Didot, 1858. (See also Kircher, China Illustrata, and article by Mr. Wylie in J.  Am.  Or.  Soc., V. 278.) [Father Havret, S.J., of Zi ka wei, near Shang hai, has undertaken to write a large work on this inscription with the title of La Stele Chretienne de Si ngan fou, the first part giving the inscription in full size, and the second containing the history of the monument, have been published at Shang-hai in 1895 and 1897; the author died last year (29th September, 1901), and the translation which was to form a third part has not yet appeared.  The Rev. Dr. J. Legge has given a translation and the Chinese text of the monument, in 1888.—­H.C.]

Stone monuments of character strictly analogous are frequent in the precincts of Buddhist sanctuaries, and probably the idea of this one was taken from the Buddhists.  It is reasonably supposed by Pauthier that the monument may have been buried in 845, when the Emperor Wu-Tsung issued an edict, still extant, against the vast multiplication of Buddhist convents, and ordering their destruction.  A clause in the edict also orders the foreign bonzes of Ta-T’sin and Mubupa (Christian and Mobed or Magian?) to return to secular life.

[A] [M.  Grenard, who reproduces (III. p. 152) a good facsimile of
the inscription, gives to the slab the following dimensions: 
high 2m. 36, wide 0m. 86, thick 0m. 25.—­H.C.]

[B] [Dr. F. Hirth (China and the Roman Orient, p. 323) writes: 
“O-LO-PEN = Ruben, Rupen?” He adds (Jour.  China Br.  R. As. 
Soc. XXI. 1886, pp. 214-215):  “Initial r is also quite
commonly represented by initial l.  I am in doubt whether the
two characters o-lo in the Chinese name for Russia
(O-lo-ssu) stand for foreign ru or ro alone.  This word
would bear comparison with a Chinese transcription of the
Sanskrit word for silver, rupya which in the Pen ts ao kang
mu (ch. 8, p. 9) is given as o lu pa.  If we can find further
analogies, this may help us to read that mysterious word in the
Nestorian stone inscription, being the name of the first
Christian missionary who carried the cross to China, O lo
pen, as ‘Ruben’.  This was indeed a common name among the
Nestorians, for which reason I would give it the preference
over Pauthier’s Syriac ‘Alopeno’.  But Father Havret (Stele
Chretienne, Leide, 1897, p. 26) objects to Dr. Hirth that the
Chinese character lo, to which he gives the sound ru, is
not to be found as a Sanskrit phonetic element in Chinese
characters but that this phonetic element ru is represented
by the Chinese characters pronounced lu and therefore, he,
Father Havret, adopts Colonel Yule’s opinion as the only one
being fully satisfactory.”—­H.C.]

CHAPTER XLII.