the year of Christ, the numbers agree: 4888-5788; and 4000+17885788.

for 900+

But as

the period specified was the first year of the first age, the first year of time, it matters not in respect to identifying the first Menu, whether it was 3892888 or 5788 years before the year of Christ 1788 for, as it was the first year of the creation, neither the birth, nor the reign of the seventh* Menu, could have been dated therefrom. Again, "The Hindus insist that he reigned the whole of the golden age." The Hindus record, that he ruled uninterruptedly during the whole of the first age, or age of virtue. It has been shewn, and will be yet more fully proved, that from the return of Cain, stated at A. M. 420, constant feuds existed in the old world; and from that period, the commencement of the second age, the Hindus suppose one half of the world to have become corrupt, and that the virtues and vices were equal; that is, that the number of Cainites, or idolaters, equalled the Sethites, or true believers. "But," adds our author, they contend that he actually reigned on earth 1728000 years." A very limited capacity might discover, without the Hindus contending for

*The seventh Menu denotes the seventh in the race of the Sun, or Seth; the seventh independent of Adam, who was chief of both lines.

it, that as the golden age consisted of that number of years; if the Menu reigned the whole of the golden age, that he must have reigned 1728000 years; which in truth was only four hundred. But Rhadacanta divides the period of the undisturbed rule, from the total period of his reign. The text says, "the Menu ruled undisturbed during the whole of the first age, and ended his mortal career when the third age was completely ended:" denoting that the first four hundred years of the rule of the first-created, was exempt from those feuds, which afterwards rent the old world, and finally brought on the deluge. These are the assertions of the Hindus, which are represented as proofs "that they know nothing of their Sun-born Menu but his name, and the principal event of his life, the universal deluge." It is forgotten that, in the same tract, the same author recorded that "the Hindu writings were very diffuse on the life and posterity of their seventh Menu*," whom this writer supposes to be Noah. Both these accounts cannot be true. Perhaps neither of them is so. The Arabs affect to know more of this patriarch than any other nation; but even their knowledge is very superficial. That the deluge was wholly unconnected with the Menu who was born 3892888

See Letter I.

years before A. D. 1788 is certain; because he died at least seven hundred and twenty-five years before that event took place; and Sir William Jones, as we have seen, asserts that "from this Menu the whole race of mankind is supposed to have descended," proving that they were supposed to have descended from the first Menu or Adam: and it is observable that this author, who rests his whole argument on the name, Vaivaswata or Sun-born, informs us, in another tract (vol. III. p. 332.) that "the name of the seventh Menu was Satyavrata, whose patronymic name was Vaivaswata:" which is true; that being the patronymic of the whole race, and not assumed by this prince, until after the deluge; apparently to refute the Egyptian records found at Berytus, which implied that the other race had been preserved. Our author, presupposing, or determined, that this Menu should be Noah, to reconcile so palpable an absurdity; after stating that from him the whole race of men were believed to have descended, adds, "for the seven Rishis (saints) who were preserved with him in the ark, are not mentioned as fathers of families." Here we see the difficulty of supporting an hypothesis, which has not truth for its basis. This author, who tells us that the seven Rishis took their wives with them into the ark, that they were

named Casyapa, Atri, Vasishrha, Viswametra, Gaulama, Jamadagni, and Bharatwayu, that from Atri the Lunar, and from Casyapa the Solar race descended. For the purpose of supporting the absurd doctrine, that the Menu, who was created in the first year of the world, was the one taken into the ark, the same tract informs us, that the seven Rishis were not fathers of families. Every Hindu believes that the whole race of mankind descended from their first Menu: but no eastern nation attributes the peopling of the new world to one individual : it is most true, that the great saints Maha-shees, or precepts delivered by God in the early ages of the antediluvian world, and which the Almighty commanded to be taken into the ark, for the purpose of enlightening the postdiluvian world, were not considered fathers of families; but it is equally true, that the Hindus and Egyptians believe, that the chiefs of Brahmans " and attendants," which were taken by order of the Eternal • into the ark, were so considered. And the Chaldeans particularize the family and attendants of Sisuthrus, or Noah, as the persons by whom the new world was peopled. That Rhadacanta might have said, that "the Menu reigned only in the golden age, and disappeared in the three human ages that followed," is possible; because it appears an answer

to a specific question. For we are told, that "he mentioned this ridiculous opinion with a serious face;" it is evident therefore, that it was not found in his works: this opinion, no Hindu would have volunteered. But having said that the Antara of a Menu continued for seventy-one divine ages, and, as we were then in the 4888th year of the fourth mortal age of a divine age, probably he was asked, where is your Menu now? To such a question he could only answer "that the Menu was too sacred to reside in an age of sin;” in like manner as we answer children, when they propose questions, on which we deem it inexpedient to give information.

Having stated those circumstances which render it impossible that the princes of the Solar and Lunar dynasties could have descended from Noah, I insert their names with the comments, as given by Sir W. Jones (vol. IV. p. 24.)