Indian Antiquary Vol 35

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 18

12
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[JANUARY, 1906.
the characters number originally twenty-five. This (682) writing is read horizontally. Beyond the mountains Ts'ong-ling, in a southerly direction, is the kingdom of Kia-pi-che (Kapiça). The spoken tongue and the letters are the same as among the Tukhāras. The different characters just enumerated are the Hous
"In India the words and characters are those invented by the god Fan. Originally forty-seven they are continually multiplied; this is called the Blue Treasure (Ts'ing (slang) which is made up of twelve sections. It is taught to children; when they are older they go on to the treatises on the Five Sciences.17 On the whole, these and the Hou do not agree. As the territory of the five Indias is very vast, how should there not be certain slight differences ?
"And now, as to these regions, the translators, from the Eastern Han (25-220) to the Sonei (589–618), include the whole of Western India under the name of the Hou kingdom. And they always speak of the books of sūtras of the Hou country, thus confusing with others the true descendants of the god Fan. "That master of the law, Yen-ts'ong, alone understood whither this leads us.
understood whither this leads us . . . . At the beginning all were called Hou, without distinction. In the same way, from the time of the Sonei dynasty the name Fan was bestowed on all in common. As the saying goes: To overstep the mark is not to reach it. If we begin with the primeval trunk it is certainly the Fan which predominates ; if we begin with the ramifications, we can keep the designation Hou. How so? From the five Indias to the north of the (Ts'ong-)ling, translations have been made from (the language of) near neigh bours. We may then believe that (Yen)-ts'oung has provisionally accepted this for the period preceding ours, and we will not venture to criticise him for so doing. The Hou and Fan may be found together. For example, the sūtras and the vinaya are transmitted even to K'icou-tseu (Koutcha). At K'icou-tsou, as the language of India was not understood, India was called : the kingdom of Yin-te-kia; thus the word was translated. On the other hand, the Fan words were retained for such terms as were easy to understand. Thus the Hou and the Fan were both currently used at the same time,
"In another case both Hou and Fan are wanting. This happens when the pure Chinese is employed.
We must distinguish between double translations and direct translations. The translation is direct when the manuscript from India comes straight to China and is translated there; the translation is donble when the sūtras, for example, are handed on to the regions north of the mountains, Leou-lan, Yen-ki, &c. . . . where the language of India is not understood; then they are translated into Hou. Thus in Fan they say: ou-po-to-ye (upādhyāya); at Chou-le (Kashgar), they say: ou-che; at [563] Yu-tien (Khotan), they say: hou-chang. And the king of heaven (devarijs) in Fan calls himself kiu-kiun-lo (sic = Kuvera); in Hou they say : Pi-cha-men (Vaiçramana). The translation is at once double and direct when the monks, bringing texts with them, pass through the Hou kingdoms on their way, and thus introduce Hou expressions. Thus Kiao-ming (Buddhayaças; cf. Nanjio. II. 61), who recited orally the vinaya of Dharmaguptas, brought in expressions such as howo chang. The translation is neither one nor tlıe other (peither double nor direct) when the monks who bring the sutras and have used the Hou language to travel hither do not make any translation."
If the Hou country is the ancient Kharostra, the writing of the Hou country must represent the Kharoetri. The Siddham schools, which have preserved so many curious notions on the history of Indian writing, do, in fact, know this identity and it comes in their teaching. "The Hou writing is the K'ia-lou writing. K'ia-lou is the name of a șşi (sien-jen) who transcribed the Fan characters to adapt them to the needs of the time." The work from which I borrow this very precise information, 18 the Si-tan-ts'ang (Ch, I. p. 16), was composed by a Japanese priest in 880, at the period when the
11 CS. Hlouen-tsang, Mem. I. 72.
See the Special Note E on page 22 below.