A Comparative Study Of Three Chinese Versions Of Dharma Lotus Sutra

There are three existing versions of Dharma Lotus Sutra,which are Proper Dharma Lotus Sutra,translated by Dharmaraksa in the Western Jin Dynasty;Wonderful Dharma Lotus Sutra,translated by Kum?raj?va in the Eastern Jin Dynasty;and The supplemented Wonderful Dharma Lotus Sutra,translated by Jnanagupta and Dharmagupta in Sui Dynasty.Among them,Wonderful Dharma Lotus Sutra has the greatest influence and the widest acceptance,while the other two are often overlooked,especially The supplemented Wonderful Dharma Lotus Sutra.The academic circles seldom consider the value of this version,therefore they do not find the important different between structure,language and style of each version.This paper.Therefore,this article will equally treat Dharma Lotus Sutra 's three versions,try to understand the characteristic of each translation,and approve the endeavour of The supplemented Wonderful Dharma Lotus Sutra in improving the scripture,and thus fill the blank of related study on Dharma Lotus Sutra.This paper treats each version as a legion words and expressions activity with same purport of the translators,and the diversity of translation could be seen as expressions of linguistic polysemy.This paper compares three Chinese versions of Dharma Lotus Sutra from four aspects,which are translator,structure,language and style.The first chapter is the translator comparison.This chapter points out that all the translators have high level of legion experience and translation skill,but their translation are highly controlled by mainstream ideology.In fairly,we could treat each version as a inherited relationship of literature history.The second chapter is the structural comparison.First,this paper finds out that that the interpretation of Tiantai sect greatly construct the meaning of sutra,and further affect the status of each version;second,this chapter summarizes and analyses the views on structural differences between those version in history,and points out rationality of each version's structure;third,this paper describes the different expression of time and space represented by different structures,and points out the difference in similarity of aesthetic reading experiences.The third chapter is the language comparison,this paper analysis the different metaphorical expression between Proper Dharma Lotus Sutra and Wonderful Dharma Lotus Sutra,and points out the philology and rhetorical value of revision of The supplemented Wonderful Dharma Lotus Sutra.The fourth chapter is the stylistic comparison.By comparing the style of gadya,geya and dh?ra ? of each versions,we could understand the preferences of each version in terms of sentence patterns,four-character sentence or five-character sentence,and analyse their artistic expressiveness.We could also found the differences of dh?ra ? in transliteration and free translation,phonetic notation and segmentation.Thus we could move forward to the metaphor skills of each version.