Whether it be that the immoderate heat disposes the Eastern people to a Life of indolence, which gives them full leisure to cultivate their talents, … - William Jones

I propose to lay before you a concise history of Indian chronology extracted from Sanskrit books, attached to no system, and as much disposed to reject Mosaick history, if it be proved erroneous, as to believe it, if it be confirmed by sound reason from indubitable evidence.

Barrow loads them with the severe, but just, epithets of malignant , unsocial, obstinate, distrustful, sordid , changeable, turbulent; and describes them as furiously zealous in succouring their own countrymen, but implacably hostile to other nations; yet, with all the sottish perverseness, the stupid arrogance, and the brutal atrocity of their character, they had the peculiar merit, among all races of men under heaven, of preserving a rational and pure system of devotion in the midst of wild polytheism , inhuman or obscene rites, and a dark labyrinth of errours produced by ignorance and supported by interested fraud ."

I have carefully and regularly perused the Holy Scriptures, and am of opinion that the volume contains more sublimity, purer morality, more important history, and finer strains of eloquence, than can be collected from all other books, in whatever language they may have been written.