Buddha: His Life, his Doctrine, his Order c2: Translator's Preface
Buddha: His Life, his Doctrine, his Order c2
- Language
- English
Translator's Preface
c2.1
THIS book is a translation of a German work, *Buddha, Sein Leben, seine Lehre, seine Gemeinde*, by Professor Hermann Oldenberg, of Berlin, editor of the "Pâli Texts of the Vinaya Pitakam and the Dîpavamsa." The original has attracted the attention of European scholars, and the name of Dr. Oldenberg is a sufficient guarantee of the value of its contents. A review of the original doctrines of Buddhism, coming from the pen of the eminent German scholar, the coadjutor of Mr. Rhys Davids in the translation of the Pâli scriptures for Professor Max Müller's "Sacred Books of the East," and the editor of many Pâli texts, must be welcome as an addition to the aids which we possess to the study of Buddhism. Dr. Oldenberg has in the work now translated successfully demolished the sceptical theory of a solar Buddha, put forward by M. Senart. He has sifted the legendary elements of Buddhist tradition, and has given the reliable residuum of facts concerning Buddha's life: he has examined the original teaching of Buddha, shown that the cardinal tenets of the pessimism which he preached are "the truth of suffering and the truth of the deliverance from suffering:" he has expounded the ontology of Buddhism and placed the Nirvâna in a true light. To do this he has gone to the roots of Buddhism in pre-Buddhist Brahmanism: and he has given Orientalists the original authorities for his views of Buddhist dogmatics in Excursus at the end of his work.
c2.2
To thoughtful men who evince an interest in the comparative study of religious beliefs, Buddhism, as the highest effort of pure intellect to solve the problem of being, is attractive. It is not less so to the metaphysician and sociologist who study the philosophy of the modern German pessimistic school and observe its social tendencies. To them Dr. Oldenberg's work will be as valuable as it is to the Orientalist.
c2.3
My aim in this translation has been to reproduce the thought of the original in clear English. If I have done this, I have succeeded. Dr. Oldenberg has kindly perused my manuscript before going to press: and in a few passages of the English I have made slight alterations, additions, or omissions, as compared with the German original, at his request.∗
c2.4
∗ At p. 241-2, Dr. Oldenberg refers to the impossibility of Buddhist terminology finding adequate expression in the German language. I may make a similar complaint of the English tongue, and point in proof to the same word which occasioned his remark: Sankhâra. This term is translated in the German by "Gestaltungen," which would be usually rendered in English by "shapes" or "forms:" but the "shape" or "form," and the "shaping" or "forming," are one to Buddhist thought: hence I have used for "sankhâra" an English word which may connote both result and process, and at the same time etymologically similar to, though not quite parallel to, "sankhâra." The word chosen is "conformations." The selection of the term is arbitrary, as all such translations of philosophical technicalities must be until a consensus of scholars gives currency to a fixed term.
c2.5
I have to thank Dr. Rost, the Librarian of the India Office, at whose suggestion I undertook this work, for his kindness and courtesy in facilitating some references which I found it necessary to make to the India Office Library.
c2.6
W. HOEY.
c2.7
BELFAST, October 21, 1882.
c2.8
The conception intended to be conveyed by the term "sankhâra" has, as far as I know, no exact parallel in European philosophy. The nearest approach to it is in the modi of Spinoza. Buddhist Sankhâra are modi underlying which, be there substance or be there not, we do not know.