On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, 629–645 A.D. v1.c8.s5.18

v1.c8.s5.18

The last sentence of this passage is in Julien's version—"Quand le roi se dispose à sortir, des musiciens battent le tambour et chantent aux sons de la guitare. Avant d'offrir un sacrifice, ou d'adresser des prières (aux dieux), ils se lavent et se baignent". Here Julien evidently had for the first clause the B reading *chün-wang-chiang-ts'ü*, meaning "when the king is about to go out". But in the A, C, and D texts the reading instead of *ts'ü* is *yii*, meaning "to bathe", and this is evidently the correct reading. Then Julien seems to change the author's meaning by making the second clause a new sentence and introducing the word "avant". The author's meaning seems to be that when the king took his bath there was the performance of certain acts of worship.¹