' 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 Lantza 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 Ranja, in Devanagri ra.mjaa
"Ranja, therefore, and not, according to a barbarian metamorphosis,
Lantza, it should be called by us, and by way of further and clearer
distinction, the Nipalese variety of Devanagri. 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 Lantza or Ranja 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.
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