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XVIII. 



ON THE 



CHRONOLOGY OF THE HINDUS. 

 BY CAPTAIN FRANCIS WILFORD. 



~TIE' accompanying genealogical table is faith - 

 fully extracted from the Vishnu purdna, the 

 Bha'gavat, and other pur anas, without the leaf! al-r 

 teration whatever. I have collected numerous MSS. 

 and with the afliftance of fome learned Pundits of 

 Benares, who are fully fatisfied of the authenticity of 

 this table, I exhibit it as the only genuine chronolo- 

 gical record of Indian hiitory that has hitherto come 

 to my knowledge. It gives the utmoft extent of the 

 chronology of the Hindus ; and as a certain number or 

 years only can be allowed to a generation, it overthrows 

 at once their monftrous fyitem, which I have rejected 

 as abfolutely repugnant to the courfe of nature, and 

 human reafon. 



Indeed their fyftems of geography, chronology, and 

 hiflory, are all equally monftrous and abfurd. The 

 circumference of the earth is faid to be 500,000,000 

 yojanas, or 2,456,000,000 Britiili miles: the moun- 

 tains are aiTerted to be 100 yojanas, or 49 1 Britiili 

 miles high. Hence the mountains to the fouth of Br- 

 naves are faid, in the purdnas, to have kept the holy 

 city in total darknefs, till Matra-deva growing angry 

 at their infolence, they humbled themfelves to the 

 ground, and their higheft peak now is not more than 

 500 feet high. In Europe fimilar notions once pre- 

 vailed ; for we are told that the Cimmerians were kept 

 in continual darknefs by the interpolation of immenlely 

 high mountains. In the Ca'lica purdna, it is faid 

 that the mountains have funk confiderably, fo that the 



jheft is not above one yojana, or rive miles high. 



When 



