1 A DISSERTATION, &c. SECTION I. The Author unfolds his Defign in this Effay.The immenfe Extent of the ancient Indian Empire; and the wide Diffufion of the Indian Mythology and Sciences throughout Afia.— The geographical Limits of the not lefs extenfive Region of Scythia.-These two mighty Nations, the Indians and Perfians being throughout confidered as one People, possessed the greater Part of Afa: the Indians, from the earliest Periods, a polished Race; the Scythians, ever Barbarians.-Efcaped from the Horrors of the general Deluge, the Noachida, who fettled in Afia, inhabited the Regions neareft the great Range of Taurus. In the Median Mountains, and near the Heights of Caucafus, were efstablished, in Caverns, their firft firft Schools. The colleges of Naugracut and Thibet, in the North of India, particularly famous. From thence emigrated into Tartary fucceffive Colonies of Priests profeffing the Religion of Buddha, or Boodh, who was the Hermes, or Mercury, of the Western, and the Woden of the Northern, World. The Japhetic Tribes, defcribed generally under the Names of Scythian and Celtic, ftraitened for Room and Pafturage, purfue their Direction through the Northern Afia, emigrate to Europe, and with them thofe Sages of the Indian Schools, to whom we give the Name of Druids.-Some. remarkable Inftances adduced of the firiking Affinity exifting between the primeval Languages of Afia and thofe Spoken in Europe, particularly in the British Isles. My Y intention, in the following Differtation, is to prove, as far as the remoteness of the æra alluded to, and the abftruse nature of the subjects difcuffed in the course of it will allow of proof, that the celebrated order of Druids, anciently established in this country, were the immediate defcendants of a tribe of Brahmins fituated in the high northern latitudes bordering on the vast range of Caucafus: that these, during that period of the Indian empire when its limits were moft extended in Afia, mingling with the Celto-Scythian tribes, who tenanted the immenfe deferts of Grand Tartary, became gradually incorporated, though not confounded, with that ancient nation; introduced among them the rites of the Brahmin religion, occafionally adopting thofe of the Scythians, and, together with them, finally emigrated to the western regions of Europe. To form any correct notion of the extent of the Indian empire, when in its glory, we muft confult the Sanfcreet geographers, and take our furvey of a country comprifing an area of near forty degrees on each fide, and including a space almost as large as all Europe; a region divided on the weft from Perfia by the Arachofian mountains, limited on the eaft by the Chinese part of the farther peninfula, confined on the north by the wilds of Tartary, and extending on the fouth as far as the ifles of Java. The above is the demarcation of the ancient limits of India by an author not likely to to have erred in defining them; and this trapezium, he goes on to obferve, comprehends the ftupendous hills of Thibet, the beautiful valley of Cashmir, and all the domains of the old Indo-Scythians, the countries of Nepal and Bootan, Camrup or Afam, together with Siam, Ava, Racan, and the bordering kingdoms, as far as the China of the Hindoos, or Sin of the Arabian geographers; not to mention the whole western peninsula with the celebrated island of Sinhala, or Lion-like men, at its fouthern extremity.* If the period above-mentioned, remote as it is, fhould not be, thought fufficiently diftant in the annals of time for the first migration of the Afiatic colonies, and the earliest importation into the western world of the religious rites in ufe among them, we have it in our power, through the fame authentic chanrel,† to penetrate to the very birth of civil establishments, and find the primæval ancestors of the Hindoos fitting, in patriarchal majesty, upon the throne of Iran, or Perfia, in the very See Sir William Jones, in the Afiatic Researches, vol. ii. P. 419. See the Differtation on the Perfians, ibid. p. 43. |