On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, 629–645 A.D. v1.c5.56

v1.c5.56

Our author, in writing the paragraph of this passage about Buddhism, evidently had in his memory certain observations which are to be found in the 88th Chapter of the “Hou Han Shu”. These observations with the notes appended give us some help in finding out the meaning of several of the expressions in the text. For his statement here about the faults of previous translators the author has been blamed by native critics. These maintain that the transcriptions of Indian words given by Yuan-chuang’s predecessors are not necessarily wrong merely because they differ from those given by him. The foreign sounds, they say, which the previous translators heard may not have been those which our pilgrim heard, and, moreover, Chinese characters under the influence of time and place, may have changed both meaning and pronunciation. As to mistakes of interpretation, there are doubtless many to be found in the early translations, but in this matter Yuan-chuang also is far from perfect.