The palmleaf manuscript containing the text of the Prajñâpâramitâ-piṇḍลrtha by Dinnâga was found in the monastery of Žalu which I visited in autumn 1939. It consists of three leaflets without indication of any date. This small book is an epitome of the Aṣṭasâhasrikâ-prajñâ-pâramitã and it is intended to classify the arguments expounded in this treatise and to adapt its long repetitions to the logic of a rational and intelligible scheme.

Even if a king follows a path contrary to religion and to reason he is nevertheless praised by his subjects (on account of fear); he, therefore, hardly knows what is appropriate or not.

In the April issue, 1934, of this Journal, I edited and translated the first chapter of this work of the great Nāgārjuna, still a fundamental treatise in the monasteries of Tibet. I now publish the remaining portions of the second and fourth chapters, the second being incomplete and the third entirely missing. The fifth and last pariccheda contains chiefly vinaya-rules, and will be published in a subsequent issue, along with the Tibetan text and the English translation of the missing portions.

Nāropā, with Padmasambhava, Mi, la ras pa, and Tsoṅ k'a pa, is one of the most famous Buddhist teachers in Tibet. He may certainly be considered as one of the most conspicuous factors of Tibetan Buddhism, since he was the spiritual father of Marpa, who is acknowledged as the guru of Milaraspa and the founder of the bKa’ rgyud pa sect. This school later split up into several sub-sects, widely spread even now in Tibet, and through Karma Bakshi allied itself with the rÑiṅ ma pas; but its first teacher or ādiguru is said to have been rDo rje ạc'aṅ, or Vajradhara, whose doctrines were secreṭly transmitted to Tilopā, and by this siddha to Nāropā, who was to exercise through his pupil a great spiritual influence all over Tibet.

The Ratnāvalī by Nāgārjuna was well known from the numerous quotations scattered in the Mahāyāna literature in India as well as in Tibet, but no manuscript of it was up to now available. Fortunately, Nepal, which has yielded so many treasures of ancient Indian literature, has recently rendered back to light a large fragment of this work, the importance of which cannot be overlooked by scholars. Nāgārjuna was certainly one of the greatest thinkers ever born in India, and whatever was written by him deserves our greatest attention. His thought has permeated, as it were, not only the Abhidharma of Mahāyāna, but also the mystical experiences of the Tantric systems. Therefore we must welcome anything written by him, because it will help our understanding of Buddhist, and therefore of Indian, mind.

Sir Charles Bell has given in this Journal (July, p. 710) a detailed account of this important book on Tibet, which, though already edited in Italian by Puini, has remained for many years insufficiently known. It is not, therefore, my purpose to write a new review of the book.

The two hymns here edited are respectively the first and p the last of the four stavasattributed to Nāgārjuna, and generally known and quoted under the comprehensive name Catuḥ-stava or Catu-stava; the other two stotras, missing in our manuscript, are the Lolātīta-stava and the Citta-vajrastava. As to their authorship, there is but little doubt; the style itself is the same as that of the kārikās of the Mūlamādhyamika-kārikās. Moreover, Candrakīrti in his Prasannapadā quotes from the Catuḥ-stava, attributing one of them, viz. the Lokātīta-stava to the Master, ācārya-pādāḥ (p. 413).

The Nyāya-praveśa by Śaṅkarasvāmin, recently printed in the Gaekwad's Oriental Series of Baroda, is a text of great interest for the study of Indian logic; in fact, in spite of its conciseness it contains an extremely clear exposition of the Buddhist logic as it was taught in India, at least among some particular schools, as those of the Yogācāras and the Sautrāntikas in that lapse of time which separates Diṅnāga from Dharmakīrti. That the book was written after Diṅnāga, but before Dharmakīrti, is proved by its peculiarities, which in many a point differentiate the theories held by the author from those maintained by the other two great logicians already quoted.

Very little, as it is known, remains in Sanskrit of the literary activity of Vasubandhu. If we except some kārikās of the Abhidharma-kośa, we have nothing else than the Viṃśikā and the Triṃśikā, recently edited by Sylvain Lévi. I may add that the Trisvabhāva-kārikā has also been found in Nepal, and copies are with the French Sanskritist and with me. I shall also mention the fragments of the vṛtti upon the Madhyānta-vibhaṅga (or vibhāga) by Maitreya, incorporated in the ṭīkā of Sthiramati, which is being edited by me and Vidhusékhara śāstrī from the Nepalese manuscript. It will, therefore, be of interest to Buddhist scholars and to Indologists in general to see here published another short, but not insignificant, fragment from the pen of the same ācārya, viz. the Pratītya-samutpāda-vyākhyā, a commentary upon the Pratītya-samutpāda-sāūtra referred to in the discussion of this same subject in the Abhidharma-kośa (Bkaḥ-ạgyur, Mdo, xviii, 11).

In Assam, near Gauhāṭī, on the southern bank of the Brahmaputra, there is one of the most famous places of pilgrimage in India, I mean the temple of Kāmākhyā. Kāmākhyā is one of the names for the Indian devī, Kālī, or Durgā; in fact, Kāmākhyā is the devī herself in one of her most jolly aspects, as may be gathered from the Paurānic and the Tāntric literature connected with her cult, as for instance the Kālikā-purāṇa, the Yoginī-tantra, the Kāmakhyā-tantra, the Kāmarūpa-tantra, etc. The temple and all its neighbourhood for twelve krośas is considered one of the pīṭhas, or holy and consecrated places: the hills and rivers near it have been identified with some of the most renowned tīrtha-sthānas of India, with the purpose of associating with that revered spot some of the most sacred religious traditions of India.

The Nyāyapraveśa with the commentary of Haribhadra has been published in the Gaekwad's Oriental Series, together with a careful comparative study of the two Tibetan translations by my friend Vidhuśekhara Shāstrī. Both translations presuppose the same original, but the first (T) (Cordier, Catal., vol. iii, p. 435, n. 7) has been translated from the Sanskrit, while the second (T) is a translation from the Chinese of Yuan Chwang (Tib.: T'aṅ Sam Tsaṅ). The title of the work in the Sanskrit text is Nyāyapraveśasūtra: in this the word sūtra seems to be out of place, and it would be better to substitute the Chinese lun, śāstra, which is much more correct, and which is to be found also in the index of the bsTan-ạGyur: Bstan.bcos.rigs.pa.la.ạjug.pa: nyāyapraveśa-śāstra. (Cf. Haribhadra's Vṛtti, p. 9: nyāyapraveśakākhyaśāstram.) According to the Tibetan colophon of T1 the title of the book is given as pramāṇanyāyapraveśaprakaraṇa; but as it often happens in the Tibetan titles, this is probably a later restoration based on the Tibetan itself. If we have recourse to the commentary by Kwei-chi () we should be inclined to interpret the ts'ad ma of the Tibetan not as pramāṇa, but as ts'ad. mai. rig. pa: pramāṇavidyā, hetuvidyā: in fact the Chinese commentator gives us in transcription the Sanskrit title of the book in this way: ; in Sanskrit, hei tu—fei t'o—na ye—po lo fei she—she sa tan lo.