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PREFACE
BY PROFESSOR MACDONELL
THE period covered by the inception, the publication, and the completion of the Sacred Books of the East exactly coincides with the thirty-four years that I have spent in Oxford. When I matriculated, Professor Max Müller, the editor of the series, was about to begin work on the first volume, which appeared while I was still an undergraduate. I lost no time in making his acquaintance, for it was the influence of one of his works that had stimulated me to begin under Professor Benfey the study of Sanskrit at the University of Göttingen, when I left school nearly two years before. During my undergraduate days and later I owed much to Professor Max Müller's advice and encouragement in regard to my studies, which have ever since followed, as far as Sanskrit is concerned, much the same lines as his. I consequently always took a lively interest in the Sacred Books edited by him as they successively appeared during the course of a quarter of a century, no fewer than thirty-six volumes having a more or less direct bearing on my own work, and fourteen of the translators being personally known to me. Professor Max Müller lived to see all but one of the forty-nine volumes published under his supervision. Now the fiftieth and concluding volume is at last finished when I myself have already arrived at advanced middle age. Owing to my early relations with the editor and my interest in the series ever since, I am glad to have this opportunity of accompanying with a few words by way of preface the volume that brings the series to an end.
The Sacred Books of the East include all the most important works of the seven non-Christian religions that have exercised a profound influence on the civilization of the continent of Asia. Of the Indian religions the Vedic-Brāhmanic system here claims twenty-one volumes, Buddhism ten, and Jainism two. Eight volumes comprise translations of the
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