790 Review of L'histoire [No. 167. 



The more we advance in the perusal of his book, the darkness as to 

 the mysterious origin of Buddhism is gradually dispelled, and we com- 

 mence to get an insight into the very motives of its founder and its first 

 apostles ; in a word, we recognise in it a work of human intellect. 



Mr. Burnouf endeavours first to establish the place, which the San- 

 scrit books of Nepaul claim to occupy among the Buddhist literature 

 in Asia, and after a careful comparison of the great Tibetan collection of 

 Buddhist works, of which Mr. A. C. de Koros gave a detailed and able 

 analysis in the Journal of the Asiatic Society, of Mongolian and Chinese 

 Buddhist works with the Nepalese collection, he comes to the conclu- 

 sion, that all of them are translations from the Nepalese books. 



It is a fact, he says, proved now to evidence, that most of the sacred 

 books of Tibet, Tartary and China, are only translations of the 

 texts, discovered in Nepal, and this single fact marks positively the 

 place of these texts in the series of documents which the Asiatic nations 

 have furnished for the general history of Buddhism. 



Ancient Buddhism has, according to the author, only two true sources, 

 the Sanscrit works of Nepal, and the Pali collection of Ceylon, of both 

 of which he made use in his researches. 



The results of them are presented in the following order. His 

 work is divided in three parts or memoirs. The first memoir is to 

 describe, according to the Nepalese tradition, the Buddhist collection, 

 discovered by Mr. Hodgson. For this purpose it is to enter into the 

 necessary details concerning the great divisions of the sacred writings, 

 admitted by the Buddhists of the North, by which it will be decided, 

 whether they had been written at different periods or not. This me- 

 moir will somewhat dispel the obscurity of the first times of Buddhism, 

 and at least decide the long controverted question of the comparative 

 antiquity of Buddhism and Brahmanism. The second memoir, which 

 will be published in a subsequent volume, is to examine the Pali books 

 of Ceylon ; and the third, to compare both collections and the traditions 

 in the North and South concerning them. From this, says the author, 

 will result the conviction, that there are two editions of the Buddhist 

 works, the difference of which generally consists less in the matter 

 than in the form and classification of the books ; and secondly, that the 

 true elements of ancient Buddhism must be looked for in what is com- 

 mon in either edition. 



