The Study of Sanskrit in Medieval East Asia: China and Japan

This paper explores the historical study of the Sanskrit language and its related systems of writing in ancient and medieval East Asia. It is argued that the varied availability of teachers and manuals in different time periods and environments led to uneven studies of Sanskrit in different generations. In some cases, we can point to significant understanding of Sanskrit in the writings of some monks. Although some monks had direct access to Indian teachers, the majority of students never had this opportunity, and instead relied on resources in Chinese, which primarily included word lists, rather than grammars. There is evidence for the systematic study of Sanskrit grammar, but this was apparently limited in time and faced a number of challenges. The script of Siddhaṃ became widely studied as a sacred system of writing, but I argue that this did not necessitate the learning of Sanskrit grammar.