publish a translation of the Sama Veda, which in the ceremonies of the Brahmans, seems to occupy a similar place as the Mass in those of the Catholics. Mr. Wilson prepares for the same Society the texts of the prayers and hymns of the Yadyur-Veda. These hymns composent the real body of the Vedas; they are, to say so, of a primitive formation, and give the first seeds by which the Indian race since that time has exercised such a great influence upon the progress of the human mind. Much later were added to the Vedas a certain number of Upanishads, which are in fact like so many appendices, some of them being commentaries of the hymns, while others contain a systematic explanation of the doctrines of the Vedas, the first result of the tendency of the human mind to reduce religious tradition to a system. You are aware, that Mr. Poley some years ago commenced a lithographed edition of the Upanishads, which he was unable to complete on account of his departure to London; but he is determined to resume his labours, and now advertises an edition of Vishadaranyaka, one of the Upanishads of the Yadyur-Veda. The print of this work is also commenced at the expence of the Oriental Text Society.

The Indian drama, to which so much attention has been attracted by the labours of Jones and Chezy, and especially of Wilson, has occasioned some publications. Prema-chunder, Professor of the Sanscrit College at Calcutta, has published a new edition of the Sakontala, which contains no other additions to the text than a Sanscrit translation of the passages written in Pracrit, and appears to be destined for the natives of Bengal. To judge by the adoption of Bengalee characters, Mr. Bothlingk at Bonn, promises a new edition of the same drama according to the manuscripts of London, which considerably differ, and this in important passages from the text of Chezy. This translation is to be accompanied with a Latin translation and notes. Another drama ascribed, but probably erroneously as so many other poems, to Kalidasa, the author of the Sakontola, has been published at Bonn by M. Tullberg; viz. the Malavica and Agnimitra.20 Text and variation only as yet appeared, but M. Kullberg promises likewise a Latin translation and notes. A third work, attributed to Kalidasa, the Meghaduta, of which Mr. Wilson had already published an edition, and a very elegant English

20. Malavica et Agnimitra, edidit Fr. O. Tullberg, Fascicular prior textum Sanscritumtenens. Bonn, 1840, in 4to.

translation, has been reprinted at Bonn by M. Gildemeister, who has added to the same volume a little erotic poem of the title "SringariTilaka." Both texts are accompanied with a complete dictionary. Raja Kalikrisna at Calcutta, advertises an edition an English translation of Maha Nataka, that is to say, the great poem. It is a half dramatic narrative of the Ramayana, which is at present known in Europe by the short analysis only of Mr. Wilson. This work, of which the ape Honuman is believed the author, enjoys great popularity in India. Mr. Hopfer has published at Leipzig a small volume, containing the first series of translations of Indian poems, the metre of which he imitates in German.

The Indian Grammar has been the object of some labours, of which the most important is the second volume of the edition of Panini, edited by Mr. Boethlingk,21 and the tables, arranged by the editor, much facilitate the use of it. Mr. Hopfer has published a dissertation on the infinitive in Sanscrit,22 considered under the view of the comparative Grammar and of the Synthesis. Mr. Westergaard has edited the second part of his Sanscrit roots.23 The progress of Indian literature since the print of Rosen's Radices, enabled Mr. Westergaard to extend the plan, and to fill out the sketch given by Rosen. Mr. Johnson lastly, has published in London the first volume of the Hitopadesa, together with a grammatical index of all the words. This book is destined for be

ginners.

The religious controversies, always disturbing India, which from the intercourse of the natives with Europeans had recommenced with renewed ardour, especially at Bombay, have caused some curious publications; I shall offer, however, a remark on only two of them. The first is an antient Sanscrit treatise under the title of " Wajrah Soutchi,24 by a Buddhist of the name Aswa Goscha, who therein attacks the Brahminical institution of caste. Mr. Wilkinson, political agent at Bhopal, who discovered it, intended to print it as a work, attacking caste, but the Pundit Soobaji Bapoo, whom he employed for this purpose, requested his

21. Panini, 8 Bücher Grammatischer Regeln, horausgegeben von Dr. Boethlingk, 2 vols. in 8vo. Bonn, 1810.

22. Vom Infinitiv, besonders im Sanscrit, von Dr. A. Hoepfer. Berlin, 1840, in 8vo. 23. Radices Linguæ Sanscritae definivit, Nic. L. Westergaard. Bonn, 1840, in 8vo. 24. The Wujra Soochi, or Refutation of the arguments upon which the Brahmanical institution of Caste is founded by the learned Boodhist Arhwa Gorhu. ch.

permission to add to it a refutation under the name "Tanka," also written in Sanscrit, and thus appeared this small volume in Bombay. The second theological publication is the Ta'limi Zerdusht, a (Mobed) Parsee Dasabhaï. This work, composed in the language of Guzerat, and printed in Bombay, contains a defence of Zoroaster's doctrines against the American Missionaries, together with a refutation of Christianity, in which he adopts the arguments of Voltaire against the doctrines of the Catholic Church.

When the progress of a science is very rapid, a scholar would not like to publish a general work to represent the actual state of this science at his own time. This repugnance is very natural, as we know that such a labour will be soon superseded, although works of this kind are eminently useful, not only for the general reader, but also for the learned to whom they represent the history of the former periods, and indicate the wants which they are called for to supply. This service has Mr. Benfey in Berlin, afforded to Indian studies, by selecting and combining the most positive information which we possess about the antient geography, history, and literature of India.25 In this conscientious work, we observe interesting researches on the study of the antient navigation of the Hindus, on the importance of the study of Buddhism for the History of India, and we are sure, that every one, consulting this work, will derive great benefit from it.

Chinese literature has not given occasion to a great number of works. Mr. Pauthier has under the title of "The Sacred Books of the East," edited a large volume, containing a collection of works, on which the religion and legislation of some great nations of the East are founded.26 In this volume are embodied the Chou-king, (according to) in the translation of Gaubil, revised by the editor according to the manuscript of Gaubil himself, the four Moral Books of Confucius' school, translated by Pauthier, the Laws of Menu according to the translation of Loiséleur, and lastly, the Koran, translated by your associate, Mr. Kasimirski de Biberstein. This work is destined to render some of the most fundamental works of the East more accessible to the public, while

25. Indien, von Th. Benfey. Leipzig, 1841, in 4to. partly taken from the Cyclopædia of Ersch and Gruber.

26. Des Livres Sacrés de l'Orient, traduits on revus et publiés, par M. Pauthier. Paris, 1840, in 8vo.

at the same time it affords the evidence of the interest the public have in such undertakings; for the translation of the Koran by Mr. Kasimirski which it contains, is already the second edition within a year, and the printing of a third one is commenced. Mr. Pauthier has also occupied himself with a new edition of the Moral Books of the Chinese, contained in the volume of which I am speaking, and moreover published the Statistical Documents on the empire of China, translated from the Chinese, (Paris, 1841, in 8vo.) They are taken from the official statistic, entitled “Tai-tsing-hoeitien," which give a detailed account of the state of population, and the revenue of each province.

Mr. Bazin advertises the speedy publication of a work, which will highly excite the curiosity of the public; viz. the complete translation of the Pi-pa-ki, a drama of twenty-four pictures, written by Kao-tong-kia, in the fourteenth century under the dynasty of the Youens.

Tsaï-yong is a historic person, who at the commencement of the third century of our era, was president of the tribunal of the historians. He is one of those savans, often presented to us in the history of China, who became martyrs to their patriotism; for not being allowed by the emperor to finish the history of the dynasty of the Hans, he died in pri son of mental anxiety, arising from the frustration of his purpose. The Pi-pa-ka, however, not treating this catastrophe, introduces Tsaï-yong in his youth. The Chinese critics cannot find adequate language to praise the elegance and the varied merits of this drama, which in their eyes has no other rival than the Si-siang-ki, and they raise it even above this, as in the Pi-pa-ki they find with equal poetic beauties a more pure morality. Whatever value may be attached in Europe to the Pi-pa-ki, it must always be highly estimated, considered as a picture of the customs of the Chinese in the fourteenth century.

Round the four great literatures, the Arabian, Persian, Indian and Chinese, must be placed the literature of other Oriental nations, which have not become themselves centres of civilization, but borrowed their ideas from one or the other of those great nations. In them we must therefore not expect works, stamped with originality, which have made an epoch in the history of mankind. Nor may we hope, that a great number of learned men will cultivate them; but it is desirable that they may not be altogether neglected, and that the wants of government, of commercial transactions, the enthusiasm of the Missionary,

or the zeal

of the learned, will gradually put them into fuller light, and give the historian access to the facts which may be derived from them, since almost each of those nations, according to the international influence it has enjoyed, is possessed of more or less important chronicles; most of them have also a popular poetry, and their work in theology and in general literature give at least evidence, how far the influence of those nations extended, from which they have borrowed their leading ideas and forms of art. The grammars and dictionaries of their languages by furnishing historic facts, not recorded in the chronicles, are indispensable for ethnography; lastly, each of them has an importance of its own, and fills a corner in the general picture of the East.

Some of those languages during the last year have given occasion to publications. The study of the Georgian language, which the Asiatic Society has first encouraged, has now taken root in Russia, its genuine soil, where it can flourish under the influence of the wants of government. Mr. Brosset, under the title of "Matériaux pour servir a l'Histoire de Géorgie,”27 has edited a new redaction of the translation of the Georgian chronicle, the first edition of which was published some years ago at the expence of the Society.

Mr. Tchoubinof, employed in foreign affairs in St. Petersburg, and a Georgian by birth, has edited a Georgio-Russio-French Dictionary, 28 infinitely richer than vocabularies we previously possessed. The basis of it is that of Soulkhan Saba, which in Georgia was considered as the best, and together with the additions of Mr. Tchoubinof, contains about 35,000 words,

Mr. Dorn in Petersburg, has published an Afghan Grammar;29 more exact than Klaproth's, and more detailed than that of Ewald. The literature of the Afghans being scanty, and to our present knowledge mostly consisting of imitations of Persian poetry, the scientific interest in the Afghan language is essentially ethnographic, for the problem of the origin of this people is not yet resolved, and the elements of its solution are to be found in the grammar and dictionary of their language.

The Malayan dialects, almost entirely neglected on the continent of Europe, have lately attracted some attention, and Mr. Dulaurier has

27. Taken from the Memoirs of the Academy of St. Petersburg, 1840, in 4to.

28. St. Petersburg, 184). in 4to.

29. Taken from the Memoirs of St. Petersburg, 1840, in 4to.