﻿48 THE sixth discourse: 



at least to the present form of their extensive domi- 

 nion ; and although we can hardly suppose the first 

 Indian monarchs to have reigned less than three thou- 

 sand years ago, yet Persia, the most delightful, the 

 most compact, the most desirable country of them 

 all, should have remained for so many ages unsettled 

 and disunited. A fortunate discovery, for which I 

 was first indebted to Mir Muhammed Husain, one of 

 the most intelligent Musehnans in India, has at once 

 dissipated the cloud, and cast a gleam of light on the 

 primeval history of Iran and of the human race, of 

 which I had long despaired, and which could hardly 

 have dawned from any other quarter. 



The rare and interesting tract on twelve different 

 religions, entitled the Dabistan, and composed by a 

 Mohammedan traveller, a native of Cashmir, named 

 Mohsan, but distinguished by the assumed surname of 

 Fani, or Perishable, begins with a wonderfully curi- 

 ous chapter on the religion of Hushang, which was 

 long anterior to that of Zeratnsht, but had conti- 

 nued to be secretly professed by many learned Per- 

 sians even to the author's time ; and several of the 

 most eminent of them, dissenting in many points 

 from the Gabrs, and persecuted by the ruling powers 

 of their country, had retired to India ; where they 

 compiled a number of books, now extremely scarce, 

 which Mohsan had perused, and with the writers of 

 which, or with many of them, he had contracted an 

 intimate friendship. From them he learned, thac a 

 powerful monarchy had been established for ages in 

 Iran before the accession of Cayumers ; that it was 

 called the Mahabadian dynasty, for a reason which; 

 will soon be mentioned ; and that many princes, of 

 whom seven or eight are only named in the Dabistan, 

 and among them Mahbul, or Malm Beli, had raised 

 their empire to the zenith of human glory. If we 



