74 JOURNAL, R.A.S. (CEYLON). [VOL. XIV. 



for a Society exclusively European. This progress has gone 

 still further, and we welcome among us as fellow students 

 not a few distinguished persons who cannot be counted as 

 Christians. The language of some of Mr. Gogerly's con- 

 tributions and of other early Papers — indeed of some much 

 later ones — in their discussion of points of Buddhist or of 

 Hindu religion was such as could not now be used among 

 us. I do not regret this. Instead of being a Society of 

 European Christian visitors, interested, as visitors, in an 

 Island to which they did not belong, we are now a Society 

 of studious people separated by many distinctions of race 

 and association, but all keenly interested in whatever belongs 

 to Ceylon, whether bound to it as the scene of our duty or 

 by the still stronger ties of fatherland. 



Yet even in those days there were indications— it is 

 amusing to observe — of that friendly jealousy which still 

 gives animation to our proceedings whenever the patriotism 

 of Sinhalese and of Tamil scholars finds occasion for expres- 

 sion. Mr. Casie Chitty would not let the Sinhalese and 

 Pali scholars have it all their own way, but read a learned 

 Paper on the Tiruvdtavur Pur ana, in which Lanka pays 

 tribute to Southern India and Buddhists are defeated by 

 Saivites. 



A Characteristic Paper. 



Mr, Gogerly produced in 1847 several Papers on the Sutras, . 

 among which was his very memorable translation of the 

 Brahmajdla Sutra. 



But the characteristic Paper of the year must have been, 

 I think, Mr. Spence Hardy's, on the Sinhalese Language and 

 Literature, a fruit of that extensive and accurate study of 

 which the later results are famous in his published books. 

 It is remarkable as a proof of the extent of his study, that 

 he refers to his own list of 400 Sinhalese works. His state- 

 ments were, however, in several points open to correction, . 

 and the disparaging tone in which he spoke of the Sinhalese 

 literature as being almost exclusively translations may have 

 done something to arouse the late distinguished Hon. James 



