The manuscripts of Buddhist works described in the following pages were collected in Nepal by Mr. Brian Houghton Hodgson—who has contributed so largely to the elucidation of Northern Buddhism—and presented by him to the Royal Asiatic Society in 1835 and 1836. The great importance of a thorough examination of the Buddhist Sanskrit works of Northern India, both for Prâkrit philology and for Buddhist research, is becoming more and more apparent; and it seemed very desirable that the contents of this collection, which, though deficient in many of the standard works, is perhaps the finest of original manuscripts in Europe, should become better known to scholars interested in these inquiries. A detailed analysis of the works was beyond the scope of the present catalogue, as it would in many cases be extremely difficult, if not impossible, without comparing other copies. It is hoped, however, that the brief description now offered will, at least, suffice for the identification of the works, and will for that reason be acceptable to Sanskrit scholars.

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The fortified rock of Sîgiri is situated in the centre of Ceylon, in the Central Province, at its northern extremity, close to the boundaries of the Eastern and the now North Central Province. This part of the island has long been in a very poor condition for want of water, and is but scantily inhabited; the cultivation of paddy has been abandoned for some years as hopeless, and the jungle on the site of the city which once surrounded the base of the magnificent rock is very dense and uninviting. The rock, too, lies some distance from the high road to Trincomalee, and can be approached only by a jungle path, so that the few visitors who pass through the village are as a rule glad to hurry on to the more attractive ruins of Pollanarrûa, or to the Elephant forests which lie to the east.

On the 2nd of January, 1874, being the full-moon day of the month Phussa, I was permitted, by the kindness of my friend Kæwiṭiyâgala Unnânsê, to be present at a chapter of priests assembled for the recitation of the Pâtimokkha or office of the confession of priests. The chapter was held in the Sîmâ or consecrated space in the ancient Lohapâsâda, or Brazen Palace, in the city of Anurâdhapura, and under the shadow of the sacred Bo-tree, grown from a branch of the tree at Buddha Gayâ, under which, as tradition relates, the prince Siddhârtha attained to supreme Buddhahood. The branch was sent to Devânampiyatissa, King of Ceylon, by the Emperor Açoka, in the year 288 B.C., now upwards of two thousand years ago. It was in this remarkable spot, under the shadow of the oldest historical tree, and in probably the oldest chapter-house in the world, that it was my good fortune to be present at this service. The building has none of its original magnificence. The colossal stone pillars alone remain as a memorial of the devotion of the kings and people of Ceylon to the religion which was taught them by Mahendra, the great apostle of Buddhism. In place of the nine storeys which these pillars once supported, a few in the centre are now made to carry a poor thatched roof no larger than that of a cotter's hut, and hardly sufficient to protect the chapter from the inclemencies of the weather. Still there was a simple and imposing grandeur in the scene. At the back of some dozen or more of these gigantic pillars were stretched pieces of white calico, to form the sides of the room: the ceiling in like manner was formed by stretching white calico above the pillars to conceal the shabby roof, the bare ground was covered with clean mats, two lamps gave a dim light, the huge columns, grey with age, stood out against the white calico. At the top of the long room thus formed was hung a curtain of bright colours, and through a space left for the entrance were visible, row after row, the pillars of the ancient palace, their broad shadows contrasting with the silvery brightness of the tropical moon.

Since I published my first Note on the Sinhalese Language, I have heard that two eminent Orientalists dispute the truth of my conclusions, and still hold to the old view, originating with Rask, that Sinhalese belongs to the Dravidian group of languages. It is true that in my paper I dealt in any detail only with one grammatical form: but if, as I venture to think, I have proved beyond doubt that the Sinhalese neuter plural is formed by compounding the noun with a vocable val, which is the Sanskrit vana used in the sense of multitude, I have gone far to demonstrate the Sanskritic origin of Sinhalese. But in addition to this I have adduced a great number of Sinhalese nouns, all of which I have traced direct to their Sanskrit equivalents. And it gives me great pleasure to find that so eminent a scholar as Dr. Max Müller has recently expressed himself clearly and unmistakably in favour of my Aryan theory. I am, however, perfectly willing to make allowance for scholars who decline to accept my theory without evidence of a more extended character than I have yet given in its favour, and I propose to continue the publication of these Notes until I have overcome the scepticism of my opponents, and established on the widest grammatical basis the Sanskritic origin of the Sinhalese language. Instead of dealing in detail with a single grammatical form, I propose in the present Note to touch briefly upon several different points, and I may as well say at once that it is not part of my plan in these Notes to show that Sinhalese is not Dravidian. This has been already done by Mr. James D'Alwis, who, in his paper “On the Origin of the Sinhalese Language” (Journal Ceylon Br. E.A.S. 1867–70), has shown that, whether we compare the vocabulary or the grammar, we find absolutely no resemblance between Sinhalese and the Dravidian languages. To me this course appears superfluous, and my own plan will be to let alone the Dravidian languages, and show that Sinhalese is Sanskritic. Of course, however, the proof of the Sanskritic theory carries with it necessarily the disproof of the Dravidian theory.