6. Thou bathest in pure water, consisting of the blood of Cshatriyas, the world, whose offences are removed, and who are relieved from the pains of other births*. O Cesava, assuming the form of Parasa Rama, be victorious, O Heri, Lord of the Universe.

7. With ease to thyself, with delight to the Genii of the eight regions, thou scatteredst on all sides in the plain of combat the dæmon with ten heads. O Cesava, assuming the form of Rama Chandra, be victorious, O Heri, Lord of the Uni

verse.

8. Thou bearest on thy bright body, a mantle shining like a blue cloud, or like the water of Yamuna, tripping towards thee through fear of thy furrowing ploughshare. O Cesava, assuming the form of Bala Rama; be victorious, O Heri, lord of the Universe.

9. Thou blamest, O wonderful, the whole Veda, when thou seest, O kind-hearted, the slaughter of cattle prescribed for sacrifice. O Cesava, assuming the body of Buddha; be victorious, O Heri, Lord of the Universe.

10. For the destruction of all the impure, thou

Denoting that those who believe in the revealed religion of their incarnate God, Parasa Rama, would be exempt from transmigration, to which others were subject.

drawest thy cymetar like a blazing comet, how tremendous! O Cesava, assuming the body of Calci, be victorious, O Heri, Lord of the Universe!

These ten Avataras, our author proceeds to inform us, "are by some arranged according to the thousands of divine ages in each of the four ages. And if such an arrangement were universally received, we should be able to ascertain a very material point in the Hindu Chronology, I mean the birth of Buddha; concerning which the different pundits, whom I have consulted, and the same pundits at different times, have expressed a strange diversity of opinion. They all agree that Calci is yet to come, and that Buddha was the last considerable incarnation of the Deity. But the astronomers of Varanes place him in the third age, and Rhadacanta insists that he appeared after the thousandth year of the fourth. The learned and accurate author of the Dabastin, whose information concerning the Hindus is wonderfully correct, mentions an opinion of the pundits with whom he had conversed, that Buddha commenced his career ten years before the close of the third age. And Goverdhana of Cashmir, who had once informed me that Crishnu descended two centuries before Buddha, assured me, lately, that the Cashmerians admitted of twenty-four years. Others

allow only twelve between these two divine persons. The best authority, after all, is the Bhagavat itself; in the first chapter of which, it is expressly declared, that Buddha the son of Jina would appear at Cicata, for the purpose of confounding the dæmons just at the beginning of the Calijug; so that on the whole we may safely place Buddha just at the beginning of the Cali age. But what is the beginning of it? When this question was proposed to Rhadacanta, he answered, of a period comprising more than four hundred thousand years, the first two or three thousand may reasonably be called the beginning. On my demanding written evidence, he produced a book of some authority, composed by a learned Goswami, and entitled Bhagavatamrita, or the Nectar of the Bhagavat, on which it is a metrical comment, and the couplet which he made from it deserves to be cited. After the just mentioned account of Buddha in the text, the commentator says he became visible, the thousandth and second year of the Cali age being past; his body of a colour between white and ruddy, with two arms, without hair on his head."" From the above (as the author conceived) contradictory accounts, he proceeds to comment, by saying, "If the learned Indians differ so widely in their account of the age, when this ninth Avatara appeared in their country, we

may be assured that they have no certain chronology before him; and may suspect the certainty of all the relations concerning even his appear

ance."

Here we have a hasty conclusion, as illiberal as it is unjust. The least attention to the originals, from which these quotations were translated, would have explained the seeming mystery, and reconciled the several appearances of the several Buddhas with the text of Scripture.

First, our author does not seem clearly to understand the difference between an Avatara, and an incarnation of the Deity. Of the former, the Hindus believe in an infinite number: Of the latter, certainly they believe but in one, among the nine principal Avataras which are past. An Avatara denotes a man of eminent piety; a man highly endowed by the Almighty with religious knowledge. In like manner as Elias, or Elijah, and others, were called the men of God. In the instance before us, the appellation is used to distinguish the patriarchs of the pious race of the Sun, or Seth, from those of the idolatrous race of the Moon, or Cain. Had these Avataras, in the sense in which Europeans commonly understand them, been placed according to the divine ages, in arithmetic proportion, it would have amounted to a proof, that they were fabulous. For who can

seriously suppose, that a divine incarnation, or even prophetic knowledge, was diffused by the Almighty at stated periods, governed by mathematical principles? But considered in their true light, as the eminently pious descendants of Seth, the patriarchs of the antediluvian world, they are correctly placed in such proportion: because the number of centuries in each age agreed with the number of Avataras; and the dates of the births of the patriarchs according to the Mosaic account bear to one another a similar ratio. Secondly, "they are by some arranged according to the thousands of divine ages, in each of the four human ages." They may be so arranged by some European authors. But no Hindu could so arrange them. For the aggregate of the four human ages, or 4320000 years, is considered but as one divine age, or 1200 years; and the Hindus are too well versed in mathematics, to produce thousands of divine ages from a period that comprises just a tenth part of one, or the fourth age. The Avatars as arranged by Jayadeva, have no allusion to proportion or time. They are placed according to historic record, detailing the blessings that Nara the great God of hosts conferred on mankind, from the creation to the deluge. Accordingly he makes the prophecy of Enoch, in the Sap'heri, or fish Deity, the first: and Buddha, or Noah who was