Joseph Edkins 艾約瑟

Current revision as of 07:44, 21 July 2010

Joseph Edkins; Aì Yuēsè 艾約瑟 (1823 - 1905)

Name 名: Aì Yuēsè 艾約瑟 Born December 19, 1823 at Nailsworth, Gloucestershire, England Died April 23, 1905 in Shànghǎi 上海

Notable Associates: Hudson Taylor 戴德生 Walter Henry Medhurst 麥都思 William Alexander Parsons Martin 丁韙良

Joseph Edkins (Aì Yuēsè 艾約瑟; 1823 - 1905) was an English missionary who spent 57 years living and working in China. He is known for his studies of Chinese religion, including Chinese Buddhism, published in 1880.

Biography

Edkins journeyed to China in 1848 under the auspices of the London Missionary Society, settling in Shànghǎi 上海 where he worked with Walter Henry Medhurst, William Lockhart, and Alexander Wylie. His early work involved translations of medical, scientific and Christian texts. In 1857 he helped to found the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, and began to contribute articles on Chinese religion to its journal.^[1]

His major work on Chinese Buddhism was written in the 1870s, and first published in 1880 in London as Chinese Buddhism: A Volume of Sketches, Historical, Descriptive, and Critical. Chapters six to eight focus on the history of Buddhism in China, chapter fifteen deals exclusively with Mount Pǔtuó 普陀山, and other chapters address Buddhist festivals, literature, and popular cults in China. Although his aim in writing this book was to understand Buddhist religious culture in order to help Christian mission efforts, his observations are interesting for their reflection of the state of Euro-American Buddhist studies during his time. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Edkins read Chinese quite well, and even published several works on the language. He was thus able to access contemporary Chinese Buddhist texts and ideas in ways that other scholars could not.^[2]

Important Works

Listed are some of Edkins' publications.^[3]

• The Jews at K'ao Fuug Foo. 1851.
• Chinese and Foreign Concord Alminack. 1852.
• Grammar of the Shanghai Dialect. 1853.
• Grammar of the Mandarin Dialect. 1857.
• Progressive Lessons in the Chinese Spoken Language. 1862.
• "Narrative of a Visit to Nanking" in Jane Rowbotham Edkins, Chinese Scenes and People.... (London: James Nisbet and Co., 1863). Internet Archive Edition.
• A Grammar of the Chinese colloquial language commonly called the Mandarin Dialect. Shanghai: Presbyterian Mission Press, 1864. Internet Archive Edition.
• A Grammar of Colloquial Chinese: As Exhibited in the Shanghai Dialect. Shanghai: Presbyterian Mission Press, 1868. Internet Archive Edition.
• The Miao-tsi Tribes. Foochow. 1870.
• China's Place in Philology: an attempt to show that the languages of Europe and Asia have a common origin. 1871.
• Introduction to the Study of the Chinese Characters. 1876.
• A Catalogue of Chinese Works in the Bodleian Library. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1876.
• Chinese Buddhism: a Volume of Sketches, Historical, Descriptive, and Critical. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co. Ltd., 1880; Second Edition, Revised, 1893. Google Books Edition. Internet Archive Edition.
• The Evolution of the Chinese Language, as exemplifying the origin and growth of human speech. 1888.
• The Evolution of the Hebrew Language. London: Trübner, 1889.
• Description of Peking. Supplement to Dr. Williamson's Travels in North China and Manchuria. Shanghai: "Shanghai Mercury" Office, 1898. Google Books Edition.
• Studies in Genesis.

Notes

1. ↑ The Journal of the North-China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society was published from 1859 to 1948.
2. ↑ See Hurvitz's review of the reprint edition. Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 89, No. 3 (Jul. - Sep., 1969), pp. 650-651.
3. ↑ This list is drawn from Bushell, 270.

References and Resources

• S. W. Bushell, "Rev. Joseph Edkins, D.D." The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland (January 1906): 269-271.