Institutes of Hindu Law, Or the Ordinances of Menu, According to the Gloss of Cullúca: Comprising the Indian System of Duties, Religious and Civil (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Institutes of Hindu Law, or the Ordinances of Menu, According to the Gloss of Cullúca: Comprising the Indian System of Duties, Religious and Civil

Many generations before the actual writer of it; who names him, indeed, in one or two places, as a philoso pher in an earlier period. The style, however, and metre of this work (which there is not the smallest reason to think afl'ectedly obsolete) are widely difi'erent from the language and metrical rules of ca'li da's, who nuques tionably wrote before the beginning of our era; and the dialect of menu is even observed, in many passages, to resemble that of the Veda, particularly in a departure from the more modern grammatical forms; whence it must at first view seem very probable, that the laws, now brought to light, were considerably Older than those of solon or even of cuncvs, although the promulga tion of them, before they were reduced to writing, might have been coeval with the first monarchies established in Egypt or Asia but, having had the singular good fortune to procure ancient copies of eleven Upanishads, with a very perspicuous comment, I am enabled to fix with more exactness the probable age of the work be fore as, and even to limit its highest possible age, by a mode of reasoning, which may be thought new, but will be found, I persuade myself, satisfactory; if the Pub lick shall on this occasion give me credit for a few very curious facts, which, though capable of strict proof, can at present be only asserted. The Sanscn't of the.

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