We cannot tell exactly what the pronunciation of them was, about fifteen hundred years ago, in the time of Fa-Hsien; but the southern mandarin must be a shade nearer to it than that of Peking at the present day.

In transliterating the Indian names I have for the most part followed Dr.Eitel, with such modification as seemed good and in harmony with growing usage.
For the Notes I can do little more than claim the merit of selection and condensation.

My first object in them was to explain what in the text required explanation to an English reader.

All Chinese texts, and Buddhist texts especially, are new to foreign students.

One has to do for them what many hundreds of the ablest scholars in Europe have done for the Greek and Latin Classics during several hundred years, and what the thousands of critics and commentators have been doing of our Sacred Scriptures for nearly eighteen centuries.