THE SURFACE OF THE GLOBE. - 97 



It is equally worthy of remark, that in these lists of kings, barren 

 and doubtful as they are, the Indians place the commencement of 

 their terrestrial sovereigns (those of the race of the sun and moon) at 

 an epoch nearly the same as that which Ctesias, in a list of a precisely 

 similar kind, makes the commencement of his kings of Assyria, about 

 4000 years before the present time *. 



This wretched state of historical knowledge is owing to the subjec- 

 tion of the people to an hereditary priesthood, who enforced a worship 

 monstrous in its external form, and cruel in most of its precepts, and 

 who alone had the privilege of writing, of preserving, and explaining 

 the books. Any absurd tale, invented to give fame to a shrine of pil- 

 grimage, and legends calculated to inspire a deeper homage for their 

 caste, were of more importance to them than all the facts of authentic 

 history. With respect to the sciences, they might have cultivated 

 astronomy, which gave them a reputation as astrologers ; mechanics, 

 which assisted them in elevating monuments, signs of their power, and 

 the objects of the most superstitious veneration with the people ; geo- 

 metry, the basis of astronomy as well as of mechanics, and an import- 

 ant auxiliary to agriculture, in those vast alluvial plains which could 

 only be made salutary and fruitful by means of numerous canals ; they 

 might encourage the mechanical or chemical arts which nourish their 

 commerce, and contributed to their luxury and the splendour of their 

 temples ; but they would look with dread on history, which would in- 

 form mankind of their mutual relations. 



^Vhat we observe in India, we might expect to find in every coun- 

 try in which a priesthood, constituted like that of the Brahmins, 

 established in similar countries, assumed a similar control over the 

 mass of the people. The same causes produce the same results ; and 

 in fact, however we reflect on the fragments of Egyptian and Chaldean 

 traditions that are left to us, we perceive that they were not more his- 

 torical than those of the Indians. 



according to Lucian) was driven back with, fire and water. His father, Garga, was 

 cilled also Paramathesa (Prometheus) ; and, according to anotlier legend, was de- 

 voured by the eagle Gamda. These details were extracted by AVilfort (in his Mem. 

 on Mount Caucasus, Calcutta Mem. v. 6, 8vo. edit. p. 507) from the sacred drama, 

 called Hari-Vansa. M. Charles Ritter, in his Vestibule of European History before 

 Herodotus, concludes that the fable of Deucalion was of foreign derivation, and 

 brought into Greece with the other legends of that part of the Greek worship which 

 had come from the north, and which had preceded the Egyptian and Phoenician colo- 

 nies. But if it be true that the constellations of the Indian sphere have also the 

 names of Grecian personages ; that we have Andromeda under the name of Antar- 

 madia, Cepheus under that of Capiia, &c., we may be tempted with M. Wilfort, to 

 draw a different conclusion. Unfortunately the records adduced by this writer have 

 been doubted by the learned. 



* Bentley, Mem. de Calcutta, v. 8, p. 226, 6d. Svo. — note. 



VOL. I. M 



