17G Dr. Mitra — On Ekotibhdva. [July, 



' I am glad Babu Saratchandra Das has sent us the fruits of his 

 researches in connexion with the subject under discussion which has 

 for some time engaged the attention of Oriental scholars in Europe. 

 Ordinarily, so rare are the contributions we get from the Boeotia of 

 Central Asia, that every little crumb we obtain from that quarter in 

 regard to matters with which we are interested is welcome. 



' It is interesting to be informed that the term ekotibhava is well- 

 known in Tibet, and is to be met with in many Tibetan works. To 

 me it is particularly gratifying to know that the second member of 

 the compound term is uti f as I took it to be, when I submitted to the 

 Society my note on the subject, and not hoti as originally supposed by 

 Professor Max Miiller, and since repeated by Mr. Growse. I regret only 

 that the Babu has not made greater use of the resources he has at com- 

 mand than what he seems to have done in the note now before the meeting. 

 Some extracts from the Tibetan and Sanskrit works he has procured from 

 Lhasa, would have been most welcome to us. In questions of this kind, 

 ancient records are of infinitely greater use than the cogitations of 

 modern scholars. 



' In regard to the spelling of the term, the Babu says that in all the 

 dictionaries he has got, the term is written with a dental t and a long i. 

 The dental t is what I have met with in seven different MSS. of the 

 Lalita Vistara and in one of the Dasabhumisvara, and it is what is 

 invariable in ancient Pali texts. But I am rather puzzled about the 

 loner i. The Babu's MSS. are all Tibetan, with one exception, which, 

 he says, ' is written in the Devanagari character of the 8th or 9th century 

 A. D.' Now, the Tibetan alphabet does not include a letter or mark for 

 the long i. Csoma de Koros, in his Tibetan Grammar, gives only one i, 

 and that the short one. And if the authority of this renowned Tibetan 

 scholar is of any value we cannot expect to find the long i in Tibetan 

 MSS. In his preface he says, ' there are five vowel sounds : a, i, u, e, o, 

 pronounced according to the general pronunciation in Latin in the 

 continent of Europe, without any distinction into short or long, but 

 observing a middle sound.' In his Dictionary there is not a single word 

 given with a long i or u. My friend Babu Pratapachandra Ghosha has 

 favoured me with an extract, either from Carey's translation of Schoeter's 

 Tibetan Grammar or some other authority, the name of which he has 

 forgotten, which runs thus : ' Sometimes the vowels are placed above 

 each other, and then they are pronounced as a long vowel ; but it is 

 more frequently the case that they denote an abbreviation of the word, 

 so that the reader ought to make two syllables of it. Sometimes the 

 vowel (i) is placed over a letter in an opposite direction to that above 

 mentioned, for instance **" , &c. ; but though the shape is altered the 



