February, 1906. | Annual Report. XXVii 
in preety their literature by aT versions of gered of the 
great books of Sanskrit literature. The rse which the scone 
followed in Rome, when Greek authors were freely pad by the 
dramatists of the Republic ; and in England, when the great trans- 
lations which form a remarkable monument of English literature 
re made during the Tudor period. Now it has so happened in 
Oy case of Tibetan literature, that although the pry origi- 
nals have been, in many instances, lost, in course of time in this 
country, the translation and in some eases the ceiiaal. itself has 
survived in Tibet. As one illustration, mention may be made of 
the Avadana Kalpalata of Kshemendra, no manuseript of which 
could be traced in this country ; indeed, it was supposed to have 
been lost, but was recovered in "Tibet, in “original, with a Tibetan 
version, The publication of this work was undertaken some years 
Sittock. if, one w ea to find a parallel to an incident of this 
description in the history of modern ysis research, one must 
travel to Egypt, which he given back to Europe some of the most 
exquisite products of the ‘Greek intellask the fragments of Bac- 
chylides, the Mimes of Herondas, and the long-lost work of 
Aristotle on the Constitution of Aihane. It is scree ious, therefore, 
that a wider knowledge of Tibetan er specially of cis 
portions of it as are translated or mainl unded on 
literature, must throw considerable light on ‘the latter, either hy 
original forms of joe? which, as they now stand, are believed on 
good grounds to be of later interpolations, It has been 
generally supposed that the literature of Tibet is mainly, if not 
entirely, Buddhistic; this, however, is erroneous because the 
Tibetans possess translations of Kalidas’s Meghduta, Vararuchi’s 
Satagatha, Rabigupta’s Aryakosh, Valmiki’s Ramayana, Vyasa’s 
ahabharat, Chanakya’s Nitisastra, Dandi’s Kavyadarsha, 
Panini’s Vyakarana, Chandra Vyakarana, Pramanasamuccaya of 
Dignaga, and various other works including several, the originals 
of which cannot be traced in this eee: It looks, therefore, as 
if the most profitable course whic serious student of Indian 
boughs by Mr. Hodgson, those known as the Kangyur, consisting 
ed volumes, are deposited in our library, while those 
| the Tangyur, consisting mainly of non-Buddhistic 
Sanskrit works and extending over two hundred and twenty-five 
volumes, were deposited in the India Office, London. Only a small 
fragment of these has, up to the present moment, been worked 
through by scholars, and as regards those tect by the Tibet 
