HINDU LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE. 233 



heroes, produces a very ludicrous and amusing 

 effect:. Though their ideas are rational, their man- 

 ners and propensities are faithful to nature. Men- 

 tion is also made of Bisno dewa; of the mountain 

 Maha-meroo \ c; f the blue lotos growing in the pool 

 Mandoo ratna ; of a lion possessing supernatural 



. ers, Sing-asaktce, and elsewhere Sing-a-rajoon^ who 

 shot arrows at Maharaja Karna. Some of these lat- 

 ter names I do not recollect to have met with in the 

 notices we have of the Hindu mythology. 



Tii£S£ similies and allusions must refer, as in all 

 poetry, to stories with which the readers were pre- 

 sumed to be well" acquainted, and seem to imply, 

 that translations of the works were formerly in the 

 hands of the Malays, I do not know that such re- 

 main amongst them at this day : but my ignorance 

 is no proof of the contrary ; for at the time when I 

 had opportunities of making the enquiry, I was un- 

 informed as to the existence of the originals, and the 

 passages above quoted were of course unintelligible 

 tome. They must be sought for in the peninsula 

 of Malacca, or amongst the Mcnangkabon people in 

 Sumatra. A spirit of investigation is now gone 

 forth, and under the influence of the Asiatic Society, 

 and from the example of its President, we may con- 

 fidently hope that no region of oriental literature 

 will be left unexplored. 



Since the foregoing Paper was written, and com- 

 municated to a few friends, I have seen a copy of 

 the third volume of the Asiatic Research?* (just 

 received from Calcutta) and observe that the con- 

 nexion 



