A History of Indian Literature v2.c19.s6.7

v2.c19.s6.7

³ For our earliest knowledge of this literature, which is preserved chiefly in Nepal, we are indebted to Brian Houghton *Hodgson*, who lived in Nepal from 1821 to 1843, and rendered equally signal services as a statesman, geographer, zoologist, ethnographer and investigator of Indian languages and antiquities. He was instrumental in procuring numerous Buddhist manuscripts for Indian and European libraries, and especially for Paris, where they were turned to excellent use by Eugène *Burnouf* (Introduction à l'histoire du Buddhisme Indien, 2. èd., Paris, 1876). At about the same time (1824) as Hodgson made his discoveries which so essentially promoted the knowledge of Buddhist literature, the celebrated Hungarian Alexander *Csoma de Kőrös*, after wandering on foot from Hungary to Tibet, had just begun to open up the Buddhist literature of Tibet. Shortly afterwards, the Pāli literature of Ceylon, too, was opened by George *Turnour*. Information regarding the contents of numerous manuscripts of Buddhist Sanskrit literature is given by *Rājendralāla Mitra*, The Sanskrit Buddhist Literature of Nepal, Calcutta, 1882; *C. Bendall*, Catalogue of Buddhist Sanskrit Manuscripts in Cambridge, Cambridge, 1883; and *Haraprasāda Sāstrī*, A Descriptive Catalogue of Sanskrit Manuscripts in the Government Collection under the care of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, I, Buddhist Manuscripts, Calcutta, 1917. The Tibetan translations in the Kanjure are described by *A. Csoma de Kőrös*, Asiatic Researches, Vol. 20, Calcutta, 1836, and *L. Feer*, in AMG, t. 5, Paris, 1883. *Cf.* also *H. Beckh*, Verzeichnis der tibetischen Handschriften I, Handschriftenverzeichnis der Königl. Bibl. zu Berlin, Bd. 24, Berlin, 1914. A considerable amount of information about the later literature of Buddhism from Tibetan sources, is afforded us by Tāranātha in his work "History of Buddhism in India" completed in 1608, translated from the Tibetan into German by *A. Schiefner*, St. Petersburg, 1869; translated from the German in *Ind. Hist. Qu.* 3, 1927. On the Chinese translations see *Bunyiu Nanjio's* *Catalogue of the Chinese Translations of the Buddhist Tripiṭaka*, Oxford, 1883; *E. Denison Ross*, Alphabetical List of the Titles of Works in the Chinese Buddhist Tripiṭaka, being an Index to Bunyiu Nanjio's Catalogue and to the 1905 Kioto Reprint of the Buddhist Canon, Calcutta, 1910; and *Probodhchandra Bagchi*, Le canon bouddhique en Chine, les traductions, I, Paris, 1927. Sino-Indica Publications de l'Université de Calcutta, 1. Among the most famous translators are Dharmarakṣa, 265-313 A.D., Kumārajīva, 344-481 A.D., Hsüan-Tsang, 630-645 in India, his translations 645-661, and I-tsing, 671-695 in India, his translations 700-712. On Kumārajīva s. *S. Lévi* in *JA* 1913, s. 11, t. II, p. 334 ff. translated by *Phanindranath Bose*, Calcutta, 1922, and *J. Nobel* in *SBA* 1917, 206 ff.