Brief History Of Buddhist Studies In Europe And Maerica

SR No.: 269304
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: J W De Jong
Publisher: J W De Jong
Total Pages: 86
Language: English
Classification: Article
File Size: 7 MB

Page 16

THE EASTERN BUDDHIST
indien, but his untimely death prevented him from carrying out his plan. The 21st appendix of his translation of the Lotus sūtra which was published in October 1852 is entitled: "Comparaison de quelques textes sanscrits et pâlis” (pp. 859-867). Burnouf was only able to complete the first pages of this essay when in the first days of March illness forced him to abandon his work. He died only a few weeks later on the 28th May 1852. Burnouf had made a careful study of a manuscript of the Dighanikāya. The appendices of his translation of the Lotus sūtra contain a complete translation of the Samaññaphala and Mahanidāna suttas (pp. 449-482; 534-544) and a translation of the beginning of the Tevijja sutta (pp. 490-4).
When Burnouf and Lassen wrote their Essai sur le Pali, they did not know that a Pāli grammar had already been published. In 1824 Benjamin Clough, a Wesleyan missionary, published in Colombo A compendious Pali grammar with a copious vocabulary in the same language (iv+147+20+157 pp.). This work was first undertaken by W. Tolfrey. Clough’s book consists of three parts: a grammar based on the Pāli grammar Bālāvatāra, a collection of roots based on the Dhātumañjūsā and a vocabulary based on the Abhidhānappadipikā. Clough's Pāli grammar seems to have reached Europe only after a long delay. On II January 1832 A. W. von Schlegel wrote to Lassen that according to Brockhaus only two copies had arrived in Europe. 35 Important work on Pāli was done in Ceylon also by George Turnour (1799–1843) who entered the Civil Service of Ceylon in 1818. In 1837 he published text and translation of the first 38 chapters of the Mahāvamsa. At the same time he contributed a series of important articles to the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal.36 In the same period another Wesleyan missionary, D. J. Gogerly (1792–1862), began to publish articles on Pāli literature. His collected writings have been published in two volumes in Colombo in 1908.37 They contain many translations of Pāli texts, for instance, a translation of the Pātimokkha which was first published in 1839 in the Ceylon Friend (reprinted in 1862 in JRAS, XIX).
35 Briefwechsel A.W. von Schlegel-Christian Lassen, Herausgegeben von Dr. W. Kirfel, Bonn, 1914, p. 217.
36 Examination of Some Points of Buddhist Chronology, JASB, V, 1836, pp. 521-536; An Examination of the Pāli Buddhistic Annals, JASB, VI, 1837, pp. 501-528, 717-737; VIII, 1838, pp. 686-701, 789–817, 919-933, 991-1014.
37 Ceylon Buddhism, being the collected writings of Daniel John Gogerly.