It was the publication of Hiouen-thsang's Travels which roused the hopes of Professor Wilson that some of the old Sanskrit MSS. which had been carried [pg 204] away from India might still be discovered in China.[108]
But though no pains were spared by Sir John Bowring to carry out Professor Wilson's wishes, though he had catalogues sent to him from Buddhist libraries, and from cities where Buddhist compositions might be expected to exist, the results were disappointing, at least so far as Sanskrit texts were concerned. A number of interesting Chinese books, translated from Sanskrit by Hiouen-thsang and others, works also by native Chinese Buddhists, were sent to the library of the East India House; but what Professor Wilson and all Sanskrit scholars with him most desired, Sanskrit MSS., or copies of Sanskrit MSS., were not forthcoming. Professor Wilson showed me, indeed, one copy of a Sanskrit MS. that was sent to him from China, and, so far as I remember, it was the Kâla-Kakra,[109] which we know as one of the books translated from Sanskrit into Chinese. That MS., however, is no longer to be found in the India Office Library, though it certainly existed in the old East India House.
The disappointment at the failure of Professor Wilson's and Sir J. Bowring's united efforts was felt all the more keenly because neither Sanskrit nor Chinese scholars could surrender the conviction that, until a very short time ago, Indian MSS. had existed in China. They had been seen by Europeans, such as Dr. Gutzlaff, the hard-working missionary in China, [pg 205] who in a paper, written shortly before his death, and addressed to Colonel Sykes (“Journal R. A. S.” 1856, p. 73), stated that he himself had seen Pâli MSS. preserved by Buddhist priests in China. Whether these MSS. were in Pâli or Sanskrit would matter little, supposing even that Dr. Gutzlaff could not distinguish between the two. He speaks with great contempt of the whole Buddhist literature. There was not a single priest, he says, capable of explaining the meaning of the Pâli texts, though some were interlined with Chinese. “A few works,” he writes, “are found in a character originally used for writing the Pâli, and may be considered as faithful transcripts of the earliest writings of Buddhism. They are looked upon as very sacred, full of mysteries and deep significations, and therefore as the most precious relics of the founder of their creed. With the letters of this alphabet the priests perform incantations[110] to expel demons, rescue souls from hell, bring down rain on the earth, remove calamities, etc. They turn and twist them in every shape, and maintain that the very demons tremble at the recitation of them.”
Another clear proof of the existence of Sanskrit MSS. in China is found in the account of a “Trip to Ning-po and T'hëen-t'hae,” by Dr. Edkins. After he had arrived at Fang-kwang, he ascended the Hwa-ling hill, and at the top of the hill he describes a small temple with a priest residing in it. “Scattered over the hill,” he adds, “there are various little temples where priests reside, but the one at the top is the most celebrated, as being the place where Che-k'hae spent a portion of his time, worshipping [pg 206] a Sanskrit manuscript of a Buddhist classic.” On his return he arrived at the pagoda erected to the memory of Che-k'hae, the founder of the Thëen-t'hae system of Buddhism, in the Chin dynasty (about 580 A. D.). And a little farther on, situated in a deep dell on the left, was the monastery of Kaon-ming-sze. This is particularly celebrated for its possession of a Sanskrit MS., written on the palm leaf, once read and explained by Che-k'hae, but now unintelligible to any of the followers of Buddhism in these parts. The priests seemed to pay uncommon reverence to this MS., which is the only one of the kind to be found in the East of China, and thus of great importance in a literary point of view. It is more than 1,300 years old, but is in a state of perfect preservation, in consequence of the palm leaves, which are written on both sides, having been carefully let into slips of wood, which are fitted on the same central pin, and the whole, amounting to fifty leaves, inclosed in a rosewood box.
This may account for the unwillingness of the priests to part with their old MSS., whether Sanskrit or Pâli, but it proves at the same time that they still exist, and naturally keeps up the hope that some day or other we may still get a sight of them.
Materials on which Sanskrit MSS. were written.
Of course, it might be said that if MSS. did not last very long in India, neither would they do so in China. But even then, we might expect at least that as in India the old MSS. were copied whenever they showed signs of decay, so they would have been in China. Besides, the climate of China is not so destructive as the heat and moisture of the climate [pg 207] of India. In India, MSS. seldom last over a thousand years. Long before that time paper made of vegetable substances decays, palm-leaves and birch-bark become brittle, and white ants often destroy what might have escaped the ravages of the climate. It was the duty, therefore, of Indian Rajahs to keep a staff of librarians, who had to copy the old MSS. whenever they began to seem unsafe, a fact which accounts both for the modern date of most of our Sanskrit MSS. and for the large number of copies of the same text often met with in the same library.
The MSS. carried off to China were in all likelihood not written on paper, or whatever we like to call the material which Nearchus describes “as cotton well beaten together,”[111] but on the bark of the birch tree or on palm leaves. The bark of trees is mentioned as a writing material used in India by Curtius;[112] and in Buddhist Sûtras, such as the Karanda-vyûha (p. 69), we actually read of bhûrga, birch, mâsi, ink, and karama (kalam), as the common requisites for writing. MSS. written on that material have long been known in Europe, chiefly as curiosities (I had to write many years ago about one of them, preserved in the Library at All Souls' College). Of late,[113] however, they have attracted more serious attention, particularly since Dr. Bühler discovered in Kashmir old MSS. containing independent rescensions of Vedic texts, written on birch bark. One of these, containing the whole text of the Rig-Veda Samhitâ[114] with accents, was sent to me, and [pg 208] though it had suffered a good deal, particularly on the margins, it shows that there was no difficulty in producing from the bark of the birch tree thousands and thousands of pages of the largest quarto or even folio size, perfectly smooth and pure, except for the small dark lines peculiar to the bark of that tree.[115]
At the time of Hiouen-thsang, in the seventh century, palm leaves seem to have been the chief material for writing. He mentions a forest of palm-trees (Borassus flabelliformis) near Konkanapura (the [pg 209] Western coast of the Dekhan),[116] which was much prized on account of its supplying material for writing (vol. i. p. 202, and vol. iii. p. 148). At a later time, too, in 965, we read of Buddhist priests returning to China with Sanskrit copies of Buddhist books written on palm leaves (peito).[117] If we could believe Hiouen-thsang, the palm leaf would have been used even so early as the first Buddhist Council,[118] for he says that Kâsyapa then wrote the Pitakas on palm leaves (tâla), and spread them over the whole of India. In the Pâli Gâtakas, panna is used in the sense of letter, but originally parna meant a wing, then a leaf of a tree, then a leaf for writing. Patta, also, which is used in the sense of a sheet, was originally pattra, a wing, a leaf of a tree. Suvanna-patta, a golden leaf to write on, still shows that the original writing material had been the leaves of trees, most likely of palm-trees.[119] Potthaka, i. e. pustaka, book, likewise occurs in the Pâli Gâtakas.[120]
Such MSS., written on palm leaves, if preserved carefully and almost worshipped, as they seem to have been in China, might well have survived to the present day, and they would certainly prove of immense value to the students of Buddhism, if they could still be recovered, whether in the original or even in later copies.