Three years in Tibet : with the original Japanese illustrations / by the Shramana Ekai Kawaguchi.

  • Ekai Kawaguchi
Date:
1909
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Three years in Tibet : with the original Japanese illustrations / by the Shramana Ekai Kawaguchi. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    13/772
    PREFACE. 1 Wiis lately reading thelJoly Text ui’ the tSaf/fjliamm- Pioidar/k-a (the Aphorisms of the White Jjotus of the V\ oiiderfal or 'rrue Jjaw) in a Samskrt ma)iuscri])t under a iiodhi-tree near Mrga-Dava (Saranath), Jienares. liei'e our Blessed Lord Buddha. Slufk^ui-Muni taught His Holy Dharina just after the accomplishment of His Buddha- hood at Buddlmg'aya. Whilst doing so, 1 was reminded of the time, eighteen years ago, when I had read the same text in Chinese at a great Monastery named Ohbakusang at Kyoto in Japan, a reading which determined me to undertake a visit to d'ibet. It was in March, 1891, that 1 gave up the Bectorship of the jMonastery of Gohyakurakan in Tokyo, and left for Kyoto, where 1 remained living as a hermit for about three year.s, totally absorbed in the study of a large caflection of Buddhist books in the Chinese language. My object in doing so was to fulfil a long-felt desire to translate tlu' texts into Japanese in an ea.sy style from the difficult and u ni ntelligi ble Chinese. But 1 afterwards found that it was not a wise thiim to rely upon the Chinese texts alone, without comparing them with Tibetan translations as well as with the orioffiial Samskrt texts which are contained in iMaluyvana Buddhism. 'Phe Buddhist Samskrt texts were to be found in 'Pibet and Nepfd. Of course, many of tlieiii had been discovered l)y Huro})ean Orientalists in Nepfd and a feAv in other })arts of India and Japan. But those texts had not yet lieen found which included the most important manu- scripts of which Buddhist scholars were in great want. Then again, the Tibetan texts were famous for being