l M) Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. [June, 



which produce a very good effect. The other toles have no architec- 

 tural display whatever. Everything is of a more than Spartan 

 simplicity ; and one cannot help honouring the zeal for knowledge, 

 however misdirected the zeal or useless the knowledge, which leads so 

 many students, generation after generation, to devote themselves to 

 such monastic privations and hardships. The love of fame is, no 

 doubt, the motive with many. The fact of having studied at Na- 

 badwipa and gained an upddhi there, will ensure respect for a Pandit in 

 every part of India, from Lahore to Travancore. But there are some 

 who are led by less worldly motives. These come to study Nyaya, as 

 students came to the University of Paris in the middle ages, and one 

 can hardly fail to be reminded of Chaucer's lines about — 



" The clerk of Oxenforde also 

 That unto logik hadde long ygo ; 

 As lene was his horse as is a rake, 

 And he was not right fat, I undertake. 

 And able that he was a philosophre, 

 Yet hadde he but lite^gold in cofre." 



I could not help looking at those unpretending lecture halls with a 

 deep interest, as I thought of the Pandits lecturing there to genera- 

 tion after generation of eager inquisitive minds. Seated on the floor 

 with his ' corona' of listening pupils round him, the teacher expatia- 

 tes on those refinements of infinitesimal logic which make a Euro- 

 pean's brain dizzy to think of, but whose labyrinth a trained Nuddea 

 student will thread with unfaltering precision. I noticed during 

 my visit. middle-aged and even grayhaired men among the students of 

 the celebrated toles, and some of these had come from such widely 

 different homes as Lahore, Pooree, and the Tamil country. 



I visited every tole in Nuddea, and examined every one with my 

 Pandit more or less thoroughly. The following is a list ; but the 

 number of the students is probably not wholly accurate, as of course 

 no register of attendance is kept, and it was not easy to decide 

 whether absent students were really to be counted on the rolls or not. 

 Professor Wilson found from 500 to 600 pupils at the time of his 

 visit in 182'J, the number is now less than 150. Part of the 

 decrease may no doubt be attributed to the prevalence of the 

 epidemic which has driven many away, and prevented others from 



