But, impelled them into acts of rebellion.* after a still longer war, and a still more bloody defeat, their power in that part of Asia was totally broken, or rather annihilated. They were driven thence into its most remote regions, even into those cold and gloomy Tartarian regions, which, from the darkness and fogginess of the atmosphere, as well as their forming the utmost boundary of the earth known to the Afiatics, was anciently confidered as the abode of guilty and unclean fpirits, and which, in the fabulous mythology of the Greeks, was reprefented as HELL ITSELF. Originally weakened and divided, by the great colony which early emigrated under their great ancestor to Egypt, the remaining pofterity of Ham, though numerous, were not able to cope with four powerful and combined fovereigns of the houfe of Shem; but, rallying their scattered forces, they proved more than a match for one unwarlike branch of that illuftrious line. Far remote from this turbulent and fanguinary scene, were fituated the forefathers. of the happy nation, whose history it will hereafter be my province to record. By na Twelve years they served CHEDARLAOMER, and, in the thirteenth, they rebelled. Gen. ch. xii. v. 4. ture inclined to peace and amity; and, by long habitude attached to it, they neither suspected, nor were prepared for, the attack which the exiled and difcomfited Cutites were meditating upon their flourishing country and philofophic race. Collected in innumerable multitudes from all the hyperborean regions beyond Caucafus, regions called from them, as I have before remarked, Cutha, Scuthe, and Scythia'; one party hovered, like a dark and angry cloud, over the clifts of that vast mountain, whence they frequently stretched their longing view over the Pisgah, which they were impatient to poffefs. Another party of this intrepid tribe, which had taken posfeffion of the tract on the weft of the Indus, in after-times called also from them Indo-Scythia, waited only the fignal from their brethren to pass that frontier river, and rush upon the devoted Panjab of India. The former, as feems to be intimated by numerous paffages which I fhall hereafter cite from the Dionyfiacs of Nonnus, as well as from Dionyfius the geographer, pursuing the course of the GANGES through Sirinagur, a country whofe frightful rocks had no power to dismay that progeny, to whom gloomy and terrible objects, and deeds of extraordinary peril, ever afforded the afforded a favage delight, entered Hindoftan at the pass of HURDWAR, and seized upon rich and fertile region watered by that river. These affertions may appear prefumptuous as they are novel; but the reader will recollect, that I am labouring to throw light on a dark and remote period, where all is doubt and conjecture. I fhall give fubftantial reasons for adopting this system in my history. Two of those reasons only fhall be mentioned at present. The first, and that which originally induced me to espouse the hypothefis, and indulge the conjectures thús fummarily ftated, is, the relation which, from authentic Indian books and traditions, the Ayeen Akbery* has given us of the immense extent and unequalled magnificence of the great city and kingdom of Oude in the most ancient periods. The fecond is, that this very account is, in the fulleft manner, corroborated by still stronger evidence adduced by me from Sir William Jones, who informs us, that RAMA was the firft Indian conqueror; that he extended his victories even to the Peninfula and Ceylone; that his capital was Oude, where he was venerated (by his own K kk 4 tribe * See Ayeen Akbery, vol. ii. p.41. tribe and pofterity) both as a KING and PROPHET; and that the prefent city of Lucknow was only one of the gates of that vast metropolis. There were, however, it muft be observed, three heroes of the name of RAMA, celebrated in the Indian annals; but, according to the last author, their splendid exploits may all be referred to this mighty fon of CUSH. The Cuthites, who entered India over the SEENDHU, probably pushed on and extended their conquefts along the Western regions of India, till they had established themselves in that famous city, which Arrian fays was the capital of the CUTHEI, Sangara; and which was afterwards taken by ftorm by Alexander. SHINAR, fays Mr. Bryant, is fometimes called Singar and Singara; and it is not impoffible, that, attached to that country from which they were fo difgracefully driven, thefe fuccessful invaders of India might give this name to their new metropolis, in memorial of their original country. The alteration of a letter is not material; for, D'Anville is inclined to think, that Sangania, a province of Guzzurat, may be the Sangara of Arrian, to which, however, I own Major Rennel urges a strong objec tion; tion; and I only introduce the remark by way of observing, that, if this were in reality the Sangara of Arrian, the inhabitants have not at all fwerved from their, original character, fince, according to Hamilton, they were, in his time, the greatest robbers and banditti on that whole coaft, and they continue fo to this day. To relate the conflicts of rival colonies and contending nations is the business of history rather than of a treatise upon theology.· Suffice it then for the present to add, that immediately after the great and decifive battle described in the Mahabbarat, the national theology, politics, and manners, experienced a total change. It was the immediate confequence of the triumph of the invading Cuthites, that all the degenerate fuperftitions of Ham, the worship of the PHALLUS, the veneration of SERPENTS, the adoration of the SOLAR ORB, HUMAN SACRIFICES, and every other Egyptian rite, the remarkable prevalence of which in India has so long perplexed the antiquary, commenced. Stupendous caverns were scooped from the bowels of the earth, and vaft pyramidal temples were erected upon its furface. No |