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25s BUDDHISM.

the works of the Christian iiathers to the New Testament. In all cases they are younger; the oldest of them a century or s0, the most famous of them several centuries younger. The ideas to which they give expression, the xvorcls they use, are both later. When more of them have been made accessible to scholars in critical editions we shall be able to determine, with a greater approximate certainty than we can at present, their relative dates as compared one with another. And this will have to be done mainly by two lines of enquiry-in the first place by a study of the gradual devel- opment in doctrine, and secondly by a study of the details of the dialects they use, compared with the details of the dialects as used in the inscriptions. This is the task that lies before the students of Buddhist Sanskrit. And it will be successful in result only if the history of the development of thought, and of speech, in India as a whole, be constantly, during the enquiry, kept in view.

T. W. RHYS DAVIDS. Louuou.

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