﻿ON INDIAN CHRONOLOGY. 4O1 



these concessions, which they unanimously make, we 

 may reasonably infer that, if Vyasa was not the com- 

 poser of the Vtdas, he added at least something of his 

 own to the scattered fragments of a more ancient work, 

 or perhaps to the loose traditions which he had col- 

 lected ; but whatever be the comparative antiquity 

 of the Hindu scriptures, we may safely conclude that 

 the Mosaic and Indian chronologies are perfectly con- 

 sistent ; that Menu, son of Brahma was the Adima, or 

 first created mortal, and consequently ojr Adam ; that 

 Menu, child of the Sun, was preserved with seven 

 others in a bahitra, or capacious ark, from an universal 

 deluge, and must therefore be our Noah ; that Hira- 

 nyacasipu, the giant with a golden axe, and Vali, or 

 Bali, were impious and arrogant monarchs, and most 

 probably our Nimrod and Belus ; that the three Ramas, 

 two of whom were invincible warriors, and the third 

 not only valiant in war but the patron of agriculture 

 and wine, which derives an epithet from his name, 

 were different representations of the Grecian Bacchus, 

 and either the Rama of scripture, or his colony personi- 

 fied, or the Sun first adored by his idolatrous family ; 

 that a considerable emigration from Chaldea into Greece, 

 Italy, and India, happened about twelve centuries be- 

 fore the birth of our Saviour; that Sacya, or Sisak, 

 about two hundred years after Vyasa, either in person 

 or by a colony from Egypt, imported into this country 

 the mild heresy of the ancient Bauddhas ; and that the 

 dawn of true Indian history appears only three or four- 

 centuries before the Christian era, the preceding ages 

 being clouded by allegory or fable. 

 I 

 As a specimen of that fabling and allegorizing spi- 

 rit which has ever induced the Brahmens to disguise 

 their whole system of history, philosophy, and religion, 

 I produce a passage from the Bhagavat, which, how- 

 ever ftrange and ridiculous, is very curious in itself, 

 and closely connected with the. subject of this essay. 



