Manipulation And Anti-manipulation Of Patronage System

The first climax of translation history in China is uncovered by the Buddhist sutra translation, which reached its peak till the Tang Dynasty and ushered in "Golden Age" of the sutra translation. In this period, the development of Buddhism is determined by the attitude of ruling classes, whose sponsorship and support performs a crucial role to the Buddhist sutras translation. Two most notable and specific representatives among these rulers should be Emperor Tang Tai-tsung and Empress Wu Zhao whose influence on Buddhism is a determinate factor of sutra translation.During these two periods, the ruling classes ostensibly hold a positive attitude to sponsor Buddhist sutra translation, but actually manipulate and make full use of it behind the sponsorship. They sponsored and organized translating centers for Sutra, provided translators lucrative payment and raised the status of Buddhism and so on. In terms of the whole process from selecting material to the acceptance of sutra translation, all these are covered by the manipulation and power of the sponsor. The sponsor absolutely restricted and affected the course of Buddhist sutra translation. Meanwhile, sutra translators were not purely controlled by the sponsor, and they could exert their subjectivity in some degree to anti-manipulate the restrictions and effects imposed by the sponsor, showing a bilateral correlation between patronages and translators in sutra translation.Therefore, using Rewriting Theory as the framework, this thesis will analyze the patron effects of the ruling class to sutra translation in the special periods ruled by Tang Tai-tsung and Wu Zhao from a macro-historical perspective, and reveal the manipulative phenomena hidden behind the patron. This paper is going to discuss the manipulative mechanism of the system of the patron, and prove the bilateral relationship of manipulation between the patron and the translator, not only one-side of imposing manipulation on translators from the patron system.There are six chapters in this thesis. Chapter1presents the background and significance of the study, as well as the purpose of this thesis. In addition, the researching methodologies used in this paper are also introduced briefly. The author has made some efforts to have a review of relevant areas in Chapter2. Then an introduction of the main theories involved in this study is presented in Chapter3, including Rewriting Theory and Patronage System. Besides, the writer of this paper made a discussion on the relationship between patronage and translators in this part. Chapter4and Chapter5are empirical part analyzing cases on both Manipulating and Anti-manipulating of Buddhist sutra translation in Tang Dynasty. The last chapter is a conclusion of this thesis, with some suggestion for the future study.