1838.] Pali Buddhistical Annals. 687 



of ultimate disappointment, involving, perhaps in that reaction the 

 authentic portion also of these annals, for a time, under one general 

 and sweeping disparagement. 



It is very desirable, therefore, that, if possible, the nature, the 

 extent, as well as the motive, for this mystification should be explained, 

 before I advert to those portions of the Pali Annals which treat of events 

 of greater antiquity than twenty-four centuries. I profess not to be 

 able to show, either the age in which the first systematic perversion of 

 the Buddhistical records took place, or how often that mystification was 

 repeated ; but self-condemnatory evidence more convincing than that 

 which the Pitakattaya ' and the Jtthakathd themselves contain, that 

 such a mystification was adopted at the advent of Sakya cannot, I 

 conceive, be reasonably expected to exist. In those authorities, (both 

 which are still held by the Buddhists to be inspired writings,) you are, 

 as one of their cardinal points of faith, required to believe, moreover, 

 that a revolution of human affairs, in all respects similar to the one 

 that took place at the advent of Sakya, occurred at the manifestation 

 of every preceding Buddho. The question, therefore, as to whether 

 Sakya was or was not the first disturber of Buddhistical chronology, is 

 dependent on the establishment of the still more important historical 

 fact of whether the preceding Buddha had any existence but in his 

 pretended revelation. For impartial evidence on this interesting 

 question, we must not, of course, search Buddhistical writings ; and it 

 is not my design to enter into any speculative discussion at present. 



It is, however, not unworthy of general remark that, as far as 

 the surviving records of antiquity will admit of a judgment being 

 formed, the learned consider it to be established that the Egyptians 

 and the Hindus, the two nations who earliest attained an advanced 

 condition of civilization, both preserved their chronology underanged, 

 till about the age in which Buddhism acquired its greatest spread over 

 the civilized regions of Asia*; and that it was only then that the 

 propounders of religious mysteries in Egypt and in those regions 

 attempted to remodel their historical data, attributing to their respective 

 nations a greater antiquity than that previously claimed by them. 

 Herodotus is considered to have visited Egypt about the middle of 

 the fifth century before Christ. A comparison of the information 

 collected by that historian, with that obtained by Diodorus four 

 hundred years later, shows that the Egyptian priests had in that 

 interval altered their traditions considerably, so as to throw the com- 

 mencement of their history much further back. It appears to be 

 equally proved, by the evidence still extant of the information collected 

 4 R 



