1835.] taken from a Temple on the Confines of Nepal. 197 



It is peculiarly Nipalese ; and all the old Sanscrit works of the 

 Bauddhas of Nepal are written in this character, or, in the cognate 

 style denominated Bhujin Miila — which latter, however, 1 do but 

 incidentally name. I wish here to draw attention to the fact that 

 that form of writing or system of letters called Lantza in Tibet, and 

 there considered foreign and Indian, though no where extant in the 

 plains of India, is the common vehicle of the Sanscrit language amongst 

 the Bauddhas of Nepal proper, by whom it is denominated Ranja, and 

 written thus, in Devanagari ?:5TT ; Ranja therefore, and not according 

 to a barbarian metamorphosis Lantza, it should be called by us ; and, 

 by way of further and clearer distinction, the Nipalese variety of 

 Devanagari. Obviously deduceable as this form is, from the Indian 

 standard, and still enshrined as it is in numerous Sanscrit works, it is 

 an interesting circumstance to observe it, in practical collocation with 

 the ordinary Tibetan form — likewise, undoubtedly Indian, but far less 

 easily traceable to its source in the Devanagari alphabet, and devoted 

 to the expression of a language radically different from Sanscrit. Nor 

 when it is considered that Ranja is the common extant vehicle of 

 those original Sanscrit works of which the Tibetan books are transla- 

 tions, will the interest of an inscription, traced on one slab in both 

 characters, be denied to be considerable. Singular indications, indeed, 

 are these of that gradual process of transplantation, whereby a large 

 portion of Indian literature was naturalized beyond the Himalaya, as 

 well as of the gradual eradication of that literature from the soil of its 

 birth, where, for four centuries probably, the very memory of it has 

 passed away* ! Those who are engaged at present in decyphering 

 ancient inscriptions would do well, I conceive, to essay the tracing, 

 through Ranja and Bhujin Mulaf, of the transmutation of Devanagari 

 into the Tibetan alphabet. In conclusion, I may observe, that this 

 habit of promulgating the mantras of their faith, by inscriptions patent 

 on the face of religious edifices, is peculiar to the Tibetan Buddhists, 

 those of Nepal considering it a high crime thus to subject them to 

 vulgar, and perchance uninitiated utterance. 



The Tibetan sentiment and practice are, in this respect, both the 

 more orthodox and the more rational. But in another important re- 

 spect, the Nipalese followers of Buddha are far more rational at least, if 

 far less orthodox, than their neighbours : for they have utterly rejected 

 that absurd and mischievous adherence to religious mendicancy and 

 monachism which still distinguishes the TibetansJ. 



* The very names of the numerous Sanscrit Bauddha works recently discovered 

 in Nepal were totally unknown to the Pandits of the plains, who received the 

 announcement of the discovery with absolute disbelief. 



f All the four systems of letters are given in the 16th vol. of the As. "Researches. 



X The curious may like to know that Tibetan Buddhism is distinguished from 



