HISTORY AND ANTIQUITIES, THE ARTS, OF A SI SIA. THE SECON D. VOLUME CALCUTT A: PRINTED AND SOLD BY MANUEL CANTOPHER, AT THE HONOURABLE THE COMPANY'S PRINTING-OFFICE; AND SOLD AT M. DCC. XC. GEOGR ERICAN APHICAL ADVERTISEMENT. T may greatly conduce to the advancement. of useful knowledge, if the learned Societies, established in Europe, will transmit to the Secretary of the Society in Bengal a collection of short and precife Queries on every branch of Afiatick Hiftory, Natural and Civil, on the Philosophy, Mathematicks, Antiquities, and Polite Literature, of Afia, and on eastern Arts both liberal and mechanick; fince it is hoped, that accurate anfwers may in due time be procured to any questions, that can be proposed on those subjects, which must in all events be curious and interesting, and may prove in the highest degree beneficial to mankind: I GENTLEMEN, HAD the honour last year of opening to you my intention, to discourse at our annual meetings on the five principal nations, who have peopled the continent and iflands of Afia; fo as to trace, by an historical and philological analysis, the number of ancient ftems, from which those five branches have feverally sprung, and the central region, from which they appear to have proceeded: you may, therefore, expect, that, having submitted to your confideration a few general remarks on the old inhabitants of India, I should now offer my fentiments on fome other nation, who, from a fimilarity of language, religion, arts, and manners, may be fupposed to have had an early connection with the Hindus; but, fince we find fome Afiatick nations totally diffimilar to them in all or most of those particulars, and fince the difference will ftrike you more forcibly by an immediate and close comparison, I defign at present to give a fhort account of a wonderful people, who feem in every refpect fo ftrongly contrafted to the original natives of this country, that they must have been for ages a diftinct and feparate race. A |