Again," Tout est vide, tout est delusion, pour l'intelligence suprème (Adi Buddha, as before defined). L' Avidyá seul donne aux choses du monde sensible une sorte de realité passagère et purement phénomenal.' Avidyá, therefore, must, according to this statement, be entirely dependant on the volition of the one supreme immaterial cause yet, immediately after, it is observed, on voit, à travers des brouillards d'un langage énigmatique, ressorter l'idée d'une double cause de tout ce qui existe, savoir l'intelligence suprème (Adi Buddha) et l'Avidyá ou matière." But the fact is, that Avidyá is not a material or plastic cause. It is not a substance, but a mode-not a being, but an affection of a being-not a cause, but an effect. Avidyá, I repeat, is nothing primarily causal or substantial: it is a phenomenon, or rather the sum of phenomena; and it is made of such stuff as dreams are." In other words, phenomena are, according to this theory, utterly unreal. The Avidyálists, therefore, are so far from belonging to that set of philosophers who have inferred two distinct substances and causes from the two distinct classes of phenomena existing in the world, that they entirely deny the justice of the premises on which that inference is rested.

REMUSAT next observes, "Les effets matériels sont subordonnés aux effets psychologiques”—and in the very next page we hear that "on appelle lois les rapports qui lient les effets aux causes, tant dans l'ordre physique que dans l'ordre moral, ou, pour parler plus exactement, dans l'ordre unique, qui constitue l'univers."

Now, if there be really but one class of phenomena in the world, it must be either the material, or the immaterial, class: consequently, with those who hold this doctrine, the question of the dependence or independence of mental upon physical phenomena, must, in one essential sense, be a mere façon de parler. And I shall venture to assert, that with most of the Buddhists-whose cardinal tenet is, that all phenomena are homogeneous, whatever they may think upon the further question of their reality or unreality—it is actually such.

It is, indeed, therefore necessary" joindre la notion d'esprit" before these puzzles can be allowed to be altogether so difficult as they seem, at least to be such as they seem; and if mind or soul "have no name in the Chinese language," the reason of that at least is obvious; its existence is denied; mind is only a peculiar modification of matter; et l'ordre unique de l'univers c'est l'ordre physique ! Not 50 years since a man of genius in Europe declared that "C the universal system does not consist of two principles so essentially different from one another as matter and spirit; but that the whole must be

of some uniform composition; so that the material or immaterial part of the system is superfluous."

This notion, unless I am mistaken, is to be found at the bottom of most of the Indian systems of philosophy, Brahmánical and Buddhist, connected with a rejection in some shape or other of phenomenal reality, in order to get rid of the difficulty of different properties existing in the cause (whether mind or matter) and in the effect*.

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The assertion that material effects are subordinate to psychological" is no otherwise a difficulty than as two absolutely distinct substances, or two absolutely distinct classes of phenomena, are assumed to have a real existence; and I believe that there is scarcely one school of Bauddha philosophers which has not denied the one or the other assumption; and that the prevalent opinions include a denial of both. All known phenomena may be ascribed to mind or to matter without a palpable contradiction; nor, with the single exception of extent, is there a physical phenomenon which does not seem to countenance the rejection of phenomenal reality. Hence the doctrines of Avidyá and of Mayá; and I would ask those whose musings are in an impartial strain, whether the Bauddha device be not as good a one as the Bráhmanical, to stave off a difficulty which the unaided wit of man is utterly unable to cope with?

Questionless, it is not easy, if it be possible, to avoid the use of words equivalent to material and psychological; but the tenet obviously involved in the formal subordination of one to the other class of phenomena, when placed beside the tenet, that all phenomena are homogenous, at once renders the former a mere trick of words, or creates an irreconcileable contradiction between the two doctrines, and in fact REMUSAT has here again commingled tenets held exclusively by quite distinct schools of Buddhist philosophy.

If I have been held accountable for some of the notions above remarked on, I suspect that these my supposed opinions have been opposed by something more substantial than" des arguties mystiques." REMUSAT expressly says, "M. HODGSON a eu parfaitement raison d' admettre, comme base du système entier, l'existence d'un seul être souverainement

* REMUSAT desired to know how the Buddhists reconcile multiplicity with unity, relative with absolute, imperfect with perfect, variable with eternal, nature with intelligence?

I answer; by the hypothesis of two modes-one of quiescence, the other of activity. But when he joins" l'esprit et la matiére" to the rest of his antitheses, I must beg leave to say the question is entirely altered, and must recommend the captious to a consideration of the extract given in the text from a European philosopher of eminence. Not that I have any sympathy with that extravagance, but that I wish merely to state the case fairly for the Buddhists.

parfait et intelligent, de celui qu' il nomme Adi Buddha." Now, I must crave leave to say that I never admitted anything of the sort; but, on the contrary, carefully pointed out that the système entier' consists of four systems, all sufficiently different, and two of them, radically soviz. the Swabhávika and the Aiswárika. It is most apparent to me that REMUSAT has made a melange out of the doctrines of all the four schools; and there are very sufficient indications in the course of this essay that his principal authority was of the Swabhávika sect.

In speaking of the two bodies of Buddha he remarks, that "le veritable corps est identifié avec la science et la loi. Sa substance même est la science (Prajná)." He had previously made the same observation, "Le loi même est son principe et sa nature." Now those who are aware that Prajná (most idly translated law, science, and so forth,) is the name of the great material cause*, can have no difficulty in reaching the conviction that the Buddhist authority from whence this assertion was borrowed,′ of Prajná being the very essence; nature, and principle of Buddha,'-belonged to the Swabhávika school, and would have laughed at the co-ordinate doctrine of his translator, that Buddha is the sovereign and sole cause, of whom Nature (Prajná) is an effect.

The Swabhávika Buddhas, who derive their capacity of identifying themselves with the first cause from nature, which is that cause, are as all-accomplished as the Buddhas of the Aiswárikas, who derive the same capacity from Adi Buddha, who is that cause.

In this express character of sovereign cause only, is the Adi Buddha of the Aiswárikas distinguishable, amid the crowd of Buddhas of all sorts; and such are the interminable subtleties of the système entier❜ that he who shall not carefully mark this cardinal point of primary causation, will find all others unavailing to guide him unconfusedly through the various labyrinths of the several schools.

Did REMUSAT never meet with passages like the following? "And as all other things and beings proceeded from Swabháva or nature, so did Vajra, Satwa, Buddha, thence called the self-existent,”

* Prakritéswari iti Prajná; and again, Dharanatmika iti Dharma. Dharma is a synonyme of Prajná. Prajná means Supreme Wisdom. Whose? Nature's-and Nature's, as the sole, or only as the plastic, cause.

So, again, Dharma means morality in the abstract, or the moral religious code of these religionists, or material cause, in either of the two senses hinted at above; or, lastly, material effects, viz. versatile worlds. These are points to be settled by the context, and by the known tenets of the writer who uses the one or other word: and when it is known that the very texts of the Swabhávikas, differently interpreted, have served for the basis of the Aiswárika doctrine, I presume no further caveto can be required.

Even the Swabhávikas have their Dhyáni Buddhas, and their triad, including, of course, an Adi Buddha. Names therefore, are of little weight; and unmeasured epithets are so profusely scattered on every hand that the practised alone can avoid their snare. I did not admit a Theistic school, because I found a Buddha designated as Adi, or the first; nor yet because I found him yclept, infinite, omniscient, eternal, and so forth; but because I found him explicitly contradistinguished from nature, and systematically expounded as the efficient cause of all. Nor should it be forgotten that when I announced the fact of a Theistic sect of Buddhists, I observed that this sect was, as compared with the Swabhávika, both recent and confined.

If, in the course of this, and the three preceding letters, I have spoken harshly of REMUSAT's researches, let it be remembered, that I conceive my labours to have been adopted without acknowledgment, as well as my opinions to have been miserably distorted. I have been most courteously told, that "the learned of Europe are indebted to me for the name of Adi Buddha !” The inference is palpable that that is the extent of the obligation. Such insidious injustice compels me to avow in the face of the world my conviction that, whatever the Chinese and Mongolian works on Buddhism possessed by the French Savans may contain, no intelligible views were thence derived of the general subject before my essays appeared, or could have been afterwards, but for the lights those essays afforded*. I had access to the original Sanscrit scriptures of the Buddhists, and they were interpreted to me by learned natives, whose hopes hereafter depended upon a just understanding of their contents. No wonder therefore, and little merit, if I discovered very many things inscrutably hidden from those who were reduced to consult barbarian translations from the most refined and copious of languages upon the most subtle and interminable of topics, and who had no living oracle ever at hand to expound to them the dark signification of the written word-to guide their first steps through the most labyrinthine of human mazest.

For the rest, and personally, there is bienséance for bienséance, and a sincere tear dropped over the untimely grave of the learned REMUSAT.

* The case is altered materially now; because my original authorities, which stand far less in need of living interpreters, are generally accessible. I have placed them in the hands of my countrymen and of others, and shall be happy to procure copies for any individual, or body of persons, in France, who may desire to possess them.

+ I beg to propose, as an experimentum crucis, the celebrated text-Ye Dharmanitya of the Sata Sanasrika. If the several theistic, atheistic, and sceptical meanings wrapped up in these few words, can be reached through Chinese or Mongolian translations uninterpreted by living authorities, I am content to consider my argument worthless.

VII. On the Use of the Siddhántas in the Work of Native Education. By LANCELOT WILKINSON, Esq. Bomb. C. S., Ast. Res. at Bhopál.

May I request that you will be so kind as to give insertion in your Journal to the accompanying few verses, extracted from the Goládhyaya, or Treatise on the Globes, by Bнáskar A'chárya, Hindu Astronomer, who flourished about 800 years ago.

In order to make the tenor of the arguments here used by Bнáskar A'CHARYA intelligible to readers generally, it may be proper in the first place, briefly to notice the popular belief and tenets entertained with regard to the earth and the system of the world, (for to these subjects my remarks will be confined,) by the two grand classes of Hindus here, so boldly and ably exposed by this celebrated Astronomer.

The Hindus of India seem to have been at the time when he wrote, as at the present day, divided into three grand classes; viz. 1st, the Jains or Bauddhas, followers of the Bauddha Sútras; 2nd, the followers of the Brahmánical or Puránic system; and 3rd, the jyotishís or followers of the Siddhántas or Astronomical system.

The moon

The Jains at that time maintained, and still maintain, that the earth is a flat plane of immense extent; that the central portion of it, called Jambudwíp, is surrounded by innumerable seas and islands, which encompass it in the form of belts; that the earth now is, and has been, since its first creation, falling downwards in space; that there are two suns, two moons, and two sets of corresponding planets and constellations; viz. 1st, for the use of that part of the earth lying to the north of the mountain Merú, believed to be in the centre of Jambudwíp; and the other for the use of the southern half of the world. they believe to be above the sun, but only 80 yojans*; Mercury, four yojans beyond the moon; and Venus, to be three yojans beyond Mercury. The Jain banyas, scattered through the cities and towns of Rajputáná, Málwá, Guzerát, and the north-west provinces of Hindusthán, profess this belief. The opulent Márwárí merchants and bankers, whom we find established at the three presidencies, and in all the large cities of India, are also chiefly of this persuasion. Their Gurús are the Jattís; the Sarangís are also a stricter sect of Jains.

2nd. The followers of the Puráns believe in a system very little different from that of the Jains. They also maintain that the earth is a circular plane, having the golden mountain Merú in its centre; that it is 50 crores of yojans in superficial diameter; that Jambudwip (which immediately surrounds Merú, and which we inhabit) is

*A yojan is four côs.