has flowed by various channels through all the kingdoms of the earth; at the fame time. confounded by the authenticated accounts, which have, within these few years, been imported into Europe, of the great proficiency of the Indians in the noblest and most abftrufe fciences, when the greatest part of Asia had scarcely even emerged from barbarism, and when all Europe lay buried in intellectual darkness, I was juft on the point of throwing away my pen, and giving up at least the ancient history of India, as involved in inextricable difficulties. The facred records were filent about their origin; fuch accounts of them as were to be found in the best writers of antiquity, relative to their ancient hiftory, were often in the highest degree romantic, and always unfatisfactory. . All that the writers of the Univerfal History have related of the history of ancient India is included in a few pages, and this portion of that voluminous work, from their confulting only the relations of the hiftorians of Greece and Rome, who knew very little about them, is extremely defective. With few aids, therefore, from claffical books, to affift me in this laborious difquifition concerning their antiquities, with little light to direct uncertain

conjecture,

conjecture, and with little patronage, at first, to animate exertion, 1 fhould have laid by my pen in despair, but for the accidental attainment and revision, when nearly half this differtation was printed off, of the Analysis of Ancient Mythology. As I was determined t advance no farther in a history, which in fome parts had a feeming tendency to throw oblique reflections on the credit of the Mofaic system of theology, that fublime system, which both inclination and profession made me anxious to fupport, unless I should be fully able to obviate those reflections, nothing could be more highly fatisfactory to me, than to find the grand opening which the hypothefis, on which the Analysis was formed, unfolded towards the elucidation of fo dark a fubject, and that too in the third volume, a part of the work where serious history commences, where the conjectures of mythology are fuperfeded by the well-attefted evidence of fact, and the affertions of the sacred volume of truth are corroborated by incontrovertible testimonies from profane authors.

Following the line marked out by Mr. Bryant, I contend, that the first migration of mankind from Ararat took place about a century after the appulfe of the ark at BARIS, K kk

by

by which time, fucceffive funs and winds, alternately exerting their force, might have rendered the earth fufficiently dry for the accomplishment of fo diftant a journey; that either NOAH himself, whofe name is fo clearly recognized in India by the Sanfcreet appellative of MENU, (and it is remarkable that the Arabians at this day diftinguish, as the Hebrews undoubtedly did, the patriarch by the name of Nuн,) or, if not Noah himself, fome defcendant of Shem, gradually led on the first colony, increafing as they journeyed eaft ward through Perfia, to the western frontiers of India; that the first capital was Brahminabad, the city of Brahma, or the Great City, to the magnitude and extent of which capital, the ancient records and tradition of India bear fuch repeated teftimony; and that the fecond great inhabited city, equally celebrated in the moft ancient Hindoo annals, was Haftinapoor, where Creeshna appeared, and in the neighbourhood of which, afterwards, was fought the great battle described in the Mahabbarat, in which fons and brothers, that is, the defcendants of SHEM and HAM, perifhed, in fuch a dreadful and promifcuous carnage; that this happy, this fecluded, and increafing, colony, flourished

for

for a long fucceffion of ages in primitive happiness and innocence; practifed the purest rites of the grand patriarchal religion, without images and temples, the original devotion of Shem the Son of GOD, who poffibly was the genuine legiflator of India, and in his regal capacity bore his father's title of MENU that they affiduously cultivated all the fciences, and had alfo the ufe of the fcientific records, and aftronomical obfervations of their antediluvian ancestors preferved in the ark; and that, according to the latest information imported into Europe in the Afiatic Refearches, a colony emigrated about three thousand years ago from India, and directing their march to regions ftill nearer the RISING SUN, established, on the most Eastern boundary of Afia, the vast and celebrated empire of CHINA.

When the rifing tower of Babel was overthrown (as the Orientals report) by ftorms, earthquakes, and whirlwinds, commiffioned from the Almighty to level the fabric of man's exorbitant ambition, and when that fierce and presumptuous race, who had engaged in the mad undertaking of erecting it, were difperfed over the earth by the breath K kk 2

of

of God's displeasure, they turned the arm of violence, which had been impiously directed towards Heaven itself, against the pious line of mortals, who were its diftinguished favourites upon earth. Under Nimrod, their daring chief, the mighty hunter before the Lord both of beafts and men, this defperate band of Cuthite robbers, (the GIANTS and TITANS of profane writers,) ejected by the signal vengeance of Providence from their own country of Babylon, firft feized upon the dominions of ASSUR, the fon of Shem. They then extended their ravages towards the beautiful regions of Perfia, where Elam, another fon of Shem, reigned: but, in this attempt, those fons of rapine met with a terrible repulfe; for, the virtuous race of Shem, indignant at these repeated attacks from the base progeny of HAM, laid aside the native gentleness that distinguished their line, and, uniting their forces, after many fevere engagements, and a conteft protracted for a long series of years, fo totally and finally fubjected their opponents, that, we are told in Scripture, they ferved, that is, paid tribute, to their conquerors during twelve years. After this period, their restless ambition once more impelled