1835.] Further Note on the Inscription from Sdrndth. 213 



minor temples surrounding the great edifice at Gyd ; and the asser- 

 tion of our Ceylonese antiquaries, that there are only five Buddhas, 

 is no other than a confusion of the five celestial, with the seven 

 mortal, Buddhas ! As I was looking over your Journal, my Newari 

 painter came into the room. I gave him the catch word, " Ye 

 Dharma," and he immediately filled up the sentence, finishing with 

 Tathdgata. I then uttered " teshan cha," and he completed the doctrine 

 according to the inscription. But it was to no purpose that I tried to 

 carry him on through De Koros's ritual complement : he knew it not. 

 After I had explained its meaning to him, he said, the substance 6X 

 the passage was familiar to him, but that he had been taught to utter 

 the sentiments in other words, which he gave, and in which, by the 

 way, the ordinary Buddhist acceptation of Kushal and its opposite, or 

 Akushal, came out. Kushal is good. Akushal is evil, in a moral or 

 religious sense. Quod licitum vel mandatum : quod illicitum vel 

 prohibitum. 



I will presently send you a correct transcript of the words of the 

 inscription, from some old and authentic copy of the Raksha Bhaga- 

 vati, or Prajnd Paramitd, as you seem to prefer calling it. So will I 

 of De Koros's supplement, so soon as I can lay my hands on the Shu- 

 rangama Samddhi, which I do not think I have by me. At all events, 

 I do not at once recognise the name as that of a distinct Bauddha work. 

 Meanwhile, you will notice, that as my draftsman, above spoken of, is 

 no pandit, but a perfectly illiterate craftsman merely, his familiar ac- 

 quaintance with your inscription may serve to show how perfectly fa- 

 miliar it is to all Buddhists. And here I would observe, by the way, that 

 I have no doubt the inscription on the Dehli, Allahabad, and Behar 

 pillars is some such cardinal dogma of this faith. 



In the "quotations in proof of my sketch of Buddhism," which I sent 

 home last year, I find the following quotation in proof of the Aiswarika 

 system. 



" All things existent (in the versatile world) proceed from some 

 cause j that cause is the Tathagata (Adi Buddha) ; and that which 

 is the cause of (versatile) existence is likewise the cause of its total 

 cessation. So said Sakya Sinha*.' The work from which this pas- 

 sage was extracted is the Bhadra Kalpavaddn. 



1 am no competent critic of Sanscrit, but I have competent autho- 

 rity for the assertion, that Dharma, as used in the inscription, means 

 not human actions merely, but 'all sentient existences in the three ver- 

 satile worlds (celestial, terrene, and infernal). Such is its meaning in 

 the extract just given from the Bhadra Kalpavaddn, and also in the 

 famous Y6 Dharmanitya of the Sata Sahasrika, where the sense is 



* The words bracketed are derived from commentators. 



