Robert Kennaway Douglas

“ From the first, as if by intuition, he mastered the genius of the language; and in 1824 he published a Latin translation of a part of the works of Mencius (Mang-tse) , one of the nine classical books of the Chinese. Soon afterwards he translated the modern Greek odes of Kalvos under the title of La Lyre patriotique de la Grèce. But such works were not profitable in a commercial sense, and, being without any patrimony, Julien was glad to accept the assistance of Sir William Drummond and others, until in 1827 he was appointed sublibrarian to the French institute. ”

“ No hard and fast rule can therefore possibly be laid down for the decipherment of Chinese transcriptions of Sanskrit words, and the effect of this impossibility was felt though not recognized by Julien, who in order to make good his rule was occasionally obliged to suppose that wrong characters had by mistake been introduced into the texts. ”

“ From Taoism to Buddhism was a natural transition, and about this time Julien turned his attention to the Buddhist literature of China, and more especially to the travels of Buddhist pilgrims to India. In order that he might better understand the references to Indian institutions, and the transcriptions in Chinese of Sanskrit words and proper names, he began the study of Sanskrit, and in 1853 brought out his Voyages du pélérin Hiouen-tsang, which is regarded by some critics as his most valuable work. ”