________________
DROEMBER, 1898.)
IN MEMORIAM GEORGE BUHLER.
341
now-a-days greatly exaggerated. That this is the case, that Sanskrit Literature is no longer the chaos it was, that one or two pins,' at any rate, stand so firmly rooted that they cannot be
bowlod down' again, that the hope at least is justified that, instead of the chaos of Indian history and literature, we shall some day have a cosmos,- is in no small measure due to the efforts of Bühler himself and of a considerable number of pupils and fellow-workers who had gathered around him.
Bühler never felt satisfied with what is called 'inner chronology,' which is based on a comparison of the contents of the different literary compositions and in this way tries to establish a kind of chronological sequence of the works, - a proceeding in which too much scope is left to individual opinion. One safe historical date which could be depended on was worth more to Bühler than a volume full of more or less convincing arguments as to might-bes. But how were such firmly established historical dates to be obtained? If not from works of literature yet from monuments of stone and metal. Bühler was fully aware of this, and with his characteristic enthusiasm he devoted himself to the task of searching for, deciphering, and interpreting inscriptions, and no one was more eager than he was in turning these inscriptions to account for historical, geographical, and literary purposes. The results of these investigations are recorded in numerous papers in the Indian Antiquary, the Epigraphia Indica, and other Oriental Journals, and we owe to them many important chronological data, not only about the political history of India, but also concerning many Hindu authors and works of literature, and light is thrown by them on the history of entire branches of literature, as well as on the history of certain religious systems. In a most important paper on Indian inscriptions and the age of the Kayya Literature (Die indischen Inschriften und das Alter der indischen Kunstpoesie, Sitzungsberichte der Kais. Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien, 1890) Bühler has shown, in one particular instance, how much valuable information concerning the history of the classical Sanskrit literature may be gathered from the inscriptions. The fact thar from the literary works themselves the so-called Kávya Literature cannot be traced back further than the 6th century A. D., led to Prof. Max Müller's famous theory of a literary interregnum' in India, and a Renaissance of Sansksit literature,' beginning about 400 A. D. and reaching its highest development in the 6th century, but Bühler showed in this paper that the irrefutable testimony of inscriptions proves a much higher antiquity of the Kávya Literature, that it was developed not after but before the beginning of our era, and that a
literary interregnum' probably never existed in India. In the new edition of his work India, what oun it teach us? (published in 1892), Prof. Max Müller readily acknowledged that, in view of the arguments of his friend Bühler, the theory of the Renaissance promulgated by him could not be upheld any longer without considerable modification.
But it is not only with regard to the history of classical Sanskpit literature that Bühler's epigraphic discoveries and researches have led to new and important results, they have also thrown a flood of light on many dark points in the history of religious movements in India The sect of the Jainas, whose literature (as already mentioned) has only become properly known by Bühler's discoveries, has, also by the investigations of the same scholar, received its due position in the history of religious systems in India. Not so very long ago, Jainism used to be looked upon as a mere offshoot of Buddhism, but Bühler succeeded in proving, by the indisputable testimony of inscriptions, that the Jainas were in early times (as they are now) an important sect, independent of and contemporaneous with that of the Buddhists; that both Jainism and Buddhism arose about the same time in the same part of India - a fact which is of the greatest importance, not only for the history of Buddhism, but also for the history of religious movements in the east of India during the 6th and 5th centuries B. C. The results of Bühler's investigations, which are laid down in a series of articles on the authenticity of the Jaina tradition in the Vienna Oriental Journal, 1887-90) have been fully borne out by further researches of Profs. Jacobi and Leamann. Bühler himself has given a clear and popular account of the Jaina religion and of the historical importance of the Jaina sect, in a paper
