150 



Notices of Books. 



[July 



lation of a brief MS. in Telugu, from the Mackenzie collection, con- 

 cerning the Sethupathts, or Marava chiefs, originally feudatories to 

 the sovereign of Madura. 



" In the copious annotations and illustrations, which are scattered 

 throughout the work, the writer has three leading objects in view; 

 the one is, faithfully, to the extent of power and material, to illustrate a 

 branch of history, long looked on as a hopeless void; another to exhibit, 

 from the unsuspicious testimony of native documents, the real s tate and 

 character of the mythology and religious ideas of the inhabitants of 

 the region of which it treats ; the third, to stimulate natives them- 

 selves to enquire into the validity of their religious credence, to re- 

 move from the minds of Europeans erroneous views, or estimates, of 

 Hinduism, and to urge to all prudential and practical exertions for im- 

 proving, both mentally and morally, the general features of the Hindu 

 character. The writer is not one of the outrageous cynics, who can 

 see, in that character, nothing but what is filthy and base and horrible, 

 any more than he is one of the very opposite class, who have appeared 

 to consider the Hindus as patterns of every virtue : his materials, with 

 some edging of his own, point at the Bramins, as the real tyrants and 

 enslavers of an otherwise, in many respects, amiable and intelligent 

 people. 



" Inclusive of some discussion (vol. 1, p. 152-167) on the reconcilia- 

 tion of the Mosaic narrative with geological systems of time, calling 

 for attentive consideration, a chronological hypothesis, not to give it a 

 stronger term, runs through the work. This is, that all Hindu records 

 relate to no period of time higher up than the Deluge, most of them dis- 

 tinctly referring to it, in connexion with a series of floods and reno- 

 vated worlds ; that the ark rested on the mountains northward of 

 India ; that Hindustan was peopled direct from that seat of population, 

 having no connexion with the migratory branch that founded Babel ; 

 that the Assyrians early invaded the peaceful settlers to the north of 

 India ; and that traces of the war are discoverable in Hindu mytholo- 

 gical legends. Subordinate to this primitive question, is the discussion 

 whether the Pndion kingdom was established by the offspring of 

 Durvasu, an early scion of the Hastinapuri family, or whether it grew 

 out of the invasion of Ceylon, by the famous Rama of Ayodhya, when 

 he passed through the site of the Pandion kingdom, and collected there 

 an army of monkies, or, more probably, of wild-men. The latter origin 

 is indicated by Professor Wilson, grounded, as he states, on M.S, autho- 

 rity, while the Editor of this work, after inspecting that authority 

 asserts that it does not bear the conclusion out. The possibility is that 

 a sort of rude monarchy, or chieftainship, was already established when 

 Rama made his famous incursion; unless, indeed, like the tale of Troy, 

 the whole of the Ra may ana be a poetical fable. 



