etters and the 10,000
compound letters when they are six years old, and generally finish
them in half a year. This corresponds to about 300 verses, each
_s_loka of thirty-two syllables. It was originally taught by
Mahe_s_vara. At eight years, children begin to learn the grammar of
Pa_n_ini, and know it after about eight months. It consists of 1000
_s_lokas, called Sutras.

Then follows the list of roots (dhatu) and the three appendices
(khila), consisting again of 1000 _s_lokas. Boys begin the three
appendices when they are ten years old, and finish them in three
years.

When they have reached the age of fifteen, they begin to study a
commentary on the grammar (Sutra), and spend five years on learning
it. And here I-tsing gives the following advice to his countrymen,
many of whom came to India to learn Sanskrit, but seem to have learned
it very imperfectly. "If men of China," he writes, "go to India,
wishing to study there, they should first of all learn these
grammatical works, and then only other subjects; if not, they will
merely waste their labor. These works should be learned by heart. But
this is suited for men of high quality only.... They should study hard
day and night, without letting a moment pass for idle repose. They
should be like Confucius, through whose hard study the binding of his
Yih-king was three times cut asunder, being worn away; and like
Sui-shih, who used to read a book repeatedly one hundred times." Then
follows a remark, more intelligible in Chinese than in English: "The
hairs of a bull are counted by thousands, the horn of a unicorn is
only one."

I-tsing then speaks of the high degree of perfection to which the
memory of these students attained, both among Buddhists and heretics.
"Such men," he says, "could commit to memory the contents of two
volumes, learning them only once."

And then turning to the _heretics_, or what we should call the
orthodox Brahmans, he says: "The Brahma_n_as are regarded throughout
the five divisions of India as the most respectable. They do not walk
with the other three castes, and other mixed classes of people are
still further dissociated from them. They revere their Scriptures, the
four Vedas, containing about 100,000 verses.... The Vedas are handed
down from mouth to mouth, not written on paper. There are in every
generation some intelligent Brahmans who can recite those 100,000
verses.... I myself saw such men."

Here then we have an eye-witness who,