Public-domain ebook
Language: en4,155 downloads on Project Gutenberg
Subjects
In: Buddhism·Hinduism·History - Other
Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #16847.
The work is a scholarly survey of the spread of Hindu and Buddhist civilization across Asia, the third volume in Sir Charles Eliot’s three‑part “Historical Sketch.” It begins with a detailed note on the author’s transliteration choices, explaining why he adopts different systems for Chinese, Tibetan, Pali and Sanskrit, and how he varies spellings of proper names according to the source language. The opening chapter, “Expansion of Indian Influence,” sets out the scope of the study: the diffusion of Indian religion, art, language and institutions from the Indian subcontinent to the Far East, the Malay archipelago and Central Asia. Eliot frames the narrative as a gradual, largely peaceful infiltration rather than a militaristic conquest, and he promises a broad‑ranging examination of the cultural imprint left by Hinduism and Buddhism on regions such as Ceylon, Burma, Siam, China and Tibet.
Written in the early‑twentieth‑century academic style of a British orientalist, the book combines exhaustive citation of contemporary journals, encyclopedias and epigraphic sources with a measured, sometimes polemical, commentary on the interactions between Indian and East‑Asian cultures. Its prose is formal and dense, reflecting the period’s penchant for exhaustive footnotes and a didactic tone. Readers with a serious interest in the history of religion, Asian studies, or the comparative development of Hindu and Buddhist traditions will find Eliot’s meticulous approach rewarding, especially those who appreciate a thorough, source‑driven account of cultural transmission across continents.
The opening · free to read
Excerpts from the Preface to the book from Volume 1, regarding the method of transcription used.
"In the following pages I have occasion to transcribe words belonging to many oriental languages in Latin characters. Unfortunately a uniform system of transcription, applicable to all tongues, seems not to be practical at present. It was attempted in the Sacred Books of the East, but that system has fallen into disuse and is liable to be misunderstood. It therefore seems best to use for each language the method of transcription adopted by standard works in English dealing with each, for French and German transcriptions, whatever their merits may be as representations of the original sounds, are often misleading to English readers, especially in Chinese. For Chinese I have adopted Wade's system as used in Giles's Dictionary, for Tibetan the system of Sarat Chandra Das, for Pali that of the Pali Text Society and for Sanskrit that of Monier-Williams's Sanskrit Dictionary, except that I write s instead of s. Indian languages however offer many difficulties: it is often hard to decide whether Sanskrit or vernacular forms are more suitable and in dealing with Buddhist subjects whether Sanskrit or Pali words should be used. I have found it convenient to vary the form of proper names according as my remarks are based on Sanskrit or on Pali literature, but this obliges me to write the same word differently in different places, e.g. sometimes Ajâtasatru and sometimes Ajâtasattu, just as in a book dealing with Greek and Latin mythology one might employ both Herakles and Hercules. Also many Indian names such as Ramayana, Krishna, nirvana have become Europeanized or at least are familiar to all Europeans interested in Indian literature. It seems pedantic to write them with their full and accurate complement of accents and dots and my general practice is to give such words in their accurate spelling (Râmâyana, etc.) when they are first mentioned and also in the notes but usually to print them in their simpler and unaccented forms. I fear however that my practice in this matter is not entirely consistent since different parts of the book were written at different times."
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