TITLES AND ABSTRACTS (alphabetically, version 03)
Conference:
"Early Chán Manuscripts among the Dūnhuáng Findings"
"Resources in the Mark-up and Digitization of Historical Texts"
UNIVERSITY of OSLO, Sept. 28th to Oct. 2nd
Christoph Anderl (IKOS, Univ. of Oslo)
Lecture 1:
"Early Chán texts in the Form of Daoist Medical Treatises"
Among early Chán manuscripts there are several short Dūnhuáng treatises which are
written in the form of Taoist medicinal or alchemical texts (e.g. on Pelliot 3559 and
Pelliot 3177). The paper will analyze the form and structure of these treatises and the
terminology employed. As one of the special features, concrete medicinal / herbal
substances (as they appear in prescriptions) are replaced by abstract Buddhist terms.
These texts are not only entertaining to read but also informative concerning early
Chán thought and the interaction between Chán and Daoism during that time.
The main focus will be on a short treatise on Pelliot 3559, with the title Chóu
chánshī yàofāng liáo yǒulòu 稠禪師藥方療有漏 (Dhyāna Master [Sēng]Chóu's
Medicinal Prescription for Curing the Impurities).
Presentation:
"Strategies in the mark-up and analysis of the Dūnhuáng Versions of the Platform
sūtra"
Manuscript 77 from the Dūnhuáng bówùguǎn 敦煌博物館 is an extremely important
manuscript, containing the most complete Dūnhuáng version of the Platform sūtra,
three treatises ascribed to Shénhuì 神會 and his disciples, as well as a short
commentary on the Heart sūtra written by the "Northern School" monk Jìngjué. The
ms. is not only important for the study of the development of Chán thought during
the Táng but is also an important source for the study of colloquial Chinese during
the late Táng. Especially the Platform scripture features many colloquialisms and
grammatical structures typical for the spoken language.
In the presentation strategies for comparatively marking up the Dūnhuáng
versions of the Platform sūtra will be discussed, how the TEI mark-up system was
applied for this purpose, and how such a mark-up could be programmed into a visual
platform useful for both Buddhologists and linguists.
Friederike Assandri (Research Associate, Univ. of Heidelberg,
Sinologisches Seminar; Center for the study of Chinese Characters, ECNU, Shanghai)
Lecture:
"The Mind and Dào in Daoist Twofold Mystery Teaching"
The Daoist Twofold Mystery (chóngxuán 重玄) was a very popular Daoist teaching
in the late 6th and 7th century, its main centers of activity were in Cháng'ān and
Sìchuān.
Evidence of a relation to early Chán is tenuous, however, there is an indication
that Fǎchóng met a well known representative of this school. Furthermore, one
Twofold Mystery scripture is a direct answer to the Buddhist Heart Sūtra, trying to
explain the concept of form is emptiness and emptiness is form.
I will introduce the vision of the mind and Dào of Twofold Mystery philosophy
based on the commentary to the Dàodéjīng of Chéng Xuányīng 成玄英 and the
Běnjì jīng 本際經.
Twofold Mystery's most salient feature is the use of the tetra lemma logic derived
from Madhyamika Buddhism, but it also relies on other Buddhist concepts and
notions.
Yet, however much Twofold Mystery's main characteristic is the use of Buddhist
logic and concepts, these concepts are used within a distinctively Daoist worldview,
starting with the premise that the indefinable Dào is ontological substrate and origin
of being, and that the aim of cultivation is to reach Dào, interpreted as a return.
Following logical considerations as proposed by Xuánxué, Twofold Mystery
thinkers equated Dào with nonbeing, because anything that can contain all 'things'
must necessarily be empty, a no-thing. However, this nonbeing of Dào is not
intended as a negation of existence of the myriad things. On the contrary, it is their
very source, an ultimate reality that embraces all being.
Assuming a correspondence between microcosm and macrocosm, Twofold
Mystery philosophers elaborated a complex cosmogony, which specifies the precise
process of the transition from the nonbeing of Dào to the being of the myriad things.
This cosmogonic transition is also the process that pushes humanity away from
Dào as the eternal source of all being into the world of life and death. Salvation and
immortality consist in returning to Dào, in turning around the process of cosmogony
that pushes humanity away from Dào and retracing it backwards.
At the same time, consistent with the parallelism of Micro- and Macro-cosmos,
for humans this 'return' implies to return to their true nature, Dao-nature, the spark of
Dào, which is not lost in the rupture caused by the cosmogonic process of 'becoming',
but is 'covered' by the dust of 'things'.
In this context, Twofold Mystery thinkers employed Buddhist concepts to explain
how the discriminating mind and feelings initiate the process that pushes man away
from Dào and at the same time covers the true Dào-nature.
Return to Dào then requires the adept to stop the movement, which was initiated
by the mind, to return to stillness, and the means to they propose to do so is a process
of reaching the right insight of ultimate truth or oneness, which is interpreted as
ending the movement of the mind. This then allows the adept to perfect also his qì
and become perfected. Once this return to Dào is achieved, the perfected is able to
move freely back and forth between the world of life and death and the eternal Dao.
Marcus Bingenheimer (Dharma Drum Buddhist College, Taibei)
Workshop:
"Developing Electronic Editions of Buddhist Manuscripts"
This day-long workshop will address several technological questions concerning the
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digitalization of Dūnhuáng manuscripts and Buddhist texts. During the workshop
concrete examples of digitalization and mark-up will be provided and the audience
will have the opportunity to actively participate.
Presentation (resources):
"Digitization Projects at the Dharma Drum Buddhist College, Taibei"
Jens Braarvig (Univ. of Oslo)
Project presentation:
"Translating the Indian Buddhist canon into Zen"
The Thesaurus Literaturae Buddhicae (TLB) is a resource to make Buddhist
literature available on the internet, and it contains multilingual versions on basic
texts on Buddhism in Sanskrit, Chinese and Tibetan. The contribution to the
conference will present ideas how to employ the database to understand the various
interfaces between Indian and Chinese Buddhist movements, among them Chán
Buddhism.
Christoph Harbsmeier (IKOS, Oslo Univ.)
Project presentation:
"Linguistic Analysis in the TLS Database"
This paper will provide a systematic survey of the taxonomy of over 1000 syntactic
categories needed for a grammatical description of classical and early colloquial
Chinese as deployed and defined in the Thesaurus Linguae Sericae (TLS). Special
attention will be paid to the subcategorisation and formal description of ellipsis in
classical and early colloquial Chinese, introducing a tripartite distinction between
logical ellipsis, pragmatically/ contextually retrievable ellipsis, and lexicalised
ellipsis.
Dag Haug (IFIKK, Univ. of Oslo)
Project presentation:
"The PROIEL parallel corpus of Old IE Bible Translations"
This paper discusses the PROIEL project (Pragmatic Resources in Old IndoEuropean Languages), a close linguistic study of the language of the Greek text of
the New Testament as well as its translations into the old Indo-European languages
Latin, Gothic, Armenian and Old Church Slavonic. The project describes and
accounts for the so-called 'pragmatic resources' of these languages, i.e. the resources
that the grammar makes available for structuring information in a text; and
eventually to compare the different systems from a typological and a genetic
perspective.
In producing oral or written discourses, speakers/writers mark discourse referents
(events, times, places and individuals that are spoken about) as old, new or
contrastive information in order to make it easier for listeners/readers to keep track
of them. Different languages provide different means to achieve this. In PROIEL we
focus in particular on:
* Word order
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* Discourse particles
* Pronominal reference and the use of null pronouns
* Expressions of definiteness
* The use of participles to refer to background events
In order to facilitate a full comparative study of these phenomena, we are creating a
parallel corpus of the old Indo-European translations of the New Testament.
Janne Bondi Johannessen (The Text Laboratory, ILN, Univ. of Oslo)
Project presentation:
"Glossa - an Open Source Search and Results Handling System for Multiple
Annotations and Metadata"
In this talk I will demonstrate a freely downloadable system for handling searches
and results handling in various kinds of corpora. The system is called Glossa, and is
developed at the Text Laboratory at the University of Oslo.
The Glossa system has facilities for user-friendly searches, where menus and
boxes replace regular expressions. This way non-technical users can make use of
complex searches without prior studying of user guides. The system is based on text
querying using at the moment the Stuttgart Corpus Query System, and metadata
stored in a MySQL database.
The system also contains possibilities for various handlings of search results, such
as statistical counts, sorted lists, various export formats, possibilities of further
annotation and deletion and saving of search results, plus opportunities for
presenting results in diagrams.
The system is used for several kinds of corpora, both for spoken and written
language, and for parallel corpora. In all cases, the system presents the simple, userfriendly interface. Some of these corpora have special annotations in addition to the
text itself, such as grammatical tagging and various alternative transcriptions.
The Glossa system is going to be used at the University of Gothenburg soon, and
is also used for common Scandinavian corpora. The Text Laboratory would like to
see its user group extended, and is willing to assist researchers in the creation of
future corpora into this corpus search and handling system.
Barbara Meisterernst (Univ. of Ghent)
Lecture:
"Aspectual structures in Buddhist Chinese texts, revisited"
In this discussion a few aspectual structures of Buddhist Chinese texts will be at
issue: 1. the development of the structure V1 (NP) V2, the source structure for the
perfective suffix of Modern Mandarin, and 2. the employment of aspectual adverbs
in Buddhist texts. Based on recent analyses of the functions and the development of
yĭ 已 and liǎo 了as V2 in Chinese translations of Buddhist texts and in texts of
Chinese origin in particular by Jiang Shaoyu (1999, 2007), this study will focus on
an analysis of the different aspectual structures attested in the texts under
consideration. This analysis will not only include the syntactic and semantic
constraints of the structure V+O+V2 (yĭ 已, liǎo 了 and their synonyms), but also the
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semantic and syntactic constraints of structures with the aspecto-temporal adverbs yĭ
已 and jì 既 and other aspecto-temporal adverbs and their respective combination
with the structure V1 (NP) V2 and other aspectual structures.
The study will provide a comparative analysis of the different aspectual structures
attested with particular reference to the semantics of the verb employed in the
respective structure; it will also include a sketch of the diachronic development of
the syntax and semantics of the aspectual adverbs jì 既 and yĭ 已 based on a
synchronic study of these adverbs in Han period Chinese (Meisterernst 2005). If
possible, the analysis will not only rely on the transmitted textual versions of the
Buddhist texts under consideration, but also on manuscript material from Dūnhuáng
and Turfan if available.
Project presentation:
"The Digitization of Chinese Texts preserved in the Berlin Turfan-Collection"
John McRae (Shinnyo-en Visiting Professor, Stanford University)
Lecture:
"Historical Sequencing of Chinese Chan Texts and Topics:
Outlining a Strategy for Determining Relative and Absolute Chronologies"
One of the problems facing the study of Chinese Chan Buddhism today is the
difficulty of placing events accurately in chronological sequence. For example, there
exist a number of texts scholars date generally to the eighth and ninth centuries that
were important in the development of the tradition but for which precise dating has
been elusive. In addition, many of the anecdotes and dialogue topics contained in
"transmission of the lamp" texts of the mid-tenth and early eleventh centuries
include evidence of sequential development, but the evidence for absolute
chronological dating is limited and difficult to evaluate. Establishing procedures for
determining the relative and, if possible, absolute chronologies of the evolution of
texts and topics in Chinese Chan will help us solve fundamental issues concerning
the school's development. In order to address the issues just described, I will (a)
define the historiographic issues involved, (b) suggest a protocol and methodology
for marking up relevant textual sources, and (c) outline the requirements of a
software analysis approach that would apply scholarly judgments regarding texts and
topics in a systematic and rigorous fashion.
Charles Muller (Univ. of Tokyo)
Lecture:
"The State of Western Studies of Korean Seon Texts"
This presentation will review the present state of research and translation of texts
from the Korean Seon tradition, mostly as contained in the most comprehensive
collection of these texts, the thirteen-volume Hanguk bulgyo jeonseo 韓國佛教全書
(HBJ). The presentation will start by clarifying the status of the digitization of texts
the HBJ in general. We will then narrow this down by pointing out some of the
valuable Seon texts contained in the HBJ deserving of thorough markup, correction,
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and study. The presentation will include by focusing on a specific Seon text: The
influence Ogahae seorui 五家解説誼 by the Seon scholar-monk Gihwa 己和.
While a digitized version of the HBJ was completed in 2006 by Dongguk
University and posted on the web (http://ebti.dongguk.ac.kr/), this must be seen as
only a rudimentary state in the proper treatment of this valuable resource. First,
numerous portions of the text contain a high frequency of errors that must be
corrected before researchers and translators can work with the text with any degree
of confidence. Second, the text would be far more useful it were marked up in even a
minimal manner with some accepted standard such as TEI. Third, the present web
delivery of the text is incredibly poor. Full text search is only available with hangul
input; this is slow, and clumsy. Also, users are only able to view one page at a time,
and download three pages at a time.
Project presentation:
"The Present Status of the Digital Dictionary of Buddhism and its Potentials for Usage
in Translation and Markup"
The DDB has now been under development for 23 years, and has been on the Web
for almost 14 years, having recently reached a coverage of 47,000 entries. It is the
standard lexicon introduced to graduate students in East Asian Buddhist studies in
over twenty first-rate institutions throughout the world. While the advantages of the
DDB as a basic lexicon are obvious, this presentation will show some of the
additional possibilities made available by the DDB due to its digital and XML
characters.
Daniel O'Donnell (Univ. of Lethbridge / Chair of TEI)
Project presentation:
"Sugar and Spice and…Sausage Filling – What the TEI is made of"
The Text Encoding Initiative Guidelines are a community effort at defining a robust
standard for the encoding of a wide range of textual material. This inevitably means
that not all users of the Guidelines will be equally happy with what are, in the end,
attempts at discovering consensus. In this paper, I discuss how the Guidelines are
made and the mechanisms that have been introduced in their latest edition for
customising them to suit the needs of individual constituencies and projects.
Kerri Russell (Oxford Univ.)
Project presentation:
"Verbal Semantics and Argument Realization in Pre-modern Japanese: A Corpus
Based Study"
We are investigating argument realization in detail for pre-modern Japanese, giving
a comprehensive account of the basic grammar of each major stage of the language
and allowing for both synchronic and diachronic analyses. When completed, the
corpus will contain texts from the 8th century until the beginning of the 17th century.
The results of the project will impact the description and understanding of premodern Japanese and its changes through time, furthering our understanding and
interpretation of earlier texts. The project is also expected to have implications for
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general linguistic theory, both with regards to frameworks for understanding verb
semantics and clause structure, and with regards to the application of syntactic
theory to 'dead' languages. Today's talk will focus on the initial stages of corpus
building, including our system of phonemicization and morpho-syntactic tagging.
Sam van Schaik (The International Dunhuang Project, British Library)
Lecture:
"An Outline of Tibetan Chán Buddhism"
Tibetan Buddhist histories state that Chán Buddhism existed in Tibet during the
eighth century, but was banned after an imperially-sponsored debate resulted in the
defeat of the Chinese Buddhist monk Móhēyǎn 摩訶衍 by the Indian scholar
Kamalaśila. In this paper I look at evidence for the continuing popularity of Chán in
Tibet after the eighth century, drawing on the Chán manuscripts from the Dūnhuáng
cave, which date to the ninth or tenth centuries. I look at whether we can identify
which particular trends in Chinese Chán influenced Tibetan Chán, and how Tibetan
Chán developed its own specific identity, through syncretism with the tantric
traditions of Mahāyoga and Atiyoga.
Project presentation:
"The International Dūnhuáng Project"
In the lecture the IDP will be shortly presented, with focus on the digitalization
activities of manuscripts in the various Dūnhuáng collections.
Wojciech Simson (Univ. of Zürich)
Lecture:
"A Relational Database for Text-critical Studies"
While most projects concerned with digitalization of manuscripts use mark-up
languages and full-text databases, it is also possible to tackle the same problems with
relational databases. This approach was followed in a digitalization project that
digitalized all extant manuscripts and early prints of the Confucian Analects (Lúnyǔ).
The main purpose of the database was the study of scribal errors and other changes
to the text, and by this means to trace the lines of transmission of the various text
versions (i.e. to establish a stemma) and finally to provide a data source and a
working tool for a critical edition of the text. My talk shall:
1) introduce the working principles of relational databases;
2) demonstrate how a Chinese text with its various versions was organized
according to these principles;
3) explain how character variants were dealt with;
3) outline which kind of questions can be tackled with such a relational
organization of the data;
5) shortly discuss the limitations of this approach and leave the comparison
with other digitalization methods to the audience.
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Ivo Spira (IKOS, Univ. of Oslo)
Project presentation:
"The 'Organon' Knowledge Editor"
The need for a database management system that meets the needs of researchers in
the humanities has long been evident. In this paper I will present AnaCypher's
ontology-based knowledge editor "Organon", focusing especially on its usefulness
for philological and linguistic research. The specific requirements of analytical
databases will be discussed. In Organon we have opted for dynamic visualisation,
including spring graphs, so as to introduce the freedom of plain old blackboards and
brainstorming applications to the world of analytical databases. But at the same time
we have a database system which supports strict type and slot definitions, and
moreover provides data persistence. A triplet-based basic data-structure makes a
great range of intentional data modeling possible. I will specifically address the
possibilities of using Organon for work on Chán Buddhist manuscripts from
Dūnhuáng, and illustrate how one might do it.
Kirill Solonin (Foguang Univ. Taiwan)
Lecture:
Chán Buddhism among the Tangut and Khitan - Preliminary Considerations
My presentation is an attempt to summarize some of my research on the Tangut and
partially Khitan belonging to realm widely defined as Chán Buddhism. I will try to
demonstrate the peculiarities of Chán Buddhism as it is presented by the Tangut
sources researched insofar, and also to indicate the possible matters of connection
between Tangut Chán and Liáo 辽 Buddhism. I also plan to present certain
considerations on the possible connections, or rather lack thereof between Tangut
Chán and Dūnhuáng.
The paper is based on the hypothesis that Buddhism in Xīxià 西夏 was a part of a
larger whole, provisionally defined as "Buddhism of Northern China" or simply
"Northern Buddhism". Research into the Buddhist texts discovered in Khara-Khoto
demonstrates several characteristic features, which allow us to define this tradition
with some certainty: e.g., the bulk of the Tangut Buddhist texts, (those deriving from
the domain of the Chinese Buddhism), belongs to the so called Huáyán 華嚴 Chán
tradition, represented by the writings of Guīfēng Zōngmì (圭峰宗密) and Qīngliáng
Chēngguān (清涼澄觀). This tradition also seems to have dominated the Buddhist
landscape of the Northern China during the late Táng, Five Dynasties and the
Northern Sòng periods and it was popular in the Liáo Empire. Various doctrinal
taxonomies and interpretational schemes found in the less well-known doctrinal
compositions (composed both in the North and in Dali, which appears to have close
Buddhist ties with this region) from the Sòng and even Yuán dynasties are for the
most part based on the principles designed by Zōngmì in his Great Commentary to
the Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment, and his famous "Chán Preface" was published
under the patronage of the Liáo emperors until the end of the dynasty, and continued
to be authoritative during the early Yuán Dynasty, thus securing continuity of the
Táng heritage in Northern China. The Tangut seem to have fully shared the respect
for Zōngmì and other Táng Huáyán leaders. This fact provides an indication of the
relationship which probably had existed between the Buddhists from Liáo and Xīxià,
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and allows suggesting that "Northern Buddhism" which had emerged on the basis of
Huáyán thought of the late Táng and continued to develop as a common tradition
shared by Northern Chinese, Khitan and Tangut, and continued to flourish at least
until Yuán dynasty.
This hypothesis concerning the possible interaction between the Buddhist circles
of Liáo, Northern China and Xīxià is further supported by the discovery of a Tangut
translation of the otherwise unknown Mirror of Mind (Xīnjìng lù 心鏡錄) by the
once famous but now forgotten Khitan Buddhist master Daoshen. Another testimony
is provided by the discovery of a number of texts (both in Chinese and Tangut)
authored by the Khitan Buddhist leader Great Master Tōnglǐ dàshī 通理大師.
Previously only a couple of short compilations by him were known from the stone
scriptures from Fángshān, but the new Tangut finds provide substantial basis for
research into his ideology. These are but a few examples demonstrating religious
proximity between the Buddhist systems in Liáo, Xīxià and other parts of Northern
China. In order to fully evaluate these tentative observations, a more profound
research undertaking, based on the wider spectrum of texts is needed.
As it might be concluded from the above, the "Buddhism of Northern China" was
dominated by various traditions affiliated with Huáyán thought (and Sūtra of Perfect
Enlightenment). The dominance of this trend of Buddhism in the Liáo is evident
from the repertoire of the Buddhist scriptures inscribed in stone in Fángshān.
Research into Tangut texts, in particular the Notes on the Essence of the Hongzhou
Teaching (Hóngzhōu zōng qù kāimíng yào jì 洪州宗趣開明要記) has revealed
traces of popularity of the Huáyán paradigm in its application to the tradition of
Mǎzǔ Dàoyī (馬祖道一). The Tangut collections have also revealed another feature
of the Chán Buddhism in the Northern China, that is the popularity of the Chan
teaching of Nányáng Huìzhōng (南陽惠忠), once a State Preceptor during the Táng
dynasty, but later almost entirely forgotten in mainstream Chán Buddhism. As it is
clear from both Tangut version of Huìzhōng’s teaching, and what is known about
him from Chinese sources, his teachings fits well into the doctrinal framework of
Huáyán oriented Buddhism in Northern China.
Consideration of the teaching of Huìzhōng together with what is known about the
Chán Buddhism in the Liáo leads to the suggestion that both in Liáo and Xīxià there
existed a specific version of Chán, which based itself mostly on the authority of the
first six patriarchs and recognized Shénhuì 神會 as the Seventh Patriarch, but which
neglected all further developments of Chán during the second half of the Táng and
Sòng dynasties. The previously mentioned text of Hóngzhōu Teaching appears to
have developed from, or to be an attempt at further implementing this tradition. The
closest parallel to this specific dimension of Chán might be found in the “School of
Sudden Enlightenment” which seems to have existed in the 8th century Tibet. The
Liáo-Xīxià version of Chán Buddhism might be provisionally designated as the
"Bodhidharma Chán", considering that it based itself on the authority of the "Two
Entrances and Four Practices" by the First Patriarch and attributed special attention
to "following the teachings and understanding the essence" (籍教悟宗), thus
implying the relevance of the doctrinal learning for the final attainment. The
observation concerning "following the teachings and understanding the essence" as
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the core of Liáo Buddhism, discriminating it from contemporary Sòng Buddhist
teachings was made by Korean monk Uichong and is well attested in Buddhist
histories. Thus, in the view of these new insights, the comprehensive research of the
texts mentioned above, and the reconsideration of their position within the broader
framework of Northern Chinese Buddhism becomes a necessity.
Stephen Teiser (Princeton Univ.)
Lecture:
"The Background (Foreground?) of Chán: Liturgical Manuscripts from Dūnhuáng
and Medieval Chinese Buddhist Ritual"
Among the more than 50,000 individual manuscripts discovered at Dūnhuáng
(Gansu province, China) at the beginning of the twentieth century there are several
hundred liturgies. Compiled for the most part by local monks, they were read aloud
during the performance of rituals for laypeople and monks. The range of ceremonial
occasions is rather broad, including funerals and memorial services for laypeople,
monks, and nuns; healing rituals; childbirth rituals; celebration of the lantern festival
(on the full moon of the first month); celebration of the Ghost Festival (in the
seventh month); the dedication of newly donated statues, temples, and scriptures;
prayers for rain; rituals to secure release from jail; and rites to protect soldiers. My
paper focuses on the content of the rituals and reflects on the everyday ritual life of
Chinese Buddhists between the eighth and tenth centuries.
Albert Welter (Univ. of Winnipeg)
Lecture:
"The Teachings of the Patriarchs: A Study of Chán Fragments in the Zōngjìng lù"
The Zōngjìng lù 宗鏡錄, (Records of the Source Mirror) is a major work of Chán
scholasticism, compiled by the Chán scholar-monk Yǒngmíng Yánshòu 永明延壽,
(904-975). A previous generation of scholars, working under assumptions common
to Zen---particularly Rinzai---sectarianism, dismissed Yánshòu and his work as
anachronistic and unbefitting the "true" Zen spirit (i.e., "pure" Zen). As a result,
Yánshòu and his work seldom received the attention that it deserved.
The current study is an attempt to retrieve the importance of Yánshòu and his
work by reinserting it within its proper context and studying it alongside
contemporary Chán documents. In actual fact, the Zōngjìng lù, compiled ca. 960,
deserves careful scrutiny as one of the earliest sources recording the teachings of
Chán's patriarchs. In this way, the fragments of Chán patriarchal teachings recorded
in the Zōngjìng lù should be acknowledged alongside the teachings recorded in
standard Chán transmission record (dēnglù 燈錄) and dialogue record (yǔlù 語錄)
texts as a major source for our knowledge of "classic" Chan teaching. In the current
study, I submit the Chán fragments recorded in the Zōngjìng lù to systematic
analysis in an attempt to reveal Yánshòu's perspective on the burgeoning Chán
movement. Far from being anachronistic, Yánshòu's view was proffered in a highly
charged environment where crucial issued of Chán's identity were being debated.
The study shows how the Chan fragments recorded in the Zōngjìng lù validated
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Chán's patriarchal identity, on the one hand, while challenging principles espoused
by rival members of the Chán community, on the other.
Christian Wittern (Inst. for Research in Humanities, Kyoto Univ.)
Lecture:
"Digital Editions of Pre-modern Chinese Texts: Methods and Problems – Exemplified
using the Dàozàng jíyào"
Digital editions do have a great potential for new avenues of research, but they also pose
vexing research questions that have to be resolved adequately in order to make the
resulting edition useful in the long run. One of the many differences between printed
editions of texts and digital editions is the open-endedness of the latter, which means that
it can be done incrementally and updated without incurring substantial expenses. The
medium of digital editions requires the creator to make many assumptions about the texts
explicit and record them in a way that can be processed automatically. This is a new
concept, which seems foreign to the agenda of a scholar whose ultimate aim is to engage
with the text. One of the aims of this presentation will be to show that what seems like a
detour is actually advancing the understanding of the text and the need objectify a text in
this gives access to new dimensions of a text.
The main part of this presentation will show how such a digital edition can be created,
using the Dàozàng jíyào as an example.
Workshop:
"XML mark-up of Chinese Manuscripts"
In this half-day workshop the basics of manuscript mark-up in the context of
Buddhist Chinese texts will be discussed and practiced.
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