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REVIEW
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in any degree to disparage the greatness and the nobility of his personal work, without contesting in the least the vitality and the expansive force of some of his principles, I would not seek in its doctrine the great novelty of Buddhism, or the secret of its success. These I find rather in its organization. The founder of the new religion in reality secured for it & militia when he laid the foundations of monachism. He thus created, without wishing it, an institution far better disciplined, and more aggressive, than the Brahmanical caste, but at the same time far more il liberal, and dangerous to independence of thought. Thus Buddhism, in spite of the generous inten. tions of its author, in spite of its fine charac. teristics, its admirable morality, its truly human charity and compassion, appears to me to have been quite the reverse of an emancipation. We are unfavourably placed, it is true, for judging it by its first effects; but it is only too probable that all independence, all true originality of thought, soon
lisappeared in the bosom of that enervating or ganization. Except some admirable maxims, and some legends of striking beauty, the literature which it has left to us bears all the characters of decrepitude; and it is astonishing that M. Lassen should have passed by so many evidences of a precocious senility without having been struck
by them in the slightest degree. The contem. porary ruling powers committed no such mistake. They were then on the way to gain the ascendancy, and comprehended at once what a powerful and docile instrument they were about to have in these communities which had so recently come into existence, which were without traditions or external support, humble by profession, detached from everything beyond the interests of the sect and the monastery, and sufficiently organized to be serviceable, but not sufficiently so to create any distrust, --something, in short, like the mendicant orders of Catholicism without the Pope. Accord ingly we see the Government soon beginning to take mensures for their protection. M. Lassen has remarked this feature of the fortunes of Buddh. ism; but I doubt if he has given it sufficient prominence. Thus, for example, he is careful not to suspect a concealed political motive for the conversion of Asoka. He presents us with a most attractive picture of this prince, and of his religious zeal, although, even in the absence of other documents than his own inscriptions and the narratives of monks, certain bloody episodes of his history lead us to form a somewhat different idea of the reign of this Oriental Con. stantine."
Braemar, July 27th, 1874.
REVIEW REPORT on the CENSUS of the MADRAS PRESIDENCY, 1871, toms know that mere distance and variety of with Appendix; by W. R. Cornish, F.R.C.S., Surgeon local speech are generally quite enough to make Major, Sanitary Commissioner, Madras. Government
difference of caste, i.e. to prevent intermarriage Gazette Press, Madras, 1874.
or & common table, although the race be the Dr. Cornish, Sanitary Commissioner, Madras, same. And although Dr. Cornish does not any. has favoured us with the two large volumes con- where define what he means by a "sub-division taining the results of the census taken in that of a caste," it is obvious that his snb-divisions Presidency in 1871. Comment on the purely sta. | are not mere clans (gotram, kal), but separate tistical part of these returny, valuable as they 1 classes of the community. are from both matter and method, is beyond the One feature of the returns which strikes us province of the Indian Antiquary. But Dr. (writing in Bombay) is that the name of " Pärsi'' Cornish's 11th chapter, on Caste, and his nu. does not occur throughout the two volumes. merous extracts and summaries from the reports There must be some Parsis in Madras, and of the district officers, contain a vast amount of wherever a single member of that remarkable race information as to races and religions, most in- ! is found he may well be " made a note of," interesting in an ethnological and philological point stead of being lumped with " other castes." For of view. Specially so is the report of Mr. H. G. the classification of Jains along with Buddhists Turner upon the wild tribes of Jaypúr, in the the Government of India is probably responsible. Vizagapatam district (pp. 221 seqq.).
It is evident from the remarks of Dr. Cornish These tables give the enormous number of 3,209 that he is as well aware of its absurdity as was sub-divisions of castes in four languages, viz. to be expected from so acute and philosophical Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, and Kanarese. It is a writer. The fact is that the relation of true that in many instances the same sub-division Jainism to Buddbism is closely analogous to is named in two or more languages; but, on that of Islâm toJudaism, the resemblance in each the other hand, those familiar with Hindu cus- case resting upon unacknowlodged borrowings :
* p. 386.
