On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, 629–645 A.D. v1.c4.s3: The Prefaces to the Hsi-Yü-Chi
On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, 629–645 A.D. v1.c4.s3
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The Prefaces to the Hsi-Yü-Chi
v1.c4.s3.1
There is only one Preface in the A, B, and C editions of the “Hsi-yü-chi”, but the D edition gives two Prefaces. The second of these is common to all, while the first is apparently only in D and the Corean edition. This latter was apparently unknown to native editors and it was unknown to the foreign translators. This Preface is the work of Ching Po (敬播), a scholar, author, and official of the reigns of T‘ang Kao Tsu and T‘ai Tsung. Ching Po was well read in the history of his country and was in his lifetime an authority on subjects connected therewith. He was the chief compiler and redactor of the “Chin Shu (晉書), an important treatise which bears on its title-page the name of T‘ang T‘ai Tsung as author. Ching Po’s name is also associated with other historical works, and notably with two which give an official account of the rise of the T‘ang dynasty and of the great events which marked the early years of T‘ai Tsung. It is plain from this Preface that its author was an intimate friend of Yuan-chuang whose name he does not think it necessary to mention. He seems to have known or regarded Yuan-chuang as the sole author of the "Hsi-yü-chi", writing of him thus:—"he thought it no toil to reduce to order the notes which he had written down". Ching Po must have written this Preface before 649, as in that year he was sent away from the capital to a provincial appointment and died on the way. The praises which he gives Yuan-chuang and their common master, the Emperor, are very liberal, and he knew them both well.
v1.c4.s3.2
The second Preface, which is in all editions except the Corean, is generally represented as having been written by one Chang Yüeh (張說). It has been translated fairly well by Julien, who has added numerous notes to explain the text and justify his renderings. He must have studied the Preface with great care and spent very many hours in his attempt to elucidate its obscurities. Yet it does not seem to have occurred to him to learn who Chang Yüeh was and when he lived.
v1.c4.s3.3
Now the Chang Yüeh who bore the titles found at the head of the Preface above the name was born in 667 and died in 730, thus living in the reigns of Kao Tsung, Chung Tsung, Jui Tsung, and Hsüan Tsung. He is known in Chinese literature and history as a scholar, author, and official of good character and abilities. His Poems and Essays, especially the latter, have always been regarded as models of style, but they are not well known at present. In 689 Chang Yüeh became qualified for the public service, and soon afterwards he obtained an appointment at the court of the Empress Wu Hou. But he did not prove acceptable to that ambitious, cruel and vindictive sovereign, and in 703 he was sent away to the Ling-nan Tao (the modern Kuangtung). Soon afterwards, however, he was recalled and again appointed to office at the capital. He served Hsüan Huang (Ming Huang) with acceptance, rising to high position and being ennobled as Yen kuo kung (燕國公).
v1.c4.s3.4
Now if, bearing in mind the facts of Chang Yüeh's birth and career, we read with attention the Preface which bears his name we cannot fail to see that it could not have been composed by that official. Passing by other arguments, let us take the following statement in the Preface—"the reigning sovereign when heir-apparent composed the 'Shu-shêng-chi' (述聖記), or Memoir on the transmission of Buddhism, in 579 words." Now the sovereign who wrote the "Shu-shêng-chi" was, as we know from the Seventh Book of the Life and other sources, Kao Tsung. That Emperor died in 683 when Chang Yüeh was only sixteen years of age and the Preface must have been written before that date. So, according to the Chinese authorities and their translators Julien and Professor G. Schlegel, it was a schoolboy who composed this wonderful Preface, this "morceau qui offre un spécimen bien caractérisé de ces éloges pompeux et vides, et présente, par conséquent les plus grandes difficultés, non-seulement à un traducteur de l'Occident, mais encore à tout lettré Chinois qui ne connaitrait que les idées et la langue de l'école de Confucius." We may pronounce this impossible as the morceau is evidently the work of a ripe scholar well read not only in Confucianism but also in Buddhism. Moreover the writer was apparently not only a contemporary but also a very intimate friend of Yuan-chuang. Who then was the author?
v1.c4.s3.5
In the A and C editions and in the old texts Chang Yüeh's name does not appear on the title-page to this Preface. It is said to have been added by the editors of the Ming period when revising the Canon. Formerly there stood at the head of the Preface only the titles and rank of its author. We must now find a man who bore these titles in the Kao Tsung period, 650 to 683, and who was at the same time a scholar and author of distinction and a friend of the pilgrim. And precisely such a man we find in Yü Chih-ning (于志寧), one of the brilliant scholars and statesmen who shed a glory on the reigns of the early T'ang sovereigns. Yü was a good and faithful servant to T'ai Tsung who held him in high esteem and took his counsel even when it was not very palatable. On the death of T‘ai Tsung his son and successor Kao Tsung retained Yü in favour at Court and rewarded him with well-earned honours. In 656 the Emperor appointed Yü along with some other high officials to help in the redaction of the translations which Yuan-chuang was then making from the Sanskrit books. Now about this time Yü, as we know from a letter addressed to him by Hui-li and from other sources, bore the titles which appear at the head of the Preface. He was also an Immortal of the Academy, a Wên-kuan Hsüo-shĭ (文館學士). He was one of the scholars who had been appointed to compile the "Sui Shu" or Records of the Sui dynasty and his miscellaneous writings from forty chüan. Yü was probably a fellow-labourer with Yuan-chuang until the year 660. At that date the concubine of many charms had become all-powerful in the palace and she was the unscrupulous foe of all who even seemed to block her progress. Among these was Yü, who, accordingly, was this year sent away into official exile and apparently never returned.
v1.c4.s3.6
We need have little hesitation then in setting down Yü Chih-ning as the author of this Preface. It was undoubtedly written while Yuan-chuang was alive, and no one except an intimate friend of Yuan-chuang could have learned all the circumstances about him, his genealogy and his intimacy with the sovereign mentioned or alluded to in the Preface. We need not suppose that this elegant composition was designed by its author to serve as a Preface to the Hsi-yü-chi. It was probably written as an independent eulogy of Yuan-chuang setting forth his praises as a man of old family, a record-beating traveller, a zealous Buddhist monk of great learning and extraordinary abilities, and a propagator of Buddhism by translations from the Sanskrit.¹
v1.c4.s3.7
¹ Life, ch. 8: Ku-chin-i-ching-t‘u-chi (No. 1487) last page: Postscript to Y.’s “Ch‘êng-wei-chih-lun” (No. 1197) where Yü Chih-ning is styled as in the heading to the Preface.
v1.c4.s3.8
This Preface, according to all the translators, tells us that the pilgrim acting under Imperial orders translated 657 Sanskrit books, that is, all the Sanskrit books which he had brought home with him from the Western Lands. No one seems to have pointed out that this was an utterly impossible feat, and that Yuan-chuang did not attempt to do anything of the kind. The number of Sanskrit texts which he translated was seventy four, and these seventy four treatises (pu) made in all 1335 chüan. To accomplish this within seventeen years was a very great work for a delicate man with various calls on his time.¹
v1.c4.s3.9
¹ See Life ch. 10. Julien's translation of this passage cannot be used. B. Nanjio's Catalogue p. 435. Mr Nanjio makes the total 75, but he counts the Chin-kang-ching twice.
v1.c4.s3.10
The translations made by Yuan-chuang are generally represented on the title-page as having been made by Imperial order and the title-page of the Hsi-yü-chi has the same intimation. We know also from the Life that it was at the special request of the Emperor T'ai Tsung that Yuan-chuang composed the latter treatise. So we should probably understand the passage in the Preface with which we are now concerned as intended to convey the following information. The pilgrim received Imperial orders to translate the 657 Sanskrit treatises, and to make the Ta-T'ang-Hsi-yü-chi in twelve chüan, giving his personal observation of the strange manners and customs of remote and isolated regions, their products and social arrangements, and the places to which the Chinese Calendar and the civilising influences of China reached.²
v1.c4.s3.11
² See Life ch. 6. The term here rendered "civilizing influences of China" is shêng-chiao (聲教). This term is often used by Buddhist writers as a synonym for "Buddhist religion".
v1.c4.s3.12
Then the number 657 given here and in other places as the total of the Sanskrit treatises (pu) does not agree with the items detailed in the various editions of the Life and the A, B, and D texts of the Records. In the C text of the Records, however the items make up this total They are as follows:—
v1.c4.s3.13
| Mahāyānist sūtras | 224 | pu |
| Mahāyānist śastras | 192 | " |
| Sthavira sutras, śastras and Vinaya | 14 | " |
| Mahāsaṅgika " " " | 15 | " |
| Mahīśāsaka " " " | 22 | " |
| Sammitiya " " " | 15 | " |
| Kāśyapiya " " " | 17 | " |
| Dharmagupta sūtras, Vinaya, śastras | 42 | " |
| Sarvāstivādin " " " | 67 | " |
| Yin-lun (Treatises on the science of Inference) | 36 | " |
| Shêng-lun (Etymological treatises) | 13 | " |
| | 657 | pu |