No. IV. Very frequent mention of the Puranas having been made in the preceding Notes, the following very brief- indeed skeleton-analysis, taken from Professor Wilson's observations, may be useful. The chief object is to give the impression of so learned an authority as Professor Wilson with respect to the dates of the well-known productions. 5 Vishnu.. Sri Bhagavata.... Vishnu and Krishna. Vopadeva, to whom Asserts all is illu it is attributed, Let not this Purana Probable Dates. 13th to 14th centuries. 12th to 16th centuries. Wilson thinks about A.D. 954. The oldest, probably, from its air and want of reference to known modern things. 7th and 8th centuries. After Vishnu to 13th century, say Colebrooke and Wilson. Itself asserts it was composed after all the others. Modern-about 16th or 17th century: after the Mahomedans. Durga or Kali....... Quotes the Maha- 9th or 10th century. bharat. Not secta rial; chiefly narra- Worship at Follows Mahabha- Cannot be very re or Worship of Siva. a rat and Ramayana Mahabharata quot- mote. Probably before the Mahomedan invasion. Cites the commentator on Panini, therefore after mass of Hindu poetry, and part supplied eight or nine centuries ago. Probably prior to the Moslem invasion. The Puranas are not to be relied upon, in their present condition, as authorities for the mythological religion of the Hindus at any remote period. The Mahabharata says of itself, that no legend is current in the world which is unconnected with it, and therefore intimates its being the origin of those told in the Puranas.-Preface to the Vishnu Purana, p. 58. INDEX TO VOL. VI. ANGORA Goat, on the white-haired, by Arrian, quotation from, account of Asoko raises a statue to Buddha, 289. Ball, Samuel, Esq., on the expediency 182. Briggs, Major-General, a short account on board ship as merchants, might be constituted from those so called by Western originally strangers in India, their acquisition of power 282. tooth relic, 283, 306, 317, 318. first introduced into China,251. practical precepts of, 265. Buddhist emblems, 451. Conolly, Lieut. A., on the white-haired China, observations on the expediency of Chinese literature, knowledge of Indian Cureton, the Rev. W., extracts from Dauney, W., Esq., observations with a Fa hian, birth of, 253; sets out on his 298; at Kusinara, 300; at Vaisali, | Pali language known throughout India, Goat, on the white-haired Angora, by Hiuan thsang's travels, analysis of, 322. Ibn Khallikan's Biographical Dictionary, Indian physicians, extracts from an Ara- Inscriptions, when ancient, are in Pali, Jámi al Tawáríkh, on the discovery of Linga worship unknown to Fa hian, 292, Mahabharata, antiquity of, 439. 42. Ma-twan-lin's account of India, 457. Morley, W. Esq., on the discovery of Music of the East, observations with a Newbold, Lieut., on the Chinese Secret Pali inscriptions, more ancient than Physicians, extracts from an Arabic brief analysis of, 483. Sanchi, near Bhilsa, on an inscription of, Sanskrit, not the language of the oldest Scholasticus in Ceylon, in the beginning Sherley Family, a short account of the, by Major-Gen. Briggs, F.R.S., 77. dyana or Kashmir), in 510 A.D., 279. 239. Sykes, Lieut. Col. W. H., on an ancient 246. on the state of India before the Tammana Nuwera, on the site and ruins Triad Society of the Tien-ti-huih, of the Vocabulary of the Maldivian language, 42. Vyasa, the arranger of the Vedas, a man Wilson's, Professor H.H., remarks on LONDON: HARRISON AND CO., PRINTERS, ST. MARTIN'S LANE. ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY. PROCEEDINGS OF THE SEVENTEENTH ANNIVERSARY MEETING OF THE SOCIETY, HELD ON THE 9TH OF MAY, 1840. THE RIGHT HON. C. W. WILLIAMS WYNN, M.P., THE ANNUAL REPORT OF THE COUNCIL WAS READ AS FOLLOWS: Ir is with considerable satisfaction that the Council can open their Report on the Proceedings of the past year by stating that the expenditure of the Society has continued to be kept considerably within the receipts; and that, having thus recovered from the state of financial difficulty into which they had fallen, the funds will now allow of the publication in the present year of two Numbers of the Journal. It is right, however, to qualify the satisfaction which at first arises from observing so large a balance in hand at the close of the last year's account as 4077., by remarking that the actual surplus of the receipts above the expenditure is only 1117., which is not equal to the cost of the second Number of the Journal proposed to be published in 1840. The state of the funds, if viewed in reference to their economical management, must be, on the whole, gratifying; but if the operations of the Society are crippled for want of larger means; if its Library is so entirely dependent on the contributions of Societies, and of individual Members, that no branch of Oriental inquiry can be made complete on its shelves for the use of its Members, or of Oriental scholars, or persons engaged in the prosecution of researches into the civil and natural history, geography, antiquities, and products of Asia, or even of India alone; if collections of various kinds which would be given to enrich its Museum are withheld by the possessors, or refused by the Society, because there is not room where to lay them out and exhibit them, and there are not means to procure b |