their teacher. Hence the name of Kapilawottoo, or Kapilawot. The four princes, finding that among their followers there were no daughters of the royal race whom they could marry, resolved, in order to keep pure the blood-royal, to marry their four youngest sisters. The eldest one was raised to the dignity of queen-mother. Ookamukka, the eldest of the brothers, was the first king of Kapilawot. Whilst these things were taking place, the king of Benares, having been attacked with leprosy, had left his throne and retired to a forest north of his capital. There he found his cure under the shade of the kalau tree. At the same time the eldest sister, named Peya, who had become queen-mother, was seized with the same distemper, and went into the same forest. She met with the king, whom she knew not. By his advice she sat under the kalau tree, and the beneficent smell of the leaves soon worked a perfect cure. They were subsequently married, and had a numerous progeny. They settled on this spot, and built the city of Kaulya. The small river Rohani flowed between Kaulya and Kapilawot.[A] [A] When laying before the reader a short and concise account of the being who was to become the Buddha called Gaudama, the writer deems it necessary to make a general observation, which, he hopes, will greatly help the reader to understand correctly several passages of the following pages. Gaudama was a Hindu, brought up by Hindu masters, and initiated in all the knowledge possessed by the society he lived in. He accepted the fabulous genealogies of kings such as they were found in the writings of his days. The same may be said of the erroneous notions respecting our globe, the size and motions of the sun and the moon and other heavenly bodies, the explanations of many natural phenomena, the description of hell, of the seats of reward, &c. Teacher as he was of moral precepts, based upon metaphysical principles, Gaudama concerned himself very little about these things, which, in his eyes, were not worth the consideration of a sage. But he, or more probably his disciples, availed themselves of these notions for resting upon them some portions of their system, and giving them such developments as best suited their views. These notions, though wedded to the religious system originated by Gaudama, do not, strictly speaking, belong to it. They existed before his appearance in the schools of philosophy; they formed a part of the stock of knowledge possessed by the society in which he was reared. To account properly for these particulars and many others belonging to the disciplinary regulations, recourse must be had to the study of the ancient religion of the Hindus, Brahminism.