On opening this volume, however, we were not a little fur prifed to obferve what is called an ADVERTISEMENT prefixed to it, and containing what we conceive to be a very unfair statemeat of a molt important fact, in language very intelligible, though affectedly delicate, and afferting the claim of the Hindoo Scriptures to an antiquity greater than that of the Mofaic writings;' thofe writings, for the authenticity and priority of which to all human records, the illuftrious inftitutor of the Afiatic Society was an able and ftrenuous advocate. The attempt, therefore, to invalidate that claim, is by no means respectful to his memory; and as there is no name prefixed or added to this Advertisement, it is evidently an interpolation, the more pernicious, because infinuations of this kind, from fuch a quarter, must have a direct tendency to do material injury among that clafs of readers, who may not have discernment to detect the fallacy of the argument. We think it important to do so, and fhall devote a confiderable portion of our present Number to that purpose. There is an apparent candour runs through the production, to whomfoever it belongs, which does not, in fact, exift in it. We object to the whole, but particularly to the parts which we fhall extract, and the inferences drawn from them, because they give the very oppofite refult to the conclufions made by Sir William Jones, after profound investigation of this important fubject. Let us examine the pofition in the initial paragraphs.

"In the differtation on the Religious Ceremonies of the Hindus, p. 361, of the prefent volume, the author cites a paffage which appears to have reference to the creation of the universe, and which feems, upon the whole, to bear fome resemblance to the account given by Mofes in the Pentateuch. This naturally leads us to confider the antiquity of both the Mofaic and Hindu Scriptures, and to compare, in fome measure, the accounts given in each work relative to that important fact,

"The writings of Moses have generally been confidered as more ancient than those of any other perfon; but the Hindu Scriptures, fo far as the researches of feveral learned men have extended, appear to be of very high antiquity, and are even carried by fome beyond the time of the Hebrew Lawgiver. Sir W. Jones, in his Preface to the "Inftitutes of Hindu Law; or the Ordinances of MENU, according to the Glofs of CULLU CA," carries the highest age of the Yajur véda 1580 years before the birth of CHRIST, which is nine years previous to the birth of Moses, and ninety before Moses departed from Egypt with the Ifraelites. This date, of 1580 years before CHRIST, feems the more probable, because the Hindu fages are faid to have delivered their knowledge orally. CULLU'A BHATTA produced, what may be faid to be very truly, the shortest, yet the most luminous; the least oftentatious, yet the most learned; the deepest, yet the most agreeable, commentary on the Hindu Scriptures, that

ever was composed on any author ancient or modern, European or Afiatic; and it is this work to which the learned generally apply, on account of its clearness. We shall not, however, take up your time with a differtation on the exact age of either the Hebrew or the Hinda Scriptures: both are ancient: let the learned judge: but fome extracts from the Hindu and Hebrew accounts of the creation may ferve to fhew how much they agree together: whether the Hindu Brahmens borrowed from Moses, or MOSES from the Hindu Bráhmens, is not our prefent enquiry." P. iv.

On this paffage we must observe, first, that all genuine traditional accounts preferved in Afia of the Cofmogony muft, of neceflity, bear fome refemblance to the account given by Mofes in the Pentateuch," and the nearer that resemblance, we add, the more authentic probably the tradition. It is generally believed among Chriftians that Mofes, in writing his account of the creation, was infpired; but still the memory of the fact, and the order of events might be, and molt probably was, treasured in the breafts of the primitive race of men, and might have been handed down, from father to fon, from Adam to Noah, and his pofterity, through a feries of generations. Now, if the MENU of India and the NOAH of Scripture were, as there is every reafon to fuppofe, the fame perfon, it is naturally to be expected that the leading features in the Indian and He brew description of that event fhould nearly correfpond; and the laws of Menu and the Mofaic Pentateuch powerfully corroborate, as they are known to do, each other. It is exceedingly unfair to argue, as is infinuated here, though with extreme apparent caution, that Mofes borrowed his Cofmogony from the Hindu books, because, fetting for a moment all idea of his inspiration afide, he could go back to the fame fources of intelligence with the Hindoos themfelves, fince, as Sir W. Jones himself has elsewhere justly observed, he lived at a period not fo remote from the days of Noah, but that he might have obtained the particulars of his hiftory from one or other of the immediate defcendants of the virtuous Shem. Were the pa rallel extracts, therefore, ftill more fimilar than they are, though in fact they happen not to be very ftriking, it by no means fol lows that the Hebrew is a copy of the Hindoo Cofmogony; while the verity of the former is greatly corroborated by all the circumftances that evince their resemblance, in the great outlines of the latter fyftem to it.

But, fecondly, were the VEDAS, or rather the YAJUR VEDA, compofed in the early age contended for, i. e. 1580 years before Chrift, or ninety before the departure of Mofes from Egypt, what has this circumftance to do with the point in debate, or how does it prove that the code of Mofes was taken

from

from the Infitutes of Meru? a law-tract exprefsly ftated by the tranflator, in his Preface, to have been written only 1289 years before Chrift, or 300 years pofterior in time to the Vedas, and above 200 years AFTER THE DEPARTURE OF MOSES FROM EGYPT. If the author had favoured us with extracts from the particular Veda in question, and opposed them to the Mofaic in the fame page, and in the fame manner as he has arranged thofe in his Advertisement, it would have been fomewhat to the purpose, and we should then have been better able to judge of the conformity between them, and to decide which was the original, and which the copy. But as the matter now ftands, there is every appearance of the Cofmogony of the Inftitutes being borrowed from that of Mofes; at least there is far better ground for this fuppofition than the contrary, fince the production is fo much later in point of time. Besides it thould be remembered, that when the Prefident mentioned the year 1580 before Chrift, as the higheft paffible age of the Vedas. he fpeaks of the whole as conjecture; as a thing of extreme uncertainty. In another place, while he allows the very early diffufion ORALLY, of the doctrines contained in them, he li mis their age as a written compofition, to the 12th century before Chrift; and even in the Preface to thefe very Institutes (a circumftance which should have forcibly ftruck the attention of the wri er, before he ventured on thefe rafh strictures) he affigns the low date of only 880 years before Chrift, as the probable period of their being collected into a volume*. These vaunted books, therefore, of the Hindoos, could not have been seen by the Hebrew legiflator, much lefs have been.copied by him; and at the valt distance which he was from the fcene of the promulgation of the Veds, it is not probable, that even a report of the doctrines contained in them had reached him, from a race among whom a punishment worfe than death (the lafs of caft) awaited the divulger of the hallowed dogmas inculcated in them. What foreigner before Sir W. Jones and another member or two of the Afiatic Society, was ever able to acquire or to read the Vedas in their original dialect; and can we fuppofe the Brahmins were more communicative of their contents in ancient than in modern periods? Tortures and the dread of death could never make them disclose the fecret of those venerated books; all the allurements held out to them by the mild and magnificent Akber for this purpose were of no avail; and to obtain fome little infight into them, he was compelled

Confult the Preface to the Calcutta edition of the Inftitutes, in quarto, p. 8,

to have recourfe to a perfidious fratagem that difgraced him. The ftory of Feizi and his Brahmin preceptor, is equally interefting and well-known. The fimilitude of the narration, therefore, and it is only a general one, can alone be accounted for on the ground of tradition, and the greatest honour redounds to Mofes from a comparison intended, though not prefelfedly, to degrade him.

The Afiatic Researches" is a work fo highly refpectable; it commenced with fuch a noble defence of revealed religion, in the various differtations of the excellent founder of the Society; and the fpirit of Jacobin fcepticism, which has been so widely diffufed through Europe by our Gallic rivals, may be so much encouraged by any deviation from the firft principles on which it was conducted, that we heartily with, for the credit and character of the London editors, that the strictures in question had not been admitted. There are other paragraphs towards the clofe ftill more offenfive, but we forbear to cite them, and recommend to our readers in binding up the book, to leave them out entirely, as they cannot be properly faid to make any part of the fifth volume. We come now to confider its genuine

contents.

The first article, confifting of Hiftorical Remarks on the Coaft of Malabar, and the Manners of its Inhabitants, by Jonathan Duncan, Efq. is a defideratum in Indian literature, and must be extremely important to the Britith nation, from the vaft acquifition of territory in that region, in confequence of the recent conqueft of Tippoo Sultaun's extenfive domains. There is fcarcely a poffibility of giving any regular or clear analyfis of the early hiftories of fo romantic a race as the Hindoos, and therefore we prefent the account to our readers in Mr. Duncan's own words.

"I. In the book called Kerul Oodputtee, or, "The emerging of the Country of Kerul," of which, during my ftay at Calicut, in the year 1793, I made the beft tranflation into English in my power, through the medium of a verfion firft rendered into Perfian, under my own infpection (from the Malarabic copy procured from one of the Rajah's of the Zamorin's family,) the origin of that coaft is afcribed to the piety or penitence of Purefu Rama, or Purefram, (one of the incarnations of VISHNU,) who, ftung with remorfe for the blood he had fo profufely fhed in overcoming the Rajahs of the Khetry tribe, applied to VARUNA, the God of the Ocean, to fupply him with a tract of ground to beftow on the Bráhmens; and VARUNA having accordingly withdrawn his waters from the Gowkern (a hill in the vicinity of Mangalore) to Cape Comorin, this ftrip of territory has, from its fituation, as lying along the foot of the Sukhien (by the Europeans called the Ghaut, range of mountains) acquired the name of Mulyalum, (i. e. Skirting at the Bottom of the Hills,) a term that may have been fhort

ened

ened into Maleyam, or Maleam; whence are also probably its common names of Muliervar and Malabar; all which Purefram is firmly be lieved, by its native Hindu inhabitants, to have parcelled out among different tribes of Bráhmens, and to have directed that the entire produce of the foil fhould be appropriated to their maintenance, and towards the edification of temples, and for the fupport of divine worfhip; whence it ftill continues to be diftinguifhed in their writings by the term of Kermbhoomy, or, "The Land of Good Works for the Expiation of Sin."

II. The country thus obtained from the fea*, is reprefented to have remained long in a marshy and scarcely habitable state; infomuch, that the first occupants, whom Purefram is faid to have brought into it from the eaftern, and even the northern, part of India, again abandoned it; being more especially scared by the multitude of ferpents with which the mud and flime of this newly immerged tract is related to have then abounded; and to which numerous accidents are ascribed, until Purefram taught the inhabitants to propitiate thefe animals, by introducing the worship of them and of their images, which became from that period objects of adoration.

"III. The country of Mulyalum was, according to the Kerul Oodputter, afterwards divided into the four following Tookrees, or divifions:

"Ift. From Gowkern, already mentioned, to the Perumbura River, was called the Tooroo, or Turu Rauje.

"2d. From the Perumbura to Poodumputtum was called the Mofbek Rauje.

"3d. From Poodum, or Poodputtun, to the limits of Kunetui, was called the Kerul or Keril Rauje; and as the principal feat of the ancient government was fixed in this middle divifion of Malabar, its name prevailed over, and was in course of time understood in a gene, ral fenfe to comprehend the three others.

66

4th. From Kunety to Kunea Koomary, or Cape Comorin, was called the Koop Ranje; and thefe four grand divifions were parcelled out into a greater number of Naadhs, (pronounced Naars, and meaning districts or countries,) and of Khunds, or fubdivifions, under the latter denomination.

"IV. The proportion of the produce of their lands, that the Brahmens are ftated to have originally affigned for the fupport of government, amounted to only one fixth fhare: but in the fame book of Kerul Oodputtee, they are afterwards faid to have divided the country into three equal proportions; one of which was confecrated to supply

"In a manufcript account of Malabar that I have seen, and which is afcribed to a Bishop of Virapoli, (the feat of a famous Roman Catholic feminary near Cochin,) he obferves, that, by the accounts of the learned natives of that coaft, it is little more than 2300 years fince the fea came up to the foot of the Sukbien, or Ghaut mountains; and that it once did fo he thinks extremely probable, from the nature of the foil, and the quantity of fand, oyfter-fhells, and other fragments, met with in making deep excavations,"

the