﻿124 ON THE CHRONOLOGY 



Servarfhasiddha, Saudhodani, Gautama, Arcahandhu, 

 .or Kins mati of the Sun, and Mayaderoisuta, or Child 

 of Maya* Thence che author passes ro the different 

 epithets of parxicu lax Hindu deities. When I point> 

 ed out this curious passage to Radhacant, he contends- 

 ed that the first eighteen names were general epii^s, 

 and the following seven proper names, or patrony^^L 

 of one and the same person ; but Ramalochan, my 

 own teacher, who though not a Brahman is an excel- 

 lent scholar and a very sensible unprejudiced man* 

 assured me that Buddha was a generic word, like 

 Deva, and that the learned author, having exhibited 

 the names of a Devata in genearl, proceeded to those 

 of a Buddha in general, before he came to particulars : 

 he added, that Buddha might mean a Sage or Philo- 

 sopher, though Budha was the word commonly used 

 for a mere wise man without supernatural powers. 

 It seems highly probable, on the whole, that the 

 Buddha, whom J ay a deva celebrates in his Hymn, was 

 the Sacyasinha, or Lion of Sacya, who, though he forr 

 bade the sacrifices of cattle, which the Vcdas enjoin, 

 was believed to be Vishnu himself in a human form, 

 and that another Buddha, one perhaps of his followers 

 in a later age, assuming his name and character, at- 

 tempted to overset the whole system of the Brahnans, 

 and was the cause of that persecution, from which 

 the Bauddhas are known to have fled into very distant 

 regions. May we not reconcile the singular difference 

 of opinion anion g the Hindus as to the time of Bud- 

 dha's appearance, by supposing that they have con- 

 founded the two Buddhas, the first of whom was born 

 a few years before the close .of the last age, and the 

 second, when above a thousand years of the present 

 age had elapsed ? We know from better authorities, 

 and with as much certainty as can justly be expected 

 on so doubtful a subject, the real time, compared 

 with our own aera, when the ancient Buddha began tq 



