Indian Antiquary Vol 27

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 88

84
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[MARCH, 1898.
The impossible-looking word Kiackiack, with its variant spellings, is nothing but the Talaing kyaik, any object of worship or veneration, a pagoda, equals the Burmese and Siamese phra and phaya. Sec ante, Vol. XXII p. 334 f., and Haswell's Talaing Vocabulary, pp. xiii. ff., 40. There is,
moroever, the well-known Kyaik-kauk Pagoda, that described by Hamilton, Dear Syriam ; which, probably accounts for the reduplicated forms Kiuckinck and Kiakeck used by him.
R. C. TEMPLE.
BOOK-NOTICE. THE SIKSHASAMUCHCHAYA.
The inscription read by Bayer was the now A WORD of congratulation must be offered to familar Or marri padmd hun, and his knowledge the Imperial Academy of Sciences of St. Peters- of Sanskrit, such as it was, was obtained chietiy burg, for its successful inauguration of the new
from Tibetan sources So, also, it is from Central Suries of Buddhist Texts, entitled the Bibliotheca
| Asia that Sanskrit learning in St. Petersburg has Buddhica, and to Prof. Bendall for having the
on more than one other occasion received its honour of leading it off with the first number of inspirations. Witness, for instance, the Khahis edition of the Silishúsamuchchaya. Philo. roshthi Manuscript exhibited by Prof. d'Oldenlogy owes much to the Academy for what it has burg at the last Oriental Congress; and so it is done for Sanskrit. The monumental Dictionary of
but appropriate that the Imperial Academy Bochtlingk and Roth issued from its doors, and
should be the body to step forward and to offer to is a familiar example of its more recent achieve supply & want which has long been felt by inents in this department of research. But in Buddhist scholars. Buddbistic works of the publishing it, the Academy has only carried on Southern school we hawo in plenty, but the exam. traditions which dnted from the first volume of ples of works of the Northern, Mahdyrina, school its Transactions for the year 1728. Amongst the
which have been printed are few in number, and learned men who were the original members of with the exception of one or two wellknown the Acndemy was the celebrated Bayer, whose
volumes, are almost confined to the publications letters to LaCroze form the most interesting
of the lately founded, Indian, Buddhist Text Soportion of the Thesaurus Epistolions. It was
ciety. In addition to the Sikshitsamuchchaya, Bayer who had the honour of being the first Euro
we may now shortly expect in the silme series, pean scholar to decipher a Buddhist inscription in
the Rashtrapula-pariprichchhú, edited by M. the Pali language, and to bring a knowledge of
Finot, the Dasabhúmiávara, edited by M. de the Sanskrit alphabet to the West. These were
Blonay, the Abhidharna-kusa-vyakhyvi, edited first described by him in the Transactions of the
from Chinese koilroes by Prof. S. Lévi, and the Academy for 1728 and 1729. Before that time Suvarna pralhasa, edited by M. Finot. The first the only specimens of Indian alphabets which of these is in the press, and the others are under appear to bave reached Europe had been pub- preparation. lished in 1715 in a collection of translations of The present edition contains the first third of the Lord's Prayer contained in Chamberlayne's the work edited by Prof. Bendall. It has the Sylloge. This was an unsatisfactory work, and disadvantage of being based on a single MS., contained some extraordinary blunders, so that an ancient one, now forming a portion of the the Academy may fairly claim to be the official i Wright collection in Cambridge. Mr. Bandall who introduced Oriental Philology into the | has, however, been able to supplement this by a western world, to have taken the promising child comparison with a Tibetan version in the Hodgson into her hospitable arms, and to have nursed it till collections of the India Office, and the result in it was fit to go abroad into foreign countries. a text which, considering the difficulties under Nor did its care stop here. A hundred and thirty which the Editor laboured, is remarkably free years later, when the child had become a youth from doubtful passages. The work is an import(learning ever has a long childhood), it endowed ant one, and is, as tbe Title-page informe us, a it with the great lexicon for a capital which has compendium of Buddhist teaching of the Mahli. lasted so many years, and which is still bearing yana school. Mr. Bendall reserves remarks liberal interest. Now, in his full-grown manhood, regarding the text and its contents for the compleshe has not abanäoned her loving interest in her tion of its publication, and for a translation which protege, and, under the general direction of Prof. he has under preparation. All sçbolars will d'Oldenburg, is forwarding his interests with this await them with interest. projecteil series of the Bibliotheca Buddhica.
GEO. A. GEIERSON.
1 Sikahdeainuchichaya, a Compendium of Buddhistio Téaching, compiled hy Santidiva, chiefly from earlier
Nahyanarrar. Edited by C. Bendall, M. A. Fasci. culus I. St. Petersburg, 1897.