﻿0F THE HINDUS. 143 



system of Hindu Chronology that I have yet been 

 able to procure, with the death oiChandrahija. Should 

 any hither information be attainable, we shall, per- 

 haps, in due time attain it either from books or inscrip- 

 tions in the Sanserif language ; but from the materials 

 with which we are at present supplied, we may esta- 

 blish as indubitable the two following propositions i 

 That the three first ages of the Hindus are chiefly my- 

 thological, whether their mythology was founded on. 

 the dark enigmas of their astronomers, or on the heroic 

 fictions of their poet c ; and that the fourth, or histori- 

 cal age, cannot be carried farther back than about two 

 thousand years before Christ. Kven in the history of 

 the present age, the generations of men and the reigns 

 of kings, are extended beyond the course of nature, 

 and beyond the average resulting from the accounts of 

 the Brahmans themselves ; for they assign to an hun- 

 dred and forty -two modern reigns a period of three 

 thousand one hundred and fifty -three years, or about 

 twenty-tivo years to a reign one with anodier; yet they 

 represent only four Gonna princes on the throne of 

 Magadha ror a period of three hundred and forty-five 

 years ; now it is even more improbable that four suc- 

 cessive kings should have reigned eighty -six years and 

 three months each, than that Nanda should have been 

 king ^.hundred years, and murdered at last. Neither 

 account can be credited ; but, that we may allow the 

 highest probable antiquity to the Hindu government, 

 let us grant that three generations of men were equal 

 on an average to an hundred years, and that Indian 

 princes have reigned, one with another, tivo-and- 

 twenty : then reckoning thirty generations from Arjun, 

 the brother of Yuahist'hira, to the extinction of his 

 rr.ee, and taking the Chinese account of Buddha's birth 

 from M. De Gziignes, as the most authentic medium 

 between Abidfazt and the Tihetians, we may arrange 

 the corrected Hindu Chronology according to the fol- 



