VICRAMADITYA AND SALIVAHANA. 133 



fanciful. Otherwise they leave out the names of 

 those kings of whom nothing is recorded, and attri- 

 bute the years of their reigns to some among them 

 better knoM'n, and of greater fame. They often do not 

 scruple to transpose some of those kings, and even 

 Avhofe dynasties; either in consequence of some pre- 

 conceived opinion, or owing to their mistaking a fa- 

 mous king for another of the same name. It was not 

 uncommon witli ancient writers, to pass from a remote 

 ancestor to a remote descendant; or from a remote 

 predecessor to a remote successor, by leaving out the 

 intermediate generations or successions, and sometimes 

 ascribino- the years of their reio'ns to a remote successor 

 or predecessor. In this manner the lists of the ancient 

 kings of Persia, both by oriental writers and others 

 in the west, have been compiled: and some instances, 

 of this nature, might be produced from scripture. 

 I was acquainted lately, at Benares, with a chroni- 

 cler of that sort ; and, in the several conversations I 

 had with him, he candidly acknowledged, that he 

 filled up the intermediate spaces between the reigns 

 of famous kings, with names at a venture; that he 

 shortened or lengthened their reigns at pleasure; and 

 that it was understood, that his predecessors had 

 taken the same liberties. (His lucubrations were 

 of little use to me; but he had collected various 

 lists of kings, of which he allowed me, with much 

 difficulty, to take copies.) Through their emenda- 

 tions and corrections, you see plainly a total v/ant of 

 historical knowledge and criticism ; and sometimes 

 some disingenuity is but too obvious. 



This is, however, the case with the sections on fu- 

 turity in the Bhagavat, Vaxju, Vishnu and Brahmanda- 

 puran'as ; which, with the above lists, constitute the 

 whole stock of historical knowledge anion «• the 

 Hindus; and the whole might be comprised in a few 

 <juarto pages of print. These I have collected toge* 



K 3 



