GENERAL NOTE.

THE learned Hindus are unanimoufly of opinion, that many laws enacted by MENU, their oldest reputed legiflator, were confined to the three first ages of the world, and have no force in the prefent age, in which a few of them are certainly obfolete; and they ground their opinion on the following texts, which are collected in a work entitled Mandana ratna pradípa :

I. CRATU: In the Cali age a fon must not be begotten on a widow by the brother of the deceafed husband; nor must a damfel, once given away in marriage, be given a fecond time; nor muft a bull be offered in a facrifice; nor must a waterpot be carried by a student in theology.

II. VRIHASPATI: 1. Appointments of kinf men to beget children on widows, or married women, when the husbands are deceafed or impotent, are mentioned by the fage MENU, but forbidden by himself with a view to the order of the

four ages: no fuch act can be legally done in this age by any others than the busband.

2. In the first and fecond ages men were endued with true piety and found knowledge; fo they were in the third age; but in the fourth, a diminution of their moral and intellectual powers was ordained by their Creator:

3. Thus were fons of many different forts made by ancient fages, but fuch cannot now be adopted by men deftitute of thofe eminent powers.

III. PARA'S ARA: I. A man, who has held intercourfe with a deadly finner, must abandon his country in the firft age; he must leave his town, in the second; his family, in the third age; but in the fourth he needs only defert the offender.

2. In the first age, he is degraded by mere converfation with a degraded man; in the fecond, by touching him; in the third, by receiving food from him; but in the fourth, the finner alone bears his guilt.

IV. NA RADA: The procreation of a fon by a brother of the deceased, the flaughter of cattle in the entertainment of a gueft, the repast on fleshmeat at funeral obfequies, and the order of a hermit are forbidden or obfolete in the fourth

age.

V. A'ditya purána: 1. What was a duty in the

firft age must not in all cafes be done in the fourth; fince, in the Cali yuga, both men and women are addicted to fin:

2. Such are a ftudentship continued for a very long time, and the neceffity of carrying a waterpot, marriage with a paternal kinfwoman, or with a near maternal relation, and the facrifice of a bull,

3. Or of a man, or of a horfe: and all fpirituous liquor muft in the Cali age be avoided by twiceborn men; fo must a second gift of a married young woman, whofe husband has died before confummation, and the larger portion of an eldest brother, and procreation on a brother's widow or wife.

VI. Smriti: 1. The appointment of a man to beget a son on the widow of his brother; the gift of a young married woman to another bridegroom, if her husband should die while she remains a virgin;

2. The marriage of twiceborn men with damfels not of the fame class; the flaughter, in a religious war, of Bráhmens, who are affailants with intent to kill;

3. Any intercourfe with a twiceborn man, who has paffed the fea in a fhip, even though he have performed an expiation: performances of facrifices for all forts of men; and the neceffity of carrying a waterpot;

4. Walking on a pilgrimage till the pilgrim die; and the flaughter of a bull at a facrifice; the acceptance of fpirituous liquor, even at the ceremony called Sautrámani;

5.-Receiving what has been licked off, at an oblation to fire, from the pot of clarified butter; entrance into the third order, or that of a hermit, though ordained for the firft ages;

6. The diminution of crimes in proportion to the religious acts and facred knowledge of the offenders; the rule of expiation for a Bráhmen extending to death;

7. The fin of holding any intercourse with finners; the secret expiation of any great crimes except theft; the flaughter of cattle in honour of eminent guests or of ancestors;

8. The filiation of any but a fon legally begotten or given in adoption by his parents; the desertion of a lawful wife for any offence lefs than actual adultery:

9. These parts of ancient law were abrogated by wife legislators, as the cafes arose at the beginning of the Cali age, with an intent of fecuring mankind from evil.

On the preceding texts it must be remarked, that none of them, except that of VRĬHASPATI, are cited by CULLU'CA, who never seems to have confidered any other laws of MENU as restrained to the three firft ages; that the Smriti,

or facred code, is quoted without the name of the legiflator; and that the prohibition, in any age, of felf-defence, even against Bráhmens, is repugnant to a text of SUMANTU, to the precept and example of CRISHNA himself, according to the Mabábbárat, and even to a sentence in the Véda, by which every man is commanded to defend his own life from all violent aggreffors.