Chips from a German Workshop, Volume 5: Miscellaneous Later EssaysMüller, F. Max (Friedrich Max)
Religion
Chips from a German Workshop, Volume 5: Miscellaneous Later Essays
Müller, F. Max (Friedrich Max)
Comparative linguistics; Folklore; Literature -- History and criticism; Mythology; Religions
I had the honor and pleasure of working with Stanislas Julien, when he was
compiling those large lists of Sanskrit and Chinese words which formed the
foundation of his translation of Hiouen-thsang, and enabled him in his
classical work, the “Méthode pour déchiffrer et transcrire les noms
Sanskrits” (1861), to solve a riddle which had puzzled Oriental scholars
for a long time—viz., how it happened that the original Sanskrit names had
been so completely disguised and rendered almost unrecognizable in the
Chinese translations of Sanskrit texts, and how they could be restored to
their original form.
I had likewise the honor and pleasure of working with your late President,
Professor H. H. Wilson, when, after reading Julien’s works, he conceived
the idea that some of the original Sanskrit texts of which the Chinese
translations had been recovered might still be found in the monasteries of
China. His influential position as President of your Society, and his
personal relations with Sir John Bowring, then English Resident in China,
enabled him to set in motion a powerful machinery for attaining his
object; and if you look back some five-and-twenty years, you will find in
your Journal a full account of the correspondence that passed between
Professor Wilson, Sir J. Bowring, and Dr. Edkins, on the search after
Sanskrit MSS. in the temples or monasteries of China.
On February 15, 1854, Professor Wilson writes from Oxford to Sir John
Bowring:—
“I send you herewith a list of the Sanskrit works carried to China by Hwen
Tsang in the middle of the seventh century, and in great part translated
by him, or under his supervision, into Chinese. If any of them,
_especially the originals_, should be still in existence, you would do
good service to Sanskrit literature and to the history of Buddhism by
procuring copies.”
_Chinese Translators of Sanskrit Texts._
It is a well-known fact that, even long before the time of
Hiouen-thsang—that is, long before the seventh century of our era—large
numbers of Sanskrit MSS. had been exported to China. These literary
exportations began as early as the first century A. D. When we read for
the first time of commissioners being sent to India by Ming-ti, the
Emperor of China, the second sovereign of the Eastern Han dynasty, about
62 or 65 A. D., we are told that they returned to China with a white
horse, carrying books and images.(72) And the account proceeds to state
that “these books still remain, and are reverenced and worshipped.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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