He then enters the house of Hypocrisy; and, after some conversation with his servant Batu, the latter says

Batu. Venerable Sir, you have come from a distant country; but you have not yet told me the name of your family, or your pro fession.

Self-Conceit. Listen. In Gaur, (Bengal), a country of unrivale led excellence, there is a city, by name Rārāpuri, which contains a noble mansion, called Bhuri Sreshtaca; there my father dwells. (The mansion where the father of Self-Conceit dwelt, was probably à celebrated monastery of Bauddhists.) Who has not heard of his magnanimous offspring? amongst whom I am distinguished for understanding, abilities, knowledge, courage, mildness, and the strict performance of all my duties.

• Batu. Respectable stranger, take that small copper vase, and wash your feet, lest you sully the purity of this holy retreat.

Self-Conceit (aside.) As it is not of much importance, I shall

do so.

Hypocrisy. Stand farther off. Methinks the wind blows the particles of your perspiration in my face.

Self-Conceit. This is a strange kind ́of Brāhmanism.

Batu. This is our Brahmanism. The kings of the earth, who worship my master as a holy saint, presume not to touch his feet; but the sparkling jewels which adorn their heads, irradiate the space before his seat.

'Self-Conceit. This is the land of Hypocrisy. I shall however sit down, as I am tired.

Batu (removing the seat.) The greatest men, after saluting my master, do not presume to touch a seat.

Self-Conceit. Shall I, whose holiness is celebrated in the city of Rarapuri, not be permitted to take a seat! I was the husband of the daughter of an Agnihotra Brahman. My wife was the object of my warmest affections. The son of the maternal uncle of the friend of my brother-in-law was falsely accused of only a trifling offence. Yet on account of her relation to this person, I repudiated my beloved wife. '

The following extract is in a different style. The goddess Contemplation had been selected to oppose Love in battle.

Contemplation speaks. Grateful odours; female blandishments; nights illuminated by the moon's pale beams; the spring opening in shady fields, cheered by the hum of the bee; the season which impels thunder clouds fraught with rain, when the breeze blows gent. ly through the sweet-scented Cadamba; these are the incentives to Love. But my haunts are islands washed by sacred streams; mountains, from whose cliffs rivulets of pellucid water are precipitated; thick forests, under whose verdant canopy the holy anchoret breathes his vows, and recites the sacred hymns. In such retreats, all-subduing Love is destitute of power.

The Jaina, or votaries of Jina, are the most ancient of Hindu sectaries They reject the authority of the Vedas, though divided into castes, and more scrupulously cautious against the accidental extinction of animal life than the Hindus themselves. Their adoration is exclusively offered to deified mortals; and in this class they include most of the Hindu divinities. The doctrine of transmigration, the belief of a future state of rewards and punishments, and the whole of the Pauranica history, is common to them with the orthodox Hindus. Their own mythology is engrafted on the latter. As merchants, they are still found dispersed over the whole Continent of India; but it is only in the western and central parts of the Peninsula, that they are sufficiently numerous to constitute a distinct population. Their proper denomination is Arhats, from arhat, reverendus, the name which they bestow on the objects of their worship. Formerly powerful, and widely disseminated, this sect suffered a great diminution, from the extension of the more recent heresy of Buddha. At present, its more opulent members find it convenient to resume the orthodox persuasion; and as they always retained the division into castes, this may be effected without difficulty.

The votaries of Buddha, now completely driven from India, have seen their religious system adopted as the national faith in all the adjacent countries. It is established in Butan and Tibet. Its influence in Tartary is commensurate with the extension of letters and civilized life. The populous countries of Ava, Pegu and Siam, have adopted its doctrines. In the island of Ceylon, they have superseded those of the Vedas. The Tartar sovereigns of China are votaries of Buddha, whom they term Fo. The island of Japan has received the same rites, probably from Tartary. That matter is eternal, and the soul perishable, is the dogma attributed to them by the Brahmans; yet their account of the tenets of a hostile sect should be received with caution, although it is hitherto almost the only source of information. Like the Arhats, their worship is confined to deified saints, the chief of whom they term Buddhas, or philosophers. The word is derived from the Sanscrit root Budh,' to know; whence the Saxon and English verbs Bodian, and to bode, forebode, &c. We have been favoured with the perusal of a work entitled Nidhyan patha, or the path of contemplation, translated from the Singhalese by Mr D'Oyley; a gentleman, whose knowledge of both the learned and vernacular languages . of Ceylon, is likely to be productive of important advantages to that country. This work completely removes any doubts which might still be entertained on the comparative antiquity of

6

the Buddhist system and that of the Vedas. It shows, from the sacred works of the Buddhists themselves, that their account of Sakya Singh, whom they term the last Buddha, corresponds, in every essential particular, with that given by the Brahmans. Both declare him to be the son of Suddhodana, king of Oude, born in the solar line of princes, twenty-three generations after Vrihadbala, who reigned in that country when the Vedas were arranged in their present form by Vyasa. The scenes of his mythological adventures are Benares, and the adjacent cities. This part of India has given birth to both the heresies of the Arhats and Bauddhas. The books of the former are composed in the Magadhi Präcrit, or vernacular dialect of Bahar, to which the Päli, or sacred language of the priests of Buddha, bears a close affinity.

6

In this Sanscrit drama, the inferior female characters express themselves in Pracrit, as denoting superior sweetness and gentleness. The meaning of those words, Pracrit' common, and Sanscrit' refined, had given rise to an opinion that the former was the most antient, and had served as the basis for the more refined Sanscrit. The specimens afforded in this work effectually destroy this theory. With a less complicated system of grammar, Pracrit words differ from Sanscrit, only by omitting consonants, which might impart a harshness to the utterance. The Italian words piombo and fiume, compared with their Latin originals plumbum and flumen, exemplify the nature of these changes. The most antient language is indisputably that in which all the radical letters are found; but the Präcrit rejects all that might injure the euphony. Philologers may desire an additional proof of the universality of the process by which antient languages assume their modern form, amongst a people powerfully affected by harmonious modulations. The occasional omission of a consonant, and the substitution of liquids for nasals, seem the principal alteration, unconnected with grammar. We select at random.

jā esā.

་

Carunā says, "O my friend, behold this Faith! She is the daughter of Error. In Sanscrit. Sakhi, prekshaswa, rajasa sutān Sraddhan yā eshā. In Pracrit. Sahi, parekayasa, rajasa sudān Sadhān The Sōma Siddhanta, or exclusive worshippers of Baghesa or Bacchus, are more modern than either of the above inentioned heresies. Their priest thus announces himself. My necklace and ornaments are of human bones. I dwell among the ashes of the dead, and eat my food in human skulls. I look with eyes brightened by the collyrium of devotion, and I believe that the parts of this world are reciprocally different, but that the whole is not different from God.' The priests of Jina and of Buddha are struck with astonishment and horror at the savage rites which he de

scribes; but the wine which he prevails on them to drink, and the charms of a female Bacchante open their eyes to the excellence of his principles; and their conversion is celebrated by a Bacchanalian dance. There is a considerable portion of spirit and humour through the whole of this act, which Dr Taylor might perhaps have rendered more prominent, without deviat ing from his plan of affording a literal translation.

The drama is the work of Crishna Misra. The translator has endeavoured, with little success, to ascertain the country where, and the period when it was composed. Misra is an appel. lative taken from the country where he was born. I have not ascertained its situation; but from the inscriptions found at Monghir, which mention persons under the name of Misra, and the information I have received that it joins Maïthila or Tirhut, and contains a town called Janacapur, I imagine, that it is a small tract lying between Tirhut, and the chain of mountains which divide Hindustan from Nepal.'-Unfortunately, however, the name of Misra furnishes no index to the country of its author: for it is the surname of a numerous tribe of Brahmans, who are found in every part of India, and once were imagined to have emigrated from Egypt -Misra (Misraim) being the name by which that country is universally known in the East. This conjecture, however, has not been confirmed by subsequent researches. That of Dr Taylor rests on no better foundation; since Misra is unquestionably not the antient appellation of any country in India. We may fairly infer that the work before us was composed in the vicinity of Benares, since the places incidentally mentioned in it are either adjacent to that city, in Bengal, or in Bahar.

6

Perhaps some conjecture may be formed concerning the age of the play, from the mention which is made of the king Kirti Varman. If he was a real being he probably reigned over Magadha, or Bahar.' We have, however, examined a variety of iists of the sovereigns of Bahar, without meeting with the name of Kirti Varman. Indeed, we cannot doubt that this king was an allegorical personage like the other characters of the piece. His name signifies one whose armour is renown,' clad in fame. All then that can be affirmed with certainty is, that the work was composed soon after the period when the religion of the Brahmans finally triumphed over the rival sectaries of Jina and Buddha, and drove their votaries from the fair and fertile regions, which had been the cradle of these antient superstitions, to seek an asylum in neighbouring countries. The victory, however, of Reason over Passion, seems not to have been complete. For the Buddhists found an asylum in Sind, Candahar, Bahar, Bengal, and the countries now possessed by the Nizam of the

Decan, which, the author says, were inhabited by men almost infidels. From these, their last seats in India, they have long since been expelled, to disseminate their tenets, and establish their system, through the wide range of continent to the north and the east of that country.

Amongst the nations where the Buddhists found an asylum, the Huns are expressly mentioned. The name of this people occurs in the Bahar inscriptions, and is repeatedly found amongst those of Barbaric tribes enumerated in the prophetical chapter annexed to some Puranas. No doubt has hitherto been entertained that the warlike and ferocious tribe of Tartars, who carried their arms, and left their name, to a portion of Europe, is the people alluded to. But notwithstanding the identity of name: notwithstanding the acknowledged fact, that the white Huns, or Indoscythæ, established a powerful empire in Bactria, and extended their power from the source to the confluence of the Indus: and notwithstanding that M. de Guignes has proved from Chinese records, that the religion of Buddha existed in those countries two centuries before Christ, we confess we are not completely satisfied that the subjects of Attila are the nation alluded to. Were this fact ascertained, we should at least attain a minimum for the age of this work; since the Indoscythian empire was overthrown, and the Huns driven beyond the Jaxartes, by the Persian King Nushirvan, soon after the commencement of his reign in A. D. 531.

6

May plentiful rain water the earth; may prosperous kings govern the world; may holy men, who remove ignorance by the light of the first principle, safely cross the sea of Passion, the bottom of which are Sensible Objects and Affection.'

ART. IX. A Geographical Memoir of the Persian Empire. By JOHN MACDONALD KINNEIR, Political Assistant to Brigadier General Sir John Malcolm, in his Mission to the Court of Persia. 4to. pp. 486. Murray, London. 1813.

THI HIS excellent Geographical Memoir of Persia would have obtained a very general attention, and have reached, in a few months, that reputation which it must now take some time to establish, if it had been published four or five years ago. At that period, the danger that seemed to threaten our Indian possessions, from the power and ambition of Buonaparte, gave a peculiar interest to all such subjects; and young gentlemen and old ladies were almost as curious about the best road to India,