384 Analysis of the Mackenzie Manuscripts. [April, 



suffice for the present to point, in general terms, at such clues to the 

 meaning of symbolical writing, but to make full use of the whole can 

 only result from digesting and comparing all such indications together, 

 which, for the present at least is not my task. 



It may not be amiss to show in passing, that the emblem or symbol 

 of a fire-shower is not entirely strange to poets of the west. Thus 

 Milton, in his absurd pauranical description of war in heaven, puts 

 into the mouth of one of his heralds-angelic, this expression : — 

 11 No drizzling shower 



But rattling storm of arrows barb'd with fire." 

 And Campbell, a poet of our own age in his Lochiel's warning, and in 

 a passage, Hindu-like, poetically predictive of a past event, that is to 

 say, the battle of Culloden, puts this expression into the midst of an 

 expostulation from a local seer of the land ; addressed to Lochikl. 

 " Why flames the far summit ? why shoots to the blast, 

 These embers like stars from the firmament cast? 

 'Tis the fire-shower of rain, all dreadfully driven 

 From his eyrie that beacons the darkness of heaven, 

 ******** 



Heaven's fire is around thee, &c." 



Here the symbol is precisely the same in kind, as that which I sup- 

 pose to designate some battle against Salivahana in which he was 

 worsted, and saved himself with the remnants of his army, by retreating 

 across a river. While his country being left open, those of his race 

 who had taken refuge in stone-houses (or forts), were besieged and 

 taken, possibly by starvation, emblematized by the mud shower ; even 

 as the capture of Uriyur is handed down in popular tradition under 

 the veil of that capital having been destroyed by a shower of mud. 

 That I formerly* took a more easy and credulous view of this latter 

 circumstance will be no effective argument against a more mature, and 

 as I think a better conclusion. 



Professor Wilson's notice of this manuscript may be seen Des. 

 Catal., Vol. I. pp. 184-5. 



2. — Tiruviliyadal Purdna. No. 34, Countermark 84. 

 This is a copy of the Madura Auhalla Purdna in Tamil verse, 

 complete, and in very good order. As noted in the next article, it 

 wants some of the marks usually borne by MSS. of this collection. 



3. — Tiruviliyadal Purdna. No. 35, Countermark 24. 

 This is a copy of the same work in prose, and on examination was 

 found to be incomplete ; though otherwise in good order. It wants 



* Or. Hist. MSS. Vol. II. p. 91. 



