1837-1 and on the Progress of Buddhism to the Eastward. II 



Loochoo. We find from the Chinese official memoirs* concerning 

 theLoochoos (published first in the reign of Kang-ke, about A. D. 1700 

 and extended to the 13th year of the reign of Kew-king A. D. 1808 

 printed at Pekin) that the people of the Loochoos are followers of 

 Buddha, and that they say, about 1275 a Buddhist priest was driven 

 on the island in a boat, whence he came they know not, and that they 

 have had priests ever since. The priest was probably a native of 

 Japan or Corea. Mr. Fisher, a late writer on Japan, saw at Nagasaki 

 some Corean barks, which are occasionally driven on the southern coast 

 of Japan, and it is not very improbable that some may have drifted so 

 far south as the Loochoos. 



Sumatra. Having thus far traced the progress of Buddhism from 

 Magadha and Ceylon, over the southern regions of the continent of 

 Asia to its most eastern confines, I will attempt to follow its track 

 through the Indian Archipelago. Assuming that the Buddhists, at 

 some very early period, were driven from the shores of peninsular 

 India, it is very reasonable to suppose that many of them would take ad- 

 vantage of the numerous trading vessels lying in the southern harbours, 

 and escape either to Ceylon, or seek a more distant and secure asylum in 

 the ports to the eastward, with which it is a well authenticated fact they 

 had long been in the habit of carrying on an extensive system of com*, 

 merce. The first land of any importance made would be probably the 

 Tenasserim coast, or the northern extremity of Sumatra, Achin ; and 

 where the general prevalence of mutilated Hindu images is noticed by 

 Sir S. Raffles (Memoirs page 384) ; whence it is fair to suppose that the 

 prows of the refugees would be turned towards Menangkabowe, a 

 very ancient empire the capital of which, Pagarnyong, was situated in 

 the heart of Sumatra, and the sway of which extended formerly over 

 the whole of this large and fertile island. The literature, language, 

 and the Buddhist images discovered by Lieutenant Crooke at Jambi, 

 and the Kawi inscription in Menangkabowe by Sir S. Raffles, go to bear 

 out this notion. The Revd. W. Taylor, in some learned and obliging 

 remarks on my brief note touching the Batta tribe, has fully establish- 

 ed the identity with the Sanscrit ( Pali ?J of many words existing in 

 the present languages of the neighbouring tribes of Battas. Lieutenant 

 Crooke mentions the existence of a nation of idolaters, in the vicinity 

 of Jambi, called the Kubus\, subject to the sultan of Palembang. The 

 strong inclination of many of these tribes in the interior to the doctrine 

 of the metempsychosis (still partially entertained by the Malays both of 

 Sumatra and the peninsula of Malacca), and the religious veneration in 

 which they hold the names of their ancestors, are now the almost only 

 indications of the tenets of Buddha which formerly prevailed to a 

 certain extent. 



* Indo-Chinese Gleaner, vol. n. page 9. t Appendix to Anderson'* Mission, page 389, 



