This arrangement is a sufficient proof of the high antiquity of the work; for the practice and method of dividing books, according to the quantity of their contents, into particular chapters, and of employing for that purpose a certain regular plan, is an invention of later times. _Amarasinha_, the author of this dictionary, named after him, according to a tradition, received as true among the inhabitants of the northern part of India, was minister to king _Vikràmaditya_, who died fifty-seven years before the birth of Christ[185]. This opinion is adopted by Sir William Jones, Davis, Hastings, Anquetil du Perron, and other learned men who have made researches into the history of India; and the Brahmans are so fully convinced of the great antiquity of this book, that they employ it as a standard by which they examine the purity of the Samscred words that occur in other writings. CHAPTER VII. _Religion and Deities of the Indians._ The almighty, infinite, eternal, incomprehensible, and self-existent Being is called in the Samscred language _Parabrahma_, _Tatva Paramèshvara_, _Svayambhu Paràbara_. _Parabrahma_ signifies the highest wisdom, the most wise Being; _Tatva_, the Being who exists by himself; _Paramèshvara_, the Almighty; from _Parama_ the highest, and _Ishvara_ lord; both which words are joined together by an elision, and formed into one: _Svayambhu_, a Being who exists for and by himself; as _Svaya_ signifies, in the Samscred, by himself; and _bhu_, existing: _Paràbara_, the most excellent of all exalted beings. All these expressions, which are taken partly from the Brahmanic grammar, and partly from the Indian dictionaries, clearly shew that the Indians believe in one only true God, who has the principle of existence within himself, and who lives from eternity to eternity. In the Indian book _Mahabhàrada_ he is distinguished by the following appellations: _Canmasza vináshana_, he who cannot possibly lose his purity; the pure Being who never sins. _Karmasákshi_, the observer of all the actions of men. _Genmanáshádihina_, he who loses neither his being nor existence. _Nirmala_, the unspotted. _Nirmádiguelkoru dharmanáyaga_, the beneficent lord, or the fundamental principle of every thing that is pure.