About this Event
Presented on October 15, 2022 by an amazing group of panelists, this symposium was made possible by by the generous support of The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation, co-sponsored by The Society for the Promotion of Buddhism (BDK) Translation Project
To know more about this event, go to the BDK Symposium: Translating the Abhidharmakośa.
PDF Presentations
The panelists kindly agreed to share all presentations showed in this video. The PDFs may be viewed and download here:
– Professor Kenneth K. Tanaka: Introducing The BDK English Tripiṭaka Translation Project
– PhD Candidate Bibek P. Sharma: Introduction to Abhidharmakośa: Author, Chapters, its Place in Abhidharma Literature and Subsequent Indian Commentarial Tradition
– Research Associate Jeffrey Kotyk: Abhidharmakośa as Reflection of Cosmology in Earlier Āgama and Nikāya Buddhism
– C. V. Starr East Asian Library Bruce C. Williams: The Puzzle of Xuanzang’s Non-Mahayana Abhidharma Corpus
– Associate Professor Ching Keng: The Transmission of the Abhidharma Sources by Xuanzang and His Disciples
– Associate Professor Weijen Teng: A Comparison of Xuanzang and Paramartha’s Translations of Grammatical Elements in the Abhidharmakośabhāṣya
Q&A
I’m doing my PhD research on the mental factors discussed in the Abhidharmasamuccaya within the Tibetan Tradition. My question is about possible sources in the sutras for the Abhidharmakośa-bhāṣya (ABK) listings of mental factors. Any suggestions you have would be most appreciated. I am most interested in sūtra source(s) for the 48 mental factors (caitasika) section of the first chapter of ABK.
Ching Keng:
Did you mean the scriptural sources behind the classification of mental factors (caitasika, caitta) as a category among the division of dharma into five categories? Lin Qian’s dissertation might be a good place to start. (Qian, Lin. 2015. “Mind in Dispute: The Section on Mind in Harivarman’s Tattvasiddhi.” Ph.D. diss, University of Washington.)
Did you mean the scriptural sources behind the classification of mental factors (caitasika, caitta) as a category among the division of dharma into five categories? Lin Qian’s dissertation might be a good place to start. (Qian, Lin. 2015. “Mind in Dispute: The Section on Mind in Harivarman’s Tattvasiddhi.” Ph.D. diss, University of Washington.)
Weijen Teng:
For scripture sources used by the ABK, you can also consult Bhikkhuni Dhammadinna’s research on Śamathadeva’s Abhidharmakośopāyikā-ṭīkā (Upāyikā in short), the Chos mngon paʼi mdzod kyi ʼgrel bshad nye bar mkho ba zhes bya ba in Tibetan (Derge no. 4094 / Peking no. 5595), or “The Essential Companion to the ‘Treasury of the Abhidharma’”, which is a handbook for the study of the Abhidarmakośabhāṣya that quotes the passages from the Mūlasarvāstivāda Tripiṭaka cited by Vasubandhu.
For scripture sources used by the ABK, you can also consult Bhikkhuni Dhammadinna’s research on Śamathadeva’s Abhidharmakośopāyikā-ṭīkā (Upāyikā in short), the Chos mngon paʼi mdzod kyi ʼgrel bshad nye bar mkho ba zhes bya ba in Tibetan (Derge no. 4094 / Peking no. 5595), or “The Essential Companion to the ‘Treasury of the Abhidharma’”, which is a handbook for the study of the Abhidarmakośabhāṣya that quotes the passages from the Mūlasarvāstivāda Tripiṭaka cited by Vasubandhu.
Bibek Sharma:
I was responsible for the first chapter, but I do not remember if I had to go to any āgamas or sūtras, to quote any of the things in terms of mental factors (caitasika). But at the same time, I have a problem with the very premise of this question in the sense that we often have this idea in the modern scholarship that the sūtras are the real words of Buddha, and then we kind of take Abhidharma and all the treatises as things that were developed later on. We take sūtras as the most authentic, and then we ignore other sources, for example, abhidharma or the commentaries. Whether we agree or disagree on this point, however, the way things were transmitted in India was never clear, and it is still not very clear. India is a place where, when you buy one thing, you get one free; that is, when there is a text there is always a commentary. That’s the convention. Now, we working with this ancient convention, developed in a different space and time from the conventions that we invented in modern scholarship. So, when we try to look at the references made in the Caitasita section, we don’t find anything in āgamas and sutras. But perhaps we do find those references in the abdhidharma and the commentaries, and so on.
I was responsible for the first chapter, but I do not remember if I had to go to any āgamas or sūtras, to quote any of the things in terms of mental factors (caitasika). But at the same time, I have a problem with the very premise of this question in the sense that we often have this idea in the modern scholarship that the sūtras are the real words of Buddha, and then we kind of take Abhidharma and all the treatises as things that were developed later on. We take sūtras as the most authentic, and then we ignore other sources, for example, abhidharma or the commentaries. Whether we agree or disagree on this point, however, the way things were transmitted in India was never clear, and it is still not very clear. India is a place where, when you buy one thing, you get one free; that is, when there is a text there is always a commentary. That’s the convention. Now, we working with this ancient convention, developed in a different space and time from the conventions that we invented in modern scholarship. So, when we try to look at the references made in the Caitasita section, we don’t find anything in āgamas and sutras. But perhaps we do find those references in the abdhidharma and the commentaries, and so on.
Ching Keng:
I’d like to add two points here. First, is that this practice of dividing all the dharmas into five categories was not the oldest Buddhist tradition. It arose along with the Abhidharma tradition, but I don’t know the precise time. As far as I can recall, ancient treatises actually trace all these issues back to the āgamas. So, I think that’s definitely a good place to start. And second, if you want to investigate why there are ’48’ categories in the Caitasita section, rather than 50 or more–that’s a separate issue. So, there are actually two separate issues here.
I’d like to add two points here. First, is that this practice of dividing all the dharmas into five categories was not the oldest Buddhist tradition. It arose along with the Abhidharma tradition, but I don’t know the precise time. As far as I can recall, ancient treatises actually trace all these issues back to the āgamas. So, I think that’s definitely a good place to start. And second, if you want to investigate why there are ’48’ categories in the Caitasita section, rather than 50 or more–that’s a separate issue. So, there are actually two separate issues here.
How do you handle footnotes in your translation, especially with regard to important information found in commentaries?
Jeffrey Kotyk:
Well, I translated the Madhyāntavibhāga-bhāṣya, which has been published now. The policy was to minimize footnotes unless they are necessary. But in some cases, it is necessary to clarify the meaning. For example, using a footnote to add a bit of commentary as a translator as to what exactly the paragraph is saying, or to clarify that there’s a large departure from what the Sanskrit is saying, or in other cases, what a parallel translation is saying. The policy of the BDK translation series is to minimize footnotes and to make it as readable as possible for a general audience. But we still do use footnotes, or rather, they become endnotes. We try to avoid a massive scholarly apparatus, where on every page you have half a dozen footnotes with Sanskrit diacritics, and so on. So, while we do have endnotes, the apparatus is not as extensive as it would be in an academic translation.
Well, I translated the Madhyāntavibhāga-bhāṣya, which has been published now. The policy was to minimize footnotes unless they are necessary. But in some cases, it is necessary to clarify the meaning. For example, using a footnote to add a bit of commentary as a translator as to what exactly the paragraph is saying, or to clarify that there’s a large departure from what the Sanskrit is saying, or in other cases, what a parallel translation is saying. The policy of the BDK translation series is to minimize footnotes and to make it as readable as possible for a general audience. But we still do use footnotes, or rather, they become endnotes. We try to avoid a massive scholarly apparatus, where on every page you have half a dozen footnotes with Sanskrit diacritics, and so on. So, while we do have endnotes, the apparatus is not as extensive as it would be in an academic translation.
Ken Tanaka:
Thank you for that. Actually, at the beginning of the project – over thirty years ago – the policy was not to have any notes at all. That led to a lot of controversy between the translators and the BDK. And I was in attendance for this controversy back twenty-five years ago in San Francisco, and it got very heated. But, in the end, the scholars won out arguing that it’s impossible to translate these difficult texts without adding notes.
Thank you for that. Actually, at the beginning of the project – over thirty years ago – the policy was not to have any notes at all. That led to a lot of controversy between the translators and the BDK. And I was in attendance for this controversy back twenty-five years ago in San Francisco, and it got very heated. But, in the end, the scholars won out arguing that it’s impossible to translate these difficult texts without adding notes.
Bruce Williams:
We probably all have more extensive notes in our own versions that we might want to do something else with. One device I used to cut out a lot of the footnotes was an English glossary with the Sanskrit and Chinese in it, with names and things like that. But it’s a technical text. Even when you try to put it into English as clearly as possible, it’s just not clear what in the heck is going on. Sometimes you really need a footnote to just communicate meaning. We’re still discussing how to deal with the apparatus on this text and I’ve tried to keep my footnotes to a minimum: things like textual changes, things that are quite different than another text, or something that I can’t put into a glossary. But I still end up with about probably thirty footnotes per chapter. I have no idea if that’s too many or not, but this is something I’m sure of: translation committees and editorial committees will have something to say on footnotes, but I do try to keep them to a minimum.
We probably all have more extensive notes in our own versions that we might want to do something else with. One device I used to cut out a lot of the footnotes was an English glossary with the Sanskrit and Chinese in it, with names and things like that. But it’s a technical text. Even when you try to put it into English as clearly as possible, it’s just not clear what in the heck is going on. Sometimes you really need a footnote to just communicate meaning. We’re still discussing how to deal with the apparatus on this text and I’ve tried to keep my footnotes to a minimum: things like textual changes, things that are quite different than another text, or something that I can’t put into a glossary. But I still end up with about probably thirty footnotes per chapter. I have no idea if that’s too many or not, but this is something I’m sure of: translation committees and editorial committees will have something to say on footnotes, but I do try to keep them to a minimum.
Bibek Sharma:
I would say a text like Abhidharmakośa-bhāṣya, which is so difficult and so profound, needs footnotes. We also need to follow the policy of BDK, as Ken has already mentioned. It is a very difficult compromise for us as translators, because there are many elements that we would like to explain. But at the same time the footnotes would be very long to unpack certain passages. The reason for that is we are translating from Xuanzang–which has never been done before. Louis de la Vallee Poussin’s translation, which we have already talked about, and subsequent translations that replicate Poussin’s translations provide extensive footnotes for us to consult. So, it’s a very difficult compromise that we have to come up with. We do have footnotes, but we keep them as minimal as possible.
I would say a text like Abhidharmakośa-bhāṣya, which is so difficult and so profound, needs footnotes. We also need to follow the policy of BDK, as Ken has already mentioned. It is a very difficult compromise for us as translators, because there are many elements that we would like to explain. But at the same time the footnotes would be very long to unpack certain passages. The reason for that is we are translating from Xuanzang–which has never been done before. Louis de la Vallee Poussin’s translation, which we have already talked about, and subsequent translations that replicate Poussin’s translations provide extensive footnotes for us to consult. So, it’s a very difficult compromise that we have to come up with. We do have footnotes, but we keep them as minimal as possible.
Many thanks indeed for these very helpful presentations and the overall endeavor. I wondered if you might briefly give some illustrations or characterize the way in which de La Vallée-Poussin does not always align with the original Chinese (as mentioned in the introductory talk)?
Bruce Williams:
I mentioned a couple examples earlier where de La Vallée-Poussin shifts between Xuanzang and Paramārtha, and that he will not footnote anything that’s different in Xuanzang if he’s following Paramārtha. He also puts lots of summaries in, little editorial inclusions. I remember one section where there was a long paragraph. And I couldn’t figure out where he got it from, and then, after I read the paragraph, I realized that what I was translating was really an answer to the paragraph. He inserted a paragraph, I think, entirely on his own, to set up the answer that was in Xuanzang’s translation. It seemed to me that he was providing context for a reader, what might be a little gray box in a textbook, or something like that. And, again, de La Vallée-Poussin tends to summarize Xuanzang, providing the argument but no sense of the Xuanzang’s language or exact wording. This is constant when dealing with de La Vallée-Poussin. Especially in the case of argument: that’s where he is really excellent. I mean, he has a deep understanding of Abhidharma, and the French and English translations of de La Vallée-Poussin convey the main points of the argument and help the reader grasp it. Having that knowledge conveyed it’s easier to go back and translate in a way more faithful to the original wording. There are places where I just look at it and I have no clue what a given paragraph is about. Eventually I do–and de La Vallée-Poussin is extremely valuable for providing that.
I mentioned a couple examples earlier where de La Vallée-Poussin shifts between Xuanzang and Paramārtha, and that he will not footnote anything that’s different in Xuanzang if he’s following Paramārtha. He also puts lots of summaries in, little editorial inclusions. I remember one section where there was a long paragraph. And I couldn’t figure out where he got it from, and then, after I read the paragraph, I realized that what I was translating was really an answer to the paragraph. He inserted a paragraph, I think, entirely on his own, to set up the answer that was in Xuanzang’s translation. It seemed to me that he was providing context for a reader, what might be a little gray box in a textbook, or something like that. And, again, de La Vallée-Poussin tends to summarize Xuanzang, providing the argument but no sense of the Xuanzang’s language or exact wording. This is constant when dealing with de La Vallée-Poussin. Especially in the case of argument: that’s where he is really excellent. I mean, he has a deep understanding of Abhidharma, and the French and English translations of de La Vallée-Poussin convey the main points of the argument and help the reader grasp it. Having that knowledge conveyed it’s easier to go back and translate in a way more faithful to the original wording. There are places where I just look at it and I have no clue what a given paragraph is about. Eventually I do–and de La Vallée-Poussin is extremely valuable for providing that.
Bibek Sharma:
I want to speak further on two myths that we have in the modern scholarship. The first myth: that de La Vallée-Poussin’s translation is a faithful translation of the Chinese version. Bruce just described how this is not fully the case. The second myth: that Xuanzang is also somehow very faithful to Sanskrit texts. I do not agree with that entirely. Of course, he wanted to be faithful to the source text. That is his convention. But it does not mean he was translating solely the exact source wording of a text into Chinese–we do not know precisely which text he was using. I believe Xuanzang had many sources. He was at Nālandā University for 17 years. Perhaps he had more resources at that time, sub-commentaries, and also the teachers, who must have told him many things. The way of learning and transmitting in India was through the teacher, so he might have heard much from his teachers. From these sources, he translates his own Abhidharmakośa-bhāṣya, one that is readable in Chinese, but also faithful to diverse Indian sources. So, of course Xuanzang was a genius. I’m sure he knew translation conventions; he knew all the translations, because when we talk about the Chinese we have a layer of different conventions of translations and then every translator had their own convention and used their own style. He was all aware of this, but at the same time he wanted to be bit more faithful to the Sanskrit, and its compounds. So, he invented his own way of translating things using many resources. But when we read his translation centuries later, without any kind of explanation, knowing how he designed his conventions and which were his sources–that becomes a difficult task.
I want to speak further on two myths that we have in the modern scholarship. The first myth: that de La Vallée-Poussin’s translation is a faithful translation of the Chinese version. Bruce just described how this is not fully the case. The second myth: that Xuanzang is also somehow very faithful to Sanskrit texts. I do not agree with that entirely. Of course, he wanted to be faithful to the source text. That is his convention. But it does not mean he was translating solely the exact source wording of a text into Chinese–we do not know precisely which text he was using. I believe Xuanzang had many sources. He was at Nālandā University for 17 years. Perhaps he had more resources at that time, sub-commentaries, and also the teachers, who must have told him many things. The way of learning and transmitting in India was through the teacher, so he might have heard much from his teachers. From these sources, he translates his own Abhidharmakośa-bhāṣya, one that is readable in Chinese, but also faithful to diverse Indian sources. So, of course Xuanzang was a genius. I’m sure he knew translation conventions; he knew all the translations, because when we talk about the Chinese we have a layer of different conventions of translations and then every translator had their own convention and used their own style. He was all aware of this, but at the same time he wanted to be bit more faithful to the Sanskrit, and its compounds. So, he invented his own way of translating things using many resources. But when we read his translation centuries later, without any kind of explanation, knowing how he designed his conventions and which were his sources–that becomes a difficult task.
Weijen Teng:
At the beginning of the chapter I have been translating, “On the Exposition of the Cognition”, Xuanzang seems to have added a few lines to provide some background information to the subject: Xuanzang added that there are two kinds of understanding (prajñā), namely the the uncontaminated (anāśrava), and the contaminated (sāśrava). This information does not appear in the extant Sanskrit text we have now, nor does it appear in Paramārtha’s translation. Poussin did not translate this sentence. This shows that Poussin’s translation is not always as faithful to Xuanzang’s translation, as we expected. Nonetheless, I agree with Bruce. I think this is Poussin’s intentional decision. Poussin would sometimes deviate from Xuanzang’s translation for the purpose of being closer to the Sanskrit version of the Abhidharmakośa-bhāṣya.
At the beginning of the chapter I have been translating, “On the Exposition of the Cognition”, Xuanzang seems to have added a few lines to provide some background information to the subject: Xuanzang added that there are two kinds of understanding (prajñā), namely the the uncontaminated (anāśrava), and the contaminated (sāśrava). This information does not appear in the extant Sanskrit text we have now, nor does it appear in Paramārtha’s translation. Poussin did not translate this sentence. This shows that Poussin’s translation is not always as faithful to Xuanzang’s translation, as we expected. Nonetheless, I agree with Bruce. I think this is Poussin’s intentional decision. Poussin would sometimes deviate from Xuanzang’s translation for the purpose of being closer to the Sanskrit version of the Abhidharmakośa-bhāṣya.
One question I have is about Xuanzang’s and Paramārtha’s approaches to translating Sanskrit grammatical elements. May I ask how distinctive their approaches are? In addition, do we have any clues to when the practice started?
Weijen Teng:
Although I mentioned this in my presentation, thus far I haven’t spotted any significant differences overall between Paramārtha’s and Xuanzang’s translation grammatical expressions. They are quite similar and I think Xuanzang might have consulted Paramārtha’s translation, keeping his translation of this grammatical expressions. Perhaps Xuanzang changed them slightly when he felt his translations were better. It was common practice for medieval Chinese translators to consult previous Chinese translations of Buddhist texts, but I do not know for certain that Xuanzang had access to Paramārtha’s text itself. Maybe Keng Ching or Bibek Sharma could speak to that.
Although I mentioned this in my presentation, thus far I haven’t spotted any significant differences overall between Paramārtha’s and Xuanzang’s translation grammatical expressions. They are quite similar and I think Xuanzang might have consulted Paramārtha’s translation, keeping his translation of this grammatical expressions. Perhaps Xuanzang changed them slightly when he felt his translations were better. It was common practice for medieval Chinese translators to consult previous Chinese translations of Buddhist texts, but I do not know for certain that Xuanzang had access to Paramārtha’s text itself. Maybe Keng Ching or Bibek Sharma could speak to that.
In terms of when this practice started. Historically, as I mentioned, we have to consult all other Chinese translations to examine this. But I think, right now, if we can identify those particular Chinese characters or expressions that are actually the translation of Sanskrit grammatical elements, then we can use them to search digitally through other translations–and a fuller picture might emerge.
Bibek Sharma:
In textual studies, this is the number one question: Are we sure that Xuanzang and Paramārtha were using the same source text? We are not very sure. We do not have the evidence to say definitively that they are using the same text, or same transmission. What we see with the Indian texts, for example, when we compare the Pāli sūtras and the āgamas–and then examine the same sūtra, with the same content–is that they deviate because the transmission in each case was different. As well, there are different versions of the same sūtra. So, I’m not sure whether they were using the same text.
In textual studies, this is the number one question: Are we sure that Xuanzang and Paramārtha were using the same source text? We are not very sure. We do not have the evidence to say definitively that they are using the same text, or same transmission. What we see with the Indian texts, for example, when we compare the Pāli sūtras and the āgamas–and then examine the same sūtra, with the same content–is that they deviate because the transmission in each case was different. As well, there are different versions of the same sūtra. So, I’m not sure whether they were using the same text.
In terms of their approach, the way Paramārtha translates and the way Xuanzang translates are different in convention. Paramārtha tends to use more characters. He did not invent the four-character convention that Xuanzang strictly followed. Although I am not entiredly sure, I would still say that he had Paramārtha’s translation in his hands, and he was improving upon it. He was making it more concise. He was efficiently translating those things in four characters, using all the previous translations in Indic languages as well as Chinese. This is a very tentative kind of opinion, not based on firm evidence because we don’t know which manuscript they were using.
Bruce Williams:
I want to add a quick note to this discussion. When I lined up the Sanskrit of the kārikās with Paramārtha’s and Xuanzang’s translations, while there’s obviously a lot of differences in the Chinese, it’s not uncommon to find whole couplets that are identical between Paramārtha and Xuanzang. To me, that is beyond any kind of probable happening, that they would just spontaneously come up with the same translation. And just in the two chapters I’ve done this, it is common–at least in terms of whole couplets, but definitely in terms of whole lines–to find identical translation, with perhaps a change of one character. So, at least in terms of the kārikās, to me it seemed obvious that Xuanzang knew Paramārtha. And if he knew the kārikās he would have known the text. That is my impression.
I want to add a quick note to this discussion. When I lined up the Sanskrit of the kārikās with Paramārtha’s and Xuanzang’s translations, while there’s obviously a lot of differences in the Chinese, it’s not uncommon to find whole couplets that are identical between Paramārtha and Xuanzang. To me, that is beyond any kind of probable happening, that they would just spontaneously come up with the same translation. And just in the two chapters I’ve done this, it is common–at least in terms of whole couplets, but definitely in terms of whole lines–to find identical translation, with perhaps a change of one character. So, at least in terms of the kārikās, to me it seemed obvious that Xuanzang knew Paramārtha. And if he knew the kārikās he would have known the text. That is my impression.
