BAUDDHAS, &c. OF NEPAL. 421 



my European readers with many grains of allowance. These words are names 

 importing the most different things in the world in the favoured part of Eu- 

 rope, and in Asia. The intelligent resident in Hindustan will have no dif- 

 ficulty in apprehending the exact force which I desire should be attached to 

 such comprehensive phrases, especially if he will recollect for a moment 

 that the press, writing, and books, though most mighty engines, are but en- 

 gines; and that the example of China proves to us indisputably, they may con- 

 tinue in daily use for ages in a vast society, without once falling into tlie hands 

 of the strong man of Milton ; and consequently, without awaking one of those 

 many sublime energies whose full developement in Earopa has slied such a 

 glorious lustre around the path of man in this world. 



The printing of Bhot is performed by wooden blocks ; which, however, 

 are often beautifully graved, nor are the limited powers of such an instrument 

 felt as an inconvenience by a people, the entire body of whose literature Is 

 of an unchanging character. 



Their writing, again, often exhibits fine specimens of ready and graceful 

 penmanship. But then it is never employed on any thing more useful than a 

 note of business, or more informing than the dreams of blind mythology, and 

 thus, too, the general diffusion of books (that most potent of spurs to improve- 

 ment in our ideas) becomes, in Bhot, from the utter worthlessness of the books 

 diffused, at best but a comparatively innocent and agreeable means of filling 

 up the tedious hours of the twilight of civilization. 



With respect to the authorities of the Bauddha religion, or their Sacred Reii^jous 

 Scriptures, the universal tradition of the Nepalese Bauddhisfs, supported "^'"^®' 

 by sundry casual notices in their existing works, asserts, that the original 

 body of those Scriptures amounted, when complete, to eighty-four thousand 

 volumes. 



