retained a part at the time of Dr Buchanan’s investigation. He
appointed six pundits to teach, and gave them an allowance be-
sides the lands which they possess. They are reckoned higher in
rank than the other professors in the vicinity, and are called
rajpundits. The thirty-one pundits in that quarter addict them-
selves chiefly to the study of grammar, law, and the mythological
poems. Logic and metaphysics are neglected, as well as
astronomy and magic. In the western side of the district there
are no less than thirty-three teachers within a small space and
there astrology as well as metaphysics is studied; mythological
poems are not much read and magic is not known. The number
of the teachers is owing to the patronage of the Rajahs of
Darbhanga to whom the greater part of the lands belong; but
their patronage did not appear to be very efficacious, for, of the
thirty-three Pundits in the whole territory west of the Kosi, only
eight were considered well-versed in the sciences and learning,
which they professed to teach, viz., one in logic and
metaphysics, three in grammar, and four in astrology. All these
are Mithila Pundits.
Dr Buchanan has communicated some details of the
proportions in which the different branches of learning were
studied. Eleven Pundits taught metaphysics; of these six
confined themselves entirely to that branch; one also taught
grammar, another added law; two others with law also read the
Sri bhagvut; and one man included the whole of these within the
range of his instructions. There were no less than thirty-one
teachers of the law, of whom one only confined himself to that
pursuit; twenty of them taught one additional science; and of
these nineteen taught grammar, and one logic and metaphysics;
eight taught two additional branches, of whom three taught
grammar and explained the bhagvut, two taught logic and
metaphysics and also explained the bhagvut, two taught
grammar and the modern ritual, and one taught grammar and
astronomy. Two taught three other branches, one explaining
grammar, logic and the mythological poems, and the other
substituting the modern ritual for logic. Of eleven teachers of the
astronomical works, ten professed nothing else. Of seven
persons who taught the modern ritual, one only confined himself
to it, two professed the law, three taught grammar and the
metaphysical poems, and six were proficients in grammar. Only
five Pundits limited themselves to the teaching of grammar.
With regard to the state of medical education and practice,
Dr Buchanan ascertained that there were twenty-six Bengalee
practitioners who used incantations (muntras); thirty-seven who