On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, 629–645 A.D. v1.c4.s3.4

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?