and in form of letter so much as to prove that one was by no means a mere copy of the other, suggested to my mind, that they must assuredly contain some very common text from the Bauddha scriptures, and I accordingly hastened to enquire of my friend Mr. CSOMA DE KÖRÖS, whether he had met with any similar passage, in his extensive examination of the Tibetan volumes. He did not at first recognize it, but promised to bear it in mind; and sure enough, in the course of a few days, Mr. CSOMA brought me the pleasing intelligence that he had discovered the very sentence, agreeing word for word with the Sárnáth version, in three volumes of the Kahgyur collection; being in Tibetan characters, according to their mode of writing Sanscrit, and without translation. Moreover on referring to the corresponding Sanscrit originals, in the Lántsha and in the modern Devanagarí copies of the same work (forming part of the treasures of Bauddha literature, made known to the world by our associate Mr. B. H. HODGSON) no less than fifteen examples were brought to light, of the verbatim introduction of the same text. In all these instances it was found to occur as a kind of peroration, or concluding paragraph at the end of a volume. Thus, it is introduced at the termination of the first, second, and third khanda of the Prajná Paramita, (Tib. Sher-chin,) each containing 25,000 slokas; and again, at the end of the 5th khanda, which is an epitome of the sata sahasríká, or 100,000 slokas, contained in the four preceding sections*. In the Tibetan version the sentence is sometimes followed by the word bkrís, a contraction for 4 bkra-shis, "blessing, glory†," and sometimes by its Sanscrit equivalent in Tibetan characters mangalam. Something however was still wanting to remove the ambiguity of the abbreviated sentence, and this Mr. CSOMA's acute and assiduous research soon enabled him to supply; for in the Do class of the Kah-gyur, vol. or 9, leaf 510, he was so fortunate as to meet with the same passage connected with another Sanscrit sloka, in the Tibetan character, and followed immediately by a faithful translation into the latter language. As the development of the passage has thus acquired importance, Mr. CSOMA has obligingly transcribed the whole from the Tibetan volume, first in Sanscrit, and below in Tibetan, with a literal version in the Roman character. See Mr. WILSON's account of the Kah-gyur. GLEANINGS, vol. iii. page 243, and JOURNAL, vol. i. + See CSOMA's Tibetan Grammar, page 24. Image of Buddha dug up in the neighbourhood of the Bakhra Lath. in Tirhut Inscription on a Stone extracted from the Sarnath Tope. near Benares. N Inscription on a rock of the Mandara Hill. near Bhagelpur Ornament on the periphery of the Capital of the Allahabad Lath. (See Vol. III. PL. III Sanscrit version in Tibetan characters. ཡེ་རྰ, མཱོ་ཧེ་རྩ་པྲ་བྷ་བཱ། ཧེ་མྺཱ ཉྙཱནྡྷའུ་ག་ཏེ་ཧྱ་བ་ད། ཧེ་ལྕ་ལེན་རེ།ཨེ་ལྦ་ བ༵་་མཧྰ་ཀྰ་མ་ཎཿ༔ ། ཨཐོ་པ་པ་ཀྱྰ་ཀ་ར་ཎི 1 ཁྱ་ཤ་ཝ་རྞྞ་པ་མ་པྰ་ད༠ ། ཕཱ་ཎྱེ་པ་རིི་ད་མ་ནྜ། མེ་ད་ང་ནྰ་ཤཱ་ས་ནྀ1* Yé dharmá hétu prabhavá, hétun téshan Tathágató hyavadat, ཆེས་མས་ཐམས་ཅད་རྒྱུ་ལས་བྱུང་ ༑དེ་རྒྱུ་དེ་བཞིན་གཤེགསཔས་གསུངས 1 རྒྱུ་ལ་༢མེད་པ་གང་ཡིན་པ ༑ འདི་སྐད་གསུང་བ་དགེ་སྒྱེད་ཆི ། །སྡིག་པ་ཅི་ ཡང་མི་བྱ་སྟེ ། དགེ་བ་ཕུན་སུམ་ཚོགས་པར་སྤྱད། རང་Ë་སེམས་ནི་ཡོངས་ སུ་གརུལ ། སངས་མྱོས་བསྟན་པ་༢དི་ཡིན་ནོ །། Chhos rnams thams chad rgyu las byung, Hdi skad gsung-va dge-sbyong chhé : Dgé-va phun sum tshogs-par spyad; The sentence thus fre Here then was the solution of the enigma. quently repeated was the preamble to the quaint compendium of the Buddhist doctrines, which was so universally known to the professors of this faith that it was no more necessary to repeat it on all occasions than it would be to insert the gloria patri at the end of each psalm in our own ritual. The sense was now seen to run on from the present tense of the second part of the sentence to the maxims which followed: and the whole passage was thus literally and intelligibly rendered from the Tibetan by Mr. CsOMA DE KÖRÖS. * 66 Whatever moral (or human) actions arise from some cause, * In the last two lines of this version M. CSOMA proposes to read p paridamanam, which accord better with the sense of the Tibetan version. The marks for i and am a O are nearly similar, and are often misprinted in the Tibetan books: so also the subjoined r is often confounded with the vowel mark á 2. G Is thus set forth by the great SRAMANAS. 'No vice is to be committed: Every virtue must be perfectly practised: The mind must be brought under entire subjection; This is the commandment of BUDDHA.'' It is unfortunate that the Sanscrit text of the moral maxim has not been any where found in the Lantsá copy of the Prajná Parámita. Its authenticity rests, therefore, solely on the Tibetan version, in which there is apparently some error; for the sentence, as it stands, is not pure Sanscrit, and certainly will not bear the interpretation which Mr. CSOMA has given literally from the vernacular translation of Tibet. Dr. MILL has favored me with some valuable observations on the passage, which, with his permission, I here insert. Mr. HODGSON will doubtless be able to confirm the true reading by consulting the Sanscrit original of the དཔQ་བར་༢ལ་བའྲི་ཉིད་ངེ་འཛིན /Pah-var hgrovahi tingé hdsin (Sans. shúrangama samádhi, the heroical extasy), which may still exist in some of the monasteries of Népal. "The interesting discovery of the passage in the Buddhist sacred books from which the Sárnáth inscription is taken, by M. CSOMA DE KÖRÖS, removes all doubt as to the reading of the first word which I unfortunately took for the demonstrative pronoun, whereas it is the relative to which the f in the next line refers. It follows that the next word the compound should be read separately from which is of course plural. M. CSOMA's version is here perfectly agreeable to the Sanscrit; and my translation of the former half of this sentence requires to be corrected by his. I am by no means equally well satisfied with the other sentence quoted by M. CSOMA as following the former in some of the places where it occurs in the Buddhist scriptures: the Sanscrit text of which is certainly corrupted in the copies he cites, and, except in the last line, exhibits no sentence corresponding in form to his Latin or English version. I have also very considerable doubt of the accuracy of the opinion, that this second stanza is the clue to the supposed enigma in the first, or necessary in any respect to complete its meaning. That it is even the object of reference in the former stanza, appears to me doubtful. The occurrence of the former passage,—not only in the two several inscriptions of Benares and Tirhut, by itself,-but at the end of chapters in the places you pointed out to me from M. CSOMA's Lantsa MSS., seem to indicate that it has a complete meaning in itself and the “thus" or "alike" of the fourth line may as well be understood with reference to the preceding clause, as to any sentence following. The metrical structure of the two passages confirms me in the idea of their independency: the latter being in the ordinary Anustup measure, with about the same degree of license as we find that measure in the Puránas: whereas the former, though approximating in places to the measure of eight syllables, is as remote from the rules of VALMIKI's sloka as are the hymns of the Vedas: and it is equally irreducible to the laws of the A'rya or any more modern poetical measure. In the translation of the latter passage, I would advert particularly to the line which M. CSOMA has translated, Every virtue must be practised.' I do not see how 6 |