The Transmission of the Buddhadharma from India to China: An Examination of Kumārajīva’s Transliteration of the Dhāraṇīs of the Saddharmapuṇḍarīkasūtra
This article examines the transmission of the Buddha’s teachings from India to China through the lens of the dhāraṇīs of the Lotus Sutra. Kumārajīva was the first Chinese translator to undertake a transliteration of the dhāraṇīs that attempted to retain their ritual efficacy for Chinese Buddhists. H...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
2018
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| In: |
Dynamics in the history of religions
Year: 2018, Volume: 10, Pages: 137-195 |
| Further subjects: | B
Religion in Asien
B Asia B Religion B Asien-Studien B Religionswissenschaften B History |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | This article examines the transmission of the Buddha’s teachings from India to China through the lens of the dhāraṇīs of the Lotus Sutra. Kumārajīva was the first Chinese translator to undertake a transliteration of the dhāraṇīs that attempted to retain their ritual efficacy for Chinese Buddhists. His source text was Prakritic in nature and shown to be centuries earlier than the Sanskrit MSS that have survived. The transmission of the buddhadharma from India to China was a highly complex process with dozens of human, temporal, spatial, dialectal, scribal, psychological and phonological variables, making it impossible to transmit the teachings error free. Although it is impossible to unravel the complex transmission history, a study of the dhāraṇis opens a unique window on the exchange of information between India and China in the early centuries of the common era and the interaction of two very different cultural and linguistic environments. |
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| Contains: | Enthalten in: Dynamics in the history of religions
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1163/9789004366152_007 |