Chapter 107 8. Chen Yinke

In the 1920s, Chen Yinke supervised graduate students at the National Academy of Tsinghua University, and taught at Peking University as a part-time course. At the same time, he conducted research and writing on Buddhist classics and frontier history.In Tsinghua University, courses such as Manchurian and Mongolian language and history, and Buddhist studies were offered.When he lectured, he either quoted a variety of languages ​​to assist in the history; The analysis is even more precise and convincing! In the spring of 1939, Oxford University hired him as a professor of Sinology and awarded him the title of Fellow of the Royal Society.He was the first professor of Chinese language and sinology employed by the school, which was a very high honor at that time.

In 1933, Chen Zhesan, a disciple of Chen Yinke, went to Japan. He met Shiratori Kuji, a famous scholar in Japanese history circles, during a meal. When he first met, Shiratori was very arrogant and rude to him. The courtesy was very respectful, and his attitude took a 180-degree turn.It turned out that Shiratori encountered difficulties in researching Central Asia, so he wrote to ask Austrian scholars for advice, and replied that he should ask a certain professor from the University of Berlin, and the reply from Berlin said that he should ask Professor Chen Yinke. He said that he could ask Professor Chen for advice on his behalf. Qian's spring break was not over yet, and Professor Chen's reply letter had arrived, and the problem was solved.He said that without Professor Chen's help, he might not understand until his death.

Soviet scholars unearthed three inscriptions in Mongolia, but none of them could be understood, let alone understood.Later, when Chen Yinke translated and explained it in a sudden language, scholars from all over the world had no differences in their words, and they were all in admiration. Tang Dezong and Tubo's "Tang-Tibet Alliance Monument" was difficult for many famous scholars, such as Shawan and Pelliot in Germany, to solve it. It was Chen Yinke who made an accurate translation that satisfied international scholars. "The Origin of Mongolia" was written by Sa Nang Chechen in Inner Mongolia during the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty. It contains many myths and legends, which are quite different from the Mongolian and Chinese history books of the Yuan Dynasty, which often confuses people.In the early 1930s, Chen Yinke published four papers, which revealed the original appearance of the book "The Origin of Mongolia", which enabled people to understand and explain the original puzzles, and had a great impact on the later research on Mongolian history. huge influence.

Chen Yinke engaged in the study of Dunhuang literature and incorporated it into the world academic field, which has been recognized by the academic circles of various countries.In order to guide domestic scholars to pay more attention to the study of the Dunhuang fragments collected in the Beijing Library, after reading, he wrote an article listing its value in 9 aspects, including Momin religious scriptures, Tang Dynasty history and literature, and Buddhistism, which is a great contribution to the research of Dunhuang literature. The authors broadened their horizons, laid the foundation for the comprehensive development of Dunhuang Studies in my country, and created a precedent.

After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, Chen Yinke went to England to treat eye diseases, and was invited to give lectures on Orientalism and Sinology at Oxford University. Scholars from European universities gathered in Oxford to listen to his lectures in person, but except for Pelliot, Sven Hedin, Sha Wan Other than a few people, most of them couldn't understand.Because Chen Yinke extensively cited various documents and used more than 10 ancient Central Asian languages ​​in his speech, it is natural that ordinary scholars cannot understand. Jin Yuelin recalled Chen Yinke: One day when I went to his place, a student came to him and asked for a material.He said: "You go to the library to borrow a certain book, turn to a certain page, there is a note at the bottom of that page, and all the materials you need are listed in the note, you copy it down, Follow the clues to find the rest of the materials." Mr. Yin Ke has a strong memory, which is indeed rare.

After the Sino-Indian War, the CCP secretly planned to negotiate the border issue based on the McMahon Line, but no one knew it at the time. Mao Zedong thought about it all night and thought of Chen Yinke.At that time, Chen Yinke had been knocked down and had been blind for a long time, but he relied on his memory to count every paragraph and every sentence on a certain page of a certain book, thus providing precious historical evidence to the government, ensuring that our country took the initiative in the negotiation and our country No territory was lost in that negotiation. Chen Yinke wrote a letter to his sister while studying in Berlin in 1923.The letter said:

"I saw an advertisement in a Chinese newspaper that the Commercial Press reprinted the Tripitaka with Japanese engravings for sale. The pre-order ticket price is about four to five hundred yuan. It may not be easy to get it in the future, and if it is, the price may be even more expensive. I don't know where I can borrow it for me. The money is for the purchase of this book. Because I need a lot of books now, the total price is about ten thousand gold. The most important ones are the two volumes of the Tibetan continuation collection, the Japanese printing Chinese continuation collection, and other sporadic dictionaries and hundreds of Western books. That's all... I'm very interested in learning Tibetan now, because Tibetan and Chinese belong to the same family of scripts. For example, Sanskrit belongs to the same family as Greek, Latin, English, Russian, German, and French. In terms of exegesis, there is a great invention. Because Tibetan has been spelled with Sanskrit letters for thousands of years, its origin and development are more obvious than that of Chinese. If the method of Western language science is used as a comparative study of Chinese and Tibetan, the effect should be better than that of Qianjia Ladies and gentlemen, let’s go to the next level. However, this is not what I pay attention to. There are two things I pay attention to: 1. History (Tang History Xixia), Tibet is Tubo, and the relationship between Tibetan is self-evident. 1. Buddhism, Mahayana classics, Indian extreme There are few, and those unearthed in Xinjiang are also fragmentary. There are many related to the history of Buddhism, such as the Hinayana law. The translation in China is quite difficult to understand. I have done a comparison with the Diamond Sutra. There are dozens of schools, and there are countless misunderstandings. I think that apart from foreigners from the Western Regions of India, Chinese monks from the Jin and Tang dynasties can understand Sanskrit, so they should be able to get the correct explanation. The patriarch of Tiantai School made a ridiculous mistake in explaining the word "Tan" (see "Fahua Xuanyi"). Fortunately, Taizong is the body of the Confucian Five Classics, righteousness and two sparseness. The Buddhist scriptures are a school of their own and have nothing to do with India. They are the same, so it doesn’t matter. (Zen claims that it was passed on from Kassapa’s heart, which is based on the karma of the Dharma protector. Now this book has been proved to be a forgery. I am very suspicious of Bodhidharma’s statement.) The old Tibetan language is not available for a while. The Chinese Dazang, I really don’t want to miss this opportunity, but I have nothing to offer. I also want to get all Mongolian and Manchurian documents. You can send this letter to Beijing. If there are Manchurian, Mongolian, Hui and Tibetan documents in Beijing, if they are cheap, please ask my elder brother and fifth brother to represent them. If I buy it, it may become more difficult in the future..."

This letter was learned by Wu Mi who was in charge of "Xueheng" magazine at the time, and it was published in the 20th issue of August of this year under the title "Book with My Sister". Liang Qichao saw this letter through "Xueheng". And fell in love with Chen Yinke's erudition.A year later, Liang Qichao strongly recommended Chen Yinke to Cao Yunxiang, and Chen was able to teach at Tsinghua University.