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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, November 26, 2001

Yongle Bell Sanskrit Sutras Deciphered

Sanskrit sutras on the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) Yongle Bell were for the first time deciphered on Monday in the Big Bell Temple. Distinguished scholar Ji Xianlin, accompanied by 8 professors on Sanskrit studies from Beijing University, delivered a lecture on the Sanskrit Sutras of the bell on a visit to the temple,according to latest issue of Beijing Today.


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Yongle Bell
Sanskrit sutras on the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) Yongle Bell were for the first time deciphered on Monday in the Big Bell Temple. Distinguished scholar Ji Xianlin, accompanied by 8 professors on Sanskrit studies from Beijing University, delivered a lecture on the Sanskrit Sutras of the bell on a visit to the temple,according to latest issue of Beijing Today.

Ji, a famed orientalist in China, is one of the few scholars in the world who can read Sanskrit. Professor Zhang Baosheng, one of Ji's earliest students in the study of Sanskrit, presided over the lecture and decoded the Sanskrit sutras on the bell on the spot.

There are more than one hundred Han and Sanskrit sutras and incantations cast on the Yongle Bell, totaling more than 230,000 characters. According to Zhang, the Sanskrit sutras on the bell belong to Lantsha Sanskrit in letterform,and are Buddhist tenets in the phoneticized ancient Indian language. The Lantsha Sanskrit originated in the 11th century in south India, and spread to China in the 13th century from Nepal. It prevailed in Tibetan Buddhism and was highly esteemed as a divine language.

"The decoding research on the Yongle Bell Sanskrit sutras is of great significance in the study not only of the Sanskrit language, but of religious policy in Chinese history," remarked Zhang, "since the bell was cast under the order of Emperor Yongle in 1420 with the aim of enhancing the solidarity of religious groups."



Backgrounder
Ji Xianlin (1911- ), native of Linqing, Shandong Province.

Academician of China Academy of Science (CAS); professor of Beijing University; Chinese linguist; literary translator;��sanskritist.

Graduate of Western Languages Faculty of Qinghua University, 1934; attended postgraduate program in Gortingen Univeristy, Germany, in pursuance of studies of Sanskrit and other ancient language; obtained Ph.D, 1941; back China and became professor of Oriental Languages Faculty of Beijing University, 1946.

Contributes significantly to the research on ancient Indian aboriginal languages form, primeval Buddhist languages, Sanskritic literature, ect.

Translates numerous special works on ancient Indian languages and primeval Buddhist tongue, as well as foreign essays. Also famous for prose writing.
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