426 THE THIRD DISCOURSE 



lated, I mould not haftily deride his conjecture: cer- 

 tain it is, that Pdndumandel is called by the Greeks the 

 country of Pandion. We have, therefore, determined 

 another interefting epoch, by fixing the age of Chrijhna 

 near the three thousandth year from the prefent time ; 

 and, as the three firft Avatars, or defcents of Vijhnu, 

 relate no lefs clearly to an Univerfal Deluge, in which 

 eight perfons only were faved, than the fourth and fifth 

 do to the punijhment of impiety, and the humiliation of 

 the proud, we may for the prefent affume, that the fe- 

 cond, or fiver, age of the Hindus was fubfequent to the 

 difperfion from Babel; fo that we have only a dark in- 

 terval of about a thoufand years, which were employed 

 in the fettlement of nations, the foundation of dates or 

 empires, and the cultivation of civil fociety. The 

 great incarnate Gods of this intermediate age are both 

 named Rama, but with different epithets; one of 

 whom bears a wonderful refemblance to the Indian 

 Bacchus, and his wars are the fubjeft of feveral he- 

 roick poems. He is reprefented as a defcendant from 

 Surya, or the Sun; as the hufband of Sita, and the 

 fon of a princefs named Caujeyla. It is very remark- 

 able, that the Peruvians, whofe Incas boafted of the 

 fame defcent, ftyled their greateft feftival Ramajitoa ; 

 whence we may fuppofethat South America was peopled 

 by the fame race, who imported into the fartheft parts 

 of A/ia, the rites and fabulous hiftory of Rama. Thefe 

 rites, and this hiftory, are extremely curious ; and al- 

 though I cannot believe, with Newton, that ancient my- 

 thology was nothing but hiftorical truth in a poetical 

 drefs; nor, with Bacon, that it confifted folely of moral 

 and metaphyseal allegories; nor, with Bryant, that all 

 the heathen Divinities are only different attributes and 

 reprefentations of the Sun, or of deceafed progenitors; 

 but conceive that the whole fyftem of religious fables 

 rofe, like the Nile, from feveral diftincl fources; yet I 

 cannot but agree that one great fpring and fountain of 

 all idolatry, in the four quarters of the globe, was the 

 1 veneration 



