History of Hindustan (SAMPLE)

8/11/2019 History of Hindustan (SAMPLE)

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PL TE Z.

T 1.1. E I ST S 0 M NIA 0 F E GY P T

THE INDIAN ISA, AND GRE cL41T ( ERES.

Ai i 4yA

r )

2ie iii

ii

1

2


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HISTORY OF HINDOST N

TS

ARTS AND ITS SCIENCES

S CONNECTED WITH

TH HISTORY OF TH

OTHER GREAT EMPIRES OF

ASIA

D RINO

THE MOST NCIENT PERIODS

OF THE WORLD

WITH

NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIVE ENGRAVINGS.

Y THE

AUTHOR OF INDIAN ANTIQUITIES

VOL 1

LONDON:

PRINTED BY W. BULMER AND CO.

FOR THE AUTHOR;

AND SOLD by B. FAIJIDER NEW BOND-STREET.


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HISTORY OF HINDOSTAN

VOLUME THE FIRST:

DISCUSSING

THE INDIAN COSMOGONY;

THE FOUR YUGS

OR GRAND ASTRONOMICAL PERIODS;

THE LONGEVITY OF THE PRIMITIVE RACE;

AND ti HER

INTERESTING SUBJECTS OF

ANTE-DILUVIAN HISTORY:

CONTAINING

ALSO IN

VERY AMPLE DETAIL

THE INDIAN AND OTHER ORIENTAL ACCOUNTS OF THE

GENERAL DELUGE

;

EXTENSIVE INQUIRIES RELATIVE TO THE.

EXAGGERATED CHRONOLOGY

OF EASTERN EMPIRES; THE RISE

ND GR DU L GROWTH OF

ASTRONOMY;

THE ORIGIN OF THE SPHERE;

ND THE FORM TION OF

THE SOLAR AND LUNAR ZODIACS OF ASIA


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THE

HISTORY OF HINDOSTAN

VOLUME THE FIRST:

DISCUSSING

THE INDIAN COSMOGONY;

THE FOUR YUGS OR GRAND ASTRONOMICAL PERIODS;

THE LONGEVITY OF THE PRIMITIVE RACE;

AND YTHER INTERESTING SUBJECTS OF

ANTE-DILUVIAN HISTORY:

CONTAINING ALSO IN VERY AMPLE DETAIL

THE INDIAN AND OTHER ORIENTAL ACCOUNTS OF THE

GENERAL DELUGE;

EXTENSIVE INQUIRIES RELATIVE TO THE

EXAGGERATED CHRONOLOGY

OF EASTERN EMPIRES; THE RISE AND GRADUAL GROWTH OF

ASTRONOMY;

THE ORIGIN OF THE SPHERE;

AND THE FORMATION OF

THE SOLAR AND LUNAR ZODIACS OF ASIA.


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TO THE HONOURABLE

COURT OF EAST INDIA DIRECTORS

THIS

HISTORY

COMMENCED UNDER THEIR PATRONAGE

BUT, FROM THE

COMPREHENSIVE NATURE OF THE SUBJECT NECESSARILY

EXTENDED BEYOND THE

AUTHOR S

ORIGINAL PLAN IN HUMBLE

HOPES OF THEIR

CONTINUED SUPPORT

OF A

WORK, WHICH

MUST SINK WITHOUT

THAT SUPPORT,

Is

GRATEFULLY AND RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED

BY THEIR

OBLIGED OBEDIENT SERVANT

THOMAS MAURICE.


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TO THE PUBLIC.

TH

Author having thus after long and severe literary toil at his

own hazard and at an expence which nearly amounts to

500.

in paper print and engravings brought to a conclusion this first

Volume of the

HISTORY OF ANCIENT INDIA

upon the new and en-

larged plan recommended by some learned and illustrious charac-

ters patrons of his former work appeals for support to the Public

in general; but in a more particular manner to gentlemen con-

iiccied with India that he may by their generosity be enabled

speedily to complete and produce before the public eye the re-

maining volume of this work which without that support in

times so inauspicious to literary undertakings cannot possibly be

effected. He appeals also for support and patronage to the higher

orders of the Clergy who he presumes cannot be wholly unin-

terested in the success of a work one principal aim of which is to

explore the great Patriarchal and primitive truths obscured by

the hieroglyphic Theology and lying dormant amidst the super-

stitious rites of Asia ; and he appeals to them with more confi-

dence because by thus deviating into researches which however

important to the national religion are out of the direct line of

regular history the success of his work among those who think

themselves less interested in those researches has been prevented

and consequently the fair profits of an undertaking in the prose-

cution of which a considerable portion both of labour health and

property has been consumed will probably be greatly diminished

if not wholly annihilated.

He sincerely laments that the great advance of late years in the

article of printing and paper especially in the more elegant publi-

cations prevents his offering the second Volume to the Public at


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TO THE PUBLIC.

less price than the present; and by the advice of his friends, who,

wish an author without preferment to receive,, if any should arise,

the emoluments of so expensive and laborious a work, he is deter-

mined in future to be the vender of his own publications, at No. g,

Upper Norton-street, Portland Road, where Subscriptions will be

henceforth received, and where receipts, signed by himself, may be

had, which will entitle the bearer to a hot-pressed copy.

N.B. The sixth and final Volume of the Indian Antiquities is.

in great forwardness, and will be published j

the

ensuing

spring

A few sets of the octavo edition remain, at

1.

15s

or any single

volume of the five already printed, may be had to complete sets, at

seven shillings the volume.

o booksellers, who may choose to become purchasers of either

work, the usual allowance will be made,


8/32

TO THE PUBLIC.

less price than the present;

nd

by the advice of his friends

wh

wish an author without preferment to receive if any Should arise .

the emoluments of so expensive and laborious a work he is deter-

mined in future to be the vender of his own publications at No.

Upper Norton-street Portland Road where Subscriptions will be

henceforth

received

and where receipts signed by himself may be

had which will entitle the bearer to a hot-pressed copy.

N.B. The sixth and final Volume of the Indian Antiquities is.

in great forwardness and will be published in the ensuing Spring.

A few sets of the octavo edition remain at

ki.

15S. or any single

volume of the five already printed may be had to complete sets at

seven shillings the volume.

To booksellers who may choose to become purchasers of either-

work the usual allowance will be made


9/32

PREF CE

WHILE

I present the Public with the first Volume of

the Indian History, during the most ancient periods,

I think it necessary thus early to enter my protest

against all attempts to judge the pages of the following

Work by the rules of criticism, which are applied to

history in general. To those rules, an investigation

of this extensive nature, pointing towards veras so re-

mote, and illustrative of events at once so complicated,

and so deeply buried in the gulf of time, is by no

means amenable. In fact, it may be thought that the

subsequent pages contain rather the history of astrono-

mical mythology, as it flourished in the great empires of

Asia

than that of any particular nation on the East-

ern continent

but it will readily be perceived by the

discerning reader, that it is only through the windings

of that dark and intricate labyrinth, that historic truth

in those distant acras is to be explored and a know-

ledge of the genuine characters celebrated in remote an-

tiquity to be obtained. It is in this Volume that the

Outlines of the historical plan, laid

lOwfl

in the preface


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REFACE-

a more ancient sphere, allusive to an older race, and

different mythology, are attempted to be filled up; an

since, from the indulgence of the Public to a produc

tion very

ll

printed, and worse arranged, that book i

now become exceedingly scarce, and may

not be in th

possession of many of the purchasers of this volume

it is necessary to bring before their view, that portio

of it which details the facts in question.

It is there observed by me, that I had not at fir

formed the remotest conception that to enter into th

spirit of the ancient Sanscrit History of India, or t

render that history intelligible to the reader, it woul

he necessary to engage in the deepest astronomic

speculations of the Oriental world ; but that, as I ad

vanced in my inquiries, I found that kind of know

ledge to be indispensable ; for, in fact, the primev

histories of all the ancient empires of the earth, amou

to little more than the romantic dreams of astronomic

mythology.

This is particularly evident in Hindo

tan, from the two great and most ancient rajah famili

being

denominated

SURYA-BANS,

and

CHANDRA-BAN

or children of the sun and moon.

In the first volume of the Indian History, I tru


11/32

PREFACE.

d

were 01

c

elestial, not terrestrial origin; that their cm-

pire was the empire of imagination in the skies, not

of real

P0\Ve1

on this globe of earth; that the (lay and

year of Brahma, and tha day and year of mortals, are

of a nature widely different; that the whole jargon of

the

YUGS,

or grand periods, and conseq

uently all those

presumptuous assertions of the Brahmins, relative to

the earth s antiquity, have no foundation but in the

great solar and lunar cycles, or planetary revolutiOns;

and that

CHALDEA,

and not

IND1

Was the parent

country of mankind. In proof of this last assertion,

a few remarkable instances are tlici e

prOdUCed 111)

11

the authority of Sir William jone,

whic

h evince the

primitive languages of Chaldea and India not to be

greatly dissimilar; that the name

ADAM

may be traced

to the Sanscrit root, Anni, or

the first that in

the

prophetic and regal title of

MENU

of India, may be re-

cognized the patriarch Nuh, or Noah ; that their great

hero

BALI,

an appellative synonymous with the Bel, or

Baal, of their neighbours, is no other than Belus; and

that all the prodigies of valour and wisdom fabled of

the renowned

DIoNYslus

of India, if true, are only

true of Rama, the son of Cush, a deified hero, adored

at this day by that very name through the whole ex-

tent of that country.


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1V

REFACE

support of a very learned and able writer ; for that the

ancient history of the illustrious families of Asia, but

especially of Greece, during the poetical ages, might

be read in the heavens, was the opinion of the late Mr.

Costard, one of the most profound Oriental astrono-

mers that ever flourished in Europe. It is, however,

a fact notorious, and allowed by all proficients in that

noble and wonderful science, that the Greeks, although

they carried astronomy to a surprising height of im-

provement, were not the inventors of it. They bor-

rowed from the Egyptians their knowledge of its prin-

ciples ; and, in their wild ambition to have themselves

considered by posterity as the most ancient nation on

earth, and their country as the sole fountain of the

arts and sciences, they adapted to the constellations,,

alrea y ormed

the various parts of their own fabulous

history. Sir Isaac Newton, indeed, in his least per-

fect work, the Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms

amended, has affirmed, that Chiron first formed the

sphere for the use of the Argonauts ; but even a name

so highly and deservedly eminent as Newton's, cannot

sanction a palpable error. Dr. Rutherforth, in one of

the most ingenious productions on the subject of na-

tural philosophy that ever was published, has in the

clearest manner evinced, that the constellations, deli-


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15/32

PREFACE.

ii

one of he Ili sl established upon earth, blended as that

history is with theological and astronomical specula

tiolis, and interwoven as it is with that of Assyria

and Persia, would be totally unintelligible.

While Dr. Rutherforth combats the assertion of

Sir Isaac Newton, that Chiron formed the first sphere

for the use of the Argonauts in their voyage to Coichis,

he yet allows, that many of the constellations of the

Grecian, that is (as Mr. Costard in another treatise has

proved), the Chaldean sphere, apparently allude to that

event: but then, lie thinks they were fabricated at a

period

subsequent

to its completion, and were intended

only as

memori ls

of it. With respect to the event itself,

Mr. Bryant, in the second volume o

his Analysis of

Ancient Mythology, has offered very substantial argu-

ments to evince that it never took place at all, and that

the whole story originally arose from some misappre-

hended traditions relative

to the ark J i\oah, and the

sacred personages that attended him on the most im-

portant voyage ever recorded. Had Mr. Bryant more

frequently directed his attention to the literature of

Persia and Arabia, he might have derived a surprising

support to his assertions from many of their astrono-

mical productions. For instance, in Dr. Hyde s trans-

lation

OfULUG BEG S

Tables of the Fixed Stars, the sign


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viii

REFACE.

sieli t ion of

THE SI-lIP; and there is reason to suppose

that in namiig the stars the royal astronomer of Persia

followed some very ancient astronomical tables known

in his own country ; since had lie copied those of

Ptolemy lie would have denomin

a

e

[ it after that

writer Apy;

p

the asterism of Argo.

Mr.Bryant has slightly mentioned from this author

that by Orion the Persians

usu lly

understand im

rod and that

n

altar formed part of the ancient sphere;

but

he might

have gone farther than this and in the

signs of the zodiac and the constellations of the south-

em hemisphere in particular have discovered many

other striking circumstances relative to the early post-

diluvian ages. The ample notes which Dr. Hyde

has added to this work of ULUG BEG upon every one

of the forty-eight constellations into which the ancients

divided the visible heavens with the enumeration of

their several Oriental appellations in Chaldee Hebrew

Persian and Arabic with large extracts from the

writings of various Asiatic astronomers exhibit an

inestimable treasure of intelligence in this line of sci-

ence which seems never before to have been suffi-

ciently attended to by the Eastern antiquary or the

historian of Asiatic events. Surely if the ancient

Greeks had the f

olicy

to adapt their mythologic de-


17/32

PRErACE. x

the moderns should have the

honesty

to restore to the

Chaldeans, what it is evident ori

gi

nally belonged to

them, and what I am of opinion can be proved to

allude to the primitive history of mankind. The whole

of the fifteen southern constellations, probably the first

delineated on the celestial sphere, appear to me to afford

an illustrative commentary upon, and to yield decisive

testimony to the truth of

THE TEN FIRST CHAPTERS

OF GEF.SIS.

For, in memorial of what other events,

except of those important ones that engrossed the

grateful admiration of the post-d iluvian fathers of man -

kind, were placed in the heavens, first, the constella-

tion of

NAVIS,

or the ship;

secondly,

ARA,

or

the altar

with its vast body of fire and smoke ascending near the

Triangle, that remarkable Egyptian symbol of Deity,

I mean of the

NUMEN TRIPLEX;

thirdly, the

SACRIFICER,

whom the Greeks for a reason which I shall hereafter

explain) denominated Chiron, the centaur; fourthly,

the

BE ST

about to be sacrificed, improperly called

inpus

Since Ptolemy uses the term

oc

and the Arabian ap-

pellative of the constellation is translated

fera by Dr.

Hyde; fifthly,

CORVUS,

or the raven; sixthly

CRATER,

or the

cup of libation

called by the Egyptians

rater

lenficu

s

Osiridis Y

and I trust that no truth can be more

indisputa

bly proved than that which I have laboured


18/32

X REFACE.

NOAH

are the same. Seventhly eighthly and njnth

l y w i t h r e s p e c t t o t h e

CANIS MAJOR

the

CANIS MINOR

and

LEPUS

that is, the g reater

nd

ss r dog

and the

l e a r e

situated

SO

near to Orion the

great and iniquitous

hunter both of men and beasts; I shall take the liberty

of inserting the illustrative words of my author himself.

Dr. Hyde tells us the

JEWS

call this constellation

Gibbor that is

gigas,

the gia nt.

He then adds

prop.

ter duas Ganes et Lep oreni qu sunt in vicini,

j

oe

t

b

lafi Oriona fuisse venationis studiosum: isque in ado

existens fiterit sicul .Niinrod Gibbor Sajici i.

e.

Gigas

seu p otens venatione coram Dom ino. In

this place I can-

not

but dissent from Dr. Hyde and think there is far

more truth than fable in

the

supposition that Orion

and Nimrod mean the same person. The whole of the

remaining constellations of the southern hemisphere

are composed of

aquatic objects or animals and may

be considered as pointedly allusive to a

GENERAL DE-

LUGE

at

least as

pointedly as

any of

the others can be

to the expe dition of the Argona uts.

So fir Dr. Hyde in his profound astronomical

commentary upon Ulug Beg was of use to guide my

adventurous step through this dangerous ground as far

as I know untrodden before;

.

and from this author

and the elegant version of the astronomy of Aifraganus

by the learned Golius I acquired such a knowledge


19/32

PREFACE

i

of the Persian and Arabian astronomy, as enabled me

to 1)rocecd with increasing confidence in this compli.

cated inquiry. The Egyptians, however, who, during

the revolution of so many centuries, devoted themselves

to the study of this science, and who were so univer-

sally celebrated as the most expert astronomers in the

ancient world, appeared to merit still more attentive

examination. Fortunately, in the second volume of

Kiiehicr s (Edipus igyptiacus, there is preserved that

invaluable relick of antiquity, copied from an original

in the museum of the Barhirini family at Rome, the

ancient sphere of the philosophic progeny of Mizrairn,

in many of the fabulous characters and hieroglyphic

delineations engraved upon it, totally different from

that of the Chaldeans, but still bearing each to the

other such a general feature of similitude, as to demon-

strate their originating in the fertile invention of the

same race, and their correspondence to the early events

of one common country. In my observation. upon

this sphere, I have remarked, that though Kircher

might be, in some instances, what Warburton repre-

sents him, a learned visionary, yet, as he was indefa-

tigable in procuring, from every quarter, the hierogly-

phic symbols of Egyptian knowledge, their genuineness


20/32

Xl

REFACE.

by dwelling at present on any particular instances that

might be brought to illustrate the forcgQing assertion,

but shall pass on to the cursory consideration of one or

two remarkable circumstances that struck my eye in

reviewing the solar and lunar zodiacs of India; in the

former of which there is, in. my opinion, a strong cor-

roborative testimony of that deluge which the Brahmins

so peremptorily deny ever to gave taken place in Hin-

dostan. It is in the sign Virgo, who, as Sir William

Jones observes on that zodiac, is drawn standing on

a boat in water, holding in one hand a lamp, and in

the other an ear of rice-corn;

51+

circumstances which

equally recall to our remembrance the Egyptian Isis,.

and the Eleusinian Ceres, with the nocturnal gloom

in which their rites were celebrated; as they

do the

awful event, which I have united my humble efforts

with Mr. Bryant to prove those rites depicted.

ith

respect to the

NAG SHATRA,

or mansions of the moon,.

which form the lunar zodiac, it is possible that the

argument I have brought to prove that this very curious

mode of measuring out the heavens, so totally foreign

to, and unknown in all the systems of European astro-

nomy, originated among the astronomers of India, may

be thought decisive: viz., that it could not be

orrowed

* See the Asiatic Researches, vol. II. P. 292.

t See Indian Antiquities, vol. H.


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PREFACE

iii

i imi

( Ii I( ki or Arabia, because the

t

iiar zodiac of

I itI,a consists, and ever did consist, of twenty-seven

mansions only ; while, according to Costard, that of

Chaldea, and, according to Hyde, that of Arabia, have

ever contained twenty-eight mansions: besides, the cu-

rious catalogue of animals and objects, almost all of

them peculiar to India, by which those mansions are

distinguished., such as the teeth of the elephant, sacred

an instrument used in their temples,

andindian

labors

affords additional proof of this assertion. One,

however, of the asterisms of that zodiac is not so pe-

culiarly Indian, since we find among the number an

oblation to the gods

noticed before ; which I as firmly

believe to be allusive to the offering of Noah, when he

descended from the ark, as I am convinced the

two faced

image

delineated on another, does to Noah himself,

the only true

anus bfrons

of the ancient world. How-

ever, in

my

history of the three first Indian Avatars,

I have been able to adduce far more decisive evidence,

relative to the general deluge, than can be collected

from any symbols, or displayed in any hieroglyphics

whatsoever.

One principal inducernent, next to motives of a more

important kind, for entering into this wide astronomi-

cal range, was thenxious wish by this means to throw

light upon the obscure annals and involved chronology


22/32

XiY

REFACE

of ancient India an object which has been effectually

obtained by it. To that important point I have di-

rected all the scattered rays of information which I

could collect in the course of these

r

esearches; and

although I have by this means been enabled I trust

successfully to combat the claims of the Brahmins to

such stupendous antiquity as that insisted on by them

yet have I not neglected at the same time to substan-

tiate every just and well ibundcd claim the Flindoos

can urge to superiority either in regard to their early

civilization or their rapid progress to perfection in

arts and sciences when those assumptions do not mi-

litate against all the received opinions and traditions

of mankind. Notwithstanding their absurd geogra-

phical notions which the reader will find exhibited

from Sanscreet authority in a future page yet there

is every reason from the doctrine of the

S V fl Superior

BOBUNS

or purifying spheres through which they

supposed the transmigrating soul to pass; and from

the CIRCULAR DANCE in

w

hich according to Lucian

in his treatise de Saltatione they worshipped the orb

of the sun; to believe they had in the most early pe-

riods discovered that the earth in form was

spherical

and that the

planets revolved round the sun

Besides the

knowledge of the true solar system which Pythagoras

rndst probably learned in India there is every reason


23/32

PREFACE .

V

to think that they were acquainted with spherical

trigonometry, and that something very much like the

Newtonian system of attraction and gravitation was

known among them.. Indeed, Sir William Jones seems

to confirm this, when he informs us, that ''the works

of YAAN ACHARVA are said to include a system of

the universe, founded on the principle of ATTRACTION

and the CENTRAL position of the sun, which I think

it is htr more likely Pythagoras learned of this philo-

sopher in India, than this Brahmin of Pythagoras in

Greece ;

for, to have gone thither, he must have re-

nounced the self-sufficient character of that haughty

tribe, and have violated a leading precept of the religion

and policy of Brahma. This very early knowledge of

the great fundamental principles of astronomy, seems to

be incontestably proved by a passage, which immedi-

ately follows in the third discourse of Sir William

Jones, that the names of the planets and zodiacal stars,

which the Arabs borrowed from the Greeks, are found

in the oldest Indian records. In short, while I have

anxiously endeavoured to do justice to the superior

claims to credit of the Mosaic system, I have been care-

fiil not to do the Bralimins injustice. 1 have that kind

of partiality which every historian possesses for the


24/32

Xvi

REFACE.

very partiality to record; but I trust it has seldom

misguided my judgment and in no instances falsified

my narration.

Many of the assertions in the preceding extract when

first made public had so much the air of romance and

in particular the idea of calling in the aid of astronomy

in corroboration of the Mosaic records I mean that

portion of them which details the events of the first

ages appeared so very eccentric to many of my readers

that they concluded the whole to be dictated by the

sole desire of establishing at all hazards a htvourjte

hypothesis; and while they gave me some credit f

or

ingenuity in forming it utterly rejected the conclu-

sions deduced from it. But express information hay-

ing since that period been received from India that a

more ancient sphere actually existed among the Brali-

mins and the cosmogony of Moses as well as all the

leading doctrines in the initial chapters of Genesis

having been proved to be consonant to the accounts

in Sanscreet histories investigated by Mr. Wilford

and others upon the spot and in short the system

being now clearly proved

to be the same

the detail of

Moses having been dictated as I contend by inspi-

ration and that in the Sanscreet records preserved

inviolate among other primeval traditions relative to

the old world at Casi or Benares my hypothesis


25/32

PREFACE

vii

will piobaby not now be looked upon as totally ro

mantic and visionary.

The hypothesis proposed was briefly this: that the

ancient patriarchs, for the purposes of agriculture as

well as for astronomical uses, had formed a sphere

;

that on this sphere were engraved various hieroglyphic

characters for hieroglyphics were the only written

language then known) ; that these hieroglyphic cha-

racters had, as is natural to be supposed, an imme-

diate allusion to the events most interesting, and most

important in the first ages of mankind; and that many

of them have descended unaltered, though obscured

by the veil of a different mythology, to the present

times. Our view of Oriental astronomical mythology

being thus enlarged, and our acquaintance with their

genuine historical records thus extended, I may, with

renovated confidence, repeat my assertion, that the

celestial Draco, or great polar dragon of the northern

sphere, shedding pernicious influences on man and

beast, is no other than the Evil Principle in nature per-

sonified, or, in other words, the Lucifer of Sacred Writ;

and that, in fact, it is the same dragon which the fabling

Greeks record to have guarded the golden apples in

the garden of the Hesperides, or Fortunate Islands, in

which islands time ancients almost universally placed


26/32

PREFACE.

ix

wild

J casts.

With respect to the other bianhs,f the

great post-diluvian family, who were all elevated to

sidereal honours, and shone forth from the respective

orbs to which they were exalted, in imagined benignity

or vengeance on the infatuated Sabian race, who bowed

to them the knee of servile adoration, I flatter myself

that in the seventh chapter of this volume, which is

devoted to the particular investigation of the original

Oriutal appellatives, and mythological history of the

seven planets, by a chain of evidence the result of la-

borious research, it is proved, as far as the argument

would .admit of

i 1

that toJ upiter the Egyptians

elevated the departed spirit of Hain, or Hammon

the founder of their nation, known by his symbol the

rain; that the virtuous Shern, after death, continued

still to shed on mankind a beneficent beam, in the

Mithra, or solar deity of his progeny the Persians

that Japhet, denominated the lord of the isles of the

Gentiles, was constellated in Canopus, the Egyptian

god of mariners, and the pilot of the sacred Bans, from

whom, in after ages, the Greeks borrowed the charac-

ter, constituting him their Neptune, or god of the

ocean; and that the renowned conqueror Belus, or

Bali, is the warlike genius which rolls in its orbit the

angry Mars. These most ancient and distinguished


27/32

XX

REFACE

of all who in future ages in Greece and Italy usurped

the respective appellations thus assigned them and

engrossed the honours which a more ancient nation

had decreed to their venerated ancestors.

The Egyptians were a race at once so immersed in

astronomical pursuits and so grossly addicted to that

species of symbolical worship which is one principal

source of mythology that the reader will not be greatly

astonished to find on the original Egyptian zodiac en-

graved in this volume the eight Dii Majores of that

superstitious nation recognized by the symbolical

animals respectively assigned them in their hierogly-

phic system of theology. But the European astro-

nomer can scarcely fail of being both surprised and

gratified while he contemplates the novel asterisms of

the Indian zodiac also engraved for public inspection

in this volume in which the planets are personified

and designated as carried round their orbits on animals

intended to express their tardy or rapid revolutions.

Thus the Sun is mounted on a lion to mark the ardour

and fierceness of his beam: the Moon on an antelope

to denote the rapidity of her progress; Mercury on a

hawk a bird whose soaring wing explores the highest

region of ether while its unciazzled eye gazes sted-

fastly on the orb of day shining in meridian splen-

dour. Mars armed with a sabre is borne on a war-


28/32


29/32

Xxii

REFACE.

brethren in the higher orders of the establishment, serl-

timents of just indignation at the insults offered to that

profession, and indeed to the whole Christian church,

by the insinuations of M. Volney, and other

pro

f

ess

e

infidels of the age, that the noble system of the national

theology rests upon no better basis than an E

gy

ptian

Allegory, relative to the introduction of evil into the

world; that the fabulous Crishna of India should be

represented, both in name, character, and themir

des imputed to him by a superstitious people, as the

prototype of the Christian Messiah ; that in a

hypothesis relative to the celestial Virgo, and the

U1l

rising in that sign, the immaculate

CoflCel)tiOfl

should

be ridiculed, the stupendous event of the

resu rrection

scoffed at, and the Sun of righteousness be degraded to a

level with his creatures. I will not propagate the conta-

gion, by referring either to the work, or the page in

which these dreadful blasphemies are tobe found. But

the fact is notorious, and the result of the continued

diffusion of such pernicious doctrines must be the dis-

ruption of all the bands of human society, which

a

wful

and recent experience instructs us cannot exist without

the sanctities of religion. I must again assert my perfect

coincidence with the opinion of Sir William,jones,

whom an inlimate acquaintance with the mythology

* See that opinion cited in this volume, at P. 49.


30/32


31/32

ADDENDA.

THE season for publication having arrived before the

names of the Subscribers to this work could be col-

lected and arranged the list ot them is necessarily

postponed till the appearance of the next Volume

;

but it would be the highest ingratitude in the Author

not to acknowledge in this place the continued kind-

ness of the Lord Bishop of London and the Earl of

Harborough by whose liberality the present produc-

tion not less than the Indian Antiquities has been

greatly forwarded: and it would be the extreme of

injustice to a deserving but misrepresented Prince at

the present crisis to omit mentioning that a work pro-

fessedly undertaken in defence and illustration of the

national religion has been honoured with the sanction

of the august name of the Heir Apparent to the British

throne; communicated by an obliging friend of this

work Thomas Hammersley Esq.

L/iper .Jforton-streel

1st

Aug

795.


32/32

CONTENTS

PRELIMINARY CHAPTER.

Containing the Substance of a

LETTER

published in 1790, and addressed

to the

HONOURABLE COURT OF DIRECTORS OF fIlE EAST-INDIA

COMPANY:

exhibiting both a general

PROSPECTUS

of the ensuing His-

TORY,

and a particular Account of the several

AUTHORS referred to in

the Course of it

;

with the answer of their Secretary: respectfully submitted

to the Consideration of the present

HQNOURABLE

Courr.

age

BOOK

I.

COMPRISING THE PERIOD BETWEEN THE CREATION AND THE FLOOD.;

AND CONSISTING CHIEFLY OF ANCIENT ASTRONOMICAL DETAILS.

PART I.

CHAPTER I.

Of the Jljndoo Cos

M O C O N

vVarious Accounts of it indifferent S

ST R S

1

few of those Accounts submitted to the ReaderSome striking Cir-

cumstances of Similarity

between the

HINDOO

the

HEBRAIC

the

PH

NICIAN,

the

EGYPTIAN,

and

GRECIAN

Systems of the

COSMOGONY

pointed out, as in their Account of the

INCUMBENT WIND, or

SPIRIT

agitating the

ABYSS;

O f WATER

being the

PRIMEVAL ELEMENT;

of

the

MUNDANE EGG

;

and of the Principle of

GENERATIVE

LovzOf

the

CREATION

of the four great

CASTS

or

TRIBES.

. 47

CHAPTER II.

The

C1 itO NO LOGY

of the

BR AIIM INS

extensively considered.-The Doctrine

Documents

History of Hindustan (SAMPLE)