16 Historical Remarks, $c. [Jan. 



herent and propagator of Buddhism, not only in his own dominions 

 of Magadha, but the north, east, and south, as far as Ceylon. It is 

 needless to pursue the discrepancy of the genealogies further : the 

 Vaishnava Cumara-gupta and the Saivya and Saktya worshipper, 

 Scanda-gupta, have nothing in common with the Buddhist descen- 

 dants and successors of Dharmasoca. Is it not also very possible 

 that with a view to exalt the immediate ancestry of that most revered 

 prince, the priests of the favored religion may have introduced this ac- 

 count of the Moriya family, as an offspring of the Solar race, — so dis- 

 crepant from that which other Indian accounts, as well as Greek and 

 Roman, give of its origin ? That the Buddhist priests, notwithstanding 

 their hostility to caste, are not insensible to considerations of this kind, 

 is evident from the care with which, in the Mahd-wanso and elsewhere, 

 they inculcate the undoubted royal descent of Gautama Buddha. 



Note C. 

 The passage above quoted from the Vishnu- Purana seems to have 

 been somewhat differently read by the more modern author of the 

 Srimad-BMyavata, — who here as elsewhere, is apparently only trans- 

 ferring into his own more polished and elaborate verse, the records 

 found in the older Puranic legends. By him the term Gupta, instead 

 of being a proper name, is made an epithet of the earth as ruled or 

 protected (for so the scholiast Sridhara has explained it) by the 

 Visva-sphatika above mentioned, who is here called Visva-sphurji. 

 The close agreement, as well as occasional discrepancy, of the two 

 authorities, will be easily seen from the following extract (Bhagavata, 

 Book xii. chap. 1.) 



" Visva-sphurji, another Puranjaya, (i. e. says the scholiast, the 

 best of the descendants of Puranjaya or Ripunjaya, who was king of 

 Magadha, B. C. 900,) shall create new barbarian castes, the Pulindas, 

 Yadus and Madras. This ill-minded warrior shall make the greatest part 

 of his subjects to be un-brahmanieal, (or lower than sudras)— and hay- 

 ing exterminated the Xattriyas, he shall, in the city of Padmdvati. 

 and on the Ganges, as far as Praydga, derive tribute from the pro. 

 tected earth." 



