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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[DECEMBER, 1898.
as it recalls a circumstance which gave me the opportunity of offering him a few days' hospitality and of enjoying his society more intimately. The Eleventh Congress of Orientalists having brought Bühler to Paris, where a number of other celebrated Indianists were also assembled, I thought it a daty to take advantage of the occasion for the realisation of a desire I had for some time entertained. The project in view was the organisation of an International Association, the object of which would be to further, by all means, archeological investigations in India. That Bühler should take a warm interest in the project at once, will not seem surprising. His enthusiasm, however, was not displayed only in promises. This was proved by the zeal by which he obtained the patronage of important personages, whose aid and assistance was essential to the success of the plan. He also, in a most precise and practical spirit, drew a sketch for the future working of the Association and kept up strenuously, to his death, the active correspondence which was entailed by our common interest in the undertaking. To him is certainly due, in a large measure, the valuable and powerful intervention of our eminent friends, Lord Reay and Sir Alfred Lyall, which secured for the project, the favourable disposition of the Indian Government. His loss is certainly a fatal blow to the new Association. May his memory protect it!
The least attentive observer would perceive, that in Bühler the man of work and of tlought was also the man of action. Both his words and appearance, as well as an indescribable air of promptness and decision, showed it at first sight. He never indulged in reveries - in vague speculation, or in the frail adjustment of conjectures. In a field of research, where the uncertainty of chronological bases or the rarity of positive statements, as well as the national quietism and mystic disposition, opens so large an area for hypothesis, it remains a striking honour in his career that he devoted himself by a determined effort conscientiously and indefatigably to the conquest of facts, even when slightly prominent, and the fixing of dates even though secondary or provisional. It was a logical consequence of this frame of mind, that the Vedic Literature for him held a less prominent place than the epigraphic matter, that, in the study of law the genealogy of books and schools were of greater importance to bim than the analysis of institutions. Even in the investigation of religious antiquities he was more busy in testing the tradition than in expatiating upon the systems.
From the first and until the end of his life, Bühler followed with undeviating firmness the path he had traced out for himself after due reflection. He has accomplished his task, He has accomplished it with éclat, for, with the clearness of purpose that was one of his chief characteristics, he had chosen his line in the direction of his most prominent faculties, and to it he devoted such a power for work, a vigour and an ingenuity of mind as never failed. All these brilliant qualities were at their best when the fatal accident occurred for which we shall long remain inconsolable.
In France, it revived among us sad memories, as a similarly cruel and unforeseen cata. strophe had just ten years before deprived a fellow-worker and contemporary of Bühler of his life. In some respects one may say that Bergaigne, by the turn of his mind, by the direction of his favourite studies, presented a living antithesis to Biihler. But he also was cut off at the very moment when he seemed almost to have reached the crowning point of his labour, at an age when many fruitful years appeared to be still in store for him. Two masters, so widely different in their lines of work, are thus brought together for us by a common fatality which seemed to cling to their common studies. We had long been eager to manifest our high respect for the science and services of Bühler. Our Academy had considered it an honour to number him among its correspondents. While recalling a loss so near to our hearts, his tragic end, has, even for those who only knew him through his books, added a thrill of intimate emotion to the regrets which naturally accompany the premature death of a powerful worker.
