Abstract:

As the two methods used in Buddhist sutra translation in ancient China, “zhengfan” and “yifan” were respectively applied to translate the nouns referring things both in China and in India and those referring things only available in India. We can find the definitions of “zhengfan” and “yifan” in Official Record of Sifenlv Xingshichao written in the late Tang and Five Dynasties. However, the initiator of these two categories was XUAN Zang, the great Buddhist sutra translator who suggests the “method of transliteration in five situations”. In the Northern Song Dynasty, a monk named YUN Kan of the Vinaya School in the Southern Mountain borrowed the concept of “categories of things” in traditional literary theories to elaborate and develop DAO Xuan’s translating strategy of the “inter-translation of things and meanings”. In this way, “yifan” can be also applied in translating abstract conceptions.