Sanskrit learning flourished in China for a considerable period. In the time of the T'ang, the clergy numbered many serious students of Indian literature and the glossaries included in the Tripitaka show that they studied the original texts. Under the Sung dynasty (A.D. 1151) was compiled another dictionary of religious terms[787] and the study of Sanskrit was encouraged under the Yüan. But the ecclesiastics of the Ming produced no new translations and apparently abandoned the study of the original texts which was no longer kept alive by the arrival of learned men from India. It has been stated that Sanskrit manuscripts are still preserved in Chinese monasteries, but no details respecting such works are known to me. The statement is not improbable in itself[788] as is shown by the Library which Stein discovered at Tun-huang and by the Japanese palm-leaf manuscripts which came originally from China. A few copies of Sanskrit sûtras printed in China in the Lanja variety of the Devanâgari alphabet have been brought to Europe[789]. Max Müller published a facsimile of part of the Vajracchedikâ obtained at Peking and printed in Sanskrit from wooden blocks. The place of production is unknown, but the characters are similar to those used for printing Sanskrit in Tibet, as may be seen from another facsimile (No. 3) in the same work. Placards and pamphlets containing short invocations in Sanskrit and Tibetan are common in Chinese monasteries, particularly where there is any Lamaistic influence, but they do not imply that the monks who use them have any literary acquaintance with those languages.
FOOTNOTES:
For an account of some of the scriptures here mentioned see chap. XX.
[709] A catalogue of the Chinese Translation of the Buddhist Tripitaka. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1893. An index to the Tokyo edition has been published by Fujii. Meiji XXXI (1898). See too Forke, Katalog des Pekinger Tripitaka, 1916.
[711] Tan-i-ching
