122 ORIGIN AND DECLINE OF THE 



of the death of the form, or disciple, for that of his 

 principal. Now some of the Apostles lived to a 

 great age; and St. Thomas, for instance, is sup- 

 posed to have lived seventy-three years, and to have 

 suffered martyrdom about the seventy -fourth or se- 

 venty-fifth year of the Christian Era, 



The year of the death of Vicuama'rca, and that 

 of the manifestation of 'Sa'l-ba'han, are acknow- 

 ledged to be but one and the same ; and they are 

 obviously so, according to the Cumarica-chartda^ 

 that remarkable year was the 3101st of the Call" 

 yuga, and the first of the Christian Era, thus coin- 

 ciding also with the Samaritan text, which is a re- 

 markable circumstance. 



Some learned Pandits^ from the western parts of 

 India, are of opinion, that the era of Vicrama'di- 

 TYA was originally reckoned from the first year of 

 his reign, in the year 3044 ; and that, after a reign 

 of fifty-six years, his death happened in the year 

 3101. 



This was certainly the opinion of the author of 

 the Cumarica-c'handa, and of the Pandits who assisted 

 Abul Fazil, who says, in his summary of the his- 

 tory of the Kings of Maiava, that Vicrama'ditya's 

 era began the first year of his reign ; and this makes 

 this legend more consistent and probable. 



In the Vrihat-Caiha, 'Saliva'hana is called Nri- 

 sinha, or the man-lion, answering to the lion of the 

 tribe of Juda ; and one of the forms of Budd'ha is 

 called Nri-sinha, both by the Paurdnics and the 

 Baudd'has. ^Sacti-sinha, or the energetic lion, is also 

 the name of 'Sa'liva'hana in the appendix to the 

 Jgni-purdn'a, According to the Vrihat-cafhdy Vr- 



