48 ORIGIN AND DECLINE OF THE 



defeated Vicrama'ditya. This places his manifest 

 tation ill the first of the Christian Era, when Christ 

 was also in his fifth year and in the latter end of it, fol" 

 h6 was really born four years before the beginning 

 of our era. 



This places, also, the accomplishment of the old 

 prophecies, Vicrama'ditya's inquiries after this 

 divine child, born of a virgin, exactly in the first 

 year of our era. For. a thousand years before that 

 event, the goddess C'alI had foretold him, that 

 he would reign, or rather his posterity, according to 

 several learned commentators in the Dekhin, as men- 

 tioned by Major Mackenzie, till a divine child, born 

 of a virgin, should put an end, both to his life and 

 kingdom, or to his dynasty, nearly in the same words 

 of Jacob* foretelling to Judah, that the sceptre 

 should not depart from him, or his Dynasty^ until 

 Shiloh came, 'Sa'liva'hana or King'SA'LA. 



As to his character, it is declared in the Cumarica- 

 cfhan'da, as we have seen before, that he would come 

 for the purpose of removing wretchedness, and mi- 

 sery, from the world. 



In the appendix to the Agni-purana, it is declar- 

 ed that in the holy and consecrated city o^ Pratisk- 

 tana, firmly seated upon a rock, called Saileya-d'hdrd 

 or Saileyam, through the mercy of 'Siva, would appear 

 ♦Sa'liva'hana, great and mighty, the spirit of righ- 

 teousness and justice, whose words would be truth it- 

 self, free from spite and env}', and whose empire would 

 extend all over the world (or in other words, that the 



• Genesis, chap. 49. v, 10. 



