82 Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. [Jan. 



W. Grey, Esq. C. S ., Welby Jackson, Esq. C. S., and R. W. G. Frith, 

 Esq. 



Read translation of a letter received from Professor Lassen, as fol- 

 lows : — 



To Dr. E.Roer, Co-Secretary, Asiatic Society, Oriental Department. 



My dear Sir, — In conveying to the Asiatic Society my grateful acknow- 

 ledgments for the valuable present they Lave favoured me with, and for their 

 interest in my pursuits, I would request you to offer to the Society my apologies 

 for the delay in my reply, owing to a severe affection of the eyes, from which I have 

 been suffering during this whole summer, and which prevented me from engaging 

 in any literary undertakings. 



I was long since aware of the importance, nay of the indispensability of Radha- 

 kant's Dictionary for my labours, without, however, seeing a chance of making use 

 of it, and my gratitude to the Asiatic Society, is the more cordial and sincere, since 

 by their favour I have at last obtained access to this mine of Hindu learning. 



Being anxious publicly to record my thanks to the Society, I shall consider it a 

 particular favour, if yon will ascertain, whether the Society would accept the 

 dedication of my work on Indian antiquities to them. I was by my disease un- 

 fortunately compelled to desist during last summer from my labours, but 1 hope 

 I shall be able to finish the latter half of the first volume in the course of the next 

 spring. 



By your translation of the Vedanta Sara, which I already knew from No. 158 

 of the Journal, you have acquired a lasting merit for the correct interpretation of 

 this work, the meaning of which had been entirely misconstrued by the two former 

 translators. You give, I apprehend, even too much praise to the German, by call- 

 ing him a good Sanscrit scholar ; his grammar and anthology contain many errors, 

 and do not speak well of the critical sagacity of the author ; his works are still 

 more perverted by the circumstance, that he mixes up with all his labours Schil- 

 ling's philosophy which he does not even correctly understand. 



I most sincerely thank you for your offer to have, with the consent of the Society, 

 some of the manuscripts of your Library copied for me, and I shall take the liberty 

 to avail myself of it on any occasion T may require it. The works I should wish to 

 have copied before all others, I am afraid, are not in the Library, at least not in 

 the printed catalogue, viz. the Pratisakhya and the works of Aryabhutta. The 

 latter, I believe, are only procurable in Malabar, since I find only one single notice 

 of one of them in the catalogue of the Mackenzie collection, where mention is made 

 of a manuscript in Grantham writing. The first title includes three works, 

 manuscripts of which are found in London, and in Chambers' collection in Berlin ; 

 they are grammars of the Veda dialect, more ancient than that of Panini, and for 

 this reason of great importance. If you will not consider me rude, I shall be much 



