1888.] Address. 41 



Bihliotheca Indiea. — Fifty- two numbers of the Bihliotheca Indica 

 series were issued during the year, of wliicli 35 belong to the Sanskrit 

 division and 17 to the Arabic-Persian division. The former represent 

 eighteen separate works, and the latter four, including an index to the 

 third volume of the Ahharndmah. We have sanctioned, during the year, 

 the publication in the Sanskrit series of the text of the Sanskrit Buddhist 

 work Dharmottaracharya's commentary on the Nyayahindu, to be edited 

 by Professor Peterson, and the Brihad Bhanna Purdna to be edited 

 by Pandit Hara Prasada S'astri, also the Bodliisattvdvaddna Kalpalatd 

 with a Tibetan version, of which I shall have more to say hereafter. 

 In the Persian series, we have arranged for a translation of the 

 remainder of the Ain-i-Akhan by Colonel Jarrett, so well begun by 

 the late Professor Blochmann, and of the Muntakhahu-l-Liibdh. better 

 known as the Tarikh-i-Khdfi Klidn, by Professor Cowell ; the text and a 

 translation of the Bjidzu-s-saldtin by Maulavi Abdul Hak Abid jointly 

 with Dr. Hoernle ; and the text of the Ma^dsiru-l-Umard edited by 

 Maulavi Abdur Rahim, of which four fasciculi have already appeared. 

 There are, however, still some twenty works for which sanction has been 

 given, but which have not yet been taken up, and ten of which no part 

 has issued during the past year. 



Tibetan literature. — Last year, I stated that steps had been taken 

 to furnish aids to those who might be disposed to undertake the study 

 of Tibetan, and I now have the very great pleasure of placing on the table 

 the first fasciculus of the first Tibetan manuscript printed in India, due 

 to the energy and industry of our member, Babii Pratapa Chandra Ghosha. 

 I trust that it may be the pioneer of a long series of Tibetan issues 

 from our Bihliotheca, opening up a new field of great philological and 

 literary interest which has too long been left neglected. The fasciculus 

 before you contains the commencement of the ' Shes-rah-kyi — pha-rol- 

 tu-phyin-pd' (hj contraction ' /S^^er-p/i^/m ' and pronounced ' /S^er-cAm'), 

 which is itself a translation made in the ninth century, into Tibetan, 

 from the Sanskrit of the Buddhistic work entitled Prajnd-pdramitd 

 forming, according to Csoma de Koros, the second division of the Kd-gyar, 

 or Tibetan Toipitaka, a collection of the sacred books of Tibet, translated 

 from the Sanskrit, and comprising one hundred volumes. There are, 

 however, twenty-one volumes in this division, of which twelve comprise 

 the 81ier-chin of 100,000 slokas. Of the remainder, eight volumes form 

 abridgements of more or less authority of the Slier-chin itself, the first 

 being the 20,000 slohas abridgement, containing however the equivalent 

 of 25,000 slohas, the next that of 18,000 slokas, the third that of 10,000, 

 and the last that of 8,000, the Sanskrit text of which, under the name 

 Ashtasdhasrikd Frajndpdramitd, is now being brought out for us in the 



