Romanized names of the Chinese Pilgrims

[Guest guest]

Narayan Prasad wrote:

 

> As per the Romanization system adopted by the Chinese, the correct

> orthography for the pilgrims mentioned above are as follows:

>

> (1) Fa Xian

 

>

> The part "Hsien" in "Fa-Hsien" is not used by the Chinese.

There are two current systems for romanizing Chinese -- the official pinyin

and the old Wades-Giles system. Pinyin is preferable and widely used by

scholars nowadays but one still finds the WG system, mainly in popular

books. The "xian" above is pinyin, the "hsien" is Wade-Giles -- included

because some still use that. There are also complex and changing rules for

pinyin about combining multisyllabic words but there is a clear tendency to

combine binomes = Faxian etc.

 

 

> (2) Yuan Chuang

> Similarly "Xuan" does not find place in the Table of the Romanization

system used by

> the Chinese. The "u" in "Yuan" is pronounced like u_umlaut of German, or

> like the "u" of French. The "Ch" of "Chuang" is not pronounced like "ch"

as

> in "chair" in English, but something like the second varNa of the ca-varga

> in the devanAgarii.

This is completely mistaken ! Look up each character of that

pilgrim-scholar's name in any pinyin dictionary and you will find both

"xuan" and "zang" -- your archaic "Yuan Chuang" is actually based on a

defunct French system of romanization. Your comment about the pronunciation

of the "u" in "xuan" is correct -- it is not indicated in the orthography

but it is a rule that all x + u syllables are thus pronounced but the

interpretation you give for the "z" in "zang" -- your "chuang" -- is

completely wrong: it does not exist in devanagari script but is like English

"dz" as in "adze". This is not, of course, to say that there are no "yuan"

and "chuang" syllables in pinyin -- it's just that they are not the

pronunciations of the characters used for "xuanzang" and also the "ch" sound

is nothing like your suggestion -- it is in fact a retroflex sound.

 

Best wioshes,

Stephen Hodge

[Guest guest]

For those who may want to use these names in Indian languages, I have

a direct source.

 

I have a book "Bharat Chiin maitri ka samkshipt itihas" written by

Qin Kemo, a professor (now retired) of Sanskrit at Beijing

University, translated directly into Hindi.

 

Let me indicate the use in this book using itrans

(http://www.aczone.com/itrans/tblall/node3.html):

 

 

(1) Fa Xian (317-420): faa shyen

(2) Yuan Chuang (602-664): shven chvaa~N

(3) "I Tsing" (635-713): ii chi~N

 

Yuan Chuang was the first Chinese author to call India (and

Indians) "intuu", i.e. Hindu. He had done a translation of "Tao Te

Ching" in Sanskrit, which is lost.

 

Yashwant

[Guest guest]

INDOLOGY, "ymalaiya <ymalaiya>"

<ymalaiya> wrote:

>Yuan Chuang was the first Chinese author to call India (and

>Indians) "intuu", i.e. Hindu. He had done a translation of "Tao Te

>Ching" in Sanskrit, which is lost.

 

Indoi(Indu) was first used by the Greeks. Did Xuan Zang

get the name from them? Would also like to know the source

where Hsuan Tsang wrote in Sanskrit also.

 

"That part of the great Aryan race "which immigrated from Central

Asia, through the mountain passes into India, settled first in

the districts near the river Sindhu (now called the Indus). The

Persians pronounced this word Hindu and named their Aryan brethren

Hindus. The Greeks, who probably gained their first ideas of India

from the Persians, dropped the hard aspirate, and called the

Hindus Indoi." (Hinduism by Monier-Williams, P. 1)

 

"it must be borne in mind that Hinduism is far more than a mere

form of theism resting on Brahmanism. It presents for our

investigation a complex congeries of creeds and doctrines which

in its gradual accumulation may be compared to the gathering

together of the mighty volume of the Ganges, swollen by a continual

influx of tributary rivers and rivulets, spreading itself over an

ever-increasing area of country and finally resolving itself into

an intricate Delta of tortuous streams and jungly marshes... The

Hindu religion is a reflection of the Composite character of the

Hindus, who are not one people but many. It is based on the idea

of universal receptivity. It has ever aimed at accommodating itself

to circumstances and has carried on the process of adaptation

through more than three thousand years. It has first borne with

and then, so to speak, swallowed, digested, and assimilated

something from all creeds". (Religious Thought & Life in

India by Monier-Williams, P. 57)

 

http://www.hindubooks.org/scj/ch18.htm

[Guest guest]

"naga_ganesan> wrote:

 

> <ymalaiya> wrote:

> >Yuan Chuang was the first Chinese author to call India (and

> >Indians) "intuu", i.e. Hindu. He had done a translation of

> >"Tao Te Ching" in Sanskrit, which is lost.

>

> Indoi(Indu) was first used by the Greeks. Did Xuan Zang

> get the name from them? Would also like to know the source

> where Hsuan Tsang wrote in Sanskrit also.

 

The (classical) Greek script did not have a symbol for "h" sound,

thus the "h" sound is implied where needed. I think "india" was to

be pronounced as "hindia".

 

The Russian script (Cyrillic) derived from Greek has the same

problem, they use "x" for "h".

 

Do you the source of "Tao Te Ching"? It is a well known text in

Chinese. Incidentally it was one of the books Rajnish/Osho gave his

discourses on: the Hindi compilation is termed "Tao Upanishad".

 

There was a monastary in central Asia, which was known for study of

Sanskrit. Many of the chinese pilgrims to india used to spend some

time there to pick up Sanskrit. I think it was also taught somewhere

in the Indonesian islands.

 

Yashwant

 

 

> "That part of the great Aryan race "which immigrated from Central

> Asia, through the mountain passes into India, settled first in

> the districts near the river Sindhu (now called the Indus). The

> Persians pronounced this word Hindu and named their Aryan brethren

> Hindus. The Greeks, who probably gained their first ideas of India

> from the Persians, dropped the hard aspirate, and called the

> Hindus Indoi." (Hinduism by Monier-Williams, P. 1)

[Guest guest]

INDOLOGY, "ymalaiya <ymalaiya>"

<ymalaiya> wrote:

>I think "india" was to be pronounced as "hindia".

 

Not likely. Otherwise, we would have heard about "hindia"

from a European source much earlier.

 

> Do you the source of "Tao Te Ching"? It is a well known text in

> Chinese.

 

Have seen some translations. My interest is: in which

ref. can we see that Hsuan tsang wrote some books in english?

 

Arthur Waley's translation of the monkey (Journey to the West)

is a chinese novel genre, of Xuan Zang's travels in India.

 

Regards,

N. Ganesan