A pupil studies every day during the eight years of his theological apprenticeship, except on the holidays, which are called "non-reading days." There being 360 days in a lunar year, the eight years would give him 2880 days. Deduct from this 384 holidays, and you get 2496 working days during the eight years. If you divide the number of lines, 30,000, by the number of working days, you get about twelve lines to be learned each day, though much time is taken up, in addition, for practising and rehearsing what has been learned before. Now this is the state of things at present, though I doubt whether it will last much longer, and I always impress on my friends in India, and therefore impress on those also who will soon be settled as civil servants in India, the duty of trying to learn all that can still be learned from those living libraries. Much ancient Sanskrit lore will be lost forever when that race of _S_rotriyas becomes extinct. But now let us look back. About a thousand years ago a Chinese of the name of I-tsing, a Buddhist, went to India to learn Sanskrit, in order to be able to translate some of the sacred books of his own religion, which were originally written in Sanskrit, into Chinese. He left China in 671, arrived at Tâmralipti in India in 673, and went to the great College and Monastery of Nâlanda, where he studied Sanskrit. He returned to China in 695, and died in 703.[271] In one of his works which we still possess in Chinese, he gives an account of what he saw in India, not only among his own co-religionists, the Buddhists, but likewise among the Brâhmans.[272] Of the Buddhist priests he says that after they have learned to recite the five and the ten precepts, they are taught the 400 hymns of Mât_rik_eta, and afterward the 150 hymns of the same poet. When they are able to recite these, they begin the study of the Sûtras of their Sacred Canon. They also learn by heart the _G_âtakamâlâ,[273] which gives an account of Buddha in former states of existence. Speaking of what he calls the islands of the Southern Sea, which he visited after leaving India, I-tsing says: "There are more than ten islands in the South Sea. There both priests and laymen recite the _G_âtakamâlâ, as they recite the hymns mentioned before; but it has not yet been translated into Chinese." One of these stories, he proceeds to say, was versified by a king (_K_ié-zhih) and set to music, and was performed before the public with a band and dancing--evidently a Buddhist mystery play. I-tsing then gives a short account of the system of education. Children, he says, learn the forty-nine letters and the 10,000 compound letters when they are six years old, and generally finish them in half a year. This corresponds to about 300 verses, each _s_loka of thirty-two syllables. It was originally taught by Mahe_s_vara. At eight years, children begin to learn the grammar of Pâ_n_ini, and know it after about eight months. It consists of 1000 _s_lokas, called Sûtras.