Issue1. Vol.1 (April, 2013) - IIT Mandi

More documents

Recommendations

Info

ESSENT Society for Collaborative Research and Innovation, IIT MandiResearch. This manual contained a brief butsystematic and exhaustive overview of IndianBuddhism. Kern continued his work well intothe early twentieth century. In 1901, hepublished the first volume of the Historie duBuddhism Dans I’Inde. The second volumeappeared in 1903. These volumes contained anelaborate history of the life of Buddha, hisphilosophy and religious order. It also gave anin-depth account of the Buddhist councils,schisms and different schools of thought.An able contemporary of Kern was the Germanscholar Hermann Oldenberg. He was one of thegreatest orientalists of the nineteenth century.His scholarship was not restricted to Buddhistliterature alone. He was equally at ease withVedic sources. His work on the Rigveda isconsidered a masterpiece. It is consulted byscholars on Vedic religion and society eventoday.Oldenberg published the translation of severalPali Buddhist texts. Between 1879 and 1883, hebrought out the Vinaya Pitaka. He also workedon the Chullavagga, Mahavagga andPatimokkha between 1881 and 1885. In 1883,he published Theragatha and Therigatha. Thecritical edition and translation of Dipavamsaappeared in 1897. Apart from these primarysources, Oldenberg also wrote The Buddha,which was a widely read and admired biographyof the master. This was translated into Englishin 1882 by Hoey.Between 1879 and 1885, three major eventstook place in Europe, which changed the destinyof Buddhist studies. The first event was thelaunching of the Sacred Books of the East seriesin 1879 by Friedrich Max Muller. A largenumber of religious texts of various religionswas published in this series between 1879 and1897. Altogether, fifty volumes of the SacredBooks series came out during these eighteenyears. Ten of them contained Buddhistliterature. Vol. 10 was the first in the series tohandle Buddhist texts. It consisted of theDhammapada and Suttanipata, translated byMax Muller and Fausboll respectively. Vol. 1160 ESSENT|Issue1|Vol1contained several suttas likeMahaparinibbanasutta,Dhammachakkapavattanasutta,Mahasudassanasutta etc., translated by T.W.Rhys Davids. Vol. 13 was reserved for selectionfrom Patimokkha and Mahavagga of the VinayaPitaka. In Volume 17, Rhys Davids andOldenberg translated Chullavagga andMahavagga. Vol. 19 and 20 were published in1883. The former was a translation ofsubstantial portion from the Buddhacharita ofAsvaghosha from the Chinese version bySamuel Beal. The latter contained translationsof the remaining portion of Vinaya Pitaka andChullavagga by Rhys Davids and Oldenberg.The Saddharma Pundarika was translated byKern in Vol. 21 in 1884. Vol. 35 and 36 weredevoted to Milindapanha, which Rhys Davidstranslated. They appeared in 1890 and 1894respectively. The last one in the series to dealwith Buddhism was Vol. 49, which came out in1894. It contained the texts from variousMahayana texts, like Asvaghosha’sBuddhacharita, Sukhavativyuha andPrajnaparamitasutra. Edward B. Cowell, MaxMuller and J. Takakusu translated these works.The Sacred Books series become the mostimportant source in Europe for the study ofAsian religions in general and Buddhism inparticular. For nearly half a century, Buddhistscholars from the west depended on this seriesfor most of their general research.The second event was the establishment of thePali Text Society in London in 1881. This wasthe brainchild of T.W. Rhys Davids, who canreally be regarded as the greatest nineteenthcentury European expert on Buddhism. Hiscontributions to the growth and discussion ofmodern Buddhist studies are second to none.Rhys Davids learnt Pali from Sri Lanka afterjoining the Ceylon Civil Service in 1864. Afterreturning to England in 1872, he began thestudy of Buddhism in association with Childers,Kern, Max Muller, Oldenberg, Fausboll andothers. In 1878, he published a scholarly bookcalled Buddhism. In the following year, 1879, he
ESSENT Society for Collaborative Research and Innovation, IIT Manditranslated the Nidanakatha into English. He alsotranslated the Vinaya Pitaka in association withOldenberg for the Sacred Books series. TheMilindapanha in the Sacred Books series wastranslated by him. Rhys David also edited theDhatuvamsa and Abhidhammatthasangraha,both in 1884. His edition of the Digha Nikayawas an outstanding piece of scholarship, whichcan still be emulated. His notes and introductionto this work show his deep understanding ofBuddhist religion and philosophy. Digha Nikayaappeared in three volumes in 1889, 1903 and1910.The establishment of the Pali text Society wasannounced by Rhys Davids during his Hibbertlectures in America in 1881. He declared that“The sacred books of the early Buddhists havepreserved to us the sole record of the onlyreligious movement in the world’s history whichbears any close resemblance to Christianity, andit is not too much to say that the publication ofthis unique literature will be no less importantfor the study of history and especially ofreligious history than the publication the Vedashas already been”. With this lofty ideal in mind,Rhys Davids launched the Pali Text Society.Within a short period, the society published anumber of valuable Buddhist texts. TheSamyutta Nikaya was published in five volumesbetween 1884 and 1898. It was edited by LeonFeer. The Anguttara Nikaya appeared in fivevolumes between 1885 and 1900. The first twovolumes were edited by R. Morris, theremaining three by E. Hardy. Rhys Davidsedition of Digha Nikaya came out in threevolumes in 1889, 1903 and 1910. J.E. Carpentercollaborated with him in this project. MajjhimaNikaya was published in three volumes between1888 and 1902. The first volume was edited byV. Trenckner, while R. Chalmers brought outthe remaining two volumes. Fauboll’s edition ofJatakas and Oldenburg’s Theragatha andTherigatha were also published by the Pali TextSociety. Other noteworthy publications of thesociety in the nineteenth century include E.Hardy’s edition of Petavatthu commentary in1894, Burnouf’s Suttanipata in 1885, Cowell’sJataka stories in six volumes between 1895 and1907, Edward Muller’s Dhammasangani in1885, A.C Taylor’s Kathavatthu in two volumesbetween 1894 and 1897 etc. The role played bythe Pali Text Society in strengthening Buddhiststudies in Europe can therefore hardly beoverstated.The third event occurred in 1885. This was thepublication of Edwin Arnold’s famous poemLight of Asia. This poem was an exciting lyricalbiography of the Buddha. Arnold made gooduse of myths and legends from the ancientIndian cosmology in crafting a stimulatingliterary masterpiece. Light of Asia became aninstant hit in Great Britain. Thousands of copieswere sold and several editions came out within afew years. It was also translated into a numberof European languages. With the publication ofLight of Asia, the destiny of Buddhist studies inEurope changed once and for all. Before theappearance of Light of Asia, Buddhism was ofinterest only to the intellectual and scholasticclasses and those who were attracted by the“mysteries” of the East. Now it started gainingpopularity among the common people. Moreand more ordinary men and women becomecurious about the Buddha and his religion. As aresult, many publishers in Europe began to bringout cheap biographies of the Buddha andhandbooks on Buddhism. Arnold’s poem maybe regarded as a work which brought forth thedemocratization of interest in Buddhism.Buddhism began to appear in a big way on thefrontiers of popular culture in Europe. 3AssessmentAt the end of this survey, an important questionarises. What was the real nature of Europe’snineteenth century interest in Indian Buddhistliterature? An answer to this question hasalready been suggested above. Nineteenthcentury Europe was interested in exploring theirown cultural and historical roots after Jonesbrought the similarities between Indian andEuropean languages to light. In other words,European scholars were concerned with theirown antiquity and identity, which offered the61 ESSENT|Issue1|Vol1
Page 2 and 3:
ESSENT Society for Collaborative Re
Page 4 and 5:
Page 6 and 7:
Page 8 and 9:
Page 10 and 11:
Page 12 and 13: ESSENT Society for Collaborative Re
Page 88: ESSENT Society for Collaborative Re
show all

Issue1. Vol.1 (April, 2013) - IIT Mandi

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?