This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1881 edition. Excerpt: ...could be restored to their original form. I had likewise the honour and pleasure of working with your late President, Professor H. H. Wilson, when, after reading Julien's works, he conceived the idea that some of the original Sanskrit texts of which the Chinese translations had been recovered might still be found in the monasteries of China. His influential position as President of your Society, and his personal relations with Sir John Bowring, then English Resident in China, enabled him to set in motion a powerful machinery for attaining his object; and if you look back some five-and-twenty years, you will find in your Journal a full account of the correspondence that passed between Professor Wilson, Sir J. Bowring, and Dr. Edkins, on the search after Sanskrit MSS. in the temples or monasteries of China. On February 15, 1854, Professor Wilson writes from Oxford to Sir John Bowring: --' I send you herewith a list of the Sanskrit works carried to China by Hwen Tsang in the middle of the seventh century, and in great part translated by him, or under his supervision, into Chinese. If any of them, especially the originals, should be still in existence, you would do good service to Sanskrit literature and to the history of Buddhism by procuring copies.' Chinese Translators of Sanskrit Texts. It is a well-known fact that, even long before the time of Hiouen-thsang--that is, long before the seventh century of our era--large numbers of Sanskrit MSS. had been exported to China. These literary exportations began as early as the first century A.d. When we read for the first time of commissioners being sent to India by Ming-ti, the Emperor of China, the second sovereign of the Eastern Han dynasty, about 62 or 65 A.d., we are told that they returned to China..