Brief History Of Buddhist Studies In Europe And Maerica

Author(s): J W De Jong
Publisher: J W De Jong

Page 18

THE EASTERN BUDDHIST
mention must be made of Childers's editions of the Khuddaka-pātha (FRAS, 1870, pp. 309–389) and the Mahāparinibbāna Sutta (FRAS, 1875, PP. 49–80; 1876, pp. 219–261), and Senart's edition and translation of Kaccāyana's grammar (JA, 1871, pp. 193-540; also published separately, Paris, 1871). Book 6 of this grammar had already been translated by the Sinhalese scholar James d'Alwis (1823-1878) in 1863.42
As mentioned before, Burnouf's Pāli dictionary was never published. In 1845 Spiegel announced a compilation of a Pāli dictionary on which he continued working for many years up to 1865. Bechert has given some information on the manuscript of Spiegel's dictionary which he received from a great-grandson.43 Pāli scholars had to wait till 1875 to see the first Pāli dictionary published in Europe: A Dictionary of the Pāli language by Robert Caesar Childers (1838– 1876). With the publication of Childers's dictionary and Minaev's grammar and due to the presence of good collections of Pāli manuscripts in European libraries, the conditions were created for fruitful work in Pāli philology. From 1877 onwards Pāli texts began to be published and translated in great number as we will see in the next chapter.
In 1837 the Société Asiatique received from Brian Houghton Hodgson (1800-1894) in Kathmandu 88 manuscripts of Sanskrit Buddhist texts. Immediately Burnouf began reading the manuscripts. On s June 1837 Burnouf wrote to Hodgson that from the 25th April he devoted all his spare moments to reading the Saddharmapundarika.44 His translation of this text was completed in 1839.45 It was printed in 1841 but did not appear until after his death in 1852. Burnouf translated many Buddhist Sanskrit texts. His translations from the Divyāvadāna, the Avadānaśataka and other texts were published in his Introduction à l'histoire du Buddhisme indien (Paris, 1844), but many others were never pub
*ratba-fātaka, Kopenhagen, 1871; Two Jātakas, JRAS, V. 1871, pp. 1-13; Ten Jātakas, Copenhagen, 1872.
42 An introduction to Kachchayan's grammar of the Pali language, Colombo-London, 1863. On d'Alwis see: Memoirs and Desultory Writings of the Late James D'Alwis. Edited by A.C. Seneviratne, Colombo, 1939.
43 Heinz Bechert, Some side-lights on the early history of Pali lexicography, Añjali (Peradeniya, 1970), pp. 1–3.
44 Papiers d'Eugène Burnouf conservés à la Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, 1899, p. 158. 45 Ibid., p. 169.