1831.] 
Note on the Literature of Thibet. 
247 
II. The Do, or Sutra class of the Stan-gyur, is not only of a much greater extent, 
but it is also of a much more miscellaneous character than the corresponding divi- 
sion of the Kah-gyur. A number of the volumes treat of the same subjects, and 
many are comments upon them, or on some of the works of the Kah-gyur, but the 
larger portion is not exclusively Buddhist : many of the volumes belonging to the 
general literature of the Hindus. Thus, besides accounts of the different philo- 
sophical schools, which are probably controversial, and therefore connected with the 
religious system of Bauddha, there are several works upon logic, rhetoric, and 
Sanscrit grammar. There is also a translation of the Amera Kosha, or lexicon of 
Amera Sinha, and of a poem— the Mcgha Duta, or Cloud Messenger, of Kalidas. 
There are works on medicine and on the mechanical arts. A Nita Sastra, or 
system of civil government, and a translation of the verses on the same subject 
attributed to CMnakya. There are also several vocabularies, Sanscrit and 
Thibetan, and some original grammars of the vernacular dialect. 
The nature of both these works will now probably be accurately apprehended. 
They are collections of the works of different authors and translators, and 
consequently, of works of different periods. The greater number of the works 
contained in both, are supposed to have been translated, as above observed, in the 
8th and 9th centuries of our aera; and with regard to the Kah-gyur, this is no 
doubt correct ; as besides the uniform tendency of its component parts, the same 
individuals appear to have been employed upon the translations. From this, of 
course, the Gyut or Tantra portion, is to be excepted ; the principal work of 
which, it is acknowledged, was not introduced into Thibet until the 11th century 
The same dates, the 8th and 9th centuries, are assigned for the translation of the 
principal portions of the Stan-gyur, and may be correct in some instances ; but the 
more miscellaneous nature of the collection renders it probable, that the works 
take a much wider range of date than those of the Kah-gyur. The same circum- 
stance may be inferred from the vast number of writers specified as the authors, 
who could not have been contemporaries, or nearly so. Few of the names, too, 
either of Pundits or Lotsavas , although more of the latter, are the same as those 
of the Kah-gyur : on the other hand, there are some names of great note in the 
catalogue, as those of the Bodhisatwas, Manjusri, Avalokila, and Maitreya, and the 
pundits Nagarjuna, Arya Sanga, and Aryadeva, whose names are not to be found 
amongst the contributors to the Kah-gyur. 
The association of pundits, and learned natives, in the preparation of such 
voluminous translations, and the consequent developement of a national literature 
from a foreign source, in the course of one or two centuries, are circumstances 
°f considerable interest in literary history. It is clear, that a powerful influence 
must have been exerted, and the civil and religious authorities must have prosecut- 
ed the task with singular spirit and zeal. It was also managed with great 
judgment, and one of the first steps may be recommended to a more enlightened 
People and period. This was the preparation of a vocabulary of the Sanscrit 
proper names and the technical and philosophical terms of the original works, with 
their equivalents in Thibetan ; and it was then enacted by the authorities, that in 
ull future translations, these equivalents should be invariably employed. This 
vocabulary still exists, in three forms, varying according to their greater or lesser 
copiousness. One of them, the middle one, prepared in the time of Ral-pa-cha, the 
prince from Srong-tsan-gambo, the first patron of Buddhism, is comprised in 
Stan-gyur, and a copy of it is in the hands of Mr. Csoma, who proposes to 
give a version of it. A specimen of the work is submitted to the meeting. It will 
