[Footnote 96: "Every person acquainted with the spoken speech of India knows perfectly well that its elevation to the dignity and usefulness of written speech has depended, and must still depend, upon its borrowing largely from its parent or kindred source; that no man who is ignorant of Arabic or Sanskrit can write Hindustani or Bengali with elegance, or purity, or precision, and that the condemnation of the classical languages to oblivion would consign the dialects to utter helplessness and irretrievable barbarism."--H. H. Wilson, _Asiatic Journal_, Jan., 1836; vol xix., p. 15.] [Footnote 97: It would be a most useful work for any young scholar to draw up a list of Sanskrit books which are quoted by later writers, but have not yet been met with in Indian libraries.] [Footnote 98: "Hibbert Lectures," p. 133.] [Footnote 99: This vague term, _Turanian_, so much used in the Parsi Scriptures, is used here in the sense of unclassified ethnically.--A. W.] [Footnote 100: "Recherches sur les langues Tartares," 1820, vol. i., p. 327; "Lassen," I. A., vol. ii., p. 359.] [Footnote 101: Lassen, who at first rejected the identification of _G_âts and Yueh-chi, was afterward inclined to accept it.] [Footnote 102: The Yueh-chi appear to have begun their invasion about 130 B.C. At this period the Grecian kingdom of Bactria, after a brilliant existence of a century, had fallen before the Tochari, a Scythian people. The new invaders, called 'Εφθαλὶται by the Greeks, had been driven out of their old abodes and now occupied the country lying between Parthia at the west, the Oxus and Surkhâb, and extending into Little Thibet. They were herdsmen and nomads. At this time India was governed by the descendants of Asoka, the great propagandist of Buddhism. About twenty years before the Christian era, or probably earlier, the Yueh-chi, under Karranos, crossed the Indus and conquered the country, which remained subject to them for three centuries. The Chinese historians Sze-ma Tsien and Han-yo, give these accounts, which are however confirmed by numismatic and other evidence.--A. W.] [Footnote 103: "Hibbert Lectures," p. 154, note.] [Footnote 104: In June, 1882, a Conference on Buddhism was held at Sion College, to discuss the real or apparent coincidences between the religions of Buddha and Christ. Professor Müller addressed two letters to the secretary, which were afterward published, declaring such a discussion in general terms almost an impossibility. "The name of Buddhism," he says, "is applied to religious opinions, not only of the most varying, but of a decidedly opposite character, held by people on the highest and lowest stages of civilization, divided into endless sects, nay, founded on two distinct codes of canonical writings." Two Buddhist priests who were reading Sanskrit with him would hardly recognize the Buddhism now practiced in Ceylon as their own religion.