Every Chinese character has undergone many changes since its creation, in form, sound and meaning. In spite of this, people who translate Classical Chinese Buddhist texts today often commit errors by referring to dictionaries which contain only the co...
Every Chinese character has undergone many changes since its creation, in form, sound and meaning. In spite of this, people who translate Classical Chinese Buddhist texts today often commit errors by referring to dictionaries which contain only the contemporary meanings.
My thesis aims at examining such Chinese characters that appear in Buddhist scriptures as 見 (/jiàn/, /xiàn/), 象 (/xiàng/), 像 (/xiàng/), 相 (/xiāng/, /xiàng/), etc., and how to properly translate these words.
For example, people often translate 見 into ‘to see’ only, but in many cases, it cannot be interpreted as above. There are many other meanings: ‘to understand’, ‘to disclose,’ ‘point of view,’ as an indicator of passive voice when situated before the verb, etc.
Both 見 and 相 have the same meaning of ‘to see’; the former implies a subjective meaning, depicting a person's eyes on top of their feet, whereas the latter symbolizes an objective meaning, depicting someone who looks at the shape of a tree.
It is easy for people to think of the subject as a thing. In fact, it is not external objects 外境 that are the object of cognition, but rather its 相 that has been accepted and focused in the inner mind. Therefore, I consolidate my treatise like this: 象 is an external object, 像 is the copy of 象, and 相 is an image carried in the mind.