Sanskrit terms seldom occur in Tibetan books, Csoma tells us, with the exception of a few proper names of men, places, precious stones, flowers, and plants; but the technical terms in the arts and sciences found in Sanskrit have been rendered by their precise syllabic equivalents in Tibetan, according to a system framed expressly for the purpose, by the pandits who engaged in the translation of the sacred works of the Buddhists into Tibetan, as may be seen in several vocabularies of Sanskrit and Tibetan terms, [44] of which a large one has been translated into English, and presented to the Asiatic Society by Csoma; the same, he afterwards found, had been previously made known to the learned of Europe by Monsieur Abel Rémusat, as stated above. The Grammar was the second of Csoma’s great works, published a few months after the Dictionary. Some of the remarks prefacing it will be read with interest. “Tibet being the headquarters of Buddhism in the present age, the elementary works herewith published,” says Csoma, “may serve as a key to unlock the immense volumes, faithful translations of the Sanskrit text, which are still to be found in that country, on the manners, customs, opinions, knowledge, ignorance, superstitions, hopes and fears of great part of Asia, especially India, in former ages. “It is not uninteresting to observe the coincidence of time with respect to the great exertions made by several princes on behalf of the literature of the three great religions, Christianity, Islamism, and Buddhism, in the Latin, in the Arabic, and in the Sanskrit languages, the epoch being the eighth and ninth centuries of our era—in Germany and France by Charlemagne; at Baghdad by the Khalifs Al-Mansur, Harun al-Rashid and Al Mamun; in India by the kings of Magadha; in Tibet by Khrisrong De’hu tsan, Khri De’srong tsan, and Ralpachen; in China by the Emperors of the Thang dynasty. But whilst learning has continually decreased among the Buddhists and Mohammedans, it has developed immensely in countries professing the religion of Christ, and the two rival religions are studied in their original languages by the learned of Europe. “The students of Tibetan have been most rare, if they existed at all. Isolated among inaccessible mountains, the convents of Tibet have remained unregarded and almost unvisited by the scholar and traveller; nor was it until within these few years conjectured, that in the undisturbed shelter of this region, in a climate proof against decay and the destructive influences of the tropical plains, were to be found, in complete preservation the volumes of the Buddhist faith in their original Sanskrit, as well as in faithful translations, which might be sought for in vain on the continent of India.