From Scholarly Object to Religious Text—
the Story of the Lotus-sËtra in the WestMax Deeg“Was hilft’s, daß ich den Augenblick verfluche, Da ich auf
das barbarische Gesetz Dem furchtbaren Fohi den Schwur
gethan.”(Friedrich von Schiller, Turandot, Prinzessin von China,
Zweiter Aufzug, Zweiter Auftritt)“The Saddharmapuˆ∂ar¥ka-sËtra is undoubtedly one of themost interesting texts for the study of the history of Buddhist
texts ...”
(J.W. de Jong 1987: 92)

AbstractThis paper will investigate the history of Western researchand reception of the Lotus-sËtra. It will in particular address
the question how Western perception of this sËtra changed froman object of academic research in the mid-19th century, initiatedand instigated by the research on and the French translation of
the text by Eugène Burnouf, to a perception of the sËtra as areligious text of its own right. I will trace this change ofperception by sketching out the history of reception whichshows that the “popularity” of the Lotus was restricted to a
relatively small circle of Buddhist and Religious Studies
scholars and Christian missionaries until a stronger focus on
East Asian Buddhism—not least in its Japanese forms—led to
the “discovery” of the text as an agent which influenced thereligious culture of a large part of Asia. This is reflected in therich translation history of the text which moves from academic
purist “Sanskritism” to a living textual tradition in the form oftranslations made from Kumåraj¥va’s Chinese on behalf ofJapanese Buddhist denominations. The history of the Lotus andits investigation can be taken as a paradigmatic example of a
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shift of Western views of Buddhism from the early period in the
19th century into modern times.

Two Lines of Reception of the Lotus-sūtra
When I was asked to participate in and to contribute to a workshop on
the Lotus-sËtra in London—whether the organisers have picked me as
one of the translators of the Lotus-sËtra (into German) or not I can only
guess but do not know—I posed myself the question of what I could do
in a reasonable way. Selfishly I decided to revisit a problem I put tomyself quite often when I worked on my own translation of the Lotus(as I will call the text henceforth): why is the text supposed to be soimportant? And when I say important, I mean, of course, not its
importance for Asian religious communities and practitioners—for
whom the text has the status of a sacred one—I rather mean theimportance that it obviously has in the broader context of Western
awareness of Buddhism by, in my opinion, the more or less deliberatecoincidence of two factors: the discovery and selection of the text as an
object of study for the investigation of the history of Indian Buddhism
by the French scholar Eugène Burnouf (1801–1852) 1 , and theimportance that the text has had in East Asia since it reached thesoteriologically highest “rank” in the system of Tiantai/Tendai 天台
Buddhism. What interests me here is how these two lines of reception of
the text finally interconnect and establish the Lotus-sËtra as animportant text in the realm of Buddhist and Religious Studies andinterreligious discourse.

Burnouf ’s Encounter with the Lotus-sūtra
The discovery of Buddhism in the West is a slow and gradual one,which gained momentum only with the growing colonization of, andWestern influence upon, Asia in the 19th century. Although some scantknowledge about the Buddha and his religions is already found in Greek
and Latin sources, it took some time until it became clear to Westerners
that what the different Buddhist cultures and languages denoted withdifferent terms—like Buddha, Gotama, Sagamoni Burcan, or Fo2 wereindeed referring to the same founder figure of what, in a Westernconceptualisation, became a world religion, Buddhism3.
When Buddhism as a religion was discovered by Orientalist scholars
at the beginning of the 19th century, the access to original sources inclassical Buddhist languages like Sanskrit, Påli, Chinese, or Tibetan was

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still limited. In the first half of the 19th century, however, Buddhist texts
written in Indic languages became accessible to the Orientalists. In thesecond half of the 19th century Påli, the language of the Theravåda
school of Buddhism, and the canonical texts written in this MiddleIndian dialect very soon became the central subject of Buddhist studies.
This was a development guided by the ideological and positivist
presupposition that this literature contained the oldest, and therefore
most authentic, teaching of the Buddha—an idea which can be linked toscholarly figures such as Thomas William Rhys-Davids (1843–1922),
the founder of the Pali Text Society, and Hermann Oldenberg (1854–1920), the author of an influential book on the Buddha and the early
history of his religion.
This focus on the Påli sources, however, has not been the case fromthe very beginning of Buddhist studies, when texts of what was called
the Northern School of Buddhism became objects of study. The person
who was standing in the front rank of the study of these texts was aFrenchman, Eugène Burnouf, who became the successor on the Sanskrit
chair in Paris of his teacher Antoine-Léonard de Chézy (1773–1832) in
1832. Burnouf who, in the first period of his academic career rather
concentrated on the Zend-Avesta and on Hindu-texts like the Bhågavatapuråˆa, had, as the secretary of the French Asiatic Society (Société
Asiatique), already come in contact with the British delegate in the
Nepalese capital Kåthmåˆ∂u, Brian Houghton Hodgson (1800 or 1801–1894), who was himself interested in Sanskrit manuscripts and texts,
collected them and sent them to Calcutta, but also to Paris4.
Hodgson had already informed the scholarly public of his findings ina series of articles, the first one of which was published as early as 1828,
in which he gives a short description of the Lotus that reflects theknowledge of his local informants rather than a direct familiarity withthe work:“Sad Dharma Pundarika, a Vyákarana, an account of the Maha andother Dipa Dánas, or of the lights to be maintained in honour of the
Buddhas and Bodhisattvas; with the narrations of the lives of several
former Buddhas by Sákya, as well as prophetic indications of the future
eminence of some of his disciples. Speakers and hearers, Sákya,Maitreya, Manjusri, &c.”5

It is to be noted that for Hodgson the Lotus is just one of the nine
Dharmas, i.e. sacred texts, of the Nevari Buddhists, and that he is rather
more interested in texts like the Prajñåpåramitå as the most important

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one for the Nepalese Buddhists6 and the Lalitavistara as “the original
authority for all those versions of the history of Sákya Sinha, whichhave crept, through various channels, into the notice of Europeans.”7
The first direct contact between Burnouf and Hodgson that is
documented—and which became so crucial for the development of
Buddhist Studies in France and Europe—is a letter dated to July 7,
1834,8 in which Burnouf expresses his satisfaction about Hodgson’soffer to acquire Buddhist Sanskrit manuscripts for the Société9. Burnouf
takes the advantage and asks Hodgson to buy and send to him Buddhist
texts “which you consider to be the most valuable and suitable ones to
get access to the pure Buddhism, that is to say to the part of this system
which is not tainted by any modification of Brahmanism[?]”10
In his next letter, dated to January 20, 1835, Burnouf asks Hodgson tohave copies of the most important Buddhist texts made on his behalf andat the cost of the Société, and—quite smartly—to have other texts madefor himself, proposing the Lalitavistara from which he hopes to draw
information about the historical and geographical situation at the time of
the Buddha 11. Between February 1836 and June 1837 the Société
received 24 copies of Buddhist texts from Hodgson, Burnouf himself acopy of the Prajñåpåramitå-sËtra, and the French scholars divided thetexts amongst each other, Burnouf getting the Gaˆ∂avyËha, Lalitavistara, SvayaµbhËpuråˆa (Sambhû purâna), Saddharmapuˆ∂ar¥ka-sËtra,Samådhiråja-sËtra and the Kåraˆ∂avyËha12. Burnouf expresses a kind of
frustration about the repetitiveness and the content of the Prajñåpåramitå13 and mentions that he has chosen to work on the Lotus insteadsince, as he notes, the Lalitavistara which he was interested in from the
beginning was already being translated (from Tibetan) by one of his
students and friends, probably Philippe Édouard Foucaux (1811–1894).
It seems worthwhile here to quote the first impression of the text’s
magister princeps in Europe:“... I turned to a new book, one of the nine Dharma, the Saddharmapundarîka, and I can reassure you that I did not have to regret mychoice. Since around April 25 I have, without hesitation, dedicatedevery instant which I could spare from my occupations as professor of
Sanskrit and academic to this work of which I have already read quiteconsiderable parts. I have not understood everything, and you will not
be surprised by that; the subject is very new for me, as well with respect
to the style but also with respect to the deeper meaning. ... Although still
a lot of things appear obscure to me I still understand the thread of thebook, the way of presentation of the author, and I have even alreadyfrom scholarly object to religious text

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translated two whole chapters without omitting anything. These containtwo parables which are not without interest but which are especiallyinteresting examples of the way in which the teaching of the Buddhists
is communicated and of the discursive and completely Socratic methodof exposition. Except for the unfaith (but you are not a ‘clergyman’[English expression in the French original; M.D.]) I do not know ofanything so much Christian in the whole of Asia. Brahmanism appears
to me now as a crude and hard Judaism from which you have found
Christianity full of morality and compassion with all other creatures.
One should not think that everything in this whole book is amusing; tothe contrary, the repetitions and tautology in it are tedious. But even thistautology is indeed a remarkable feature and well appropriate for thepeople which the Buddha addressed. ... Finally I confess to you that I
am obsessed with this reading and I would like to have more time andhealth to preoccupy myself with it at day time and night time.
Nevertheless, I will not leave the Saddharma before I have extracted
and translated quite some fragments14, and I am quite convinced that I
can do no better to acknowledge your generosity than by communicating to scholarly Europe a part of the wealth which you have so
generously put to our disposition.”15

Burnouf’s approach is a scholarly and philological one; he asks, in thesame letter and a little bit later16, to be sent another copy of the Lotus
and the SamådhiråjasËtra “because one can never be certain of themeaning of some passages if one has only one copy”17, and he also asks
Hodgson if there is any Vinaya material available in the valley—for
which “scholarly Europe” had to wait over a century until the Gilgit
manuscript finds fulfilled Burnouf’s wish. But in the correspondence
Burnouf’s excitement about the text and his work upon it comesthrough, but also his frustration at the deficiencies of the copies he has
to work with. The value of the Lotus for him lies in the originality of the
Buddha’s teaching:“I have found very interesting details for the judgement of the characterof these works [i.e. the Mahåyåna sËtras; M.D.] and especially for the
genre of preaching of Gâutama of which the Saddharma contains if notreal fragments but at least a truthful and as far as I can judge perfectly
authentic tradition.”18

And in his “Introduction”, first published in 1844, in which he did not
yet give the Lotus a prominent place at all, Burnouf gives a quite

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accurate description of the doctrinal essence of the text:“The Saddharmapuˆ∂ar¥ka, or the “White Lotus of the Good Law,” in
addition to the parables it contains, deals with a most important point of
doctrine, that of the fundamental unity of the three means a Buddha
employs to save humanity from the conditions of the present existence.”19

Burnouf stresses the fact that, despite Hodgson’s analysis of the doctrine
in the Nepalese Sanskrit texts, a detailed study of these sources isnecessary, and he gives this also as a reason for delaying the publicationof his translation of the Lotus which, in fact, appeared only somemonths after Burnouf’s premature death despite his reassertions of an
earlier publication20. This was partly due to Burnouf’s perfectionism21
and his concentration on other texts from the Nepalese collection after
1839. Burnouf constantly worked on and improved his translation byadding notes, and in February 1852, some three months before his deathand the final publication of the book, he notes with some pride:“I have reviewed the French translation which I had made of the copy ofthe [French] Asiatic Society which was the only one at that time on thebasis of a new copy of the Saddharma Pundarîka included in that
second box [sent by Hodgson; M.D.]. I have added notes on thelanguage and several appendices on the different philosophical andmoral categories which are most often quoted in the Saddharma. The
volume which is in quart [format] and a dense printing has reached at
the moment its 808th page (rather bulky! [English in the original; M.
D.], but is not as full as it is voluminous.”22

The Impact of Indo-Centrism
Burnouf ’s publication clearly had some impact on the study of
Buddhism in the West shortly after its publication. In 1854 Philippe
Édouard Foucaux published one chapter of the Lotus, “The Lost Son”(“Parabole de l’enfant égaré”: Chapter Four, Skt. Adhimuktiparivarta,
Chin. Xinjie-pin 信解品), in Devanågar¥ and Tibetan script together witha French translation. Foucaux does not claim any specific reason for his
selection of the chapter and emphasizes that his aim was “to facilitate
the study of the Tibetan language,”23 but it is worth noting that in thesynoptic Tibetan-Sanskrit version of the fourth chapter of the Lotus at
the end of the book (pp.58ff.) we encounter the first ever published partfrom scholarly object to religious text

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of a Buddhist Sanskrit text24. It took more than half a century until thefirst complete edition of the Lotus was edited by Kern and Nanjio andfinally printed (1908–1912).
However, in this broader context of Buddhist Studies in the second
half of the 19th century, i.e. after Burnouf’s groundbreaking work which
included his introduction to Indian Buddhism, it is interesting to see thedirection of research on Mahåyåna texts that was taken on the other sideof the Channel, where a thriving Indology and the beginning of
Religious Studies were coalescing around the German scholar andOxford professor Max Müller (1823–1900), a former student of
Burnouf’s in Paris 25. Here it was not so much the Lotus26 but the
Prajñåpåramitå and “Pure-Land” literature which was brought to theattention of the German doyen of British Indology through his Japanese
students like Kasawara KenjË (Kenjiu) 笠原研壽 (1852–1883), Nanj ōBunyË 南条文雄 (1849–1927), and later also Takakusu Junjirō 高楠順次郎(1866–1945)27, one of the compilers of the standard edition of theChinese canon, the Taishō-ShinshË-daizōkyō who were all priests of theJ ōdo-shinshË denomination founded by Shinran 親鸞 (1173–1263),
which considers, following Shinran’s teacher Hōnen 法然 (1133–1212),
as its sacred texts the three Pure Land sËtras, the longerSukhåvat¥vyËha, Wuliang-shou-jing 無量壽經 (T.360), the shorter
Sukhavat¥vyËha, Amituo-jing 阿彌陀經 (T.366), and the Guan-wuliangshou-fo-jing 觀無量壽經 (T.365). Ironically the Lotus, after Burnouf’s
grandiose translation, was neglected insofar as no editio princeps of thetext was prepared until Nanjō’s and Kern’s edition between 1908 and
191228.
The Lotus was, however, too well established as an important
Buddhist texts to be excluded in Max Müller’s epoch-making translation
series, the Sacred Books of the East. It was included in form of Johan
Hendrik Caspar Kern’s (1833–1917) English translation of the Sanskrit
version made on the basis of another manuscript than Burnouf’s—heldin the Cambridge library from the collection of D. Wright29, which still
was seen as the more authentic one because it was written in an Indian
language30. The Dutch scholar’s approach was, again, a very philologicaland scholarly one. In his Introduction he discusses, on the basis of
Burnouf’s established idea that the so-called Mahåvaipulya-sËtras ofMahåyåna Buddhism—of which the Lotus was the specimen chosen by
Burnouf decades earlier—were later than the “simple Sûtras” 31 (bywhich the texts in the Påli-Tripi†aka are meant), as well as questions oftext chronology and of language (Sanskrit, language of the gåthås,“verses”, Påli). He gives—as far as he was able to with the information

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given in Nanjō’s catalogue—a brief overview of the Chinese translations
and compares them with the Sanskrit version32. To Kern’s translation wealso owe, as far as I know, the first example of a translation of a short
portion from the Kumåraj¥va version of the Lotus into a Western
language by Burnouf’s fellow professor in Paris, Stanislas Julien (1797–
1873). This is a verse section from the third chapter of the Lotus
contained in a letter sent to Max Müller, which Kern included in his
book33. The conclusions drawn by Kern from a comparison of this very
short passage in translation with his own and Burnouf’s translation of
the Sanskrit text is typical for the opinion of his days that an Indicversion of a text had to be more original than any translation intoanother language—if there is a difference from the Sanskrit it must havebeen caused by the translation or the translator, and Kern expresses thisin a polite but straight-forward way:
“It is hardly to be supposed that the text used by Kumâragîva can havediffered so much from ours, and it seems far more probable that he hastaken the liberty, for clearness sake, to modify the construction of theverses, a literal rendering whereof, it must be owned, is impossible inany language.”34

Despite his scholarly approach Kern does not seem to have had a very
high opinion of the text he was translating:“[The Lotus] bears the character of a dramatic performance, an
undeveloped mystery play, in which the chief interlocutor, not the only
one, is Sâkyamuni, the Lord. It consists of a series of dialogues,
brightened by the magic effects of a would-be supernatural scenery. The
phantasmagorical parts of the whole are as clearly intended to impress
us with the idea of the might and glory of the Buddha, as his speeches
are to set forth his all-surpassing wisdom.”35

The negligence of the Chinese version of the Lotus from the sinologicalside is understandable in the light of the Indo-centrism of scholarship in
the 19th century. Buddhism, already positivist-historicisticallyhierarchised into an Older Buddhism represented by the Påli/Theravåda
tradition or “Southern School of Buddhism” and the later developmental
stage of Sanskrit Buddhism or “Northern School,” was considered to be
primarily an ancient Indian religion, and whatever came from anothercultural or linguistic sphere was only valuable when it could contributeto the investigation of this ancient form of the religion. Against only afrom scholarly object to religious text

141

little resistance36 it was established, towards the end of the 19th century,by scholars like Thomas Rhys-Davids, Hermann Oldenberg and others37
that the Påli texts reflected the most original Buddhist sources—
therefore the texts of Northern Buddhism, if they did not mirror thesesources, were to be dismissed as secondary.
This is even more clearly reflected in how the British authority on
Chinese Buddhist literature of that time approached his subject, bywhom I refer to the British naval doctor, Samuel Beal (1825–1889).
Besides historical texts like the Chinese Buddhist “travelogues” of
Faxian 法顯, Song Yun 宋雲 and Xuanzang 玄奘 he mainly translated
texts which were established as Buddhist “classics” such as the Dharmapada, etc., or texts which were considered to be Indian, but lost in their
original language—and in this context the Lotus had no place because it
was accessible in its Sanskrit version. In Beal’s A Catena of Buddhist
Scriptures from the Chinese (1871), one of the first Western overviews
and anthologies of Chinese Buddhist texts, the Lotus is only mentioned
in passing-by38, and in the list of translators and translations of Buddhist
texts in China some years later Kumåraj¥va’s Lotus-translation is noteven mentioned39.

The Christian Missionaries in China
The “canonisation” of the Sanskrit Lotus40 through the research andtranslations of Burnouf and Kern, however, eventually led to the“discovery” of the Chinese translation of Kumåraj¥va through Christian
missionaries, mainly in China41. The growing attention dedicated to it
was partly due to its ‘parallelisation’ with the New Testament. An
example springing to mind immediately is that of the Parable of the Lost
Son in the Lotus and in the Gospel of St. Luke42. The logic of comparison led the missionaries to the conclusion that they had, in the Lotus andother Mahåyåna texts in Chinese like the “Awakening of Faith in theMahåyåna” (Chin. Dasheng-qixin-lun 大乘起信論) attributed to
Aßvaghoßa (Chin. Maming 馬鳴), a similar revolutionary religious Truth
as in the New Testament, both overcoming the somewhat restricted
religious messages in “original” H¥nayåna Buddhism represented by the
canonical scriptures in Påli and in the Old Testament43. The Lotus thenbecame the point of comparison and what was needed was, of course,
not the Sanskrit version, but the text that was used by East-Asians. In
this process, the philological engagement with the text as it was initiatedby Burnouf was, for a while at least, dismissed44. Already Beal, in one of
his few remarks on the Lotus, critically assessed the Indian version of

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the text translated by Burnouf and Kern and wrote in favour ofKumåraj¥va’s translation, although it took almost a full century until
full-fledged translations of this version in Western languages became
available—then, however, in a very short period of time several of themwere published45.
In the late 19th and early 20th century missionaries in China pointed
out that the text was religiously important in the sense that it contained ahigher religious truth than others. The emphasis on the Lotus in its EastAsian context by the missionaries was justified by its actual “Sitz im
Leben,” its usage, importance and popularity in real life46. I would
suggest, however, that it would be another matter to explore the real
range of this religious importance of the text in the lay and monastic
communities in China at that time47.
In order to elucidate the points which I just made I would like toconcentrate first of all on the work of the Welsh-born Baptist Chinamissionary Timothy Richard (1845–1919)48. In 1910 Richard publisheda book called “A New Testament for Higher Buddhism” which, for the
first time, presented what he thought to be passages from Kumåraj¥va’s
Lotus to a Western readership. What he actually presents is an excerpt of
the Wuliang-yi-jing 無量義經, “SËtra of Immeasurable Meaning”(T.276), by Tanmojiatuoyeshe 曇摩伽陀耶舍/Dharmågatayaßas (?) fromthe late 5th century49, which is then followed by passages in verses
allegedly translated from Kumåraj¥va’s translation of the Lotus.
Richard was not only convinced that there was a common source forreligious Truth expressed and to be found in the similarities of the texts
he studied, but he also held the view that the similarities of Christianity
and Mahåyåna Buddhism as found in the “Awakening of Faith” and theLotus stretched back to a common historical sources, which he locatedin Mesopotamia 50. He clearly followed the understanding of theMahåyåna texts which he studied when he discards the H¥nayåna of PåliBuddhism as a short-lived and inferior forms of Buddhism. Thus hewants to show “that in the Essence of the Lotus Scripture, as interpreted
by Japanese and Chinese ‘initiated’ Buddhists (but not as in the enlarged
version in Kern’s translation in the Sacred Books of the East), we findthe same teaching as in the Gospel of St. John in regard to Life, Light,
and Love—a teaching which forms a wonderful bridge crossing thechasm between Eastern and Western religion and civilisation.”51
In his “translation” of the Sino-Japanese “Essence” he uses Christianterminology to translate Buddhist words and names, and heavily annotates his translation with comparative footnotes referring the reader backto the bible—a form of presentation which was already used for thefrom scholarly object to religious text

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similar purpose of demonstrating the similarities between both religions
by Paul Carus in his Gospel of Buddha52. For the sake of illustration I
only can give here two short examples, one part from the third chapter—“Parable”, Piyu-pin 譬喻品, Skt. Aupamyaparivarta, which Richard calls“Allegories, the World on Fire”—containing the famous parable of theburning house, and the complete portion “translated” from the fourth
chapter—“Faith and Understanding,” Xinjie-pin 信解品, Skt.
Adhimuktiparivarta, which Richard calls “Faith”—which contains thesimile of the lost son. In both cases it is interesting that Richard completely omits the stories which attracted later Christian authors so much.
I also have to admit that, by comparing Kumåraj¥va’s text with
Richard’s translation, I was not able to identify the passages even on the
ground of superficial similarities.
“Fold the palms of your hands together,i)Let body and mind repose,
Then you quickly will attain rest,
And receive a portion of GOD’s law;Your heart will become as peaceful as a lake,
Perfectly straightforward, guileless.ii)
When your mind is made up,
Then in a moment, by repentance
All is done!
For all one’s past and present efforts
And study of God’s works
All lead back to God.iii)...”i)
This is one of the Buddhist way of showing reverence. Cf. Tit. ii. 2, R.V.
“Reverent in demeanour.”ii)Isa. lvii.15; Luke xix.2–10; John i.47–51.
iii)
Phil. ii.13. 53“Greatly congratulate yourself,
You are receiving Treasures inestimable,
Priceless pearls—without the seeking.
Leaving your father’s home,
Not knowing where to go,
And adding to poverty-distress.
Your heart repents and thinks of theGold, silver, precious stones,
Of which your treasury was full,
You find the Highest Treasure,144

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Fatherhood,iv) all unsought,v)Inheritance, and slaves
And many people—all your own,
In gratitude for GOD’s mercy
Who with kindness
Won our hearts,vi)
We through long nights“Lay hold” of God’s commands,
And begin to be rewarded, receiving
Great grace from the World-honoured One.vii)
GOD, with rare wonder, pities, instructs
And blesses us.
Reverently we worship Him who is on high,Offering Him all things
In the one chariot of Salvation,viii)
Which may be divided into three—
The elementary (Hînayana),
The middle (Madhyimayana),
And the advanced (Mahâyâna).”
Luke iv. 11–24; John xv. 16.
This expression is remarkable when compared with St. Paul’s words inRom. x.20, R.V.: “Isaiah is very bold, and saith, I was found of them that sought
Me not; I became manifest [italics in the original; M.D.] unto them that asked
not of Me.”vi)
1 John iv.10, 19; Eph. iv.32; Tit. iii.3, 4.
vii)
See p.99, note 2. [there is no note where there should be an explanation ofChin. shizun 世尊; M.D.]
viii)
Rom. xii.1, 2.54
iv)

v)

Translations of Kumārajı̄va’s version in Western languages
Another Christian missionary studying Chinese Buddhism, William
Soothill (1861–1935), known to students of Buddhism as one of thecompilers of a well-used dictionary of Chinese Buddhist terms55,
published what is normally taken as a translation of Kumåraj¥va’s Lotus
but is, in Soothill’s own words, and although he himself insists calling it
a translation56, in reality “an abbreviated version”57 or “a synopsis” of the
text58. According to his own words Soothill cooperated with a priest of
the Nichiren-shË 日蓮宗 Kat ō Bunn ō 加藤文雄 (1888-1934), who was
working on a full translation of the Lotus of his own which was,however, published decades after the Katō’s death by the lay organisa-

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tion Risshō-kōsei-kai 立正佼成会59.
Soothill’s admiration for Richard and his work and the cooperation
with the Nichiren-shË priest explains why he could make the following
generalizing statement: “The Lotus is the Ultimate Truth preached byevery Buddha, once only in every Buddha-world, past, present, and tocome. To the Mahayanist it is therefore the Eternal Gospel of Buddhism
in all worlds and through all time.”60
What both Richard and Soothill obviously intended to do is to digest
the repetitive text of the Lotus, especially what they saw at work in thetranslations of Burnouf and Kern made from the Sanskrit, for a Westernreadership. They do this by shortening and abbreviating the text to aminimum—in their view the religious and spiritual essence— by giving
descriptions of the content of its single chapters instead, and by using
christo-centric terminology.
In the justification of their omitting and paraphrasing style the resultof which can hardly be called “translation” according to today’s
standards the difference in approach of both authors clearly comesthrough. Richard is more the substantialist and, in a way, the essentialist,
who does not really care about historical correctness when it comes towhat he understands as Truth: “The Lotus Scripture in its translation by
Kern, was coloured so much by adaptation to Indian environment thatthe essence of its teaching was obscured61. Thus neither of these books[the “Awakening of Faith” included; M.D.] has been fully understood
nor appreciated. I do not translate the whole of the Lotus Scripture, but
only that part which is considered by Chinese and Japanese “initiated”
Buddhists to be its essence. By ... relying on the judgement of the“initiated” as the true teaching of the Lotus Scripture, Western readers
will be in a better position to understand the vital connection between
Christianity and Buddhism, and to pave the way for the one great worldwide religion of the future.”62
Soothill, without missing the opportunity to offer ‘Western-biased’
ridicule of a projected, but somewhat undefined, Asian historicalaudience of the Lotus emphasizes in a rational way the repetitivenessand redundancy of the text as the reason for his shortening of it: “For theordinary Western reader [i.e. the Lotus; M.D.] it is much too long, as allthat is said is repeated in verse. There is, in consequence, repetition
wearisome to the reader of many books. Undoubtedly the method of theauthor and of his period was useful for driving home truth to thesluggish mind, or to the mind free of other attractive entanglements. It isa method beloved of the unlettered. In order, therefore, that the Westernreader may not miss the essential meaning I have omitted the repetitious

146from scholarly object to religious text

and much unnecessary detail, while making it my aim to portray themessage of the book as nearly as possible in its own way.”63
This kind of christo-centric ‘inclusivization’ of the Lotus became
obsolete after the “discovery” of Japanese Buddhism in the aftermath ofWorld War II. This is normally connected with the Zen-“wave,” butwhat is forgotten is that there was, parallel to the practical andideological adaptation of Zen in the West, first in America and then in
Europe, a stronger preoccupation of Western scholars with Japanese
Buddhism and its Chinese roots.
The study of the Tiantai 天台 (Jap. Tendai) school by scholars like
Leon Hurvitz (1923–1992)64, as well as an earlier emphasis on theimportance of this text in East Asia through its visual representation,such as may be found in the murals of Dunhuang65, inspired, naturally,
the focus on the Lotus in its East Asian context. It is therefore no
wonder that one of the first complete translation of the Kumåraj¥vaversion of the Lotus was executed by Hurvitz for the Asian Classics
Series, but it is also striking that the history of this translation series wasquite similar, although not completely identical, to the underlying
change of direction and intentionality between the first translation of thetext by Burnouf and the first more or less agenda-manipulated
renderings of the Kumåraj¥va-version through Christian missionaries.
Hurvitz undertook his translation as an independent scholarly work
while the later translation—in the same series—by Burton Watson,
published in the year 1993, was made on request of Soka Gakkai
International.
Hurvitz’s translation was made at a time when other translations ofKumåraj¥va’s version of the Lotus in Western languages were madeavailable in a short period of time, and it is interesting to see that they
all coincidentally had a religious background or context of spreading thedharma to the West, mainly to the United States. As mentioned earlier,Kat ō Bunn ō’s translation, which was first published in 1975, wasoriginally made for the Nichiren-shË and then published by the Risshōkōsei-kai. Murano SenchË’s 村野宣忠 (1908–2001) translation was madefor the use of the Nichiren-shË and published in 1974 66. Anothertranslation was produced by a translation team (Buddhist Text Translation Society) in California around the Chinese master Xuanhua 宣化(Hsuan Hua; 1918–1995)67.
Let me, at the end of my paper, briefly mention my own experience as
the translator of the German version of the Lotus, which I undertook
some years ago on behalf of Soka Gakkai International, Germany. The
first idea was that I should translate Watson’s English version into

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147

German, which I declined to do since I did not see any scholarly
originality in that kind of work. It was then agreed that I should havecomplete scholarly freedom of translating the text according to myabilities and methodological approach, which was to renderKumåraj¥va’s text as faithfully, but also as intelligibly, as possible—withrecurrence to the older Chinese translation of Zhu Fahu 竺法護/Dharmarak a (3rd century) and the Sanskrit text, if ambiguities in the
Chinese had to be clarified, thus following a similar method as Hurvitz.
Soka Gakkai International Germany accepted this approach, eventhough it meant that in some cases my translation differs from Watson’s.
To accept this even meant that Soka Gakkai International Germany had
to reconsider and adjust some of their translations of key-terms in
Nichiren Shōnin’s 日蓮聖人 (1222–1282) writings.
This translation process I was allowed to undertake seems to reflect a
consolidation or harmonization of the Lotus as an object of study and areligious—sacred, if you prefer—text has been achieved in recent years,
an aspect which clearly adds a dimension to the work with, and on, thetext that was missing in Burnouf’s otherwise so adorable translatio
princeps. It demonstrates that the status of a text as both ‘religious’ andas ‘an object of scholarly study and translation’ should not be seen as
unreconcilable, but rather the norm in the field of Buddhist Studies.
NOTES
For the question of what significance the Lotus may have had for Indian Buddhists
see the discussion in Silk 2001.
2
With all the criticism directed against paganism or “heathendom”: see the quotationfrom Schiller’s play Turandot at the beginning of this paper—and compare it with thepositive assessment of one of the great scholars of Buddhist Studies in the 20th century,
J.W. de Jong.
3
For instance, the German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) still had doubts
about the identity of the different terms for the Buddha in Asian languages. On the“discovery” of the Buddha and Buddhism in the West through scholars and intellectuals
see Beinorius 2005, Lopez 2005, Almond 1986 and 1988, and, for the second half of the
19th century in America, Tweed 1992.
4
On Hodgson and his role as manuscript collector and distributor see Yuyama 2000:
49–54, and 57–62.
5
Hodgson 1841: 24–25. In his “Sketch of Buddhism” (1827), a part of which ispresented in the form of a question-answer-structured kind of catechism, the Lotus iseven described in a more confusing way: “... contains an account of the method ofbuilding a chaitya or Buddha-mandal, and the mode and fruits of worshipping it.”
(Hodgson 1941: 70–71).
6
Hodgson 1841: 18.
7
Hodgson 1841: 20.
8
The letters are edited in Féer 1899, who received them from Hodgson in 1892 (see1148from scholarly object to religious text

p. 147, note 1).
9
For a full account of Burnouf’s activities and the context of his Lotus translation see
the excellent monograph of Yuyama 2000.
10
Féer 1899: 149: “... que vous jugerez les plus précieux et les plus propres à fairepénétrer dans le buddhisme pur, c’est-à-dire dans la partie de ce système qui n’est
entachée d’aucune modification de brahmanisme[?]”11
Féer 1899: 151, and 153 (letter dated to February 17, 1836).
12
Féer 1899: 157 (letter dated to June 5, 1837).
13
Féer 1899: 157–158.
14
In his letter to Hodgson from July 15, 1837, Burnouf states that he has alreadytranslated more than two thirds of the text: Féer 1899:162. And in another letter dated to
October 27, 1837, he has already finished the translation of 233 manuscript leaves of a
total of 248: Féer 1899: 165.
15
Féer 1899: 158–159 (June 5, 1837): “... je me tournai vers un livre nouveau, un desneuf Dharma, le Saddharmapundarîka, et je puis vous affirmer que je n’ai pas eu à merepentir de mon choix. Depuis le 25 avril environ, tous les moments que j’ai pu enlever à
mes occupations comme professeur de sanscrit et academician, je les ai consacrés sansreserve à cet ouvrage, don’t j’ai lu déjà des portions assez considérables. Je n’ai pas tout
compris, et vous ne vous en étonnerez pas; la matière est très nouvelle pour moi, tantsous le rapport du style que sous celui du fond. ... Quoique beaucoup de choses soient
encore obscures à mes yeux, je comprends cependant la marche du livre, le mode d’
exposition de l’auteur, et j’en ai même déjà traduit deux chapitres en entier, sans rienomettre. Ce sont deux paraboles qui ne manquent pas d’intérêt, mais qui sont surtout decurieux specimens de la manière dont s’est communiqué l’enseignement des buddhistes
et de la méthode discursive et toute socratique de l’exposition. Sauf l’impiété (mais vousn’êtes pas un clergyman), je ne connais rien d’aussi chrétien dans toute l’Asie. Le
brahmanisme me paraît maintenant un judaïsme raide et dur, dont vous avez trouvé lechristianisme moral et plein de compassion pour toutes les creatures. Il ne faut pas croireque dans ce livre tout est amusant; au contraire les repetitions et la tautologie y sontcomplètement fastidieuses. Mais cette tautologie meme est un caractère tout à fait
remarquable et bien approprié au peuple auquels s’adressait Buddha. ... Enfin je vous
avouerai que je suis passionné pour cette lecture, et que je voudrais avoir plus de temps
et de santé pour m’en occuper le jour et la nuit. Je ne quitterai cependant pas le
Saddharma sans en avoir extrait et traduit de bons fragments, bien convaincu que je nepuis mieux faire pour reconnaître votre libéralité que de communiquer à l’Europe savant
une partie des richesses que vous avez si généreusement mises à notre disposition.”
16
Letter dated to July 15, 1837; Féer 1899: 163. It is interesting to note that by thenthe Lotus has already moved “physically” to the top of Burnouf’s wish list of eleventexts of which he wants doublettes.
17
Féer 1899: 160: “... par la raison qu’on n’est jamais sûr du sens de certains passages
quand on n’en a qu’un exemplaire.” This request of more copies is repeated several
times in subsequent letters and shows the rigour of Burnouf’s philological approach.
18
Féer 1899: 165: “J’ai rencontré des details très intéressants pour l’appréciation ducaractère de ces ouvrages, et surtout du genre des predications anciennes de Gâutama,
dont le Saddharma contient, sinon des fragments reels, du moins une tradition fidèle, et,autant que je puis croire, parfaitement authentique.”19
Burnouf 2001: 112; Burnouf 1876: 61: “Le Saddharma puˆ∂arîka, ou le Lotus
blanc de la bonne loi, outre les paraboles qu’il renferme, traite un point de doctrine fort

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149

important, celui de l’unité fondamentale des trois moyens qu’emploie un Buddha poursauver l’homme des conditions de l’existence actuelle.” This is more or less repeated by
Foucaux 1854: 15.
20
E.g. in his letter to Hodgson dated to July 21, 1839: see Féer 1899: 168. A part ofthis complete translation (chapter 5, “Herb”), however, was already published in 1845:
see Yuyama 2000: 1.
21
Letter to Hodgson dated from May 10, 1841: Féer 1899: 172–173; in another letter
dated to October 28 of the same year Burnouf states that the translation is printed butthat he still will have to write an introduction “to this bizarre work” (p. 174). In July
1845 Burnouf still expresses his hope to publish the translation very soon (p.176).
22
Féer 1899: 177 (letter dated to February 16, 1852): “J’ai revu sur un exemplaire
nouveau du Saddharma Pundarîka, contenu dans cette seconde caisse, la traduction
fran_aise que j’avais faite sur l’exemplaire, alors unique, de la Société asiatique. J’y ai
ajouté des notes sur la langue, et plusieurs appendices sur diverses categories philosophiques et morales, parmi celles qui sont le plus souvent citées dans le Saddharma. Le
volume, qui est in-4°, et d’une impression serré, est actuellement parvenu à sa 808e page(rather bulky!), mais malheureusement pas aussi plein que gros.”23
Foucaux 1854: 21: “... de faciliter l’étude de la langue tibétaine.”24
See Foucaux 1854: 23.
25
On Müller and Burnouf see Yuyama 2000: 22–26, and Van den Bosch 2002: 31–34.
26
In Råjendralål Mitra’s overview of Buddhist Sanskrit literature from Nepal the
Lotus only occupies four pages (203–207) compared e.g. with the subsequentSamådhiråja-sËtra with fourteen pages (207–221).
27
On this collaboration with Japanese scholars and students see Van den Bosch 2002:
133–134.
28
See Max Müller in his introduction to his and Nanj ō’s edition of the SmallerSukhåvat¥vyËha in 1883: Müller 1883: xiv.
29
Kern 1884: xxxviii.
30
From the Chinese Buddhist “canon” only Samuel Beal’s translations of
Aßvagho_a’s Buddhacarita and the extensive Buddha-biography were included in the
Sacred Books of the East.
31
Kern 1884: x.
32
Kern 1884: xx–xxiv.
33
Kern 1884: xl–xlii.
34
Kern 1884: xxiv.
35
Kern 1884: ix–x.
36
The Bengali scholar Råjendralål Mitra, not without Indian nationalist undertones,
was one of the few scholars who held an opposite view and even highlighted the Chinesetranslations as a source for verification of his conclusion that the most original languageof the Buddhist tradition (and therefore also texts) was indeed the one of the Gåthå
portions of the Buddhist Sanskrit texts: see Mitra 1882: xxviii–xxxix.
37
On the history of the “discovery” of Påli Buddhism in the context of colonialism see
Harris 2006, esp. 125–138.
38
Beal 1871: 3.
39
Beal 1882: 19.
40
Max Müller, in his essay “Coincidences” (1896; printed in Müller 1901: 252–290),
refers to the dispersed Sanskrit Buddhist texts as Tripi†aka, and also speaks of aMahåyåna canon; on the Lotus as a “canonical book of the Mahåyåna” see Müller 1901:

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from scholarly object to religious text

282. On the problem of canon and canonization in Asian religions in general see theessays in the edited volume Deeg, Freiberger, Kleine 2011.
41
It is not an easy task to trace the change of conception of Buddhism in the West—already a over-simplification of complex diachronic and diatopic dynamics anddiscourses in the late 19th and early 20th century—from the focus on Påli Buddhism toa broader view which included forms of East-Asian Buddhism, promoted through theactivities of figures like Paul Carus (1852–1919), events like the World Parliament ofReligion on occasion of the World Exhibition in Chicago 1893, Buddhist oekumenism
represented by personalities like Anagårika Dharmapåla (1864–1933), Shaku Sōen(Soyen) 釈宗演 (1860–1919) to its single elements of influence. The process definitely
was a complex one where interpersonal relationship and networking and publications
played a major role. Timothy Richard, for instance, was influenced by and aiming at the
Neo-Buddhist movement in China, but also through the Japanese promotion of
Buddhism although this is not necessarily recognizable in his work: for instance, in histranslation of the “Awakening of Faith” (1907) he does not mention Suzuki’s earliertranslation which was published in 1900 although he refers to Suzuki’s work (p. xiv).
With a concentration on the Japanese contribution of this process see for instance
Snodgrass 2003, esp. 259–277 with an analysis of the role of Daisetsu Teitarō Suzuki 鈴
木大拙 貞太郎 (1870–1966).
42
A more cautious approach was already taken by Foucaux 1854: 20: “Reading the‘Parable of the child gone astray’ has one think of the one of the lost son, and one has
already noticed a similarity between the two stories which is more evident than real.”(“La lecture de la Parabole de l’enfant égaré fera songer à celle de l’Enfant prodigue, etl’on a déjà remarqué entre les deux récits une ressemblance qui est plutôt apparente queveritable.”) Some decades later Max Müller’s has also raised remarks and notes ofprecaution against diffusionist interpretations of such “Coincidences” (see above, note40): Müller, Nanjio 1901: 282–284.
43
Cp. Soothill 1830: 26: “The doctrine taught [in the Lotus], whatever its origin, is as
revolutionary to Buddhism as was the doctrine of Our Lord to Judaism.”
44
See Soothill’s 1830: 6, comment on Burnouf’s and Kern’s translations: “Both thesetranslations were made for scholars.” Even sharper in Preface, p. ix: “Too long has thisliterary masterpiece been buried in translations, unavoidably cumbrous and inspirationally innocuous.”
45
Soothill 1830: 6, states: “As yet no translation of the Chinese version has been
published, yet it is the Chinese version which is most in use in the Far East.”
46
Soothill 1830, “Preface”, p. v: “As a living book it is no longer read in Sanskrit, but
only in the languages of the Far East.” It should be noted that Soothill’s understanding of“Far East” comprises also Mongolia and Tibet (see p. 1).
47
Soothill, while maintaining the validity of the argument, addresses this contradiction quite clearly: “... it is just to say that, although the Lotus Sutra is undoubtedly afundamental classic in Mahayanism, as well as the most popular, the number of its
readers is small in relation to the population. This is especially the case in China, where
it is known to relatively few; at least 95 per cent, of Chinese adults are quite unable toread it, as is probably also the fact among the monks themselves. The same remark
would probably apply to Tibet and Mongolia. In Japan both people and monks are better
educated, and therefore must be classed in a different category.” (Soothill 1830: 24–25).
Soothill is clearly thinking rather in historical terms here, a point which is also
supported by the fact that he refers to the popularity of the Lotus reflected in the findings

from scholarly object to religious text151

of Sir Aurel Stein in Chinese Turkestan (Xinjiang).
48
On Richard who is still enjoying in China a high reputation see the entry in Welsh
Biography Online (http://yba.llgc.org.uk/en/s-RICH-TIM-1845.html; accessed 28-102011) and in the Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Christianity (http://www.
bdcconline.net/en/stories/r/ richard-timothy.php; accessed 28-10-2011). On his work see
Lai 2009, and Ng 2008.
49
Richard 1910: 147. It would be worthwhile comparing Richard’s translation with
the Japanese excerpt, but unfortunately I have not been able to get hold of this text. A
quick comparison of Richard’s text with T.276 shows that there is almost no connection
between the two, and this raises the question what and if at all Richard translated orparaphrased what he had in front of him.
	50
Richard 1907: xiii.
51
Richard 1910: 2; similarly 127.
52
Carus 1915.
53
Richard 1910: 170–171.
54
Richard 1910: 173–174.
55
Soothill, Hodous 1937.
56
Soothill 1830: p. v.
57
Soothill 1830, “Preface”, p. v.
58
Soothill 1830: 6.
59
First published in 1975 under Katō’s name only, several reprints, e.g. Kato, Tamura,
Miyasaka 1975. Katō studied with or under Soothill in Oxford between. On the historyof the translation and for a short biographical sketch of Katō see Miyasaka 2008.
60
Soothill 1830: 17. Soothill also published a biography of Richard: Soothill 1925.
61
Richard 1910: 129, phrases this even more sharply: “The immense amount ofutterly incredible local Indian colouring, as seen in Kern’s translation, makes one longfor the essence which is the manna which is the manna on which so many millions
feed.” By translating-paraphrasing a Sino-Japanese synopsis (see p. 129) Richard
conceals that the Kumåraj¥va version is not less abundant than the criticized Sanskrit
version.
62
Richard 1910: 3–4.
63
Soothill 1830: Preface, p. vii.
64
Hurvitz 1963.
65
Already Soothill had noted this; see also Davidson 1954.
66
Murano 1974. Murano was residential priest for the Nichiren-shË in Seattle before
World War II and in Hawai’i after the war.
67
Hsuan Hua 1977–82. See the homepage of the Society at http://www.cttbusa.org/
cttb/btts.asp.
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