This dissertation is a study of the role of literary and cultural translation in the transmission and reception of Buddhist medicine in medieval China between the second and eighth centuries. This dissertation brings to light the diversity of medical material in the Chinese Tripitaka, analyzes the central metaphors and discourses in this corpus, and examines how these foreign medical ideas were understood in their historical context. I employ methodologies from Translation Studies to reconcile the study of the transregional exchange of linguistic and cultural repertoires with the agency of individual historical authors as they retooled and adapted foreign knowledge to forward contemporary social strategies. I utilize this theoretical framework to analyze how Indian medical doctrines influenced Chinese Buddhist discourses and practices, while also emphasizing the importance of disease, healing, and the body as sites of crosscultural negotiation.
Chapter 1 introduces the transmission of Buddhist medicine to China in the context of transregional currents of crosscultural religious and medical exchange. Chapter 2 outlines the theoretical approach of this dissertation, situating the translation of Buddhist medical doctrines within the context of indigenous Chinese cultural repertoires and the local religiomedical marketplace. Chapters 3 and 4 introduce the major metaphors at the foundation of Buddhist medical discourses, emphasizing the translation tactics and strategies mobilized in rendering these in the Chinese language. Chapter 5 focuses on the work of one sixth-century hagiographer, highlighting the role of healing narratives in the Buddhist proselytism. Chapter 6 looks at the strategies of cultural translation employed by authors of a range of indigenous Chinese Buddhist compositions between the sixth and eighth centuries, identifying connections between individual translators’ treatments of Buddhist medicine and their social political, and personal contexts. A brief conclusion argues that a new approach prioritizing the role of translation in the dynamics of crosscultural exchange allows scholars to jettison the anachronistic categories of “religion” and “science” and move toward a greater appreciation of the integration of Buddhism and medicine in medieval China.
Introduction........... 1
The sources....... 5
Notes on terminology and translation....... 8
Overview of contents....... 17
PART I: TRANSMISSION & RECEPTION........... 24
1. The Transmission: Buddhist Medical Exchange in Transcultural Context........... 25
Buddhism and medicine in India....... 26
Medicine in the Pāli Canon... 29
Mahayana Medical Deities... 36
Buddhist medical institutions... 39
Ayurveda... 43
The impact of Buddhist medicine in China....... 48
Introduction of Buddhism to China... 51
State medical charity... 55
Buddhist influence on classical Chinese medicine... 60
The textual transmission....... 66
Translation and the transcultural... 70
Conclusion: Deconstructing Buddhist medicine....... 74
2. The Reception: Buddhist Translation in the Medieval Chinese Medical World........... 80
Crosscultural exchange as cultural translation....... 81
Buddhist translation in medieval China... 86
A structural analysis of the Chinese medical world....... 91
Religiomedical synthesis... 100
A performative analysis of Chinese healing....... 107
The religiomedical marketplace... 108
The state as patient... 113
Translation tactics....... 115
The problem of equivalence... 116
Terminological inconsistencies or translation tactics?... 123
Conclusion....... 133
PART II: CHINESE BUDDHIST MEDICAL METAPHORS........... 135
3. “The Body is a Collection of Parts”: Indian Medical Doctrines in Chinese Buddhist Asceticism........... 136
Disintegration and loathsomeness....... 142
Origin of the body....... 146
Buddhist anatomy and physiology....... 154
The Elements... 154
Winds... 159
Bones, joints, sinews... 163
Minor structures... 166
Diseases and therapies of the body parts....... 171
Elemental imbalance and doṣa... 172
Parasites... 177
Conclusion....... 181
4. “Healing is a Reward for Devotion”: Therapeutic Rituals of Chinese Buddhism........... 185
Healing as a divine blessing....... 189
Healing deities (and other beings)... 189
Rites for invoking divine assistance... 195
Visualization as invocation... 201
Magical medicine: divine assistance from afar....... 212
Spells... 213
Talismans... 217
Sutra texts... 220
Health as a reward for devotion to the sangha....... 222
Conclusion....... 229
PART III: REWRITING BUDDHIST MEDICINE........... 236
5. Narrating Buddhist Medicine: Healing in a Sixth-Century Hagiography........... 237
The Lives of Eminent Monks....... 240
Magical bodies....... 246
Monks and medicine....... 250
Appropriating classical Chinese medicine... 251
Repentance and conversion... 254
Divine assistance... 257
Magical medicine... 260
Constructing the legitimacy of Buddhist healers....... 264
Conclusion: Medicine and proselytism....... 270
6. Coming to Terms with Indian Medicine........... 274
Strategies of equivalence....... 275
Some early commentaries on the Sutra of Golden Light... 276
Healing in Zhiyi’s meditation manual... 285
Strategies of non-equivalence....... 295
Constructing a Buddhist medical canon... 296
Yijing’s travelogue... 305
Huizhao revisits the Sutra of Golden Light... 314
Conclusion: The decline of Buddhist medicine....... 317
Conclusion........... 323
Appendices........... 329
Chinese dynastic timeline....... 329
Maps....... 330
References........... 333
Abbreviations....... 333
Bibliography of important medical texts in the Taishō Tripitaka....... 335
Bibliography of historical sources....... 341
Bibliography of texts from Buddhist and Daoist collections by reference no........ 355
Bibliography of modern sources....... 359
TABLE 2.1. Translations for Indian medical terms..... 127
TABLE 2.2. Metaphorical equivalence: Indian medical terms correlated with
Chinese medical doctrines..... 129
TABLE 3.1. Stages of fetal development and birth in the Sutra on Abiding in the Womb..... 150
TABLE 3.2. Body parts classified according to the Four Elements..... 156
TABLE 3.3. Examples of bodily Winds in some Buddhist sources..... 160
TABLE 3.4. Parasites residing in the body..... 179
FIG. 1. Eugene Nida’s model of translation........... 87
MAP 1. The Silk Roads and maritime routes, 150 B.C.–500 C.E............ 330
MAP 2. Medieval Buddhist sites and pilgrimage routes............ 331
MAP 3. East and Central Asia during the Tang Dynasty............ 332
