nent fame is a conclusion scarcely indicated by documentary evidence. And so it was during the period of the Buddhists. So far as we know, these sectaries, unlike the Muhammadans, never assumed an attitude of implied acquiescence. So important an alteration of opinion as that herein involved certainly called for specific acknowledgment in his "Errata Alphabétique," a list which extends to seven pages.

In fine, M. Julien has no Sanskrit authority whatever for his “ Vârâṇaçî,” i.e., Vârâṇast. Po-lo-ni-sse may, indeed, stand for Vârâṇasi, but—so indeterminate is the Chinese alphabet, - may just as well disguise Vârâņast, Varâņast, Varanasi, Bârânast, and scores more of quadrisyllables. M. Julien allows us an option between Po-la-na-sse, Po-lo-ni-sse, Po-lo-ni-se, and P'o-lo-ni-sse, and between "Varâpaçi” and “Vârâṇaçî." It cannot be proved that Hiouen Thsang did not hear, and do his best to spell, as the names of the river and city, Barnâ-the very word now used,-and Barâņas. Indeed, the balance of probability is overwhelmingly in favour of the position, that the Indian proper names translettered by Hiouen Thsang were Prakrit, not Sanskrit. Perhaps it is not strange that M. Julien, in drawing up his suicidal Méthode, and even earlier, chose to shut his eyes to this presumption. Vide supra, p. xxvii., note 2.

"With M. Julien's method, mathematical certainty seems to have taken the place of learned conjectures." So we read, in the Saturday Review, Vol. XI., p. 247 (1861), in an article lately republished as Professor Max Müller's. Finding M. Julien's method to be much more precarious than it appears at first sight, I took occasion, some years ago, with ample detail of reasons, to reclaim against this heedless hyperbole of encomium. Continued examination has multiplied my arguments of protest; and I am convinced that one will do well to use M. Julien's volumes, valuable and instructive as they are, with constant caution.

That M. Julien, for all the self-complacent air of his Méthode, has struck out a single idea, save of detail, that was unknown to M. Rémusat and the editors of the Foě Kouě Ki, I have not succeeded in discovering.

Mémoires sur les Contrées Occidentales, etc., Vol. I., p. 354; Vol. II., pp. 345, 360, 361, 479, 562: Foě Kouě Ki, p. 307: Histoire de la Vie de Hiouen-Thsang, etc., pp. 83, 132, 429, 464: Chips from a German Workshop, Vol. I., p. 296: Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, for 1861, pp. 334-336.

vehement hostility as against the Hindus. Not only was the character of their religion pacific, but at no time during their presence in India' were they, albeit in the ascendant, beyond doubt a majority of the people. It

1 How the Buddhists came to leave India has not yet been shown satisfactorily. The Sankara-digvijaya of Mâdhava-which professes to abridge an older work, but which, perhaps, has no better basis, for the most part, than oral tradition, eked out by romance,-bears witness, it is true, to a ferocious spirit of opposition to those religionists; and such a spirit, if entertained after they had become strangers to the country, may have been entertained while they were still face to face with Hindus. Nevertheless, we have no historical proof that India was ever the theatre of a Buddhist persecution. Few Sanskrit manuscripts exist that were copied more than four or five centuries ago, at which time Indian Buddhists must have been very rare, if there were any at all. Neither among the Hindus nor among the Jainas has one ever observed anything like that liberality of literary curiosity which would be at much pains to perpetuate, by transcription, the holy writ of an antagonist creed; and the fact of a persecution of the Buddhists cannot, accordingly, be deduced from the fact that their books are now but very rarely met with in the possession of natives of India.

Considering the character of their respective beliefs, the Buddhists and the Hindus were under no obligation to be truculently inimical to each other. There is even reason to believe that there were medieval Indian kings who, from motives of policy, adiaphorized between the two great classes of the faithful into which their subjects were divided. For instance, a position of practical indifference in respect of the prevailing superstitions seems to be ascertained with reference to Harsha, king of Kanauj in the seventh century. Hiouen Thsang speaks of him much as if he were a Buddhist; and Bâna, in the Harsha-charita, writes of him as if of a Hindu. Further, we find that monarch figuring as dedicatee of the Någânanda, and also of the Ratnávali, two dramas, severally Buddhist and Brahmanical.

For the Harsha-charita and the Nâgânanda,—of which I discovered copies, after these works had slumbered neglected for many generations, see my Vásaradattá, Preface, pp. 12-18 and 50-54; and the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, for 1862, pp. 12, 13. See, further, on the Buddhists in Southern India, Professor Wilson's Mackenzie Collection, Vol. I., Introduction, pp. lxiii.-lxvi.

was but natural for their founder, in the course of his mission, to take thought of the centres of population; and the spots which he and his disciples signalized by their teachings were reverently regarded, in after ages, as consecrated ground. These spots were, however, in the neighbourhood of cities, -as Gayâ, Mathurâ, Ayodhyâ, and Benares,—rather than in the cities themselves; and it was not till after Buddhism had passed. its prime on Indian soil, that these towns acquired the special repute which now attaches to them. As for Benares, the attribution to it of peculiar sanctity seems to date from the period of the Purâņas; and some of these compositions may, unquestionably, claim a very respectable antiquity.

A diligent perusal of the copious inanity of the Kástkhanda might lead to the discovery of its era, and

It is very true, that, all the way between Benares and the towers at Sârnâth, the fields are thickly strewed with bricks and other remains of former buildings. But I am not aware that Colonel Wilford has any authority for speaking of "the old city of Benares, north of the river Burna," which old city, he says, is sometimes called Sonitapura. Asiatic Researches, Vol. IX., p. 199.

• Professor Wilson asserts, characteristically, that Benares "has been, from all time, as it is at present, the high place of the Saiva worship." Translation of the Vishnu-purána, Book V., Chapter XXXIV., last note.

In the twelfth century, as we learn from the Haima-kośa, Benares was already distinguished as Sivapuri, "the city of Siva;" and we may thence gather that the worship of Siva especially predominated there at that time.

"There is every reason to believe the greater part of the contents of the Káśi-khanda anterior to the first attack upon Benares by Mahmûd of Ghazni." Thus pronounces Professor Wilson, in his translation of the Vishnu-purána, Vol. I., Preface, pp. LXXII., LXXIII. It would be interesting to be put in possession of even a single reason out of those to which the Professor alludes.

to other chronological determinations. In so recent a composition, and one having to do with real localities, there must, almost of necessity, be many facts interwoven with the fictions: the attempt to discriminate them would, perhaps, be remunerated. The Benares of the present day offers numerous and varied objects of interest to the contemplation of the devout Hindu; and yet, a very few of them excepted, to speculate touching their age, in reliance on the data hitherto made available, would be much too perilous for prudence.

1 Unless we are deceived by identity of names, scores of these are enumerated in the Kasi-khanda.

In the last chapter of that work, cycles of pilgrimages are prescribed, as means to particular ends, precisely as at this hour. Thus, there is one round to warrant the practitioner from liability to further metempsychosis; another, to secure the attainment of Rudrahood; a third, to ensure emancipation before death. These for samples.

Saints whose aspirations are less ambitious are promised store of good things in future for repeating the Panchatirthika daily. This consists in: (1) ablution, without disrobing, in the pool of Chakrapushkariņi, with a propitiation-service addressed to the gods, manes, Brahmans, and beggars; (2) reverential salutation to Aditya, Draupadi, Vishņu, Daṇḍapâņi, and Maheswara; (3) visual contemplation. of Dhundhivinayaka; (4) a dip of the fingers in the Jnânavâpl well, with adoration of Nandikeśa, Târakeśa, and Mahâkâlcśwara; and, finally, (5) a second visit to Daṇḍapâņi.

Of seven preeminently holy places Kâst is named first; the others being Kânti, Mâyâ, Ayodhyâ, Dwâravati, Mathurâ, and Avantikâ:

काशी कान्ती च मायाख्या त्वयोध्या द्वारवत्यपि ।
मथुरावन्तिका चैताः सप्त पुर्यो - च मोचदाः ॥

VI., 68.

Mâyâ is Hurdwar. I am not sure whether or not Kânt! is the same as Kânchi. The rest are well known. These places are, all,

To the early Arab and Persian travellers Gangetic India was an unexplored tract. Albirûnî, who wrote about A.D. 1000, had, however, heard of the holy fame of Benares, which he compares, not inaptly, to Mecca.' Mahmûd of Ghaznî is said, on doubtful warrant, to have advanced as far as Benares, and to have made a few converts there, during his ninth incursion. In 1194, Shihâbuddîn, after defeating the Kanaujan monarch, Jayachandra, marched on that city, where he is reported to have demolished near a thousand Hindu temples. The subsequent history of the place, for

named in the Ayeen Akbery, in Mr. Gladwin's translation of which, Vol. III., pp. 255, 256, Mathurâ and Avantika are disguised as Mehtra and Ownitka.

At least thirty or forty epithetical designations of Benares are scattered through the Kási-khanḍa. Half of that number, or thereabouts, from this or some other work or works, have been noted by native lexicographers. One of them, Panchanadatîrtha, “the quinquamnian resort," refers to five rivers, the Kiraṇâ, Dhûtapâpâ, Saraswati, Gangâ, and Yamunâ :

किरणा धूतपापा च पुण्यतोया सरस्वती ।

गंगा च यमुना चैव पञ्च नद्योच कीर्त्तिताः ॥
अतः पञ्चनदं नाम तीर्थं चैलोक्यविश्रुतम् ।

LIX., 114, 115.

Four of these streams, in small quantities, are believed to emerge into the Ganges, through subterraneous channels, just in front of the Panchagangâ landing.

1 Relation des Voyages, etc., by M. Langlès and Father Reinaud, Vol. I., Preliminary Discourse, pp. XLVIII., XLIX.

'Father Reinaud's Mémoire Géographique, Historique et Scientifique sur l'Inde, etc.,p. 288.

• English Ayeen Akbery, Vol. II., p. 35.

• Major Stewart's History of Bengal, p. 36. Elsewhere we read, that, "having broken the idols in above a thousand temples, he purified and consecrated the latter to the worship of the true God." Colonel Briggs's translation from Farishta, Vol. L., p. 179.