语言、文本与文本的转换:关于古代佛经的翻译

Languages and Texts:Buddhist Sūtras in Transformation and Translation

关于佛经的翻译,学术界已经有过不少的讨论。在研究佛教历史和文献的学者中,讨论主要从实证出发,具体涉及佛经翻译的途径,翻译方法,译语、译文的理解,很多时候也涉及文献的来源以及经录等问题。而在研究所谓翻译学的学者中,讨论则比较宏观,近年来更倾向于引进一些西方的翻译学或者比较文学、比较文化学理论,试图做更多和更新的阐释。我们不拟讨论某部经典的翻译或某位译人的翻译活动,也不拟讨论某种翻译理论应有的可适性,而是从佛经的产生、佛经在两千多年间流传的历史以及文化交流和互动等角度来讨论古代佛经的翻译问题。如果对此有一个比较细致具体的描述和认识,一些长期以来争论不休的问题也许就比较容易得到解决。

Scholars have discussed a lot on the translations of Buddhist text.For those studying in Buddhist history and literature,the discussions mainly focus on the way and technology in which the texts being translated,or the words and terms which the translators used.For those interested in theory of translation the discussions are somehow of macro-orientations to investigate the topic with the perspective of culture and literature comparison.Being different from these discussions,this paper will not focus on any translator or text or any theory which assumed to apply in translation,but just to raise a few questions related to Buddhist languages,texts,and try to answer them through tracing their origin,transformation and translation at various stages.By this way,a clearer picture may be gained for us to understand the process of the translation of Buddhist texts which happened continuously in last two millenniums.