130 
LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE OF 
If is an object of fhe greatest importance to get pos¬ 
session of file remains of the \ edas in Ball. The religion can 
omy first become thoroughly intelligible by their means ; they 
further give the standard for the determination of the state 
of Hinduism, after its introduction into the islands, and, 
if compared with the antiquities of India, especially through a 
more intimate knowledge of the history of the Vedas in that 
country, will be of service in ascertaining the age from which 
tlie Indian influence, and the civilisation of Polynesia conse¬ 
quent on it, may be dated. Suryasewana (worship of the 
sun) signifies not only the religion of the priests, but also the 
book, containing those parts of the Vedas which are used for 
that worship. I saw the outside of the manuscript; it con¬ 
tained about 80 lontar leaves. In respect of contents the 
Brahm&ndapurana comes nearest to the Vedas ; it is also called 
shortly Brahmanda. We find in India 18 Puranas amongst 
which is the Brahmaudapurana. These 18 are the sacred 
writings of all the different Indian sects. Six are especially 
holy to the votaries of Wisynu, six others to those of Siva, 
and six keep the mean. The more special sects have em¬ 
braced chiefly one Parana, as representing the abstract of 
their worship, as the worshippers of Kresna the Bagawat- 
purana. In this way it is easily explained how in Bali the 
Brahmaudapurana only should be in use, and how the Pan- 
ditas should not have preserved even the slightest recollection 
of the otfrer seventeen puranas, so little indeed that the names 
mentioned by me were altogether unknown to them. We 
find on Bali hut one Sivaitish sect, and the adherents of it have 
acknowledged the Brahmandapurana, perhaps already in 
India, as the only book of instruction. The Puranas are, as 
we know, the sacred books of the sectaries, and the priests in 
India did not trouble themselves much with the sects and 
their controversies, but adhering to the more purified worship 
of Veda, held the religion of the other people in contempt. 
Hence it is that the Puranas in India are chiefly in the hands 
of the people. In Bali, on the contrary, they are guarded by 
the priests like the whole of the holy scriptures, and even hid 
from the people. In Bali every thing relating to worship is 
in the hands of the priests, and upon the great ignorance of 
the people in all that is necessary according to the sacred 
literature for their temporal and celestial happinesses founded 
the unlimited power of the priests, who are the organs of 
Deity for the blindly believing people. 
The contents of the Brahmandapurana are : the creation, 
the ages of the world under the various Manus, the descrip- 
