44. “Many works in the Tibetan volumes end with this wish of the author or translator (Sahi steng ma nyi-zal ltargyur chik), “Be it on the earth like the sun and moon.” They were a long time hidden from the curiosity of Europe, and it is but of late that we have received some accounts respecting the literary treasures in Tibet. For an easy and agreeable way to the storehouse of this interesting ancient literature, we are indebted to the public-spirited zeal and liberality of Mivang, a regent or king at Lassa, from 1729 till 1746 of the last century. According to his order, whatever time has spared from the works of antiquity of foreign countries, were collected, arranged in registers, and printed by types engraved in wooden tables of birch tree. 45. “The Kahgyur (in 98 volumes, with separate index, every volume being 2 feet long and 8 inches broad; on each side of the leaves are seven lines in large capital characters; in every volume, taken on an average, are more than 300 leaves) was finished in 1731 before Christ, in about fifteen months. “The Stangyur (consisting of 224 volumes, the whole making 76,409 leaves, having on each side seven lines in somewhat closer and smaller capital characters than those of the ‘Kahgyur’) was finished in one year, in 1742 after Christ. There is at the beginning of each work an index or register (karchak, in Tibetan), giving a detailed account of the expenses, both in kind and cash, names of people of every description (more than 3000) who were employed on the work, and of the gratuities and contributions towards it, both of secular and ecclesiastical persons of high rank and wealth. 46. “The wooden typical tables yet in continual use, deposited in Narthang, a large building or monastery near Teshi Lhunpo, are in the possession and disposition of Panchen Rin-po chhe, the great Lama residing at Teshi Lhunpo. 47. “In Derghe, the capital of Kham-yul, or Potchenpo, Great Tibet, about forty days’ journey eastward from Lassa, there is another recent and more correct edition of the ‘Kahgyur,’ which, I am informed, is highly esteemed. Besides these two great works, there are many other printed volumes written by Tibetan learned men. 48. “There are in the ‘Stangyur,’ on about 18 leaves, passports for such pious men who desire to visit Kalapsa in Shambhála. The mentioning of a great desert of twenty days’ journey, and of white sandy plains on both sides of the Sita (Sihon, Yaxartes), render it very probable that the Buddhist Jerusalem (I call it so), in the most ancient times, must have been beyond the Yaxartes, and probably in the country of the Yugurs.