The Historians' History of the World 02

Protected by the highest mountains of the world and traversed by lovely fertile hills, India is bounded on one side by the Pacific Ocean and on the other by the Himalayas, watered by a thousand streams, and great rivers, upon the banks of which the sun ripens all kinds of delicious fruits which grow of themselves.

A large population flourishes on the perpetually green, immense plains sloping down to the sea; the canals are frequented with navigators who from oldest times have received in exchange for money the wonderful natural products of the country.

Five harvests are reaped here annually, and the palms, pine-apples, cinnamon trees, peppers, etc., ripen three times a year. But by the side of such beauty, steep rocks rise to the sky, many equalling the Chimborazo in height, and there are great tracts of arid unwatered sands. The storms are more violent here than anywhere else, and mountain streams descend in foaming torrents bearing devastation and ruin as they traverse the interminable plains on their way to the sea.—Cesare Cantù.

CHRONOLOGY AND ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE HINDUS

Rude nations seem to derive a peculiar gratification from pretensions to a remote antiquity. As a boastful and turgid vanity distinguishes remarkably the oriental nations, they have in most instances carried their claims extravagantly high. We are informed, in a fragment of Chaldaic history, that there were written accounts, preserved at Babylon, with the greatest care, comprehending a term of fifteen myriads of years. The pretended duration of the Chinese monarchy is still more extraordinary. A single king of Egypt was believed to have reigned three myriads of years.

The present age of the world, according to the system of the Hindus, is distinguished into four grand periods, denominated yugas. The first is the Satya yuga comprehending 1,728,000 years; the second the Treta yuga comprehending 1,296,000 years; the third the Dwapar yuga, including 864,000 years; and the fourth the Kali yuga, which will extend to 432,000 years. Of these periods, the first three are expired; and, in the year 1817 of the Christian era, 4911 years of the last. From the commencement, therefore, of the Satya yuga, to the year 1817, is comprehended a space of 3,892,911 years, the antiquity to which this people lay claim.

The contempt with which judicious historians now treat the historical fables of early society, must be indulged with caution when we explore the ancient condition of Hindustan; because the legendary tales of the Hindus have hitherto, among European inquirers, been regarded with particular respect; and because, without a knowledge of them, much of what has been written in Europe concerning the people of India, cannot be understood. It is necessary, therefore, to relate, that at the commencement of the Satya yuga, or 3,892,911 years ago, lived Satyavrata, otherwise denominated Vaivaswata, and also the seventh Manu. He had escaped with his family from an universal deluge, which had destroyed the rest of the human species. Of his descendants, were two royal branches: the one denominated the children of the sun; the other, the children of the moon. The first reigned at Ajodhya or Oudh; the second at Pratisht’hana or Vitora. These families, or dynasties, subsisted till the thousandth year of the present or Kali yuga, at which time they both became extinct; and a list of the names of the successive princes is presented in the Sanskrit books.

Satyavrata, the primitive sire, prolonged his existence and his reign through the whole period of the Satya yuga or 1,728,000 years. From this patriarchal monarch are enumerated, in the solar line of his descendants, fifty-five princes, who inherited the sovereignty till the time of Rama. Now it is agreed among all the Brahmans that Rama filled the throne of Ajodhya at the end of the Treta yuga. The reigns, therefore, of these fifty-five princes, extending from the beginning to the end of that epoch, filled 1,296,000 years, which, at a medium, is more than 23,000 years to each reign. During the next, or Dwapar yuga of 864,000 years, twenty-nine princes are enumerated, who must, at an average, have reigned each 29,793 years. From the beginning of the present, or Kali yuga to the time when the race of solar princes became extinct, are reckoned 1000 years, and thirty princes. There is a wonderful change, therefore, in the last age, in which only thirty-three years, at a medium, are assigned to a reign.