《金剛般若波羅蜜經》=Diamond Sūtra; 被動句=passive sentence; 梵漢對勘=the comparison of Sanskrit and Chinese versions; 漢譯佛典=Chinese version of Buddhist Scriptures; 歸化=adaptation; 異化=alienation
The purpose of this paper is to study the passive sentences of theSanskrit Diamond Sūtra by comparing two Chinese versions of Buddhist Scriptures, one by Kumarajiva and the other by Xuan Zang. As the research subjects in this paper, all the passive sentences in theSanskrit Diamond Sūtra are listed and were analyzed and compared, word by word, with both Chinese versions of Buddhist Scriptures in order to discover and understand the variances in translations and further discuss the reasons for the variances. After comparing and analyzing the two Chinese versions of Buddhist Scriptures, some of the findings can be generalized as below: I. Three different forms of “marked” passive sentences can be found throughout both Scriptures: A. “Wei,” as marked passive: This is the least frequent type of passive sentence found in either translation. B. ”Sou,” as marked passive: This type of passive sentence appearsmost frequently. C. “Ke,” as marked passive: In the Han language, this type of sentence does not have any “passive” meaning originally; however,in the Chinese versions of Buddhist Scriptures, it has acquired a new passive meaning. II. After studying and comparing both the Chinese versions of Buddhist Scriptures in their entirety, some unique linguistic characteristics were identified in the Sanskrit-to-Han-language translations, including: A. “Wei” is generally translated as passive in both Chinese versions of Buddhist Scriptures, even though it usually functions as “dative” in its original verses. B. “Yin” is generally translated as marked passive, although in theHan language, it does not have a passive meaning. The new passive meaning was acquired in the Chinese translations. C. “Sou + V” passive sentences are used most frequently and the meanings are not limited to negative expressions. III. In the Han language, there are two types of passive sentences,“marked” and “unmarked.” By comparison, it has been found that there are more unmarked passive sentences in Kumarajiva’s than inXuan Zang’s, while there are more marked passive sentences inXuan Zang’s than in Kumarajiva’s. This can be interpreted as indicating that Kumarajiva’s version is more of a version of“adaptation” than that of “alienation.” The wider acceptance and dispersal of Kumarajiva’s “adaptation” version over Xuan Zang’s“alienation” version seems to prove this point.
