Pass the Flame, Adhere to the Truth and Innovate Upon the Ways of Exegeting Buddhist Scriptures Under a Synergy of Conditions：

On the Direction of the Compilation, Propagation and Translation of the Chinese Buddhist Tripitaka in Modern TimesRev. Yanzang

Abstract: The Chinese Buddhist Tripitaka (Triple-Text) is the whole collection of all Chinese Buddhist scriptures and the comprehensive series of Buddhist sutras written in Chinese. It covers a number of Chinese translation texts and a variety of commentaries and works about Buddhism in Chinese.[1]Searching these existing Buddhist scriptures and properly preserving them, in addition, editing and translating these Buddhist sutras will be historically and practically significant for propagating Buddhist teachings, cultivating Buddhist intellectuals and exploring the development as well as the adaptation of Buddhism with our society and times. Adhering to the principle of “pass the flame, adhere to the truth and innovate upon the ways of exegeting Buddhist scriptures under a synergy of conditions”, the past and present generations of eminent Buddhist monks interacted with scholars from the academic communities, they made untiring efforts to edit and translate the Chinese Buddhist Tripitaka (Triple-Text). They have achieved a great success and provided a vast resource of wisdom for the reconciliation and unification of Buddhism and Chinese traditional culture(s) as well as the development of human civilization. In recent years, a number of different editions of the Buddhist Tripitaka (Triple-text) have been published and these works have made a considerable contribution to the studies of Buddhist scriptures’ editions and classics, but may be deficient in practical level. Thus, it is extremely urgent for us to process, punctuate and proofread the Chinese Buddhist Tripitaka (Triple-Text) in order to facilitate the reading of these documents by modern people who are used to reading simplified Chinese characters. It is particularly important for us to make a summarization, guided reading and a proper vernacular translation of the Chinese Buddhist Tripitaka (Triple-Text) so that the people will benefit from our efforts.

Key words: the Chinese Buddhist Tripitaka (Triple-Text) compilation and edition propagation and translation direction

Foreword

In its long history of development, Buddhism has witnessed a massive compilation of classics and literatures, these works are called the Tripitaka (Triple-Text). At first, there was no written record of Sakyamuni’s teachings and disciplines which he made and taught, but only oral dictation and memorization. When Sakyamuni achieved nirvana, his disciples noticed that if they only preserved oral tradition it would be easy to misunderstand their Master’s teachings and thoughts so that they held a Samgiti (Buddhist Council) and began to compile Vinaya-pitaka (The Basket of Disciplines) and Sutta-pitaka (The Basket of Buddha’s discourses), later they compiled Abhidamma-pitaka (The Basket of commentary) and wrote commentaries on the Tripitaka (Three baskets). After the spread of Buddhism in the north and south, a number of Buddhists from different locations utilized their own local languages to translate and edit a variety of Buddhist sutras and compiled them together. Currently, the Buddhist Tripitaka (Triple-Text) is edited in Pali, Chinese, Tibetan, Mongolian, Manchu, Tangut (also Xixia or Hsi-Hsia), and Japanese, etc. in addition, there are some Buddhist scriptures translated and written in Sanskrit, Tocharian or Tokharian, the Sogdian language, Khotan, and Turki.

Ⅰ. Some basic information and characteristics about the compilation, propagation, and translation of the Chinese Buddhist Tripitaka (Triple-Text)

Though there are various ways of passing on civilization, this process relies mainly on preserving the classics. The birth of the classics enables the inheritance of civilization to transcend space and time. Hence, it is a tradition for Chinese people to record the history and compile the (Buddhist, Confucian, Taoist, etc.) classics, edit them, compile, copy and print them in books. This tradition was handed down from generation to generation.[2]More than two thousand years have been passed since Buddhism first entered into China, it has undergone a process by which a foreign religion was transformed and became an important part of Chinese traditional culture(s). Editing and researching the Buddhist Tripitaka (Triple-Text) is also an indispensable and valuable experience to promote and inherit Chinese traditional culture. In the history of Chinese Buddhism, there were numerous Buddhist monks and lay practitioners of each dynasty and generation who piously collected, translated, edited, copied 供养 and compiled the Buddhist Tripitaka (Triple-Text). Because of their efforts, different editions of the Buddhist Tripitaka (Triple-Text) were formed and developed. According to the existing statistics, the Chinese Buddhist Tripitaka (Triple-Text) can be divided into three categories: the hand-written sutras before the Tang Dynasty, the xylographic (wood-block printing) Tripitaka after the Song Dynasty, and the typographic edition of the Chinese Buddhist Tripitaka (Triple-Text).[3]

1. Some background information about the Chinese Buddhist Tripitaka (Triple-Text)As we know, it is an arguable question about how to treat our cultural heritage and legacies, the problem is that we should first collect the classics and writings scattered in different places and then preserve them. Only by doing this can we have a solid basis for the study and research of those classics and writings, and can we judge those classics and writings in a comprehensive way and discuss the possibilities of how to use them.[4]During the past years when Buddhism first entered in mainland China, there were more than fifty indexes of the Buddhist Tripitaka (Triple-Text), around twenty still exist and each of them contains different volumes of scriptures. The format and content of the Tripitaka edited in each dynasty are varied. Except those stone-carved scriptures in Fangshan, (Beijing), the sutras contained in the Tripitaka which were edited before the Song Dynasty were written by hand and ornamented with scrolls. During the reign of Kaibao开宝（968~975）in the Northern Song Dynasty, the first xylographic (wood-block printing) Tripitaka appeared, after the span of the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties and the republic of China, more than twenty (others say twenty-one) editions of xylographic (wood-block printing) and typographic Buddhist Tripitaka (Triple-Text) have been published.