^106:1 The Northern Wei History gives the date of Shakyamuni's birth, B.C. 688, which is much nearer than the common date, to the time required by the evidence.

^107:1 Of the interest felt by Sanscrit scholars in this subject, the letter of Professor Wilson, formerly Sanscrit Professor at Oxford, to Sir John Bowring is evidence. He invited the attention of the "China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society" to the translations made by Hiuen-tsang in the T'ang dynasty, and the Sanscrit original works brought by that traveller to his native land.

Of the Chinese translations I collected more than fifty while residing at Shanghai, for the library of the India House. Recently Rev. S. Beal has published an interesting account of these translations in the Transactions of the Oriental Congress, held in London, 1374.

^108:1 In A.D. 226. This Roman was named Dzinlon. After describing his country to the Chinese prince, he was sent back honourably. His name looks in its Chinese form as if it were translated. See the "Liang History"--India.

^108:2 In Sanscrit, Saddharma Pundarika Sutra.

^110:1 Ch'ang-a-han king.

^110:2 Si-fun-lu.

^110:3 Shih-sung-lu.

^111:1 Mr. Watters, citing the "Mirror of History," Tung-kien, chap. cccxvi., says, "Every household almost had been converted, and the number of those who had taken the vows was so great that the labours of the field were frequently neglected for lack of workmen."

^112:1 See my Introduction to the Study of the Chinese characters.

^114:1 Remusat supposed that this alphabet was borrowed by the Coreans from the Nu-chih and Kie-tan, who had invented a writing of their own, and ruled in Corea in the eleventh and twelfth centuries; but such an hypothesis is incompatible with the fact that the Corean letters are more like the Thibetan and Sanscrit letters.

^115:1 The lu-tau here alluded to are the modes of existence into which, in the revolutions of the metempsychosis, all will be born who have not been saved by the teaching of Buddha. They are:--(1.) T'ien, the Devas of the Hindoos (Lat. deus); (2.) Man; (3.) Asura and Mara, superior classes of demons. Both these words are transferred. The former is transliterated by characters now read sieu-lo (in old Chinese, su-la), the latter by mo (ma), a character invented for the occasion by Liang Wu-ti, and which has passed into familiar colloquial in some dialects as mo-kwei, in the sense of "demon." (4.) "Hell," the prison of the lost, ti-yu; (5.) Ngo-kwei, wandering "hungry spirits;" (6.) Animals.

The use of T'ien, "Heaven," in a personal sense, as the translation of the Sanscrit Deva, whether in the singular or plural, is, perhaps, more common in Buddhist works than its use in a local sense. In explaining this new meaning of the word, Deva is transcribed as (De-ba) T'i-p'o.