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Each Veda consists of two parts, denominated the Mantras, 
or prayers, and the Brahmanas, or precepts. Indra, or the 
firmament, fire, the sun, moon, water, air, the spirits, the 
atmosphere, and the earth, are the objects most frequently 
addressed. The language of a considerable portion is an 
obsolete, and frequently very obscure dialect of Sanscrit. 
From a passage, stating the position of the solstitial points, 
which occurs in a sort of calendar appended to the Rig 
Veda, Mr. Colebrooke, to whom we are chiefly indebted for 
our knowledge of the Vedas, concludes that this calendar 
must have been regulated in the fourteenth century B.C. 
The Puranas, eighteen in number, though comparatively 
modern, are next in importance to the Vedas: they have 
been described as legendary poems, similar in some respects 
to the Grecian theogonies. An abstract of the contents 
of several has been given by Professor Wilson, in the 
Journal of the Asiatic Society of Calcutta. Each Purana 
treats of five subjects: the creation of the universe; its 
destruction, and the renovation of worlds ; the avataras, or 
manifestations of the supreme deity ; the genealogy of 
gods and heroes ; chronology, according to a fabulous 
system ; and heroic history, containing the achievements 
of demigods and heroes. 
The poetry of the Hindoos may be mentioned after 
these great works ; and the two great epic poems, the 
Ramayana and Mahabharat, remarkable for their antiquity, 
consist respectively of 24,000 and 100,000 stanzas. They 
have other extensive poems, which have been classed under 
the heads of narrative, didactic, lyric, and apologue. 
Upon the invention of the latter, the Hindoos especially 
pride themselves. Of their dramatic literature, a very 
favourable opinion has been formed from Sir Win. Jones's 
translation of Sakuntala, and more especially from Professor 
Wilson's Hindoo Theatre, containing translations of six 
