Six Paramitas Sutra From The Perspective Of Cultural Fusion

Buddhist scriptures are of extensive accumulation, literature vast, and culture profound, the three of which are related to each other through karma. There is clear evidence of the fusion of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism, the Buddhist thoughts in ancient literature and the interaction of monks and intellectuals. The predecessors in recent years have already formed the framework of research pattern. It is developed gradually that the research concerning the Chinization of Buddhism, Buddhism with literature, and literariness of Buddhist scriptures as well as the Buddhist Hybrid Chinese was made in 20 th century. The study has developed from the theoretical stage, extending stage into the stage of diversified development in over hundred years. Based on the profound theoretical research, Six Paramitas Sutra translated by Kang Senghui, an eminent monk in Dongwu of Three Kingdoms, has been studied from the perspective of linguistics and made great progress in this field. However, scholars paid little or no attention to multicultural context and literary value, not speak of systematic study.Therefore, this thesis focuses on Kang Senghui and his translated works Six Paramitas Sutra.Attention will be paid to three aspects: Firstly, the uniqueness of Kang Senghui’s importance in the history of Chinese translated Buddhist scriptures and the process of Buddhist Chinization. Kang’s ancestors lived in Sogdiana, locating in ancient India for generations, but he himself grew up in China, thus good at both Sanskrit and Chinese, familiar with Buddhist theories of Manāyāna and Hinayānā as well as the thoughts of Confucianism and Daoism, etc.. Therefore, He is different from other translators, his translation style and sources of theories is worth further studying. Secondly, Six Paramitas Sutra’s multicultural context. Six Paramitas Sutra was written and finished in the late half of Han Dynasty and Three Kingdoms, when ideology, culture and academy, to a large degree, underwent dramatic change. It is also the early period of Buddhist scriptures’ translation and Buddhist Chinization process, including the fusion of Confucianism, Buddhism and Daoism as well as the prevailing Buddhist thoughts of Manāyāna and Hinayānā. All these are reflected in Kang Senghui’s Six Paramitas Sutra where there is a phenomenon of multicultural fusion, which is of great study significance. Thirdly, literary interpretation of Six Paramitas Sutra. It is universally acknowledged that Buddhism has exerted great influence to Chinese literature. It is also necessary to study the Buddhist scriptures and literariness of Chinese jataka tales, and analyze the scriptures’ literary characteristics together with its implicit literary and cultural elements in the aspect of enriching and deepening the Buddhist research. Therefore, this thesis will analyze Kang Senghui, literary value of Six Paramitas Sutra and multicultural context through diversified, multi-angle and systematic study with a purpose of filling the shortage of research in this field, which will provide a typical case for the study of Buddhism and Chinese culture and literature of Buddhist scriptures.Chapter One Introduction—literary review and views in previous Buddhist scriptures. First of all, literary review is listed, and the history of academic research is referred to, which aims at the importance and significance of Kang Senghui and his translated works Six Paramitas Sutra in both translation aspect of Buddhist scriptures and Buddhist literature research. Research status and research prospects—most study Six Paramitas Sutra from the perspective of linguistics; seldom center on its cultural and literary value, so there is still a great study space. Secondly, it is pointed out that there are reasons why the Buddhist anecdotes in traditional official records are so scarce during the late Han Dynasty and Three Kingdoms, illustrating the rigorous pursuit-of-truth spirit of some monks in completing histories of Buddhist scriptures and clarifying the principles of selecting Buddhist classics, monk biographies and historical records in this paper.Chapter Two Buddhism of Three Kingdoms·Kang Senghui·Six Paramitas Sutra. The Buddhist status in the period of completing Six Paramitas Sutra is analyzed first. The sudden rising of people of humble origin was an element to the thriving of Buddhism. The appearance of metaphysics in Cao and Wei, Prajna, translated law code, establishment of ordination platform and formal Buddhist ceremony made Buddhism take shape in its early period in China. People believed Daoist magic arts in Sun Wu, so the cultural background was multiple and complicated, which would be favorable for Buddhism to spread. But it was not clear about the Buddhist status in Shu. Additionally, this chapter will concentrate on Kang Senghui’s life, Buddhist conduction, his Buddhist translated works and major Buddhist theory as well as his contribution to the establishment of Buddhism. Eventually, the social background and the process of completing Six Paramitas Sutra will be illustrated to determine its text nature and sort out its version’s circulating conditions.Chapter Three Humanities landscape of Six Paramitas Sutra under multicultural context. Multicultural integration is a characteristic reflected in Six Paramitas Sutra, which can be considered as herald of the fusion of Confucianism, Buddhism and Daoism. The following two aspects contribute to this cultural integration. The prevailing Confucianism and multicultural atmosphere foster Kang Senghui’s character that is typical of not only Confucianism but also Buddhism; Kang Senghui’s martyr temperament endows him with the courage and boldness to preach in Jiangnan, expand Buddhist thoughts and fuse various cultures inside and outside of Buddhism. The integrated character of Six Paramitas Sutra is reflected in three specific aspects. The thought of Bodhisattva fuses Manāyāna and Hinayānā, promting Manāyāna and uniting Hinayānā. Compared the Buddhist thought to the Confucian theory, like benevolence and filiality, it focuses on the importance of Buddhism to the defending and thriving of a country. The view of life and death derives from the ancient Daoist arts, and it adopts Daoist terms to illustrate Buddhist thought, which enables the essence of Buddhism to be subtly rooted in Chinese culture.Chapter Four Literary interpretation of Six Paramitas Sutra(Ⅰ). Literariness of Six Paramitas Sutra as Buddhist text is analyzed by putting it in the writing background. Firstly, Six Paramitas Sutra has become a model with both direct description and indirect modification from the perspective of the trend of literature and the Buddhist scriptures’ translation from direct description to indirect modification, jataka and artistic style and the literary expression, as well as the unique qualities of translator and compiler. Secondly, compared with the translated scriptures in Donghan, Six Paramitas Sutra has such a language style as being more literary and more graceful. Thirdly, according to its content, Six Paramitas Sutra is jataka tales which is of greatest literary value. It is a narration in its literary genre, and a prose in its language style. It is learned from its text structure and narration pattern that Kang Senghui has added literariness to it during the process of compiling.Chapter Five Literary interpretation of Six Paramitas Sutra(Ⅱ). Six Paramitas Sutra originally came from ancient India where is full of imagination. This scripture forms its own distinctive literary style during the process of translating Sanskrit into Chinese by means of adopting both Indian narrative expression and Chinese concise and comprehensive brevity. As for the literary value, it is conveyed in the scriptures mainly through repetition, exaggeration, parallelism and metaphor to increase literary expression. The contents of literature from another field, like avatar, dreamland, vows and ugliness add more to literary description. Characters of the common people and the saints, such as Sakyamuni, Croesus and businessmen, the wicked Devadatta, enrich the world of arts. It is the above literary elements that make Six Paramitas Sutra a real Buddhist narration in literature.