The Chinese Buddhist Canon and Other Buddhist Texts

Abstract

Although Buddhism is now seen as a scriptural religion, its earliest oral transmission to various language communities necessitated the use of translation, and the tolerance of translation in Buddhism is demonstrated by the many languages and scripts in which excavated early fragments of texts were written. Subsequently, translation into Chinese created what is known as the Chinese Buddhist canon, which was and still is normative in Japan, Korea, and Vietnam, but other societies, especially Tibet and the Tangut empire, reacted differently by undertaking translations. Why did this difference occur? Even in those societies in which the Chinese Buddhist canon was normative, it must be remembered that the practice of Buddhism was predominantly oral: for this reason not only was phonological vernacularization inevitable when chanting the scriptures, but also, for the purpose of sermons and other forms of teaching, vernacular explanations and vernacular translation was indispensable.