134- ESSAY OS 



ther, with notes, derived from the assistance of fo- 

 reign writers ; and hereafter they may be corrected, 

 from a few historical passages in their books, grants, 

 and inscriptions, which last must be used soberly. 

 With regard to these lists, their being brought down, 

 even to our own days, can be no objection ; for it is 

 the case with many of our old chronicles. We have 

 them in the Ayin-Acbcri, in the state they were in at 

 that time. I have some copies, in which their chro- 

 nology is brought down to the reign ofAuRENG- 

 zebe: and, lastly, some, in which the arrival of the 

 English is foretold, under the wTimQ oi Tamra-varn'ay 

 foreigners, the offspring of Maya, the engineer of 

 the giants, and the son of Twashta. Tdmra-varna 

 literally signifies copper-coloured, but is interpreted 

 Aruna-narna, or of the colour of the morning dawn ; 

 and, in lexicons, the Greeks, or Yavanas, are said to 

 be Tamra-varna. In Raghuna't'h's list, it is re- 

 markable, that no obvious notice is taken, either of 

 the elder Vicrama'ditya, or of 'Sa'uva'hana ; 

 they are however concealed under the names of 

 Aditya, ridiculously written Adhescht by Tief- 

 yENTiiALER, and under that of D'hananjaya, which 

 last is meant for SALivA'nANA. 'Aditya is obvi- 

 ously meant here for Vicrama; in some copies he is 

 called Hara-biia'ga, or a portion of Hara, the de- 

 stroyer; becaust^ it was necessary that he should de- 

 stroy 550,000,000 men from among the impure tribes, 

 before he could obtain the rank of a Saceswara ; and 

 whatever man kills a Saces'wara only, obtains that 

 exalted rank, as did Sa'liva'iiana. 



Dhai^anjaya, or Dhanid'hara, as he is called 

 also, is supposed by Abul Fazil, to have been the 

 grandfather of Sa'liva'iiana *: but, as there are se- 



* Ayin-Acberi, vol. £d, p. 54. 



