Ji Xianlin

Ji Xianlin (August 6, 1911 - July 11, 2009), also known as Xibu and Qizang, male, was born in Qingping, Shandong Province. He was a Chinese linguist, literary translator, and expert in Sanskrit, Pali, and Tocharian. Professor at Peking University and Fu Jen Catholic University in Peking. He is as famous as Jao Tsung-i, and is known as "Nan Rao Bei Ji" in academic circles. He graduated from the Department of Western Literature of Tsinghua University in 1934 and studied famous Western literary figures such as Shakespeare, Goethe, and Cervantes. The following year, he went to the University of Göttingen in Germany to study Sanskrit, Pali, and Tocharian, and met foreign students Zhang Yong, Tian Dewang, etc. He encountered the Second World War and received a doctorate in philosophy. He returned to China in 1946 and worked as a professor in the Department of Oriental Languages ​​at Peking University. He joined the Communist Party of China in 1956, participated in the anti-rightist movement and criticized rightists. In the early days of the Cultural Revolution, he participated in the Jinggangshan Corps, a rebel organization led by Zhou Peiyuan, and opposed the Nie Yuanzi faction. He lost the political struggle, was classified as a counterrevolutionary, was sent to the cowshed, and was persecuted. In 1973, he began to translate the Indian epic "Ramayana" and completed the full translation in 1977.