[Footnote 55: 'Die Religion des Buddha,' von Köppen, vol. ii. p. 282.]
It was another fortunate coincidence that, contemporaneously with the discoveries of Hodgson and Csoma de Körös, another scholar, Schmidt of St. Petersburg, had so far advanced in the study of the Mongolian language, as to be able to translate portions of the Mongolian version of the Buddhist canon, and thus forward the elucidation of some of the problems connected with the religion of Buddha.
It never rains but it pours. Whereas for years, nay, for centuries, not a single original document of the Buddhist religion had been accessible to the scholars of Europe, we witness, in the small space of ten years, the recovery of four complete Buddhist literatures. In addition to the discoveries of Hodgson in Nepal, of Csoma de Körös in Tibet, and of Schmidt in Mongolia, the Honourable George Turnour suddenly presented to the world the Buddhist literature of Ceylon, composed in the sacred language of that island, the ancient Pâli. The existence of that literature had been known before. Since 1826 Sir Alexander Johnston had been engaged in collecting authentic copies of the Mahâvansa, the Râ_g_âvalî, and the Râ_g_aratnâkarî. These copies were translated at his suggestion from Pâli into modern Singhalese and thence into English. The publication was entrusted to Mr. Edward Upham, and the work appeared in 1833, under the title of 'Sacred and Historical Works of Ceylon,' dedicated to William IV. Unfortunately, whether through fraud or through misunderstanding, the priests who were to have procured an authentic copy of the Pâli originals and translated them into the vernacular language, appear to have formed a compilation of their own from various sources. The official translators by whom this mutilated Singhalese abridgment was to have been rendered into English, took still greater liberties; and the 'Sacred and Historical Books of Ceylon' had hardly been published before Burnouf, then a mere beginner in the study of Pâli, was able to prove the utter uselessness of that translation. Mr. Turnour, however, soon made up for this disappointment. He set to work in a more scholarlike spirit, and after acquiring himself a knowledge of the Pâli language, he published several important essays on the Buddhist canon, as preserved in Ceylon. These were followed by an edition and translation of the Mahâvansa, or the history of Ceylon, written in the fifth century after Christ, and giving an account of the island from the earliest times to the beginning of the fourth century A.D. Several continuations of that history are in existence, but Mr. Turnour was prevented by an early death from continuing his edition beyond the original portion of that chronicle. The exploration of the Ceylonese literature has since been taken up again by the Rev. D. J. Gogerly (Clough), whose essays are unfortunately scattered about in Singhalese periodicals and little known in Europe; and by the Rev. Spence Hardy, for twenty years Wesleyan Missionary in Ceylon. His two works, 'Eastern Monachism' and 'Manual of Buddhism,' are full of interesting matter, but as they are chiefly derived from Singhalese, and even more modern sources, they require to be used with caution.[56]