the manuscripts of the Vatican, that the extent to which Nestorianism spread in the centre of Asia, and the influence of its hierarchy in the Persian provinces could have been estimated.  There is no reason to suppose that missionaries who left Europe in the very beginning of the seventeenth century could have acquired a knowledge which could only be obtained from reading the originals and not vague accounts of them.”

   The sagacity of M. Saint Martin, who was for a long time the colleague
   of M. Quatremere, has pointed out in a note worthy of his erudition,
   another special proof, which is by no means to be neglected.

“Amongst the various arguments,” he says, “that might be urged in favor of the legitimacy of the monument, but of which, as yet, no use has been made, must not be forgotten the name of the priest by whom it is said to have been erected.  The name Yezd-bouzid is Persian, and at the epoch when the monument was discovered it would have been impossible to invent it, as there existed no work where it could have been found.  Indeed, I do not think that, even since then, there has ever been any one published in which it could have been met with.

“It is a very celebrated name among the Armenians, and comes to them from a martyr, a Persian by birth, and of the royal race, who perished towards the middle of the seventh century, and rendered his name illustrious amongst the Christian nations of the East.”  Saint Martin adds in the same place, that the famous monument of Si-ngau-Fou, whose authenticity has for a long time been called in question from the hatred entertained against the Jesuit missionaries who discovered it, rather than from a candid examination of its contents, is now regarded as above all suspicion.

Chapter III.

Brahmanism.

Sec. 1.  Our Knowledge of Brahmanism.  Sir William Jones. 
Sec. 2.  Difficulty of this Study.  The Complexity of the System.  The Hindoos
have no History.  Their Ultra-Spiritualism. 
Sec. 3.  Helps from Comparative Philology.  The Aryans in Central Asia. 
Sec. 4.  The Aryans in India.  The Native Races.  The Vedic Age.  Theology of
the Vedas. 
Sec. 5.  Second Period.  Laws of Manu.  The Brahmanic Age. 
Sec. 6.  The Three Hindoo Systems of Philosophy,—­the Sankhya, Vedanta, and
Nyasa. 
Sec. 7.  Origin of the Hindoo Triad. 
Sec. 8.  The Epics, the Puranas, and Modern Hindoo Worship. 
Sec. 9.  Relation of Brahmanism to Christianity.

Sec. 1.  Our Knowledge of Brahmanism.  Sir William Jones.