Tracing the historical context of early Chinese Buddhist texts described in the Chu san zang ji ji
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Author
Amies, Alexander See all items with this value
Date
2026
Degree
Doctor of Philosophy in Religious Studies
Committee
Lancaster, Lewis
Shakya, Miroj
Long, Darui
Abstract
This dissertation describes an analysis of a corpus of six hundred and two early Chinese Buddhist texts for terminology, linguistic characteristics, translation style, and content. The corpus was assembled from texts in the Taishō Tripiṭaka and Manji Supplementary Buddhist Canon that can be related to titles in the Chu san zang ji ji. The corpus was augmented with metadata extracted from notes and other data in the Chu san zang ji ji and secondary literature. The corpus analysis leverages artificial intelligence, n-gram analysis, classical machine learning, and custom-written software. The results are used both in a descriptive way to provide a holistic understanding of the corpus and in a predictive way to trace the historical context of titles listed in the catalog of the Chu san zang ji ji.
The corpus analysis pursues three themes relating to tracing historic context. The first theme is the transmission of Buddhism to China, guided by specifics of people, places, and texts found in the corpus. The second theme is the evolution of the effort of the translation of Indic texts to Chinese. The third theme is distinguishing translations of Indic source texts from texts composed indigenously in East Asia.
The challenges encountered in this study included relating entries in the catalog to extant texts with title changes and unreliable attributions in modern canons, characterizing a large number of anonymously produced texts, and distinguishing East Asian native compositions. Findings using the novel methodology include a holistic description of the evolution of Buddhist terminology in Chinese translation, identification of translators of texts based on uniquely shared terminology, textual references, copied phrases, and of the characteristics of texts composed natively in China.
The corpus analysis pursues three themes relating to tracing historic context. The first theme is the transmission of Buddhism to China, guided by specifics of people, places, and texts found in the corpus. The second theme is the evolution of the effort of the translation of Indic texts to Chinese. The third theme is distinguishing translations of Indic source texts from texts composed indigenously in East Asia.
The challenges encountered in this study included relating entries in the catalog to extant texts with title changes and unreliable attributions in modern canons, characterizing a large number of anonymously produced texts, and distinguishing East Asian native compositions. Findings using the novel methodology include a holistic description of the evolution of Buddhist terminology in Chinese translation, identification of translators of texts based on uniquely shared terminology, textual references, copied phrases, and of the characteristics of texts composed natively in China.
Keywords
Religion See all items with this value
Buddhism See all items with this value
Degree Granter
University of the West
ISBN
9798197813824