Mr. Zhu Guangqian's elective course "Psychology of Literature and Art" and Mr. Chen Yinque's "Translation of Buddhist Scriptures" have a far-reaching impact on his future development. Mr. Wu Mi's courses "Comparison of Chinese and Western Poetry" and "English Romantic Poets" impressed him the most. He also attended or eavesdropped on many classes of foreign languages department, such as those of Zhu Ziqing, Yu Pingbo, Bing Xin and Zheng Zhenduo, and the most successful one was Sidi's class, which finally made him forget the past year.
A few years later, Ji Xianlin graduated from university with four years' honors. From 65438 to 0935, he went to Germany as an exchange graduate student and began to study Sanskrit, Buddhism and Hinduism, which he loved.
"I finally found my way," he wrote in his diary at that time. "China culture is greatly influenced by Indian culture. I want to study the cultural relationship between China and India in depth. Or you can invent something. " Ji Xianlin studied under the famous Sanskrit scholar Professor Waldschmidt and became his only audience. After Professor Waldschmidt was drafted into the army, Professor Sikh, who retired at the age of 80, took to the podium again and taught him as a student in China. Professor Sikh soon asked Ji Xianlin to teach him all his unique skills, including Rigveda, Dashu, Biography of Ten Kings, and Tam, and it took him 20 years to translate them. Tukholo is an ancient Central Asian language that has disappeared. There are no more than 30 people in the world who know this language.
1937, the Japanese invasion of China broke out, and the Second World War broke out soon, and Ji Xianlin, who had finished her studies and was ready to return to China, was stuck in Germany. The study and living conditions are getting worse and worse. "The plane flew overhead and its voice rumbled. He is hungry. He is never tired. " Under such circumstances, Ji Xianlin spent ten years in Germany, which became his academic spring.
1945 10 Shortly after the end of World War II, Ji Xianlin returned to the East via Switzerland. "It was like a dream of spring, and it flew over in ten years.".
After returning to China from 65438 to 0946, Ji Xianlin was immediately hired as a professor by Peking University. He founded the Department of Oriental Languages and Literature of Peking University College of Literature and served as the dean. At that time, he was only 35. Since then, he has devoted himself to this research. At four o'clock in the morning, Ji Xianlin got up to write. His lamp was the earliest in Peking University. The ancients used to describe hardworking people by smelling chickens and dancing, and Ji Xianlin was just right.
Ten years of catastrophe, Ji Xianlin was sent to the student dormitory to watch the gate and keep the phone, and became an "untouchable person". He pondered to find a job that would drag on for a long time, but killing time was absolutely fruitless. He thought of Ramayana written in Sanskrit, which is one of India's two great epics. He translated Sanskrit into Chinese prose at night and put it in his pocket as a small note. When he was guarding the building during the day, his head didn't stop thinking and changed his prose into rhyme.
After ten years of translation, 1983, Ramayana with a million words was finally published, and China had the first Chinese version of Ramayana. Ji Xianlin has made great contributions to the history of translation in China and set up a monument in the history of cultural exchange between China and. Ji Xianlin later joked that without the Cultural Revolution, the eight-volume, more than 20,000-praised Ramayana would never have been translated.
1983, Ji Xianlin got an ancient manuscript unearthed in Xinjiang. People who have read the manuscript before can't understand a letter in the book. It is a copy of "Meeting Maitreya" in "Tuhuoluo", and it is the most found data of Tuhuoluo in the world at present. Ji Xianlin, who is in his seventies, spent more than ten years alone, completing the world's largest research on indigenous fire, and writing monographs in both Chinese and English, which raised the research on indigenous fire in the world to a higher level.
In the 1990s, Mr Ji Xianlin, who was in his eighties, was seriously ill. At that stage, his aunt, daughter, wife and son-in-law left him one after another. He became more silent, and he devoted more time to the research and writing of sugar history. Finally, Ji Xianlin finished the 800,000-word History of Sugar. The History of Sugar Industry makes full use of historical materials and clearly combs the history of cultural and technological exchanges between China and India in sugar industry. It also involves sugar-making technology and cultural exchanges in 6 regions of 40 countries around the world. Sugar history is a master in this research field. Ji Xianlin elaborated the viewpoint that "cultural exchange is one of the driving forces for the progress of human society" with this painstaking work.
For decades, Ji Xianlin has written more than eleven million words of academic monographs and one million words of literary prose. He has made outstanding achievements in the fields of Dunhuang studies, Indian studies, Buddhist teaching, Sino-Indian cultural exchange research, and Indian traditional culture, literary theory, linguistics, culturology, history, China's translation history, and comparative literature.
Sixty years ago, the eastern world, especially China, was still a place where everyone was bullied. Orientalism is a neglected field in China. Under the leadership of Ji Lao, with the long-term efforts of oriental scholars for 60 years, Orientalism has developed from scratch into a prominent school today, which has attracted people's attention not only in China, but also in the world. As the Institute of Orientalism said, Ji Lao "wrote a great book, which spread all over the world;" Moral articles are very famous in China. "It was Ji Lao who started the discipline of Orientalism in China, and China's Orientalism was associated with Ji Lao's name.
Ji Lao is 96 years old today. He is "hard of hearing and hard of seeing" and laughs at himself as a "four-and-a-half-year-old", but he still reads and writes, burns incense and lives a poor life, as if there is some power behind him that can't be stopped. It is for the sake of inheriting Chinese culture that he undertakes the important task of continuing national culture.
Ji Lao has made contributions to the prosperity of humanities and social sciences all his life. He insisted that he would never write an article without new ideas. For us post-scholars, he set an example for us. Mr. Zhang Zhongxing said before his death that Ji Lao "knew too much, both fine and deep. Standing outside the wall, I naturally can't see the ancestral hall and the wealth of officials. " Ji Lao advocated that historical research should focus on seeking truth, and never allowed to distort the facts and cut off the feet to get a "theory" suitable for a certain dogmatism. Based on this view, some scholars initially divided the research groups of contemporary China philosophy into three schools: heritage school, resource school and interpretation school. Ji Lao has always opposed the ideological research method of "talking about history" and is classified as a cultural keynote scholar with a traditional and standardized position. Ji Lao noticed the history of China in the past, and only paid attention to the Yellow River culture, thinking that the Yellow River culture was the mainstream of China culture, while ignoring other regional cultures. He believed that the Yellow River Valley was indeed the birthplace of China culture, but by the latest Zhou Dynasty, Chu culture and southern culture had reached a fairly high level, at least they could keep pace with northern culture and communicate with other countries. Mr. Ji Xianlin noticed that the recent archaeological excavations have found many new things all over the south, which proves that the southern culture and the Yangtze River culture are quite high. Chu culture and Yangtze river culture have a long history, so they can produce such a great writer as Qu Yuan. If we can study the northern culture, the Yellow River culture and the Yangtze River culture together, the ancient cultural history of China will be comprehensive.
Mr. Wang believes that textual research is the only way to learn. Textual research needs what Mr. Hu Shi said: bold assumption and careful verification. "Boldness" means not being bound by the old, dare to break through, dare to be unconventional, dare to use your imagination, and put forward assumptions that no one has put forward or dared to put forward before. However, after the hypothesis is put forward, it should be tested, some hypotheses should be revised step by step to make it more perfect, and some hypotheses must be completely abandoned, re-established and re-tested with objective materials. This is called careful verification. All academic articles written by Mr. Wang should be original. In order to be strict, Mr. Wang is often forced to revise his assumptions, and sometimes even forced to give up completely. Mr. Wang solemnly declared: parrots learn to talk, which is beyond my power; Chen Xiangyin is not what I want, and the purpose of textual research is nothing more than seeking truth.
Ji Lao is a scholar who likes textual research and doesn't like justice and rationality. After he was over 80 years old, he was "crazy about righteousness and rationality in his later years" and suddenly fell in love with uprisings and rationality, which was out of control. He has published many articles on justice and rationality for more than ten years, and his views have caused great repercussions and debates in academic circles. As far as the eastern and western cultures are concerned, he advocates "thirty years in the east and thirty years in the west", and thinks that the western culture that has been brilliant for two or three hundred years is already a spent force, and its disadvantages have harmed the whole world and will affect the future of human existence. The end of the 20th century may be a turning point from the west to the east. So far, Li Lao has published many articles about China culture and oriental culture. The main purpose of these articles is to put forward "don't love the east and don't care about the west" and "thirty years in Hedong, thirty years in Hexi" under the background of "five thousand years up and down" Oriental culture will reproduce the brilliant "Hedong Hexi Theory".
He believes that religion will adapt to the development of society and productive forces and transform itself at any time. No matter what form religion exists, on the one hand, it can meet people's demand for religion, on the other hand, it does not hinder the development of productive forces, so it can maintain vitality in society. Religion is a necessity of life. Religious needs have many meanings: realistic needs, illusory needs, and even anesthesia needs all belong to the category of needs. Eliminating religion is a very long process. It can even be said that the country and class should be eliminated first, and then religion should be eliminated. Even after mankind enters capitalism, religion or similar religious ideas will still exist in some form for a certain period of time. For any religion, on the one hand, we can't advocate it, on the other hand, we don't need to deliberately destroy it. If there is any place where religious forces are on the rise, there will be no panic and worry.
He advocates that the origin of civilization is pluralistic, not unitary, and it cannot be said that the culture in the world was created by a nation, nor can it be said that a place has produced culture. Denying cultural monism does not mean denying the existence of cultural system. Cultural system is a culture with three basic conditions: "characteristics, independence and influence". He believes that world culture can be divided into four major cultural systems: China culture, Indian culture, Islamic Arabic culture, Greek and Roman culture, and European and American culture. It is difficult for Hebrew culture to form a system. The forerunner of Islamic culture either belongs to Islamic culture or combines with Greece, so it is not an independent cultural system. Each of these four cultural circles has a dominant and influential culture. At the same time, all countries and nations in each cultural circle learn from each other, and there are also relations among the major cultural circles. It is not contradictory to admit that the production of culture is diversified and that there is a cultural system. Ji Laofa profoundly pointed out that cultural exchange is one of the important driving forces to promote the progress of human society. Without cultural exchange, it is impossible to imagine what today's society will be like. Cultural exchanges cover a wide range, including both material exchanges and spiritual exchanges. Since the pre-Qin era, China has been communicating with the surrounding areas at home and abroad. Internally, it is an exchange between ethnic groups, and externally, it is an exchange with neighboring countries. The world cultural system composed of Greek, Roman and even European and American cultures, namely, China culture, Indian culture, Islamic Arabic culture and western culture, has been constantly communicating with each other, forming a splendid and diverse culture in today's world, which has brought great happiness and prosperity to all mankind. Cultural exchange is two-way. The Han and Tang Dynasties were the heyday of China culture. It not only absorbed foreign culture, but also gave its excellent culture to other countries in the East and West without reservation. Compass, gunpowder, papermaking and printing are all over the world. The History of Sugar at Home and Abroad with more than 800,000 words is his masterpiece of cultural exchange.
These new ideas have been widely recognized by academic circles at home and abroad, and their influence is increasing day by day. As for Ji Lao's major field of Indian studies, almost every published paper is innovative and constantly cited. In the field of Buddhist history, Mr. Wang is one of the few Buddhist scholars and linguists at home and abroad who can really study the original Buddhist scriptures. In the field of Northeast Studies, Mr. Wang's contribution has filled the gap at home and abroad. In the History of Sino-Indian Cultural Exchange, as a representative work of this research, he presided over the completion of Notes on the Western Regions of Datang and Modern Translation of the Western Regions of Datang, which won high honors. Mr. Wang's contribution to various foreign language translations is equally outstanding. Ramayana, one of the two Indian epics translated by Mr. Wang, caused great repercussions in academic circles after its publication and won the first prize of the first national excellent book in the history of China.
He has made great achievements in comparative literature and is unique. In his view, the French school focuses on direct influence, while the American school focuses on the parallel development of comparative literature research, which is the two schools with the greatest influence. However, both schools have shortcomings. They only study direct influencers, but they are too narrow and only study parallel developers, but they are too broad. Moreover, both schools despise oriental literature, and their comparison is limited to the same cultural system. This is a close relative comparison, and there is nothing to compare, so both schools were banned. Mr. Wang advocates combining the disadvantages and advantages of the two schools of stress correction to get rid of their bias and find a new way for us. Mr. Wang stressed that first of all, we should be down-to-earth, start with the study of direct impact and search for materials as carefully as possible. We should look for evidence of direct influence between western countries and eastern countries, especially between the east and the west, from folk literature to scholars' personal works, and we should be well-founded and never catch shadows, and then we can work out regular things on this basis, so as to establish the China School of Comparative Literature. We should realize that comparative literature is incomplete without the participation of oriental literature.
Mr. Wang is not only an outstanding scholar, but also a writer and writer. His prose creation is a masterpiece of contemporary literary world. Mr. Wang draws lessons from different writing styles in China's literary history, such as the grandeur of historical records, the richness of the Six Dynasties, the simplicity of Tao Yuanming and Wang Wei, the brilliance of Xu (Zhang) and Yu (Xin), the depression and frustration of Du Fu, the fluency and agility of Li Bai, and the delicacy of A Dream of Red Mansions.
Mr. Wang noticed that all literati are good at winning, but he did not imitate these excellent writing styles, but formed his own unique style on the basis of inheriting the style of his ancestors. In spring, the Yanyuan Garden, Famen Temple and the Lotus Rhyme in Qingchi are all well-known masterpieces, which you can never get tired of reading.
Besides, Ji Xianlin, as an intellectual, and Ji Xianlin, as a writer, are well known, while Ji Xianlin, as a scholar and calligrapher, is little known. Mr. Ji devoted himself to academics all his life, and calligraphy did not seem to occupy a very important position in his academic career. But this does not mean that Mr. Ji does not have his own unique aesthetic feelings and academic standards for calligraphy. Mr. Ji has a novel understanding of literati calligraphy: "Literati calligraphy has its own history, at least Liang Qichao in Tsinghua and Shen in Peking University. Literati calligraphy not only emphasizes the elegance and integrity of calligraphy, but also requires calligraphy to have profound cultural implications. Scholar's calligraphy is not only an art, but also a culture, and it is also the beautification and culture of China literature by literati. From the literati's calligraphy works, we can see the literati's cultural accomplishment and broad vision. Good calligraphy brings double benefits to people's body and mind, making readers healthy. Watching Huai Su's madness makes people happy, and watching Deng's calligraphy is thrilling; Look at Wu Changshuo's ink and ink, the spirit and body are shaken! " The standard of a calligrapher is not whether he has joined the Calligraphers Association, but the depth of his thinking and promotion of China's calligraphy, and the strength of his innovation and inheritance. I feel the degree of "cleverness" and "mediocrity" in the running script of Extremely Bright Doctrine given to me by Ji Lao-it is neither warm nor hot, and it is impossible to prepare both statutes. Similarly, in the forest of steles in Lanzhou, he wrote a long and exquisite inscription, expounding the historical significance of the Silk Road and the value of communication between the East and the West: "The Silk Road has a long history, and eastern and western cultures rely on it for communication. ..... "The historical depth and academic vision are completely different from those of ordinary literati. The book Huanxisha, written in Renwu's illness, is fluent and vivid, with delicate lines and natural structure, which is very different from that written by an old man of 9 1 year. Really, next to the ideological and academic tree, Liu Chengxing was accidentally inserted!
Ji Xianlin studied for more than half a century, learning both Chinese and Western. It is such a world-famous scholar, but he never pretends to be a famous scholar. For decades, he has been wearing an old tunic suit and a pair of cloth shoes all the year round. Because of this dress, he is often mistaken for a school worker. Once, a new college student took him as a doorman and asked him to look after his luggage. He agreed generously. It was not until Ji Xianlin delivered a speech at the opening ceremony that the college student woke up from a rude awakening.
Ji Xianlin said that the person he likes is like this: simple, honest, sincere and easy-going; Hard bones, soft hearts; Be true and tell the truth; Do not flatter, do not talk behind your back; Not the front of people, but the back of people; There is no intention of grandstanding, but a heart of seeking truth from facts; It's not that you don't consider personal interests at all, but that you consider others more; The key is a "real" space, a person with temperament.
"True feelings, true feelings" is Ji Xianlin's life principle. In his lifelong exploration of Chinese studies, Ji Lao has been adhering to the following principles: treat each other with truth, and then be honest; Only when truth is a thing can we do something for the present; Only when we face life truly can we be open-minded. What emerges from the "three truths" is Ji Xianlin's broad mind and deep patriotic feelings.
Mr. Feng Youlan has a poem: "Shan Zhi Huihai fax fire, willing to pay before." Human civilization is a real fire. People who have contributed to human civilization throughout the ages have worked hard and racked their brains to pass on this true fire from generation to generation. We should also pass on the career started by Ji Lao from generation to generation.