English
Reuben Burrow, the life of ^prahmd himself consists of. 36,000 df his dayd, that is cycles, which, in fad, constitutes the presumed perjfd of the .long Efvolution of the heavenly bodies, the Annus Magnus of antiquity. Mr. Colebrooke, in the 9th volume of the Asiatic Researches, mentions a passage from Bhdscara, from, which it appears, that though the more corredt opinion^f a revolution, of the equinoftial points has been advanced, by some ;a\ithors, yet it .has not obt^njed'^hc general suffrage of writers on Hindu astronomy, j .31-6 P. 52. 1. 26. [aiove fix thousand years from^ the invaiion of ■ jilexander.'\ Atto jhev Js , Aiovutra, ^aa-iTicaf npjS/tsov IvJdt es AvJfo- xorotf fpEi;,' xai 'ffiVTnxovTa, xat sxwtoV irioc h ^o, ■ kou Tura-Oi^Kana KM Eiajcia-x'^'*"— Arrian in Indicis. P. 54. 1. 26, [a passage is Uierally quotediby Clemens ofAhx- andria from MegUsthenes.^ MEyosuflEVJif, o aviy^ai^ivq ra} tiXanan Tw NixoiToft o-Uju/Ss/Siuxiof, Ev Tn TfiTJi T( I>iJut(o wJe y^ai^Ej. A5ra.T' jiEV riEPI OTSEflS uf-njiaa wag* to(5 ajx*""S> ^sysTai xi ffaja toij Ta S'Ej ev t*j I^fpiix UTQ rm ko-Ku^svuv IaSto6*wv.— Clem. Alex. Strom* 1. 1 . Part of this passage is also quoted in the Prseparatio Evangelica of Eusebius. P. 56. 1. 9- [The principle on which this extravagant scheme is/ounded.} The followingskefch of the chronological scheme of the Brahmens may not , be unacceptable to those who are unacquainted with Indian literature. • The age of the world is divided by them into four grand periods, which they call Yugs, the Satya Vug, or the age of purity and truth; the Treta Vug;- or the age in which the third part of , mankind be- came reprobate ; the Dwapar Yiig, or the age in which half the human race became depraved; and the present age, or Call Yjig, in which the whole of mankind' became depraved or lessened. In each of these Yugs the length of human life is diminished, in a subdeouple ratio, from a hundred thousand years j in eaoh, the number of avatars, or descents of the Divi- nity, decreases arithmetically, and the number ■ of years de- creases geometrically ; and altogether constitute the extrava- vagant sum of four million, three hundred and Iwenlty thou- sand years : which aggregate, multiplied by seventy one, is the penod in which every Menu is believed to preside over the world. The reign of fggrteen Menus constitutes a day of 3rahma ; €aoh Manu, the^snppose, transmits -his empire to his sons and grandsons -^uring a period o£ seventy one divine ages ; and such a period they name a ManwarUarft; but since fourteen multiplied by seventy orle are not quite a thousand, we must conclude that six divine ages are allowed for intervals between the Manwantaras, or for the twilight of Brahma s day. 'Thirty such <lays oi; Calpas constitute in their opiniou, a memth of Brahn^ twelve such months one of his ycgrs, and an hun- dred such years, his age, of which age they assert that fifty years are elapsed. 317 _P.58. I., [the fourth tera, ot- the present age] The be- ginning of the Call Yug is reckoned from two hours, twenty- seven minutes, and thirty seconds, of the moraingWthe l6th of February, 3102 years before the Christian aera ; but the time for which the astronomical tables of the Hindus are con- strufted, is 2 days, 3 hours, 32 min. and 30 sec, after that, or the 18th of February i about six in the morning. P. 62. 1. 18. [A second hypothesis that on the supposition] The. following is the substance of a paper, published in the Monthly Magazine for June 1796, on the antiquity of the Zodiac, After observing that the retrograde motion of the equinoxes takes place at the rate of one degree in 72 years, the authorlays it down as certain, that the zodiac must have been invented and named it some period, when" the solstice occurred during the Sun's stay in Cancer, and the equinox in Libra ; the former alluding to the retrograde motion which the Sun seems at that time to assume, and the latter to the equipoise of day and night occurring at each equinox. The signs of the Zodiac then must have come into use, either about goo years before the Christian sera, when the summer solstice fell in the isth degree of Cancer,; or about 13,860 years before the Christian aera, when the winter solstice fell in Cancer, and the vernal equinox in Libra. No interme- diate period will account' for ■ the choice of these two em- blems. After stating many facts, tending to shew the impro- bability of the latter, and more remote date, the author' proceeds: Probably the whole Egyptian-natiou, but certainly their civilizers came from the remote east, suppose Guzerat. The resemblance between the Colchians and the Egyptians, insisted' upon by Herodotus, may best be explained by supposing them to ,haTe ' radiated froma common centre, farther east than Babylon. The lotos was consecrated- by the Egyptians as a type of produftio^, generation and fertility, while the only species of lotos adapted for this emblem, is to be found in Hindustan, and is so consecrated in the religion of thatcountryi The Egyptians then had at least common instruftors with the nations of the Deccan, As amo;ig these nations the same zodiacal signs, in the same order are intro- duced, the inference seems inevitable that all these things deritre their origin fjom some primeval nation. The following extradt from tme sRMnaniala of Sripeti is found in Sir Wm^ Jones's dissertation on the Indian Zodiac. " The sheep, bull,: crabf lion, and .scorpioTt,. have the figures of these animals- • 318 respeftively. The pair, are a dan^sel playing on a Fina, and' a youth wifelding a mace. The virgin stands -in a boat in water, holding in one hand a lamp, and in the" other an ear of rice.^— The balance is held by a weigher with a weight in one hand. The bow by an archer, whose hinder parts are like those of a horse, The sea monster has the face of an antelope. The ewer is a water pot borne on the shoulder of a man, who emp- ties it. The Jishes are two with their heads turned to each other's tails ; and all these are supposed to be in suth places as suit their sevefal natures." Now what should forbid detefting in this oriental jodiac, a natural calendar' of some primeval nation, and construfted only 9OO years before Christ? It will suffice to assign an hypothetical situatiop to this'nation, in the Penjab, in the highest parts "of the Sind, or the Ganges, where rice can be cultivated. ' The ram or the lamb (as the Persians call this sign) may have denoted the time for beginning -to kill and eat the young sheep. The bull that of ploughing in the seed. The pair mark the age of growth . The crab is the sol • stitial period of summer. The lion extreme heat. The vir- gin is the time of sowing rjce, which is performed by women, who lay the steeped grains on a plank, and let them fall into the water, in order that they may grow up in straight lines. The balance is the autumnal equinox now. The scorpion marks a period of contagion., The archer the season for hunting. The monster, half atitelope, haUjiih, may express the passage of the year from a windy to a wet weather. The bucket describes the time for flooding the rice meadows^; and the_fishes the month of spawn. P. 64. 1. 5. [Could the point be more unequivocally ascertained^ It must be a matter of doubt, for instance, w'hether the sign luibra may have a reference:tp the equinox, or to the mensura- tion and weighing of comniodities. If the hypothesis be just, that the zodiac was originally meant to dssignatea rural calen- dar, we should suppose.the latter. In the description of the 'iQ Dreschands translated from ^rflAamz/ijrrfj treatise on ' the casting of nativities, entitled Vrihat lafaca, by Mr. Colebrooke; almost all the emblems are natural. The Hindits, like the Babylonians and Egyptians, divide eaph fetgn into three parts, and allot to every such part a regent, ^xerojjing a planetary in- fluence under the particular planet jivhom he there represents. The sign Libra, in the iirst part of this triple division, is thus described [Venu s] , "ft. man is proceeding along the jniddle *' of a highway, holding a balance and having weights in his 319 " hand ; he is skilled in measuring and meting, and meditates " on commodities and their prices." — Asiat. Res. vol. g, p.270. P. 64. 1.5. [The Egyptian aster isms are the ?nost mylholo- logical.'] For a description of the asterisms of the oriental and other ancient spheres, see Maurice's Ancient History of Hin- dostan, vol. 1. . P. 86. 1.4. They compiile ten principal descents,"] Though the Hindus believe in innumerable descents, or special inter- positions of Providence, yet they reckon ten principal avalaras or descents. They are tlius described in order as they are supposed to occur, in the following ode of layadeva^ the great lyric poet of India : I. Thou recoverest-the Veda, in the water of the ocean of destrudtion, placing it joyfully in the bosom of an ark fabri- cated by thee, O Cesava, assuming the body of a fish. Be victorious, O Heri, Lord of the Universe, II. T!he earth, placed on the point of thy tusk, remains fixed, like the figure of a black antelope on the moon, O Cesava, assuming the form of a boar. Be viftorious, O Heri, Lord of the Univpse. , III. Tlie earth stands firm on: thy immensely broad back, which grows larger frpm the calliis, occasioned by bearing that vast burden, OCe,faiiaJ assuming the form of a tortoise. Be viftorious,, O Heri, Lord of the Universe. IV. . The claw with a stupendous point on the exquisite lotos of thy hop's paw, is the black 'bee, that stung the body of the embowelled Hiranyacasipu, O Cesava, assuming the form of a man-lion. Be vidloriQUSi . O /fen, Lord of the Universe. V. By thy power thou beguilest Bali, O thou miraculous .