9^ aUiGltJ AND t)ECLIKE OP TItE 



years, and he was born in the year 575. According to 

 the 'Satj^tjaya-mahatmya, tiie translation into heaven 

 of Guso-BosATz or Gaja-Vastshta, that is to say, 

 he who abides in the mortal frame of an elephant, 

 and called in the above treatise 'Sri-hasti-s'ena, a 

 compound nearly of the same import, happened three 

 years, ei^ht months and fifteen days before the time 

 of the Panchmards, or Ml'Hamed and his four asso- 

 ciates; that is to say, he died in November 617. 

 Biit if we suppose with the Faurdnics^ that he lived 

 sixty-six years, his ascension will fall in the year 

 638, accordino: to the computation of the Burmans 

 and Siamese. This Budd'ha was bom in the year 

 500, and reigned sixty-six years, according to the 

 Cumdricd-chanda, in some copies of which we 

 read 6;2 and 64 ; but he appears to be the same witli 

 Gaja-Vasisht'a, both being represented as the last 

 incarnation of Budd'ha ; the Japanese having mis- 

 taken the era of his manifestation as a god, or his 

 death, for that of his manifestation as a man. 



Thus the Jamas in India say, that their legislator 

 died in the year 1036 B. C. which the divines of 

 Tibet consider as the year of his birth. 



The Christians of India^ in the seventh century, 

 were actuated by the same principles, and chose the 

 supposed year of Christ's ascension for the first of 

 their new era. They were at that time in India iil 

 the most profound ignorance, through the want of 

 pastors, as we observed before ; and their religion 

 was a strange medley of the Christian^ and of that 

 of Budd'ha, which prevailed at that time in the 

 Penijuula ; insomuch, that ]\I. Poi.o considered some 

 of the ^Arijyas, in despite of their virtue's, as idolaters. 

 ^Sali-va'hana, or DeVa-Tat, was considered as a 

 brother or relation of Budb'ha. 



