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rigin in the parts where it now occurs is uncertain. The mountains between Kutch Gundava and Mekran seem to form the area of the Brahui; some eastern branches of which population I presume to be British, mixed with Biluch.[51] * * * * * _Ceylon._--The inhabitants of the northern part of Ceylon speak the Tamul language, and are Brahminists in creed. They are not, however, the true natives of the island. These latter use a Hindu tongue, called the _Singhalese_. Its philological relations are exactly those of the Mahratta, Bengali, and Udiya,--neither better nor worse defined, more or less unequivocal. Some make it out to be of Sanskrit, others of Tamulian origin. All that is certain is, that it is more Sanskritic than the proper Tamul, and more Tamul than the Bengali. It is _written_; and embodies a copious, but worthless literature, its alphabet being derived from that of the Pali language. This introduces a new characteristic. The Pali has the same relation to Buddhism, that the Sanskrit has to Brahminism. It is the language of the Scriptures, the priest, and the scholar, and, although, at the present moment, it is as little recognized as a holy tongue on the continent of India, as the Greek of the New Testament is at Rome, it divides with the Arabic and Latin, the honour of being the most widely-spread literary language of the world. All the forms of Buddhism in the transgangetic peninsula are embodied in Pali writings. So are those of the Mongols; and so, to a great extent, those of the Tibetans as well. This makes the language and the creed nearly co-extensive. In China, however, and Japan, where great changes have taken place, and where either the development, or the deterioration of Buddhism has gone far enough to abolish the more palpable characteristics of the original Indian doctrine, the Pali language is no longer the medium. It _is_ so, however, for the vast area already indicated. In Buddhism, as opposed to Brahminism, there is a greater tenderness of animal life in general, whilst less respect is paid to the ox-tribe in particular. There is less also of the system of caste; and, in consequence of this, fewer of those elements of priestly influence, which originate in the ideas of the hereditary transmission of sacro-sanctitude. Buddhism, too, has the credit of running further in the dream-land of subjective metaphysics than Brahminism,--though this, as far as my own ver
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