The five Calpas or days being

Years.

5000

The eleven Menwantaras, or 11 x 71.. 781 The thirty-five divine ages so many years. 35 Total completed years.... 5816

=

Sir William Jones is mistaken in stating the reigns of fourteen Menus as one day of Brahma : thirty years are added to the sum of the fourteen Menwantaras that constitute the reign of the Menus; those Menwantaras being of Savan years. Sir William probably calculated on that of the Surva Sidhenta, which was altered by Meya to 308448000, or a year of 357 days; 357 x 14 = 4998, which corresponds with the Maha. A Menwantara, or 587 × 14, 11998; whereas the Savan year in which the Hindu cypher is kept, gives 4970, to which 30 is added to avoid the fraction of 2, which would have ruined their whole cypher. This will appear from the following examples: As a thousand years denote a day of Brahma, and as five of those days are past, answering to 5000 years or the great day, we are to find what proportion of the sixth we are now in: reduce 14 Menwantaras, and 30 years, to the lowest term 14 x 355 +30= 5000; this number is multiplied by the Matires contained in one day of 24 hours; thus 5000 × 864000 = 4320000000: this in fact being but one year, we must multiply by the excess over

the last thousandth year, or eight hundred and seventeen years, and divide by a thousand. Thus 4320000000 x 817 1000 = 3529440000; which again divided by 306720000, the number of suppositious years contained in a Menwantara, gives eleven Menwantaras, and a fraction of 155520000, which reduced by a divisor of 4320000, the number of suppositious years in a divine age, gives 36 divine ages; for example:

As one thousand years are equal to a day of Brahma, what portion of the current day expired A. D. 1815, or A. M. 5817?

as 1000 4320000000 :: 817 11 Menwantaras, and 36 divine ages.

4320000000

817

(306720000 (4320000

1000) 3529440000000 (3529440000 (11 155520000 (36de Answer 11 Menwantara, and 36 divine ages.

An Hindu, for the purpose of making the calculation more intricate, would multiply by the preceding year 816, and add for the current one three human ages, and that portion of the fourth or Cali age, which was past: I have given you these calculations to explain the Hindu system. But you are too good a mathematician not to know that the answer may be obtained by dividing the given number of years, or excess over the thousands, by

seventy-one; thus 81771

36

11

17

European authors on this subject, seem to think every feather plucked from an Hindu, a plume in their own cap; and actually quarrel for pre-eminence in intolerance. In the 1st volume of Maurice's History of Hindostan, p. 141. he tells us, "that every Menu comprises not seventy-one, but only seventy Kulebs (divine ages) each containing four Jugs (human ages) or forty-three lacks and twenty thousand years *. *. In such an extensive scheme of chronology, however, a few thousands or even millions of years are not much to be regarded." If the reader should cry out, "where are we now then? In what particular portion of the boundless day of Brahma does the present race of human beings sojourn upon earth?" he shall receive an answer to his anxious inquiry in the unabridged words of the Ayeen Akbery: "Of this, which is the fifty-first year of the age of Brahma, there have been six Menus and of the seventh Menu, there have elapsed twenty-seven Kulebs, and three Jugs of the seventy-eighth Kuleb, and four thousand seven hundred years of the fourth Jug. But as this calculation was made two centuries ago, when Akber sat on the throne of India, these two centuries must be added to give the exact period of the Calijug: Risum teneatis amici ?"

* 4320000.

The ridicule assuredly does not attach to the Hindus, however it may reflect on the commentator, who might have answered the anxious enquiries of his readers by informing them, that, according to Hindu reckoning, they were then in the year of the world 5797, and that the secretary of Akber wrote in the year 5600: the Akbery treats of the Maha Menwantara, which consists of 857 instead of 71 years; and the divine age of 24* instead of one year. According to Hindu reckoning, when the Akbery was written, six Menwantaras, 19 divine ages, and one month, were past. But as the secretary changed the common Menwantara from 71 to 70, so would there be a difference of about eight Mahas, divine ages, in 5600 years. The numbers as given by the Brahmans, are always correct, and easily reduced to real time. For example:

Years.

Six Menwantaras of 857 years, or 857 x 65142 Nineteen divine ages of 24 years, or 19 × 24 = 456 Two Parouvans, or half months..

2

Years 5600

As the Maha divine age contains twenty-four years, so does the Parouvan represent one year, or the twenty-fourth part of that age. An Hindu, therefore, says, nineteen ages and one month become a common Parouvan; or the half month is to a

common year, as the Maha Parouvan, or one year, is to a Maha divine age, or twenty four-years: We cannot suppose that the learned author of the Ayeen Akbery was either deceived, or meant to deceive. We may, however, conjecture that although he gave this date, according to the Maha Menwantara he calculated on the same proportion that governed his current one, or seventy to seventy-one; which would bring his calculation to meet those of the Hindus, who calculate on the Savan year of three hundred and fifty-five days, instead of the prophetic one of three hundred and sixty; and 355 × 71÷70-360. The author of the Akbery, having adopted the prophetic Menwantara *, of course stated that a Menwantara contained seventy divine ages; but he never said it "did not contain seventy-one :" and a very superficial knowledge of figures must evince, that the most trifling error would have overset the whole system. So far from "thousands and millions" in the extensive scheme of the Hindu cypher, the error of an unit cannot be discovered. For, however, the calculations are varied, they all bear to the same point, and end at the same period. Thus, the author of the Akbery rejects the Puranic Menwantara of 3067 20000 for the prophetic one of 311040000+; reducing the number of divine ages