213 



is a matter not now to be dogmatized upon^ though it may well 

 be kept in mind as something worth investigation. 



25. But^ whatever the motive power that first roused 

 Gautama Buddha to preach against immorality and Brahman 

 ritualism^ whether it came from without or was the inherit- 

 ance only of tradition, it must be allowed that Buddhism was, 

 in its subsequent development, essentially Indian, moulded 

 chiefly by the natural disposition and philosophical specula- 

 tions of the race, and subject, to a very great degree, to the 

 isolation beneath the great barrier of the Himalayas, which 

 has made India what it is ; except when sometimes the 

 invader, perhaps religious as well as military and mer- 

 cantile, has found his way, like Alexander, through the 

 Hindu Kush, or by the sea-board, like Solomon^s sailors, 

 and subsequent Persian, Arabian, Egyptian, and Jewish 

 adventurers. 



The Chairman (J. A. Fraser, M.D., lusp. Gen. of Hospitals). — I think 

 there are very few persons present who can be without a deep sense of 

 obligation to the author of this paper. The subject is one which has excited 

 a great deal of attention and discussion both at home and abroad ; we all 

 know that by reason of certain works which have been written without, as I 

 conceive, that thorough investigation of the subject which was demanded. 

 We are, therefore, particularly glad to have a paper taking up this question 

 so strongly and so learnedly. There is, I might almost say, a greiit 

 tendency in the present day to advance and extol any religion except 

 the Christian religion. 



Captain Frank Petrie (Hon. Sec). — Before the discussion commences, 

 I have to mention the receipt of letters from Bishop Titcomb, Bishop 

 Claughton, Sir William Muir, and Sir Richard Temple ; expressing regret at 

 not being able to be present ; also a letter from Mr. Morley, the domestic 

 chaplain to the Bishop of Madras, expressing his high appreciation of the 

 value of the paper, which he hopes will reach the whole of India. 



Mr. HoRMUZD Rassam.— This has been a topic in which I have always 

 been very much interested, and I cannot but say that I agree with every- 

 thing the learned author of the paper has said with regard to the moat 

 ancient belief in the God of Revelation — Jehovah. Every time I try to trace 

 the Religions of the Avorld and its languages, I cannot go further than 

 the history of the Jews. We can now look back to certain antiquities 

 upon which we can depend,— not MSS. which are only ridiculously men- 

 tioned as having existed for thousands of years, which no one can trust, 

 but antiquities in stone and terra-cotta which have been discovered in 

 Mesopotamia. For instance, in reference to my discovery at Balawat, 

 namely, the bronze gates of Shalmaneser the Second. Assyrian scholars 

 and I fix its date when Jonah visited Nineveh under the Divine 



