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Buddhist texts in the Indian cultural realm: some basic terms and concepts
Prakrit (< prakṛta “natural, unrefined”) vs. Sanskrit (< saṁskṛta “put together, elegant, refined”)
• = Middle Indic vernacular languages (also called MIA, “Middle Indo-Āryan”)
Pāli: pāli-bhāsā (in commentaries, not in the canonical texts) “the pāli language”
• pāli “[canonical] texts” (NB: not the name of a language!)
Gāndhārī (the language of Gandhāra [northern Pakistan and southern Afghanistan], but also used far
beyond this region):
• see the ongoing dictionary and bibliography being compiled by Stefan Baums and Andrew Glass
(2002- ) at gandhari.org
• for a general introduction to the remarkable findings in this language see Salomon 1999
Three periods in Chinese Buddhist translation history according to de Jong 1968 (based on the places of origin
of foreign translators):
(1) from the beginning [mid-2nd c.] until 265 CE: mostly from the “Western Regions” 西域 (i.e., Central
Asia)
(2) from 265-479 CE: mostly from Kashmir
(3) 479-618 CE: mostly from the Indian subcontinent
Ethnic background of the translators translators during the first of these periods:
• Ān 安 (Parthian)
• Zhī 支 (Yuezhi)
• Kāng 康 (Sogdian)
Translators active in Luoyang during the 2nd century CE and their works:
• Ān Shìgāo 安世高, c. 147-168 CE: exclusively non-Mahāyāna texts, generally considered to reflect a
Sarvāstivādin tradition; some but not all containing signs of having been translated from Gāndhārī
– translation policy: translated Buddhist terms (karma, nirvāṇa, etc.), transcribed proper names
– style: very clunky/rough, no literary appeal (translates verses as prose), retains much of the
Indian word order
• Lokakṣema (Zhī Lóujiāchèn 支婁迦讖) and his group, c. 179 CE: exclusively Mahāyāna texts, again
with some indications of Gāndhārī sources
– translation policy: transcribed virtually all Buddhist terms (including upāyakauśalya,
sarvajña, and anuttarasamyaksambodhi!) as well as proper names
– style: very inelegant, long (un-Chinese) sentences bristling with multi-syllabic foreign terms
– completely omits the phrase “Thus have I heard” at the beginning of sūtras
• Ān Xuán 安玄 and Yán Fótiào 嚴佛調 (var. 嚴浮調), c. 180 CE: just one (Mahāyāna) text
– translation policy: translated virtually all proper names, as well as Buddhist terms (e.g., Śrāvastī
as 聞物 wén wù “hear” + “things”, cf. Tib. mnyan yod; 各佛 gè fó “individual Buddha” (for
pratyekabuddha)
– style: not at all literary, sometimes difficult to understand
and one translator from the beginning of the 3rd century:
• Kāng Mèngxiáng 康孟詳 : sole surviving work is (part of) a biography of the Buddha
– translation policy: translated many but not all proper names, as well as Buddhist terms
– first translator to use regular unrhymed meter (5-character “verse”) to translate Indian verse passages
– beginnings of a more literary style in Chinese translations
References
Brough, John. The Gāndhārī Dharmapada. London: Oxford University Press, 1962.
Haberman, David L., and Jan Nattier. “What Ever Became of Translation?” Religious Studies News, vol.
11, no. 4 (November 1996), p. 13.
Hinüber, Oskar von. “Pāli as an Artificial Language.” Indologica Taurinensia, vol. 10 (1982), pp. 133-
140.
__________. A Handbook of Pāli Literature. Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1996.
Jong, J. W. de. “Buddha’s Word in China.” 28th George Ernest Morrison Lecture (given in 1967).
Canberra, 1968.
Lancaster, Lewis R., and Sung-bae Park, eds. The Korean Buddhist Canon: A Descriptive Catalogue.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979.
Lenz, Timothy. Gandhāran Avadānas: British Library Kharoṣṭhī Fragments 1–3 and 21 and
Supplementary Fragments A–C. Gandhāran Buddhist Texts 6. Seattle/London: University of
Washington Press, 2010. [see the introduction for an accessible discussion of the very distinctive
genre of avadānas in Gāndhārī]
Mayrhofer, Manfred. Kurzgefasstes etymologisches Wörterbuch des Altindischen = A concise
etymological Sanskrit dictionary. 4 vols. Heidelberg : C. Winter, 1956-1980.
Nattier, Jan. "Church Language and Vernacular Language in Central Asian Buddhism." Numen, vol. 37
(1990), pp. 195-219.
__________. “The Teaching of Vimalakīrti (Vimalakīrtinirdeśa): A Review of Four English
Translations.” Buddhist Literature, vol. 2 (2000), pp. 234-258.
__________. A Guide to the Earliest Chinese Buddhist Translations: Texts from the Eastern Han 東漢
and Three Kingdoms 三國 Periods. Bibliotheca Philologica et Philosophica Buddhica, X. Tokyo:
The International Research Institute for Advanced Buddhology, Soka University, 2008.
__________. “Now You Hear It, Now You Don’t: The Phrase ‘Thus Have I Heard’ in Early Chinese
Buddhist Translations.” In Tansen Sen, ed., Buddhism Across Asia: Networks of Material,
Intellectual and Cultural Exchange, vol. 1 (Singapore: Institute for Southeast Asian Studies, 2014),
pp. 39-64.
Norman, K. R. “The Dialects in Which the Buddha Preached.” In Heinz Bechert, ed., The Language of
the Earliest Buddhist Tradition/Die Sprache der ältesten buddhistischen Überlieferung,
Abhandlungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen, Phil.-Hist. Klasse, Dritte Folge, No.
117 (1980), pp. 61-77.
__________. Pāli Literature, Including the Canonical Literature in Prakrit and Sanskrit of All the
Hīnayāna Schools of Buddhism. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrasowitz, 1983.
Salomon, Richard. Ancient Buddhist Scrolls from Gandhāra: The British Library Kharoṣṭhī Fragments.
Seattle: University of Washington Press/British Library, 1999.