Learning the Language of the Sutras

[Anthony]

It is often said that zen is a tradition "beyond words and letters" and while this is true to some extent, there definitely are quite a few sutras full of words and letters! The sutras of the Chinese canon are mostly written in various forms of Classical Chinese. A vast majority of them have yet to be translated into English. I believe this includes some sutras quoted by Dogen himself.

Since I was a kid, I've liked to study language as a sort of hobby and was thinking about studying sutras by learning to read some Classical Chinese. I studied Japanese in college and by myself for a few years, so I don't have issues learning many Chinese characters. I also don't see this as necessary or integral to my practice at all, I just think it would be fun and might deepen my knowledge a bit.

I was wondering if anyone here at TreeLeaf has had any experience with studying the Classical Chinese of the canon? Other than the characters I know from my Japanese studies, I have no background in Chinese whatsoever so I don't even know where to begin!

Also feel free to let me know if this is just a dumb idea to begin with.

Gassho,
Anthony
Satlah

[Ryumon]

I studied a bit of Chinese decades ago. If I had the time – if I could afford to retire – I would like to study that language again. It’s very interesting. This said, classical Chinese is extremely different. I’m not sure that there are a lot of books that you can pick up on it; you probably have to do a university course, there are probably very few universities that teach it. You would have to learn enough contemporary Chinese first.

Is another life, I was very interested in the Yi Jing, and published a journal about it for several years when I lived in Paris. I had met someone who taught the Yi Jing, and who had started the great deal of classical Chinese and had translated the text from Chinese into French. He would often tell me about the ancient Chinese characters, the ambiguity of the lapidary language used in texts like that, it was fascinating. The amount of research he did was overwhelming.

Gassho,
Ryūmon (Kirk)
Sat Lah

[Jundo]

Well, you could start by being born Chinese. And not just any Chinese, but a Tang or Song Dynasty Chinese. And not just any of those, but one skilled in the specialized language of Buddhist translation from Sanskrit original texts and such.

It is not easy. A university course is definitely the way. One should probably already be highly skilled in modern Chinese before trying. I am a modern Japanese translator, I have good familiarity with Buddhist terms, so I dabble in classical Japanese. I can guess at classical Chinese, something like a native English speaker who does not know French trying to read French.

There are several online courses in classical Chinese. You might give them a run. It is certainly good for the brain! ANY new challenge like that keeps the brain cells young and fresh, and I highly recommend you try, even if you never get past "dabbler."

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=course+in+classical+chinese

Here is one of several such courses. No recommendation, as I have no experience with these particular courses.

Gassho, Jundo
stlah

[Anthony]

Thanks for the input folks! And thanks Jundo for sharing the course.

I'm not necessarily opposed to learning modern Mandarin Chinese but it seems like it would take a very long time to do that just to get to the Classical stuff . I wonder if it is possible to just jump straight into the classical language as if it were its own different language apart from Modern Mandarin.

Interestingly, this book (https://a.co/d/iuq3Ud5) seems to contain character pronunciations in both Japanese and Korean as well. I wonder if it's feasible to jump into this straight from my Japanese experience.

Gassho,
Anthony
satlah

[Kaitan]

Thanks for the input folks! And thanks Jundo for sharing the course.

I'm not necessarily opposed to learning modern Mandarin Chinese but it seems like it would take a very long time to do that just to get to the Classical stuff . I wonder if it is possible to just jump straight into the classical language as if it were its own different language apart from Modern Mandarin.

Interestingly, this book (https://a.co/d/iuq3Ud5) seems to contain character pronunciations in both Japanese and Korean as well. I wonder if it's feasible to jump into this straight from my Japanese experience.

Gassho,
Anthony
satlah

I think you can jump straight to traditional Chinese, depends on your objectives. If it's purely for academic purposes, I've seen people that studied traditional first and then went to simplified after moving into China. Knowing japanese is already a big advantage because of the Kanji.

Also, if you're only engaging with old texts and doing it as a hobby, you can save a lot of time by not focusing on speaking it, which I find to be the hardest part.

Gasshō

stlah, Kaitan

[Jundo]

I think you can jump straight to traditional Chinese, depends on your objectives. If it's purely for academic purposes, I've seen people that studied traditional first and then went to simplified after moving into China. Knowing japanese is already a big advantage because of the Kanji.

Also, if you're going to engage only with old texts and do it as a hobby, you can save a lot of time by not focusing on speaking it, which I find to be the hardest part.

Gasshō

stlah, Kaitan

For what it is worth, I second everything Kaitan says here.

It makes more sense than learning modern Chinese first.

Gassho, J
stlah

[Anthony]

I think you can jump straight to traditional Chinese, depends on your objectives. If it's purely for academic purposes, I've seen people that studied traditional first and then went to simplified after moving into China. Knowing japanese is already a big advantage because of the Kanji.

Also, if you're only engaging with old texts and doing it as a hobby, you can save a lot of time by not focusing on speaking it, which I find to be the hardest part.

Gasshō

stlah, Kaitan

Thanks Kaitan, I think this is probably the right way to go about this. No need for me to do any speaking, as I only plan on reading the old texts. I guess we'll see how it goes!

Gassho,
Anthony
satlah

[Anthony]

Just wanted to add that in my research I discovered this (newly published this year!) textbook: https://a.co/d/7zAsvzv.

In the description it claims it "has been expanded to include a lesson on Buddhist texts"! This seems like it may be the ticket.

gassho,
Anthony,
satlah

[Huichan]

I have tried to study sutras and other Buddhist texts in Chinese a little but didn't get too far to be honest. This more out of just having too many things going on to make the time for it. Although I do live in China and have studied Chinese by myself, taking the HSK5 exam a few years ago, so I had a base to build on. I will get back into it at some point.

This book https://a.co/d/2hfdtz4 is quite useful but need to go through it slowly and really take your time to learn the vocabulary.

This is another free resource, which I never used but looks quite good

https://religiousstudies.stanford.edu/primer-chinese-buddhist-writings

慧禅
stlah