Eugène Burnouf, Father of Buddhist Studies

Dominique Trotignon

Eugène Burnouf only published two books devoted to Buddhism
and its sËtras, but these two works are so remarkable because they
not only mark the starting point of Buddhist studies in the West, but also
two hundred years later, they remain relevant today. This despite the factthat both books were partly unfinished, one being published posthumously and the other just the first volume of a trilogy. To call theirauthor a brilliant man would be an understatement.
Born in Paris on 8 April, 1801, Burnouf certainly made the most of
his classical education from his teachers at Louis-le-Grand high school,from the École des Chartes (Historical Sciences University), but also
from Antoine Léonard de Chézy, the first holder of the Sanskrit Chair at
the Collège de France, and from his own father, Jean-Louis Burnouf,
also a Sanskrit specialist.
He devoted his thirty-year career to the study of Indo-Iranian languages and literature; he was the first, in collaboration with the GermanNorwegian scholar Christian Lassen, to put forward an Essai sur le pâli,ou langue sacrée de la presqu’île au-delà du Gange (Essay on Påli, or
the Sacred Language of the Peninsula beyond the Ganges), published in
1826; the first again, from 1829 onwards, to study and decipher Zend,
the sacred language of Zoroastrianism and to publish several crucial
works, studies and translations on the subject. Above all, he was the firstin Europe to read and study the collection of Buddhist Sanskrit manuscripts received in 1837 by the Société Asiatique (Asiatic Society) in
Paris, from Brian Houghton Hodgson, a British resident at the Nepalesecourt.

First Translation of the Lotus Sūtra into European Language
The first twenty-four of these manuscripts arrived in France on oraround 20 April, 1837; another sixty-four on 14 July, and fifty-nine
more were sent directly to Eugène Burnouf. In total, over one hundredand fifty manuscripts, including some of the most important works of53

54

eugène burnouf, father of buddhist studiesMahåyåna literature: the eight thousand stanza Prajñåpåramitå, theGaˆ∂avyËha, the Sukhåvat¥vyËha,the La∫kåvatåra, the Lalitavistara,
Vasubandhu’s Abhidharmakoßa,
Shantideva’s Bodhicaryåvatåraand of course, the Lotus SËtra(Saddharmapuˆ∂ar¥ka), which hedecided to work on exclusively
from 25 April, 1837.
On 5 June, in a letter to Hodgson,
he says he had already read andtranslated a large part of two chapters. He admits to not understanding
everything [...] but has already had
the idea to publish, as soon as possible, an “analysis” or Observations
Le Lotus de la Bonne Loi, translated byBurnouf, Paris, 1852: the first complete on the Saddharmapuˆ∂ar¥ka. Twoversion of the Lotus SËtra in a European years later, he completes the fulllanguagetranslation of the ‘Lotus’: the complete work, with nearly three hundred pages plus one hundred and fifty
pages of notes. But Burnouf did not publish it: in a letter to Hodgson in1841, he states that he first wants to write an Introduction to a book that
he deems ‘bizarre’ ... This was to become Introduction à l’histoire dubouddhisme indien (The Introduction to the History of Indian
Buddhism), published in 1844: more than six hundred and forty pages,
which, however, only represented the first part of the work he hadenvisaged!
Burnouf, who essentially gives an analysis of Buddhism from theSanskrit manuscripts provided by Hodgson, wanted to complete a counterpart based on Påli texts—to be followed by a comparative study ofthese two documents and a ‘historical sketch’ on the spread of
Buddhism within and beyond India! Unfortunately, he ran out of time tofinish it before his death, although his archives contain several hundred
pages of the translations he had already completed.
In barely fifteen years, Burnouf had read, assimilated, understood andtranslated an impressive collection of Sanskrit and Påli texts. But, apartfrom numerous and lengthy excerpts in his Introduction, only the fulltranslation of Le Lotus de la Bonne Loi (The Lotus of the Good Law)would be published in 1852, the year of his death: a posthumous andunfinished work because Burnouf had wanted to add twenty appendiceseugène burnouf, father of buddhist studies

55

that would account for more than half of the nine-hundred page tome!

Burnouf’s Remarkable Legacy
Burnouf’s legacy is as remarkable as his own powers of innovation. Hewas the first to bring the study of Buddhism into the field of Sanskrit
Studies and to ask that it be studied in its native language. He wanted
the Buddha’s teaching to be returned to its historical, geographical andcultural birthplace: India BCE (Before Common Era). Because for him,
Buddhism was a “completely Indian phenomenon.” He thus asserts hisconviction that Buddhism should be studied not as a mythical religion,
but as a historical event, and he never ceases, through his study of theliterature, to establish as accurate a timeline as possible.
Thanks to Burnouf, Buddhism was the first religion, after
Christianity, to be recognised in the study of the History of Religions—
as is made clear in the full title of his Introduction and of his inaugural
address at the Collège de France: “There is no real philology without
philosophy and history.”
But this historical focus on the Buddha was to have some less positive
consequences: Burnouf was the first to have regarded the Buddha as amoralist and his teaching as a philosophical system. Read by scholars
from Europe and America, but also by many artists and philosophers—
Schopenhauer and Nietzsche as well as Wagner—it therefore offered theintellectuals of his time a subject of heated discussions, whose reverberations—not always positive—are still being felt today.
This heir of the Age of Enlightenment drew a qualitative distinction
between the ‘simple’ and ‘developed’ sËtras. The first, which he considered to be the oldest, depict the Buddha as a teacher of morality
addressing everyone in simple and accessible language. By contrast the‘developed’ sËtras are deemed to be less old, more mythological andmore metaphysical, in a word: more religious. His concern for chronology does not go so far as to give priority to ‘original Buddhism’, but it
did open the way for those who would promote it and saw theMahåyåna and Vajrayåna teachings become considered as deformations
or even as a degeneration of the original message.
On the other hand, this studious workaholic never ceased to stayabreast of his contemporaries’ research, sharing discoveries and analyses with them through sustained correspondence and even a few trips toEngland and Germany. If he is now rightly regarded as the ‘founding
father’ of Buddhist Studies, it is because of this constant desire to compare original sources to understand his subject to the best of his ability.

56

eugène burnouf, father of buddhist studies

And also because he never wanted to “lose sight of the precious comparison of texts with historical and archaeological data, in short he used allavailable external sources of information.”1
While primarily philological, it was his multidisciplinary method thatBurnouf presented in these two books. At the risk of boring the reader,
he does not so much seek to provide answers to questions as to bring thereader with him in a pattern of ‘work in progress’ thinking that
Théodore Pavie called “written lessons” adding: “He invariably stopped
where certainty ended; but he did not discourage the reader from drawing conclusions from the study of his work.”2
Also, even though some of his biases seem antiquated today, his tireless rigour and the consistent prudence of his analysis—including onsuch sensitive topics as the definition of nirvåˆa or analysis of theprat¥tyasamutpåda—are admirable, and remain catalysts for contemporary research today.
Although his work is often forgotten and, above all, rarely read—thefirst English translation of his Introduction only appeared in 2010...—his ideas and his method have become so “fundamental” that they stillrepresent the unquestioned foundation of any scientific research onBuddha and Buddhism.
Notes
1
Jean Filliozat, « Les étapes des études bouddhiques », in Présence du Bouddhisme,Saïgon, 1959.
2
Théodore Pavie, Notice sur les travaux de M. Eugène Burnouf, 1853.

Author Biography
Dominique Trotignon is a Director and Teacher at the Institut d’Études Bouddhiques(Institute of Buddhist Studies), Honorary President of the ‘Vivekåråma’ BuddhistTheravåda Association and conducts works of synthesis and reflection on the ancient
Buddhism of India and the Theravåda of South East Asia, as well as on the establishment of Buddhism in France. He is the co-author of La mort est-elle une fin? (Is deathan end?) (Salvator, 2009) and has also contributed to the writing of several anthologies,including those of the collection Ce qu’en disent les religions (What religions say) on
the theme of Les femmes et les religions (Women and Religions) and La Création duMonde (The Creation of the World) (Atelier, 2002 and 2004).