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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1829 edition. Excerpt:... concluding reflections.' 615 matters. Moreover, Mr. Bentley confirms his proposition by a number of new calculations which we deem it needless to transcribe." Histaire de L'Astroitomie Anrienne, I. 494. The Hindoos transposed their history, to their fictitious system of astronomical epochs. This transfer occasioned a thousand palpable absurdities; to disguise which, they were obliged to remould their pouranas, to introduce fictions, and prophecies which might correspond with the end they had in view; but these very artifices more clearly display the folly of the enterprise. This system of antiquity, though fitted in many respects to flatter the national vanity, excited numerous reclamations, which continued as long as the memory of the ancient order was preserved. The necessity was then perceived of causing all its vestiges to disappear. There is, indeed, a current tradition that the Mahrattas (Maharastras) destroyed all the works of the ancient astronomers that could be found. "Finally, it appears that there does not exist at present a single Hindoo book, which can possess an antiquity higher than 1300 years, if it makes the slightest mention of these enormous periods; and that none of the romances called pourmias date farther back from the present time than 604 years, while some of them are more modem still!" The opinion therefore entertained by the Hindoos about their antiquity, is founded principally on vanity, ignorance, and credulity. "Their great geographical treatises are merely a tissue of the most incredible absurdities, of which we shall say nothing else here, out of regard to the honour of the Hindoos. One of them is of the 5th, and the other of the 10th century of our era." Ibid. p. 500. In concluding my survey of the...