That Buddhism prevailed extensively in the Dekkan during the period of its ascendancy in India, is evident, from the imperishable monuments of that religion existing in the celebrated caves of Ellora (Verul), K´rli, Ajanta, and Salsette (Sáshte). It would give, however, but a very imperfect and limited idea of the influence and extensive ramifications of Buddhism, to suppose that its monuments are confined to places of such celebrity. To speak only of the neighbourhood of Bombay, small caves having inscriptions in the ancient cave character are to be found in the hills near Nasik and Junír. Even at the comparatively unimportant villages of Máhar on the Bánkot river, and Kher, twelve miles distant, there are excavations of a similar kind, which I myself have visited. Some of them still contain a dágoba, and others fragments of stone, belonging to a previously existing place of that kind; and I have no doubt that many similar caves exist throughout the country, though they never have been brought to public notice. When, then, stations of Buddhist priests existed in such places as these, to say the least, their influence in the country around must have been considerable. At the commencement of the controversy between the rival sects, the Buddhists seem to have had the decided superiority. Buddhism is eminently a religion of reason: it rejects all that reason does not comprehend; and makes its constant appeal to (Buddhi) the human intellect, as the supreme judge in religious things. Brahmanism, on the contrary, is a religion of tradition.

Though it is my intention to confine this series of papers, as much as possible, to notices of mineral localities within the limits of Southern India, I have deemed right, in this paper, with reference to the importance of the subject, to travel beyond these boundaries, and cast a cursory glance at the vast geographical extent over which auriferous deposits are scattered throughout our Indian possessions; at the same time particularizing, in a more detailed form, such localities within the specified limits as have been undescribed by former observers: namely, those of the Southern Mahratta country, of which I had given a cursory notice, prior to quitting Madras, in the Journal of the Branch Society for January, 1840. Of the gold tracts on the Malay peninsula detailed accounts will be found in my work on our settlements in that part of the globe; therefore little will be said of them here.

At the time of my visiting these hills I had not seen Dr. Wilson's remarks on the minerals sent to the museum at Bombay by Trimulrow, from whose oral account of his excursion, and what he had heard among the hills, I was induced to imagine that there might be some truth in the report of the existence of coal. Led by this hope I proceeded from the gold-washings at Doni, and crossed the southern chain of the divergement by a steep and rugged mountain-path leading down on the opposite side by a ravine, in which the Kupput Iswara temple sits enshrined, into a jungly valley. A mile or two easterly down the valley, the village of Chick Wodurti is reached; here I was shown some fragments of a yellowish and brownish ferro-siliceous stone, not unlike some varieties of jasper, or the eisenkiesel of the Germans. The excavations whence these were procured were made by order of Hyder and Tippoo, who used these stones as gun-flints. They lie in the plain at the base of a spur of the Kupput-gode range, about two miles to the S.E. of Wodurti. They are evidently fragments of a large vein, analogous to those of chert or hornstone that so frequently occur near plutonic formations.

The many uses to which Caoutchouc is now applied, as well as its increasing importance as an article of trade, render it of peculiar interest, and more particularly so at the present time, from the circumstance that a new and abundant source of it in India has been lately pointed out. In the following observations I am anxious to draw attention to some facts which, though perhaps known to a few who have examined the subject with great attention, are generally unknown or overlooked.

That India is not the cradle of the Brahmanical faith, may be a proposition startling to many who are not acquainted with its ancient literature. To the orientalíst of the humblest pretension, however, it needs no proof. The predecessors of the Brahmans, it is admitted by all who hare considered their records and traditions, were first associated together as a religious fraternity in a country beyond the Indus, or exterior to the Himálaya mountains. Our greatest men are divided in their opinions as to the country from which they came. Sir William Jones brings them from Iran, or Central Asia; Adelung from a similar locality; Klaproth, from the Caucasian mountains; Kennedy, from the plains of the Euphrates; and Schlegel, from the borders of the Caspian Sea. The theories of these scholars are all plausibly supported; and they generally agree in this respect, that they take it for granted, that the Brahmans in ancient times were found in the territories immediately north of India. The occurrence of about three hundred Sanskrit words in the Persian language, the Hindú notion of the northern position of the residences of the gods, the situation of the Manusarovar, or Lake of Intelligence, still a celebrated place of religious pilgrimage, and the source of the river Brahmaputra, whose etymological meaning, the “son of Brahma,” is similar to that of the usual designation of the priestly class to whom I refer, are in favour of this agreement. After the Brahmans entered India, they continued for a considerable time to inhabit its northern territories. The “Holy Land” of Manu, which is of no great extent, lies between the Drishadwatí and Saraswatí. On the banks of the latter river, according to some authorities, lived Vyása, the reputed compiler of the Vedas and Puránas. In the north are to be found the shrines, junctions of rivers, and lakes, esteemed most sacred by the Hindús in all ages.

I am not aware of the existence of other lead mines in Southern India than those of the Eastern Ghauts, which lie in an area bounded by the 14th and 17th degrees of N. lat., and the 78th and 80th of E. long. The principal excavations are situate near the village of Jungumrazpilly, between Cuddapah and Nellore, on the Coromandel coast.

Comparative Remarks on the Geognostic Position of the Corundum in Europe and India.—As I am not aware of any detailed account having been published regarding the geognostic position of the corundum in Peninsular India, and since the rocks with which it is associated in the particular locality which I first visited differ from those in which it has been stated to occur in Europe and Southern India, I am induced to preface this paper with the following remarks. Professor Thomson (Outlines of Mineralogy, vol. i., p. 213) informs us that “the corundum occurs in imbedded crystals in a rock which consists, according to Count Bournon, of indianite, and contains felspar, fibrolite, several varieties of augite, and also octohedral iron ore; the hair-brown or reddish-brown varieties are called adamantine spar. They occur with fibrolite and octohedral iron ore in a sort of granite containing no quartz.” And again (p. 256) he states, that “fibrolite is a mineral found accompanying crystals of corundum in the Carnatic, and that it is a component part of the granite, which is the matrix of the corundum of China.” Professor Jameson, in his geognosy of Peninsular India,(Ed.Cab.Lib., No.VIII., p.349–50,) gives a summary of what is known regarding the corundum of Southern India, and states that it occurs embedded in granite and sienite in the district of Salem, in the Madras Presidency, among the mountains of the Carnatic, and in other parts of the Peninsula, associated with cleavelandite, indianite, and fibrolite. Now in the locality I am about to describe, it was found to occur in decomposed beds of a talcose slate, to which gneiss is subordinate, associated with nodules of indurated talc, and of a poor quartzy iron ore: asbestus, chlorite, actinolite, and schorl were found embedded in the talcose slate.

Lodoïcea Sechellarum, of Labillardière and Commerson; Lodoïcea inermis, of Persoon; Cocos Maldivica, of Gmelin; Borassus macrocarpus, of Sonnerat, vulgarly called “Rondier des Séchelles,” the Sea Cocoa-nut of the Maldives or Séchelles: a genus of monocotyledonous plants, of the family of Palms, belonging to the class Diœcia monadelphia, of the sexual system of Linnæus.

The diamond tracts of India lie between 13° and 25° N. lat; they occur in irregular arid patches, sometimes basin-shaped, in hilly districts on the great elevated plains bordering the more considerable rivers that have an easterly and southerly course to the Bay of Bengal. Diamonds of considerable size are not rarely found in the sands of these streams and of their tributaries; but their geognostic situs must be referred to the sandstone and sandstone conglomerate, which will be described at more length in the detailed accounts I am about to offer of the various localities in which this gem occurs, commencing with those of the Ceded Districts on the southern limit of the great diamond area just mentioned.

In submitting to the Royal Asiatic Society the following remarks on the very important inquiry, as to the length of that unit on which is founded the simple but perfect system of land measurement, by bigahs and their subdivisions, adopted by the most enlightened of the Moghul sovereigns of Hindustan, the Emperor Akbar, I hope I may be excused for entering into much more detail than the subject may at first seem to require; and before entering into the investigation, that I may be allowed to submit some preliminary remarks.

The Bauddho-Vaishnavas are a sect of Hindus living chiefly within the limits of the Marátha country, though also scattered over Gujaráth, Central India, and the Carnatic, wherever the Marathas have formed settlements. People usually call them Vitthal-Bhaktas, because they worship Vishnu under the form of Pandurang or Vitthal, whose chief temple is at Pandharpur, on the right bank of the Bhima. They delight in calling themselves Vaishnava Vira, yet since there are others to whom this name is equally applicable, it will not serve for a characteristic epithet. But as the worshippers of Pandurang consider their god to be the ninth or Bauddha Avatár of Vishnu, the term Bauddho-Vaishnavas forms a convenient descriptive name for the sect, In the paper on the intermixture of Buddhism with Brahmanism in the religion of the Hindus of the Dakhan, I made particular mention of Vithobá, as this god is most frequently termed. In that paper, I based my observations mainly on oral communications and popular traditions; since that time, however, having had occasion to pay more attention to the literature of the Vitthal-Bhaktas, there appears enough of interesting matter in their writings to merit a particular notice of their religious opinions and history.

Though personally unknown to you, I am aware, from many of your articles in different publications, of the great interest which you take in the subject of Buddhistical antiquities. I believe, therefore, that what I am about to communicate will be my best apology for the liberty I now take in addressing you. I have read your last Essay on the Social, Moral, and Political State of Ancient India several times over with the greatest interest, and I have traced Fa Hian's route upon the map with unfortunately more zeal than success. Some points, however, I have been able to clear up, which have escaped the researches of all the critics, including Wilson and yourself. It is regarding these that I now venture to address you. I will begin with the kingdom of Seng-kia-chi, or in English spelling Seng-kia-shi.

Having learnt, whilst engaged in inquiries amongst manufacturers, and other practical men, that the root of the common Barberry, or Berberis vulgaris, was an article of increasing value in the arts, on account of the fine yellow colour which it contains, and that a new source of this dye stuff was rather a desideratum; I was led to inquire in how far the root in question could be advantageously obtained from India.

The Deyrah Dhoon, or, perhaps, more properly, Dehra Dhoon, is a valley cut off from the Dooab of the Ganges and Jumna by the Sevallic range of hills (average height about 2000 feet), which runs from the Ganges, at Hurdwar, in a north-westerly direction to the Jumna. Parallel with this range, to the north-east, is the first blue range of the Himalayas, on which Mussoorie and Landour are situated. Between these ranges, which are at an average distance from each other of about eight miles, lies the valley of the Dhoon. The bases of the hills, and a portion of the valley adjoining them, on each side, are covered with forests of very valuable timber. The centre of the valley, along its whole length, is open, with one trifling exception; and, where not cultivated, is covered with grass jungle, and a sprinkling of trees, both solitary and in clumps or belts, which, from a distance, gives the country a most park-like appearance. The town of Deyrah, and the cantonments of the Sirmoor battalion, stand in the middle of the valley, where it is intersected in its length by a road from the Ganges to the Jumna, and in its breadth by another from the plains of Indus, (through the Sevallic range,) to the Sanatorium of Mussoorie and Landour. The latter is fourteen miles from Deyrah, (half of which is ascent, the depôt being about 6300 feet above the valley,) and 7500 feet above the level of the sea. The water-shed, called here “pani dal,” also is near Deyrah, and streams rising on the one side of it run to the Ganges, on the other to the Jumna. These streams are large, increasing as they get nearer to the great rivers; very pure and clear; and, being of considerable rapidity, are well calculated to turn machinery, or to be turned out of their channels to irrigate the country as they pass.

In the year 1838 I had the good fortune to discover, amongst the MSS. preserved in the library of the Royal Asiatic Society, a volume containing portions of the Jámi al Tawárikh, previously supposed to have been lost; and in the following year I had the honour of laying before the Society an account of my discovery, which was subsequently printed in their Journal. After I had written this account, and whilst it was passing through the press, Professor Forbes found another and more considerable portion of the same work in the collection of MSS, of the late Colonel Baillie, which was, singularly enough, written by the same hand, and evidently had formed part of the identical volume that I had previously met with. Professor Forbes gave a description of the MS. of Colonel Baillie in the same volume of the Journal. These fragments were in the Arabic language, and were translations from the original Persian work.

After a night's refreshing bivouac on the sand, under the palm trees of Wadi Tor, we rose at sunrise on the 10th of June, 1840, mounted, and travelled slowly among some low sand hills in a northerly direction, almost parallel with the eastern shore of the Red Sea. As we emerged from the mouth of a small defile, the waters of this sacred gulf burst on our view; the surface marked with annular, crescent-shaped, and irregular blotches of a purplish red, extending as far as the eye could reach. They were curiously contrasted with the beautiful aqua-marine of the water lying over the white coral reefs. This red colour I ascertained to be caused by the subjacent red sandstone, and reddish coral reefs; a similar phenomenon is observed in the straits of Babel-mandeb, and also near Suez; particularly when the rays of the sun fall on the water at a small angle. The low hills of the defile were covered with fragments of brown, red, white, and black chert, many of them coated with a white mealy enduit, flattish and singularly honeycombed. Hillocks of a considerable size were often wholly composed of similar fragments. In a pass to the left, at the foot of some cliffs about fifty feet high, imbedded in a stratum of friable earthy sandstone, we observed a layer of fossil shells. The rock in many places is impregnated with oxide of iron, and contains thin veins of quartz resembling calcedony. From this place, our route lay along the shore of the Red Sea. High sandstone cliffs skirted the right of the path, in regular strata, dipping at an angle of 5°. E. 20 N.; direction S.S.E.

The study of the vernacular languages of India is every day becoming a subject of more and more importance. The Government, yielding to the voice of reason, has decreed, that in every province the language of the people shall be the language of their rulers. Christians and philanthropists, in every district of the country, are preparing books and communicating the elements of learning to the native inhabitants, in their own dialects. Grammars and dictionaries of the principal vernacular tongues, exist either printed or in manuscript; and the speech of the common people instead of being despised as a jargon, is every where cultivated as a language.

Having had the advantage of journeying through the Deltas, and for nearly 400 miles up the two famous rivers of Asia and Africa (the Indus and the Nile), I venture to record briefly my general impressions on these two grand features of nature.

The Nile runs in a direction directly contrary to that of the Indus, and has its source in the most torrid regions of the globe, whilst the Asiatic stream rises in perpetual snow. The climates, therefore, are directly reversed; yet, passing through the same degrees of latitude, there are in some portions of the countries penetrated by the two rivers very curious coincidences in. productions and climate, to which we will refer hereafter.

The following paper contains a description, with drawings annexed, of a plough, recently introduced from America into India, and which promises to prove of the greatest benefit to agriculture in that country.

[The Royal Asiatic Society having- determined to reprint occasionally papers which may be considered of interest, or may contain useful information, and which, although in print, are not generally procurable in this country, have been pleased to select in the present instance a translation made by me many years ago, and published anonymously in one of the periodical publications of the Calcutta press. At the time of its publication, the subject was entirely new. It has lost something of the gloss of novelty by the more comprehensive journals which have since appeared; but it still contains information regarding parts of Turkestan and Central Asia, which is not derivable from any better source, as the countries have not been visited in modern times by European travellers. In what has also ceased to be novel, the observations of the traveller are not without interest, as they relate to a political state of the countries traversed, which had undergone a change for the worse even when Izzet Ullah's steps were; followed by Moorcroft and Trebeck, and which has become still further deteriorated by the anarchy that has so long distracted Afghanistan. The journal of Izzet Ullah is in most places little more than a mere itinerary, and it is so far more serviceable to geography than to history; but he occasionally extends his notes so as to furnish materials for the latter.