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SUCH are the AVATARS OF INDIA, which the reader is, I trust, 

 by this time, sufficiently convinced are ingenious moral allegories, 

 with a great portion of metapliysics and astronomy couched under 

 them, and throughout deeply interwoven with the traditional his- 

 tory of the first ages of the world j when the Cuthite ancestors of 

 the Indian nation swayed its imperial sceptre. Of those ages I do 

 not even pretend to give any other history ; nor, in my opinion, 

 will any more satisfactory history of them ever be given to the 

 public, at least till a correct version of the Mahabbarat shall be 

 edited in Europe, and even then, if a judgement may be formed 

 from the native accounts presented to the reader in the preceding 

 pages, he will have to wander after historic truth in the devious 

 labyrinth of a complicated mythology. 



The MAHABBARAT, towards the commencement, informs us, 

 that the first dynasty of India, or that of the SUN, reigned un- 

 interruptedly on its throne during the space of four hundred years ; 

 and the second, or that of the MOON, during the more extended 

 period of seven hundred years. This statement approaches nearly 

 to the truth, and is in part confirmed by Sir William Jones, where 

 he tells us that the posterity of Buddha are divided into two great 

 branches, meaning the SOLAR and LUNAR dynasties, and that the 

 lineal male descendants in both those families are supposed to have 

 reigned in the cities of Oitde and Vitora, respectively, till the 

 thousandth year of the present, or Cali, age. Again we have been 

 informed, from the same authority, that the son of Jarasandha 

 instituted a new dynasty of princes in Magadha, or Bahar, the last 

 of which was the celebrated Rajah NANDA, recorded to have been 

 murdered by a passionate and vindictive Brahmin, of the name of 

 Chanacya. Chanacya, by his power and influence, raised to the 



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