1902,] Annual Address. 41 



by tlie lapse of years. The scientific students it was proposed to 

 allure to our rolls have their independent and specialised organiz- 

 ations, aud I thiuk the majority of the Society were right in the 

 belief that the originators of the proposal would not succeed in 

 merging these Associations in the wider and more general body of the 

 Asiatic Society. Our Society on its old and time-honoured basis is 

 losing no ground. On the contrary, it is growing in strength and 

 vigour, and it is to my mind certain that the interest of its enquiries 

 must steadily reach out to and fascinate an increasing circle of Indians 

 and Europeans alike. A great Indian scholar, like our friend Pandit 

 Haraprasad Shastri, whose contributions to our journals show such wide 

 reading and tliought, cannot fail to attract his countrymen to our rooms; 

 and there is hardly a year, in which we are not delighted by tlie accre- 

 tion of young Englislimen, like Captain McMahon and Mr. Maclagan, 

 who find time in all their busy lives to discern and track out tilings of 

 value to our knowledge of this great India. May the Society ever 

 grow and prosper. 



Permit me now to speak to you vei*y briefly of some of the results 

 of the researches of the year. 



In the Philological Section, the most important contribution was a 

 paper by Mr. A. H. Francke on the grammar of the Ladakhi dialect 

 with three original documents in that language on the history of 

 Ladakh, a paper which, I understand, has already attracted much atten- 

 tion among the scliolars of Europe. Mr. Theobald has made a new and 

 exhaustive examination of the copper coins of Ancient India, Mr. Hoey 

 has continued his interesting and ingenious enquiries into sites connect- 

 ed with the life of Buddha, and progress has been made by others in 

 the identification of places of note in the ancient history of India, 

 Perhaps I may be permitted in this connection to make some reference 

 to the conservation of ancient monuments in Bengal. They are not so 

 numerous as in some of the other provinces of India. They are, I am 

 afraid, less imposing or beautiful, but some of them are of high merit. 

 The stone temples of Biiubaneshwar are small compared to the great 

 pagodas of Southern India, but they are beautiful specim,ens of the 

 stone-carver's art in the seventh century. There are many of tliem in 

 excellent preservation, and the most precious of them have been or are 

 being restored with a neatness and care which is most creditable to the 

 engineers and their workmen, and will now certainly be safe for a long 

 time to come. In the Malda district there are at Gaur and Pandua the 

 remains of Muhammadan buildings of far greater magnitude and 

 number. The damage to them is unfortunately greater. The Adina 

 Mosque in Pandua must have been in its time one of the largest and 



