________________
330
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
(DECEMBER, 1883.
What Vandal was allowed to break this off and its Revue de l'histoire des Religions, edited by carry it away to France ?
M. Maurice Vernes, assisted by other scholars. Nor is this all; besides the Reports of the of this magazine a number of about 144 pages Provincial Oriental Congress of Lyons (1878) in appears every second month. With such potent two volumes, the Musée issues its Annales in quarto accessories the museum could scarcely fail to be volumes, of which four have already appeared, a success. and other three are promised immediately. The Dr. Anderson's Cetalogue of the Indian Mufirst volume, of 386 pages, issued in 1880, contains seum at Calcutta, Part I, is also only a section fifteen separate papers, of which two are transla- of the complete catalogue, but so far as it goes tions of articles by Dr. Eitel and the Rev. Mr. it makes painfully manifest how imperfect are Alwis. The second volume (1881) is of 578 pages, even our best collections in India compared with and contains :-(1). A translation of Prof. Max what has been attained by the efforts of single Müller's paper on "Sanskrit Texts discovered in individuals like M. Guimet and Dr. Jagor in Japan," from the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Europe. The Indian Museum, founded in 1866, Society (N.S., vol. XII, pp. 153-188). (2). Ö-mi. received the archæological collections of the to-ching or the smaller edition of the Sukhavati. Bengal Asiatic Society as the nucleus of this vyúha as translated into Chinese by Kumarajiva department, and this has been enriched since by (A. D. 402), rendered into French by MM. Ymai- sculptures from Bharhut, Gandhira, and Buddhazumi and Ymata,--to which is added a facsimile Gayê,- very important treasures indeed; but how of the Sanskrit text, but the editor does not say many of the Jamalgarhi figures have been from what MS., or whether it has been corrected carried off by private individuals, and sold or in any way. (3). The Metre or Prosody of Bha- presented to foreign museums, or are in private rata being the Sanskrit text of the latter half of hands, and so lost to the public-whether in India the 5th and the whole of the 6th adhyâyas of the or England ? Our Government has need to beNátya-sastra, with a French version by M. Paul stir itself if it would secure either for Indian or Regnaud. (4). A. Csoma Köröei's "Analysis of English museums a fairly complete historical the Kanjur" from the XXth volume of the Asiatic representation of the art and mythology of India Researches (1834), translated into French with and the East. The private donors to the Indian some notes and additions by M. Léon Feer: some Museum are strikingly few, we could wish Dr. seven separate indexes and vocabularies are add- Anderson would give in Part II, a complete list ed to this translation, but unfortunately-from of them, with references to the pages where the their referring to book and section, rather than to donations are described. With the exception of page, and from the absence of head-lines indi- Dr. Rajendralkla Mitra, C.L.E., we have observed cating the sections in the text-these indexes do the name of no native among them; yet how not facilitate references so much as they ought easily could many a native afford help to form a to have done. At the end are six pages of errata national collection of which India might be proud! in small type, again without reference to the Natives complain of Government allowing foreign pages, and with the preliminary notice that only libraries to purchase copies of manuscripts which the more glaring mistakes in the Sanskrit names are by no means unique, yet they do not loyally are corrected, the Tibetan titles and the French come forward to aid in forming either national or text (in which are many mistakes) being left to provincial collections of unique sculptures, coins, the reader's care.
copperplates and manuscripts, but either hoard The third volume (1881) contains a transla them to be destroyed or lost or sell them clandestinetion of Em. de Schlagintweit's Buddhism in Tibet, ly to caterers for museums in Austria, Germany, &c. by M. de Milloué, the Director of the Musée. Dr. Anderson's Catalogue and Handbook is too The errata to this volume consist chiefly in the į much of the latter to be a clear and handy strange mistake of "après J.-C." for "avant Catalogue. The Index, though good, does not J.-C.," but on p. 32 we observe the omission of help this, and the Table of Contents, where it about a line of the original (p. 48 top). It may might have been remedied, is far too brief to do be questioned whether the funds of the Musée 80. But much judicious care has been spent upon would not have been better spent in translating it, and the compilation is a most creditable one. Köppen's valuable work. And the same may be When completed it will show the wants of the said of the version of Dr. Eakins's Religion in Museum, and may we not hope that all who can China, which occupies the greater part of the will help to make it as complete as it really ought fourth volume. The other three papers in it to be-embracing a full representation of the art, relate to Egyptology and classical mythology. history and mythology of the Hindu races, as
Besides these larger volumes the Musée issues well as of their ethnology in all its bearinga!
