Chapter 41 finally found a way out

At that time, the offices of Peking University's Faculty of Arts and Law were located in the North Building behind the Red Building in Shasha.The principal's office is in the east wing in front of the Lonely People Memorial Hall, and the west wing is the secretary-general's office.The so-called "Secretary-General", whose main task is similar to that of today's chief of affairs, handles all administrative affairs of the school.In addition to the secretary-general, there is also a provost who is in charge of the teaching work of the whole school.There is no vice-principal.There are 6 colleges in the school: Arts, Science, Law, Agriculture, Engineering, and Medicine.There are not many management personnel in such a huge institution, unlike what some people with bad mouths in the university now say: the principal has a corridor, the director has a lecture hall, and the section chief has a playground.I have no intention of advocating the advantages of the old times, but the fact above is indeed worthy of our deep thinking.

The Peking University Library is just in front of the North Building, and it gave me a research room.I can take some of the books I use from the library and place them in my study.I learned that it was all due to the kindness of Mr. Tang Xiyu, Dean of the Faculty of Arts, and Mr. Mao Zishui, Director of the Library.Now I can still see this situation in Japan and South Korea, but Chinese universities, at least Peking University, are gone.Doing so is of great convenience to a professor's research work.Mr. Tang also specially assigned a graduate student, Ms. Ma Li, as my assistant to help me sort out the books.Ma Li is the daughter of the late Professor Ma Yuzao, the head of the Chinese Department of Peking University, and the younger sister of the well-known Ma Jue.

The library of Peking University is the world of Jia University.But books on my specialized field of study are few and far between.The Beijing Library, the largest library in the country, has a slight advantage in comparison; however, except for the incomplete collection of Pali scriptures and a few Sanskrit books, other important Sanskrit classics are missing.Yenching University Library pays attention to the collection of oriental classics.However, this situation was only known after the adjustment of the departments in 1952. Before the founding of New China, I knew nothing about it.Even though Yanda has a slightly larger collection of ancient Indian classics, compared with libraries in Europe and Japan, it is really insignificant, and it is impossible to be on the same level.

Under such circumstances, I am really like a tiger falling into the plains and a dragon trapped on the beach. Even though I have martial arts, I am useless.Although I am reluctant to give up the study of ancient Indian languages, I am helpless.I did some translation work, translating some of Marx's treatises on India and short stories by the German woman writer Anna Seghers.I also translated Engels's "Conditions of the British Working Class" written in English. I only completed a rough translation, which was later taken by the Marxist-Leninist Works Translation Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and published as "The Complete Works of Marx and Engels".None of these jobs are my real interest, but just to show that I am a restless person.

This is far from satisfying my restless mood.At that time, the Department of Oriental Languages ​​and Literature had no more than five faculty members and fewer students.If a department-wide conference is held, it will be more than enough in my department head's office with only a dozen square meters.I opened a Sanskrit class with only 3 students.For the rest of the Mongolian, Tibetan and Arabic languages, there was not a single student.I am free in "government affairs", and I sit face to face with a department secretary in the office every day, feeling extremely uncomfortable and bored.At that time, there were no meetings of any kind in the Faculty of Arts, and the school was similar. There was a professors' association, but it was of no use at all to provide opportunities for everyone to meet and chat.

Mr. Tang Yongtong is teaching a new course "Wei Jin Metaphysics".I have great admiration for Mr. Tang's moral articles.Although I have read his works, I never listened to his lectures in Tsinghua University, and I regret it very much.What's more, the study of metaphysics in the Wei and Jin Dynasties, Mr. is also the first person in China.The classroom is on the third floor, of course I will not let it go.So I asked for Mr. Tang's permission, and I must attend every class.There are no handouts in class, he speaks by mouth, I use notes, and try to remember as detailed and complete as possible.He taught for a year, and I never missed a single class.Mr. Tang is different from Mr. Hu Shizhi in that he is not eloquent.However, he speaks in detail, thoughtfully, with every detail, and sometimes has insightful insights, which are astonishing and enlightening.My notes are still preserved to this day, but "only in this room, and the depths of the book are unknown".In addition, because I feel that my knowledge of Chinese phonology is lacking, Mr. Zhou Zumo is suitable for teaching this class. The class is also on the third floor. I also got Mr. Zhou's permission to attend.Mr. Zhou was a few years younger than me, and he might not have been a full professor at the time.Others find it strange, but I take it calmly.A professor who is the head of a department attends lectures with the class. I am afraid that Peking University has never had it, but what does it matter? Teachers who are able are teachers.In terms of seniority in learning, I don't take it.

However, the biggest knot in my heart has not yet been solved: I can’t do my old work, so where should I go? When I was reading in the library of the Institute of Sinology at the University of Göttingen, because I found it interesting, I picked up from the Tripitaka, from that one In the large set of notebooks, some materials about the history of Sino-Indian relations and what the Germans call "Comparative Literature History" (Vergleichende Literaturgeschichte) are transcribed.At that time, I did not intend to spend my whole life researching the history of Sino-Indian relations and comparative literature, although subconsciously I felt that this work was very meaningful and worth doing.After returning to China, although books on Indian and comparative literature history in Chinese libraries are extremely scarce, Chinese classics are vast.If one studies the history of Sino-Indian cultural relations and the history of comparative literature, at least the materials on the Chinese side are inexhaustible and inexhaustible, and this subject is at least related to India, so that ten years of study will not be lost and previous efforts will be wasted.I thought about it over and over again, and thought it was an extremely clever idea.Although I have never forgotten the study of ancient Indian languages, I can only adapt to the current situation and eat as much food as I have.

I finally found a way out. For a person engaged in academic research, the way out can only be at least mainly manifested in papers.I checked the articles written from 1946 to 1949, and I had to trace my way out according to the actual writing of the papers...