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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
(in Java, Bhatára Guru, who has been satisfactorily identified by Cohen-Stuart with Siva), but Narayana or Vishnu (as an emanation of Siva) was also an object of worship. In India very few temples of this period are left-perhaps not more than two or three near Madras, and of these one at Seven Pagodas) is of much the same style. The museum at Batavia also possesses much to illustrate this system, which is that of the Vayu and Brahmanda (or the real old') puranas. The architecture is evidently South-Indian in style, and Dr. Cohen-Stuart's palæographical researches point to South India as the source of the former Hindu civilization of Java. I have other evidence of this, but it would take too much space to give it here.
Mando et isa very interesting Buddhist temple, with splendid statues of Buddha (in the middle) and of Sangha and Dharma (on either side).
Boro-Boedoer is the largest ruin by far, and though it does not cover nearly so much space as one of the great South-Indian temples, it is, as a whole, larger than any single shrine or gopura in any Indian temple. It was evidently a dagoba, and it being on a hill, there are terraces on the slopes instead of the usual enclosures. The bas-reliefs here and at Mandoet are very remarkable, and I was delighted to find that they illustrate the Játakas. I believe that this has not been as yet noticed. One example must suffice: on the left side of the steps at Mandoet there is a basrelief with (at the upper part) two birds carrying a stick in their claws by the ends, the middle of which a tortoise has hold of by its mouth. In the left corner below, two men are looking up and pointing at it; in the right, the tortoise is on the ground, and the men have thrown themselves on it. This obviously is a representation of the Játaka published by Fausböll (Five Játakas, p. 6), and the story has found its way into the Panchatantra.
There was evidently a large emigration of Buddhists from North India to Java about the eleventh century A.D., and these took with them a Någari alphabet, which is a great contrast to the Old Javanese character. It is worthy of notice that we find some inscriptions in the same character at Seven Pagodas (near Madras), which was once a great port. These emigrants took with them a highly developed form of the Northern Buddhism.
The care taken of Boro-Boedoer by the Dutch Government is beyond all praise. The magnificent volumes by Leemans and Van Kinsbergen will show that these ruins well deserve it, for the bas-reliefs there are infinitely more valuable than anything of the kind in India; the Old Javanese civilization is represented in them down to the most minute details.
[NOVEMBER, 1876.
The number of statues to be seen everywhere. the inscriptions and endless ruins, show that Central Java must once have been a wonderfully successful Indian colony. The richness of the soil may have helped, but it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that the Brahmans and Buddhists were more successful, in every way, with the Polynesian Javanese than they have been with the low-type Dravidians of Southern India. Where these last have benefited much, there has been a large admixture of North-Indian blood, and for a long period. Javanese art, once equal to Indian, has (as Mr. Groeneveldt pointed out to me) sunk again to the old Polynesian level, but there are yet undeniable traces of the great success of the old Indian missionaries. Their work was ended abruptly more than 400 years ago, but there is the more reason that it should not now be forgotten. They raised what was probably a cannibal population to a comparatively high and permanent civilization, and made Java what Marco Polo found it, " une ysle de mout grant richesse "-a character that it A. BURNELL. still has.
Tanjore, July 30, 1876.
-The Academy, 2nd Sept.
THE LATE PROFESSOR ROBT. C. CHILDERS.
In the death of Professor R. C. Childersin the prime of life, at Weymouth on the 25th July last-the study of Pâli has suffered an incalculable loss. Robt. C. Childers was the son of the Rev. Charles Childers, English Chaplain at Nice; he was appointed to the Ceylon Civil Service about the end of 1860, and for three years acted as Private Secretary to Sir C. MacCarthy, then Governor, and had become Assistant Government Agent in Kandy when, in 1864, he was forced by ili health to return to Europe. While in the island, however, he had studied the language, literature, and modes of thought of the people with the diligence of a thorough student, spending one of his vacations at the Bentota Rest-house in the study of Páli under Yâtråmulle Unnånse, a Buddhist priest of great learning. After his return to England his health improved, and in the autumn of 1868 he was induced by Dr. R. Rost, of the India Office Library, to resume the study of Påli. In Nov. 1869 he published in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society the Pâli text of the Khuddaka Patha with an English translation and notes. In 1870 he published his views on Nirvana, first in Trübner's Literary Record, and afterwards in his Notes on the Dhammapada in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, May 1871, which he further expanded in a long note at the close of vol. I. of his Pali Dictionary, published in 1872. In the latter half of 1872 he was appointed Sub-Librarian
