Huang Baosheng (; July 1942 – 23 March 2023) was a Chinese scholar of Sanskrit and Pali. He is known for having translated into Chinese many

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...

and

Pali Pali () is a Middle Indo-Aryan liturgical language native to the Indian subcontinent. It is widely studied because it is the language of the Buddhist ''Pāli Canon'' or ''Tipiṭaka'' as well as the sacred language of ''Theravāda'' Buddhism ...

texts, including the

Mahabharata The ''Mahābhārata'' ( ; sa, महाभारतम्, ', ) is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India in Hinduism, the other being the ''Rāmāyaṇa''. It narrates the struggle between two groups of cousins in the Kuruk ...

, the

Bhagavad Gita The Bhagavad Gita (; sa, श्रीमद्भगवद्गीता, lit=The Song by God, translit=śrīmadbhagavadgītā;), often referred to as the Gita (), is a 700- verse Hindu scripture that is part of the epic ''Mahabharata'' (c ...

, the Upanishads, the Lalitavistara Sutra and the Vajracchedikā (Diamond Sutra). Huang was born in

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flow ...

in July 1942, and graduated from the department of oriental languages at

Peking University Peking University (PKU; ) is a public research university in Beijing, China. The university is funded by the Ministry of Education. Peking University was established as the Imperial University of Peking in 1898 when it received its royal charter ...

in 1965, majoring in foreign languages (Sanskrit and Pali). He retired from Peking University and was a researcher at the Institute of Foreign Literature in the Graduate School of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS). He was also the president of the China Foreign Literature Society and of the Indian Literature Research Institute, and a member of the

Chinese Communist Party The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and One-party state, sole ruling party of the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victoriou ...

. A project to translate the Mahabharata into Chinese was started in 1989, by Jin Kemu (1912-2000) and Zhao Guohwa (1943-1991), who with Xi Bizhuang published the translation of the first ''parva'' in 1993. This project was resumed in 1996 under the leadership of Huang Baosheng, who was then Director of the Institute of Foreign Literature Studies at CASS. The 5-member team (Huang Baosheng, Guo Liangyun, Li Nan and Ge Weijun from CASS, and Duan Qing from Peking University) completed the translation of all 18 parvas in 2002–03, running into "millions of words". After further revisions by Huang and proofreading, it was published in six volumes in December 2005 by the Chinese Social Science Publishing House in Beijing. It won him an award from the Chinese government, and was sold out and had to be reprinted. Huang died on 23 March 2023, at the age of 80.

Selected publications

Awards

* 1986, "Young and Mid-aged Expert with Outstanding Contribution" * 2011, President's Certificate of Honour, Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan, India * 2015,

Padma Shri Padma Shri (IAST: ''padma śrī''), also spelled Padma Shree, is the fourth-highest Indian honours system, civilian award of the Republic of India, after the Bharat Ratna, the Padma Vibhushan and the Padma Bhushan. Instituted on 2 January 1954, ...

, India's fourth highest civilian honour.

References

1942 births 2023 deaths Writers from Shanghai Chinese scholars Chinese Indologists Linguists from China Sanskrit scholars Translators to Chinese Recipients of the Padma Shri in literature & education 20th-century Chinese translators {{China-translator-stub