Jesuit Orientalism; - Ines G. Županov

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Latin, such as the “best work of Confucius”, although, concluded Queiros, the translation
“only served to disappoint us on the subject of Asiatic sciences”. 108
From these almost cartoonish Queiros‟s statements, ambiguously for and against
translation of the pagan authors – in the extension of the argument he tried to prove that
translating the ancient Greek pagans has much more merit because they did have knowledge
of the Sacred Scriptures and thus were able to “reason rightly” – what is of interest is that we
can discern the differences among the Jesuit missionaries in terms of their attitudes to and
practice of translation. Thus, if pagan texts were not worth translating, good summaries
coming from a trusted Jesuit pen, were invaluable. The fact that Queiros included Pereira‟s
letter verbatim reflects his admiration of the younger colleague‟s linguistic and theological
expertise. Pereira‟s letter played a part of a primary source, in contemporary historian‟s
jargon, and added authority to Queiros‟s discussion of Buddhism. An adequate paraphrase or
“summary” of a book was considered almost as good as a translation in the late 17 th century
antiquarian research. Here the question is, if Queiros trusted Pereira, can we? Alan Strathern
has persuasively argued that Queiros fabricated a disputation scene between João de Villa de
Conde and a Sinhalese bhikkhu and perhaps many other conversations and speeches. So why
not inventing Pereira‟s letter as well?
The only way to know for certain would be to identify the text Pereira used for his
extended summary. A task only a scholar of Chinese language can successfully accomplish.
However, even with circumstantial evidence, that is, working from other translations of
Chinese Lives of Buddha, there are sufficient proofs that Pereira was not inventing his story.
One comes from a translation of a Jesuit scholar and missionary, Léon Wieger (1856-1933)
two and a half centuries later. Sinologist and author of more than thirty books, from manuals
for learning Chinese to Chinese folklore studies and comparative religion, Wieger published
Les Vies chinoises du Buddha as a second volume to his massive study on Hinayana
Buddhism, Monachisme et Discipline. According to Wieger, he chose to translate Récit de
l‟apparition sur terre , du Buddha des Sakya, compilé par Pao-tch‟eng, moine chinois, au
108 Queiros, p. 129. Philippe Couplet, Prospero Intorcetta, Christian Herdritch, and François
de Rougemont produced the first the first known Western translation of a Chinese literary
work. It was published in Paris and dedicated to Louis XIV in 1687, Confucius Sinarum
Philosophus, sive scientia sinensis latine exposita ....