Agama, and Nigama, Sastras, which consist of incantations and other texts of the Vedas, with remarks on the occasions on which they may be successfully applied. It must not be omitted, that the commentaries on the Hindu Scriptures, among which that of Vasishtha seems to be reputed the most excellent, are innumerable."

From the Vedas are immediately deduced the practical arts of Chirurgery and Medicine, Music and Dancing, Archery, which comprises the whole art of war, and Architecture, under which the system of mechanical arts is included."

Infinite advantage may be derived by Europeans from the various medical books in Sanscrit, which contain the names and descriptions of Indian plants and minerals, with their uses, discovered by experience, in curing disorders: there is a vast collection of them from the Cheraca, which is considered as a work of Siva; the Roganirupana and the Nidana are comparatively modern."

R

"A number of books, in prose and verse, have been written on music, with specimens of Hindu airs in a very elegant notation; but the Silpa Sastra, or body of treatises on mechanical arts, is believed to be lost.”

The grammatical work of Panini, a writer supposed to have been inspired, is entitled Siddhanta Caumudi, and is so abstruse, as to require the lucubrations of many years, before it can be perfectly understood. When Casinatha Serman, who attended Mr. Wilkins, was asked what he thought of the Paniniva, he answered very expressively, that it was a forest; but, since grammar is only an instrument, not the end, of true knowledge, there can be little occasion to travel over so rough and gloomy a path; which contains, however, probably some acute speculations in metaphysics."

The Sanscrit prosody is easy and beautiful; the learned will find in it almost all the measures of the Greeks; and it is remarkable, that the language of the Brah

mins runs very naturally into sapphics, alcaics, and iambics.

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Astronomical works in this language are exceedingly numerous: seventy-nine of them are specified in one list; and, if they contain the names of the principal stars visible in India, with observations on their positions in different ages, what discoveries may be made in science, and what certainty attained in ancient chronology?"

The first Indian poet," we are acquainted with, "was Valmici, author of the Ramayana,* a complete epic poem on one continued, interesting, and heroic action; and the next in celebrity, if it be not superior in reputation for holiness, was the Mahabharata of Vyasa: to him are ascribed the sacred Puranas, which are called, for their excellence, the Eighteen, and which have the following titles: Brahme, or the Great One; Pedma, or the Lotos; Brahmanda, or the Mundane Egg; and

More frequently called the Ramayuna.

Agni, or Fire; (these four relate to the Creation): Vishnu, or the Pervader; Garuda, or his Eagle, the transformations of Brahma, Siva, Linga, Nareda, son of Brahma, Scanda, son of Siva, Marcandeya, or the Immortal Man, and Bhawishya, or the Prediction of Futurity, and four others, Matsya, Varaha, Curma, Vamena, or as many incarnations of the Great One in his character of Preserver; all containing ancient traditions embellished by poetry, or disguised by fable: the eighteenth is the Bhagawata, or Life of Krishna, with which the same poet is by some imagined to have crowned the whole series; though others, with more reason, assign them different composers."

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The system of Hindu law, besides the fine work, called Menusmriti, or what is remembered from Menu, that of Yajnyawalcya, and those of sixteen other Muni's, with commentaries on them all, consists of many tracts in high estimation: among those current in Bengal, are, an excellent treatise on Inheritances, by Jimuta

Vahana, and a complete digest, in twentyseven volumes, compiled a few centuries ago, by Raghunandan, the Tribonian of India, whose work is the grand repository of all that can be known on a subject so curious in itself, and so interesting to the British government.

"Of the philosophical schools it will be sufficient here to remark, that the first Nyaya seems analogous to the Peripatetic; the second, sometimes called Vaiseshica, to the Ionic; the two Mimansas, of which the second is often distinguished by the name of Vedanta, to the Platonic; the first Sanchya to the Italic; and the second, or Patanjala, to the Stoic, philosophy: so that Gautama corresponds with Aristotle; Canada, with Thales; Jaimini, with Socrates; Vyasa, with Plato; Capila, with Pythagoras; Patanjali, with Zeno; but an accurate comparison between the Grecian and Indian schools would require a considerable volume. The original works of those philosophers are very succinct; but, like all the other Sastras, they are explained, or obscured, by the Upa