Supplement, 1873.] THE VILLAPPlKKAM COPPER PLATES. 371 THE VILLAPPAKKAM COPPER PLATES. BY A. C. BURNELL, M.C.S., MANGALOR. This series of copper plates contains a grant of land by one of the last of tho Vijayanagara dynasty—Venkatapati. He reigned in a very precarious way (at Candragiri) from about 1590 on into the early years of tho 17th century. As the Vijayanagara kingdom had been utterly destroyed by the Muhammadans in 1564, his power must have been very small, but in the genealogy with which (as is the rule) this grant begins, he traces his descent from the Somavamsa, and claims to rule the whole of India from the Himalayas to Setu (Rama’s Bridge) ! The grant is of the village of Villappakkam,* tax-free, to Tiruvengadanatha, sCn of Ananta Bhatta. He is described as a follower of the Yajuhsdkhd, and of tho Apastamba sutra, and as belonging to the race of Vatsa. ' Besides tho grant of the village ‘in Sarva- mdnya (franoilmoigne of tho medioBval lawyers in England), several privileges are also granted which are interesting as throwing light on the tenures of South India, but which would need much explanation to make them intelligible to foreigners. The date is :— Sakti- (3) netra- (2) kalambe- (5) ’ndu- (1) ganito sakavatsare | plavasamvatsare punye masi Vaisa- khanamni pakshe ’ valakshe .... punyayaih dvadasitithau, &c. i.e. the 12th lunar day of the bright fortnight of Vaisakha in 1601 a.d. Thus it will appear that this grant is not of any great historical interest. REVIEW. Histoibe du Bouddha Sakya-Mouni depnis sa nois- sanco jusqu’k samort, par Mme. Mary Summer. Avec Preface et Index par Ph. Ed. Foucaux. (sm. 12mo. pp. xiv. 208. Paris: E. Leroux, 18/4.) Before tho appearance of this volume, as re¬ marked by M. Foucaux in his preface, “ there did not exist in French any complete biography of the founder of Buddhism. Mme. Mary Summer has, with reason, thought that the founder of a reli¬ gion, which reckons more than three hundred million followers, deserves that the narrative of the events of his life should be available to all French readers, and not remain confined to the domain of science. She has,” as he adds, “ suc¬ cessfully acquitted herself of the task, for which she had well fitted herself by her Memoire sur les Religicuses BouddhUtes., a book favourably received by all who relish works at once instructive and interesting.” Mme. Mary Summer, wo need scarcely hint, is the nom de plume of the wife of the distinguished French Orientalist who, five and twenty years ago, translated the earliest known legend of Bud¬ dha, the legend on which Barthdlemy Saint-Hilaire based Ijis life of Buddha given in his work Le Bouddha et sa Religion,—and to her husband’s experienced advice, doubtless, this little volume owes part of its value. It does not pretend in any way to be a critical work. The Singaleso dates of Buddha’s birth and death are accepted, and tho principal events recorded in the usual legends are selected and briefly recorded in a pleasant style, and with an admiration for the subject of her bio¬ graphy that would almost lead the reader to ima¬ gine the authoress was a devout Buddhist nun. Only once does she distinctly express her dissent from a tenet of tho Buddhist creed, and that is when sho contrasts its doctrine of tho inevitable punishment of sin in some state of existence with the Christian “ roligion of mercy, which,” she says, “ gives man the faculty of repentance, leaving for him, even to the last breath, an open door to a happy eternity, and permitting an act of contrition to make of the greatest of sinners one of tho chosen of God !”—forgetting, apparently, tho ana¬ logy supplied by the Atonement—the sacrifice of the Mediator as the substitute for the sinner. This admiration of Buddhism, however, is no new thing even among philosophers. “ It is tho mis¬ fortune of our times,” says M. Barthelemy Saint- Hilaire, writing thirteen years ago, “ that the same doctrines which form the foundation of Buddhism meet at the hands of some of our philosophers with a favour that they but little deserve. For some years past wo have soen systems arising in which metempsychosis and transmigration are highly spoken of, and attempts are made, exactly as Buddha did, to explain the world and man without either a God or a Providence. A future life is refused to tho yearnings of mankind, and the immortality of the soul is replaced by the immortality of works. God is dethroned, and in His place they substitute man, the only being, they tell us, in which the Infinite becomes con¬
- In the North Arkat District.
