ART. V. [Book Review of:] A Key to the Chronology of the Hindus; in a Series of Letters, in which an Attempt is made to facilitate the Progress of Christianity in Hindustan, by proving that the protracted Numbers of all Oriental Nations, when reduced, agree with the Dates given in the Hebrew Text of the Bible. 2 vols. 8vo. Rivingtons. 1820. [by Anonymous (Alexander Hamilton), 1820]
by F. and C. Rivington (Firm)
The British Critic, Volumes 13-14
London: Printed for F. and C. Rivington, no. 62, St. Paul's Church-yard, to whom all communications respecting the review are to be directed, London: Printed for J. Mawman 1793-1826.
Editors: 1793-1813, Robert Nares, William Beloe; 1814-1825, T.F. Middleton, W.R. Lyall, and others.
1820, originally published 1792
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While the Ezour Vedam was being discussed by Voltaire and others, the Vedas sent by Calmette languished unread in the Bibliotheque Imperiale. They were even excluded from the catalogue of Sanskrit manuscripts prepared by Alexander Hamilton and Louis-Mathieu Langlès in 1807, again because they were mostly not in Devanagari script...
-- The Absent Vedas, by Will Sweetman
The records given by the Jesuit Fathers helped in the redaction of the general catalogue for the manuscripts kept in the Royal Library. This project was a strong wish of the Abbey Jean-Paul Bignon who wanted to follow the need of describing the collections at a time when the Scientists of the ‘Europe des Lumières’ were describing and organizing the species. In 1739 was published the first volume of the Catalogus Codicum Manuscriptorum Bibliothecae regiae dedicated to the oriental collections. It is a master piece in the field of library science. Etienne Fourmont had translated the brief records given by the Jesuits Fathers into Latin and gave some other bibliographical elements such as the material, paper or palm-leaves. Fourmont adopted the classification system given by Father Pons. In trying to make a concordance between the Jesuit lists and the Catalogus Codicum Manuscriptorum Bibliothecae regiae, it appears that the larger part of the catalogue, namely the ‘Books on Theology’ which contains 111 numbers on the 287 of the ‘Indian Codices’ described, gathers mostly all the manuscripts from South India, even the topics is far from ‘Thelogy’, as if the lack of classification had a direct impact on the cataloguing process. Despite these hesitations, very understandable due to the early date of publication, the Catalogus Codicum Manuscriptorum Bibliothecae regiae is very solid....
In 1807, Alexander Hamilton (1762-1824), after being enrolled in the East India Company, was obliged to stay in France after the break of the Traité d’Amiens which ensured the peace between France and England. He spent his time in describing the Sanskrit collection of the Imperial Library with the help of Langlès.11 The paradox is that the catalogue of Hamilton described less manuscripts than the Catalogus Codicum Manuscriptorum Bibliothecae regiae published seventy years before. The reason is that Hamilton described only the Sanskrit manuscripts in Devanagari and Bengali scripts. He did not treat the manuscripts from South India, in Tamil, Grantha, or Telugu scripts.
Hamilton had time to see all the manuscripts that he wanted to describe, but he gave a detailed description only for the texts he was interested in, like Purana or poetry. We can read this information after the manuscript number 23: “For the others manuscripts, we did not adopt any classification”. He also gave up the fundamental notion of material support. It is impossible to know in reading this catalogue if the manuscripts are written on paper or on palm-leaves while we had this information in the Catalogus Codicum Manuscriptorum Bibliothecae regiae. This catalogue is often seen as the first printed catalogue of Sanskrit manuscripts. It is indeed the first catalogue which is entirely dedicated to the Sanskrit manuscripts but we have seen how the Catalogus Codicum Manuscriptorum Bibliothecae regiae, which is the very first printed catalogue for Indian manuscripts, is stronger from the point of view of the library science....
In November 1833, François Guizot (1787-1874), one of the most influential Minister of Education of the century, asked librarians to give a catalogue of the manuscripts of all kinds that were in their care. It is in this climax that worked Claude Fauriel and Auguste Loiseleur-Deslonchamps. They gave bibliographical details for the manuscripts left aside by Alexander Hamilton or freshly arrived in the library. A particular attention was given to describe the manuscript and the text that it contains. Incipit and explicit are sometimes given in original script or in transcriptions, the material used is mentioned (paper or palm leaves), the date in samvat era, the name of the author, the subject, and some bibliographical information are also given when it was possible.
-- For a History of the Catalogues of Indian Manuscripts in Paris, by Jérôme Petit
WHATEVER doubts we may have, as to the actual tendency of this book, we can have none, as to the goodness of the motives which led the author to write it. As he has kept his name from the public [He is Alexander Hamilton], we can speak of him with the greater freedom; and have therefore no hesitation in describing him, as one of those well-meaning persons, who are accustomed to view things only in one light; and who, when they enter upon a benevolent project, do not hold themselves accountable for any contingent evil, which may happen to arise, however naturally, from the line of policy which they have adopted. To the pure, no doubt, all things are pure; and such readers, accordingly, as shall take up this work with the sole view of being instructed and edified, will find a great variety of topics, on which they may be profitably employed; but it must be admitted, notwithstanding, that it presents no small matter for profane wit, and abundance of scope for severe criticism.
In the first place, the publication has been most hastily got up; or at all events, it bears every mark of hurry and inattention. It is so full of errors, that it is impossible to read three pages, without referring to the table of errata; which, although it acknowledges between two and three hundred mistakes, does not afford a key to one half of the puzzles arising from sheer inaccuracy. In the department of numerical calculation, again, the blunders are equally frequent and perplexing. We have thousands and millions in place of tens and hundreds; and in many parts where the author has occasion to use algebraical notation, we have the sign of multiplication for that of addition. In short, we are not without some suspicion, that our worthy friends in St. Paul's Church Yard have sent us a copy of imperfections, in order to exercise our patience and prove our perspicacity.
But there are many inaccuracies of another kind, which cannot be charged upon either printer or publisher; and of these, some savour of ignorance, whilst others bear strong marks of indistinct conception of the subjects, to which they relate. For example, the author's notions on astronomy are so extremely vague, that he confounds the superior planets with the primary; and he even ventures to assure us, that the precession of the equinoctial points may be fully explained, by a reference to the change which took place, in the commencement of the year, at the period the Jews emigrated from the land of Egypt. He seems not to be aware, that the principle on which this discrepancy between the sun's real and nominal place, in the zodiacal signs, proceeds, and even the rate at which the variation advances, have been perfectly ascertained by modern astronomers. Nor do his sense and learning appear to any better advantage, when he follows certain rabbinical fancies, as to the day on which the world was created. He holds out, however, for the twenty first of October, in opposition to the Jews, who fix on the tenth, as what may be called Commencement Day; but, then, as the moon came to the full on the fourth day thereafter, or on the twenty fifth of the month, she may be supposed to have become visible, which she would have done, had she been in existence on the ninth of the said month; and hence the ground of the hypothesis maintained by the Rabbis, who are known to have begun their years with the first appearance of the new moon, in the month Nisan. But our author will not yield himself to this Jewish argument: for it is said in the first chapter of Genesis "that God made two great lights;” and as the moon cannot be called a great light except when she is full, or nearly so, he very reasonably concludes, that this luminary was created when in about her fourteenth day. As to the sun, again, although he, with the moon and stars, is classed among the works of the fourth day, it is maintained in the book now before us, that he was made on the evening of the third day, after sun-set, and placed in the firmament too, at the same time, although he did not appear, nor give light, till the proper time of rising next day. The author's own words are as follows: “Consequently, although the sun was placed in the firmament after the supposititious sun-set of the third day, or what we call the evening of the third day, it did not appear for the first time until about the twelfth hour of the ancient fourth day;" that is, we presume, at about six in the morning, the usual time for the sun to rise when in the plane of the equator.
The readers will not expect much wisdom or learning in a book, which contains such puerilities on such a sacred subject. Without giving countenance to this inference which, we honestly maintain, would not be altogether accordant with truth, we must acknowledge that the author's “Key,” even admitting the cypher on which it is constructed to be legitimately derived from Hindu authority, does not appear to us by any means well calculated for guiding the student through those endless labyrinths of Oriental chronology, which have all along proved so extremely perplexing to the most acute of our Anglo-Indian antiquaries. But in order that the principles upon which this important solution is attempted may be seen in the most favourable light, we now proceed to unfold them in nearly the words of the author. We begin with one of his tables of time.
2 Matires = 1 Chiperon
10 Chiperons = 1 Chinon
12 Chinons = 1 Venidique, or 1 Indian minute
60 Venidiques = 1 Naigue
7-1/2 Naigues = 1 Saman
8 Samans = 1 Day
15 Days = 1 Parouvan
2 Parouvans = 1 Month
12 Months = 1 Year
100 Years = the life of man.
We may exhibit, in passing, the effect of this minute subdivision as applied to our own denominations of time.
1 Hour = 36,000 Matires
12 Hours = 432,000
1 Day = 864,000
1 Month (30 days) = 25,920,000
1 Year (360 days) = 311,040,000
The above table is founded, says our author, on the different divisions of time, as recorded in the Institutes of Menu. Upon becoming acquainted with these, it will, he assures us, clearly appear, that those numbers which have, of late years, been injudiciously pronounced astronomical cycles, or periods, are nothing more than the different powers of numbers multiplied into each other. The Brahmans profess, and the unenlightened Hindus believe, that the world was created to last 4,320,000 years, as follows.
1 Age or Critajugan = 1,728,000
2 Age or Tritajugan = 1,296,000
3 Age or Dwaparajugan = 864,000
4 Age or Calijugan = 432,000
Making an aggregate of 4,320,000 years.
Now, it seems, instead of years, we are to regard this large sum as expressing only Matires, or twinklings of the eye; 600 of which go to an English minute: and the above four ages, added together, amount to what is called a Sadrijugan or Divine age. We may also mention here that two Sadrijugans make a day and night of Brahma; whose months and years are in the same proportion, as follows:
8,640,000 = 1 Day and night
259,200,000 = 1 Month
3,110,400,000 = 1 Year
311,040,000,000 = 100 years, the life of Brahma.
From these numbers, adds the author, a cypher is formed in which all antediluvian records are kept. The reader must for the present suppress any little curiosity he may feel as to where the “antediluvian records" themselves are kept, or how they fell under the cognizance of the author.
By inspecting the last set of numerals but one, it will be seen that the Calijagan age amounts to 432,000 years, which answers to the number of matires in 12 hours; and as the sum total of the four ages is just ten times as much, or 4,320,000, it follows that the duration of the world may be symbolically represented by ten times twelve hours, or five whole days. Again, as the years of the gods are to those of man in the proportion of 360 to 1, by dividing 4,320,000 by 360, we have 12,000 — an amount equal to a day and night of Brahma: “for,” observes our author, “of the 4,320,000 days, or 12,000 years, Brahma sleeps one half.”
There is, however, a manifest confusion in this part of the book; for we have in one place the Sadrijagan as equivalent to a day of Brahma, and two Sadrijugans, of course as comprising his day and night; whilst, in other places, a day of the same Divinity is made to embrace a thousand Sadrijugans, and a day and night two thousand of these periods, or 4,320,000 years x 2000. Assuming the larger number the author comes to one of his conclusions as follows: "as 432,000 matires denote one day of 12 hours, so must 4,320,000 denote ten days of 12 hours or five days of 24 hours. And as a thousand Sadrijugans are a day of Brahma, so does that day contain five thousand days of 24 hours. St. Peter says, 'beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. This is the Maha, or great day of Brahma, his usual day being a period, or a thousand years, and his night of the same duration."
In truth, the whole cypher is derived from astronomical facts, concealed with much childish affectation of refinement from the vulgar eye: and in proof of this, we may remark that the number 216,000, which says our author, “may be considered as the basis of all their calculations," is nothing more mystical than the 60 hours of the day (for several eastern nations are known to have adopted this division) reduced into minutes and seconds, viz. 60 60 60 = 216,000. It will be observed, too, that the numbers denoting the extent of the four ages are products of this sum, by the multipliers 8, 6, 4, 2, respectively. But a still stronger proof of astronomical origin may be drawn from the distinction stated between the years of gods and those of men. "The sun," says a Hindu authority quoted by this author, “causes the distribution of day and night, both human and divine: night being intended for the repose of various beings and day for their exertion. A month of mortals is a day and night of the pitris, or patriarchs inhabiting the moon; and the division of a month being into equal halves, the half beginning with the full moon, is their day for action; and that beginning with the new moon, is their night for slumber. A year of mortals is a day and night of the gods, or regents of the universe, situated round the north pole; and again their division is this; their day is the northern, and their night the southern course of the sun."
Our author, however, spurns from him all astronomical aid, and trusting entirely to his cypher, which indeed he uses like a servant of all work, he exclaims “the enigma is solved." The human ages are represented in matires and the divine one in days. For
1,728,000 [divided by] 4,800 = 360
1,296,000 [divided by] 3,600 = 360
864,000 [divided by] 2,400 = 360
432,000 [divided by] 1,200 = 360
But, after all, he is compelled to have recourse to a fiction representing a physical fact, in order to explain the Menwantaras and creations which the Hindus acknowledge to be without number. According to the writers of Hindustan, 71 divine ages make a Menwantara: but a divine age, or 4,320,000 matires are only equal to five days, and five days multiplied by 71, amount to 355 days, or the old Savan year of the Hindus. What, then, is a Menwantara? It is the antura or duration, of a Menu; but says our author, “it is, and ever was, symbolical of one year, or the renewal of creation at the return of the vernal equinox." He has not, however, attempted to explain the language employed in the very work from which he quotes, relative to a true Menwantara. “The divine years, (vide Institutes of Menu, ch. 1.) in the four human ages just enumerated, being added together, their sum, or 12,000, is called the age of the gods. And by reckoning a thousand such divine ages, a day of Brahma may be known; his night has also an equal duration. Again, the before-mentioned age of the gods, or twelve thousand of their years, being multiplied by 71, constitutes what is here named a Menwantara, or the time, Antara, of a Menu. There are numberless Menwantaras; creations also and destructions of worlds innumerable; the Being supremely exalted, performs all this with as much ease as if in sport: again and again, for the sake of conferring happiness."
Now, we are informed by the author of these volumes that the four ages when added, give the duration of the world; in matires, 432,0000, and in years of the gods, 12,000. What then can be meant by saying that 12,000 x 71, or a Menwantara imports nothing more than one solar year? Seventy one times the duration of the world (including Brahma's nap of 6,000 years) is employed merely to express the renewal of creation at the return of the vernal equinox! What, again, is to be thought of a key which applies only to a part of the cypher to be explained by it? The fourth, or cali age for example, is five times as long as the other three put together, and yet it bears to the first the proportion of only one to four. In short, according to the cypher, the fourth age should be only the one fourth of the duration of the world, whereas it is estimated at more than five-sixths. But the duration of the world may be taken at any amount; and here it signifies one thousand years, and six thousand years, and twelve thousand years, and really may signify anything the author pleases.
We are aware that the number of matires in five whole days is equal to 12,000 multiplied by 360, that is, to 4,320,000; and that five days multiplied by 71, amount to 355, the number of days in a Saban year, as it is called by the Hindus. But what of this? How should five days be called an age of the gods, when we are told that a real age of the gods, comprehends the whole duration of the world, or 12,000 years? Are we to understand that five days, and the duration of the world, are convertible terms? If so, on what ground are they to be regarded as commensurable? Nothing is offered to throw light on this part of the subject — the basis on which the whole of the supposed cypher and its miraculous key will be found to rest.
Again, a day of Brahma is equal to a thousand Sudrijugans, or a thousand times the duration of the world; his day and his night being just twice as much. But we are told that the world is to last one day of Brahma, or a thousand Sudrijugans, or 4,320,000 symbolical years x to 1000; whilst we are also told that the duration of the world is limited to 4,320,000, or one Sadrijugan. “The Brahmans profess, (p. 11.) and the unenlightened Hindus believe that the world was created to last 4,320,000 years."
The numbers now given, amazed Sir William Jones, as they have amazed every other antiquary, and he found no way of accounting for such hyperbolical notation, but that of referring it to an astronomical riddle. “The aggregate of the four first ages," says he, "constitutes the extravagant sum of four millions, three hundred and twenty thousand; which aggregate multiplied by seventy-one is the period in which every Mena is believed to preside over the world. Such a period one might conceive, would have satisfied Archytas, the measurer of the sea and earth, and the numberer of the sands, or Archimedes who invented a notation that was capable of expressing the number of them: but the comprehensive mind of an Indian chronologer has no limits, and the reigns of fourteen Menus are only a single day of Brahma: fifty of which days have already elapsed, according to the Hindus, since the creation. All this puerility may be an astronomical riddle, alluding to the apparent revolutions of the fixed stars, of which the Brahmans make a mystery, but so technical an arrangement excludes the idea of serious history.”
We have already hinted that our author himself, notwithstanding his aversion to astronomical riddles, finds it necessary to make use of the assistance thereby afforded, in order to extricate the language of history, from the perplexities of his imaginary cypher. The 'divine age,' accordingly is not confined to five days of twenty-four hours; it has, says he, a more recondite meaning, and when it is used as an historic date, it always denotes one year. For, he adds, a divine age is considered as the duration of time (erroneously rendered the duration of the world) at the expiration of which nature becomes regenerate at the vernal equinox. In this sense, he continues, the prophet Daniel denotes 360 days by “a time;" and as seventy-one divine ages form a Menwantara, so does a Menwantara denote, when applied to dates, seventy one years. In a word, the cypher of the author like the chronology of the Hindus may be varied at pleasure; and amidst the wanderings of an oriental imagination, where are we to find a key to give us access to the facts of real history, or to open the adyta of philosophical and religious opinion?
It must be admitted, however, that all oriental nations, as well as the Hindus, have been in the use of employing the inferior denominations of time, weight, and measure, in preference to the higher, as practised by Europeans: and it is very probable that many numerical statements, which appear to us extremely monstrous and absurd, would be found quite consistent with the truth of things, could we reduce them to an expression acknowledged by our different standards. For example, when it is said that mount Mera is twenty thousand miles high, we conclude at once that miles have been taken for feet, or some similar denomination. Again, when we are informed that the Hindus estimate the circumference of the world at 500,000,000 yougans, or 245,000,000 British miles, that one of their kings reigned 27,000 years; and that king Nanda possessed in his treasury above 1,584,000,000 pounds sterling in gold, we can have no hesitation in concluding that the system of eastern notation has been grossly misunderstood. The Hindu table of weight is constructed on the following data.
“The very small mote which may be discerned in a sun-beam passing through a lattice is the least visible quantity, and men call it Trasarenu.
“Eight of these Trasarenus are supposed equal in weight to one minute poppy seed; three of these seeds are equal to one black mustard seed; and three of these last, to a white mustard seed.
“Six white mustard seeds are equal to a middle-sized barley corn; three barley-corns to one Ructica, or seed of the Gunja: five Ructicas of gold are one Masha, and sixteen such Mashas are one Suverna. Four Suvernas make a Pala; ten Palas a Dharana.”
With respect to the wealth of Nanda, the author very justly remarks, that “there can be no more reason for taking this account literally than there is for supposing the riches of the king of Jerusalem to be intended to be so taken.” For instance, we are told in the book of Chronicles that David drew from his treasury, in gold only, as an oblation to the temple, the sum of £648,000,000, being one half of the riches in his coffers. The whole amount of his treasure in gold must therefore have been £1,296,000,000, a sum nearly double the national debt of Great Britain, when estimated in pounds sterling. We may be sure there is some error in this calculation. The author of the first book of Chronicles, no doubt, assures us that the offering amounted to an hundred and eight thousand talents: and taking the talent at 125 lbs. and the pound of gold at 4£, the product will amount to the enormous sum of six hundred and forty eight millions of our money. The wonder, however, ceases when we learn that the talent did not probably exceed nine pounds of pure gold, the greater proportion being collected as revenue, and even as an article of merchandize, in the impure condition of ore or metallic dust. Upon the whole, and considering the bias of the present generation, we agree with the author before us, when he suggests that “we cannot be too cautious in giving credence to those authors, who, not venturing to ridicule the text of Scripture, select from the Hindu records those passages which approximate the nearest thereto, for the purpose of either placing them in a ridiculous point of view, or pronouncing them monstrous absurdities. Those who like Volney openly attack religion, are less dangerous than those who obliquely point the envenomed dart, and wound it under the cloak of sanctity." We wish the author himself had shewn somewhat more tenderness to the feelings of his readers on this very head; for some of his remarks on Scripture are far from being decorous.
The accompanying genealogical table is faithfully extracted from the Vishnu purana, the Bhagavat, and other puranas, without the least alteration whatever. I have collected numerous MSS. and with the assistance of some learned Pundits of Benares, who are fully satisfied of the authenticity of this table, I exhibit it as the only genuine chronological record of Indian history that has hitherto come to my knowledge. It gives the utmost extent of the chronology of the Hindus; and as a certain number of years only can be allowed to a generation, it overthrows at once their monstrous system, which I have rejected as absolutely repugnant to the course of nature, and human reason.
Indeed their systems of geography, chronology, and history, are all equally monstrous and absurd. The circumference of the earth is said to be 500,000,000 yojanas, or 2,456,000,000 British miles: the mountains are asserted to be 100 yojanas, or 491 British miles high. Hence the mountains to the south of Benares are said, in the puranas, to have kept the holy city in total darkness, till Matra-deva, growing angry at their insolence, they humbled themselves to the ground, and their highest peak now is not more than 500 feet high. In Europe similar notions once prevailed; for we are told that the Cimmerians were kept in continual darkness by the interposition of immensely high mountains. In the Calica purana, it is said that the mountains have sunk considerably, so that the highest is not above one yojana, or five miles high.
When the Puranas speak of the kings of ancient times, they are equally extravagant. According to them, King Yudhishthir reigned seven and twenty thousand years; king Nanda, of whom I shall speak more fully hereafter, is said to have possessed in his treasury above 1,584,000,000 pounds sterling, in gold coin alone: the value of the silver and copper coin, and jewels, exceeded all calculation; and his army consisted of 100,000,000 men. These accounts, geographical, chronological, and historical, as absurd and inconsistent with reason, must be rejected. This monstrous system seems to derive its origin from the ancient period of 12,000 natural years, which was admitted by the Persians, the Etruscans, and, I believe, also by the Celtic tribes; for we read of a learned nation in Spain, which boasted of having written histories of above six thousand years.
The hindus still make use of a period of 12,000 divine years, after which a periodical renovation of the world takes place. It is difficult to fix the time when the Hindus, forsaking the paths of historical truth, launched into the mazes of extravagance and fable. Megasthenes, who had repeatedly visited the court of Chandra Gupta [No, Sandrocottus], and of course had an opportunity of conversing with the best informed persons in India, is silent as to this monstrous system of the Hindus: on the contrary, it appears, from what he says, that in his time they did not carry back their antiquities much beyond six thousand, or even five thousand years, as we read in some MSS.
-- On the Chronology of the Hindus, by Captain Francis Wilford, Asiatic Researches, Vol. V, P. 241, 1799
We repeat once more, in relation to the subject under consideration, that it is extremely probable the oriental nations of antiquity used the lower denominations, into which, time and quantity were subdivided -- as days for years, feet for miles, and ounces for pounds; much in the same way as the prophets used a week for a period of seven years, and generally one expression as symbolical of the thing meant by another not expressed. In short, there appears to have been a cypher in use amongst ancient writers in the east; but as that cypher was not the same at all times and in all places, it must be extremely difficult, at this remote period, to invent a key answering to the hidden meaning of so many different authors and ages.