﻿OF THE HINDUS. 12$ 



distinguish himself ; and it is for this reason principally 

 that I have dwelt with minute anxiety on the sub- 

 ject of the last Avatar. 



The Brahmans, who assisted Ahdfazi in his curi- 

 ous but superficial account of his master's empire, 

 informed him, if the figures in the Ayini Acbar'i be 

 correctly" written, that a period of 2962 years had 

 elapsed from the birth of Buddha to the 40th year of 

 Acbars reign; which computation will place his birth 

 in the 1366th year before that of our Saviour; but, 

 when the Chinese government admitted a new religion 

 from India in the first century of our sera, they made 

 particular inquiries concerning the age of the old 

 Indian Buddha, whose birth, according to Couplet, they 

 place in the 41st year of their 28th cycle, or 1036 

 years before Christ ; and they call him, says he, Foe, 

 the son of Moye or Maya; but M. De Guignes, on the 

 authority of four Chinese historians asserts, that Fa 

 was born about the year before Christ 1027, in the 

 kingdom of Cashmir. Giorgi, or rather Cassiano, 

 from whose papers his work was compiled, assures us. 

 that, by the calculation of the Tibetians, he appeared 

 only 959 yenrs before the Christian epoch ; and 

 M. Badly, with some hesitation, places him 1031 

 before it, but inclines to think him far more ancient, 

 confounding him, as I have done in a former tract, 

 with the first Buddha, or Mercury, whom the Goths 

 called Woden, and of whom I shall presently take 

 particular notice. Now, whether we assume the me- 

 dium of the four last-mentioned dates, or implicitly 

 rely on the authorities quoted by De Guignes, wz mv.y 

 conclude, that Buddha was first distinguished in this 

 country about a thousand years before the beginning 

 of our aera ; and whoever, in so early an age, expects 

 a certain epoch unqualified with about or nearly, will 

 be greatly disappointed. Hence it is clear, that, wi:e- 



