uming the form of Paras'u-Ra'ma: 
 be vidtorious, O Heri, lord of the Univerfe ! 
 
 f . With eafe to thyfelf, with delight to the Genii of the eiglit re- 
 gions, thou fcatterefl; on all fides in the plain of combat the demon with 
 - VOL. I. r R ten
 
 2Q0 ON THE CHRONOLOGY 
 
 ten heads, O Ce'sava, affuming the form of Ra'ma-Chandra : be 
 vidlorious, O Heri, lord of the Univerfe ! 
 
 • 8. Thou weareft on thy bright body a mantle fhining like a blue 
 cloud, or like the water of Yamuna tripping toward thee through fear 
 of thy innovf'mg plough JJjare, O Ce'sava, affuming the form of Bala- 
 Ra'ma : be vidlorious, O Heri, lord of the Univerfe ! 
 
 9. Thou blameft (oh, wonderful!) the whole Fe'da, when thou 
 feeft, O kind-hearted, the flaughter of cattle prefcribed for facrifice, O 
 Ce'sava, affuming the body of Buddha: be vicSorious, O Heri, lord 
 of the Univerfe ! 
 
 10. For the deftrucflion of all the impure thou dra weft thy cimeter 
 like a blazing comet (how tremendous!), O Ce'sava, affuming the 
 body of Calci : be vidorious, O Heri, lord of the Univerfe ! 
 
 Thefe ten Avatards are by fome arranged according to the thoufands 
 of divine years in each of the four ages, or in an arithmetical proportion 
 from four to one j and, if fuch an arrangement were univerfally received, 
 we fliould be able to afcertain a very material point in the Hindu Chro- 
 nology ; I mean the birth of Buddha, concerning which the different 
 Pandits, whom I have confulted, and the fame Pandits at different 
 times, have expreffed a ftrange diverfity of opinion. They all agree, 
 that Calci is yet to come, and that Buddha was the laft confiderable 
 incarnation of the Deity ; but the aftronomers at Vardnes place him in 
 the third age, and Ra'dh a'ca'nt infifts, that he appeared after the thou- 
 fandth year of the fourth : the learned and accurate author of the Dabif- 
 tan, whofe information concerning the Hindus is wonderfully corredl:, 
 mentions an opinion of the Pandits, with whom he had converfed, that 
 Buddha began his career ten years before the clofe of the third age; 
 
 and
 
 OF THE HINDUS. 29 1 
 
 and Go'vERDHANA of Cafimir, who had once informed me, that 
 Crishna defcended tivo centuries before Buddha, alTured me lately, 
 that the CaJJjminans admitted an interval of tiventy-four years (others 
 allow only twelve) between thofe two divine perfons. The beft autho- 
 rity, after all, is the Bbagawat itfelf, in the lirft chapter of which it is 
 exprefsly declared, that " Buddha, the fon of Jin a, would appear at 
 " Cicat'a, for the purpofe of confounding the demons, juji at the begin- 
 " ning of the Caliyiig." I have long been convinced, that, on thefe 
 fubjedts, we can only reafon fatisfadorily from written evidence, and 
 that our forenfick rule mufl be invariably applied, to take the declarations 
 of the Brahmans moji Jlrongly againji themfehes, that is, againji their pre- 
 tenjions to antiquity j fo that, on the whole, we may fafely place Buddha 
 juJl at the beginning of the prefent age : but what is the beginning of 
 it ? When this queftion was propofed to Ra'dha'ca'nt, he anfwered : 
 *' of a period comprifing more than four hundred thoufand years, the 
 " firft two or three thoufand may reafonably be called the beginning.'' 
 On my demanding written evidence, he produced a book of fome autho- 
 rity, compofed by a learned Gofwami, and entitled Bhagawatamrita, or, 
 the NeSlar of the Bbagawat, on which it is a metrical comment ; and 
 the couplet which he read from it deferves to be cited: after the jufl 
 mentioned account of Buddha in the text, the commentator fays, 
 yifau vyaSiah calerabdafahafradwitaye gate, 
 Murtih pat' alavernafya dwibhuja chicurojj'hita. 
 
 * He became vifible, the-thoufand-and-fecond-year-of-the-Cali-^^^, be- 
 ' ing pafl ; his body of-a-colour-between-white-and-ruddy, with-two- 
 
 * arms, without-hair on his head.' 
 
 Cicat'a, named in the text as the birth place of Buddha, the 
 Gofwami fuppofes to have been Dhermaranya, a wood near Gaya, where 
 a coloflal image of that ancient Deity ftill remains : it feemed to me of 
 
 black
 
 292 ON THE CHRONOLOGY 
 
 black {[one ; but, as I faw it by torch-light, I cannot be pofitive as to 
 its colour, which may, indeed, have been changed by time. 
 
 The Brdhmans univerfally fpeak of the Bauddhas with all the malig- 
 nity of an intolerant fpirit ; yet the moft orthodox among them confider 
 Buddha himfelf as an incarnation of Vishnu: this is a contradiitioii 
 hard to be reconciled ; unlefs we cut the knot, inftead of untying it, by 
 fuppofing with GioRGi, that there were two Buddhas, the younger of 
 whom ellabliihed the new religion, which gave fo great offence in In- 
 dia, and was introduced into China in the firft century of our era. The 
 CaJJj?nirian before mentioned afferted tliis fadl, without being led to it by 
 any queftion that implied it ; and we may have reafon to fuppofe, that 
 Buddha is in truth only a general word for a Philofopher : the author of 
 a celebrated Sanfcrit Didlionary, entitled from his name Amaracojha, 
 who was himfelf a Bauddfia, and flourifhed in the firft century before 
 Christ, begins his vocabulary with nine words, that fignify heaven, and 
 proceeds to thofe, which mean a deity in general ; after which come dif- 
 ferent clajjes of Gods, Demigods, and Demons, all by generick names ; and 
 they are followed by two very remarkable heads ; firft, (not the general 
 names of Buddha, but) the names of a Buddha-in-general, of which he 
 gives us eighteen, fuch as Muni, Sujh-i, Miimndra, Vinayaca, Saman- 
 tabhadra, Dhermardja, Sugaia, and the like ; moft of them fignificative 
 oi excellence, ivijdofn, 'virtue, "xnAf anility ; fecondly, the names oi z-par- 
 ticular-Buddha-Muni-viho-dticcndtd-'m-tht-f^imWy-oiS a'c ya (thofe 
 are the very words of the original), and his titles are, Sdcyamiini, Sdcya- 
 Jinha, Servdrt' hafiddha, Saudhodani, Gautama, Arcabandhu, or Kinjman 
 of the ^un, and Mdyddevifuta, or Child of Ma' Y a' : thence the author 
 palTes to the different epithets of particular Hindu Deities. When I 
 pointed out this curious paffage to Ra'dha'ca'nt, he contended, that 
 the firft eighteen names were ^d-wr^/ epithets, and the following feven, 
 
 proper
 
 OF THE HINDUS. 2^3 
 
 prcper names, or patronyniicks, of one and the fame perfon ; but Ra'ma- 
 Lo'cHAN, my own teacher, who, though not a Brahman, is an excellent 
 fcholar and a very fenfible unprejudiced man, allured me, that Buddba 
 was a generick word, Hke Dsva, and that the learned author, having 
 exhibited the names of a Devata in general, proceeded to thofe of a 
 Buddha in general, before he came to particulars : he added, that Buddha 
 might mean a Sage or a Philofopher, though Biidha was the word com- 
 monly ufed for a mere "wife man without fupernatural powers. It feems 
 highly probable, on the whole, that the Buddha, whom Jayade'va 
 celebrates in his Hymn, was the Sacyafinha, or Lion of Sa cya, who, 
 though he forbad the facrifices of cattle, which the Vedds enjoin, was 
 believed to be Vishnu himfelf in a human form, and that another 
 Buddha, one perhaps of his followers in a later age, afTuming his name 
 and charadler, attempted to overfet the whole fyftem of the Brahmans, 
 and was the caufe of that perfecution, from which the Bauddhas are 
 known to have fled into very diftant regions. May we not reconcile 
 the fingular difference of opinion among the Hindus as to the time of 
 Buddha's appearance, by fuppofmg that they have confounded the Tivo 
 Buddha s, the firfl: of whom was born a few years before the clofe of the 
 laft age, and the fecond, when above a thoufand years of the pre- 
 fent age had elapfed ? We know, from better authorities, and with as 
 much certainty as can juftly be expedted on fo doubtful a fubje<ft, the 
 real time, compared with our own era, when the ancient Buddha 
 began to diftinguiHi himfelf; and it is for this reafon principally, that 
 I have dwelled with minute anxiety on the fubjed: of the laft Avatar. 
 
 The Brahmans, who aflifted Abu'lfazl in his curious, but fuper- 
 ficial, account of his mafter's Empire, informed him, if the figures in 
 the Ayini Acbari be corredly written, that a period of 2962 years had 
 elapfed from the birth of Buddha to the -loth year of Acbar's reign, 
 which computation will place his birth in the 1 SGOth year before that of 
 
 our
 
 294 ON THE CHRONOLOGY 
 
 our Saviour ; but, when the Chinefe governmeat admitted a new religion 
 from L:dia in the firft century of our era, they made particular inquiries 
 concerning the age of the old Indian Buddha, whofe birth, according 
 to Couplet, they place in the -lift year of their 28th cycle, or 1036 
 years before Christ, and they call him, fays he^ Foe the fon of Moye 
 or Maya'; but M. De Guignes, on the authority of four Chinefe 
 Hiftorians, afieits, that Fo was born about the year before Christ 
 102/, in the kingdom oi Capmir : Giorgi, or rather Cassiano, from 
 whofe papers his work was compiled, affures us, that, by the calcula- 
 tion of the Tibetians, he appeared only 95 years before the Chrijiian 
 epoch ; and M. Bailly, with feme hefitation, places him 1031 years 
 before it, but inclines to think him far more ancient, confounding him, 
 as I have done in a former trad:, with the/r/? Budha, or Mercury, 
 whom the G(?/>6j- called Woden, and of whom I fhall prefently take par- 
 ticular notice. Now, whether we affume the medium of the four laft- 
 mentioned dates, or implicitly rely on the authorities quoted by De 
 Guignes, we may conclude, that Buddha was firft diftinguiflied in 
 this country about a thoiifand years before the beginning of our era j and 
 whoever, in fo early an age, expeds a certain epoch unqualified with 
 about or nearly, will be greatly difappointed. Hence it is clear, that, 
 whether the fourth age of the Hindus began about one thoufand years be- 
 fore Christ, according to Goverdhan's account of Buddha's birth, 
 or iivo thoufand, according to that of Ra'dha'ca'nt, the common 
 opinion, that 4888 years of it are now elapfed, is erroneous ; and here 
 for the prefent we leave Buddha, with an intention of returning to him 
 in due time -, obferving only, that, if the learned Indiajis differ fo widely 
 in their accounts of the age, when their ninth Avatar appeared in their 
 country, we may be aflured, that they have no certain Chronology be- 
 fore him, and may fufped the certainty of all the relations concerning 
 even his appearance. 
 
 The
 
 OF THE HINDUS. 2Q5 
 
 The received Chronology of the Hindus begins with an abfurdity fo 
 monftrous, as to overthrow the whole fyftem ; for, having eftablifhed 
 their period oi Jeijenty-one divifie ages as the reign of each Menu, yet 
 thinking it incongruous to place a holy perfonage in times of impiirityt 
 they infift, that the Menu reigns only in every golden age, and difappears 
 in the three human ages that follow it, continuing to dive and emerge, 
 like a waterfowl, till the clofe of his Manwantara : the learned author 
 of the Purdndrt' hapracdfay which I will now follow ftep by fl:ep, men- 
 tioned this ridiculous opinion with a ferious face ; but, as he has not in- 
 ferted it in his work, we may take his account of the feventh Menu ac- 
 cording to its obvious and rational meaning, and fuppofe, that Vaivas- 
 WATA, the fon of Su'rya, the fon of Casyapa, or Uranus, the fon 
 of Mari'chi, or Light: the fon of Brahma', which is clearly an 
 allegorical pedigree, reigned in the laft golden age, or, according to 
 the Hindus, three million eight hundred and ninety-two thoufand eight 
 hundred and eighty-eight years ago. But they contend, that he adtu- 
 ally reigned on earth one million /even hundred and twenty-eight thoufand 
 years of mortals, or four thoufand eight hundred years of the Gods ; and 
 this opinion is another monfler fo repugnant to the courfe of nature and 
 to human reafon, that it muft be rejected as wholly fabulous, and taken 
 as a proof, that the Indians know nothing of their Sun-born Menu, but 
 his name and the principal event of his hfe ; I mean the univerfal deluge, 
 of which the three firfl Avatar s are merely allegorical reprefentations, 
 with a mixture, efpecially in the fecofid, of aflronomical Mythology. 
 
 From this Menu the whole race of men is believed to have defcend- 
 ed ; for the feven Rijhi's, who were preferved with him in the ark, are 
 not mentioned as fathers of human families ; but, fince his daughter 
 Ila' was married, as the Indians tell us, to the firfl Budha, or Mer- 
 cury, the fon of Chandra, or the Moon, a male Deity, whofe father was 
 Atri, fon of Brahma' (where again we meet with an allegory purely 
 
 aflronomical
 
 290 ON THE CHRONOLOGY 
 
 aftronomical or poetical), his poflerity are divided into two great branches, 
 called the Children of the Sun from his own fuppofed father, and the 
 Children of the Moon, from the parent of his daughter's hufband : the 
 lineal male defcendants in both thefe families are fuppofed to have 
 reigned in the cities of Ayodhya, or Audh, and Pratijlot' hdna, or Vitora, 
 refpeftively till the thoifajidth year of the prefent age, and the names of 
 all the princes in both lines having been diligently colledled by Ra dha- 
 ca'nt from feveral Purdnas, I exhibit them in two columns arranged 
 by myfelf with great attention. 
 
 10. 
 
 If. 
 
 SUN. 
 Icshwa'cu, 
 Vicucfhi, 
 Cucutft'ha, 
 Anenas, 
 Prifhu, 
 Vis'wagandhi, 
 Chandra, 
 Yuvanas'wa, 
 Srava, 
 
 Vrihadas'wa, 
 Dhundhumara, 
 Drid''has'wa, 
 Heryas'wa, 
 Nicumbha, 
 Lris as wa, 
 Senajit, 
 Yuvanas'wa, 
 Mandhatri, 
 
 SECOND AGE. 
 
 CHILDREN OF THE 
 
 MOON. 
 
 BUDHA, 
 
 Pururavas, 
 
 Ayufli, 
 
 Nahuflia, 
 
 Yaydti, 
 
 Purii, 
 
 Janamejaya, 
 
 Prachinwat, 
 
 Pravira, 
 
 Menafyu, 
 
 Charupada, 
 
 Sudyu, 
 
 Bahugava, 
 
 Sanyati, 
 
 Ahanyati, 
 
 Raudras'wa, 
 
 RiteyulL, 
 
 Rantinava, 
 
 10. 
 
 15. 
 
 Purucutfa,
 
 OF THE HINDUS. 
 
 297 
 
 CHILDREN OF THE 
 
 SUN. 
 Purucutfa, 
 
 20. Trafadafyu, 
 Anaranya, 
 Heryas'wa, 
 Praruna, 
 Trivindhana, 
 
 25. Satyavrata, 
 Tris'ancu, 
 Haris'chandra, 
 Rohita, 
 Harita, 
 
 30. Champa, 
 Sudeva, 
 Vijaya, 
 Bharuca, 
 Vrica, 
 
 35. Bahuca, 
 Sagara, 
 Afamanjas, 
 Ans'umat, 
 Bhagirai" ha^ 
 
 40. Sruta, 
 Nabha, 
 Sindhudwipa, 
 Ayutayufli, 
 Ritaperna, 
 
 45. Saudafa, 
 As'maca, 
 Mulaca, 
 
 VOL. 1. 
 
 s s 
 
 MOON. 
 
 Sumati, 
 
 Aiti, 20. 
 
 Dufimanta, 
 
 Bharatay * 
 
 (Vitat'ha, 
 
 Manyu, 
 
 Vrihatcfhetra, 25. 
 
 Haftin, 
 
 Ajamid 'ha, 
 
 Ricfha, 
 
 Samwarana, 
 
 Curu, 30. 
 
 yahnUy 
 
 Surat'ha, 
 
 Vidurat'ha, 
 
 Sarvabhauma, 
 
 Jayatfena, Z5. 
 
 Radhica, 
 
 Ayutayufh, 
 
 Acrodhana, 
 
 Devatit'hi, 
 
 Ricilia, 40. 
 
 Dil'ipa, 
 
 Frati'pa, 
 
 Santanu, 
 
 Vichitravirya, 
 
 Pandu, 45. 
 
 rudhiJJjt'hirJ. 
 
 Das'arat'ha,
 
 298 ON THE CHRONOLOGY 
 
 CHILDREN OF THE' 
 
 SUN. MOON. 
 
 Das'arat'ha, 
 
 Aid'abid'i, 
 50. Vis'wafaha, 
 
 C'hat'wanga, 
 
 Dirghabahu, 
 
 Raghu, 
 
 Aja, 
 55. Tia^arafhay 
 
 Ra'ma. 
 
 It is agreed among all the Pandits, that Ra'MA, \h^\x feventh Incar- 
 nate Divinity, appeared as king of Ayodhya in the interval between the 
 Jiher and the brazen ages ; and, if we fuppofe him to have begun his 
 reign at the very beginning of that interval, ftill three thoufand three 
 hundred yc^vs of the Gods, or a million one hundred and eighty-eight thou- 
 fand lunar years of mortals will remain in the filver age, during which 
 the fifty-fi'^e princes between Vaivaswata and Ra'ma mufl have 
 governed the world ; but, reckoning thirty years for a generation, which 
 is rather too much for a long fucceffion of eldefi fons, as they are faid to 
 have been, we cannot, by the courfe of nature, extend th.tfec0nd2.gQ of 
 the Hindus htyonAfixteen hundred and fifty folar years : if we fuppofe 
 them not to have been eldeft fons, and even to have lived longer than 
 modern princes in a diffolute age, we fhall find only a period of t-ivo 
 thoufand years ; and, if we remove the difficulty by admitting miracles, 
 we muft ceafe to reafon, and may as well believe at once whatever the 
 Brahmans chufe to tell us. 
 
 In the Lunar pedigree we meet with another abfurdity equally fatal to 
 the credit of the Hindu fyflem : as far as the twenty-fecond degree of 
 
 defcent
 
 OF THE HINDUS. 299 
 
 defcent from Vaivaswata, the fynchronirm of the two families ap- 
 pears tolerably regular, except that the Children of the Moon were not 
 all eliieji fons j for king Yaya'ti appointed the youngefl of his five fons 
 to fucceed him in India, a.nd allotted inferior kingdoms to the other four, 
 who had offended him j part of the DacJJ.nn or tlie South, to Yadu, the 
 anceftor of Crishnaj the north, to Anuj the eaft, to Druhya j and 
 the weft, to Turvasu, from whom the Vandits believe, or pretend to 
 believe, in compliment to our nation, that we are defcended. But of 
 the fubfequent degrees in the lunar line they know fo little, that, un- 
 able to fupply a confiderable interval between Bharat and Vitat'ha, 
 whom they call his fon and fuccefTor, they are under a neceffity of affert- 
 ing, that the great anceftor of Yudhisht"hir adlually reignedyfi;^« and 
 twenty thouf and years ; a fable of the fame clafs with that of his wonder- 
 ful birth, which is the fubjedt of a beautiful Indian Drama : now, if 
 we fuppofe his life to have lafted no longer than that of other mortals, 
 and admit Vitat'ha and the reft to have been his regular fucceftbrs, 
 we fhall fall into another abfurdity ; for then, if the generations in both 
 lines were nearly equal, as they would naturally have been, we fhall 
 find Yudhisht"hir, who reigned confefledly at the clofe of the brazen 
 age, nine generations older than Ra'ma, before whofe birth \h& Jilver 
 age is allowed to have ended. After the name of Bharat, therefore, 
 I have fet an afterifk to denote a confiderable chafm in the Indian Hif- 
 tory, and have inferted between brackets, as out of their places, his 
 t-wenty-foiir fucceflbrs, who reigned, if at all, in the following age 
 immediately before the war of the Mahdbharat. The fourth Avatar^ 
 which is placed in the interval between thejirj} ■i.wdifecond ages, and the 
 ffth which foon followed it, appear to be moral fables grounded on hif- 
 torical fadls : l\it fourth was the punifliment of an impious monarch by 
 the Deity himfelf burjUng from a marble Column in the fliape of a lion ; 
 and the ffth was the humiliation of an arrogant Prince by fo contempti- 
 ble an agent as a mendicant dwarf After thefe, and immediately 
 
 before
 
 300 ON THE CHRONOLOGY 
 
 before Buddha, come three great wariours all named Ra'maj but it 
 may juftly be made a quellion, whether they are not three reprefenta- 
 tions of one perfon, or three different ways of relating the fame Hiftory t 
 the firft and fecond Ra'mas are faid to have been contemporary ; but 
 whether all or any of them mean Rama, the fon of Cu'sh, I leave 
 others to determine. The mother of the fecond Rama was named 
 Cau'shalya', which is a derivative of Cushala, and, though his 
 father be diftinguillied by the title or epithet of Da'sarat'ha, fignify- 
 ing, that bis War- chariot bore him to all quarters of the 'world, yet the 
 name of Cush, as the Cajlomirians pronounce it, is preferved entire in 
 that of his fon and fucceflbr, and fhadowed in that of his anceftor 
 VicucsHi ; nor can a jufl objed:ion be made to tliis opinion from the 
 nafal Arabian vowel in the word Rdmah mentioned by Moses, fmce the 
 very word Arab begins with the fame letter, which the Greeks and In- 
 dians could not pronounce ; and they were obliged, therefore, to exprefs 
 it by the vowel, which moft refembled it. On this queftion, however, 
 I aflert nothing ; nor on another, which might be propofed : " whether 
 " l\it fourth -ssid. fifth Avatars be not allegorical ftories of the two pre- 
 *' fumptuous monarchs, Nimrod and Belus." The hypothefis, that 
 goverjiment was firft eftablifhed, laivs enaded, and agriculture encouraged 
 in India by Rama about three thoufand eight hundred years ago, agrees 
 with the received account of Noah's death, and the previous fettlement 
 of his immediate defcendents, 
 
 THIRD AGE. 
 
 CHILDREN OF THE 
 
 SUN, MOON. 
 
 Cus'ha, 
 Atit'hi, 
 
 Nipadha^ 
 
 Nabhas,
 
 OF THE HINDUS. 
 
 301 
 
 CHILDREN OF THE 
 
 SUN. 
 
 Nabhas, 
 5. Pund'arfca, 
 
 Cfhemadhanwas, 
 
 Devanica, 
 
 Ahin'agu, 
 
 Paripatra, 
 10. Ranach'hala, 
 
 Vajranabha,, 
 
 Area, 
 
 Sugana, 
 
 Vidhnti, 
 15. Hiranyanabha,. 
 
 Pulliya, 
 
 Dhruvafandhi,. 
 
 Suders'ana, 
 
 Agniverna,. 
 2 0. Si'ghra, 
 
 Maru, fuppofed to be ftill alive. 
 
 Prafus'ruta, 
 
 Sandhi, 
 
 Amers'ana,, 
 2 5. Mahal wat, 
 
 Vis wabhahu, 
 
 Prafenajit, 
 
 Taclliaca, 
 
 Vrihadbala, 
 30. Vrihadran'a, Y. B. C. 3100. 
 
 MOON. 
 
 Vitat'ha, 
 
 Manyu, 
 
 Vrihatcfhetra, 
 
 Haftin, 
 
 Aj am id' 'ha, 
 
 Riclha, 
 
 Samwarana, 
 
 Ciiru, 
 
 Jahnu, 
 
 Surat'ha, 
 
 Vidurat'ha, 
 
 Sarvabhauma, 
 
 Jayatfena, 
 
 Radhica, 
 
 Ayutayufh, 
 
 Acrodhana, 
 
 Devatit'hi, 
 
 Riclha, 
 
 Dilipa, 
 
 Pratipa, 
 
 Santanu, 
 
 Vichitravirya, 
 
 Pandu, 
 
 TudhiJJ;t'hira, 
 
 Paricfiit. 
 
 10. 
 
 15. 
 
 20. 
 
 Here
 
 302 ON THE CHRONOLOGY 
 
 Here we have only ?iine and twenty princes of the folar hne between 
 Ra'ma and Vrihadrana exclulively; and their reigns, during the 
 whole brazen age, are fuppofed to have lafced near ehht hundred\\\^ 
 Jixty-four thoiifand years, a fuppofition evidently againft nature ; the 
 uniform courle of which allows only a period of eight hundred and 
 feventy, or, at the very utmofl, of a thoufand, years for twenty-nine 
 generations. Pari'cshit, the great nephew and fuccefTor of Yud- 
 hisht"hir, who had recovered the throne from Duryo'dhan, is al- 
 lowed without controverfy to have reigned in the interval between the 
 brazen and earthen ages, and to have died at the fetting in of the Ca- 
 Uyiig } ib that, if the Pajidits of CaJImhr and Varanes have made a right 
 calculation of Buddha's appearance, the prefent, ox fourth, age muft 
 Jiave begun about a thoufand ^^-SiX^ before the birth of Christ, and con- 
 fequently the reign of Icshwa'cu, could not have been earlier thany^/zr 
 thoifand years before that great epoch ; and even that date will, per- 
 haps, appear, when it fliall be ftridlly examined, to be near two thoufand 
 years earlier than the truth. I cannot leave the third Indian age, in 
 which the virtues and vices of mankind are faid to have been equal, 
 without obferving, that even the clofe of it is manifeftly fabulous and 
 poetical, with hardly more appearance of hiftorical truth, than the tale 
 oiTroy or of the Argonauts; for Yudhisht"hir, it feems, was the fon 
 of Dherma, the Genius of Jujlice ; Bhi'ma of Pavan, or the God of 
 Wind; Arjun of Indra, or the Firmament ; Nacul and Sahade'va, 
 of the two Cuma'rs, the Castor and Pollux of India ; and Bhi'shma, 
 their reputed great uncle, was the child of Ganga', or the Ganges, 
 by Sa'ntanu, whofe brother De'va'pi is fuppofed to be flill alive 
 in the city of Caldpa ; all which fidlions may be charming embellish- 
 ments of an heroick poem, but are juft as abfurd in civil Hiflory, as the 
 defcent of two royal families from the Sun and the Moon. 
 
 FOURTH
 
 OF THE HINDUS. 
 
 303 
 
 FOURTH AGE. 
 
 CHILDREN OF THE 
 
 SUN. 
 
 Urucriya, 
 
 Vatfavriddha, 
 
 Prativyoma, 
 
 Bhanu, 
 5. Devaca, 
 
 Sahadeva, 
 
 Vira, 
 
 Vrihadas'wa, 
 
 Bhanumat, 
 10. Praticas'wa, 
 
 Suprati'ca, 
 
 Marudeva, 
 
 Sunacfliatra, 
 
 Pufhcara, 
 15. Antaricflia, 
 
 Sutapas^ 
 
 Amitrajit, 
 
 Vnhadraja, 
 
 Barhi, 
 20. Critanjaya, 
 
 Ran'anjaya, 
 
 Sanjaya, 
 
 Slocya, 
 
 Suddhoda, 
 25. Langalada, 
 
 Prafenajit, 
 
 Cflaudraca, 
 
 Sumitra, Y. B.C. 2loo. 
 
 MOON. 
 
 Janamejaya, 
 
 Satdnica, 
 
 Sahafranica, 
 
 As'wamedhaja, 
 
 Asimacnihna, 5. 
 
 Nemichacra, 
 
 Upta, 
 
 Chitrarat'ha, 
 
 Suchirat'ha, 
 
 Dhritimat, 10. 
 
 Sufliena, 
 
 Sunit'ha, 
 
 Nrichacfhuh, 
 
 Suc'hinala, 
 
 Pariplava, 1 5 . 
 
 Sunaya, 
 
 Medhavin, 
 
 NrTpanjaya, 
 
 Derva, 
 
 Timi, 20. 
 
 Vnhadrat'ha, 
 
 Sudafa, 
 
 Satanica, 
 
 Durmadana, 
 
 Rahinara, 25. 
 
 Dand'apan'i, 
 
 Nimi, 
 
 Cfliemaca. 
 
 In
 
 304 
 
 ON THE CHRONOLOGY 
 
 y 
 
 In both families, we fee, thirty generations are reckoned from Yurs- 
 hisht'hir and from Vrihadbala his contemporary (who was killed, 
 in the war ol Bharat, by Abhimanyu, fon of Arjun and father of 
 Pari'cshit), to the time, when the Solar and Lunar dynaflies are be- 
 lieved to. have become extincfl in the prefent divine age ; and for thefe 
 generations the Hindus allot a period of one thovfand years only, or a 
 hundred years for tliree generations j which calculation, though proba- 
 bly too large, is yet moderate enough, compared with their abfurd ac- 
 counts of the preceding ages : but they reckon exadly the fame num- 
 ber of years iov twenty generations only in the family of Jara'sandha, 
 whofe fon was contemporary with Yudhist"hir, and founded a new 
 dynafty of princes in Magadha, or Bahar ; and this exadl coincidence of 
 the time, in which the three races are fuppofed to have been extindt, 
 has the appearance of an artificial chronology, formed rather from ima- 
 gination than from hiftorical evidence ; efpecially as twenty kings, in an 
 age comparatively modern, could not have reigned a thoufand years. I, 
 neverthelefs, exhibit the lift of them as a curiofity ; but am far from 
 being convinced, that all of them ever exifted : that, if they did exift, 
 they could not have reigned more \\\2L\\feven hundred yt^irs, I am fully per- 
 fuaded by the courfe of nature and the concurrent opinion of mankind. 
 
 KINGS OF MAGADHA. 
 
 5. 
 
 10. 
 
 Sahadeva, 
 
 Marjari, 
 
 Srutafravas, 
 
 Ayutayufh, 
 
 Niramitra, 
 
 Sunacftiatra, 
 
 Vrihetfena, 
 
 Carmajit, 
 
 Srutanjaya, 
 
 Vipra, 
 
 Suchi, 
 Cfliema, 
 Suvrata, 
 Dhermafutra, 
 Srama, 15. 
 
 DrTd 'hafena, 
 Sumati, 
 Subala, 
 Sunita, 
 
 Satyajit, 20. 
 
 Puran-
 
 OF THE HINDUS. 305 
 
 PuRANjAYA, Ion of the twentieth king, was put to death by his 
 minifter Sunaca, who placed his own fon Pradyo'ta on the throne 
 of his mafter ; and this revolution conftitutes an epoch of the higheft 
 importance in our prefent inquiry j firft, becaufe it happened according 
 to the. Bhagawatdtnrtta, two years exadlly before Buddha's appearance 
 in the fame kingdom ; next, becaufe it is believed by the Hindus to 
 have taken place three thoufand eight hundred and eighty-eight years ago, 
 or two thoufand one hundred years before Christ ; and laftly, becaufe a 
 regular chronology, according to the number of years in each dynafty, 
 has been eftabliflied from the acceffion of Pradyo'ta to the fubver- 
 fion of the genuine Hindu government ; and that chronology I will now 
 lay before you, after obferving only, that Ra'dha'ca'nt himfelf fays 
 nothing of Buddha in this part of his work, though he particularly 
 mentions the two preceding Avatards in their proper places. 
 
 KINGS OF MAGADHA. 
 
 Y.B.C. 
 
 Pradyota, . 2100 
 
 Palaca, 
 
 Vis'ac'hayupa, 
 
 Rajaca, 
 
 Nandiverdhana, 5 reigns = 138 years, 
 
 Sis'unaga, ..,<.... 19O2 
 
 Cacaverna, 
 
 Cftiemadherman, 
 
 Cfhetrajnya, 
 
 Vidhifara, 5. 
 
 Ajatafatru, 
 
 Darbhaca, 
 
 VOL. I. T T KINGS
 
 306 ON THE CHRONOLOGY 
 
 KINGS OF MAGADHA. 
 
 Y.B.C. 
 
 Ajaya, 
 
 Nandiverdhana, 
 Mahanandi, lo r = 36o _y. 
 
 Nanda, 1602 
 
 This prince, of whom frequent mention is made in the Sanfcrit 
 books, is faid to have been murdered, after a reign of a hundred years, 
 by a very learned and ingenious, but paffionate and vindidtive. Brahman, 
 whofe name was Cha'nacya, and who raifed to the throne a man of 
 the Maiirya race, named Chandragupta : by the death of Nanda, 
 and his fons, the Cfiatriya family of Pradyo'ta became extindl. 
 
 MAURYA KINGS. 
 
 Y.B.C. 
 Chandragupta, .... . . 1502 
 
 Varifara, 
 
 As'ocaverdhana, 
 
 Suyas'as, 
 
 Des'arat'ha, 5. 
 
 Sangata, 
 
 Salis'uca, 
 
 Somas'arman, 
 
 Satadhanwas, 
 
 Vrihadrat'ha, \o r. = lij y. 
 
 On the death of the tenth Maury a king, his place was aflumed by his 
 Commander in Chief, Pushpamitra, of the ^unga nation or family. 
 
 SUNGA
 
 OF THE HINDUS. 
 
 307 
 
 SUNGA KINGS. 
 
 Pufhpamitra, 
 
 Agnimitra, 
 
 Sujyeflit'ha, 
 
 Vafumitra, 
 
 Abhadraca, 5. 
 
 Pulinda, 
 
 Ghofha, 
 
 Vajramitra, 
 
 Bhagavata, 
 
 Devabhuti, 10 r 
 
 Y.B.C. 
 1305 
 
 = \\2 y. 
 
 The laft prince was killed by his minifler Vasude'va, of the Can'n'a 
 race, who ufurpcd the throne of Magadha. 
 
 CANNA KINGS. 
 
 Vafudeva, 
 Bhiimitra, 
 Narayana, 
 Sufarman, 4 r 
 
 Y.B.C. 
 1253 
 
 345/. 
 
 A Sudra, of the Andhra family, having murdered his mafter Susar- 
 MAN, and feized the government, founded a new dynafty of 
 
 ANDHRA KINGS. 
 
 Balin, 
 
 Criflina, 
 
 I .B.C. 
 
 008 
 
 Sris'antacarna,
 
 308 ON THE CHRONOLOGY 
 
 SnVantacarna, 
 
 Paurnamafa, 
 
 Lambodara, 5. 
 
 Vivilaca, 
 
 Meghafwata, 
 
 Vat'amana, 
 
 Talaca, 
 
 Sivafwati, 1 0. 
 
 Purifliabheru, 
 
 Sunandana, 
 
 Chacoraca, 
 
 Bat'aca, 
 
 Gomatin, 15. 
 
 Pun'mat, 
 
 Medas'iras, 
 
 Sirafcand'ha, 
 
 Yajnyas'ri, 
 
 Vijaya, 20. 
 
 Chandrabija, 21 ^ = 450/. 
 
 After the death of Chandrabi'ja, which happened, according to 
 the Hindus, 396 years before Vicrama'ditya, or 452 B.C. we hear 
 no more o{ Magadha as an independent kingdom; but Ra'dha'ca'nt 
 has exhibited the names oi /even dynafties, in vAi\c)\feventy-Jix princes 
 are faid to have reigned one thou/and three hundred and ninety-nine years 
 in Avabhriti, a town of the Dacfjin, or South, which we commonly call 
 Decan : the names of the feven dynafties, or of the families who efta- 
 blifhed them, are Abhira, Gardabhin, Canca, Tavana, 'Turujijcara, Bhu~ 
 runda, Maula ; of which the Yavanas are by fome, not generally, fup- 
 pofed to have been lonians, or Greeks, but the TuruJiKaras and Maula s 
 are univerfally believed to have been Turcs and Moguls -, yet Ra'dha'- 
 
 CA'NT
 
 OF THE HINDUS. 3O9 
 
 ca'nt adds: "when the Mania race was extindl, five princes, named 
 " Bhunanda, Bangtra, Sis'unandi, Yas'onandi, and Praviraca, reigned an 
 " hundred and Jix years (or till the year 1053) in the city of Cilacila," 
 which, he tells me, he underftands to be in the country of the Mahd- 
 rdjhtra's, or Mahrata's ; and here ends his Indian Chronology j for 
 " after Pravi'raca, fays he, this empire was divided among Mlecfihas, 
 " or Infidels." This account oi \k\f: feven modern dynajiies appears very 
 doubtful in itfelf, and has no relation to our prefent inquiry ; for their 
 dominion feems confined to the Decan, without extending to Magadha; 
 nor have we any reafon to believe, that a race of Grecian princes ever 
 eftablifhed a kingdom in either of thofe countries : as to the Moguls, their 
 dynafty flill fubfifts, at leaft nominally; unlefs that of Chengiz be meant, 
 and his fucceflbrs could not have reigned in any part of India for the 
 period of three hundred years, which is affigned to the Manias ; nor is it 
 probable, that the word 'Turc, which an Indian could have eafily pro- 
 nounced and clearly exprefTed in the Nagari letters, fliould have been 
 corrupted into Turujhcara. On the whole we may fafely clofe the mofl 
 authentick fyftem of Hindu Chronology, that I have yet been able to 
 procure, with the death of Chandrabi'ja. Should any farther infor- 
 mation be attainable, we fliall, perhaps, in due time attain it either from 
 books or infcriptions in the Sanfcrit language ; but from the materials, 
 with which we are at prefent fupplied, we may eftablifli as indubitable 
 the two following propofitions ; that the three Jirji ages of the Hindus 
 are chiefly mythological, whether their mythology was founded on the 
 dark enigmas of their aftronomers or on the heroick fidions of their 
 poets, and, thii th.& fourth, or hijiorical, age cannot be carried farther back 
 than about two thqufand years before Christ. Even in the hiftory of 
 the prefent age, the generations of men and the reigns of kings are ex- 
 tended beyond the courfe of nature, and beyond the average refulting 
 from the accounts of the Brdhmans themfelves ; for they aflign to an 
 hundred and forty-two modern reigns a period of three thoufand one hun- 
 
 dred
 
 310 
 
 ON THE CHRONOLOGY 
 
 dred and ffty-three years, or about twenty-two years to a reign one with 
 another j yet they reprefent only four Canna princes on the throne of 
 Mngadha for a period of three hundred and forty-Jive years j now it is 
 even more improbable, that four fucceffive kings ihould have reigned 
 eighty-fix years and four months each, than that Nanda fhould have 
 been king a hundred years and murdered at laft. Neither account can 
 be credited ; but, that we may allow the higheft probable antiquity to 
 the Hindu government, let us grant, that three generations of men were 
 equal on an average to an hundred years, and that Indian princes have 
 reicrned, one with another, two and twenty : then reckoning thirty gene- 
 rations from Arjun, the brother of Yudhisht'hira, to the extiniftion 
 of his race, and taking the Chinefe account of Buddha's birth from 
 M. DeGuignes, as the moft authentick medium between Abu'lfazl 
 and the Tiktians, we may arrange the correded Hindu Chronology ac- 
 cording to the following table, fupplying the word about or iiearlyy 
 (fince perfedl accuracy cannot be attained and ought not to be re- 
 quired), before every date. 
 
 
 
 Y.B.C 
 
 Abhimanyu 
 
 fon o/' Arjun, 
 
 202g 
 
 Pradyota, 
 
 
 1029 
 
 Buddha, 
 
 • ••■•• 
 
 1027 
 
 Nanda, 
 
 
 699 
 
 Balin, 
 
 • • • • • 
 
 149 
 
 Vicrama'ditya, 
 
 56 
 
 De'vapa'la, king (9/"Gaur, 
 
 23 
 
 If we take the date of Buddha's appearance from Abu'lfazl, we 
 muft place Abhimanyu 2368 years before Christ, unlefs we calculate 
 from the twenty kings of Magadha, and allow feven hundred years, in- 
 ftead of ^ thoufand, between Arjun and Pradyo'ta, which will bring 
 
 us
 
 OF THE HINDUS. 3 1 1 
 
 us again very nearly to the date exhibited in the table ; and, perhaps, 
 we can hardly approach nearer to the truth. As to Rdjiz Nanda, if he 
 really fat on the throne a whole century, we mufi: bring down the Attdhra 
 dynafty to the age of Vicrama'ditya, who with his feudatories had 
 probably obtained fo much power during the reign of thofe princes, that 
 they had little more than a nominal fovereignty, which ended with 
 Chandrabi'ja in the third or fourth century of the Chrijlian era; 
 having, no doubt, been long reduced to infignificance by the kings of 
 Gaur, defcended from Go'pa'la. But, if the author of the Dabijianhe 
 warranted in fixing the birth of Buddha ten years before the Caliyug^ 
 we muft thus corred: the Chronological Table : 
 
 Y.B.C. 
 Buddha, ..... 1027 
 
 Paricfliit, . . . . . 1017 
 
 Pradyot (reckoning 20 or 30 generations), . 317 or 17 
 
 Y.A.C. 
 
 Nanda, , . . . . . . 1 3 or 3 1 3 
 
 This corredlion would oblige us to place Vicrama'ditya before 
 Nanda, to whom, as all the Pandits agree, he was long pofterior,- 
 and, if this be an hiflorical fadt, it feems to confirm the Bhagawa- 
 tdmrtta, which fixes the beginning of the Caliyug about a thou/and 
 years before Buddha ; befides that Balin would then be brought 
 down at leafl to the fixth and Chandrabi'ja to the tenth century 
 after Christ, without leaving room for the fubfequent dynafties, if 
 they reigned fucceilively. 
 
 Thus have we given a fketch of Indian Hiftory through the longeft 
 period fairly affignable to it, aad have traced the foundation of the 
 
 Indian
 
 312 ON THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE HINDUS. 
 
 India): empire above three thou/and eight hundred years from the prefent 
 time ; but, on a fubjecfl in itfelf fo obfcure, and fo much clouded by the 
 fidlions of the Brdhmans, who, to aggrandize themfelves, have defignedly 
 raifed their antiquity beyond the truth, we muft be fatisfied with proba- 
 ble conjedlure and jufl realoning from the beft attainable data; nor can 
 W€ hope for a fyftem oi Indian Chronology, to which no objedtion can 
 be made, unlefs the Aftronomical books in Sanfcrit fhall clearly afcer- 
 tain the places of the colures in fome precife years of the hiftorical age, 
 not by loofe traditions, like that of a coarfe obfervation by Chiron, 
 who poffibly never exifted (for "he lived, fays Newton, in xhc golden 
 *' age," which muft long have preceded the Argonautick expedition), 
 but by fuch evidence as our aftronomers and fchoiars fliall allow to be 
 unexceptionable. 
 
 A CHRO-
 
 ^•, 
 
 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE, 
 
 According to one of the Hypotheses intimated in the preceding TraSf. 
 
 CHRISTIAN 
 
 HINDU. 
 
 
 Tears from 1788 
 
 ^WMUSELMAN, 
 
 
 
 of our era. 
 
 Adam, 
 
 Menu I. Age 
 
 I. 
 
 5794 
 
 Noah, 
 
 Menu II. 
 
 
 4737 
 
 Deluge, 
 
 
 
 4138 
 
 Nimrod, 
 
 Hiranyacajipu. 
 
 Age II. 
 
 4006 
 
 Bel, 
 
 Bali, 
 
 
 3892 
 
 Rama, 
 
 Rama. Age III. 
 
 3817 
 
 Noah's death, 
 
 
 
 3787 
 
 
 Pradyota, 
 
 
 2817 
 
 
 Buddha. Age 
 
 :IV. 
 
 2815 
 
 
 Nandat 
 
 
 2487 
 
 
 Balin, 
 
 
 1937 
 
 
 Vicramaditya, 
 
 
 1844 
 
 
 Devapdla, 
 
 
 1811 
 
 Christ, 
 
 
 
 1787 
 
 
 Ndrdyanpdla, 
 
 
 1721 
 
 
 Saca, 
 
 
 1709 
 
 Walid, 
 
 
 
 1080 
 
 Mahmud, 
 
 
 
 786 
 
 Chengiz, 
 
 
 
 548 
 
 Taimiir, 
 
 
 
 391 
 
 Babur, 
 
 
 
 276 
 
 Nddirjhah, 
 
 
 
 49 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 u u 
 

 
 SUPPLEMENT TO THE ESSAY 
 
 ON 
 
 INDIAN CHRONOLOGY. 
 
 The president. 
 
 Our ingenious affociate Mr. Samuel Davis, whom I name with 
 refpedl and applaufe, and who will foon, I truft, convince M. Bailly» 
 that it is very poffible, for an European to tranflate and explain the 
 Surya Siddhdnta, favoured me lately with a copy, taken by his Pandit, 
 of the original paflage, mentioned in his paper on tlie Agronomical 
 Computations of the Hindus, concerning the places of the colures in the 
 time of Vara'ha, compared with their poiition in the age of a certain 
 Muni, or ancient Indian philofopher -, and the palfage appears to afford 
 evidence of two adlual obfervations, which will afcertain the chronology 
 of the Hindus, if not by rigorous demonftration, at leaft by a near 
 approach to it. 
 
 The copy of the Vdrdhifanhita, from which the three pages, received 
 by me, had been tranfcribed, is unhappily fo incorred (if the tranfcript 
 itfelf was not haftily made) that every line of it muft be disfigured by 
 
 fome
 
 316 A SUPPLEMENT TO THE ESSAY 
 
 fome grofs errour ; and my Pandit, who examined the pafTage carefully 
 
 at his own houfe, gave it up as inexplicable j fo that, if I had not 
 
 ftudied the fyftem of Sayifcrit profody, I fliould have laid it afide in de- 
 
 fpair : but though it was written as profe, without any fort of diftinc- 
 
 tion or punftuation, yet, when I read it aloud, my ear caught in fome 
 
 fentences the cadence of verfe, and of a particular metre, called A'rya, 
 
 which is regulated (not by the number of fyllables^ like other Indian 
 
 meafures, but) by the proportion of times, ox fyllabick moments, in the 
 
 four divifions, of which every ftanza confifts. By numbering thofe 
 
 moments and fixing their proportion, I was enabled to reflore the text 
 
 of Var a'ha, with the perfe»5t aflent of the learned Brahmen, who attends 
 
 me; and, with his afllftance, I alfo corrected the comment, written by 
 
 Bhatto'tpala, who, it feems, was a fon of the author, together with 
 
 three curious paflages, which are cited in it. Another Pandit afterwards 
 
 brought me a copy of the whole original work, which confirmed my 
 
 conjedlural emendations, except in two immaterial fyllables, and except, 
 
 that the firft of the fix couplets in the text is quoted in the commentary 
 
 from a different work entitled Panchafiddhdntica : five of them were 
 
 compofed by Var a'ha himfelf, and the third chapter of his treatife 
 
 begins with them. 
 
 Before I produce the original verfes, it may be ufeful to give you an 
 idea of the A'rya meafure, which will appear more diftindlly in hatin 
 than in any modern language of Europe : 
 
 Tigridas, apros, thoas, tyrannos, pelTima monflra, venemur : 
 Die hinnulus, die lepus male quid egerint graminivori. 
 
 The couplet might be fo arranged, as to begin and end with the cadence 
 
 of an hexameter and pentameter, fix mo?nents being interpofed in the 
 
 middle of the long, and feven in that of the fhort, hemiflich : 
 
 Thoas,
 
 ON INDIAN CHRONOLOGY. 317 
 
 Thoas, apros, tigridas nos 'venemur, pejorefque tyrannos ; 
 Die tibi cerva, lepus tibi die male quid egerit herbivorus. 
 
 Since the A'rya meafure, however, may be ahiioft infinitely varied, the 
 couplet would have a form completely Roman, if the proportion of 
 fyllabick injiants, in the long and fliort verfes, were twenty-four to 
 twenty, inflead of thirty to twenty-feven : 
 
 Venor apros tigridafque, et, peffima monftra, tyrannos : 
 Cerva mali quid agunt herbivorufque lepus ? 
 
 I now exhibit the five ftanzas of Vara'ha in European characters, 
 with an etching of the two firft, which are the moft important, in the 
 original Devanagart : 
 
 As'lefhardhaddacfhinamuttaramayanan raverdhaniflit''hadyan 
 Nunan cadachiddsidyenodlan purva s'aftrefhu. 
 Sampratamayanan favituh carcat'acadyan mrigaditas'chanyat : 
 Udlabhave vicritih pratyacfliapericfhanair vyaftih. 
 Duraft'hachihnavedyadudaye'llamaye'piva fahafranfoh, 
 Ch'hayapraves'anirgamachihnairva mandale mahati. 
 Aprapya macaramarco vinivritto hanti faparan yamyan, 
 Carcat'acamafanprapto vinivrittas'chottaran faindrin. 
 Uttaramayanamatitya vyavrittah cfhemas'afya vriddhicafah, 
 Pracritift'has'chapyevan vicritigatir bhayacriduflmans'uh. 
 
 Of the five couplets thus exhibited, the following tranflation is moft 
 fcrupuloufly literal : 
 
 " Certainly the fouthern folflice was once in the middle of 
 ** As'leJJoa, the northern in the firfl: degree oi DhaniJJjt'ha, by what is 
 
 " recorded
 
 318 A SUPPLEMENT TO THE ESSAY 
 
 *' recorded in former Sdjlras. At prefent one folftice is in the firfl: de- 
 " gree of Carcata, and the other in the firft of Macara : that which is 
 " recorded, not appearing, a change jnuji have happened ; and the proof 
 *' arifes from ocular demonftrations ; that is, by obferving the remote 
 ** objedl and its marks at the rifing or fetting of the fun, or by the 
 *' marks, in a large graduated circle, of the Shadow's ingrefs and egrefs. 
 ** The fun, by turning back without having reached Macara, deftroys 
 " the fouth and the weft ; by turning back without having reached 
 ** Carcata, the north and eaft. By returning, when he has juft pafTed 
 *' the fummer foHlitial point, he makes wealth fecure and grain abund- 
 ** ant, fince he moves thus according to nature ; but the fun, by mov- 
 *' ing unnaturally, excites terrour." 
 
 ' Now the Hindu Aftronomers agree, that the ift January 1700 was 
 in the year 4891 of the Caliyuga, or t\\Q\v fourth period, at the begin- 
 ning of which, they fay, the equinoctial points were in the firft degrees 
 oi MeJJm and Tula ; but they are alfo of opinion, that the vernal equinox 
 ofcillates from the third of Mina to the twenty-feventh of Me/ha and 
 back again in 7200 years, which they divide into four pddas, and confe- 
 quently that it moves, in the two intermediate pddas, from the firft to 
 the twenty-feventh oi Mefia and back again in 3()00 years ; the colure 
 cutting their ecliptick in the firft oi Mejha, which coincides with the 
 firft of yJfwin), at the beginning of every fuch ofcillatory period. Va- 
 RA'HA, furr.amed Mihira, or the Sun, from his knowledge of aftro- 
 nomy, and ufually diftinguiftied by the title of Achdrya, or teacher of the 
 Veda, lived confefledly, when the Caliyuga was far advanced ; and, fince 
 by adtual obfervation he found the folftitial points in the firft degrees of 
 Carcata and Macara, the equinodlial points were at the fame time in 
 the firft of Me Jh a and Tula: he lived, therefore, in the year 3Goo of 
 the fourth Indian period, or 1291 years before ift January 1 "00, that 
 is, about the year -Kjo of our era. This date correfponds with the 
 
 ayandnfa,
 
 ON INDIAN CHRONOLOGY. 319 
 
 ayananfa, or preceffion, calculated by the rule of the Siirya Jiddhdnta; 
 for 19° 21' 54" would be the precefTion of the equinox in 1291 years 
 according to the Hindu computation of 5a" annually, which gives us 
 the origin of the Itidian Zodiack nearly; but, by Newton's demonftra- 
 tions, which agree as well with the phenomena, as the varying denfity of 
 our earth will admit, the equinox recedes about 5o" every year, and has 
 receded 17° 55' 5o" fince the time of Vara'ha, which gives us more 
 nearly In our own fphere the firil; degree of Mejha in that of the Hindus. 
 By the obfervation recorded in older Sajlras, the equinox had gone back 
 23° 20', or about 1680 years had intervened, between the age of the 
 Muni and that of the modern aftronomer: the former obfervation, 
 therefore, mufl have been made about 297 1 years before ift 'January 
 1790, that is, iiSl before Christ. 
 
 We come now to the commentary, which contains information of the 
 greateft importance. By former Sdjlras are meant, fays Bh atto'tp al A, 
 the books of Para's ar a and of other M««w j and he then cites from 
 the Pdrdfari Sanhitd the following paffage, which is in modulated profe 
 and in a ftyle much refembling that of the Fedas : 
 
 Sraviflitadyat paufhnardhantan charah s'is'iro; vafantah paufhnardhat 
 rohinyantan ; faumyadyadas'lefhardhantan griflimah ; pravrid'as'lefhar- 
 dhat haftantan; chitradyat jysfht"hardhantan s'arat; hemanto jyefht'- 
 'hardhat vaiflin'avantan. 
 
 " The feafon of Sis'ira is from the firil of Dhanijlifha to the middle 
 " of Revati ; that of Vafanta from the middle of Revati to the end of 
 " Rohint ; that of Grijkma from the beginning of Mrigas'iras to the 
 " middle of Js leJJ:d ; that of Ferpd from the middle of As'leJJm to the 
 " end of Hajla ; that of Sarad from the firil of Chitrd to the middle 
 
 " of
 
 320 A SUPPLEMENT TO THE ESSAY 
 
 " of JycJIjt'ha ; that of Hemanta from the middle of Jyept'ha to the 
 " end oi Sravafia." 
 
 This account of the fix Indian feafons, each of which is co-extenfive 
 with two figns, or four lunar ftations and a half, places the folftitial 
 points, as Vara'HA has aflerted, in the firfl: degree oi DhaniJJ^t'ha, and 
 the middle, or 0° 4o', oi AsleJIni, while the equinodlial points were in 
 Xki& tenth degree oi Bharani and 3° 2o' oi Vis' dc ha ; but, in the time 
 of Vara'HA, the folftitial colure paffed through the loth degree of 
 Punarvafu and 3° 2o' of Uttardjhdra, while the equinocftial colure cut 
 the Hindu ecliptick in the firft of Afwini and G*^ 40' of Chitra, or 
 the Toga and only ftar of that manfion, which, by the way, is indu- 
 bitably the Spike of the Virgin, from the known longitude of which all 
 other points in the Indian Zodiack may be computed. It cannot efcape 
 notice, that Para'sara does not ufe in this paiTage the phrafe at pre- 
 fent^ which occurs in the t«xt of Vara'ha ^ fo that the places of the 
 colures might have been afcertained befoi'e his time, and a confiderable 
 change mif^ht have happened in their true pofition without any change 
 in the phrafes, by which the feafons were diftinguiflied ; as our popular 
 language in aftronomy remains unaltered, though the Zodiacal afterifms 
 are now removed a whole fign from the places, where they have left 
 their names : it is manifeft, neverthelefs, that Para'sara muft have 
 written -ivithin twelve centuries before the beginning of our era, and that 
 fingle fad, as we fliall prefently fhow, leads to very momentous confe- 
 quences in regard to the fyftem of Indian hiftory and literature. 
 
 On the comparifon, which might eafily be made, between the colures 
 of Para'sar and thofe afcribed by EuDoxus to Chiron, the fuppofed 
 afliflant and inftrudor of the Argonauts, I fhall fay very little ; becaufe 
 the whole Argonautick flory (which neither was, according to Hero- 
 dotus, nor, indeed, could have been, originally Grmi««y', appears, even 
 
 when
 
 ON INDIAN CHRONOLOGY, 321 
 
 when ftripped of its poetical and fabulous ornaments, extremely difput- 
 able i and, whether it was founded on a league of the Helladian princes 
 and ftates for the purpofe of checking, on a favourable opportunity, the 
 overgrown power of Egypt, or with a view to fecure the commerce of 
 the Ettxine and appropriate the wealth of Colchis, or, as I am difpofed to 
 believe, on an emigration from Africa and Afia of that adventurous 
 race, who had firfl been eftablifhed in Chaldea; whatever, in fhort, gave 
 rife to the fable, which the old poets have fo richly embelliflied, and 
 the old hiftorians have fo inconfiderately adopted, it feems to me very 
 clear, even on the principles of Newton, and on the fame authorities 
 to which he refers, that the voyage of the Argonauts mufl: have preceded 
 the year, in which his calculations led him to place it. Bat T us built 
 Cyrene, fays our great philofopher, on the fite of Irafa, the city of 
 Ant^us, in the year 633 before Christ -, yet he foon after calls 
 EuRiPYLUs, with whom the Argonauts had a conference, king of 
 Cyrene, and in both paflages he cites Pindar, whom I acknowledge to 
 have been the mofl learned, as well as the fublimeft, of poets. Now, 
 if I underftand Pindar (which I will not aflert, and I neither poffefs 
 nor remember at prefent the Scholia, which I formerly perufed) the 
 fourth Pythian Ode begins with a fliort panegyrick on Arcesilas of 
 Cyrene -, " Where, fays the bard, the prieftefs, who fat near the golden 
 " eagles of Jove, prophefied of old, when Apollo was not abfent 
 " from his manfion, that Battus, the colonizer of fruitful Lybia, 
 " having juft left the facred ille fTheraJ, fliould build a city excell- 
 " ing in cars, on the fplendid breaft of earth, and, with the feventeenth 
 " generation, fliould refer to himfelf the Therean predidlion of Medea, 
 " which that princefs of the Colckians, that impetuous daughter of 
 " ^ETES, breathed from her immortal mouth, and thus delivered to the 
 " half-divine mariners of the warriour Jason." From this introduc- 
 tion to the noblefl and moft animated of the Argonautick poems, it ap- 
 pears, \S\dX fifteen complete generations had intervened between the voyage 
 
 VOL. I. XX of
 
 322 A SUPPLEMENT TO THE ESSAY 
 
 of Jason and the emigration of Battus ; fo that, confidering three ge- 
 nerations as equal to an hundred ox an hundred and twenty years, which 
 Newton admits to be the Grecian mode of computing them, we muft 
 place that voyage at X&'i.^Jive ox fix hundred years before the time fixed 
 by Newton himfelf, according to his own computation, for the 
 building of Cyrene; that is, eleven or twelve hundred and thirty-three 
 years before Christ; an age very near on a medium to that of 
 Para'sara. If the poet means afterwards to fay, as I underfland him, 
 that Arcesilas, his contemporary, was the eighth in defcent from Bat- 
 tus, we fliall draw nearly the fame conclufion, without having recourfe 
 to the unnatural reckoning oi thirty -three ox forty yczxs to a generation ; 
 for Pindar was forty years old, when the Perfians, having crofled the 
 Hellefpont, were nobly refilled at T'hermopylce and glorioufly defeated at 
 Salamis : he was born, therefore, about the fixty-fifth Olympiad, or five 
 hundred and twenty years before our era ; fo that, by allowing more 
 naturally y^A' ox f even hundred years to twenty-three generations, we may 
 at a medium place the voyage of Jason about one thoufand one hun- 
 dred and feventy years before our Saviour, or dhont forty -fve years be- 
 fore the beginning of the Newtonian chronology. 
 
 The defcription of the old colures by Eudoxus, if we implicitly rely 
 on his teftimony and that of Hipparchus, who was, indifputably, a 
 great aflronomer for the age, in which he lived, affords, I allow, fuffi- 
 cient evidence of fome rude obfervation about 937 years before the 
 Chrifian epoch ; and, if the cardinal points had receded from thofe 
 colures 30° 2cj' 10" at the beginning of the year 1690, and 37*^ 52' 3o" 
 on the firfl of January in the prefent year, they muft have gone back 
 3^ 23' 20 ' between the obfervation implied by Para'sar and that re- 
 corded by Eudoxus ; or, in other words, 2-14 years mufl have elapfed 
 between the two obfervations : but, this difquifition having little rela- 
 tion to our principal fubjed:, I proceed to the lafl couplets of our Indian 
 
 aflronomer
 
 ON INDIAN CHRONOLOGY. 32 
 
 o 
 
 aftronomer Vara'ha Mihira, which, though merely aftrologlcal and 
 confequently abfurd, will give occafion to remarks of no fmall import- 
 ance. They imply, that, when the folftices are not in the firft degrees 
 of Carcata and Macara, the motion of the fun is contrary to nature, and 
 being caufed, as the commentator intimates, by fome utpdta, or preter- 
 natural agency, muft neceflarily be produd:ive of misfortune ; and this 
 vain idea feems to indicate a very fuperficial knowledge even of the 
 fyftem, which Vara'ha undertook to explain; but he might have 
 adopted it folely as a religious tenet, on the authority of Garga, a 
 prieft of eminent fandlity, who expreffes the fame wild notion in the. 
 following couplet : 
 
 Yada nivertate'praptah fraviflitamuttarayane, 
 Afleflian dacfhine'praptaftadavidyanmahadbhayan 
 
 " When the fun returns, not having reached Dhanij7:)t' ha in the 
 ** northern folftice, or not having reached As'lejha in the fouthern, then 
 ** let a man feel great apprehenfion of danger." 
 
 Para'sara himfelf entertained a fimilar opinion, that any irregu- 
 larity in the foliHces would indicate approaching calamity : Yadapraptb 
 vaijhnavantam, fays he, iidanmdrge prepadyate, dacjhine aJleJJ:am vd ma- 
 hdbhaynya, that is, " When, having reached the end of Sravand, in 
 " the northern path, or half o{ AsleJIoa in the fouthern, he Itill ad- 
 " vances, it is a caufe of great fear." This notion pofTibly had its rife, 
 before the regular preceflion of the cardinal points had been obferved; 
 but we may alfo remark, that fome of the lunar manfions were con- 
 fidered as inaufpicious, and others as fortunate: thus Menu, the firll 
 Indian lawgiver, ordains, that certain rites fliall be performed under the 
 influence of a happy Nacpatra ; and, where he forbids any female name 
 to be taken from a conftellation, the moil learned commentator gives 
 
 A'rdrd
 
 324 A SUPPLEMENT TO THE ESSAY 
 
 A'rdra and Rhati as examples of ill omened names, appearing by de- 
 lign to fkip over others, that muft firft have occurred to him. Whether 
 Dhanipt'ha and As'lejlm were inaufpicious or profperous, I have not 
 learned; but, whatever might be the ground of Vara'ha's aftrological 
 rule, we may colleft from his aftronomy, which was grounded on ob- 
 fervation, that the folftice had receded at leaft 23" 2o' between his time 
 and that of Para'sara; for, though he refers its pofition to they%-«j, 
 inftead of the lunar man/tons, yet all the Pandits, with whom I have 
 converfed on the fubjedl, unanimoufly affert, that the firft degrees of 
 Mefba and Afwint are coincident : fince the two ancient fages name only 
 the lunar afterlfms, it is probable, that the folar divifion of the Zodiack 
 into twelve figns was not generally ufed in their daysj and we know 
 from the comment on the Siirya Siddhdnta, that the lunar month, by 
 which all religious ceremonies are ftill regulated, was in ufe before the 
 folar. When M. Bailly afks, " why the Hindus eftabliftied the be- 
 " ginning of the preceffion, according to their ideas of it, in the year of 
 " Christ 4gy," to which his calculations alfo had led him, we anfwer, 
 becaufe in that year the vernal equinox was found by obfervation in the 
 origin of their ecliptick ; and fince they were of opinion, that it muft 
 have had the fame pofition in the firft year of the Caliyuga, they were 
 induced by their erroneous theory to fix the beginning of their fourth 
 period 30oo years before the time of Vara'ha, and to account for 
 Para'sara's obfervation by fuppofing an utpdta, ov prodigy. 
 
 To what purpofe, it may be alked, have we afcertained the age of 
 the Munis? Who was Para's ara ? Who was Garga? With whom 
 were they contemporary, or with whofe age may theirs be compared ? 
 What light will thefe inquiries throw on the hiftory of India or of man- 
 kind ? I am happy in being able to anfwer thofe queftions with con- 
 fidence and precifion. 
 
 All
 
 ON INDIAN CHRONOLOGY. 325 
 
 All the Brahmens agree, that only one Para'sara is named in their 
 facred records ; that he compofed the agronomical book before-cited, 
 and a law-tradl, which is now in my pofTeffion ; that he was the grand- 
 fon of Vasisht'ha, another aftronomer and legiflator, whofe works are 
 ftill extant, and who was the preceptor of Ra'ma, king oi Ayodliya ; 
 that he was the father of Vya'sa, by whom the Vedas were arranged 
 in the form, which they now bear, and whom Crishna himfelf names 
 with exalted praife in the Gita ; fo that, by the admiiTion of the Pandits 
 themfelves, we find only three generations between two of theRA'iviAs, 
 whom they confider as incarnate portions of the divinity ; and Par a'sar 
 might have lived till the beginning of the Caliyuga, which the miftaken 
 dodtrine of an ofcillation in the cardinal points has compelled the Hindus 
 to place 1920 years too early. This errour, added to their fanciful ar- 
 rangement of the four ages, has been the fource of many abfurdities ; 
 for they infift, that Va'lmic, whom they cannot but allow to have been 
 contemporary with Ra'machandra, lived in the age of Vya'sa, who 
 confulted him on the compofition of the Mahdbhdrat, and who was 
 perfonally known to Balara'ma, the brother of Crishna: when a 
 very learned Brahmen had repeated to me an agreeable ftory of a con- 
 verfation between Va'lmic and Vya'sa, I exprefled my furprize at an 
 interview between two bards, whofe ages were feparated by a period of 
 864,000 years ; but he foon reconciled himfelf to fo monftrous an ana- 
 chronifm, by obferving that the longevity of the Munis was preter- 
 natural, and that no limit could be fet to divine power. By the fame 
 recourfe to miracles or to prophefy, he would have anfwered another 
 objedtion equally fatal to his chronological fyftem : it is agreed by all, 
 that the lawyer Ya'g yawalcya was an attendant on the court of Ja- 
 naca, whofe daughter Si'ta' was the conftant, but unfortunate, wife 
 of the great Ra'ma, the hero of Va'lmic's poem; but that lawyer 
 himfelf, at the very opening of his work, which now lies before me, 
 names both Para'sar and Vya'sa among twenty authors, whofe trails 
 
 form
 
 325 A SUPPLEMENT TO THE ESSAY 
 
 form, the body of original Indian law. By the way, (ince Vasisht'ha is 
 more than once named in the Mdnaiifanhita, we may be certain, that 
 the laws afcribed to Menu, in whatever age they might have been firft 
 promulgated, could not have received the form, in which we now fee 
 them, above three thoiifand years ago. The age and functions of 
 Garga lead to confequences yet more interefting : he was confefledly 
 ihc purdhita, or officiating prieft, of Crishna himfelf, who, when only 
 a herdfman's boy at Mafhura, revealed his divine charafter to Garga, 
 by running to him with more than mortal benignity on his countenance, 
 when the prieft had invoked Na ra'yan. His daughter was eminent 
 for her piety and her learning, and the Brdbmans admit, without con- 
 fidering the confequence of their admiffion, that flie is thus addreffed 
 in the Veda itfelf; Yata urdliwan no vd famopi, Ga'rgi, ejlja ddityo 
 dydmurdhanan tapati, dya va bhumin tapati, bbiimya Jubhran tapati, locdn 
 tapati, antaran tapatyanantaran tapati; or, " That Sun, O daughter of 
 " Garga, than which nothing is higher, to which nothing is equal, 
 " enlightens the fummit of the Iky ; with the Iky enlightens the earth ; 
 " with the earth enlightens the lower worlds ; enlightens the higher 
 " worlds, enlightens other worlds ; it enlightens the breaft, enlightens 
 " all befides the breaft." From thefe facSs, which the Brdhmans can- 
 not deny, and from thefe conceffions, which they unanimoufly make, 
 we may reafonably infer, that, if Vya s a was not the compofer of the 
 Vedas, he added at Icaft fomething of his own to the fcattered frag- 
 ments of a more ancient work, or perhaps to the loofe traditions, which 
 he had coUedled ; but, whatever be the comparative antiquity of the 
 Hindu fcriptures, we may fafely conclude, that the Mofaick and Indian 
 chronologies are perfectly confiftent ; that Menu, fon of Brahma', 
 was the A'dima, ox Jirjl, created mortal, and confequently our Adam ; 
 that Menu, child of the Sun, was preferved vi\\\\ feven others, in a 
 bahitra or capacious ark, from an univerfal deluge, and muft, therefore, 
 be our Noah j that Hiranyacasipu, the giant with a golden axe, 
 
 and
 
 ON INDIAN CHRONOLOGY. 327 
 
 and Vali or Bali, were impious and arrogant monarchs, and, mofl: pro- 
 bably, our NiMROD and Belus ; that the three Ra'mas, two of whom 
 were invincible warriors, and the third, not only valiant in war, but 
 the patron of agriculture and ivine, which derives an epithet from his 
 name, were different reprefentations of the Grecian Bacchus, and either 
 the Ra'm A of Scripture, or his colony perfonified, or the Sun firft adored 
 by his idolatrous family, that a confiderable emigration from Chaldea 
 into Greece, Italy, and India, happened about twelve centuries before 
 the birth of our Saviour j that Sa'cya, or Si'sak, about two hundred 
 years after Vva'sa, either in perfon or by a colony from Egypt, im- 
 ported into this country the mild herefy of the ancient Bauddhas ; and 
 that the dawn of true Indian hiftory appears only three or four centuries 
 before the Chrijiian era, the preceding ages being clouded by allegory 
 or fable. 
 
 As a fpccimen of that fabling and allegorizing fpirit, which has ever 
 induced the Brahmens to difguife their whole fyftem of hiitory, philofo- 
 phy, and religion, I produce a paffagc from the Bhdgavat, which, how- 
 ever ftrange and ridiculous, is very curious in itfelf and clofely con- 
 nedted with the fubjedt of this effay : it is taken from the fifth Scafidha, 
 or fedlion, which is written in modulated profe. " There are fome, 
 
 * fays the Indian author, who, for the purpofe of meditating intenfely 
 
 * on the holy fon of Vasude'va, imagine yon celeftial fphere to re- 
 ' prefent the figure of that aquatick animal, which we call Sis'umdra: 
 ' its head being turned downwards, and its body bent in a circle, they 
 ' conceive Dhruva, or the pole-flar, to be fixed on the point of its 
 ' tail J on the middle part of the tail they fee four ftars, Prejdpati, 
 
 * ylgni, Indra, Dherma, and on its bafe two others, Dbdtri and 
 ' Vidhdtrt: on its rump are the Septarjlois, or feven ftars of the Sacata, 
 
 * or JVain ; on its back the path of the Sun, called Ajavit'lii, or the 
 
 * Series of Kids ; on its belly the Ganga of the fky : Punarvafu and 
 
 " Pitjhya
 
 328 A SUPPLEMENT TO THE ESSAY 
 
 *• Pujl.'ya gleam refpeftively on its right and left haunches j A'rdra and 
 *' Aslejha on its right and left feet orjins ; ylbhijit and UttardJJmd'' ha in 
 *' its right and left noftrils ; Sravana and Purvdfiad'ha in its right and 
 *' left eyes J DhaniJJ.i'ha and Mula on its right and left ears. Eight con- 
 " ftellations, belonging to the fummer folftice, Maghd, Purvap'halgiim, 
 ** Vttarap'halguni^ Hajla, Chitrd, Swat}, Vifdcha, Anurddha, may be 
 " conceived in the ribs of its left fide j and as many afterifms, con- 
 " nefted with the winter folftice, Mrigas'iras, Rohini, Critticd^ Bba- 
 " rani, Afwim, Revati, Vttarabhadrapadd, Purvabhadrapadd, may be 
 ** imagined on the ribs of its right fide in an inverfe order : let Satab- 
 " hij}:id and Jyejht'hd be placed on its right and left fhoulders. In its 
 " upper jaw is Jgajlya, in its lower Yama ; in its mouth the planet 
 " Mangala ; in its part of generation, Sanais chara ; on its hump, Vri- 
 ** hajpati ; in its breafi:, the Sun ; in its heart, Nd?-dyan ; in its front 
 •* the moon ; in its navel. Us' anas ; on its two nipples the two Afwinas ; 
 *' in its afcending and defcending breaths, Budha ; on its throat, Rdbii -, 
 " in all its limbs, Cctus, or comets ; and in its hairs, or briflles, the 
 " whole multitude of liars." It is necefiary to remark, that, although 
 the s'isumdra be generally defcribed as the fea-hog, or porpoife, which 
 we frequently have feen playing in the Ganges, yet/u/mdr, which feems 
 derived from the Sanfcrit, means in Perjian a large lizard: the paflage 
 juft exhibited may neverthelefs relate to an animal of the cetaceous 
 order, and poflibly to the dolphin of the ancients. Before I leave the 
 fphere of the Hindus, I cannot help mentioning a fingular fad: : in the 
 Sanfcrit language Ricflm means a confidlation and a bear, fo that Ma- 
 harcfia may denote either a great bear or a great afierifm. Etymologifts 
 may, perhaps, derive the Megas arctos of the Greeks from an Indian 
 compound ill underftood ; but I will only obferve, with the wild Ame- 
 rican, that a bear with a very long tail could never have occurred to the 
 imagination of any one, who had feen the animal. I may be permitted 
 to add, on the fubjeft of the Indian Zodiack, that, if I have erred, in a 
 
 former
 
 ON INDIAN CHRONOLOGY. 329 
 
 former effay, where the longitude of the lunar manfions is computed 
 from the firft ftar in our conftellation of the Ram, I have been led into 
 errour by the very learned and ingenious M. Bailly, who relied, I pre- 
 fume, on the authority of M. Le Gentil : the origin of the Hindu Zo- 
 diack, according to the Siirya Siddbdnta, muft be nearly T \q^ 2i' 54'', 
 in our fphere, and the longitude of Chitrd, or the Spike, muft of 
 courfe be 199*' 21' 54" from the vernal equinox ; but, fince it is diffi- 
 cult by that computation, to arrange the twenty-feven manfions and 
 their feveral ftars, as they are delineated and enumerated in the Retna- 
 mdld, I muft for the prefent fuppofe with M. Bailly, that the Zodiack 
 of the Hindus had two origins, one conftant and the other variable ; 
 and a fartiier inquiry into the fubjedt muft be referved for a feafoa of 
 retirement and leifure. 
 
 VOL. I. Y Y
 
 NOTE 
 
 TO 
 
 MR. VANSITT ART'S PAPER 
 
 ON 
 
 THE AFGHANS BEING DESCENDED FROM THE JEWS. 
 By the president. 
 
 A HIS account of the Afghans may lead to a very interefting dilco- 
 very. We learn from Esdras, that the Ten Tribes, after a wandering 
 journey, came to a country called Arfareth ; where, we may fuppofe, 
 they fettled : now the Afghans are faid by the beft Perjian hiftorians to 
 be defcended from the Jews ; they have traditions among themfelves of 
 fuch a defcent -, and it is even aflerted, tliat their families are diftin- 
 guiflied by the names of Jewifi tribes, although, ilnce their converfion 
 to the IJJdm, they ftudioufly conceal their origin ^ the Pupto lano-uage, 
 of which I liave feen a didlionary, has a manifeft refemblance to the 
 Chaldaick; and a confiderable diflridl under their dominion is called 
 Hazdreh, or Hazard, which might eafily have been changed into the 
 word ufed by Esdras. I ftrongly recommend an inquiry into the 
 literature and hiftory of the Afghans.
 
 ON 
 
 THE ANTIQUITY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE INDIAN ZODIACK. 
 
 By the president. 
 
 X ENGAGE to fupport an opinion (which the learned and induftrious 
 M. MoNTUCLA feems to treat with extreme contempt), that the Indian 
 diviiion of the Zodiack was not borrowed from the Greeks or Arabs^ 
 but, having been known in this country from time immemorial, and 
 being tlie fame in part with that ufed by other nations of the old Hindu 
 race, was probably invented by the firft progenitors of that race before 
 their difperfion. " The Indians, he fays, have two divilions of the 
 " Zodiack J one, like that of the Arabs, relating to the moon, and con- 
 *• filling of twenty-feven equal parts, by which they can tell very nearly 
 " the hour of the night; another relating to the fun, and, like ours, con- 
 " taining twelve figns, to which they have given as many names cor- 
 ♦* refponding with thofe, which we have borrowed from the Greeks." 
 All that is true; but he adds : *' It is highly probable that they received 
 " them at fome time or another by the intervention of the Arabs; for 
 " no man, furely, can perfuade himfelf, that it is the ancient divifion of 
 " the Zodiack formed, according to fome authors, by the forefathers of 
 ** mankind and ftill preferved among the Hindus." Now I undertake 
 
 to
 
 334 ON THE ANTIQUITY OF 
 
 to prove, that the Indian Zodiack was not borrowed mediately or diredly 
 from the y4rabs or Greeks ; and, fince the folar divifion of it in India is 
 the fame in fubflance with that ufed in Greece, we may reafonably con- 
 clude, that both Greeks and Hindus received it from an older nation, who 
 firft gave names to the luminaries of heaven, and from whom both 
 Greeks and Hindus, as their fimilarity in language and religion fully 
 evinces, had a common defcent. 
 
 The fame writer afterwards intimates, that " the time, when Indian 
 " Aftronomy received its moll: confiderable improvement, from which 
 " it has now, as he imagines, wholly declined, was either the age, 
 " when the Arabs, who ellabliflied themfelves in Perjia and Sogdiana, 
 " had a great intercourfe with the Hindus, or that, when the fuccefTors 
 " of Chengi'z united both Arabs and Hindus under one vaft domi- 
 " nion." It is not the objed: of this effay, to corred: the hiflorical 
 errors in the palTage laft- cited, nor to defend the aflronomers o^ India 
 from the charge of grofs ignorance in regard to the figure of the earth 
 and the diftances of the heavenly bodies ; a charge, which Montucla 
 very boldly makes on the authority, I believe, of father Souciet : I 
 will only remafk, that, in our converfations with the Pandits, we mufl 
 never confound the fyfVem of the Jyautifiicas, or mathematical aflrono- 
 mers, with that of the Paurdnicas, or poetical fabulifts; for to fuch a 
 confufion alone muft we impute the many miftakes oi Europeans on the 
 fubjed oi Indian fcience. A venerable mathematician of this province, 
 named Ra'm achandra, now in his eightieth year, vifited me lately at 
 Crijhnanagar, and part of his difcourfe was lb applicable to the inquiries, 
 which I was then making, that, as foon as he left me, I committed it to 
 writing. " The Paurdnics, he faid, will tell you, that our earth is a 
 " plane fi^^ure ftudded with eight mountains, and furrounded by feven 
 " feas of milk, nedar, and other fluids; that the part, which we in- 
 " habit, is one of fevcn iflands, to which eleven fmaller ides are fubor- 
 
 *' dinatc;
 
 THE INDIAN ZODIACK. 335 
 
 *' dinate ; that a God, riding on a huge elephant, guards each of the 
 
 " eight regions ; and that a mountain of gold rifes and gleams in the 
 
 *' centre; but we believe the earth to be fhaped like a Cadamba fruit, 
 
 " or fpheroidal, and admit only four oceans of fait water, all which we 
 
 ** name from the four cardinal points, and in which are many great 
 
 " peninfulas with innumerable iflands : they will tell you, that a 
 
 " dragon's head fwallows the moon, and thus caufes an eclipfe; but we 
 
 *' know, that the fuppofed head and tail of the dragon mean only the 
 
 ** nodes, or points formed by interfedlions of the ecliptick and the 
 
 *' moon's orbit; in fhort, they have imagined a fyftem, which exifts 
 
 " only in their fancy ; but we confider nothing as true without fuch 
 
 " evidence as cannot be queftioned.'" I could not perfectly underftand 
 
 the old Gymnofophift, when he told me, that the Rds'ichacra or Circle 
 
 of Signs (for fo he called the Zodiack) was like a Dhujiura flower; 
 
 meaning the Datiiray to which the Sanfcrit name has been foftened, and 
 
 the flower of which is conical or fhaped like a funnel: at flrft I thought, 
 
 that he alluded to a projedlion of the hemifphere on the plane of the 
 
 colure, and to the angle formed by the ecliptick and equator; but a 
 
 younger aftronomer named Vina'yaca, who came afterwards to fee 
 
 me, afliired me that they meant only the circular mouth of the funnel, 
 
 or the bafe of the cone, and that it^ was ufual among their ancient 
 
 writers, to borrow from fruits and flowers their appellations of feveral 
 
 plane and folid figures. 
 
 From the two Brdhmans, whom I have juft named, I learned the fol- 
 lowing curious particulars ; and you may depend on my accuracy in re- 
 peating them, fince I wrote them in their prefence, and corredled what 
 I had written, till they pronounced it perfecft. They divide a great 
 circle, as we do, into three hundred and fixty degrees, called by them 
 anfas or portions; of which they, like us, allot thirty to each of the 
 twelve figns in this order : 
 
 Mijha,.
 
 336 ON THE ANTIQUITY OF 
 
 Mejha, the Ram. Tula, the Balance. 
 
 Vrijloa, the Bull. 8. VrijJichica, the Scorpion. 
 
 Mit'huna, the Pair. Dhanus, the Bow. 
 
 ^J. Carcat'i, the Crab. Macara, the Sea-Monfter. 
 
 Sinha, the Lion. Cumbha, the Ewer. 
 
 Cany a, the Virgin. 12. Af/W, the Fifli. 
 
 The figures of the twelve aflerifms, thus denominated with refped: to 
 thd fun, are fpecified, by Sri peti, author of the Retnamdla, in Sanfcrit 
 verfes ; which I produce, as my vouchers, in the original with a verbal 
 tranflation : 
 
 Mefhadayo nama famanarupi, 
 Vinagadad'nyam mit'hunam nriyugmam, 
 Pradipas'afye dadhati carabhyam 
 Navi fl'hita varin'i canyacaiva. 
 Tula tulabhrit pretimanapanir 
 Dhanur dhanufhman hayawat parangah, 
 Mrigananah fyan macaro't'ha cumbhah 
 Scandhe nero ridlaghatam dadhanah, 
 Anyanyapuchch'habhimuc'ho hi mi'nah 
 Matfyadwayam fwafl'halacharinomi. 
 
 *' The ram, bull, crab, lion, zxxAfcorpion, have the figures of thofe five 
 " animals refpecftively: the pair are a damfel playing on a Vina and a 
 " youth wielding a mace : the virgin ftands on a boat in water, holding 
 *• in one hand a lamp, in the other an ear of ricecorn : the balance is 
 " held by a weigher with a weight in one hand : the bow, by an archer, 
 " whofe hinder parts are like thofe of a horfe: t\\efea-mo}!fter has the 
 " face of an antelope : the ewer is a waterpot borne on the fhoiilder of 
 " a man, who empties it: the JiJJj are two with their heads turned to 
 
 each
 
 37 • 
 as 
 
 nty 
 
 )Ut 
 
 a. 
 
 f 
 a. 
 
 ind 
 of 
 lis 
 re- 
 tes 
 ttie 
 ty- 
 :ial 
 ms 
 to- 
 »or
 
 O 
 
 M 
 
 
 O 
 

 
 THE INDIAN ZODIACK, 
 
 337 
 
 " each others tails ; and all thefc are fuppofed to be in fuch places as 
 *• fuit their feveral natures." 
 
 To each of the twenty-feven lunar ftations, which they call nacjka- 
 tras, they allow thirteen a)2fas and one third, or thirteen degrees twenty 
 fnimites ; and their names appear in the order of the l%ns, but without 
 any regard to the figures of them : 
 
 9- 
 
 Aiwim, 
 
 Magha. 
 
 Mula. 
 
 Bharanl. 
 
 Piirva p'halguni. 
 
 VnTvdfidd'ha. 
 
 Critica. 
 
 Uttara fhalgiim. 
 
 Uttarafhad'ha. 
 
 Rohini. 
 
 Hafta. 
 
 Sravana. 
 
 Mrigafiras. 
 
 Chitra. 
 
 Dhanifhta. 
 
 A'rdra. 
 
 Swati. 
 
 Satabhiflia. 
 
 Punarvafu. 
 
 Vijac'ha. 
 
 Purva bhadrapadd. 
 
 PuJJ.ya. 
 
 Anuradha. 
 
 Uttarabhadrapada. 
 
 As'leflia. 
 
 18. Jyejht'ha. 
 
 2T. Revati. 
 
 Between the twenty-firfl and twenty-fecond conftellations, we find 
 in the plate three flars called Abhijit ; but they are the laft quarter of 
 the aflerifm immediately preceding, or the latter AJloar, as the word is 
 commonly pronounced. A complete revolution of the moon, with re- 
 fpedl to the flars, being made in twenty-feven days, odd hours, minutes 
 and feconds, and perfecfl exadlnefs being either not attained by t^e 
 Hindus or not required by them, they fixed on the number twenty- 
 feven, and inferted Abhijit for fome aftrological purpofe in their nuptial 
 ceremonies. The drawing, from which the plate was engraved, feems 
 intended to reprefent the figures of the twenty-feven conflellations, to- 
 gether with Abhijit, as they are defcribed in three flanzas by the author 
 of the Retnamcild : 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 Z Z 
 
 1. Tura-
 
 338 ON THE ANTIQUITY OF 
 
 1 . Turagamuc'hafadricfliam yonirupam cfliurabham, 
 Sacat'afamam at'hain'afyottamangena tulyam, 
 Man'igrihas'ara chacrabhani s'alopamam bham, 
 Sayanafadris'amanyachchatra paryancarupam. 
 
 2. Haflacarayutam cha maudlicafamam 
 
 chanyat pravalopamam, 
 Dhnfliyam torana fannibham balinibham, 
 
 fatcund'alabham param ; 
 Crudhyatcefarivicramena fadris'am, 
 
 s'ayyafamanam param, 
 Anyad dentivilafavat ft'hitamatah 
 
 s'ringat'acavya(fti bham. 
 
 3. Trivicramabham cha mridangarupam, 
 Vrittam tatonyadyamalabhwayabham, 
 Paryancarupam murajanucaram, 
 Ityevam as wadibhachacrarupam. 
 
 " A horfe's head; yoni or bhaga ; a razor; a wheeled carriage; the 
 ** head of an antelope; a gem; a houfe; an arrow; a wheel; another 
 *' houfe; a bedflead; another bedftead; a hand; a pearl; a piece of 
 •* coral; a feftoon of leaves ; an oblation to the Gods; a rich ear-ring; 
 •' the tail of a fierce lion; a couch; the tooth of a wanton elephant, 
 " near which is the kernel of the s'ringataca nut ; the three footfteps 
 '• of Vishnu ; a tabor; a circular jewel; a two-faced image ; another 
 " couch ; and a fmaller fort of tabor : fuch are the figures of yljhohu 
 "** and the reft in the circle of lunar conftellations." 
 
 The Hindu draughtfman has very ill reprefented moft of the figures ; 
 and he has tranfpofed the two AJImras as well as the two Bkadrapads ; 
 but his figure of Abhijit, which looks like our ace of hearts, has a re- 
 femblance to the kernel of the trapa, a curious water-plant defcribed in 
 
 a feparate
 
 THE INDIAN ZODIACK. 
 
 33g 
 
 a feparate eflay. In another Sanfcrit book the figures of the fame con- 
 ftellations are thus varied : 
 
 A horfe's head. 
 Yoni or bhaga. 
 A flame. 
 A waggon. 
 A cat's paw» 
 One bright ftar. 
 A bow. 
 
 A child's pencil, 
 g. A dog's tail. 
 
 A flraight tail. A conch. 
 
 Two ftars S. to N. A winnowing fan. 
 
 Two, N. to S. Another. 
 
 A hand. 
 A pearl. 
 Red fafFroH. 
 A feftoon. 
 A fnake. 
 18. A boar's head. 
 
 -/ 
 
 An arrow. 
 A tabor. 
 
 A circle of flars. 
 A flaff for burdens. 
 The beam of a balance. 
 . Afifh. 
 
 From twelve of the afterifms juffc enumerated are derived the names 
 of the twelve Indian months in the ufual form of patronymicks j for 
 the Paurdnics, who reduce all nature to a fyflem of emblematical my- 
 thology, fuppofe a celeftial nymph to prefide over each of the conftella- 
 tions, and feign that the God So'ma, or Liiniis, having wedded twelve 
 of them, became the father of twelve Genii, or months, who are named 
 after their feveral mothers ;^ but the fyautifiicas affert, that, when their 
 lunar year was arranged by former aftronomers, the moon was at the 
 full in each month on the very day, when it entered the nacJJ:atra, from 
 which that month is denominated. The manner, in which the deriva- 
 tives are formed, will beft appear by a comparifon of the months with 
 their feveral conftellations :. 
 
 4. 
 
 A s'wina. 
 
 Cartica. 
 
 Margas'irfha. 
 
 Paufha. 
 
 Magha. 
 
 P'halguna. 
 
 8. 
 
 12 
 
 Chaitra. 
 
 Vaifac'ha. 
 
 Jyaifht'ha. 
 
 A'fliara. 
 
 Sravana. 
 
 Bhadra. 
 
 The
 
 340 ON THE ANTIQUITY OF 
 
 The third month is alfo called A'grahayana (whence the common 
 word Agran is corrupted) from another name ol Mngaslras. 
 
 Nothing can be more ingenious than the memorial verfes, in which 
 the Hindus have a cuftom of linking together a number of ideas other- 
 wife unconnedted, and of chaining, as it were, the memory by a re- 
 gular meafure : thus by putting teeth for thirty-two, Rudra for eleven, 
 feafon for fix, arrow or element for five, ocean, Veda, or age, for four, 
 Ra'ma, Jire, or quality for three, eye, or Cuma'ra for two, and earth 
 or moon for one, they have compofed four lines, which exprefs the 
 number of flars in each of the twenty-feven afterifms. 
 
 Vahni tri ritwilhu gunendu critagnibhuta, 
 Banas'winetra s'ara bhucu yugabdhi ramah, 
 Rudrabdhiramagunavedas'ata dwiyugma, 
 Denta budhairabhihitah cramas'6 bhatarah. 
 
 That is: "three, three, fixj five, three, onej four, three, five; 
 ** five, two, two J five, one, one j four, four, three ; eleven, four and 
 " three J three, four, a hundred; two, two, thirty-two: thus have the 
 " ftars of the lunar conftellations, in order as they appear, been num- 
 " bered by the wife." 
 
 If the ftanza was corredlly repeated to me, the two AJhdras are con- 
 fidered as one afterifm, and Abhijit as three feparate ftars ; but I fufpedt 
 an error in the third line, becaufe dwibana or two and five would fuit 
 the metre as well as bdhirama ; and becaufe there were only three Vedas 
 in the early age, when, it is probable, the ftars were enumerated and 
 the technical verfe compofed. 
 
 Two lunar ftations, or fnanfions, and a quarter are co-extenfive, we 
 fee, with one fign -, and nine ftations correfpond with four figns : by 
 
 counting.
 
 THE INDIAN ZODIACK. 
 
 341 
 
 counting, therefore, thirteen degrees and twenty minutes from the firll 
 ftar in the head of the Ram, inclufively, we find the whole extent of 
 Afivinty and fliall be able to afcertain the other ftars with fufficient ac- 
 curacy ; but firft let us exhibit a comparative table of both ZodiackSf 
 denoting the manlions, as in the Vdranes almanack, by the firfl letters or 
 fyllables of their names : 
 
 Months. 
 A'fwin 
 Cartic 
 A'grahayan 
 Paufh 
 
 Solar Asterisms. 
 Mefh 
 Vrifh 
 Mit'hun 
 Carcat' A. 
 
 A 
 
 Ji. 
 
 4 
 M 
 z 
 P 
 
 Mansions. 
 
 + bh + -^ 
 
 4 
 
 M 
 + ro + 
 
 z 
 
 + p + s'l. g. 
 
 Magh 
 
 P'halgun 
 
 Chaitr 
 
 Vaifac'h 
 
 Sinh 
 
 Canya 
 
 Tula 
 
 Vrifchic 8. 
 
 m 
 3U 
 
 4 
 ch 
 
 + PU + 
 
 + 
 
 u 
 
 4 
 ch 
 a 
 
 4 
 
 + j 18. 
 
 Jaiflit"h 
 A'fliar 
 Sravan 
 Bhadr 
 
 Dhan 
 Macar 
 Cumbh 
 Min 12. 
 
 mu 
 
 4 
 dh 
 
 t" _ 
 4 
 
 + pu + 
 
 ^ 4 
 
 dh 
 
 a 
 3/>a 
 
 + 
 
 + 
 
 s + 
 
 s + 
 
 u + r, 2; 
 
 Hence we may readily know the ftars in each manfion, as they fol- 
 low in order : 
 
 Lunar
 
 342 
 
 ON THE ANTIQUITY OF 
 
 JNAR Mansions. 
 
 Solar Asterisms. Stars. 
 
 Afwini. 
 
 Ram. 
 
 Three, in and near the head. 
 
 Bharani. 
 
 
 Three, in the tail. 
 
 Critica. 
 
 Bull. 
 
 Six, of the Pleiads. 
 
 Rohini. 
 
 
 Fhe, in the head and neck. 
 f Three, in or near the feet, 
 \ perhaps in the Galaxy. 
 
 Mrigafiras. 
 
 Pair. 
 
 A'rdra. 
 
 
 Omy on the knee. 
 {Four, in the heads, breaft and 
 1 flioulder. 
 
 Punarvafu. 
 
 
 Pudiya. 
 
 Crab. 
 
 Three, in the body and claws.. 
 
 As'lefha. 
 
 Lion. 
 
 Five, in the face and mane. 
 
 Magha. 
 
 
 Five, in the leg and haunch ► 
 
 Purvap'halguni. 
 
 
 Tnjoo ; one in the taii. 
 
 Uttarap'halguni. 
 
 Virgin. 
 
 Two, on the arm and zone. 
 
 Hafta. 
 
 
 Five, near the hand.. 
 
 Chitra. 
 
 
 One, in the fpike. 
 
 Swati. 
 
 Balance. 
 
 One, in the N. Scale. 
 
 Visac'ha. 
 
 
 Four, beyond it. 
 
 Anuradha. 
 
 Scorpion. 
 
 Four, in the body. 
 
 Jyefht'ha. 
 
 
 Three, in the tail. 
 
 Mula. 
 
 Bow. 
 
 ^Eleven, to the point of the 
 C arrow. 
 
 Purvafhara. 
 
 
 Two, in the leg. 
 
 Uttarafhara. 
 
 Sea-monfter. 
 
 Two, in the horn. 
 
 Sravana. 
 
 
 Three, in the tail.. 
 
 Dhaniflit'a. 
 
 Ewer. 
 
 Foicr, in the arm. ' 
 
 Satabhifha. 
 
 
 Many, in the fiream. 
 
 Piirvabhadrapada. 
 
 Filh. 
 
 Two, in the firfl fifli.. 
 
 Uttarabhadrapada . 
 
 
 Two, in the cord. 
 \ Thirty-two, in the fecond 
 
 Rcvatl. 
 
 
 i fifii and cord. 
 
 Wherevei-
 
 THE INDIAN ZODIACK. 343 
 
 Wherever the Indian drawing differs from the memorial verfe in the 
 Reinama/a, I have preferred the authority of the vv^riter to that of the 
 painter, who has drawn fome terreflrial things with fo Uttle fimihtude, 
 that we mufh not implicitly rely on his reprefentation of objedls merely 
 celeflial: he feems particularly to have erred in the flars o( D/janiJJji'a. 
 
 For the afliftance of thofe, who may be inclined to re-examine the 
 twenty-feven conftellations with a chart before them, I fubjoin a table 
 of the degrees, to which the nacp?atras extend refpe<5Lively from the 
 iirft ftar in the aflerifm of Aries, which we now fee near the beginning 
 of the lign 'Taurus, as it was placed in the ancient fphere. 
 
 N. 
 
 D. 
 
 M. 
 
 N. 
 
 D. 
 
 M. 
 
 N. 
 
 D. 
 
 M. 
 
 I. 
 
 13^- 
 
 20'. 
 
 X. 
 
 ^23'- 
 
 20'. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 253^. 
 
 20'. 
 
 II. 
 
 26^. 
 
 40'. 
 
 XL 
 
 146°. 
 
 40'. 
 
 XX. 
 
 266'^. 
 
 40'. 
 
 III. 
 
 40^ 
 
 0'. 
 
 XII. 
 
 160°. 
 
 . 
 
 XXI. 
 
 280°. 
 
 0'. 
 
 IV. 
 
 5f' 
 
 20'. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 ^73'- 
 
 20'. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 293"- 
 
 20'. 
 
 V. 
 
 66^. 
 
 40'. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 186^. 
 
 40'. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 306^ 
 
 40'. 
 
 VI. 
 
 So'^. 
 
 r 
 
 . 
 
 XV. 
 
 200°. 
 
 . 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 320^^. 
 
 / 
 
 0. 
 
 VII. 
 
 93^- 
 
 20'. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 213^ 
 
 20'. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 333°- 
 
 20'. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 106°. 
 
 40'. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 226". 
 
 40'. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 346^. 
 
 40'. 
 
 IX. 
 
 120°. 
 
 f 
 
 . 
 
 XVIIL 
 
 240°. 
 
 0. 
 
 XXVII, 
 
 • 360^ 
 
 f 
 
 0. 
 
 The afterifms of ihc Jirji column are in the iigns o^ Taurus, Gemini, 
 Cancer, Leo ; thofe of the fecond, in Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius % 
 and thofe of the third, in Capricornus, Aquarius, Pifces, Aries : we can- 
 not err much, therefore, in any feries of three conftellations ; for, by 
 counting 13"^ zo forwards and backwards, we find the fpaces occupied 
 by the two extremes, and the intermediate fpace belongs of courfe to 
 the middlemoft. It is not mcaned, that the divifion of the Hindu Zo- 
 diack into fuch fpaces is exa^fl to a minute, or that every flar of each 
 
 afterifm
 
 344 ON THE ANTIQUITY OF 
 
 aflerifm muft neceflarily be found in the fpace to which it belongs ; but 
 the computation will be accurate enough for our purpofe, and no lunar 
 manfion can be very remote from the path of the moon : how Father 
 SouciET could dream, that Vlfdcha was in the Northern Crown, I 
 can hardly comprehend ; but it furpaffes all comprehenfion, that M. 
 Bailly fhould copy his dream, and give reafons to fupport it; 
 efpecially as four ftars, arranged pretty much like thofe in the Indian 
 figure, prefent thcmfelves obvioufly near the balance or the fcorpion. 
 I have not the boldnefs to exhibit the individual liars in each manfion, 
 diflinguifhed in Bayer's method by Greek letters ; becaufe, though I 
 have little doubt, that the five fi:ars oi A^lejha, in the form of a wheel, 
 are ri, y, (^ ^, ;, of the Lion, and thofe of Mula, y, s, S, ^ (p, t, a-, v, c, ^, tt, 
 of the Sagittary, and though I think many of the others equally clear, 
 yet, where the number of ftars in a manfion is lefs than three, or even 
 than four, it is not eafy to fix on them with confidence ; and I muft 
 wait, until fome young Hindu aftronomer, with a good memory and 
 good eyes, can attend my leifure on ferene nights at the proper feafons, 
 to point out in the firmament itfelf the feveral flars of all the conftella- 
 tions, for which he can find names in the Sanfcrit language : the only 
 fi:ars, except thofe in the Zodiack, that have yet been difi:ind:ly named 
 to me, are the SeptarJ]:i, Dhniva, Arundhati^ ViJImiipad, Mdtrimandel, 
 and, in the fouthern hemifphere, Agcijlya, or Canopiis. The twenty- 
 feven Toga ftars, indeed, have particular names, in the order of the 
 7iacJ}:atraSy to which they belong ; and fince we learn, that the Hindus 
 have determined the latitude, longitude, and right afcenfion of each, it 
 might be ufeful to exhibit the lilt of them : but at prefent I can 
 onlv fubjoin the names of twenty-feven Togas, or divifions of the 
 Ecliptick. 
 
 ViJlKambha. Ganda. Parigha. 
 
 Priti. Vriddhi. Siva. 
 
 A'yiijlomat.
 
 
 ^-^ 
 ^ 
 ^ 
 
 .0
 
 ^5 N 
 
 
 
 1 
 I 
 
 be 
 
 
 
 
 
 ^• 
 
 
 I 
 
 i 
 
 
 ■-. ^ 
 
 
 rq 
 
 ■ ^ 
 
 ^ 
 ^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 s ^ 
 
 
 C> ^
 
 THE 
 
 INDIAN ZODI/ 
 
 VCK. 
 
 345 
 
 A'yufimat. 
 
 Dhruva. 
 
 S'tddha. 
 
 
 Saiibhagya. 
 
 Vydghdta. 
 
 Sddhya. 
 
 
 Sobhana. 
 
 Herjhana. 
 
 ' Subha. 
 
 
 Atiganda. 
 
 Vajra. 
 
 Slier a. 
 
 
 S near man. 
 
 Afrij. ^ 
 
 Brahman, 
 
 
 Dbriti. 
 
 Vyatipdta. 
 
 Indra. 
 
 
 Sulci. 
 
 Variyas. 
 
 Vaidhriti. 
 
 
 Having fhown in what manner the Hindus arrange the Zodiacal flars 
 with refped: to the fun and moon, let us proceed to our principal fub- 
 je(5l, the antiquity of that double arrangement. In the firft place, the 
 Brdhmans were always too proud to borrow their fcience from the 
 Greeks, Arabs, Moguls, or any nation of MUchclShas, as they call thofe, 
 who are ignorant of the Vedas, and have not fludied the language of the 
 Gods : they have often repeated to me the fragment of an old verfe, 
 which they now ufe proverbially, na nicho yavandtparah, or no bafe 
 creature can be lower than a Yavan ; by which name they formerly 
 meant an loiiian or Greek, and now mean a Mogul, or, generally, a 
 Mujelman. When I mentioned to different Pandits, at feveral times and 
 in feveral places, the opinion of Montucla, they could not prevail 
 on themfelves to oppofe it by ferious argument ; but fome laughed 
 heartily ; others, with a farcaftick fmile, faid it was a pleafant imagina- 
 tion ; and all feemed to think it a notion bordering on phrenfy. In 
 fadt, although the figures of the twelve Indian figns bear a wonderful 
 refemblance to thofe of the Grecian, yet they are too much varied for a 
 mere copy, and the nature of the variation proves them to be original -, 
 nor is the refemblance more extraordinary than that, which has often 
 been obferved, between our Gothick days of the week and thofe of the 
 Hindus, which are dedicated to the fame luminaries, and (what is yet 
 more fingular) revolve in the fame order : Ravi, the Sun ; Soma, the 
 Moon ; Mangala, Tuifco ; Budha, Woden ; Vrihafpati, Thor -, Sucra, 
 
 VOL. I. 3 A Freya ;
 
 346 ON THE ANTIQUITY OF 
 
 Freya ; Sani, Sater ; yet no man ever imagined, that the Indians bor- 
 rowed fo remarkable an arrangement from the Goths or Germans. On 
 the planets I will only obferve, that Sucra, the regent of Venus, is, 
 like all the reft, a male deity, named alfo Us an as, and believed to be a 
 fage of infinite learning ; but Zohrah, the Na'hi'd of the Perjians, is 
 a goddefs like the Freya of our Saxon progenitors: the drawing, 
 therefore, of the planets, which was brought into Bengal hy Mr. John- 
 son, relates to the Perjian fyftem, and reprefents the genii fuppofed to 
 prefide over them, exadlly as they are defcribed by the poet Ha'tifi': 
 " He bedecked the firmament with ftars, and ennobled this earth with 
 *' the race of men j he gently turned the aufpicious new moon of the 
 " feftival, like a bright jewel, round the ankle of the fky j he placed 
 " the Hindu Saturn on the feat of that reflive elephant, the revolving 
 " fphere, and put the rainbow into his hand, as a hook to coerce the 
 ** intoxicated beaft ; he made filken firings of fun-beams for the lute 
 " of Venus; and prefented Jupiter, who faw the felicity of true 
 '* religion, with a rofary of cluflering Pleiads. The bow of the fky 
 " became that of Mars, w^hen he was honoured with the command of 
 •' the celeftial hoft ; for God conferred fovereignty on the Sun, and 
 " fquadrons of flars were his army." 
 
 The names and forms of the lunar conflellations, efpecially of Bha- 
 
 rani and Abhijit, indicate a fimplicity of manners peculiar to an ancient 
 
 people ; and they differ entirely from thofe of the Arabian fyfrem, in 
 
 which the very firft afterifm appears in the dual number, becaufe it 
 
 confifls only of two ftars. Menzil, or the place of alighting, properly 
 
 fignifies 'x Jiation ox Jlage, and thence is ufed for an ordinary day's 
 
 journey ; and that idea feems better applied than wanfion to fo inccflant 
 
 a traveller as the moon : the 7fiendzilu'l kamar, or lunar fiages, of the 
 
 Arabs have twenty-eight names in the following order, the particle al 
 
 being underflood before every word : 
 
 S ha rata n.
 
 THE INDIAN ZODIACK. 
 
 347 
 
 Sharatan. 
 
 Nathrah. 
 
 Ghafr. 
 
 Dhabih'. 
 
 But'ain. 
 
 Tarf. 
 
 Zubaniyah. 
 
 Bulaa. 
 
 Thuravya. 
 
 Jabhah. 
 
 IcFil. 
 
 Suud. 
 
 Debaran. 
 
 Zubrah. 
 
 Kalb. 
 
 Akhbiya. 
 
 Hakaah. 
 
 Sarfah. 
 
 Shaulah. 
 
 Mukdim. 
 
 Hanaah. 
 
 Awwa. 
 
 Naaim. 
 
 Mukhir. 
 
 7. Dhiraa. 
 
 14. Simac. 
 
 21. Beldah. 28. 
 
 Rifha. 
 
 Now, if we can truft the Arabian lexicographers, the number of flars 
 in their feveral menzils rarely agrees with thofe of the Indians ; and 
 two fuch nations muft naturally have obferved, and might naturally 
 have named, the principal liars, near which the moon palTes in the 
 courfe of each day, without any communication on the fubjeft : there 
 is no evidence, indeed, of a communication between the Hindus and 
 Arabs on any fubjedt of literature or fcience j for, though we have 
 reafon to believe, that a commercial intercourfe lublifted in very early 
 times between Yemen and the weftern coaft of India, yet the Brdhmans, 
 who alone are permitted to read the fix Veddngas, one of which is the 
 aftronomical Sdjira, were not then commercial, and, moil probably, 
 neither could nor would have converfed with Arabian merchants. The 
 hoftile irruption of the Arabs into Hindujidn, in the eighth century, and 
 that of the Moguls under Chengi'z, in the thirteenth, were not likely 
 to change the aftronomical fyftem of the Hindus ; but the fuppofed 
 confequences of modern revolutions are out of the queftion j for, if any 
 hiftorical records be true, we know with as pofitive certainty, that 
 Amarsinh and Ca'lida's compofed their works before the birth of 
 Christ, as that Menander and Terence wrote before that im- 
 portant epoch : now the twelve Jigns and twenty-feven manfions are 
 mentioned, by the feveral nanies before exhibited, in a Sanfcrit voca- 
 bulary by the firft of thofe Indian authors, and the fecond of them fre- 
 quently alludes to Rdhini and the reft by name in his Fatal Ring, his 
 Children of the Sun, and his Birth of Cuma'ra; from which poem I 
 
 produce
 
 348 
 
 produce two lines, that my evidence may not feem to be colleded from 
 mere converfation : 
 
 Maitre muhurte s'as'alanch'hanena, 
 Yogam gatafuttarap'halganiiliu. 
 
 " When the flars of Uttarap'halgim had joined in a fortunate hour 
 <' the fawn-fpotted moon." 
 
 This tellimony being decifive againfl: the conjedlure of M. Mon- 
 TUCLA, I need not urge the great antiquity of Menu's Inftitutes, in 
 which the twenty-feven afterifms are called the daughters of Dacsha 
 and the conforts of So'ma, or the Moon, nor rely on the teftimony of 
 the Erdhmans, who afllire me with one voice, that the names of the 
 Zodiacal flars occur in the Vedas ; three of which I firmly believe, from 
 internal and external evidence, to be more than three thoufand years old. 
 Having therefore proved what I engaged to prove, I will clofe my eflay 
 with a general obfervation. The refult of Newton's refearches into 
 the hiftory of the primitive fphere was, " that the pradiice of obferving 
 ** the ftars began in 'Egypt in the days of Ammon, and was propagated 
 " thence by conqueft in the reign of his fon Sisac, into Africk, TLiirope, 
 " ■i.wA.Afia ; fince which time Atlas formed the fphere of the Lybians ; 
 ** Chiron, that of the Greeks; and the Chaldeans, a fphere of their 
 " own :" now I hope, on fome other occafions, to fatisfy the publick, 
 as I have perfe(flly fatisfied myfelf, that " the pra(5lice of obferving the 
 " flars began, with the rudiments of civil fociety, in the country of 
 " thofe, whom we call Chaldeans ; from which it was propagated into 
 " Egypt, India, Greece, Italy, and Scandinavia, before the reign of 
 *< S.isAC or Sa'cya, who by conqueft fpread a new fyftem of reli- 
 " gion and philofophy from the Nile to the Ganges about a thoufand 
 " years before Christ j but that Chiron and Atlas were allego- 
 ** rical or mythological perfonages, and ought to have no place in the 
 *' ferious hiflory of our fpecies."
 
 ON 
 
 THE LITERATURE OF THE HINDUS, 
 
 FROM THE SANSCRIT. 
 
 Communicated by Goverdhan Caul, tranjlated, whhaJJoort Commentary, 
 
 BV 
 
 The president. 
 
 THE TEXT. 
 
 X. HERE are eighteen Vidyas, or parts of true Knowledge, and fome 
 branches of Knowledge falfely fo called; of both which a fhort account 
 fliall here be exhibited. 
 
 The lirft four are the immortal Veda s evidently revealed by God ; 
 which are entitled, in one compound word, Rigyajuhfdmat' harva, or, in 
 feparate words. Rich, Yajufi, Sdman, and Afharvan : the Rigve'da con- 
 fifts oifiue fedions; the Yajurvcda, of eighty ~Jtx -, the Sdmaveda, of a 
 thou/and; and the At'harvaveda, of nine ; with eleven hundred s'dchas, 
 or Branches, in various divifions and fubdivifions. The Veda's in truth 
 are infinite; but were reduced by Vya'sa to this number and order; 
 the principal part of them is that, which explains the Duties of Man in 
 a methodical arrangement; and in ^^ fourth is a fyftem of divine ordi- 
 nances. 
 
 From thefe are deduced the four Upavedas, namely, Ayuf:, Gdnd- 
 harva, D-hanuJh, and St'hdpatya ; the firll of which, or Ayurveda, was 
 
 delivered
 
 350 ON THE LITERATURE 
 
 delivered to mankind by Brahma', Indra, Dhanwantari, and^^r 
 other Deities i and comprizes the theory of Diforders and Medicines, 
 with the pradlical methods of curing Difeafes. The fecond, or Mufick, 
 was invented and explained by Bharata: it is chiefly ufeful in raifing 
 the mind by devotion to the felicity of the Divine nature. The third 
 Upaveda was compofed by Viswamitra on the fabrication and ufe 
 of arms and implements handled in war by the tribe of Cfiatriya's. 
 Vis'wacarman revealed the fourth in various treatifes on Jixty-four 
 Mechanical Arts, for the improvement of fuch as exercife them. 
 
 Six Angdsy or Bodies of Learning, are alfo derived from the fame 
 fource : their names are, SkJJjay Calpa, Fydcarana, CJjhandas, yyotifiy 
 and NiriiSii. The Jirji was written by Pa'nini, an infpired Saint, on 
 the pronunciation of vocal founds j the, fecond contains a detail of religious 
 adls and ceremonies from the firft to the laft ; and from the branches of 
 thefe works a variety of rules have been framed by A's'wala'yana, 
 and others : the third, or the Grammar, entitled Pdn'iniya, conlifting of 
 eight ledlures or chapters (Vriddhiradaij, and fo forth), was the produc- 
 tion of three Rijhi's, or holy men, and teaches the proper difcriminations 
 of words in conflruftion ; but other lefs abftrufe Grammars, compiled 
 merely for popular ufe, are not confidered as Anga's: the fourth, or 
 Profody, was taught by a Muni, named Pingala, and treats of charms 
 and incantations in verfes aptly framed and varioufly meafured ; fuch 
 as the Gdyatri, and a thoufand others. Afironomy is the fifth of the 
 Veddngds, as it was delivered by Su'rya, and other divine perfons : it 
 is neceflary in calculations of time. The fixth, or NiruSli, was com- 
 pofed by Ya'sca (fo is the manufcript ; but, perhaps, it fhould be 
 Vya'sa) on the fignification of difficult words and phrafes in the Veda's. 
 
 Laftly, there are four Updnga's, called Pur/ma, Nydya, Mitminsdy 
 ind Dherma s'a/ira. Eighteen Purdna's, that of Brahma, and the 
 
 refl.
 
 OF THE HINDUS. 351 
 
 rcll:, were compofed by Vya'sa for the inftruftion and entertainment 
 of mankind in general. Nyaya is derived from the root «/, to acquire or 
 apprehend; and, in this fenfe, the books on apprehenfion, reafoning, and 
 judgement^ are called Nydya : the principal of thefe are the work ot 
 Gautama m fve chapters, and that of Cana'da in ten; both teach- 
 ing the meaning of facred texts, the difference between juft and un- 
 juft, right and wrong, and the principles of knowledge, all arranged 
 under twenty-three heads. Mlmdnsa is alio two-fold ; both fhowing what 
 adls are pure or impure, what objeds are to be defired or avoided, and 
 by what means the foul may afcend to the Firfl Principle : xht former, 
 or Carma Mimdnsa, comprized in twelve chapters, was written by 
 Jaimini, and difculTes queftions of moral Duties and Law ; next follows 
 the Updfand Cdnda in four lectures f Snncarpana and the reft), con- 
 taining a furvey of Religious Duties ; to which part belong the rules of 
 Sa'ndilya, and others, on devotion and duty to God. Such are the 
 contents of the Purva, or former, Mimdnsa. The Uttara, or latter^ 
 abounding in queftions on the Divine Nature and other fublime fpecu- 
 lations, was compofed by Vya'sa, in four chapters znd fixteen le6lions : 
 it may be confidered as the brain and fpring of all the Afiga's; it expofes 
 the heretical opinions of Ra'ma'nuja, Ma'dhwa, Vallabha, and 
 other Sophifts ; and, in a manner fuited to the comprehenfion of adepts, 
 it treats on the true nature of Gane'sa, Bha'scara, or the Sun, 
 Ni'lacanta, Lacshmi', and other y^^rw^ of One Divine Being. A 
 fmiilar work was written bv S'rt' S'ancara, denionftrating the Su- 
 preme Power, Goodnefs, and Eternity of God. 
 
 The Body of Law, called Smr7ti, conlifts of eighteen bocks, each 
 divided under three general heads, the duties of religion, the adminiftra- 
 tion of Jujlice, and the punifliment or expiation of crimes: they were 
 delivered, for the inftruftion of the human fpecies, by Menu, and other 
 facred perfonages. 
 
 As
 
 352 ON THE LITERATURE 
 
 As to Ethicks, the Fedas contain all that relates to the duties of 
 Kings j the Pur anas, what belongs to the relation of hufband and wife, 
 and the duties of friendfliip and fociety (which complete the triple 
 divifion) are taught fuccinftly in both : this double divifion of Anga's 
 and JJpdngas may be confidered as denoting the double benefit arifing 
 from them in theory and practice . 
 
 The Bharata and Rdmdyana, v^'hich are both Epick Poems, comprize 
 the mofl valuable part of ancient Hiftory. 
 
 For the information of the lower clalTes in religious knowledge, the 
 Pdfupata, the Panchardtra, and other works, fit for nightly meditation, 
 were compofed by Siva, and others, in an hundred and ninety-two parts 
 on difi*erent fubjefts. 
 
 What follow are not really divine, but contain infinite contradidlions. 
 Sdnchya is twofold, that with Is'wara and that without Is war a : the 
 former is intitled Pdtanjala in one chapter of four fedlions, and is ufeful 
 in removing doubts by pious contemplation ; the fecond, or Cdpila, is in 
 fix chapters on the production of all things by the union of Pracriti, 
 or Nature, and Purusha, or the Firjl Male : it comprizes alfo, in eight 
 parts, rules for devotion, thoughts on the invifible power, and other 
 topicks. Both thefe works contain a ftudied and accurate enumeration 
 of natural bodies and their principles; whence this philofophy is named 
 Sdnchya. Others hold, that it was fo called from its reckoning three 
 forts oi fain. 
 
 The Mimdnsd, therefore, is in two parts ; the Nydya, in tico ; and the 
 Sdnchya, in two ; and thefe fix Schools comprehend all the dodrine of 
 the Theifts. 
 
 Laft
 
 OF THE HINDUS. 353 
 
 Laft of all appears a work written by Buddha ; and there are alfo 
 fix AtheilHcal fyftems of Philofophy, entitled Yogachdra, Saudhdnta, 
 Vaibhdjhica, Mddhy arnica, Digambara, and Chdrvdc; all full of indeter- 
 minate phrafes, errors in fenfe, confufion between diftindt qualities, 
 incomprehenfible notions, opinions not duly weighed, tenets deflrudlive 
 of natural equality, containing a jumble of Atheifm and Ethicks j diflri- 
 buted, like our Orthodox books, into a number of fedtions, which omit 
 what ought to be expreilcd, and exprefs what ought to be omitted; 
 abounding in falfe proportions, idle proportions, impertinent propo- 
 iitions : fome aflert, that the heterodox Schools have no Updnga's ; 
 others, that they have fix Anga's, and as many Sdnga's, or Bodies and 
 other Appendices. 
 
 Such is the analyfis of univerfal knowledge, Fra5iical and Speculative. 
 
 THE COMMENTARY. 
 
 This firfl chapter of a rare Sanfcrit Book, entitled Vidydderfa, or a 
 View of Learning, is written in fo clofe and concife a ftyle, that fome 
 parts of it are very obfcure, and the whole requires an explanation. 
 From the beginning of it we learn, that the Veda's are confidered by the 
 Hindus as the fountain of all knowledge human and divine ; whence the 
 verfes of them are faid in the Gitd to be the leaves of that holy tree, to 
 which the Almighty Himfelf is compared : 
 
 nrdhwa miilam adhah sdcham as watt' ham prdhuravyayam 
 c/fhanddnf yafya perndni yajlam vedafa vedavit. 
 
 " The wife have called the Incorruptible One an As'watt'ha with its 
 " roots above and its branches below; the leaves of which are the 
 " facred meafures : he, who knows this tree, knows the Veda's." 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 3 B All
 
 354 ON THE LITERATURE 
 
 All the Pandits infill:, that As'nvatt'ha means the Pippala, or Religious 
 Fig-tree with heart-fhaped pointed and tremulous leaves j but the com- 
 parifon of heavenly knowledge, defcending and taking root on earth, to 
 the Fat'a, or great Indian Fig-tree, which has moil confpicuoufly its 
 roots on high, or at lead has radicating branches, would have been far 
 more exadl and fir iking. 
 
 The Veda's confifls of three Cdn'd'a's or General Heads; namely. 
 Car ma, Jnydna, Updfand, or Works, Faith, and WorJJnp; to tlie firfl of 
 which the Author of the Vidydderfa wifely gives the preference, as Menu 
 himfelf prefers imiverfal benevolence to the ceremonies of religion : 
 
 "Japyenaiva tu fanfiddhyedbrdhmano ndtrafanfayah : 
 Curyddanyatravd ciirydnmaitro brdhtiiana uchyate. 
 
 that is : "By filent adoration undoubtedly a Brahman attains holinefs ; 
 " but every benevolent man, whether he perform or omit that ceremony, 
 " is juflly ilyled a Brahman.'' This triple divifion of the Veda's may 
 feem at firfl to throw light on a very obfcure line in the Gita : 
 
 Traigunyavijl:iayah ve'dd ni/lraigunya bhavdrjuna 
 
 or, " The Veda's are attended with three qualities: be not thou a man 
 " ol three qualities, O Arjuna." 
 
 But feveral Pandits are of opinion, that the phrafe mufl relate to the 
 three guna's, or qualities of the mind, that of excellence, that of pajjion, 
 and that of darknefs ; from the lafl of which a Hero fhould be wholly 
 exempt, though examples of it occur in the Veda's, where animals arc 
 ordered to ht facrijicedy and where horrid incantations are inferted for 
 the deJlruSlion of enemies. 
 
 It
 
 OF THE HINDUS. 355 
 
 It is extremely lingular, as Mr. Wilkins has already obferved, that, 
 notwithftanding the fable of Brahma"s four mouths, each of which 
 uttered a Veda, yet moft ancient writers mention only three Vedas, in 
 order as they occur in the compound word Rigyajuhfdma ; whence it 
 is inferred, that the Afharvan was written or collefted after the three 
 firftj and the two following arguments, which are entirely new, will 
 ftrongly confirm this inference. In the eleventh book of Menu, a work 
 afcribed to the^r/? age of mankind, and certainly of high antiquity, the 
 At'harvan is mentioned by name, and ftyled the Veda of Veda's; a 
 phrafe, which countenances the notion of Da'ra' Shecu'h, who afTerts, 
 in the preface to his Upanipat, that ** the three firft Vedas are named 
 " feparately, becaufe the At'harvan is a corollary from them all, and 
 " contains the quintefTence of them." But this verfe of Menu, which 
 occurs in a modern copy of the work brought from Bdfidras, and 
 which would fupport the antiquity and excellence of the fourth Veda, 
 is entirely omitted in the heft copies, and particularly in a very fine one 
 written at Gay a, where it was accurately collated by a learned Brahman; fo 
 that, as Menu himfelf in other places names only three Veda's, we muft 
 believe this line to be an interpolation by fome admirer of the At'har- 
 van ; and fuch an artifice overthrows the very doilrine, which it was 
 intended to fuflain. 
 
 The next argument is yet flronger, fince it arifes from internal evi- 
 dence ; and of this we are now enabled to judge by the noble zeal of 
 Colonel Polier in colle(fting Indian curiofities ; which has been fo 
 judicioufly applied and fo happily exerted, that he now poflefl'es a com- 
 plete copy of the four Vedas in eleven large volumes. 
 
 On a curfory infpe<S;ion of thofe books it appears, that even a learner 
 of Sanfcrit may read a confiderable part of the At' harvaveda without a 
 dictionary; but that the ftyle of the other three is fo obfolete, as to feem 
 
 almoft
 
 350 ON THE LITERATURE 
 
 almofl a different dialedl: when we are informed, therefore, that few 
 Brdhmans at Bcindras can underftand any part of the Veda's, we mufl 
 prefume, that none are meant, but the Rich, Yajiijh, and Saman, with 
 an exception of the At\harvan, the language of which is comparatively 
 modern ; as the learned will perceive from the following fpecimen : 
 
 Tatra brahmavido ydnti dicJJ.myd tapasdfaha agnirmantatra nayatwagnir- 
 medbdn dedhdtiime, agnaye fiodhd. vdyurftidn tatra nay at u vdyuh prdndn 
 dedhdtii me, vdyuwe fwdha.Juryo ffidn tatra nayatu chacjlouh furyo dedhdtu 
 me, suryhyafwdha ; chandro man tatra nayatu manafchandrb dedhdtii me, 
 chandrdya Jwdhd. fomo mdn tatra nayatu pay ah fomo dedhdtu me, fomdya 
 fwdhd. Indro mdn tatra nayatu balamindro dedhdtu me, indrdya fwdhd. 
 dpo mdn tatra nayat'wdmritamm6patljl:)tatu, adbhyah fwdhd. yatra brah- 
 77iavido ydnti dicfiayd tapasdfaha, brahmd mdn tatra nayatu brahma brah-' 
 fnd dedhdtu me, brahma?ie fwdhd. 
 
 that is, " Where they, who know the Great One, go, through holy 
 " rites and through piety, thither may fre raife me ! May fire receive 
 my facrifices ! Myfterious praife to fire ! May air waft me thither ! 
 May air increafe my fpirits ! Myfterious praife to air ! May the Sun 
 draw me thither ! May the fun enlighten my eye! Myfterious praife 
 to the fun ! May the Moon bear me thither ! May the moon receive 
 my mind ! Myfterious praife to the moon ! May the plant Soma lead 
 me thither ! May Soma beftow on me its hallowed milk ! Myfterious 
 praife to Soma! May Indra, or iho. Jirmament, carry me thither! 
 May Indra give me, ftrength ! Myfterious praife to Indra! May 
 water bear me thither ! May water bring me the ftream of immorta- 
 lity ! Myfterious praife to the waters I Where they, who know the 
 Great One, go, through holy rites and through piety, thither may 
 Brahma' conduct me ! May Brahma' lead me to the Great One ! 
 Myfterious praife to Brahma'!" 
 
 Several 
 
 <(
 
 OF THE HINDUS. 35 7 
 
 Several other pafTages might have been cited from the firft book of 
 the Afharvari, particularly a tremendous incantation with confecrated 
 grafs, called Darbbha, and a fublime Hymn to Cdlay or time ; but a 
 fingle paflage will fuffice to fhow the ftyle and language of this extraor- 
 dinary work. It would not be fo eafy to produce a genuine extract from 
 the other Vt'da's: indeed, in a book, entitled Sivavedanta, written in 
 Sanfcrit, but in CdJJomirian letters, a ftanza from the Tajurveda is intro- 
 duced; which deferves for its fublimity to be quoted here ; though the 
 regular cadence of the verfes, and the polifhed elegance of the language, 
 cannot but induce a fufpicion, that it is a more modern paraphrafe of 
 fome text in the ancient Scripture : 
 
 natatra Juryo bhati nucha chandra tdracau, nhnd vidyuto bhdnti cuta iva 
 •vahnih: tameva bhdntam anubhdtifervam, tafya bhdfd fervamidam "vibhati. 
 
 that is, " There the fun fhines not, nor the moon and ftars : thefe light- 
 *' nings flafh not in that place; how fhould even fire blaze there'? God 
 " irradiates all this bright fubftance ; and by its effulgence the univerfe 
 ** is enlightened." 
 
 After all, the books on divine Knowledge, called Veda, or what is 
 known, and Sriiti, or what has been heard, from revelation, are flill fup- 
 pofed to be very numerous j and the four here mentioned are thought 
 to have been feledled, as containing all the information necelTary for 
 man. Mohsami Fa'ni', the very candid and ingenious author of the 
 Dabijlan, defcribes in his firft chapter a race of old Perjtan fages, who 
 appear from the whole of his account to have been Hindus ; and we 
 cannot doubt, that the book of Maha'ba'd, or Menu, which was 
 written, he fays, in a celefiial dialeSi, means the Veda ; fo that, as 
 Zera'tusht was only a reformer, we find in India the true fource 
 of the ancient Perfian religion. To this head belong the numerous 
 
 tantra^
 
 358 ON THE LITERATURE 
 
 Tantra, Mantra, Agama, and Nigama, Sajlra's, which confift of incan- 
 tations and other texts of the Fcdas, with remarks on the occafions, on 
 which they may be fuccefsfully applied. It muft not be omitted, that 
 the Commentaries on the Hindu Scriptures, among which that of Va- 
 siSHTHA feems to be reputed the moft excellent, are innumerable; 
 but, while we have accefs to the fountains, we need not wafte our time 
 in tracing the rivulets. 
 
 From the P^edas are immediately deduced the pradtical arts of Chiriir- 
 qery and Medicine, Mufick and Dancing, Archery, which comprizes the 
 whole art of war, and ArchiteBure, under which the fyftem of Me- 
 chanical arts is included. According to the Pandits, who inflrudled 
 Abu'lfazl, each of the four Scriptures gave rife to one of the 
 Upavedas, or Sub-fcriptures, in the order in which they have been 
 mentioned ; but this exadinefs of analogy feems to favour of refine- 
 ment. 
 
 Infinite advantage may be derived by Europeans from the various 
 Medical books in Sanfcrit, which contain the names and defcriptions of 
 Indian plants and minerals, with their ufes, difcovered by experience, in 
 curing diforders : there is a vafl: collecftion of them from the Cheraca, 
 which is confidered as a work of SivA, to the Roganirupana and the 
 Niddna, which are comparatively modern. A number of books, in 
 profe and verfe, have been written on Mufick, with fpecimens of Hindu. 
 airs in a very elegant notation ; but the Silpa s'djira, or Body of Treatifes 
 on Mechanical arts, is believed to be loft. 
 
 Next in order to thefe are the fix Veddngds, three of which belong 
 to Grammar; one relates to religious ceremonies ; a fifth to the whole 
 compafs of Mathematicks, in which the author of Lilawati was efteem- 
 ed the moft fkilful man of his time; and ihcfxth, to the explanation 
 
 of
 
 OF THE HINDUS. 35q 
 
 of obfcure words or phrafes in the Vedas. The grammatical work, of 
 Pa'nini, a writer fuppofed to have been infpired, is entitled SiJdhdnta 
 Caumudi, and is fo abflrufe, as to require the lucubrations of many 
 years, before it can be perfedlly underftood. When Cds'indt'ha Sermariy 
 who attended Mr. Wilkins, was allied what he thought of the 
 Pari inly a, he anfwered very expreffively, that " it was a foreft;" but, 
 fince Grammar is only an inflrument, not the end, of true knowledo-e, 
 there can be little occafion to travel over fo rough and gloomy a pathj 
 which contains, however, probably fome acute fpeculations in Meta- 
 phyficks. The Sanfcrit Profody is eafy and beautiful: the learned will 
 find in it almoft all the meafures of the Greeks; and it is remarkable, 
 that the language of the Brdhmans runs very naturally into Sapphicks, 
 Alcaicks^ and lambicks, Aftronomical works in this language are ex- 
 ceedingly numerous : feventy-nine of them are fpecified in one lift; 
 and, if they contain the names of the principal ftars vifible in Indian 
 with obfervations on their pofitions in different ages, what difcoveries 
 may be made in Science, and what certainty attained in ancient Chro- 
 nology ? 
 
 Subordinate to thefe Angas (though the reafon of the arrangement is 
 not obvious) are the feries of Sacred Poems, the Body oi Law, and the 
 j/fof Philofophical s'ajira's; which the author of our text reduces to two, 
 each conlilling of two parts, and rejeifls a third, in two parts alfo, as 
 not perfedlly orthodox, that is, not ftridlly conformable to his own 
 principles. 
 
 The firft Indiaii Poet was Va'lmi'ci, author of the Rdmdyana, a 
 complete Epick Poem on one continued, interefting, and heroick, 
 adlion ; and the next in celebrity, if it be not fuperior in reputation 
 for holinefs, was the Mahdbhdrata of Vya'sa : to him are afcribed the 
 facred Purdnds, which are called, for their excellence, the Eighteen,, 
 
 and.
 
 360 ON THE LITERATURE 
 
 and which have the following titles : Brahme, or the Great One, 
 Pedma, or the Lotos, Bra'hma'nd'a, or the Mundane Egg, and 
 Agni, or Fire (thefe four relate to the Creation), Vishnu, or the Per- 
 vaiier, Garud A, or his Eagle, the Transformations of Brahma', Siva, 
 LiNGA, Na'reda, fon of Brahma', Scanda fon of Siva, Mar- 
 cande'ya, or the Immortal Man, and Bhawishya, or the Prediction 
 oi Futurity (thefe «/«? belong to the attributes ^.nA powers oi th.Q. Deity), 
 and y^wr others, Matsya, Vara'ha, Cu'rma, Va'mena, or as many- 
 incarnations of the Great One in his characfler oi Prefcrver; all contain- 
 ing ancient traditions embelliflied by poetry or difguifed by fable : the 
 eighteenth is the Bha'gawata, or Life of Crishna, with which the 
 fame Poet is by fome imagined to have crowned the whole feries ; 
 though others, with more reafon, aflign them different compofers. 
 
 The fyftem of Hindu Law, befides the fine work, called Menu- 
 SMRiTi, or " what is remembered from Menu," that of Ya jnya- 
 WALCYA, and thofe oifixteen other Mwii's, with Commentaries on them 
 all, confifls of many tracfts in high eftimation, among which thofe cur- 
 rent in Bengal are, an excellent treatife on Inheritances by Ji'mu'ta 
 Va'hana, and a complete Digeji, in twenty-feven volumes, compiled a 
 few centuries ago by Raghunandan, the Tribonian oi India, whole 
 work is the grand repofitory of all that can be known on a fubjed: fo 
 curious in itfelf, and fo interefting to the Britijh Government. 
 
 Of the Philofophical Schools it will be fufficient here to remark, that 
 the firft Nydya feems analogous to the Peripatetick, the fecond, fome- 
 times called Vaisejlnca, to the lonick, the two Mimdnsas, of which the 
 fecond is often diftinguiflied by the name of Veddnta, to the Platonick, 
 the firft Sdnchya to the Italick, and the fecond, or Pdtanjala, to the 
 Stoick, Philofophy; fo that Gautama correfponds with Aristotle; 
 Cana'da, with Thales; Jaimini with Socrates j Vya'sa with 
 
 Plato j
 
 OF THE HINDUS. 30 1 
 
 Plato; Capila with Pythagoras; and Patanjali with Zeno: 
 but an accurate comparifon between the Grecian and Indian Schools 
 would require a conllderable volume. The original works of thofe 
 Philolophers are very fuccind; ; but, like all the other Sdjiras, they are 
 explained, or obfcured, by the Upaderfana or Commentaries without end : 
 one of the fineft compofitions on the Philofophy of the Veddnta is 
 entitled Toga Vdsijhfha, and contains the inftruftions of the great 
 Vasishtha to his pupil, Ra'ma, king oi Ayodhya, 
 
 It refults from this analyfis of Hindu Literature, that the Vida^ 
 Upaveda, Fc'ddnga, Piirdna, Dherma, and Ders'ana are the Six great 
 Sdjiras, in which all knowledge, divine and human, is fuppofed to be 
 comprehended ; and here we mufl: not forget, that the word Sdjira, de- 
 rived from a root fignifying to ordain, means generally an Ordinance, and 
 particularly a Sacred Ordinance delivered by infpiration : properly, there- 
 fore, this word is applied only to facred literature, of which the text 
 exhibits an accurate fketch. 
 
 The Sudras, or fourth clafs of Hindus, are not permitted to ftudy the 
 Jix proper Sdjlra's before-enumerated ; but an ample field remains for 
 them in the fludy of profane literature, comprized in a multitude of 
 popular books, which correfpond with the feveral Sdjiras, and abound 
 with beauties of every kind. All the tra6ts on Medicine muft, indeed 
 be ftudied by the Vaidyas, or thofe, who are born Phyficians ; and they 
 have often more learning, with far lefs pride, than any of the Brdhmans: 
 they are ulually Poets, Grammarians, Rhetoricians, Moralifts; and may 
 be elleemed in general the moft virtuous and amiable of the Hindus. 
 Inftead of the Vedas they ftudy the Rdjaniti, or InJlruBion of Princes, 
 and inllead oi Law, the Nitifijh-a, or general fyftem of Ethicks: their 
 Sahitia, or Cdvya Sdjira, confifts of innumerable poems, written 
 chiefly by the Medical tribe, and fupplying the place of the Purdna's, 
 
 VOL. I. 3 c fince
 
 362 ON THE LITERATURE 
 
 fince they contain all the {lories of the Rdmdyam, Bhdraia, and 
 Bbagawata: they have accefs to many treatifes oi Alancdra, or Rheto- 
 rick, with a variety of works in modulated profe; to Vpdchydna, or 
 Civil Hiilory, called alfo Rdjatarangini; to the Ndtaca, which anfwers 
 to the Gdndharvaveda, confifting of regular Dramatick pieces in Sanfcrit 
 and Prdcrit: befides which they commonly get by heart fome entire 
 Diiflionary and Grammar. The beft Lexicon or Vocabulary was com- 
 pofed in verfe, for the affiftance of the memory, by the illuflrious Ama- 
 RASiNHA; but there Q.rt feventeen others in great repute: the be/l 
 Grammar is the Mugdhabodha^ or the Beauty of Knowledge, written by 
 Gofivdmiy named Vo'pade'va, and comprehending, in two hundred 
 fliort pages, all that a learner of the language can have occafion to 
 know. To the CoJJjas, or didlionaries, are ufually annexed very ample 
 Tkd's, or 'Etymological Commentaries. 
 
 We need fay no more of the heterodox writings, than that thofe 
 on the religion and philofophy of Buddha feem to be connedled with 
 fome of the moll: curious parts of Jljiatick Hiftory, and contain, per- 
 haps, all that could be found in the Pali, or facred language of the 
 Ezdern Indian peninfula. It is aflerted in Bengal, that Amarasinha 
 himfelf was a Bauddha-, but he feems to have been a theifl of tolerant 
 principles, and, like Abu'lfazl, defirous of reconciling the different 
 religions of India. 
 
 Wherever we dire<5t our attention to Hindu Literature, the notion of 
 infinity prefents itfelfj and the longefl life would not be fufficient for 
 the perufal of near five hundred thoufand ftanzas in the Purdna's, with 
 a million more perhaps in the other works before mentioned : we may, 
 however, felecft the beft from each Sdjlra, and gather the fruits of 
 fcience, without loading ourfelves with the leaves and branches j while 
 we have the pleafure to find, that the learned Hindus, encouraged by 
 
 the
 
 OF THE HINDUS. 353 
 
 the mildnefs of our government and manners, are at leafl: as eager to 
 communicate their knowledge of all kinds, as we can be to receive it. 
 Since Europeans are indebted to the Dutch for almoft all they know of 
 Arabick, and to the French for all they know of Chinefe, let them now 
 receive from our nation the firft accurate knowledge of Sanfcrit, and of 
 the valuable works compofed in it; but, if they wifh to form a corre(fl: 
 idea of Indian religion and literature, let them begin with forgetting all 
 that has been written on the fubjed;> by ancients or moderns, before the 
 publication of the Gita.
 
 ON 
 
 THE SECOND CLASSICAL BOOK 
 
 OF THE CHINESE. 
 
 BY 
 
 The president. 
 
 JL HE vicinity of C/jt'na to our Indian territories, from the capital of 
 which there are not more than ^x hundred miles to the province of 
 Yi/na'n, mufl neceffarily draw our attention to that moil ancient and 
 wonderful Empire, even if we had no commercial intercourfe with its 
 more diftant and maritime provinces ; and the benefits, that might be 
 derived from a more intimate connexion with a nation long famed for 
 their ufeful arts and for the valuable produdlions of their country, are 
 too apparent to require any proof or illuftration. My own inclinations 
 and the courfe of my ftudies lead me rather to confider at prefent their 
 laws, politicks, and morals, with which their general literature is clofely 
 blended, than their manufactures and trade; nor will I fpare either pains 
 or expenfe to procure tranflations of their mofl approved law-traBs ; 
 that I may return to Europe with diftindl: ideas, drawn from the fountain- 
 head, of the wifeft Afiatick legiflation. It will probably be a long time 
 before accurate returns can be made to my inquiries concerning the 
 Chinefe Laws -y and, in the interval, the Society will not, perhaps, be 
 difpleafed to know, that a tranflation of a nioft venerable and excellent 
 work may be expeded from Canton through the kind afliftance of an 
 ineflimable correfpondent. 
 
 According
 
 366 ON THE SECOND CLASSICAL 
 
 According to a Chinefe Writer, named Li Yang Ping, * the ancient 
 
 * charaders ufed in his country were the outlines of vifible objedls 
 
 * earthly and celeftialj but, as things merely intelledual could not be 
 
 * exprefled by thofe figures, the grammarians of China contrived to re- 
 
 * prefent the various operations of the mind by metaphors drawn from 
 
 * the produdlions of nature : thus the idea of roughnefs and of rotun- 
 
 * dity, of motion and reft, were conveyed to the eye by figns reprefent- 
 
 * ing a mountain, the iky, a river and the earth j the figures of the fun, 
 
 * the moon, and the ftars, differently combined, ftood for fmoothnefs 
 ' and fplendour, for any thing artfully wrought, or woven with delicate 
 ' workmanfliip ; extenfion, growth, increafe, and many other qualities 
 ' were painted in charadlers taken from clouds, from the firmament, 
 ' and from the vegetable part of the creation; the different ways of 
 
 * moving, agility and flownefs, idlenefs and diligence, were expreffed by 
 « various infedls, birds, fifh, and quadrupeds : in this manner paffions 
 
 * and fentiments were traced by the pencil, and ideas not fubjed to any 
 ' fenfe were exhibited to the fight ; until by degrees new combinations 
 ' were invented, new expreffions added ; the charadlers deviated imper- 
 < ceptibly from their primitive iliape, and the Chinefe language became 
 ' not only clear and forcible, but rich and elegant in the higheft degree.' 
 
 In this language, fo ancient and fo wonderfully compofed, are a mul- 
 titude of books abounding in ufeful, as well as agreeable, knowledge ; 
 but the higheft clafs confifts of Five works; one of which at leaft every 
 Chinefe, who afpires to literary honours, muft read again and again, until 
 he poffefs it perfetftly. 
 
 'Witfirfl is purely Hijlorical, containing annals of the empire from the 
 fwo-thoufand-three-hundred-thirty-feventh year before Christ: it is en- 
 titled Shu'king, and a verfion of it has been publiflied in France ; to 
 which country we are indebted for the moft authentick and moft valu- 
 able
 
 BOOK OF THE CHINESE. 367 
 
 able fpecimens of Chinefe Hiftory and Literature, from the compofitions, 
 which preceded thofe of Homer, to the poetical works of the prefent 
 Emperor, who feems to be a man of the brightefl genius and the moil 
 amiable affetflioas. We may fmile, if we pleafe, at the levity of the 
 Frenchy as they laugh witliout fcruple at our ferioufnefs ; but let us not 
 fo far undervalue our rivals in arts and in arms, as to deny them their 
 juft commendation, or to relax our efforts in that noble ftruggle, by 
 which alone we can preferve our own eminence. 
 
 The Second Claffical work of the Chinefe contains three hundred Odes, 
 or fliort Poems, in praife of ancient fovereigns and legiflators, or de- 
 fcriptive of ancient manners, and recommending an imitation of them in 
 the difcharge of all publick and domeftick duties : they abound in wife 
 maxims, and excellent precepts, • their whole doiftrine, according to 
 
 * Cun-Jii-tfu, in the Lu'nyu or Moral Difcourfes , being reducible to 
 ' this grand rule, that we fhould not even entertain a thought of any 
 
 * thing bafe or culpable;' but the copies of the Shi' King, for that is 
 the title of the book, are fuppofed to have been much disfigured, fince 
 the time of that great Philofopher, by fpurious paflages and exception- 
 able interpolations; and the ftyle of the Poems is in fome parts too me- 
 taphorical, while the brevity of other parts renders them obfcure; though 
 many think even this obfcurity fublime and venerable, like that of ancient 
 cloyflers and temples, 'Shedding, as MiltoiV expreffes it, a dim reUgious 
 ' light.' There is another paflage in the Lu'nyu', which deferves to be 
 fet down at length : ' Why, my fons, do you not ftudy the book of 
 
 * Odes ? If we creep on the ground, if we lie ufelefs and inglorious> 
 ' thofe poems will raife us to true glory: in them we fee, as in a mirror, 
 ' what may beft become us, and what will be unbecoming; by their 
 
 * influence we fhall be made focial, affable, benevolent ; for, as mufick 
 
 * combines founds in juff melody, fo the ancient poetry tempers and 
 
 * compofes our paffions : the Odes teach us our duty to our parents at 
 
 ' home.
 
 368 ON THE SECOND CLASSICAL 
 
 * home, and abroad to our prince j they inftrudt us alfo delightfully in 
 ' the various produdions of nature.' ' Haft thou fludied, faid the Phi- 
 
 * lofopher to his fon Peyu, the firft of the three hundred Odes on the 
 
 * nuptials of Prince Ve'nva'm, and the virtuous Tai Jin ? He, who 
 
 * fludies them not, refembles a man with his face againft a wall, unable 
 ' to advance a ftep in virtue and wifdom.' Moft of thofe Odes are near 
 three thoufand years old, and fome, if we give credit to the Chinefe 
 annals, confiderably older ; but others are fomewhat more recent, hav- 
 ing been compofed under the later Emperors of the third family, called 
 Sheu. The work is printed in four volumes; and, towards the end of 
 thtfrji, we find the Ode, which Couplet has accurately tranflated at 
 the beginning of the Ta' hio, or Great Science, where it is finely am- 
 plified by the Philofopher : I produce the original from the Shi' King 
 Itfelf, and from the book, in which it is cited, together with a double 
 verfion, one verbal and another metrical ; the only method of doing 
 juftice to the poetical compofitions of the Afiaticks. It is a panegyrick 
 on Vucu'n, Prince of Guey in the province of Honang, who died, near 
 a century old, in the thirteenth year of the Emperor Vi^^gvk^g, feven 
 hundred and ffty-fix years before the birth of Christ, or one hundred 
 znA. forty-eight, according to Sir Isaac Newton, after the taking of 
 Troy, fo that the Chinefe Poet might have been contemporary with 
 Hesiod and Homer, or at leaft muft have written the Ode before the 
 Iliad and OdyJJ'ey were carried info Greece by Lycurgus. 
 
 The verbal tranflation of the thirty-two original charafters is this : 
 
 * Behold yon reach of the river Ki; 
 
 * Its green reeds how luxuriant ! how luxuriant ! 
 
 * Thus is our Prince adorned with virtues j 
 
 * As a carver, as a filer, of ivory, 
 
 17 18 1920 
 
 ' As a cutter, as a polilher, of gems. 
 
 ' O how
 
 /.v / 
 
 C. £^ 
 
 V////^-'JC 
 
 pa.j(ip 
 
 of ''jt si? 
 
 i 
 
 5C 
 
 i: 
 
 tt
 
 BOOK OF THE CHINESE. 359 
 
 ' O how elate and fagacious ! O how dauntlefs and compofed ! 
 
 * How worthy of fame ! How worthy of reverence ! 
 
 IS 17:8 26 
 
 ' We have a Prince adorned with virtues, 
 29 30 31 32 
 
 * Whom to the end of time we can not forget. 
 
 The PARAPHRASE. 
 
 Behold, where yon blue riv'let glides 
 
 Along the laughing dale ; 
 Light reeds bedeck, its verdant fides. 
 
 And frolick in the gale: 
 
 So fhines our Prince ! In bright array 
 
 The Virtues round him wait ; 
 And fweetly fmil'd th' aufpicious day, 
 
 That rais'd Him o'er our State. 
 
 As pliant hands in fhapes refin'd 
 
 Rich iv'ry carve and fmoothe. 
 His Laws thus mould each dudlile mind. 
 
 And every paflion foothe. 
 
 As gems are taught by patient art 
 
 In fparkling ranks to beam. 
 With Manners thus he forms the heart. 
 
 And fpreads a gen'ral gleam. 
 
 What foft, yet awful, dignity ! 
 
 What meek, yet manly, grace ! 
 What fweetnefs dances in his eye. 
 
 And bloflbms in his face ! 
 
 VOL. I. 3d So
 
 370 ON THE SECOND CLASSICAI 
 
 So fhines our Prince ! A fky-born crowd 
 
 Of Virtues round him blaze : 
 Ne'er fhall Oblivion's murky cloud 
 
 Obfcure his deathlefs praife. 
 
 The predidion of the Poet has hitherto been accomplilhed ; but he 
 little imagined, that his compolition would be admired, and his Prince 
 celebrated in a language not then formed, and by the natives of regions 
 fo remote from his own. 
 
 In the tenth leaf of the Ta' Hio a beautiful comparifon is quoted 
 from another Ode in the Shi' King, which deferves to be exhibited in 
 the fame form with the preceding : 
 
 ' The peach-tree, how fair 1 how graceful I 
 * Its leaves, how blooming ! how pleafant ! 
 
 3010 II ^ 
 
 ' Such is a bride, when fhe enters her bridegroom's houie, 
 ' And pays due attention to her whole family. 
 
 The fimile may thus be rendered : 
 
 Gay child of Spring, the garden's queen. 
 Yon peach-tree charms the roving fight : 
 
 Its fragrant leaves how richly green ! 
 Its bloffoms how divinely bright ! 
 
 So foftly fmiles the blooming bride 
 
 By love and confcious Virtue led 
 O'er her new manfion to prefide. 
 
 And placid joys around her fpread. 
 
 The
 
 BOOK OF THE CHINESE. 3/1 
 
 The next leaf exhibits a comparifon of a different nature, rather 
 fublime than agreeable, and conveying rather cenfure than praife: 
 
 O how horridly impends yon fouthern mountain! 
 
 56 ' ^ 1 
 
 Its rocks in how vaft, how rude a heap ! 
 
 Thus 'loftily thou 'littefl:, o' minifter of YN ; 
 
 All the people look up to thee with dread. 
 
 Which may be thus paraphrafed: 
 
 See, where yon crag's imperious height 
 
 The funny highland crowns. 
 And, hideous as the brow of night, 
 
 Above the torrent frowns ! 
 
 So fcowls the Chief, whofe will is law, 
 
 Regardlefs of our ftate; 
 While millions gaze with painful awe, 
 
 With fear allied to hate. 
 
 It was a very ancient practice in China to paint or engrave moral 
 fentences and approved verfes on veffels in conftant ufe; as the words 
 Renew Thyself Daily were infcribed on the bafon of the Emperor 
 Tang, and the poem of Kien Long, who is now on the throne, in 
 praife of Tea, has been publifhed on a fet of porcelain cups; and, if the 
 defcription juft cited of a felhfli and infolent ftatefman were, in the 
 fame manner, conftantly prefented to the eyes and attention of rulers, 
 it might produce fome benefit to their fubjefts and to themfelves ; efpe- 
 cially if the comment of Tsem Tsu, who may be called the Xenophon, 
 as CuN Fu' Tsu' was the Socrates, and Mem Tsu the Plato, of 
 China, were added to illullrate and enforce it. 
 
 If
 
 372 ON THE SECOND CLASSICAL 
 
 If the reft: of the three hundred Odes be fimilar to the fpecimens ad- 
 duced by thofe great moralift:s in their works, which the French have 
 made pubUck, I fliould be very felicitous to procure our nation the ho- 
 nour of bringing to Ught the/fffoW Claffical book of the Chinefe. The 
 third, called Yeking, or the book of Changes, believed to have been 
 written by Fo, the Hermes of the Eaft:, and confift:ing of right lines 
 varioufly difpofed, is hardly intelligible to the mofl: learned Mandarins; 
 and CuN Fu Tsu' himfelf, who was prevented by death from accom- 
 plifliing his defign of elucidating it, was diffatisfied with all the inter- 
 pretations of the earlieft; commentators. As to xh.&Jifth, or LiKi, which 
 that excellent man compiled from old monuments, it confift:s chiefly of 
 the Chinefe ritual, and of trads on Moral Duties; but the. fourth entitled 
 Chung Cieu, or Spring and Autumn, by which the fame incomparable 
 writer meaned the fouriJJ.nng fliate of an Empire, under a virtuous mo- 
 narch, and tht fall of kingdoms, under bad governors, muft: be an inte- 
 reftiing work in every nation. The powers, however, of an individual 
 are fo limited, and the field of knowledge is fo vaft:, that I dare not 
 promife more, than to procure, if any exertions of mine will avail, a 
 complete tranflation of the Shi' King, together with an authentick 
 abridgement of the Chinefe Laws, civil and criminal. A native of Can- 
 ton, whom I knew fome years ago in England, and who pafled his firft 
 examinations with credit in his way to literary diftinftions, but was 
 afterwards allured from the purfuit of learning by a profpedl of fuccefs 
 in trade, has favoured me with the Three Hundred Odes in the original, 
 together with the Lu'n Yu', a faithful verfion of which was publifhed 
 at Paris near a century ago ; but he feems to think, that it would re- 
 quire three or four years to comple'te a tranflation of them; and Mr. 
 Cox informs me, that none of the Chinefe, to whom he has accefs, 
 poffrfs leifure and perfeverance enough for fuch a tafk; yet he hopes, with 
 the afliftance of Whang Atong, to fend me next feafon fome of the 
 poems tranflated into EngUfj, A little encouragement would induce 
 
 this
 
 BOOK OF THE CHINESE. 373 
 
 this young Chinefe to vifit India, and fome of his countrymen would, 
 perhaps, accompany him ; but, though confiderable advantage to the 
 publick, as well as to letters, m-ght be reaped from the knowledge and 
 ingenuity of fuch emigrants, yet we muft wait for a time of greater na- 
 tional wealth and profperity, before fuch a meafure can be formally re- 
 commended by us to our patrons at the helm of government.
 
 THE LUNAR YEAR OF THE HINDUS. 
 
 BY 
 
 The president. 
 
 Jrl WING lately met by accident with a wonderfully curious tradl 
 of the learned and celebrated Raghunandana, containing a full ac- 
 count of all the rites and ceremonies in the lunar year, I twice pe- 
 rufed it with eagernefs, and prefent the Society with a corredt out- 
 line of it, in the form of a calendar, iiluilrated with fhort notes : the 
 many paffages quoted in it from the Vedas, the Purdnas, the Sdjlras of 
 law and aftronomy, the Culpa, or facred ritual, and other works of im- 
 memorial antiquity and reputed holinefs, would be thought highly in- 
 terefting by fuch as take pleafure in refearches concerning the Hindus j 
 but a tranflation of them all would fill a confiderable volume, and 
 fuch only are exhibited as appeared mofl diftinguiilied for elegance or 
 novelty. 
 
 The lunar year of three hundred and fixty days, is apparently more 
 ancient in India than the folar, and began, as we may infer from a' verfc 
 in the Matfya, witli the month A'fwini fo called, becaufe the moon was 
 at the full, when that name was impofed, in the firft lunar ftation of 
 the Hindu ecliptick, the origin of which, being diametrically oppofite 
 to the bright ftar Cbitra, may be afcertained in our fphere with exadt- 
 nefs J but, although moft of the Indian fafts and feftivals be regulated by 
 the days of the moon, yet the mofl: folemn and remarkable of them 
 
 have
 
 376 THE LUNAR YEAR 
 
 have a manifefl: reference to the fuppofed motions of the fun ; the 
 Durgotfava and Holica relating as clearly to the autumnal and vernal 
 equinoxes, as the fleep and rife of Vishnu relate to the folftices : the 
 Sancrantisy or days on which the fun enters a new iign, efpecially thofe 
 o^ Tula and Mejha, are great feftivals of the folar year, which anciently 
 began with Paujha near the winter folftice, whence the month Marga- 
 s'irfia has the name oi A'grahdyana, or the year is next before. The 
 twelve months, now denominated from as many ftations of the moon, 
 feem to have been formerly peculiar to the lunar year ; for the old 
 folar months, beginning with Chaitra, have the following very different 
 names in a curious text of the Veda on the order of the fix Indian 
 feafons ; Madhii, Mddhava, Sucra, Such', Nabhas., Nabhafya, I fa, Urja, 
 Sahas, Sahafya, Tapas, Tapajya. It is neceffary to premife, that the 
 muchya chandra, or primary lunar month, ends with the conjun<ftion, 
 and the gauna chandra, or fecondary, with the oppofition : both modes of 
 reckoning are authorized by the feveral Purdnas ; but, although the 
 aftronomers of Cqfi have adopted the gauna month, and place in Bhd~ 
 dra the birth-day of their paftoral god, the muc'hya is here preferred, 
 becaufe it is generally ufed in this province, and efpecially at the 
 ancient feminary of Brdhf?iens at Mdydpur, now called Navadwipa, 
 becaufe a new iflajid has been formed by the Ganges on the lite of the 
 old academy. The Hindus define a tit' hi, or lunar day, to be the time, 
 in which the moon pafl'es through twelve degrees of her path, and 
 to each pacfa, or half month, they allot fifteen tit' his, though they 
 divide the moon's orb inio fixteen phafes, named Calds, one of which 
 they fuppofe confiant, and compare to the firing of a necklace or chap- 
 let, round which are placed moveable gems and flowers : the Mabd- 
 cald is the day of the conjundlion, called ^w«, ox Amd'vdfyd, and defined 
 by GoBHiL A, the day of the neareji approach to the fun ; on which obfe- 
 quies are performed to the manes of the Pitris, or certain progenitors 
 of the human race, to whom the darker fortnight is peculiarly facred. 
 
 Many
 
 OF THE HINDUS. 377 
 
 Many fubtile points are difcufled by my author concerning the junSlion 
 of two or even three lunar days in forming one fafl: or feftival ; but 
 fuch a detail can be ufeful only to the Brahmens, who could not guide 
 their flocks, as the Raja of Crijhnanagar aflfures me, without the aflift- 
 ance of Raghunandan. So fond are the Hindus of mythological 
 perfoniiications, that they reprefent each of the thirty tit'his as a 
 beautiful nymph j and the Gayatritantra, of which Sannyasi made me 
 a prefent, though he confidered it as the holiefl book after the Veda, 
 contains flowery defcriptions of each nymph, much refembling the de- 
 lineations of the thirty Raginis, in the treatifes on Indian muiick. 
 
 In what manner the Hindus contrive fo far to reconcile the lunar and 
 folar years, as to make them proceed concurrently in their ephemerides, 
 might eafily have been fhown by exhibiting a verfion of the Nadiya or 
 Vardnes almanack ; but their modes of intercalation form no part of my 
 prefent fubjedl, and would injure the fimplicity of my work, without 
 throwing any light on the religion of the Hindus. The following tables 
 have been very diligently compared by myfelf with two Sanfcrit alma- 
 nacks, with a fuperficial chapter in the work of Abu'lfazl, and with 
 a lifl: oi Indian holidays publifhed at Calcutta; in which there are nine 
 or ten fafl:s called Jayajitis, diflinguifhed chiefly by the titles of the 
 Avatdras, and twelve or thirteen days marked as the beginnings of as 
 many Calpas, or very long periods, an hundred of which conftitute 
 Brahma"s age ; but having found no authority for thofe holidays, I have 
 omitted them: feme fefliivals, however, or fails, which are pafled over 
 in filence by Raghunandan, are here printed in Italick letters; be- 
 caufe they may be mentioned in other books, and kept holy in other 
 provinces or by particular fcdls. I cannot refrain from adding, that 
 human facrifices were anciently made on the Mabanavami -, and it is de- 
 clared in the Bhaivijhya Pur and, that the head of a Jlaughtered man gives 
 Durga' a thoujand times more fatisfaSf ion than that of a buffalo: 
 
 VOL. 1. 3 E N arena
 
 378 THE LUNAR YEAR 
 
 Narena s'irasa vira piijita vidhiwannripa, 
 tripta bhawed bhris am Durga verjhani lacjliamevacha. 
 But in the Brahma every neramedha, ot facrijice of a man, is exprefsly 
 forbidden ; and in the fifth book of the Bhdgaivai are the following 
 emphatical words: " Te tiiiha vat purujhdh puriiJJmmedhena yajante, 
 " ydjcha Jiriyo nrtpasun chddanti, tdnfcha tafcJia te pafava iba 7iihatd, 
 " yama sddane ydtayanto, racjhogana Jaunted iva Jiidhittind 'vaddyajnc 
 " pivanti', " that is, " Whatever men in this world facrifice human 
 " viftims, and, whatever women eat the fleili of male cattle, thofe men 
 " and thofe women fliall the animals here flain torment in the iiianfioa 
 " cf Yama, and, like flaughtering giants, having cleaved their limbs 
 ** with axes, lliall quaff their blood." It may feem ilrange, that a 
 human facrijice by a man fliould be no greater crime than eating the 
 flefli of a male beall by a woman ; but it is held a mortal offence to kill 
 any creature, except for facrifice, and none but males muff ever be 
 facrificed, nor muff women, except after the performance of z. Jrdddha 
 by their hulbands, tafte the flefli even of vidims. Many flrange cere- 
 monies at the Durgotjava flill fubfill: among the Hindus both male and 
 female, an account of which might elucidate fome very obfcure parts 
 of the Mojaick law; but this is not a place for fuch difquifitions. The 
 ceremony oi Jwingittg with iron hooks through the mufcles, on the 
 day of the Cherec, was introduced, as I am credibly informed, in modern 
 times, by a fuperftitious prince, named Fdna, who was a Saiva of the 
 moft auftere fe<fl : but the cuftom is bitterly cenfured by learned Hindus^ 
 and the day is, therefore, omitted in the following abridgement of the 
 Tit'bi lativa.
 
 OF THE HINDUS. 379 
 
 A'SWINA. 
 
 I. Navaratricam. a. 
 
 II. 
 
 III. Acfhayi. b. 
 
 IV. 
 
 V. Sayam-adhlvafa. c. 
 
 VI. Shaftyadicalpa bodhanam. d. 
 
 VII. Patrica-pravefa. e. 
 
 VIII. Mahafhtami fandhipuja. 
 
 IX. Mahanavami. f. Manwantara. g. 
 
 X. Vijaya. h. 
 XL 
 
 XII. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 XV. ATwini Cojagara. /. 
 
 a. By fome the firft nine nights are allotted to the decoration of 
 Durga' with ceremonies peculiar to each. Bhawijhyottara, 
 
 b. When certain days of the moon fall on certain days of the week, 
 they are called acJJ:iayds, or unperiJJiable. 
 
 c. The evening preparation for her drefs. 
 
 d. On
 
 380 THE LUNAR YEAR 
 
 d. On this day flie is commonly awakened, and her feftival begins. 
 
 Devi-purdna. 
 
 e. She is invited to a bower of leaves from nine plants, of which the 
 Bilva is the chief. 
 
 f. The lafl of the three great days. " The facrificed beafls muft be 
 " killed at one blow with a broad fword or a fharp axe." 
 
 Cdlicdpiirdna. 
 
 g. The fourteen days, named Manwaiitards, are fuppofed to be the 
 iirll of as many very long periods, each of which was the reign of a 
 Menu: they are all placed according to the Bbawipya and Matfya. 
 
 b. The goddefs difmifled with reverence, and her image cafl: into 
 the river, but without Mantras. ' Baiidhdyana, 
 
 i. On this full moon the fiend Nicumbha led his army againfl 
 Durga'; and Lacshmi defcended, promifing wealth to thofe who were 
 awake : hence the night is pafTed in playing at ancient chefs. Cuve'ra 
 alfo and Indra are worihipped. Lainga and Brahma. 
 
 AswiNA :
 
 OF THE HINDUS. 381 
 
 Aswina: 
 or Cdrtica. 
 
 I. 
 II. 
 
 III. 
 
 IV. 
 
 V. 
 
 VI. 
 
 VII. 
 
 VIII. Dagdha. a. 
 
 IX. 
 
 X. 
 
 XI. 
 
 XII. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 XIV. Bhutachaturdasi Yamaterpanam. B. 
 
 XV. Lacflimipuja dipanwita. c. Syamapuja. Ulcadanam. d. 
 
 a. The days called dagdha, or burnt, are variable, and depend on 
 fome inaufpicious conjunftions. Vidyd-firomani, 
 
 b. Bathing and libations to Yama, regent of the fouth or the lower 
 world, and judge of departed fpirits. Lainga. 
 
 c. A fad
 
 382 THE LUNAR YEAR 
 
 c. A fafl: all day, and a great feflival at night, in honour of Lacshmi, 
 * with illuminations on trees and houfes : invocations are made at the 
 
 fame time to Cuve'ra. Rudra-dhera. 
 
 " On this night, when the Gods, having been delivered by Ce'sava, 
 
 " were flumbering on the rocks, that bounded the fea of milk, Lacshmi', 
 
 " no longer fearing the Dattyas, flept apart on a lotos." Brahma. 
 
 d. Flowers are alfo offered on this day to Sya'mV, or the black, an 
 epithet of Bhava'ni, who appears in the Calijug, as a damfel twelve 
 years old. Fdrdnasz Panjicd. 
 
 Torches and flaming brands are kindled and confecrated, to burn the 
 bodies of kinfmen, who may be dead in battle or in a foreign country, 
 and to light them through the fhades of death to the manfion of 
 Yam A. Brdhma. 
 
 Thefe rites bear a flriking refemblance to thofe of Ceres and Pro- 
 serpine. 
 
 Ca'rtica.
 
 OF THE HINDUS. 383 
 
 Ca'R TIC A. 
 
 I. Dyuta pratipat. a. Belipuja. &, 
 
 II. Bhratri dwitiya. c. 
 III. 
 
 IV. 
 
 V. 
 
 VI. 
 
 VII. Acfhaya. 
 
 VIII. Gofht'hafhtami. d. 
 
 IX. Durga navami. e. Yugadya. f. 
 X. 
 
 XI. Utt'hanaicadasi. g. Baca panchacam. 
 
 XII. Manwantara. 
 XIII. 
 
 XIV. Srihererutt" hanatn. 
 
 XV. Cartici. Manwantara. Danamavafyacam. h. 
 
 a. Maha'de'va was beaten on this day at a game of chance by Pa'r- 
 vATi': hence games of chance are allowed in the morning; and the 
 winner expefts a fortunate year. Brahma. 
 
 b, A nightly feftival, with illuminations and offerings of flowers, in 
 honour of the ancient king Beli. Vdmena. 
 
 c. Yama.
 
 384 THE LUNAR YEAR 
 
 c. Yam A, child of the Sun, was entertained on this lunar day by 
 the river-goddefs Yamuna', his younger fifter : hence the day is 
 facred to them both ; and fifters give entertainments to their brothers, 
 who make prefents in return. tLainga Mahabhdrata. 
 
 d. Cows are on this day to be fed, care (Ted, and attended in their 
 paftures ; and the Hindus are to walk round them witia ceremony, 
 keeping them always to the right hand. Bhima pardcrama. 
 
 e. " To eat nothing but dry rice on this day of the moon for 
 *' nine fucceflive years, will fecure the favour of Durga." 
 
 Cdlicd pur ana. 
 f. The firfl: day of the Tretd Tuga. Faifinava. Brdhtna. 
 
 g. Vishnu rifes on this day, and in fome years on x^at fourteenth, 
 from his flumber of four months. He is waked by this incantation : " The 
 *' clouds are difperfed; the full moon will appear in perfeft brightnefs; 
 *' and I come, in hope of acquiring purity, to offer the frefh flowers of 
 ** the feafon : awake from thy long flumber, awake, O Lord of all 
 " worlds !" Vdrdha. Mdtfya. 
 
 The Lord of all worlds neither llumbers nor fleeps. 
 A ftridl faft is obferved on the eleventh ; and even the Baca, a water- 
 bird, abftains, it is faid, from his ufual food. Vidydjiromani. 
 h. Gifts to Brdhmens are indifpenfably neceflary on this day. 
 
 Rdrndyana. 
 Ca'rtica:
 
 OF THE HINDUS. 385 
 
 Ca'rtica: 
 or Mdrgasirjha. 
 I. 
 
 n. 
 III. 
 
 IV. 
 
 V. 
 
 VI. 
 
 VII. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 IX. 
 
 X. 
 
 XI. 
 
 XII. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 XIV. Acfhaya. 
 
 XV. Gofahafn. a. 
 
 a. Bathing in the Gangd, and other appointed ceremonies, on this 
 day will be equally rewarded with a gift of a thoufand cows to the 
 Brdhmens. Vydfa. 
 
 VOL. I. 3 F Ma'RGASI'rSHA.
 
 186 THE LUNAR YEAR 
 
 Ma'rgasi'rsha. 
 
 I. 
 
 II. 
 III. 
 
 IV. 
 
 V. 
 
 VI. Guha fhafhti. a. 
 
 VII. Mitrafeptami. b. Navannam. 
 
 VIII. Navannam. 
 IX. 
 
 X. 
 
 XT. 
 
 XII. Ac'handa dwddafi, Navannam. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 XIV. Pafhana chaturdasi. c. 
 
 XV. Margasirlhi. Navannam. 
 
 a. Sacred to Scanda, or Ca'rtice'ya, God of Arms. 
 
 Bha'wijJ^ya. 
 
 b. In honour of the Sun. Navannam fignifies new grainy oblations 
 of which are made on any of the days to which the word is annexed. 
 
 c. Gauri' to be worfhipped at night, and cakes of rice to be eaten 
 in the form of large pebbles. Bhaisoipya. 
 
 Ma'rgasi'rsha :
 
 OF THE HINDUS. 387 
 
 Ma'rgasi'rsha: 
 or PauJI^a. 
 
 I. 
 
 II. 
 
 III. 
 
 IV. 
 
 V. 
 
 VI. 
 
 VII. 
 
 VIII, Pupafhtaca. a. 
 
 IX. Dagdhd. 
 X. 
 
 XI. 
 
 XII. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 XV. 
 
 a. Cakes of rice are offered on this day, which is alfo called Aindri, 
 from Indra, to the Manes of anceflors. Gobhila. 
 
 Pausha.
 
 388 THE LUNAR YEAR 
 
 Pausha. 
 
 I. The morning of the Gods, or beginning of the old Hindu year. 
 
 II. Dagdhd, 
 III. 
 
 IV. 
 
 V. 
 
 VI. 
 
 VII. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 IX. 
 
 X. 
 
 XI. Manwantara. 
 
 XII. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 XV. Paufhi. 
 
 Pausha
 
 ON THE HINDUS. 389 
 
 Pausha: 
 
 or Mdgha. 
 I. 
 
 11. 
 
 III. 
 
 IV. 
 
 V. 
 
 VI. 
 
 VII. 
 
 VIII. Mansafhtaca. a. 
 
 IX. 
 
 X. 
 
 XI. 
 
 XII. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 XIV. Ratanti, or the waters j^^^i. b. 
 
 XV. 
 
 a. On this day, called alfo Prdjdpatyd, from Prajdpati, or the Lord 
 of Creatures, the flefh of male kids or wild deer is offered to the Manes. 
 
 Gdbbila. 
 
 *' On the eighth lunar day, Icshwa'cu" fpoke thus to his fon Vi- 
 
 ** cucsHi: Go, robuft youth, and having {lain a male deer, bring his 
 
 '* flefli for the funeral oblation." Hcrivansa. 
 
 b. Bathing at the firil appearance of Aruna, or the dawn. Tama. 
 
 Ma'gha.
 
 3go THE LUNAR YEAR 
 
 Ma'gha. 
 
 I. 
 
 II. 
 
 III. 
 
 IV. Varada chaturt'hi. Gaun'puja. a. 
 
 V. Sri panchami. b. 
 VI. 
 
 VII. Bhafcara feptaml. c. Macari. Manwantara. 
 
 VIII. Bhifhmafhtami. d. 
 
 IX. Mahdnandd. 
 X. 
 
 XI. Bhaimi. e. 
 
 XII. Shattiladanam. f. 
 XIII. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 XV. Maghi. Yugadya. g. Danamavafyacam. 
 
 a. The worfhip of Gauri', furnamed Varadd, or granting boons. 
 
 Bhawijhyottara. 
 
 b. On this lunar day Saraswati , here called SrT, the goddcfs of 
 arts and eloquence, is worihipped with offerings of perfumes, flowers, 
 and drefled rice : even the implements of writing and books are treated 
 with refpeft and not ufed on this holiday. Samvatfara pradipa. 
 
 A Meditation on Saraswati. 
 * May the goddefs of fpeech enable us to attain all poflible felicity; 
 
 * fhe.
 
 OF THE HINDUS. 39 1 
 
 ' fhe, who wears on her locks a young moon, who fhines with exquifite 
 
 * luftre, whofe body bends with the weight of her full breafls, who fits 
 
 * reclined on a white lotos, and from the crimfon lotos of her hands 
 ' pours radiance on the inftruments of writing, and on the books pro- 
 
 * duced by her favour !' Sdradd tilaca. 
 
 c. A faft in honour of the Sun, as zform of Vishnu. Far aha piirdna. 
 It is called -Aio Mdcari from the conftellation oiMacara, into which 
 
 the Sun enters on the firfl of the folar Mdgha. Critya calpa taru. 
 
 This day has alfo the names of Rat'hyd and Rat'hafeptamtj becaufe it 
 
 was the beginning of a Manwantard, when a new Sun afcended his car. 
 
 Ndrafinha. Mdtfya. 
 
 d. A libation of holy water is offered by all the four clafTes to the 
 Manes of the valiant and pious Bhi'shma, fon of Ganga'. 
 
 Bhawijljyottara . 
 
 e. Ceremonies with tilay or fefamumy in honour of Bhi'ma. 
 
 Vijhnu dherma. 
 
 f. Tila offered in Jix different modes. Mdtfya. 
 
 g. The firll day of the Caliyuga, Brdhma^ 
 
 Ma'Gha;
 
 392 THE LUNAR YEAR 
 
 Ma'gha: 
 
 or P'hdlguna, 
 
 I. 
 
 II. 
 
 III. 
 
 IV. 
 
 V. 
 
 VI. 
 
 VII. 
 
 VIII. Sacaflitaca. a. 
 
 IX. 
 
 X. 
 
 XI. 
 
 XII. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 XIV. Siva ratri. b. 
 
 XV. 
 
 a. Green vegetables are offered on this day to the Manes of anceflors : 
 it is called alfo Vaifwedevifct from the Vaifwedevahy or certain paternal 
 progenitors. Gobhila, 
 
 b. A rigorous faft, with extraordinary ceremonies in honour of the 
 Sivalinga or Phallus. I'fdnafatnhitd. 
 
 P'ha'lguna.
 
 OF THE HINDUS. 393 
 
 P'ha'j-gun a; 
 
 I. 
 
 II. 
 
 III. 
 
 IV. Dagdhd. 
 
 V. 
 
 VI. 
 
 VII. 
 
 VIIL 
 
 IX. 
 
 X. 
 
 XI. 
 
 XII. Govinda dwadasi. a, 
 
 XIII. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 XV. P'halguni. Manv/anfara. Dolayatra. 6. 
 
 a. Bathing in the Gangd for the remiffion of mortal fins. Pdcima. 
 
 b. Holica, or P' halgiitfava^ vulgarly i7«/z, the great feftival on the 
 approach of the vernal equinox. 
 
 Kings and people /port on this day in honour of Govinda, who is car- 
 ried in a dola, or palanquin. Brahma. Scdnda. 
 
 VOL.1. 3g P'ha'lguna:
 
 3Q4 THE LUNAR YEAR 
 
 P'ha'lgun a: 
 or Chaitra. 
 
 I. 
 II. 
 
 III. 
 IV. 
 
 V. 
 
 VI. 
 
 VII. 
 
 VIII. Skald pujd, 
 
 IX. 
 
 X. 
 
 XL 
 
 XIL 
 
 XIII. Mahdvdruni? 
 
 XIV. 
 
 XV. Mauni. a. Acfhaya. Manwantara. 
 
 a. Bathing mjilenc^. Vydfa. Scdndn. 
 
 CWAITRA.
 
 OF THE HINDUS. 39 5 
 
 Chaitra. 
 
 I. The lunijolar year of Vicrama'ditya begins. 
 
 II. 
 
 III. Manwantara. 
 
 IV. 
 
 V. 
 
 VI. Scanda-fhafliti. a. . 
 
 VII. 
 
 VIII. Asocaflitami. b. 
 
 IX. Srirama-navami. c^ 
 X. 
 
 XL 
 
 XIL 
 
 XIIJ. Madana-trayodasx. d.. 
 
 XIV. Madana-chaturdasi. e. 
 
 XV. Chaitri. Manwantara. 
 
 a. Sacred to Ca'rtice'ya, the God of War> Devi-purma. 
 
 b. Men and women of all claffes ought to bathe in fbme holy flream, 
 and, if poflible, in the Brahmaputra : they fliould alfo drink water with 
 buds of the Asoca floating on it. Scanda. 
 
 c. The birthday ofRA'iMA Chandra. Ceremonies are to be per- 
 formed with the myflical ftone Sdlagrdma and leaves of Tidasi. jigajlya. 
 
 d. A
 
 396 THE LUNAR YEAR 
 
 d. A feflival In honour of Ca'ma de'va, God of Love. BhaiviJJjya. 
 
 e. The fame continued with mufick and bathing. 
 
 Saurdgama. Devala. 
 
 The Hymn to Ca'ma. 
 
 1. Hail, God of the flowery bow ; hail, warriour with a fifh on thy 
 banner ; hail, powerful divinity, who caufeft the firmnefs of the fage to 
 forfake him, and fubdueft the guardian deities of eight regions ! 
 
 2. O Candarpa, thou fon of Ma'dhava ! O Ma'ra, thou foe of 
 Sambhara ! Glory be given to thee, who loveft the goddefs Reti; 
 to thee, by whom all worlds are fubdued ; to thee, who fpringefi: from 
 the heart ! 
 
 3. Glory be to Madana, to Ca'ma ; to Him, who is formed as the 
 God of Gods ; to Him, by whom Brahma', Vishnu, Siva, Indra, 
 are filled with emotions of rapture ! 
 
 4. May all my mental cares be removed, all my corporal fufferings 
 terminate ! May the objeft of my foul be attained, and my felicity con- 
 tinue for ever ! Bhaunfiya-pwdna. 
 
 Chaitra
 
 OF THE HINDUS. 397 
 
 Chaitra: 
 
 or Vaisac'/ja. 
 I. 
 
 II. Dagdhd. 
 III. 
 IV. 
 V. 
 VI. 
 VII. 
 VIII. 
 IX. 
 X. 
 XI. 
 XII. 
 
 XIII. Varum, a. 
 
 XIV. Angaraca dinam. b. 
 XV. 
 
 a. So called from Vdruna, or the lunar conftellatlon Satabhljl.^a : 
 when it falls on Saturday, it is named Mahdvdrunt. Bathing by day 
 and at night in the Gangd. Scdnda. 
 
 b. Sacred, I believe, to the planet Mangala. " A bi-anch of Sniihi 
 *' (Riiphorbia) in a whitened veflel, placed with a red flag on the 
 " houfetop, on the fourteenth of the dark half of Chaitra, drives away 
 " fin and difeafe." Rdja mdrtanda, 
 
 Vaisa'c'ha :
 
 398 THE LUNAR YEAR 
 
 Vaisa'c'h A. 
 
 I. 
 
 II. 
 
 III. Acfhaya tritiya. a, Yugad)4. b. Paras' urdma» 
 
 IV. 
 
 V. 
 
 VI. Dagdha. 
 
 VII. Jahnufeptami. 
 VIII. 
 
 IX. 
 
 X. 
 
 XI. 
 
 XII. Pipitaca dwadasi. e^ 
 
 XIII. 
 
 XIV. Nrljinha chaturdasi. 
 
 XV. Vais'ac'hi. Danamavafyacam. 
 
 a. Gifts on this day of water and grain, efpecially of barley, witH 
 oblations to Crishna of perfumes, and other religious rites, produce 
 fruit without end in the next world. Scdnda. Brahma^ Bhdwijl.ya, 
 
 b. The firft day of the Satya yuga. Brahma. VaiJJmava. 
 " Water and oil of tila, offered on the Yuglidyds to the Pitrts, or 
 
 " progenitors of mankind,, are equal to obfequies continued for a thou- 
 " fand years." Vijhnu-purdna. 
 
 This
 
 OF THE HINDUS. 3f)9 
 
 This was alfo the day, on which the river Ganga flowed from the 
 foot of ViJImu down upon Himalaya, where ilie was received on the 
 head of Siva, and led afterwards to the ocean by king Bhagirafha : 
 hence adoration is now paid to Gangdy Himalaya, Sancara, and his 
 mountain Cailafa ; nor mull Bhdgirat'ha be negledled. Brahma. 
 
 c. Libations to the Manes. Raghunandan. 
 
 Note on p. 393. 
 Dolaydtra. b. 
 
 Compare this hohday and the fuperftition on the fourth of Bhadrd 
 with the two Egyptian feftivals mentioned by Plutarch j one called 
 the entrance of Osiris into the Moon, and the other, his confinement or 
 inclofure in an Ark, 
 
 The people ufually claim four other days for their fports, and 
 fprinkle one another with a red powder in imitation of vernal flowers: 
 it is commonly made with the mucilaginous root of a fragrant plant, 
 coloured with Bakkam, or Sappan-vfoodi, a little alum being added to 
 fixtrad and fix the rednefs- 
 
 Vaisa'g'ha
 
 400 THE LUNAR YEAR 
 
 Vaisa'c'ha: 
 or yyaiJJnt' ha. 
 
 I. 
 
 II. 
 
 III. 
 
 IV. Dagdha. 
 
 V. 
 
 VI. 
 
 VII. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 IX. 
 
 X. 
 
 XL 
 
 XII. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 XIV. Savitri vratam. a. 
 
 XV. 
 
 a. A faft, with ceremonies by women, at the roots of the Indian fig- 
 tree, to preferve them from widowhood. 
 
 Pardfara. Rdjamartanda. Critya chintam£nL 
 
 Jyaisht'ha.
 
 OF THE HINDUS. 401 
 
 Jyaisht'ha. 
 
 I. 
 II. 
 
 III. Rembha tritiya. a. 
 
 IV. 
 
 V. 
 
 VI. Aranya fliafhti. b. 
 
 VII. Acjhaya, 
 VIII. 
 
 IX. 
 
 X. Dafahara. c. 
 
 XL Nirjalaicddas L d. 
 
 XII. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 XIV. Champaca chaturdasi. e. 
 
 XV. Jyaiflit'hi. Manwantara. 
 
 a. On this day of the moon the Hindu women imitate Rembha', 
 the feaborn goddefs of beauty, who bathed on the fame day, with par- 
 ticular ceremonies. Bhawijloyottara. 
 
 b. Women walk in the forejls with a fan in one hand, and eat cer- 
 tain vegetables in hope of beautiful children. Raja 77idrta7ida. 
 
 VOL. I. 3 H Sec
 
 402 THE LUNAR YEAR 
 
 See the account given by Pliny of the Druidical mifletoe, or vt/cum^ 
 which was to be gathered, when the moon was/x days old, as a pre- 
 fer vative irom Jierility. 
 
 c. The word means ten-removing, or removing ten Jins, an epithet of 
 Gangdy who effaces ten fms, how heinous foever, committed in ten pre- 
 vious births by fuch as bathe in her waters. Brahma-vaiverta. 
 
 A Couplet by Sanc'ha. 
 «* On the tenth of Jyaipfhay in the bright half of the month, on 
 " the day of Mangala, fon of the Earth, when the moon was in 
 ** Hajlciy this daughter of Jahnu burft from the rocks, and flowed over 
 " the land inhabited by mortals : on this lunar day, therefore, fhe 
 " wafhes off ten fms (thus have the venerable fages declared) and 
 '* gives an hundred times more felicity, than could be attained by a 
 " vs\^x\^.^ oi Afwamidhas, ox facrifices of a horfe." 
 
 d. A faft fo flridl, that even water muff not be tafted. 
 
 f . A feftival, I fuppofe, with the flowers of the Champaca. 
 
 Jyaisht'ha:
 
 OF THE HINDUS. 403 
 
 Jyaisht'ha: 
 or A'Jhdrha. 
 
 I. 
 II. 
 
 III. 
 
 IV. Bagdha. 
 
 V. 
 
 VI. 
 
 VII. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 IX. 
 
 X. AmbuvachI pradam. a, 
 
 XL 
 
 XII. 
 
 XIII. AmbuvachI tyagah. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 XV. Gofahafri. 
 
 a. The Earth in her courfes till the thirteenth. Jyo'tijh, 
 
 A'sha'd"ha.
 
 404 THE LUNAR YEAR 
 
 A'SHA'r)''HA. 
 
 I. 
 
 II. Rat'ha Yatra. a. 
 
 III. 
 
 IV. 
 
 V. 
 
 VI. 
 
 VII. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 IX. 
 
 X. Manwantara. 
 
 XI. Sayanaicadasi. Ratrau s'ayanam. ^. 
 XII. 
 
 XIII. 
 XIV. 
 XV. A'fliarhi. Manwantara. Danamavafyacam. 
 
 a. The image of Crishna, in the character of 'jaganndt'ha, or 
 Lord of the Univerfe, is borne by day in a car, together with thofe 
 of Balara'ma and Subhadra; when the moon, rifes, the feaft 
 begins, but muft end, as foon as it fets. Scdnda. 
 
 h. The night of the Gods beginning with the fummer folftice, 
 Vishnu repofes four months on the ferpent Se'sha. 
 
 Bhdgavata. Mdtfya. Vdrdha. 
 
 A'sha'd'ha:
 
 OF THE HINDUS. 405 
 
 A'sha'd'h a: 
 or Srdvana. 
 
 I. 
 
 II. 
 
 III. 
 IV. 
 
 V. Manasapanchami, a. 
 
 VI. Dagdhd. 
 VII. 
 
 VIII. Manwantara. 
 
 IX. 
 
 X. 
 
 XI. 
 
 XII. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 XV. 
 
 a. In honour of Dev\ the goddefs of nature, furnamed Manafa^ 
 who, while Vishnu and all the Gods were fleeping, fat In the fhape 
 of a ferpent on a branch of Snubty to preferve mankind from the venom 
 of fnakes. Garuda. Devipurdna. 
 
 Sra'vana.
 
 406 THE LUNAR YEAR 
 
 Sra'vana. 
 
 I. 
 
 II. 
 
 III. 
 
 IV. 
 
 V. Nagapanch^mi. a. 
 
 VI. 
 
 VII. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 IX. 
 
 X. . 
 
 XI. 
 
 XII. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 XV. S'ravani. 
 
 a. Sacred to the demigods in the form of Serpents, who are enu- 
 merated in the Pedma, and Garuda, piirdnas. Doors of houfes are 
 fmeared with cow-dung and Nimba-Xezv^?., as a prefervative from poi- 
 fonous reptiles. Bhawipya. Retnacara. 
 
 Both in the Padma and Garuda we find the ferpent Ca'liya, whom 
 Crishna flew in his childhood, among the deities worftiipped on this 
 day; as the Pythian fnake, according to Clemens, was adored with 
 Apollo at Delphi. 
 
 Sra'vana:
 
 OF THE HINDUS. 407 
 
 S R A' V A N A : or Bhadra. 
 I. 
 II. 
 III. 
 IV. 
 V. 
 VI. 
 
 VII. Dagdhd. 
 
 VIII. Crifhnajanmaflitami. a. Jayanti. b. 
 IX. 
 
 X. 
 
 XI. 
 
 XII. 
 
 XIII. Yugadya. c. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 XV. Amavafya. 
 
 a. The birthday of Crishna, fon of Maha'ma'Y^a in the form of 
 De'vac^I. Vas'ijhi'ha. BhawiJJjyottara. 
 
 b. A flri(fl fall: from midnight. In the book, entitled Dwaita nir- 
 naya, it is faid that the Jayanti yoga happens, whenever the moon is in 
 Rohitii on the eigbtb of any dark fortnight; but Vara'ha Mihira 
 confines it to the time, when the Sun is in Sinba. This fafl, during 
 which Chandra and Ro'hin'i are worfliipped, is alfo called Rohini 
 vrata. Brdbmanda. 
 
 c. The firll day of the Dwdpara Ytiga. Brdhma,
 
 408 THE LUNAR YEAR 
 
 Bhadra. 
 
 I. 
 
 II, 
 
 III. Manwantara. 
 
 IV. Heritdlica. Ganefa chaturt'hL Nafhtachandra. a. 
 
 V. RtJJ.H panchafm. 
 VI. 
 
 VII. Acihaya lalita. b. 
 
 VIII. Durvafhtami. c. 
 IX. 
 
 X. 
 
 XL Parfwaperivertanam. d. 
 
 XIL S'acrott'hanam. e. 
 
 XIIL 
 
 XIV. Ananta vratam. f. 
 
 XV. Bhadn. 
 
 a. Crishna, falfely accufed in his childhood of having flolen a gem 
 from Prase'n A, who had been killed by a lion, hid himfelfin the moon ; 
 to fee which on the iv70 fourth days of Bhadra is inaufpicious. 
 
 Brahma. Bhojade'va. 
 
 b. A ceremony, called Cuccuti vratam, performed by women in 
 honour of Siva and Durga'. BhanviJJoya. 
 
 c. " The
 
 OF THE HINDUS. 40() 
 
 c. " The family of him, who performs holy rites on this lunar day, 
 " fliall flourifh and increafe like the grafs durva." It is the rayed 
 Agrostis. Bhawijhyottara, 
 
 d. Vishnu fleeping turns on his fide. Mdtfya. BhawiJJ.ya. 
 
 e. Princes ered poles adorned with flowers, by way of ilandards, in 
 honour of Indra : the ceremonies are minutely defcribed in the CMca 
 purdna. 
 
 f. Sacred to Vishnu with the title of Ananta, or Infinite. 
 
 BhawiJJjyottara. 
 
 .7 b oxi . a 
 
 VOL. I. 3 I Bha'dRA:
 
 410 THE LUNAR YEAR 
 
 B H a' D R A . 
 
 or A'fwina. 
 
 I. Aparapacflia. Brahma sdvkr}, ,.- h'^nirh^: c^f-^'t f:.; 
 
 II. :■■■'.. 
 III. 
 
 IV. Naflita- Chandra. ..jjij 5^3 j-LIw uxaai 
 
 V. 
 
 VI. 
 
 VII. Agaflyodayah. a. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 IX. Bodhanam. />. 
 
 X. 
 
 XI. 
 
 XII. 
 
 XIII. Maghatrayodasi frdddham. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 XV. Mahalaya. Amavafya. 
 
 a. Three days before the fun enters the conftellation of Canyd, let 
 the people, who dwell in Gaura, offer a difh of flowers to Agastya. 
 
 Brahma-vaiverta. 
 
 Having poured water into a fea-ftiell, let the votary fill it with white 
 
 flowers and unground rice : then, turning to the fouth, let him offer it 
 
 with
 
 OF THE HINDUS. 4 1 i 
 
 with this incantation: * Hail, Cumbhayo'ni, born in the fight of 
 
 * MiTRA and Varuna, bright as the bloflbm of the grafs cafa; thou, 
 
 * who fprangeft from Agni and Ma'ruta.' Cafa is the Spontaneous 
 Sac CHAR UM. Ndrafinha. 
 
 This is properly a feflival of the folar year, in honour of the fage 
 Agastya, fuppofed, after his death, to prefide over the flar Canopus. 
 
 b. Some begin on this day, and continue till the ninth of the new 
 moon, the great feftival, called Durgotfava, in honour of Durga', the 
 goddefs of nature ; who is now awakened with fports and mufick, as fhe 
 was waked in the beginning by Brahma' during the night of the Gods. 
 
 Calicd purdfia. 
 Note on p. 383. 
 Utt'hanaicadasi. g. 
 In one almanack I fee on this day Tulasi-vivdha, or the Marriage of 
 TuLAS^i, but have no other authority for mentioning fuch a feftival. 
 TuLAs'i was a Nymph beloved by Crishna, but transformed by him 
 into the Parndfa, or black Ocymum, which commonly bears her name. 
 
 General Note. 
 If the feftivals of the old Greeks, Romans, Per/tans, Egyptians, and 
 Goths, could be arranged with exadlnefs in the fame form with thefe 
 Indian tables, there would be found, I am perfuaded, a ftriking refem- 
 blance among them ; and an attentive comparifon of them all might 
 throw great light on the religion, and, perhaps, on the hiftory, of the 
 primitive world.
 
 ON 
 
 THE MUSICAL MODES 
 
 OF 
 
 THE HINDUS: 
 
 WRITTEN IN l/St, A^li SINCE MUCH ENLARGED. 
 
 By the president. 
 
 IVlUSICK belongs, as a Science, to an intereftlng part of natural phi- 
 lofophy, which, by mathematical dedudions from conftant phenomena, 
 explains the caufes and properties of found, limits the number of mixed, 
 or harmonick, founds to a certain feries, which perpetually recurs, and 
 fixes the ratio, which they bear to each other or to one leading term ; 
 but, confidered as an Art, it combines the founds, which philofophy 
 diftinguifhes, in fuch a manner as to gratify our ears, or affedl our ima- 
 ginations, or, by uniting both objecfts, to captivate the fancy while it 
 pleafes the fenfe, and, fpeaking, as it were, the language of beautiful 
 nature, to raife correfpondent ideas and emotions in the mind of the 
 hearer: it then, and then only, becomes what we call ?i.Jine art, allied very 
 nearly to verfe, painting, and rhetorick, but fubordinate in its fundions 
 to pathetick poetry, and inferior in its power to genuine eloquence. 
 
 Thus it is the province of the philofopher, to difcover the true direc- 
 tion aad divergence of found propagated by the fucceflive comprefFions 
 
 and
 
 414 ON THE MUSICAL MODES 
 
 and expanfions of air, as the vibrating body advances and recedes ; to 
 Ihow why founds themfelves may excite a tremulous motion in particu- 
 lar bodies, as in the known experiment of inftruments tuned in unifon ; 
 to demonftrate the law, by which all the particles of air, when it un- 
 dulates with great quicknefs, are continually accelerated and retarded ; 
 to compare the number of pulfes in agitated air with that of the vibra- 
 tions, which caufe them ; to compute the velocities and intervals of thofe 
 pulfes in atmofpheres of diiFerent denfity and elafticity ; to account, as 
 well as he can, for the affedions, which mufick produces ; and, gene- 
 rally, to inveftigate the caufes of the many wonderful appearances, 
 which it exhibits ; but the artijl, without confidering, and even without 
 knowing, any of the fubiime theorems in the philofophy of found, may 
 attain his end by a happy feledlion of melodies and accents adapted to 
 pafTionate verfe, and of times conformable to regular metre ; and, above 
 all, by modulatioji, or the choice and variation of thofe modes, as they are 
 called, of which, as they are contrived and arranged by the Hindus, it is 
 my dcfign, and fliall be my endeavour, to give you a general notion 
 with all the perfpicuity, that the fubjedt will admit 
 
 Although we muft affign the firft rank, tranfcendently and beyond 
 all comparifon, to that powerful mufick, which may be denominated the 
 fifter of poetry and eloquence, yet the lower, art of pleafing the fenfe by 
 a fucceUion of agreeable founds, not only has merit and even charms, 
 but may, I perfuade myfelf, be applied on a variety of occafions to falu- 
 tary purpofes : whether, indeed, the fenfation of hearing be caxifed, as 
 many fufpcdt, by the vibrations of an elaftick ether flowing over the 
 auditory nerves and propelled along their folid capillaments, or whether 
 the fibres of our nerves, which feem indefinitely divifible, have, like the 
 ftrings of a lute, peculiar vibrations proportioned to their length and 
 degree of tenfion, we have not fufficient evidence to decide ; but we are 
 very furc, that the whole nervous fyftem is affeded in a fmgular manned 
 
 by
 
 OF THE HINDUS. 415 
 
 by combinations of found, and that melody alone will often relieve the 
 mind, when it is opprefled by intenl'e application to bufinefs or ftudy. 
 The old mufician, who rather figuratively, we may fuppofe, than with 
 philofophical ferioufnefs, declared the foul itjelf to be nothing but harmony, 
 provoked the fp rightly remark of Cicero, that he drew his philojhphy 
 from the art, ivhich he profijj'ed ; but if, without departing from his own 
 art, he had merely defcribed the human frame as the nobleft and fweeteft 
 of mufical inftruments, endued with a natural difpoiition to refonance 
 and fympathy, alternately affecting and affeded by the foul, which 
 pervades it, his defcription might,, perhaps, have been phyfically juft, 
 and certainly ought not to have been haftily ridiculed : that any medical 
 purpofe may be fully anfwered by mufick, I dare not aifert ; but after 
 food, when the operations of digeftion and abforption give fo much 
 employment to the veffels, that a temporary ftate of mental repofe muft 
 be found, efpecialty in hot climates, elTential to health, it feems reafon- 
 able to believe, that a few agreeabJe. airs, either heard or played without 
 effort, muft have all the good effedls of fleep and none of its difadvan- 
 tages ; putting the foul i?i tune, as Milton fays, for any fubfequent 
 exertion ; an experiment, which has often been fuccefsfully made by 
 myfelf, and which any one, who pleafes, may eafily repeat. Of what. I 
 am going to add, I cannot give equal evidence ; but hardly know how 
 to difbelieve the teftimony of men, who had no fyftem of their own to 
 fupport, and could have no intereft in deceiving me : firft, I have been 
 afliired by a credible eye witnefs, that two wild antelopes ufed often 
 to come from their woods to the place, where a more favage beaft, 
 SiRA JUDDAULAH, entertained himfelf with concerts, and that they 
 liftened to the ftrains with an appearance of pleafure, till the nionfter, 
 in whofe foul there was no mufick, fliot one of them to difplay his 
 archery : fecondly, a learned native of this country told me, that he had 
 frequently feen the moft venomous and malignant fnakes leave their 
 holes, upon hearing tunes on a flute, which, as he fuppofcd, gave them 
 
 peculiar
 
 4 1 6 ON THE MUSICAL MODES 
 
 peculiar delight ; and, thirdly, an intelligent Perjian, who repeated his 
 ftory again and again, and permitted me to write it down from his lips, 
 declared, he had more than once been prefent, when a celebrated lutanift, 
 Mirzd Mohammed, furnamed Bulbul, was playing to a large com- 
 pany in a grove near SMrdz, where he diftin<ftly faw the nightingales 
 trying to vie with the mufician, fometimes warbling on the trees, fome- 
 times fluttering from branch to branch, as if they wifhed to approach the 
 inftrument, whence the melody proceeded, and at length dropping on 
 the ground in a kind of extafy, from which they were foon raifed, he 
 affured me, by a change of the mode. 
 
 The aflonifliing effeds afcribed to mufick by the old Greeks, and, in 
 our days, by the Ch'tnefe, Perjians, and Indians, have probably been 
 exaggerated and embellilhed ; nor, if fuch effefts had been really pro- 
 duced, could they be imputed, I think, to the mere influence of founds 
 however combined or modified : it may, therefore, be fufpedted (not 
 that the accounts are wholly fictitious, but) that fuch wonders were per- 
 formed by mufick in its largefl: fenfe, as it is now defcribed by the 
 Hindus, that is, by the union of voices, injlruments, and aSlion ; for fuch 
 is the complex idea conveyed by the word Sangita, the fimple meaning 
 of which is no more than fymphony ; but mofl; of the Indian books on 
 this art confifl: accordingly of three parts, gdna, vddya, nritya, or fong, 
 percujjion, and dancing ; the firfl: of which comprifes the meafures of 
 poetry, the fecond extends to infl:rumental mufick of all forts, and the 
 third includes the whole compafs of theatrical reprefentation. Now it 
 may eafily be conceived, that fuch an alliance, with the potent auxiliaries 
 of diftindl articulation, graceful gefture, and well adapted fcenery, muft 
 have a fl:rong general effedl, and may, from particular alTociations, 
 operate fo forcibly on very fenfible minds, as to excite copious tears, 
 change the colour and countenance, heat or chill the blood, make the 
 heart palpitate with violence, or even compel the hearer to ftart from his 
 
 feat
 
 OF THE HINDUS. 417 
 
 feat with the look, fpeecli, and actions of a man in a phrenfy : the efFe£l 
 muft be yet ftronger, if the fubjed be religious, as that of the old hidian 
 dramas, but great and fmall (I mean both regular plays in many ads and 
 Ihorter dramatick pieces on divine love) feems in general to have been. 
 In this way only can we attempt to account for the indubitable effeds of 
 the great airs and impaffioned recitative in the modern Italian dramas, 
 where three beautiful arts, like the Graces united in a dance, are together 
 exhibited in a ftate of excellence, which the ancient world could not 
 have furpaffed and probably could not have equalled : an heroick opera 
 of Met AST AS 10, fet by Pergolesi, or by fome artift of his incom- 
 parable fchool, and reprefented at Naples, difplays at once the perfedion 
 of human genius, awakens all the affedions, and captivates the ima- 
 gination at the fame inftant through all the fenfes. 
 
 When fuch aids, as a perfed theatre would afford, are not acceflible, 
 the power of mufick muft in proportion be lefs ; but it will ever be very 
 confiderable, if the words of the fong be fine in themfelves, and not only 
 well tranflated into the language of melody, with a complete union of 
 mufical and rhetorical accents, but clearly pronounced by an accomplifhed 
 finger, who feels what he fings, and fully underftood by a hearer, who 
 has paffions to be moved ; efpecially if the compofer has availed himfelf 
 in his tranjlation (for fuch may his compofition ver))- juftly be called) of 
 all thofe advantages, with which nature, ever fedulous to promote our 
 innocent gratifications, abundantly fupplies him. The firft of thofe 
 natural advantages is the variety oi modes, or manners, in which the Jeven 
 harmonick founds are perceived to move in fucceffion, as each of them 
 takes the lead, and confequently bears a new relation to the fix others. 
 Next to the phenomenon of feven founds perpetually circulating in a 
 geometrical progreffion, according to the length of the ftrings or the 
 number of their vibrations, every ear muft be fenfible, that two of the 
 feven intervals in the complete feries, or odave, whether we confider it as 
 
 VOL. I. 3 K placed
 
 418 ON THE MUSrCAL MODES 
 
 placed ill a circular form, or in a right line with the firfl found repeated, 
 are much fhorter than the five other intervals ; and on thefe two phe- 
 nomena the modes of the Hindus (who feem ignorant of our complicated 
 harmony) are principally conftrudled. The longer intervals we fhall call 
 tones, and the fhorter (in compliance with cuftom) Jemitones, without 
 mentioning their exa£t ratios ; and it is evident, that, as the places of the 
 femitones admit _y^i;f» variations relative to one fundamental found, there 
 are as many modes, which may be called primary ; but we muft not 
 confound them with our modern modes, which refult from the fyftem of 
 accoi-ds now eftablifhed in Europe : they may rather be compared with 
 thofe of the Roinan Church, where fome valuable remnants of old Grecian 
 mufick are preferved in the fweet, majeftick, fimple, and affeding ftrains 
 of the Plain Song. Now, fince each of the tones may be divided, we 
 find tiselve femitones in the whole feries ; and, fince each femitone may 
 in its turn become the leader of a feries formed after the model of every 
 primary mode, we y^zst feven times twelve, or eighty-four, modes in all, 
 of which. Jeventy-feven may be named Jecondary ; and we fhall fee ac- 
 cordingly that the Perfian and the Hindus (at lead in their moft popular 
 fyftem) have exadly eighty-four modes, though diftinguifhed by dif- 
 ferent appellations and arranged in diffei-ent claffes : but, fince many of 
 them are unpleafing to the ear, others diificult in execution, and few fuf- 
 ficiently marked by a charader of fentiment and expreffion, which the 
 higher mufick always requires, the genius of the Indians has enabled 
 them to retain the number of modes, which nature feems to have indi- 
 cated, and to give each of them a charader of Its own by a happy and 
 beautiful contrivance. Why any one feries of founds, the ratios of 
 which are afcertained by obfervation and exprefTible by figures, fliould 
 have a peculiar efTed on the organ of hearing, and, by the auditory 
 nerves, on the mind, will then only be known by mortals, when they 
 fliall know why each of the feven colours in the rainbow, where a pro- 
 portion, analogous to that of mufical founds, moll wonderfully prevails, 
 
 has
 
 OF THE HINDUS. 419 
 
 has a certain fpecifick effedt on our eyes ; why the fiiades of green and 
 blue, for inftance, are foft and foothing, while thofe of red and yellow 
 diftrefs and dazzle the fight ; but, without ftriving to account for the 
 phenomena, let us be fatisfied with knowing, that fome of the ?nodes have 
 diftind perceptible properties, and may be applied to the exprefTion of 
 various mental emotions ; a fad, which ought well to be confidered by 
 thofe performers, who would reduce them all to a dull uniformity, and 
 facrifice the true beauties of tlieir art to an injudicious temperament.. 
 
 The ancient Greeks, among^ whom this delightful art was long in the 
 hands of poets, and of mathematicians, who had much lefs to do with if, 
 afcribe almoft all its magick to the diverfity of their Modes, but have left 
 us little more than the names of them, without fuch difcriminations, as 
 might have enabled us to compare them with our own, and apply them to 
 practice : their writers addreffed themfelves to Greeks, who could not but 
 know their national mufick ; and mofl of thofe writers were profefled 
 men of fcience, who thought more of calculating ratios than of invent- 
 ing melody ; fo that, whenever we fpeak of the foft Eolian mode, of the 
 tender Lydian, the voluptuous lonick, the manly Dorian, or the animating 
 Phrygian, we ufe mere phrafes, I believe, without clear ideas. For all 
 that is known concerning the mufick of Greece, let me refer thofe, who 
 have no inclination to read the dry works of the Greeks themfelves, to a 
 little tradl of the learned Wallis, which he printed as an appendix to 
 the Harmonicks of Ptolemy j to the Didionary of Mufick by Rous- 
 seau, whofe pen, formed to elucidate all the arts, had the propertv of 
 fprcading light before it on the darkeft fubjedts, as if he had written with 
 phofphorus on the fides of a cavern ; and, laftly, to the differtation of 
 Dr. BuRNEY, who, pafling flightly over all that is obfcure, explains with 
 perfpicuity whatever is explicable, and gives dignity to the character of a 
 modern mufician by uniting it with that of a fcholar and philofopher. 
 
 The
 
 420 ON THE MUSICAL MODES 
 
 The unexampled felicity of our nation, who diffufe the bleflings of a 
 mild government, over the fineft part of India^ would enable us to attain 
 a perfect knowledge of the oriental mufick, which is known and pradifed 
 in thefe Britifi dominions not by mercenary performers only, but even 
 by Mufelmans and Hindus of eminent rank and learning : a native of 
 Cdjlidn^ lately reiident at Murfloeddbdd^ had a complete acquaintance with 
 the Perjian theory and practice ; and the befi: artifts in Htndujid}i would 
 cheerfully attend our concerts : we have an eafy accefs to approved Afiatick 
 treatifes on mufical compofition, and need not lament with Chardin, 
 that he neglected to procure at Isfahafi the explanation of a fmall tradl 
 on that fubje£t, which he carried to Europe: we may here examine the 
 ■beft inftruments of A/ta, may be mafters of them, if we pleafe, or at leaft 
 may compare them with ours : the concurrent labours, or rather amufe- 
 ments, of feveral in our own body, may facilitate the attainment of correct 
 ideas on a fubjedl fo delightfully interefting ; and a free communication 
 from time to time of their refpedtive difcoveries would condud them 
 more furely and fpeedily, as well as more agreeably, to their defired end. 
 Such would be the advantages of union, or, to borrow a term from the 
 art before us, of harmonious accord, in all our purfuits, and above all in 
 that of knowledge. 
 
 On Perjian mufick, which is not the fubjed of this paper, it would 
 be improper to enlarge : the whole fyftem of it is explained in a cele- 
 brated colledion of tradls on pure and mixed mathematicks, entitled 
 Dnrratultdj, and compofed by a very learned man, fo generally called 
 Alldmi Shirazi, or the great philofopher of Shirdz, that his- proper name 
 is almoft forgotten ; but, as the modern Perfians had accefs, I believe, to 
 Ptolemy's harmonicks, their mathematical writers on mufick treat it 
 rather as a fcience than as an art, and feem, like the Greeks, to be more 
 intent on fplitting tones into quarters and eighth parts, of which they 
 compute the ratios to Ihow their arithmetick, than on difplaying the 
 
 principles
 
 OF THE HINDUS. 421 
 
 principles of modulation, as it may affed the paflions. I apply the fame 
 obfervation to a fhort, but mafterly, trad of the famed Abu'si'na', and 
 fufped that it is applicable to an elegant eifay in Perfian^ called Shairifu- 
 lafwdt^ of which I have not had courage to read more than the preface. 
 It will be fufficient to fubjoin on this head, that the Perfians diftributc 
 their eighty-four modes, according to an idea of locality, into twelve 
 rooms ^ twenty-four recejfes^ and forty-eight angles or corners: in the 
 beautiful tale, known by the title of the Four Der-vifes, originally written 
 in Perjia with great purity and elegance, we find the defcription of a 
 concert, where four fingers, with as many different inftruments, are re- 
 prefented " modulating in twelve makams or per dabs ^ twenty-four yZio^^/^j, 
 " and forty-eight gupas, and beginning a mirthful fong of Ha'fiz, on 
 " vernal delight in the per dab named rdjl, or dired." All the twelve 
 terdahs^ with their appropriated fiobabs, are enumerated by Ami'n, a 
 writer and mufician of Hindujidn^ who mentions an opinion of the 
 learned, that o\Ay /even primary modes were in ufe before the reign of 
 Parvi'z, whofe mufical entertainments are magnificently defcribed by 
 the incomparable Niza'mi: the modes are chiefly denominated, like 
 thofe of the Greeks and Hindus^ from different regions or towns; as, 
 among iht per dahs^ we fee Hijdz, Irak, Isfahan: and, among the /bo- 
 Sabs, or fecondary modes, Zdbiil, Nifodpiir, and the like. In a Sanfcrit 
 book, which fhall foon be particularly mentioned, I find the fcale of a 
 mode, named Hijeja, fpecified in the following verfe : 
 
 Mans agr aha fa nydsoc'hilo hijejajiu fiydhne. 
 
 The name of this mode is not Indian ; and, if I am right in believing 
 it a corruption of Hijdz, which could hardly be written otherwife in the 
 Ndgari letters, we muft conclude, that it was imported from Perfia : we 
 have difcovered then a Perjian or Arabian mode with this diapafon, 
 
 D,E,F#,G#,A, B,Cii,D; 
 
 where
 
 422 ON THE MUSICAL MODES 
 
 where the firft femitone appears between the fourth and fifth notes, and 
 the fccond between the fe'uenth and eighth ; as in the natural fcale Fa, 
 fol, la,fi, ut, re, mi, fa: but the CS, and G^^ or ga and k/ of the Indian 
 author, are varioufly changed, and probably the feries may be formed in 
 a manner not very different (though certainly there is a diverfity) from 
 our major mode of D. This melody muft neceflarily end with xh.t fifth 
 note from the tonick, and begin with the tonick itfelf ; and it would be a 
 grofs violation of mufical decorum in India, to fmg it at any time except 
 at the clofe of day : thefe rules are comprized in the verfe above cited ; 
 but the fpecies of o£tave is arranged according to Mr. Fowke's remarks 
 on the Vifid, compared with the fixed Swaragrama, or gamut, of all the 
 Hindu muficians. 
 
 Let us proceed to the Indian fyftem, which is minutely explained, in a 
 great number of Sanfcrit books, by authors, who leave arithmetick and 
 geometry to their aftronomers, and properly difcourfe on mufick as an art 
 confined to the pleafures of imagination. The Pandits of this province 
 unanimoufly prefer the Ddmodara to any of the popular Sangitas ; but 
 I have not been able to procure a good copy of it, and am perfedly fatif- 
 fied with the Narayan, which I received from Benares, and in which 
 the Damodar is frequently quoted. The Perfian book, entitled a Prefent 
 from India, was compofed, under the patronage of Aazem Sha'h, by 
 the very diligent and ingenious MiRZA Khan, and contains a minute 
 account of Hindu literature in all, or mofl: of, its branches : he profefles 
 to have extradted his elaborate chapter on mufick, with the affiftance of 
 Pandits from the Rdgdrnava, or Sea of Paflions, the Rdgaderpana, or 
 Mirror of Modes, the Sabhdvinoda, or Delight of Aflemblies, and fome 
 other approved treatifes in Sanfcrit. The Sangitaderpan, which he alfo 
 names among his authorities, has been tranflated into Perfian ; but my 
 experience juftifics me in pronouncing, that the Moghols have no idea of 
 accurate tranfiation, and give that name to a mixture of glofs and text 
 
 with
 
 OF THE HINDUS. 423 
 
 witli a fllmfy paraphrafe of tliem both ; that they are wholly unable, yet 
 always pretend, to write Sanfcrit words in Arabick letters ; that a man, 
 who knows the Hindus only from Perfian books, does not know the 
 Hindus ; and that an European, who follows the muddy rivulets of 
 Mufclman writers on India, inftead of drinking from the pure fountain 
 of Hindu learning, will be in perpetual danger of mifleading himfelf and 
 others. From the juft feverity of this cenfure I except neither Abu'l- 
 FAZL, nor his brother Faiz'i, nor MoHs ani Fa'n'i, nor Mirza'kh'an 
 himfelf; and I fpeak of all four after an attentive perufal of their works. 
 A tra£l on mufick in the idiom of Mat'hura, with feveral eflays in pure 
 Hindujldni, lately pafled through my hands ; and I poflefs a diflertation 
 on the fame art in the foft dialedt of Punjab, or Fanchanada, where the 
 national melody has, I am told, a peculiar and ftriking charadter ; but I 
 am very little acquainted with thofe dialeds, and perfuade myfelf, that 
 nothing has been written in them, which may not be found more 
 copioufly and beautifully expreffed in the language, as the Hindus per- 
 petually call it, of the Gods, that is, of their ancient bards, philofophers, 
 and legiflators. 
 
 The moft valuable work, that I have feen, and perhaps the mod valu- 
 able that exifts, on the fubjedl of Indian mufick, is named Ragavibodha, 
 or The DoSlrine of Mufical Modes ; and it ought here to be mentioned 
 very particularly, becaufe none of the Pandits, in our provinces, nor any 
 of thofe from Cdf or CaJJ.vnir, to whom I have fhown it, appear to have 
 known that it was extant ; and it may be confidered as a treafure in the 
 hiftoiy of the art, which the zeal of Colonel Polier has brought into 
 light, and perhaps has preferved from deftrudlion. He had purchafed, 
 among other curiofities, a volume containing a number of feparate eflays 
 on mufick in profe and verfe, and in a great variety of idioms : befides 
 tradls in /Jrabick, Hindi, and Perfian, it included a fhort efl;iy in Latin 
 by Alstedius, with an intcrlineary Perfmn tranflation, in which the 
 
 paflagcs
 
 424 ON THE MUSICAL MODES 
 
 paflages quoted from Lucretius and Virgil made a fmgular appear- 
 ance ; but the brighteft gem in the ftring was the Rdgavibodha, which the 
 Colonel permitted my Ndgari writer to tranfcribe, and the tranfcript was 
 diligently collated with the original by my Pandit and myfelf. It ieems 
 a very ancient compofition, but is lefs old unqueftionably than the Raina- 
 cara by Sa'rnga De'va, which is more than once mentioned in it, and 
 a copy of which Mr. Burrow procured in his journey to Heridwar : 
 the name of the author was So ma, and he appears to have been a prac- 
 tical mufician as well as a great fcholar and an elegant poet ; for the 
 whole book, without excepting the ftrains noted in letters, which fill the 
 fifth and lafl chapter of it, confifts of mafterly couplets in the melodious 
 metre called A'rya ; thtjirjl, third, axiA. fourth chapters explain the doc- 
 trine of mufical founds, their divifion and fucceflion, the variations of 
 fcales by temperament, and the enumeration of modes on a fyftem 
 totally different from thofe, which will prefently be mentioned ; and the 
 Jecond chapter contains a minute defcription of different Vifids with rules 
 for playing on them. This book alone would enable me, were I mailer 
 of my time, to compofe a treatife on the mufick of India, with afliftance, 
 in the practical part, from an European profeflbr and a native player on 
 the Vina ; but I have leifure only to prefent you with an elfay, and even 
 that, I am confcious, muft be very fuperficial : it may be fometimes, but, 
 I truft, not often, erroneous ; and I have fpared no pains to fecure myfelf 
 from errour. 
 
 In the literature of the Hindus all nature is animated and perfonified ; 
 every fine art is declared to have been revealed from heaven ; and all 
 knowledge, divine and human, is traced to its fource in the Vedas ; 
 among which the Sdmaveda was intended to htfiing, whence the reader, 
 or finger of it is called Udgdtri or Sdmaga : in Colonel Polier's copy 
 of it the ftrains are noted in figures, which it may not be impoffible to 
 decypher. On account of this diftindion, fay the Brdbmens, xhtfupreme 
 
 preferving
 
 OF THE HINDUS. 425 
 
 prefer-ving poiver, la the form of Crishna, having enumerated in the 
 Gka various orders of beings, to the chief of which he compares himfelf, 
 pronounces, that " among the Vedas he ivas the Saman." From that 
 Fi'da was accordingly dcriv^ed the Upaveda of the Gandharbas-, or mufi- 
 cians in Indra's heaven ; fo that the divine art was communicated to 
 cur fpecies by Brahma' himfelf or by his a£iive power Sereswati', 
 the Goddefs of Speech ; and their mythological fon Na'red, who was 
 In truth an ancient lawgiver and aftronomer, invented the Vina, called 
 alfo Cach' hap}, or Tejludo ; a very remarkable fait, which may be added 
 to the other proofs of a refemblance between that Indian God, and the 
 Mercury of the Latians. Among infpired mortals the firft mufician is 
 believed to have been the fage Bherat, who was the inventor, they fay, 
 of Ndtacs, or dramas, reprefented with fongs and dances, and author of a 
 mufical fyftem, which bears his name. If we can rely on Mi'rza- 
 kha'n, there are four principal Matas, or fyftems, the firft of which is 
 afcribed to Iswara, or Osiris ; the fecond to Bherat ; the third to 
 Hanumat, or Pa'van, the Pan oi India, fuppofed to be the fon of 
 Pa VAN A, the regent of air ; and the fourth to Callina't'h, a Kifii, or 
 Indian philofopher, eminently fkilled in mufick, theoretical and praftical : 
 all four are mentioned by Soma ; and it is the tht7-d of them, which 
 muft be very ancient, and feems to have been extremely popular, that I 
 propofe to explain after a few introdud:ory remarks ; but I may here 
 obferve with So'ma, who exhibits a fyftem of his own, and with the 
 author of the Ndrdyan, who mentions a great many others, that almoft 
 every kingdom and province had a peculiar ftyle of- melody, and very 
 different names for the modes, as well as a different arrangement and 
 enumeration of them. 
 
 The two phenomena, which have already been ftated as the foundation 
 of mufical modes, could not long have efcaped the attention of the 
 Hindus, and their flexible language readily fupplied them with names 
 
 VOL. I. 3 L for
 
 426 ON THE MUSICAL MODES 
 
 for the feven S'Waras, or founds, which they difpofe in the following- 
 order, Jl.vidja, pronounced Jharja, rtj]:>abha, gdndhdra, tnadhyama, pan- 
 cbamii, dhahata, niJJmda ; but the firfl of them is emphatically namedf 
 Ju'ara, or the found, from the important office, which it bears in the fcale ; 
 and hence, by taking the feven initial letters or fyllables of thofe words, 
 they contrived a notation for their airs, and at the fame time exhibited a 
 gamut, at leaft as convenient as that of Guil>o : they call \X.fwaragrd/na 
 or feptaca, and exprefs it in this form : 
 
 Sa, ri, ga, ma, pa, dha, ni, 
 three of which fyllables are, by a fingular concurrence exa£lly the fame, 
 though not all in the fame places, with three of thofe invented by David 
 MosTARE, as a fubftitute for the troublefome gamut ufed in his time, 
 and which he arranges thus : 
 
 Bo, ce, di, ga, lo, ma, ni. 
 As to the notation of melody, fince every Indian confonant includes by- 
 its nature the iTiort vowel a, five of the founds are denoted by fingle con- 
 fonants, and the two others have different fliort vowels taken from their 
 full names ; by fubftituting long vowels, the time of each note is doubled, 
 and other marks are ufed for a farther elongation of them ; the odlaves 
 above and below the mean fcale, the connecflion and acceleration of 
 notes, the graces of execution or manners of fingering the inftrument, 
 are expreffed very clearly by fmall circles and ellipfes, by little chains, by 
 curves, by ftraight lines horizontal or perpendicular, and by crefcents, all 
 in various pofitlons : the clofe of a ftrain is diftinguifhed by a lotos- 
 flower ; but the time and meafure are determined by the profody of the 
 verfe and by the comparative length of each fyllable, with which every 
 note or affemblage of notes refpe£tively correfponds. If I underftand the 
 native muficians, they have not only the chromatick, but even the fecond, 
 or new, enharmonick, genus ; for they unanimoufly reckon twenty-two 
 s'rutis, or quarters and thirds of a tone, in their odave : they do not 
 pretend ilMi thofe minute intervals are mathematically equal, but confider 
 
 them
 
 OF THE HINDUS. 42/ 
 
 them as equal in pradtice, and allot them to the feveral notes in the 
 following order ; to fa^ ma, and pay four ; to ri and dha, three ; to ga 
 and /?/, two ; giving very fmooth and fignificant names to each s'rutr. 
 Their original leak, therefore, ftands thus, 
 
 The femitones accordingly are placed as in our diatonick fcale : the 
 intervals between the fourth and fifth, and between the firft and fecond, 
 are major tones ; but that between the fifth and fixth, which is minor in 
 our fcale, appears to be major in theirs ; and the two fcales are made to 
 coincide by taking a s'ruti from pa and adding it to dha, or, in the lan- 
 guage of hidian artifts, by railing Servaretna to the clafs of Sdnia and 
 her fillers ; for every s'ruti they confider as a little nymph, and the 
 nymphs of Panchama, or the Jifth note, are Mdimi, Chapald, Lola, and 
 Servaretna, while Santa and her two fifters regularly belong to Dhai- 
 vata: fuch at leafl: is the fyftem of Co'hala, one of the ancient bards, 
 who has left a treatife on mufick. 
 
 So'ma feems to admit, that a quarter or third of a tone cannot be 
 feparately and diftindly heard from the Fina ; but he takes for granted, 
 that its effedt is very perceptible in their arrangement of modes ; and 
 their fixth, I imagine, is almoft univerfally diminillied by one s'ruti i 
 for he only mentions two modes, in which all the feven notes are un- 
 altered. I tried in vain to difcovcr any difference in pradtice between the 
 Indian fcale, and that of our own ; but, knowing my ear to be very 
 infufficiently exercifed, I requefted a German profeffor of mufick to 
 accompany with his violin a Hifidu lutanift, who fung by note fonie 
 popular airs on the loves of Crishna and Ra'DH^\ ; he affured me, 
 that the fcales were the fame; and Mr. Shore afterwards informed me, 
 
 that,
 
 428 ON THE MUSICAL MODES 
 
 that, when the voice of a native finger was In tune with his harpfichord, 
 he found the Hindu feries of feven notes to afcend, like ours, by a fharp 
 third. 
 
 For the conftrudtion and charadler of the Vinay I mufl: refer you to the 
 very accurate and valuable paper of Mr. Fowke in the firfl volume of 
 your Tranfadlions ; and I now exhibit a fcale of its finger board, which 
 I received from him with the drawing of the inftrument, and on the cor- 
 redtnefs of which you may confidently depend : the regular Indimi gamut 
 anfwers, I believe pretty nearly to our major mode : 
 
 JJt, re, miyfa^foly la,fi, ut, 
 and, when the fame fyllables are applied to the notes, which compofe 
 our minor mode, they are diftinguifhed by epithets expreffing the 
 change, which they fuffer. It may be neceflary to add, before we come 
 to the Rdgas, or modes of the Hindus, that the twenty-one murcFhanas, 
 which Mr. Shore's native mufician confounded with the two and twenty 
 s'rutis, appear to be no more ih^n feven fpecies of diapafon multiplied by 
 three, according to the difference of pitch in the compafs of three odlaves. 
 
 Rdga which I tranflate a mode, properly fignifies a fqffion or affection 
 of the mind, each mode being intended, according to Bherat's defini- 
 tion of it, to move one or another of our fimple or mixed affedlions ; 
 and we learn accordingly from the Ndrdyan, that, in the days of 
 Crishna, there were fixteen thoufand modes, each of the Gopis at 
 Mat^hura chufing to fing in one of them, in order to captivate the 
 heart of their paftoral God. The very learned So'ma, who mixes no 
 mythology with his accurate fyilem of Rdgas, enumerates nine hundred 
 and fixty pofTible variations by the means of temperament, but feledis 
 fi-om them, as applicable to prafiice, only twenty-three primary modes, 
 from which he deduces many others ; though he allows, that, by a 
 diverfity of ornament and by various contrivances, the Rdgas might, 
 
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 1 

 
 OF THE HINDUS. 429 
 
 like the waves of the fea, be multiplied to an infinite nun-.ber. We 
 have already obferved, that eighty-four modes or manners, might naturally 
 be formed by giving the lead to each of our twelve founds, and varying 
 \wfeven different ways the pofition of the femitones ; but, fmce many 
 of thofe modes would be infufFerable in pradice, and fome would have 
 no character fufficiently marked, the Indians appear to have retained with 
 prediledion the number indicated by nature, and to have enforced their 
 fyftem by two powerful aids, the ajfociation of ideas ^ and the mutilation of 
 the regular fcales. 
 
 Whether it had occurred to the Hindu muficians, that the velocity or 
 flownefs of founds mull depend, in a certain ratio, upon the rarefaction 
 and condenfation of the air, fo that their motion muft be quicker in 
 fummer than in fpring or autumn, and much quicker than in winter, I 
 cannot aflure myfelf ; but am perfuaded, that their primary modes, in 
 the fyftem afcribed to Pa'vana, were firft arranged according to the 
 number of Indian feafons. 
 
 The year is diftributed by the Hindus into fix ritus^ or feafons, each 
 confifting of two months ; and the firft fealbn, according to the Amar- 
 c6JJ:a, began with Mdrgas irJJ.my near the time of the winter folftice, to 
 which month accordingly we fee Crishna compared in the Gitd ; but 
 the old lunar year began, I believe, with Afiuina, or near the autumnal 
 equinox, when the moon was at the full in the firft manfion : hence the 
 mufical feafon, which takes the lead, includes the months of Afwin and 
 Cdrtic, and bears the name of Sarad, correfponding with part of our 
 autumn ; the next in order are Hemanta and Sis'ira, derived from 
 words, which fignifyy/'o/? and deiv ; then come Vafanta, or fpring, called 
 alfo Surabhi or fragrant, and Pujhpafamaya, or the flower time ; Grip^ma, 
 or heat ; and VerJI^a, or the feafon of rain. By appropriating a different 
 mode to each of the different feafons, the artifts of India connedted 
 
 certain
 
 430 ON THE MUSICAL MODES 
 
 -certaui flrains with certain ideas, and were able to recal the memory of 
 autumnal merriment at the clofe of the harveft, or of feparation and 
 melancholy (very different from our ideas at Calcutta) during the cold 
 months ; of reviving hilarity on the appearance of bloflbms, and complete 
 vernal delight in the month of Madhii or honey ; of languor during 
 the dry heats, and of refrcfhment by the firft rains, which caufe in this 
 climate a fecond fpring. Yet farther: fince the lunar year, by which 
 feftivals and fuperftitious duties are conftantly regulated, proceeds con- 
 currently with the folar year, to which the feafons are neceffarily re- 
 ferred, devotion comes alfo to the aid of mufick, and all the powers 
 of nature^ which are allegorically Avorfliipped as gods and goddeffes 
 on their feveral holidays, contribute to the influence of fong on 
 minds naturally fufceptible of religious emotions. Hence it was, I 
 imagine, that Pa'van, or the inventor of his mufical fyflem, reduced 
 the number of original modes irova. /even to Jix; but even this was not 
 enough for his purpofe ; and he had recourfe to the. Jive principal divi- 
 fions of the day, which are the ?norning^ noon, and evening, called tri- 
 fandhyj, with the two intervals between them, or \\\t forenoon and after-r 
 noon: by adding two divifions, or intervals, of the night, and by leaving 
 one fpecies of melody without any fuch refi:rid;ion, So'ma reckons eight 
 variations in refpeQ; of time; and the fyflem of Pa'van retains that 
 number alfo in the fecond order of derivative modes. Every branch of 
 knowledge in this country has been embellifhed by poetical fables j and 
 the inventive talents of the Greeks never fuggefled a more charming alle- 
 gory than the lovely families of the fix Rdgas, named, in the order of 
 feafons above exhibited, Bhairava, Ma'lava, Sri'ra'ga, Hindola 
 or Vasanta, Di'paca, and Me'gha ; each of whom is a Genius, or 
 Demigod, wedded to five Rdginis, or Nymphs, and father of eight little 
 Genii, called his Futras, or Sons: the fancy of Shakspeare and the 
 pencil of Alb and might have been finely employed in giving fpeech 
 and form to this alfemblage of new aerial beings, who people the fairy- 
 land
 
 OF THE HINDUS. 431 
 
 land of Indian imagination ; nor have the Hindu poets and painters lofl: 
 the advantages, with which fo beautiful a fubjed prefented them. A 
 whole chapter of the Ndrdyan contains defcriptions of the Rdgas and 
 their conforts, extracted chiefly from the Ddmo'dar, the Caldncura, the 
 Retnamdld, the Chandricd, and a metrical tradt on mufick afcribed to the 
 God Na'red himfelf, from which, as among fo many beauties a parti- 
 cular fele£tion would be very perplexing, I prefent you with the firft 
 that occurs, and have no doubt, that you will think the Sanfcrit language 
 equal to Italian in foftnefs and elegance; 
 
 Lila viharena vanantarale, 
 Chinvan prasunani vadhu fahayah^ 
 Vilafi vesodita divya murtih 
 Srirdga eiha prat'hitah prit'hivyam. 
 
 " The demigod Sri'ra'ga, famed over all this earth, fweetly fports 
 " with his nymphs, gathering frefh blofToms in the bofom of yon 
 " grove ; and his divine lineaments are diftinguilhed through his grace- 
 " ful vefture." 
 
 Thefe and fimilar images, but wonderfully diverfified, are exprefled in 
 a variety of meafures, and reprefented by delicate pencils in the Rdga- 
 mdlas^ which all of us have examined, and among which the moft beau- 
 tiful are in the pofTefTion of Mr. R. Johnson and Mr. Hay. A noble 
 work might be compofed by any mufician and fcholar, who enjoyed 
 leifure and difregarded expence, if he would exhibit a perfedl fyftem ot 
 Indian mufick from Sanfcrit authorities, with the old melodies of So jia 
 applied to the fongs of Jayade'va, embellifhed with defcriptions of all 
 the modes accurately tranflated, and with Mr. Hay's Ragamdid deli- 
 neated and engraved by the fcholars of Cipriani and Bartolozzk 
 
 Let
 
 432 ON THE MUSICAL MODES 
 
 Let us proceed to the fecond artifice of the Hindu muficlans, in giving 
 their modes a diflindl charader and a very agreeable diverfity of expref- 
 fion. A curious pafTage from Plutarch's treatife on Muiick is tranf- 
 lated and explained by Dr. Burney, and ftands as the text of the moft 
 intercfting chapter in his diflertation : fnice I cannot procure the original, 
 I exhibit a paraphrafe of his tranflation, on the corredtnefs of which I 
 can rely ; but I have avoided, as much as poflible, the technical words of 
 the Greeks^ which it might be necefl'ary to explain at fome length. " We 
 " arc informed, fays Plutarch, by Aristoxenus, that muficians 
 " afcribe to Olympus of MyJIa the invention of enharmonick melody, 
 " and conjedure, that, when he was playing diatonically on his flute, 
 " and frequently pafled from the higheft of four founds to the loweft 
 " but one, or converfely, fkipping over the fecond in defcent, or the 
 " third in afcent, of that feries, he perceived a fmgular beauty of expref- 
 " fion, which induced him to difpofe the whole feries of feven or eight 
 " founds by fimilar fkips, and to frame by the fame analogy his Dorian 
 " mode, omitting every found peculiar to the diatonick and chromatick 
 *' melodies then in ufe, but without adding any that have fmce been 
 " made eflential to the new enharmonick : in this genus, they fay, he 
 " compofed the Nome, or ftrain, called Spoiidean^ becaufe it was ufed in 
 " temples at the time of religious libations. Thofe, it feems, were the 
 " fi'^ft enharmonick melodies ; and are ftill retained by fome, who play 
 " on the flute in the antique ft:yle without any divifion of a femitone ; 
 " for it was after the age of Olympus, that the quarter of a tone was 
 " admitted into the Lydian and Phrygian modes ; and it was he, there- 
 " fore, who, by introducing an exquifite melody before unknown in 
 " Greece^ became the author and parent of the mofl beautiful and affedt- 
 " ing mufick." 
 
 This method then of adding to the charader and effed of a mode by 
 diminifliing the number of its primitive founds, was introduced by a 
 
 Greek
 
 OF THE HINDUS. 433 
 
 Greek of the lower AJia^ who flourifhed, according to the learned and 
 accurate writer of the Travels of Anacharsis, about the middle of the 
 thirteenth century before Christ; but it mull have been older flill 
 among the Hindus, if the fyftem, to which I now return, was adtually 
 invented in the age of R am A. 
 
 Since it appears from the Narayan, that thirty-fix modes are in general 
 ufe, and the reft very rarely applied to pradice, I fliall exhibit only the 
 fcales of the fix Rdgas and thirty Rdginis^ according to So'ma, the 
 authors quoted in the Ndrdyatiy and the books explained by Pandits to 
 Mirza'kha'n ; on whofe credit I muft rely for that of Cacubhd, which 
 I cannot find in my Sanfcrit treatifes on mufick : had I depended on 
 him for information of greater confequence, he would have led me into 
 a very ferious miftake ; for he afferts, what I now find erroneous, that 
 the graha is the firft note of every mode, with which every fong, that is 
 compofed in it, muft invariably begin and end. Three diftinguilhed 
 founds in each mode are called graha, nydfa, ansa, and the writer of the 
 Ndrdyan defines them in the two following couplets : 
 
 Graha fwarah fa ityufto yo gitadau famarpitah, 
 Nydfa fwaraftu fa prodlo yo gitadi famapticah : 
 Y6 vyadlivyanjaco gane, yafya ferve' nugaminah, 
 Yafya fervatra bahulyam vady ans'6 pi nripotamah. 
 
 *' The note, called graha, is placed at the beginning, and that named nydfa^ 
 *' at the end, of a fong : that note, which difplays the peculiar melody, 
 " and to which all the others are fuhordinate, that, which is always of 
 " the greateft ufe, is like a fovereign, though a mere ans'a, or portion." 
 
 " By the word vddi, fays the commentator, he means the note, which 
 VOL. I. 3 m " announces
 
 434 
 
 ON THE MUSICAL MODES 
 
 " announces and afcertains the Raga^ and which may be confidered as 
 " the parent and origin of the graha and nydfa" this clearly fhows, I 
 think, that the ansa muft be the tonick; and we fhall find, that the 
 two other notes are generally its third and fifth, or the mediant and the 
 dominant. In the poem entitled Mdgha there is a mufical fimile, which 
 may illuftrate and confirm our idea: 
 
 Analpatwat pradhanatwad ans'afyevetarafwarah, 
 Vijigifhornripatayah prayanti pericharatam. 
 
 •' From the greatnefs, from the tranfcendent qualities, of that Hero 
 " eager for conqueft, other kings march in fubordination to him, as 
 " other notes are fubordinate to the ayis'a^ 
 
 If the ans'a be the tonick, or modal note, of the Hindus, we may con- 
 fidently exhibit the fcales of the Indian modes, according to So'MA, de- 
 noting by an afterifk the omiffion of a note. 
 
 Bhairava: 
 
 'dha. 
 
 ni. 
 
 fa. 
 
 ri. 
 
 ^^. 
 
 ma. 
 
 pa. 
 
 Vardti: 
 
 fa. 
 
 ri, 
 
 g^^ 
 
 fna. 
 
 pa. 
 
 dha. 
 
 ni. 
 
 Medhyamddi : 
 
 ma. 
 
 pa. 
 
 * 
 
 ni. 
 
 fa. 
 
 * 
 
 ga. 
 
 Bhairavi : 
 
 fa, 
 
 ri, 
 
 ga* 
 
 ma. 
 
 pa. 
 
 dha. 
 
 ni. 
 
 Saindhaiii : 
 
 fa. 
 
 ri, 
 
 * 
 
 ma. 
 
 pa. 
 
 dha. 
 
 * 
 
 • 
 
 Bengali : 
 
 -A 
 
 ri, 
 
 g^y 
 
 ma, 
 
 pa. 
 
 dha, 
 
 ni. 
 
 Ma'lava : 
 
 'ni. 
 
 fa. 
 
 ri, 
 
 g^> 
 
 ma. 
 
 pa. 
 
 dha. 
 
 T6'di: 
 
 g^. 
 
 ma. 
 
 pa. 
 
 dha. 
 
 ni. 
 
 fa. 
 
 ri. 
 
 Gaudi : 
 
 ni. 
 
 fa. 
 
 ri. 
 
 * 
 
 ma. 
 
 pa. 
 
 * 
 
 • 
 
 Gonddcri : 
 
 fa, 
 
 ri, 
 
 g^> 
 
 ma, 
 
 pa. 
 
 * 
 
 ni. 
 
 Sufhdvati : 
 
 
 
 
 not in 
 
 So'ma. 
 
 
 
 Cacubha : 
 
 • 
 
 
 
 not in 
 
 Soma. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Srira'ga
 
 OF THE HINDUS. 
 
 435 
 
 Srira'ga : 
 
 'ni. 
 
 fa, 
 
 rh 
 
 g«^ 
 
 ma, 
 
 pa, 
 
 dha. 
 
 Mdlavas'ri : 
 
 fa, 
 
 * 
 
 g<^> 
 
 ma. 
 
 pa. 
 
 * 
 
 > 
 
 ni. 
 
 Mdravt : 
 
 g^^ 
 
 ma, 
 
 pa, 
 
 * 
 > 
 
 ni. 
 
 fa. 
 
 * 
 
 4 
 
 Dhanydsi : 
 
 fa, 
 
 * 
 
 g^> 
 
 ma. 
 
 pa. 
 
 * 
 
 ni. 
 
 Vafanfi : 
 
 fa. 
 
 ri, 
 
 g^> 
 
 ma. 
 
 » 
 
 dha, 
 
 ni. 
 
 Asdveri : 
 
 _ma, 
 
 pa, 
 
 dha, 
 
 ni. 
 
 fa, 
 
 ri. 
 
 g^- 
 
 Hindo'la : 
 
 'ma, 
 
 * 
 
 > 
 
 dha, 
 
 ni. 
 
 fa, 
 
 * 
 
 g^- 
 
 Rdmacri : 
 
 fa. 
 
 ri, 
 
 ga. 
 
 ma. 
 
 pa, 
 
 dha. 
 
 ni. 
 
 Des'dcfn : 
 
 g^. 
 
 ma, 
 
 pa. 
 
 dha. 
 
 * 
 
 » 
 
 fa, 
 
 ri. 
 
 Lelitd : 
 
 fa, 
 
 n, 
 
 g^^ 
 
 ma. 
 
 * 
 > 
 
 dha. 
 
 ni. 
 
 V^ldvali : 
 
 dha^ 
 
 ?2/, 
 
 fa, 
 
 * 
 
 » 
 
 g^. 
 
 ma. 
 
 * 
 
 • 
 
 Fatamanjari : 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 
 not in 
 
 So'ma. 
 
 
 
 D'iPACA : 
 
 
 
 
 not in 
 
 So'ma. 
 
 
 
 Des'i: 
 
 'li, 
 
 * 
 
 ma. 
 
 pa. 
 
 dha, 
 
 ni. 
 
 fa. 
 
 Cdmbo'd'i : 
 
 fa. 
 
 ri. 
 
 g^. 
 
 ma. 
 
 pa. 
 
 dha. 
 
 * 
 
 • 
 
 Netta : 
 
 fa. 
 
 rt. 
 
 g^^ 
 
 ma. 
 
 pa, 
 
 dha. 
 
 ni. 
 
 Ceddri : 
 
 ni. 
 
 fa. 
 
 ri. 
 
 g^. 
 
 ma. 
 
 pa. 
 
 dha. 
 
 Carndii : 
 
 ^ni. 
 
 fa. 
 
 * 
 
 » 
 
 g^^ 
 
 ma. 
 
 pa. 
 
 * 
 
 • 
 
 Me'gha: 
 
 
 
 
 not in 
 
 So'ma. 
 
 
 
 Taccd : 
 
 ^fa, 
 
 ri. 
 
 ga, 
 
 ma. 
 
 pa. 
 
 dha. 
 
 ni. 
 
 Melldrt : 
 
 dha^ 
 
 * 
 
 fa, 
 
 ri. 
 
 * 
 
 > 
 
 ma, 
 
 pa, 
 
 Gurjarl : * 
 
 ", 
 
 g^^ 
 
 ma. 
 
 * 
 
 dha. 
 
 ni. 
 
 fa. 
 
 Bhupdlt : 
 
 g(f. 
 
 * 
 
 pa. 
 
 dha. 
 
 * 
 
 fa. 
 
 ri. 
 
 Dejacri : 
 
 .fa. 
 
 ri, 
 
 ga, 
 
 ma. 
 
 pa. 
 
 dha. 
 
 ni. 
 
 It is impoflible, that I fhould have erred much, if at all, in the pre- 
 ceding table, becaufe the regularity of the Sanfcrit metre has in general 
 enabled me to corre<S the manufcript ; but I have fome doubt as to Ve- 
 Idvali, of which pa is declared to be the ans'a or tonick, though it is laid 
 in the fame line, that both pa and ri may be omitted : I, therefore, have 
 fuppofed dha to be the true reading, both Mirzakhan and the Ndrdyan 
 exhibiting that note as the leader of the mode. The notes printed in 
 
 Italick
 
 436 
 
 ON THE MUSICAL MODES 
 
 Italick letters are varioufly changed by temperament or by fhakes and 
 other graces ; but, even if I were able to give you in v\rords a diftindl 
 notion of thofe changes, the account of each mode w^ould be infufferably 
 tedious, and fcarce intelligible without the afliftance of a mafterly per- 
 former on the Indian lyre. According to the beft authorities adduced 
 in the Ndrdyan^ the thirty-fix modes are, in fome provinces, arranged in 
 thefe forms: 
 
 Bhairava: 
 
 'dha. 
 
 ni, 
 
 fa. 
 
 ri, 
 
 ga, 
 
 ma. 
 
 pa. 
 
 Vardti: 
 
 fa. 
 
 ri, 
 
 ga, 
 
 ma. 
 
 pa. 
 
 dha, 
 
 ni. 
 
 Medhyamddi : 
 
 ni, 
 
 fa, 
 
 * 
 
 ga. 
 
 ma. 
 
 pa, 
 
 dha. 
 
 Bhairavi : 
 
 >, 
 
 * 
 
 ga, 
 
 ma, 
 
 * 
 
 dha. 
 
 ni. 
 
 Saindhavi : 
 
 pa. 
 
 dha. 
 
 ni, 
 
 fa. 
 
 ri. 
 
 ga. 
 
 ma. 
 
 Bengali : 
 
 Ja, 
 
 ri. 
 
 g^y 
 
 ma. 
 
 pa. 
 
 dha. 
 
 ni. 
 
 Ma'lava : 
 
 'ma, 
 
 -* 
 
 dha. 
 
 ni; 
 
 fa. 
 
 ri. 
 
 ga- 
 
 To'dz: 
 
 ma, 
 
 pa. 
 
 dha. 
 
 ni. 
 
 fa. 
 
 ri. 
 
 ga. 
 
 Gaudt : 
 
 ni. 
 
 fa. 
 
 ri, 
 
 ga. 
 
 ma. 
 
 * 
 
 dha. 
 
 < 
 Gondacri -, 
 
 fa, 
 
 * 
 
 ga, 
 
 ma. 
 
 pa. 
 
 * 
 
 » 
 
 ni.' 
 
 Suf/jdvat} : 
 
 dha. 
 
 «/, 
 
 >, 
 
 ri. 
 
 ga. 
 
 ma, 
 
 * 
 
 • 
 
 Caciibhd : 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 
 not in 
 
 the Ndrdyan. 
 
 
 Sri'ra'ga.- 
 
 'fa, 
 
 ri. 
 
 ga. 
 
 ma. 
 
 pa. 
 
 dha. 
 
 ni. 
 
 Mdlavafn : 
 
 fa. 
 
 ri. 
 
 ga, 
 
 ma. 
 
 pa. 
 
 dha. 
 
 ni. 
 
 Mdravi : 
 Dhanydsi : 
 
 fa, 
 
 * 
 
 ga. 
 
 ma, 
 
 pa. 
 
 dha, 
 
 ni. 
 
 fa. 
 
 ri, 
 
 ga. 
 
 fna. 
 
 pa, 
 
 dha, 
 
 ni. 
 
 Vajanti : 
 
 fa, 
 
 ri, 
 
 ga. 
 
 ma, 
 
 pa. 
 
 dha, 
 
 ni. 
 
 A'sdveri : 
 
 -ri, 
 
 ga. 
 
 ma. 
 
 pa. 
 
 dha, 
 
 ni. 
 
 fa. 
 
 Hindo'la: 
 
 ffa. 
 
 * 
 
 ga. 
 
 ma, 
 
 * 
 
 dha. 
 
 ni. 
 
 Rdmacri: 
 
 A 
 
 ^/, 
 
 ga. 
 
 ma. 
 
 pa, 
 
 dha, 
 
 ni. 
 
 DhdcJlSi: 
 
 ga, 
 
 ma, 
 
 pa, 
 
 dha, 
 
 ni. 
 
 fa, 
 
 * 
 
 » 
 
 Lelitd: 
 
 >, 
 
 * 
 
 ga. 
 
 ma, 
 
 pa. 
 
 * 
 
 ni. 
 
 Fe/dva/l : 
 
 dha, 
 
 ni. 
 
 A 
 
 ri, 
 
 ga. 
 
 ma, 
 
 pa. 
 
 Paiamanjari : 
 
 -pa, 
 
 dha. 
 
 ni, 
 
 fa, 
 
 ri. 
 
 Z''^ 
 
 ma. 
 Dl'PACA
 
 
 OF THE 
 
 HINDUS. 
 
 
 I 
 
 Di'paca: 
 
 
 
 omitted. 
 
 
 
 Desi : 
 
 'ni, 
 
 fa, 
 
 ri, ga, ma. 
 
 pa. 
 
 dha. 
 
 Cdmbodt : 
 
 fa, 
 
 ri. 
 
 ga, ma, pa. 
 
 dha. 
 
 ni. 
 
 Netta: 
 
 fa. 
 
 ri. 
 
 ga, ma, pa. 
 
 dha, 
 
 ni. 
 
 Cedar t : 
 
 
 
 omitted. 
 
 
 
 Carndd : 
 
 ^ni, 
 
 fa. 
 
 ri, ga, ma. 
 
 pa. 
 
 dha. 
 
 Me'gha: 
 
 'dha, 
 
 ni, 
 
 fa, ri, ga. 
 
 ma. 
 
 pa. 
 
 Taccd : 
 
 
 
 (a mixed mode 
 
 •) 
 
 
 Mellari: 
 
 dha, 
 
 ni. 
 
 *, ri, ga. 
 
 ma. 
 
 * 
 
 • 
 
 Gurjari : 
 
 
 
 omitted in the Nardyan. 
 
 Bhupdlt : 
 
 fa. 
 
 ri. 
 
 ga, *, pa. 
 
 dha, 
 
 * 
 
 • 
 
 Defacri : 
 
 .ni, 
 
 fa, 
 
 *, ga, ma, 
 
 pa. 
 
 * 
 
 • 
 
 437 
 
 Among the fcales juft enumerated we may fafely fix on that of Sri- 
 ra'ga for our own major mode, fince its form and character are thus 
 defcribed in a Sanfcrit couplet ; 
 
 Jatinyafagrahagramans'efhu fhadjo Ipapanchamah, 
 Sringaravirayorjneyah Srirdgo gitacovidaih. 
 
 " Muficians know Srirdga to have^^ for its principal note and the firft 
 *' of its fcale, with pa diminillied, and to be ufed for exprefling heroick 
 " love and valour." Now the diminution oi pa by one s'ruti gives us 
 the modern European fcale, 
 
 ut, re, mi, fa^ fol, la, Ji, ut. 
 with a minor tone, or, as the Indians would exprefs it, with three s'rutis^ 
 between the fifth and fixth notes. 
 
 On the formulas exhibited by Mi'rzakha'n I have lefs reliance ; 
 
 but, fince he profefles to give them from Sanfcrit authorities, it feemed 
 
 proper to tranfcribe them : 
 
 Bhairava :
 
 38 ON THE MUSICAL MODES 
 
 
 
 Bhairava : 
 
 -dha, 
 
 ni. 
 
 fa. 
 
 * 
 
 ga, 
 
 ma. 
 
 * 
 
 • 
 
 Vardti : 
 
 fa. 
 
 ri, 
 
 ga, 
 
 ma. 
 
 pa, 
 
 dha. 
 
 ni. 
 
 Medhyamadi : ma, 
 
 pa. 
 
 dha. 
 
 ni, 
 
 fa. 
 
 ri. 
 
 ga. 
 
 Bbairavl : 
 
 ma. 
 
 pa. 
 
 dha. 
 
 ni. 
 
 fa, 
 
 ri, 
 
 ga. 
 
 Saindhavi : 
 
 fa, 
 
 ri, 
 
 ga, 
 
 ma. 
 
 pa, 
 
 dha. 
 
 ni. 
 
 Bengdh : 
 
 Lfa, 
 
 ri, 
 
 ga, 
 
 ma, 
 
 pa. 
 
 dha. 
 
 ni. 
 
 Ma'lava : 
 
 rfa, 
 
 ri, 
 
 ga, 
 
 ma, 
 
 pa, 
 
 dha. 
 
 ni. 
 
 Todi : 
 
 fa, 
 
 ri, 
 
 ga, 
 
 ma. 
 
 pa. 
 
 dha. 
 
 ni. 
 
 Gaudi : 
 
 fa, 
 
 * 
 » 
 
 ga. 
 
 ma. 
 
 * 
 
 dha, 
 
 ni. 
 
 Gondacri : 
 
 ni. 
 
 fa, 
 
 * 
 
 ga, 
 
 ma, 
 
 pa, 
 
 * 
 
 • 
 
 Sujl'hdvati: 
 
 dha, 
 
 ni. 
 
 fa. 
 
 ri. 
 
 ga, 
 
 ma. 
 
 * 
 
 • 
 
 Cacubhd : 
 
 -dha. 
 
 ni, 
 
 fa. 
 
 ri. 
 
 ga, 
 
 ma. 
 
 pa. 
 
 Sri'ra'ga : 
 
 rfa, 
 
 ri, 
 
 ga. 
 
 ma. 
 
 pa, 
 
 dha. 
 
 ni. 
 
 Mdlavafri : 
 
 fa. 
 
 ri, 
 
 ga. 
 
 ma, 
 
 pa. 
 
 dha, 
 
 ni. 
 
 Mdravt : 
 
 fa. 
 
 * 
 
 pa. 
 
 ga, 
 
 ma. 
 
 dha, 
 
 ni. 
 
 Dhafiydsi : 
 
 fa, 
 
 pa. 
 
 dha, 
 
 ni, 
 
 ri, 
 
 ga, 
 
 * 
 
 • 
 
 Vafanti : 
 
 fa. 
 
 ri. 
 
 ga. 
 
 ma, 
 
 pa. 
 
 dha. 
 
 ni. 
 
 A'fdvert : ' 
 
 -dha. 
 
 ni, 
 
 fa. 
 
 * 
 
 * 
 
 » 
 
 ma. 
 
 pa. 
 
 HiNDOLA : 
 
 rfa, 
 
 * 
 
 ga, 
 
 ma. 
 
 pa. 
 
 * 
 
 ni. 
 
 Rdmacri : 
 
 fa. 
 
 > 
 
 ga, 
 
 ma. 
 
 pa. 
 
 * 
 
 ni. 
 
 Des'dcJJ.n : 
 
 ga, 
 
 ma. 
 
 pa. 
 
 dha. 
 
 ni. 
 
 fa, 
 
 * 
 
 • 
 
 Lelitd : 
 
 dha, 
 
 ni, 
 
 fa, 
 
 * 
 
 ga. 
 
 ma. 
 
 * 
 
 • 
 
 Velavari : 
 
 dha, 
 
 ni. 
 
 fa, 
 
 ri, 
 
 ga, 
 
 ma. 
 
 pa. 
 
 Patamanjari : 
 
 -pa. 
 
 dha. 
 
 ni. 
 
 fa, 
 
 ri, 
 
 ga. 
 
 ma. 
 
 DiPACA : 
 
 -fa. 
 
 ri, 
 
 ga, 
 
 ma, 
 
 pa. 
 
 dha. 
 
 ni. 
 
 Dhi : 
 
 ri, 
 
 ga, 
 
 ma. 
 
 * 
 
 dha, 
 
 ni. 
 
 fa. 
 
 Cambodi : 
 Netta : 
 
 dha, 
 
 ni. 
 
 fa, 
 
 ri, 
 
 ga. 
 
 ma. 
 
 pa. 
 
 fa, 
 
 ni. 
 
 dha, 
 
 pa, 
 
 ma. 
 
 ga. 
 
 ri. 
 
 Cedari : 
 
 ni. 
 
 fa. 
 
 * 
 
 ga. 
 
 ma, 
 
 pa, 
 
 * 
 
 • 
 
 Carnatl : 
 
 ■ ni. 
 
 fa. 
 
 ri, 
 
 ga, 
 
 ma, 
 
 pa. 
 
 dha. 
 Megha
 
 
 OF THE HINDUS. 
 
 
 
 
 Megha: 
 
 rdha, 
 
 ni. 
 
 fa, 
 
 ri, 
 
 ga, 
 
 * 
 
 * 
 
 • 
 
 Tacca : 
 
 fa, 
 
 ri, 
 
 ga, 
 
 ma. 
 
 pa. 
 
 dha. 
 
 ni. 
 
 Mellari : 
 
 dha. 
 
 ni, 
 
 > 
 
 ri. 
 
 ga, 
 
 ma. 
 
 * 
 
 • 
 
 Gurjari : 
 
 ri, 
 
 ga, 
 
 ma. 
 
 pa. 
 
 dha. 
 
 ni. 
 
 fa. 
 
 Bhupali: 
 
 fa, 
 
 ga, 
 
 ma. 
 
 dha. 
 
 ni. 
 
 pa, 
 
 ri. 
 
 Defacri : 
 
 Lfa, 
 
 ri, 
 
 ga, 
 
 ma, 
 
 pa. 
 
 dha. 
 
 ni. 
 
 439 
 
 It may reafonably be fufpefted, that the Moghol writer could not have 
 fhown the diftindion, which muft neceflarily have been made, between 
 the different modes, to which he afligns the fame formula ; and, as to his 
 inverfions of the notes in fome of the Rdginis^ I can only fay, that no 
 fuch changes appear in the Sanfcrit books, which I have infpedted. I 
 leave our fcholars and muficians to find, among the fcales here exhibited, 
 the Dorian mode of Olympus ; but it cannot efcape notice, that the 
 Chinefe fcale C, D, E, *, G, A, *, correfponds very nearly with ga, 
 may fay *, ni, fa, *, or the Maravz of So'ma : we have long known in 
 Bengal, from the information of a Scotch gentleman fkilled in mufick, 
 that the wild, but charming melodies of the ancient highlanders were 
 formed by a fimilar mutilation of the natural fcale. By fuch muti- 
 lations, and by various alterations of the notes in tuning the Vina^ 
 the number of modes might be augmented indefinitely ; and Calli- 
 na't'ha, admits ninety into his fyftem, allowing y/x nymphs, inftead 
 of Jive, to each of his mufical deities : for Dipaca, which is generally 
 confidered as a loft mode (though Mi'rza'khan exhibits the notes of 
 it), he fubftitutes Panchama ; for Hindola, he gives us Vafanta, or the 
 Spring; and for Mdlava, Natandrdyan or Crishna the Dancer; all 
 with fcales rather different from thofe of Pa'van. The fyftem of Is- 
 wara, which may have had fome affinity with the old Egyptian mufick 
 invented or improved by Osiris, nearly refembles that of Hanumat, 
 but the names and fcales are a little varied : in all the fyftems, the names 
 of the modes are fignificant, and fome of them as fanciful as thofe of the 
 
 fairies
 
 440 ON THE MUSICAL MODES 
 
 fairies in the Midlummer Night's Dream. Forty-eight new modes were 
 added by Bherat, who marries a nymph, thence called hharya, to 
 each Piitra, or Son, of a Rdga; thus admitting, in his mufical fchool, 
 an hundred and thirty-tivo manners of arranging the feries of notes. 
 
 Had the Indian empire continued in full energy for the lafl: two thou- 
 fand years, religion would, no doubt, have given permanence to fyftems 
 of mufick invented, as the Hindus believe, by their Gods, and adapted to 
 myftical poetry : but fuch have been the revolutions of their government 
 fince the time of Alexander, that, although the Sanfcrit books have 
 preferved the theoiy of their mufical compofition, the praGice of it 
 feems almoft wholly loft (as all the Pandits and Rajas confefs) in Gaur 
 and Magarha, or the provinces of Bengal and Behar. When I firft read 
 the fongs of Jayade'va, who has prefixed to each of them the name of 
 the mode, in which it was anciently fung, I had hopes of procuring the 
 original mufick ; but the Pandits of the Ibuth referred me to thofe of the 
 weft, and the Brdhmens of the weft would have fent me to thofe of the 
 north ; while they, I mean thofe of Nepal and Cajhmir, declared that 
 they had no ancient mufick, but imagined, that the notes to the Gitago- 
 vinda muft exift, if any wher-e, in one of the fouthern provinces, where 
 the Poet was born : from all this I col!e£l, that the art, which flouriflied 
 in India many centuries ago, has faded for want of due culture, though 
 fome fcanty remnants of it may, perhaps, be preferved in the paftoral 
 roundelays of Mat'hura on the loves and fports of the Indian Apollo. 
 "We muft not, therefore, be furprifed, if modern performers on the Vina 
 have little or no modulation, or change of mode, to which paffionate 
 mufick owes nearly all its enchantment ; but that the old muficians of 
 India, having fixed on a leading mode to exprefs the general charader of 
 the fong, which they were tranjlating into the mufical language, varied 
 that mode, by certain rules, according to the variation of fentiment or 
 pafTion in the poetical phrafes, and always returned to it at the clofe of 
 
 the
 
 OF THE HINDUS. 441 
 
 the air, many reafons induce me to believe ; though I cannot but admit, 
 that their modulation muft have been gi'eatly confined by the refi;ri(Stion 
 of certain modes to certain feafons and hours, unlefs thofe reftridlions 
 belonged merely to the principal mode. The fcale of the Vina^ we find, 
 comprized both our European modes, and, if fome of the notes can be 
 raifed a femltone by a ftronger preflure on the frets, a delicate and expe- 
 rienced finger might produce the effedt of minute enharmonick intervals 4 
 the conftrudtion of the inllrument, therefore, feems to favour my conjec- 
 ture ; and an excellent judge of the fubjedt informs us, that, ^' the open 
 *' wires are from time to time ftruck in a manner, that prepares the ear 
 " for a change of modulation, to which the uncommonly full and fine 
 ** tones of thofe notes greatly contribute." We may add, that the Hindu 
 poets never fail to change the metre, which is their mode^ according to 
 the change of fubjedl or fentiment in the fame piece ; and I could pro- 
 duce inftances of poetical modulation (if fuch a phrafe may be ufed) at 
 leaft equal to the mofl: afFed:ing modulations of our greateft compofers : 
 now the mufician muft naturally have emulated the poet, as every tranf- 
 lator endeavours to refemble his original ; and, fince each of the Indian 
 modes is appropriated to a certain affedion of the mind, it is hardly pof. 
 fible, that, where the paffion is varied, a fkilful mufician could avoid a 
 I'ariation of the mode. The rules for modulation feem to be contained 
 in the chapters on mixed modes, for an intermixture of Melldri with To'dl 
 and Saindhavi means, I fuppofe, a tranfition, however fhort, from one to 
 another : but the queftion muft remain undecided, unlefs we can find in 
 the Sangitas a clearer account of modulation, than I am able to produce, 
 or unlefs we can procure a copy of the Gitagdvinda with the mufick, to 
 which it was fet, before the time of Calidas, in fome notation, that 
 may be eafily decyphered. It is obvious, that I have not been fpeaking 
 of a modulation regulated by harmony, with which the Hindus, I believe, 
 were unacquainted ; though, like the Greeks, they diftinguifli the confo- 
 nant and dijfonant founds : I mean only fuch a tranfition from one feries 
 VOL. I. 3 N of
 
 442 ON THE MUSICAL MODES 
 
 of notes to another, as we fee defcribed by the Greek muficlans, who 
 were ignorant of harmony in the modern fenfe of the word, and, per- 
 haps, if they had known it ever fo perfedly, would have applied it folely 
 to the fupport of melody, which alone fpeaks the Language of paflion 
 and fentiment. 
 
 It would give me pleafure to clofe this eflay with feveral fpecimens of 
 old Indian airs from the fifth chapter of So'ma; but I have leifure only 
 to prefent you with one of them in our own charadters accompanied 
 with the original notes : I feledted the mode of Vafanti^ becaufe it was 
 adapted by Jayade'va himfelf to the moft beautiful of his odes, and be- 
 caufe the number of notes in So'ma compared with that of the fyllables 
 in the Sanfcrit ftanza, may lead us to guefs, that the ftrain itfelf was ap- 
 plied by the mufician to the very words of the poet. The words are : 
 
 Lalita lavanga lata perisilana comala malaya famire, 
 Madhucara nicara carambita cocila cujita cunja entire 
 Viharati heririha farafa vafante 
 Nrityati yuvatijanena faman fac'hi virahi janafya durante. 
 
 " While the foft gale of Malaya wafts perfume from the beautiful 
 ' clove-plant, and the recefs of each flowery arbour fweetly refounds 
 ' with the ftrains of the Cocila mingled with the murmurs of the honey- 
 ' making fwarms, Heri dances, O lovely friend, with a company of 
 ' damfels in this vernal feafon ; a feafon full of delights, but painful to 
 ' feparated lovers." 
 
 I have noted So'Ma's air in the major mode of A, or>, which, from 
 its gaiety and brilliancy, well exprefies the general hilarity of the fong ; 
 hut the fentiment of tender pain, even in a feafon of delights, from the 
 remembrance of pleafures no longer attainable, would require in our 
 
 mufick
 
 OF THE HINDUS. 
 
 443 
 
 mufick a change to the minor mode ; and the air might be difpofed in 
 the form of a rondeau ending with the fecond line, or even with the 
 third, where the fenfe is equally full, if it fhould be thought proper to 
 exprefs by another modulation that imitative melody, which the poet has 
 manifeftly attempted : the meafure is very rapid, and the air fhould be 
 gay, or even quick, in exaft proportion to it. 
 
 AN OLD INDIAN AIR. 
 
 I^ uiirp ^ 
 
 ^^ 
 
 la li ta la van ga la ta pe ri fi la na co mala ma la ya fa mi re 
 
 ^F^^^^ i ^r f I rrr r ^ r i J^=^ 
 
 madhucara nicaraca ram bi ta cocila cujita cunja cu ti re 
 
 gJETLgi^g^^WTeng 
 
 vi ha ra ti he ri ri ha fa ra fa va fante nrit ya ti yu va tija nenafa manfachi 
 
 y*-r^-^^ ^M=^a 
 
 virahija nafyadu ran te. 
 
 o o 
 
 3D: 
 
 la ri ga ma pa dha ni fa 
 
 The preceding is a drain in the mode of Hindo'la, beginning and 
 ending with the fifth note fa, but wanting pa, and ri, or the fecond and 
 fixth : I could eafily have found words for it in the Gitagovinda, but the 
 united charms of poetry and mufick would lead me too far ; and I muft 
 now with reluctance bid farewel to a fubjed, which I defpair of having 
 leifure to refume.
 
 ON 
 
 THE MYSTICAL POETRY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE PERSIANS AND HINDUS. 
 By The PRESIDENT. 
 
 J\ FIGURATIVE mode of exprelTing the fervour of devotion, or the 
 ardent love of created fpirits tovv^ards their beneficent Creator, has pre- 
 vailed from time immemorial in ^Jia ; particularly among the Perjian 
 theifts, both ancient Hufiangis and modern Sufis^ v^ho feem to have bor- 
 rov^ed it from the Indian philofophers of the Veddnta fchool ; and their 
 dodrines are alfo believed to be the fource of that fublime, but poetical, 
 theology, v\rhich glows and fparkles in the w^ritings of the old Acade- 
 mic ks. " Plato travelled into Italy and Egypt, fays Claude Fleury, 
 " to learn the Theology of the Pagans at its fountain head :" its true 
 fountain, however, was neither in Italy nor in Egypt (though confider- 
 able ftreams of it had been conducted thither by Pythagoras and by 
 the family of Misra), but in Perfia or India, which the founder of the 
 Italick fedt had vifited with a fimilar defign. What the Grecian travellers 
 learned among the fages of the eaft, may perhaps be fully explained, at a 
 feafon of leifure, in another differtation ; but we confine this effay to a 
 fingular fpecies of poetry, which confifts almoft wholly of a myftical 
 religious allegory, though it feems on a tranfient view to contain only the 
 fentiments of a wild and voluptuous libertinifin : now, admitting the 
 
 danger
 
 41(3 Ox\ THE MYSTICAL POETRY 
 
 danger of a poetical ftyle, in which the limits between vice and enthufiafm 
 are fo minute as to be hardly diftinguiihable, we muft beware of cenfur- 
 ing it feverely, and muft allow it to be natural, though a warm imagination 
 may carry it to a culpable exc^fs ; for an ardently grateful piety is congenial 
 to the undepraved nature of man, whofe mind, finking under the magnitude 
 ofthefubjed, and ftruggling to exprefs its emotions, has recourfe to meta- 
 phors and allegories, which it fometimes extends beyond the bounds of 
 cool reafon, and often to the brink of abfurdity. Barrow, who would 
 have been the fublimeft mathematician, if his religious turn of mind had 
 not made him the deepeft theologian of his age, defcribes Love as " an 
 " affedtion or inclination of the foul toward an objed, proceeding from 
 *•' an apprehenfion and efteem of fome excellence or convenience in it, 
 " as its beauty^ worth, or utility, and producing, if it be abfent, a pro- 
 '* portionable defire, and confequently an endeavour, to obtain fuch a 
 " property in it, fuch pofleflion of it, fuch an approximation to it, or union 
 " loith it, as the thing is capable of; with a regret and difpleafure in 
 " failing to obtain it, or in the want and lofs of it ; begetting likewife a 
 " complacence, fatisfadtion, and delight in its prefence, pofTeffion, or en- 
 " joyment, which is moreover attended with a good will toward it, fuit- 
 " able to its nature ; that is, with a defire, that it fhould arrive at, or 
 " continue in, its beft ftate ; with a delight to perceive it thrive and 
 *' flourifh ; with a difpleafure to fee it fufFer or decay : with a confe- 
 •' quent endeavour to advance it in all good and preferve it from all 
 " evil." Agreeably to this defcription, which confifts of two parts, and 
 was defigned to comprize the tender love of the Creator towards created 
 fpirits, the great philofopher burfts forth in another place, with his ufual 
 animation and command of language, into the following panegyrick on 
 the pious love of human fouls toward the Author of their happinefs : 
 " Love is the fweeteft and moft deledable of all paffions ; and, when by 
 " the condud of wifdom it is direded in a rational way toward a 
 *' worthy, congruous, and attainable objed, it cannot otherwife than fill 
 
 " the
 
 OF THE PERSIANS AND HINDUS. 447 
 
 " the heart with ravifhing delight : fuch, in all refpeds fuperlatively 
 *' fuch, is God ; who, infinitely beyond all other things, deferveth our 
 *' affection, as moft perfe(Slly amiable and defirable ; as having obliged 
 " us by innumerable and ineftimable benefits ; all the good, that we have 
 " ever enjoyed, or can ever expert, being derived from his pure bounty ; 
 " all things in the world, in competition with him being mean and ugly ; 
 " all things, without him, vain, unprofitable, and hurtful to us. He is 
 " the moft proper object of our love j for we chiefly were framed, and 
 " it is the prime law of our nature, to love him ; our foul ^ from its origi- 
 " nal inJlinSl, "oergeth toward him as its centre, and can have no reft, till 
 " // be fixed on him : he alone can fatisfy the vaft capacity of our minds, 
 " and fill our boundlefs defires. He, of all lovely things, moft certainly 
 " and eafily may be attained; for, whereas commonly men are crofled in 
 " their afFedlion, and their love is embittered from their affedling things 
 " imaginary,, which they cannot reach, or coy things, which difdain and 
 " rejedl them, it is with God quite otherwife : He is moft ready to im- 
 *' part himfelf ; he moft earneftly defireth and wooeth our love ; he is 
 " not only moft willing to correfpond in affedion, but even doth pre- 
 " vent us therein : He doth cherijh and aicoiirage our love byfiveeteji in- 
 " fuences and mof confoling embraces % by kindeft expreffions of favour, by 
 " moft beneficial returns ; and, whereas all other objedls do in the en- 
 " joyment much fail our expedlation, he doth ever far exceed it. Where- 
 " fore in all affedlionate motions of our hearts toward GoD ; in defring 
 " him, or feeking his favour and friendfhip; \xi embracing him, or fetting 
 " our efteem, our good will, our confidence on him ; in enjoying him by 
 " devotional meditations and addrefles to him ; in a refled:ive fenle of 
 " our intereft and propriety in hiiivj in that myflerious union, offpirif, 
 " whereby we do clofely adhere to, and are, as it were, inferted in him ; in 
 " a hearty complacence in his benignity, a grateful fenfe of his kind- 
 " nefs, and a zealous defire of yielding fome requital for it, we cannot 
 " but feel very pleafant tranfports i indeed, that celeftial flame, kimlled
 
 448 ON THE MYSTICAL POETRY 
 
 " iA' dti'i' Kearts by the fpirit of love, cannot be void of warmth ; we can- 
 *' not fix our eyes upon infinite beauty ^.v^t cannot tafte infinite fweet- 
 " nefs, we cannot cleave to infinite felicity, without alfo pei-petually re- 
 " joicing in the firft daughter of Love to God, Charity toward men ; 
 " which, in completion and careful difpofition, doth much refemble her 
 " mother ; for flie doth rid us from all thofe gloomy, keen, turbulent 
 *' Imaginations and paffions, which cloud our mind, which fret our heart, 
 " which difcompofe the frame of our foul ; from burning anger, from ftorm- 
 *' ing contention, from gnawing envy, from rankling fpite, from racking 
 *' fufpicion, from diftrafting ambition and avarice; and confequently doth 
 " fettle our mind in an even temper, in a fedate humour, in an harmonious 
 " order, in that plea/ant Jiate oftraiiquillity^ whtch naturally doth refultfrom 
 *' the "voidance of irregular pajjionsy Now this pafl^age from Barrow 
 (which borders, I admit, on quietifm and enthufiaftic devotion) differs 
 only from the myfl:ical theology of the Sufi's and Togis, as the flowers 
 and fruits of Europe differ in fcent and flavour from thofe of -^fia, or as 
 European differs from Afiatick eloquence : the fame ftrain, in poetical 
 m'eafure, would rife up to the odes of Spenser on Divine Love and 
 Beauty^ and, in a higher key with richer embellifliments, to the fongs of 
 Hafiz and Jayade'va, the raptures of the Mafnav), and the myflieries 
 of the Bhdgavat. 
 
 Before we come to the Perfians and Indians^ let me produce another 
 fpecimen of European theology, colledled from a late excellent work of 
 the illuftrious M. Necker. " "Were men animated, fays he, with 
 " fublime thoughts, did they refpedt the intelle£tual power, with which 
 " they are adorned, and take an interefl; in the dignity of their nature, 
 " they would embrace with tranfport that fenfe of religion, which en- 
 " nobles their faculties, keeps their minds in full fl:rength, and unites 
 " them in idea with him, whofe immenfity overwhelms them with 
 " aftonifliment: confidering themfehes as an emanation from that infinite 
 
 *' Being,
 
 OF THE PERSIANS AND HINDUS. 4,1c) 
 
 " Beings the fource and caufe of all things, they would then difdahi to 
 " he mifled by a 'gloomy and falfe philofophy, and would cherifh the 
 " Idea of a GoD, who created^ who regenerates^ who prefer-ues this uni- 
 " verfe by invariable laws, and by a continued chain of fimilar caufes 
 " producing fimilar effeds ; who pervades all nature with his divine 
 *' fpirit, as an univerfal foul, which moves, directs, and reftrains the 
 ♦* wonderful fabrick of this world. The blifsful idea of a God fweet- 
 " ens every moment of our time, and embellifhes before us the path 
 " of life ; unites us delightfully to all the beauties of nature, and 
 " afTociates us with every thing that lives or moves. Yes ; the whifper 
 *' of the gales, the murmur of waters, the peaceful agitation of trees 
 ♦' and flirubs, would concur to engage our minds and (iffeSl our fouls 
 " with tendernefs^ if our thoughts were elevated to one univerfal caufe^ if 
 ** we recognized on all fides the work of Him^ whom we love; if we 
 " marked the traces of his auguft fteps and benignant intentions, if wc 
 ** believed ourfelves adually prefent at the difplay of his boundlefs 
 " power and the magnificent exertions of his unlimited goodnefs. Be- 
 *' nevolence, among all the virtues, has a character more than human, 
 ** and a certain amiable fimplicity in its nature, which feems analogous 
 *' to thtfrjl idea, tlie original intention of conferring delight, which we 
 ** neceflarily fuppofe in the Creator, when we prefume to feek his motive 
 " in beftowing exiftence : benevolence is that virtue, or, to fpeak more 
 •* emphatically, that pritnordial beauty^ which preceded all times and all 
 ** worlds ; and, when we refled: on it, there appears an analogy, obfcure 
 " indeed at prefent, and to us imperfe£lly known, between our moral 
 " nature an<3 a time yet very remote, when we fhall fatisfy our ardent 
 " wifhes and lively hopes, which conftitute perhaps a fixth, and (if the 
 " phrafe may be ufed) a diftant, fenfe. It may even be imagined, that 
 " love, the brighteft ornament of our nature, love, enchanting and 
 " fublime, is a myfterious pledge for the aflurance of thofe hopes ; fince 
 " love, by difengaging us from ourfelves, by tranfporting us beyond the 
 VOL. I. 3 ** limits
 
 450 ON THE MYSTICAL POETRY 
 
 " limits of our own being, is the firft ftep in our progrefs to a joyful 
 " immortality ; and, by affording both the notion and example of a 
 " cherifhed objedl difl;in£t from our own fouls, may be confidered as 
 *' an interpreter to our hearts of fomething, which our intellefts can- 
 " not conceive. We may feem even to hear the Supreme Intelligence 
 " and Eternal Soul of all nature, give this commifTion to the fpirits, 
 " which emaned from him : Go ; admire a fmall portion of my works^ 
 " and Jliidy them ; make your Jirjl trial of happinefs, and learn to love 
 " him, who bejlowed it ; but fee k not to remove the veil fpread over the 
 " fecret of your exiftence : your nature is compofed of thofe divine particles, 
 " "which, at an infinite dijiance, confiitute my own ejfence ; but you would 
 " be too near me, were you permitted to pei2etrate the myjlery of our fepara- 
 *' tion and union : wait the moment ordained by my wifdom j and, until 
 " that moment come, hope to approach me only by adoration and gratitude.'* 
 
 If thefe two pafTages were tranflated into Sanfcrit and Perfian^ I am 
 confident, that the Veddntis and Sufis would confider them as an epi-* 
 tome of their common fyftem ; for they concur in believing, that the 
 fouls of men differ infinitely in degree^ but not at all in kind, from the 
 divine fpirit, of which they are particles, and in which they will ulti- 
 mately be abforbed ; that the fpirit of God pervades the univerfe, 
 always immediately prefent to his work, and confequently always in 
 fubftance, that he alone is perfedl benevolence, perfedl truth, perfect 
 beauty ; that the love of him alone is real and genuine love, while that 
 of all other objeds is abfurd and illufory, that the beauties of nature are 
 faint refemblances, like images in a mirror, of the divine charms ; that, 
 from eternity without beginning to eternity without end, the fupreme 
 benevolence is occupied in bellowing happinefs or the means of attain- 
 ing it ; that men can only attain it by performing their part of the primal 
 covenant between them and the Creator ; that nothing has a pure abfo- 
 lute exiflence but mind ox fpirit \ that material fubjlances, as the ignorant 
 
 call
 
 OF THE PERSIANS AND HINDUS. 45 1 
 
 call them, are no more than gay piSlures prefented continually to our 
 minds by the femplternal Artlft ; that we muft beware of attachment to 
 fuch phantoms^ and attach ourfelves exclufively to God, who truly exifts 
 in us, as we exift folely in him. ; that we retain even in this forlorn ftate 
 of reparation from our beloved, the idea of heavenly beauty^ and the re- 
 membrance of our primeval vows ; that fweet mufick, gentle breezes, fra- 
 grant flowers, perpetually renew the primary idea, refrefh our fading 
 memory, and melt us with tender affections ; that we muft cherilh thole 
 affeiSions, and by abftrading our fouls from vanity^ that is, from all but 
 God, approximate to his elTence, in our final union with which will 
 confift our fupreme beatitude. From thefe principles flow a thoufand 
 metaphors and poetical figures, which abound in the facred poems of 
 the Perjians and Hindus, who feem to mean the fame thing in fubftance, 
 and differ only in expreffion, as their languages differ in idiom ! The 
 modern Su'Vis, who profefs a belief in the Koran, fuppoie with great 
 fublimity both of thought and of didion, an exprejs contrast, on the day 
 of eternity without beginning, between the affemblage of created fpirits 
 and the fupreme foul, from which they were detached, when a celefl:ial 
 voice pronoimced thefe words, addreffed to each fpirit feparately, " Art 
 " thou not with thy Lord ?" that is, art thou not bound by a folemn 
 contradt with him ? and all the fpirits anfwered with one voice, " Yes :" 
 hence it is, that aliji, or art thou not, and beli, or yes, inceffantly occur 
 in the myftical verfes of the Perfians, and of the Turkifi poets, who 
 imitate them, as the Rotnans imitated the Greeks. The Hindus defcribe 
 the fame covenant under the figurative notion, fo finely expreffed by 
 Isaiah, of a miptial contraB ; for confidering God in the three charac- 
 ters of Creator, Regenerator and Preferver, and fuppofing the power of 
 Prefervation and Benevolence to have become incarnate in the perfon of 
 Crishna, they reprefent him as married to Ra'dha', a word fignify- 
 ing atonement, pacification, ox fatisfaBion, but applied allegorically \.o the 
 foul of man, or rather to the ivhole ajfemblage of created foitls^ between 
 
 whom
 
 452 ON THE MYSTICAL POETRY 
 
 whom and the benevolent Creator they fuppofe that reciprocal love, 
 which Barrow defcribes with a glow of exprelfion perfedly oriental, 
 and which our moft orthodox theologians believe to have been myfti- 
 cally Jhadowed in the fong of Solomon, while they admit, that, in a 
 literal fenfe, it is an epithalamium on the marriage of the fapient king 
 with the princefs of Egypt. The very learned author of the preledions 
 on facred poetry declared his opinion, that the cantkles were founded on 
 hiftorical truth, but involved an allegory of that fort, which he named 
 tnyjlical \ and the beautiful poem on the loves of Laili and Majnun 
 by the inimitable Niza'mi (to fay nothing of other poems on the fame 
 fubje<fl) is indifputably built on true hiftory, yet avowedly allegorical and 
 myfterious ; for the introduction to it is a continued rapture on divine 
 love ; and the name of Laili feems to be ufed in the Majnavi and the 
 odes of Hafiz for the omniprefent fpirit of God. 
 
 It has been made a queftion, whether the poems of Hafiz muft be 
 taken in a literal or in a figurative fenfe ; but the queftion does not ad- 
 mit of a general and direct anfwer ; for even the moft enthufiaftick of 
 his commentators, allow, that fome of them are to be taken literally, and 
 his editors ought to have diftinguifhed them, as our Spenser has dif- 
 tingulftied his four Odes on Love and Beauty^ inftead of mixing the pro- 
 fane with the divine, by a childilh arrangement according to the alpha- 
 betical order of the rhymes. Hafiz never pretended to more than 
 human virtues, and it is known that he had human propenfities ; 
 for in his youth he was paffionately in love with a girl furnamed 
 Shdkhi Nebaty or the Branch of Sugarcane^ and the prince of Sbiraz 
 was his rival : fmce there is an agreeable wildnefs in the ftory, and 
 fince the poet himfelf alludes to it in one of his odes, I give it you 
 at length from the commentary. There is a place called Pirijebz^ or the 
 Green old man^ about four Perjian leagues from the city ; and a popular 
 opinion had long prevailed, that a youth, who Ihould pafs forty fuccef- 
 
 five
 
 OF THE PERSIANS AND HINDUS. 453^ 
 
 five nights in Pirifebz without fleep, would infallibly become an excel- 
 lent poet : young Hafiz had accordingly made a vow, that he would 
 ferve that apprenticelhip with the utmoft exa£lnefs, and for thirty-nine 
 days he rigoroufly difcharged his duty, walking every morning before 
 the houfe of his coy miftrefs, taking fome refrefhment and reft at noon, 
 and pafling the night awake at his poetical ftation ; but, on the fortieth 
 morning, he was tranfpoited with joy on feeing the girl beckon to him 
 through the lattices, and invite him to enter : fhe received him with rap- 
 ture, declared her preference of a bright genius to the fon of a king, and 
 would have detained him all night, if he had not recoUedbed his vow, 
 and, refolving to keep it inviolate, returned to his port. The people of 
 Shiraz add (and the fi<Slion is grounded on a couplet of Hafiz), that, 
 early next morning an old man^ in a green mantL'^ who was no lefs a 
 perfonage than Khizr himfelf, approached him at Ptrijebz with a cup 
 brimful of nedtar, which the Greeks would have called the water of 
 Aganippe^ and rewarded his perfeverance with an infpiring draught of it. 
 After his juvenile paffions had fubiided, we may fuppofe that his mind 
 took that religious bent, which appears in moft of his compofitions j for 
 there can be no doubt that the following diftichs, colIed;ed from different 
 odes, relate to the myftical theology of the Sufis : 
 
 " In eternity without beginning, a ray of thy beauty began to gleam j 
 " when Love fprang into being, and caft flames over all nature j 
 
 " Gn that day thy cheek fparkled even under thy veil, and all this 
 ** beautiful imagery appeared on the mirror of our fancies. 
 
 " Rife, my foul ; that I may pour thee forth on the pencil of that 
 *' fupreme Artift, who comprized In a turn of his compafs all this won- 
 " derful fcenery ! 
 
 " From
 
 454 ON THE MYSTICAL POETRY 
 
 " From the moment, when I heard the divine fentence, / have breathed 
 ** into man a portion of my fpirit^ I was affured, that we were His, and 
 *' He ours. . 
 
 *' Where are the glad tidings of union with thee, that I may abandon 
 *' all defire of life ? I am a bird of holinefs, and would fain efcape from 
 *' the net of this world. 
 
 ^ " Shed, O Lord, from the cloud of heavenly guidance one cheering 
 *' fhower, before the moment, when I muft rife up like a particle of dry 
 ■*' duft ! 
 
 " The fum of our tranfadiions in this univerfe, is nothing : bring us 
 " the wine of devotion j for the pofTeflions of this world vanilli. 
 
 " The true objedt of heart and foul is the glory of union with our 
 *• beloved : that objedl really exifts, but without it both heart and foul 
 *' would have no exiflence. 
 
 *' O the blifs of that day, when I fhall depart from this defolate man- 
 *' fion ; fhall feek reft for my foul ; and fhall follow the traces of my 
 " beloved : 
 
 " Dancing, with love of his beauty, like a mote in a fun-beam, till I 
 " reach the fpring and fountain of light, whence yon fun derives all his 
 « luftre!" 
 
 The couplets, which follow, relate as indubitably to human love and 
 fenfual gratifications : 
 
 " May the hand never fhake, which gathered the grapes ! May the 
 " foot never flip, which prefTed them ! 
 
 " That
 
 OF THE PERSIANS AND HINDUS. 455 
 
 " That poignant liquor, which the zealot calls the mother of fins ^ is 
 " pleafanter and fweeter to me than the kifles of a maiden. 
 
 " Wine two years old and a damfel of fourteen are fufficient fociety 
 " for me, above all companies great or fmall. 
 
 " How delightful is dancing to lively notes and the cheerful melody 
 *' of the flute, efpecially when we touch the hand of a beautiful girl ! 
 
 " Call for wine, and fcatter fowers around : what more canjl thou afk 
 *' from fate ? Thus fpoke the nightingale this morning : what fayeft thou, 
 " fweet rofe, to his precepts ? 
 
 " Bring thy couch to the garden of rofes, that thou mayeft kifs the 
 *' cheeks and lips of lovely damfels, quaff rich wine, and fmell odori- 
 *' ferous bloffoms. 
 
 " O branch of an exquifite rofe-plant, for whofe fake doft thou grow ? 
 " Ah ! on whom will that fmiling rofe-bud confer delight ? 
 
 " The rofe would have difcourfed on the beauties of my charmer, but 
 *• the gale was jealous, and Hole her breath, before ihe fpoke. 
 
 " In this age, the only friends, who are free from blemifh, are a flafk 
 " of pure wine and a volume of elegant love fongs. 
 
 " O the joy of that moment, when the felf-fufficiency of inebriation 
 " rendered me independent of the prince and of his minifter !" 
 
 Many zealous admirers of Ha'fiz infift, that by wine he invariably 
 means devotion ; and they have gone fo far as to compofe a dldionary of 
 
 words
 
 456 ON THE MYSTICAL POETRY 
 
 words in the lajiguage^ as they call it, of the Sufis : in that vocabulary 
 Jleep is explained by meditation on the divine perfe£lions, and perfume by 
 hope of the divine favour ; gales are iUapfs of grace ; kiffes and embraces^ 
 the raptures of piety ; idolaters, infidels, and lihertines are men of the 
 pureft religion^ and their idolh. the Creator himfelf ; the tavern is a retired 
 oratory, and its keeper^ a fage inftrudlor ; beauty denotes the perfeSlion of 
 the Supreme Being ; trefeszxc the expanfion of his glory ; lipSy the hidden 
 myfteries of his efTence ; down on the cheek, the world of fpirits, who 
 encircle his throne ; and a black fnole, the point of indivifible unity ; 
 laflly, ivantonnefs, mirth, and ebriety, mean religious ardour and abflrac- 
 tion from all terreftrial thoughts. The poet himfelf gives a colour in 
 many paflages to fuch an interpretation ; aiKl without it, we can hardly 
 conceive, that his poems, or thofe of his numerous imitators, would be 
 tolerated in a Mufelman country, efpecially at Confiantinople, where they 
 are venerated as divine compofitions : it muft be admitted, that the fub- 
 limity of the myfiical allegory, which, like metaphors and comparifons, 
 fhould be general only, not minutely exa£l, is diminifhed, if not deftroy- 
 edj by an attempt .at particular and dijlinEl refemblances ; and that the 
 ftyle itfelf is open to dangerous mifmterpretation, while it fupplies real 
 Infidels with a pretext for laughing at religion itfelf. 
 
 On this occafion I cannot refrain from producing a moft extraordinary 
 ode by a Sufi of Bokhara, who aflumed the poetical furname of Ismat : 
 a more modern poet, by prefixing three lines to each couplet, which 
 rhyme with the firfl; hemiftich, has very elegantly and ingenioufly con- 
 verted the Kafidah into a Mokhammes, but I prefent you only with a 
 literal verfion of the original diftichs : 
 
 " Yefterday, half inebriated, I paffcd by the quarter, where the vint- 
 ** ners dwell, to feek the daughter of an infidel who fellt; wine. 
 
 •'♦ At
 
 OF THE PERSIANS AND HINDUS. 457 
 
 " At the end of the ftreet, there advanced before me a damfel with a 
 *' fairy's cheeks, who, in the manner of a pagan, wore her trefles defhe- 
 " veiled over her fhoulder like the facerdotal thread. I faid : O thou, to 
 ** the arch of whofe eye-hrow the^ new moon is a Jlave, what quarter is this 
 " and where is thy man/ion ? 
 
 " She anfwered : Caji thy rofary on the ground; bind on thy Jhoulder- 
 " the thread of pagan fm j throw Jiones at the glafs of piety ; arid quaff 
 " wine from a full goblet y 
 
 ** After that come before me^ that I may whifper a word in thine ear : 
 " thou wilt accomplijh thy journey, if thou lijlen to my difcourfe. 
 
 " Abandoning my heart and rapt in ecftafy, I ran after her, till I came 
 " to a place, in which religion and reafon forfook me. 
 
 " At a diftance I beheld a company, all infane and inebriated, who 
 " came boiling and roaring with ardour from the wine of love i 
 
 " Without cymbals, or lutes, or viols, yet all full of mirth and me- 
 " lody J without wine, ox goblet, or flafk, yet all inceffantly drinking. 
 
 " When the cord of reftraint flipped from my hand, I defired to alk 
 " her one queftion, but fhe faid : Silence ! 
 
 *' This is no fquare temple^ to the gate of which thou canjl arrive pre- 
 " cipitately : this is no mofque to which thou canji come with tumult, but 
 ** without knowledge. This is the banquet -houfe of infdels, and within it 
 " all are intoxicated', all, from the dawn of eternity to the day of refurrec- 
 " tion, lojl in ajionijl.iment . 
 
 VOL, I. 3 p " Depart
 
 458 ON THE MYSTICAL POETRY 
 
 *' Depart then from the cloijler, and take the way to the tavern ; cajl 
 " off the cloak of a dervife, and wear the robe of a libertine. 
 
 " I obeyed ; and, if thou defireft the fame ftrain and colour with 
 " IsMAT, imitate him, and fell this world and the next for one drop of 
 " pure wine." 
 
 Such is the ftrange religion, and ftranger language of the Sufis j 
 but moft of the Afiatick poets are of that religion, and, if we think it 
 worth while to read their poems, we muft think it worth while to under- 
 ftand them : their great Maulavi aflures us, that " they profefs eager 
 " defire, but with no carnal affedion, and circulate the cup, but no ma- 
 " terial goblet ; fmce all things are fpiritual in their fed, all is myftery 
 " within myftery ;" confiftently with which declaration he opens his 
 aftonifhing work, entitled the Mafnavi^ with the following couplets : 
 
 Hear, how yon reed in fadly-pleafmg tales 
 Departed blifs and prefent wo bewails ! 
 
 * "With me, from native banks untimely torn, 
 
 * Love-warbling youths and foft-ey'd virgins mourn. 
 
 * O ! Let the heart, by fatal abfence rent, 
 
 ' Feel what I fmg, and bleed when I lament : 
 
 * Who roams in exile from his parent bow'r, 
 
 ' Pants to return, and chides each ling'ring hour. 
 ' My notes, in circles of the grave and gay, 
 
 * Have hail'd the rifmg, cheer'd the clofmg day : 
 
 * Each in my fond affedions claim'd a part, 
 ' But none difcern'd the fecret of my heart. 
 
 * What though my ftrains and forrows flow combin'd ! 
 
 * Yet ears are flow, and carnal eyes are blind. 
 
 ' Free
 
 OF THE PERSIANS AND HINDUS 
 
 * Free through each mortal form the fpirlts roll, 
 
 ' But fight avails not. Can we fee the foul ?' 
 
 Such notes breath'd gently from yon vocal frame : 
 
 Breath'd faid I ? no ; 'twas all enliv'ning flame. 
 
 'Tis love, that fills the reed with warmth divine ; 
 
 *Tis love, that fparkles in the racy wine. 
 
 Me, plaintive wand'rer from my peerlefs maid. 
 
 The reed has fir'd, and all my foul betray'd. 
 
 He gives the bane, and he with balfam cures ; 
 
 Afflids, yet fooths ; impaffions, yet allures. 
 
 Delightful pangs his am'rous tales prolong ; 
 
 And Laili's frantick lover lives in fong. 
 
 Not he, who reafons beft, this wifdom knows : 
 
 Ears only drink what rapt'rous tongues difclofe. 
 
 Nor fruitlefs deem the reed's heart-piercing pain : 
 
 See fweetnefs dropping from the parted cane. 
 
 Alternate hope and fear my days divide : 
 
 I courted Grief, and Anguilh was my bride. 
 
 Flow on, fad ftream of life ! I fmile fecure : 
 
 Thou liveft ; Thou, the pureft of the pure ! 
 
 Rife, vlg'rous youth ! be free ; be nobly bold : 
 
 Shall chains confine you, though they blaze with gold ? 
 
 Go ; to your vafe the gather'd main convey : 
 
 What w^ere your ftores ? The pittance of a day ! 
 
 New plans for wealth your fancies would invent ; 
 
 Yet fhells, to nourifh pearls, mull lie content. 
 
 The man, whofe robe love's purple arrows rend 
 
 Bids av'rice reft and toils tumultuous end. 
 
 Hail, heav'nly love ! true fource of endlefs gains ! 
 
 Thy balm reftores me, and thy fkill fuftains. 
 
 459 
 
 Oh,
 
 KJO ON THE MYSTICAL POETRY 
 
 Oh, more than Galen learn'd, than Plato wife ! 
 
 My guide, my law, my joy fupreme arife ! 
 
 Love warms this frigid clay with myftick fire, 
 
 And dancing mountains leap with young defire. 
 
 Blefl is the foul, that fwims in feas of love. 
 
 And long the life fuftain'd by food above. 
 
 With forms imperfed can perfection dwell ? 
 
 Here paufe, my fong ; and thou, vain world, farewel, 
 
 A volume might be filled with fimilar paflages from the Suf, poets ; 
 from Sa'ib, Orfi, Mi'r Khosrau, Ja'mi, Hazi'n, and Sa'bik, 
 who are next in beauty of compofition to Ha'fiz and Sadi, but next 
 at a confiderable diftance ; from Mesi'hi, the moft elegant of their 
 TurkiJJ:) imitators ; from a few Hindi poets of our own times, and 
 from Ibnul Fa red, who wrote myflical odes in Arabick ; but we 
 may clofe this account of the Sufis with a paffage from the third book of 
 the Bust AN, the declared fubje£t of which is divine love-, referring you 
 for a particular detail of their metaphyficks and theology to the T)abijian 
 of MoHS ANi Fani, and to the pleafing eflay, called the Jundion of tivo 
 SeaSy by that amiable and unfortunate prince, Da'ra' Shecu'h : 
 
 " The love of a being compofed, like thyfelf, of water and clay, de- 
 " ftroys thy patience and peace of mind ; it excites thee, in thy waking 
 " hours with minute beauties, and engages thee, in thy fleep, with vain 
 " imaginations : with fuch real affedtion doft thou lay thy head on her 
 '' foot,that the univerfe, in comparifon of her, vanifhes into nothing before 
 " thee ; and, fince thy gold allures not her eye, gold and mere earth ap- 
 " pear equal in thine. Not a breath doft thou utter to any one elfe, for 
 " with her thou haft no room for any other ; thou declareft that her 
 " abode is in thine eye, or, when thou clofeft it, in thy heart ; thou haft 
 
 " no
 
 OF THE PERSIANS AND HINDUS. 4^1 
 
 no fear of cenfure from any man ; thou haft no power to be at reft 
 for a moment ; if fhe demands thy foul, it runs inftantly to thy lip ; 
 and if (he waves a cimeter over thee, thy head falls immediately under 
 it. Since an abfurd love, with its bafis on aii-, affeds thee fo violently, 
 and commands with a fway fo defpotic, canft thou wonder, that they, 
 who walk in the true path, are drowned in the fea of myfterious 
 adoration ? They difregard life through afFe(5tion for its giver ; they 
 abandon the world through remembrance of its maker ; they are 
 inebriated with the melody of amorous complaints ; they remember 
 their beloved, and refign to him both this life and the next. Through 
 remembrance of God, they fliun all mankind : they are fo enamoured 
 of the cup-bearer, that they fpill the wine from the cup. No panacea 
 can heal them, for no mortal can be apprized of their malady; fo 
 loudly has rung in their ears, from eternity without beginning, the 
 divine word akj^^ with iePi^ the tumultuous exclamation of all fpirits. 
 They are a fe£l fully employed, but fitting in retirement ; their feet 
 are of earth, but their breath is a flame : with a fmgle yell they could 
 rend a mountain from its bafe ; with a fingle cry they could throw a 
 city into confufion : like wind, they are concealed and move nimbly ; 
 like ftone, they are filent, yet repeat God's praifes. At early dawn 
 their tears flow fo copioufly as to wafti from their eyes the black 
 powder of fleep : though the courfer of their fancy ran fo fwiftly all 
 night, yet the morning finds them left behind in diforder ; night and 
 day are they plunged in an ocean of ardent defire, till they are unable, 
 through aftonifhment, to dlftinguifti night from day. So enraptured 
 are they with the beauty of Him, w^io decorated the human form, 
 that with the beauty of the form itfelf, they have no concern ; and, if 
 ever they behold a beautiful ftiape, they fee in it the myftery of God's 
 work. 
 
 The
 
 462 
 
 " The wife take not the hufk in exchange for the kernel ; and ha, 
 " who makes that choice, has no underftanding. He only has drunk 
 " the pure wine of unity, who has forgotten, by remembering God, all 
 " things elfe in both worlds." 
 
 Let us return to the Hindus, among whom we now find the fame em- 
 blematical theology, which Pythagoras admired and adopted. The loves 
 of Crishna and Radha, or the reciprocal attradlion between the 
 divine goodnefs and the human foul, are told at large in the tenth book 
 of the Bhdgavat, and are the fubject of a little Pajtoral Drama, entitled 
 Gitagovinda : it was the work of Jayade'va, who flourifhed, it is faid, 
 before Calidas, and was born, as he tells us himfelf, in Cenduli, 
 which many believe to be in Calinga ; but, fince there is a town of a 
 fimllar name in Eerdwan, the natives of it infill that the fineft lyrick 
 poet of India was their countryman, and celebrate in honour of him an 
 annual jubilee, pafling a whole night in reprefenting his drama, and in 
 fmging his beautiful fongs. After having tranflated the Gitagovinda 
 word for word, I reduced my tranflation to the form, in which it is now 
 exhibited ; omitting only thofe paflages, which are too luxuriant and too 
 bold for an European tafte, and the prefatory ode on the ten incarnations 
 of Vishnu, with which you have been prefented on another occafion : 
 the phrafes in Italicks, are the burdens of the feveral fongs ; and you may 
 be affured, that not a fingle image or idea has been added by the 
 tranflator. 
 
 GI'TA-
 
 GITAGOVINDA 
 
 OR, 
 
 THE SONGS OF JAYADEVA. 
 
 X H E firmament is obfcured by clouds ; the woodlands are black 
 
 * with Tamd/a-trees ; that youth, who roves in the foreft, will be fear- 
 
 * ful in the gloom of night: go, my daughter; bring the wanderer 
 
 * home to my ruftick manfion.' Such was the command of Nanda, 
 the fortunate herdfman ; and hence arofe the love of Ra'dha' and Ma'- 
 DHAVA, who fported on the bank of Tatnuna^ or haftened eagerly to the 
 fecret bower. 
 
 If thy foul be delighted with the remembrance of Heri, or fenfible to 
 the raptures of love, liften to the voice of Jayade'va, whofe notes are 
 both fweet and brilliant. O thou, who reclineft on the bofom of Ca- 
 mala'; whofe ears flame with gems, and whofe locks are embellifhed 
 with fylvan flowers ; thou, from whom the day fl:ar derived his efful- 
 gence, who flewefl the venom-breathing Ca'liya, who beamedft, like a 
 fun, on the tribe of Yadu, that flourifhed like a lotos ; thou, who fittefl: 
 on the plumage of Garura, who, by fubduing demons, gavefl exquifite 
 joy to the afl'embly of immortals ; thou, for whom the daughter of Ja- 
 naca was decked in gay apparel, by whom Du'shana was over- 
 thrown ;
 
 4C)4 GITAGO'VINDA ; OR, 
 
 thrown ; thou, whofe eye fparklcs Hke the water-lily, who calledft three 
 worlds into exiftence ; thou, by whom the rocks of Mandar were eafily 
 fupported, who fippeft nedtar from the radiant iips of Pedma', as the 
 fluttering Chacora drinks the moon-beams; be victorious ^ O Heri, lord 
 of conqueji. 
 
 Ra'dha' fought him long in vain, and her thoughts were confounded 
 by the fever of defire : fhe roved in the vernal morning among the 
 twining Vafcvitis covered with foft bloflbms, when a damfel thus ad- 
 dreffed her with youthful hilarity : ' The gale, that has wantoned round 
 
 * the beautiful clove-plants, breathes now from the hills of Maylaya ; the 
 ' circling arbours refound with the notes of the Cocil and the murmurs 
 
 * of honey-making fwarms. Now the hearts of damfels, whofe lovers 
 ' travel at a diftance, are pierced with anguifli ; while the bloflbms of 
 ' Bacul are confpicuous among the flowrets covered with bees. The 
 ' Tamala^ with leaves dark and odorous, claims a tribute from the mufk, 
 
 * which it vanquifhes ; and the cluftering flowers of the Paldfa refemble 
 
 * the nails of Ca'ma, with which he rends the hearts of the young. 
 ' The full-blown Cefara gleams like the fceptre of the world's monarch, 
 ' Love ; and the pointed thyrfe of the Cetaca refembles the darts, by 
 ' which lovers are wounded. See the bunches of P/itali-^owcrs, filled 
 ' with bees, like the qviiver of Smara full of fhafts ; while the tender 
 ' blofl"om of the Caruna fmiles to fee the whole world laying fhame afide. 
 
 * The far-fcented Mddhavi beautifies the trees, round which it twines ; 
 
 * and the frefli Mallica feduces with rich perfume even the hearts of 
 
 * hermits ; while the A)7ira-X.rQQ with blooming trefl'es is embraced by 
 ' the gay creeper AtimuSla^ and the blue fl:reams of Tamuna wind round 
 
 * the groves of Vrinddvan. In this charming feafon, ivhich gives pain to 
 *■ feparated lovers^ young Heri fports and dances with a company of damfels. 
 
 * A breeze, like the breath of love, from the fragrant flowers of the Ce- 
 
 * taca^ kindles every heart, whilft it perfumes the woods with the dufl:, 
 
 hich 
 
 w
 
 THE SONGS OF JAYADE'VA. 465 
 
 * which it fhakes from the Mallica with half-opened buds j and the Cocila 
 
 * burfls into fong, when he fees the bloflbms gliftening on the lovely 
 
 * Rasala: 
 
 The jealous Ra'dha' gave no anfwer; and, foon after, her officious 
 friend, perceiving the foe of Mura in the foreft eager for the rapturous 
 embraces of the herdfmen's daughters, with whom he was dancing, thus 
 again addrefled his forgotten miftrefs : ' With a garland of wild flowers 
 
 * defcending even to the yellow mantle, that girds his azure limbs, dif- 
 
 * tinguifhed by fmiling cheeks and by ear-rings, that fparkle^ as he plays, 
 
 * Her I exults in the ajj'emblage of amorous damfels. One of them preffes 
 *him with her fwelling breaft, while fhe warbles with exquifite melody. 
 
 * Another, affedled by a glance from his eye, ftands meditating on the 
 
 * lotos of his face. A third, on pretence of whifpering a fecret in his ear, 
 
 * approaches his temples, and kifTes them with ardour. One feizes his 
 
 * mantle and draws him towards her, pointing to the bower on the banks 
 
 * of Yamuna, where elegant Vanjulas interweave their branches. He ap- 
 
 * plauds another, who dances in the fportive circle, whilft her bracelets 
 
 * ring, as fhe beats time with her palms. Now he carefTes one, and 
 
 * kifles another, fmiling on a third with complacency ; and now he 
 
 * chafes her, whofe beauty has moft allured him. Thus the wanton 
 
 * Her I froiicks, in the feafon of fweets, among- the maids of Vraja, who 
 
 * rufh to his embraces, as if he were Pleafure itfelf affuming a human 
 
 * form; and one of them, under a pretext of hymning his divine per~ 
 
 * fedions, whifpers in his ear : " Thy lips, my beloved, are nedar." 
 
 Ra'dha' remains in the foreft ; but refenting the promifcuous paflion 
 of Heri, and his negleft of her beauty, which he once thought fu- 
 periour, fhe retires to a bower of twining plants, the fummit of which 
 refounds with the humming of fwarms engaged in their fweet labours ; 
 and there, falling languid on the ground, flie thus addrefTes her female 
 
 VOL, I. 3 Q^ companionu..
 
 466 GI'TAGO'VINDA i OR, 
 
 companion. * Though he take recreation in my abfcence, and fmile on all 
 
 * around him, yet fnyfoul remembers him^ whofe beguiling reed anodulates 
 
 * a tune fweetened by the ne(5lar of his quivering lip, while his ear 
 ' fparkles with gems, and his eye darts amorous glances ; Him, whofe 
 
 * locks are decked with the plumes of peacocks refplendent with many- 
 ' coloured moons, and whofe mantlq gleams like a dark blue cloud illu- 
 
 * mined with rain-bows ; Him, whofe graceful fmile gives new luftre to 
 
 * his lips, brilliant and foft as a dewy leaf, fweet and ruddy as the bloflbm 
 
 * of Bandhujiva, while they tremble with eagernefs to kifs the daughters 
 
 * of the herdfmen ; Him, who difperfes the gloom with beams from the 
 
 * jewels, which decorate his bofom, his wrifts, and his ankles, on whofe 
 
 * forehead fhines a circlet of fandal-wood, which makes even the moon 
 ' contemptible, when it fails through irradiated clouds ; Him, whofe ear- 
 
 * rings are formed of entire gems in the Ihape of the fifh Macar on the 
 ' banners of Love ; even the yellow-robed God, whofe attendants are the 
 ' chiefs of deities, of holy men, and of demons ; Him, who reclines under 
 ' a gay Cadamba-irto. ; who formerly delighted me, while he gracefully 
 ' waved in the dance, and all , his foul fparkled in his eye. My weak 
 ' mind thus enumerates his qualities ; and, though offended, ftrives to 
 ' banifh offence. What elfe can it do ? It cannot part with its affedion 
 ' for Crishna, whofe love is excited by other damfels, and who fports 
 ' in the abfence of Ra'dha'. Bring, O friend, that vanquiflier . of the 
 ' demon Ce'si, to /port with me ^ who am repairing to a fecret bower, 
 ' who look timidly on all fides, who meditate with arnorous fancy on, 
 
 * his divine transfiguration. Bring him, whofe difcourfe was once com- 
 ' pofed of the gentleft words, to converfe with me, who am bafhful on 
 ' his firft approach, and exprefs my thoughts with a frnife fweet as 
 ' honey. Bring him, who formerly flept on niy bofom, to recline with 
 ' me on a green bed of leaves jufl gathered, while his lip fheds dew, and 
 ' my arms enfold him. Bring him, who has attained the perfedion of 
 ' fkill in love's art, whofe hand ufed to prefs thefe .firm and delicate
 
 THE SONGS OF JAYADE'VA. 467 
 
 ' fpheres, to ptay witn me, whole voice rivals that of the Uocu, and wKofe 
 ' trefles arc bound v^Mth waving bloflbms. Bring him, who formerly 
 
 * drew me by the locks to his embrace, to repofe with me, whofe feet 
 ' tinkle, as they move, with rings of gold and of gems, whofe looferied 
 ' zone founds, as it falls ; and whofe limbs are flender and flexible as the 
 ' creeping plant. That God, whofe cheeks are beautified by the nedar 
 ' of his fmiles, whofe pipe drops iti his ecftafy, I faw in the grove en- 
 ' circled by the damfets of Vraj'a, who gazed on him afkahce from the 
 ' corners of their eyes: I faw him in the grove with happier damfels, 
 
 * yet the fight of him delighted me. Soft is the gale, which breathes 
 
 * over yon clear pool, and expands the cluftering bloflbms of the voluble 
 
 * Asica ; foft, yet grievous to me in the abfence of the foe of Madhu. 
 
 * Delightful are the flowers of Amra-Vcies oh the mountain-top, while 
 ' the murmuring bees purfue their voluptuous toil ; delightful, yet 
 ' afllidling to me, O friend, in the abfence of the youthful Ce'sava.' 
 
 Meantime, the defl:royer of Cans a, having brought to his remem- 
 brance the amiable Ra'dha', forfook the beautiful damfels of Vraja : he 
 fought' her in all parts of the forefl: ; his old wound from love's arrow 
 bled again ; he repented of his levity, and, feated in a bower near the 
 bank of Tamuna^ the blue daughter of the fun, thus 'poured forth his 
 lamentation^ 
 
 * She is departed — fhe faw me, no doubt, furrounded by the wanton 
 
 * fhepherdefl'es ; yet, confcious of my fault, I durfl: not intercept her 
 
 * flight. Wo is me ! Jhe feels a fenfe of injured honour, and is departed 
 ' in wrath. How will fhe conduct herfelf ? How will fhe exprefs her 
 
 * pain in fo long a feparation ? What is wealth to me ? What are nu- 
 
 * merous attendants ? What are the pleafures of the world ? What joy 
 
 * can I receive from a heavenly abode ? I feem to behold her face with 
 
 * eye-brows contra<Sting themfelves through her juft refentment : it re- 
 
 ' fembles
 
 4-08 GI'TAGO'VINDAi OR, 
 
 ' fembles a frefli lotos, over which two black bees are fluttering : I feem 
 ' fo prefent is fhe to my imagination, even now to carefs her with eager- 
 ' nefs. Why then do I feek her in this foreft ? V/hy do I lament with- 
 ' out caufe ? O flender damfel, anger, I know, has torn thy foft bofom ; 
 
 * but whither thou art retired, I know not. How can I invite thee to 
 
 * return ? Thou art feen by me, indeed, in a vifion ', thou feemeft to 
 ' move before me. Ah ! why doft thou not rufh, as before, to my em- 
 ' brace ? Do but forgive me : never again will I commit a iimilar offence. 
 
 * Grant me but a fight of thee, O lovely Ra'dhica'; for my paifion 
 
 * torments me. I am not the terrible Make's a: a garland of water- 
 ' lilies with fubtil threads decks my fhoulders ; not ferpents with twifted 
 ' folds : the blue petals of the lotos glitter on my neck ; not the azure 
 ' gleam of poifon : powdered fandal-wood is fprinkled on my limbs j not 
 
 * pale aflies : O God of Love, miftake me not for Mah a'de'va. Wound 
 
 * me not again ; approach me not in anger ; I love already but too paf- 
 ' fionately ; yet I have loft my beloved. Hold not in thy hand that 
 ' fliaft barbed with an ^mra-Eower ! Brace not thy bow, thou con- 
 ' queror of the world ! Is it valour to flay one who faints ? My heart is 
 
 * already pierced by arrows from Ra'dha"s eyes, black and keen as 
 ' thofe of an antelope ; yet mine eyes are not gratified with her prefence. 
 
 * Her eyes are full of Ihafts ; her eye-brows are bows ; and the tips of 
 ' her ears are filken fl:rings : thus armed by Ananga, the God of De- 
 ' fire, fhe marches, herfelf a goddefs, to enfure his triumph over the 
 ' vanquiihed univerfe. I meditate on her delightful embrace, on the 
 ' ravifhing glances darted from her eye, on the fragrant lotos of her 
 ' mouth, on her neftar-dropping fpeech ; on her lips ruddy as the berries 
 
 * of the Bimha ; yet even my fixed meditation on fuch an aflemblage of 
 ■' charms encreafes, infl:ead of alleviating, the mifery of feparation.' 
 
 The damfel, commiflloned by Ra'DHa', found the difconfolate God 
 under an arbour of fpreading Vaniras by the fide of Tamuna\ where, 
 
 prefenting
 
 THE SONGS OF JAYADE'VA. 469 
 
 prefenting herfelf gracefully befoi-e him, fhe thus defcribed the afflidion 
 of his beloved : 
 
 * She defplfes effence of fandal-wood, and even by moon-light fits 
 
 * brooding over her gloomy forrow ; fhe declares the gale of Malaya to 
 ' be venom, and the fandal-trees, through which it has breathed, to have 
 ' been the haunt of ferpents. "Thus, O Ma'dhava, is fie affliSled in thy 
 ' ahfence with the pain, which love's dart has occafio7ied : her foul is fxed 
 
 * on thee. Frefh arrows of defire are continually aflailing her, and fhe 
 ' forms a net of lotos-leaves as armour for her heart, which thou alone 
 
 * fliouldft fortify. She makes her own bed of the arrows darted by the 
 ' flowery-fhafted God ; but, when fhe hoped for thy embrace, fhe had 
 
 * formed for thee a couch of foft bloffoms. Her face is like a water-lily, 
 
 * veiled in the dew of tears, and her eyes appear like moons eclipfed, 
 
 * which let fall their gathered nedar through pain caufed by the tooth 
 ' of the furious dragon. She draws thy image with mufk in the cha- 
 
 * rafter of the Deity with five fhafts, having fubdued the Macar^ or 
 
 * horned fhark, and holding an arrow tipped with an Amra-^o^tr ', thus 
 
 * fhe draws thy pidure, and worfliips it. At the clofe of every fentence, 
 " O Ma'dhava, fhe exclaims, at thy feet am I fallen, and in thy ab- 
 *' fence even the moon, though it be a vafe full of nedar, inflames my 
 " limbs." Then, by the power of imagination, fhe figures thee fland- 
 
 * ing before her ; thee, who art not cafily attained : fhe fighs, fhe fmiles, 
 
 * fhe mourns, fhe weeps, fhe moves from fide to fide, fhe lam-ents and re- 
 ' joices by turns. Her abode is a foreft ; the circle of her female com- 
 ' panions is a net ; her fighs are flames of fire kindled in a thicket ; her- 
 
 ' felf (alas ! through thy abfence) is become a timid roe ; and Love is - 
 
 * the tiger, who fprings on her like Yama, the Genius of Death. So- 
 
 * emaciated is her beautiful body, that even the light garland, which 
 
 * waves over her bofom, fhe thinks a load. Such, O bright-haired God^ 
 
 * is Ra'dha' when thou art abfent. If powder of fandal-wood finely 
 
 * levigated
 
 470 GITAGO'VINDA ; OR, 
 
 ' levigated be moiftened and applied to her breafts, fhe ftarts, and mif- 
 ' takes it for poifon. Her fighs form a breeze long extended, and burn 
 ' her like the flame, which reduced Candarpa to afhes. She throws 
 ' around her eyes, like blue water-lilies with broken ftalks, dropping 
 ' lucid ftreams. Even her bed of tender leaves appear in her fight like a 
 ' kindled fire. The palm of her hand fupports her aching temple, motion- 
 ' lefs as the crefcent rifing at eve. " Heri, Heri," thus in filence fhe 
 ' meditates on thy name, as if her wifh were gratified, and fhe were dying 
 ' through thy abfence. She rends her locks ; fhe pants ; fhe laments 
 ' inarticulately ; fhe trembles ; fhe pines ; fhe mufes ; fhe moves from 
 ' place to place ; fhe clofes her eyes ; fhe falls ; fhe rifes again ; fhe 
 ' faints : in fuch a fever of love, fhe may live, O celeftial phyfician, if 
 ' thou adminifter the remedy ; but, fhouldft Thou be unkind, her malady 
 ' will be defperate. Thus, O divine healer, by the nedar of thy love 
 ' mufl Ra'dha' be reftored to health; and, if thou refufe it, thy heart 
 
 * muft be harder than the thunderflone. Long has her foul pined, and 
 ' long has fhe been heated with fandal-wood, moon-light, and water- 
 ' lilies, with which others are cooled ; yet fhe patiently and in fecret 
 ' meditates on Thee, who alone canfl relieve her. Shouldfl thou be in- 
 ' conflant, how can fhe, wafted as fhe is to a fhadow, fupport life a 
 
 * fingle moment ? How can fhe, who lately could not endure thy ab- 
 ' fence even an inftant, forbear fighing now, when fhe looks with half- 
 
 * clofed eyes on the Rasdla with bloomy branches, which remind her of 
 
 * the vernal feafon, when fhe firft beheld thee with rapture ? 
 
 * Here have I chofen my abode : go quickly to Ra'dha' ; foothe her 
 •with my meffage, and condu£t her hither.' So fpoke the foe of 
 Madhu to the anxious damfel, who haftened back, and thus addreffed 
 her companion : ' Whilft a fweet breeze from the hills of Malaya comes 
 
 * wafting on his plumes the young God of Defire ; while many a flower 
 ' points his extended petals to pierce the bofom of feparated lovers, the 
 
 * Deity
 
 THE SONGS OF JAY ADE'VA. 47 1 
 
 Deity crowned with fylvan blojfoms, laments, O friend^ in thy abfence. 
 Even the dewy rays of the moon burn him ; and, as the (haft of love 
 is defcending, he mourns inarticulately with increafmg diftradtion. 
 When the bees murmur foftly, he covers his ears ; mifery fits fixed in 
 his heart, and every returning night adds anguifh to anguifh. He 
 quits his radiant palace for the wild foreft, where he finks on a- bed of 
 cold clay, and frequently mutters thy name. In yon bower, to which 
 the pilgrims of love are ufed to repair, he meditates on thy form, re- 
 peating in filence fome enchanting word, which once dropped from 
 thy lips, and thirfting for the nedtar which they alone can fupply. 
 Delay not, O lovelieft of women ; follow the lord of thy heart : behold, 
 he feeks the appointed fhade, bright with the ornaments of love, and 
 confident of the promifed blifs. Having bound his locks with forejl- 
 JlowerSy he hajiens to yon arbour^ where afoft gale breathes over the banks 
 of Yamuna : there, again pronouncing thy name, he modulates his 
 divine reed. Oh ! with what rapture doth he gaze on the golden dufl, 
 which the breeze fhakes from expanded blofl~oms ; the breeze, which" 
 has kiffed thy cheek ! With a mind, languid as a dropping wing, feeble 
 as a trembling leaf, he doubtfully experts thy approach, and timidly 
 looks on the path which thou mull tread. Leave behind thee, O friend, 
 the ring which tinkles on thy delicate ankle, when thou fporteft in the 
 dance ; haftily caft over thee thy azure mantle, and run to the gloomy 
 bower. The reward of thy fpeed, O thou who fparkleft like lightning, 
 will be to fhine on the blue bofom of Mura'ri, which refembles 
 a vernal cloud, decked with a firing of pearls like a flock of white 
 water-birds fluttering in the air. Difappoint not, O thou lotos-eyed, 
 the vanquiflier of Madhu ; accomplifli his defire ; but go quickly : it 
 is night; and the night alfo will quickly depart. Again and again he 
 fighs ; he looks around ; he re-enters the arbour ; he can fcarce articu- 
 late thy fweet name ; he again fmooths his flowery couch ; he looks 
 wild ; he becomes frantick : thy beloved will perifh through defire. 
 
 . ' The
 
 472 GITAGO'VINDA ; OR, 
 
 * The bright-beamed God finks in the weft, and thy pain of feparation 
 ' may alfo be removed : the blacknefs of the night is increafed, and the 
 *■ paffionate imagination of Go'vinda has acquired additional gloom. 
 
 * My addrefs to thee has equalled in length and in fweetnefs the fong of 
 
 * the Cocila : delay will make thee miferable, O my beautiful friend, 
 
 * Seize the moment of delight in the place of affignation with the fon of 
 ' De'vaci', who defcended from heaven to remove the burdens of the 
 *^ univerfe ; he is a blue gem on the forehead of the three worlds, and 
 *^ longs to fip honey, like the bee, from the fragrant lotos of thy cheek.' 
 
 But the folicitous maid, perceiving that Ra'dha' was unable through 
 debility, to move from her arbour of flowery creepers, returned to Go'- 
 vinda, who was himfelf difordered with love, and thus defcribed her 
 fituation. 
 
 ' She mourns, fovereign of the world, in her "verdant bower ; fhe looks 
 *^ eagerly on all fides in hope of thy approach ; then, gaining ftrength 
 ' from the delightful idea of the propofed meeting, fhe advances a few 
 
 * fteps, and. falls languid on the ground. When fhe rifes, fhe weaves 
 
 * bracelets of frefh leaves; fhe drefles herfelf like her beloved, and, look- 
 
 * ing at herfelf in fport, exclaims, " Behold the vanquifher of Madhu !" 
 ' Then fhe repeats again and again the name of Heri, and, catching at 
 
 * a dark blue cloud, ftrives to embrace it, faying: "It is my beloved 
 " who approaches." Thus, while thou art dilatory, fhe lies expedihg 
 ' thee ; fhe mourns ; fhe weeps ; fhe puts on her gayeft ornaments to 
 ' receive her lord ; fhe compreffes her deep fighs within her bofom ; and 
 
 * then, meditating on thee, O cruel, fhe is drowned in a fea of rapturous 
 
 * imaginations. If a leaf but quiver, fhe fuppofes thee arrived ; fhe 
 ' fpreads her couch ; fhe forms in her mind a hundred modes of delight : 
 
 * yet, if thou go not to her bower, fhe muft die this night through ex- 
 ' celTive. anguifh.' 
 
 By
 
 THE SONGS OF JAYADE'VA. 475 
 
 By this time the moon fpread a net of beams over the groves of Vrin- 
 davariy and looked Uke a drop of liquid fandal on the face of the fky, 
 which fmiled like a beautiful damfel ; vrhile its orb with many fpots be- 
 trayed, as it were, a confcioufnefs of guilt, in having often attended amor- 
 ous maids to the lofs of their family honour. The moon, with a black 
 fawn couched on its difc, advanced in its nightly courfe ; but Ma'dhava 
 had not advanced to the bower of Ra'dha', who thus bewailed his de- 
 lay with notes of varied lamentation, 
 
 * The appointed moment is come ; but Heri, alas ! comes not to the- 
 
 * grove. Muft the feafon of my unblemifhed youth pafs thus idly 
 
 * away ? Oh ! what refuge can I feek, deluded as I am by the guile of my 
 ' female advifer ? The God with five arrows has wounded my heart j 
 
 * and I am deferted by Him, for whofe fake I have fought at night the 
 
 * darkeft recefs of the foreft. Since my bell beloved friends have deceived 
 ' me, it is my wifh to die : fmce my fenfes are difordered, arid my bo- 
 
 * fom is on fire, wKy ftay I longer in this world ? The eoolnefs of this 
 ' vernal night gives me pain, inftead of refrefhment : fome happier damfel 
 
 * enjoys my beloved ; whilft I, alas ! am looking at the gems in my 
 ' bracelets, which are blackened by the flames of my paflion. My neck, 
 
 * more delicate than the tendereft bloflbm, is hurt by the garland, that 
 
 * encircles it : flowers, are, indeed, the arrows of Love, and he plays 
 
 * with them cruelly. I make this wood my dwelling : I regard not the 
 
 * roughnefs of the Vitas-xx^^^ \ but the deftroyer of Mauhu holds me 
 
 * not in his remembrance ! Why comes he not to the bower of bloomy 
 
 * Fanjulasy afligned for our meeting ? Some ardent rival, no doubt, keeps 
 *^ him locked in her embrace : or have his companions detained him with 
 
 * mirthful recreations ? Elfe why roams he not through the cool Ihades ? 
 ' Perhaps, the heart-fick lover is unable through weaknefs to advance 
 
 * even a ftep !' — So faying, fhe raifed her eyes ; and, feeing her damfel' 
 return filent and mournful, unaccompanied by Ma'dhava, fhe was 
 
 VOL. I. 3 R alarmed
 
 474 Gl'TAGO'VINDA ; OR, 
 
 alarmed even to plnenfy ; and, as if flie a£tually beheld Kim in the arms 
 of a rival, fhe thus dcfcribed the vifion which overpowered her intellect. 
 
 * Yes ; in habiliments becoming the war of love, and with treffes 
 ' waving like flowery banners, a damfel^ more alluring than Ra'dha', en- 
 ' joys the conqueror of Madhu. Her form is transfigured by the touch 
 ' of her divine lover ; her garland quivers over her fwelling bofom ; her 
 ' face like the moon is graced with clouds of dark hair, and trembles, 
 ' while ikz quaffs the nedtareous dew of his lip ; her bright ear-rings 
 ' dance over her cheeks, which they irradiate ; and the fmall bells on her 
 ' girdle tinkle as fhe moves- Bafhful at firft, ihe fmiles at length on her 
 ' embracer, and -expreffes her joy with inarticulate murmurs ; while fhe 
 
 * floats on the waves of defire, and clofes her eyes dazzled with the 
 ' blaze of approaching Ca'ma : and now this heroine in love's warfare 
 ' falls exhaufted and vanquifhed by the refiftlefs Mura'ri, but alas ! in 
 
 * my bofom prevails the flame of jealoufy, and yon moon, which difpels 
 ' the forrow of, others, increafes mine. See again, where xht foe of 
 ' MuRA, fports in yon grove on the bank of the Yamuna ! See, how he 
 ' kiffes the lip of my rival, and imprints on her forehead an ornament of 
 ' pure mufk, black as the young antelope on the lunar orb ! Now, like 
 
 * the hufband of Reti, he fixes white bloffoms on her dark locks, where 
 ' they gleam like flafhes of lightning among the curled clouds. On her 
 ' breafts, ^ike two firmaments, he places a firing of gems like a radiant 
 ' conftcUation : he binds on her arms, graceful as the ftalks of the water- 
 
 * lily, and adorned with hands glowing like the petals of its flower, a 
 
 * bracelet of fapphires, which refemble a clufter of bees. Ah"! fee, how 
 ' he ties round her waifl: a rich girdle illumined with golden bells, which 
 ' feem to laugh, as they tinkle, at the inferior brightnefs of the leafy 
 ' garlands, which lovers hang on their bowers to propitiate the God of 
 
 * Defire. He places her foft foot, as he reclines by her fide, on his 
 ^ ardent bofom, and flains it with the ruddy hue of Ydvaca. Say, my 
 
 * friend.
 
 THE SONGS OF JAYADE'VA. 4-^5 
 
 friend, why pafs I my nights in this tangled foreft without joy, and 
 without hope, while the faithlefs brother of Haladhera clafps my 
 rival in his arms ? Yet why, my companion, fhouldft thou mourn, 
 though my perfidious youth has difappointed me ? What offence is it 
 of thine, if he fport with a crowd of damfels happier than I ? Mark, 
 how my foul, attradled by his irrefiftible charms, burfts from its mortal 
 frame, and rufhes to mix with its beloved. S&e, whom the God enjoys, 
 crowned with Jy Ivan Jlowers, fits carelefsly on a bed of leaves with Him, 
 whofe wanton eyes refemble blue water-lilies agitated by the breeze. 
 She feels no flame from the gales of Malaya with Him, whofe words 
 are fweeter than the water of life. She derides the fhafts of foul-born 
 Ca'ma, with Him, whofe lips are like a red lotos in full bloom. She 
 is cooled by the moon's dewy beams, while fhe reclines with Him, 
 whofe hands and feet glow like vernal flowers. No female companion 
 deludes her, while fhe fports with Him, whofe vefture blazes like tried 
 gold. She faints not through excefs of pafllon, while fhe carefles that 
 youth, who furpaflTes in beauty the inhabitants of all worlds. O gale, 
 fcented with fandal, who breathefl: love from the regions of the fouth, 
 be propitious but for a moment : when thou hafl: brought my beloved 
 before my eyes, thou may eft: freely waft away my foul. Love, with 
 eyes like blue water-lilies, again aflails me and triumphs ; and, while 
 the perfidy of my beloved rends my heart, my female friend is my foe, 
 the cool breeze fcorches me like a flame, and the nedar-dropping moon 
 is my poifon. Bring difeafe and death, O gale of Malaya I Seize my 
 fpirit, O God with five arrows ! I afk not mercy from thee : no more 
 will I dwell in the cottage of my father. Receive me in thy azure 
 waves, O fiflier of Yam A, that the ardour of my heart may be allayed !' 
 
 Pierced by the arrows of love, llie pafl'ed the night in the agonies of 
 defpair, and at early dawn thus rebuked her lover, whom fhe faw lying 
 proflrate before her and imploring her forgivenefs. 
 
 ' Alas !
 
 476 ■ Gl'TAGO'VINDA ; OR, 
 
 ■' Alas ! alas! Go^ Ma'dhava, depart, O Ce'sava ; /peak not the lan' 
 "* giiage of guile ; follow her, O lotos-eyed God, follow her, who difpels thy 
 
 * care. Look at his eye half-opened, red with continued waking through 
 
 * the pleafurable night, yet fmiling ftill with afFedion for my rival ! Thy 
 ' teeth, O cerulean youth, are azure as thy complexion from the kifles, 
 
 * which thou haft imprinted on the beautiful eyes of thy darling graced 
 ' with dark blue powder ; and thy limbs marked v/ith pundtures in love's 
 ' warfare, exhibit a letter of conqueft written on polifhed fapphires with 
 ' liquid gold. That broad bofom, ftained by the bright lotos of her 
 
 * foot, difplays a vefture of ruddy leaves over the tree of thy heart, 
 
 * which trembles within it. The preflure of her lip on thine wounds 
 
 * me to the foul. Ah ! how canft thou aiTert, that we are one, fmce 
 ' our fenfations differ thus widely ? Thy foul, O dark-limbed god, fhows 
 ' its blacknefs externally. How couldft thou deceive a girl who relied 
 ' on thee ; a girl who burned in the fever of love ? Thou roveft in 
 
 * woods, and females ai'e thy prey : what wonder ? Even thy childifh 
 
 * heart was malignant ; and thou gaveft death to the nurfe, who would 
 
 * have given thee milk. Since thy tendernefs for me, of which thefe 
 ' forefts ufed to talk, has now vaniihed, and fmce thy breaft, reddened 
 
 * by the feet of my rival, glows as if thy ardent paffion for her were 
 ' burfting from it, the fight of thee, O deceiver, makes me (ah ! muft I 
 
 * fay it ?) blufh at my own affection,' 
 
 Having thus inveighed againft her beloved, fhe fat overwhelmed in 
 grief, and filently meditated on his charms ; when her damfel foftly ad- 
 dreffed her. 
 
 ' He is gone : the light air has wafted him away. What pleafure 
 ' now, my beloved, remains in thy manfion ? Continue not, rcfentful 
 
 * "woman, thy indignation againft the beautiful ^ a! unAY A. Why fliouldft 
 ' thou render vain thofe round fmooth vafes, ample and ripe as the fweet 
 
 ' fruit
 
 THE SONGS OF JAYADE'VA. /^^'^'^ 
 
 * fruit of yon Td.a-xxtt ? How often and how recently have I faid : 
 ** forfake not the blooming Heri ?" Why fitteft thou fo mournful? 
 ' Why weepeft thou with diftradion, when the damfels are laughing 
 
 * around thee ? Thou haft formed a couch of foft lotos-leaves : let thy 
 
 * darling charm thy fight, while he repofes on it. Afflidt not thy foul 
 
 * with extreme angulfh ; but attend to my words, which conceal no 
 
 * guile. Suffer Ce'SAVA to approach: let him fpeak with exquifite 
 
 * fweetnefs, and diflipate all thy forrows. If thou art harfh to him, who 
 
 * is amiable ; if thou art proudly filent, when he deprecates thy wrath 
 
 * with lowly proftrations ; if thou fhoweft averfion to him, who loves 
 
 * thee paffionately; if, when he bends before thee, thy face be turned con- 
 
 * temptuoufly away ; by the fame rule of contrariety, the duft of fandal- 
 
 * wood, which thou haft fprinkled, may become poifon ; the moon, with 
 
 * cool beams, a fcorching fun ; the frefh dew, a confuming flame ; and 
 ' the fports of love be changed into agony.' 
 
 Ma'dhava was not abfent long : he returned to his beloved ; whofe 
 cheeks were heated by the fultry gale of her fighs. Her anger was 
 diminifhed, not wholly abated ; but fhe fecretly rejoiced at his return, 
 while the ftiades of night alfo were approaching, fhe looked abafhed at 
 her damfel, while He, with faultering accents, implored her forgivenefs. 
 
 * Speak but one mild word, and the rays of thy fparkling teeth will 
 
 * difpel the gloom of my fears. My trembling lips, like thirfty Cha- 
 
 * coras^ long to drink the moon-beams of thy cheek. O my darlings who 
 *■ art naturally fo tender-hearted^ abandon thy caufelefs indignation. At this 
 
 * moment the fame of defre confwnes my heart : Oh ! grant me a draught 
 
 * of honey from the lotos of thy mouth. Or, if thou beeft inexorable, grant 
 ' me death from the arrows of thy keen eyes ; make thy arms my chains ; 
 
 * and punifh me according to thy pleafure. Thou art my life ; thou art 
 ' my ornament ; thou art a pearl in the ocean of my mortal birth : oh ! 
 
 *be
 
 478 GI'TAGO'VINDA ; OR, 
 
 * be favourable now, and my heart fliall eternally be grateful. Thine 
 ' eyes, which nature formed like blue water-lilies, are become, through 
 ' thy refentment, like petals of the crimfon lotos : oh ! tinge with their 
 ' effulgence thefe my dark limbs, that they may glow like the fhafts of 
 ' Love tipped with flowers. Place on my head that foot like a frefh 
 
 * leaf, and fhade me from the fun of my paflion, whofe beams I am un- 
 
 * able to bear. Spread a firing of gems on thofe two foft globes ; let the 
 ' golden bells of thy zone tinkle, and proclaim the mild edidl of love. 
 ' Say, O damfel with delicate fpeech, fhall I dye red with the juice of 
 ' alaSlaca thofe beautiful feet, which will make the full-blown land-lotos 
 
 * blufh with fhame ? Abandon thy doubts of my heart, now indeed flut- 
 ' tering through fear of thy difpleafure, but hereafter to be fixed wholly 
 
 * on thee ; a heart, which has no room in it for another : none elfe can 
 
 * enter it, but Love, the bodilefs God. Let him wing his arrows ; let 
 ' him wound me mortally; decline not, O cruel, the pleafure of feeing 
 
 * me expire. Thy face is bright as the moon, though its beams drop the 
 
 * venom of maddening defire : let thy nedtareous lip be the charmer, who 
 
 * alone has power to lull the ferpent, or fupply an antidote for his poifon. 
 ' Thy filence afflids me : oh ! fpeak with the voice of mufick, and let 
 
 * thy fweet accents allay my ardour. Abandon thy wrath, but abandon. 
 
 * not a lover, who furpaffes in beauty the fons of men, and who kneels 
 ' before thee, O thou moft beautiful among women. Thy lips are a 
 ' Bandhujiva-^ovftx ; the luflre of the Madhuca beams on thy cheek ; 
 
 * thine eye outfhines the blue lotos ; thy nofe is a bud of the Tila ; the 
 
 * CwWa-blofTom yields to thy teeth : thus the flowery-fhafted God bor- 
 
 * rows from thee the points of his darts, and fubdues- the univerfe. 
 
 * Surely, thou defcendeft from heaven, O flender damfel, attended by a 
 ' company of youthful goddeffes j and all their beauties are collected 
 ' in thee.' 
 
 He fpake ; and, feeing her appeafed by his homage, flew to his bower, 
 
 clad
 
 THE SONGS OF JAYADE'VA 479 
 
 clad in a gay mantle. TTie night now veiled all vifible obje£ls ; and the 
 damfel thus exhorted Ra'dha', while (he decked her with beaming 
 ornaments. 
 
 * Follow, gentle '^a'dii\ca\ follow the foe ^Madhu : his difcourfe 
 
 * was elegantly compofed of fweet phrafes ; he proftrated himfelf at thy 
 
 * feet ; and he now hallens to his delightful couch by yon grove of 
 *• branching Vanjulas. Bind round thy ankle rings beaming with gems ; 
 ' and advance with mincing fteps, like the pearl-fed Marala. Drink 
 ■* with ravifhed ears the foft accents of Heri ; and feaft on love, while 
 "* the warbling Cocilas obey the mild ordinance of the flower-darting God. 
 
 * Abandon delay : fee, the whole aflembly of flender plants, pointing to the 
 
 * bower with fingers of young leaves agitated by the gale, make fignals for 
 
 * thy departure. Afk thofe two round hillocks, which receive pure dew- 
 
 * drops from the garland playing on thy neck, arid the buds on whofe top 
 
 * ftart aloft with the. thought of thy darling ; afk, and they will tell, that thy 
 
 * foul is intent on the warfare of love : advance, fervid warrior, advance 
 
 * with alacrity, while the found of thy tinkling waift-bells fliall reprefent 
 
 * martial mufick. Lead with thee fome favoured maid ; grafp her hand 
 
 * with thine, whofe fingers are long and fmooth as love's arrows : march ; 
 
 * and, with the noife of thy bracelets, proclaim thy approach to the 
 
 * youth, who will own himfelf thy flave : " She will come ; fhe will 
 *' exult on beholding me ; fhe will pour accents of delight ; fhe will 
 " enfold me with eagei* arms; fhe will melt with affection:" Such are 
 
 * his thoughts at this moment ; and, thus thinking, he looks through the 
 
 * long avenue ; he trembles ; he rejoices ; he burns ; he moves from 
 
 * place to place ; he faints, when he lees thee not coming, and falls in 
 
 * his gloomy bower. The night now drefles in habiliments fit for feerecy, 
 ■* the many damfels, who haften to their places of affignation : fhe fets 
 
 * oft' with blacknefs their beautiful eyes ; fixes dark Tamdla-XQZXQ?, behind 
 
 * their ears ; decks their locks with the deep azure of water-lilies, and 
 
 * fprinkles
 
 480 • GITAGO'VINDA; OR, 
 
 * fprinkles mufk on their panting bofoms. ' The nodurnal iky, black aa 
 ' the touchftone, tries now the gold of their affedion, and is marked 
 ' with rich hnes from the flaihes of their beauty, in which they furpafs 
 
 * the brighteft CaJJjmirians.' 
 
 Ra'dha', thus incited, tripped though the foreft ; but fhame over- 
 powered her, when, by the Hght of innumerable gems, on the arms, the 
 feet, and the neck of her beloved, fhe faw him at the door of his flowery 
 manfion : then her damfel again addrefled her with ardent exultation^ 
 
 * Enter, fweet Ra'dha' the bower of Heri : feek delight, O thou, 
 
 * whofe bofom laughs with the foretaflie of happinefs. Enter, fweet 
 ' Ra'dha', the bower graced with a bed of Asoca-\t2i\t&: feek delight, 
 ' O thou, whofe garland leaps with joy on thy breaft. Enter, fweet 
 'Ra'dha', the bower illumined with gay bloflbms ; feek delight, O 
 ' thou, whofe limbs far excel them in foftnefs. Enter, O Ra'dha', the 
 
 * bower made cool and fragrant by gales from the woods of Malaya : feek 
 
 * delight, O thou, whofe amorous lays are fofter than breezes. Enter, 
 ' O Ra'dha', the bower fpread with leaves of twining creepers: feek 
 
 * delight, O thou, whofe arms have been long inflexible. Enter, 
 ' O Ra'dha', the bower, which refounds with the murmur of honey- 
 ' making bees : feek delight, O thou, whofe embrace yields more exqui- 
 ' fite fweetnefs. Enter, O Ra'dha', the bower attuned by the melodious 
 
 * band of Cocilas : feek delight, O thou, whofe lips, which outfhine the 
 
 * grains of the pomegranate, are embellifhed, when thou fpeakeft, by the 
 ' brightnefs of thy teeth. Long has he home thee in his mind ; and 
 
 * now, in an agony of defire, he pants to tafte ne(5tar from thy lip. Deign 
 
 * to reftore thy flave, who will bend before the lotos of thy foot, and 
 
 * prefs it to his irradiated bofom ; a flave, wha acknowledges himfelf 
 
 * bought by thee for a fingle glance from thy eye, and a tofs of thy 
 
 * difdainful eye-brow.' 
 
 She
 
 THE SONGS OF JAYADE'VA. 481 
 
 She ended; and Ra'dha' with timid joy, darting her eyes on Go'- 
 ViNDA, while fhe mufically founded the rings of her ankles and the bells 
 of her zone, entered the myftic bower of her only beloved. There Jhe 
 beheld her Ma'dh ava, who delighted in her alone ; who Jo long had Jighed 
 for her embrace ; and whofe countenance then gleamed with excej/ive rap- 
 ture : his heart was agitated by her fight, as the waves of the deep are 
 afFed:ed by the lunar orb. His azure breaft glittered with pearls of un- 
 blemifhed luftre, like the full bed of the cerulean Yamuna, interfperfed 
 with curls of white foam. From his graceful waift, flowed a pale yellow 
 robe, which refembled the golden duft of the water-lily, fcattered over its 
 blue petals. His paffion was inflamed by the glances of her eyes, which 
 played like a pair of w^ater-birds with azure plumage, that fport near a 
 full-blown lotos on a pool in the feafon of dew. Bright ear-rings, like 
 two funs, difplayed in full expanfion the flowers of his cheeks and lips, 
 which gliftened with the liquid radiance of fmiles. His locks, inter- 
 woven with bloflbms, were like a cloud variegated with moon-beams ; 
 and on his forehead fhone a circle of odorous oil, extradled from the 
 fandal of Malaya, like the moon juft appearing on the dufky horizon ; 
 while his whole body feemed in a flame from the blaze of unnumbered 
 gems. Tears of tranfport gufhed in a ftream from the full eyes of 
 Ra'dha', and their watery glances beamed on her befl: beloved. Even 
 fhame, which before had taken its abode in their dark pupils, was itfelf 
 afhamed and departed, when the fawn-eyed Ra'dha', gazed on the 
 brightened face of Crishna, while fhe paffed by the foft edge of his 
 couch, and the bevy of his attendant nymphs, pretending to fl:rike the 
 gnats from their -cheeks in order to conceal their fmiles, warily retired 
 from his bower. 
 
 Go'viNDA, feeing his beloved cheerful and ferene, her lips fparkling 
 with fmiles, and her eye fpeaking defire, thus eagerly addrefled her ; 
 while fhe carelefsly reclined on the leafy bed flrewn with foft bloflbms. 
 
 VOL. I. 3 s ' Set
 
 482 GI'TAGO'VINDA ; OR 
 
 ' Set the lotos of thy foot on this azure bofom ; and let this couch be 
 
 * vid:orious over all, who rebel againft love. Give fi^ort rapture^ fweet 
 ' Ra'dha', to Na'ra'ya'n, thy adorer. I do thee homage ; I prefs 
 
 * with my blooming palms thy feet, weary with fo long a walk. O that 
 ' I were the golden ring, that plays round thy ankle ! Speak but one 
 ' gentle word ; bid nedar drop from the bright moon of thy mouth. 
 
 * Since the pain of abfence is removed, let me thus remove the thin veil 
 ' that envioufly hides thy charms. Bleft fhould I be, if thofe raifed 
 ' globes were fixed on my bofom, and the ardour of my paffion allayed. 
 ' O ! fuffer me to quaff the liquid blifs of thofe lips ; reftore with their 
 
 * water of life thy flave, who has long been lifelefs, whom the fire of 
 ' feparation has confumed. Long have thefe ears been afflicted, in thy 
 ' abfence, by the notes of the Cocila : relieve them with the found of thy 
 ' tinkling waift-bells, which yield mufick, almofl equal to the melody of 
 
 * thy voice. Why are thofe eyes half clofed ? Are they alhamed of fee- 
 ' ing a youth, to whom thy carelefs refentment gave anguilh ? Oh ! let 
 ' afflidion ceafe : and let ecftafy drown the remembrance of forrow.' 
 
 In the morning fhe rofe difarrayed, and her eyes betrayed a night 
 without flumber ; when the yellow-robed God, who gazed on her with 
 tranfport, thus meditated on her charms in his heavenly mind : ' Though 
 ' her locks be diffufed at random, though the luflre of her lips be faded, 
 ' though her garland and zone be fallen from their enchanting ftations, 
 ' and though fhe hide their places with her hands, looking toward me 
 ' with bafhful filence, yet even thus difarranged, Ihe fills me with ex- 
 
 * tatic delight.' But Ra'dha', preparing to array herfelf, before the 
 company of nymphs could fee her confufion, fpake thus with exultation 
 to her obfequious lover. 
 
 * Place, O fon of Yadu, with fingers cooler than fandal-wood, place a- 
 ' circlet of mulk on this breaft, which refembles a vafe of confecrated 
 
 * water,
 
 THE SONGS OF JAYADE'V^A. 433 
 
 * water, crowned with frefli leaves, and fixed near a vernal bower, to 
 
 * propitiate the God of Love. Place, my darling, the glofly powder, 
 
 * which would make the blackeft bee envious, on this eye, whofe glances 
 
 * are keener than arrows darted by the hufband of Ret i. Fix, O ac- 
 ' complifhed youth, the two gems, which form part of love's chain, in 
 
 * thefe ears, whence the antelopes of thine eyes may run downwards and 
 
 * fport at pleafure. Place now a frefh circle of mufk, black as the lunar 
 
 * fpots, on the moon of my forehead ; and mix gay flowers on my trelTes 
 
 * with a peacock's feathers, in graceful order, that they may wave like 
 
 * the banners of Ca'ma. Now replace, O tender hearted, the loofe or- 
 
 * naments of my vefture ; and refix the golden bells of my girdle on 
 
 * their deftined ftation, which refembles thofe hills, where the God with 
 
 * five fhafts, who deftroyed Sambar, keeps his elephant ready for 
 « battle.' 
 
 While (he fpake, the heart of Yadava triumphed ; and, obeying her 
 fportful behefts, he placed mufky fpots on her bofom and forehead, dyed 
 her temples with radiant hues, embelllflied her eyes with additional 
 blacknefs, decked her braided hair and her neck with frefh garlands, and 
 tied on her wrifts the loofened bracelets, on her ankles the beamy rings, 
 and round her waift the zone of bells, that founded with ravifhing 
 melody. 
 
 Whatever is delightful in the modes of mufick, whatever is divine In 
 meditations on Vishnu, whatever Is exqulfite in the fweet art of love, 
 whatever Is graceful in the fine ftrains of poetry, all that let the happy 
 and wife learn from the fongs of Jayade'va, whofe foul is united with 
 the foot of Na'ra'yan. May that Heri be your fupport, who ex- 
 panded himfelf Into an infinity of bright forms, when, eager to gaze 
 with myriads of eyes on the daughter of the ocean, he difplayed his 
 great charader of the all-pervading deity, by the multiplied refledtions of 
 
 his
 
 484 
 
 his divine perfon in the numberlefs gems on the many heads of the king 
 of ferpents, whom he chofe for his couch ; that Heri, who removing 
 the lucid veil from the bofom of Pedma', and fixing his eyes on the de- 
 licious buds, that grew on it, diverted her attention by declaring that, 
 when (he had chofen him as her bridegroom near the fea of milk, the 
 difappointed hufband of Pervati drank in defpair the venom, which 
 dyed his neck azure ! 
 
 REMARKS
 
 REMARKS 
 
 ON 
 
 THE ISLAND OF 
 
 HINZUAN OR JOHANNA, 
 By The PRESIDENT. 
 
 XTIINZUAN (a name, which has been gradually corrupted into A?:*- 
 ztiame, Anjuan^ Juafiny, and Johanna J has been governed about two 
 centuries by a colony of Arabs, and exhibits a curious inftance of the 
 flow approaches toward civilization, which are made by a fmall com- 
 munity, with many natural advantages, but with few means of improv- 
 ing them. An account of this African ifland, in which we hear the 
 language and fee the manners of Arabia, may neither be uninterefting in 
 itfelf, nor foreign to the objeds of inquiry propofed at the inftitution of 
 our Society. 
 
 Gn Monday the 28th oi July 1/83, after a voyage, in the Crocodile, of 
 ten weeks and two jlays from the rugged iflands of Cape Verd, our eyes 
 were delighted with a profpedt fo beautiful, that neither a painter nor a 
 poet could perfeftly reprefent it, and fo cheering to us, that it can juftly 
 be conceived by fuch only, as have been in our preceding fituation. It 
 was the fun rifing in full fplendour on the ifle of Maycita (as the feamen 
 called it) which we had joyfully diftinguifhed the preceding afternoon 
 
 by
 
 486 REMARKS ON THE ISLAND 
 
 by- the height of its peak, and which now appeared at no great dlftance 
 from the windows of our cabin ; while Hinzuan^ for which we had fo 
 long panted, w^as plainly difcernible a-head, where its high lands pre- 
 fented themfelves with remarkable boldnefs. The weather was fair ; the 
 water, fmooth ; and a gentle breeze drove us eafily before dinner-time 
 round a rock, on which the Brilliant ftruck juft a year before, into a 
 commodious road*, where we dropped our anchor early in the evening: 
 we had feen Mohila^ another fifter ifland, in the courfe of the day. 
 
 The frigate was prefently furrounded with canoes, and the deck foon 
 crowded with natives of all ranks, from the high-born chief, who walhed 
 linen, to the half-naked flave, who only paddled. Moft of them had let- 
 ters of recommendation from Englijlmien^ which none of them were able 
 to read, though they fpoke Englifi intelligibly ; and fome appeared vain 
 of titles, which our countrymen had given them in play, according to 
 their fuppofed ftations : we had Lords, Dukes^ and Princes on board, 
 foliciting our cuftom and importuning us for prefents. In fad they 
 were too fenfible to be proud of empty founds, but juftly imagined, that 
 thofe ridiculous titles would ferve as marks of diftindion, and, by at- 
 tracting notice, procure for them fomething fubftantial. The only men 
 of real confequence in the ifland, whom wx faw before we landed, were 
 the Governor Abdullah, fecond coufm to the king, and his brother 
 Alwi', with their feveral fons ; all of whom will again be particularly 
 mentioned : they underftood Arabick^ feemed zealots in the Mohamme- 
 dan faith, and admired my copies of the Alkoran ; fome verfes of which 
 they read, whilft Alwi' perufed the opening of another Arabian manu- 
 fcript, and explained it in Englijlo more accurately than could have been 
 expeded. 
 
 The next morning fhowed us the ifland in all its beauty ; and the 
 
 * Lat. 12°. lo'. 47". S. Long. 44°. 25'- s"* E- by the Mafter. 
 
 fcene
 
 OF HINZUAN OR JOHANNA. 48/ 
 
 fcene was {o dlverfified, that a diftind: view of it could hardly have been 
 exhibited by the bed pencil : you muft, therefore, be fatisfied with a 
 mere defcription, written on the very fpot and compared attentively with 
 the natural landfcape. We were at anchor in a fine bay, and before us 
 was a vail amphitheatre, of which you may form a general notion by 
 pi£luring in your minds a multitude of hills infinitely varied in fize and 
 figure, and then fuppofing them to be thrown together, with a kind of 
 artlefs fymmetry, in all imaginable pofitions. The back ground was a 
 feries of mountains, one of which is pointed, near half a mile perpendi- 
 cularly high from the level of the fea, and little more than three miles 
 from the fhore : all of them were richly clothed with wood, chiefly 
 fruit-trees, of an exquifite verdure. I had feen many a mountain of a 
 ftupendous height in W^ks and Sififftrla?id^ but never faw one before, 
 round the bofom of which the clouds were almoft continually rolling, 
 w^hile its green fummit rofe flourifhing above them, and received from 
 them an additional brightnefs. Next to this diftant range of hills was 
 another tier, part of which appeared charmingly verdant, and part rather 
 barren ; but the contraft of colours changed even this nakednefs into a 
 beauty : nearer ftill were innumerable mountains, or rather cliffs, which 
 brought down their verdure and fertility quite to the beach ; fo that every 
 fliade of green, the fweeteft of colours, was difplayed at one view by land 
 and by water. But, nothing conduced more to the variety of this en- 
 chanting profpe<3:, than the many rows of palm-trees, efpecially the tall 
 and graceful Arecas^ on the fhores, in the valleys, and on the ridges of 
 hills, where one might almoft fuppofe them to have been planted regu- 
 larly by defign. A more beautiful appearance can fcarce be conceived, 
 than fuch a number of elegant palms in fuch a fituation, with luxuriant 
 tops, like verdant plumes, placed at juft intervals, and flaowing between 
 them part of the remoter landfcape, while they left the reft to be fupplied 
 by the beholder's imagination. The town of Matfamudb lay on our 
 left, remarkable at a diftance for the tower of the principal mofque, 
 
 which
 
 488 REMARKS ON THE ISLAND 
 
 which was built by Hali'mah, a queen of the ifland, from whom the 
 prefent king is defcended : a Uttle on our right was a fmall town, called 
 Bantcini. Neither the territory of Nice, with its olives, date-trees, and 
 cypreffes, nor the ifles of Hieres, with their delightful orange-groves, 
 appeared fo charming to me, as the view from the road of Hinzuan ; 
 w^hich, neverthelefs, is far furpalTed, as the Captain of the Crocodile 
 allured us, by many of the iflands in the fouthern ocean. If life were 
 not too fliort for the complete difcharge of all our refpedive duties, pub- 
 lick and private, and for the acquifition even of necelTary knowledge 
 in any degree of perfedion, with how much pleafure and improvement 
 might a great part of it be fpent in admiring the beauties of this wonder- 
 ful orb, and contemplating the nature of man in all its varieties ! 
 
 We haftened to tread on firm land, to which we had been fo long dif- 
 ufed, and went on {hore, after breakfaft, to fee the town, and return the 
 Governor's vifit. As we walked, attended by a crowd of natives, I fur- 
 prized them by reading aloud an Arabick infcription over the gate of a 
 mofque, and ftill more, when I entered it, by explaining four fentences, 
 which were written very diftindlly on the wall, fignifying, " that the 
 " world was given us for our own edification, not for the purpofe of raifing 
 *' fumptuous buildings ; life, for the difchai-ge of moral and religious 
 " duties, not for pleafurable indulgences; wealth, to be liberally "be- 
 " flowed, not avaricioufly hoarded ; and learning, to produce good 
 " adions, not empty difputes." We could not but refped: the temple 
 even of a falfe prophet, in which we found fuch excellent morality : we 
 faw nothing better among the Romijh trumpery in the church at Madera. 
 When we came to Abdui^lah's houfe, we were conducted through a 
 fmall court-yard into an open room, on each fide of which was a large 
 and convenient fofa, and above it a high bed-place in a dark recefs, over 
 which a chintz counterpoint hung down from the ceiling : this is the 
 general form of the beft rooms in the ifland j and mofl of the tolerable 
 
 houfes
 
 OF HINZUAN OR JOHANNA. 439 
 
 houfes have a fimilar apartment on the oppofite fide of the court, that 
 there may be at all hours a place in the ihade for dinner or for repofe. 
 We were entertained with ripe dates from Temen, and the milk of cocoa- 
 nuts ; but the heat of the room, which feemed acceflible to all, who 
 chofe to enter it, and the fcent of mufk or civet, with which it was per- 
 fumed, foon made us defirous of breathing a purer air ; nor could I be 
 detained long by the Arabick manufcripts, which the Governor pro- 
 duced, but which appeared of little ufe, and confequently of no value, 
 except to fuch as love mere curlofities : one of them, indeed, relating to 
 the penal law of the Mohammedans^ I would gladly have purchafed at a 
 juft price ; but he knew not what to afk, and I knew, that better books 
 on that fubjed might be procured in Bengal. He then offered me a 
 black boy for one of my Alkorans^ and prefled me to barter an Indian 
 drefs, which he had feen on board the fhip, for a cow and calf: the 
 golden flippers attracted him moft, fmce his wife, he faid, would like to 
 wear them ; and, for that reafon, I made him a prefent of them ; but 
 had deftined the book and the robe for his fuperior. No high opinion 
 could be formed of 6'«_yj^</ Abdullah, who feemed very eager for gain, 
 and very fervile where he expe<^ed it. 
 
 Our next vifit was to Shaikh Sa'lim, the king's eldefl fon ; and, if we 
 had feen him firft, the flate of civilization in Hinzuan would have ap- 
 peared at its loweft ebb : the worfl EngliJ]:) hackney in the worft flable 
 is better lodged, and looks more princely than this heir apparent ; but, 
 though his mien and apparel were extremely favage, yet allowance 
 fhould have been made for his illnefs ; which, as we afterwards learned, 
 was an abfcefs in the fpleen, a diforder not uncommon in that country, 
 and frequently cured, agreeably to the Arabian pra(£tice^ by the a£lual 
 cautery. He was inceffantly chewing pieces of the Areca-nut with 
 fhell-lime ; a cuflom borrowed, I fuppofe, from the Indians^ who greatly 
 improve the compofition with fpices and betel-leaves, to which they for- 
 
 VOL. I. 3 T merly
 
 490 REMARKS ON THE ISLAND 
 
 merly added camphor : all the natives of rank chewed it, but not, I 
 think, to fo great an excefs. Prince Sa'lim from time to time gazed at 
 himfelf with complacency in a piece of broken looking-glafs, which was 
 glued on a Imall board ; a fpecimen of wretchednefs, which we obferved 
 in no other houfe ; but many circumflances convinced us, that the ap- 
 parently low condition of his royal highnefs, who was not on bad terms 
 with his father, and feemed not to want authority, proceeded wholly from 
 his avarice. His brother Hamdullah, who generally refides in the 
 town of Domo'ni, has a very different character, being efteemed a man of 
 worth, good fenfe, and learning : he had come, the day before, to Maf- 
 Jamudo, on hearing that an Englifi frigate was in the road ; and I, having 
 gone out for a few minutes to read an Arabick infcription, found him, on 
 my return, devouring a manufcript, which I had left with fome of the 
 company. He is a Kdd'), or Mohammedan judge ; and, as he feemed to 
 have more knowledge than his countrymen, I was extremely concerned, 
 that I had fo little converfation with him. The king. Shaikh Ahmed, 
 has a younger fon, named Abdullah, whofe ufual refidence is in the 
 town of JVdn\ which he feldom leaves, as the ftate of his health is very 
 infirm. Since the fucceffion to the title and authority of Sultan is not 
 unalterably fixed in one line, but requires confirmation by the chiefs of 
 the ifland, it is not improbable, that they may hereafter be conferred on 
 prince Hamdullah. 
 
 A little beyond the hole, in which Sa'lim received us, was his -6<?r<jw, 
 or the apartment of his women, which he permitted us all to fee, not 
 through politenefs to ftrangers, as we believed at firft, but, as I learned 
 afterwards from his own lips, in expeftation of a prefent : we faw only 
 two or three miferablc creatures with their heads covered, while the 
 favourite, as we fuppofed, flood behind a coarfe curtain, and fhowed 
 her ankles under it loaded with filver rings ; which, if fhe was capable 
 of reflection, fhe muft have confidered as glittering fetters rather than 
 
 ornaments ;
 
 OF HINZUAN OR JOHANNA. 4g j 
 
 ornameats ; but a rational being would have preferred the condition of a 
 wild beaft, expofed to perils and hunger in a foreft, to the fplendid 
 mifery of being wife or miftrefs to Sa'lim. 
 
 Before we returned, Alwi' was defirous of fhowing me his books; 
 but the day was too far advanced, and I promifed to vifit him fome 
 other morning. The governor, however, prevailed on us to fee his 
 place in the country, where he invited us to dine the next day : the walk 
 was extremely pleafant from the town to the fide of a rivulet, which 
 formed in one part a fmall pool very convenient for bathing, and 
 thence, through groves and alleys, to the foot of a hill ; but the dining- 
 room was little better than an open barn, and was recommended only by 
 the coolnefs of its fhade. Abdullah would accompany us on our re- 
 turn to the fhip, together with two Muftis^ who fpoke Arabick indiffer- 
 ently, and feemed eager to fee all my manufcripts ; but they were very 
 moderately learned, and gazed with ftupid wonder on a fine copy of the 
 Hamdfah and on other colledions of ancient poetry. 
 
 Early the next morning a black meflenger, with a tawny lad as his 
 interpreter, came from prince Sa'lim ; who, having broken his perfpec- 
 tive-glafs, wlfhed to procure another by purchafe or barter: a polite 
 anfwer was returned, and fteps taken to gratify his wifhes. As we on 
 our part expreffed a defire to vifit the king at Domoni^ the prince's met- 
 fenger told us, that his mafter would, no doubt, lend us palanquins 
 (for there was not a horfe In the Ifland) and order a fufficlent number of 
 his vaflals to carry us, whom we might pay for their trouble, as we 
 thought juft : we commlffioned him, therefore, to alk that favour, and 
 begged, that all might be ready for our excurfion before funrlfe ; that 
 we might efcape the heat of the noon, which, though it was the middle 
 of winter, we had found exceflive. The boy, whofe name was Combo 
 Madi, ftayed with us longer than his companion: there was fomething 
 
 in
 
 492 REMARKS ON THE ISLAND 
 
 in his look fo ingenuous, and in his broken EnglifJj fo fimple, that we 
 encouraged him to continue his innocent prattle. He wrote and read 
 Arabick tolerably well, and fet down at my defire the names of feveral 
 towns in the ifland, which, He firft told me, was properly called Hin- 
 zuan. The fault of begging for whatever he liked, he had in common 
 with the governor and other nobles ; but hardly in a greater degree : his 
 firft petition for fome lavender-water was readily granted ; and a fmall 
 bottle of it was fo acceptable to him, that, if we had fuffered him, he 
 %vould have kiffed our feet ; but it was not for himfelf that he rejoiced 
 fo extravagantly : he told us with tears ftarting from his eyes, that his 
 mother would be pleafed with it, and the idea of her pleafure feemed to 
 fill him with rapture : never did I fee filial afFedtion more warmly felt 
 or more tenderly and, in my opinion, unaffededly exprefled ; yet this 
 boy was not a favourite of the officers, who thought him artful. His 
 mother's name, he faid, was Fa'tima ; and he importuned us to vifit 
 her J conceiving, I fuppofe, that all mankind muft love and admire her : 
 we promifed to gratify him ; and, having made him feveral prefents, 
 permitted him to return. As he reminded me of Aladdin in the Ara- 
 bian tale, I defigned to give him that name in a recommendatory letter, 
 which he prefTed me to write, inftead of St. Domingo, as fome EurO' 
 pean vifiter had ridiculoufly called him ; but, fince the allufion would not 
 have been generally known, and fince the title of Alau'ldw^ or Eminence 
 in Faith^ might have offended his fuperiors, I thought it advifablc for 
 him to keep his African name. A very indifferent dinner was prepared 
 for us at the houfe of the Governor, whom we did not fee the whole 
 day, as It was the beginning of Ramadan^ the Mohammedan lent, and he 
 was engaged in his devotions, or made them his excufe i but his eldeft 
 fon fat by us, while we dined, together with Mu's A, who was employed, 
 jointly with his brother Husain, as purveyor to the Captain of the 
 frigate. 
 
 Having
 
 OF HINZUAN OR JOHANNA. 493 
 
 Having obferved a very elegant flirub, that grew about fix feet high 
 in the court-yard, but was not then in flower, I learned with pleafure, 
 that it was hinna^ of which I had read fo much in Arabian poems, and 
 which European Botanifts have ridiculoufly named Lawfonia : Mu'sA 
 bruifed fome of the leaves, and, having moiftened them with water, ap- 
 plied them to our nails, and the tips of our fingers, which in a fhort time, 
 became of a dark orange-fcarlet. I had before conceived a different idea 
 of this dye, and imagined, that it was ufed by the Arabs to imitate the 
 natural rednefs of thofe parts in young and healthy perfons, which in all 
 countries muft be confidered as a beauty : perhaps a lefs quantity of 
 hinna^ or the fame differently prepared, might have produced that effedt. 
 The old men in Arabia ufed the fame dye to conceal their grey hair, 
 ■while their daughters were dying their lips and gums black, to fet off 
 the whitenefs of their teeth : fo univerfal in all nations and ages are per- 
 fonal vanity, and a love of difguifing truth ; though in all cafes, the far- 
 ther our fpecies recede from nature, the farther they depart from true 
 beauty : and men at leaft Ihould difdain to ufe artifice or deceit for any 
 purpofe or on any occafion : if the women of rank at Paris^ or thofe in 
 London who wifh to imitate them, be inclined to call the Arabs barba- 
 rians ; let them view their own head-drefles and cheeks in a glafs, and, 
 if they have left no room for blulhes, be inwardly at leafl afhamed of 
 their cenfure. 
 
 In the afternoon I walked a long way up the mountains in a iviading 
 path amid plants and trees no lefs new than beautiful, and regretted ex- 
 ceedingly, that very few of them were in blolTom ; as I fliould then have 
 had leifure to examine them. Curiofity led me from hill to hill ; and I 
 came at kill to the fources of a rivulet, which we had paffed near the 
 fhore, and from which the fhip was to be fupplied with excellent water. I 
 faw no birds on the mountains but Guinea-fowl^ which migtit have been 
 eafily caught : no ini'et^s were troublefome to me, but mofquitos ; and I 
 
 had
 
 494 REMARKS ON THE ISLAND 
 
 had no fear of venomous reptiles, having been aflured, that the air was 
 too pure for any to exift in it ; but I was often unwillingly a caufe of 
 fear to the gentle and harmlefs lizard, who ran among the flirubs. On 
 my return I miffed the path, by which I had afcended ; but, having met 
 fome blacks laden with yams and plantains, I was by them diredted to 
 another, which led me round, through a charming grove of cocoa-trees, 
 to the Governor's country-feat, where our entertainment was clofed by 
 a fillabub, which the Englijh had taught the Mufelmans to make for 
 them. 
 
 We received no anfwer from Sa'lim ; nor, indeed, expelled one ; 
 fmce we took for granted, that he could not but approve our intention of 
 vifiting his father ; and we went on fhore before funrife, in full expedla- 
 tion of a pleafant excurfion to Domoni : but we were happily difap- 
 polnted. The fervants, at the prince's door, told us coolly, that their 
 mafler was indifpofed, and, as they believed, afleep ; that he had given 
 them no orders concerning his palanquins, and that they durft not dif- 
 turb him. Alwi' foon came to pay us his compliments ; and was fol- 
 lowed by his eldeft fon, Ahmed, with whom we walked to the gardens 
 of the two princes Sa'lim and Hamdullah ; the fituation was naturally 
 good, but wild and defolate; and. In Sa'lim's garden, which we entered 
 through a miferable hovel, we faw a convenient bathing-place, well-built 
 with ftone, but then in great diforder, and a fhed, by way of fummer- 
 houfe, like that under which we dined at the governor's, but fmaller and 
 lefs neat. On the ground lay a kind of cradle about fix feet long, and 
 little more than one foot in breadth, made of cords twifted in a fort of 
 clumfy network, with a long thick bambu fixed to each fide of it : this, 
 we heard with furprize, was a royal palanquin, and one of the vehicles, 
 in which we were to have been rocked on men's fhoulders over the 
 mountains. I had much converfation with Ahmed, whom I found in- 
 telligent and communicative : he told me, that feveral of his countrymen 
 
 compofed
 
 OF HINZUAN OR JOHANNA. 405 
 
 compofed fongs and tunes ; that lie was himielf a pafllonate lover of 
 poetry and mufick ; and that, if we would dine at his houfe, he would 
 play and fing to us. We declined his invitation to dinner ; as we had 
 made a conditional promife, if ever we pafled a day at Maffamudo, to 
 eat our curry with Bana GiBU, an honell man, of whom we purchafed 
 eggs and vegetables, and to whom fome EngliJJ.^man had given the title of 
 lordy which made him extremely vain : we could, therefore, make Sayyad 
 Ahmed only a morning vifit. He fung a hymn or two in Arabic ky 
 and accompanied his drawling, though pathetick, pfalmody with a kind 
 of mandoline, which he touched with an awkward quill : the Inftrument 
 was very imperfeft, but feemed to give him delight. The names of the 
 ftrings were written on it in Arabian or Indian figures, fimple and com- 
 pounded ; but I could not think them worth copying. He gave Cap- 
 tain Williamson, who wiflied to prefent fome literary curioiities to 
 the library at Dublin, a fmall roll containing a hymn in Arabick letters, 
 but in the language of Mombaza^ which was mixed with Arabick ; but it 
 hardly deferved examination, fince the ftudy of languages has little in- 
 trinfick value, and is only ufeful as the inftrument of real knowledge, 
 which we can fcarce expe<3; from the poets of the Mozambique, Ahmed 
 would, I believe, have heard our European airs (I always except French 
 melody) with rapture, for his favourite tune was a common Irifi jig, 
 with which he feemed wonderfully affedted. 
 
 On our return to the beach I thought of vifiting old Alwi', according 
 to my promife, and prince Sa'lim, whofe charadler I had not then dif- 
 covered : I refolved for that purpofe to ftay on fhore alone, our dinner 
 with GiBU having been fixed at an early hour. Alwi' fhowed me his 
 manufcripts, which chiefly related to the ceremonies and ordinances of 
 his own religion ; and one of them, which I had formerly feen iii Europe^ 
 was a colledion of fublime and elegant hymns in praife of MoHAMMED, 
 with explanatory notes in the margin : I requefted him to read one of 
 
 them
 
 4qQ remarks on the island 
 
 them after the manner of the Arabs, and he chanted it in a ftrain by no 
 means unpleafmg ; but I am perfuaded, that he underftood it very imper- 
 fedly. The room, which was open to the ftreet, was prefently crowded 
 with vifiters, moft of whom were Mufti's, or Expounders of the Law ; 
 and Alwi' defirous, perhaps, to difplay his zeal before them at the ex- 
 penfe of good breeding, directed my attention to a paflage in a commen- 
 tary on the Koran, which I found levelled at the Chrifiiatis. The com- 
 mentator, having related with fome additions (but, on the whole, not in- 
 accurately) the circumftances of the temptation, puts this fpeech into the 
 mouth of the tempter : " though I am unable to delude thee, yet I will 
 " raiflead, by thy means, more human creatures, than thou wilt fet 
 " right." * Nor was this menace vain (fays the Mohammedan writer), 
 ' for the inhabitants of a region many thoufand leagues in extent are ftill 
 ' fo deluded by the devil, that they impioufly call FsA the fon of God : 
 ' heaven preferve us, he adds, from blafpheming Chrijlians as well as 
 ' blafpheming Jews.'' Although a religious difpute with thofe obftinate 
 zealots would have been unfeafonable and fruitlefs, yet they deferved, I 
 thought, a flight reprehenfion, as the attack feemed to be concerted 
 among them. ' The commentator, faid I, was much to blame for pafling 
 
 * fo indifcriminate and hafty a cenfure : the title, which gave ycoir legif- 
 
 * lator, and gives you, fuch offence, was often appUed in "Judea, by a 
 ' bold figure agreeable to the Hebrew idiom, though unufual in Arabick, 
 
 * to angels, to holy men, and even to all mankind, who are commanded to 
 
 * call God their Father ; and in this large fenfe, the Apoftle to the Ro- 
 ' mans calls the eled the children of God, and the Messiah ihe frjl- 
 
 * born among many brethren ; but the words only begotten are applied 
 ' tranfcendently and incomparably to him alone* ; and, as for me, •'vho 
 
 * believe the fcriptures, which you alfo profefs to believe, though you af- 
 
 * fert without proof that we have altered them, I cannot refufe him an 
 
 * Rom. 8. 29. See i John 3. i. 11. Barrow, 231, 232, 251. 
 
 • appeliatiori,
 
 OF HINZUAN OR JOHANNA. 497 
 
 * appellation, though far furpaffing our reafon, by which he is diftin- 
 ' guiflied in tlie Gofpel ; and the believers in Muhammed, who exprefsly 
 ' names him the MeJJiahy and pronounces him to have been born of a 
 
 * virgin, which alone might fully juftify the phrafe condemned by this 
 
 * author, are themfelves condemnable for cavilling at words, when they 
 
 * cannot obje£l to the fubftance of our faith confidently with their own.' 
 The Mufelmans had nothing to fay in reply ; and the converfation was 
 changed. 
 
 I was aftonifhed at the queftions, which Alwi' put to me concerning 
 the late peace and the independence of America ; the feveral powers and 
 refources of Britain and France, Spain and Holland-, the character and 
 fuppofed views of the Emperor ; the comparative ftrength of the Ruffian^ 
 Imperial, and Qthman armies, and their refpedtive modes of bringing 
 their forces to adion : I anfwered him without referve, except on the 
 ftate of our pofTeffions in India ; nor were my anfwers loft ; for I obfen-ed, 
 that all the company were varioufly afFedled by them ; generally with 
 amazement, often with concern ; efpecially when I defcribed to them the 
 great force and admirable difcipline of the Atijirian army, and the ftupid 
 prejudices of the Turks, whom nothing can induce to abandon their old 
 Tartarian habits, and expofed the weaknefs of their empire in Africa, and 
 even in the more diftant provinces of AJia. In return he gave me clear, 
 but general, information concerning the government and commerce of 
 his ifland : " his country, he faid, was poor, and produced few articles of 
 " trade ; but, if they could get money, lohich they now preferred to play- 
 " things (thofe were his words), they might eafily, he added, procure 
 *' foreign commodities, and exchange them advantageoufly with their 
 *' neighbours in the illands and on the continent : thus with a little 
 " money, faid he, we purchafe mufkets, powder, balls, cutlafles, knives, 
 " cloths, raw cotton, and other articles brought from Bombay, and with 
 " thofe we trade to Madagafcar for the natural produce of the country 
 
 VOL. I. 3 u " or
 
 408 REMARKS ON THE ISLAND 
 
 " or for (dollars, with which the French buy cattle, honey, butter, and fo 
 
 " forth, in that ifland. With gold^ which we receive from your fliips, 
 
 " we can procure elephants' teeth from the natives of Mozambique, who - 
 
 " barter them alfo for ammunition and bars of iron, and the Portugueze 
 
 " in that country give us cloths of various kinds in exchange for our 
 
 " commodities ; thofe cloths we difpofe of lucratively in the three neigh- 
 
 " bouring iflands ; whence we bring rice, cattle, a kind of bread-fiuit, 
 
 " which grows in Comara, ^n^Jlaves^ which we buy alfo at other places, 
 
 " to which we trade j and we carry on this traffick in our own veflels." 
 
 Here I could not help expreffing my abhorrence of their Jlave-trade\ 
 and afked him by what law they claimed a property in rational beings ; 
 fmce our Creator had given our fpecies a dominion, to be moderately 
 exercifed, over the hearts of the field and the fowls of the air, but none 
 to man over man. " By no law, anfwered he, unlefs neceffity be a law; 
 *' There are nations in Madagafcar and in Africa, who know neither 
 " God, nor his Prophet, 'nor Moses, nor David, nor the Messiah-: 
 " thofe nations are in perpetual war, and take many captives ; whom, if 
 " they could not fell, they would certainly kill. Individuals among them 
 " are in extreme poverty, and have numbers of children ; who, if they 
 ** cannot be difpofed of^ muft perifh through hunger, together with their 
 " miferable parents : by purchafmg thefe wretches, we preferve theii? 
 " lives, and, perhaps, thofe of many others, |whom our money relieves, 
 " The fum of the argument is this : if we buy them, they wall live ; if 
 " they become valuable fervants, they will live comfortably ; but, if they 
 " are not fold, they muft die miferably." ' There may be, faid I, fuch' 
 ' cafes ; but you fallacioufly draw a general conclufion from a few par- 
 
 * ticular inftances ; and this is the very fallacy, which, on a thoufand 
 
 * other occafions, deludes mankind. It is not to be doubted, that a conftant 
 ' and gainful trafEck in human creatures foments war, in which captives 
 
 * are, always made, and keeps up that perpetual enmity, which you 
 
 * pretend
 
 OF HINZUAN OR JOHANNA. 499 
 
 * pretend to be the caufe of a practice in itfelf reprehenfible, "while in 
 ' truth it is its effeSi ; the fame traffick encourages lazinefs in fome 
 
 * parents, who might in general fupport their families by proper induf- 
 
 * try, and feduces others to ftifle their natural feelings : at moft your 
 
 * redemption of thofe unhappy children can amount only to a perfonal 
 ' contract, implied between you, for gratitude and reafonable fervice on 
 
 * their part, for kindnefs and humanity on yours ; but can you think 
 
 * your part performed by difpofmg of them againfl their wills with as 
 
 * much indifference, as if you were felling cattle ; efpecially as they might 
 ' become readers of the Kordn^ and pillars of your faith ?' " The law, faid 
 " he, forbids our felling them, when they are believers in the Prophet ; 
 " and little children only are fold ; nor they often, or by all mafters." 
 
 * You, who believe in Muhammed, faid I, are bound by the fpirit and 
 ' letter of his laws to take pains, that they alfo may believe in him ; 
 
 * and, if you negledt fo important a duty for fordid gain, I do not fee 
 
 * how you can hope for profperity in this world, or for happinefs in the 
 ' next.' My old friend and the Muftts afTented, and muttered a few 
 prayers ; but probably forgot my preaching, before many minutes had 
 pafled. 
 
 So much time had flipped away in this converfation, that I could make 
 but a fliort vifit to prince Sa'lim ; and my view in vifiting him was to 
 fix the time of our journey to Domoni as early as poffible on the next 
 morning. His appearance was more favage than ever ; and I found him 
 in a difpofitlon to complain bitterly of the EngliJJj : " No acknowledge- 
 " ment, he faid, had been made for the kind attentions of himfelf and 
 " the chief men in his country to the ofiicers and people of the Brilliant^ 
 " though a whole year had elapfed fince the wreck." I really wondered 
 at the forgetfulnefs, to which alone fuch a negled: could be imputed ; 
 and alTured him, that I would exprefs my opinion both in Bengal and in 
 letters to England. " We have little, faid he, to hope from letters ; for, 
 
 " when
 
 500 REMARKS ON THE ISLAND 
 
 " when we have been paid with them inftead of money, and have fhown 
 " them on board your fhips, we have commonly been treated with dif- 
 " dain, and often with imprecations." I affured him, that either thofe 
 letters muft have been written coldly and by very obfcure perfons, or 
 fhown to very ill-bred men, of whom there were too many in all na- 
 tions ; but that a few inftances of rudienefs ought not to give him a 
 general prejudice againft our national character. " But you, faid he, 
 " are a wealthy nation ; and we are indigent : yet, though all our groves 
 " of cocoa-trees, our fruits, and our cattle, are ever at your fervice, you 
 " always try to make hard bargains with us for what you chufe to dif- 
 " pofe of, and frequently will neither fell nor give thofe things, which 
 " w€ principally want." " To form, faid I, a juft opinion of Englijhmen^ 
 " you muft vifit us in our own ifland, or at leaft in India j here we are 
 " ftrangers and travellers : many of us have no defign to trade in any 
 " country, and none of us think of trading in Hinzuan^ where we ftop 
 " only for refrelhment. The clothes, arms, or inftruments, which you 
 " may want, are comiBonly neceflary or convenient to us ; but, if Sayyad 
 " Alwi' or his fons were to be ftrangers in our country, you would 
 " have no reafon to boaft of fuperior hofpitality." He then fhowed me, 
 a fecond time, a part of an old filk veft with the ftar of the order of the 
 Thiftle, and begged me to explain the motto ; exprefling a wifh, that the 
 order might be conferred on him by the King of England in return for 
 his good offices to the Englijh. I reprefented to him the impoffibility of 
 his being gratified, and took occafion to fay, that there was more true 
 dignity in their own native titles, than in thofe oi prince^ duke, and lord^ 
 which had been idly given them, but had no conformity to their man- 
 ners or the conftitution of their government. 
 
 This converfation being agreeable to neither of us, I changed it by 
 
 defiring, that the palanquins and bearers might be ready next morning 
 
 as early as poffible : he anfwered, that his palanquins were at our fervice 
 
 for
 
 OF HINZUAN OR JOHANNA. 56I 
 
 fdr nothing, but that we muft pay him ten dollars for each fet of bearers ; 
 that it was^the ftated price; and that Mr. Hastings had paid it, when 
 he went fo vifit the king. This, as I learned afterwards, was falfe ; but, 
 in all events, I knew, that he would keep the dollars himfelf, and give 
 nothing to the bearers, who deferved them better, and whom he would 
 c<3mpel to leave their cottages, and toll for his profit. " Can you 
 " imagine, I replied, that we would employ four and twenty men to 
 " bear us fo far on their fhoulders without rewarding them amply ? But 
 ** fmce they are free men (fo he had aflured me) and not your flaves, 
 " we will pay them in proportion to their diligence and good behaviour ; 
 " and it becomes neither your dignity nor ours to make a previous 
 ." bargain." I fhowed him an elegant copy of the Koran^ which I 
 deftined for his father, and defcribed the reft of my prefent ; but he 
 coldly afked, " if that was all :" had he been king, a purfe of dry dollars 
 would have given him more pleafure than the fineft or holieft manu- 
 fcript. Finding him, in converfing on a variety of fubjedls, utterly void 
 of intelligence or principle, I took my leave, and faw him no more ; but 
 promifed to let him know for certain whether we fhould make our in- 
 tended excurfion. 
 
 We dined in tolerable comfort, and had occafion, in the courie of the 
 day, to obferve the manners of the natives in the middle rank, who are 
 called Banas^ and all of whom have flaves conftantly at work for them : 
 we vifited the mother of Comboma'di, who feemed in a ftation but 
 little raifed above indigence ; and her hulband, who was a mariner, bar- 
 tered an Arabick treatife on aftronomy and navigation, which he had 
 read, for a fea compafs, of which he well knew the ufe. 
 
 In the morning I had converfed with two very old Arabs of Yemen^ 
 who had brought fome articles of trade to Hinzuan ; and in the after- 
 noon I met another, who had come from Majkat (where at that time 
 
 there
 
 502 REMARKS ON THE ISLAND 
 
 there was a civil war) to purchafe, if he could, an hundred ftand of 
 arms. I told them all that I loved their nation, and they returned my 
 compliments with great warmth ; efpecially the two old men, who were 
 near fourfcore, and reminded me of Zohair and Ha'reth. 
 
 So bad an account had been given me of the road over the mountains, 
 that I difluaded my companions from thinking of the journey, to which 
 the Captain became rather difmclined ; but, as I wifhed to be fully ac- 
 quainted with a country, which I might never fee again, I wrote the 
 next day to Sa'lim, requefting him to lend me one palanquin and to 
 order a fufficient number of men : he fent me no written anfwer; which 
 I afcribe rather to his incapacity than to rudenefs; but the Governor, 
 with Alwi' and two of his fons, came on Jjoard in the evening, and 
 faid, that they had feen my letter ; that all ftiould be ready ; but that 
 I could not pay lefs for the men than ten dollars. I faid I would pay 
 more, but it fhould be to the men themfelves, according to their be- 
 haviour. They returned fomewhat diflatisfied, after I had played at 
 chefs with Alwi's younger fon, in whofe manner and addrefs there 
 was fomething remarkably pleafing. 
 
 Before funrife on the 2d of Augujl I went alone on fhore, with a 
 fmall bafket of fuch provifions, as I might want in the courfe of the day, 
 and with fome cufhions to make the prince's palanquin at leaft a tolera- 
 ble vehicle ; but the prince was refolved to receive the dollars, to which 
 his men were entitled ; and he knew, that, as I was eager for the jour- 
 ney, he could prefcribe his own terms. Old Alwi' met me on the 
 beach, and brought excufes from Sa'lim ; who, he faid, was indifpofed. 
 He conduced me to his houfe ; and feemed rather defirous of perfuading 
 me to abandon my defign of vifiting the king \ but I allured him, that, 
 if the prince would not fupply me with proper attendants, I would walk 
 to Domdni with my own fervants and a guide. ' Shaikh Sa'lim, he faid. 
 
 * was
 
 OF HINZUAN OR JOHANNA. 503 
 
 ^ was mlferably avaricious ; that he was afliamed of a kinfman with fuch 
 
 * a difpofition ; but that he was no lefs obftinate than covetous ; and 
 
 • that, without ten dollars paid in hand, it would be impoflible to pro- 
 
 * cure bearers.' I then gave him three guineas, which he carried, or 
 pretended to carry, to Sa'lim, but returned without the change, alledg- 
 ing that he had no filver, and promifing to give me on my return the 
 few dollars that remained. In about an hour the ridiculous vehicle was 
 brought by nine fturdy blacks, who could not fpeak a word oi Arabic k ;. 
 fb that I expeded no information concerning the country, through which 
 I was to travel ; but Alwi' affifted me in a point of the utmoft confe- 
 quence. ' You cannot go, faid he, without an interpreter ; for the king 
 ' fpeaks only the language of this ifland ; but I have a fen'ant, whofe 
 ' name is Tumu'ni, a fenfible and worthy man, who underftands Eng~ 
 
 • lijh, and is much efteemed by the king ; he is known and valued all 
 ' over Hinzuan. This man fhall attend you ; and you will foon be fen- 
 ' fible of his worth.' 
 
 Tumu'ni defired to carry my bafket, and we fet out with a profpeit 
 of fine weather, but fome hours later than I had intended. I walked, by 
 the gardens of the two princes^ to the fkirts of the town, and came to a 
 little village confifting of feveral very neat huts made chiefly with the 
 leaves of the cocoa-tree 5 but the road a little farther was fo ftony, that I 
 fat in the palanquin, and was borne with perfedt fafety over. fome rocks: 
 I then defired my guide to alfure the men, that I would pay them liberally ; 
 but the poor peafants, who had been brought from their farms on the 
 hills, were not perfedlly acquainted with the ufe of money, and treated 
 my promife with indifference. 
 
 About five miles from Matfamudo lies the town of Wani^ where Shaikh 
 Abdullah, who has already been mentioned, ufually refides : I faw it 
 at a diftance, and it feemed to be agreeably fuuated. When I had paffed 
 
 the
 
 501 REMARKS ON THE ISLAND 
 
 the rocky part of the road, I came to a ftony beach, where the fea ap- 
 peared to have loft lome ground, fince there was a fine fand to the left, 
 and beyond it a beautiful bay, which refembled that of Weymouth^ and 
 feemed equally convenient for bathing ; but it did not appear to me, that 
 the ftones, over which I was carried, had been recently covered with 
 water. Here I faw the frigate, and, taking leave of it for two days, 
 turned from the coaft into a fine country very neatly cultivated, and con- 
 fifting partly of hillocks exquifitely green, partly of plains, which were 
 then in a gaudy drefs of rich yellow bloifoms : my guide informed me, 
 that they were plantations of a kind of vetch, which was eaten by the 
 natives. Cottages and farms were interfperfed all over this gay cham- 
 paign, and the whole fcene was delightful ; but it was foon changed for 
 beauties of a different fort. We defcended into a cool valley, through 
 which ran a rivulet of perfedly clear water ; and there, finding my vehicle 
 uneafy, though from the laughter and merriment of my bearers I con- 
 cluded them to be quite at their cafe, I bade them fet me down, and 
 walked before them all the reft of the way. Mountains, clothed with 
 fine trees and flowering fhrubs, prefented themfelves on our afcent from 
 the vale ; and we proceeded for half an hour through pleafant wood- 
 walks, where I regretted the impoflibility of loitering a while to examine 
 the variety of new bloflbms, which fucceeded one another at every ftep, 
 and the virtues, as well as names, of which feemed familiar to Tumu'ni. 
 At length we defcended into a valley of greater extent than the former : 
 a river or large wintry torrent ran through it, and fell down a fteep de- 
 clivity at the end of it, where it feemed to be loft among rocks. Cattle 
 were grazing on the banks of the river, and the huts of their owners ap- 
 peared on the hills : a more agreeable fpot i had not before feen even in 
 Swijferland or MerionethJJnre ; but it was followed by an affemblage of 
 natural beauties, which I hardly, expected to find in a little illand twelve 
 degrees to the fouth of the Line. I was not fufficiently pleafed with my 
 folitary journey to difcover charms, which had no adual exiftence, ^n^ 
 
 the
 
 OF niNZUAN OR JOHANNA. 505 
 
 the firfl: effe£l of the contraft between St. J ago and Hinzuan had ceafed ; 
 but, without any difpofition to give the landfcape a high colouring, I 
 may truly fay, what I thought at the time, that the whole country, 
 which next prefented itfelf, as far furpalled Eineronville or Blenheim^ 
 or any other imitations of nature, which I had feen in France or 
 England, as the fineft bay furpafles an artificial piece of water. Two 
 very high mountains, covered to the fummit with the richeft verdure, 
 were at foi»e diftance on my right hand, and feparated from me by 
 meadows diverfified with cottages and herds, or by vallies refounding 
 with torrents and water-falls ; on my left was the fea, to which there 
 were beautiful openings from the hills and woods ; and the road was a 
 fmooth path naturally winding through a foreft of fpicy flirubs, fruit- 
 trees, and palms. Some high trees were fpangled with white blolToms 
 equal in fragrance to orange-flowers : my guide called them Monongos, but 
 the day was declining fo tail, that it was impoffible to examine them : 
 the variety of fruits, flowers, and birds, of which I had a tranfient view 
 in this magnificent garden, would have fupplied a naturalifl with amufe- 
 ment for a month ; but I faw no remarkable infed, and no reptile of any 
 kind. The woodland was diverfified by a few pleafant glades, and new 
 profpeiSs were continually opened : at length a noble view of the fea 
 burft upon me unexpedledly ; and,^ having pafTed a hill or two, we came 
 to the beach, beyond which were feveral hills and cottages. We turned 
 from the Ihore ; and, on the next eminence, I faw the town of Dorndni at 
 a little diftance below us : I was met by a number of natives, a few of 
 whom fpoke Arabick, and thinking it a convenient place for repofe, I 
 fent my guide to apprize the king of my intended vifit. He returned in 
 half an hour with a polite melTage ; and I walked into the town, which 
 feemed large and populous. A great crowd accompanied me, and I was 
 conducted to a houfe built on the fame plan with the beft houfes at 
 Matfamudo : in the middle of the court-yard flood a large Monongo- 
 tree, which perfumed the air; the apartment on the left was empty j 
 VOL. I. 3 X and.
 
 506 REMARKS ON THE ISLAND 
 
 and, in that on the right, fat the king on a fofa or bench covered with 
 an ordinaiy carpet. He role, when I entered, and, grafping my hands, 
 placed me near him on the right ; but, as he could Ipeak only the lan- 
 guage of Ilinzuan^ I had recourfe to my friend Tumu'ni, than whom 
 a readier or more accurate interpreter could not have been found. I 
 prefented the king with a very handfome Indian drefs of blue filk with 
 golden flowers, which had been worn only once at a mafquerade, and 
 with a beautiful copy of the Koran, from which I read a fgw verfes to 
 him : he took them with great complacency, and faid, " he wiflied 1 
 " I had come by fea, that he might have loaded one of my boats with 
 " fruit and with fome of his fineft cattle. He had feen me, he faid, on 
 " board the frigate, where he had been, according to his cuftom, in dif- 
 *' guife, and had heard of me from his fon Shaikb Hamdullah." I 
 gave him an account of my journey, and extolled the beauties of his 
 country : he put many queftions concerning mine, and profefl'ed great 
 regard for our nation. " But I hear, faid he, that you are a magiftrate, 
 " and confequently profefs peace : why are you armed with a broad 
 " fword ?" " I was a man, I faid, before I was a magiflrate ; and, if it 
 " fhould ever happen, that law could not protect me, I muft proted: 
 " myfelf." He feemed about fixty years old, had a very cheerful 
 countenance, and great appearance of good nature mixed with a certain 
 dignity, which diftinguifhed him from the crowd of minifters and officers, 
 who attended him. Our converfation was interrupted by notice, that 
 it was the time for evening prayers ; and, when he rofe, he faid : " this 
 *' houfe is yours, and I will vifit you in it, after you have taken fome 
 " refreihment." Soon after, his fervants brought a roaft fowl, a rice- 
 pudding, and fome other difhes, with papayas and very good pome- 
 granates : my own bafket fupplied the reft of my fupper. The room 
 was hung with old red cloth, and decorated with pieces of porcelain 
 and feftoons of EngliJI^ bottles ; the lamps were placed on the ground 
 in large fea-fhells ; and the bed place was a recefs, concealed by a chintz 
 
 hanging.
 
 OF HINZUAN OR JOHANNA. 507 
 
 hanging, oppofite to the fofa, on which we had been fitting : though it 
 was not a place that invited repofe, and the gnats were inexpreffibly 
 troublefome, yet the fatigue of the day procured me very comfortable 
 flumber. I was waked by the return of the king and his train ; fome 
 of whom were Arabs ; for I heard one of them fay hcwa rdkid, or he is 
 Jleeping : there was immediate filence, and I pafTed the night with little 
 difturbance, except from the unwelcome fongs of the mofquitos. In the 
 morning all was equally filent and folitary ; the houfe appeared to be de- 
 ferted ; and I began to wonder what had become of Tumu Ki : he came 
 at length with concern on his countenance, and told me, that the bearers 
 had run away in the night ; but that the king, who wifhed to fee me in 
 another of his houfes, would fupply me with bearers if he could not pre- 
 vail on me to ftay, till a boat could be fent for. I went immediately to 
 the king, whom I found fitting on a raifed fofa in a large room, the walls 
 of which were adorned with fentences from the Kcran in very legible 
 characters : about fifty of his fubje£ts were feated on the ground in a 
 femicircle before him ; and my interpreter took his place in the midft 
 of them. The good old king laughed heartily, when he heard the ad- 
 venture of the night, and faid : " you will now be my gueft for a 
 " week, I hope ; but ferioufly if you mull return foon, I will fend into 
 " the country for fome peafants to carry you." He then apologized 
 for the behaviour of Shaikh Sa lim, which he had heard from Tu- 
 mu Ni, vv^ho told me afterwards, that he was much difpleafed with it, 
 and would not fail to exprefs his difpleafure : he concluded with a long 
 harangue on the advantage, which the Englijh might derive, from fend- 
 ing a fhip every year from Bombay to trade with his fubjeCts, and on 
 the wonderful cheapnefs of their commodities, efpecially of their cow- 
 ries. Ridiculous as this idea might feem, it fhowed an enlargement 
 of mind, a defire of promoting the intereft of his people, and a fenfe 
 of the benefits arifing from trade, which could hardly have been ex- 
 pedted from a petty African chief, and which, if he had been fove- 
 
 reign
 
 508 REMARKS ON THE ISLAND 
 
 reign of Yemen, might have been expanded into rational projefts pro- 
 portioned to the extent of his dominions. I anfwered, that I was 
 imperfedly acquainted with the commerce of India ; but that I would 
 report the fubftance of his converfation, and would ever bear teftimony 
 to his noble zeal for the good of his country, and to the mildnefs with 
 which he governed it. As I had no inclination to pafs a fecond night 
 in the ifland, I requefted leave to return without waiting for bearers : he 
 feemed very fincere in preffing me to lengthen my vifit, but had too 
 much Arabian politenefs to be importunate. We, therefore, parted ; 
 and, at the requeft of Tumu'ni, who afTured me that little time would 
 be loft in fhowing attention to one of the worthieft men in Hinzuan, I 
 made a vifit to the Governor of the town, whofe name was Mutekka; 
 his manners were very pleafmg, and he fhowed me fome letters from 
 the officers of the Brilliant, which appeared to flow warm from the heart, 
 and contained the ftrongeft eloge of his courtefy and liberality. He in- 
 fifted on filling my balket with fome of the fineft pomegranates I had 
 ever feen ; and I left the town, impreffed with a very favourable opinion 
 of the king and his governor. When I reafcended the hill, attended by 
 many of the natives, one of them told me in Arabick, that I was going 
 to receive the higheft mark of diftindlion, that it was in the king's power 
 to fhow me ; and he had fcarce ended, when I heard the report of a 
 fingle gun : Shaikh Ahmed had faluted me with the whole of his ord- 
 nance. I waved my hat, and faid AUar Achar : the people fhouted, and 
 I continued my journey, not without fear of inconvenience from excef- 
 five heat and the fatigue of climbing rocks. The walk, however, was 
 not on the whole unpleafant : I fometimes refted in the valleys, and 
 forded all the rivulets, which refrefhed me with their coolnefs, and fupplied 
 me with exquifite water to mix with the juice of my pomegranates, and 
 occafionally with brandy. We were overtaken by fome peafants, who 
 came from the hills by a nearer way, and brought the king's prefent of 
 a cow with her calf, and a ftie-goat with two kids : they had apparently 
 
 been
 
 OF HINZUAN OR JOHANNA. 509 
 
 been feleded for their beauty, and were brought fafe to Bengal. The 
 profpeds, which had fo greatly delighted me the preceding day, had not 
 yet loft their charms, though they wanted the recommendation of no- 
 velty ; but I muft confefs, that the moft delightful objed in that day's 
 walk of near ten miles was the black frigate, which I difcerned at funfet 
 from a rock near the Prince's Gardens. Clofe to the town I was met by 
 a native, who, perceiving me to be weary, opened a fine cocoa-nut, 
 which afforded me a delicious draught : he informed me, that one of his 
 countrymen had been punifhed that afternoon for a theft on board the 
 Crocodile^ and added, that, in his opinion, the punifhment was no lefs 
 juft, than the offence was difgraceful to his country. The offender, as I 
 afterwards learned, was a youth of a good family, who had married a 
 daughter of old Alwi', but, being left alone for a moment in the cabin, 
 and feeing a pair of blue morocco flippers, could not refift the tempta- 
 tion, and concealed them fo ill under his gown, that he was dete£led 
 with the mainer. This proves, that no principle of honour is inftilled 
 by education into the gentry of this ifland : even Alwi', when he had 
 obferved, that, " in the month of Ramadan^ it was not lawful to paint 
 " with hin?ia or to tell lies" and when I afked, whether both were law- 
 ful all the reft of the year, anfwered, that " lies were innocent, if no 
 " man was injured by them." TuMUNi took his leave, as well fatif- 
 fied as myfelf with our excurfion : I told him, before his mafter, that I 
 transferred alfo to him the dollars, which were due to me out of the three 
 guineas ; and that, if ever they fhould part, I fhould be very glad to re- 
 ceive him into my fervice in Ittdia. Mr. Roberts, the mafter of the 
 fhip, had paffed the day with Sayyad A^iWEVt, and had learned from him 
 a few curious clrcumftances concerning the government of Hi?izuan ; 
 which he found to he a monarchy limited by an ariftocracy. The king, 
 he was told, had no power of making war by his own authority ; but, if 
 the affembly of nobles, who were from time to time convened by him, 
 refolved on a war with any of the neighbouring iflands, they defrayed 
 
 the
 
 510 REMARKS ON THE ISLAND 
 
 the charges of it by voluntary contributions, in return for which they 
 claimed as their own all the booty and captives, that might be taken. 
 The hope of gain or the want of flaves is ufually the real motive for 
 fuch enterprizes, and oftenfible pretexts are eafily found : at that very 
 time, he underftood, they meditated a war, becaufe they wanted hands 
 for the following harveft. Their fleet confiflred of fixteen or feventeen 
 fmall veflels, which they manned with about two thoufand five hundred 
 iflanders armed with muflcets and cutlafles, or with bows and arrows. 
 Near two years before they had pofTefled themfelves of two towns in 
 Maydta, which they ftill kept and garrifoned. The ordinary expenfes 
 of the government were defrayed by a tax from two hundred villages ; 
 but the three principal towns were exempt from all taxes, except that 
 they paid annually to the Chief Mufti a fortieth part of the value of all 
 their moveable property, and from that payment neither the king nor the 
 nobles claimed an exemption. The kingly authority, by the principles 
 of their conftitution, was confidered as elective, though the line of fuccef- 
 fion had not in fad been altered fince the firft eledion of a Sultan. He 
 was informed, that a wandering Arab^ who had fettled in the ifland, had, 
 by his intrepidity in feveral wars, acquired the rank of a chieftain, and 
 afterwards of a king with limited powers ; and that he was the Grand- 
 father of Shaikh Ahmed : I had been affured that Queen Hali'mah was 
 his Grand-mother ; and, that he was the fxth king ; but it muft be re- 
 marked, that the words jedd and jeddah in Arabick are ufed for a male 
 and female anceflor indefinitely ; and, without a correct pedigree of Ah- 
 med's family, which I expedted to procure but was difappointed, it 
 would fcarce be poflible to afcertain the time, when his forefather ob- 
 tained the higheft rank in the government. In the year lOoo Captain 
 John Davis, who wrote an account of his voyage, found Maydta go- 
 verned by a king, and Anfuame, or Hinzudn^ by a queen, who fhowed 
 him great marks of friendihip : he anchored before the town of Demos 
 (does he mean Domoni fj which was as large, he fays, as Plymouth j and 
 
 he
 
 OF HINZUAN OR JOHANNA. 5 1 1 
 
 he concludes from the ruins around it, that it had once been a place of 
 ftrength and grandeur. I can only fay, that I obferved no fuch ruins. 
 Fifteen years after, Captain Peyton and Sir Thomas Roe touched at 
 the Comara iflands, and from their feveral accounts it appears, that an old 
 fultanefs then refided in Hinzuan^ but had a dominion paramount over 
 all the ifles, three of her fons governing Mohila in her name : if this be 
 true, SoHAiLi' and the fucceflbrs of Hali'mah muft have loft their in- 
 fluence over the other iflands ; and, by renewing their dormant claim as 
 it fuits their convenience, they may always be furnifhed with a pretence 
 for hoftilities^ Five generations of eldeft fons would account for an 
 hundred and feventy of the years, which have elapfed, fmce Davis and 
 Peyton found Hinzican ruled by a fultanefs ; and Ahmed was of fuch 
 an age, that his reign may be reckoned equal to a generation : it is pro- 
 bable, on the whole, that Hali'mah was the widow of the firft Arabian 
 king, and that her mofque has been continued in repair by his defcen- 
 dants ; fo that we may reafonably fuppofe two centuries to have pafled, 
 fmce a fmgle yirab had the courage and addrefs to eftablifli in that beau- 
 tiful ifland a form of government, which, though bad enough in itfelf, 
 appears to have been adminiftered with advantage to the original inhabi- 
 tants. We have lately heard of civil commotions in Hinzuan^ which, 
 we may venture to pronounce, were not excited by any cruelty or vio- 
 lence of Ahmed, but were probably occafioned by the infolence of an 
 oligarchy naturally hoftile to king and people. That the mountains in 
 the Comara iflands contain diamonds, and the precious metals, which are 
 ftudioufly concealed by the policy of the feveral governments, may be 
 true, though I have no reafon to believe it, and have only heard It af- 
 ferted without evidence ; but I hope, that neither an expedation of fuch 
 treafures, nor of any other advantage, will eVer induce an European 
 power to violate the firft principles of juftice by afluming the fovereignty 
 of Hinzuau, which cannot anfwer a better purpofe than that of fupply- 
 ing our fleets with feafonable refrefliment ; and, although the natives 
 
 have
 
 512 REMARKS ON THE ISLAND 
 
 have an intereft in receiving us vi-ith apparent cordiality, yet, if we wifli 
 their attachment to be unfeigned and their dealings juft, we muft fet 
 them an example of ftridl honefty in the performance of our engage- 
 ments. In truth our nation is not cordially loved by the inhabitants of 
 Hinzuan, who, as it commonly happens, form a general opinion from a 
 few inftances of violence or breach of faith. Not many years ago an 
 European, who had been hofpitably received and liberally fupported at 
 Matfamudo, behaved rudely to a young married woman, who, being of 
 low degree, was walking veiled through a ftreet in the evening : her huf- 
 band ran to protedl her, and refented the rudenefs, probably with me- 
 naces, poffibly with adual force ; and the European is faid to have given 
 him a mortal wound with a knife or bayonet, which he brought, after 
 the fcuffle, from his lodging. This foul murder, which the law of na- 
 ture would have juftified the magiftrate in punifhing with death, was re- 
 ported to the king, who told the governor (I ufe the very words of 
 Alwi') that " it would be wifer to hufh it up." Alwi' mentioned a 
 civil cafe of his own, which ought not to be concealed. When he was 
 on the coaft of Africa in the dominions of a very favage prince, a fmall 
 European vefTel was wrecked ; and the prince not only feized all that 
 could be faved from the wreck, but claimed the captaia and the crew as 
 his flaves, and treated them with ferocious infolence. Alwi' aflured me, 
 that, when he heard of the accident, he haftened to the prince, fell proC- 
 trate before him, and by tears and importunity prevailed on him to give 
 the Europeans their liberty ; that he fupported them at his own expenfe, 
 enabled them to build another veffel, in which they failed to Hinzum, 
 and departed thence for Europe or India : he fhowed me the Captain's 
 promiflbry notes for fums, which to an African trader muft be a con»- 
 fiderable objed, but which were no price for liberty, fafety, and, per- 
 haps, life, which his good, though difmterefted, offices had procured. I 
 lamented, that, in my fituation, it was wholly out of my power to affift 
 Alwi' in obtaining juftice ; but he urged me to deliver an Arabick 
 
 letter
 
 OF HINZUAN OR JOHANNA. 5 13 
 
 letter from him, enclofing the notes, to the Governor General, who, as 
 he faid, knew him well ; and I complied with his requeft. Since it is poi- 
 fible, that a fubftantial defence may be made by the perfon thus accufed 
 of injuftice, I will not name either him or the vefTel, which he had com- 
 manded ; but, if he be living, and if this paper Ihould fall into his hands, 
 he may be induced to refledl how highly it imports our national honour, 
 that a people, whom we call favage, but who adminifter to our con- 
 venience, may have no juft caufe to reproach us with a violation of our 
 contrads. 
 
 VOL I. 3 y
 
 A CONVERSATION 
 
 WITH 
 
 ABRAM, AN ABYSSINIAN, 
 
 CONCERNING 
 
 THE Cirr OF GWENBER AND rUE SOURCES OF THE NILE. 
 By The PRESIDENT. 
 
 JtiAVING been informed, that a native of Ahyjjima was in Calcutta^ 
 who fpoke Arabick with tolerable fluency, I fent for and examined him 
 attentively on feveral fubje£ts, with which he feemed likely to be acquaint- 
 ed: his anfwers were fo fimple and precife, and his whole demeanour 
 fo remote from any fufpicion of falfehood, that I made a minute of 
 his examination, which may not perhaps be unacceptable to the Society. 
 Gwender^ which Bernier had long ago pronounced a Capital City^ 
 though LuDOLF aflerted it to be only a Military Station., and conje£tured, 
 that in a few years it would wholly difappear, is certainly, according to 
 Abram, the Metropolis oi AbyJJinia. He fays, that it is nearly as large 
 and as populous as Mifr or Kahera, which he faw on his pilgrimage to 
 Jtrufalem ; that it lies between two broad and deep rivers, named Caha 
 and Ancrib^ both which flow into the Nile at the difl:ance of about fifteen 
 days' journey; that all the walls of the houfes are of a red ftone, and the 
 roofs of thatch ; that the ftreets are like thofe of Calcutta^ but that the 
 
 ways,
 
 510 A CONVERSATION WITH 
 
 ways, by which' the king pafles, are very fpacious ; that the palace, which 
 has a piaiftered roof, refembles a fortrefs, and ftands in the heart of the 
 City ; that the markets of the town abound in pulfe, and have alfo wheat 
 and barley, but no rice ; that fheep and goats are in plenty among them, 
 and that the inhabitants are extremely fond of milk, cheefe, and whey, 
 but that the country people and foldiery make no fcruple of drinking the 
 blood and eating the raw flefh of an ox, which they cut without caring 
 whether he is dead or alive ; tliat this favage diet is, however, by no 
 means general. Almonds, he fays, and dates are not found in his country, 
 but grapes and peaches ripen theije, and in fome of the diftant provinces, 
 efpecially at Cdrudar, wine is made in abundance ; but a kind of mead is 
 the common inebriating liquor of the AbyJJinians. The late King was 
 l^ilca Mahiit (the firft of which words means root or origin) ^ and the 
 prefent, his brother Tilca Jerjis, He reprefents the royal forces at Gwen- 
 der as confiderable, and aflerts, perhaps at random, that near forty thou- 
 fand horfe are in that ftation : the troops are armed, he fays, with mufkets, 
 lances, bov\^s and arrows, cimeters, and hangers. The council of ilate 
 confifts, by his account, of about forty Minifters, to whom almoft all the 
 executive part of government is committed. He was once in the fervice 
 of a Vazir, in whofe train he went to fee the fountains of the Nile or 
 Abey^ ufually called Ahoey^ about eight days' journey from Gwender : he 
 faw three fprings, one of which rifes from the ground with a great noife, 
 that may be heard at the diftance of five or fix miles. I fhowed him the 
 defcription of the Nile by Gregory of Amhara^ which Ludolf has 
 printed in Ethiopick : he both read and explained it with great facility ; 
 whilfl I compared his explanation with the Latin verficn, and found it 
 perfedly exad. He afferted of his own accord, that the defcription was 
 conformable to all that he had feen and heard in Ethiopia ; and, for that 
 reafon, I annex it. When I interrogated him on the languages and learn- 
 ing of his country, he anfwered, that fix or it\t\\ tongues at leaft were 
 
 fpoken there ; that the moll elegant idiom, which the King ufed, was the 
 
 Amharick \
 
 ABR AM, AN ABYSSINIAN. 517 
 
 Amharick ; that the Ethiopick contahied, as it le well known, many Ara- 
 bick words; that, befides their facred books, as the prophefy of Enoch, 
 and others, they had hiftories of Abyjfinia and various literary compofi- 
 tions ; that their language was taught in fchools and colleges, of which 
 there were feveral in the Metropolis. He laid, that np Abyjjman doubted 
 the exiftence of the royal prifon called JVahmi?2^ fituated on a very lofty 
 mountain, in which the fons and daughters of their Kings were confined ; 
 but that, from the nature of the thing, a particular defcription of it could 
 not be obtained. " All thefe matters, faid he, are explained, I fuppofe, 
 " in the writings of Ya ku'b, whom I faw thirteen years ago in Gwen- 
 " der : he was a phyfician, and had attended the King's brother, who 
 " was alfo a Fazir^ in his laft illnefs : the prince died ; yet the king loved 
 " Ya'ku'b, and, indeed, all the court and people loved him: the king 
 " received him in his palace as a gueft, fupplied him with every thing, 
 " that he could want ; and, when he went to fee the fources of the NiJe 
 *' and other curiofities (for he was extremely curious), he received every 
 " poflible afliftance and accommodation from the royal fiivour : he un- 
 " derftood the languages, and wrote and coUedled many books, which 
 " he carried with him." It was impoffible for me to doubt, efpecially 
 when he defcribed the perfon of Ya ku b, that he meant James Bruce, 
 Efq. who travelled in the drefs of a Syrian phyfician, and probably 
 aflumed with judgement a name well known in Abyjjinia : he is ftill 
 revered on Mount Sinai for his fagacity in difcovering a fpring, of which 
 the monaftery was in great need ; he was known at Jedda by Mi'r 
 Mohammed Hussain, one of the moft intelligent Mahommedans \\\ 
 India ; and I have feen him mentioned with great regard in a letter from 
 an Arabian merchant at Mokbd. It is probable, that he entered Abyjjinia 
 by the way of Mnjuwwa^ a town in the pofleflion of the Mufelmans, and 
 returned through the defert mentioned by Gregory in his defcription 
 of the Nile. We may hope, that Mr. Bruce will publilh an account 
 of his interefting travels, with a vcrfion of the book of Enoch, which 
 
 no
 
 518 
 
 no man but himlelf can give us with fidelity. By the help of AbyJJinian 
 records, great light may be thrown on the hiftory of Yeme7i before the 
 time of Mu HAMMED, fince it is generally known, that four Ethtop 
 kings fucceflively reigned in that country, having been invited over by 
 the natives to oppofe the tyrant Dhu' Nawa's, and that they were in 
 their turn expelled by the arms of the Himyartck princes with the aid of 
 Anu SHIR VAN king of Perfia^ who did not fail, as it ufually happens, to 
 keep in fubjedion the people, whom he had confented to relieve. If the 
 annals of this period can be reftored, it muft be through the hiftories of 
 Abyjinia, which will alfo corred the many errors of the bed Aftatick 
 writers on the 'Niky and the countries which it fertilifes. 
 
 ON
 
 ON 
 
 THE COURSE OF THE NILE. 
 
 JL H E A7/<?, which the AbyJJinians know by the names of Abey and 
 Alaivy^ or the Giant, guflies from feveral fprhigs at a place, called Sucut^ 
 lying on the higheft part of Dengald near Gojjdm^ to the weft of Bajem- 
 dir^ and the lake of Dara or Wed\ into which it runs with fo ftrong and 
 rapid a current, that it mixes not with the other waters, but rides or 
 fwims, as It were, above them. 
 
 All the rains, that fall in Abyjpnia and defcend in torrents from the 
 liills, all ftreams and rivers, fmall and great, except the Handzo, which 
 u-afhes the plains of Hengdt, and the HawdJJ} which flows by Dewdr and 
 Fetgdr^ are collected by this king of waters, and, like vafTals, attend his 
 inarch : thus enforced he rufhes, like a hero exulting in his ftrength, and 
 haftens .to fertllife the land of Egypt, on which no rain falls. We muft 
 except a!fo thofe Ethiopean rivers, which rife in countries bordering on 
 the ocean, as the kingdoms of Cmnhat, Gurdjy, Wdfy, Ndriyah, Gdfy, 
 IVej, and Zinjiro, whofe waters are difembogued into the fea. 
 
 When the Ala'ivy has paffed the Lake, it proceeds between Gojjdm and 
 Bajemdir, and, leaving them to the weft and eaft, purfues a dired: courfe 
 towards Amhdrd, the fklrts of which it bathes, and then turns again to 
 the weft, touching the borders of Walaka ; whence it rolls along Mugdr 
 and Shmvai, and,' pafhng Bazdwd and Gongd, defcends into the lowlands 
 of Shankila, the country of the Blacks : thus it forms a fort of fpiral 
 roiuid the province of Gojjdm, which it keeps for the moft part on 
 its right. 
 
 Here
 
 520 ON THE COURSE OF THE NILE. 
 
 Here It bends a little to the eaft, from which quarter, before it reaches 
 the diftridls of Senndr^ it receives two large rivers, one called Tacazz)\ 
 which runs from Tegri^ and the other, Givangue^ which comes from 
 
 Deml>ctd, 
 
 After it has vifited Senndr, it wafhes the land of Dongoldy and pro- 
 ceeds thence to Niibia^ where it again turns eaftward, and reaches a 
 country named Abrim^ where no vefTels can be navigated, by reafon of 
 the rocks and crags, which obftrudt the channel. The inhabitants of 
 Sentidr and Nubia may conftantly drink of its water, which lies to the 
 eaft of them like a ftrong bulwark j but the merchants of Abyjjmia^ 
 who travel to Egypt^ leave the Nile on their right, as foon as they have 
 pafTed Nubia., and are obliged to traverfe a defert of fand and gravel, in 
 which for fifteen days they find neither wood nor v»-ater ; they meet it 
 again in the country of Re'if or Upper Egypt^ where they find boats on 
 the river, or ride on its banks, refrefhing themfelves with its falutary 
 ftreams. 
 
 It is aflerted by fome travellers, that, when the Alawy has palTed Senndr 
 and Dongoldy but before it enters Nubia ^ it divides itfelf ; that the great 
 body of water flows entire into Egypt^ where the fmaller branch (the 
 Niger J runs weftward, not fo as to reach Barbary, but towards the coun- 
 try of Alivdhy whence it rufhes into the great fea. The truth of this fadl 
 I have verified, partly by my own obfervation, and partly by my inquiries 
 among intelligent men ; whofe anfwers feemed the more credible, becaufe, 
 if fo prodigious a mafs of water were to roll over Egypt with all its 
 wintry increafe, not the land only, but the houfes, and towns, of th« 
 Egyptians mufl be overflowed. 
 
 or*
 
 ON 
 
 THE INDIAN GAME OF CHESS. 
 
 By The PRESIDENT. 
 
 J. F evidence be required to prove that chefs was invented by the Hindus^ 
 we may be fatisfied with the teftimony of the Perfians ; who, though as 
 much inclined as other nations to appropriate the ingenious inventions of 
 a foreign people, unanimoufly agree, that the game was imported from 
 the weft of India^ together with the charming fables ofVisHNUSARMAN, 
 in the fixth century of our era ; it feems to have been immemorlally 
 known in Hindujlan by the name of Chaturanga^ that is, the four angas^ 
 or members^ of an army, which are fald in the Amaracojha to be hajlyas- 
 luarai' hapadiitam, or elephants^ horfes, chariots^ and foot-foUiers ; and, 
 in this fenfe, the word is frequently ufed by Epick poets in their defcrip- 
 tions of real armies. By a natural corruption of the pure Sanfcrit word, 
 it was changed by the old Perjians Into Chatrang^ but the Arabs^ who 
 foon after took poffeflion of their country, had neither the initial nor final 
 letter of that word in their alphabet, and confequently altered It further 
 into Shatranj^ which found Its way prcfently into the modern PerJiaJi, 
 and at length into the dlaleds of India, where the true derivation of the 
 name is known only to the learned : thus has a very fignificant word in 
 the facred language of the Brdhmans been transformed by fucceflive 
 changes into axedrez, fcacchi, echecs, chefs, and, by a whimfical concur- 
 rence of circumftances, given birth to the EngUp^ word check, and even a 
 name to the Exchequer of Great Britain. The beautiful fimplicity and 
 extreme perfeQion of the game, as it is commonly played in Europe and 
 VOL. I. 3 z Af'^^
 
 522 ON THE INDIAN GAME OF CHESS. 
 
 Afia^ convince me, that it was invented by one effort of fome great 
 genius ; not completed by gradual improvements, but formed, to ufe the 
 phrafe of Italian criticks, by the Jirji intention ; yet of this fimple game, 
 fo exquifitely contrived, and fo certainly invented in India^ I cannot find 
 any account in the claffical writings of the Brahmans. It is, indeed, con- 
 fidently afferted, that Sanfcrit books on Chefs exift in this country, and, 
 if they can be procured at Battdres, they will afTuredly be fent to us : at 
 prefent I can only exhibit a defcription of a very ancient Indian game 
 of the fame kind ; but more complex, and, in my opinion, more modern, 
 than the fimple Chefs of the Perjians. This game is alfo called Chatu- 
 ranga, but, more frequently Cbaturdj), or the/our Kings^ fince it is played 
 by four perfons reprefenting as many princes, two allied armies combating 
 on each fide : the defcription is taken from the Bhwwijhya Purdn., in- 
 which Yudhisht'hir is reprefented converfing with Vya'sa, who 
 explains at the king's requeft the form of the fi£litious warfare and the 
 principal rules of it : " having marked eight fquares on all fides, fays the 
 " Sage, place the red army to the eaft, the green to the fouth, the yellow 
 " to the weft, and the black to the north : let the elephant ftand on the 
 " left of the king ; next to him, the horfe ; then, the boat ; and, before 
 " them all, ionr foot-foldiers ; but the boat muft be placed in the angle ©f 
 " the board." From this paflage it clearly appears, that an army, with 
 its four angd s^ muft be pkced on each fide of the board, fince an elephant 
 could not ftand, in any other pofition, on the left hand of each king ; and' 
 Ra'dhaca'nt informed me, that the board confifted, like ours, oi fixty- 
 foiir fquares, half of them occupied by the forces, and half, vacant: he 
 added, that this game is mentioned in the oldeft law-books, and that it 
 ■was invented by the wife of Ra'van, king oi Lanca^ in order to amufe 
 him with an image of war, while his metropolis was elofely befieged by 
 Ra'ma in the fecond age of the v>rorld. H^ had not heard the ftory 
 told by Firdausi near the clofe of the Shahndmah, and it wa& probably, 
 carried, into Perfia from Cdnyacurja by Bgrzu, i\\Q favourite phyjicicin, 
 
 thence
 
 ON THE INDIAN GAME OF CHESS, 523 
 
 thence called Vaidyapriya^ of the great Anu'shirava'n ; but he faid, 
 that the Brahmmis of Gaur, or Bengal^ were once celebrated for fuperior 
 Ikill in the game, and that his father, together with his fpiritual preceptor 
 Jaganna't'h, now living at Tribefii, had inftru£ted two young Brdh- 
 mans in all the rules of it, and had fent them to yayanagar at the requefl 
 of the late Raja, who had liberally rewarded them. A pAp, or boat^ is 
 fubftituted, we fee, in this complex game for the rat'h^ or armed chariot^ 
 which the Bengalefe pronounce rofh, and which the Perjians changed 
 into rokh, whence came the rook of fome European nations ; as the vierge 
 andyo/of the French are fuppofed to be corruptions ofjerz andj^/, the 
 prime minijier and elephant of the Perjians and Arabs: it were vain to 
 feek an etymology of the word rook in the modern Perfian language ; 
 for, in all the paffages extracted from Firdausi and Ja'mi, where rokh 
 is conceived to mean a hero^ or 2^ fabulous bird^ it fignifies, I believe, no 
 more than a cheek or a face ; as in the following defcription of a pro- 
 ceflion in Egypt : " when a thoufand youths, like cyprefles, box-trees, 
 ** and firs, with locks as fragrant, cheeks as fair, and bofoms as delicate, 
 *' as lilies of the valley, were marching gracefully along, thou wouldli 
 *' have faid, that the new fpring was turning his face (not, as Hyde 
 " tranflates the words, carried on rokhs) from ftation to flation ;" and, 
 as to the battle of the duwdzdeh rokh, which D'Herbelot fuppofes to 
 mean douze preux chevaliers, I am ftrongly inclined to think, that the 
 phrafe only fignifies a combat of twelve perfons face to face, or fix on a fide. 
 I cannot agree with my friend Ra'dha'ca NT, that ■\ Jlnp is properly 
 introduced in this imaginary warfare inftead of a chariot, in which the 
 old Indian warriours conftantly fought ; for, though the king might be 
 fuppofed to fit in a car, fo that the four anga' s would be complete, and 
 though it may often be neceflary in a real campaign to pafs rivers or lakes, 
 yet no river is marked on the htdian, as it is on the Chinefe, chefs-board, 
 and the intermixture of Ihips with horfes, elephants, and infantry em- 
 battled on a plain, is an abfurdity not to be defended. The ufe of dice 
 
 may,
 
 524 OX THE INDIAN GAME OF CHESS. 
 
 may, perhaps, be juftified in a reprefentation of war, in which Jbrtane 
 has unqueftionably a great Ihare, but it feems to exclude chefs from the 
 rank, which has been afligned to it, among the fciences, and to give the 
 game before us the appearance of ichyi, except that pieces are ufed 
 openly, inftead of cards which are held concealed : neverthelefs we find, 
 that the moves in the game defcribed by Vya'sa were to a certain degree 
 regulated by chance ; for he proceeds to tell his royal pupil, that, " if 
 " ch2qjie be thrown, the king or a paion muft be moved ; if quatre^ ths 
 " elephant ; if trois^ the horfe ; and if deux^ the boatT 
 
 He then proceeds to the moves : " the king pafles freely on all fides 
 " but over one fquare only ; and with the fame limitation, the pawn 
 " moves, but he advances ftraight forward, and kills his enemy through 
 " an angle ; the elephant marches in all diredlions, as far as his driver 
 " pleafes ; the horfe runs obliquely, traverfing three fquares ; and the 
 **■ JJ.np goes over two fquares diagonally." The elephant, we find, has 
 the powers of our qiieen^ as we are pleafed to call the minijler^ or general^ 
 of the Perfians, and the fiip has the motion of the piece, to which we 
 give the unaccountable appellation of biJJiop^ but with a reftridion, which 
 muft greatly leffen his value. 
 
 The bard next exhibits a few general rules and fuperficial diretSions 
 for the condudl of the game : " the pawns and th^Jhip both kill and may 
 *' be voluntarily killed ; while the kingy the elephant^ and the horfe may 
 " flay the foe, but cannot expofe themfelves to be flain. Let each player 
 " preferve his own forces with extreme care, fecuring his king above 
 " all, and not facrificing a fuperior, to keep an inferior, piece." Here 
 the commentator on the Purdn obferves, that, the horje, who has the 
 choice of eight moves from any central pofition, muft be preferred to the 
 Jhipy who has only the choice of four ; but this argument would not 
 have equal weight in the common game, where the bijhop and tower 
 
 command
 
 ON THE INDIAN GAME OF CHESS. 525 
 
 command a whole line, and where a knight is always of lefs value than* 
 a tower in adion, or the bilhop of that fide, on which the attack is be- 
 gun. " It is by the overbearing power of the elephant^ that the king 
 " fights boldly ; let the whole army, therefore, be abandoned, in order 
 *' to fecure the elephant : the king mufl never, place one elephant before 
 *' another, according to the rule of Go'tama, unlefs he be compelled 
 *' by want of room, for he would thus commit a dangerous fault ; and, 
 " if he can flay one of two hofl:ile, elephants, he muft deftroy that on his 
 *' left hand." The laft rule is extremely obfcure ; but, as Go'tama 
 was an illuftrious lawyer and . philofopher, he would not have conde- 
 fcended to leave dire£lions for the game of Chaiuranga^ if it had net 
 been held in great eftimation by the ancient fages of India. . 
 
 All that remains of the paflage, which was copied for me by Ra'dha- 
 ca'nt and explained by him, relates to the feveral modes, in which a 
 partial fuccefs or complete vi(3:ory may be obtained by any one of the 
 four: players ; for we fliall fee, that, as if a difpute had arifen between 
 two allies, one of the kings may alTume the. command of all the forces,- 
 and aim at feparate conqueft, Firft ; " When any one king has placei 
 " himfelf on the fquare of another king, which advantage is called Sin-- 
 ** hdjana, or the throne^ he wins a ftake ; which is doubled, if he kill the 
 " adverfe monarch, when he feizes his place; and, if he can feat himfelf 
 " on the throne of his ally, he takes the command of the whole army." 
 Secondly; " If he can occupy fucceffively the thrones of all three princes,^ 
 " he obtains the vi(£lorj^, which is named C^rt/^ni/?, and, the. ftake is 
 *' doubled, if he kill the laft of the three, juft before he takes pofl!eflioa' 
 " of his throne ; but, if he kill him on his throne^ the flake is quadru- 
 *' pled." Thus, as the commentator remarks, in a, real warfare, a king 
 may be confidered as vidorious, when he feizes the metropolis of his ad- 
 verfary ; but, if he can deftroy his foe, he difplays greater heroifm, and 
 relieves his people from any further folicitude. " Both in gaining the 
 
 " Sinh/ifana ■
 
 526 ON THE INDIAN GAME OF CHESS. 
 
 " Sinhafan^ and the Chaturapy fays Vya's A, the king muft be fupported 
 " by the elephants or by all the forces united." Thirdly ; " When one 
 " player has his own king on the board, but the king of his partner has 
 " been taken, he may replace his captive ally, if he can feize both the 
 " adverfe kings ; or, if he cannot effe£t their capture, he may exchange 
 " his king for one of them, againft the general rule, and thus redeem 
 " the allied prince, who will fupply his place." This advantage has the 
 name oi .NripctcrrJJ^t'tj^ or recovered by the king-, and the Naucacrijl:t' a 
 feems to be analogous to it, but confined to the cafe oijlnps. Fourthly ; 
 " If a pawn can march to any fquare on the oppofite extremity of the 
 " board, except that of the king, or that of the fhip, he aflumes what- 
 " ever power belonged to that fquare ; and this promotion is called Shat'- 
 " pada^ or xh& Jix Jirides^ Here we find the rule, with a fingular ex- 
 ception, concerning the advancement of pawns^ which often occafions a 
 moft interefting ftruggle at our common chefs, and which has furnilhed 
 the poets and moralifts oi Arabia and Perfia with many lively refledions on 
 human life. It appears, that " this privilege of Shat'pada was not allow- 
 " able, in the opinion of Go'tama, when a player had three pawns on 
 " the board ; but, when only one pawn and one fhip remained, the 
 " pawn might advance even to the fquare of a king or a Ihip, and aflume 
 " the power of either." Fifthly ; " According to the RdcJJiafas, or 
 " giants (that is, the people of Lanca^ where the game was invented), 
 " there. could be neither vidory nor defeat, if a king were left on the 
 *' plain without force ; a fituation which they named Cdcacajlof ha^'' 
 Sixthly ; " If three fhips happen to meet, and the fourth fhip can be 
 " brought up to them in the remaining angle, this has the name of Vrl- 
 *' hannauca ; and the player of the fourth feizes all the others." Two 
 or three of the remaining couplets are fo dark, either from an error ii* 
 the manufcript or from the antiquity of the language, that I could not 
 underftand the Pandit's explanation of them, and fufpe£l that they gave 
 even him very indiftind ideas ; but it would be eafy, if it were worth 
 
 while,
 
 ON THE INDIAN GAME OF CHESS. 527 
 
 •while, to play at the game by the preceding rules ; and a little pra£lice 
 would, perhaps, make the whole intelligible. One circumftance, in this 
 extract from the Puran^ feems very furprizing : all games of hazard are 
 pofitively forbidden by Menu, yet the game of Chaturanga^ in which 
 dice are ufed, is taught by the great Vya'sa himfelf, whofe lawtrad ap- 
 pears with that of Go TAMA among the eighteen books, which form the 
 Dhermafdjlra ; but, as Ra dha'ca'nt and his preceptor Jaganna't'h 
 are both employed by government in compiling a Digeft of Indian laws, 
 and as both of them, efpecially the venerable Sage of Tribeni^ underftand 
 the game, they are able, I prefume, to affign reafons, why it fhould 
 have been excepted from the general prohibition, aud even openly taught 
 by ancient and modern Brdhmans,
 
 ^ * ■<■♦. 
 
 il

 
 AN 
 
 INDIAN GRANT OF LAND 
 
 IN Y.C. 1018, 
 
 LITERALLY TRANSLATED FROM THE SANSCRIT, 
 
 By The PRESIDENT. 
 
 As explained by Ra'malo'chan Pandit, communicated by General CAKtf AC. 
 
 O'M. Victory and Elevation ! 
 
 STJNZAS. 
 
 IVxAY He, who in all affairs claims precedence in adoration ; may that 
 Gan'andyaca, averting calamity, preferve you from danger ! 
 
 2. May that Siva conftantly preferve you, on whofe head ililnes 
 (Gang a') the daughter of Jahnu refembling-the-pure-crefcent-rifing- 
 from-the-fummit-of-S u M e'r u ! fa compound word offixtein fyllables) . 
 
 3. May that God, the caufe of fuccefs, the caufe of felicity, who keeps, 
 placed even by himfelf on his forehead a fe£lion of the-moon-with-cool- 
 beams, drawn-in-the-form-of-a-Hne-refembling-that-in-the-infinitely- 
 bright fpike-of-a-frefh-blown-C/z^r^z (who is) adorned-with-a-grove-of- 
 thick-red locks-tied-with-the-Prlnce-of-Serpents, be always prefent and 
 fevourable to you ! 
 
 VOL. I. 4 A 4, The
 
 530 AN INDIAN GRANT OF LAND, 
 
 4. The fon of Ji'mu'tace'tu ever afFedionate, named Ji'Mu'tava'- 
 IIANA, v>'ho, furely, prefen^ed (the Serpent) S'anc'hachu'd'a from Ga- 
 rud'a (the Eagle o/^ Vishnu), ivas famed in the three worlds, having 
 neglected his own body, as if It had been grafs, for the fake of others. 
 
 5. fTwo couplets in rhyme.) In his family was a monarch f named J 
 Capaudin (or, with thick hair, a title of Maha'de'va), chief of the 
 race of Si'la'ra, reprefling the infolence of his foes ; and from him 
 came a fon, named Pulas'acti, equal in encreafing glory to the fun's 
 bright circle. 
 
 6. When that fon of Capardin was a new-bom infant, through fear 
 of him, homage was paid by all his colleded enemies, with water held 
 aloft in their hands, to the delight of his realm. 
 
 7. From him came a fon, the only warriour on earth, named Sri'vap- 
 PUVANNA, a Hero in the theatre of battle. 
 
 8. His fon, called S'ri' Jhanjha, was highly celebrated, and the pre- 
 ferver of his country, he afterwards became the Sovereign of Gdgni : he 
 had a beautiful form. 
 
 ,9. From him came a fon, whofe-renown-was-far-extended-^w^-ii'-^^?- 
 confounded-the-mind-with-his-wonderful-adts, the fortunate Bajjada 
 De'va : he was a monarch, a gem in-the-diadem-of-the-world's-circum- 
 ference ; who ufed only the forcible weapon of his two arms readily on 
 the plarn of combat ; and in whofe bofom the Fortune of K^ings herfelf 
 amoroufly played, as in the bofom of the foe of Mura (or Vishnu). 
 
 10. Like jAYANTAy fon to the foe of Vritta (or Indra), like 
 
 Shan-
 
 FOUND AT TANNA, 531 
 
 Shanmuc'ha (or CARTiCE'YA)yo«toPuRA'Ri (or Maha'de'va) thea 
 fprang from him a fortunate fon, with a true heart, invincible ; 
 
 11. "Who in liberality was Carna before our eyes, in truth even 
 YuDHisHTHiRA, in glory a blazing Sun, and the rod of Ca'la (or 
 Yam a, judge of the infernal regions) to his enemies ; 
 
 1 2. By whom the great counfellors, who were under his prote£lion, 
 and others near ^/>/;, are preferved in this world : he is a conqueror, 
 named with propriety S'arana'gata Vajrapanjarade'va. 
 
 13. By whom when this world was over-fhadowed with-continual- 
 prefents-of-gold, for his liberality he was named Jagadarthi (or En- 
 riching the World) in the midft of the three regions of the univerfe. 
 
 14. Thofe Kings afliiredly, whoever they may be, who are endued 
 "with minds capable of ruling their refpedlive dominions, praife him for 
 the greatnefs of his veracity, generofity, and valour ; and to thofe princes, 
 who are deprived of their domains, and feek his protection, he allots a 
 firm fettlement: may he, the Grandfather of the Ra'ya, be viftorious ! 
 he is the fpiritual guide of his counfellors, and they are his pupils. Yet 
 farther. 
 
 15. He, by whom the title of Go'Mma'ya was conferred on a perfon 
 who attained the objedl of his defire ; by whom the realm, fhaken by a 
 man named E'yapade'va, was even made firm, and by whom, being 
 the prince of Mamalambuva (I fuppofe, Maml>ei\ or Bombay) fecurity 
 from fear was given to me broken with affliSlion ; He was the King, 
 named S'ri' Virudanca : how can he be otherwife painted ? Here fix 
 
 fyllabks are effaced in one of the Grants ; and this vefe is not in the other, 
 
 iG. His
 
 532 AN INDIAN GRANT OF LAND, 
 
 Ifi. His fon was named Bajjadade'va, a gem on the forehead of 
 monarchs, eminently {killed in morality ; whofe deep thoughts all the 
 people, clad in horrid armour, praife even to this day. 
 
 ];. Then was born his brother the prince Arice'sari (a Hon among 
 his foes), the heft of good men ; who, by overthrowing the ftrong moun- 
 tain of his proud enemies, did the a£t of a thunder-bolt ; having formed 
 great defigns even in his childhood, and having feen the Lord of the 
 Moon (Maha'de'va) f.atidmg before him, he marched by his father's 
 order, attended by his troops, and by valour fubdued the world. 
 
 Yet more- 
 
 18. Having raifed up his flain foe on his fharp fword, he fo afflided 
 the women in the hoftile palaces, that their forelocks fell difordered, 
 their garlands of bright flowers dropped from their necks on the vafes of 
 their breafls, and the black luftre of their eyes difappeared. 
 
 1 9. A warriour, the plant of whofe fame grows up over the temple of 
 Brahma's Egg (the univerfe), from-the repeated-watering-of-it-with- 
 the-drops-that-fell-from-the-eyes-of-the-wives-of-his-flaughtered-foe. 
 
 Afterwards by the multitude of his innate virtues (then follows a com- 
 pound word of an hundred and fifty-two fyllables ) th e-fortunate-AR ice's A- 
 R i-D E ' v A R A ' J A - Lord-of- the - great-circle-adorned-with-all-the-company- 
 of-princes-with-VAjRAPANjARA-of-whom-men-feek-the-protedion-an- 
 elephant's-hook-in-the-forehead-of-the-world-pleafed-with-encreafmg- 
 vice-a-Flamingo-bird-ln-the-pool-decked-with-flowers-like-thofe-of-para- 
 dife-and-with-A'DiTYA-PANDiTA-chief-of-the-diftrids-of-the-world- 
 through-the-liberality-of-the-lord-of-the-Weftern-Sea-holder-of-innate- 
 knowledge- who -bears-a- golden -cagle-on-his-ftandard-defcended-from- 
 
 the-
 
 FOUND AT TANNA. 533 
 
 the-ftock-of Ji'MU'TAVA'HANA-king-of-the-race-of-^/Air^-Soverelgn-of- 
 the-City-of-T'rt^^r^-Supreme-ruler-of-exalted-counfellors-afrembled-when- 
 extended-fame-had-been-attained (the monarch thus defcrlbed) governs 
 the-whole-region-of-CoW^^^-confifting-of-fourteen-hundred-villages-with 
 cities-and-other-places-comprehended-in-many-diftrid:s-acquired-by-his- 
 arm. Thus he fupports the burden of thought concerning this domain. 
 The Chief-Minifter S'ri' Va'sapaiya and the very-religioufly-purified 
 Sri' Va'rdhiyapaiya being at this time prefent, he, the fortunate 
 Arice'saride'vara''ja, Sovereign of the great circle, thus addrefes 
 even all who inhabit-the-city-S'Ri' Stha^naca for the Manjion of 
 L ACS hm'i), his-own-kinfmen-and-others-there-aflembled, princes-coun- 
 fellors-priefl:s-minifters-fuperiors-inferiors-fubje£t-to-his-commands, alfo 
 the-lords-of diftricts,-the-Governors-of towns-chiefs-of-villages-the-maf- 
 ters-of-families-employed-or-unemployed-fervants-of-the-King-and-z^/j- 
 countrj^men. Thus he greets all-the-holy-men-and-others-inhabiting- 
 i\vt-c\\.-Y-oi Hanyamana : reverence be to you, as it is becoming, with all 
 the marks of refpe(3:, falutation, and praife ! 
 
 STANZA. 
 Wealth is inconftant ; youth, deftroyed in an inflant ; and life, placed 
 between the teeth of Critanta (or Yama before mentioned). 
 
 Neverthelefs negleft is JJjoivn to the felicity of departed anceftors. 
 Oh ! how aftonifhing are the efforts of men ! 
 
 And thus. — Youth is publickly fwallowed-up-by-the-giantefs Old -Age 
 admitted-into-its-inner manfion ; and the bodily-frame-is-equally-ob- 
 noxious-to-the-afTault-of-death-of-age-and- the- mifery-born- with- man- 
 of- feparation-between- united-friends- like -falling -from-heaven-into-the- 
 lower regions : riches and life are two things more-moveable-than-a- 
 drop - of water - trembling - on-the - leaf- of- a - iotos-Ihaken- by- the- wind ; 
 
 and
 
 534 AN INDIAN GRANT OF LAND, 
 
 and the world is like-the-firft delicate-foliage-of-a-plantain-tree. Con- 
 fidering this in lecret with a firm difpaffionate underftanding, and alfo the 
 fruit cf liberal donations mentioned by the wifey I called to mind thefe 
 
 STANZAS. 
 1 . In the Satya, I'reta^ and Dwdper Ages, great piety was celebrated : 
 but in this Caliyiiga the Muni's have nothing to commend but liberality. 
 
 1', Not lo productive of fruit is learning, not fo produdive is piety, as 
 liberality, fay the Muni's^ in this Cali Age. And, thus was it faid by the 
 Divine Vya'sa: 
 
 3. Gold was the firft offspring of Fire ; the Earth is the daughter of 
 Vishnu, and kine are the children of the Sun: the three worlds, there' 
 foi\\ are afluredly given by him, who makes a gift of Gold, Earth, and 
 
 Cattle. 
 
 A. Our deceafed fathers clap their hands, our Grandfathers exult: 
 faying^ " a donor of land is born in our family : he will redeem us." 
 
 5. A donation of land to good perfons, for holy pilgrimages, and on 
 the (five) folemn days of the moon, is the mean of paffing over the deep 
 boundlefs ocean of the world. 
 
 6. White parafols, and elephants mad with pride (the infignia of royalty) 
 are the flowers of a grant of land : the fruit is Ikdra in heaven. 
 
 Thus, confirming the declarations of the-ancient-M««/'j--learned-in-th€ 
 diftindion-between-juftice-and-injuftice, for the fake of benefit to my 
 mother, my father, and myfelf, on the fifteenth of the bright moon of 
 Ccirtica^ in the middle of the year Pingala (perhaps of the Serpent J^ 
 
 when
 
 FOUND AT TANNA. 535 
 
 when nine hundred and forty yeai-s, fave one, are reckoned as paft from 
 the tune of King S'ac A, or, in figures, the year gsg, of the bright moon 
 of Cdrtica 15 (that is I/O8 — 939=769 years ago from Y.C. 178;. 
 The moon being then full and eclipfed, I having bathed in the oppofite 
 fea refembllng-the-girdles-round-th€-waifl-of-the-female-Earth, tinged- 
 with-a-variety-of-rays-like-many-exceedingIy-bright-rubies,-pearIs-^«^- 
 o/;6^r-geiiis, with- water- whofe-mud-was-becorae-mufk-through-the-fre- 
 quent-bathing-of-the-fragrant-bofom-of-beautiful-Goddefres-rifing-up- 
 after-having-dived-in-it ;-and having offered to the fun, the divine lumi- 
 nary, the-gem-of-one-circle-of-heaven, eye-of-the-three-worlds, Lord of- 
 the lotos, a difh embellifhed-with-flowers-of-vavious-foits (this dilh is 
 filled with the plant Darbha^ rice in the hulk, different flov^ers, and 
 fandal) have granted to him, who has viewed the preceptor of the Gods 
 and of Demons, who has adored the Sovereign Deity the-hufband-of- 
 Ambica' (orDuRGA'), has facrificed-caufed-others-to-facrifice,-has read- 
 eaufed-others-to-read-and-has-performed-the-refl-of-the-fix (Sacerdotal) 
 fundlions; who-is-eminently-fkilled-in-the-whole-bufinefs-of-performing- 
 facrlfices, who-has-held-up the-root-and-ftalk-of-the-facred-lotos ; wlio- 
 inhabits-the-city-SRi St'ha'naca (or abode of Forttinejy defcended 
 from Jamadagni ; who-performs-due-rites-in-the-holy-flream j who- 
 diflin£Uy-knows-the-myflerious-branches (of the VedasJ, the domeftlck 
 prieft, the reader, SrI Ticcapaiya, fon of Sri Chch'hintapaiya 
 the aftronomer, for-the-purpofe-of-facrificing-caufing-others to-facrifice- 
 reading-cauiing-others-to-read-and-difcharging-the-rell of- the-fix - (Sa- 
 cerdotal-) duties, of performing-the (daily fervice of) Vais'wadeva with 
 offerings of rice, milk, and materials of facrifice, and- of-completing- with 
 due-folemnity the facrifice-of-fire-of doing-fuch-a£ts-as-muft-continuaIly- 
 be-done, and fuch-as-muft-occafionally-be-performed, of paying-due- 
 honours to guefls and flrangers, and-of-fupporting his-own-famil^-, the 
 village of C/6i^7««V/z-ftandiTig-at-the-extremity of-the-terxitory of Vatfa- 
 rajcy and the boundaries of which are^ to the Eaft the village of Fiia- 
 
 gambit
 
 530 AN INDIAN GRANT OF LAND, 
 
 ganiba and a water-fall-from a mountain ; to the South the villages of 
 Nagamba and Muladongarica .; to the Weft the river Sambarapallica ; to 
 the North the villages of Sdmbhe and Cdt'iydlaca ; and befides this the 
 full (dijlriti) of Tocabala Pallkdy the boundaries of which are to the 
 Eaft Siddbah ; to the South the river Mot'hala ; to the Weft Cdcdde'va^ 
 Hallapallka^ and Bddaviraca ; to the North Taldvali Pallicd ; and alfo 
 the Village of Aiilaciyd^ the boundaries of which (are) to the Eaft T'ddd- 
 ga ; to the South Govini ; to the Weft Charted, to the North Calibald- 
 yacholi : (that land) thus furveyed-on-the-four-quarters-and limited-to- 
 its-proper-bounds, with-its-herbage-wood-and-water, and with-power-of- 
 puniftning-for-the-ten-crimes, except that before given as the portion of 
 Deva, or of Brahma, I have hereby releafed, and limited-by-the-dura- 
 tion-of-the-fun-the-moon-and-mountains, confirmed with-the-ceremony- 
 of adoration, with a copious effufion of water and with the higheft adls- 
 of-worftiip ; and the fame land ftiall be enjoyed by his lineal-and-coUa- 
 teral-heirs, or caufed-to-be-enjoyed, nor fhall difturbance be given by any 
 perfon whatever : fmce it is thus declared by great Munts, 
 
 STANZAS. 
 
 1. The Earth is enjoyed by many kings, by Sa'gar, and by others: 
 to whomfoever the foil at any time belongs, to him at that time belong 
 the fruits of it. 
 
 2. A fpeedy gift is attended with no fatigue ; a continued fupport, 
 with great trouble : therefore, even the IGjhi's declare, that a continuance 
 of fupport is better than a fmgle gift. 
 
 3. Exalted Emperors of good difpofitions have given land, as Ra'ma- 
 BIIADRA advifes, again and again: this is the true bridge of juftice for 
 fovereigns : from time to time (O kings) that bridge muft be repaired 
 
 by you, 
 
 A. Thofe
 
 FOUND AT TANNA. 53; 
 
 -1. Thofe pofleflions here below, which have been granted in former 
 times by fovereigns, given for-the-fake-of-religion-increafe-of-wealth-or 
 of-fame, are exadlly equal to flowers, which have been offered to a 
 Deity : what good man would vefume /uc/j gjfts^ 
 
 Thus, confirming the precepts of ancient Muni's^ all future kings muft 
 gather the fruit-of-obferving-religious-duties ; and let not the ftain-of-the 
 crime-of-deftroying-this-^ra;?^ be borne henceforth by any-one : fmce, 
 whatever prince^ being fupplicated, fhall, through avarice, having-his- 
 mind-wholly-furrounded-with-the-gloom-of-ignorance-contemptuoufly- 
 dlfraifs-the-injured-fupliant, He, being guilty of five great dsi^Ji've fmall 
 crimes, fhall long in darknefs inhabit Raurava, MaMraurava^ Andhoy 
 Tamifra, and the other places of punifhment. And thus it is declared 
 by the divine Vya'sa: 
 
 STANZAS. 
 T. He, who feizes land, given-by-himfelf or by-another (foverelgn), 
 will rot among worms, himfelf a worm, in the midil of ordure. 
 
 2. They, who feize granted-land, are born again, living with great 
 fear, in dry cavities of trees in the unwatered forefts on the Vinddhian 
 (mountains). 
 
 3. By feizing one cow, one vefture, or even one nail's breadth of 
 ground, a king continues in hell till an univerfal deftrudlion of the world 
 has happened. 
 
 A. By (a gift of) a thoufand gardens, and by (a gift of) a hundred 
 pools of water, by (giving) a hundred lac of oxen, a diffeifor of (granted) 
 land is not cleared from offence. 
 
 VOL. I. 4 B 5. A
 
 538 AN INDIAN GRANT OF LAND. 
 
 5. A grantor of land remains in heaven fixty thoufand years ; a dif- 
 feifor, and he, who refufes to do jullice, continues as many (years) in 
 hell. 
 
 And, agreeably to this, in what is written by the hand of the Secre- 
 tary, (the King) having ordered it, declares his own intention ; as it is 
 written by the command of me, fovereign of the great Circle, the fortu- 
 nate Arice'sari De'vara/Ja, fon of the Sovereign of the Great Circle, 
 the Fortunate, invincible, De'varaja. 
 
 And this is written, by order of the Fortunate King, by me Jo'-uba, 
 the brother's-fon-of S'ri' NA'GALAiYA,-the great-Bard,-dwelling-in-the 
 royal palace; engraved-on-plates-of-copper by Ve'dapaiya's fonMANA 
 Dha'ra Paiya. Thus (it ends). 
 
 Whatever herein (may be) defedive in-one-fyllable, or have-one-fylla- 
 ble-redundant, all that is (neverthelefs) complete evidence (of the grant). 
 Thus (ends the whole). 
 
 INSCRIPTIONS
 
 !!/ f!^^
 
 \ol 1 
 
 /7,i Ar.o. 
 
 The Staff of FIRUZ SHAII .
 
 INSCRIPTIONS 
 
 ON 
 
 THE STAFF OF FFRUZ SHAH. 
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE SANSCRIT, 
 
 As explained by Ra'dha'ca'nta Sarman. 
 By The PRESIDENT. 
 
 V^N a very fingular monument near Dehli, an outline of which is here 
 exhibited, and which the natives call the Staff of Fi'ru'z Shah, are 
 feveral old Infcriptions partly in ancient Ndgan letters, and partly in a 
 charader yet unknown ; and Lieutenant Colonel Polier, having pro- 
 cured exa£t impreffions of them, prefents the Society with an accurate 
 copy of all the infcriptions. Five of them are in Smfcrity and, for the 
 moft part, intelligible ; but it will require great attention and leifure to 
 decypher the others : if the language be Sanfcrit, the powers of the un- 
 known letters may perhaps hereafter be difcovered by the ufual mode of 
 decyphering ; and that mode, carefully applied even at firll:, may lead to 
 a dlfcovery of the language. In the mean time a literal verfion of the 
 legible infcriptions is laid before you : they are on the whole fufficiently 
 clear, but the fenfe of one or two paffages is at prefent inexplicable. 
 
 I. 
 The firft, on the Southweft fide of the pillar, is perfectly detached 
 
 from
 
 540 INSCRIPTIONS ON 
 
 from the reft : it is about feventeen feet frojn the bafe, and two feci 
 higher than the other infcriptions. 
 
 In the year 1230, on the firft day of the Bright half of the month 
 Vaijac'b (a monument), of the Fortunate-Vi'sALA-DE'vA-fon of the- 
 Fortunate-AMiLLA Ti-EiN h^-Y^Xn^-oi-SacambharK 
 
 n. 
 
 The next, which is engraved as a fpeclmen of the charader, confifts 
 of two ftanzas in four Hnes ; but each hemiftich is imperfect at the end, 
 the two firft wanting y£"U^», and the two \2&Jive^ fyllables : the word Sa- 
 cambhari in the former infcription enables us to fupply the clofe of the 
 third hemiftich. 
 
 OTVI. 
 
 As far as Vindhya^ as far as Himddri (the mountain of Snow), he %vas 
 
 not deficient in celebrity making Aryaverta (the Land of 
 
 Virtue, or India J, even once more what its name fignifies He 
 
 having departed, Prativa'hama'na Tilaca (is) king oi Sacambhari : 
 fSdcam only remains on the monument) by us (the region between) Hi- 
 maivat and Vindhya has been made tributary. 
 
 In the year from Sri Vicrama'Ditya 123, in the Bright half of the 
 month Vaifdcb .... at that time the Rdjaputra 6'r} Sall aca was Prime 
 Minifter. 
 
 The fecond ftanza, fupplied partly from the laft infcription, and partly 
 by conjedure, will run thus : 
 
 vritte sa prativdhamdna tilacah snicambharibhupatih 
 afmdbhih caradam vyadhdyi himawadvindhydtavimandalam. 
 
 The
 
 s 
 
 (o)[rs 
 5^ 
 
 Si 
 
 D 
 
 1^ 
 
 
 (^ 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 5.^ te€ 
 
 ®Tl^ ©,□ 
 
 
 w 
 
 « 
 
 mm 
 
 
 m 
 
 RS) 
 
 H^ (O) 
 
 @ 
 
 ( 
 
 :W 
 
 5 [W P7^ 
 
 (nr <^ 
 f & 
 
 ^ 
 
 ir^'" 
 
 i^iLii, KS 
 
 @ 
 
 
 ^^^ 
 
 D 
 
 (9) 
 
 
 C^
 
 THE STAFF OF FI'RU'Z SHAH. 54 1 
 
 The date 123 is here perfedly clear ; at leaft it is clear, that only three 
 figures are written, without even room for a cipher after them ; whence 
 we may guefs, that the double circle in the former infcription was only 
 an ornament, or the neutral termination a7n : if fo, the date of ioi/j is 
 the year of Christ fixty-feven ; but, if the double circle be a Zero, the 
 monument of Vi'sala De'va is as modern as the year 1171 or nineteen 
 years before the conqueft of Dehli by Shiha'bu'ddi'n. 
 
 Ill and IV. 
 
 The two next infcriptions were in the fame words, but the ftanzas, 
 which in the fourth are extremely mutilated, are tolerably perfedt in the 
 third, wanting only a few fyllables at the beginning of the hemiftichs : 
 
 yah clhlvefhu praharta nripatifhu vinamatcandharefhu prafannah 
 — vah s'ambi purindrah jagati vijayate vifala cfhonipalah 
 ... da fajnya efha vijayi fantanajanatmajah 
 . . punan cfhemaftu bruvatamudyogas'unyanmanah 
 
 He^ who is refentful to kings intoxicated with pride, indulgent to thofe, 
 whofe necks arehum bled, an Indra in the city of Caufambi (I fufpedt 
 Caufutnbi^ a city near Hajiindpiir^ to be the true reading), who is victo- 
 rious in the world, Vi'sala, fovereign of the earth : he gives .... his 
 commands being obeyed, he is a conqueror, the fon of Santa'naj a'na, 
 whofe mind, when his foes fay, ' Let there be mercy,' is free from fur- 
 ther hoftility. 
 
 This infcription was engraved, in the prefence of Sr'i Tilaca Ra'ja, 
 by Sri'pati, the fon of Ma'hava, a Cdyajl'ha, of a family in Gaud'a, 
 or Bengal. 
 
 V. 
 
 The fifth feems to be an elegy on the death of a king named Vi- 
 
 CRAHA,
 
 542 
 
 GRAHA, who is reprefented as only flumberlng: the laft hemlftlch is 
 hardly legible and very obfcure ; but the fenfe of both ftanzas appears to 
 be this. 
 
 O'M. 
 
 1. An offence to the eyes of (thy) enemy's conlbrt (thou) by-whom- 
 fortune-was-given-to-every fuppliant, thy fame, joined to extenfive do- 
 minion, fhines, as we defire, before us ; the heart of (thy) foes was vacant, 
 even as a path in a defert, where men are hindred from pafling, O fortu- 
 nate ViGRAHA Ra'jade'va, in the jubilee occafioned by thy march. 
 
 2. May thy abode, O Vigraha, fovereign of the world, be fixed, as 
 in reafon (it ought), in the bofoms, embellifhed with love's allurements 
 and full of dignity, of the women with beautiful eyebrows, who were 
 married to thy enemies ! Whether thou art Indra, or Vishnu, or 
 Siva, there is even no deciding : thy foes (are) fallen, like defcending 
 water ; oh ! why doft thou, through delufion, continue ileeping ? 
 
 ON
 
 ON 
 
 THE BAYA, OR INDIAN GROSS-BEAK. 
 
 Defcribed by At'har Ali' Kha'n of Dehli. 
 Translated by the PRESIDENT. 
 
 X HE little bird, called Bay a in Hindi, Berber a in Sanfcrit, Bdbui in 
 the dialed of Bengal, Cibu in Perfian, and I'enawwit in Arabkk, from 
 his remarkably pendent neft, is rather larger than a fparrow, with yellow- 
 brown plumage, a yellowifh head and feet, a light-coloured breaft, and a 
 conick beak very thick in proportion to his body. This bird is exceed- 
 ingly common in Hindujldn : he is aftonifhingly fenfible, faithful, and 
 docile, never voluntarily deferting the place where his young were 
 hatched, but not averfe, like moft other birds, to the fociety of mankind, 
 and eafily taught to perch on the hand of his mailer. In a ftate of na- 
 ture he generally builds his neft on the higheft tree, that he can find, ef- 
 pecially on the palmyra, or on the Indian fig-tree, and he prefers that, 
 which happens to overhang a well or a rivulet : he makes it of grafs, 
 which he weaves 'like cloth and Ihapes like a large bottle, fufpending it 
 firmly on the branches, but fo as to rock with the wind, and placing it 
 with its entrance downwards to fecure it from birds of prey. His neft 
 ufually confifts of two or three chambers ; and it is the popular belief, 
 that he lights them with fire-flies, w^hich he catches alive at night and 
 confines with moift clay, or with cow- dung : that fuch flies are often found 
 
 in
 
 544 ON THE BAY A. 
 
 in his neft, where pieces of cow-dung are alio (luck, is indubitable ; but, 
 as their light could be of little ufe to him, it feems probable that he only- 
 feeds on them. He may be taught with eale to fetch a piece of paper, 
 or any fmall thing, that his mafter points out to him : it is an attefted 
 fa<£l:, that, if a ring be dropped into a deep well, and a fignal given to 
 him, he will fly down with amazing celerity, catch the ring before it 
 touches the water, and bring it up to his mafter with apparent exultation ; 
 and it is confidently afferted, that, if a houfe or any other place be fhown 
 to him once or twice, he will carry a note thither immediately on a pro- 
 per fignal being made. One inftance of his docility I can myfelf men- 
 tion with confidence, having often been an eye witnefs of it : the young 
 Hindu women at Banares and in other places wear very thin plates of 
 gold, called tica's, flightly fixed by way of ornament between their eye- 
 brows ; and, when they pafs through the ftreets, it is not uncommon for 
 the youthful libertines, who amufe themfelves with training Bayas^ to 
 give them a fign which they underftand, and fend them to pluck the 
 pieces of gold from the foreheads of their miftreifes, which they bring in 
 triumph to the lovers. The Bay a feeds naturally on grafs- hoppers and 
 other infe£ts, but will fubfift, when tame, on pulfe macerated in water : 
 his flefh is warm and drying, of eafy digeftion, and recommended, in 
 medical books, as a folvent of ftone in the bladder or kidneys ; but of 
 that virtue there is no fufficient proof. The female lays many beautiful 
 eggs refembling large pearls : the white of them, when they are boiled, is 
 tranfparent, and the flavour of them is exqulfitely delicate. When many 
 Bayas are aflembled on a high tree, they make a lively din, but it is 
 rather chirping than finging ; their want of mufical talents is, however, 
 amply fupplied by their wonderful fagacity, in which they are not ex- 
 celled by any feathered inhabitants of the foreft. 
 
 ON
 
 1 
 
 < 
 
 I — I 
 
 U 
 
 < 
 
 ^
 
 ON 
 
 THE PANGOLIN OF BAHAR. 
 
 Se?2t by Matthew Leslie, Efq^, 
 And described by the PRESIDENT. 
 
 X HE fingular animal, which M. Buff ON defcribes by the name 
 of Timgolin^ is well known in Europe fince the publication of his 
 Natural Hiftory and Goldsmith's elegant abridgement of it; but, if 
 the figure exhibited by Buffon was accurately delineated from the three 
 animals, the fpoils of which he had examined, we muft confider that, 
 which has been lately brought from Caracdiah to Chitra, and fent thence 
 to the Prefidency, as a remarkable variety, If not a different fpecies, of 
 the Pangolin : ours has hardly any neck, and, though fome filaments are 
 difcernible between the fcales, they can fcarce be called briftles ; but the 
 principal difference is in the tail ; that of Buffon's animal being long, 
 and tapering almoft to a point, while that of ours is much fhorter, ends 
 obtufely, and refembles in form and flexibility the tail of a lobfter. In 
 other refpedls, as far as we can judge from the dead fubjedt, it has all the 
 characters of Buffon's Pangolin ; a name derived from that, by which 
 the animal is diftlnguifhed in "Java^ and confequently preferable to Manis or 
 Pholidotiis, or any other appellation deduced from an European language. 
 As to x\\Q,fcaly lizard, xhcfcaled ylrmadillo, and the. Jive-nailed Ant-eater^ 
 they are manifeftly improper delignations of this animal ; which is neither 
 a lizard, nor an armadillo in the common acceptation ; and, though it be 
 vol i. 4 c an
 
 alt) 0\ IHE PANGOLIN OF BAHAR. 
 
 an ant-eater^ yet it eflentially differs from the hairy quadruped uiually 
 known by that general defcription. We are told, that the Malahar name 
 of this animal is Alungu : the natives of Bahdr call it Bajar-cit, or, as 
 they explain the word, Stonc-vermine ; and, in the ftomach of the animal 
 before us, was found about a teacupful of fmall Jiones^ which had proba- 
 bly been fwallowed for the purpofe of facilitating digeftion ; but the name 
 alludes, I believe, to the hardticfs of the fcales ; for Vajracit'a means in 
 Sanfcrit the Diamond^ or Thunderbolt^ reptile^ and Fajra is a common 
 figure in the Indian poetry for any thing exceffively hard. The Vajra- 
 cit'a is believed by the Pandits to be the animal, which gnaws ihdr/acred 
 Jlone^ called Sdlgrdmas'ila ; but the Pangolin has apparently no teeth, and 
 the Sdlgrams^ many of which look as if they had been worm-eaten, are 
 perhaps only decayed in part by expofure to the air. 
 
 This animal had a long tongue fhaped like that of a cameleon ; and, if 
 It was nearly adult, as we may conclude from the young one found in 
 it, the dimenfions of it were much lefs than thofe, which Buffon af- 
 figns generally to his Pangolin ; for he defcribes its length as fix, feven, or 
 eight feet including the tail, which is almoft, he fays, as long as the 
 body, when it has attained its full growth ; whereas ours is but thirty- 
 four inches long from the extremity of the tail to the point of the fnout, 
 and the length of the tail is fourteen inches ; but, exclufively of the 
 head, which is five inches long, the tail and body are, indeed, nearly of 
 the fame length ; and the fmall difference between them may fhow, if 
 Buffon be corredl in this point, that the animal was young: the cir- 
 cumference of its body in the thickeft part is twenty inches, and that of 
 the tail, only twelve. 
 
 We cannot venture to fay more of this extraordinary creature, which 
 feems to conftitute the firft ftep from the quadruped to the reptile, until 
 we have examined it alive, and obferved its different inftinits ; but, as we 
 
 are
 
 ON THE PANGOLIN OF BAHAR. 547 
 
 are afTured, that it is common in the country round Khdnpur^ and at 
 Chdtigdm, where the native Miifelmans call it the hand-carp^ we fliall 
 poffibly be able to give on fome future occafion a fuller account of it. 
 There are in our Indian provinces many animals, and many hundreds of 
 medicinal plants, which have either not been defcribed at all, or, what is 
 worfe, ill defcribed by the naturalifts of Europe ; and to procure perfedl 
 defcriptions of them from a(2;ual examination, with accounts of their 
 feveral ufcs In medicine, diet, or manufactures, appears to be one of the 
 raoft important objecls of our inftitution.
 
 ON 
 
 THE LORIS, 
 
 SLOJrPJCED LEMUR. 
 
 By The PRESIDENT. 
 
 A H E fingular animal, which moft of you faw alive, and of which I 
 now lay before you a perfedly accurate figure, has been very correctly 
 defcribed by LiNN^us ; except \}cva.\. fickled would have been a jufter 
 epithet than awled for the bent claws on its hinder indices, and that the 
 ftze of afquirrel feems an improper, becaufe a variable, meafure : its con- 
 figuration and colours are particularized alfo with great accuracy by 
 M. Daubenton ; but the Ihort account of the Loris by M. De Buf- 
 fON appears unfatisfadlory, and his engraved reprefentation of it has 
 little refemblance to nature ; fo little that, when I was endeavouring to 
 find in his work a defcription of the quadrumane, which had juft been 
 fent me from Dacca, I paffed over the chapter on the Loris^ and afcertained 
 it merely by feeing in a note the Linnean character of the flowpaced 
 Lemur. The illuftrious French naturalift, whom, even when we criti- 
 cife a few parts of his noble work, we cannot but name with admiration, 
 obferves of the Loris^ that, from the proportion of its body and limbs ^ one 
 iiould not fuppofe it flow in walking or leaping^ and intimates an opinion, 
 
 that
 
 ///,• .,/^',r/urrr^/ JT?//////'
 
 ON THE LORIS, OR SLOWPACED LEMUR. »545 
 
 that Seba gave this animal the epithet oi Jlowmoving^ from fome fancied 
 likenefs to the floth of America : but, though its body be remarkably- 
 long in proportion to the breadth of it, and the hinder legs, or more 
 properly arms, much longer than thofe before, yet the Lcris, in fad, 
 walks or climbs very flowly, and is, probably, unable to leap. Neither 
 its genus nor fpecies, vsre find, are new : yet, as its temper and inftindls 
 are undefcribed, and as the Natural Hijlory by M, De Buffon, or the 
 Syjiem of Nature by Linn^us, cannot always be readily procured, I 
 have fet down a few remarks on the form^ the vianners, the name, and 
 the country of my little favourite, who engaged my afFedtion, while he 
 lived, and whofe memory I wifh to perpetuate. 
 
 I. This male animal had four hands, each five-fingered ; palms, naked; 
 nails, round ; except thofe of the indices behind, which were long, 
 curved, pointed ; hair, very thick, efpecially on the haunches, extremely 
 foft, moftly dark grey, varied above with brown and a tinge of ruflet ; 
 darker on the back, paler about the face and under the throat, reddifh 
 towards the rump ; no tail, a dorfal ftripe, broad, chefnut-coloured, nar- 
 rower towards the neck ; a head, almoft fpherical : a countenance, ex- 
 preffive and interefting ; eyes, round, large, approximated, weak in the 
 day time, glowing and animated at night ; a white vertical ftripe between 
 them ; eye-laihes, black, fhort ; ears, dark, rounded, concave ; great 
 acutenefs at night both in feeing and hearing ; a face, hairy, flattilh ; a 
 nofe, pointed, not much elongated ; the upper lip, cleft ; canine teeth, 
 comparatively long, very fliarp. 
 
 More than this I could not obferve on the living animal ; and he died 
 at a feafon, when I could neither attend a difledion of his body, nor 
 with propriety requeft any of my medical friends to perform fuch an 
 operation during the heats of Augujl ; but I opened his jaw and counted 
 only two incifors above and as many below, which might have been a 
 
 VOL. I. *-i c 3 defeil,
 
 546* ON THE LORIS, OR SLOWPACED LEMUR. 
 
 defed:. In the individual ; and it is mentioned fimply as a fa£t without 
 any intention to cenfure the generick arrangement of Linn^us. 
 
 II. In his manners he was for the moft part gentle, except in the cold 
 feafon, when his temper feemed wholly changed ; and his creator, who 
 made him fo fenfible of cold, to which he muft often have been expofed 
 even in his native forefts, gave him, probably, for that reafon his thick 
 fur, which we rarely fee on animals in thefe tropical climates : to me, 
 who not only conftantly fed him, but bathed him twice a week in water 
 accommodated to the feafons, and whom he clearly diftinguifhed from 
 others, he was at all times grateful ; but, when I difturbed him in winter, 
 he was ufualiy indignant, and feemed to reproach me with the uneafmefs 
 which he felt, though no polTible precautions had been omitted to keep 
 him in a proper degree of warmth. At all times he was pleafed with 
 being ftroked on the head and throat, and frequently fuffered me to touch 
 his extreinely fliarp teeth ; but at all times his temper was quick, and, 
 when he was unfeafonably difturbed, he exprefled a little refentment by 
 an obfcure murmur, like that of a Iquirrel, or a greater degree of dif- 
 pleafure by a peevifh cry, efpecially in winter, when he was often as 
 fierce, on being much importuned, as any beaft of the woods. From half 
 an hour after funrife to half an hour before funfet, he flept without in- 
 termiffion rolled up like a hedge-hog ; and as foon as he awoke, he be- 
 gan to prepare himfelf for the labours of his approaching day, licking 
 and drefling himieli like a cat ; an operation, which the flexibility of his 
 neck and limbs enabled him to perform very completely : he was then 
 ready for a flight breakfaft, after which he commonly took a fhort nap ; 
 but, when the fun was quite fet, he recovered all his vivacity. His or- 
 dinary food was the fweet fruit of this country ; plantains always, and 
 mangos during the feafon ; but he refufed peaches, and was not fond of 
 mulberries, or even of guaiavas : milk he lapped eagerly, but was con- 
 tented with })lain water. In general he was not voracious, but never 
 
 appeared
 
 * -. A "7 
 
 ON THE LORIS, OR SLOWPACED LEiMUR. *j4 
 
 appeared fatiated with grafshoppers ; and pafTed the whole night, while 
 the hot feafon lafted, in prowling for them : when a gralshopper, or any 
 infed, alighted within his reach, his eyes, which he fixed on his prey, 
 glowed with uncommon fire ; and, having drawn himfelf back to fpring 
 on it with greater force, he feized the vidim with both his forepaws, but 
 held it in one of them, while he devoured it. For other pui-pofes, and 
 fometimes even for that of holding his food, he ufed all his paws in- 
 differently as hands, and frequently grafped with one of them the 
 higher part of his ample cage, while his three others were feverally en- 
 gaged at the bottom of it ; but the pofture, of which he feemed fondeft, 
 was to cling with all four of them to the upper wires, his body being in- 
 verted ; and in the evening he ufually flood ere£l for many minutes 
 playing on the wires with his fingers and rapidly moving his body from 
 fide to fide, as if he had found the utility of exercife in his unnatural 
 ftate of confinement. A little before day break, when my early houra 
 gave me frequent opportunities of obferving him, he feemed to folicit my 
 attention ; and, if I prefented my finger to him, he licked or nibbled it 
 with great gentlenefs, but eagerly took fruit, when I offered it ; though 
 he feldom ate much at his morning repaft : when the i/ay brought back 
 his nighty his eyes loft their luftre and ftrength, and he compofed himfelf 
 for a flumber of ten or eleven hours. 
 
 III. The names L,orls and Lemur will, no doubt, be continued by the 
 refpedtive difciples of Buffon and Linnaeus ; nor can I fuggeft any 
 other, fince the Pandits know little or nothing of the animal : the lower 
 Hindus of this province generally call it Lajjdbanar^ or the Bafhful Ape, 
 and the Mujelmans^ retaining the fenfe of the epithet, give it the abfurd 
 appellation of a cat ; but it is neither a cat nor bafhful ; for, though a 
 Pandit^ who faw my Lemur by day light, remarked that he was Lajjalu 
 or modejl (a word which the Hindus apply to all Senjitive Plants)^ yet he 
 only feemed bafliful, while in fadt he was dim fighted and drowfy ; for 
 
 at
 
 5 J 8* ON THE LORIS, OR SLOWPACED LEMUR. 
 
 at night, as you perceive by his figure, he had open eyes, and as much 
 boldnefs as any of the Lemiwes poetical or Linnean. 
 
 IV. As to his country, the firfl: of the fpecies, that I faw in India, was 
 in the diftrid of Tipra, properly Tripura, whither it had been brought, 
 like mine, from the Garrow mountains ; and Dr. Anderson informs 
 me, that it is found in the woods on the coaft of Coromandel : another 
 had been fent to a member of our fociety from one of the eaftern ifles ; 
 and, though the Loris may be alfo a native of Sildn^ yet I cannot agree 
 with M. De Buffon, that it is the minute, fociable, and docile animal 
 mentioned by Thevenot, which it refembles neither in fize nor in 
 difpofition. 
 
 My little friend was, on the whole, very engaging ; and, when he was 
 found lifelefs, in the fame pofture in which he would naturally have flept, 
 I confoled myfelf with believing, that he had died without pain, and 
 lived with as much pleafure as he could have enjoyed in a ftate of cap- 
 tivity. 
 
 OJi
 
 ON 
 
 THE CURE OF THE ELEPHANTIASIS. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 
 By The PRESIDENT, 
 
 x\MONG the affliding maladies, which punifli the vices and try the 
 virtues of mankind, there are few diforders, of which the confequences 
 are more dreadful or the remedy in general more defperate than the 
 judhdm of the Arabs or khorah of the Indians : it is alfo called in Arabia 
 daurafad^ a name correfponding with the Leontiajis of the Greeks^ and 
 fuppofed to have been given in allufion to the grim diftrafted and lionlike 
 countenances of the miferable perfons, who are afFefted with it. The 
 more common name of the diftemper is Elephantiafis, or, as Lucretius 
 calls it, Elephas^ becaufe it renders the {kin, like that of an Elephant, un- 
 even and wrinkled, with many tubercles and furrows ; but this complaint 
 muft not be confounded with the dduPfil, or /welled legs, defcribed by 
 the Arabian phyficians, and very common in this country. It has no 
 fixed name in EngliJJj, though Hillary, in his Obfervations on the Dif- 
 eafes of Barbadoes, calls it the Leprofy of the joints, becaufe it principally 
 afFefts the extremities, which in the laft ftage of the malady are diftorted 
 and at length drop ofFj but, fmce it is in truth a diftemper corrupting 
 the whole mafs of blood, and therefore confidered by Paul oi JEgina as 
 an univerfal ulcer, it requires a more general appellation, and may pro- 
 perly be named the Black Leprofy j which term is in fad adopted by 
 
 M. Bois-
 
 550 ON THE CURE OF THE ELEPHANTIASIS. 
 
 M. BoissiEU de Sauvages and Gorrceus, in contradiftindlon to the 
 White Leprofy, or the Beres of the Arabs and Leiice of the Greeks. 
 
 This difeafe, by whatever name we diftinguifh it, is peculiar to hot 
 chmates, and has rarely appeared in Europe : the philofophical Poet of 
 Rome fuppofes it confined to the banks of the Nile ; and it has certainly 
 been imported from Africa into the Wefi-India Iflands by the black flaves, 
 who carried with them their refentment and their revenge ; but it has 
 been long known in Hindiijian^ and the writer of the following Diflerta- 
 tion, whofe father was Phyfician to Na'dirsha'h and accompanied him 
 from Perfia to DehU^ aflures me that it rages with virulence among the 
 native inhabitants of Calcutta. His obfervation, that it is frequently a 
 confequence of the 'venereal infe5iion^ would lead us to believe, that it 
 might be radically cured by Mercury \ which has, neverthelefs, been 
 found inefTedual, and even hurtful, as Hillary reports, in the Weji- 
 Indies. The juice oi hemlock, fuggefled by the learned Michaelis, and 
 approved by his medical friend Roederer, might be very efficacious at 
 the beginning of the diforder, or in the milder forts of it ; but, in the 
 cafe of a malignant and inveterate judha/n, we muft either adminifter a 
 remedy of the higheft power, or, agreeably to the defponding opinion of 
 Celsus, leave the patient to his fate, infead of teafmg him with friiitlefs 
 medicines, and fuffer him, in the forcible words of Aret^eus, to fink 
 from inextricable Jlumber into death. The life of a man is, however, fo 
 dear to him by nature, and in general fo valuable to fociety, that we 
 fhould never defpond, while a fpark of it remains; and, whatever 
 apprehenfions may be formed of future danger from the diftant efFedts 
 of arfeniek, even though it fhould eradicate a prefent malady, yet, as no 
 fuch inconvenience has arifen from the ufe of it in India, and, as Ex- 
 perience muft ever prevail over Theory, I cannot help wifhing, that 
 this ancient Hindu medicine may be fully tried under the infpedion 
 of our European Surgeons, whofe minute accuracy and fteady atten- 
 tion
 
 ON THE CURE OF THE ELEPHANTIASIS. 551 
 
 tion muft always give them a claim to fuperiority over the moft learned 
 natives ; but many of our countrymen have aflured me, that they by no 
 means entertain a contemptuous opinion of the native medicines, efpe- 
 cially in difeafes of the fkin. Should it be thought, that the mixture of 
 fulphur muft render the poifon lefs aftive, it may be advifable at firft to 
 adminifter orpiment, inftead of the cryJlalUne arfenick.
 
 ON 
 
 THE CURE OF THE ELEPHANTIASIS, 
 
 OTHER DISORDERS OF THE BLOOD. 
 
 Translated by the PRESIDENT. 
 
 God is the all-powerful Healer. 
 
 J.N the year of the Messiah 1783, when the worthy and refpedable 
 Mau/avi Mi'k Muhammed Husai'n, who excels in every branch of 
 ufeful knowledge, accompanied Mr. Richard Johnson from Lac'hnau 
 to Calcutta^ he vifited the humble writer of this trad, who had long 
 been attached to him with fmcere afFedion ; and, in the courfe of their 
 converfation, * One of the fruits of my late excurfion, faid he, is a pre- 
 
 * fent for you, which fuits your profeflion, and will be generally ufeful 
 
 * to our fpecies : conceiving you to be worthy of it by reafon of your 
 
 * afliduity in medical inquiries, I have brought you a prefcription, the 
 
 * ingredients of which are eafily found, but not eafily equalled as a power- 
 
 * ful remedy againft all corruptions of the blood, the judhdrn^ and the 
 
 * Perjian fire, the remains of which are a fource of infinite maladies. It 
 
 * is an old fecret of the Hindu Phyficians ; who applied it alfo to the 
 ' cure of cold and moift diftempers, as the palfy, diftortions of the face, 
 ' relaxation of the nerves, and fimilar difeafes : its efficacy too has been 
 
 * proved by long experience ; and this is the method of preparing it. 
 
 VOL. I. 4 D * Take
 
 554 ON THE CURE OF THE ELEPHANTIASIS. 
 
 * Take of white arfenick, fine and frefh, one told ; of picked black 
 
 * pepper fix times as much : let both be well beaten at intervals for four 
 
 * days fucceflively in an iron mortar, and then reduced to an impalpable 
 
 * powder in one of ftone with a ftone peftle, and thus completely levi- 
 
 * gated, a little water being mixed with them. Make pills of them as 
 
 * large as tares or fmall pulfe, and keep them dry in a fhady place *. 
 
 ' One of thofe pills mull be fwallowed morning and evening with 
 ' fome betel-Xcdi^^ or, in countries where betel is not at hand, with cold 
 
 * The lowell weight in general ufe among the Hindus is the reti, called in Sanfcrit eitlier 
 rettlca or raElica, indicating rednefs^ and cripnala from crijhna, bluch : it is the red and b/ack feed 
 of the gmja-^hnt ( i ), which is a creeper of the fame clafs and order at lead with the glyryrrhiza ; 
 but I take this from report, having never examined its bloflbms. One rattica is faid to be of 
 equal weight with three barley-corns or four grains of rice in the huflc ; and eight ;v//-weights, 
 ufedby jewellers, are equal to feven carats. I have weighed a number of the feeds in diamond- 
 fcales and find the average Apothecary's weight of one feed to be a grain and five-JixUenths. 
 Now in the Hindu medical books ten of the ra///<w-feeds are one mapaca, and eight majhaca's, 
 make a iolaca or tola ; but in the law-books of Bengal a majhaca confifts of fixteen raclica's, 
 z.nA z tolaca oi jive mafia's 1 and, according to fome authorities, /w n/i'^ only go to one 
 mafiM, fixteen of which make a t'olaca. We may obferve, that the filver >v?«-weights, ufed by 
 the goldfmiths at Banares, are twice as heavy as the feeds -, and thence it is, that eight retis 
 are commonly faid to conftitute one tnafia, that is, eight filver weights, or fixteen feeds ; eighty 
 of which feeds, or 105 grains, conftitute the quantity of arfenick in the Hindu prefcription. 
 
 (i) The gvnja, I find, is the M>us of our botanlfts, and I venture to defcribe it from the wild plant 
 compared with a beautiful drawing of the Jiower magnified, with which I was favoured by Dr. An- 
 derson. 
 
 Class XVII. Order IV. 
 
 Cal. Perianth funnel-ihaped, indented above. 
 
 Cor. Cymbiform. Jnuning roundifh, pointed, nen,-ed. 
 
 Wings, lanced, fhorter than the awning. 
 
 Keel, rather longer than the v/lngs. 
 Stam. Filaments nine, fome (liorter j united in two fcts at the top of a divided, bent, awl-lliaped 
 
 body. 
 
 PiST. Germ inferted in the calyx. Style very minute at the bottom of the divided body. Stjma, 
 
 to the naked eye, obtufe ; in the microfcopt, feathered. 
 
 Per. a legume. Seeds, fpheroidal ; black, or white, or fcarlet with black tips. 
 Leaves, pinnated; fome with, fome without, an odd leaflet. 
 
 * water :
 
 ON THE CURE OF THE ELEPHANTIASIS. 555 
 
 * water : if the body be cleanfed from foulnefs and obftrudtions by gentle 
 
 * catharticks and bleeding, before the medicine is adminiftered, the re- 
 
 * medy will be fpeedier.' 
 
 The principal ingredient of this medicine is the arjentck^ which the 
 Arabs call Shticc, the Perfians mergi mujh^ or mouje-bane^ and the Indi- 
 ans^ fanchyd ; a mineral fubftance ponderous and cryJialUne : the orpi- 
 ment^ or yellow arfenick, is the weaker fort. It is a deadly poifon, and fo 
 fubtil, that, when mice are killed by it, the very fmell of the dead will 
 deftroy the living of that fpecies : after it has been kept about feven 
 years, it lofes much of its force ; its colour becomes turbid ; and its 
 weight is diminiflied. This mineral is hot and dry in the fourth degree : 
 it caufes fuppuration, diffolves or unites, according to the quantity given j 
 and is very ufeful in clofmg the lips of wounds, when the pain is too in- 
 tenfe to be borne. An unguent made of it with oils of any fort is an ef- 
 fectual remedy for fome cutaneous diforders, and, mixed with rofe-water, 
 it is good for cold tumours and for the dropfy ; but it muft never be ad- 
 miniftered without the greateft caution ; for fuch is its power, that the 
 fmalleft quantity of it in powder, drawn, like alcohol, between the eye- 
 lafhes, would in a fmgle day entirely corrode the coats and humours of 
 the eye ; and fourteen reti's of it would in the fame time deftroy life. 
 The beft antidote againft its effeds are the fcrapings of leather reduced 
 to afties : if the quantity of arfenick taken be accurately known, four 
 times as much of thofe afhes, mixed with water and drunk by the patient, 
 will Iheath and counteract the poifon. 
 
 The writer, conformably to the directions of his learned friend, pre- 
 pared the medicine ; and, in the fame year, gave it to numbers, who 
 were reduced by the difeafes above mentioned to the point of death : 
 God is his witnefs, that they grew better from day to day, were at laft 
 completely cured, and are now living (except one or two, who died of 
 
 other
 
 556 ON THE CURE OF THE ELEPHANTIASIS. 
 
 other diforders) to atteft the truth of this afferrion. One of his firft pa- 
 tients was a Pars\ named Menu'chehr, who had come from Surat to 
 this city, and had fixed his abode near the writer's houfe : he was fo 
 cruelly afflifted with a confirmed lues, here called the Perjian Fire, that 
 his hands and feet were entirely ulcerated and almoft corroded, fo that he 
 became an obje£l of difguft and abhorrence. This m.an confulted the 
 writer on his cafe, the ftate of which he difclofed without referve. Some 
 blood was taken from him on the fame day, and a cathartick adminiftered 
 on the next. On the third day he began to take the aj-fenick-pilh^ and, 
 by the bleiTmg of God, the virulence of his diforder abated by degrees, 
 until figns of returning health appeared ; in a fortnight his recovery was 
 complete, and he was bathed, according to the practice of our Phyfi- 
 cians : he feemed to have no virus left in his blood, and none has been 
 fince perceived by him. 
 
 But the power of this medicine has chiefly been tried in the cure of 
 the juzdm, as the word is pronounced in India ; a diforder infecting the 
 whole mafs of blood, and thence called by fome Jifddi khun. The for- 
 mer name is derived from an Arahick root fignifying, in general, ampu- 
 tation, maiming, excifion, and, particularly, tht truncation or erofion of the 
 fingers, which happens in the laft ftage of the difeafe. It is extremely 
 contagious, and, for that reafon, the Prophet faid : ferru mina Imejdhu- 
 mi camd teferru mind I dfad, or, * Flee from a perfon afBided with the 
 "■jitdhdm, as you would flee from a lion.' The author of the Bahhrulja- 
 wdhir, or Sea of Pearls, ranks it as an infedlious malady with the meajles, 
 xhtfmall-pox, and the plague. It is alfo hereditary, and, in that refped, 
 clafl^ed by medical writers with the gout, the confutnption, and the white 
 leprofy. 
 
 A common caufe of this diftemper is the unwholefome diet of the na- 
 tives, many of whom are accuftomed, after eating a quantity oi fijh, to 
 
 fwallow
 
 ON THE CURE OF THE ELEPHANTIASIS. 557 
 
 fwallow copious draughts of milk^ which fail not to caufe an accumula- 
 tion of yellow and black bile, which mingles itfelf with the blood and 
 corrupts it : but it has other caufes ; for a Brdhmoi^ who had never 
 tafted Jijh in his life, applied lately to the compofer of this elTay, and 
 appeared in the higheft degree affedcd by a corruption of blood ; which 
 he might have inherited, or acquired by other means. Thofe, whofe 
 religion permits them to eat beef^ are often expofed to the danger of heat- 
 ing their blood intenfely through the knavery of the butchers in the 
 Bazar, who fatten their calves with Baldwcr ; and thofe, who are lo 
 ill-advifed as to take provocatives^ a folly extremely common in India^ 
 at firft are infenfible of the mifchief, but, as foon as the increafed moif- 
 ture is difperfed, find their whole mafs of blood inflamed and, as it were, 
 aduft ; whence arifes the diforder, of which we now are treating. The 
 Perjian^ or venereal. Fire generally ends in this malady; as one De'vi' 
 Prasa'd, lately in the fervice of Mr. Vansittart, and fome others, 
 have convinced me by an unreferved account of their feveral cafes. 
 
 It may here be worth while to report a remarkable cafe, which was 
 related to me by a man, who had been afflicted with the Juzdm near four 
 years ; before which time he had been difordered with the Per/tan fire, 
 and, having clofed an ulcer by the means of a ftrong healing plaifter, was 
 attacked by a violent pain in his joints : on this he applied to a Cabirdja^ 
 or Hindu Phyfician, who gave him fome pills, with a pofitive afTurance, 
 that the ufc of them would remove his pain in a few days ; and in a few 
 days it was, in fad, wholly removed ; but, a very fhort time after, the 
 fymptoms of the juzdm appeared, which continually encreafed to fuch a 
 degree, that his fingers and toes were on the point of dropping off. It was 
 afterwards difcovered, that the pills, which he had taken, were made of 
 cinnabar, a common preparation of the Hindus ; the heat of which had 
 firft ftirred the humours, which, on ftopping the external difcharge, had 
 
 fallen
 
 558 ON THE CURE OF THE ELEPHANTIASIS. 
 
 fallen on the joints, and then had occafioned a quantity of aduft bile to 
 mix itfelf with the blood and infedt the whole mafs. 
 
 Of this dreadful complaint, however caufed, the firfl: fymptoms are a 
 numbnefs and rednefs of the whole body, and principally of the face, an 
 impeded hoarfe voice, thin hair and even baldnefs, offenfive perfpiration 
 and breath, and whitlows on the nails. The cure is beft begun with 
 copious bleeding, and cooling drink, fuch as a decodlion of the nilufery 
 or Nymphea, and of violets, with fome dofes of manna : after which 
 ftronger catharticks muft be adminiftered. But no remedy has proved 
 fo efficacious as the pills compofed of arfenick and pepper : one inftance 
 of their effedt may here be mentioned, and many more may be added, if 
 required. 
 
 In the month oi February in the year juft mentioned, one Shaikh Ra- 
 maza'ni', who then was an upper-fervant to the Board of Revenue, 
 had fo corrupt a mafs of blood, that a black leprofy of his joints was ap- 
 proaching ; and moll of his limbs began to be ulcerated : in this condition 
 he applied to the writer, and requefted immediate affiftance. Though 
 the difordered ftate of his blood was evident on infpeftion, and required 
 no particular declaration of it, yet many queftions were put to him, and 
 it was clear from his anfwers, that he had a confirmed juzdm : he then 
 loft a great deal of blood, and, after due preparation, took the arfenick- 
 pills. After the firft week his malady feemed alleviated ; in the fecond 
 it was confiderably diminifhed, and, in the third, fo entirely removed, 
 that the patient went into the bath of health, as a token that he no 
 longer needed a phyfician. 
 
 END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.
 
 
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