1836.] Authorities on Buddhism. 29 



The shortest way of amending these errors, and supplying at the same time 

 some further information calculated to make the paper more generally intelligible, 

 is to reprint it at Calcutta. This the author has, accordingly, now enabled us 

 to do, the new information being given in the shape of additional notes, which 

 it would indeed have been Bcarcely worth while to print separately from the 

 text to which they refer. It is not our custom to republish articles already 

 printed, and we do so now only under express invitation from the author, whose 

 researches in Buddhism, aided by local advantages possessed by no other writer, 

 it is of the highest importance to have correctly reported and preserved. — Ed.] 



Preface. 



Several distinguished orientalists having, whilst they applauded the 

 novelty and importance of the information conveyed by my Sketch of 

 Buddhism*, called upon me for proofs, I have been induced to prepare 

 for publication the following translation of significant passages from 

 the ancient books of the Sangatas, which still are extant in Nepal in 

 the original Sanscrit. 



These extracts were made for me (whilst I was collecting the worksf 

 in question) some years ago by Amirta Nanda Bandya, the most 

 learned Buddhist then, or now, living in this country ; they formed the 

 materials from which chiefly I drew my sketch ; and they would have 

 been long since communicated to the public, had the translator felt 

 sufficiently confident of his powers, or sufficiently assured that enlight- 

 ened Europeans could be brought to tolerate the ' ingens indigestaque 

 moles' of these ' original authorities ;' which however, in the present 

 instance, are original in a far higher and better sense than those of 

 De Koros, or even of Upham. "Without stopping to question whether 

 the sages who formed the Bauddha system of philosophy and religion 

 used Sanscrit or high Prdcrit, or both, or seeking to determine the 

 consequent pretension of Mr. Upham's authorities to be considered 

 original}:, it may be safely said, that those of Mr. De Koros can support 

 no claims of the kind. 



* Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society of London ; — necnon, Transactions 

 of Bengal Society, vol. xvi. 



+■ The collection comprises, besides 60 volumes in Sanscrit, procured in Nepdl, 

 the very names of which had previously been unknown, some 250 volumes, in 

 the language of Tibet, which were obtained from Ldssa and Digarcht. But for 

 the existence of the latter at Calcutta, Mr. De Koros's attain. nents in Tibetan 

 lore had been comparatively useless. The former or Sanscrit books of Nepdl 

 are the authorities relied on in this paper. Since the first colleciion was made 

 in Nepdl, very many new works in the Sanscrit language have been discovered 

 and are yet daily under discovery. The probability now is, that the entire Kahgyur 

 and Stangyur may be recovered, in the original language. The whole series has 

 been obtained in that of Tibet, 327 large volumes. 



X These authorities however, even if allowed to be original, appear to consist 

 entirely of childish legends. I allude to the three published volumes. The 



