Johnston, E.

Edward Johnston(1885 - 1942)

Edward Hamilton Johnston was a British oriental scholar who was Boden Professor of Sanskrit at the University of Oxford from 1937 until his death. He was born on 26 March 1885; his father was Reginald Johnston, Governor of the Bank of England from 1909 to 1911. He was educated at Eton College before studying at New College, Oxford, switching to history after a year of mathematics and obtaining a first-class degree in 1907. He joined the Indian Civil Service, winning the Boden Sanskrit Scholarship during his probation, and worked in India from 1909 onwards in various capacities. He took the opportunity to retire in 1924 after working in India for 15 years, and returned to England. Thereafter he spent his time on the study of Sanskrit, later learning sufficient Tibetan and Chinese to make use of material available in those languages.

Although Johnston seems only to have published one article in India (on a group of medieval statues), his later works show that he had noted local Indian practices in agriculture and other areas, since he made reference to these in his analysis of Sanskrit texts. Between 1928 and 1936, he published an edition and translation of the Buddhacārita (Acts of the Buddha) by the 2nd-century author Aśvaghoṣa; this was described by the writer of his obituary in The Times as his "magnum opus."

In 1937, he was elected Boden Professor of Sanskrit and Keeper of the Indian Institute at the University of Oxford, also becoming a Professorial Fellow of Balliol College. He started cataloguing the Sanskrit manuscripts acquired for the Bodleian Library by an earlier Boden professor, A. A. Macdonell, helped improve the museum of the Indian Institute, and worked on the manuscripts held by the India Office Library. He published several articles on a variety of topics. (Source Accessed Jan 13, 2020)

Library Items

Article

A Fragment of the "Uttaratantra" in Sanskrit

A study and facsimile of a Sanskrit fragment of the Ratnagotravibhāga, published before the complete Sanskrit text became available.

Bailey, Harold W., and E. H. Johnston. "A Fragment of the Uttaratantra in Sanskrit." Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies 8, no. 1 (1935): 77–89.

Bailey, Harold W., and E. H. Johnston. "A Fragment of the Uttaratantra in Sanskrit." Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies 8, no. 1 (1935): 77–89.;A Fragment of the "Uttaratantra" in Sanskrit;Textual study;Ratnagotravibhāga Mahāyānottaratantraśāstra;The doctrine of buddha-nature in Indian Buddhism;Harold Walter Bailey; Edward Johnston

Book

The Ratnagotravibhāga Mahāyānottaratantraśāstra (Johnston 1950)

Till quite recently nothing more was known of the text edited in this volume than that, under the title of Uttaratantra, was included among the five chief works of Asaṅga by Tibetan tradition, which reported it to represent the Mādhyamika aspect of his teaching. In 1931 however a complete translation of it from Tibetan into English was published by E. Obermiller in Vol. IX, parts ii, iii and iv, of Acta Orientalia, under the title "The Sublime Science of the Great Vehicle to Salvation, being a Manual of Buddhist Monism, the work of Ārya Maitreya with a Commentary by Āryāsaṅga". A few years later Prof. Bailey discovered among the Central Asian finds a Śaka transliteration of a number of Sanskrit verses, among which I identified the first verse of chapter i and the opening verses of chapter iii.[1] The MS. gave the name of the work as Ratnagotravibhāga, thereby enabling me to adduce Chinese tradition about its authorship[2]. This tradition and the contents of the few verses thus restored caused me to doubt whether the treatise was really by Asaṅga at all and whether Obermiller had not in certain respects misrepresented its doctrinal tendencies by following modern Tibetan exegesis, which naturally endeavours to support the ascription to Asaṅga by reading his known views into the text. But while this paper was in the press, the Rev. Rāhula Sāṁkṛtyāyana published the first list of Sanskrit MSS. found by him in Tibet. These discoveries, whose importance for Buddhist learning can hardly be exaggerated, included according to him three MSS. of the Uttaratantra[1], and, as the work I had done on it had convinced me of its great value in filling a gap in our knowledge of Mahāyana developments, I asked the Bihar and Orissa Research Society for permission to edit it, a request which was most generously granted. Owing to the defectiveness of the original photographs and the necessity of obtaining new ones on a later expedition, there was some delay in undertaking the work, and the war has further postponed preparation and publication of the text.

Notes

1. Bull. LSOS, VIII, pp. 77-89. My reconstruction was only partially successful, the transliteration being imperfect and leaving much to guesswork.
2. The full name is shown by the MSS. as well as by the Tibetan and Chinese translations to be Ratnagotravibhāga Mahāyānottaratantraśāstra; the second part is merely descriptive of the scope of the work, and the first, being the proper title, is used throughout hereafter in place of the hitherto accepted Uttaratantra.

1. JBORS, XXI, pp. 31 and 33.

Johnston, E. H., ed. The Ratnagotravibhāga Mahāyānanottaratantraśāstra. Seen through the press and furnished with indexes by T. Chowdhury. Patna: Bihar Research Society, 1950.

Johnston, E. H., ed. The Ratnagotravibhāga Mahāyānanottaratantraśāstra. Seen through the press and furnished with indexes by T. Chowdhury. Patna: Bihar Research Society, 1950.;The Ratnagotravibhāga Mahāyānottaratantraśāstra (Johnston 1950);Ratnagotravibhāga Mahāyānottaratantraśāstra;tathāgatagarbha;The Ratnagotravibhāga Mahāyānanottaratantraśāstra

Book

The Uttaratantra of Maitreya

This book is in four parts. The first part consists of Introduction by H.S. Prasad. He argues for sempiternal, dynamic and substantive reality underlying all appearances. He shows that as one rises to a higher level of consciousness, the various yānas, like śrāvakayāna, pratyekabuddhayāna, bodhisattvayāna and mahāyāna, all merge into ekayāna; for each contributes to the gradual realisation of the oneness of ultimate reality, thus paving the way for the emergence of universal culture. On Prasad's view the much talked-about negativism of the Mādhyamika—sarvadṛṣṭiśūnyatā—is not an end in itself, rather it is a basis for the realisation of the essential unity of all beings, sentient as well as insentient, leading to the cultivation and promotion of universal good, compassion and friendliness.

In the second part is reprinted the Sanskrit text of Maitreya's Uttaratantra (Ratnagotravibhāga). The third part includes corrections and emendations suggested by Jikido Takasaki in the Sanskrit text in the light of Tibetan and Chinese versions. The fourth part is an English translation of the text from its Tibetan version by E. Obermiller.
This book is a radical departure from the traditional interpretations of Buddhism and the Mādhyamika philosophy in particular. It aims at reviving

philosophy as cultural activity, a path to enlightenment and spiritual discipline. (Source: Exotic India)

Prasad, H. S., ed. The Uttaratantra of Maitreya: Containing Introduction, E. H. Johnston's Sanskrit Text and E. Obermiller's English Translation. Bibliotheca Indo-Buddhica 79. Delhi: Sri Satguru Publications, 1991.

Prasad, H. S., ed. The Uttaratantra of Maitreya: Containing Introduction, E. H. Johnston's Sanskrit Text and E. Obermiller's English Translation. Bibliotheca Indo-Buddhica 79. Delhi: Sri Satguru Publications, 1991.;The Uttaratantra of Maitreya;Hari Shankar Prasad; Eugène Obermiller;The Uttaratantra of Maitreya: Containing Introduction, E. H. Johnston's Sanskrit Text and E. Obermiller's English Translation;Maitreya;Asaṅga