of the HINDUS. 259 



approach to the fun ; on which obfequies are performed to the manes of the 

 Pitris, or certain progenitors of the human race, to whom the darker fort- 

 night is peculiarly facrcd. Many fubtde points are difcufled by my author 

 concerning the junction of two or even three lunar days in forming one fad 

 •or feftival; but fuch a detail can be ufeful only to the Brdhmens, who could 

 not guide their flocks, as the Raja of CriJImanagar allures me, without the 

 afliftance of Raghunandan. So fond are the Hindus of mythdlogical 

 perfonifications, that they represent each of the thirty tit' his as a beautiful 

 -nymph ; and the Gay atrit antra, of which a Sannyds) made me a prefent^ 

 •though he confidered it as the holieft book after the Veda, contains flowery 

 cdefcriptions of each nymph, much refembling the delineations of the thirty 

 Rdginis in the treatifes on Indian mufick, ' 



In what manner the Hindus contrive fo far to reconcile the lunar and folar 

 years, as to make them proceed concurrently in their ephemerides, might 

 ,eaf]ly have been mown by exhibiting a veriion of the NadJya or Varanes 

 almanack ; but their modes of intercalation form no part of my prefent fub- 

 jecl, and would injure the fimplicity of my work, without throwing any 

 light on the religion of the Hindus. The following tables have been very 

 diligently compared by myfelf with two Sanfcrit almanacks, with a fuper- 

 fkial chapter in the work of Abu'lfazl, and with a lift of Indian holidays 

 publifhed at Calcutta; in which there' are nine or ten fans called Jayantis^ 

 diftin^uilhed chiefly by the titles of the Avatdras, and twelve or thirteen 

 days marked as the beginnings of as many Calpas, or very long periods, an 

 hundred of which eoniutule Brahma"s age ; but having found no authori- 

 ty for thofe holidays, I have omitted them : fome feftivals, however, or fafts, 

 which are palled over in filence by Raghunandan, are here printed in 

 Itahck letters; becaufe they may be mentioned in other books, and kept ho- 



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