renounce the fruit of works. Science is superior to practice, and contemplation is superior to science."

66

Among my disciples he is especially dear to me, whose heart is friendly to all nature; whom men fear not, and who fears not men. I love him still more who is without hope, and trusts not in human strength. He is equally worthy of my love, who neither rejoices. nor sorrows, who desires nothing, who is content with all, and, because he is my servant, endureth all things. Finally, he is my best beloved disciple who is the same towards his enemy as towards his friend, in glory and in disgrace, in cold and in heat, in pain and in pleasure, who cares not for the things of this world, to whom praise and blame are indifferent, who speaks little, who rejoices in all things, and serves me with a love immoveable."

The third chapter of Pantanjali's Yoga-sastra relates almost exclusively to the powers which may be attained by man in this life. It is full of directions for bodily and mental exercises, consisting of intensely profound meditation on particular topics, accompanied by suppression of the breath, and restraint of the senses, while steadily maintaining prescribed postures. By such exercises the adept may acquire the knowledge of every thing past and future, remote or hidden: he divines the thoughts of others, gains the strength of an elephant, the courage of a lion, and the swiftness of the wind; flies in the air, floats on the water, dives into the earth (as though it were fluid), contemplates all worlds at one glance, and performs other wonders. See Colebrooke in Trans. of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. i, p. 36; who adds, that the notion that this transcendent power is attainable by man in this life is not peculiar to the Sánc'hya sect; but prevails generally among the Hindoos; and amounts to a belief in magic. It will not fail, however, to strike the philosophic

Y

reader, that it is little more than an amplification of Lord Bacon's apophthegm, that KNOWLEDGE IS POWER, coupled with an exaggerated picture of the intense application and study required to obtain it.

The Jainas and Bauddhas.

Several other sects, eminently heterodox, are considered as related to the Sánc'hya school of philosophy: the Jaina and Buddha are the principal". The Buddhists rejected so avowedly the authority of the Vedas, that they were not only opposed by moral force, but were so violently persecuted with fire and sword by the orthodox Mimansa school, that they were constrained to flee beyond the Ganges, and take refuge in the Indo-Chinese peninsula, and even in China itself; where their doctrine has taken deep root, and now exhibits itself among a philosophic class in a shape which it would at present be difficult to describe, and among the vulgar as an extravagant superstition, the religion and philosophy of Fo.

Many observations are made by Mr. Colebrooke on the similarities of the Greek and Indian philosophy. They are interesting and numerous, but cannot be entered upon here. I shall only add his last remark, namely that a greater degree of similarity exists between the Indian doctrine and that of the earlier than of the later Greeks; and, as it is scarcely probable that the communications should have taken place, and the knowledge have been imparted, at the precise interval of time which intervened between the earlier and later schools of Greek philosophy, and especially between the Pythagoreans and Platonists; he feels

"An account of them forms the subject of Mr. Colebrooke's fourth paper in the Trans. of the Royal Asiat. Society, vol. i, p. 549.

disposed to conclude that the Indians were in this instance teachers rather than learners *.

The Karm Bibak may still be added to these. It teaches that every disease and every infirmity is a consequence of our conduct in an earlier state of existence, and shows that beneficence and penance are sufficient to atone for them.

ETHICS.

Poorooshu Pureckshya, (Purusha Parikshya,) or the Test of Man, a work containing the moral doctrines of the Hindoos, translated into the Bengalee language, from the Sunskrit, by Huruprusad, a pundit attached to the college of Fort William, Calcutta, 1814, 4to.

Bhartrihari's Sentences, in Carey's Sanscrit Gram

mar.

The Sanscrit Original of the Moral Sentences of the

* Colebrooke, in Trans. of Royal Asiatic Society, vol. i, p. 579. The following curious fact, respecting a Sanscrit translation of the Dialectics of Aristotle, is related in the Asiatic Journal, June 1827, p. 814.

After the introduction of juries into Ceylon, a wealthy Brahman, whose unpopular character had rendered him obnoxious to many, was accused of murdering his nephew, and put upon trial. He chose a jury of his own caste; but so strong was the evidence against him, that twelve (out of thirteen) of the jury were thoroughly convinced of his guilt. The dissentient juror, a young Brahman of Rumiserum, stood up, declared his persuasion that the prisoner was the victim of conspiracy, and desired that all the witnesses might be recalled. He examined them with astonishing dexterity and acuteness, and succeeded in extorting from them such proofs of their perjury, that the jury, instead of consigning the accused to an ignominious death, pronounced him innocent. The affair made much noise in the island; and the chief justice (Sir A. Johnston himself) sent for the juror who had so distinguished himself, and complimented him upon the talents he had displayed. The Brahman attributed his skill to the study of a book, which he called 66 Strengthener of the mind." He had procured it, he said, from some pilgrims at Rumiserum, who obtained it from Persia; and he had translated it from the Sanscrit, into which it had been rendered from the Persian. Sir A. Johnston expressing curiosity to see this work, the Brahman brought him a Talmul ms. on palm leaves, which Sir Alexander found, to his infinite surprise, to be the Dialectics of Aristotle.

Indian Philosopher Sanakea or Schanakei, were presented, in the year 1825, by a Greek, Nicolo Kiephala of Zante, to the library of the Vatican. He had brought it himself from Benares. A Greek and Italian translation of it likewise appeared under the following title:

Σύνοψις γνωμῶν ηθικῶν τοῦ Ἰνδοῦ φιλοσοφου Σανακέα ἐκ τῆς Σανκρίτης ἤτοι Βραχμανικῆς τῶν Ἰνδῶν διαλεκτοῦ ἐἰς τὴν Ἑλληνίδα καὶ Ιταλιδα μετενεχθεῖσα φωνὴν ὑπὸ τοῦ Ἑλληνος περιηγητοῦ Κ. Νικολᾶ Καιφαλα τοῦ ἐκ Ζακύνθου. Αφιερώνεται εις ὅλους Γενικῶς τους πατέρας τῶν φαμιλιῶν. Το κειμενον Ινδικὸν ̓αφηερώθη ἀπὸ τον μεταφραστὴν ἐἰς τὴν ̔Αγίαν Παπικὴν Βιβλιοθήκην τοῦ Βατικάνου εις γενικὴν θεωρίαν. Ρωμη φωκε".

An original Sanscrit manuscript of these moral sentences of Chanakya, with a Nevari translation by H. B. Hodgson, esq., was presented to the Asiatic Society of Calcutta in 1826. See Asiatic Journal, 1826, May, p. 618.

Môhadmudgara, (properly, the mallet of the ignorant,) composed by the holy, devout, and prosperous Sancar Acharya. Some fragments of this were translated from the Sanscrit, under the title of The Ignorant Instructed, by Sir William Jones: see his Works, vol. vi, p. 428-30. A French version was made from this translation by Langlès, in the Catal. des mss. Sanscr. p. 71. The correctness of Sir William Jones's translation is questioned by Lebedeff, in his Grammar cited above: see p. 39.

To this place belongs a kind of Encyclopædia, which was published at Calcutta in 1818, under the title of Vidya Darpan, or the Mirror of Science.

z The Italian title is: Sommario di Sentenze Morali del Filosofo Indiano Sanekea, del dialetto Sanscrite ossia Bracmanico Indiano nella lingua Greca e Italiano tradotto dal Viaggiatore Greco Cap. Nicola Chiefala di Zante, dedicato a tutti li Padri di famiglia. Il testo indiano è stato depositato del translatore nella sacra Papale Bibliotheca di Vaticano a generale osservazione. In Roma, 1825.

MATHEMATICS.

a. Astronomy.

THE history of Hindoo astronomy, like almost every other part of their literature, is involved in much mystery and doubt. Respecting its antiquity, a very wide difference of opinion prevails. M. Baillya, founding his belief upon a series of calculations made from various astronomical tables brought from the East, was of opinion that it reached back to a very remote period, farther than any other record of profane history, and to upwards of three thousand years before our present era. This opinion was very generally adopted by the learned of Europe previous to the publication of the papers of Mr. Bentley in the sixth and eighth vols. of the Asiatic Researches, in which that gentleman attempts to prove that the Surya Siddhanta, the most ancient Sanscrit treatise on astronomy, is of no higher antiquity than the 1068 of the Christian era. These papers were year examined, at some length, in several numbers of the Edinburgh Review, in which, not only the results of Mr. Bentley's calculations are disputed, but likewise the principles on which they rest. Since this, Mr. Bentley has published a History of Astronomy, in which he has treated the subject with much learning and ability. In this work, speaking of the ancient astronomy, he carries back the era of its foundation to somewhere between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries before Christ; and finally seems inclined to fix its commencement at about the year B. C. 1425. This is said by a critic in the Westminster Review to blished in Mr. Bentley's work, that no remoter age can ever again be attributed to it. In this work, too, the birth of Rama, the most famous epoch in Hindoo history, is computed to have fallen on the sixth of April,

a

be so well esta

Bailly, Histoire de l'Astronomie Indienne, Paris, 1787, 4to.