Brief History Of Buddhist Studies In Europe And Maerica

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

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THE EASTERN BUDDHIST
ographie bouddhique (Paris, 1937, pp. 1-64). Of his other articles we mention only two which have a great bearing on the history of the Buddhist canon: his article on a precanonical language and his study on the texts recited by Koţikarna. 67 In 1928 Sylvain Lévi visited Bali and Java. In Bali he gained the confidence of the priests and was able to collect several stotra which were published in Sanskrit Texts from Bali (Baroda, 1933, GOS, LXVII). When he visited the Borobudur and inspected the lower galleries he recognized that the sculptors had made use of a text dealing with acts. A manuscript of this text had been discovered by him in Nepal during his last visit.68
Louis de La Vallée Poussin (1869-1938) was one of the first pupils of Sylvain Lévi, but the nature of his work is entirely different. He devoted most of his research to the study of Buddhist dogmatism as he called it and of the philosophical schools of Mahāyāna. His first works concern Tantrism: an edition of the Pañcakrama, edition and translation of the Adikarmapradīpa and a chapter on Tantrism in his Bouddhisme of 1898.69 Already in 1897 he analysed a chapter of the Prasannapadā,7o and in the following years he published a masterfully annotated edition of the Prasannapadā, an edition of the Bodhicaryāvatārapañjikā, an edition of the Tibetan text of the Madhyamakāvatāra and an incomplete translation of the same text.?1 His translation of the Bodhicaryāvatāra is still by far the most learned of all the existing translations.72 In 1933 La Vallée Poussin wrote a long comprehensive article on the Madhyamaka but
67 Observations sur une langue précanonique du Bouddhisme, JA, 1912; II, pp. 495514; Sur la récitation primitive des textes bouddhiques, JA, 1915, 1, pp. 401-447:
68 Sylvain Lévi, Mabākarmavibhanga et Karmavibhan gopadeśa, Paris, 1932. See also N. J. Krom, Het Karmawibhangga op Barabudur, Mededeelingen der Koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen, Afdeling Letterkunde, deel 76, serie B, no. 8, Amsterdam, 1933, pp. 215-283.
69 Études et textes tantriques. I. Pañcakrama. Gand, 1896; Bouddhisme, Études et matériaux, London, 1898, pp. 162-232 et 118–161.
70 Caturāryasatyaparikṣā, Mélanges Charles de Harlez, 1897, pp. 313-320.
71 Mülamadhyamakakārikās (Mādhyamikasūtras de Nāgārjuna avec la Prasannapadā, commentaire de Candrakirti, Bibliotheca Buddhica, IV, St.-Pétersbourg, 1903-1913; Prajñākaramati's Commentary to the Bodbicaryāvatāra of Çantideva, Bibliotheca Indica, Calcutta, 19011914; Madhyamakāvatāra de Candrakirti, traduction tibétaine, Bibl. B., IX, St.-Pétersbourg, 1907–1912; Madhyamakāvatāra, traduit d'après la version tibétaine, Muséon, 8, 1907, pp. 249–317; II, 1910, pp. 271-358; 12, 1911, pp. 235-327.
72 Introduction à la pratique des futurs Bouddhas, Paris, 1907.
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