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OCTOBER, 1882.]
dhism almost without any effort of propagandism. They accepted it because it provided an answer (however imperfect) to the question that had always been going up from the great heart of man-" Whence comes the evil of the world and what its cure"?
BOOK NOTICES.
We cannot follow Mr. Davids throughout his book. He writes pertinently and well. The divisions of his six Lectures include a consideration of "the place of Buddhism in the development of religious thought," to which we have briefly referred; secondly, "the Pâli Pitakas," a subject which in his hands is sure to be thoroughly and reliably treated; thirdly, "the Buddhist theory of Karma," which he traces to the pre-Aryan races of India, but which appears to us to be but a modification of the world-wide idea of an irresistible "fate;" fourthly, "Buddhist lives of the Buddha," in the course of which lecture he states that he is convinced there was no connection between the East and West leading to "borrowing" or the adaptation of ideas, known in the East, by Western writers. This is a subject still to be sifted; we will only remark that supposing the Jewish mind was influenced by the development of religious thought in India, this would be only a repetition of what had taken place after the captivity in Chaldæa, and we cannot see why such a connection in later times should be thought so unlikely, or deprecated as fatal to the high and undoubted claims of the Christian advance in the spiritual life of man. The founder of the Christian religion was as far superior to the Buddha as the "real dawn" of day is to the false dawn"-but yet in the latter case the one leads to the other as certainly as cause to effect-and why should not such a connection exist in the former case also ? The fifth lecture is engaged with a consideration of "Gotama's Order," a subject which is treated in a clever and satisfactory way. The sixth and last lecture is occupied by a consideration of the "later forms of Buddhism"-a field in which, we may say with all respect to Mr. Davids, he is not yet qualified to work. In fact the history of Northern Buddhism is a distinct study depending on special knowledge. We must wait until the difficulties of language are surmounted, and until the obstacles in the way of close intercourse with the people professing this form of Buddhism are got over, then something more may be known of the subject; as yet, it is too soon to give an opinion upon it.
44
TABEL van OUD- en NIEUW-INDISCHE ALPHABETTEN: Bijdrage tot de Palaeographie van NederlandschIndië, door K. F. Holle. (Batavia en's Hage, 1882.) The 50 pages of carefully compiled lithographed tables, which properly enough form the bulk of
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this excellent contribution to the palæography of Dutch India, appear to have been prepared five years ago, while the introductory letterpress was only written towards the end of last year,
The tables have been prepared with considerable care, especially those for the alphabets of Java, Sumatra, and the Eastern Peninsula, and are beautifully lithographed,-the alphabets being arranged in 198 columns, each carried over three pages. The first twelve present the Aśoka and other early and late Indian alphabets derived from Prinsep's Table as given by Thomas; then follow three Bhotya alphabets, No. 13 being only a reproduction of the Tibetan alphabet (No. 20); columns 16 to 19 give varieties of the Nepalese and Lanja alphabets; 21 to 26 the Kasmiri, two varieties of the Burman and Raffles's three eastern Pâli alphabets; after these come six alphabets of the Eastern Peninsula with No. 33, the Panjabi, and 44, Bengali. Nos. 35 and 36 are two copies of the same alphabet the Telugu-No. 36 being styled "Telinga." Nos. 38 to 109, 162 to 169, and 186 to 188 are Javan alphabets copied from Inscriptions dating from Šaka 762 to 1318, manuscripts, &c., Nos. 110 to 142 and 170, 189, 197, and 198 give us others from Bali, Sumatra, Celebes, Bima, Borneo, and the Philipines. Nos. 143 to 161 and 179-181 are extracted from Burnell's S. I. Palæography, and give the early alphabets of Southern India. Some early Northern Indian alphabets are given in columns 171 to 178; and the Tamil of the 17th century with six Indo-Chinese alphabets from Dr. A. Bastian's paper (J. R. As. Soc., N. S., vol. III, p. 65). The forms of the numerals are collected on pp. 30-35, 48 and 49, and are deserving of attention.
From this analysis it will be recognised that Heer Holle's Tables are very complete for the alphabets of the south-east of Asia, the only character of any importance he seems to have overlooked being the Simhalese. The work will be very useful to Indian as well as to Dutch epigraphists.
The MACKENZIE COLLECTION: A descriptive Catalogue of the Oriental Manuscripts, and other articles illustrative of the Literature, History, Statistics, and Antiquities of the South of India; collected by the late Lieut. Col. Colin Mackenzie, Surveyor-General of India. By the late H. H. Wilson, Esq., Secretary to the Asiatic Society of Bengal, &c., &c., &c. To which is prefixed a brief outline of the life of Colonel Mackenzie and of the steps taken to catalogue his collection. 2nd Edition. Complete in One, Calcutta, 1828. Madras-Higginbotham & Co., 1882.
Wilson's Mackenzie Collection was a valuable hand-book of information on Indian Literature and History fifty years ago; and it is still occasionally of use to a few scholars engaged in historical research, though much of the contents is now antiquated and superseded by more recent
