4f)4 OI'' TH-E VE'DASj 



such parts of the fourth Veda, as appear liable to 

 suspicion. These are the remaining detached Upa- 

 nishads, which are not received into the best col- 

 lections of fifty -two theological tracts, belonging 

 to the Afharva-veda ; and even some of those 

 which are there inserted, but which, so far as my 

 inquiries have yet reached, do not appear to have 

 been commented by ancient authors, nor to have 

 been quoted in the whole commentaries on the 

 Vedd}2ta. Two of these Upanishads are particularly 

 suspicious : one entitled Rama tapaniya, consist- 

 ing of two parts (Purva and Vttara)\ another 

 called Gopala tapaniya, also comprising two parts, 

 of which one is named the Crislma Upanishad, 

 The introduction to the first of these works con- 

 tains a summary, which agrees in substance with 

 the mythological history of the husband of Sita, 

 and conqueror of Lancd. The other exalts the 

 hero of Matliura. 



Although the Rama tupaniya be inserted in all 

 the collections of Upanishads, which I have seen ; 

 and the Gopala tdpamya appear in some; yet I am 

 inclined to doubt their genuineness, and to suspect 

 that they have been written in tinies, modern, 

 when compared with the remainder of the Vtdas. 

 This suspicion is chiefly grounded on the opinion, 

 that the sects, whicli now worship Ra'ma and 

 Crishna as incarnations of Vishnu, are compa- 

 ratively new. I have not found, in any other 

 part of the Vtdas, the least trace of such a wor- 

 ship. The jeal doctrine of the whole Indian 

 scripture is the unity of the deity, in whom the 

 universe is comprehended : and the seeming ^o\y- 

 theism, which it exhibits, ofliers the elements, and 

 the stars and planets, as gods. The three princi- 

 pal manifestations of the divinity, with other per- 

 sonified attributes and energies, and most of the 



