PREFACE
Several times during my long residence in Hong Kong I endeavoured
to read through the "Narrative of Fa-hien;" but though interested with the
graphic details of much of the work, its columns bristled so constantly--
now with his phonetic representations of Sanskrit words, and now with his
substitution for them of their meanings in Chinese characters, and I was,
moreover, so much occupied with my own special labours on the
Confucian Classics, that my success was far from satisfactory. When Dr.
Eitel\'s "Handbook for the Student of Chinese Buddhism" appeared in 1870,
the difficulty occasioned by the Sanskrit words and names was removed,
but the other difficulty remained; and I was not able to look into the book
again for several years. Nor had I much inducement to do so in the two
copies of it which I had been able to procure, on poor paper, and printed
from blocks badly cut at first, and so worn with use as to yield books the
reverse of attractive in their appearance to the student.