it is, that Nicolo de Conti, who was in Bengal and other parts of India in the fifteenth century, insists that Vicramaditya was the same with Augustus, and that his period was reckoned, from the birth of that Emperor, fifty-six years before Christ.” Now, it is evident that these fifty-six years before Christ bring us to the æra of the Buddha of Siam, for the beginning of the new æra, foretold by the Cumæan Sibyl, as declared by the Mantuan or Celtic poet, the Druid of Cisalpine Gaul, in his fourth eclogue.[1] This, in some old manuscripts seen by Pierius, is entitled Interpretatio Novi Sæculi.[2] This Eclogue was evidently a carmen Sæculare.
Virgil says,
Renews its finished course: Saturnian times
Roll round again, and mighty years, begun
From their first orb, in radiant circles run.
The base degenerate iron offspring, (or the Cali-yuga,) ends
A golden progeny (of the Crita, or golden age)[3] from heaven descends:
O chaste Lucina, speed the mother’s pains:
And haste the glorious birth: thy own Apollo reigns!
The lovely boy with his auspicious face!
The son shall lead the life of Gods, and be
By Gods and heroes seen, and Gods and heroes see.
Another Typhis shall new seas explore,
Another Argo land the chiefs upon the Iberian shore:
Another Helen other wars create,
And great Achilles urge the Trojan fate.
O of celestial seed! O foster son of Jove!
See, labouring nature calls thee to sustain
The nodding frame of heaven, and earth, and main:
See, to their base restored, earth, seas, and air.
Col. Wilford on this passage observes, that these are the very words of Vishnu to the earth, when complaining to it, and begging redress.[4] Here is the Brahmin periodical regeneration clearly expressed. And here is an admission by Virgil, that the poem of Homer was a religious Mythos. All these prophecies, I apprehend, alluded to the renovation of the cycle of the Neros, then about to take place in its ninth revolution,
I quote these verses here merely to shew that some great personage was expected. The Ultima Cumæi venit jam carminis Ætas, of Virgil, I shall discuss in a future page, and shew that it is in accordance with my theory.
Several of the other most celebrated Roman authors have noticed the expectation of the arrival of some great personage in the first century, so that this could not be a mere solitary instance of Virgil’s base adulation in this interesting poem.
Tacitus says, “The generality had a strong persuasion that it was contained in the ancient writings of the priests, that at that very time the East should prevail: and that some one who should come out of Judea, should obtain the empire of the world: which ambiguities foretold Vespasian and Titus. But the common people, (of the Jews,) according to the usual influence of human wishes, appropriated to themselves, by their interpretation, this vast grandeur foretold
- ↑ The æras of the Heroes, or Messiahs, of the cycle, (as the Bible calls Cyrus,) did not always commence on their births, either in very old or more modern times. Thus Buddha’s æra, above-mentioned, was from his death; Jesus Christ’s is four years after his birth. Mohamed was born A. D. 708, his æra begins 725.
- ↑ Vide Dupuis sur tous les Cultes, Vol. III. p. 156.
- ↑ We may observe, and reserve for future consideration, that Col. Wilford says the Crita or Golden age was about to return. In his observation of the Cali Yug he is wrong.
- ↑ Asiat. Res. Vol. X. p. 31.
