Note 5 — Little Thibet.

These stones would appear to be peculiar to Thibet, although the sentence inscribed upon them has been occasionally discovered elsewhere. Mention of it is thus made in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal:—“On the main road from the Valley of Nipal to Tibet stands a diminutive stone, ‘Chaitya.’ Upon this is inscribed a variety of texts from the Buddha Scriptures, and amongst others the celebrated Mantra, or charmed sentence of Tibet. The system of letters called Lantzá in Tibet, and there considered foreign and Indian, though nowhere extant in the Plains of India, is the common vehicle of Sanscrit language among the Buddhists of Nipal Proper, by whom it is denominated Ranjá, in Devanagri रंजा.

“Ranjá, therefore, and not, according to a barbarian metamorphosis, Lántzá, it should be called by us, and by way of further and clearer distinction, the Nipalese variety of Devánágrí. Obviously deducible as this form is from the Indian standard, it is interesting to observe it in practical collocation with the ordinary Thibetan form, and when it is considered that Lántzá or Ranjá is the common extant vehicle of those original Sanscrit works of which the Thibetan books are translations, the interest of an inscription traced on one slab in both characters cannot but be allowed to be considerable. The habit of promulgation of the doctrines of their faith by inscriptions patent on the face of religious edifices, stones, &c., is peculiar to the Buddhists of Thibet. The Mantrá is also quite unknown to the Buddhists of Ceylon and the Eastern peninsula, and forms the peculiar feature of Thibetan Buddhism.” ↑