This has more significance than is at first apparent to a European accustomed to believe that books can only be preserved by writing. The Hindus believe just the opposite. Even at the present time, if all copies of the Vedas were destroyed, the Vedas would still be preserved in the memory of the priests, as they have been for certainly more than 3,000 years; and those priests look upon the Veda, thus authenticated, as the test to which all printed or written copies must give way. If you depend upon written copies, they would argue, you are sure to make and to perpetuate mistakes; but the text, as handed down by word of mouth, is preserved, not only by being itself constantly repeated, but by the assistance of the commentaries, in which every word of the text is carefully enshrined. So long as reliance can be placed on the succession of teachers and pupils, this argument may not be so far from wrong; but when a text has to be preserved in a small country, liable to be overrun by persecuting enemies, the condition of things is changed, and it becomes necessary to preserve it also in writing. Mahinda could have written the texts, had he so chosen. We know that the square alphabet which Asoka used was at least known in Ceylon, if it did not originate there. That he did not choose to do so, ought to throw no doubt upon the identity of the existing version of the text with that which he brought to Ceylon. [Illustration: DEVIL-DANCERS’ MASK FROM CEYLON. Drawn from a Mask now in the Missionary House of the Church of England. This mask represents one who being a king’s son and falling into awful sin was doomed in his next transmigration to be a demon. In cases of serious illness the Ceylonese invoke this demon, the “devil-priest” wearing the mask.] BUDDHAGHOSHA IN CEYLON. Buddhaghosha, the famous monk, was born near the Bo-tree. He came to Ceylon in 430 A.D. He wrote a cyclopædia of Buddhist doctrine, and was readily accepted as a teacher by the Sangha of Ceylon. He wrote out the Buddhist commentaries in the Pali language, and those that had been made in the Ceylonese language, about 600 years before were completely lost through disuse. From Ceylon he went to Burmah in 450 A.D. He left an indelible impression on the Buddhism of Ceylon, and through it on the Buddhism of the whole of Southern Asia. Of the writings of this distinguished teacher we have before spoken. A BUDDHIST TEMPLE IN CEYLON.