The following list gives the excellent appellations of the heaven-descended forefathers of his Majesty, who are linked to celestial* ancestors by degrees of exaltation and gradations of greatness, and all of whom came as kings, kings of kings, kingdom-bestowers and king-makers, and governed the world by God-given wisdom and true insight, such as justice and equity require, so that they have left behind them on this earth the reverberation of a good name, which is a second life, or rather, is life eternal.

Of the descendants of Qīyān are;—

Let it not be concealed that the auspicious record of these high-born ones is implanted and contained in the breast-pages* of the transmitters of words, and recorded and expressed by the conserving tongues of the writings of epochs, as far as Yaldūz who is the 25th* (i.e., counting upwards) in ascent from his Majesty and that for the period from Mangalī Khwāja to Īl Khān* which may be reckoned as 2,000* years, nothing has come to light. The cause of this will be explained hereafter.

From Īl Khān to Adam there are 24* persons. These have been described by historians, and a brief account of them will be given.

Far-sighted philosophers who with ripe judgment and God-given wisdom, have investigated the records of the past, and who have made the recognition of truth a sacred trust, and who exhibit research in the weighing of facts, are aware that the hearsay reports and traditions about man's origin occurring 7,000 years ago is a thing not to be accepted by sages who contemplate the rise* and decay of the world and (can appreciate all the tones) of the seven climes.

In these matters, right-thinking and far-seeing Reason, after true and just investigation, sometimes answers in the negative, and some­times, out of caution—that baiting place of tranquillity and station of wisdom—delays either to admit or to deny.

By help of Reason—the glory of the world,—and the assistance of trustworthy records and reliable statements about the world, such as the ancient books of India and Cathay (Khiā), etc., which have been preserved from the agitations of accidents and with which agree the principles of astronomy and the conclusions of astronomical obser­vations, (and such things yield trustworthy evidence) and also from the successive series of the biographies of the sages of those coun­tries and the catena of opinions of this disciplined body (philoso­phers), it appears that the beginning of the world and of mortals and the source of the manifestations of the Divine attributes has not been discovered. Either it is eternal, as was the opinion of many ancient philosophers, or of such antiquity as to approximate to eternity.

The sect of Sīūrhā* (Jains) who are preëminent in all the countries of India for austerity, asceticism and science, divide time— called kāl in the Indian language—into two parts. One is Avasarpiṇī (descending cycle), i.e., the period whose beginning is joyful and end grievous, and the other is Utsarpiṇī (ascending cycle), i.e., the oppo­site of the first. Each of these periods is divided into six parts, called āras.* Each āra has a distinct name in accordance with its speciality.

The first āra of the Avasarpiṇī is called Sukhmān-sukhmān, the meaning of the reduplication being that this portion brings joy upon joy and happiness upon happiness. The length of this happy time is four kōrākōr-sāgar. The name of the second āra is Sukhmān, i.e., a time of felicity and joy. Its duration is three kōrākōr-sāgar. The name of the third āra is Sukhām (Sukhmān) Dukhmān, i.e., sorrow and misfortune crop up in the time of joy. Its duration is two kōrākōr-sāgar. The fourth āra is called Dukhmān-sukhmān, i.e., joy and freedom from care rise up in the time of grief and sorrow. Its duration is less than one kōrākōr by 42,000* years.

The fifth āra is Dukhmān being the opposite of the second which was Sukhmān. The duration of this āra is 21,000 years. The sixth āra is Dukhmān-dukhmān being the opposite of the first. Its length is likewise 21,000 years. The names of the āras of the second period (Utsarpiṇī) are the same but the first of them corresponds to the sixth āra of the first period, the second to the fifth, the third to the fourth, and the fourth to the third, the fifth to the second, and the sixth to the first of the first period. Their opinion is that at the present day, two thousand and odd years of the fifth āra of the first period have elapsed.

Be it known* that the arithmeticians of India call 100,000 a lak; ten laks a prayūt, ten prayūts a krōr, one hundred krōrs an arb, ten arbs a kharba, ten kharbs a nikharb, ten nikharbs a mahāsarūj or padm, ten padms a sankha, and ten sankhas a samudr or kōrākōr.

Be it known also that their opinion is that in a former period, in a particular place, a son and a daughter were born at each birth, a notion also prevalent amongst ourselves.*

This sect thinks also that the hair of the infants of the district of Delhi is 4096 times coarser than the hair of those beings whom they call juglī* (yugala).

And they say that if the hair of a seven days old juglī infant, which is excessively fine, be subdivided to the uttermost and an abyss (lit., a well) ten miles* in depth, breadth and length, be filled with such particles and after a lapse of a hundred* years, one segment be taken out, the time in which, at this rate, the abyss will be emptied is a palūpam (? <Arabic script> palya). And when ten samudr,—an explana­tion of which term has already been given,—of palūpam(s) have elapsed, the period is a sāgar. The durations of the aforesaid cycles transcend, in their opinion, the power of calculation or description. Their opinion also is that for the management of the visible and invisible world, twenty-four venerable men (ādam) come forth from the hidden universe into the apparent one, every six āras and then pass* away. The name of the first of these is Ādināth and they call him also Raghunāth. The sway of this chosen one of God lasts fifty krōrs of laks of sāgaras. The name of the last is Mahāvīra.* His sway lasts for 20,000 years, of which 2,000 have elapsed at the present day. And the belief of this sect is that these twenty-four have come into existence many times and will come again many times.