Samuel Beal

Samuel Beal (27 November 1825, in Davenport – 20 August 1889, in Greens Norton) was an Oriental scholar, and the first Englishman to translate direct from the Chinese the early records of Buddhism, thus throwing light upon Indian history.

Samuel Beal was born in Davenport, near , Cheshire and graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge in 1847. He was ordained deacon in 1851, 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.

In 1857, he printed for private circulation a pamphlet showing that the Tycoon of Yedo (i.e. Tokugawa Shogun of Edo), with whom foreigners had made treaties, was not the real Emperor of Japan. He retired from the navy in 1877. In 1877, he was also appointed professor of Chinese at University College, London.

His reputation was established by his series of works which traced the travels of the Chinese Buddhist pilgrims in India from the fifth to the seventh century, A. D., and by his books on Buddhism, which have become classics.

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Douglas, Robert Kennaway (1901). "". In Sidney Lee. Dictionary of National Biography, 1901 supplement​. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 

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