protection for their persons and places of abode, justice in their temporal concerns, indulgence to the prejudices of their old religion, and the benefit of those laws, which they have been taught to believe sacred, and which alone they can possibly comprehend.

W. JONES.

CONTENTS.

Chapter

Page

I.

On the Creation; with a Summary of the Contents..........

1

VI.

On Devotion; or on the Third and Fourth Orders...... 171

VII. On Government; or on the Military Class ......

187

VIII. On Judicature; and on Law, Private and Criminal ... 222

IX. On the Commercial and Servile Classes........

... 287

X.

On the Mixed Classes, and on Times of Distress

XI.

On Penance and Expiation

361

XII. On Transmigration and final Beatitude

406

On the Creation; with a Summary of the Contents.

I.

1. MENU sat reclined, with his attention fixed on CHAP.

one object, the Supreme GOD; when the divine Sages

approached him, and, after mutual salutations in due

form, delivered the following address:

2. Deign, sovereign ruler, to apprize us of the sa-

cred laws in their order, as they must be followed by
all the four classes, and by each of them, in their

'several degrees, together with the duties of every

'mixed class;

6

3. For thou, Lord, and thou only among mortals,

knowest the true sense, the first principle, and the

prescribed ceremonies, of this universal, supernatural

Véda, unlimited in extent and unequalled in authority.'

4. HE,

B

I.

CHAP. 4. HE, whose powers were measureless, being thus

requested by the great Sages, whose thoughts were

profound, saluted them all with reverence, and gave

them a comprehensive answer, saying: 'Be it heard!

5. This universe existed only in the first divine idea

yet unexpanded, as if involved in darkness, impercep-
tible, undefinable, undiscoverable by reason, and un-
discovered by revelation, as if it were wholly immers-
⚫ed in sleep :

6.‹ Then the sole self-existing power, himself undis-

cerned, but making this world discernible, with five

'elements and other principles of nature, appeared with

' undiminished glory, expanding his idea, or dispelling

• the gloom.

6

7. HE, whom the mind alone can perceive, whose
essence eludes the external organs, who has no visible
parts, who exists from eternity, even HE, the soul of

'all beings, whom no being can comprehend, shone

forth in person.

8. HE, having willed to produce various beings from

'his own divine substance, first with a thought created

'the waters, and placed in them a productive seed:

6

9. The seed became an egg bright as gold, blazing

like the luminary with a thousand beams; and in that

egg, he was born himself, in the form of BRAHMA',

the great forefather of all spirits.

10. The waters are called nárá, because they were

• the