Page:Essays on the Chinese Language (1889).djvu/399

385 came through the medium of Tibetans and Mongols, and that the true pronunciation of the Sanskrit words was thus frequently corrupted.

Another circumstance, or rather group of circumstances which we have to take into consideration in the treatment of our subject has regard to the Chinese language and its dialects. "We must remember that the period from the time of Han Ming Ti to the end of the great Sung dynasty extends over twelve centuries. Now it was during this period that nearly all the translations from Sanskrit writings were made, and that the travels and sojourns in Buddhist lands by Chinese pilgrims were accomplished and recorded. Now the spoken language of China was all this time apparently passing through such changes of form and matter as every living speech is constantly undergoing. Further the foreign missionaries settled at places in China which were situated in different parts of the empire and were marked by considerable varieties of dialect. And lastly the native scholars who taught and helped the missionaries from abroad and who were themselves translators, authors and compilers were born and lived in districts which in many cases were wide apart, and they were also influenced to a certain extent by local peculiarities of language. Remembering these circumstances we should be prepared to find some considerable diversity in the transcriptions of Sanskrit sounds and the translations of words and phrases into Chinese. As we proceed we shall find that many Indian terms appear in Chinese in two or more forms differing in some cases slightly and in others very considerably. It is possible that a thorough survey of the Chinese language as it has been at various periods in the history of the people would enable us to make four classes of transcriptions from Indian into Chinese. The first, which may be deemed by some at present to be doubtful, would be a small one containing words of Indian origin imported into Chinese before the introduction of Buddhism. There seem to be a few of these, but the history of their reception into the language is not accessible or at least not supported by satisfactory evidence. The second class would embrace those