安世高; 康僧會; 道安; 金剛寺; 守意; 守一; 翻譯; 禪觀; 安般六事; 觀身; 止觀; An Shi Gao; Kang Seng Hui; Dao An; Kongō-ji; Shou Yi; Shou I; translation; contemplation; Six Profound Methods of Ānāpāna; observasion on body; śamatha-vipaśyana
An Ban Shou Yi Jing (ABSYJ) is the earliest and the most important sutra for Chinese Buddhist contemplation, with regard to the method of “śamatha-vipaśyana”, which can be traced back to its origin. Although it was compiled in the late Han dynasty, the recorded contents in Taisho Tripitaka include the translators’ commentaries from the Wei-Jin dynasty, which added to the complexity of comprehension of this sutra. When the sutra was introduced to China, it happened to mutually interact with Lao-Zhuang and Taoism’s life-nourishment of “inhale and exhale”, a kind of breathing method. With the difference of culture, thoughts and language between China and India, in what way, was the sutra infused into Chinese society, as well as extensively accepted by the public then? What are the differences between An Ban-“Shou Yi” and Lao-Zhuang’s “Shou I”, “Xin Zhai”, and “Zuo Wang” etc.; those ideas, and their difference between the practical aspect? With the latest discovery of a manuscript of An Shi Gao’s An Ban Shou Yi Jing in Kongō-ji, Japan, it provides a new research direction of these issues. Furthermore, after the comparison of the two versions, the sutra and its commentary in Taisho Tripitaka, which were not specified respectively, we can now re-comprehend and re-investigate the hermeneutic and practical perspectives by the Wei-Jin’s commentators on contemplation of ānāpāna as well. This thesis is divided into three chapters. The first chapter mainly focuses on late Han, introducing the social background of An Shi Gao, during the time when he translated sutras, as a way to introduce the translation of Buddhist sutras and its translation theory, and also with the issue of the translation of Buddhist sutras in early Central Asia, its contradiction to the local Chinese thoughts as well as its absorption and infusion. The second chapter is based on the contemplation of ānāpāna from the preface of Kang Seng Hui’s and Dao An’s ABSYJ, as a way to analyze the Wei–Jin dynasty commentators’ interpretation, the development and changing of the contemplation. The third chapter is based on the theory of ānāpāna contemplation of ABSYJ to make a classification, and from this aspect develop into three dimensions: 1) relevant sutras from the Theravāda and Mahāyāna Buddhism, records about the “ānāpāna” and “aśubhā-bhāvanā”; 2) the complexity in “Da ABSYJ”, the observation on “body”; 3) the structure of Six Profound Methods, the theory of contemplation of ānāpāna. According to this research, the translation and commentary on the ABSYJ was by An Shi Gao where he used numerous local Chinese vocabulary to translate, also became the first time for the “transferring of linguistic meaning.” Later, when An Shi Gao “verbally explained” the contemplation of ānāpāna for the first time, he introduced the ABSYJ to the local Chinese. Kang Seng Hui from Wei dynasty, did the second “transferring of linguistic meaning” based on the recording of the verbal contents, in a way that the Chinese could comprehend then, to do the commentaries on the ABSYJ
