856 Historical Geography of Hindustan, ^c. [No. 104. 



thougli the latter, as adherents of the Vedas, and the Sabean idolatry, truly 

 lay claim to superior antiquity. 



Sabeism was, as we Have endeavoured to shew, the original religion 

 of the people east and west of the river Indus ; and was followed by a 

 modification of its original tenets, now known as the faiths of Buddha and 

 Brahma. The people who believed the last, occupied the banks of the 

 Ganges and Hindustan Proper; those who professed the other, were on 

 either bank of the Indus, and in the south of India. The two rival sects 

 appear to have existed in amity with each other, until the Brahmans, 

 having introduced caste, and endeavoured to exalt themselves above their 

 opponents, brought on the Mahabarat, or great war, that happened 

 posterior to the time of Alexander the Great's expedition to India. In 

 modifying the Sabeism of the Vedas, they introduced the monstrous fables 

 of the Puranas, with the deification of abstract properties, under the name 

 of gods. In doing this they addressed the ignorant spirit of the people, 

 whose seers and astrologers they were; and, having artfully incorporated 

 the opinions of existing sects with their own, claimed for their religion 

 unchanging uniformity, though this faith, made up of all systems, is so 

 heterogeneous, as to be incapable of an analysis that would resolve it 

 into its separate sources. 



The origin of the Buddhaist system can be traced back five centuries 

 before the Christian sera, but its followers were for long after limited in 

 number and power. Though there be nothing but conjecture, on which 

 we may found an opinion, whether Balkh and Benian, or the districts 

 eastward of the Indus were the countries of its nativity, we possess internal 

 evidence, in the religions of Zertusht and Buddha, that they were for some 

 time connected, and the aflinity existing between the Zend and Sanscrit 

 languages, would further warrant us to conclude, with Sir William Jones,* 

 " that a powerful monarchy was established in Persia, and that it was, 

 in truth, a Hindu monarchy," when Sabeism was the religion of both 

 countries. This monarchy, or the Mahabadian empire of Persia, is cele- 

 brated among the Buddhaists of Ceylon, as we learn from the report of the 

 Colombo Bible Society, for 1816 ; and the fact of the same being known in 

 the tradition of the Buddhas, evinces that these seceders from Sabeism, 

 who spread themselves over the south of India, existed in intimate con- 

 nection with the followers of Zertusht. The coins and relics lately dis- 

 covered in the sepulchral monuments, that exist in the Punjab and the 

 vicinity of Cabul, bear evidence to the correctness of this opinion ; and the 

 narratives of the Arab historians lead us to infer, that the fire-temple, in 



* See his Discourse on the Persians, A. R. vol. ii. 



