34 Patron's A-ldress. [Feb. 



done to me by the Nepalese Government in affoHing every possible 

 facility both to me and to your joint Philolotrical Secretary. The 

 people wherever I met tliem, specially tlie pandits and librarians with 

 whom I came into contact, always showed ine the greatest possible 

 kindness. The work of your joint Pbilological Secretary, who was 

 specially de}»uted in connection with the search for Sanskrit MSS., 

 has been eminently snccessful, and not less than 29 MSS., chiefly Pahn- 

 le.'if MSS., have been purcluised by him with my own co-operation for 

 your collection. I therefoi-e beg to suggest that the thanks of the 

 Society by its President might be sent to His Hijjhness the Prime 

 Minister of Nepal and to his brother and representative, His Excellency 

 the Commander-in-Chief for the great services rendered to me, as also 

 to the Society's officers working in connection witli me." 



Piof. C. Beiidall also exhibited enlargements of Photographs taken 

 from MSS. and Inscriptions referred to in the above remarks, as also 

 various other objects of interest collected by him in Nepal. 



His Excellency the Viceroy said it gave him great pleasure to be 

 present on that occasion. He had come there not in his official garb as 

 patron of the Society, but as a student and writer who had himself 

 profitetl by its publications, and who was intensely interested in its work 

 and welfare. He was glad to have heard the inteiesting inaugural 

 address of Mr. Ri.'<ley, and the account by Mr. Bendall of his recent 

 researches and discoveries in Nepal. The latter was a country of great 

 interest, in which he doubted not that original discoveries would await 

 the future explorer and student. Mr. Bendall's remarks on two subjects 

 in particular had confirmed his own observations in Asiatic travel. The 

 parallelism which Mr. Bendall had noticed between some of the features 

 and practices of Roman Catholicism and of the Buddhist religion in 

 Nepal had been observed in many other countries, and was one of the 

 commonplaces of Oriental travel. He had himself made some study 

 of monastic life and institutions in China, and had made a careful note 

 of the many points of resemblance between the ritual, theogony and 

 to some extent even the dogma of the two religions. Perhaps it was 

 this coincidence that in some degree explained the easy entry of the 

 Roman Catholic propaganda into some Asiatic countries. The com- 

 bination of a sort of nature worship with an aesthetic regard for the 

 beauties of natural scenery had also greatly struck him in Corea, and 

 he gave an account of the annual mission of the State embassy from 

 Soeul to pay homage to the Long White Mountains in the north. As 

 regarded the work of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, although as he 

 knew that it consisted mostly of voluntai-y effort and that they did not 

 epuru the help of amateurs, he yet did not personally regard its actions 



