238 ON THE GODS OF GREECE, 



remarks "will offend the warm advocates for Indian an- 

 tiquity ; but we muft not facrifice truth to a bafe fear 

 of giving offence. That the Vedas were actually writ- 

 ten before the flood, I mail never believe; nor can 

 we infer, from the preceding ftory, that the learned 

 Hindus believe it; for the allegorical (lumber of Brahma, 

 and the theft of the facred books, mean only, in Ampler 

 language, that the human race was become corrupt ; but 

 that the Vedas are very ancient, and far older than other 

 Sanfcrit compofitions, I will venture to affert from my 

 own examination of them, and a comparifon of their 

 ftyle with that of the Purdns and the Dherma Sdjlra. 

 A fimilar comparifon juftifies me in pronouncing, that 

 the excellent law-book afcribed to Swdyambhuva Menu, 

 though not even pretended to have been written by him, 

 is more ancient than the Bhdgavat ; but that it was 

 compofed in the firft age of the world, the Brdhmans 

 would find it hard to perfuade me ; and the date which 

 has been afligned to it, does not appear in either of the 

 two copies winch I poflefs, or in any other that has been 

 collated for me : in fact, the fuppofed date is com- 

 prized in a verfe, which flatly contradicts the work 

 itfelf ; for it was not Menu who compofed the fyftem 

 of law, by the command of his father Brahma, but a 

 holy perfonage, or demi-god, named Bhrigu, who re- 

 vealed to men what Menu had delivered at the requeft 

 of hnn, and other faints or patriarchs. In the Mdnava 

 Sdjlra, to conclude this digreflion, the meafure is fo 

 uniform and melodious, and the ftyle fo perfectly San- 

 fcrit, or poliJJied, that the book muft be more modern 

 than the fcnpturesof Mofes, in which the fimplicity, or 

 rather nakednefs, of the Hebrew dialect, metre, and 

 ftyle, mult convince every unbiafled man of their fu- 1 - 

 perior antiquity. 



I leave ety mologifts, who decide every thing, to decide 

 whether the word Menu 9 or, in the nominative cafe, 



Menus, 



