English
Is it not probable^ that among the various an- cient, writers who have treated on India, there W0uld have been some intimation of a chiionolo- gical scheme, which, however, it may ^exceed the bounds of sober belief, would have been too xe- markable to be passed over in silence? While the accounts of ancient and modern, .writers agre^ in so njany points, why do they ;differ in this ?— WhUje the portraiture ofBrahminism is (delineated with singular corre£lness by the, Grreciao hi^to- rians, not only in its broad outldnfis, which nuight be obtained .friOffi a dastajjt a©d, indistiii£t view, -tbtit in those nice and <}^lica^ touches, which ^miUiSt have been the effeft of ijitimate acquaint- ance, and of aceufate discritxiinaitiop, is it wot .extraordinary, /that, what now constitute^ so prO' ioiioent a feature in the Hindoo chajaflier, shoyld entirely disappear, or rather shonld appear in a coloiiring .50 totally different ?;,., 54 But here an objeftion may be urged, that a detached fragment, from a mutilated werk, affords but a feeble support to this conclusiori j and that, if the entire journal of Megasthenes were in our ^possession, some admission might be found which would set' aside the inference attempted to be^ 'drawn frorh this solitary passage. , To, obviate this obje£lion, and to corroborate what has now been advanced, a passage is literally transcribed from Megasthenes by Clemens of Alexandria,' in which he' asserts,* that the Jewish and Indian nations professed to entertain the same ideas. Concerning the creation ' of the world and the origin of things." ' This similarity cannot be supposed wholly to refer to the doftrine of the Vedanti schoo],'that an universal chaos formerly existed^ that wSterwas the primitive element, and the first work ofCrea- 'tive power,' dofilrines equally maintained both by Indians and by Jews. There must, at that time, have subsisted some obvious and evident corres- pondence between the^ chronological systems of these two nations, which are now widely 'dis- ' similar and contradictory,' to have produced 'such a total agreement in their physiology. Indeed tbe ^ Clem. Ales,. Strom. 1. 1. See also Eu^eb. Frs|k. EvanS' 55 physiological tenets, and the extravagant calcu- lations of the Hindoos, afe insep^ifably, '.blended. If this latter passage from Megasthenes be com- pared with that cited by Arrian ; if six thousand years before the invasion of Alexander were the utmost limit ;^to which they ; then' attempted to trace their origin j iind should this method of stating the argument be just; the conclusion which necessarily results, while it shews that the religion of the Brahmins has suffered some mate- rial corruptions, not less cleijrly proves the agree- ment of 'all authentic records with the narrative' of the sacred historian* Thus then the external evidence, as far as it reaches, is decidedly adverse to the astronomical systeiri supported by -the modern Hindoos ; and the testimony, which has now been quoted, must be allov?ed to be unbiassed: it was given with no design to: support any favourite opinions, and therefore cannot be liable to any well-founded suspicion. This testimony indeed would not be conclusive, if contradifiled by the internal , evidence of the system, but, if that be examined, its authenticity will appear equally questionable. E 4 56 Thougli a difficulty may occur in fixing the precise period, when the reveries of fancy and fi£lipn were substituted by the Hindoos, in the place of historical truth ; yet it is certain, on the authority of a celebrated astronomer', that before the ninth century their chronology was as com- plete,- or perhaps entirely the same, as we find it at present. The principle on which this extravagant and romantic scheme is founded, consists in a division of the age of the world, into four grand periods of astonishing duration, each decreasing from the last in a regular progression. In each of them, as the human race has degenerated in piety and virtue, so the term of human existence has been proportionably diminished by' the divine decree. In each of them, the Divinity has been supposed to have manifested himself to the world, at diffe- rent times, under various forms j ,but far from appearing actording as the vices and necessities of mankind called for his interposition, his com- munications with' man have been less frequent, since man has been immersed in misery and sin_ When the present age of corruption has rolled through its circle, the age of ptirity will re^com- ' Albumazar. 37 mence, and thus these four periods will revolve in continual rotation, as they are supposed to have, often revolved before. On the principle of. this division, it has been judiciously observed, that the disposition of these ages is too artificial and regular, to be natural or even probable; and that men do not become reprobate in geometrical progression, or at the termination of regular and distin£l periods. The cohstru^ion however, seems to have been formed on ide^s, similar to those which dictated the four principal ages in the mythology of the western natipns ; ?0d it is a, striking proof of the unaHrer- sality iQf the tradition, however obscuced and corrupted, thi^t the human race was once piaeed in a happier stqt§ and that an inseparable connexion ejfisted between moral depravity and physical evil. With respeft to: the reality of the three first of these periods, in whiqh the gods descended from heaven in the }iksness of man, or rather when man In bodily stature and in mental attainments might aspire to the tftle pf d.Jvine ; the boldness of mo- dern hypothesis has never attempted to substaniti^ ate their reality : but has justly assigned their in-* vehtioa to that warmth of imagination, and lux- 59 uriance of fancy, which charafterise the fi£tiotig of the eastern world; Concerning the authenticity of the fourth sera'y ^ or the commencemeht of the present age of de- gradation, and which is, said to have taken placd about three thousand years* before' the birth of Christ, whatever difference of opinion might have Formerly prevailed on the subje6t, there now scarcely remains a doubt^ that its origin was not derived froni aftual observation, any more thart our Julian period. All that can be deduced from it is, that the inhabitants of Hindobstan have in- herited from .'their ancestors^ tolerably perfe£t rules for the calculation of the motions of the sun and planets : although they have lost all know- ledge of the principles on which they were found-' ed. , It is universally admitted that the Brahmins have formed, from retrograde calculation alone, another sera, decidedly fi£titious, and extending to more than twenty thousand years before the beginning of this fourth age ; "which affords a convincing proof of the facility with which these artificial periods may be ' constru6led, so as to describe the state of the heavens with a consider- able degree of correftriess. But, even if the reality of this sera be gratuitously ffi.C. 3102. •59 "admitted^ the admission cannot, in the slightest degree, afFe£t the truth of the Mosaical history .--' This sera will exceed by very little the Samaritan, and will fall short of the Septuagint computation from the 'flood, f' The chronological system of the Hindoos has indeed been vindicated, with singular infelicity, by thosefwho are so forward to ridicule the evils arising" from credulous superstition ; as if credulity would, in any case, be more ridiculously palpable, than when, with a grave and philosophical air, it embraces computations that know no iliraits, iand interprets literally the fidlions of oriental astronomy, y- i-y.ildm But whatever opinion may be formed concern- ing. the degree of credit due to these calctilations, but which j even if admitted to the extent which the warmest advocates of Indian antiquity desire, would not afFeft the truth of the Mosaical history ; still it has been insinuated, that there are other certain and evident proofs that the science, of astronomy must have been cultivated at a period far anterior to any, which will agree with ;the Scriptural history of the age of the world. ■'.:'■■'■'■'. ' \a:l? It is observable, that the Indian astronomers 6o i^ivide the Zodiac into twelve sigtis,, whose names, in their language, with a little variation, express the same symbols, with those which, we have received from the Greeks I who in their turn bor- rowed them from the Egyptians, While this circumstance incontestably shews, that there has ,.been a mutuation of science, as well as of lan- guage among the nations of antiquity; it also proves how very early the attention of mankind was direfted to the contemplation of the heavens. On what a slight foundation the presumed an- tiquity of these signs has been called in, to aid the cause of infidelity, it would be needless to mention. A subje£i; of regret may naturally oc- cur, that, in opposing these groundless assertions, we can but set conjefture against conjefture ; conjefture indeed more strongly fortified by pro- bable argument, as well as by positive fafts ; but, certainly not amounting to l^at strifltness of de- monstration, wbich is necessary to satisfy a cold scepticism, and still more to subdue an interested unbelief. But it is sufEcieiit, if, in an enquiry, so abstruse in its nature, and so difiasive in its extent, we can arrive at probability. Simple inspeftion would incline us to determine, that ,at whatever period, or in whatever country.