1836.] Tm 'Uouy' 's Hist, of Ceylon, and Trans, of the Mahawanso. 337 



Jaina or Bauddha authorities, would be so very valuable as to eclipse 

 all former knowledge, it may be permitted, possibly, to doubt, without 

 deciding. 



This may be the place to express the incredulity that is felt, as to 

 any statements of matters antecedent to Buddha-Gautama. He is clear- 

 ly an historical personage ; his predecessors are evidently fabulous ; 

 the artificial plan of the statement, by its own internal evidence, pro- 

 claims fable and invention. Such, also, are, it is conceived, the three 

 alleged visits of Buddha in person to Ceylon : where all connected 

 circumstances are self-evidently fabulous, the event narrated is fabu- 

 lous. The like remark holds good when Mahindo, the religious envoy 

 from Mag ad ha, is represented as narrating to Dewanaupiyatiso, the 

 first convert king of Ceylon of the race of Vijeya, that other Buddhas 

 antecedent to Gautama had visited Ceylon, and consecrated special 

 localities by their presence. The obvious object in view, and the pre- 

 cise uniformity of expression and poetical metaphor, as to the three 

 antecedent visits, evince that Mahanamo the author of the early portion 

 of the Mahawanso had the fictitious glory of his religion, and the flow 

 of his versification more at heart, than historical precision, or concern 

 as to what critics might hint on the laws of evidence, and of internal 

 evidence in particular. No one, however, will suppose that the state- 

 ments of the Mahawanso are to be implicitly received ; and the object 

 of these immediately preceding remarks is to hint a conviction that 

 with Buddha-Gautama all Buddha and Jaina history begins j and that 

 all the value of that history is posterior to " the advent of the van- 

 quisher." ,. .. 



For giving the Pali text in Roman orthography, on a defined system, 

 the literary world will be obliged to Mr. Turnour. The Pali letters to 

 which the Roman symbols are attached, have a prevailing resemblance 

 to the Telugu characters ; three of the signs are nearly the same as 

 the Tamil representatives of the same tenour. In all the Pali alpha- 

 bets the signs for pa and ya, are uniformly very nearly the same with 

 the Tamil characters. An opinion is entertained that the Pali of the 

 Mahawanso, maybe found to be very similar to the Kawi of Java. 

 However, to be brief on this theme, the Pali and Sanscrit are closely 

 related. It seems, from Mr. Tumour's account, that the Bauddhist 

 teachers of Ceylon lay claim to superior antiquity of the Pali or Ma- 

 gadha dialect, to the Sanscrit ; supported by a passage (quoted here- 

 after) from the oldest Pali grammar, that of Kachchayano, purporting 

 that the Mdgadhi is the original language spoken by men and 

 brahmans, and by all the Buddhas from the beginning of the present 

 creation. Now this proof is rather reasoning in a circle, and proves 

 nothing more than this, that the author of the grammar thought to 



