The Brief Comparison of Western Bible Translation and Chinese Buddhist Translation

【摘要】本文通過总结这两种宗教翻译历史，描述了翻译的发展历程，并因此讨论了它们的差异性与相似性。

【关键词】圣经翻译；佛经翻译；宗教

【Abstract】The paper describes the evolvement of transation theory through summarizing these two religious history， which paves the way for comparing western Bible translation and Chinese Buddhist translation.

【Key words】The Bible translation； Buddhist translation； Religion

【作者简介】张雪洁，天津工业大学。

It is inevitable for both western world and China to take religious factors into consideration for the sake of studying translation theory. It goes without doubt that “the history of Bible translation is a history of Western culture in microcosm.”the history of Sutra translation in China is almost the history of Chinese translation before Ming Dynasty.

1. The Summary of the Bible and Buddhist Translation Theories

1.1 The Bible Translation Theories

In ancient times， the Egyptian Emperor organized the translation activity and produced the Septuagint. This absolutely a crystallization of the collective wisdom interfered by the politics. The concerted effort of Septuagint turned out to be influential. Unfortunately， there is no viewpoint of translation being found.

At the position of church， Philo Judaeus set standards for becoming a translator who should master the professional knowledge. St. Jerome explicated the difference between translating literature and religious texts. His classification is related with the choice of translation materials. And he also asserted that it had better utilize flexible literal translation other than dead one. For St. Augustine， he illustrated his translation methods from three aspects of translator， original texts， readers and linguistics. He thought that translator must be familiar with the genre as well as capable of translating.

Against the background of “Dark Middle Age”， there are a few people posing outstanding translation theories but Ulfila， Aelfric， especially Jon Wycliffe. Among them， Ulfila created Gothic language to render some parts of Latin Bible. Aelfric made contributions to diffuse English by turning a partial of The Bible of Latin version into English. Jon Wycliffe was obliged to retranslate The Bible by the Church， and he realized that it was a concert work to revise the authentic Latin text of The Bible which were in need of improving the elegance.

Outstanding translators in renaissance more or less sought for the freedom in the right of national or ethical language by balancing the conflicts on the interpretation of ethnic language or Latin， vernacular or official language. Such enlightenment has impaired the authority of the Church， and awoke the national consciousness. Martin Luther supported that translator is rich in knowledge and respectful to original work， and the style of translation meet the needs of readers. In the linguistic level， there are three elements of grammar， meaning and figure of speech to be care about. William Tyndal were brave enough and completed the English version of The Bible with the feature of easiness. William Fulke described that translation is independent with religion， but closely relates with obeying language laws and measure words with caution. He advocated using a new language with English characteristics.

As demonstrated above， the process of translating The Bible shows the liberation and prosperity of the cultural diversity， mainly national languages. Primarily， the activities of translating the Bible were hosted under the influence of political authority shifted from that to religion， then the faithfulness of translation was subject to religious rule. There are four factors gradually being liberated in turn， such as translator， original text， language， and reader. The first one directed at translators， possessing a good professional knowledge and linguistics. They initially were responsible for the politics when they translating The Bible， church the next， up to the ordinary people and nationality. Church strictly restrain translators activities and requires them to translate word for word to guarantee the fidelity. But those translators are prone to use flexible literal translation or “sense for sense” translation through their practice. It is with these ideas that translators see the new silver light those sheds on existing translated texts of the Bible to fight for free translation. Every retranslation of the Bible with the permission of church can arouse a heated discussion.Translators increasingly attached importance to the ethic and vernacular languages， used them to disseminate religious belief， and enlighten people directly by pursuing the easy-to-understand style for the convenience of spreading religious thoughts.

1.2 The Buddhist Translation Theories

A brief look at the history of translating Buddhist scripture till North Song Dynasty reveals a changing process of translation development. And the debates on translation were started around translators ability of whether mastered the source language and the target language. At first， Buddhist scriptures were not available before 3 or 4 century. So translating sutras totally based on the memory of missionaries， e.g. An Shigao. And the procedures were involved steps below： a foreign missionary with little or no Chinese knowledge recited （Koushou） Buddhist lections in national languages， such as Central Asian or Indic languages， not expressed in Chinese； a foreign missionary with some Chinese knowledge interpreted them into Chinese （Chuanyan）； and a native Chinese with little knowledge of Central Asian or Indic languages put the interpretation down into Chinese characters （Bishou）. It had been inevitable that misinterpretation and mistranslation occurred.

When it comes to the discussion of wen （文）and zhi

（质），the translators with having a good command of both the source and target languages appeared， one of them is Zhi Qian. He took the lead in using the elegant style rather than simple style. He replaced the earlier translations by translations of the meaning， used the footnotes for the first time so far， and borrowed concepts from Chinese classics， for example， Confucian and Chuangtzu.

Another great person Daoan came to a path diametrically opposed to Zhi Qians geyi （格譯）. He practiced literalism in translation， and put down his rendering theories of Five Losses and three Difficulties in favor of accuracy and presenting the original as it is. And he and his assistants explored the differences between Chinese and foreign language on the time dimension. Whereas Kumarajiva did his utmost to “coin Chinese terms specially suited to Buddhism”. He not only adhered to pursue fidelity and expressiveness， but also the aesthetic feeling. His translations were featured with clarity and elegance. The attempt to achieve faithfulness， Kumarajiva “held the original text， interpreted the scripture from Sanskrit into Chinese and expounded the idea. Then an old Chinese version was used for reference or for textual criticism”， which recorded in Sengrui s preface of Dapin jing xu. It was proved that his translating products won the popularity in the history. Meanwhile， this marked that translation added two procedures of Zhengyi （证义） for textual research and Jiaodui （校对） for proofreading. The process of translating was systemized well， and produced the better quality of translations.

Hui Yuan was the one who had both connections with Daoan and Kumarajiva， knew clearly about their divergence of translation views. Afterwards， he suggested the way of appropriateness to channel the conflicts between “the simple school”（Daoan） and “the elegant school”. Sengrui， proficient in Sanskrit and Chinese， elaborated a lot on the problem of the name （名） and the nature （实） related to the translation. Sengyou later further discussed this problem in terms of the origin of Sanskrit and Chinese and their different pronunciation. Yan Cong expatiated on the standards for translators from two angles： personality and knowledge. As to Xuanzang， he adopted an inclusive attitude towards the selection of translation materials which contained various Buddhist schools. He also collated previous versions of lections， and perfected the process of translation.

In sum， translation problems firstly are involved much with whether translators are skillful in mastering knowledge of the source and target language and the existing form of language， e.g. oral or written form. In practice， translators further compared the old versions with contemporary counterparts， and posed the problem of the name and the nature. These led translator to a better awareness of the nature of translation and violate infidelity to the original.

2. The Comparison Between Them

2.1 The Similarity between Them

At the beginning， both translating activities were politically supported， and they were once collective products. They both required the translators to have rich knowledge of at least two languages， to be honest and pious to religious belief. Translators were aimed to make translations more easy-to-understand for spreading religious thoughts to audiences. The translating methods had experienced similarly， changed from dead translation to literal translation， from the literal translation to flexible translation， from the flexible translation to free translation. These changes proceeded to the underlying evolvement trend of vernacular.

2.2 The Difference Between Them

The position of religion is different. In the west， religion was paralleled with imperial power， and it ruled the spiritual world of people in the past. And church strictly controlled the freedom of speech， especially the right of interpreting the Bible. Furthermore， the Bible must be translated in Latin. So the religion in the west suppressed the development of national languages and peoples ideological emancipation. With the religion being inferior to the politics， versions of The Bible in different national languages emerged in large numbers. In China， the Buddhist religion is in the charge of the political power， and served to the politics. Whats more， the writing words had been unified in China. Of course， Chinese culture overwhelmed other culture around the adjacent areas.

Buddhist ideas were actively and consciously integrated into the Chinese native-born culture. Thats one of reasons why there is no religious reformation and vernacular emancipation until the end of Qing Dynasty.Furthermore， translating organization in China was more perfect than western country. And the process of translating was officially recorded. Of course， there is the great possibility that the Chinese ambiguity is affected a lot by the translating method and the intuitive way of thinking in Buddhism.

3. Conclusion

Its of the most importance to find something new by taking western Bible translation and Chinese Buddhist translation as a mirror， and comparing these two translation histories. This paper unavoidably has many an omission or repetition， but its hoped that this paper can provide reference for the development and diffusion of religion translation.

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