SUPPLEMENT, 1873.]

TIIE VILLAPPAKKAM COPPER PLATES.

371

THE VILLAPPAKKAM COPPER PLATES. BY A. C. BURNELL, M.C.S., MANGALOR.

This series of copper plates contains a grant of land by one of the last of the Vijayanagara

dynasty—Venkat a pati. He reigned in a very precarious way (at Candragiri) from

Besides the grant of the village in Sarva mánya (francalmoigne of the mediaeval lawyers in England), several privileges are also granted

which are interesting as throwing light on the

about 1590 on into the early years of the 17th

tenures of South India, but which would need

century. As the Vijayanagara kingdom had

much explanation to make them intelligible to foreigners.

been utterly destroyed by the Muhammadans in 1564, his power must have been very small, but in the genealogy with which (as is the rule)

The date is :—

Sakti-(3)netra-(2)kalambe-(5)'ndu-(1)ganite this grant begins, he traces his descent from the Somavañša, and claims to rule the whole of India.

from the Himālayas to Setu (Rāma's Bridge) | The grant is of the village of Villappākkam,” tax-free, to Tiruvengadanātha, son of Ananta Bhatta. He is described as a follower of the Yajuh;4khá, and of the Apasſamba sūtra, and as belonging to the race of Vatsa.

Šakavatsare plavasaihvatsare punye masi Vaiśā khanāmni pakshe’ valakshe . . . punyàyāin dvādaśītithau, &c.

i.e. the 12th lunar day of the bright fortnight of Vaiśākha in 1601 A.D.

Thus it will appear that this grant is not of any great historical interest.

REVIEW.

HistorFE - Du BotºppſIA SAKYA-MoUNI depuis Sa nais sance jusqu’à sa mort, par Mme. Mary Summer. Avee Preface et Index par Ph. Ed. Foucaux. (sm. 12mo, pp. xiv. 208. Paris: E. Leroux, 1874.)

and with an admiration for the subject of her bio graphy that would almost lead the reader to ima gine the authoress was a devout Buddhist nun. Only once does she distinctly express her dissent

Before the appearance of this volume, as re

from a tenet of the Buddhist creed, and that is

marked by M. Foucaux in his preface, “there did

when she contrasts its doctrine of the inevitable

not exist in French any complete biography of the founder of Buddhism. Mme. Mary Summer has, with reason, thought that the founder of a reli gion, which reckons more than three hundred million followers, deserves that the narrative of the events of his life should be available to all French readers, and not remain confined to the

punishment of sin in some state of existence with the Christian “religion of mercy, which,” she says, “gives man the faculty of repentance, leaving for him, even to the last breath, an open door to a happy eternity, and permitting an act of contrition to make of the greatest of sinners one of the

domain of science.

She has,” as he adds, “suc

logy supplied by the Atonement—the sacrifice of

cessfully acquitted herself of the task, for which she had well fitted herself by her Mémoire sur les Religieuses Bouddhistes, a book favourably received by all who relish works at once instructive and interesting.” Mme. Mary Summer, we need scarcely hint, is the nom de plume of the wife of the distinguished French Orientalist who, five and twenty years ago, translated the earliest known legend of Bud dha, the legend on which Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire based his life of Buddha given in his work Le Bouddha et sa Teligion,-and to her husband's experienced advice, doubtless, this little volume owes part of its value. It does not pretend in any way to be a critical work. The Singalese dates of Buddha's birth and death are accepted, and the

the Mediator as the substitute for the sinner. This

principal events recorded in the usual legends are selected and briefly recorded in a pleasant style,

chosen of God!”—forgetting, apparently, the ana

admiration of Buddhism, however, is no new

thing even among philosophers. “It is the mis

fortune of our times,” says M. Barthélemy Saint Hilaire, wºiting thirteen years ago, “that the same

doctrines which form the foundation of Buddhism meet at the hands of some of our philosophers with a favour that they but little deserve. For some years past we have seen systems arising in which metempsychosis and transmigration are highly spoken of, and attempts are made, exactly as Buddha did, to explain the world and man. without either a God or a Providence.

A future

life is refused to the yearnings of mankind, and the immortality of the soul is replaced by the immortality of works. God is dethroned, and in His place they substitute man, the only being, they tell us, in which the Infinite becomes con

• In the North Arkat District.