OR SACRED WRITINGS OF THE HINDUS. 485 



nents, who are inclined to dispute the whole of 

 Indian literature, and to consider it all as consist- 

 ing of forgeries, fabricated within a few years, or, 

 at best, in the last few ages. This appears to he 

 grounded on assertions and conjectures, which 

 were inconsiderately hazarded,* and which have 

 been eagerly received, and extravagantly strained. 



In the first place, it should be observed, that a 

 work must not be hastily condemned as a forgery, 

 because, on examination, it appears not to have 

 been really written by tlie person whose name is 

 usually coupled with ({notations from it. For if 

 the very work itself show that it does not purport 

 to be written by that person, the safe conclusion 

 is, that it was never meant to be ascribed to him. 

 Thus the two principal codes of Hindu law are 

 usually cited as Menu's and Ya'jnyawalcya's : 

 but in the codes themselves, those are dialogists, 

 not authors : and the best commentators expressly 

 declare, that these institutes were written by other 

 persons than Menu and Ya'jnyawalcya*". The 

 Surya Siddlidnta is not pretended to have been 

 written by Meya : but he is introduced as receiv- 

 ing instruction from a partial incarnation of the 

 Sun ; and their conversation constitutes a dialogue, 

 which is recited by another person in a different 

 -company. The text of the Sdncliya philosophy, 

 from which the sect of Budd'ha seems to have 

 borrowed its doctrines, is not the work of Capila 

 himself, though vulgarly ascribed to him; but it 

 purports to be composed by I's'v^^^ra Crishn'a ; 

 and he is stated to have received the doctrine me- 

 diately from Capila, through successive teachers, 



* Vijnya'nayo'gi, also named Vijnya'ne's'v/ara, \vho 

 commented the institutes ^vhich bear the name of Ya'JN YAW al- 

 CYA, states the text to be an abridgemout b\ a ditFcr^^nt author. 



lis 



