of life as guarded on all sides by a
sword. Another inscription describes a delectable region surrounded by
four rivers. Professors Rawlinson and Delitzsch both regard this as a
reference to the Garden of Eden.

"The Hindu legends," says Hardwick, "are agreed in representing man as
one of the last products of creative wisdom, as the master-work of God;
and also in extolling the first race of men as pure and upright,
innocent and happy. The beings who were thus created by Brahma are all
said to have been endowed with righteousness and perfect faith; they
abode wherever they pleased, unchecked by any impediment; their hearts
were free from guile; they were pure, made free from toil by observance
of sacred institutes. In their sanctified minds Hari dwelt; and they
were filled with perfect wisdom by which they contemplated the glory of
Vishnu.

"The first men were, accordingly, the best. The Krita age, the 'age of
truth,' the reign of purity, in which mankind, as it came forth from the
Creator, was not divided into numerous conflicting orders, and in which
the different faculties of man all worked harmoniously together, was a
thought that lay too near the human heart to be uprooted by the ills and
inequalities of actual life. In this the Hindu sided altogether with the
Hebrew, and as flatly contradicted the unworthy speculations of the
modern philosopher, who would fain persuade us that human beings have
not issued from one single pair, and also, that the primitive type of
men is scarcely separable from that of ordinary animals...."[172]

Spence Hardy, in speaking on this subject, describes a Buddhist legend
of Ceylon which represents the original inhabitants of the world as
having been once spotlessly pure, and as dwelling in ethereal bodies
which moved at will through space. They had no need of sun or moon. They
lived in perfect happiness and peace till, at last, one of their number
tasted of a strange substance which he found lying on the surface of the
earth. He induced others to eat also, whereupon all knew good and evil,
and their high estate was lost. They now had perpetual need of food,
which only made them more gross and earthly. Wickedness abounded, and
they were in darkness. Assembling together, they fashioned for
themselves a sun, but after a few hours it fell below the horizon, and
they were compelled to create a moon.[173] An old Mongolian legend
represents the first man as having transgressed by eating a p