142 REMARKS, &C. 



Remarks on the two preceding Papers, 

 By the President. 



NO man has greater respect than myself for the talents of Mr. 

 Wilkins, who, by decypliering and explaining the old San- 

 scrit Inscriptions lately found in these provinces, has performed 

 more than any other European had learning enough to accomplish, 

 or than any Asiatick had industry enough even to undertake: but 

 some doubts having arisen in my mind concerning a few passages 

 in the two preceding Translations, I venture to propose them in 

 the form of Notes with entire deference to his judgment. 



P. 123. I. 11. This fortunate Prince — Is not the first couplet in 

 honour of Buddha, one of whose names, in the Amarcosh, is Su- 

 gata ? A follower of his tenets would have been denominated a 

 Saugat, in the derivative form. We must observe, that the Bauddhs, 

 or Saugats, are called Atheists by the Brahmins, whom they op- 

 posed ; but it is mere invective; and this very grant fully dis- 

 proves the calumny, by admitting a future state of rewards and 

 punishments. Sugat was a reformer; and every reformer must 

 expect to be calumniated. 



P. 123. /. 18. When his innumerable army — The third stanza in 

 the original is here omitted, either by an oversight, or because 

 the same image of weeping elephants occurs afterwards, and might 

 have been thought superfluous in this place ; nevertheless, I insert 

 a literal translation of it. 



" By whom, having conquered the earth as far as the ocean, it 

 was left, as being unprofitably seized ; so he declared: and his ele- 

 phants weeping saw again in the forests their kindred, whose-eyes- 

 were-full-of-tears." 



P. 124. I. 18. Of many countries — The Pandits insist that Rash- 

 tracuta, in the original, is the name of a particular country. 



P. 127. I. 18. Dated in the 33d Sombat — That is, year; for Samvat 

 is only an abbreviation of Samvatsara. This date, therefore, might 

 only mean the thirty -third year of the King's reign; but, since Vi. 

 cram adit y a was surnamed the foe of Saca, and is praised by that 

 name in a preceding stanza, we may safely infer, that the grant 

 was dated thirty-three years after the date of that illustrious Em- 

 peror, whom the king of Gaur, though a Sovereign Prince, ac- 

 knowledged as lord paramount of India. 



P. 133. Verse II. A virtuous Prince — Many stanzas in this in- 

 scription prove, that the Sandilya family were not Princes; but 

 that some of them were Prime Ministers to the Kings of Gaur, or 

 Bengal, according to this comparative genealogy : 



Kings. 



