XVili ON ASIATIC HISTORY, 



genuine Hindu government must of course be com-, 

 prehended ; but we know from an arrangement of the 

 seasons in the astronomical work of Parasara, that the 

 war of the Pandavas could not have happened earlier 

 than the clofe of the twelfth century before Christ; and 

 $ el mens must, therefore, have reigned about nine 

 centuries after that war. Now the age of Vicramadi- 

 tya is given ; and, if we can fix on an Indian prince 

 contemporary with Seleucus y we shall have three given 

 points in the line of time between Rama, or the first 

 Indian, colony, and Chandrabija, the last Hindu mo- 

 narch, who reigned in Behar •> so that only eight 

 hundred or a thousand years will remain almost wholly 

 dark ; and they must have been employed in raising 

 empires or states, in framing laws, improving lan- 

 guages and arts, and in observing the apparent mo- 

 tions of the celestial bodies. A Sanscrit history of 

 the celebrated Vicramaditya was inspected at Benares 

 by a Pandit, who would not have deceived me, and 

 could not himself have been deceived; but the owner 

 of the book is dead, and his family dispersed ; nor 

 have my friends in that city been able, with all their 

 exertions, to procure a copy of it. As to the Mogul 

 conquests, with which modern Indian history begins, 

 we have ample accounts of them in Persian, from Alt 

 of Yezd, and the translations of Turkish books com- 

 posed even by some of the conquerors, to Ghufom 

 Husain, whom many of us personally know, and 

 whose impartiality deserves the highest applause, 

 though his unrewarded merit will give no encourage- 

 ment 



