The hope which I expressed in my paper on “Sanskrit Texts discovered in
Japan,” viz. that other Sanskrit texts might still come to light in Japan
or China, has been fulfilled sooner than I expected. Mr. A Wylie wrote to
me on March 3 that he had brought a number of Sanskrit-Chinese books from
Japan, and he afterwards kindly sent them to me to examine. They were of
the same appearance and character as the dictionary which Dr. Edkins had
lent me, and the Sukhavatî-vyûha which I had received from Japan. But with
the exception of a collection of invocations, called the Va_g_ra-sûtra,
and the short Pra_gñ_â-h_ri_daya-sûtra, they contained no continuous
texts. The books were intended to teach the Sanskrit alphabet, and every
possible and impossible combination of the Devanâgarî letters, and that
was all. Still, so large a number of books written to teach the Sanskrit
alphabet augurs well for the existence of Sanskrit texts. There was among
Mr. Wylie’s books a second Chinese-Sanskrit-Japanese vocabulary, of which
Mr. Kasawara has given me the following account: “This vocabulary is
called ‘A Thousand Sanskrit and Chinese Words’ and it is said to have been
arranged by I-tsing, who left China for India in 671, about twenty-seven
years after Hiouen-thsang’s return to China, and who is best known as the
author of a book called Nanhae-ki-kwei-_k_ou’en, on the manners and
customs of the Indian Buddhists at that time.
“This vocabulary was brought from China to Japan by Zikaku, a Japanese
priest, who went to China in 838 and returned in 847. It is stated at the
end of the book, that in the year 884 a Japanese priest of the name of
Rioyiu copied that vocabulary from a text belonging to another priest,
Yûĭkai. The edition brought from Japan by Mr. Wylie was published there in
the year 1727 by a priest called Jakumio.”
The following curious passage occurs in the preface of Jakumio’s edition:
“This vocabulary is generally called ‘One Thousand Sanskrit and Chinese
Words.’ It is stated in Annen’s work, that this was first brought (from
China) by Zikaku. I have corrected several mistakes in this vocabulary,
comparing many copies; yet the present edition is not free from blunders;
I hope the readers will correct them, if they have better copies.
“In the temple Hôriuji, in Yamato, there are treasured
Pra_gñ_âpâramitâh_ri_dayasûtram, and Son-shio-dhâra_n_i, written on two
palm leaves, handed down from Central India; and, at the end of these,
fourteen letters of the ‘siddha’ are written. In the present edition of
the vocabulary the alphabet is in imitation of that of the palm leaves,
except such forms of letters as cannot be distinguished from those
prevalent among the scriveners at the present day.
“Hôriuji is one of eleven temples founded by the prince Umayado (who died
A. D. 621). This temple is at a town named Tatsuta, in the province
Yamato, near Kioto, the western capital.”
Here, then, we have clear evidence that in the year 1727 palm leaves
containing the text of Sanskrit Sûtras were still preserved in the temple
of Hôriuji. If that temple is still in existence, might not some Buddhist
priest of Kioto, the western capital of Japan, be induced to go there to
see whether the palm leaves are still there, and, if they are, to make a
copy and send it to Oxford?