THE HUMAN SPECIES. 337 



to draw up historical documents; still there are casual glimpses 

 of facts, fixing certain geographical data, and a general current 

 of events, which reveals many truths, though the dates, the 

 persons, and circumstances, may be nearly all fabulous. 

 Among the Sanscrit poems, beside the Puranas, there are the 

 Mahabarata and the Ramayana, particularly available to form 

 approximate notions on the earliest history of India, and the 

 composition of nations it still contains. Though the substance 

 of the first is said te be fifteen, and of the second thirteen 

 centuries older than the Christian era, it will be safer to con- 

 sider both as referring to events at least as ancient, while the 

 poetical views of the compositions, exclusive of episodes, such 

 as the deluge, &c, are evidently centuries later, and in all 

 cases refer to dates subsequent to the first invasions of the 

 Caucasian Man, though not to the total subjection of the 

 Indian peninsula to his conquests. We take the Ramayana to 

 be the later, in point of composition, in the form it now appears, 

 as shadowing forth the remotest known conditions which 

 affected the two typical stocks in southern Asia. The subject 

 matter is so grand and exciting, that Valmiki's 24,000 slokas, 

 or distiches, are not the only though the most complete elabo- 

 ration of the theme now extant ; for there is another ascribed 

 to Vyazudavu, and three or four more, of which that by Bod- 

 hyana is said to be replete with splendid passages. All relate 

 to the actions of Rama, the hero divinity belonging to the first 

 known dynasty of the kings of Oude, at a time when it does 

 not appear that the other sovereignties of the peninsula were, 

 as yet, in possession of the conquering bearded races. The 

 Nishada, Vidantha, Naga states, the kingdom of Kapila, at 

 Hurdwar, on the Ganges, &c, were in the hands of indigenous 

 tribes, and Lanka Dwipa was the abode of demons.^ Some, 



* We have not had access to Ward's History of the Hindoos, and, 

 therefore, cannot judge of the view which that learned scholar takes of 

 the primaeval period. It is, however, a subject of regret, that : ot more 

 Sanscrit documents have been published, and that what is before he pub- 



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