implies, from some unpolished idiom; but the basis of the Hindustánì, particularly the inflexions and regimen of verbs, differed as widely from both those tongues, as Arabic differs from Persian, or German from Greek. Now the general effect of conquest is to leave the current language of the conquered people unchanged, or very little altered, in its groundwork, but to blend with it a considerable number of exotic names both for things and for actions; as it has happened in every country, that I can recollect, where the conquerors have not preserved 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 Hindì, whether of Tartarian or Chaldean origin, was primeval in Upper India, into which the Sanscrit was introduced by conquerors from other kingdoms in some 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 Brahmá has prevailed in it.

The Sanscrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either; yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs, and in the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong, indeed, that no philologer could examine them all three without believing them, to have sprung from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists. There is a similar reason, though not quite so forcible, for supposing that both the Gothic and the Cel

tic, though blended with a very different idiom, had the same origin with the Sanscrit; and the old Persian might be added to the same family, if this were the place for discussing any question concerning the antiquities of Persia.

The characters, in which the languages of India were originally written, are called Nágarí, from Nagara, a city, with the word Déva sometimes 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 Cusick 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 so ancient as the monumental characters in the caverns of Jarasandha, that the square Chaldaic letters, in which most Hebrew books are copied, were originally the same, or derived from the same 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 similar origin, there can be little doubt and the inscriptions at Canárah, of which you now possess a most accurate copy, seem to be compounded of Nágarí and Ethiopic letters, which bear a close relation to each other, both in the mode of writing from the left hand, and in the singular manner of connecting the vowels with the consonants. These remarks may favour an opinion en

tertained by many, that all the symbols of sound, 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 sounds in the Chinese grammars corresponds nearly with that observed in Tibet, and hardly differs from that which the Hindus consider as the invention of their gods.

II. Of the Indian religion and philosophy I shall here say but little; because a full account of each would require a separate volume. It will be sufficient in this dissertation to assume, what might be proved beyond controversy, that we now live among the adorers of those very deities who were worshiped under different names in old Greece and Italy; and among the professors of those philosophical tenets, which the Ionic and Attic writers illustrated with all the beauties of their melodious language. On one hand we see the trident of Neptune, the eagle of Jupiter, the satyrs 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 seminaries of learning, we may perceive the Brahmans and the Sarmanes mentioned by Clemens, disputing in the forms of logic, or discoursing on the vanity of human enjoyments, on the immortality of the soul, her emanation from the eternal mind, her debasement, wanderings, and final union with her source. The six philosophical schools, whose principles are explained in the Dersana Sástra, comprise all the meta

physics of the old Academy, the Stoa, the Lyceum ; nor is it possible to read the Védánta, or the many fine compositions in illustration of it, without believing that Pythagoras and Plato derived their sublime theories from the same fountain with the

sages 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 historians admit, was introduced into Scandinavia by a foreign race, was the same with Buddh, whose rites were probably imported into India nearly at the same time, though received much later by the Chinese, who soften 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 China the precise epoch of his appearance, real or imagined, in this empire; and their information, which has been preserved in writing, was compared by the Christian missionaries and scholars with our own era. Couplet, De Guignes, Giorgi, and Bailly, differ a little in their account of this epoch; but that of Couplet seems the most 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, assert that he appeared on earth about two centuries after Chrishna the Indian Apollo, who took so decided a part in the war of the Máhabhárat; and, if an etymologist were to suppose that the Athenians

had embellished their poetical history of Pandion's expulsion, and the restoration of Ægeus, with the Asiatic tale of the Pándus 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 interesting epoch, by fixing the age of Chrishna near the three thousandth year from the present time; and, as the three first Avatars, or descents of Vishnu, relate no less clearly to an Universal Deluge, in which eight persons only were saved, than the fourth and fifth do to the punishment of impiety and the humiliation of the proud, we may for the present assume, that the second, or silver age of the Hindus was subsequent to the dispersion from Babel; so 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 society. The great incarnate gods of this intermediate age are both named Ráma, but with different epithets; one of whom bears a wonderful resemblance to the Indian Bacchus, and his wars are the subject of several heroic poems. He is represented as a descendant from Súrya, or the Sun; as the husband of Sitá, and the son of a princess named Caúseyla. It is very remarkable that the Peruvians, whose Incas boasted of the same descent, styled their greatest festival Ramasitoa; whence we may suppose that South America was peopled by the same race who imported into the farthest parts of Asia the rites and fabulous history of Ráma. These rites and this history are extremely curious; and although I