Translating Buddhism: Historical and Contextual Perspectives

✍ Scribed by Alice Collett

• Publisher: State University of New York Press
• Year: 2021
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 304
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Explores key questions about translations and translators of South Asian Buddhist texts, past and present. Although many Buddhist studies scholars spend a great deal of their time involved in acts of translation, to date not much has been published that examines the key questions, problems, and difficulties faced by translators of South Asian Buddhist texts and epigraphs. Translating Buddhism seeks to address this omission. The essays collected here represent a burgeoning attempt to begin to shape the subfield of translation studies within Buddhist studies, whereby scholars actively challenge primary routine decisions and basic assumptions. Exploring questions including how interpretive translators can be and how cultural and social norms affect translations, the book draws on the broad experiences of its contributors--all of whom are translators themselves--who bring different themes to the table. Each chapter can be used either independently or as part of the whole to engender reflections on the process of translation. Alice Collett is the author of Lives of Early Buddhist Nuns: Biographies as History and editor of Women in Early Indian Buddhism: Comparative Textual Studies.

✦ Table of Contents

Contents
Abbreviations
Introduction
Detailed Chapter Summaries
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
References
Part I: Texts
Chapter 1 Translation in Search of a Text: The Craving for Stability
The Translation of Written Texts: Initial Questions
Reflection on Translation: Chinese Buddhist Translations
Approaches to Translation: The Problem of History
Approaches to the Text: Concrete Factors
A Historically Sensitive Approach: Examples in Buddhist Studies
References
Chapter 2 Translating the Buddha’s Body
The Buddha’s Body of Words
Can the Dharmakāya Speak in the Present?
Translating the Body of the Buddha
Conclusion: Speaking in the Present
References
Chapter 3 On Reading Vinaya: Feminist History, Hermeneutics, and Translating the Female Body
Introduction
A Nuns’ Monastic Code
Positivist Historiography and the Vinaya
Narrativity and Representation
Irrelevance, Counterargument, Imaginaire
Practical Canons and Textual Communities
Reading across and beyond Sectarian Vinaya Traditions
Feminist History: The Ancient Tampon
References
Part II: Translators
Chapter 4 Translating the Theravāda Commentaries: Why, How, for Whom?
References
Chapter 5 The Impact of Nineteenth-Century Missionary Translations of Theravada Buddhist Texts
The Act of Translation in the Context of Orientalism
Biodata for Clough, Gogerly, and Spence Hardy
The Ideological and Religious Underpinning of Their Work
Summary of Their Lexical and Translation Work
Benjamin Clough
Daniel J. Gogerly
Robert Spence Hardy
The Impact of These Translations
In Conclusion
References
Chapter 6 Words or Terms? Models of Terminology and the Translation of Buddhist Sanskrit Vocabulary
Models of Terminology and Their Impact on Translation
Current Model of Terminology
Impact on Translation
Case Study: Saṃjñā
The Academic Debate on Saṃjñā
Saṃjñā: A Term or a Word?
From Terminological Problem to Lexical Gap
Conclusion
References
Part III. Words
Chapter 7 Translation and Historical Context: Interpretations of Antevāsinī
Antevāsin/ī in Vinaya Literature
Texts and Epigraphs
Antevāsinī
Conclusion
References
Chapter 8 Translating the Tīrthika: Enduring “Heresy” in Buddhist Studies
Introduction
Translations Old and New
Commentarial Literature and the Tīrthika as “Opponent”
Narrative Literature and the Tīrthika as “Obstacle”
Early Buddhism and the First “Fords”
Conclusion
References
Chapter 9 Translating Paṭicca-samuppāda in Early Buddhism
Introduction
Analyzing the Expression Paṭicca-samuppāda
The Meaning of the Word Samuppāda
The Meaning of the Word Paṭicca
The Meaning of the Compound Paṭicca-samuppāda
The Term Paṭicca-samuppāda and the Concept of Causation
Conceptual Metaphor in Early Buddhist Doctrine
Conceptual Metaphor in the Expression Paṭicca-samuppāda
Conclusion: Causation and Organic Growth
References
Chapter 10 Why Is Literal Meaning Insufficient? A Study of Desanāsīsa Explanations in the Pāli Commentaries
Preamble
Functions of DS
DS as Synecdoche
DS as Merismus
DS as Metonymy
Inconsistencies
DS and Multiple Connotations
Conclusion
References
Contributors
Index

✦ Subjects

Buddhist literature