'between the first century B.C. to at least the third century A.D.' Here again I was fully prepared for determined opposition, nay I was anxious to provoke it by the decided tone with which I laid down the chronological limits of the period of the Renaissance of Sanskrit and Prakrit Literature. I was delighted therefore when my learned friend Professor Buhler took up the gauntlet, an<l showed, as I think, successfully, that there are clear traces of the artificial Kavya style in inscriptions of the second century A.D., and that Indian Rajahs of that period were patrons of poetry, if not poets themselves. It seems to me, however, that the fact that the artificial style of poetry breaks forth in certain inscriptions of the second century, does not altogether controvert my statement that amongst the literary works which we actually possess, none can be safely referred to a date before about 300 A. D. If hereafter Professor Buhler should succeed in proving that any of our extant Sanskrit and Prakrit poems can be safely referred to the second or even third century A.D., I shall be greatly delighted, nay I hope I may soon supply that very proof myself. There is a MS. of a Buddhakarita in the National Library at Paris which I asked my Buddhist pupils, Kasawara and Bunyiu Nanjio, to copy for me in order that we might read it together. That poem is, particularly in the beginning, a real Kavya, and some of its introductory verses are not unworthy of Kalidasa. Its correct title is in fact
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