storch. chinese buddhism historiography and orality

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SINO-PLATONIC PAPERS

Number 37 March, 1993

Chinese Buddhist Historiography and Orality

by

Tanya Storch

Victor H. Mair, EditorSino-Platonic Papers

Department of East Asian Languages and CivilizationsUniversity of Pennsylvania

Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305 [email protected]


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Tanya Storch, "Chinese Buddhist Historiography and Orality"Sino-Platonic Papers , 37 (March, 1993)

CHINESE BUDDHIST HISTORIOGRAPHYAND O WTANYA STORCH

Probably the most common motif seen throughout all earlybiographies of Chinese Buddhists is the search for Buddhisttexts.1 In fact, this motif is so common that nobody bothers toinquire what compelled the Chinese to look so vigorously forauthoritative written texts while receiving their doc rine fromthe West? Two major conclusions may be drawn by closelyconsidering this phenomenon -- 1.The process of trammissionwas overwhelmingly oral; 2. The Chinese were stronglydisappointedwith i t

If so, the next question arises - why would they bedisappointed? Possibly because they already had an idea ofhow true doctrine should be transmitted, and oral it was notIf we look at the earliest extant catalogue of Chinese classics,Hanshu "Hwmzhi", 2 we see an orientation towards thewritten text as the best means for insuring the accuracy andfidelity of the highest wisdom in the process of its formulation.l ~ h i statement is made on the basis of the biographies collected in ChuSanzang ji ji (Compilation of Notices on the Translation of theTripiea) compiled by Shi Sengyu in 515 , and Gaoseng zhuan (Lives ofEminent Monks) compiled by Shi Huijiao in 5 18.Z~anshu "Yiwen zhi" (Monograph on A r t s and Literature in the Bookof the Han) was compiled by Ban Gu in 58-82. I t was based on twoprevious catalogues, that of Liu Xiang (80-8) and Liu Xin (26-6), namelyBie lu (Subject Catalogue),and Qilue (Seven Categories).


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Tanya Storch, "Chinese Buddhist Historiography and Orality"Sino-Platonic Papers ,37 (March, 1993)

On the one hand we are still able to see clear evidence ofmanyclassics having been transmitted orally, but on the other handwe can observe the idealization of their written versionsalready having been made, especially because Confudushimself appropriated the written text for the expression of histeaching9

The above statement gains evidence from another angle --the documents of the polemics between pro-Buddhists andanti-Buddhists collected in Hongming ji . 4

In many early treatises we see the pro-Buddhists beinginterrogated by anti-Buddhists about the physical existence oftheir teacher. The argument of the latter goes like this - sincethere is no ecord of Buddha in the classics, one cannot be surehe ever existed as a real person. And if he never existed as areal person, believing in his teaching makes no sense.

3upon attentive examination of the first division of Ban Gu's cataloguewhich is called "Liu yl" (Six Arts) and where all Chinese classic booksare comprised, it becomes clear that, in Ban Gu's interpretation, theyare all deprived of their anonymous and pre-written stage of existence.Instead, their authorized history is reckoned from the time whenConfucius edited them as written texts. Thus, we read in the very firstlines of Ban Gu's introduction to the catalogue, "Confucius died and thetrue words stopped. His seventy disciples passed away and the greatrighteousness was perverted. This is why Chunqiu exists now in five[different redactions], Shibing] in five [different versions], andYi[jing] in the interpretation of the numerous authors." (Han shu , thebeginning of juan 30).4~ongming i (Collection [of Notes on] Propagating [the Doctrine and]Illuminating [the Teaching]) was compiled in 515 by Shi Sengyu.


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One would wait in vain for the pro-Buddhists to speak ofrevelation. The only reasonable argument the pro-Buddhistscould offer was as follows -- we cannot prove that Buddhareally did exist, but we have the texts that remained afterhirn.5 The latter statement according to the model of idealtransmission as expressed in the Hanshu "Yiwen zhi" meansthat Buddha was a real sage and his doctrine is true becausewe have the written texts that were left after him. And if so,the more written texts the Chinese Buddhists could obtain, themore true their doctrine would appear to non-believers.

If the above argumentation is correct, one should expect atotally negative approach towards orality on the part of theChinese Buddhist activists. But the latter turns out to be onlyhalf true, so now I shall proceed to discuss material showing ina more practical way the Chinese Buddhists' estimation of theoral aspect of Buddhist doctrine.

First of all,Chinese Buddhists could not hide the fact that.therevelation of the Buddhist path was done orally. Althoughin some catalogues of Buddhist literahue one may findawkward phrases showing that their authors viewed Buddha aspreaching with the help of a canon that was already written,earlier writers such as Sengyou make it absolutely clear that~ a i s h ~hinshii Daiz5kyo' (Hereafter Taish6),vols 1-100.Tokyo, 1960-1977. vo1.52. p. 79b.


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Tanya Storch, "Chinese Buddhist Historiography and Orality"Sku-Platonic Papers , 3 7 (Match, 1993)

the truth was revealed to the world orally. Buddha talkedwhen he first preached aboutThe Four Noble Truths; Buddha'slast instruction to his sarigha before he entered nirvZ@a wasgiven orally; even the compiling of the Tkiipiitaka byMaEWs'yapa, h d a , and Up= is "honestly" desaibed bySengyou as a completely oral process$ The first fourcharacters of every siitra in Chinese, ru shi wo wen ("thushave I heard"), connect us immediately with this respectfkdattitude towards orality within the Indian tradition recapturedby the Chinese.

Yet a different approach may be seen evolving in theprocess of translation of the Buddhist canon into the Chineselanguage. It is awell-known fact that the oral aspect played anenormous role in this process, but no one has thus far paidattention to what Chinese Buddhists themselves thought aboutthe oral element being so heavily involved.

An initial look at Chu Sanzang ji ji gives us the optimisticimpression that one can always distinguish between purelyoral transmission and oral translation from the physicallyexisting original, for Sengyou is very accurate in pointing outwhether it was kou tong (transmittedorally), or a zhai hu ben(derived from Sanskrit/Central Asian original) process. But

b~aisho',5. la,3c,4a


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Tanya Storch, "ChineseBuddhist Historiography and Orality"Sino-Platonic Papers , 3 7 (March, 1993)

this optimistic hope disappears as soon as one takes a closerlook at what Sengyou actually means by these expressions.

For example, in the second juan one finds two translationsmade by Sdighabhiiti -- ~bhidharma-vibh~;Z-S'a's~,nd~asumitra-65stra.About the first it is said that ~atighabhiitibased the translated text on kou tong, and about the other oneit is said that it was based on i?hai hu ben. I t is reasonable toassume that we are dealing with purely oral transmission inthe first case and with oral translation done from a physicallyexisting o r i w n the second, but this is not true. As becomesclear from another section of Chu Sanzang ji ji , the physicaltext was missing in both cases. What really happened is asfollows. For the Abhidhanna-vibh~~ii-s'a'sras Saiighabhiitiorally presented the content, Dhannanandi wrote it down inhu W M (Sanskrit/CentraI Asian script),7 Buddharaksatranslated it into spoken Chinese, and Zhi Mindu wrote it incharacters. With regard to the vasumitxa-&stra, Sdghabhiitiorally presented its content together with two other monks,Dhamanandi and Saiighadeva, Fonian made the oraltranslation into Chinese,and Huigao wrote it down.8

'A little detail showing perfectly the commitment of Chinese Buddhiststo the written aspect of their doctrine, for this step was not necessaryfor the transmission of the text.8~aisho',5. 99a-b.


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This is just one example of many demonstrating thatSengyou's use of expressions such as zhai hu ben does notnecessarily mean that any physical text from the West wasinvolved. But what seems to be even more important is that itwas not Sengyou's intention to distinguish between these twotypes of translation. The reason is that he approached all casesof oral transmission of Buddhist doctrine by Western monks ascompletely accurate representations of the texts' writtenoriginals, which he strongly believed existed in each case in theWest,

Sengyou and all later bibliographers alike were deeplyimpressed by the Western monks' magnificient mernory andalways praised it with fine compliments. "When he was young,he was able to recite by mernory Hi h a y h and M-yZnascriptures up to 2 0 , 000 words," it was said about~uddhaya6as. "There were many texts which [sdghadeva]could recite by memory. ...He used to recite by memory the~ridhannika-&'a enjoying it day and night" "What tookother monks a month to memorize, Buddharaksa memorized injust one day."g And so on.

In the biography of ~udclha~as'ase see a whole episodedevoted to the issue of the monk's memory. ~uddhaya&swas

9~bid., 02%99c, 103b-c respectively.


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Tanya Storch, "ChineseBuddhist Historiography and Orality"Sino-Platonic Papers , 37 (March, 1993)

famous among Chinese Buddhists for knowing by heart theDhannagupta-vinaya, and they wanted him to make atranslation of i t But emperor Yao Xing (Early or False Qin, 351-394) did not want to permit it because he did not believe that~uddhayacas ould remember by heart such a long text. TheBuddhists insisted, and it was decided to examine ~uddhayahs'memory. He was given population registration lists andpharmacological recipes, in 40 pages each. He learned a l l inthree days and recited then by memory without a singlemistake. After that Yao Xing permitted him to translate theDhannagupta-vinaya. 0

Oral transmission, as has already been said,was viewed byChinese Buddhists only as an exactly correct representation ofthe corresponding writen version of the text Whenever theyfaced a purely oral revelation, they strongly denied it. To givean example, one may read a story about the Buddhist nun,Sengfa, in the fifth juan of Cbu Sans!ang ji ji. According to thisreport, Sengfa experienced Buddhist revelations and startedspeaking on behalf of Buddha. Although later on her wordswere written down in the form of a regular Buddhist sutra,Sengyou claims they were doubtful.11 Right after this story, inthe same juan there appears a record about another Chinese


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Tanya Storch, "ChineseBuddhist Historiography and Orality"SinePlatonic Papers , 37 (March, 1993)

woman who suddenly began speaking Sanskrit Herrevelationswere alsowritten down at first in Sanskrit and thenin Chinese, but Sengyou says, "To accept or to throw away, Iam in doubt in both cases. That's why I categorized it withinthe list of doubtful scriptures."l*

Two other vast areas where one may start looking for theimpact of Indian oral tradition on the Chinese via Buddhism arethe usage of dhhnii and the transcription of names.

The information about the earliest encounterwith the art of&Era@ is found in the biography of s'kmitra. This so-calledtranslatorhad actually not translated anything, apart from onedhih.pii which was not really translated but transcribed.Both Sengyou and Huijiao emphasize that it was a special pointof &imitrals dignity not to learn Chinese at all, and it was apart of his magical skill to understand Chinese withouttranslation. Most of hmitralsBuddhist activity was comprisedof recitingmLn Sanskrit. Apparently he was the firstperson who taught the Chinese how to use them It is said injuan 13 of the ChuSanzangji ji , "{-ma well mastered theskill of dh- Whatever [concept] he entertained happened.

lz~bid.,40b. In both cases, Sengyou does not criticize the content of thetexts pronounced by these women,which permits understanding thatthey did not contain any heretical ideas. So, what was realty wrong withthem in the eyes of the Chinese bibliographer is the way they came intobeing, that is through oral revelation.


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Tanya Storch, "ChineseBuddhist Historiography and Orality"Sino-Platonic Papers , 3 7 (March,1993)

Prior to him there was no d h h - law east of the Yangzi.


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all. In the biography of Faxian there is a story about a familyin which the Nirvba-sE@a was worshipped for severalgenerations. When a big fire struck the capital, the family'shouse burned down, but the scripture remaind intact. Even thecolor of the paper did not change. It is also reported that thepopulation of the capital passed around the story of thisrniracle.15

In the biography of Zhu Shixing we read the followingepisode. When the Chinese monks were ready to leave Khotanwith the MahZyina version of the ~s&sZhasrika'-prajiia'-p%-t5-siitr-a which they had found there, the KhotaneseHinayanists went to the king and told him that the Chinesewere going to take to China false Buddhist scriptures. The kingstopped the Chinese monks, but Zhu S W g demanded a firetest be applied to the scripture. When he set the scripture onfire,he proclaimed, "If Mahayka should spread to China hissfitra will not bum!" And of course, the paper remainedintact,16

Still another illustrative story about magic created by aBuddhist manuscript is found in the biography ofD h a r m a k ~ .Dharmaksema had the original of the Nirvea-sfi&ra. He was afraid of thieves and used to hide the scripture


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Tanya Storch, "ChineseBuddhist Historiography and Orality"Sioo-Platonic Papers , 37 (March, 1993)

under his pillow every night. But every morning he found thescripture on the ground. One day he heard a voice saying,"Buddha revealed the truth for everybody. Why do you hideit?" Dharmaksema stopped hiding the scripture and the samenight the thieves came, but they could not move themanuscript because all of a sudden it became very heavy.They realized that Dharmaksema was not an ordinary man andbecame his disaples. 7

The most sigdtcant story about magic created by aBuddhist manuscript is foundin the preface to Da Tang neidianlu (Catalogue of the Sacred Canon of the Great Tang).l8 Itreports that as soon as the Sishierzhang jing (Sfitra in Forty-two Sections) was delivered to the Eastern Han emperor Ming'scourt, the Taoists came out with accusations against the newreligion. In order to decide which doctrine was really m e , asimilar test of the scriptures of both doctrines was applied inthe presence of the emperor. The Taoist scriptures burned andthe Buddhist ones remained in= The leader of the Taoistparty died not being able to endure such a disgrace.19 Magicevents associated with manuscripts are not only much morenumerous than those made by clhkapi3s. Almost always they

171bid., 103a18~hisatalogue was compiled in 664 by Shi Daoxuan.lg~aisho',5. 220b.


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Tanya Storch, "ChineseBuddhist Historiography and Orality"Sino-Platonic Papers , 3 7 (March, 993)

take place in China itself, even in its capital, and happen moreoften to Chinese than to foreigners.20

Daoan is one of the most important figures in early ChineseBuddhist history. There are several valid studies written abouthim, but it seems that one side of his personality, which is ofkey importance for understanding many of his acts andexpressions, remained unemphasized. Daoan's greatest ideawas to make Buddhist doctrine and the Buddhist community inChina follow exactly their Indianmodels. The reorganization ofthe d g h a , changes in the monks' names, a new approachtowards the translation of texts and transcription of the termsand proper names are just some examples of this idea beingput into practice. There are also some significant statements ofD a m pertaining to the oral element in genuine IndianBuddhist tradition.In juan five of Chu Smzang ji ji , one division of Daoan'scatalogue is included where the doubdiil texts are listed. Thereis also a preface to it written by Daoan. In this preface, strongsupport of the oral manner of receiving and transmitting thedoctrine is expressed because this was the genuine way of201t should be noted that the cult of the book in Mahayana is alsoresponsible for this affectation about Buddhist manuscripts seen amongthe Chinese Buddhists. Concerning this cult see G . Schopen, "The Phrase'?a pphivipradeSe caityabhcto bhavet' in the Vajracchedikz: Notes onthe Cult of the Book in MahZyZna,"Indo-lr-an Journal, 17 (1975):147-81.


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preserving the doctrine among Indian monks. It is said,"When the monks of the outside countries learn the Law, theyall kneel down and orally receive it. They receive it togetherwith the teacher. They repeat it ten to twenty times. Onlyafter they receive it in this way do they begin to study it."zl

In the "Preface to ~ a h 2prajn'a'-pZkanu*a'-s'a"sb'attDamntalks about five losses the Chinese inflict on the genuineBuddhist doctrine while t ry ing to render it in Chinese. One ofthese losses is said to have been incurred by the Chinese whilerearranging the text, which originally was designed to beperformed orally to musical accompaniment, and whichtherefore had multiple repetitions in it.22

I t seems that Daoan was about to restore to some extent thisoral element in Chinese Buddhist practice simply because itwould bring Chinese Buddhism closer to its Indian model andnot because something had changed in his evaluation of thespoken word itself. What can be said for sure is that, afterDaoan, those translators who had been eliminating the ggthZs,or textual, epetitions needed for the text's oral perfomance,began to be heavily condemned by Buddhist bibliographers.

Daoan also was the first Chinese Buddhist who raised theissue about the correct transcription of Sanskrit Buddhist terms


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Tanya Storch, "ChineseBuddhist Historiography and Orality"Sino-Platonic Papers ,37 (March, 1993)

and proper names in Chinese translations. In the second juanof Chu Sanzang ji ji there is a list of old and new translationsof Buddhist terms and names. New ones were suggested byDaoan and they often show more phonetic accuracy than theold ones. In different parts of Sengyou's catalogue andbiographical survey of Daoan's life, the former points out thatD a m was very concerned about hu yin (Sanskrit/CentralAsian sounds) being accurately rendered by means of theChinese language because, according to Daoan, wrongtranscriptions deprived a Buddhist text of its power. Sengyouhimself followed in the steps of his teacher and wrote the firsttreatise in the history of Chinese Buddhism about the phoneticsand semantics of Sanskrit/Central Asian languages written inBrahmi.23

This may be about all the evidence that one can find inChinese Buddhist historiographywith regard to the oral aspectsof the IndianBuddhist tradition. There are a few more cases tobe added when the bibliographers refer to Chinese Buddhistslistening to storytelling somewhere in India or Central Asia,But a reference of that kind has just one purpose -- to prove

2 3 ~ h i sreatise was translated and analysed by A. Link in "The EarliestChinese Account of the Compilation of the Tripipka,"Journal of theAmerican On'ental Sociev , 1 (1961): 87-103,281-99.14


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Tanya Storch, "Chinese Buddhist Historiography and Orality"Sino-Platonic Papers , 3 7 (March, 1993)

that the particular sutra in Chinese the cataloguer is speakingof has originated in the West and not in China

Thus, we may conclude that Chinese Buddhisthistoriography retained stories about oral revelation of theBuddhist truth by Buddha, as well as about the oral process ofcompiling the Tliipifaka in India. As the above-quotedpassage from Daoan's preface to the list of doubtful sutrasconfirms, Chinese Buddhists were well aware of the fact that inthe Western countries the Tripitaka was mostly preserved andtransmitted orally. Yet, when it came to the territory of theChinese, they made all possible efforts to present their sacreddoctrine as existing exclusively in its written form - aphenomenon which may only be explained by the influence ofthe Chinese traditional idea of the canon, as expressed in theHanshu "Hwlen zhi" and other catalogues of Chinese classicbooks. It is worthy of noting that an analogous transformationalso occurred in Christian and Moslem cultural areas, whereoral transmission played an extremely important role d&gthe period of dissemination of these religions, but was laterrejected in favor of written scripture.

Recent studies on the idea of the canon in different dturesreveal that the normative or controlling role of the canon hasalways been among its major functions under all cultural


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Tanya Storch, "ChineseBuddhist Historiography and Orality"Sino-Platonic Papers ,37 (March,1993)

circumstances. 24 If this is true about any kind of canon, then,it has to be even more so, when applied to those canons whosewritten aspect is so heavily emphasized. Orality provides morefreedom, while scripture provides more control for bothpolitical and religious institutions, along with its positive sidessuch as a greater stability of the text and its physicaldurability.

2 4 ~ h eirst issue of vol. 10 (1983) of Critical Inquiry was completelydevoted to the problems of the canon in different cultures. About thenormative role of the canon, ee in particular Charles Altiery, "IdeaandIdeal of a Literary Canon", Critical Inquiry, 10 (1983): 3761.


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