1899.] Professor Bendall — MSS. and Inscriptions from Nepal. 31 



notice of the claims of that interesting and beautiful country on the 

 special attention of scholars. In this room, adorned by the bust of one 

 of the most distinguished members of this Society, my late revered 

 friend Brian Houghton Hodgson, it is specially fitting briefly to refer to 

 them. To Hodgson, by far the most eminent of Residents in Nepal, the 

 world owes the revelation of the existence in India of an extensive 

 literature of Buddhism — in many respects, the most important of 

 Ea.stern religions, and till then supposed to have been entirely swept 

 away fi'om its birthplace, the continent of India. 



The fact is that during the Muhammndan invasions, Nepal, never 

 entered by the invaders, became a refuge for the Buddhists of Mithija 

 and Bengal. The excellent climate also of the country seems to have 

 been favourable for the conservation of manuscripts. This fact was 

 first prominently brought out by tlie collections of Dr. Daniel Wright, 

 Residency Surgeon at Kathmandu. Hodgson's collections were chiefly 

 modern copies, but Wright acquired from 1873 to 1876 a large number 

 of palm-leaf originals. Of the greater portion of these, now at Cam- 

 bridge (some also at the British Museum) I have compiled printed 

 catalogaes, and amongst them is a work which is noteworthy as the 

 oldest Indian MS. bearing a date, that date being assigned by me to an 

 era making it equivalent to 857 A.D. 



But I am able to shew you to-night photographs of books written 

 as early as this and some probably considerably earlier. By the kind- 

 ness of the Nepalese authorities, I was enabled to spend many days in 

 the examination of the Maharaja's splendid collection of MSS., much 

 assisted by one of your Secretaries, Mahamah5padhyaya Haraprasad 

 ^astri, and by his assistant, Binoda Bihari who is still at work there. An 

 exhaustive report will be later on presented to you. At present, therefore, 

 I need only briefly refer to some of the most important discoveries. 



The existence of the Maharaja's Library was first made known by 

 Mr. R. Lawrence in ]863, and subsequently mentioned by Dr. Wright. 

 By the present time it has been much increased and is still receiving 

 accessions. The MSS. are packed in cloths according to the native 

 fashion. In one of those bundles I found palm-leaves with writing 

 in a peculiar form of character which though Indian, has never been 

 found in India itself, but only in MSS. from Central Asia. Dr. Hoernle 

 calls this character the North- Western Gupta script, or simply North 

 Indian Gupta, and the date assigned to it by him and Prof. Biihler, is 

 the 5th century A.D. 



A second discovery of mine needs a few words of explanation in a 

 gathering including some who are not Oriental Scholars. Buddhism is 

 divided into two great sects, called the Mahaynna or " great vehicle " 



