SYSTEMS or ASTRONOMY. 9,39 



The enormous length of the periods in the 

 new system, required that the life of man should 

 be proportionably extended, which was accord- 

 ingly assumed : In order to account for the same 

 Rlshis being mentioned in different periods, im- 

 mensely distant from each other, they are asserted 

 not only to have existed at all times, but to be 

 still living. But as all men were not Rishis, and 

 as there were twenty-seven Mahd Yugs from the 

 beginnina; of the seventh Manwantara to the com- 

 mencement of the twenty-eighth Mahd Vug — 

 1 16640000 years, during which there is no sha- 

 dow of history ; to account for this, they there- 

 fore pretend, that at the end of every Mahd Yug, 

 or 4320000 years, the same names, persons, &c. 

 again occur, as in the preceding period ; so that 

 by having the names, &c. for one Mahd Yug, or 

 set of four ages, we have them for all the rest. 



Vya's, and others, as I have already noticed, 

 lived in the eighth Manxvantara of the second 

 system of the Graha Munjari, but by the trans- 

 fer of the names in that ManuKoitara, and in the 

 ninth, tenth, &c. to the periods of the same names 

 in the new system, they would appear as yet to 

 come; therefore, to reconcile this, all that was 

 necessary was to convert it into a prophecy, which 

 was accordingly adopted in the modern Purdnas ; 

 so that those men who in reality are long since 

 past and gone, appear, in these books, as if yet to 

 come ; and as many millions of ages must elapse, 

 by the new system, before the periods of their 

 prophesied existence can arrive, there is no great 

 danger of detecting the falsehood of such pro- 

 phecy. 



It may however be easily conceived, that such 

 a change in the history, by the introduction of a 

 new system, though highly flattering to the vanity 

 of the Hindus in general, in exalting them, at 



