A BRITON BUYING BUDDHIST BOOKS
[MORRISON, John Robert.]
List of Buddhist texts purchased in 1839.
[China, 1839.]
Manuscript in Chinese on paper, four leaves consecutively joined together (1970 x 117 mm), written to recto only in black ink; one joint between leaves partly detached but holding, a few small wormholes touching only two characters but affecting legibility, a few small holes from iron gall ink on verso affecting one character only, creases from folding; two ink inscriptions in French to verso, ‘Livres Sanscrits achetés par Mr Morisson [sic] en fevrier 1839’; very good.
A handwritten list of some 130 Buddhist texts in Chinese likely bought by John Robert Morrison (1814–1843), Sinologist, interpreter, and colonial official who played a major part in the British acquisition of Hong Kong.
The texts listed here include the Sutra of Forty-two Chapters 四十[二 erroneously omitted]章經 (often regarded as the first Indian Buddhist sutra translated into Chinese), the Lotus Sutra 妙法蓮華經 (regarded by many East Asian Buddhists since early times as containing the final teaching of the Buddha, complete and sufficient for salvation), and the Ten Bulls 十牛圖 (here called the 牧牛圖, being short poems and accompanying drawings used in the Zen tradition to describe a practitioner’s progress toward enlightenment and return to society to enact wisdom and compassion).
On the verso are two inscriptions describing the books as ‘achetés par Mr Morisson [sic]’. Given the date, the name, and the very few Westerners who would have been both interested in such texts and able to read them, this very likely refers to John Robert Morrison.
Son of Robert Morrison (1782–1834) – the first Protestant missionary to China, compiler of the first Chinese–English/English–Chinese dictionary, and one of the first translators of the Bible into Chinese – John Robert was born in Macao and followed his father into both missionary work and Chinese studies. He began the latter under his father’s tutelage, first while back in England and later in Macao and Canton, starting what would become ‘ a lifelong study which brought him prominence’ (ODNB). Aged just sixteen, he was hired as interpreter for British merchants in Canton and then for Edmund Roberts’s American trade mission to Cochin-China and Siam. At the same time he published important works on China including The Anglo-Chinese Kalendar and Register (1832), Some Account of Charms, Talismans, and Felicitous Appendages … used by the Chinese (1834), and A Chinese Commercial Guide (1834).
From the outbreak of the First Opium War in 1839 to his death in 1843 he was the chief interpreter between Britain and China, his work culminating in the Treaty of Nanking (1842) that ceded Hong Kong to Britain. His role extended beyond mere linguistic work: ‘it is no exaggeration to say that, in most cases, the interpreters who worked for the British, and especially John Morrison, actually played the role of negotiators’ (Wong). ‘During the course of the negotiations the Chinese felt that through Morrison’s ability, “when there was business one could discuss it” … nevertheless, they also issued a proclamation in February 1841 offering a reward for his capture or head, according to some sources 50,000 “dollars” or 30,000 “dollars” respectively’ (ODNB).
Morrison’s central role was expected to continue in the newly founded colony. Its first governor, Sir Henry Pottinger, appointed him to the legislative and executive councils and named him Chinese Secretary, Acting Colonial Secretary, and Justice of the Peace. Only eight days later, however, the twenty-nine-year-old Morrison died of a fever, ‘probably brought on, at least in part, by overwork’. ‘In his official announcement Pottinger referred to Morrison’s death as a “positive national calamity” … He later wrote to Lord Stanley that Morrison’s death was “an event which has overwhelmed all classes not only of Her Majesty’s Subjects, but all other Foreigners, as well as the Natives of this part of China, with inexpressible and lasting sorrow” … In the negotiations which followed in later months, the loss of Morrison’s linguistic abilities and his understanding of Chinese culture was keenly felt’ (ibid.).
Morrison would have had good reason to buy the Buddhist texts listed here. He was a book collector, amassing a library of some 11,500 works that his heirs donated to the British Museum. In this he was following his father: Robert Morrison had been ‘the first Westerner to engage in the systematic collection of Chinese books’, his more than 1,000 Chinese texts forming ‘one of the largest and most extensive collections of Qing dynasty books ever to have been accumulated by a single individual’, now at SOAS. ‘[The elder] Morrison was particularly interested in understanding as much as possible about the native religions he had to contend with’ and acquired at least 120 Buddhist works in addition to more than 100 on Confucianism and Taoism (West).
In his Horae Sinicae (1812) Robert Morrison also translated the ‘Dissuassive from Feeding on Beef’ 戒食牛肉歌, a Buddhist song often used to teach Chinese characters to small children and responsible (in Morrison’s view) for the common taboo against eating beef in China. His knowledge of the religion is likewise evident in his translations of hymns into Chinese, which draw on Buddhist concepts such as incarnation and karma (see Guo & Wang).
Like his father, John Robert Morrison had an interest in Chinese religions, showing familiarity with ‘the Bud’h sect’ and their Sanskrit and Tibetan ‘spells’ as well as with Taoist and other practices in Some Account of Charms … used by the Chinese. He also worked closely with the London Missionary Society and the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge in China, both of which took a similar interest in the native religions of China (with a view to changing them).
Morrison’s purchase of these books would have been pioneering, coming at a time when Buddhism (particularly in its Chinese form) was still poorly understood. Most of what little was known was based on observations of Buddhist worship rather than on texts themselves. One of the few Western works founded on the latter – Abel-Rémusat’s translation of Faxian’s Foguo ji 佛國記 – had only been published three years before.
That the verso inscriptions are in French may also be significant: the Catholic Church remained active in Macao and Canton in this period and may well have been monitoring the activities of their new Protestant rivals.
See Dengjie Guo and Lina Wang, ‘Glocalization: the development and localization of Chinese Christian hymns between 1807 and 1949’, Religions 15/168 (2024); Andrew C. West, Catalogue of the Morrison Collection of Chinese Books (1998); Lawrence Wang-chi Wong, ‘Translators and interpreters during the Opium War between Britain and China (1839–1842)’, in Myriam Salama-Carr, Translating and Interpreting Conflict (2007).
