through the perseverance of M. Stanislas Julien, and after we have
been allowed to reap the fruits of his labours in his masterly
translation of the 'Voyages des Pelerins Bouddhistes,' there still
remains one point that requires some elucidation. How was it that the
Chinese, whose ears no doubt are of the same construction as our own,
should have made such sad work of the Sanskrit names which they
transcribed with their own alphabet? Much may be explained by the
defects of their language. Such common sounds as v, g, r, b, d, and
short a, are unknown in Chinese as initials; no compound consonants
are allowed, every consonant being followed by a vowel; and the final
letters are limited to a very small number. This, no doubt, explains,
to a great extent, the distorted appearance of many Sanskrit words
when written in Chinese. Thus, Buddha could only be written Fo to.
There was no sign for an initial b, nor was it possible to represent a
double consonant, such as ddh. Fo to was the nearest approach to
Buddha of which Chinese, when written, was capable. But was it so in
speaking? Was it really impossible for Fahian and Hiouen-thsang, who
had spent so many years in India, and who were acquainted with all the
intricacies of Sanskrit grammar, to distinguish between the sounds of
Buddha and Fo to? We cannot believe this. We are convinced that
Hiouen-thsang, though he wrote, and could not but write, Fo to with
the Chinese characters, pronounced Buddha just as we pronounce it, and
that it was only among the unlearned that Fo to became at last the
recognised name of the founder of Buddhism, abbreviated even to the
monosyllabic Fo, which is now the most current appellation of 'the
Enlightened.' In the same manner the Chinese pilgrims wrote Niepan,
but they pronounced Nirva_n_a; they wrote Fan-lon-mo, and pronounced
Brahma.
Nor is it necessary that we should throw all the blame of these
distortions on the Chinese. On the contrary, it is almost certain that
some of the discrepancies between the Sanskrit of their translations
and the classical Sanskrit of Pa_n_ini were due to the corruption
which, at the time when Buddhism arose, and still more at the time
when Buddhism spread to China, had crept into the spoken language of
India. Sanskrit had ceased to be the spoken language of the people
previous to the time of A_s_oka. The edicts which are still preserved
on the rocks of Dhauli, Girnar, and Kapurdigiri are written in a
dialect which stands to Sanskrit in the same relation as Italian to
Latin. Now it is true, no doubt, that the canonical books of the
Buddhists are written in a tolerably correct Sanskrit, very different
from the Italianized dialect of A_s_oka. But that Sanskrit was, like
the Greek of Alexandria, like the Latin of Hungary, a learned idiom,
written by the learned for the learned; it was no longer the living
speech of India. Now it is curious that in many of the canonical
Buddhist works which we still possess, the text which is written in
Sanskrit prose is from time to time interrupted by poetical portions,
called Gathas or ballads, in which the same things are told in verse
which had before been related in prose. The dialect of these songs or
ballads is full of what grammarians would call irregularities, that is
to say, full of those changes which every language undergoes in the
mouths of the people. In character these corruptions are the same as
those which have been observed in the inscriptions of A_s_oka, and
which afterwards appear in Pali and the modern Prakrit dialects of
India. Various conjectures have been started to explain the
amalgamation of the correct prose text and the free and easy poetical
version of the same events, as embodied in the sacred literature of
the Buddhists. Burnouf, the first who instituted a critical inquiry
into the history and literature of Buddhism, supposed that there was,
besides the canon fixed by the three convocations, another digest of
Buddhist doctrines composed in the popular style, which may have
developed itself, as he says, subsequently to the preaching of
_S_akya, and which would thus be intermediate between the regular
Sanskrit and the Pali. He afterwards, however, inclines to another
view--namely, that these Gathas were written out of India by men to
whom Sanskrit was no longer familiar, and who endeavoured to write in
the learned language, which they ill understood, with the freedom
which is imparted by the habitual use of a popular but imperfectly
determined dialect. Other Sanskrit scholars have proposed other
solutions of this strange mixture of correct prose and incorrect
poetry in the Buddhist literature; but none of them was satisfactory.
The problem seems to have been solved at last by a native scholar,
Babu Rajendralal, a curious instance of the reaction of European
antiquarian research on the native mind of India. Babu Rajendralal
reads Sanskrit of course with the greatest ease. He is a pandit by
profession, but he is at the same time a scholar and critic in our
sense of the word. He has edited Sanskrit texts after a careful
collation of MSS., and in his various contributions to the 'Journal of
the Asiatic Society of Bengal,' he has proved himself completely above
the prejudices of his class, freed from the erroneous views on the
history and literature of India in which every Brahman is brought up,
and thoroughly imbued with those principles of criticism which men
like Colebrooke, Lassen, and Burnouf have followed in their researches
into the literary treasures of his country. His English is remarkably
clear and simple, and his arguments would do credit to any Sanskrit
scholar in England. We quote from his remarks on Burnouf's account of
the Gathas, as given in that scholar's 'Histoire du Buddhisme Indien:'
'Burnouf's opinion on the origin of the Gathas, we venture
to think, is founded on a mistaken estimate of Sanskrit
style. The poetry of the Gatha has much artistic elegance
which at once indicates that it is not the composition of
men who were ignorant of the first principles of grammar.
The authors display a great deal of learning, and discuss
the subtlest questions of logic and metaphysics with much
tact and ability, and it is difficult to conceive that men
who were perfectly familiar with the most intricate forms of
Sanskrit logic, who have expressed the most abstruse
metaphysical ideas in precise and often in beautiful
language, who composed with ease and elegance in Arya,
To_t_aka, and other difficult measures, were unacquainted
with the rudiments of the language in which they wrote, and
were unable to conjugate the verb to be in all its forms....
The more reasonable conjecture appears to be that the Gatha
is the production of bards who were contemporaries or
immediate successors of _S_akya, who recounted to the devout
congregations of the prophet of Magadha, the sayings and
doings of their great teacher in popular and easy-flowing
verses, which in course of time came to be regarded as the
most authentic source of all information connected with the
founder of Buddhism. The high estimation in which the
ballads and improvisations of bards are held in India and
particularly in the Buddhist writings, favours this
supposition; and the circumstance that the poetical portions
are generally introduced in corroboration of the narration
of the prose, with the words "Thereof this may be said,"
affords a strong presumptive evidence.'
Now this, from the pen of a native scholar, is truly remarkable. The
spirit of Niebuhr seems to have reached the shores of India, and this
ballad theory comes out more successfully in the history of Buddha
than in the history of Romulus. The absence of anything like cant in
the mouth of a Brahman speaking of Buddhism, the _bete noire_ of all
orthodox Brahmans, is highly satisfactory, and our Sanskrit scholars
in Europe will have to pull hard if, with such men as Babu Rajendralal
in the field, they are not to be distanced in the race of scholarship.
We believe, then, that Babu Rajendralal is right, and we look upon the
dialect of the Gathas as a specimen of the Sanskrit spoken by the
followers of Buddha about the time of A_s_oka and later. And this will
help us to understand some of the peculiar changes which the Sanskrit
of the Chinese Buddhists must have undergone, even before it was
disguised in the strange dress of the Chinese alphabet. The Chinese
pilgrims did not hear the Sanskrit pronounced as it was pronounced in
the Parishads according to the strict rules of their _S_iksha or
phonetics. They heard it as it was spoken in Buddhist monasteries, as
it was sung in the Gathas of Buddhist minstrels, as it was preached in
the Vyakara_n_as or sermons of Buddhist friars. For instance. In the
Gathas a short a is frequently lengthened. We find na instead of na,
'no.' The same occurs in the Sanskrit of the Chinese Buddhists. (See
Julien, 'Methode,' p. 18; p. 21.) We find there also vistara instead
of vistara, &c. In the dialect of the Gathas nouns ending in
consonants, and therefore irregular, are transferred to the easier
declension in a. The same process takes place in modern Greek and in
the transition of Latin into Italian; it is, in fact, a general
tendency of all languages which are carried on by the stream of living
speech. Now this transition from one declension to another had taken
place before the Chinese had appropriated the Sanskrit of the Buddhist
books. The Sanskrit nabhas becomes nabha in the Gathas; locative
nabhe, instead of nabhasi. If, therefore, we find in Chinese lo-che
for the Sanskrit ra_g_as, dust, we may ascribe the change of r into l
to the inability of the Chinese to pronounce or to write an r. We may
admit that the Chinese alphabet offered nothing nearer to the sound of
_g_a than tche; but the dropping of the final s has no excuse in
Chinese, and finds its real explanation in the nature of the Gatha
dialect. Thus the Chinese Fan-lan-mo does not represent the correct
Sanskrit Brahman, but the vulgar form Brahma. The Chinese so-po for
sarva, all, thomo for dharma, law, find no explanation in the dialect
of the Gathas, but the suppression of the r before v and m, is of
frequent occurrence in the inscriptions of A_s_oka. The omission of
the initial s in words like sthana, place, sthavira, an elder, is
likewise founded on the rules of Pali and Prakrit, and need not be
placed to the account of the Chinese translators. In the inscription
of Girnar sthavira is even reduced to thaira. The s of the nominative
is frequently dropped in the dialect of the Gathas, or changed into o.
Hence we might venture to doubt whether it is necessary to give to the
character 1780 of M. Julien's list, which generally has the value of
ta, a second value sta. This s is only wanted to supply the final s of
kas, the interrogative pronoun, in such a sentence as kas
tadgu_n_a_h_? what is the use of this? Now here we are inclined to
believe that the final s of kas had long disappeared in the popular
language of India, before the Chinese came to listen to the strange
sounds and doctrines of the disciples of Buddha. They probably heard
ka tadgu_n_a, or ka taggu_n_a, and this they represented as best they
could by the Chinese kia-to-kieou-na.
With these few suggestions we leave the work of M. Stanislas Julien.
It is in reality a work done once for all--one huge stone and
stumbling-block effectually rolled away which for years had barred the
approach to some most valuable documents of the history of the East.
Now that the way is clear, let us hope that others will follow, and
that we shall soon have complete and correct translations of the
travels of Fahian and other Buddhist pilgrims whose works are like so
many Murray's 'Handbooks of India,' giving us an insight into the
social, political, and religious state of that country at a time when
we look in vain for any other historical documents.
_March, 1861._
XIII.
THE WORKS OF CONFUCIUS.[92]
In reviewing the works of missionaries, we have repeatedly dwelt on
the opportunities of scientific usefulness which are open to the
messengers of the Gospel in every part of the world. We are not afraid
of the common objection that missionaries ought to devote their whole
time and powers to the one purpose for which they are sent out and
paid by our societies. Missionaries cannot always be engaged in
teaching, preaching, converting, and baptising the heathen. A
missionary, like every other human creature, ought to have his leisure
hours; and if those leisure hours are devoted to scientific pursuits,
to the study of the languages or the literature of the people among
whom he lives, to a careful description of the scenery and antiquities
of the country, the manners, laws, and customs of its inhabitants,
their legends, their national poetry, or popular stories, or, again,
to the cultivation of any branch of natural science, he may rest
assured that he is not neglecting the sacred trust which he accepted,
but is only bracing and invigorating his mind, and keeping it from
that stagnation which is the inevitable result of a too monotonous
employment. The staff of missionaries which is spread over the whole
globe supplies the most perfect machinery that could be devised for
the collection of all kinds of scientific knowledge. They ought to be
the pioneers of science. They should not only take out--they should
also bring something home; and there is nothing more likely to
increase and strengthen the support on which our missionary societies
depend, nothing more sure to raise the intellectual standard of the
men selected for missionary labour, than a formal recognition of this
additional duty. There may be exceptional cases where missionaries are
wanted for constant toil among natives ready to be instructed, and
anxious to be received as members of a Christian community. But, as a
general rule, the missionary abroad has more leisure than a clergyman
at home, and time sits heavy on the hands of many whose congregations
consist of no more than ten or twenty souls. It is hardly necessary to
argue this point, when we can appeal to so many facts. The most
successful missionaries have been exactly those whose names are
remembered with gratitude, not only by the natives among whom they
laboured, but also by the savants of Europe; and the labours of the
Jesuit missionaries in India and China, of the Baptist missionaries at
Serampore, of Gogerly and Spence Hardy in Ceylon, of Caldwell in
Tinnevelly, of Wilson in Bombay, of Moffat, Krapf, and last, but not
least, of Livingstone, will live not only in the journals of our
academies, but likewise in the annals of the missionary Church.
[Footnote 92: 'The Chinese Classics;' with a Translation, Critical and
Exegetical Notes. By James Legge, D.D., of the London Missionary
Society. Hong Kong, 1861.]
The first volume of an edition of the Chinese Classics, which we have
just received from the Rev. Dr. J. Legge, of the London Missionary
Society, is a new proof of what can be achieved by missionaries, if
encouraged to devote part of their time and attention to scientific
and literary pursuits. We do not care to inquire whether Dr. Legge has
been successful as a missionary. Even if he had not converted a single
Chinese, he would, after completing the work which he has just begun,
have rendered most important aid to the introduction of Christianity
into China. He arrived in the East towards the end of 1839, having
received only a few months' instruction in Chinese from Professor Kidd
in London. Being stationed at Malacca, it seemed to him then--and he
adds 'that the experience of twenty-one years has given its sanction
to the correctness of the judgment'--that he could not consider
himself qualified for the duties of his position until he had
thoroughly mastered the classical books of the Chinese, and
investigated for himself the whole field of thought through which the
sages of China had ranged, and in which were to be found the
foundations of the moral, social, and political life of the people. He
was not able to pursue his studies without interruption, and it was
only after some years, when the charge of the Anglo-Chinese College
had devolved upon him, that he could procure the books necessary to
facilitate his progress. After sixteen years of assiduous study, Dr.
Legge had explored the principal works of Chinese literature; and he
then felt that he could render the course of reading through which he
had passed more easy to those who were to follow after him, by
publishing, on the model of our editions of the Greek and Roman
Classics, a critical text of the Classics of China, together with a
translation and explanatory notes. His materials were ready, but
there was the difficulty of finding the funds necessary for so costly
an undertaking. Scarcely, however, had Dr. Legge's wants become known
among the British and other foreign merchants in China, than one of
them, Mr. Joseph Jardine, sent for the Doctor, and said to him, 'I
know the liberality of the merchants in China, and that many of them
would readily give their help to such an undertaking; but you need not
have the trouble of canvassing the community. If you are prepared to
undertake the toil of the publication, I will bear the expense of it.
We make our money in China, and we should be glad to assist in
whatever promises to be a benefit to it.' The result of this
combination of disinterested devotion on the part of the author, and
enlightened liberality on the part of his patron, lies now before us
in a splendid volume of text, translation, and commentary, which, if
the life of the editor is spared (and the sudden death of Mr. Jardine
from the effects of the climate is a warning how busily death is at
work among the European settlers in those regions), will be followed
by at least six other volumes.
The edition is to comprise the books now recognised as of highest
authority by the Chinese themselves. These are the five King's and the
four Shoo's. King means the warp threads of a web, and its application
to literary compositions rests on the same metaphor as the Latin word
textus, and the Sanskrit Sutra, meaning a yarn, and a book. Shoo
simply means writings. The five King's are, 1. the Yih, or the Book of
Changes; 2. the Shoo, or the Book of History; 3. the She, or the Book
of Poetry; 4. the Le Ke, or Record of Rites; and 5. the Chun Tsew, or
Spring and Autumn; a chronicle extending from 721 to 480 B.C. The four
Shoo's consist of, 1. the Lun Yu, or Digested Conversations between
Confucius and his disciples; 2. Ta Heo, or Great Learning, commonly
attributed to one of his disciples; 3. the Chung Yung, or Doctrine of
the Mean, ascribed to the grandson of Confucius; 4. of the works of
Mencius, who died 288 B.C.
The authorship of the five King's is loosely attributed to Confucius;
but it is only the fifth, or 'the Spring and Autumn,' which can be
claimed as the work of the philosopher. The Yih, the Shoo, and the She
King were not composed, but only compiled by him, and much of the Le
Ke is clearly from later hands. Confucius, though the founder of a
religion and a reformer, was thoroughly conservative in his
tendencies, and devotedly attached to the past. He calls himself a
transmitter, not a maker, believing in and loving the ancients (p.
59). 'I am not one who was born in the possession of knowledge,' he
says, 'I am one who is fond of antiquity, and earnest in seeking it
there' (p. 65). The most frequent themes of his discourses were the
ancient songs, the history, and the rules of propriety established by
ancient sages (p. 64). When one of his contemporaries wished to do
away with the offering of a lamb as a meaningless formality, Confucius
reproved him with the pithy sentence, 'You love the sheep, I love the
ceremony.' There were four things, we are told, which Confucius
taught--letters, ethics, devotion of soul, and truthfulness (p. 66).
When speaking of himself, he said, 'At fifteen, I had my mind bent on
learning. At thirty, I stood firm. At forty, I had no doubt. At fifty,
I knew the decrees of heaven. At sixty, my ear was an obedient organ
for the reception of truth. At seventy, I could follow what my heart
desired, without transgressing what was right' (p. 10). Though this
may sound like boasting, it is remarkable how seldom Confucius himself
claims any superiority above his fellow-creatures. He offers his
advice to those who are willing to listen, but he never speaks
dogmatically; he never attempts to tyrannize over the minds or hearts
of his friends. If we read his biography, we can hardly understand how
a man whose life was devoted to such tranquil pursuits, and whose
death scarcely produced a ripple on the smooth and silent surface of
the Eastern world, could have left the impress of his mind on millions
and millions of human beings--an impress which even now, after 2339
years, is clearly discernible in the national character of the largest
empire of the world. Confucius died in 478 B.C., complaining that of
all the princes of the empire there was not one who would adopt his
principles and obey his lessons. After two generations, however, his
name had risen to be a power--the rallying point of a vast movement of
national and religious regeneration. His grandson speaks of him as the
ideal of a sage, as the sage is the ideal of humanity at large. Though
Tze-tze claims no divine honour for his grandsire, he exalts his
wisdom and virtue beyond the limits of human nature. This is a
specimen of the language which he applies to Confucius:
'He may be compared to heaven and earth in their supporting
and containing, their overshadowing and curtaining all
things; he may be compared to the four seasons in their
alternating progress, and to the sun and moon in their
successive shining.... Quick in apprehension, clear in
discernment, of far-reaching intellect and all-embracing
knowledge, he was fitted to exercise rule; magnanimous,
generous, benign, and mild, he was fitted to exercise
forbearance; impulsive, energetic, firm, and enduring, he
was fitted to maintain a firm hold; self-adjusted, grave,
never swerving from the Mean, and correct, he was fitted to
command reverence; accomplished, distinctive, concentrative,
and searching, he was fitted to exercise discrimination....
All-embracing and vast, he was like heaven; deep and active
as a fountain, he was like the abyss.... Therefore his fame
overspreads the Middle Kingdom and extends to all barbarous
tribes. Wherever ships and carriages reach, wherever the
strength of man penetrates, wherever the heavens overshadow
and the earth sustains, wherever the sun and moon shine,
wherever frost and dews fall, all who have blood and breath
unfeignedly honour and love him. Hence it is said--He is the
equal of Heaven' (p. 53).
This is certainly very magnificent phraseology, but it will hardly
convey any definite impression to the minds of those who are not
acquainted with the life and teaching of the great Chinese sage. These
may be studied now by all who can care for the history of human
thought, in the excellent work of Dr. Legge. The first volume, just
published, contains the Confucian Analects, the Great Learning, and
the Doctrine of the Mean, or the First, Second, and Third Shoo's, and
will, we hope, soon be followed by the other Chinese Classics.[93] We
must here confine ourselves to giving a few of the sage's sayings,
selected from thousands that are to be found in the Confucian
Analects. Their interest is chiefly historical, as throwing light on
the character of one of the most remarkable men in the history of the
human race. But there is besides this a charm in the simple
enunciation of simple truths; and such is the fear of truism in our
modern writers that we must go to distant times and distant countries
if we wish to listen to that simple Solomonic wisdom which is better
than the merchandize of silver and the gain thereof than fine gold.
[Footnote 93: Dr. Legge has since published: vol. ii. containing the
works of Mencius; vol. iii. part 1. containing the first part of the
Shoo King; vol. iii. part 2. containing the fifth part of the Shoo
King.]
Confucius shows his tolerant spirit when he says, 'The superior man is
catholic, and no partisan. The mean man is a partisan, and not
catholic' (p. 14).