154 THEORY OF THE EARTH. 



tablish a few slight coincidences of chronology, and 

 even that is continually broken off and interrupted, 

 and never goes back farther than the time of Alex- 

 ander.* 



It is now clearly proved that their famous as- 

 tronomical tables, from which it has been attempt- 

 ed to assign a prodigious antiquity to the Hindoos, 

 have been calculated backwards ;t and it has 

 been lately ascertained, that their Surya-Siddhanta, 

 which they consider as their most ancient astro- 

 nomical treatise, and pretend to have been re- 

 vealed to their nation more than two millions of 

 years ago, must have been composed within the 

 seven hundred and fifty years last past.J Their 

 Vedas, or sacred books, judging from the calen- 

 dars which are conjoined with them, and by 

 which they are guided in their religious obser- 

 vances, and estimating the colures indicated in 

 these calendars, may perhaps go back about 

 three thousand two hundred years, which near- 

 ly coincides with the epoch of Moses. Yet 

 the Hindoos are not entirely ignorant of the re- 



* Consult the elaborate Memoir of M. Paterson, respecting the 

 kings of Magadaha, emperors of Hindostan, and upon the epochs of 

 Vicramadityia and Salahanna, in the Calcutta Memoirs, vol. IX. 



f See Expos, du Syst. du Monde, by M. de la Place, p. S30. 



| See the Memoir by M. Bentley, on the Antiquity of the Surya-Sidd- 

 hanta, in the Calcutta Memoirs, vol. VI. p. 537, and the Memoir by 

 the same Author on the Astronomical Systems of the Hindoos, ibid. 

 vol. IX. p. 195. 



^ See the Memoir by M. Colebrooke upon the Vedas, and particu- 

 larly p. 493, in the Calcutta Memoirs, vol. VIII. 



