"fureless horn. When the deluge had ceased, "VISHNU flew the demon, and recovered the "Véda's, inftructed SATYAVRATA in divine 66 knowledge, and appointed him the seventh "MENU, by the name of VAIVASWATA." Let us compare the two Indian accounts of the Creation and the Deluge with those delivered by MOSES. It is not made a queftion in this tract, whether the first chapters of Genefis are to be understood in a literal, or merely in an allegorical, sense: the only points before us are, whether the creation described by the first MENU, which the Bráhmans call that of the Lotos, be not the fame with that recorded in our Scripture, and whether the ftory of the feventh MENU be not one and the fame with that of NOAH. I propose the questions, but affirm nothing; leaving others to settle their opinions, whether ADAM be derived from ádim, which in Sanferit means the first, or MENU from NUн, the true name of the Patriarch; whether the Sacrifice, at which GOD is believed to have defcended, allude to the offering of ABEL; and, on the whole, whether the two MENU's can mean any other persons than the great progenitor, and the reftorer, of our fpecies.

On a fuppofition, that VAIVASWATA, or Sun-born, was the NOAH of Scripture, let us proceed to the Indian account of his posterity,

which I extract from the Puránárt'haprecás'a, or The Purána's Explained, a work lately compofed in Sanferit by RA'DHA 'CA'NTA SARMAN, a Pandit of extensive learning and great fame among the Hindus of this province. Before we examine the genealogies of kings, which he has collected from the Purána's, it will be necessary to give a general idea of the Avatára's, or Defcents, of the Deity: the Hindus believe innumerable fuch descents or special interpofitions of providence in the affairs of mankind; but they reckon ten principal Avatára's in the current period of four ages; and all of them are described, in order as they are fuppofed to occur, in the following Ode of JAYADE'VA, the great Lyrick Poet of India.

I. "Thou recovereft the Véda in the water "of the ocean of deftruction, placing it joyfully in the bofom of an ark fabricated by thee; O CE'S AVA, affuming the body of a fifb: be victorious, O HERI, lord of the "Universe!

2.

"The earth ftands firm on thy im"mensely broad back, which grows larger from "the callus occafioned by bearing that vaft bur"den, O CE'SAVA, affuming the body of a tortoise: be victorious, O HERI, lord of the "Universe!

3. "The earth, placed on the point of thy

"tusk, remains fixed like the figure of a black "antelope on the moon, O CE'S AVA, affuming "the form of a boar: be victorious, O HERÍ, "lord of the Univerfe!"

4. The claw with a ftupendous point, on the exquisite lotos of thy lion's paw, is the black bee, that ftung the body of the embowelled HIRANYACASIPU, O CE'S AVA, affuming the form of a man-lion: be victorious, O HERI, lord of the Univerfe!

5. By thy power thou beguileft BALI, O thou miraculous dwarf, thou purifier of men with the water (of Gangà) fpringing from thy feet, O CE'SAVA, affuming the form of a dwarf: be victorious, O HERI, lord of the Univerfe!

6. Thou batheft in pure water, confifting of the blood of Chatriya's, the world, whose offences are removed and who are relieved from the pain of other births, O CE'S AVA, affuming the form of PARAS'U-RA'MA: be victorious, O HERI, lord of the Universe!

7. With ease to thyself, with delight to the Genii of the eight regions, thou scattereft on all fides in the plain of combat the demon with ten heads, O CE'SAVA, affuming the form of RAMA-CHANDRA: be victorious, O HERI, lord of the Univerfe!

8. Thou weareft on thy bright body a mantle fhining like a blue cloud, or like the water of

Yamunà tripping toward thee through fear of thy furrowing plough fhare, O CE'SAVA, affuming the form of BALA-RA'MA: be victorious, O HERI, lord of the Univerfe!

9. Thou blameft (oh, wonderful!) the whole Véda, when thou feeft, O kind-hearted, the flaughter of cattle prescribed for facrifice, O. CE'SAVA, affuming the body of BUDDHA: be victorious, O HERI, lord of the Universe!

10. For the deftruction of all the impure thou drawest thy cimeter like a blazing comet (how tremendous!) O CE'SAVA, affuming the body of CALCI: be victorious, O HERI, lord of the Universe!

These ten Avatára's are by fome arranged according to the thousands of divine years in each of the four ages, or in an arithmetical proportion from four to one; and, if such an arrangement were univerfally received, we should be able to ascertain a very material point in the Hindu Chronology; I mean the birth of BUDDHA, concerning which the different Pandits, whom I have confulted, and the fame Pandits at different times, have expreffed a strange diversity of opinion. They all agree, that CALCI

is

yet to come, and that BUDDHA was the last confiderable incarnation of the Deity; but the astronomers at Varánes place him in the third age, and RA'DHA'CA'NT infifts, that he ap

peared after the thousandth year of the fourth: the learned and accurate author of the Dabistán, whofe information concerning the Hindus is wonderfully correct, mentions an opinion of the Pandits, with whom he had converfed, that BUDDHA began his career ten years before the clofe of the third age; and Go'VERDHANA of Cafhmir, who had once informed me, that CRISHNA defcended two centuries before BUDDHA, affured me lately, that the Gashmirians admitted an interval of twenty-four years (others allow only twelve) between those two divine perfons. The beft authority, after all, is the Bhagawat itself, in the first chapter of which it is exprefsly declared, that "BUDDHA, the fon "of JINA, would appear at Cicata, for the

purpose of confounding the demons, just at "the beginning of the Caliyug." I have long been convinced, that, on thefe fubjects, we can only reason fatisfactorily from written evidence, and that our forenfick rule must be invariably applied, to take the declarations of the Brahmans moft frongly against themselves, that is, against their pretenfions to antiquity; fo that, on the whole, we may fafely place BUDDHA just at the beginning of the prefent age: but what is the beginning of it? When this question was proposed to RA'DHA'CANT, he answered: " of a period