On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, 629–645 A.D. v1.c2.3

v1.c2.3

As a rule the author gives the Indian equivalents for the Chinese names of persons and places in their Sanskrit form. But occasionally he uses the Pali form, and there are cases where we find both Pali and Sanskrit forms used on the same page. I gathered from many conversations with the author, that this apparent inconsistency was intentional. At the time when Yüan-Chwāng travelled in India, not only all the most famous Buddhist teachers, but all the teachers of the school of thought especially favoured by the famous pilgrim, the school of Vasubandhu, wrote in Sanskrit. But Pali was still understood; and the names of places that the pilgrim heard in conversation were heard in local dialects. In his transcription the pilgrim would naturally therefore reproduce, as a rule, the Sanskrit forms, but he knew the Pali forms of ancient names, and the local forms of modern ones. It is not therefore improper, in an English work on Yüan-Chwāng, to use occasionally the Pali or vernacular forms of Indian names.