a record of buddhistic kingdoms(佛都记录).pdf

A RECORD OF BUDDHISTIC KINGDOMS
A RECORD OF
BUDDHISTIC
KINGDOMS
Translated and annotated with a Corean recension of the Chinese
text
BY JAMES LEGGE
1
A RECORD OF BUDDHISTIC KINGDOMS
PREFACE
Several times during my long residence in Hong Kong I endeavoured
to read through the "Narrative of Fa-hien;" but though interested with the
graphic details of much of the work, its columns bristled so constantly--
now with his ic representations of Sanskrit words, and now with his
substitution for them of their meanings in Chinese characters, and I was,
moreover, so much occupied with my own special labours on the
Confucian Classics, that my ess was far from satisfactory. When Dr.
Eitel's "Handbook for the Student of Chinese Buddhism" appeared in 1870,
the difficulty occasioned by the Sanskrit words and names was removed,
but the other difficulty remained; and I was not able to look into the book
again for several years. Nor had I much inducement to do so in the two
copies of it which I had been able to procure, on poor paper, and printed
from blocks badly cut at first, and so worn with use as to yield books the
reverse of attractive in their appearance to the student.
In the meantime I kept studying the subject of Buddhism from various
sources; and in 1878 began to lecture, here in Oxford, on the Travels with
my Davis Chinese scholar, who was at the same time Boden Sanskrit
scholar. As we went on, I wrote out a translation in English for my own
satisfaction of nearly half the narrative. In the beginning of last year I
made Fa-hien again the subject of lecture, wrote out a second translation,
independent of the former, and pushed on till I pleted the whole.
The want of a good and clear text had been supplied by my friend, Mr.
Bunyiu Nanjio, who sent to me from Japan a copy, the text of which is
appended to the translation and notes, and of the nature of which some
account is given in the Introduction, and towards the end of this Prefac