* The Vedas or Vedams are the sacred volumes of the Hindoos, as the Bibles with us. They are three in number; the Rick Veda, the Yadjour Veda, and the Sama Veda; they are so scarce in India, that the English could with great difficulty find an original one, of which a copy is deposited in the British Museum; they who reckon four Vedas, include among them the Attar Veda, concerning ceremonies, but which is lost. There are besides commentaries named Upanishada, one of which was published by Anquetil du Peron, and entitled Oupnekhat, a curious work. The date of these books is more than twenty-five centuries prior to our era; their contents prove that all the reveries of the Greek metaphysicians come from India and Egypt. Since the year 1788, the learned men of England are working in India a mine of literature totally unknown in Europe, and which proves that the civilization of India ascends to a very remote antiquity. After the Vedas come the Chastras amounting to six. They treat of theology and the Sciences. Afterwards eighteen Pouranas, treating of Mythology and History. See the Bahgouet-guita, the Baga Vadam, and the Ezour-Vedam, etc. But the Bramins persisting in their silence: "Let them have the honor of the secret," said a European: "Their doctrine is now divulged; we have their books, and I can give you the substance of them." Then beginning with an abstract of the four Vedes, the eighteen Pourans, and the five or six Chastres, he recounted how a being, infinite, eternal, immaterial and round, after having passed an eternity in self-contemplation, and determining at last to manifest himself, separated the male and female faculties which were in him, and performed an act of generation, of which the Lingam remains an emblem; how that first act gave birth to three divine powers, Brama, Bichen or Vichenou, and Chib or Chiven;* whose functions were--the first to create, the second to preserve, and the third to destroy, or change the form of the universe. Then, detailing the history of their operations and adventures, he explained how Brama, proud of having created the world and the eight bobouns, or spheres of probation, thought himself superior to Chib, his equal; how his pride brought on a battle between them, in which these celestial globes were crushed like a basket of eggs; how Brama, vanquished in this conflict, was reduced to serve as a pedestal to Chib, metamorphosed into a Lingam; how Vichenou, the god mediator, has taken at different times to preserve the world, nine mortal forms of animals; how first, in shape of a fish, he saved from the universal deluge a family who repeopled the earth; how afterwards, in the form of a tortoise,** he drew from the sea of milk the mountain Mandreguiri (the pole); then, becoming a boar, he tore the belly of the giant Ereuniachessen, who was drowning the earth in the abyss of Djole, from