Date and Time：May 15(Mon) 15:00~16:30

Venue：Meeting room 2 (3rd floor)

lecture：Paolo Visigalli（Shanghai Normal University,）

Title：Brahmā and Cangjie: a Sino-Indian Philological Encounter in the Tang Dynasty

Emcee：Baba Norihisa

Outline：

Scholars agree that Chinese Buddhists had little knowledge of Sanskrit and that Sanskrit grammar had little influence in premodern East Asia. Attention has focused on the influence exerted by Sanskrit grammar, understood either as knowledge of the grammar of Sanskrit, or as knowledge of native Sanskrit grammatical tradition. There may however be another type of evidence, so far largely neglected, that illustrates the circumscribed yet non-negligible influence that Sanskrit linguistics exerted on Chinese Buddhists – the Indic tradition of etymological analysis or nirvacana. Taking the Tang dynasty dictionary Yiqiejing yinyi 一切經音義 Pronunciation and Meaning of all the Sutras as a point of departure, this talk selectively explores evidence of Indic etymology’s influence on Chinese Buddhist texts. It will consider Indic etymologies’ role in shaping translation of Indic terms into Chinese and how Indic-derived etymological analyses co-exist with native Chinese linguistic terms and categories, thus birthing a fascinating blend between Indic and Chinese forms of philological knowledge.