xviii Report. 



panion. By ihe adoption of this measure, there is every reason to 

 believe that a great impulse would be given to the cause of Oriental 

 Literature, and that much more might be accomplished towards the 

 fulfilment of the wishes of the Hon'ble Court, than by more casual and 

 desultory labours, resulting in the publication, at distant intervals, of 

 ponderous and ostentatious tomes, such as now encumber our shelves. 

 A work like that now proposed would soon become an indispensible 

 appendage to every Library of any pretensions ; and would be in large 

 demand as well here as in Europe, if each text be accompanied, as I 

 propose it should be, by an English version, making it accessible to the 

 many accomplished and earnest investigators of the Literature, History, 

 and Archaeology of India, to whom the original is a sealed book. 



To carry out this project, there would be required (besides the 

 hearty and effective co-operation of the Committee and of Oriental 

 scholars generally) a paid and responsible Editor, with an adequate 

 native staff, acting under the immediate controul and direction of the 

 Oriental Section, itself subordinate to the Council of the Society. For 

 this purpose the fund appears very ample. A monthly number, con- 

 sisting of from 80 to 100 pp. at a cost of say 2 Us. per page for 500 

 copies, would amount to Us. 200, leaving a surplus of Us. 300 for the 

 remuneration of the Editor, and his native assistants, the purchase or 

 transcription of MSS., and the formation of a reserved fund, to be set 

 apart for such other purposes in connection with the objects of the 

 grant as the Society may hereafter see fit to promote ; it being no part 

 of the present plan that the whole grant should be expended in the 

 way suggested ; at all events till experience shall have proved the pro- 

 priety of doing so. 



As to the class of works to be published in the manner indicated, it 

 were presumptuous in me to do more than allude to the subject. That 

 portion of Dr. Iloer's edition of the Rig Veda, now ready, would occu- 

 py about four numbers of the proposed work ; the Lalitd Vistdrd>* 

 (an account of the life and esoteric doctrines of Buddha) would be an 



r able librarian, Babu Rajendralal Mittra, undertook an edition of this work 

 some months ago at my suggestion, and has, I believe, made some progress in it. The 

 only copy of thid work in Calcutta was supplied by Mr. B. H. Hodgson, who with his 

 usual liberality and zeal has kindly sent to Nepal for other copies, to enable us to rectify 

 tltc text by collation. 



