Study On Sound And Meaning Of Avatamsaka Sutra

Sound and Meaning of Avatamsaka Sutra, an annotated book written by Huiyuan, came into being in Tang Dynasty. It gives right sound notations and meanings to hard words in Newly Translated Avatamsaka Sutra. Spreading to now, Sound and Meaning of Avatamsaka Sutra has totally 29 kinds of edition which can be divided into two systems; one is Huiyuan Sound And Meaning, the other is Thou Write Sound And Meaning (Thou Write for short). The Thou Write and many materials in Tripitaka all express that had the variety at that time. The Thou Write furthermore clear that Huiyuan Sound and Meaning spread the most widely at that time and the content is the most reliable. Through combing the edition, we can discover the separate edition in the Tripitaka is the main edition spreading to now.On the study of its phonetic notations, the following results can be concluded:Firstly, the system of the first consonants in Chinese syllables of Tang is different from "Qie Yun 切韵". One is "yun 云:"group is isolated from "xia 匣 . The other is that there is no notations of "si 俟 "group.Secondly, 161 rhymes concluded form the book are different from those of "Qieyun 切韵", for some rhymes of "Qieyun" are combined as one.Thirdly, the tone didn't differentiate between the voiced and voiceless first consonants in a syllable.By the collation of the separate editions, it is clear that Yongle North Tripitaka is a well-collated edition. Zhaocheng Tripitaka and Korea Tripitaka are earlier editions, so they can be collated with Yongle North Tripitaka to correct its words and expressions.On the literature research of Thou Write, it is clear that the Thou Write based on Huiyuan Sound and Meaning is written for the Japanese who read and study Avatamsaka Sutra not far away from Wu Zhou Period and its author knew well of Avatamsaka Sutra.The characteristics of Common form of Chinese characters and the whole body of Thou Write appear similar with Dunhuang Chinese characters; therefore, it can prove my supervisor's one standpoint on Dunhuang Chinese characters, namely: Dunhuang Chinese characters are not special writing phenomenon in Dunhuang, but widely used at that time.