﻿OF THE HI>TDUS. X 1 7 



product the number of years already past in the 

 seventh Manvcautara. Of the five Menus who suc- 

 ceeded him, 1 have seen little more than the names ; 

 but the Hindu writings are very diffuse on the life 

 and posterity of the seventh Menu, surnamed Vaiv- 

 asivata, or Child of the Sun: he is supposed to have 

 had ten sons, of whom the eldest was Icshwacu ; 

 and to have been accompanied by seven Rishis, or 

 holy persons, whose names were, Casyapa, Atri, 

 Vasishtha, Viswa?nitra, Gautama, Jamadagni, and 

 Bharaaivaja ; an account which explains the open- 

 ing of the fourth chapter of the Gita : " This im- 

 " mutable system of devotion," says Grishna, " I 

 " revealed to Fivaswat, or the Sun ; Vivaswat 

 " declared it to his son Menu; Menu explained 

 M it to Icshzvacu : thus the chief Rishis know 

 " this sublime doctrine delivered from one to 

 " another." 



In the reis;n of this su?i horn monarch, the Hindus 

 believe the whole earth to have been drowned, and 

 the whole human race destroyed by a flood, except 

 the pious prince himself, the seven Rishis, and 

 their several wives; for they suppose his children to 

 have been born after the deluge. This general 

 fraylaya, or destruction, is the subject of the first 

 Purana, or sacred poem, which consists of four- 

 teen thousand stanzas ; and the story is concisely, 

 but clearly and elegantly, told in the eighth book of 

 the Bhagawata, from which I have abstracted the 

 whole, and translated it with great care, but will 

 only present you here wiih an abridgment of it. 

 M The demon Hayagrha having purloined the 

 *' Vedas from the custody of Brahma, while he was 

 " reposing at the close of the sixth Manivantara, 

 " the whdle race of men became corrupt, except 

 *• the seven Rishis and Satyavata, who then reigned 



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