iters on Buddhism, which even
now are not yet entirely eliminated from the works of Oriental
scholars. With M. Julien's method, mathematical certainty seems to
have taken the place of learned conjectures; and whatever is to be
learnt from the Chinese on the origin, the history, and the true
character of Buddha's doctrine may now be had in an authentic and
unambiguous form.

But even after the principal difficulties have been cleared away
through the perseverance of M. Stanislas Julien, and after we have
been allowed to reap the fruits of his labours in his masterly
translation of the 'Voyages des Pelerins Bouddhistes,' there still
remains one point that requires some elucidation. How was it that the
Chinese, whose ears no doubt are of the same construction as our own,
should have made such sad work of the Sanskrit names which they
transcribed with their own alphabet? Much may be explained by the
defects of their language. Such common sounds as v, g, r, b, d, and
short a, are unknown in Chinese as initials; no compound consonants
are allowed, every consonant being followed by a vowel; and the final
letters are limited to a very small number. This, no doubt, explains,
to a great extent, the distorted appearance of many Sanskrit words
when written in Chinese. Thus, Buddha could only be written Fo to.
There was no sign for an initial b, nor was it possible to represent a
double consonant, such as ddh. Fo to was the nearest approach to
Buddha of which Chinese, when written, was capable. But was it so in
speaking? Was it really impossible for Fahian and Hiouen-thsang, who
had spent so many years in India, and who were acquainted with all the
intricacies of Sanskrit grammar, to distinguish between the sounds of
Buddha and Fo to? We cannot believe this. We are convinced that
Hiouen-thsang, though he wrote, and could not but write, Fo to with
the Chinese characters, pronounced Buddha just as we pronounce it, and
that it was only among the unlearned that Fo to became at last the
recognised name of the founder of Buddhism, abbreviated even to the
monosyllabic Fo, which is now the most current appellation of 'the
Enlightened.' In the same manner the Chinese pilgrims wrote Niepan,
but they pronounced Nirva_n_a; they wrote Fan-lon-mo, and pronounced
Brahma.

Nor is it necessary that we should throw all the blame of these
distortions on the Chinese. On the contrary, it is almost certain that
some of the discrepancies between the Sa