Some issues with the Chinese texts

[llt]

@sujato

I have a reasonable idea of how the texts were brought to China and translated. But I don’t know about what happened next. How were the texts were gathered in canons, and how were those canons were passed down? Any clarity would be most appreciated!

Good point, and I think that whole development is often overlooked.

@sujato

But it would be nice to have a short, simple how-to for people who’d like to do this. Not necessarily to be able to read Chinese texts in depth, which obviously takes serious study, but to check up a different reading or variation. Something that would encourage people to at least give it a go, so that these texts are not hidden away behind walls of obscurity. Perhaps even an online course? Anyway, just a thought.

Sure, I’ve made a little post about this here:

A few basic points on reading Chinese Buddhist texts

A few points to consider as a beginner if you wish to start reading through some Buddhist texts in Chinese: Determine the difficulty level. Sometimes the text itself may be inherently difficult, as in abhidharma. The text itself may use a lot of specialized language and depend on you understanding complex theories. Simply jumping into the text will not work in that case. Sometimes the translation is instead difficult due to the choices of the original translators. For example, using overly te…

I recommend others give it a go and try for themselves. The biggest hurdle is just the vocabulary. Once the vocabulary is clear, then the grammar is usually pretty apparent as well. The lookup tool will give most of the vocabulary, although there are always some occasional problems with grouping and false positives (but it’s not a big deal most of the time).