By the Rev. J. L. Ross. 157 
inhabited for many generations by his descendants. Hence Balkh- 
Bamiyan is said to have been the original residence of Abraham, 
who, the Scriptures and the Hindoo books agree in stating, removed 
westward to a distant country with Terah his father. There is 
reason to believe that Shem (who, as some think, was Melchizedek,) 
removed also to Canaan where he blessed Abraham his descendant 
after his victory over the kings, the forerunners of the predatory 
tribes who at a later period dispossessed the original inhabitants of 
Canaan and Egypt. 
It is related in the Padma-Purana! (a Hindoo sacred book), that 
Satyavrata (or Noah) whose miraculous preservation from a gene- 
ral deluge is related at length in the Matsya (or Mish-avatar), had 
three sons, the eldest of whom was named Jyapeti, or ‘Lord of the 
earth;’ the others were Charma and Sharma, which last words are, 
in the vulgar dialects, usually pronounced Cham and Sham, as 
we frequently hear Krishyn for Krishna. ‘The royal patriarch, 
for such is his character in the Puran, was particularly fond of 
Jyapeti, to whom he gave all the region to the north of Hiamalaya, 
or the Snowy Mountains, which extend from sea to sea, and of which 
Caucasus is a part: to Sharma he allotted the countries to the south 
of those mountains; but he cursed Charma, because when the old 
monarch was accidentally inebriated with a strong liquor made of 
fermented rice, Charma laughed ; and it was in consequence of his 
father’s imprecation that he became a slave to the slaves of his 
brothers.” 
We are afterwards informed that “the children of Sharma tra- 
yelled a long time, until they arrived at the bank of the river Nila 
or Cali, in Egypt, and that their journey began after the building 
of the Padma-Mandira, which appears to be the Tower of Babel, 
on the banks of the river Cumudvati, which can be no other than 
the Euphrates. On their arrival in Egypt, they found the country 
peopled by evil beings, and by a few impure tribes of men, who 
had no fixed habitation,’’—and then by the command of Padma-Devi 
or the goddess who resides on the lotos, (a spirit who floated ¢ on the 
' From Wilford’s 8 ‘Egypt and the Nile,’ Asiat. Res, vol. iii. 
* Some doubt is entertained concerning the genuineness of this tradition. 
