CORRESPONDENCE.

1. CANDRAGOMIN'S LETTER TO A DISCIPLE.'

Of Candragomin's 'Letter to a Disciple,' to the edition of which, by Professor Minayef, attention was called in your Journal for October, 1889, the Tibetan translation has now been published in the same 'Memoirs' (vol. iv. pp. 53-81) by Mr. A. Ivanovski. Besides the text in vol. xciv., he has used one in vol. xxxiii., of the sutra-division, together with the two commentaries that follow each other in vol. xciv. The editor prefixes a list of Candragomin's works, according to the index to the Tanjur. Some of these had been already mentioned by Schiefner (resp. Wasilief) in the translation of Tāranātha, p. 152 sq., and in the Bulletin hist.-phil. vol. iv. p. 290 sq.1 (Nos. 3578, 3605, 3606, 3747). Here we have 38 numbers, of which 29, bearing only Tibetan titles, i.e. being original Tibetan work, treat of ritual, hymns to different divinities, and the like; 9 only have also Sanskrit titles, and treat mostly of grammar. They are: (1) Uṇādi, (2) Candrasyoṇāder vṛtti, (3) Candragomi-praņidhāna, (4) Candra-vyākaraṇa-sūtra, (5) vṛtti to the last, (6) Deçanastava, (7) Nyayasiddhyāloka, (8) Varṇasūtra, (9) Vimçaty-upasarga-vṛtti, of which Nos. 2 and 6 seem religious works, (7) logical.

May I mention at the same time that in the Saddhammopāyana (Journal Pali Text Society, 1887, p. 36 sq.), as Dr. Morris has kindly reminded me, most of the same subjects

1 Ueber die logischen und grammatischen werke im Tandjur.

are treated as in the 'Letter'; note especially the 'eight evil states' in ch. 1; the misery of life as a preta (ch. 3), and as a beast (ch. 4).

The Secretary of the Royal Asiatic Society.

H. WENZEL.

2. HIOUEN THSANG AND THE FOUR Vedas.

A Member resident in the Far East writes as follows: “In Hiouen Thsang's account of India, at the beginning of Book II., there are some things which I do not understand. Can you tell me why he does not mention the Rig Veda, while he gives as the Four Vedas, the Yajur, Sama, Ayur, and Atharva? the last two being of course not actually Vedas. Then he speaks of five sciences, the first being Sabdavidya, Etymology. But I cannot find any trace of a Pañchavidya anywhere. It is hard to get any information about India in the seventh and eighth centuries or thereabouts. When one gets any information, it may generally be traced to Hiouen Thsang or some other Chinese Buddhist, or later to a Mahometan."

The passages referred to will be found at pp. 78, 79 of Beal's English Translation. Perhaps some member will be able to point out what Hiouen Thsang is likely to have meant. The four Vedas, according to Beal's version, are those of life, sacrifice, decorum, and spells. The first may be the Ayur Veda, the second the Yajur, and the fourth the Atharva. The third looks as if a book on Nīti were meant. (It is difficult to say why Mr. Beal identifies it, in his note, with the Sama Veda.)

Mr. Beal's restoration into Sanskrit of the names of the five Vidyas seems equally unsatisfactory. There are eleven Vidyas in the Brahmajāla Sutta (see Sumangala Vilāsinī, p. 93), and I know of no list of five, either in Hindu or Buddhist books. Are his five sciences' Vidyās at all (that is, should not the Chinese expression be otherwise restored)?

RH. D.

NOTES OF THE QUARTER.

(October-December, 1889.)

I. GENERAL MEETINGS OF THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY.

16th December, 1889.-Sir THOMAS WADE, G.C.M.G., K.C.B., in the Chair.

The election by the Council of the following new members was announced to the Society: as Resident members-Col. Acton C. Havelock; Elkan N. Adler, Esq.; Dr. Gaster. As Non-resident members-H. H. Dhruva, Esq., B.A.; Prof. T. E. Carpenter, M.A.; Henry G. A. Leveson, Esq., B.C.S.; The Rev. Blasius d'Monte; Kerala Varma, Esq.; M. Raoul de la Grasserie; R. Waddy Moss, Esq.; E. Sibree, Esq; His Highness the Gaekwar of Baroda.

Mr. Duka, Mr. Delmar Morgan, and Mr. Cust made to the Society, as its Delegates at the late Oriental Congress at Stockholm, the following reports:

Dr. DUKA said: My remarks will be few and very imperfect; limited time and the vastness of the subject make it impossible to be otherwise.

I shall take the liberty of saying a few words with reference to some papers which were read or were intended to be read in Section IV., namely, that of "Central Asia and of the Far East," which comprises therefore not merely Central Asia, but the Finn-Ugor group, the Ural-Altaic languages, and a great number of Turki idioms, the languages of Tibet, China and Mongolia, and likewise all the Turanian languages, if we may still use that term, also the languages of Northern and of the South and South-east of India. An extensive

field for one Section, which while at Stockholm held, if I recollect rightly, three sittings only of not more than three hours' duration each. The President of the Section was Professor G. Schlegel of Leyden, a Sinologist of great authority. Among the eleven papers inscribed for the Section seven referred to China, one to Buddhism specially; under No. 4 was put down the ethnographic map of the northern region of Norway by Mr. S. A. Friis, the two remaining papers treated on Central Asiatic languages. The few minutes therefore which are allotted to me I shall chiefly devote to these two papers.

The paper on the geographical distribution of the UralAltaic family of languages by Dr. Cust, is suggestive of arranging the dialects spoken in that extensive region. The author proposes to drop altogether the old names of Tatar, Ouigur, Jagatai, and recommends the adoption of "Turki" instead.

The populations speaking the various Turki dialects are chiefly Mahomedan, some are Shamanists, and a few Christians, but all are influenced by linguistic elements of Arabia and Persia.

Starting from the West to East the following is the classification of the author:

1. Osmanli Turki, the highly-cultured language of the rulers of the Turkish empire, the vernacular of Asia Minor, of the city of Constantinople, and of the upper classes of many tracts of Africa.

2. Nogai Turki, spoken in Bessarabia, in the Crimea, in the provinces north of the Caucasus, and by some nomad tribes on the river Volga and inhabiting the Khirgiz steppes, in all about 200,000 souls.

3. In the province of Kazan a separate dialect is spoken, the Kazani Turki. A grammar of this language was published in 1876 by Gabriel Bálint, a Hungarian scholar, and a dictionary by Ostramoff, a Russian. Population about 200,000.

4. The Chuvash people live in the European part of the province of Kazan, and in Nijui Novgorod. Their language,

according to Schott, is Turki; they live intermixed with Mordvin and Cheremiss tribes, members of the Finn branch of the Ural-Altaic family. There is a dictionary of this language by Zolonitzki of 1875.

5. On the north-west of the Caspian shore, near Petrovsk, and also on the north-east of Daghestan, we find the Kumuk. Mention is made of this tribe in Makharoff's work on the "Turki languages of the Caucasus." Population about

70,000.

6. The Azerbijani Turki is spoken in the Transcaucasian province of Russia, and in the Azerbijan belonging to Persia. A very important language spoken by about three millions. It has a grammar, translated from the Russian by Zenker into German, and was edited in Leipzig, 1849. Bergé published songs of Azerbijani poets, Leipzig, 1868.

7. On the eastern shores of the Caspian are Transcaspia and Turkestan. Here we have a large language-field, comprising the Kurd, Persian, the Pushtu-speaking tribes of Afghanistan, and the inhabitants of Transoxania.

8. In Central Asia proper, namely, in the kingdom of Khiva, the philologists have described Ouigur, Jagatai, Uzbeck, etc., languages, almost indiscriminately, a practice creating much confusion. Mr. Amirkhanianz, who is a competent authority in that linguistic region, declares that Jagatai is the proper word to adopt here, being that generally known in the vernacular. We have also the learned Professor Radloff's valuable work, "Aus Siberien, Leipzig, 1884," and his comparative grammar to guide us. It is possible that the Jagatai dialect is spoken in the great desert between the Amu Daria and the Caspian Sea, and also by the nomad Yamut tribe.

9. Further north are the Khirgiz; their language is spoken in the steppes of the lower Volga, and in the valleys of the Tien Shan Mountains on the confines of China. Two divisions are distinguished, the Kara or Burut, that is, the highlanders of the Altai, the Pamir and the Tien Shan Mountains, and the Kazak Khirgiz, the dwellers of the plains, subdivided into several hordes. Ilminski's works are our authority here.