with Jai Chand of Kanauj, about the Rája-súya festival, and the abduction by Rájah Prithví of Jai Chand's daughter. A year elapsed, says the Khaláṣat, which Rájah Prithví spent in the society of his bride and the neglect of his kingdom, and then Shihábuddín, having leagued with Jai Chand, attacked Rájah Prithví for the eighth time, and defeated and killed him. Thus we have the sixteen years desiderated by Du Perron, and the date 1249 A.V. corresponding to 588 A.H. At all events, this is a more consistent account than the one which makes Rájah Prithví reign for forty-nine years and five months, and then lose his kingdom for excessive devotion to Jai Chand's daughter. By that time he must have been about seventy, and have been married for nearly thirty-five years. Du Perron seems to regard the mention in the Tazkarát of the Tawáríkh Bahádur Sháhí as evidence that the work was not composed till about 1712. But the Tawáríkh Bahadur Shahí is quoted in the Khaláṣat at the beginning of the account of Gujrát, and the Khaláṣat was certainly written in 1696. NOTE D. Sujin Rái on Stimulants. Suján Rái is very severe on opium in his account of Rájah Sakunt of Kumaon (Sakwantí) and calls it the worst of all intoxicants. It turns young men old, he says, and makes their sinews to be like threads. But in his notice of Rájah Badhal ("Parmal Sen" of Tieffenthaler) he had already drawn a still darker picture of the evils of bhang, i.e. Indian hemp, or ganja. A bangi, i.e. a ganja-smoker, barks like a dog and brays like an ass, and the evil effects of the drug are continued in his offspring. Suján Rái himself has seen, he says, many of the rich and powerful reduced to poverty and misery by this vice. He is also strong against the use of wine. His attitude towards tobacco is rather amusing. In his account of Jahángír he has a paragraph entitled "Praise and blame of tobacco," and tells how the Emperor vainly endeavoured to prevent its use. He begins by saying that tobacco (tambaku) was introduced into India from the islands of the Franks, but that for some time it was not much used, and the import was small. In the reign of Jahangir, however, it began to be largely cultivated in India, and everybody, high and low, rich and poor, took to smoking. He then proceeds to describe the delights of tobacco in language worthy of Salvation Yeo, calling it a companion at home and abroad, and saying that its smoke-wreaths are like the musky tresses of beautiful women in their power of lassooing the necks of men. Then, as if recollecting himself, he says: "May God forgive me! "What I am saying, and what I am writing? Tobacco is the "worst of intoxicants; it wastes time, shuts up the mouth "against the praises of God," etc. Evidently Suján Rái was or had been a devotee of the weed. ART. XXIII.-The Raṭṭhapala Sutta. By WAlter LUPTON, I.C.S. THE Sutta of which the Pāli text, together with a translation, is here given is No. 82 of the Majjhima Nikaya. I have availed myself throughout of Buddhaghosa's Commentary, the Papañca-Sudani; but only so much of it is here reproduced, in the form of extracts, as I thought was necessary either to support a rendering, or to illustrate a point, of the text. Such extracts are marked 'Pap. Sūd.' I have added, at the end of the text, a few further references of general interest. In its form the Raṭṭhapala Sutta stands midway between those Suttas (the vast majority) in which the chief interlocutor is the Buddha himself, and those Suttas in which this place is held by one of his disciples. Of this latter class, the Madhura Sutta on Caste, which appeared in the April number of this Journal, is an example. The present Sutta differs from this in that the Buddha does indeed figure, as in the first class of Suttas; but his appearance is rather an episode than the essential part, and the story of the conversion of the young nobleman is really an introduction to the main part of the Sutta, from which the Buddha disappears. The main interest rather lies in the attitude of contemporary opinion towards the demands made by the Buddha's teaching, and in bringing out the feeling, not confined, perhaps, to the days of Gotama, of surprise, not unmingled with pity, of the average man in the world, and of the world, towards earnest spirits prepared to give up everything which the world regards as making life worth living, to pursue an ideal, to tread the higher path. The bulk of mankind is content with a lower standard. "It is possible," says his father to Ratthapala, "both to enjoy the J.R.A.S. 1894. 50 good things of life, and to perform good works." What need of such rigid system of self-denial? asks the world. Come, Raṭṭhapāla," echoes his father; "give up this Discipline, return to family life," or, as the Pāli words actually translate, 'take the lower course.'* Finally, King Koravya takes up the parable, and presents the case for the world in four questions. Briefly summarised, the position is this: One can understand, perhaps, a man who is old, or diseased, or impoverished, or desolate, renouncing the world; one can understand, that is, a man who is no longer able to enjoy the things of life, and who is out of heart generally with the world, making a show of giving up this mundane existence for higher things. But here is a young man, in the heyday of youth, with rank and position, with health and wealth; and it is such an one who is renouncing all and everything to become a 'shaveling ascetic.' This is the wonder. Sour grapes, the world can understand; but this other thing-the hands of surprise are upraised thereat. Apart from this general interest, it cannot be said that the student of Buddhism, as such, will find anything remarkable in this Sutta. But it may be of interest to note that the story which is the framework of the Sutta was certainly a popular one with the Buddhist community; for we find it again in the Vinaya, Sutta Vibhanga, Pārājika, 1. 5 (Oldenberg's edition, vol. iii. p. xi.), and in the Jātaka (Fausböll, vol. i. p. 156, the Vatamiga-Jātaka); while the story of Raṭṭhapala is referred to again, by way of illustration, in the Sutta Vibhanga (Oldenberg, vol. iii. p. 148; Samghadisesa, vi. 4-6). In the first case, substituting Sudinna for Ratthapala, the story is repeated almost verbatim for the first three-fourths. The last fourth of the story is different, in that Sudinna yields to the entreaties. of mother and wife, and becomes the pattern backslider, as Ratthapala remains the instance of steadfast resolution. The Jātaka tale, on the other hand, if more pointed, is Still meagre and somewhat far removed from our version. there is enough, in Jātaka phraseology, to establish the identity' of the two, and to see how in the Jātaka the story was clipped and altered to suit its present purpose. Suffice it to say here that it is the slave-girl who, with the mother's consent, sets herself to break down the resolution of the young Prince Tissa, the Jātaka Raṭṭhapāla, or rather Sudinna, for Tissa is seduced from the Way of Holiness, and relapses with Sudinna into the laity. It would be an interesting question to ask, in connection. with the date of the various portions of the Tipiṭakam, which of the three versions, if any, is the primordial story, or whether some story of the kind was generally current in the early centuries of Buddhism. If it be permitted to hazard a theory based on a close comparison of the two stories, I should consider that Sudinna was evolved as the correlative of Raṭṭhapala, in order to illustrate certain precepts of the Vinaya Nikāya. For the latter is admittedly a composite work, pieced together at different periods. But in the present state of our knowledge of the age of the texts, we are limited to speculation; and it is perhaps idle to attempt to argue the question one way or the other. [No. 82.] Evam me sutaṁ. Ekaṁ samayaṁ Bhagavā Kurūsu carikaṁ caramāno mahata bhikkhusamghena saddhim yena Thullakoṭṭhitam nāma Kurūnaṁ nigamo tad avasari. Assosum kho Thullakoṭṭitakā brāhmaṇagahapatikā :-"Samaṇo khalu bho Gotamo Sakyaputto Sakyakulā pabbajito Kurūsu cārikam caramāno mahatā bhikkhusamghena saddhim Thullakotthitam anuppatto; tam kho pana bhavantam Gotamam evam kalyāņo kittisaddo abbhuggato-'iti pi so bhagavā araham Samma-sambuddho vijja-carana-sampanno sugato lokavidū anuttaro purisadammasarathi satthā devamanussanam Buddho bhagavā ti.' So imam lokaṁ sadevakaṁ |