three first Yugs, or ages, of the Hindoos are chiefly mythological, 

 whether their mythology was founded on the dark enigmas of their 

 astronomers, or on the heroic fictions of their poets ; and that the 

 fourth, or historical, age cannot be carried farther back than about 

 two thousand years before Christ *." 



* Asiatic Researches, vol. ii. p. 150. 



R 2 



