AND 



I S LA NDERS of Asia. ii 



ietters, which we fee in their books ; and thus we are enabled to trace in 

 their writing a number of Sanfcrit words and phrafes, which in their 

 fpoken dialed are quite undiftinguifhable. The two engravings in Giorgi's 

 book, from {ketches by a Siberian painter, exhibit a fyftem of Egyptian 

 and Indian mythology ; and a complete explanation of them would have 

 done the learned author more credit than his fanciful etymologies, which 

 are always ridiculous, and often groffly erroneous. 



The Tar tars having been wholly unlettered, as they freely confefs, be- 

 fore their converfion to the religion of Arabia, we cannot but fufpect, that 

 the natives of Eighur, Tan cut and Khata, who had fyftems of letters and 

 are even faid to have cultivated liberal arts, were not of the Tartarian, but 

 of the Indian, family ; and I apply the fame remark to the nation, whom 

 we call Barmas., but who are known to the Pandits by the name of Brahma- 

 chinas, and feem to have been the Brachmani of Ptolemy : they were pro- 

 bably rambling Hindus, who, defcending from the northern parts of the eaf- 

 lem peninfula, carried with them the letters ' now ufed in Ava, which arc 

 no f^ore than a round Nagarl derived from the fquare characters, in which 

 the Pali, or facred language of Buddha's priefts in that country, was 

 anciently written ; a language, by the way, very nearly allied to the Sanf- 

 £rit, if we can depend on the teftimony of M. De la Lourere ; who, 

 though always an acute obferver, and in general a faithful reporter, of fids, 

 is charged by Carpanius with having miftaken the Barmafor the Pali let- 

 ters j and when, on his authority, I fpoke of the Bali writing to a young chief 

 of Aracai, ■ no read with facility the books of the Barmas, he correct- 

 ed me wu i politenc.fs, and affured me, that the Pali language was writ- 

 ten by trie prieits in a much older chara&er. 



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