5. Receiving what has been licked off, at an oblation to fire, from the pot of clarified butter; entrance into the third order, or that of a hermit, though ordained for the first ages;

6. The diminution of crimes in proportion to the religious acts and sacred knowledge of the offenders; the rule of expiation for a Bráhmen extending to death;

7. The sin of holding any intercourse with sinners; the secret expiation of any great crimes except theft; the slaughter of cattle in honour of eminent guests or of ancestors;

8. The filiation of any but a son legally begotten or given in adoption by his parents; the desertion of a lawful wife for any offence less than actual adultery:

9. These parts of ancient law were abrogated by wise legislators, as the cases arose at the beginning of the Cali-age, with an intent of securing mankind from evil.

On the preceding texts it must be remarked, that none of them, except that of VRIHASPATI, are cited by CULLUCA, who never seems to have considered any other laws of MENU as restrained to the three first ages; that of the Smriti, or sacred code, is quoted without the name of the legislator; and that the prohibition, in any age, of self-defence, even against

Bráhmens,

Bráhmens, is repugnant to a text of SUMANTU, to the precept and example of CRISHNA himself, according to the Mahábhárat, and even to a sentence in the Véda, by which every man is commanded to defend his own life from all violent aggressors.

NOTES.

CHAP. I.

Verse 15. In Hindu metaphysicks, the five perceptions of sense imply, the sight as referable to the eyes, the hearing to the ears, the scent to the nose, the taste to the tongue, and the touch to the skin. By the five organs of sensation' (sense ?), are intended the hand, the foot, the voice, the organ of generation, and that of excretion. The commentator identifies what is mentioned here with what is said Chap. II. verses 90 and 91, but the difference in the denominations would lead to a doubt whether the same objects are intended in the two places; for in the latter verses the first class are termed organs of sense,' and the second ' organs of action.' Were it not for this interpretation of the passage, Chap, I. verse 15, by the Hindu commentators, I should be inclined to translate the hemistich thus: and the five organs of sense, and the five senses gradually.'

In the twelfth chapter and the fiftieth verse, Sir William Jones has mentioned the agreement of the system of theogony and cosmogony of MENU with that of CAPILA, the reputed founder of the SANC'HYA, or sceptical school of philosophy. The essay given by Mr. Colebrooke on this branch of Hindu metaphysicks, in the first volume of the Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society, is a real favour to all who take an interest in so important a link between ancient and modern opinions. The notices on the same subject, to be found at the end of Dr. Taylor's translation of the Prabód'ha-chandródaya, were too scanty to do more than excite a wish that some one competently versed in the philosophical opinions of Europe and Asia would undertake the task. 3 к While

While that given by the late Mr. Ward in his account of the Hindus, is evidently too hastily prepared to give any, but a general impression of the very curious and interesting documents of ancient Hindu civilization and refined speculation. Neglected as these matters have heretofore been, it must prove highly satisfactory to every Sanscrit scholar that the philosophy of the Hindus has found so able an expositor as Mr. Colebrooke. It is to be hoped, that he will complete what he has so well begun, by affording the world the means of judging of the other schools in which are contained the philosophical speculations of a portion of the human race so anciently civilized as the Hindus; and whose literature is impressed with characteristick features, that are ample pledges of its antiquity and originality.

CHAP. II.

Verse 25. The word universe,' has, by an errour of the press, been printed in Italick instead of Roman letters, as it originally stood in Sir W. Jones's works. It may not be uninteresting to observe, that the word sarva, employed here to signify the universe, in its original and primary sense implies all, or the whole. Hence it is employed as an epithet of SIVA, as well as of VISHNU, by the worshippers of those Gods, agreeably to the Hindu doctrine, that contemplates the universal whole through any one of its multiform parts. In the account given in Enfield's History of Philosophy*, it will be seen that ZARVA was the chief of all the Gods among the Persians, and produced the good and evil principles, or HORMISDA and SATANA. I think, from the evident connexion between the religious systems of the Persians and the Hindus, the identity of the god ZARVA and the SARVA of India must be incontestible; and we are thus enabled to take a new and most

most accurate view of the real nature of the Magian religion. In it we find the same prevailing idea common in all the theogonies of the ancients, namely, the finite nature of their gods, and their subordinate rank, as the personifications or the powers of the boundless whole, that is, of nature. Moses Chorenensis speaks of the same mythological character under the name of ZEROVAN. Anquetil du Perron in his Zend Avesta,* likewise mentions ZERVAN, whom he considers as time personified; but the sense of the word Sarva or Sarvam enables us at once to find a clue to the real nature of the chief of all the Gods.' Good and evil were, under this point of view, the inevitable results or offspring of material existence; and the pantheism which saw God in all, by the language of personification, made Sarva, or the whole, the parent of the two principles, which were named HORMISDA and SATANA. 41. Sana is both hemp (Cannabis sativa), and Bengal san, a plant from which a kind of hemp is prepared, viz. crotolaria juncea, and other kinds.

Cshumà, is the linum usitatissimum.

42. Munja is a sort of grass (saccharum munja).

Múrvá is a sort of creeper, from the fibres of which bowstrings are made, (Sanseviera zeylanica).

43. Cusa is a species of grass used in many solemn and religious observances, hence called sacrificial grass (Poa cynosuroides). The Asmántaca does not occur in the dictionaries.

The Valvaja is a sort of grass (saccharum cylindricum).

45. The Vilva is a fruit-tree, commonly named Bél (Ægle marmelos).

The Palása is the Butea frondosa.

The Vata is the Ficus Indica.

C'hadira is a tree, the resin of which is used in medicine, khayar or catechu (Mimosa catechu).

The Vénu is the bamboo, but the text says the Pilu, which is