285 Oriental Literature. [Chap. XIV. 



more deeply we penetrate into the literature and 

 science of the east, the more striking evidence 

 ive find in favour of the scripture account of 

 the creation and age of the world, and also in 

 support of several important doctrines of the 

 Gospel. 



The light which modern oriental inquiries have 

 throAvn on the INIosaic system of chronology was 

 before mentioned. Those who undertook to assail 

 the sacred history hy means of arguments drawn 

 from the high" assumptions of the Brahmans, and 

 of the literati of other eastern nations, have been 

 completely refuted ; indeed the annals of science 

 scarcely furnish an instance of hostile invaders 

 being more entirely defeated, and their arms turn- 

 ed more directly against themselves. It has been 

 proved by indisputable authorities, *' that the 

 personages who are said to have flourished so 

 many thousand years in the earliest ages were of 

 celestial, not terrestrial, origin ; that their empire 

 was the empire of imagination in the skies, not of 

 real power on this globe of Earth ; that the day and 

 year of Brahmah, and the day and year of mortals, 

 are of a nature widely different ; that the whole 

 jargon of the Yugs, or grand periods, and conse- 

 quently all those presumptuous assertions of the 

 Brahmans, relative to the Earth's antiquity, have 

 no foundation but in the great solar and lunar 

 cycles, or planetary revolutions*." 



Very rich and curious information has also been 



* See Maurice's Indian Antiquities, and his History of Hindos- 

 tan. 



