134 Original of the Sarndth and Tirhut [March, 



and in form of letter so much as to prove that one was by no means a 

 mere copy of the other, suggested to my mind, that they must 

 assuredly contain some very common text from the Bauddha scriptures, 

 and I accordingly hastened to enquire of my friend Mr. Csoma de 

 Koros, whether he had met with any similar passage, in his extensive 

 examination of the Tibetan volumes. 



He did not at first recognize it, but promised to bear it in mind ; and 

 sure enough, in the course of a few days, Mr. Csoma brought me the 

 pleasing intelligence that he had discovered the very sentence, agreeing 

 word for word with the Sarnath version, in three volumes of the Kah- 

 gyur collection ;' being in Tibetan characters, according to their mode 

 of writing Sanscrit, and without translation. Moreover on referring 

 to the corresponding Sanscrit originals, in the Lantsha and in the 

 modern Devanagari copies of the same work (forming part of the trea- 

 sures of Bauddha literature, made known to the world by our associate 

 Mr. B. H. Hodgson) no less than fifteen examples were brought to 

 light, of the verbatim introduction of the same text. 



In all these instances.it was found to occur- as a kind of peroration, 

 or concluding paragraph at the end of a volume. Thus, it is introdu- 

 ced at the termination of the first, second, and third khanda of the 

 Prajnd Paramita, (Tib. Sher-chin,) each containing 25,000 slokas ; and 

 again, at the end of the 5th khanda, which is an epitome of the sata 

 sahasrikd, or 100,000 slokas, contained in the four preceding sections*. 

 In the Tibetan version the sentence is sometimes followed by the word 

 Z^v bkri's, a contraction for X{^^ bkra-shis, "blessing, gloryf," 

 and sometimes by its Sanscrit equivalent in Tibetan characters 

 3ifc;fi)<^- mangalam. 



Something however was still wanting to remove the ambiguity 

 of the abbreviated sentence, and this Mr. Csoma's acute and assiduous 

 research soon enabled him to supply ; for in the ^ Do class of the 

 Kah-gyur, vol. t, or 9, leaf 510, he was so fortunate as to meet with the 

 same passage connected with another Sanscrit sloka, in the Tibetan 

 character, and followed immediately by a faithful translation into the 

 latter language. 



As the development of the passage has thus acquired importance, 

 Mr. Csoma has obligingly transcribed the whole from the Tibetan vo- 

 lume, first in Sanscrit, and below in Tibetan, with a literal version in 

 the Roman character. 



* See Mr. Wilson's account of the Kah-gyur. Glbanings, vol. ft. page 

 243, and Journal, vol. i. 

 t See Csoma's Tibetan Grammar, page 24. 



