Samuel Beal

Samuel Beal(27 November 1825, inDevonport, Devon– 20 August 1889, inGreens Norton,Northamptonshire) was anOrientalscholar, and the firstEnglishmanto translate directly from theChinesethe early records ofBuddhism,thus illuminatingIndian history.

Life

Samuel Beal was born inDevonport, Devon,and went toKingswood Schooland Devonport. He graduated fromTrinity College, Cambridgein 1847.He was the son of a Wesleyan minister, reverendWilliam Beal;and brother ofWilliam Bealand Philip Beal who survived a shipwreck inKenn Reef.

From 1848 to 1850 he was headmaster ofBramham College,Yorkshire. He was ordaineddeaconin 1850, and priest in the following year. After serving as curate atBrookeinNorfolkandSopleyinHampshire,he applied for the office of naval chaplain, and was appointed toH.M.S.Sybille(1847)during theChina War of 1856–58.He was chaplain to the Marine Artillery and later to Pembroke and Devonport dockyards 1873–77.

In 1857, he printed for private circulation a pamphlet showing that theTycoon of Yedo(i.e. Tokugawashōgunof Edo), with whom foreigners had made treaties, was not the realEmperor of Japan.

In 1861 he married Martha Ann Paris, 1836–81.

In September 1872 he was appointed to examine the Buddhist Chinese books in the India Office Library, London. Of the Chinese language books held by the library, Beale found 72 Buddhist compilations across 112 volumes. His research illustrated key philosophical differences between Indian and Chinese Buddhism. An example was the Chinese version of the IndianMahāparinibbāṇa Sutta.Beale's exegesis of the Chinese narrative revealed a key doctrinal divergence from the Indian version, and therefore between Northern and Southern Asian Buddhism, namely that Nirvana is not the cessation of Being but its perfection.

He retired from the navy in 1877, when he was appointed Professor of Chinese atUniversity College, London.He was Rector ofFalstone, Northumberland1877–80; Rector ofWark, Northumberland1880–88; and ofGreens Norton,Northamptonshire, 1888–89. He was awarded DCL (Durham) in 1885 "in recognition of the value of his researches into Chinese Buddhism."

Beale's reputation was established by his series of works which traced the travels of the Chinese Buddhists in India from the fifth to the seventh centuries AD, and by his books on Buddhism, which have become classics.

The Buddhist Tripitaka

In 1874, Beale requested a Japanese copy of the Chinese Buddhist Tripitaka, the sacred books of Chinese and Japanese Buddhists, from Japanese ambassador Iwakura Tomomi. The copy was deposited at the India Office Library in 1875. This was the first time that the work became available in the West. Beal finished cataloging the books in June 1876.

Works

• Travels of Fah-Hian and Sung-Yun, Buddhist Pilgrims, from China to India (400 A.D. and 518 A.D.),London: Trübner & Co., 1869.
  • Faxian(1869),Records of Buddhist Countries by Chi Fah Hian of the Sung Dynasty (Date 400A.D.),pp. 1–174.
  • Huisheng;Songyun;Yang Xuanzhi(1869),The Mission of Hwui Seng and Sung Yun to Obtain Buddhist Books in the West (518A.D.),pp. 175–208.
• The Catena of Buddhist Scriptures from the Chinese(1872)
• The Romantic Legend of Buddha(1876)
• Texts from the Buddhist Canon, Dhammapada(1878)
• Buddhism in China(1884)
• Xuanzang;et al. (1884),Si-Yu-Ki: Buddhist Records of the Western World by Hiuen Tsiang,Trübner's Oriental Series, vol. I & II, London: Trübner & Co..
  • Faxian(1884),The Travels of Fa-hian orFo-kwŏ-ki,Buddhist-Country-Records,vol. I, pp. xxiii–lxxxiii.
  • Songyun;Huisheng;Yang Xuanzhi(1884),The Mission of Sung-Yun and Hwei Sǎng to Obtain Buddhist Books in the West (518A.D.),vol. I, pp. lxxxiv–cviii.
• The Life of Hiuen-Tsiang. Translated from the Chinese of Shaman Hwui Li(1911)

References

Bibliography

• Douglas, Robert Kennaway (1901). "Beal, Samuel".Dictionary of National Biography(1st supplement).London: Smith, Elder & Co.

External links

• Xuanzang's Record of the Western Regions Book 1from Buddhist Records of the Western World, by Hiuen Tsiang (Xuanzang)
• Works by Samuel BealatProject Gutenberg
• Works by or about Samuel BealatInternet Archive