Chinese language and Buddhism
Posted: Sun Sep 02, 2012 11:53 am
On another page mutsuk posted this:
That looks like an interesting book, I'll borrow it once my local library has it available. However it seems like her opinions there are a bit extreme -- Xuanzang recognised that the early translations were flawed for one and his translations attempted to overcome the use of the old terminology for one. I've also been thinking about this a little though, and maybe some features of Chinese grammar itself don't make it very good to convey certain concepts particularly things like plurality and time.mutsuk wrote:I am referring you to the tibetan directly. I have huge reservation about translations into Chinese from any language because Chinese is very inaccurate. You should learn tibetan directly or access properly translated versions. On this subject of "chinese translations" in general and in particuler on their inadequacy to carry on proper meaning, you should read that book:As for Tibetan translation in general, I find Tibetan to chinese translation is better in term of accuracy. This is because Tibetan buddhist terminology share a common standard with chinese buddhist terminology, so tibetan translators has little choice in term of chinese words other than the standard terminology of buddhism that were used on both sides.
Jungnok Park: How Buddhism Acquired a Soul on the Way to China, Equinox Publishing, 2012. This puts a definitive end to any claim of valid understanding of Buddhist thought in general in Chinese language...