The Project Gutenberg EBook of Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3)
by Charles Eliot

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Title: Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3)
An Historical Sketch

Author: Charles Eliot

Release Date: August 19, 2005 [EBook #16546]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Transcriber's Note:

Volume 1 may be found at http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/5/2/5/15255/

Excerpts from the Preface to the book from Volume 1,
regarding the method of transcription used.

"In the following pages I have occasion to transcribe words
belonging to many oriental languages in Latin characters.
Unfortunately a uniform system of transcription, applicable
to all tongues, seems not to be practical at present. It was
attempted in the Sacred Books of the East, but that system
has fallen into disuse and is liable to be misunderstood. It
therefore seems best to use for each language the method of
transcription adopted by standard works in English dealing
with each, for French and German transcriptions, whatever
their merits may be as representations of the original
sounds, are often misleading to English readers, especially
in Chinese. For Chinese I have adopted Wade's system as used
in Giles's Dictionary, for Tibetan the system of Sarat
Chandra Das, for Pali that of the Pali Text Society and for
Sanskrit that of Monier-Williams's Sanskrit Dictionary,
except that I write s instead of s. Indian languages however
offer many difficulties: it is often hard to decide whether
Sanskrit or vernacular forms are more suitable and in
dealing with Buddhist subjects whether Sanskrit or Pali
words should be used. I have found it convenient to vary the
form of proper names according as my remarks are based on
Sanskrit or on Pali literature, but this obliges me to write
the same word differently in different places, e.g.
sometimes Ajatasatru and sometimes Aj