The Publication of the Piling Canon in the Late Qing

Piling Canon refers to a woodblock-printed Chinese Buddhist Canon during the late Qing Dynasty.Despite its historical significance,it has received limited attention from the academia,as its discovery took place after the turn of the 21st century.This study explores the background,supervisor,proofreader,engravers,donors,and other factors that contributed to the publication of the Piling Canon.It was supervised by Buddhist monk Qingrong in Changzhou Tianning Monastery from 1908 to 1926,due to the commission of Yang Wenhui.By investigating the historical records in the colophons of Piling Canon,we found that engraving locations are distributed in Hubei,Yangzhou,and Danyang which engravers operated in groups;the majority of donors were found to be individuals and group forms,social fundraising was included as well.It is noteworthy that Sheng Xuanhuai made a significant contribution in terms of funding.Furthermore,the production of the Piling Canon confirms to the commence of Buddhism revival,as Buddhist scriptures in Jiangnan regions were almost destroyed after the Taiping Rebellion.The research shed light on extensive participation of cultural celebrities,diverse donation forms,and excellent engraving,offering a vivid depiction of Buddhist belief and social landscape in Jiangnan region.

Questioned on Andre Lefevere＇s ＂Chinese and Western thinking on translation＂

In Andre Lefevere＇s ＂Chinese and Western thinking on translation＂, he has compared the Chinese translation tradition with the tradition of the Western translation. Historically and culturally, he views the similarities and the differences between these two traditions, which has shed much light on extending the horizons of translation studies in China. However, some of his points put forward in the article need a further consideration. The author has a few doubts about the essay and offers her own different opinions.

The Role of Poetics in Buddhist Scripture Translation

Starting from the thesis that translation always takes place in a certain social and cultural context and is therefore conditioned by certain contextual factors, this paper examines the particular role that poetics played in Buddhist scripture translation that happened in ancient China. Buddhist poetics, in its associations with China＇s native poetics, did not work its way peacefully into the latter＇s embrace, to begin with. Instead, its appearance was first met with severe criticism and resistance. Aware of this problem, Buddhist translators in ancient China made continuous efforts in adapting Buddhist translations to the reading habits of the local people, which helped to ensure an easier acceptance of Buddhist philosophy by the Chinese people. With the growth and advancement of Buddhism in China, Buddhist poetics was no longer regarded as an enemy by its Chinese counterpart, and the style of Buddhist scripture translation was therefore able to stick closer to that of the original texts. The conclusion is that the poetics of one foreign literary system, when it comes to a new cultural environment, instead of remaining unaltered, usually goes through a complicated process of clashing and confl cfing with the native poetics before they two become reconciled and compatible with each other.