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dethroning its sovereign, subdued the whole country, and placed a 

 successor inJiis stead, who became the head of a new dynasty. 

 It is, therefore, worthy of inquiry by what means so great, so brave, 

 and populous a nation, as the ancient Indian sare, by both classical 

 and Sanscreet writers, allowed to have been, so early became de- 

 pendant on the Persian crown, and tributary to its sovereigns ; and 

 the review, which I am about to take, will exhibit to us a picture 

 of the Indian empire as it flourished about a thousand years before 

 the Christian rcra, which is nearly as high as any profane records, 

 not professedly mythological, can carry us. 



The universal diffusion of the Brahmin religion and sciences over 

 the vast continent of India, would lead us, without the confirming 

 voice of history, to suspect that, at some remote period there sub- 

 sisted, in that region of Asia, an empire as widely diffused, under 

 the guidance of one puissant sovereign. Under BALI, if that name 

 imply not rather a dynasty of princes than an individual monarch, 

 we have, in fact, seen that such an empire did flourish. Under 

 Rama, the next in succession, as an Avatar and king, whose capital 

 was Oudhe, in Bahar, there is every appearance of its having re- 

 mained unbroken. Under Bharat, also, a prince of such extensive 

 power, that his name was conferred on the whole region, there is 

 no reason to suppose that any division of it had taken place. Ju- 

 dishter is generally acknowledged to have been the sovereign of all 

 India ; his capital, as we have seen, Hastanapoor, or Delhi. If the 

 preceding assertion be true in regard to these and a few others of 

 the earliest monarchs of Hindostan, and certain of the most renown- 

 ed among the later, it does not hold good of those of her sovereigns, 

 who reigned in more recent aeras, till the period of their absolute 

 subjection to the Mohammedans. Their native princes, with the 

 title of universal monarchs, seem to have been invested only with a 

 delegated power, voluntarily conferred by a numerous and powerful 



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