Of all the Turanian languages, Tamil is probably the most highly cultivated, and possesses the richest stores of indigenous literature. Its name signifies sweetness, and though it has not the softness of the Telugu it is a harmonious tongue, and much cherished. The Tamils have a kind of elegy which they denominate U]a or Malai, consisting of couplets. The Parani also consists of a succession of couplets, but has its lines of equal length. The Kalampakam is a sort of poetry in which the author mixes at pleasure all kinds of verse. The Aminanai consists of couplets, com posed of lines of four feet. The diction ought to he perfectly familiar. This kind of poetry is used in recounting the lives of princes, etc.
The Burmese Buddhists' sacred book is the Beetaghat ; the Wee Nee contains the whole duty of the Burmese monk. Young Buddhists learn the Payeht Gyee and the Payah Shekho, Pali sermons and forms of worship, also the Mingula Thoht, Buddhist Beatitudes. Later on they pore over the Abidhamma Konit-gyan, the seven books of the most difficult parts of the Beetaghat, with the Thing-yoh and Thaddah. Their lay literature consists of beast tales, fables of animals, with the Nataka or drama, from Nata, a dancer, or the Pooay or Pwe, a dramatic performance ; amuse ment winds up with the Pwe or Pooay.
The dramas are all founded on the tales which Gautama told of his 510 previous existences, all of them taken from the Sanskrit or Pali. These, called Zaht or Woottoo (i.e. a real story), are religious plays, the 510 Jatakas. The work of fiction is called Paya Zaht, an acting play.
China.—Letters are held in higher esteem in China than in any other country in the world. Natural inclination, personal interest, and popular feeling are thus all on the side of literature. It is the key which opens the door to official life, and is the passport for admittance into culti vated society. Nine - tenths of the educated youths of China devote themselves to imitate the established literary models. The four highest collegiate degrees are the Chwang-yuen, Pang yen, T'an-hwa, and Ch'uen-ln. .
In the classical literature of the Chinese, at the head of the. Wu-king, or five classics, is placed the Yih-king, or Book of Changes, which is held by the Chinese in great veneration for its antiquity, and the occult wisdom, which only sages can understand, supposed to be contained in its mystic lines. It was composed in prison by Wan-Wang, the literary prince, about B.C. 1150, and is doubtless one of the most ancient books in any language.
The Yih-king treats of general philosophy, and the first cause is supposed to have been taught by whose Institutes were founded on the Pa-Kwa, or eight diagrams, which he invented, and by subsequent combinations increased to 64. These diagrams are merely trinities of straight lines, upon which has been founded a system of ethics, deduced by giving names to_each diagram, and then associating the meaning of these names according to the changes which could he rung upon the 64 combinations. Adding to the
diagrams, the points of the compass and elemental appellations, humid, light, hot, rigid, flexible, cold, heavy, and dry, they have formed the material for a cabalistic logomancy, peculiarly pleasing to Chinese habits of thought. They have supplied also, the basis for many forms of divination by shells, lines, letters, etc. Tho leading idea of this curious relic of antiquity seems to have been founded upon the physiological notion of the creation of the world, according to which all material things proceeding from two great, male and female, vivifying elements, tho yin and yang, were made in harmony. There are about 1450 treatises on the Vitt-king alone, consisting of memoirs, digests, expositions, etc.
Japan and China received from India their Buddhism, with many of the essential doctrines of Hinduism. The Shen Shiu sect of Japan, founded in China A.D. 381, under the title of the White Lotus School, sent friars to India to collect Sanskrit MSS., and several of these contain de scriptions of Sukhavat. In Japan the Shen Shin sect dates from A.D. 1174.
latest arrivals from the west have been from nations of Europe,—Portuguese, Dutch, Danes, French, and British, and their authors are so numerous, and have contributed so largely to the literature of Southern Asia, that even for the bare mention of their names space cannot be given. The learned men of each of the civilised nations of Europe and America have formed an Asiatic Society to attend to Asiatic subjects, and individuals are competing with them.
The sacred books of the east, edited by Pro fessor Max Muller, have been translated by several oriental scholars. They comprise—(1) twelve Upanishads ; (2) the laws of the Aryas, as taught in the schools of Apastamba, Gautama, Vasishta, and Baudhayana ; (3) the Confucian Shu king, parts of the Shih-king, Yih-king, and Hsiao king ; (4) the Zendavesta, comprising the Vendidad, the Sirozahs, Yasts, and Nyayis ; (5) Pehlavi texts, comprising the Bundahis, Bahman Yasts, Shayast la-shiiyast, the Dadistan-i-Dinik, the epistles of Manuskihar, the Dina-i-Mainog-i Khirad, Shikand-gu-mani, and Suddar ; (6) the Koran ; (7) Institutes of Vishnu; (8) the Bhag avat Gita, with the Sanatsugatiya and the Ann gita ; (9) the Dhammapada and Sutta Nipata, canonical books of the Buddhists ; (10) seven Buddhist Suttas ; (11) the Satapatha Bmhmana ; (12) the Patimokha, Mahavagga, and Kula vagya, Vinaya texts; (13) the Fo-sho-hing-tsan king, life of Buddha; (14) the Saddharma or the Lotus of the True Law ; and (15) the Akaranga Sutra.