Review of Anton Schiefner, Übersetzungen aus dem tibetischen Kanjur: Beiträge zur Buddhismuskunde und zur zentralasiatischen Märchenforschung (original) (raw)
Related papers
Intellectual History Review, 2024
The second half of the eighteenth and the nineteenth century saw the beginnings of Tibetan Studies in Europe through first translations, grammars, and dictionaries. Vital for this development was the Moravian autodidact Isaak Jakob Schmidt (1779–1847), also considered founder of Mongolian Studies, and his successor at the St Petersburg Academy of Science, Anton Schiefner (1817–1879). These scholars saw themselves as researchers of “Oriental languages” and published mostly in German. A notable piece within the works of Schmidt is his 1843 founding text and translation of Der Weise und der Thor (“The Wise and the Foolish,” Tib. mDzangs blun), a collection of Buddhist narratives illustrating the workings of karma. Schiefner later (1852) added corrections to Schmidt’s voluminous work. This paper aims at analysing Schmidt’s contributions to understanding East Asia and Tibet via this pioneering rendition of the stories contained in The Wise and the Foolish. Focus is on the textual sources employed, namely the Tibetan Buddhist canon (Kanjur), and the reception of the translation. Schiefner’s corrections are also considered. This article further reflects on the historical contexts of Schmidt’s life and wishes to add to our comprehension of Buddhist translations in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europe.
Central Asiatic Journal, 2018
Even though the study of Tibet and her language and literature has matured considerably since its early beginnings in the 19th century, there are still only few bilingual dictionaries of the Tibetan language, most being mere wordlists. Since the 1960, when Tibetan exiles arrived in India and subsequently in the West, a multitude of hitherto unknown or inaccessible literary sources became available, but the situation did not improve considerably. As a result, scholars and students of the Tibetan language still have to rely on the excellent dictionaries published by Heinrich August Jäschke (1817–1883) in 1871 (German version, English version followed in 1881) and Sarat Chandra Das (1849–1917) in 1902. It is all the more pleasing to see the publication of the ambitious Wörterbuch der tibetischen Schriftsprache or ‘Dictionary of Literary Tibetan’ by the Bavarian Academy of Sciences (Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften). To date four volumes up to the letter tha have been published in 34 fascicles and, at the time of writing this review, more fascicles are being published in rapid succession. The Wörterbuch definitely has the potential of becoming the most comprehensive and largest bilingual dictionary of the Tibetan language. Moreover, it is the first attempt at compiling a bilingual standard Tibetan dictionary, meeting scholarly criteria and providing both textual references as well as a German translation for each term.1 Its aim is a description of the written Tibetan language from its beginnings in the 8th century to the 19th century. ...
T’oung Pao 110 (2024) 384–433, 2024
The Tibetan manuscript IOL Tib J 26 claims to contain a version of the Mahādeva narrative based on a Chinese source. In this paper, I identify this Chinese source as the Dasheng baifa mingmen lun kaizong yijue 大乘百法明門論開宗義決 (“Resolution [on How to] Clarify the Tenets of the Mahāyānaśatadharmaprakāśamukhaśāstra,” T. 2812), an exegetical work on the *Mahāyānaśatadharmaprakāśamukhaśāstra, composed by the famous Dunhuang-based Chinese monk Tankuang 曇曠. The Resolution borrows a full version of the Mahādeva narrative from the Mahāvibhāṣā 阿毘達磨大毘婆沙論, casting it as the trigger of the first schism. I offer close readings and English translations of the relevant content of IOL Tib J 26 and the Resolution, not only to substantiate my identification, but also to offer an example of how native Chinese Buddhist texts were conveyed in Tibetan compositions.
An Example of a Revision of Tibetan Translation: From Abhidharmasamuccayavyākhyā
国際哲学研究[Journal of International Philosophy], 2021
The Abhidharmasamuccayavyākhyā (ASVy) is basically a combination of Asaṅga’s Abhidharmasamuccaya and its commentary (Abhidharmasamuccayabhāṣya). Tibetan translations of the three works were completed by the great translator Ye shes sde, but ASVy alone was revised several hundred years later by Nyi ma rgyal mtshan dpal bzang po. It is usually impossible to determine the differences between the original and the revised versions, because the originals (before revision) are usually not available. However, by applying a certain procedure to ASVy, we were able to clarify his revisions at the time. In this paper, I will clarify the characteristics and degree of the revisions made to ASVy, and explain exactly how the revision of the translated Tibetan literature was conducted.