British Sinology And The Studies On Buddhism In 19th Century

In the 12^thyear of the Yixi Era,the Eastern Jin Dynasty（416 A.D.）,Fa-hien,the Sramana,completed his Fa-Hien’s Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms after his pursuing dharma west.He put down the religions,geography,customs and rules in social and economic aspects in the 5^thcentury’s countries in Southeast Asia,South Asia and Central Asia.This book is thus of historical importance in terms of the history of Buddhism and ancient communication and ancient geography,translated into and published in diverse languages.In 1886,James Legge,a Protestant missionary to China and Sinologist,had his English translation of Fa-Hien’s Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms coming out.Past researches into James Legge focused mainly on his translations of Confucian and Dao classics,which generated many analyses of the quality and linguistic features of his translated work and few of his further explanations of those Buddhistic concepts in Fa-Hien’s Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms and his personal interpretation of Buddhism and Buddhism in the late Qing Dynasty embodied in his translations.This paper focuses on James Legge’s English translation of Fa-hisen’s Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms.With main Buddhistic findings of Western sinologists in mid-to-late 19^thcentury combed through,it can be seen that Western sinologists changed their attitudes towards Buddhism from complete refusal to willingness to contribute towards its spreading until focus on academic studies,and how James Legge has been influenced in different respects in terms of Buddhistic research by his predecessors.This paper then studies Legge’s annotations of Buddhistic nouns,evidence he provided for geographical locations mentioned in originals and his comparison of Buddhistic classics and their Western counterparts in his translations.This is to figure out Legge’s complex attitude revealed in his translation and annotation of Buddhistic classics towards Buddhism:on the one hand,James Legge as a scholar was tolerant of Buddhistic ethics and thus relatively unbiased during his investigations,adding literary and historical significance to his translations;on the other hand,as a Christian,he inevitably failed to treat Buddhism fully equally.