India, and in which Mr. Gutzláff lately heard the Buddhist priests, in one of the islands on the east coast of China, chant the sacred rites of this religion. The religion, language, and its written character will have doubtless suffered considerable change by coming in contact with those of the various nations among whom they have been transplanted, and that the Páli, or Sanscrit (as will probably be found the case with regard to the various dialects of peninsular India known under the Brahminical appellation, Prácrit) is not the root of the living languages of the Archipelago but merely a graft—as Arabic in the Persian, Malay and Hindustani, and Latin in our own language.
In order that these impressions might be corrected or confirmed by the written evidence of history, I resolved to procure copies of the most ancient annals, codes of laws, alphabets and written characters of the Ultra Gangetic nations, but before the collection had made much progress my Regiment was ordered to Madras. I feel convinced that a careful collation of the annals and sacred books of Burma, Siam, Khohman and Laos in the Páli dialects, and of Java and Bali in the Káwi, of the religious books and inscriptions of the Buddhists of China and Japan written in the sacred characters of the Fan-yu[1] and Bon-se (supposed to be modifications of Páli derived from India) with those of Ceylon and Southern India, together with the opening of the hidden resources contained in the great native libraries, fac-similes of inscriptions of the Buddhists of Magadha and of the Jainas of the peninsula,[2] will by mutual illustration serve to shed considerable light over the chronology and history of India and eastern Asia, as well as to test the forgeries suspected to exist in the apocryphal writings of the Brahmins, and perhaps to solve the long contested point regarding the greater antiquity of the religion and language of the disciples of Buddha and Brahma. For this purpose the writings of the Brahminical philosophical schools might also be more minutely examined with advantage. Goverdhan Caul (who appears to have been of the Brahminical faith), in his article on the literature of the Hindus from the Sanscrit observes, "We need say no more of the heterodox writings, than that those on the religion and philosophy of Buddha, seem to be connected with some of the most curious parts of Asiatic history and contain, perhaps, all that could be found in the Páli, or sacred language of the Eastern Indian peninsula."
It is necessary to add that these speculations would not have been
- ↑ For the alphabet and specimens of the written characters of these languages I have already written: should they be procured copies, or the originals, shall be forwarded to the Society.
- ↑ Many valuable manuscripts on the religion of the Jainas collected by Mr. Wathen, are deposited in the library of the Bombay Literary Society; still, I believe, awaiting translation.
