96 CONCERNING SOME OLD SANSKRIT. 



Ye dharmma hetuprabhava tesha (m) Tathagato (hy ava- 



dat)? 



Yesha (m) ca yo nirodho eva (m) wavi Mahacramana (h) 



Ajnac ciyate karma (sic) jenmana-karma karanam 



Jnanan na kriyate karmma (sic) karmabhava (n) na jayate 



The first couplet in halting arya-measure is the well 

 known Buddhist creed-formula and need not detain us. The 

 second in Anushtubh can be translated thus : — 



' It is through lack of knowledge that the Karma (2) ac- 

 ' cumulates. The Karma is the cause that men must be reborn. 

 1 Through knowledge (of the nature of things) it comes about 

 1 that men effect no (more) Karma and from the absence of 

 1 Karma it follows that men need not be born (again). 



The idea expressed in the couplet is by no means exclu- 

 sively Buddhistic but seeing that it follows immediately after 

 the better known formula there can be no doubt that the sen- 

 tence must be regarded here as the profession of faith of a 

 disciple of Sakya. We shall find the same phrase further on 

 in another and indubitably Buddhist inscription from Province 

 Wellesley. Elsewhere in British India and in Ceylon it is 

 usually another sentence which we fmd coupled with the for- 

 mula Ye dharmd &c. I mean the couplet in Dhammapada 

 stanza 183 (edited by Prof. Fausboll). 



Sabbapapass ' akaranam kusalass ' upasampada 



Sacittaparyodapanam, etam buddhana sasanam. 



i. e. to refrain from all evil, to apply oneself to the good, 

 to purify one's heart : that is the bidding of the Buddhas (the 

 wise). 



The couplet runs thus with a slight difference in the halt- 

 ing Sanskrit of Tibet : — 



Sarvapapasyakaranam , kucalasyopasampadam 



(2) i. e. the sum of good and evil actions which is the cause of 

 man's remaining shackled to life and unable to escape from incarna- 

 tion. 



Jour. Straits Branch 



