particularly if that evidence has been discovered by their own efforts
and comes before them with all the charms of novelty. But, in the
broad daylight of historical criticism, the prestige of such a witness
as Buddhaghosha soon dwindles away, and his statements as to kings and
councils eight hundred years before his time are in truth worth no
more than the stories told of Arthur by Geoffrey of Monmouth, or the
accounts we read in Livy of the early history of Rome.

One of the most important works of M. Grimblot's collection, and one
that we hope will soon be published, is a history of Buddhism in
Ceylon, called the Dipavansa. The only work of the same character
which has hitherto been known is the Mahavansa, published by the
Honourable George Turnour. But this is professedly based on the
Dipavansa, and is probably of a much later date. Mahanama, the
compiler of the Mahavansa, lived about 500 A. D. His work was
continued by later chroniclers to the middle of the eighteenth
century. Though Mahanama wrote towards the end of the fifth century
after Christ, his own share of the chronicle seems to have ended with
the year 302 A.D., and a commentary which he wrote on his own
chronicle likewise breaks off at that period. The exact date of the
Dipavansa is not yet known; but as it also breaks off with the death
of Mahasena in 302 A.D., we cannot ascribe to it, for the present, any
higher authority than could be commanded by a writer of the fourth
century after Christ.

We now return to Mr. Hodgson. His collections of Sanskrit MSS. had
been sent, as we saw, to the Asiatic Society of Calcutta from 1824 to
1839, to the Royal Asiatic Society in London in 1835, and to the
Societe Asiatique of Paris in 1837. They remained dormant at Calcutta
and in London. At Paris, however, these Buddhist MSS. fell into the
hands of Burnouf. Unappalled by their size and tediousness, he set to
work, and was not long before he discovered their extreme importance.
After seven years of careful study, Burnouf published, in 1844, his
'Introduction a l'Histoire du Buddhisme.' It is this work which laid
the foundation for a systematic study of the religion of Buddha.
Though acknowledging the great value of the researches made in the
Buddhist literatures of Tibet, Mongolia, China, and Ceylon, Burnouf
showed that Buddhism, being of Indian origin, ought to be studied
first of all in the original Sanskrit documents, preserved in Nepal.
Though he modestly call