attempted to be filled up; and since, from the indulgence of the Public to that work, it is now become exceedingly scarce, and may not be in the possession of many of the purchasers of this volume, it is necessary to bring before their view that portion of it which details the facts in question.

It is there observed by me, that "I had not at first formed the remotest conception, that to enter into the spirit of the ancient Sanscrit History of India, or to render that history intelligible to the reader, it would be necessary to engage in the deepest astronomical speculations of the Oriental world; but that, as I advanced in my inquiries, I found that kind of knowledge to be indispensable; for, in fat, the primeval histories of all the ancient empires of the earth, amount to little more than the romantic dreams of astronomical mythology. This is particularly evident in Hindostan, from the two great and most ancient rajah families being denominated SURYA-BANS, and CHANDRA-BANS, OF

chibhen of the sun and moon.

In the first volume of the Indian History, I trust it will be proved, upon evidence the most indisputable, that the personager who are said to have flourished so many und vers in the earliest ages, were of celestial, not daigin that their empire was the empire of Com the skies, not of real power on this globe af aka the day and year of Brahma, and the day Capitals, are of a nature widely different; that

the whole jargon of the YuGs, or grand periods, and con-
sequently all those presumptuous assertions of the Brahmins,
relative to the earth's antiquity, have no foundation but in
the great solar and lunar cycles, or planetary revolutions ;
and that CHALDEA, and not INDIA, was the parent-country
of mankind, In proof of this last assertion, a few remark-
able instances are there produced, upon the authority of
Sir William Jones, which evince the primitive languages
of Chaldea and India not to be greatly dissimilar; that the
name ADAM be traced to the Sanscrit root, ADIM, or
may
the first; that in the prophetic and regal title of MENU of
India, may be recognized the patriarch Nuh, or Noah;
that their great hero BALI, an appellative synonymous with
the Bel, or Baal of their neighbours, is no other than Belus ;
and that all the prodigies of valour and wisdom fabled of
the renowned DIONYSIUS of India, if true, are only true
of Rama, the son of Cush, a deified hero, adored at this
day by that very name through the whole extent of that
country.

of

In this line of argument I am not without the support

a very learned and able writer; for that the ancient history of the illustrious families of Asia, but especially of Greece, during the poetical ages, might be read in the heavens, was the opinion of the late Mr. Costard, one of the most profound Oriental astronomers that ever flourished in Europe. It is, however, a fact notorious, and allowed

PREFACE.

WHILE I present the Public with the first Volume of the Indian History, during the most ancient periods, I think it necessary thus early to enter my protest against all attempts to judge the pages of the following Work by the rules of criticism, which are applied to history in general. To those rules, an investigation of this extensive nature, pointing towards æras so remote, and illustrative of events at once so complicated, and so deeply buried in the gulf of time, is by no means amenable. In fact, it may be thought that the subsequent pages contain rather the history of astronomical mythology, as it flourished in the great empires of Asia, than that of any particular nation on the Eastern continent; but it will readily be perceived by the discerning reader, that it is only through the windings of that dark and intricate labyrinth, that historic truth in those distant æras is to be explored, and a knowledge of the genuine characters celebrated in remote antiquity to be obtained. It is in this Volume that the outlines of the historical plan, laid down in the preface of the Indian Antiquities, relative to the existence of a more ancient sphere, allusive to an older race, and a different mythology, are