Table. When the year proposed, however, is the last of a Cycle, it will give the result a year short.

INDIAN ERAS.

Megasthenes, a native of Persia, who enjoyed the confidence of Seleucus Nicator, and of Sibyrtius, governor of Aracosia, (the modern Candahar and Gazni) was frequently sent by them on embassies to the court of Chandra Gupta, (called Sandrocuptos and Sandraccottus by the Greek historians) and also resided at the court of Porus. He wrote a history of Indian affairs, which is unfortunately lost, as from his country, his abilities, and his opportunities of conversing with the most learned and intelligent Hindus, we might have derived from it much authentic information on the subject. See Asiat. Research. Vol. V. p. 242, 290, &c.

In a fragment, however, preserved by Clemens Alexandrinus, he declares, that "the Hindus and the Jews were the only people who had a just conception of the creation of the world, and of the beginning of things;" and he states, that "the Hindus did not carry back their history and antiquities above 5042 years* and three months, from Alexander's invasion of India," B.C. 327. Their earliest era, therefore, B.C. 5369, differs only 42 years from the rectified Era of the Creation, B.C. 5411.

Since his time, the Brahmins have invented eras of the most extravagant antiquity, which are, in fact, no other than vast Astronomical Cycles, formed by retrospective calculation, like the Julian Period; and this is demonstrated by Mr. Davis, in the Asiatic Researches, Vol. II. p. 228, in a very ingenious communication on the Astronomical Computations of the Hindus. There, he states, that the Hindu astronomers chose as a radix, from which to compute the planetary motions, that point of time counted back, when they must have been in conjunction in the beginning of Mesha, or Aries, and coeval with which they supposed the Creation. Taking also into computation a slow motion of the Nodes and Apsides, which they had discovered, they found that it would require a vast cycle of 4320 millions of years, before the planets would return precisely to the same situation again. This grand Anomalistic period they denomi

Some manuscripts read 6042 years, but the other reading agrees better with the Mosaical account.

nated a Calpa. The Calpa they divided into 1000 Maha yugas, or "great conjunctions," each consisting of 4,320,000 years, and a Maha yuga into ten lesser yugas, consisting each of 432,000 years. The Maha yuga was an Anomalistical period of the sun and moon, at the end of which, the moon, her apogee, and ascending node, are to be found in conjunction with the sun in the first of Aries; the planets also deviating from that point only as much as is their latitude, and the difference between their mean and true anomaly.

HINDU AGES OF THE WORLD.

The Maha yuga was also divided into four lesser yugas, or ages, which seem to have been formed on ideas similar to the Golden, Silver, Brazen, and Iron Ages of the Greeks; "according to the different proportions of virtue prevailing on earth," in the language of Surya Sidhanta, their oldest astronomical treatise.

In the Satya, or Age of "Virtue," four parts or all mankind were supposed to be good; in the Treta, or Treda, "three" parts; in the Dwapar, Duapar, or Duabara, "two" parts; and in the Cali yuga, or "black conjunction," only one part. The common factor, 432,000 years, was shewn in the preceding article on YEARS, to have been formed of the great astronomical cycle of 24,000 years, comprising the grand revolution of the sphere of the fixed stars, occasioned by the precession of the equinoxes, 54 seconds per annum, according to the Hindu calculation; multiplied by 18 years, the Chaldean Saros, or Plinian period of the lunar inequalities. These four ages composed a Maha yuga, and a thousand Maha yugas one Calpa, or a day" of Brahma, "the Creator." A sublime idea, corresponding to SCRIPTURE. Ps. xc. 4; 2 Pet. iii. 8.

It is agreed by the Hindu astronomers in general, that the Cali yuga, or last age, under which mankind now live, began when the equinoctial points were in the first degrees of Mesha

and Tula, or Aries and Libra, B.C. 3102. Asiat. Research. Vol. II. p. 274, and p. 392.

The Cali yuga was the Hindu era of the Deluge. This is ingeniously collected by Captain Wilford, from the famous Arabian astronomer Albumazar, or Abu-mazar, about the middle of the ninth century, who lived in the court of the Caliph Al Mamum, and carefully studied the Hindu antiquities, especially the time of the creation of the world, its duration, and the conjunctions of the planets. He represented, that "the Hindus reckoned from the Flood to the Hejira, 720,634,442,715 days, or 3725 years." Asiat. Research. Vol. V. p. 242, 293. Here is a manifest error, the number of days greatly exceeding the number of years. By a very ingenious correction, Mr. Davis found out that this was exactly the number of days elapsed of the Calpa, or from the Creation to the Flood, and only from the Flood to the Hejira 3725 years. Asiat. Research. Vol. IX. p. 579, 671. Subtracting, therefore, the date of the Hejira, A.D. 622, there remains B.C. 3103 for the date of the Deluge.

And this correction is verified by the Persian Chronology; for, according to George of Trebizonde, the Persians reckoned from the Deluge to the Era of Jesdejird, A.D. 632, (ten years after the Hejira) 3735 years, 10 months, and 23 days; which gives precisely the same date of the Deluge, B.C. 3103, current, or B.C. 3102, complete; but this is the date of the Cali yuga, consequently, the Cali yuga denoted the Deluge. Asiat. Research. IX. 673. This is further proved from the Cumarica Chanda, which states, that "after three thousand and one hundred years of the Cali yuga shall be expired, king Saka, or Salivahana*, will appear to remove wretchedness from the world." This was to be a divine child, born of a virgin, and the son of the great Tacshaka, or "carpenter." See Wilford's Essay on the Kings of Magodha, p. 435. Asiat. Research. Vol. IX.

But though the date of the Astronomical Era, Cali yuga, be invariably fixed to B.C. 3102, the Historical Era of that name fluctuates considerably.

* Captain Wilford traces a resemblance in Salivahana to Sala, or Shiloh, in Jacob's

prophecy. Asiat. Research. Vol. VIII. p. 601.

This discordancy of dates is sufficiently accounted for by Wilford, in the following discouraging survey of the present state of Hindu Chronology.

It

"In all their chronological lists, the compilers and revisers seem to have had no other object in view but to adjust a certain number of epochs. This being once effected, the intermediate spaces are filled up with the names of kings not to be found any where else, and most probably fanciful. Otherwise, they leave out the names of those kings of whom nothing is recorded, and attribute the years of their reigns to some among them better known, or of greater fame. They often do not scruple to transpose some of these kings, and even whole dynasties; either in consequence of some pre-conceived opinion, or owing to their mistaking one famous king for another of the same name. was not uncommon for ancient writers to pass from a remote ancestor to a remote descendant, or from a remote predecessor to a remote successor, by leaving out the intermediate generations or successions. In this manner, the lists of the ancient kings of Persia, both by oriental writers and others in the west, have been compiled: and some instances of this nature might be produced from SCRIPTURE.-Through their emendations and corrections, you see a total want of historical knowledge and criticism; and sometimes some disingenuity is but too obvious." Wilford's Essay on Vicra Maditya, &c. p. 469, quarto.

Indeed the gross imposition practised on Captain Wilford, and Sir William Jones, in the supposed Sanscrit account of Noah and his three sons, under the names of Satyavarnam, Sherma, Charma, and Jyapeti; forged in the Padma Puran, and translated by Sir William Jones; Asiat. Research. Vol. iii. p. 67, 262, octavo, are abundantly sufficient to justify the charge of disingenuousness, in the modern Pundits, or interpreters.

Besides the Cali yuga, there are two other principal Eras in use among the Hindus: namely, the Sombot, or Era of Vicra maditya, B.C. 56; and the Sakabdo, from the death of Rajah Soko, or Saka, A.D. 79. These are collected from ancient records and monuments. Thus, there is a royal grant of land, on a copper plate, found among the ruins of Mongeer, dated in the 33d Sombot, B.C. 23. Asiat. Research. Vol. i. p. 123: another, in the Era of Vicra maditya, 1005, or B.C. 1061, p. 287: a third, in the year 123, or 1230, of the same Era, A.D. 67, or A.D. 1174, p. 379: a fourth, in the year of King Saka, 939, or A.D. 1018, p. 357.

CHINESE ERAS.

Martinius, a learned Jesuit, who resided many years in China, says, in his history, that the Chinese writers dated the Deluge about 3000 years before the Christian Era. Sinens. Hist. lib. 1, p. 12. This nearly accords with the Cali yug, or Hindu date, B.C. 3102.

Great uncertainty prevails respecting the origin and first period of the Chinese empire. None of the ancient annals exist, a few fragments excepted; they perished by a singular calamity: the Emperor Hoangti, B.C. 213, like Nabonassar, the King of Babylon, in an earlier age, ambitious of being reputed by posterity the founder of the Empire, ordered all the books, medals, inscriptions, coins, and monuments of antiquity, to be destroyed, that there might remain no earlier record, date, or authority relative to religion, science, and politics, than those of his own reign. Hence, their most authentic history, composed from the relics of their ancient books, by Sse-ma-tsien, about a century before Christ, marked neither the dates nor the durations of reigns, or of dynasties, until B.C. 878. And in the Memoirs concerning the History, Arts, &c. of the Chinese, extracted from the Grand Annals, and lately published by the Missionaries of Pekin, it is asserted, that all the relations or events prior to the reign of Yao, or Yau, (as differently pronounced by different writers) which they date, B.C. 2057, " are fabulous, composed in modern times, unsupported by authentic records, and full of contradictions. And that neither the Chou-king, or Xu-king, their most ancient and authentic record, nor the books of Confucius, (who died B.C. 479) or of his disciples, make mention of any genealogies, or princes, before Yao. It is also proved, that the origin of the Chinese Empire cannot be placed higher than one or two generations before Yao."

This is confirmed by the discordancy of the dates assigned to his reign by different writers: Duhalde asserts, from the most approved Chinese historians, that Yao began to reign B.C. 2357; Martinius and Couplet, B.C. 2159: Freret observes, that nothing certain was recorded in the Chinese Annals previous to the reign of Yao, who flourished B.C. 2325, or B.C. 2307. The latest accounts, we see, reduce it to B.C. 2057, three hundred years lower than the first.