After the date of the great war, the Vishńu Puráńa, in common with those Puráńas which contain similar lists, specifies kings and dynasties with greater precision, and offers political and chronological particulars, to which on the score of probability there is nothing to object. In truth their general accuracy has been incontrovertibly established. Inscriptions on columns of stone, on rocks, on coins, decyphered only of late years, through the extraordinary ingenuity and perseverance of Mr. James Prinsep, have verified the names of races, and titles of princes--the Gupta and Andhra Rájás, mentioned in the Puráńas--and have placed beyond dispute the identity of Chandragupta and Sandrocoptus: thus giving us a fixed point from which to compute the date of other persons and events. Thus the Vishńu Puráńa specifies the interval between Chandragupta and the great war to be eleven hundred years; and the occurrence of the latter little more than fourteen centuries B. C., as shewn in my observations on the passage 94, remarkably concurs with inferences of the like date from different premises. The historical notices that then follow are considerably confused, but they probably afford an accurate picture of the political distractions of India at the time when they were written; and much of the perplexity arises from the corrupt state of the manuscripts, the obscure brevity of the record, and our total want of the means of collateral illustration.

Footnotes

lxv:85 P. 349.

lxv:86 However incompatible with the ordinary computation of the period that is supposed to have elapsed between the flood and the birth of Christ, this falls sufficiently within the larger limits which are now assigned, upon the best authorities, to that period. As observed by Mr. Mil-man, in his note on the annotation of Gibbon (II. 301.) which refers to this subject; "Most of the more learned modern English protestants, as Dr. Hales, Mr. Faber, Dr. Russell, as well as the continental writers, adopt the larger chronology." To these may be added the opinion of Dr. Mill, who, for reasons which he has fully detailed, identifies the commencement of the Kálí age of the Hindus, B. C. 3102, with the era of the deluge. Christa Sangita, Introd., supplementary note.

lxv:87 Sir Wm. Jones on the Hindus (As. Res. vol. III.); Klaproth. Asia Polyglotta; Vans Kennedy on the Origin of Languages; A von Schlegel Origines des Hindous (Trans. R. Soc. of Literature).

lxvii:89 See p. 285. note.

lxvii:90 As. Res. vol. V. p. 55.

lxvii:91 As. Res. vol. VII. p. 219.

lxix:92 See p. 406-409. 444. &c.

lxix:93 P. 448. 459. 454. &c.

lxx:94 P. 484 n. 81.

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