( 253 ) 



XXIII. — Some Account of the Recent Progress of Sanskrit Studies. By J. Muir, 



' Esq., D.C.L., LL.D. 



(Read 16th February 1863.) 



In compliance with the desire which the Council have done me the honour 

 to express, I have drawn up the following account of the recent progress and 

 present state of Sanskrit studies, prefixing such an outline of the earlier history 

 of these researches as may serve to complete the review, and render it more easily 

 intelligible. 



In this sketch I do not profess to communicate anything new, but merely seek 

 to present such a summary of the results already obtained, as may convey to 

 those who have not bestowed any special attention on the subject some idea of 

 the character and afl&nities of the Sanskrit language, and of the nature and con- 

 tents of Indian literature, as well as of the advances which have of late years 

 been made in the principal branches of the study. 



The ancient Greeks and Romans possessed a considerable amount of acquaint- 

 ance with the institutions and opinions of the Hindus. The writer from whom 

 their knowledge was principally derived was Megasthenes. In the course of his 

 journey through northern India, and his residence as the ambassador of Seleucus 

 NicATOR at the Court of King Sandkacottus, in the beginning of the third 

 century b. c, this author made it his business to collect such information as he 

 could obtain in regard to the country and its inhabitants. Though we have to 

 regret the loss of the original work in which he embodied the results of his 

 researches, yet in the extracts from it which have been preserved by other 

 writers* we find a description of the physical features and productions of India ; 

 of the manner and customs of the people ; of the administration of government ; 

 of the system of castes ; of the learned men, whom he states to have been divided 

 into two classes, the Brachmanse and the Sarmanse ; of the philosophical discus- 

 sions and lectures of the former, their doctrine that death is but the beginning 

 of life, that nothing earthly is either good or bad,f that the world is created 



* See Schwanbeck's Megasthenis Indica. Bonn, 1846. 



f The religious character of the Indian philosophy is referred to in a story told by Aris- 

 TOXENus the musician, as reported by Aristocles the Peripatetic (Eusebius, prsep. Evang., xi. 

 3, 8). The story (for the truth of which, however, Aristoxenus does not vouch) is to the effect, 

 that an Indian who had met Socrates at Athens, and had been told by him, in answer to a question 

 he proposed, that the proper object of philosophy was human life, rejoined, with a scornful laugh, 

 that no one could understand human things who was ignorant of things divine. 



VOL. XXIII. PART II. 4 A 



