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correctly determined in having preceded the Christian era 
by fifty-seven years. The two great poems, the Ramayana 
and Mahabharat, having been then revised and rearranged, 
must necessarily have been composed a few centuries pre- 
viously. Of these, the former is interesting, as containing 
a notice of Aghastier, the first translator into Tamul of 
Sanscrit medical literature. The Vedas have undoubtedly a 
long anterior date, and are supposed to have been com- 
posed near fifteen centuries B.C. ; and though the fourth is 
subsequent to the others, it must also be very ancient ; 
and is interesting to us, as containing the Ayur Veda, or 
the earliest of the medical writings of the Hindoos. For 
cultivating the sciences, and the production of the above 
works, there is sufficient time, if we take Hindoo history 
after the settlement in India, even on the moderate com- 
putations which have been determined by the several 
authors who have investigated the subject. These, omitting 
the long list of sovereigns of the fabulous ages of Hindoos- 
than, yet find that the two solar dynasties must have been 
settled in Oude and Tirhoot, at least from 1500 to 2000 
years before the Christian era ; while the lunar race, who 
reigned in Benares, and afterwards in Behar and Delhi, 
must be equally ancient. Some authors, however, consider 
both much, or 1000 years, more ancient than the higher 
of the above dates ; and Sir Wm. Jones concludes, 
that the second or silver age of the Hindoos was subse- 
quent to the dispersion from Babel ; and that we have 
only a dark interval of about a thousand years, which 
were employed in the settlement of nations, the foun- 
dation of empires, and the cultivation of civil society. 
