1836.] Tumour's Hist, of Ceylon, and Trans, of the Mahawanso. 3S9 



He does not enumerate every thing that has been published on the 

 subject ; and has no idea of the resources of the Asiatic Department 

 of the Madras Literary Society if they were developed His own work 

 is an important accession to the history of India in connexion with 

 Ceylon, and it is a work which promises to be so well accomplished in 

 his hands, that no one it is hoped will be disposed to stint him of his 

 full and merited measure of praise and encouragement. 



The following specimens may serve to convey to the reader some 

 idea of the spirit and manner of the Epitome. The first is from the 

 Introduction : 



" My object in undertaking this publication (as I have already stated) 

 is, principally, to invite the attention of oriental scholars to the histo- 

 rical data contained in the ancient Pali buddhistical records, as exhibit- 

 ed in the Mah&wanso ; contrasted with the results of their profound 

 researches, as exhibited in their various publications and essays, com- 

 mencing from the period when Sir W. Jones first brought oriental lite- 

 rature under the scrutiny and analysis of European criticism. 



" Half a century has elapsed since that eminent person formed the 

 Bengal Asiatic Society, which justly claims for itself the honor of 

 having " numbered amongst its members all the most distinguished 

 students of oriental literature, and of having succeeded in bringing to 

 light many of the hidden stores of Asiatic learning." Within the 

 regions to which their researches were in the first instance directedj 

 the prevailing religion had, from a remote period, extending back, 

 perhaps, to the christian era, been hinduism. The priesthood of that 

 religion were considered to be exclusively possessed of the knowledge 

 of the ancient literature of that country, in all its various branches. 

 The classical language in which that literature was embodied was 

 Sanscrit. 



" The rival religion to hinduism in Asia, from a period too remote to 

 admit of chronological definition, was buddhism. The last successful 

 struggle of buddhism for ascendancy in India, was in the fourth cen- 

 tury before the christian era. It then became the religion of the state. 

 The ruler of that vast empire was, at that epoch, numbered amongst 

 its most zealous converts ; and fragments of evidence, literary, as well 

 as of the arts, still survive, to attest that that religion had once been 

 predominant throughout the most civilized and powerful kingdoms of 

 Asia. From thence it spread to the surrounding nations : among whom, 

 under various modifications, it still prevails. 



" Hinduism, as the religion at least of its rulers, after an apparently 

 sshort interval, regained its former ascendency in India ; though the 

 numerical diminution of its antagonists would appear to have been 



