880 to 890 years of 360 days, from the creation. The Hindus represent the Deity, when he delivered the prophecy in the form of the Sap'heri or fishdeity: Eusebius represents him as a fish endowed with divine intellect. According to Dowe, when he wrote, the two principal Sastras were more than 4800 years old; which carries them back nearly six hundred years before the deluge. These are considered by the Hindus as the production of the second Menu; Menu the son of the first created or Seth. They are considered as an abridgment of the sacred Veda, or revealed religion promulgated by the Deity in an incarnate form, about the close of the third age; which answers to the account of Bedavius. Possibly Mr. Dowe carries the Sastras too far back. But it meets the belief of the Hindus, that they were compiled by the son of Swayambhava, from the revelations of Buddha, immediately after his ascension, which took place at the close of the first night of Brahma, or his day of 24 hours; which answers to the translation of Enoch A. M. 988. This incarnation of the

Deity is described as follows:

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Buddha, the author of happiness and a portion of Narayen, the Lord Haree-sa, the preserver of all, appeared in this ocean of natural beings at the close of the Dwapar, and beginning of the Calijug: He who is omnipresent, and everlast

ingly to be contemplated; the Supreme God, the Eternal ONE, the divinity worthy to be adored by the most pious of mankind, appeared with a portion of his divine nature." Jayadeva describes him as bathing in blood, or sacrificing his life to wash away the offences of mankind, and thereby to make them partakers of the kingdom of heaven. Can a Christian doubt that this Buddha was the type of the Saviour of the world? Abul Pharagius says "Enoch was an observer of the pure commands of God, he did that which was good, and avoided that which was evil, and continued in the worship of God to the end of his life." The ancient Greeks are of opinion, that this Enoch was Hermes; who is called Trismegistus, or "the author of a threefold doctrine; because he describes God, by his three essential attributes, his existence, his wisdom, and his life;" which corresponds with the original creed of the Hindus *. "The Arabians call him Edris, and it is reported, that there were three men who were called by the name of Hermes, of whom, this is the first, who dwelt in Sais, who was the first of all men who treated of the heavenly substances, and admonished the old world concerning the flood. The second was the Babylonian Hermes,

* See the beginning of the last Letter.

who dwelt in Calvada a city of the Chaldeans, and flourished after the flood, and was the first after Nimrod, the son of Cush, who built a city in Babylon. The third is Hermes the Egyptian, who is called Trismegistus; that is, the greatest of the great'. But the Zubii think, that Seth the son of Adam was the Egyptian Agathodæmon, and instructor of the first Hermes; that Asclepiades was one of those kings who was instructed by Hermes, and that he was made by him a governor of the fourth part of the then habitable world ; the same that, after the flood, was possessed by the Greeks." This account is nearly literally the same with that of the Hindus, who insist that the son of the first created was the inventor of letters, the author of the Sastras, the instructor of Rama, and the original organizer of Astronomy, which was subsequently brought to perfection by Buddha. And so say the Jews, for although they consider Enoch the first, as the greatest astronomer, they suppose Seth, the son of the first created, to have been his instructor. So that the Hebrews, equally with the Hindus, believed the first Hermes, or Buddha to have flourished in the antediluvian world, in opposition to those modern authors, who suppose him to have been the sonin-law of Noah, Mercury, whom the Goths call Woden. Those who have any knowledge of the

worship enjoined at the Pagoda in Travancore, or of the annual festival held there in honour of the Trimouti, cannot hesitate to pronounce that the adoration of the Deity in Trinity, which is traced back for more than five thousand years, originated with Enoch: that the Hindus date their divine Veda, at the period when Bedavius supposes that the divine volumes were sent from heaven that they ascribe the Sastras to the same person, whom Elmachinus represents as the inventor of letters, is a presumptive proof that the same persons were intended and that the birth of the former being traced to A. M. 621*, amounts to a positive proof, that the Buddha celebrated by the author of the Dubistan, A. M. 878, was Enoch the son of Jared.

The third Buddha who flourished during the old and new world, who was to appear " at Cicata, for the purpose of confounding the dæmons, just at the beginning of the Cali age," could be no other than Noah, the son of Lamech, the Buddha of the ninth Avatar. We are now arrived at that period (the Cali age), when fictitious dates are rejected for Julian years. Noah was born in the hundred and fifty-sixth year of the Cali age; and, of a period which was to last 5000 years, the hundred and fifty-sixth might very correctly be termed the

* See the former part of this Letter.

commencement. The Bhagavat on this subject is clear and comprehensive. A prophet was to be born at the commencement of the fourth age*. His mission was to fulfil the prediction of the former Buddha, by confounding the dæmons. According to the Hebrews, Noah was born at the same period, and for the same purpose. He was not born to destroy the race of Cain. But, the race of Seth being preserved in him, the dæmons, or idolaters were confounded. Yet, with this record before him, Sir William Jones demands of Rhadacanta "written evidence;" who produces the Bhagavatamrita in proof that "this Buddha appeared after the thousand and second year of the Cali age." Now to refer for the Bhagavat to a metrical comment thereon, is as rational as referring for the Scottish history to Chevy Chace. And to infer that Noah, or Buddha the son of Jina, who lived 950 years, could not have appeared at Mugadha A. M. 1902, because he was born at Cicata A. M. 1056, is just as rational, as it would be to assert that this author could not have appeared in India A. D. 1788 (where he wrote this account), because he was born in London a. D. 1746. However, in this instance it so happens, that the Bhagavat is confirmed by the metrical comment thereon. For the author of the latter,

*See Account of the Avatars, in the former part of this Letter.