arrangement, as the name itself implies, from fome unpolished idiom but the basis of the Hinduftánì, particularly the inflexions and regimen of verbs, differed as widely from both those tongues, as Arabick differs from Perfian, or German from Greek. Now the general effect of conqueft is to leave the current language of the conquered people unchanged, or very little altered, in its ground-work, but to blend with it a confiderable number of exotick names both for things and for actions; as it has happened in every country, that I can recollect, where the conquerors have not preferved their own tongue unmixed with that of the natives, like the Turks in Greece, and the Saxons in Britain; and this analogy might induce us to believe, that the pure Hindi, whether of Tartarian or Chaldean origin, was primeval in Upper India, into which the Sanferit was introduced by conquerors from other kingdoms in fome very remote age; for we cannot doubt that the language of the Véda's was used in the great extent of country, which has before been delineated, as long as the religion of Brahmà has prevailed in it.

The Sanfcrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful ftructure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquifitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a ftronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and in the forms of grammar, than could poffibly have been produced by accident; so strong indeed, that no philologer could examine them all three, without believing them to have sprung from fome common fource, which, perhaps, no longer exists: there is a fimilar reafon, though not quite fo forcible, for fuppofing that both the Gothick and the Celtick, though blended with a very different idiom, had the fame origin with the Sanscrit; and the old Perfian might be added to the fame family, if this were the place for difcuffing any question concerning the antiquities of Perfia.

The

The characters, in which the languages of India were originally written, are called Nágarí, from Nagara, a City, with the word Déva fometimes prefixed, because they are believed to have been taught by the Divinity himself, who prescribed the artificial order of them in a voice from heaven. These letters, with no greater variation in their form by the change of straight lines to curves, or conversely, than the Cufick alphabet has received in its way to India, are still adopted in more than twenty kingdoms and states, from the borders of Cashgar and Khoten, to Ráma's bridge, and from the Sindhu to the river of Siam ; nor can I help believing, although the polished and elegant Dévanágarí may not be fo ancient as the monumental characters in the caverns of Farafandha, that the fquare Chaldaick letters, in which most Hebrew books are copied, were originally the fame, or derived from the fame prototype, both with the Indian and Arabian characters: that the Phenician, from which the Greek and Roman alphabets were formed by various changes and inversions, had a fimilar origin, there can be little doubt; and the inscriptions at Canáraḥ, of which you now poffefs a most accurate copy, seem to be compounded of Nágari and Ethiopick letters, which bear a clofe relation to each other, both in the mode of writing from the left hand, and in the fingular manner of connecting the vowels with the confonants. These remarks may favour an opinion entertained by many, that all the fymbols of found, which at first, probably, were only rude outlines of the different organs of speech, had a common origin: the symbols of ideas, now used in China and Japan, and formerly, perhaps, in Egypt and Mexico, are quite of a distinct nature; but it is very remarkable, that the order of founds in the Chinese grammars correfponds nearly with that obferved in Tibet,. and hardly differs from that, which the Hindus confider as the invention of their Gods.

II. Of the Indian Religion and Philosophy, I shall here fay but little; because a full account of each would require a feparate volume: it will be fufficient in this differtation to affume, what might be proved beyond controversy, that we now live among the adorers of those very deities, who were worshipped under different names in old Greece and Italy, and among the profeffors of those philosophical tenets, which the Ionick and Attick writers illuftrated with all the beauties of their melodious language. On one hand we see the trident of NEPTUNE, the eagle of JUPITER, the fatyrs of BACCHUS, the bow of CUPID, and the chariot of the Sun ; on another we hear the cymbals of RHEA, the songs of the Muses, and the pastoral tales of APOLLO NOMIUS. In more retired scenes, in groves, and in feminaries of learning, we may perceive the Brahmans and the Sarmanes, mentioned by CLEMENS, difputing in the forms of logick, or difcourfing on the vanity of human enjoyments, on the immortality of the foul, her emanation from the eternal mind, her debasement, wanderings, and final union with her fource. The fix philosophical schools, whose principles are explained in the Derfana Sáftra, comprise all the metaphyficks of the old Academy, the Stoa, the Lyceum; nor is it poffible to read the Védánta, or the many fine compofitions in illuftration of it, without believing, that PYTHAGORAS and PLATO derived their fublime theories from the fame fountain with the fages of India. The Scythian and Hyperborean doctrines and mythology may also be traced in every part of these eastern regions; nor can we doubt, that WOD or ODEN, whose religion, as the northern hiftorians admit, was introduced into Scandinavia by a foreign race, was the fame with BUDDH, whofe rites were probably imported into India nearly at the fame time, though received much later by the Chinese, who foften his name into FO'.

This may be a proper place to ascertain an important point in the Chronology of the Hindus; for the priests of BUDDHA left in Tibet

and

and China the precife epoch of his appearance, real or imagined, in this Empire; and their information, which had been preserved in writing, was compared by the Chriftian Miffionaries and scholars with our own era. COUPLET, DE GUIGNES, GIORGI, and BAILLY, differ a little in their accounts of this epoch, but that of Couplet seems the moft correct: on taking, however, the medium of the four several dates, we may fix the time of BUDDHA, or the ninth great incarnation of VISHNU, in the year one thousand and fourteen before the birth of CHRIST, or two thousand seven hundred and ninety-nine years ago. Now the Cashmirians, who boast of his descent in their kingdom, affert that he appeared on earth about two centuries after CRISHNA the Indian APOLLO, who took fo decided a part in the war of the Mahábbárat ; and, if an Etymologist were to fuppofe, that the Athenians had embellished their poetical history of PANDION's expulfion and the restoration of ÆGEUS with the Afiatick tale of the PA'NDUS and YUDHISHTIR, neither of which words they could have articulated, I should not hastily deride his conjecture: certain it is, that Pándumandel is called by the Greeks the country of PANDION. We have, therefore, determined another interefting epoch, by fixing the age of CRISHNA near the three thousandth year from the present time; and, as the three first Avatàrs, or descents of VISHNU, relate no lefs clearly to an Universal Deluge, in which eight perfons only were faved, than the fourth and fifth do to the punishment of impiety and the humiliation of the proud, we may for the present affume, that the fecond, or filver, age of the Hindus was fubfequent to the difperfion from Babel; fo that we have only a dark interval of about a thousand years, which were employed in the settlement of nations, the foundation of states or empires, and the cultivation of civil fociety. The The great incarnate Gods of this intermediate age are both named RA'MA but with different epithets; one of whom bears a wonderful resemblance to the Indian BACCHUS, and his wars are the subject of several heroick poems.

He

He is represented as a defcendent from SU'R YA, or the SUN, as the husband of SI'TA', and the son of a princess named CAU'S ELYA': it is very remarkable, that the Peruvians, whofe Incas boasted of the fame descent, styled their greatest festival Ramafitoa; whence we may suppose, that South America was peopled by the same race, who imported into the farthest parts of Afia the rites and fabulous hiftory of RA'MA. These rites and this hiftory are extremely curious; and, although I cannot believe with NEWTON, than ancient mythology was nothing but historical truth in a poetical dress, nor, with BACON, that it confifted folely of moral and metaphysical allegories, nor with BRYANT, that all the heathen divinities are only different attributes and representations of the Sun or of deceased progenitors, but conceive that the whole system of religious fables rose, like the Nile, from several diftinct fources, yet I cannot but agree, that one great spring and fountain of all idolatry in the four quarters of the globe was the veneration paid by men to the vast body of fire, which "looks from his fole dominion like the God of this world ;" and another, the immoderate respect shown to the memory of powerful or virtuous anceftors, especially the founders of kingdoms, legislators, and warriors, of whom the Sun or the Moon were wildly fuppofed to be the parents.

III. The remains of architecture and Sculpture in India, which I mention here as mere monuments of antiquity, not as fpecimens of ancient art, seem to prove an early connection between this country and Africa: the pyramids of Egypt, the coloffal statues described by PAUSANIAS and others, the sphinx, and the HERMES Canis, which last bears a great resemblance to the Varábávatár, or the incarnation of VISHNU in the form of a Boar, indicate the style and mythology of the fame indefatigable workmen, who formed the vast excavations of Cánárab, the various temples and images of BUDDHA, and the idols, which are continually dug up at Gayá, or in its vicinity. The letters

on