to the Ethnological Society of London. 61 



been added to the Teliigu and Tamul. The opmion of Dr 

 Stevenson has been strongly opposed in a very able memoir 

 by Dr Miiller, which w^as read at the last meeting of the British 

 Association, and has been printed in the Transactions of that 

 Society. Dr Miiller has proved, if I am not mistaken, that 

 the Bengali originated as a popular modification of the re- 

 fined and elaborate Sanskrit, and he has suggested good 

 reasons for extending this inference to the other northern 

 languages of India. The race of the Hindoos themselves, at 

 least the higher castes, or the so-termed twice-born tribes, who 

 call themselves Aryas, must be looked upon as genuine de- 

 scendants of the Arian conquerors of India, and of one kin- 

 dred, as Dr Miiller suggests, with the Indo-European na- 

 tions, including the present rulers of Hindustan. 



A very interesting contribution to Eastern Ethnology has 

 lately been made by Mr Hodgson, well known by his writings 

 on the Buddhistical books, which he collected while resident 

 in the territory of Nepal. Mr Hodgson has lately transmit- 

 ted to the Asiatic Society of Bengal a memoir on the various 

 tribes of Bhotiyan origin who inhabit the mountainous tracts 

 and the intervening valleys under the eastern part of the 

 Himalaya, from the river Kali or Gagre, well known as a 

 great ethnological boundary, eastward to Sikim. All these 

 countries intervene between the elevated line of the snowy 

 mountain-chain and the plains of Hindustan. Mr Hodg- 

 son terms them the Sub-him41ayas. He says that the 

 best illustration of the Himalaya and the Sub-himdlayas 

 is by a comparison with the skeleton of a human body, 

 the former being analogous to the spine, and the trans- 

 verse ranges termed Sub-him41ayas to the ribs. The races 

 of people inhabiting the Sub-him41ayas are, according to 

 Mr Hodgson, nearly related to each other, and they are 

 all descended from the people of Tibet or Bhot, the original 

 abode of the Bhotiyan race. They are supposed to have 

 crossed the line of the Himalaya from Tibet about thirty- 

 five or forty-five generations back, or from 1000 to 1300 

 years ago. The transit was made before the Tibetans had 

 adopted from India the literature and mythology of Bud- 

 dhism, which they are supposed to have received in the 



