Alleged "forgery" of Xuan Zang's quote

Petr Mares erpet at COMP.CZ
Mon Feb 15 16:00:09 UTC 1999


Dear Mr. Ganesan
>   Will write to A. Meyer at Heidelberg that you kindly provided.
> The problem is I have to write 100 letters which are pending.
> Any e-mail address for A. Meyer?
Unfortunately I have received his address from the Early Mediaval
Chinese mailing list as a response to your question I posted there.
I do not know who he is.

>
>   Like I explained before there may be reasons why some Chinese,
> surely not knowing anything on India, esp. the South, may
> think this passage is late because Hinduism (Saivism) figures in
>  there; Avalokitezvara looks Izvaradeva! Also, all LATER Chinese
>  paintings, folk tales put Mt. Potalaka in an island.
>
> But remember the two earliest GaNDavUha translations never say
> Mt. Potalaka is in an island, nor does the Xuan Zang passages
> provided by S. Beal and Th. Watters.
>
> These may be some reasons why some Chinese think Xuan Zang
> descriptions of Pu-ta-lo-chia Mount is "spurious".

I do not think that is correct as the reasoning in these
commentaries and articles I remember has been related to the last
two chapters as a whole, not to any particular message in them. I
think it was philological reasoning, but please do not quote me on
anything here. When I will have chance to go to good Chinese
library I can check the commentaries but I have no material at my
hand.
Actualy the whole geography was not written by Xuan Zang but by
Bian4Ji1who wrote the geography from the information he collected
from XuanZang and I think the parts 10-12 are written in diferrent
style. Please do not quote me anywhere on anything related to
thses topics.

Sincerely

Petr Mares


> Regards
> N. Ganesan
>
>
>
>
>
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Petr Mares
Lengqie Research
Hlavacova 1163
182 00, Prague 8
Czech Republic
Fax:420-2-2423-9157
Tel: 420-2-2422-9755
email: lengqie at gmx.net





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