Abstract
As a product of language contact, the Chinese translation of Buddhist sutras has significant linguistic values. However, it is hard to accurately identify the translators and years of translation for some early translated sutras. Considering that the Chinese translation was mingled with elements loaned from foreign languages, mostly Sanskrit, in order to conduct identification from the linguistic perspective, it is necessary to adopt both external and internal linguistic evidences. The external approach is to analyze the characteristics of translation embodied in the corpus using the proofreading method with parallel texts of the Sanskrit original and the Chinese translation, and the internal approach is to examine the language style and language use habits of the translator according to the identification criteria of the Chinese corpora. Taking Buddhacarita as a case, this paper attempts to identify its translator with both the two-fold evidences, which provides a new way for the identification of such corpora.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Yu, X., Cao, G.: Also on the translator’s problem of Liu Du Ji Jing and Jiu Za Pi Yu Jing from the perspective of language [也从语言上看《六度集经》与《旧杂譬喻经》的译者问题]. Ancient Chin. Stud. [古汉语研究] 2, 4–7 (1998)
Hu, C.: A summary of the identification of middle ancient chinese corpus [中古汉语语料鉴别述要]. J. Chin. Hist. [汉语史学报] 1, 270–279 (2005)
Hu, S.: History of Vernacular Literature [白话文学史]. Shanghai Press [上海书局], Shanghai (1929)
Rao, Z.: Collection of Sanskrit Knowledges [梵学集]. Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House, Shanghai (1993)
Zhou, Y.: The History of the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties [魏晋南北朝史论集]. Peking University Press, Beijing China (1997)
Daijo, T.: Record of the translation of Buddhist scriptures from the Eastern Han dynasty to Southern Qi dynasty [后汉至宋齐译经总录]. Institute of Oriental Culture, Tokyo Institute[东方文化学院东京研究所], Tokyo, Japan (1938)
Kanakura, E.: Works of Aśvaghoṣa [马鸣の著作]. Religious research [宗教研究], vol. 153 (1957)
Willemen, C.: Chinese buddhacarita. In: Proceedings of the World Buddhist Forum (2006)
Fang, Y.: Extraction and principle of common identification words: focusing on early Chinese translation of buddhist scriptures [普通鉴别词的提取及原则—以早期汉译佛经鉴别为中心]. Lang. Res. [语文研究] 2, 8–16 (2009)
Acknowledgments
The work was supported by the Beijing Social Science Foundation (Grant No. 17YYC019). The author would also like to thank the national youth talent support plan in the Ten Thousand Talent Program.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Qiu, B. (2020). Two-Fold Linguistic Evidences on the Identification of Chinese Translation of Buddhist Sutras: Taking Buddhacarita as a Case. In: Hong, JF., Zhang, Y., Liu, P. (eds) Chinese Lexical Semantics. CLSW 2019. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 11831. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38189-9_85
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38189-9_85
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-38188-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-38189-9
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)