Tibetan Tales, Derived from Indian Sources

TRÜBNER’S ORIENTAL SERIES.
TIBETAN TALES
Derived from Indian Sources.
TRANSLATED FROM THE TIBETAN OF THE KAH-GYUR BY F. ANTON VON SCHIEFNER DONE INTO ENGLISH FROM THE GERMAN, WITH AN INTRODUCTION , BY W. R. S. RALSTON, M.A.
In an Appendix to his “Buddhism in Tibet,” Dr. Emil Schlagintweit has given “An alphabetical list of the books and memoirs connected with Buddhism.” Although not completely exhaustive, it occupies thirty-five pages, and contains references to more than a hundred separate works, and a much larger number of essays and other literary articles. Of those books and articles, the titles of about sixty allude to Tibet. To them may be referred readers who wish for detailed information about that country, its literature, and its religion. All that it is proposed to do here is to say a few words about the Tibetan work from which have been extracted the tales contained in the present volume; to give a short account of the enthusiastic Hungarian scholar, Csoma Körösi, who had so much to do with making that work known to Europe; and to call attention to any features which the stories now before us may have in common with European folk-tales. To do more, without merely repeating what has been already said, would require a rare amount of special knowledge; and it may safely be asserted that remarks about Buddhism, made by writers who do not possess such knowledge, are seldom of signal value.
“As regards Csoma de Körös, I never think of him without interest and gratitude. I had heard of him, and seen his Tibetan Grammar and Dictionary before leaving England. And one thing that used to make me think a five months’ voyage interminable was my longing to become acquainted with one who had prepared the way for the acquisition of a language of Asia, thought until then almost mythical. For neither Father Georgi’s nor Abel Rémusat’s treatises went very far to clear the mystery.
Speaking of Csoma Körösi’s literary life at Calcutta, M. Pavie says, in the article which has already been cited, “These labours occupied his time for the space of nine years. He had turned his study into a sort of cell, from which he scarcely ever emerged, except to walk up and down the long neighbouring galleries. It was there that, during our stay in Bengal, we very frequently saw him, absorbed in a dreamy meditation, smiling at his own thoughts, as silent as the Brahmans who were copying Sanskrit texts. He had forgotten Europe to live amid the clouds of ancient Asia.”