But Wilford, it is well known, unfortunately betrayed to the crafty and mercenary pundits whom he employed, the objects which he hoped to find; and these unscrupulous interpreters, unwilling to disappoint their employer, had little difficulty in discovering, or forging, or interpolating, whatever might suit his purpose.

The honest candour with which Wilford, a man of the strictest integrity, made the open and humiliating confession of the deceptions which had been practised upon him, ought for ever to preserve his memory from disrespect.
The fictions to which he had given currency, only retained, and still we are ashamed to say retain, their ground in histories of the Bible and works of a certain school of theology, from which no criticism can exorcise an error once established: still, however, with sensible men, a kind of suspicion was thrown over the study itself; and the cool and sagacious researches of men, probably better acquainted with their own language than some of the Brahmins themselves, were implicated in the fate of the fantastic and, though profoundly learned, ever injudicious reveries of Wilford.
Now, however, that we may depend on the genuineness of our documents, it is curious to examine the Indian version or versions of the universal tradition of the Deluge; for, besides this extract from the Mahabharata, Sir W.Jones had extracted from the Bhagavata Purana another, and, in some respects, very different legend.

Both of these versions are strongly impregnated with the mythological extravagance of India; but the Purana, one of the Talmudic books of Indian tradition, as M.Bopp observes, is evidently of a much later date than the ruder and simpler fable of the old Epic.

It belongs to a less ancient school of poetry, and a less ancient system of religion.

While it is much more exuberant in its fiction, it nevertheless betrays a sort of apprehension lest it shall shock the less easy faith of a more incredulous reader; it is manifestly from the religious school of the follower of Vishnu, and, indeed, seems to have some reference to one of the philosophic systems.