* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
Download Buddhism and the Rise of the Written Vernacular in East Asia: The
Early Buddhist schools wikipedia , lookup
Buddhism and psychology wikipedia , lookup
Triratna Buddhist Community wikipedia , lookup
Buddhist art wikipedia , lookup
Enlightenment in Buddhism wikipedia , lookup
Persecution of Buddhists wikipedia , lookup
Greco-Buddhism wikipedia , lookup
Buddhism and sexual orientation wikipedia , lookup
Buddhism and Western philosophy wikipedia , lookup
History of Buddhism in India wikipedia , lookup
History of Buddhism wikipedia , lookup
Women in Buddhism wikipedia , lookup
Pre-sectarian Buddhism wikipedia , lookup
Buddhism in Vietnam wikipedia , lookup
Buddhist influences on print technology wikipedia , lookup
Decline of Buddhism in the Indian subcontinent wikipedia , lookup
Buddhism and the Rise of the Written Vernacular in East Asia: The Making of National Languages Author(s): Victor H. Mair Source: The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 53, No. 3 (Aug., 1994), pp. 707-751 Published by: Association for Asian Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2059728 Accessed: 06-03-2015 16:42 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Association for Asian Studies is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Journal of Asian Studies. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 151.100.162.37 on Fri, 06 Mar 2015 16:42:54 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Buddhismand the Rise of the WrittenVernacularin East Asia: The Makingof NationalLanguages VICTOR H. MAIR THE VAST MAJORITY OF PREMODERN CHINESE LITERATURE, certainly all ofthemost famousworksof the classical tradition,were composedin one formor anotherof Sinitic(hereafter Literary also oftensomewhatambiguouslycalled LS, wen-yen[-wen}, "ClassicalChinese"or "Literary Chinese").Beginningin themedievalperiod,however, of writtenVernacularSinitic(hereafter an undercurrent VS, pai-hua[-wen})started to develop. The writtenvernacularcame to full maturityin China only with the May FourthMovementof 1919, afterthe finalcollapseduringthe 1911 revolution of the dynastic,bureaucraticinstitutionsthat had governedChina formore than two millennia.It mustbe pointedout thatthe difference betweenwen-yen and paihua is at least as great as that betweenLatin and Italian or betweenSanskritand Hindi. In my estimation, a thoroughlinguistical analysis would show that and pure pai-hua are actuallyfar more dissimilarthan are unadulteratedwen-yen Latin and Italian or Sanskritand Hindi. In fact,I believethatwen-yen and pai-hua belong to wholly differentcategoriesof language, the formerbeing a sort of ofAsianand MiddleEasternStudiesat theUniversity VictorH. Mairis Professor of Pennsylvania. forthefinalversionofthisstudy,beguna half-dozen Research yearsago, was carried Centerduringtheacademicyear1991-92. Workat the out at theNationalHumanities Centerwassupported fortheHumanities bygrantsfromtheNationalEndowment and the I am grateful AndrewW. MellonFoundation. to all threeof theseorganizations forproa number to complete ofprojects.In addition,I wouldlike vidingme theidealconditions individuals whoreadthisworkin oneor moreofitsmanyprevious to thankthefollowing S. RobertRamsey, GariLedyard, incarnations: JohnDeFrancis, JamesUnger,JanNattier, Tsu-LinMei, LudoRocher,Oskarv. Hinaber,T. Griffith Foulk,StephenF. Teiser,Richard Mather,David Utz, and LindaChance.Whileall of themoffered helpfulcomments I aloneam responsible and usefulreferences, foranyerrors of factand interpretation that remain.The linguists, ChouYu-kuang,Jerry Norman,W. SouthCoblin,andTakataToassistance on technical kio,provided questions,forwhichI am deeplythankful. Finally,I theclose,criticalreadingofthreeanonymous referees appreciate forthisjournalwhomade forimprovement. severalusefulsuggestions A monographic treatment of thissubject,entitledTheConcept of"NationalLanguage" is forthcoming in EastAsia and ItsBuddhist in Sino-Platonic Beginnings, Papers. TheJournal ofAsianStudies 53, no. 3 (August1994):707-751. (? 1994 by theAssociation forAsianStudies,Inc. 707 This content downloaded from 151.100.162.37 on Fri, 06 Mar 2015 16:42:54 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 708 VICTOR H. MAIR demicryptography largely divorced from speech and the latter sharing a close is reflectedin with spokenformsof living Sinitic. This difference correspondence literallymeaning"literary the namesforthesetwo typesof writtenSinitic,wen-yen language" and pai-hua meaning"unadornedspeech." The problemis that stylists and pai-hua traditionsseldom, if ever,employedan unalloyed in both the wen-yen formof thesetwo typesof writtenSinitic.Thus, therearevaryingdegreesof mixtures as pan-wen-pan-pai (semiliterary-semivernacular). thatare looselycharacterized Linguisticdata indicatethatLS and VS have been distinctsystemsas farback as theycan be traced.This is certainlytruefromthe WarringStatesperiod(475249 B.C.E.) on, but I suspect that eventuallywe will be able to demonstrate conclusivelythat LS, startingwith its earlieststage in the oracle shell and bone abbreviated and so replete inscriptions (around1200 B.C.E.), was alwaysso drastically conventionsused only in writingthatit nevercame with obligatorynonvernacular livingvarietyof Siniticspeech. Naturally,LS close to reflecting any contemporary infusedby some varietyor varieties musthave been foundedupon and continuously of VS, just as writtenSumerian(whichwas likewise"unsayable")must have been basedupona formof thelivinglanguageof thepeopleofancientSumer(cf. DeFrancis order 1989:78-79). Yet the disparitybetweenLS and VS is of a whollydifferent of magnitudethan that between,say, writtenand spokenEnglish or writtenand spokenRussian. An analogythatmay be used to illustratethe relationshipbetweenLS and VS is thatof the relationshipbetweena code or cipherand the naturallanguageupon is not so drasticas it normallyis in the whichit is based, althoughthe difference lattercase whereintentional(thoughstrictlyprincipledand hence reversiblefora privilegedreceiver)scramblingmay be involved.Or we may describethe radical reductionof VS to LS as being somewhatsimilarto the making of shoppingor chorelistsand the jottingdownof lecturenotesthatincludeall sortsof abbreviations and omit auxiliaries,prepositions,endings, and other morphemesthat are not absolutelyessential.Apart fromits being unnecessaryforthe writerto spell out in detail,earlyscribesdoubtlesshad addedincentives to economize everything explicitly taskof preparingtheawkwardmaterialstheyworkedwithon the time-consuming clay on the one hand and bones and shells on the other-and to be as terseas possiblewith the complicated,inefficient morphosyllabic symbolsof theirscripts. Afterthis sortof shorthandgot started,it mayhave seemedthe normforwriting. Such drasticallypared-down,unnatural(in termsof real [spoken] language) styles and perpetuated would have been fostered by thoseelite ritualspecialistswho wished to monopolizetheirexoticskill. In thecase of Sinitic,once such an ellipticalsystem was established,it divergedmoreand morefromthespokenlanguageas thewriting remainedlargelyfixedwhilespeechchangedovertime(DeFrancis1991). The difference betweenLS and VS is thus not just a matterof diachronicchange,as betweenOld English and ModernEnglish or betweenOld Russian and Modern Russian. It is, linguisticmedia. As we shall rather,a distinctionbetweentwo separatelystructured see below, LS and VS coexistedin China forthousandsof years.Their maintenance as competing systemswas due to support from differentsocial and political constituencies. Going fromLS to VS or in the otherdirectiondefinitelyrequiresa processof witnessthe burgeoningnumberof VS translations or translation; decoding/encoding of LS textsfromall ages thatare beingproducedin Taiwanand the People'sRepublic of China. If LS and VS weremerelytwo variantsof the same language,therewould be no compellingneed to translatetheone into the other.The confusednotionthat This content downloaded from 151.100.162.37 on Fri, 06 Mar 2015 16:42:54 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions BUDDHISM AND THE RISE OF WRITTEN VERNACULAR 709 LS and VS are simplyconstituentsof a single language is due to theirfrequent borrowingfromand mixingwith each other.More of this is done by VS fromLS (e.g., ch'eng-yii ["set phrases,"commonlyreferred to looselyas "idioms"] whoseLS grammar,syntax,and lexiconare noticeablydistinctfromthe VS matrixin which theyare implanted)thanby LS fromVS, sincewriters ofLS tendto be moreconscious ofmaintainingtheintegrity and purityoftheirhighlymanneredstyle,whilewriters of VS oftenaspireto affectan LS aura withoutreallymasteringthe entireartificial language. In a stimulatingarticle,"On RepresentingAbstractionsin ArchaicChinese," HenryRosemont,Jr.(1974) basicallyconcurswiththeseviewson LS whenhe states that it was not a spoken language but an exclusivelywrittenlanguage and hence that it cannot be classifiedas a naturallanguage. Tsu-Lin Mei (1992a) takes the contraryposition that the Analects,to a certainextent,reflectsspoken language. He sees the best evidence forthis in fusionwords (or what W.A.C.H. Dobson [1974:101-21 has called "allegroforms").Since theycan occuronlyin rapidspeech, he regardsthemas "primafacieevidencethatthe Masterdid speak in a formpretty close to what was recorded."Indeed, the Analectsis morevernacularthan the Tso in the sense thatit uses moregrammaticalparticles,requires chuan[Tso'sChronicle] more words to say the same thing, etc., and that both are more vernacularthan bronzeinscriptions.Nonetheless,I still maintainthat all LS texts contemporary are dramatically (includingtheAnalectsand Tso'sChronicle) divorcedfromvernacular speech and representa separatesystemof linguisticand orthographic conventions employedsolely in writing.The clearestevidenceforthe separatenessof the two systemscan be seen in the much higherdegreeof polysyllabicity of the vernacular, and usages(see the discussionofshihbelow starklydifferent grammaticalstructures forone tellingexample;manyothers,such as distinctivedemonstrative words,the methodforhandlingpossessivesand relativeclauses,different approachesto measure words [also called countersand classifiers},and verbal complements,might be adduced), and the factthatthe borrowingback and forthbetweenthe two systems is so conspicuous.We shall returnto the alleged vernacularity of the Analectsagain underthe rubricof kuan-hua. EarlyWrittenVernacularin China A curiousphenomenonabout the way the vernacularfirstcomes to be written down in China is thatthe earliestinstancesof writtenVS occuralmostexclusively, certainlywithabsoluteand unmistakablepredominance,in Buddhistcontexts.The most conspicuous examples of this phenomenonare the Tun-huang pien-wen texts:eighthto tenthcenturies)thatI have workedon forthe past (transformation two decades (Mair 1983, 1988, 1989; Iriya 1961, 1985) and the recordedsayings to as yii-luthatdate fromthe periodimmediatelyfollowing of Zen mastersreferred (Maspero 1914; Kao 1948; Berling 1987). Equally strikingis the high proportion of vernacularelementsthatare presentin the earliesttranslations of Buddhisttexts into Sinitic,startingfromthe secondcenturyof the CommonEra (C.E.). This has been demonstrated conclusivelythroughthe carefulresearchof the eminentDutch Buddhologist,Erik Zurcher(1977; 1980; 1991), and, followingin his footsteps, the youngChineselinguist,Chu Ch'ing-chih(1990). Chu's studyis based on a close readingof all the ChineseBuddhisttextsof the earlymedievalperiod,bywhichhe intendstheEasternHan, Wei, Chin,and Northern This content downloaded from 151.100.162.37 on Fri, 06 Mar 2015 16:42:54 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 710 VICTOR H. MAIR and SouthernDynasties,fromabout 25-589 C.E. There is an enormousamountof of theearlymedievalperiodaloneamount materialto be covered-Buddhistscriptures to 960 titlesin 2,990 scrollsor fasciclescomposedof roughly25,000,000 graphs, more than the secularnativeliteraturefromthe same period. surprisingly Chu richlyand conclusivelydocumentsa highlysignificantphenomenon,that medieval Buddhist textsare decidedlymore vernacularand colloquial than their fromthe same period. One of the most obvious aspects non-Buddhistcounterparts of ChineseBuddhisttextsin comparisonwith nativeworksis that theycontainfar morepolysyllabicwords(particularly disyllabicwords),but thereare also noticeable (cf. Watters'sexcellentbut littleknownwork syntacticand grammaticaldifferences of 1889, esp. chapters8 and 9 ["The Influenceof Buddhism on the Chinese Language"]). Some of thisinfluencewas in directresponseto the linguisticfeatures fortheChinesetranslations of theIndic(and perhapsIranianand Tocharian)prototypes of Buddhisttexts.It is clear,however,thatthe implantationof Buddhisminto the Chinesesociolinguistic colloquial, bodyalso servedto elicitin an activewayvernacular, and dialecticalelementsthatbelongedproperlyto spokenSiniticlanguagesbut that had been rejectedby the indigenoustextualtraditionas vulgarisms. I shallgivehereonlytwoexamplesin supportofChu's thesis,thefirstgrammatical and the secondlexical. Shihas thecopulativeverbshowsup in theearliestBuddhist translations(i.e., startingfromthe second centuryC.E.) and is quite commonin medievalpopular Buddhist literature.This is in completecontrastto its use as a in LS. Veryearlyuse ofshihas the vernacularcopulativehas recently demonstrative confirmedby the discoveryof an astronomicaltextin which been archaeologically occursin thatcapacity(cf. Tuan Li-fen1989). Since and it repeatedly unmistakably to well text dates beforethe beginningof the CommonEra (from found this newly near the beginningof the WesternHan [i.e., the earlypart of the second century B.C.E.}), copulativeshihcan hardlybe attributedto the coming of Buddhism. It must, rather,be a featureof the vernacularlanguage that was presentveryearly, perhapsfromthestart,but thatwas ignoredby LS writers(cf. Cantonesehai, which seems to representanothermodernsurvivalof the same vernacularelement).This of VS (A shihB ["A is B"J) which is so apparenteven up distinctivecharacteristic different fromLS, whichlacksa copulativeverbaltogether. to thepresentday,is utterly Instead,LS employsthe nominativesentencestructureA B yeh("A [is] B"). It is thatSsu-maCh'ien'sRecords (Shih-chi) (c. 90 B.C.E.), oftheGrandHistorian noteworthy whichof all LS textsdating to the period beforethe Common Era has a tendency to admit a few discernableelementsfromVS, includesa numberof instancesin whichA shihB and A B yehare combined,hence A shihB yeh.Ohta (1958:189) offersan astuteanalysisof this phenomenon. of thelargelypolysyllabic VS lexiconis oftenerroneously The emergence explained as the resultof the combinationof monosyllabicwordsfromLS, as thoughVS were somehowderivedfromLS or an attemptto makeLS moreexplicitand understandable whenspoken.Conceptuallythismakesno sensewhatsoever,sincespokenlanguages of theirwrittenforms.Historically, theallegedderivation alwaysprecedetheinvention false.In a fullertreatment, I could cite hundreds ofVS fromLS is also demonstrably of instancesthat show that polysyllabicvocabularyhas been a featureof VS from the earliesttimes that can be attested,but here I shall referonly to one, namely tao-lu("way, road"). Tao-lu is a venerableVS wordstill in use todaythat is found in a wide varietyof pre-Ch'intexts,includingthe Tso chuan(Tso's Chronicle) (463 B.C.E.) by Tso Ch'iu-ming(cf. Mair 1990:22-23 forthe phonologyand philology ofthisword).The factthatthewordtazo-/uis usuallyreducedto justtazoin LS texts This content downloaded from 151.100.162.37 on Fri, 06 Mar 2015 16:42:54 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions BUDDHISM AND THE RISE OF WRITTEN VERNACULAR 711 7t!m q : .5 Figure Lin 5.1::. writ 1.MediealVenaculrSintic 1 of............. theI"Long Scroll" from Tun huang andrndacOffic ofigthe OriMenteal withe Colletinco At indTibean OffiscrLibrar. With the permissionof the BritishLibrary. showsthatthe relationshipbetweenLS and VS is exactlythe oppositeof thatwhich is commonlyassumed. To wit, wherewe can test specificinstancesin the early stagesof the formation of LS, it seems to be the resultof drastictruncationof VS, includinganaphoraso extremethatit could not possiblybe toleratedin intelligible This content downloaded from 151.100.162.37 on Fri, 06 Mar 2015 16:42:54 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 712 VICTOR H. MAIR speech. Of course,once LS was securelyestablished,it became possible to create new polysyllabic(chieflybisyllabic)wordsin VS by joining togethermonosyllabic LS words.But thiswas a relativelylate phenomenonand would have been possible onlyforthosefewwho wereliteratein LS. The mass of the populationwould have continuedto use and createpolysyllabic wordsas theyalwayshad fromthe beginnings of the Siniticlanguagegroup, i.e., irrespective of the tetragraphic script. What Zurcherand Chu havebothshownclearlyis that,fromtheverybeginnings of Buddhismin China, the translatedtextsof this new religiondisplaya higher degreeof vernacularcontentthando non-Buddhisttexts.No othertextsfromthe same periodcan begin to comparewiththe earlyBuddhisttranslations forthe large amountofvernacularisms theycontain.Indeed, it is extremely rarein non-Buddhist textsof the same age ever to findeven a single unambiguouslyvernacularusage. Nonetheless,it must be pointed out that, as the eminentRussian specialiston MedievalVernacularSinitic,I. S. Gurevich(1985) has shown,even theTun-huang pien-wen can by no meansbe said to represent a pure formof VS, inasmuchas they still containa significantproportionof LS elements.This is probablydue to the natureof the sinographicscriptwhich is so perfectly well suited to LS but rather inimicalto a full representation of any VS language. It should also be mentioned that, once Buddhistshad paved the way for the use of a vernacularizedwritten medium,it was tentatively adopted-through emulation-for secularpurposesby otherswho were living in close associationwith them. Witness the occasional transformation texts,stories,rhapsodies,cantos,and othergenreson non-Buddhist subjectsthat came to be writtendown at Tun-huang.By the Sung period, it had become acceptable-among certainstill mostlynonelitesocial classes-to employ the writtenvernacularforhistoricalmedleys,love stories,and lyrics. The evidenceforthe intimaterelationshipbetweenBuddhismand the written in Chinais so irrefutable, vernacular thatit demandsan explanation. yetso unexpected, Given thattheconnectionis bothobviousand uncontested,one mightimaginethat therewould be an easily identifiableset of reasonsfor this phenomenon.Such, is not the case. The situationis actuallyquite complex and it is unfortunately, to declarewithassurancepreciselywhatit was about Buddhismthatproved difficult to be conduciveto the adoptionof the vernacularas an acceptablewrittenmedium. This is all the moreremarkablein lightof the factthatChineseliteratihad always looked down upon any traceof the vernacularin writingas crude and vulgar(su). Naturally,like all othervocalhumanbeings,Chinesescholarsthemselves wereforced to use the vernacularin daily conversation,but committingit to writingwas an entirelyseparatematter.On the face of it, the adoptionby Chinese Buddhistsof writtenvernacularand BuddhistHybridSinitic(hereafter BHSi) as vehiclesforthe of theirfaithseemsimprobable.One would have thoughtthattheywould expression have chosen,instead,LS, since it was uniformly consideredby the Chineseelite to be moreelegant. Surelystraightwen-yen would have been moreappropriateif one were deliberatelysearchingfora suitablesacredlanguage in which to couch one's in a new arenaof evangelism.Hence, the blatantBuddhistpreference scriptures for mixed with large chunks of pai-hua vocabularyand syntaxis pai-hua or wen-yen puzzling froma conventionalpoint of view. With time, stylesof Buddhistwritingin China morenearlyapproximating LS did develop, especiallyforthose textsthat were composedby nativeauthorsand were not translatedfromnon-Siniticlanguages. To one degree or another,most Buddhisttextsthat were translatedfromnon-Siniticlanguages,particularlythose done by non-Chinese individuals,displayvarioustypesof grammatical and syntactical This content downloaded from 151.100.162.37 on Fri, 06 Mar 2015 16:42:54 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions BUDDHISM AND THE RISE OF WRITTEN VERNACULAR 713 discrepancieswith LS. This is not, of course, to mentionthe large amountsof translatedand transcribed thatalso stampBHSi as different terminology fromLS. In the next section,I would like to identifya numberof factorspeculiar to Buddhismthatpossiblymighthave contributedto the acceptanceof the vernacular as a workabletool forwrittenexpression.Because of the tremendouscomplexityof thisissue,I will refrain fromanysimple,unidimensional explanation.Startingfrom the most abstractand generalaspects,I shall move to more concreteand specific featuresthat may have fosteredthe growthof the writtenvernacularin China. Buddhismand Language Buddhism,aboveall, is a sophisticated religionwithan extensive bodyofdoctrine. PerhapsBuddhistteachingcontainsa corepreceptthatis conduciveto thevernacular, a teachingforwhich therewas no parallel in native Chinese traditions,such as Confucianismand Taoism. One that leaps to mind is the notionof upaya (fangpien,skillfulmeans).Accordingto thisdoctrine,believersshoulduse whatevermeans are appropriateto ensurethe salvationof all sortsof living creatures.Upaya was but was activelyappliedin Buddhistpreaching notjusta rarefied theory, and teaching. In China, forexample, lecturesforlaymen(su-chiang) were deliveredby eminent monks(kao-seng) and, upon occasion,by a fewwho werenot so eminent.The notes forsome of theirlectureshave been preservedamong the Tun-huangmanuscripts texts(chiang-ching-wen) and theyarequitevernacular as sutra-lecture in theirorientation ramifications ofthedoctrineofupayaareBuddhistparables, (Mair 1986). Otherliterary apologues,and birth-talesknownas avadana, nidana,and jataka. These, too, were in China and popularwiththemasses.Vivid descriptions much-favored ofBuddhist and lecturingmay be foundin the Biographies storytelling Monks(KaoofEminent in China (e.g., Ennin'sDiary),classicalfiction sengchuan),travelrecordsof foreigners (ch'uan-ch'i),Tun-huangtexts (e.g., the tale of Hui-yuan [S2144 in the British Library]),anecdotalliterature,and othersources. Buddhismis not only a religion,however,forit also functionsas an elaborate philosophicalsystem.Is thereanythinginherentin Buddhistthoughtthat might sanctionthe use of the vernacular?Here I am ratherskepticalthat we can find much thatwill help us elucidatethe mystery of the ChineseBuddhistpredilection forthe vernacular.My suspicionabout the applicabilityof philosophicalpremises to our presentquandaryis based on the fundamentalineffability of Buddhahood and otherassociatedconcepts,such as nirvana.Alreadyin the Nikayas (the early Pali texts)and the Agamas (a group of textsin the Sanskritcanon thatcorrespond to the Pali Nikayas),it is clear thatultimatereligiousgoals are held to lie outside the realmof discourseand, hence, discursivethought.The Suttanipatainformsus thattheBuddhais beyondthe "pathsofspeech"and in theTheragatha he is described as being inconceivablein visual or auditoryimages (Gomez 1987:446a). It is a commonplacein Mahayanatexts that enlightenmentis incompatiblewith words and intellection.The usual formulationis "the way of language is cut off,the tao tuan, hsin-hsing workingsof the mind are obliterated"(yuen-yiu ch'u mieh). chih-tuln (T25[15091.7 1c), See, for example, MahdprajfipdramitopadeYa/Ta Avatamsakasitra/Hua-yen ching(T9[278J.424c), and *Mahasamathavipasyana [?P/Mohe chih-kuan (T46[19111.59b). Even the Zen masters,whose wordsare ironically preservedin writtenvernacular(perhapsone shouldsay,especiallytheZen masters), This content downloaded from 151.100.162.37 on Fri, 06 Mar 2015 16:42:54 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 714 VICTOR H. MAIR frommind to mind" (i hsinch'uanhsin)and insiston such notionsas "transmission of writtenwords" (pu 1i wen-tzu),which disparagethe efficacy "nonestablishment of language,especiallyin its writtenform,to conveyessentialtruths. Despite Buddhism'spresumedphilosophicalderogationof language,no religion can survivewithoutsacredtexts,and Buddhismdefinitelyproducedan abundance of scripture(threehuge basketsfull!). What is unusualabout the Buddhistcanon, pretensethatit has an immediateoral basis. It is remarkable however,is thepervasive how many works in the Buddhist Tripitaka begin with the formula evam mesuta,m ("Thus have I heard,"in Siniticju shihwo wen),or maydsrutam,Pali eva,m words to that effect.The simulacrumis that of the eminent disciple Ananda recitingthe Buddha's wordsto the assembledfaithfulat Rajagrhaafterhis death. but This formulanot only stressesthe presumedreliabilityof directtransmission, and thence to Ananda, were conveyed siutras orally the Buddhist that also reveals is like a markof oral transmission to the restof the community.This self-evident of the doctrines the It distinguishes that follows. the text that authenticates stamp Buddha fromthose of teacherswho were presumablyheretical.Ultimately,then, a large and long scriptural the entireBuddhistcanon-while it clearlyrepresents added later-is ostensibly and exegeses discourses, commentaries, with rules, tradition word(v. Hinuber the spoken upon founded almost "aggressively") say (one might East whose the s-utras in of Asian also reflected number large This is 5). 1990:ch. fulltitlesstartwith the expressionFo shuo("spokenby the Buddha," fromSanskrit even thoughit would have been impossibleforthe or buddhabhhisita), buddhavacana Buddha to utterall of the words in them, especiallythose that were originally composed in China, Japan, and Korea! There is even an entireszitra(Pali sutta) whichmeansroughly"the speechesbeginningwiththe words entitledthe Itivuttaka, 'This was spoken (by the Lord).'" The equivalentSinitic title is Ju shihyi ching of the Pali [SzitraSpokenThus]. This is the fourthscripturein the Khuddaka-nikaya bhagavatdvuttamarahatd'ti heta,m canon. Each sectionof the siutrabegins Vuttam ju shihshuo["Thus did I heartheworshipful ts'eng ying-kung mesuta,m (Wowenshih-tsun World-Honoredspeak"}). Interspersedin the text we find such expressionsas iti vuccati(ju shihyen["said thus"}). At the end of each sectionoccursthe following shuotz'u i formula:Ayampi atthovuttobhagavataiti mesutamti (Wo wenshih-tsun ["I heardthe World-Honoredexplainthis meaning"],translatingthe Sinitictext; of earlyBuddhistreligious the Sanskrithas "I also heard . . ."). The oral affinities or dharma-bhdnaka, whose duty textsare underscoredby the professionof bha,naka fashion(Hoffman it was to declaimthemaloud, apparentlyin a ratherentertaining 1990). With such tremendousemphasison the presumedoralityof the canon, there it in stilted,"unsayable"LS. I am somewhat to rendering mighthave been resistance explanationforthe decision to employ dubious, however,that this is a sufficient largeamountsof vernacularin ChineseBuddhisttexts.Afterall, theAnalects[LunyiiJare famousforthe tzuyiieh("the Mastersaid"), whichprefacesConfucius'severy utterance,but that did not detertheircompilersfromutilizingLS as the vehicle forconveyinghis sagelywisdom. and Psalmody Translation, Linguistics, It would seem, instead,thattheactualprocessof translationitselfhad a greater impacton the quality of ChineseBuddhistwrittenlanguage than any ideas about This content downloaded from 151.100.162.37 on Fri, 06 Mar 2015 16:42:54 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions BUDDHISM AND THE RISE OF WRITTEN VERNACULAR 715 4~~~~~N Figure 2. Imperial Decree [of June 17, 1389} to the BuddhistMonk Irinjin Dzangbu (in Tibetan Rin-c'en bTsang-po). Huaz-i i-yii fSino( 1389), MongolianTranslations},ed. by Qoninc'i and Ma Salh-Muhammad in sinographswith interlinear 8a. Mongoliantext transcribed phonological notes between graphs and on the left, interlinearvernacular(Early Mandarin)glosseson the right,and vernacular (Early Mandarin)translations Lewicki Mostaert sentence. each the end of at 1949:183; 1977:17. ofrendering theBuddh'stscriptue thenatureofthecanon.The entireenterprise abouta dozenofwhomare textsintoSiniticwas begunbyforeigners, and literary to thecollapseofthe knownfortheperiodfromthemiddleofthesecondcentury in 220 C.E. Amongtheseindividuals weretheParthian EasternHan dynasty prince An (forArsacid)Shih-kao,who arrivedin thecapitalat Loyangin 148 and was An Hsuian,whowas activein Loyang activeuntil'around170; anotherParthian, as Ju-chih),presumablyKushain, c. 180; the Yuieh-chih(also transcribed ChihYao, who workedin Loyangfromc. 170-90; anotherKush-an, Lokaksema and theSogdian,K'ang Meng-hsiang, whowas activelate in thesecondcentury; This content downloaded from 151.100.162.37 on Fri, 06 Mar 2015 16:42:54 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 716 VICTOR H. MAIR who collaboratedwith the Indians Chu Ta-li (Mahabala [?1) and Chu T'an-kuo (Dharmaphala[?}) around the turn of the century.These men produceda large amountof materialin Sinitic. Applyingthe most stringentcriteria,thereare 29 worksin 70 fasciclesthat still survive,and hundredsof additionaltitles different are attributedto them. difficult LS is an extremely languageto master,notjust becauseof thesinographs but also because it is so terriblyallusive, requiringat least ten to fifteenyearsto In contrast,the spokenSinitic languages,in part gain a modicumof proficiency. due to theirlack of inflection,are relativelyeasy to acquire throughimmersionin a Chinese environment, especiallyif one does not have any severehangupsabout the tones. Since theseforeigntranslators usuallycame to China as adultsand often, accordingto theirbiographies,quicklyplunged into the businessof translation,it would have been well-nighimpossibleforthem to commandLS sufficiently well to create passable translationsin it. Therefore,it was inevitablethat whatever proficiency theyacquired in writingSiniticwas bound to be highlycontaminated elements.Even whenthe foreigntranslators reliedon Chineseassistants by vernacular the necessary to writeout theirdraftsin sinographs, oral metaphrases or collaborators thattheyprovidedwould have had a pronouncedtendencyto infiltrate the intended LS product.The result,then,was the peculiartypeof BHSi thatis so conspicuous in the earliesttranslations and, indeed,whichexiststo one degreeor anotheras an acceptablesubcategoryof LS throughoutthe historyof Chinese Buddhism. This would also have been the case with the presumablybetteracculturatedtranslators such as the TocharianDharmaraksa(activec. 265-313), the so-calledBodhisattva of Tun-huang,and Kumarajiva(b. 344 or 350, d. 409 or 413), who was of Indian (Kashmiri) and Tocharian (Kuchan) parentage.These famouspillars of Chinese Buddhism producedan enormousnumberof Sinitic texts but, wheneverprecise information concerningtheirmodusoperandiis available, we findthat-more often thannot-they workedin teamswithChinesecollaborators, sometimesas manyas tenpeople fora singletext,or thattheysimplydictatedtheirtranslations to Chinese scribes(Fuchs 1930). of Europeanand American The famouslate Ch'ing-early Republican"translator" novelsintoSinitic,Lin Shu (1852-1924), was also dependenton oralVS interpretation by othersbecausehe knew no Westernlanguages.However,wherehe was content to paraphraselooselythe secularnovelsthathe renderedintoLS, theearlyBuddhist stroveto make accuraterenditionsof the sacredtextswith whichthey translators weredealing, in spite of the vast dissimilaritiesbetweenthe Siniticand Sanskritic languagesin whichtheywere written. The special qualityof BHSi persistseven when learnednativeChinesesuch as Hsuan-tsang(596-664) and 1-ching(635-713) laterbecomeproficientin Sanskrit by travelingto India and studyingthere for an extendedperiod of time. The translations theyproducedupon theirreturnto China werestillso heavilyinfluenced by Sanskritgrammar,syntax,and lexicon that theyare noticeablydistinctfrom that individualssuch as Hsuan-tsangand typicalLS. I should note, furthermore, 1-chingwho acquiredthe abilityto readSanskritwereextremely rarein China. The majorityofChinesewho claimeda knowledgeofsacredBuddhistlanguage(s)usually werefamiliaronlywith the Siddhamscriptat best (van Gulik 1956).1 Oftentheir of very acquaintancewith Indic languages was limited to syllabic transcriptions 'Siddhamwas derivedfromtheGuptaformoftheSanskrit alphabetand was usedin forthe writingof dhdrani-s, East Asiancountries mantras,and other(usuallyverybrief) Buddhisttexts. This content downloaded from 151.100.162.37 on Fri, 06 Mar 2015 16:42:54 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions BUDDHISM AND THE RISE OF WRITTEN VERNACULAR 717 shorttextsin sinographs.Systematicexpositionsof grammardo not seem to have become available before about the eighteenthcentury,and even these were obscure. disappointingly Regardlessof how we classifyBHSi, however,one thing is clear: the early of Buddhisttextsinto Siniticcame primarily impetusforthe translation fromforeign monks residentin China. Indeed, the churchat Loyang initiallyseems to have consistedsolelyof foreigners and it only graduallycame to include a fewChinese (Zurcher1990; Maspero 1934). Anothercomplicatedfacetof the earlytranslations is thefactthatmostofthemweredonenotby Indians,but by Iranian-and Tocharianspeakingindividuals.This must have had a great impact on the developmentof the Chinese Buddhist canon, yet, aside froma few articlesby the distinguished Sanskritistand TocharianspecialistChi Hsien-lin (1947; 1956; 1959; 1990) on veryspecificterms,this vital issue has scarcelybeen touched. JohnBrough(1961) has highlightedthe importance of the northwestern Prakrits (vernaculars)forthe earlyChinese Buddhist translations.In particular,he makes the case that manyof the earlyChinese translationsof Buddhist textswere done fromPrakritssuchas GandharlratherthanfromSanskrit.Thereis also good evidence fromChinese sourcesthat the Sinitic translationof the Sfitraof the Wiseand the Foolish(Hsien-yiching)was takendownorallyin Khotanby eightmonksfromwestern China and compiled by themaftertheyhad returnedto Qoco (Turfan)(Takakusu 1901; Pelliot 1929). There must have been a flourishing vernacularBuddhist"literature"(if that is whatwe maycall it; I preferto referto nonwritten narrative and dramatictraditions as "dicture")in the oral realm in CentralAsia beforeBuddhismwas transmitted to China. The paucityof written Buddhist textsin the indigenouslanguagesof CentralAsia beforethe seventhcenturymay be due to the perceptionof adherents of the religiontherethat scriptureshould be reservedforthe sacred language of Sanskrit.Some evidenceforthe existenceof Buddhisttextsin the local languages of CentralAsia may be foundin the richtraditionof Buddhistnarrativeart at sites such as Kucha and Bezeklik, severalexamples of which have extensivenarrative inscriptionsin Tocharianor othernon-Sinitic,non-IndicCentralAsian languages, avadina fromthe Knights'Cave at Kirish (Along e.g., the exquisiteMahdprabhdsa theAncient Silk Routes: 105-6). We must also rememberthat, under Indian tutelage, the Tibetans started Buddhisttextsintotheirown languageby theseventhcentury.Buddhist translating while Tibetan, stickingcloselyto the Sanskrit,is as much Tibetan as the usually BHSi translations are Sinitic. Furthermore, loose quite the Tibetansplayed a truly majorpolitical role in CentralAsia just at the time translationsof Buddhisttexts intoKhotanese,Sogdian,and otherlanguageswerebecomingpopular(cf. Beckwith 1987). I suspect that the second vernacularrevolution(fromaround the seventh whenBuddhisttextswereappearingin the indigenouslanguagesof Central century), Asia, may be relatedto the wide-rangingactivitiesof the Tibetanstherebeginning about that time, just as the first"vernacular"revolution(fromthe second halfof the second century),when textsbegan to appear in BHSi, was most likelydue to the sponsorshipof Kushan, Parthian,and otherCentralAsian peoples. The large intervalbetweenthetwo revolutions (nearlyhalfa millennium) wouldseemto indicate that, while the idea of the translationof Indian Buddhist textshad alreadybeen floatedby thesecondhalfofthesecondcentury, circumstances sociopolitical apparently did not permitits realizationoutsideof China until the seventhor eighthcentury. Hence, in strivingto understandthe timing of the firstand second vernacular This content downloaded from 151.100.162.37 on Fri, 06 Mar 2015 16:42:54 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 718 VICTOR H. MAIR revolutions,perhapswe should focusmore on geopoliticalconditionsand less on religiousand linguisticcriteria. As a matterof fact,the first"vernacular"revolutionwas not reallyvernacular in naturebecause BHSi is basicallyLS with some admixturesfromVS. This may explainwhy it was possible forCentralAsian monksand missionariesto translate Indian Buddhisttextsinto BHSi but not into theirown vernaculars.In essence,by scriptures Sanskritand Pali textsintoBHSi, theyweresimplytransferring rendering fromone sacredlanguageinto another.Like LS, BHSi was not sayable(i.e., it was and hencehad presentedlittledangerof trulysecularizingthe sacred nonvernacular) Indian texts.The firstvernacularBuddhisttextsin Siniticdid not appearuntilthe textsj),afterthe vernacular middleof the eighthcentury(thepien-wen [transformation revolutionhad alreadytaken place in CentralAsian Buddhism. As we have seen above, thepien-wenthemselveswere farfrombeing fullyvernacular,thoughthey more weredecidedlymorevernacularthanthe typicalBHSi text,and incomparably so thanall writingin LS. enoughthatour biggest Aboveall, it cannotbe stressedoftenenoughor strongly the historyof CentralAsian Buddhism (and virtually problemin reconstructing everythingelse about Central Asia) is due to the lack of systematic,scientific authorizesand archaeologicalexcavationin Sinkiang.Until theChinesegovernment in thisregion,all thatwe sayabout its history supportsmorethoroughinvestigations must be consideredextremelytentative.The notionthat CentralAsian Buddhists did not createtexts in theirown languages beforethe sixth or seventhcentury, whereastheydid so forthe Chinese fromthe second century,may be simplyan or lack thereof(cf. Nattier 1990). artifactof preservation of the Buddhisttranslation forlanguageusage While the repercussions enterprise in China were undoubtedlyenormous,more specifickinds of linguisticexpertise It would not be an exaggerationto state that every were also being transferred. majoradvancein linguisticsfromtheHan perioduntiltheadventofJesuit-inspired in the Ch'ing period over 1,500 yearslater, evidentiallearning(k'ao-cheng-hsiieh) in phonology,was dependentupon or conditionedby Buddhismin one particularly way or another.Here we need-mentiononly such momentousdevelopmentsas the creation of countertomyor cut-and-splicepseudospelling(fan-ch'ieh),generally attributedforthe last thousandand more yearsto the Buddhists,which forthe firsttime enabled Chinese to indicatethe pronunciationof unknowngraphsfairly and analytically (Mair 1992a); thewholesystemof rhymeclassification unambiguously which laid the foundationsof linguisticscience in China that are still (teng-yun) tzu-mu)of the late T'ang quasiletters(san-shih-liu operativetoday;and the thirty-six ("consonants"),whichconstituted monkShou-wen,inspiredby Sanskritvyanjanam forSinitic(Ni a sortofabortivealphabet(moreaccuratelytermeda "consonantary") 1948:17). All of thisunaccustomedattentionto the soundsof spokenlanguage,in contrastto the traditionalemphasisof Chinesescholarson the shapesof the written graphs,must have contributedto the legitimationof the vernacularvis-a-visLS. werenotso readilytransferable While thenonphonological aspectsofIndianlinguistics to China, Buddhistswerevaguelyawareof theirimportanceas subsumedunderthe renderedin Siniticas "voice-insight" (shengaccurately generalcategoryofsiabda-vidyd, ming),althoughthe Sanskritexpressionrefersto grammarand philologyas well as forthe Indian traditioncan be seen by phonology.The significanceof sabda-vidyd its inclusionamong thepanca vidyd-sthdndni (fivetypesof knowledge,Siniticwu(psychology, (logic, yin-ming), ming),the otherfourbeinghetu-vidyd adhydtma-vidyd (arts and .si/pa-karmnasthdna-vidyd (medicine,i-fang-ming), nei-ming), iyddhi-cikitsd-vidyd This content downloaded from 151.100.162.37 on Fri, 06 Mar 2015 16:42:54 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions BUDDHISM AND THE RISE OF WRITTEN VERNACULAR 719 Yet we should rememberthat this kind of linguistic and crafts,kung-ch'iao-ming). knowledgewas restricted to a relativelysmall groupof specialists,so I suspectthat it was not the chiefreasonforthe establishment of the writtenvernacular. Probablymoreimportantin raisingthe consciousnessof some Chinesethatthe simplesoundsoflanguagewerejust as essentialas theirelaborateand exaltedscript, if not moreso, was the Buddhistpenchantforpsalmody.There was no precedent in the indigenousliteraryand religioustraditionsforthe flood of sacred singing and chantingthat engulfedChina with Buddhism. The Chinese were completely unpreparedforand utterlybedazzled by the meticulousnessand seriousnesswith which theirIndo-Iranianteachersdeliveredtheir*brahma-pdtha (hymns,fan-pai), gdthd(verses,chi), sloka (stanzas,shou-/u),songs of praise (sung),stotra(eulogies, tsan),dhdranT (mysticalcharmsand prayers,t'o-lo-ni),mantra(magicalformulasand and so forth.Dharanf,forexample, were thoughtto be incantations,man-t'e-lo), potentonly if properlypronounced,hence theywere transcribedin theirentirety, not translated.Even the manticrecitationof theBuddha's name(nienFo) musthave impressedupon the masses the power of the spoken word, althoughmost of the listedabovewereprincipally othertypesof religiousutterances thepreserve ofreligious experts. The very real consequencesof Indian prosody,as introducedthrough Buddhism, for even the most celebratedsecular verse in China have now been demonstrated by Mair and Mei (1991). Social Values, IntellectualHistory, and ReligiousMission So farwe havebeenexaminingdoctrinal,philosophical, intellectual, and technical aspects of Buddhism that may have played a role in the growthof the written vernacular. Perhapswe have overlookedcertainsocialvaluesof Buddhismthatmight have had an equal or even greaterbearingon this question. We must remember that traditionalChinese society,accordingto Confucianorthodoxyand to a great extentin actuality,was rigidlyhierarchical fromthefamilyrightup to theemperor. The same, of course,was largelytrueof Hindu society.It is noteworthy that,both in India and in China,at leastin theearlyphases,Buddhismfunctioned (and perhaps originated)as a meansforthe individualto escape fromthe normalsocietalbonds. Leaving the home (Sanskritpravrajya;Sinitic ch'u-chia)and becoming a monk a profoundbreakwith the ordinaryrulesgoverningsocial and political represented intercourse. Even theelder(srestha;chang-che), thehouseholder(grhastha; su-jen),the and the lay woman (updsikd;chin-shih-ni), layman(updsaka;chii-shih), who never reallyquit the family,was enjoinedto subscribein his/herdaily lifeto an entirely different set of preceptsfromthose who were completelyoutside of the Buddhist This constituted a dangerously subversive community. challengeto existingstructures and institutions, one thatis measurablein economic(Gernet1956) and demographic (Hartwell and Hartwell 199 la; 199 lb) terms,not to mentionother indicators.2 Certainlythe Chinese authoritieswere threatenedby encroachments of Buddhist to the Hartwells,the Buddhistsamghawas perhapsthe mostegalitarian 2According in Sungsociety.See especially institution theirinteresting noteandcomments on themonk Tsung-ku (database#16548)whowastheilliterate sonofa Shao-wu(in northwest Fukien) farmer andbecamethefounder ofan important Zen temple.Amonghisfriends anddisciples weremembers ofsomeof themostdistinguished families oftheSungperiod. This content downloaded from 151.100.162.37 on Fri, 06 Mar 2015 16:42:54 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 720 VICTOR H. MAIR ideology,organizations,and wealth, so much so that theyperiodicallylaunched massivepersecutionsagainst the alien faith-even afterit had, as it were, been doctrinaireConfucianliteratikept domesticated.For theirpart, the morenarrowly up a vigorouspolemical attack almost fromthe momentBuddhism set foot on Chinese soil, so that therewas frequenttensionbetweenchurchand court even whenthe latterwas not burningthe temples,meltingthe statues,confiscating the lands, and defrockingthe monksand nuns of the former. We are slowlygaininga betterpictureof the truecompositionof the Buddhist communityin China and are findingthatit includeda high proportionof widows, orphans,and othertypesof individualswho did not fitwithinthe usual patternof societalrelationships.The compositionof the Chinesesamghamay be interpreted as havinga bearingon language usage. LS was clearlyidentifiedwith the literati establishment.The vernacular,on the otherhand, servedas a moreeasilyacquired tool forwrittenexpressionof the dispossessedand thosewho lackedtheopportunity to masterthe literary or meansforthe long and tediouseducationnecessary language. With thesequalities of sociallyembeddedBuddhismin mind, I view the written vernacularas a kind of demotic empowerment.Living in an age of massive manipulationof languageforsociopoliticalends, which I have oftenreferred to as I thinkwe can readilyappreciatethe dramaticconsequences "linguisticengineering," of an assertivewrittenvernacularopposingitselfto a privileged,hieratic,classical 3 script. Daniel Gardner(1991) has recentlycalled attentionto the importanceof the in Neo-Confucianism, bothforthefreer,moreinquisitiveapproach writtenvernacular it permittedtowardthe classics and for allowing the extensionof philosophical discourseto a broadersegmentof the population.Considering the powerfulinfluence of Neo-Confucianthoughtand practice,theadoption ofBuddhismon theformation as a legitimateformofseriousintellectualdiscussionwould ofthewrittenvernacular of Confucianismbrought seem to be one moreexampleof the radicalrestructuring about by this foreignreligion(Angurarohita1989). Tsu-Lin Mei has writtena lengthyresponse(1992b) to Gardnerthat he does notplan to publish.Some ofthemajorpointshe raises,and whichhe has authorized me to presenthere,are: theepistemological stresses 1. WhereasGardner ofNeo-Confucians assumptions thepowerofmindin everymanto comprehend thetruthexpressed concerning in thesociolinguistic plaincolloquialstyle,Mei emphasizes and historical linguistic ofthedevelopment ofthewritten background vernacular. 2. In spiteof its technical soundingname,yu-luis simplythe "transcript" of conversations twoor morepersonsin colloquialSinitic.Its use during involving thosewhowrotedownearlyvernacular textsin Chinawerenecessarily 3Although dependent ofexpression, it rather upontheveryscriptwhichlimitedtheirfreedom theytreated casually and lessforlogographic thanwas byusingthegraphsmoreforphonetic purposes purposes in LS. This is evident,forexample,in T'angperiodtransformation textswhere customary and "mistakes" occur. homophonic borrowings routinely natureof the sinographs is still verymuch in dispute.A few The fundamental mindedscholarscontinueto insistthatthe Chinesewriting philosophically/theoretically andideographic, whereas mosthistorically/empirically is pictographic oriented system linguists as a hugeandphonetically it to function consider fundamentally imprecise morphosyllabary features withconspicuous logographic (Hansen1993a, 1993b;Unger1993). One thingis and thatis thefactthatChinesecharacters-unlike theelements ofa true sure,however, or alphabetwhichconveyonlyphoneticinformation-carry both syllabary, consonantary, semantic and phoneticweight(albeitlimitedin bothcases). This content downloaded from 151.100.162.37 on Fri, 06 Mar 2015 16:42:54 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions BUDDHISM AND THE RISE OF WRITTEN VERNACULAR 721 the Sung was not just limitedto Zen (Ch'an) Buddhistsand Neo-Confucians; emissaries on foreign missions alsousedthisformto transcribe whatwassaidduring theirdiplomatic negotiations (e.g., Shihpeiyu-lu[Transcripts from a Northern Mission)), withtheKhitansandJurchens. particularly The rationale forusingthevernacular rather thantheliterary wasthattheformer language medium wascapableofrecording whatwas actuallysaid duringthenegotiations moreaccurately which,afterall, toucheduponsensitive matters of nationalsecurity (Mei 1980). 3. Vernacular shortstoriesand southern dramas(hsi-wen) containing colloquial dialoguealso make theirappearancearoundthe same time(twelfth-thirteenth centuries). 4. The questionoftimingcannotbe limitedto theyu-lu,butmustalsobe asked aboutthecolloquialdiplomatic and thevernacular transcripts texts. literary forunderstanding 5. The mostnaturalcontext theoriginofSungcolloquialand socialclassesis theriseand development its use amongdifferent of thewritten vernacular duringthelateT'angperiod.DuringtheT'ang,theabilityto compose inthewritten vernacular waslimited topersons individuals witha Buddhist (especially notbelonging disposition) to, or marginally belonging to, theelite.The turning pointseemsto havecomein thesecondhalfoftheeleventh andespecially century, whena substantial duringthetwelfth, numberof thebureaucratic eliteacquired theabilityto writecolloquialChinese.The reasonwhyConfucians did notturn to thecolloquialyu-luformpriorto thesecondhalfoftheeleventh century may of the elite had not yetmastered merelybe thattheyand othermembers the whichtheretofore writtenvernacular, had developedin an essentially Buddhist environment. 6. Anotherfactorthathas to be takenintoaccountis the spreadof literacy. theNeo-Confucians' efforts todisseminate theirdoctrines Obviously, viathecolloquial yii-luwouldhavebeenin vainifa readership withan adequatedegreeof literacy hadnotexistedat thattime.VictorMair(1989:135-39) hasshownthatlow-level was alreadywidespread in the lateT'ang period.Frompreviousstudies, literacy we knowthattheinvention ofprinting, theestablishment ofgovernment schools and privateacademies(attachedto monasteries), and thecivilserviceexamination at its lowestlevels)all promoted system(particularly literacy.By theSung,the had becomean East Asianphenomenon; spreadof literacy theTangutscriptand thechui'n0om scriptwerebothinvented duringthisperiodin orderto writethe vernacular languagesoftheTangutsand theVietnamese. Combiningthe findingsof Gardnerand Mei withthe comprehensive intellectual historyof the period, we may deduce that the gradual adoptionof the vernacular forlimitedpurposesduring the T'ang and Sung was the resultof a complicated adjustmentto the normsand values of Buddhistideology.These normsand values manifestedthemselvesin diversefieldsof humanendeavor(literature,philosophy, government fornon-Siniticrulers,etc.), but all of them documents,commentaries be as may analyzedsociolinguistically emanatingfromthe fundamentally demotic impulsesof the religion. AnotherreasonforBuddhismto choose the vernacularover the classical may have been its strongmissionaryzeal. For a religionthat wishes to move rapidly intoa newarea,complexand hard-to-learn writtenlanguageslike LS are a frustrating obstacleto rapiddisseminationof its doctrines.They are, furthermore, usuallythe jealous possessionof an entrenched bureaucratic or priestlyelite who would actively oppose the spreadof potentiallysubversiveideologiesthat are directedtowardthe populace. One of the major themesin David Diringer'swell-knownbook Writing is that "alphabet follows religion." In particular, he shows the close connection This content downloaded from 151.100.162.37 on Fri, 06 Mar 2015 16:42:54 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 722 VICTOR H. MAIR betweenthe spreadof Buddhismand the creationof writtenvernaculars fromIndia to Central,Inner,East, South,and SoutheastAsia (1962:148). It would be revealing to make a study of just how many languages in these areas receivedtheirfirst writtenexpressionthroughthe activitiesof Buddhist monks and other typesof I suspectthat, beforethe coming of Christianity proselytizers. to this part of the world, aside froma handfulof sinographically inspiredscripts(most of whichare now dead [Tangut, Khitan,Jurchen,Vietnamese,etc.] or dying [Yao, Women's Script/Nu-shu,etc.)) (Zhou 1991; Sofranov1991; Sino-Platonic Papers31 [October east of the Pamirsto the Pacific 19911:29-33), nearlyall of the writtenvernaculars Ocean were a directresultof the Buddhist missionaryenterprise.Thus, the two great missionaryreligions,Christianityand Buddhism, togetheraccount forthe overwhelming majorityof Central,Inner,East, South,and SoutheastAsian languages thathave been committedto writing.The othergreatreligionof conversion,Islam, and theolderSemiticfaithsaccountformostof the remainder.The roleofChristian missionariesduringthe nineteenthand twentiethcenturiesin creatinghundredsof writtenvernacularsthroughoutthe entireworld is well known. The IndianBackground of Buddhism that seems to have lent supportforthe The final characteristic whichI wishto examineis a matterof religiouspolicyor practice. writtenvernacular As Buddhism swiftlyexpanded from its original base in Magadha (Rajagrha, Pataliputra)and gained convertseven fromamong the Brahmans,the founderof the religionwas facedwith the pressingissue of linguisticusage. Should a single prestigedialect be designatedto ensurerespectforthe Buddha's word?Or should a pluralityof languagebe permittedto enable the unimpededspreadof the dharma amongthosewho werenot privyto thepriestlytongue?Judgingfromall accounts, the Buddha made the wise decisionto allow Buddhistpractitioners to transmithis teachingsin theirown respectivelanguages.4This scenario,at anyrate,is repeatedly maintainedbymostextantversionsofthevinaya(monasticrules)and mustrepresent one of the earliestlayersof Buddhistliterature. Since the storyis well known,I will simplysummarizeit here. Two brahman brothersconvertto Buddhismand join the sam.gha.Having a backgroundin Vedic recitation,theyare concernedthatothermonksof diversebackgroundswill corrupt theBuddha'steachingsby recitingthemin substandard ways.Theygo to theBuddha 4Due to themisleading,ifnotwhollyerroneous, commentary ofBuddhaghosa(Cullavagga 5.33; Vinayaii, 139, 1-16), therehas been a small amount of scholarlycontroversy over whetherthe Buddha enjoinedhis followersto use his own nativetongueor theirown native tonguesin spreadingthedharma(Brough 1980). It would seem thatthe operativePali word sakdya(or sakkiya= Sanskritsatkdya),underthe givencircumstances, is moreapt to function as a third-person reflexivepronounthan as a first-person reflexive.Furthermore, it has not previouslybeen pointedout thatthe passage in questionwould seriouslycontradictitselfif we accepted Buddhaghosa's explanation("Lord, here monks of miscellaneousorigin are corruptingthe Buddha's [i.e., your) words [by repeatingthem) in yourown dialect"[!}). This simplydoes not make sense. Only when we understandsakdyaas "their"is the entire passagecomprehensible. Cf. Edgerton(1953:1-2) and Lin Li-kouang(1949:216-27). Finally, no one seriouslydisputesthe claim that the Buddha was in favorof the vernacularsat the expenseof the classical,priestlylanguage.Of one thingwe can be certain,linguisticdiversity was presentin ancientBuddhismalmost fromthe verybeginningof the religion(Bechert 1980:15). This content downloaded from 151.100.162.37 on Fri, 06 Mar 2015 16:42:54 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions BUDDHISM AND THE RISE OF WRITTEN VERNACULAR 723 and proposethattheystandardizehis wordin chandas.Althoughthereare numerous of the word chandas,this presumablysignifiesmannered,metrical interpretations verseand in this contextprobablyjust means "Veda," which is how the famous Paanini(fifthor sixthcenturyB.C.E.) uses it. In anyevent,the brahman grammarian, brothersare surelyproposingan elite styleof deliveryforwhichtheirtrainingsuits them. The Buddha will have none of it. Roundlyrejectingthem,he emphatically advocatesthe propagationof his teachingsin the vernacular. The actual historyof linguisticusage in Indian Buddhismaside, the Buddha's in thiscelebratedpassagestuck.Let us followit throughthevinaya pronouncement of five differentschools preservedin the Chinese Buddhist canon. In the Dharmaguptakarecensiontranslatedby Buddhayasasduringthe years410-12, the Buddha calls upon his followersto use "the vernacularlanguages understoodin (Lamotte1958:612) to recitetheBuddhist prdkrtabhdsah) diverselocales(pradesandm sztras"a(T22[14281.955a). Althoughthe equivalentsentenceis missingin the vinaya translatedby Punyatara,Dharmaruci,and Kumarajivafrom of the Sarvastivadins, 404-9, thesamesenseis retainedin thepassagetakenas a whole.(T23[14351.274a).5 version,translatedintoChinesein about418, expandsthepassage The Vinayamatrka thus: "You should speak in whateverlanguage all the living beings can obtain For this reasonit is called 'doing in accordancewiththe country',b enlightenment. (T24[14631.822a). The vinayaof the Mahisasakaschool,translatedinto Chineseby Buddhajiva in 422-23, only indicatesthat the Buddha's word should be "recited according to the language of the country''C(T22[14211. 174b). Finally, the of the Malasarvastivada,translatedby 1-chingin 702 or 703, Vinayaksudrakavastu declaresthat "therewill be no errorif one is requiredto drawout the voice when recitingin the languageofa givenlocale (prade(asvara)"d (T24[14511.232c).6 There can be littledoubt that, no matterwhichversionof the vinayaChineseBuddhists chose to follow,use of the vernacularwas approvedby the Buddha himself. It is worthobservingthatPali, the languageof the earlyBuddhistcanon, was originallybut one of the Prakrits(v. Hinuber 1986). Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit (BHS), likewise, was actuallya Prakritwith augmentedelementsfromSanskrit (Bender 1991). Aside frombeing the usual prosedialectofSanskritplays,Sauraseni is a typeof Prakritused in the laterDigambara scripturesof the Jains. Magadhi is anothertypeof Prakritused in Sanskritplays,but forpersonsof still lowerrank than those who speak Sauraseni.Ardha-magadhi(semi-Magadhi)is intermediate betweenSauraseniand Magadhi and is importantbecause it was used in the old thatMahavira(thefounderofJainism) Jainwritings.Alsdorf(1980) has demonstrated and SakyamuniBuddha sharedcertainMagadhisms(Chi 1959). Thereare also clear the recommending pointthatthesentence 5JanNattier(1991:3) makestheexcellent This was,afterall, probably the is absentin theSarvastivada vinaya. use ofthevernacular in favorofelegant,classicalSanskrit. In herwords, firstsectto abandontheuse ofPrakrit omission." to see thisabsenceas a deliberate "It wouldnotbe at all difficult 6The quotationgiven here is precededby these sentences:"If a bhiksuin rethatis a mistake. thesoundsas thoughhe weresingingorchanting, citinga satraprolongs thesutras shouldnotdrawouthisvoicein songor chantwhenreciting a bhiksu Therefore, recitesthesiitrasand othertextswiththesoundsofthechandas, If a bhiksu or thevinaya. thelaw."Thequotation is followed bythiscommentary: a sinbyoverstepping he willcommit ofthebrahmans. Theyprolongthesoundsand refers to themethodofrecitation "Chandas by pointingwiththeirfingerin theair. The mastersingsfirstand the keeptherhythm othersfollowalongafterhim." I have not been able to locate the equivalentpassage in the vinayaof the Mahasamghika (T22[ 14251.227-549), 4 16-18. translated by Fa-hsien and Buddhabhadra in This content downloaded from 151.100.162.37 on Fri, 06 Mar 2015 16:42:54 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 724 VICTOR H. MAIR similaritiesbetweenOld Ardha-magadhiand the language of the Asokan pillar also referred to as Asokan Magadhi. Maharastrior inscriptions,which is therefore becauseofitsuse in thelaterscriptures Old Marathiwas influential oftheSvetambaras and in drama. Among the Vibhasas, or lesserPrakrits,of which thereare many, Saurastriis interestingbecause it containselementsof Scythiandialects (Walker 1968:2.234-35). FromthisverybriefsurveyofthePrakrits (earlyIndianvernaculars), it is apparentthat theywere oftenused by religionsand othersocial groupswho stood outsideof the dominantVedic-Upanisadic-Sanskritic culture.Viewed in this light, the Prakritsplayed the same role in Indian societythat BHSi and written VS did in China. an expressionmeaning"languageofa country" The wholeapproachto desa-bhdasa, whichcan be foundalreadyin the Mahabhdrata(Poona Criticaledition, 9.44.98; Calcutta edition, 9.2605; Madras edition, 40.103; Bombay edition, 45.103cd), the exerciseof the vernaculars may have stimulatedor reflected in India, unlikethe attitudetowardfang-yen (topolect,"the languageof a place") (Mair 1991), its parallel in China, which seems to have inhibitedtheiruse. There has always been such official disdainin Chinaforthetopolects(in favorofthestandardlanguage) pronounced that the notionof theirbeing writtendown is virtuallyinconceivable.This is in withlocal languageswas esteemed. contrastto thesituationin India wherefamiliarity Thus, among the 64 kala (practicalskills) cataloged in the Saivatantra,we find dei'a-bha,s-(vi)jFdna ("knowledgeof local languages").This is immediatelypreceded which clearlysignifiesa babel of foreigntongues,and is by mlecchitaka-vikalpd4, the ability to understandthe omens of followedby puspa-s'akatika-nimitta-jnana, heavenlyvoices. Given such a positiveattitudetowardthe variousdes'a-bhhas,, with the adventof alphabeticwritingit has always been acceptablein India to record many different languages and dialects. Conversely,since any living language in China was perforcemerelya topolect,therewas an almost insuperableprejudice againstthe writingdown of vernaculars,even the spokenlanguageof the capital. The verynotionof the Prakrits(prakrta,literally"made before")as "natural" (i.e., unadorned,unrefined)languages versus Sanskrit(samnskrta, literally"made together,"i.e., refined)as an "artificial"(in the Buddhistcontext)languagediffers markedlyfromthe Chineseconceptionof the variousfang-yen as vulgar(su) and LS as elegant(ya). Eventually,however,even the Prakritsbecame decadent,and by about 550 C.E., variousapabhrams'a (deviations)spokenby the laukika(commoners) came into existence.We find no mentionof apabhrazms'a in Vararuci,the oldest Prakritgrammarianwho was writingaround579 C.E. (Cowell 1854). Hemacandra definesapabhrarms'a (1088-1172), on the otherhand, interestingly as Prakritwith additionalinfusionsof popular(deff)speech (Walker 1968:2.233)7 Were it notforthepermissiveIndianattitudetowardthevernaculars, we would nothavethepresentsituationwherethereare overa dozenmajorIndo-Aryanofficial languagesstill being spokenand writtenin India, includingsome such as Hindi, Bengali, Marathi,Gujarati,and Oriya with rich literarytraditions.This is not to mentionthe Dravidian languagessuch as Tamil, Telugu, and Malayalam,which 7It is likely, however, that there were already written apabhramsraby the sixthcentury(e.g., an inscriptionof King DharasenaII of Valabhl refersto compositionin and theymay even have existed by the thirdor fourthcentury(e.g., certain apabhrams'a) The bulk of laterapabhrars'aliterature versesin the fourthact of Kalidasa's Vikramorvasfya). was mostlyJain works(eighthto twelfthcenturies).See Encyclopaedia Britannica,15th ed. (1988), vol. 22, p. 618:2a; vol. 21, p. 50:lb; and vol. 1, p. 475:3a. Technicallyspeaking, defiis consideredto mean language that is "non-derivablefromSanskrit." This content downloaded from 151.100.162.37 on Fri, 06 Mar 2015 16:42:54 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions BUDDHISM AND THE RISE OF WRITTEN VERNACULAR 725 histories.How starklydissimilarthe situation likewisehavelong and gloriousliterary is in China can be seen by the factthat therewas not even officialrecognitionof ModernStandardMandarin(MSM) as an acceptableformofwritinguntilthefounding of the Republic of China in the firstquarterof this century.The amount of unadulteratedwritingin the othervernacularSinitictopolectsand languagesis so patheticallysmall as to be virtuallynonexistent,exceptin fairlyrecentromanized transcriptions (mostlyby Christianmissionariesand theirChinesefollowers).Since about the Sung dynasty(960-1279), therewas a rathersurreptitious traditionof secularvernacularfictionand drama,based largelyon the languageof the capital. Beforethat, as I have shown, virtuallyall vernacularand semivernacular writing was done by Buddhists.And, to this day, it remainsalmostunthinkableto write downanyof thetopolectsin a relativelyintegralform,althoughisolatedtopolectical expressionsare occasionallyadded to Mandarintextsto give a bit of local flavor. Judgingfromthe overallpatternof the developmentof the writtenvernacularin China,I believewe are justifiedin statingunequivocally thatBuddhismwas centrally as a viable mode of expression. involvedin its establishment The Concept of "National Language" to saythatthewholeidea ofwrittennationallanguages One mightgo evenfurther in East Asia as foundedon the spokenvernacularsmay well have been inspiredby introduced theIndianconceptofde&a-bhdsd byBuddhism.The exactSiniticequivalent Beforethe comingof Buddhismto China, thesetwo graphs, is kuo-yii. ofdeda-bhds4 in theordergiven,meantonlyone thing:thetitleofa bookin 21 fascicles traditionally said to have been completedby the historianTso Ch'iu-mingin the year469 B.C.E. Naturally,the Kuo-yu,like all otherpre-Buddhistwritingin China, was composed in LS. In thiscase,thetwosinographs designatetheindividualaccounts(yu) concerning each of the eight majorcontendingstates(kuo)thatbecameprominentas the Chou Aftertheadventof Buddhism, dynasty beganto breakapartintospheresof influence. however,theexpression kuo-yu beganto takeon a radicallydifferent meaning,namely, the vernacularlanguage belongingto a nation in the sense of a people who saw themselvesas a separatepolitico-ethnicentity. that may referto a vernacularSinitic Perhapsthe earliestoccurrenceof kuo-yui is foundin a Buddhistcontext.This is the accountof Vighna's topolect(fang-yen) translationof the Fa-chuching(Dhammapada)in the Kao-sengchuan(Biographies of Eminent Monks)by Hui-chiao (497-544): was originally Vighna(Wei-chih-nan) fromIndia. Forgenerations his family a heterodox thefiresacrifices had professed way,considering of the (presumably or possiblyof Zoroastrianism) Atharva-veda as the truereligion.It so happened thatan Indiansramana in Hinayana("LesserVehicle") (monk),whowaspracticed in Buddhistic and whowas proficient arts,wishedto lodgein Vighna'shouseat a longjourney. SinceVighna'sfamily after nightfall subscribed to a heterodox way, ofBuddhists andmadehimsleepoutsidein theopen.During theyweresuspicious thenight,thesramanasecretly utteredan incantation, causingthefirethatwas in Vighna'shousesuddenly to be extinguished. worshipped theentire Thereupon wentout and respectfully household invitedthesramana to go insidewherethey madeofferings to him.The sframana responded by causingthefireto lightagain withhis incantatory arts.Perceiving thatthesupernatural powerof theframarna This content downloaded from 151.100.162.37 on Fri, 06 Mar 2015 16:42:54 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 726 VICTOR H. MAIR ofthe becamean adherent hisown,Vighnahappilyandenthusiastically surpassed (theBuddhistdoctrine). Buddhadharma faithand lefthisfamily hisprevious he abandoned Consequently, (pravraj)to he receivedthe followthe Buddhistway. Inductedas a monkby thes'ramana, (the"threebaskets"oftheBuddhistcanon),wonderful oftheTripitaka teachings ofthe"Hinayana" He travelled scriptures). andthefourAgamas (division goodness, andconverting, andall whomhe encountered accepted preaching to manycountries, thefaith. that indicates Chu Lu-yen(thesurname In theyear224, withhiscompanion at Wu-ch'ang wherehepresented (in Hupeiprovince) he wasan Indian),hearrived thatis, theSu7tra ontheDharma. ofVerses textof theDharmapada,8 theSanskrit of Wu requestedthatVignhaproduce[a Chinese At thattime,thegentlemen But Vighnahad notyetmastered thelanguageof the versionof) thescripture. withhis companion it into Li-yen,he translated so, together country (kuo-yu) spokenSinitic(HanLu-yenlikewisehad notmastered written Sinitic(Han-wen). Theiraimwasto preserve thesenseof yen),so therewerequitea fewdeficiencies. plainness. theoriginal,but theirstyleapproached Hui (r. 290-306) It was notuntiltheend ofthereignoftheChinemperor it in fivescrolls, withthesramana Fa-liretranslated Fa-chiiwriting thatthes'ramana ornate.Fa-lialso producedfouror so minor it down.Theirstylewas somewhat but mostofthemwerelostduringthechaosat theend oftheYungscriptures, chiaperiod(307-13). (T5012059).326bc) withtheostensible Althoughthispassageis valuableforitsearlymentionofkuo-yui meaningof vernacular,it evincesthe same sort of confusionbetweenspokenand writtenlanguageas well as betweenlocal and nationallanguage that has plagued Chinese linguisticsrightup to the presentday. Han-yenand kuo-yiiboth imply spokenlanguage, but kuo-yi here seems to indicatethe local Ngua (Wu) topolect (forwhich thereneverwas a full writtenformuntil Christianmissionariesmuch varietiesof Nguo speechand latercreateda romanizedalphabetto recorddifferent in whereas tracts Han-yenwould appear to indicatea them) to publish religious betweenHan-yenand Han-wenin thispassage nationallinguafranca.The relationship is unclear,as is the varietyof Sinitic upon which theywere based. Presumably, however,the basis forHan-yenwas the standardizedspeechof the capital used by bureaucratsfromaroundthe countryto communicatewith each other(a precursor of kuan-huaor Mandarin).9Han-wenmust have been a currentdesignationforLS (or, morepreciselyin this case, its BHSi variant). It is remarkablethatthe firstclearapplicationof kuo-yiiwith the new meaning of a vernacularbelongingto a separatepolitico-ethnicentitywas to the language of a devoutlyBuddhistnon-Siniticgroupof people knownas the Tabgatch(T'o-pa who ruledovernorthChina from386in ModernStandardMandarintranscription) (or perhaps 534 as theNorthernWei dynasty.These weremostlikelyproto-Mongols forthebuildingofthemonumental assemblages a Turkicpeople)who wereresponsible of Buddhist sculpture at Yun-kang and Lung-men in north China. In the be thought ofas "thePalitextoftheDhammapada." moreaccurately 8Thisshould,perhaps, shi tsz7kJ, Ohta tOtal Tatsuodescribesthe In theeleventhchapterof his Chu7gokugo (the[common]languageoftheHan people)as a legitimate yen-yu sporadicriseofHan-erh He demonstrates notonlythatthedevelopment ofthenational vernacular modeofexpression. in thepopularrealmand thatit was counterpoised to the but thatit occurred was fitful, of the termkuan-hua discussion and its history, see the LS of theelite. Foran extensive nextsection. This content downloaded from 151.100.162.37 on Fri, 06 Mar 2015 16:42:54 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions BUDDHISM AND THE RISE OF WRITTEN VERNACULAR 727 "BibliographicalTreatise"("Ching-chichih") of Chang-sunWu-chi (d. 659) et al., in the HistoryoftheSui (Sui shu), part 1, we read that, WhentheLaterWei [i.e., theNorthern Wei = Tabgatch}firsttookcontrol oftheCentralPlains,all ofthecommands forthedisposition oftheirarmieswere givenin "barbarian" language(i-yi). Later,whentheyhad becometaintedby Chinesecustoms(jan Hua-su),manyof themcould no longerunderstand their own tongue.So theybeganto teachit to eachother,callingit their"national language"(kuO-yd).e (4. 32.947) It is most intriguingthat the "BibliographicalTreatise"lists over a dozen works (4.32.935, 945; Dien 1991:55a, 59b n. 87; Ligeti 1970:279-80) on a wide variety oftopicswrittenin Tabgatchand *Saerbi(or *Shirvi;Hsien-peiin ModernStandard anotherpowerful,supposedlyproto-Mongol,group who Mandarintranscription), were active in northChina fromthe second centuryon.10Unfortunately, none of thesebookssurvive,but it would be extremely valuableto knowwhatscript(s)they evidencefromthe"Bibliographical werewrittenin. This tantalizing Treatise"indicates that it was possible to writeTabgatch and *Saerbi centuriesbeforeany formof Altaic writingknown to modernscholars.What script(s)did the Tabgatch and *Saerbi use? This is a dark mysterywhose solution may unfolda new and very importantchapterin the historyof writing.What is significantforour purposes here,however,is the factthatwrittenTabgatchand *Saerbiare openlyreferred to in the "BibliographicalTreatise"as kuo-yui or "nationallanguages." Elsewherein Chinese historicalrecords,we can findreferences to such works as Liao shihkuo-yui [NationalLanguageHistoryof theKhitanjand Chin shihkuo-yui [NationalLanguageHistoryof theJurchenl.These were presumablyhistoriesof the Khitanand Jurchendynastiesthatruledovermuchof northChina duringthe tenth throughtwelfthcenturies,writtenin theirnativeAltaic and Tungusic languages. been lost, scatteredinscriptionaland Althoughthese books have also regrettably instancesof writingin thesesinographically documentary inspiredscriptsdo survive and scholarsare workingon theirdecipherment (Sofranov1991; Jensen1969:19597). It is clear that the earliestusage of the term kuo-yui ("national/vernacular language"), indeed rightup to the end of the last dynasty,the Manchu Ch'ing, to non-Siniticpeoples (Norman 1988:133). was almostalwaysin reference The History oftheYuanDynasty (10. 115.2893) recordsthat,in thesparemoments whenhe was not attendingto his troops,thegreatMongol warrior-prince Kammala (1263-1302, son of Chen-chin["True Gold"J, who was Khubilai's second son) would orderone of his trustedadvisersto lecturehim on the Tzu-chiht'ung-chien Mirror thequintessential [Comprehensive forAid in Governmentj, chronologically arranged historyof China compiledby Ssu-maKuang (1019-86), in the "nationallanguage,"' to explicitlyin the same fashion. meaningMongolian. Manchu, too, was referred chi[Records For instance,in Wei Yuan's Sheng-wu ofSagelyMilitaryExploitsl(1.9a), we read that "the literaryofficialswere orderedto createa nationalscripton the basis of the nationallanguage, using neitherMongol nor Sinitic writing."gEven of a writtenvernacularwith the creationof the.1 Vietnameseadopted the notion I quoc ngu'. As used in Vietnam,quocngu' seems originally(perhapsas earlyas the fourteenth century)to havesignifiedthe spokennativelanguageas opposedto Sinitic languages.Later,quocngu'was appliedto chui'nom("script"+ "vulgar"= "vernacular to statethatTabgatchwasthenameofoneclan(theroyalclan) 10Itmaybe morecorrect withintheethnicgroupknownas the*Saerbior #Shirvi. This content downloaded from 151.100.162.37 on Fri, 06 Mar 2015 16:42:54 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 728 VICTOR H. MAIR writing"),a systemforwritingVietnameseinvolvingphoneticuse of sinographs and the creationof new, wholly indigenous lopographicsymbols composed of components.Still later, the termquo^ngui'was used to designatethe tetragraphic (DeFrancis romanized employedby theVietnamese alphabetcurrently French-sponsored ngu'as a writtennationallanguageappearsto have 1978:83-87). The notionofquo^c been borrowedby Vietnameserefugeeintellectualsin Japan fromkokugo(Modern MSM, kuo-yii). StandardMandarin,hereafter Mandarin as koine Mandarinis, in effect,the close English translationof the MSM expression kuan-hua("officials'speech") which, in the latterpart of the Ch'ing period, was based on the dialect of the capital at Peking and which enabled the bureaucrats fromthevariouspartsofChina whosenativelanguagesweremutuallyunintelligible to conversewitheach other.The word"Mandarin"was borrowedinto Englishfrom Malay, in turn,acquired the Portuguese,which picked it up fromMalay menteri. ("counselor,minister")< wordfromHindi mantri,whichis fromSanskritmantrin mantra("counsel"). to the The termkuan-huawas in use fromthe Yuan period on and referred whichwas based on the speechof the spokenlanguageof officaldom (kuan-ch'ang), capital (mostlyPeking fromthat time till the present;Nanking speechwas taken as the standardduring the late Ming)." There are many recordsfromthe Ming was considered to be a prestigesupradialect and Ch'ingperiodsthatprovethatkuan-hua that bureaucratsfromall over the empirewere forcedto learn if theywished to have a successfulcareer.For most of them, this meantacquiringa second spoken in theirpronunciation and vocabulary. language,notmerelymakingminoradjustments aroundthe The complexionof kuan-huawas deliberatelychangedby reformers end of the nineteenth centurywho wishedto make it the linguafrancaof all China, not just of the officials.Chiefamong thesewas Wang Chao (1859-1933), a highrankingliteratuswho fled to Japan afterthe collapse of the ReformMovementof to overcomethedifficulties 1898. While there,theJapaneseuse oftheirkanasyllabaries of the Siniticscriptinspiredhim to devisehis own spellingsystem and restrictiveness called kuan-huatzu-mu("Mandarin letters").Aside fromcourageouslypromoting this enlightenedphoneticscriptduring the late Ch'ing-earlyRepublican period, pushed forthe adoptionof Mandarinas China's national Wang also energetically notes spokenand writtenlanguage. The followingremarksfromthe introductory tzu-mu[Letters theSoundsofMandarin]serve forCombining to his Kuan-huaho-sheng to illustrateWang's attitudetowardkuan-huaand his consciouseffortto remoldit as a popularlanguageforthe whole Chinesenation: aredifficult to understand, I wishto devisea script BecausetheChinesecharacters to it as basedon colloquialPekingese.To facilitate popularusage,I do notrefer as kuan-hua. The reasonforthisis to followpopular colloquialspeechbut rather to custom.Northas faras theAmurRiver,westacrosstheT'ai-hangMountains Nanyangand Loyang,southalmostto theYangtze,and eastto theocean:all of Mandarin was based oftheMingdynasty "Paul Yang (1989) has shownthatStandard on theNankingtopolect,notthatof Peking,in spiteof thefactthatthelattercitywas theprimary NankingwasthecapitalduringtheearlyMing capitalformostofthedynasty. capitallater. to serveas thesecondary (1356-1421) and continued This content downloaded from 151.100.162.37 on Fri, 06 Mar 2015 16:42:54 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions BUDDHISM AND THE RISE OF WRITTEN VERNACULAR 729 the colloquiallanguagesfromnorthto southand fromeast to westforseveral tricents thousand {li, threehundred pacesor abouta thirdofa mile]aremoreor withthelanguageof thecapital,but the languagesof less mutuallyintelligible Forthisreason,it is most provinces outsidethisareaaremutually unintelligible. to spreadthelanguageofthecapital.Therefore, convenient I call it kuan-hua. By is thus"speechforpublicuse." Its selectionis kuan,I mean"public";kuan-hua areaand thelargestproportion becauseit occupiesthegreatest ofthe appropriate population. fromits originalmeaning AlthoughWang's explanationof kuan is quite different as "[pertainingto thel Mandariniatel,"the linguisticfeaturesof the language in questionwereessentiallythesame in bothcases. Wang Chao laterplayeda blustery, belligerentrole in enforcingnorthernMandarinas the standardnationallanguage overtheothertopolectsin February1913, not long afterthefoundingof theRepublic of China (Ramsey 1987:7-8). Kuan-huacorrespondsto JerryNorman's concept of a koine(a linguafranca developingout of a mixtureof otherlanguages)(1988:5, 48, 186f., 246, and 249) 12 This was a supradialectical whichmaybe tracedback as earlyas theT'ang dynasty. formof speechwhich was normallybased on the dialect of Ch'ang-an,Loyang,or K'aifeng (capitals located along the centralpart of the Yellow River). The early Siniticequivalentof the termkoineis t'ung-yii ("commonlanguage"; cf. the current name forMandarinin the People's Republic of China, P'u-t'ung-hua["common speech")),whichdatesto aroundthebeginningoftheCommonEra. Strainedattempts have been made to findevidenceof such a commonlyacceptedpatternof speech even in the time of Confucius(55 1-479 B.C.E.). The usual reference is to ya-yen ("elegantlanguage") whichoccursin Analects7.18. Much fantasticspeculationhas thatit demonstrates beenutteredoverthepassagein question.Asidefromtheassertion the existenceof Mandarinin the sixthcenturyB.C.E., the passage supposedlyalso "proves"thattherewas a connectionwiththe nebulouslyconceivedspokenlanguage remainsto be demonstrated, in spiteof wishful of the Hsia dynasty(whosehistoricity ya is conveniently thinkingto the contrary).To arriveat thisforcedinterpretation, made to be a synonymof Hsia. Such readingsare possible only if much violence "The languagethatthe is done to the originaltext,whichis quite straightforward: Masterconsideredelegant is that of the Odes,History,Arts,and Ritual; these are all writtenin elegant language. h Judgingfromthe actual texts that have been to us, it is fairlycertainthatya-yenis a designationforan earlyform transmitted of LS or, at best, a standardreadingpronunciation.In any event,by no meanscan this sentencebe legitimatelyused to constructa theoryof a VS koineduring the millenniumB.C.E., whateverotherdata may or may not be available to mid-first constructsuch a theory. We must observethat the koinedid not correspondto the writtenlanguageof whichwas alwaysLS. Instead,the koineconstitutedthe foundationof government, the emergingwrittenVS. When spokenby individualsfromvariousareasof China muchfromconversations havebenefited on thissubjectwithTsu-LinMei who is a majorstudyconcerning thegrammatical influence ofthekoine on the currently preparing topolects duringtheT'ang and Sungperiods.In it, he will showhowtheEarlyMandarin cameto function as a koine and how,bytheSung,it had dialectofthemid-eighth century vernacular bothforpopularliterature and forlimitedbureaucratic developedas a written untiltheturnofthetwentieth LS remained thesolesanctioned, purposes. Nonetheless, century, and therewas no consciousattemptto elevatethekoineto the mediumforwriting official statusofa nationallanguage. 121 This content downloaded from 151.100.162.37 on Fri, 06 Mar 2015 16:42:54 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 730 VICTOR H. MAIR outsideof the urbancentersupon whichit was based, the koinewas heavilyaffected lexicon,and, to a lesserextent,grammar-as is MSM today. by local pronunciation, remainedunwritten and, indeed,"unwritable" The otherSiniticlanguagesessentially because the set of morphosyllabicsinographs(han-tzu),though mind-bogglingly enormous,was inadequate to recordaccuratelyall the morphemesin the spoken vernaculars.At the same time, therewere no conventionsin medieval China for the alphabeticor syllabicspellingof connectedSinitic speech. fromthat in medievalEurope whereLatin was This situationis verydifferent both sayableand writableand hencecould serveas a completevehicleboth forthe speech and the writingof the educated. Subsequently,just beforeand duringthe Renaissance,each nationalvernacularin Europe took on a life of its own separate in Europewas also facilitated of the writtenvernaculars fromLatin. The development withease anyvarietyofspokenlanguage. by an alphabetthatwas capableof recording inhibitedthe growthof the individualwrittenvernaculars In contrast,the sinographs Mandarin(it is in China and tendedto discourageeven the writingof full-fledged usuallycontaminatedby LS to one degreeor another).Thus thereis no flourishing traditionforCantonese,Taiwanese,Shanghaiese,and the otherVS languages literary as thereis forFrench,German,Italian, English, and so forth.At best, thereare scatteredtexts(onlyan exceedingfewof whichdate frombeforethe late nineteenth century)that include a smatteringof elementsof the various regionallanguages matricesto providea embedded in basicallyMandarinor semi-Mandarin-semi-LS bit of "local flavor." The JapaneseInspirationforkuo-yii It is paradoxicalthattheChineserecognizedone oftheirown spokenvernaculars as the basis fora national language (kuo-yii)only in this century.This occurred when the governmentof the Republic of China declared afterthe May Fourth Movementof 1919 thatMandarinwas to be spreadthroughoutall of China as the and education.The firstpersonknownto have used officiallanguageofgovernment a to Siniticlanguagewas the scholarand educatorWu in reference the termkuo-yii to Wu went In Japan to observethe educationalsystemthere.He Ju-lun. 1902, withwhichtheJapanesegovernment had spread the success was deeplyimpressedby (i.e., kuo-y/)(Ramsey 1991). Upon his the use of the Tokyo dialectas theirkokugo returnto China, Wu began advocatingto the Ch'ing governmentthe adoptionof Mandarinas a nationallanguage. By 1909, varioustentativesteps had been taken in thisdirection,but the dynastycollapsedbeforetheybecamea reality(Chung-kuo Yii-yenwen-tzu:123ab). It remainedforthe RepublicofChina, ta pai-k'ech'iian-shu, underpressurefromprogressiveintellectuals(Li Chin-hsi 1934), to make official what had slowly been becominga realityever since the arrivalof Buddhism in China-the acceptanceof the vernacularas a legitimatetool forwriting. in It is not strangethatWu Ju-lunwould have picked up the idea of a kuo-yii Japan,fortheJapaneseactuallyhad a strongconsciousnessof possessinga writable forexample,was written forcenturies.The Tale ofGenji(Genjimonogatari), vernacular in the vernacular Shikibu Murasaki court the phonetickana) already (with lady by at the beginningof the eleventhcentury.(Gender dynamicsappear to have been operativein thisand similarcases, such as thatof the recentlydiscoveredWomen's the vernacularserveas Script[Nii-shul in Hunan. Phoneticscriptsforrepresenting This content downloaded from 151.100.162.37 on Fri, 06 Mar 2015 16:42:54 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions BUDDHISM AND THE RISE OF WRITTEN VERNACULAR 731 an empowering to the male-dominated counterweight morphosyllabic [or logographici sinographsthatare so splendidlywell-suitedforwritingLS.) The Japanesepreface (dated 1714) to the Fa-hua lun-shu(Commentary on theLotusSu7tra)by the noted Chinesemonk Chi-tsang(fl. 549-69), who was of Parthiandescent,statesthat in preparingthe blocks forprinting"the national/vernacular language (kokugo)has been added at the side."' (T40[18181.785a) Regrettably,moderneditionshave not preservedthe runningJapaneseannotations. In its earliestJapaneseappearances,the termkokugoseems to have had more the connotationof "local vernacular"than of an official"national language." In Tokugawa-period Japan,forexample,it could even referto Dutch (Ramsey1993:3). All of this, plus the distinctlySinitic ring to the word, recallsthe Chinese usage ofthetermkuo-yu to designatespokenvernacular languagesas opposedto thecustomary writtenlanguage,namelykanbun(LS). As we have alreadyseen, it was the Buddhists who introducedthis notion to China and it seems to have spread fromthereto Japan. Only slowly,however,did the idea ofJapanesekokugoas "local vernacular" become transformed into the statusof "nationallanguage." Not until around the middleof the nineteenth did it graduallycome to referspecifically century to Japanese as theofficialnationallanguageofJapan.Slow as the transformation mayhave been, vernacular Japanesebecamethe accepted,officiallanguageof the people who spoke it long beforeany varietyof VS was sanctionedas the nationallanguageof China. It is ironic,in both cases, that the rootsof the acceptanceof the vernacularas the officiallanguage of the countrylay in the Indian Buddhistconceptof desa-bhhsa. The seminal importanceof Buddhism in the developmentof writtenvernacular Japaneseduringthe earlyHeian (794-898) is recognizedby Habein (1984:22) and Miller(1967:126). The roleof Buddhismin the developmentofthekana syllabaries is detailedby Seeley(1991:ch. 4, 59-89), especiallyin such textsas theAbidatsuma zojuron(Abhidharmasamuccayavydkhyd) and OkutsumarakyJ or (Angulimalika-suitra both of which date to around800 C.E. (also see Miller 1967: Ahgulimd1iya-sutra), 128). Language Reformin Korea While, like kuo-yiiforMandarinand quocngui'forVietnamese,the conceptof kug'oas the language of a modernKorean nation-statewas inspiredby Japanese kokugo,the Koreans themselveshad a traditionof writingin the vernacularthat stretched all the way back to the idu ("clerkreadings")and hyangch'al ("local letters") scripts.These dependedon eitherSino-Koreanphoneticor nativeglosses (similar to Japaneseon and kun readingsof sinographs)and are attributedto S61 Ch'ong, son of Korea's greatestBuddhistthinker,W6nhyo,in the late seventhcentury.The used exclusivelyforvernacularsongs and poetry(judging fromthe few hyangch'al, survivingspecimens),may alreadyhave died out beforethe adventof the Chos6n (so-calledYi) dynastyin 1392. The earliestvernaculartexts(songs and poems) in Korean literaryhistoryare foundonly in Buddhistsources,and most of themare by Buddhistson Buddhist themes (Lee 1959, 1961). The secular derivativeof hyangch'al-idu-lasted rightdown to the nineteenthcentury,even in spite of the coexistenceof the alphabet(Ledyard1992b). In 1446 theenlightened King Sejong(1397-1450) promulgated Hunminchong'uzm ("correctsoundsforinstructing the people," also the titleof the book in whichthe This content downloaded from 151.100.162.37 on Fri, 06 Mar 2015 16:42:54 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 732 VICTOR H. MAIR king introducedthis new systemof writing)as an easilylearnedphoneticscriptfor Confucianliteratiwere adamantly Korea.'3 Of course, the elite Chinese-oriented and gave it thepejorative opposedto the use of a demoticscriptlike Hunminchong'zm (vernacularwriting,literally"proverbialwriting")becauseit threatened nameJnmun theirmonopolyon literacy.The Sinitic script,which was the prevailingmethod forwritingin Korea fromthe end of the seventhcentury,was clearlythe preferred was initiallyattacked Thus, althoughHunminch&ng'im choiceof mostof the officials. by Korean intellectualswho had a vested interestin the cumbersomesinographs, acceptedin Korea (both duringthe twentiethcenturyit has now becomeuniversally northand south) as the standardformof writingcalled han'gul(Korean letters). Since 1948, therehas been exclusiveuse of han'gulin the north,and the occasional has beensteadilydecreasing-nowdwindledalmostto nothing ofsinographs admixture in generalpublic usage (a small group of Siniticallyorientedscholarsstill cling to the Chinese charactersstubbornly,if only in a tokenfashion)-in the south. The Koreans take great nationalisticpride in han'gulas a scriptthat permits themto recordaccuratelythe soundsand wordsof theirown language ratherthan LS or what amountsto variousdegreesof writtencreolization(if we may coin a FlorianCoulmas phrase)thatresultedwhentheywereforcedto relyon thesinographs. Hans the thatKoreans and describe contortions 10-11) Jensen(1969:2 (1989:115-17) had to go throughwhen theytriedto writetheirlanguage with sinographs.King are expressedin his preface Sejong'sown intentionsin creatingthe Hunminch&ng'um as follows: fromthoseof the The speechsoundsof ourcountry's languageare different withthecharacters. amongthe Therefore, MiddleKingdomandarenotconfluent to people,therehavebeenmanywho,havingsomething stupid[i.e., "common"] I havebeen put intowords,havein theendbeenunableto expresstheirfeelings. letters,whichI becauseof this,and havenewlydesignedtwenty-eight distressed fortheirdaily wishto haveeveryone practiceat theirease and makeconvenient use. (adaptedfromLedyard1966:224) It is clear that Sejong was deeplyconcernedabout literacyforthe commonpeople and that he believed a phoneticscriptpermittingthem to write out easily the sounds of theirown spoken language would be much more appropriatefor that purposethan the clumsysinographs. A similarattitudeis expressedin Ch6ng Inji's postfaceto the Hunminch,ng'z`m Soundsfor Instructing the People),a and Examplesof the Correct haerye(Explanations on the Hunminch6ng'zm preparedby a group of scholarscommissioned commentary by King Sejong: arecomparable to In ourEasternQuarter,ceremonials, music,and literature ofthoseofChina,butourlocalspeechand rusticcolloquialarenot and imitative the of understanding thesame.Studentsof booksare troubledby thedifficulty are thosewhopresideat processes purportand meaning[ofChinesecharacters]; ofthetwistsand turns[ofa legaltext].In oldendays, at thedifficulty distressed in the S61Ch'ongof Silla firstmadetheClerkReadings,and theyare practiced and amongthepeopleto thisday.But all ofthemareusedas offices government somegrateon you,othersstopyoucompletely. Theyarenot borrowed characters; ofHunmin seeRamsey1992.Formoreinformation brief account 13Foran excellent chotng'um, has ofhan'gul,see GariLedyard's which,unfortunately, superbdissertation on thehistory presented neverbeenpublished.I havereliedon it heavilyfortheaccountofKoreanwriting in theseparagraphs. This content downloaded from 151.100.162.37 on Fri, 06 Mar 2015 16:42:54 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions BUDDHISM AND THE RISE OF WRITTEN VERNACULAR 733 '0~~~ 1~~~~$~i m _ -_ m Opening page of the preface to Hunmin chong'Wm[CorrectSounds Sejong ( 1397- 1450). It was in this work that the Buddhistically inclined, enlighted ruler formally presented his alphabet for spelling vernacular Korean. National Treasure No. 70, preserved in the Kansong Art Museum. Ch'on 1993:13. Figure 3. for instructingthe Peop/le by King just rusticand crudeand unattested;when it comes to the realmof actual speech, not one in a myriadof them is applicable. lettersare used, their shiftsand changes in . Though only twenty-eight areendless;theyare simpleand fine,reducedto theminimumyetuniversally flunction applicable.Therefore, a wise man can acquainthimselfwiththembeforethe morning is over; a stupid man can learn them in the space of ten days. Using these in explainingbooks,one can knowtheappropri[elties; usingthesein hearinga litigation, one can grasp the situation.Insofaras the phonologyof charactersis concerned, clear and eluvial can be distinguished;in mattersof music and singing,the twelve semi-tonesmay be blended. There is no usage not providedfor,no directionin which theydo not extend. Even the sound of the winds, the cryof the crane,the cackle of fowland the barkingof dogs-all may be written. (quoted in Ledyard 1966:257-58) There can be no doubt that the devisers and advocates of the Korean alphabet were searchingfora simple means that would permit theirpeople to express their thoughts This content downloaded from 151.100.162.37 on Fri, 06 Mar 2015 16:42:54 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 734 VICTOR H. MAIR and ideas in theirown language and that theyconsideredthe sinographsto be illof the last sentence adaptedforthatpurpose.What is more,the strikingformulation expostulationin theprefaceto theSung scholar derivesfroma remarkable manifestly on theSevenSounds]in which Cheng Ch'iao's (1104-62) Ch'i-yinliueh[Compendium he profuselypraises the phonological sophisticationof Buddhist monks (Mair 1993:338-39). Ch6ng Inji and his associateswere obviouslystrivingto emulate of Indianphoneticwritingthatwas so muchadmiredby ChengCh'iao. theflexibility It is significantthat King Sejong and his wife (d. 1446) were both devout Buddhistsand that all except two of the earliesttextswrittenin this new script ConfucianSongsofDragons wereBuddhist.The two exceptionsare the stultifyingly Heaven(Yongbioch'onka, 1447) and the Sino-Koreanglossaryentitled Flyingthrough As literature,the Buddhistworksare quite impressive,certainly chong'un. Tongguk althoughHunminchong'uim farsuperiorto theSongsoftheFlyingDragons.Furthermore, (i.e., han'gul)is deservedlypraisedas an ingeniousand accuratephoneticscript,it was based in parton 'Phags-pa,a Mongolianscriptdevisedby a Tibetan lama with thateponymin 1260 to replacethemodifiedold Uighur(< old Syriac< Palmyrene < Aramaic< NorthSemitic)scriptthathad previouslybeen used to writeMongol (the modifiedold Uighur scriptsurvivedas the usual way to writeMongol until of Cyrillicand was lateradaptedby the Manchus importation the twentieth-century to writetheirown language). The shapesof the 'Phags-pa letterswere inspiredby Tibetan letterswhich themselveswere modeled upon Indian Gupta letters.The (ca. Tibetan scripthad been commissionedby the greatking Srong-brtsan-sgam-po 608-50), who is creditedwith introducingBuddhismto Tibet. It is evidentthat Khubilai was actingunderBuddhistinfluencewhen he ordered'Phags-pato create a new scriptforMongol. The Buddhistimpetus,in turn,carriedthroughto King Also operativewas Chinese phonology,in which King Sejong's Hunminchong'um. werequite learnedand Sejong and his closestassociatesin devisingHunminchong'um theories on Indian was based initiallybroughtto China phonological which,in turn, It is not surprising, and Six the Han periods. Dynasties monks Buddhist during by welcomed the new alphabetic, therefore,that Korean Buddhists enthusiastically device forthe propagationand studyof theirfaith, demoticscriptas an effective officialswho resolutelyresistedit. unlike the elitist,Confucian-minded of phoneticwriting A further observationconcerningthe Buddhistaffiliations was precededby an even moreexplicitlyIndianin Korea is thatHunminchong'km inspiredscript,poms6(= MSM fanshu,"Brahmanicscript," probablya formof and phonologicalcompositionof the scriptall Siddham). The name, arrangement, clearlyreveal its ultimate Indian origins. Pomsois still employed today for the of Sanskrittermsin Buddhistritualtexts(Jensen 1969:216). transcription Ledyard'sdissertation(1966) providesa greatamountof detailedevidencethat Buddhism was indeed a key factorin the creationof the Korean alphabet. For and example, he delineates(pp. 261ff.)an alliance betweenthe pro-alphabeticists (p. 267), thatmanyof the earliestcompositions Buddhists.He shows,furthermore using the new alphabet were Buddhist, including a Korean translationof the (HeartSuitra).He also notes(p. 90) thatthe good king Prajfidpdramita-hrdaya-si7tra Sejong himselfput his alphabetto workby composingodes in Korean on the life and workof the Buddha. It cannotbe emphasizedtoo oftenthatSejong carriedout his Buddhist-inspired programof vernacularlanguage reformin the face of fierce oppositionfromthe literati: In thelastyearsofhis life,Sejongturnedmoreand moreto thecomforts of to alienating himself almostcompletely from and thiswas tantamount Buddhism, on thepathological. themenofhis time,whosehatredof thatreligionbordered This content downloaded from 151.100.162.37 on Fri, 06 Mar 2015 16:42:54 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE AND BUDDHISM RISE OF WRITTEN 735 VERNACULAR -- I, VYM I JZ Cal P A~~~~~~~~~~ swf 19Sam C, samt ,2 e y CaIIV in ~can ~ -Yu. ' p ^T Fiur 4 -u teiAR XI lyUl pr 1.'UI Oenngpae A n+ t~~~~~~( f n rtcl o M R m 4 witn ro Hitzgc'-h A~~~~~~ ( 15 52- 1610). Although Ricci's book was written in Literary Sinitic, it represented the first use of the Roman alphabet to indicate the sounds of a Sinitic language and ultimately led to the creation of convenient methods for writing all of the vernacular languages of China. Published herewith the permissionof the Vatican Library. to Buddhismfromearlyin his reign, But Sejonghad actuallybeensympathetic hadfought himon thiseversince1426,whentheypetitioned andhisremonstrators on oneoftheceiling rooma dharanb written fromhisthrone himto haveremoved beamsin Siddhamletters. (Ledyard 1966:90; thereference si//ok, is to Sejong in thelastsentence November12, 1426, 34.3a) This content downloaded from 151.100.162.37 on Fri, 06 Mar 2015 16:42:54 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 736 VICTOR H. MAIR stimulatedhim to concrete But it was not just King SejongwhoseBuddhistaffinities of writingin Korea. Alreadynine centuries action aimed at the vernacularization earlier,the Buddhist contributionsto the establishmentof an authenticKorean literaturewere absolutelyessential: must ofKoreanwriting in theearlyhistory The leadingroleplayedbyBuddhists it was ofSilla poetryis anyindication, be emphasized. . . If whathas survived it through Buddhists preserved whowrotemostofSilla'snativeliterature. Buddhists ofKyunyoand theSamguk wrotethebiography theKory6period,and Buddhists all we knowof thatliterature to moderntimes.Even yusaand thustransmitted classics,was thesonof oftheChinese(Confucian) S61Ch'ong,thegreatexpositor a Buddhistpriest(thefamousW6nhyo,b. 597), and wouldhavegrownup with It wasnoaccident forthenativelanguagesharedbyhisco-religionists. theconcern longsystematized whoshouldhavefinally thatit was a manof thisbackground intoa practicalwayofwritingKorean.It was in transcription standing practices of notjust in Koreathatit was so. The roleof Buddhismin thegeneralhistory will in its entirety, writingin Asia is a storythat,whenit comesto be written volumes. fillmanyinteresting (Ledyard1966:57) . The role of Buddhism in the rise of printingis anotherimportantarea of investigationthat deservesattention.There is little doubt that printingin East Asia, fromits veryinception,was primarilya Buddhistphenomenon.In fact,the inventionof printingitselfmay have occurredas an extensionof the practiceof impressingwoodcut engravingsof the Buddha's image on silk and paper and of (charmsor prayers,especiallyas used in Tantrism).Both of duplicatingdhdranzf these practiceswere alreadywidespreadin China during the seventhcentury.By werebeing printedin Japan. For example, the eighthcentury,millionsof dhdranT between764 and 770, one milliondhdranzwereprintedby the orderof the empress Sh6toku(d. 769) and were depositedin small st-upaswhich were distributedto a numberof majorBuddhisttemples(Goodrich 1960:117). The Buddhistmonopoly on the earlyprintingof books properin Japan is noteworthy: to intoJapan(about740 A.D.) was confined afterits introduction Printing untiltowardtheendoftheKamakura period(about Buddhistmonasteries wealthy eithertoBuddhist sutrasorChinese 1569)[siclwiththeresultthatit wasrestricted in thisperiodfrom740 to 1569. texts.Therewas verylittlesecularprinting (Peake 1939:58) The matterof Buddhism's contributionto the historyof printingin East Asia, althoughrelatedto the riseof the writtenvernacularin the sense thatboth pertain oflearningbeyondConfucianliteraticircles,is a separatequestion to thedissemination requiringintensive,specializedresearchof its own. Still, it is significantthat this democratic Indian religionhad a decisiveimpactupon both of thesefundamentally developmentsconcerningwritingin East Asia that occurredat approximatelythe same time. This naturallyleads us to a considerationof the broaderissues of the lie beyondthe scope of the present sociologyof knowledge,but theseunfortunately study.For the moment,however,it needs to be pointedout thatthe legitimization of the vernacularas a writtenmedium, the inventionof phoneticsyllabariesand phenomenathatwould alphabets,and the inventionof printingare all interrelated appear to stem fromthe Buddhist missionizingproclivity,namely,the desire to This content downloaded from 151.100.162.37 on Fri, 06 Mar 2015 16:42:54 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions BUDDHISM - AND THE RISE OF WRITTEN VERNACULAR 737 % AL 4-t -dd 's LN CC-nt@C iY rbLoJMs-X BMfib .e af--M'0 o x,&o xurW tJu zJtfl; !4L iL LL~?r / # ~4S 'fj'~1~ $t-4NS Figu . A pI-mu j D e W rJ-4a C4 Pt-TeI } c&ue;-crkt-+ / a Lchu-chec [F rst-St $ttat7ts1i c-&-b t44XiNtt w I- U-cwo f,s w A A [First Stepsin BeingAble Figure 5. A page fromI-mu liao-j'anch'u-chieh at a Glance] by Lu Chuang-chang(1854-1928), who had to Comprehend close ties with Christianmissionaries. This is the firstwork by a Chinese author advocatinga systemof phoneticspelling for Sinitic languages.It was publishedin Amoy in 1892 and was keyed to the local Southern Min language,but Lu contendedthat his systemcould be applied to all thelivingSiniticvernaculars. of their spreadtheBuddha'swordas farafieldand to as manypeople,regardless or station,as possible. background returned to the questionof the significance Ledyard(1992a) has recently of in his"TheInternational ofhan'gul 'Phags-paforthecreation Linguistic Background SoundsfortheInstruction ofthePeople."Alongwithhim,we must oftheCorrect thatHunmin was notmerely makea specificdisclaimer a combination of ch6ng'zm and Sino-Indian but a remarkable creationfor 'Phags-paorthography phonology, This content downloaded from 151.100.162.37 on Fri, 06 Mar 2015 16:42:54 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 738 VICTOR H. MAIR and perceptively deservesmuchcredit.Ledyardcorrectly whichKing Sejongpersonally pointsout the connectionbetweenthe Koreanadoptionof vernacular(i.e., native) languageas a legitimatemediumforwriting(as opposedto LS) and the consequent need fora phoneticscriptwith which to representit. It was this motivationthat impelled the king and his associatesingeniouslyto adapt 'Phags-pa to theirown purposes. The han'gulalphabet that resultedis marvelouslywell suited for the of Koreanand is justlyhailedas beingperhapsthemost phonologicalrepresentation logicallydesignedof all alphabetsin the world. A drawbackto the use of han'gul withtheadventofmoderninformation-processing becameapparentonlyin thiscentury (i.e., square)configuration techniques(mechanicaland electronic).The tetragraphic of syllables(originallyintendedforease of combinationwith the sinographs)in the applicationof moderninformationKoreanalphabetposes an obstacleto the efficient processingmethodsthatare essentiallylinear(Chung 1991). Therehave latelybeen attemptsto rearrangethe scriptin a linearsequenceand to markword boundaries in information-processing systems(Hannas 1993). forgreaterefficiency Conclusion We have seen how, under the probable influenceof the Indian concept of broughtto China by Buddhism,numerouspeoples in East Asia created de(a-hhd4s a whole seriesof writtenvernaculars.While Chineseauthoritiesstubbornlyresisted recognitionof any of theirown vernacularsas a nationallanguage-probably due to the extremely highprestigeand powerof LS-the Buddhistsused thevernacular as a functionalalternativewritten liberallyin theirown writings.Once proffered language,use of the vernacularsteadilygrewuntil, by the late Ming-earlyCh'ing, it is likely that as many books were being printed in vernacularor a heavily the censureand ridiculeof literarystyleas in LS, notwithstanding vernacularized scholars.Finally,even the Manchus,who alreadyhad theirown written strait-laced nationallanguage, which was swiftlydying out because of pervasivesinicization, yieldedto the idea thattheirSiniticsubjects,too, neededa nationallanguagekeyed to one of the spokenvernaculars.Afterthe agitationof the May FourthMovement Chineseintellectualsand students,manyof whom wereexposed led by progressive about to radicalideas languageand otheraspectsof cultureand societythroughthe of window Japan, kuo-yiiwas publiclyproclaimedthe officialwrittenlanguage of the nation.This markedthe formalend of the multimillennialseparationbetween and spokenlanguage(k'ou-yfi) in China. book language(shu-mien-yi) That Buddhismplayeda crucialrole in the evolutionof the writtenvernacular East Asia is beyondany doubt. The questionremains,however:Which throughout was responsibleforthesemomentouschanges?Was theresome Buddhism of aspect to Buddhismthat fosteredthe writtenvernacular?Or doctrine belonging religious was it due to a special Buddhistphilosophicalprinciple?Was it the fondnessfor preaching,and public speakingby the earlyBuddhistsin the language storytelling, of the people? Did the ostensibleoralityof Buddhistscripturehave anythingto do with the originsof the writtenvernacularin China? Was the factthatmost of the of BuddhisttextsintoSiniticwereforeigners witha poor command earlytranslators factor?And did thephonologicalsophistication of theliterarylanguagea significant of Indian linguisticalscience lend credibilityto the spoken vis-a-visthe written? of chantingand recitation? definedIndiantraditions What of theelaborate,rigorously This content downloaded from 151.100.162.37 on Fri, 06 Mar 2015 16:42:54 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions BUDDHISM AND THE RISE OF WRITTEN VERNACULAR 739 And maythe social values, institutions, and positionofBuddhismhave contributed to the riseof the writtenvernacular?Last but not least, did Buddhistpracticehave to do withthevalidationofthevernacular? anything PerhapsI haveentirely overlooked some vital facetof Buddhismthatcontributedto thisprocess.In the end, Buddhist supportforthe writtenvernacularmaybest be identifiedas a complexcombination all ofwhichweredetermined ofdiversefactors, byan integrated socioreligious ideology. Abbreviations B.C.E. BHSi BHS C.E. LS MSM p.n. T VS BeforeCommon Era BuddhistHybridSinitic BuddhistHybrid Sanskrit Common Era LiterarySinitic ModernStandardMandarin propername TaishoTripitaka(the standardeditionof the ChineseBuddhistcanon) VernacularSinitic Glossary Abidatsuma zojuron AnHsuan AnShih-kao chang-che Chang-sun Wu-chi,"Chingchichih" ChengCh'iao ch'eng-yui chi ChiHsien-lin ChiTsang Ch'i-yin luieh chiang-ching-wen ChihLou-chia-ch'an ChihYao Chinshihkuo-yii chin-shih-ni iLT Ch6ngInji ChouYu-kuang ChuCh'ing-chih P" 2tJtfI AA Af,*i1EEa3,g F= -bE1J _go 3 U jV zw i gl=o MA FM ; Abhidharmasamuccayavydkhyd p.n. p.n. elder srestha Treatise" "Bibliographical p.n. setphrase(so-called "idiom") gdthd verse p.n. p.n. ontheSeven Compendium Scripts siitralecture text p.n. p.n. National Language History ofthe Jurchen upasika laywoman p.n. p.n. p.n. This content downloaded from 151.100.162.37 on Fri, 06 Mar 2015 16:42:54 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 740 VICTOR H. MAIR ChuLu-yen ChuTa-li ChuT'an-kuo chi' no^m ch'u-chia *- * chui-shih ch'uan-ch'i rekishi Chu-gokugo bunpo Yg= shitszko Chu-gokugo t Chung-kuo tapai-k'ech'uan-shu i Yii-yenwen-tzu 3Z Fa-chui Fa-chii ching Fa-hsien Fa-li t;Lp.n. Fa-hualun-shu <J1 fan-pai XV5 fan-shu fang-pien fang-yen fang-k'uai-tzu Foshuo ,@ {WQ hai Han-erhyen-yii hsi-wen Hsien-pei ching Hsiien-yii EL 31 i-l A 2jo. 03Z Ov,, A Historical Grammar ofModern Chinese A Historical Study ofChinese Language The T GreatChinese Encyclopedia. LanguageandScript. p.n. Dhammapada p.n. ontheLotusSitra Commentary 7-5 "Fo-tien yuchung-ku Han-yu{K tz'u-hui yen-chiu" Han-yen Han-wen Han-tzu Hsi-tzuch'i-chi - *f:L fan-ch'ieh p.n. Vietnamese vernacular writing Palipabbajjd pravrajyd, leaving thehome(tobecomea monk) updsaka layman classicalfiction <; o"u p.n. p.n. ig J*Il+ countertomy; cut-and-splice pseudospelling *brama-pdtha "Brahmanic" (i.e. Buddhist) hymnody Brahmanic script updya skillful means topolect tetragraph buddhavacana, buddhabhdsita spokenbytheBuddha;cf. (thatwhichwas {W1Nf spokenbytheBuddha), A-M, M , tff-3 (the truewordsoftheBuddha), = f= (thewordsofthe variousBuddhas) "A StudyoftheRelationship between Buddhist Scriptures andtheVocabulary of MiddleSinitic" to be (Cantonese) the(common)languageofthe Han people spokenSinitic writtenSinitic sinograph ("Chinese character") TheMiracleofWestern Letters southern drama *Saerbi,*Shirvi oftheWiseand theFoolish Su~tra This content downloaded from 151.100.162.37 on Fri, 06 Mar 2015 16:42:54 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions BUDDHISM AND THE RISE OF WRITTEN Hsiian-tsang Hua-i i-yui Hua-yenching Hui-chiao Hui-yuan Hunminch'ng'ufm M r JiIE ,1 d1 I :IIE 'E""4J hyangch'al 1-ching idu i-fang-ming ORL A i hsinch'uanhsin J1JLfW'L IriyaYoshitaka i-yii jan Hua-su Ju-chih,see Yiieh-chih ju shihwowen 4JRThR ju shihyen Ju shihyuching kanbun K'ang Meng-hsiang Kao Ming-k'ai kao-seng chuan Kao-seng k'ao-cheng-hsuieh kokugo k'ou-yii kuan-ch'ang kuan-hua Kuan-huaho-sheng tzu-mu kuan-huatzu-mu kug'o kun Z-f j75 1Ui t_1 i ; 10 / IT0 M. mit -r IfIi I 4:1 a t==n Ig=E a 011 kung-ch'iao-ming II1'5EH kuo kuo-yui Li Chin-hsi,Kuo-yui yun-tung ; shihkang 741 p.n. Sino-Mongolian Translations Avatamsakasi7tra p.n. p.n. correctsoundsforinstructing thepeople Explanations and Examples ofthe Correct Sounds forInstructing thePeople local letters p.n. clerkreadings vyddhi-cikitsa-vidydsthana medicine transmission frommindto mind p.n. "barbarian"language taintedby Chinesecustoms , Hunminchong'um haerye VERNACULAR J evammayda rutamThus have I heard;var.POlYg, Thr41II ;t, nXglU?,etc. said thus SiitraSpokenThus LS as writteninJapan p.n. p.n. eminentmonk Biographies Monks ofEminent evidentiallearning (Japanese)nationallanguage spokenlanguage officialdom: theMandarinate Mandarin Letters theSoundsof forCombining Mandarin Mandarinletters (Korean)nationallanguage theJapanesereadingofa sinograph arts sfilpa-karma-sthdna-vidyd and crafts nation country, national(vernacular)language; titleofan ancientChinese historicalwork Outline History oftheNational LanguageMovement This content downloaded from 151.100.162.37 on Fri, 06 Mar 2015 16:42:54 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 742 VICTOR H. MAIR Li-shih yen-chiu Liaoshihkuo-yui LinShu 4, Lu Chuang-chang, I-muliao- F jan ch'u-chieh H J; Lun-yii Analects Lung-men Ma S51h -Muhammad I MeiTsu-Lin,"San-ch'ao pei- Ft,iifiM, A man-t'e-lo Studies onHistory National Language History ofthe Khitan p.n. FirstSteps inBeing Ableto Comprehend ata Glance i ' place-name , meng li te pai-hua hui-pien b M--, (Lt1Ig JM shu-mu Hf IJ) tzu-liao,"Chung-kuo chi-k'an Mo-hechih-kuan nei-ming Ni Hai-shu,Chung-kuop'in@g vf#T, -3r; yinwen-tzu kai-lun nienFo I f nii-shu t;f Ohta [Otal Tatsuo )K Okutsumaraky5o p.n. mantramagicalformulaor incantation "Vernacular Materials inthe Compendium ofNorthern Treatises ofThreeEmperors," Bibliographic Quarterly *Mahasamathavipasyand adbydtma-vidyd psychology Introduction totheChinese Phonetic Script recitethename oftheBuddha women'sscript p.n. Angulimalika-sutra or Angulimdl yd-sutra on onmun pai-hua[-wen] pan-wen-pan-pai Pei Wei pien-wen pomso pu 1iwen-tzu p'u-t'ung-hua ; i [j;1 D 3ZTj 1LV W; $ T X= j QoninJ'i quocngu'l san-shih-liu tzu-mu Sejong Sejongsillok Shao-wu sheng-ming shih Shihpeiyii-lu shou-lu Shou-wen shu-mien-yu il t MA tw tffi J Chinese-style phoneticreading ofa sinographused in Japanese vernacularwriting writtenVernacularSinitic semiliterary-semivernacular NorthernWei transformation text Brahmanicscript(seefan-shu) notto establishwrittenwords commonspeech(i.e., Modern StandardMandarin) p.n. Vietnameseromanalphabet thirty-six letters p.n. Veritable Records oftheReignof KingSejong nameofa place in Fukien sabda-vidyd linguistics to be a Northern Transcripts from Mission slokastanza p.n. book language This content downloaded from 151.100.162.37 on Fri, 06 Mar 2015 16:42:54 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions BUDDHISM AND THE RISE OF WRITTEN S61Ch'ong -g4,! Ssu-maCh'ien,Shih-chi, J , t U Ssu-maKuang, Tzu-chih Il$g?, j t'ung-chien Su f4 su-chiang f4 su-jen f{J\ sung i Sung Lien,Yuanshih , Ta chih-tu lun y h Takata Tokio, "Chibettomoji i>: 14 , ') shosha'Ch6kan'no kenkyu @9; -:F ow3p (honbunhen),"Toh5gakuh5 (4C7XJ), 7 Ta-lu ti-ch'iipo-shihlun-wen 7 ts'ung-k'an "T'ang-taich'an-chiayii-luso }ffftT ffi <tfAn ; iT chiente yii-fach'eng-fen" MZ3' tao-lu teng-yuin t'o-lo-ni Tongguk chong'un M pt,n t, *IiEM T'o-pa II4E/P "TonkJ henbun shiV'kogogoiho-i F rF ! F "Tonkohenbun shu"kigogoi sakuin i "Tsai lun yiian-shih Fo-chiao : te yii-yenwen-t'i" "Tsai t'an Fu-t'uyu Fo" 4 tsan g Tsochuan te fa-hsien "T'u-huo-lo-yii tE Tso Ch'iu-ming chich'itsai yuk'ao-shih Chung-Yinwen-huachiaoliu te tso-yung" 5rF t nj LII Ei-fl U?:S 1 g=, R. t tpAfJ3iJf'p+ " -ff Tuan Li-fen,"Tsui-tsaoch'uifQW,j FQ hsienhsi-tz'u(shih)te tijttFf , i t. hsia tzu-liao,"Yui-wen t'ien-ti Tun-huang t'ung-yii tzuyuieh -F I WangChao R 3E, VERNACULAR 743 p.n. Records oftheGrandHistorian Mirror Comprehensive forAid in Government vulgar lay lecture grhastha householder songofpraise History oftheYuoan Dynasty Mahoiprajoiipdramitopadeia "Studieson the 'Long Scroll'in TibetanTranscription (Text)," JournalofOriental Studies MainlandRegionDoctoral DissertationsSeries "GrammaticalElementsObservedin Zen Recordsof Conversations fromthe T'ang Period" way,road rhymeclassification dhdranF mysticalcharm,prayer Correct Rhymes oftheEastern Kingdom Tabgatch Supplement ofColloquialExpressionsin "Tun-huangpien-wen chi"2 IndexofColloquialExpressions in "Tun-huangpien-wen chi" "A Reexamination ofthe LanguageProblemof PrimitiveBuddhism" "Moreabout theChinese Terms'Fu Tu' and 'Fo"' stotraeulogy p.n. Tso'sChronicle "The TokharianLanguage: Its andDecipherDiscovery mentand Its Role in the CulturalRelationsbetween India and China" "The EarliestExcavatedMaterialfortheCopula shih,"The WorldofLanguageand Script place-name commonlanguage themastersaid p.n. This content downloaded from 151.100.162.37 on Fri, 06 Mar 2015 16:42:54 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 744 VICTOR H. MAIR Wei Cheng,Sui shu Wei-chih-nan Wei Yuan, Sheng-wu chi a M wen-yen [-wen] Wowenshih-tsun shuotz'ui 3Z-A [i13] ,ZJt-lLt t-" P6 Wowenshih-tsun ying-kung ts'engjushihshuo W6nhyo Wu (Ngua) Wu Ju-lun wu-ming . ya-yen yeh Yen-ching hsueh-pao A,8 T yin-ming [MR)] yiiff yii-lu Yii-yen yen-chiu , a, 1= Yiin-kang taotuan,hsin-hsing ch'u yen-yii T JL'VIAM mieh Yongbioh'onka 1,4 Yiieh-chih(also pronounced , as Ju-chih) iv var. ,l ;, , ., History oftheSui Dynasty Vighna(p.n.) Records ofSagelyMilitary Exploits Sinitic Literary "I heardtheWorld-Honored explainthis[meaning]." "Thus did I heartheworshipful World-Honoredspeak." p.n. p.n. p.n. fivetypes paozcavidyd-sthdndni ofknowledge elegantlanguage LS sentenceparticle YenchingJournal hetu-vidyd logic language recordedsayings Linguistic Researches place-name "The wayoflanguageis cut off,theworkingsofthe mindare obliterated." SongsofDragonsFlyingthe Heavens "Indo-Scythian," moreproperly Kushanor Kusana; perhaps wereoriginally Tocharians Texts A a. c. f. mm'H npREStW--nENgSX TS g.L. ripXCS_ M S iJ This content downloaded from 151.100.162.37 on Fri, 06 Mar 2015 16:42:54 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions BUDDHISM AND THE RISE OF WRITTEN VERNACULAR 745 List of References AlongtheAncientSilk Routes:CentralAsian ArtfromtheWestBerlinStateMuseums. 1982. New York: The MetropolitanMuseum of Art. ALSDORF, LUDWIG. 1980. "Ardha-Migadhi."In Heinz Bechert,ed., Die Sprache der iltesten buddhistischen Uberlieferung, pp. 17-23. ANGURAROHITA, PRATOOM. 1989. "BuddhistInfluenceon the Neo-Confucian Conceptof the Sage." Sino-Platonic Papers10 (June). BANERJEE, MURALYDHAR. 1931. TheDesffnamamdld ofHemacandra.PartI-Text withReadings,Introduction and IndexofWords.Calcutta:University ofCalcutta. BECHERT, HEINZ, ed. 1980. Die Sprache deriltestenbuddhistischen Uberlieferungl The Language of the Earliest Buddhist Tradition. Symposium zur II. Abhandlungender Akademieder Wissenschaften Buddhismusforschung, in Gottingen,philologisch-historische Klasse, dritteFolge, Nu. 117. Gottingen: Vandenhoeckand Ruprecht. BECKWITH, CHRISTOPHER 1. 1987. The TibetanEmpire in CentralAsia: A History oftheStruggle for GreatPoweramongTibetans,Tarks,Arabs,and Chineseduring theEarlyMiddleAges. Princeton:PrincetonUniversityPress. BERLING, JUDITH. 1987. "Bringingthe Buddha Down to Earth: Notes on the Emergenceof YII-luas a BuddhistGenre." HistoryofReligions27. 1 (August): 56-88. BENDER, ERNEST. 1991. Personalcommunications (February). BHAYANI , HARIVALLABH C. 1966. Studies in Hemacandra'sDeszna-mamlad. Parshvanath ResearchInstitute.Varanasi:BanarasHindu University. Vidyashram The GEORGE. WordoftheBuddha. Colombo: M. D. Gunasena. BOND, 1982. BROUGH, JOHN. 1949-50. "Thus Have I Heard. Bulletinof theSchoolof Orientaland AfricanStudies13.2:416-26. .1961. "A KharosthiInscriptionfromChina." BulletinoftheSchoolofOriental and AfricanStudies24:517-30, plus 1 plate. . 1980. "Sakaya [sicl Niruttiya:Cauld kale het." In Heinz Bechert,ed., Die Sprachederaltesten buddhistischen Uberlieferung, pp. 35-42. CH 'EN, KENNETH K. S. 1964. Buddhism in China:A Historical Survey.Princeton: PrincetonUniversityPress. CHI HSIEN-LIN (also transcribed as CHI HSIAN-LIN, DSCHI HIAN-LIN, and JI XIANLIN). 1947. "On the oldestChinesetransliterations of the nameof Buddha." Sino-IndianStudies3.1-2 (April and July):1-9. . 1956. "T'u-huo-lo-yiite fa-hsienyii k'ao-shihchi ch'i tsai Chung-Yin wen-huachiao-liuchung te tso-yung(The TokharianLanguage: Its Discovery and Deciphermentand Its Role in the Cultural RelationsbetweenIndia and China)." Yi-yenyen-chiu (Linguistic Researches) 1:297-307. . 1959. "Tsai lun yiian-shihFo-chiaote yii-yenwen-t'i(A Re-examination of the Language Problemof PrimitiveBuddhism)." Yi-yenyen-chiu (Linguistic 4:87-105. Researches) . 1990. "Tsai t'an Fu-t'u yii Fo (More about the ChineseTerms'Fu Tu' and 'Fo')." Li-shihyen-chiu [Studieson Historyl2:3-11. CH'ON HYE-BONG. 1993. "Typographyin Korea: Birthplaceof Moveable Metal Type." Koreana7.2 (Summer):10-19. CHU CH'ING-CHIH. 1990. "Fo-tienyii chung-kuHan-yu tz'u-hui yen-chiu[A Studyof the RelationshipbetweenBuddhistScripturesand the Vocabularyof This content downloaded from 151.100.162.37 on Fri, 06 Mar 2015 16:42:54 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 746 VICTOR H. MAIR Middle Sinitic}." Ph.D. diss. Chengtu: SzechwanUniversity,Departmentof Chinese. Publishedin Taiwan with the same Chinesetitle(Englishtitle:Study between Buddhistscrzptures oftherelationship and thevocabulary ofmedieval Chinese) as partoftheTa-lu ti-ch'iipo-shihlun-wents'ung-k'an [MainlandRegionDoctoral DissertationsSeries]. Taipei: Wen-chinch'u-pan-she,1992. CHUNG, WON L. 1991. "Hangeul and Computing." In Victor H. Mair and YongquanLiu, eds., Characters and Computers. Amsterdam, Oxford,Washington, and Tokyo: IOS Press,pp. 146-79. ta pai-k'e-ch'iian-shu Chung-kuo [The Great ChineseEncyclopedial. Yu-yen wen-tzu [Languageand Script}.Pekingand Shanghai:Chung-kuota pai-k'e-ch'iian-shu, 1988. COULMAS, FLORIAN. 1989. TheWriting Systems oftheWorld.Oxfordand Cambridge, Mass.: Basil Blackwell. E. B. 1854. The Prgkrta-prakaksa, or thePrckrtGrammarof Vararuchi, COWELL, withtheCommentary (Manoramd)of Bhomaha.Calcutta: Punthi Pustak, 1962. Firstedition,Hertford,1854; secondedition,London, 1868. DEFRANCIS, JOHN. 1978. Colonialism and Language Policyin VietNam. Contributions to the Sociologyof Language, 19. The Hague: Mouton. . 1989. VisibleSpeech:The DiverseOnenessof WritingSystems.Honolulu: Universityof Hawaii Press. . 1991. Letterof March 17. DIEN, ALBERT. 1991. "A New Look at the Xianbei and theirImpact on Chinese Culture."In GeorgeKuwayama,ed., Ancient Traditions Mortuary ofChina:Papers onChineseCeramic Los Angeles:Los AngelesCountyMuseum Funerary Sculptures. of Art, pp. 40-59. AncientPeoplesand Places,25. London:Thames DIRINGER, DAVID. 1962. Writing. and Hudson; rpt., 1965. DOBSON, W. A. C. H. 1974. A Dictionary oftheChinese witha prolegomenon Particles: in whichtheproblems of theparticlesare considered and theyare classified by their Toronto:Universityof TorontoPress. grammatical functions. FRANKLIN. EDGERTON, 1953. BuddhistHybridSanskritGrammar and Dictionary. 2 vols. New Haven: Yale UniversityPress. WALTER. FUCHS, 1930. "Zur technischenOrganisation der Ubersetzungen ins Chinesische."Asia Major 6:84-103. buddhistischer Schriften K. 1991. "Modes of Thinkingand Modes of Discourse in DANIEL GARDNER, the Sung: Some Thoughtson the Yi-lu ('RecordedConversations') Texts." The JournalofAsian Studies50.3 (August):574-603. GERNET, JACQUES. 1956. Lesaspects du Bouddhisme economiques dansla societe chinoise du Ve au Xe siecle.Publicationsde l'Ecole francaise d'Extreme-Orient, 39. Saigon: Ecole frangaise d'Extreme-Orient. LOUIS 0. 1987. "BuddhistViews of Language." In MirceaEliade, ed., GOMEZ, The Encyclopedia ofReligion.New York: Macmillan. Vol. 8, pp. 446-5 1. L. CARRINGTON. GOODRICH, 1960. "Two Notes on EarlyPrintingin China." In H. L. Hariyappa,ed., Professor P. K. Gode Commemoration Volume.Poona OrientalSeries,93. Poona: OrientalBook Agency,pp. 117-20. I. S. 1985. "Esche Raz o Byan'ven'.. . (zametki)." In Akademiya GUREVICH, Nauk SSSR, Ordena TrudovogoKrasnogoZnameni InstitutVostokovedeniya, Leningradskoe Otdelenie,Pis'menn'ie i Problem'i Pamyatniki IstoriiKul'tur'iNarodov Vostoka.XVIII GodichnayaNauchnaya Sessiya lo IV AN SSSR (Doklad'i i Soobschenniya,1983-85), part 3. Moscow: Nauka, pp. 96-101. This content downloaded from 151.100.162.37 on Fri, 06 Mar 2015 16:42:54 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions BUDDHISM AND THE RISE OF WRITTEN VERNACULAR 747 YAEKO SATO. 1984. TheHistory oftheJapaneseWritten Language.Tokyo: Universityof Tokyo Press. HANNAS, WILLIAM CARL. 1988. "The Simplification ofChineseCharacter-Based Writing." Ph.D. diss., Universityof Pennsylvania. . 1993. "Korea's Attempts to Eliminate Chinese Charactersand the ImplicationsforRomanizingChinese." Unpublishedpaper. HANSEN, CHAD. 1993a. "ChineseIdeographsand WesternIdeas." TheJournal of Asian Studies52.2 (May):373-99. . 1993b. Reply to J. Marshall Unger. TheJournalof Asian Studies52.4 (November):954-57. ROBERT M., and MARIANNE HARTWELL, C. HARTWELL. 1991a. Executive Financeand StateCouncil,"Notes and Documentation."Philadelphia:electronic database. . 1991b. Personalcommunications (February18 and 21, 1991). v. HINUBER, OSKAR. 1986. Das iltereMittelindisch im Uberblick. Osterreichische AkademiederWissenschaften. Philosophisch-Historische Klasse. Sitzungsberichte. 467. Band. Vienna: Verlagder Osterreichischen Akademieder Wissenschaften. . 1990. Der BeginnderSchrift in Indien.Abhandlungen undfriihe Schriftlichkeit der Geistes-und Sozialwissenschaftlichen Klasse,Jahrgang1989, Nr. 11. Mainz: und der Literatur;Stuttgart:FranzSteiner.Esp. Akademieder Wissenschaften sectionV (pp. 22-25) on the oral originsof the earliestBuddhisttexts. HOFFMAN, FRANK J. 1990. "Evammesutaik:Oral Traditionin NikayaBuddhism." Paperpresentedat theNineteenthAnnualConference on SouthAsia, University of Wisconsin-Madison,November 2-4. 34 pages. Published with the same titlein a shortenedand revisedformin Jeffrey R. Timm, ed., Textsin Context: in SouthAsia. Albany: State Universityof New York TraditionalHermeneutics Press, 1992, pp. 195-219. IRIYA YOSHITAKA. sh7" kogogoi sakuin[Indexof Colloquial 1961. "TonkYhenbun in "Tun-huang Expressions pien-wen chi"j. Kyoto: privatelyprinted. shi" kogogoi ho-i[Supplement 1985. "TonkJhenbun ofColloquialExpressions in "Tun-huang pien-wen chi"1,I. Kyoto: privatelyprinted. JENSEN, HANS. 1969. Sign,Symbol and Script:An Account ofMan's Effort to Write. Thirdrevisedand enlargededition;translated fromtheGermanbyGeorgeUnwin. New York: G. P. Putnam'sSons. KAJIYAMA, Y. 1977. "Thus Spoke the BlessedOne . ." In LewisLancaster,ed., Studiesin HonourofEdwardConze.Berkeley: Prajipdramitdand RelatedSystems: Regentsof the Universityof California,pp. 93-99. KAO MING-K'AI. 1948. "T'ang-tai ch'an-chiayu-lu so chien te yii-fach'eng-fen [GrammaticalElementsObserved in Zen Recordsof Conversationsfromthe T'ang Period]." Yen-ching hsiieh-pao [Yenching Journall34:49-84. ed. 1992. KingSejongtheGreat:TheLightofFifteenthKIM-RENAUD, YOUNG-KEY, Korea.Washington,D.C.: The International Century Circleof KoreanLinguistics. ETIENNE. LAMOTTE, 1958. Histoiredu bouddhisme indien,desorigines a' l'ereSaka. Bibliotheque du Museon, 43. Louvain: PublicationsUniversitaires,Institut Orientaliste. GARI KEITH. LEDYARD, 1966. "The Korean Language Reformof 1446: The Origin, Background,and EarlyHistoryof the KoreanAlphabet." Ph.D. diss., Universityof California,Berkeley. . 1992a. "The InternationalLinguisticBackgroundof the CorrectSounds forthe Instructionof the People." Unpublishedpaper, 74 pp. HABEIN, This content downloaded from 151.100.162.37 on Fri, 06 Mar 2015 16:42:54 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 748 VICTOR H. MAIR . 1992b. Letterof October 6. 1959. Studiesin theSaenaennorae: Old KoreanPoetry.Serie orientale Roma, 22. Rome: Istitutoitalianoper il Medio ed EstremoOriente. . 1961. "The Importanceof the Kyuny6 chon(1075) in Korean Buddhism and Literature-Bhadra-cari-pranidhdna in Tenth-Century Korea."Journalofthe 81.4 (December):409-14. American OrientalSociety MARIAN. LEWICKI, des transcriptions 1949. La Languemongole chinoises du XlVe siele. Le Houa-yiyi-yude 1389. Travauxde la Societe'des Scienceset des Lettres de Wrod'aw, ser. A, 29. Wroctaw: Nakladem WroclawskiegoTowarzystwa Naukowego. Li CHIN-HSI. 1934. Kuo-yiyiin-tung shihkang[Outline History oftheNationalLanguage Commercial. Shanghai: Movement]. LIGETI, Louis. 1970. "Le Tabghatch,un dialectede la langue Sien-pi." In Louis Studies.BibliothecaOrientaliaHungarica,14. Amsterdam: Ligeti,ed., Mongolian B. A. Gruner,pp. 265-308. de la vraieloi (Saddharma-sm.tyupasthdnaLIN, LI-KOUANG. 1949. l'Aide-me'moire au compendium de la loi (Dharma-samuccaya). szitra):Introduction Recherches sur un du PetitV6hicule.Publicationsdu Musee Guimet, Bibliotheque Si7traDeveloppe d'Etudes, 54. Paris: Librairied'Ameriqueet d'OrientAdrien-Maisonneuve. MAIR, VICTOR H. 1983. Tun-huang PopularNarratives.Cambridge:Cambridge UniversityPress. . 1986. "Oral and WrittenAspectsof ChineseSutraLectures(chiang-chingwen)." Han-hsiehyen-chiu(ChineseStudies)4.2 (cumulative 8) (December): 311-34. and Performance: Chinese Picture . 1988. Painting Recitation and ItsIndianGenesis. Honolulu: Universityof Hawaii Press. Texts:A StudyoftheBuddhistContribution . 1989. T'ang Transformation tothe Rise of VernacularFictionand Drama in China. Harvard-YenchingInstitute MonographSeries,28. Cambridge,Mass.: HarvardUniversityCouncil on East Asian Studies. . 1990. "[Thel File [on theCosmiclTrack [and lndividual)Dough[tinessl: Introductionand Notes fora Translationof the Ma-wang-tuiManuscriptsof the Lao Tzu [Old Master]."Sino-Platonic Papers20 (October). . 1991. "What Is a Sinitic 'Dialect/Topolect'?Reflectionson Some Key Sino-EnglishLinguisticTerms." Sino-Platonic Papers29 (September). . 1992a. "Two Paperson Sinolinguistics:1. A HypothesisConcerningthe Origin of the Termfanqie('Countertomy');2. East Asian Round-TripWords." Sino-Platonic Papers34 (October). 1992b. "Scriptand Word in Medieval VernacularSinitic."Journalofthe American OrientalSociety112.2:269-78. ofSanskrit:The ConceptofSpelling . 1993. "ChengCh'iao's Understanding in HonourofProfessor in China." A Festschrift Jao Tsung-ion theOccasionofHis Seventy-Fifth Anniversary. Hong Kong: Chinese Universityof Hong Kong, pp. 331-41. VICTOR MAIR, H., and Tsu-LIN MEI. 1991. "The SanskritOriginsof Recent StyleProsody."HarvardJournal ofAsiaticStudies51.2 (December):375-470. MASPERO, HENRI. 1914. "Sur quelques textesanciensde Chinoisparle." Bulletin de l'EcoleFranfaised'Extreme-Orient 14.4:1-36. Translatedinto Englishas "On Some Texts of AncientSpoken Chinese" by Yoshitaka Iriya, Ruth F. Sasaki, and BurtonWatson. Kyoto: privatelycirculated,1954. LEE, PETER. This content downloaded from 151.100.162.37 on Fri, 06 Mar 2015 16:42:54 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions BUDDHISM AND THE RISE OF WRITTEN VERNACULAR 749 * 1934. "Les originesde la communautebouddhistede Lo-yang."Journal Asiatique225 (July-December):87-107. RICHARD B. 1990. "TranslatingSix Dynasties'Colloquialisms' into MATHER, " Paperdeliveredat the International English:The Shih-shuo hsin-yii. Conference on theTranslation of ChineseLiterature, organizedby the Departmentof Foreign Languagesand Literature,National Taiwan University,held at the National CentralLibrary(Taipei, Taiwan), November 16-18. . 1991. Letterof March 17. MEI, Tsu-LIN. 1980. "San-ch'ao pei-meng Ii te pai-huatzu-liao[Vernacular hui-pien Materialsin the Compendium Northern of TreatiesofThreeEmperors (1117-62)1." shu-muchi-k'an(Bibliography Chung-kuo Quarterly)14.2 (September):27-52. 1992a. Letterof October 8. 1992b. "VernacularTexts in HistoricalContext,750-1200; Some Further Thoughtson the YI-lu Form." Unpublishedmanuscript,14 pp. MILLER, Roy ANDREW. 1967. TheJapanese Language.Chicago and London:The Universityof Chicago Press. MOSTAERT, ANTOINE. 1977. Le MaterialMongol du Hua i i iu de Houng-ou (1389). Edited by Igor de Rachewiltz,with the assistanceof AnthonySchonbaum. Melanges chinois et bouddhiques, 18. Brussels: Institutdes Hautes Etudes Chinoises, 1977. NATTIER, JAN. 1990. "ChurchLanguage and VernacularLanguage in Central Asian Buddhism." Numen37.2 (December):195-219. . 1991. Letterof March 13. NI HAI-SHU. 1948. Chung-kuo p'in-yinwen-tzukai-lun[Introduction to theChinese Phonetic Script].Shanghai:Shih-taishu-pao. NORMAN, JERRY. 1988. Chinese.Cambridge Language Surveys. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversityPress. OHTA [OTAI TATSUO. rekishibunpJ(A HistoricalGrammarof 1958. Chz7gokugo ModernChinese).Tokyo: K6nan shoin. . 1988. Chzgokugo shi tszikJ (A HistoricalStudyofChineseLanguage).Tokyo: Hakutei sha. PEAKE, CYRUS H. 1939. "AdditionalNotes and Bibliographyon the Historyof Printingin the Far East." Gutenberg-Jahrbuch, ed. A. Ruppel. Mainz: GutenbergGesellschaft. PAUL. 1929. "Neuf notessur des questionsd'Asie Central."T'oungPao PELLIOT, 26.4-5:201-65. PISCHEL, R., ed. 1938. The Des'indmamdld of Hemachandra.Second edition by ParavastuVenkataRamanujaswami.BombaySanskritSeries, 17. Bombay:The Departmentof Public Instruction. PYE, MICHAEL. 1978. SkilfulMeans:A Concept in MahayanaBuddhism.London: Duckworth. RAMSEY, S. ROBERT. 1987. TheLanguages ofChina.Princeton: Princeton University Press. . 1991. "The Polysemyof the Term Kokugo."In Victor H. Mair, ed., and Languagein HonorofJohn Schriftfestschrift: Essayson Writing DeFrancisonHis Eightieth Birthday.Sino-Platonic Papers27 (August 31):37-47. . 1992. "The KoreanAlphabet."In Kim-Reynaud, ed., KingSejongtheGreat, pp. 43-50. . 1993. "The JapaneseLanguage in Japan." Unpublishedmanuscript. This content downloaded from 151.100.162.37 on Fri, 06 Mar 2015 16:42:54 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 750 VICTOR H. MAIR HENRY, JR. 1974. "On RepresentingAbstractionsin Archaic Chinese." Philosophy East and West24.1 (January):7 1-88. SEELEY, CHRISTOPHER. 1991. A History ofWritinginJapan. Leiden: E. J. Brill. SILK, JONATHAN A. 1989. "A Note on the OpeningFormulaof BuddhistSz7tras." Association JournaloftheInternational ofBuddhistStudies12. 1:158-63. SOFRONOV, M. V. 1991. "Chinese Philologyand the Scriptsof CentralAsia." Sino-Platonic Papers30 (October). SUNG LIEN, et al. 1976. Yuoanshih [Historyof YAoan Dynasty].15 vols. Peking: Chung-hua. TAKAKUSU, J. 1901. "TalesoftheWise Man and theFool, in Tibetanand Chinese." JournaloftheRoyalAsiaticSociety ofGreatBritainand Ireland(July15):447-60. TAKATA TOKIO. 1993. "Chibettomoji shosha'Ch6kan' no kenkyu(honbunhen) [Studies on the 'Long Scroll' in Tibetan Transcription{Text}}." Tohogakuho (journalofOrientalStudies)(Kyoto), 65 (March):313-80, plus 13 plates. TUAN LI-FEN. 1989. "Tsui-tsaoch'u-hsienhsi-tz'u'shih' te ti-hsiatzu-liao[The EarliestExcavatedMaterialforthe Copula shih}." YI-went'ien-ti[The Worldof Languageand Script)6 (January): 19-21. UNGER J. MARSHALL. 1993. Communicationto the Editor. TheJournalofAsian Studies,52.4 (November):949-54. VAN GULIK, R. H. 1956. Siddham:An Essayon theHistoryofSanskritStudiesin China andJapan. Nagpur: Intert?ationalAcademyof Indian Culture. WALKER, BENJAMIN. 1968. Hindu World:An Encyclopedic SurveyofHinduism.2 vols. New Delhi: MunshiramManoharlal, 1983. First published by George Allen and Unwin, London. WATTERS, THOMAS. 1889. EssaysontheChinese Language.Shanghai:Presbyterian Mission Press. WEI CHENG, et al. 1973. Sui shu [Historyof theSui Dynasty].6 vols. Peking: Chung-hua. chi. Ssu-pu pei-yao ed. WEI YUAN. Sheng-wu WRIGHT, ARTHUR F. 1957. "Buddhism and Chinese Culture: Phases of " TheJournalofAsian Studies17. 1 (November):17-42. Interaction. . 1971. Buddhismin ChineseHistory.Stanford:StanfordUniversityPress, 1959; rev. ed. YANG, PAUL Fu-MIEN. 1989. "The Portuguese-Chinese Dictionary of MatteoRicci: A Historicaland LinguisticIntroduction."Proceedings oftheSecondInternational onSinology. Conference Taipei: AcademiaSinica. Vol. 1 of the Sectionon Language and Script,pp. 191-242. ZHOU, YOUGUANG. 1991. "The Familyof ChineseCharacter-Type Scripts(Twenty and FourStagesofDevelopment)." Members Sino-Platonic Papers28 (September). ZURCHER, E. 1972. The BuddhistConquest ofChina: The Spreadand Adaptationof in EarlyMedievalChina. 2 vols. Leiden:E. J. Brill,rpt. withadditions Buddhism and corrections. Elementsin theEarliestBuddhistTranslations." . 1977. "LateHan Vernacular Association JournaloftheChineseLanguageTeachers 12.3 (October):177-201. . 1980. "Buddhist Influenceon Early Taoism." T'oungPao 66.1-3:84147. . 1990. "Han Buddhismand the WesternRegions." In W. L. Idema and and Law in Qin and Han China: Studiesdedicated E. Zurcher,eds., Thought to ROSEMONT, This content downloaded from 151.100.162.37 on Fri, 06 Mar 2015 16:42:54 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions BUDDHISM AND THE RISE OF WRITTEN VERNACULAR 751 on theoccasion Hulsewe6 Anthony ofhis eightieth birthday. Leiden: E. J. Brill, pp. 158-72. - 1991. "A New Look at the EarliestChineseBuddhistTexts." In Koichi Shinoharaand GregorySchopen,eds., FromBenarestoBeijing:EssaysonBuddhism and ChineseReligionin HonourofProf.Jan Yiin-hua.Oakville, Ontario:Mosaic, pp. 277-304. This content downloaded from 151.100.162.37 on Fri, 06 Mar 2015 16:42:54 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions