The Nepaul Buddhists preserve the sacred books in Sanscrit, and not in Pali. But Burnouf also found certain portions of the Nepaulese books written in Pracrit. The groundwork was Sanscrit. The language occasionally used was Pracrit. The language known by the Chinese as the Fan language was shown to be undoubtedly Sanscrit, by Julien's version of the works of Hiuen-tsang, the traveller who visited India, and who has described the Sanscrit language in his autobiography. It is the language of "Brahma" (Fan; old sound, Bam).

Brahmanical ideas form a strong element in Buddhism. Sanscrit words and Sanscrit writing are peculiarly sacred in the view of the Brahmans. This idea has been borrowed by the Buddhists. They preferred to use the words and writing which were most sacred. With this Shakyamuni would naturally have nothing to do. His instructions were oral. He was a great moral teacher and metaphysical logician. It was his disciples in the centuries that followed him that introduced Sanscrit writing, as the chief medium of recording his instructions. It is they that are responsible also for the charms, and for the faith in magic which stimulated their use.

So many Brahmans announced themselves believers in Shakyamuni's doctrines, that Sanscrit became at once a favourite medium for the embodiment of his teaching by writing, even though Shakyamuni himself spoke Pali or Pracrit, as he probably did.

In the same way it may be said that Pali was then so

extensively spoken, that it was inevitable that it should, in the region watered by the Lower Ganges, become also a medium for the preservation of the sacred books.

This double form of the sacred books had much to do with the separation that sprang up between the Northern and Southern schools of Buddhism. The peculiarities of the Chinese transcription deserve to be considered.

The Pracrit of the early Chinese translators was, for example, nearer to Sanscrit than to Pali in the sound of prajna, "wisdom." The characters adopted are directed to be pronounced pat-nia. The Pali is pannya.