On Kumarajiva’s Translation Thought

As a famous monk, Kumarajiva (343-413) is one of the three best translators of Buddhism. And the other two are Zhen Di (499-569) from the Southern and Northern Dynasties and Xuan Zang (600-664) from the Tang Dynasty. Among the four saints, Kumarajiva has the widest scope of translations on Buddhism, which enjoy the most popularity with the people in China and even in Eastern Asia. And his versions have enriched the Buddhism culture and promoted sutra translation of this period into a new high. What’s more, his translation thought is still an important part of the traditional Chinese translation theory. Unfortunately, however, there is not systematic Kumarajiva’s translation theory so far because there are only few first-hand materials. There are only some fragmentary materials around the comments or papers from his disciples and other scholars. And all these might lead to some gaps or even the garbled statements in the research into Kumarajiva’s translation theory.Since the beginning of the21st century, more and more people have begun to pay attention to Kumarajiva’s translation theory. Of course, there are more and more papers on his versions or his translation thought. But one point the author would emphasize is that the research of Kumarajiva’s translation thought is not still intact or systematic. Therefore, the paper. titled as On Kumarajiva’s Translation Thought, first analyzes and sums up the related materials and comments on Kumarajiva and his versions from four different periods, that is to say, the period from the Eastern Jin Dynasty (316-420) to the Southern and Northern Dynasties(420-589); the period between the Tang and Song Dynasties (618-1279); the period between the Later Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China (1840-1949); the period from the beginning of the People’s Republic of China (1949) until today. And every period involves the comments on Kumarajiva’s versions from his disciples or his friends or other scholars. Then the thesis draws the conclusion that Kumarajiva’s translation thought should include three aspects, which are translation standard, translation style and reader’s response. What’s more, the thesis solves the three disputes. The first dispute is whether Kumarajiva’s versions belong to’new version’. And the second one is which translation standard Kumarajiva was in favor of,’literal translation’,’free translation’, or’the neutral way’? And the last one is whether Kumarajiva first puts forward the point on translation style. On the basis of analysis, the thesis illustrates that Kumarajiva’s versions belong to ’new version’; and it is Dao An (312-385), rather than Kumarajiva, who first puts forward the point on translation style. Besides, the thesis also sets up two research orientations on Kumarajiva’s translation for other scholars to illustrate, if they are interested in the topic.In a word, the thesis clears up and expresses Kumarajiva’s views on sutra translation in a comprehensive and precise way, based on the summary of the comments on Kumarajiva’s translations from his disciples and other scholars. In this way, the paper might add insights into the Chinese ancient translation theory and put up some suggestions for the future development of the traditional Chinese translation theory.