Samuel Beal

Samuel Beal was born in Devonport, Devon, and went to Kingswood School and Devonport. He graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge in 1847.{{acad|id=BL843S|name=Beal, Samuel}} He was the son of a Wesleyan minister, reverend William Beal; and brother of William Beal and Philip Beal who survived a shipwreck in Kenn Reef.

From 1848 to 1850 he was headmaster of Bramham College, Yorkshire. He was ordained deacon in 1850, and priest in the following year.

After serving as curate at Brooke in Norfolk and Sopley in Hampshire, he applied for the office of naval chaplain, and was appointed to H.M.S. Sybille (1847) during the China War of 1856–58.{{sfn|Douglas|1901}} He was chaplain to the Marine Artillery and later to Pembroke and Devonport dockyards 1873–77.

In 1857, he printed for private circulation a pamphlet showing that the Tycoon of Yedo (i.e. Tokugawa shōgun of Edo), with whom foreigners had made treaties, was not the real Emperor of Japan.

In 1861 he married Martha Ann Paris, 1836–81.

In September 1872 he was appointed to examine the Buddhist Chinese books in the India Office Library, London. Of the Chinese language books held by the library, Beale found 72 Buddhist compilations across 112 volumes. His research illustrated key philosophical differences between Indian and Chinese Buddhism. An example was the Chinese version of the Indian Mahāparinibbāṇa Sutta. Beale's exegesis of the Chinese narrative revealed a key doctrinal divergence from the Indian version, and therefore between Northern and Southern Asian Buddhism, namely that Nirvana is not the cessation of Being but its perfection.Samuel Beal, 'Results of an Examination of Chinese Buddhist Books in the Library of the India Office', Transactions of the Second Session of the International Congress of Orientalists held in London in September 1874, Trübner & Company, 1876, 132-134

He retired from the navy in 1877, when he was appointed Professor of Chinese at University College, London.{{sfn|Douglas|1901}} He was Rector of Falstone, Northumberland 1877–80; Rector of Wark, Northumberland 1880–88; and of Greens Norton, Northamptonshire, 1888–89. He was awarded DCL (Durham) in 1885 "in recognition of the value of his researches into Chinese Buddhism."

Beale's reputation was established by his series of works which traced the travels of the Chinese Buddhists in India from the fifth to the seventh centuries AD, and by his books on Buddhism, which have become classics.

In 1874, Beale requested a Japanese copy of the Chinese Buddhist Tripitaka, the sacred books of Chinese and Japanese Buddhists, from Japanese ambassador Iwakura Tomomi. The copy was deposited at the India Office Library in 1875. This was the first time that the work became available in the West. Beal finished cataloging the books in June 1876.Bunyiu Nanjio, A Catalogue of the Chinese Translation of the Buddhist Tripitaka, the Sacred Canon of the Buddhists in China and Japan, Clarendon Press, 1883, xi

{{incomplete list|date=June 2024}}

• {{citation |author=Faxian |author-link=Faxian |author2=Huisheng |author2-link=Huisheng (monk) |author3=Songyun |author3-link=Songyun (monk) |display-authors=0 |editor-first=Samuel |editor-last=Beal |editor-link=Samuel Beal |display-editors=0 |date=1869 |url=https://archive.org/details/dli.csl.4774/page/n1/mode/2up |title=Travels of Fah-Hian and Sung-Yun, Buddhist Pilgrims, from China to India (400 A.D. and 518 A.D.) |ref={{harvid|Beal|1869}} |location=London |publisher=Trübner & Co. }}.
• {{citation |author=Faxian |author-link=Faxian |title=Records of Buddhist Countries by Chi Fah Hian of the Sung Dynasty (Date 400 {{sc|a.d.}}) |date=1869 |url=https://archive.org/details/dli.csl.4774/page/n71/mode/2up |pages=1–174 }}.
• {{citation |author=Huisheng |author-link=Huisheng (monk) |author2=Songyun |author2-link=Songyun (monk) |author3-last=Yang |author3-first=Xuanzhi |author3-mask=Yang Xuanzhi |author3-link=Yang Xuanzhi |url=https://archive.org/details/dli.csl.4774/page/n245/mode/2up |title=The Mission of Hwui Seng and Sung Yun to Obtain Buddhist Books in the West (518 {{sc|a.d.}}) |date=1869 |pages=175–208 }}.
• The Catena of Buddhist Scriptures from the Chinese (1872)
• The Romantic Legend of Buddha (1876)
• Texts from the Buddhist Canon, Dhammapada (1878)
• Buddhism in China (1884)
• {{citation |author=Xuanzang |author-link=Xuanzang |author2=Faxian |author2-link=Faxian |author3=Songyun |author3-link=Songyun (monk) |author4=Huizheng |author4-link=Hui Zheng |author5-last=Yang |author5-first=Xuanzhi |author5-mask=Yang Xuanzhi |author5-link=Yang Xuanzhi |display-authors=1 |date=1884 |ref={{harvid|Beal|1884}} |editor-last=Beal |editor-first=Samuel |editor-link=Samuel Beal |display-editors=0 |title=Si-Yu-Ki: Buddhist Records of the Western World by Hiuen Tsiang |location=London |publisher=Trübner & Co. |volume=I & II |url=https://archive.org/details/siyukibuddhistre01hsua/page/n25/mode/2up |series=Trübner's Oriental Series }}.
• {{citation |author=Faxian |author-link=Faxian |url=https://archive.org/details/siyukibuddhistre01hsua/page/n47/mode/2up |title=The Travels of Fa-hian or Fo-kwŏ-ki, Buddhist-Country-Records |date=1884 |pages=xxiii-lxxxiii |volume=I }}.
• {{citation |author=Songyun |author-link=Songyun (monk) |author2=Huisheng |author2-link=Huisheng (monk) |author3-last=Yang |author3-first=Xuanzhi |author3-mask=Yang Xuanzhi |author3-link=Yang Xuanzhi |title=The Mission of Sung-Yun and Hwei Sǎng to Obtain Buddhist Books in the West (518 {{sc|a.d.}}) |date=1884 |url=https://archive.org/details/siyukibuddhistre01hsua/page/n109/mode/2up |pages=lxxxiv–cviii |volume=I }}.
• The Life of Hiuen-Tsiang. Translated from the Chinese of Shaman Hwui Li (1911)

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• {{DNBSupp |wstitle=Beal, Samuel |first=Robert Kennaway |last=Douglas |display-editors=0 |prescript= |noicon=1 }}

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• [http://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/texts/xuanzang.html Xuanzang's Record of the Western Regions Book 1] from Buddhist Records of the Western World, by Hiuen Tsiang (Xuanzang)
• {{Gutenberg author |id=35288| name=Samuel Beal}}
• {{Internet Archive author |sname=Samuel Beal}}

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Category:1825 births

Category:1889 deaths

Category:English religious writers

Category:Writers from Devonport, Plymouth

Category:Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge

Category:Chinese–English translators

Category:Royal Navy personnel of the Second Opium War

Category:Clergy from Plymouth, Devon

Category:Royal Navy chaplains

Category:Second Opium War chaplains

Category:19th-century British translators

Category:Military personnel from Devonport, Plymouth

Category:British scholars of Buddhism

Category:Historians of India