from the Jews, and which it would be very difficult to persuade an Hindu to believe. For the Hindus consider the curse entailed on the posterity of Ham by the Almighty, to have been in consequence of their dereliction of the Sacred writings. This author collected his names from Mr. Wilford. But where he found them in the postdiluvian world, it is difficult to say. Japetus is certainly a Grecian name, and is as such introduced in the great Titanian war of the old world. Of Sherma and Charma, Maurice informs us, that from the latter descended the great tribe of Khettri or Kuttri, which he renders Cuthites or Cushites; and he proceeds to inform us, that "the Cuthite line of Charma having by force of arms, seized upon the portion of the Shermites or children of Shem, the deity descended in the form of Parasa Rama*, and totally destroyed the Kustri or Cushite race of Charma ;" and this transaction he places prior to the year B. c. 3100; independent of which, as he has no hesitation in pronouncing Rama of the seventh Avatar to be the same with Parasa, and each to represent Raamah of Scripture, Raamah the son of Cush, his elaborate comment goes

* Para denotes 'holy, free from sin.' The passage alluded to, denotes the hostilities between the dynasties of the Sun and Moon; the Shermites being the descendants of Seth not Shem.

to prove, that the Deity became incarnate in the son Raamah, to destroy the father Cush, and the whole Cushite or Kuttri race; a race which he just before "trusted he had satisfactorily evinced were the most immediate and noble descendants of the great Satyavrata." A race so virtuous, that the Deity deigned to become incarnate therein, for the purpose of instructing mankind in the rudiments of virtue and piety, both by precept and example. Should we get over this incongruity, we must have recourse to the system of metempsychosis, to people Ethiopia; for if we give credit to our own Scripture, we find the Cushites, which we translate Ethiopians, who were near the Arabians, concerned in the revolt of the Philistines, so late as the year B. c. 893 ; which was at least 2200 years after Mr. Maurice destroyed the whole Kuttri or Cushite race together with their sire, Cush the son of Charma or Ham; Ham being supposed by him, to be an abbreviation of Cham*, and Cham an abbreviation of Charma.

It is extraordinary that two authors, each of whom commences by affirming the genealogical table of the Sun and Moon to be fabulous, should

* Cham is the name given by the Chinese, to the eldest son of the First Created.

severally endeavour to produce arguments to prove from that very genealogy, that the Hindus sprang from that son of Noah, whom they are known to hold in utter abhorrence for having introduced human sacrifices, and a system totally incompatible with, and subversive of, their religion and mild institutions. We must, therefore, suppose, however these authors ridicule and decry the Solar and Lunar dynasties, that a latent spark existed in their minds, proving the truth of the genealogy, which they were unable to explain. The one who affirms, that "the dynasties of the Egyptians were like the children of the Sun and Moon of the Hindus, either the revolutions of celestial bodies, or owing their origin to oriental vanity and fiction," has no hesitation in asserting in direct opposition to the belief of the Hindus, that Icshwacu, who appears at the head of the Solar dynasty," was the first of Noah's posterity known in India: for that partly in his own name, but more particularly in those of his two sons, and successors in the Indian empire, Vicucshi and Cucutst❜ha, we recognise the first great Patriarch's family of Sacred Writ; after the most distinguished chief of which, the whole country was called Cush'a Dwapa." And then, as if to render the text yet more obscure, he states, that, "if the progeny of this Menu were not wholly allegorical,

they were antediluvian, for Chrishnu being the Apollo of India, was doubtless Jubal, the son of Lamech of the race of Cain: for the Scripture states Jubal as the father of all such as handle the harp and organ*;" thereby destroying that which he represents as the most noble race from Noah, together with their incarnate God, by the general deluge. We may safely defy any nation in the known world to surpass this in absurdity. The arguments brought forward by the other (Sir William Jones) are not less exceptionable. For, after comparing the whole genealogy, to the tales of Troy, and of the Argonauts, he boldly pronounces the epoch at which the Cali age is fixed, to be misplaced; furnishing three tables with a view to prove those, he had termed visionary dynasties, to be the descendants of Noah; and the children of the Sun, the offspring of Cush; and, after telling us, that the pedigree of Yudhishthir was "just as absurd in civil history, as the descents of the two regal families from the Sun and Moon," informs us, that the successor of Yudhishthir the contemporary of Vrihadbala the thirty-ninth in descent from Rama, and eighty-fifth from Icshwacu, whom he believes to be the son of Cush" is allowed without controversy to have reigned between the

* Maurice, vol. I. p. 433.

brazen and earthen ages, and to have died at the setting in of the the Cali age. So that if the pundits have made a right calculation of Buddha's appearance, that period, or fourth age, must have began about a thousand years before the birth of Christ, and, consequently the reign of Icshwacu.” Cush, the son of Noah, "could not have been earlier than four thousand years before that great epoch." Now it is observable, that the Hindus do not pretend that the reign of this prince commenced at so early an epoch as the year B. C. 4000. On the contrary, they suppose him to have become a ruler over a province at the beginning of the second age, which commenced 3602 years before Christ; and to have become a Menu more than a century after the Cali age began. So that the reign of Icshwacu is not even supposed by the Hindus to have began earlier than the year B. c. 2950, when he succeeded Swarochisa and assumed the name or epithet of Auttama. Swarochisa was the son of the first created, named Swayambhuva; Seth the son of the first created, named Adam: Icshwacu as Auttama succeeded Swarochisa: Enos succeeded Seth, and became a sovereign in succession in A. M. 1043, which was forty years more than a century after the Cali age began. So that according to the calculations of the pundits, and the astronomers at Varanes, neither Buddha nor