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BUDDHA AND BUDDHISM.
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regarded as synchronous and independent? and if not, which is the senior, which is the original? These are questions which M. Burnouf himself declares cannot yet be answered with confidence: an exact comparison between the two series of works, he declares to be impossible in the present state of our knowledge. We are not yet in possession of all the works that may exist in either class, but even if they were all collected in any European library, they must be read and studied, translated and commented upon, and the translations and comments must be published. This task, more tedious than difficult, would require the cooperation of many laborious and patient scholars, and upon its completion in a satisfactory manner could critical investigation alone commence.
Although, however, it is perfectly true that conclusions on which implicit reliance is to be placed must be preceded by such a series of operations as M. Burnouf indicates, yet, as that preliminary process is indefinitely deferred and may never be perfected, we must be content in the meanwhile to make use of such means as we possess, and from them to form a conjectural approximation, if not a positive propinquity, to the solution of the question upon which the whole depends-the antiquity and authenticity of the writings in which the Buddhists themselves record the history of their founder and the doctrines which they maintain, and from which alone we can derive information that is of any real value. The great body of the Buddhist writings consists avowedly of transla
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