Literary History of Sanskrit Buddhism

Sūtrālaṅkāra – 151
that the European critic preferred to divide him into several persons
bearing the same name. It is to the English scholar Beal that belongs
the honour of resuscitating the literary glory of Aśvaghoṣa. Beal
himself has suffered real injustice. Pioneer in bringing to light the
immense collection which is incorrectly called the Chinese
Dīghanikāya, he succeeded in extracting from it a mass of facts,
documents, abstracts, and legends, by which have profited the
science of archæology, history and Indian literature and the whole of
which has not been to this day arranged sufficiently systematically to
attract the attention it deserves. The Chinese experts have ignored
the labours of Beal because he [181] laboured with reference to
Indian antiquities. The Indianists on the other band, have looked
upon him with suspicion because he looked for authentication at the
bands of Sinologists alone. People have pointed out his mistakes and
blunders. But those only who have tackled Buddhist Chinese know
the difficulties which the best of scholars have to encounter. They
were rather amazed, let it be said, to Beal’s honour, to see, that,
without the knowledge of Sanskrit and without the help of another
Indianist, he had committed so few faults. Above all they admire the
surety of his grasp which directed his choice in the Chinese chaos.
He was only officially called upon to classify the collection of
Chinese Buddhism in the India Office and he was struck by the
interest of the book Sūtralaṅkāra and its author Aśvaghoṣa. He
singled out its merits and even translated several of its stories in a
brief series of lectures delivered at the London University in 1882. A
little later he published in the Sacred Books of the East (volume
XIX) a translation from the Chinese version of the Sanskrit
Buddhacarita. Burnouf at the very beginning of the studies which he
founded was mistaken, as regards the value of the Sanskrit original.
But as soon as new theories on the development of Sanskrit literature