THE

JOURNAL

OF

THE ASIATIC SOCIETY

OF

BENGAL.

EDITED BY

JAMES PRINSE P, F. R. S.

SECRETARY OF THE ASIATIC SOCIETY OF BENGAL; HON. MEM. OF THE AS. SOC.
OF PARIS; COR. MEM. OF THE ZOOLOGICAL SOC. OF LONDON, AND OF THE
ROYAL SOCIETIES OF MARSEILLES AND CAEN; OF THE ACADEMY

OF NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA; OF THE

PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF GENEVA; OF
THE ALBANY INSTITUTE, &c.

VOL. VI.-PART I.

JANUARY TO JUNE,
1837.

"It will flourish, if naturalists, chemists, antiquaries, philologers, and men of
science, in different parts of Asia, will commit their observations to writing, and
send them to the Asiatic Society at Calcutta ; it will languish, if such communi-
cations shall be long intermitted; and will die away, if they shall entirely cease."
SIR WM. JONES.

Calcutta:

PRINTED AT THE BAPTIST MISSION PRESS, CIRCULAR ROAD.
SOLD BY THE EDITOR, AT THE SOCIETY'S OFFICE.

1837.

PREFACE.

We have the pleasure of closing this sixth volume of our Journal with an unexpected announcement :-the last steam packet has brought out instructions from the Honorable Court of Directors to the Government of India to "subscribe in their name for FORTY copies of the Journal of the Asiatic Society from the commencement of its publication !" We forbear to comment upon an act of liberality by which we shall personally be such a gainer, but which we have neither directly nor indirectly solicited. We can easily imagine to whose friendly influence we are indebted for it, and we hope he will accept our acknowledgments. Our principal difficulty will be how to meet the wishes of the court; for of our early volumes not a volume is now to be procured! We must seriously consider the expediency of a reprint, for we have even heard it whispered that an American edition was in contemplation, and such a thing cannot be deemed impossible when we find the Philadelphians undertaking to rival us of Calcutta in printing (and that without government support) a Cochinchinese dictionary*!

Of local support we have lost nothing by the measure we reluctantly adopted at the beginning of the year, of raising the price of the journal from one to one and a half rupee per number. Our list is fuller than ever, and our balance sheet of a much more promising aspect.

* M. P. ST. DUPONCEAU thus writes to M. JACQUET of Paris: "J'ai maintenant le plaisir de vous informer que la Société philosophique Americaine vient d'ordonner l'impression à ses frais dex deux vocabulaires donnès à Mr. WHITE par le R. de MORRONE, ils vont être publiès dans un volume des memoires de son comitè d' histoire et de literature, etant trop volumineux pour faire partie de ses Transactions philosophiques.