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Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v1.c8.s2.t1: Shabdavidya

Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v1.c8.s2.t1

Language
English

Shabdavidya

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Shabdavidya was an ancient Indian subject dealing with the study and knowledge of Sanskrit linguistics that include research on pronunciation, grammar and rhetoric and was reckoned as one of the five sciences. According to free translation, the English term, Sound is equivalent of the Sanskrit word *Shabda*, and the whole term of *shabda-vidya* may be rendered into English as “knowledge of sounds”. Its corresponding transliteration forms in Chinese language are 'She-tuo-bi-tuo'('摄拖苾驮' and '摄佗苾驮'),' etc. There is an entry titled 'Learning Dharma in the West' in the fourth volume of Yi Jing's *An Account of the Inner Law Sent Home from the South Sea*

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[Figure: A Collection of Terms in Translation (Fanyi mingyiji), Ming Period edition]

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[Figure: Selected Papers on the Languages of Ancient India, Ji Xianlin (front cover)]

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including director of translation along with other officials in-charge of other tasks like 'checking the doctrine' (Zheng Fanyi), 'check the Sanskrit terms and words' (Zheng Fanwen), 'recording' (Bi Shou), arrange the text (Zhui Wen), take part in discussion (Can Xiang). Until the fifth year of Tian-sheng Period (1027 CE), they translated over 500 volumes. Later, the translation work was intermittent due to lack of new Buddhist scriptures. This period lasted till the early Zhenghe Period (1111 CE). Famous translators of Buddhist scriptures included Fa Tian from India (refer to Fa Tian’s entry) Tian Xizai (refer to Tian Xizai’s entry), Danapala (refer to Danapala's entry), Dhararaksa (refer to Dhararaksa’s entry), Jin Zongchi (refer to Jin Zongchi’s entry), and Buddhist Wei Jing (refer to Buddhist Wei Jing’s entry) of the Chuanfa School. All these scholars translated about 284 books and 758 chapters.

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During the period of Renaissance of Tibetan Buddhism, people translated a large number of Buddhist scriptures. Those who were famous in the translation of Buddhist scripture in this period included Buddhist Atisha (982-1054 CE) from India, Buddhist Rinchen Zangpo (958-1055 CE) from Tibet, Zhuomi Shijia Yixi (993-1074 CE) and E. Luodan Xirao (1059-1109 CE). The translation of Buddhist scriptures was basically suspended in Song Dynasty

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which says that the term 'sheng-ming' was derived from the Sanskrit word *shabdavidya*, in which the meaning of the term *shabda* was sound and that of *Vidya* was science. It was one of the five sciences. In the second volume of the *Travelling Notes of the Western Regions of the Great Tang Dynasty* (da-tang xi-you-ji), Xuanzang remarked that the term *Shabdavidya* meant 'explaining the meaning of words and their differences'. According to some Indian myth, the earliest *Shabdavidya* work was created by heavenly god. As per the information available in Volume 21 of the *Records of the Yogacharya by Monk* Dun Lun's titled *Accounts of the Western Countries*, the *Shabdavidya Shastra* with one million *slokas* was prepared by Brahman in the beginning of *kalpa* (a period of time) and Sakra (Indra) reduced its size to 1,00,000 *slokas*. Thereafter, Fairy Gunabhadra again simplified it to 12,000 *slokas*. Fairy Panini created Panini Sutra with 8,000 *slokas* afterwards. Master Dharmapāla created 3,000 *slokas*, and named them as Miscellaneous Treasure of *Shabdavidya*, which was popular in the world. All the major linguistics works on Sanskrit such as those of the one million *slokas* made by Brahman, one lakh made by Sakra, 8,000 *slokas* of Fairy Panini (*Panini Sutra*) and 2,500 *slokas* written by the Brahmins of South India have been listed in the third volume of *A Biography of the Tripitaka Master of the Great Ci'en Monastery of the Great Tang* authored by two monks named Hui Li and Yan Cong. These were reported to be the basic works dealing with the 'sounds of the language of the Western Regions' and were popular in India and its surrounding areas and 'people desirous to attain scholarship in classical studies had to go through them'. Later, all these works motivated other scholars to produce works like *Brief Shabdavidya Shastra* with 1,000 *slokas*, *Munduk* scripts of 300 *slokas*, and *Anudhatu* with 800 *slokas* and they dealt with the *dhatu* of the Sanskrit word, the basis of the combination of the words and their ultimate meaning etc. The valuable work titled *A Biography of the Tripitaka Master of the Great Ci' En Monastery of the Great Tang* used the noun *Purusha* as an example listed different forms of 18 rhymes and 24 rhymes which were related to eight case endings, ie, 'explaining actors' (nominative case), 'explaining actions' (accusative case), 'explaining instruments' (instrumental case), 'explaining objectives' (dative case) 'explaining reasons' (ablative case), 'explaining genitive affairs' (genitive case), 'explaining location' (locative case) and 'explaining vocative affairs' (vocative case) as well as three different forms including the male sound (masculine), the female sound (feminine) and the non-male and non-female sound (neutral).

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From the time of the Wei and Jin dynasties to the early Song Dynasty, all those Chinese monks who went to India to seek *dharma* had to learn *Shabdavidya* works. Master Xuanzang learnt the same twice at Nalanda Monastery. The *Shabdavidya* science of India had its influence on the study and analysis of ancient Chinese language through the translation of the Buddhist *sutras* into Chinese. In order to translate and read *sutras*, eminent foreign and local monks used works such as the *Miscellaneous names in Sanskrit*, *thousand Sanskrit Words*, *Collections of Sanskrit Words in Tang*, *Collection of Terms in Translation*, *Sound and Meaning of All Sutras* and *Supplement to Sound and Meaning of All Sutras*, etc., edited by many eminent Chinese scholars. The nature and content of these works showed that they were very much influenced by Indian *Shabdavidya* science. It is worthwhile to make an in-depth study on how much influence the Indian linguistic works had on the history of Chinese linguistic works. For instance, the *Standardisation of Transliteration of the Western Regions* compiled by the Imperial Order during the Reign of Qian Long of the Qing Dynasty had many chapters such as Indian Alphabet Genealogy, Supplement to Indian Alphabet Genealogy, Indian Transliterated Word Genealogy, Supplement to Indian Transliterated Word Genealogy and Chinese and Sanskrit Genealogy, etc, is proof of Chinese interest in Sanskrit. Some more works such the Sanskrit Dictionary translated by Su Manshu and *Preface to Fundamental Sanskrit Dictionary* by Zhang Taiyan in late Qing Dynasty reflected that Indian Sanskrit knowledge had been quite popular in some section of Chinese intelligentsia for a long time.

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*(Chen Ming)*

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