1837.] Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. 615 



Religious Ceremonies of the Hindus, and on the Sanskrit and Prakrit lan- 

 guages, which appear in that volume and in the 7th — essays which would be 

 of themselves sufficient to place the author in the highest rank of oriental 

 scholars, — and which must long continue to form the best textbooks of 

 those who wish to investigate the depths of Indian literature and religion. 

 The translation of one of the more recent inscriptions on the Delhi lat, 

 which appears also in the 7th volume of the Researches, is chiefly interest- 

 ing as being the commencement of the author's more extensive researches 

 into monuments of the same kind in our later volumes : he was 

 among the first to point out the great importance to the knowledge of 

 ancient India of a pursuit, the enlargement of which is daily increasing 

 our stock of historical information. The ". account of certain Muhammadan 

 sects" in the same volume contains some valuable particulars respecting 

 the origin of the curious race so well known in the west of India under 

 the name of Bohras ; and proves that in the midst of his accurate study 

 of the more secluded literature and monuments of the Hindus, — the au- 

 thor was versed also in the learned records of Western Asia. 



The dissertation which bears, perhaps most of all, the stamp of the 

 profound Sanskrit learning of the author, is that on the Vedas in our 8th 

 volume ; a work which, though necessarily leaving much undone that is 

 yet required towards furnishing a complete analytical index to those re- 

 cords of the ruder language, and oldest worship of the Hindus, — has found 

 none to second, much less to complete, or to supersede the mas- 

 terly outline of their contents which is here presented to the inquiring 

 student. In this, as in the other essays of Mr. Colebrooke, — the reader 

 feels that it is not a mere philologist, or collector of ancient records that 

 he is consulting, — but one whose critical sagacity weighs well the value, 

 the age, and the import of every authority that he alleges : and whose 

 statements in consequence, may be received with the most entire respect 

 and confidence. 



The later volumes of the Researches are adorned not only by the ela- 

 borate " Observations on the Jains" in which very respectable classical 

 erudition is brought to aid profound Indian research, — and the learn- 

 ed and interesting Essay on Sanskrit and Prakrit poetry, — but by the au- 

 thor's articles on Hindu astronomy. To this deeply interesting subject 

 of inquiry none has so completely brought the qualification desiderated by 

 Ideleb, the union of Sanskrit learning with competent astronomical 

 science. The account of the Indian and Arabian divisions of the Zodiac 

 in the 9th volume, — and the essay in the 12th on the notions of the Hindu 

 mathematicians respecting the precession of the equinoxes and the mo- 

 tions of the planets, — are most valuable contributions to our knowledge 

 on this subject. They are the best corrections to the extravagant no- 

 tions of Indian antiquity which the preceding speculations of Bailly 

 and others had deduced from imperfect notices of the Hindu observations : 

 and also to the crude and fanciful speculations with which a writer on the 

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