BAUDDHAS, &c. OF NEPAL. 425 



Buddhism is not a simple, but a vast and complicate structure erected, during 

 ages of leisure, by a literary people. It has its various schools divided by vari- 

 ous Doctors, nor is the Buddhism of one age less different from that of ano- 

 ther, than the Brahmanism of the Vedas, of the Purdnas, and of the Bhdgavat, 



Let it not be supposed, because these works were procured in Nepal, that 

 they are therefore of a local character: the contrary is asserted by the Baud- 

 dhas, and never disputed. The Sambhu Purdna is the only local work of im- 

 portance in the large collection which I have made. Perhaps it may be sur- 

 mised, that if (as is stated) the fire of Sankara's wrath consumed all, but some 

 fragments of the sacred writings of the Buddhists, the ample works now pro- 

 duced must be spurious. Let the exaggeration on either side be duly weigh- 

 ed. The Bauddhas never had eighty-four thousand principal scriptures ; nor 

 did Sankara destroy more than a few of those which they really possessed 

 when he came to Nepal. The proof of the latter statement is, that Buddhism 

 was long after Sankara's time the prevalent and national faith of the Nepalese 

 princes and subjects ; and that it is so still in regard to the people, notwith- 

 standing the Gorlcha conquest. Sankara may have converted, (I believe he 

 did) one of the princes of the valley ; but the others remained Buddhists ; 

 and, no doubt, took care of the faith and property of their subjects. All old 

 Bauddha works are written in one of the three sorts of letters proper to 

 Nepal, usually in Ranja and Bhanjin Mola, and on Palmira leaves. Copies of 

 the Racha Bhagavati are very scarce. I am of opinion, after five years of 

 enquiry, that there were but four copies of it in the valley, prior to ray 

 obtaining one copy, and a half : one copy more I got transcribed from an old 

 one. No one had, for some time, been able to understand its contents : no 

 new copy had been made for ages, and those few persons who possessed one 

 or more Khands of it, as heir-looms, were content to offer to the sealed vo- 

 lume the silent homage of their PUja. Time and growing ignorance have 

 been the chief enemies of Bauddha literature in Nepal. 



