Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies - DUBOIS, Abbé Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, Dubois | Page 459

DATES OF THE FLOOD
419
event, and that the Hindu week agrees exactly with that
Indeed, the days of their
of the Hebrews and with ours.
week correspond exactly with those of ours, and bear
similar names.
One peculiar circumstance is that just as every day of
the Hindu week has its own particular name, so has each
Thus, they do not say like
of the sixty years of a cycle.
us that a certain event happened, say, on the twentieth or
But they give
thirtieth year before or after such an era.
the year its particular name, and say, for example, that
such an event happened in the year Kilasa, in the year
Bhava, in the year Vikary, and so forth.
The only real difficulty is that the Hindu computation
with regard to the epoch of the Flood does not appear to
correspond with that of Holy Scripture.
But it should be remembered that there is a difference
of more than nine hundred years between the period
supposed to have elapsed between the Flood and the Birth
of Christ according to the Septuagint on the one hand,
and according to the Vulgate on the other hand. Yet
neither of these calculations is wholly rejected, and both
The Catholic
of them are supported by able chronologists.
Church, which adheres to the Vulgate for the Old Testa-
ment, adopts the calculation of the Septuagint for the
Roman Martyrology, which forms part of its liturgy. The
difference, therefore, between the Hindu calculation and
ours does not appear a sufficient reason for rejecting it, or
even for supposing that it does not proceed from the same
source.
According to Hindu calculations, the time that elapsed
between the Deluge and the Birth of Jesus Christ is 3,102
This period differs from that laid down in the
years.
Vulgate by about 770 years ; but it approaches much
nearer to the calculations made in the Septuagint, which
gives 3,258 years between the Deluge and the commence-
ment of the Christian era. If we accept this last calcula-
tion, the epoch of the Hindu Jala-pralayam does not differ
from that of the Deluge of the Holy Scriptures by more
than 156 years, a discrepancy of no great importance,
considering the intricacy of a computation which dates
from such remote times. I am, therefore, fully convinced