These stories have certainly an Indian origin; at least the Burmans have received them, as almost all the things that are connected with their religion, from that quarter. Under despotic governments, the plain and naked truth cannot show itself, or make its voice to be heard, without exposing its friends to the most imminent dangers on the part of those tyrants who practically maintain that their will must ever stand above truth and reason. Stories nicely told were the pleasing and innocent but necessary dress which that sacred goddess was obliged to wear in order to make her presence supportable to the despots, and help her friends to find favour with those whose absolute and uncontrollable sway made everybody bow the head in their awful though detested presence. The first five hundred stories have, it seems, no historical value whatever. They are most of them short and concise. But the last ten may very likely contain many facts or allusions to individuals and places that might afford a clue to some parts of the history and geography of India in days of a remote antiquity. A complete translation of the ten Dzats might not be without interest, provided such a work be accompanied with copious notes, made by a competent person, well acquainted with the ancient history of India. All the stories end with a most important disclosure made by Gaudama himself. The personage that has played the most important and praiseworthy _rôle_ is, as a matter of course, our Buddha himself. Those who befriended him, assisted him, and rendered him any services, are those who subsequently became his favourite and most distinguished disciples and hearers; whilst those who acted in any reprehensible manner, who opposed him and did him harm, afterwards became the individuals who were in his days heretics or holders of false doctrines, and in particular his arch enemy, the notoriously wicked Dewadat.