[Buddha-l] Rain / Query on Non-Local Consciousness

[Stephen Hodge]

Dan Lusthaus wrote:

> As some of you may know, Stephen has written a grammar book on Buddhist
> Chinese:

Despite Curzon's ever optimistic announcements, I am still compiling this 
work. I am presently finding funding to finish it off, but, even when it is 
finished, it is very unlikely to be published by Curzon. I have informed 
them that I regard the contract to be cancelled -- not least because of the 
ridiculous price they want to charge for it and the fact that they do not 
pay royalties if they can get away with it. So save yourselves the effort of 
looking for it or even trying to order it. Unfortunately, Dan will have to 
wait a little longer for remedial help, although I promise to let him be one 
of the first to have a coplimentary copy.

Since a private message of mine referring to Dan inadvertently and 
embarrassingly got posted to all and sundry via the list, I feel that to be 
fair to Dan I should clarify my comments. As well as his published work, I 
have read many of Dan's messages here and elsewhere over the years. Overall, 
I have found him to be a stimulating, if sometimes abrasive, scholar from 
whom I have learnt much. I cannot speak for him, but I enjoy our occasional 
sparring matches, which have often been illuminating for me. From what I 
have seen elsewhere, I believe his knowledge of Classical Chinese is 
excellent, but I get the feeling that this very familiarity and skill with 
Classical Chinese at times impedes his understanding of Buddhist Chinese, as 
far as I have seen the evidence, for the latter often cannot be understood 
in terms of the former. My point about 而 in the phrase currently under 
discussion is typical -- I think that Dan has still not taken this on board 
and this is part of the cause of his confusion. At the same time, I should 
stress that I do not claim to know everything about Buddhist Chinese 
either -- we all have room for improvement and we all make mistakes fom time 
to time -- even Dan, although he is normally loath to admit this.

> On the other hand, the three phrases:
> [而]不吐
> 'byin par mi byed pa
> na aaddharati
There is no great mystery about this at all. The Sanskrit is obviously a 
typo -- the printed Sanskrit edition of that section of the YBS is known for 
its many errors. The Sanskrit term here should be "noddharati" (na + 
uddharati) -- this has been noted and corrected, see Yokoyama's YBS lexicon. 
Having made that correction, the versions are quite congruent. The Chinese 
is more explicit in the context -- although the 而 goes with the previous 
生 -- whereas the Tibetan has followed the basic meaning of the verb rather 
than the more specialized meaning. But to say that the Tibetan is 
problematic or misleading is like quibbling over the use of "vomit" versus 
"throw up".

> aat+dharati or aat+harati
I find this completely mystifying -- what word or prefix are you thinking is 
"āt" ?

> OTOH, sheng [生], even with Stephen's ingenious "raw" reading, is still 
> puzzling.
Only because of your insistence on making it puzzling -- there is nothing 
ingenious about my "raw" etc gloss. As I said, that meaning of 生 is very 
well attested in early Chinese literature onwards. I again urge you to look 
at your Hanyu Dacidian or Morohashi if you are unfamilair with that meaning 
for confirmation -- they even provide a gloss that 生 is 不 熟 (not ripe / 
uncooked / raw) and as you surely know, the very next item in the YBS list 
begins with 熟, translating the Sanskrit "pakva" (literally: ripe, cooked, 
matured), the two items seemingly form a pair. You might also want to look 
at Ogiwara's Bon-Wa Daijiten under āma, which gives 生 as the Chinese 
equivalent. And to repeat myself yet again, āma, outside of its specialist 
āyurvedic meaning, does mean "raw, uncooked, immature, unrefined" -- there 
should be other people here with enough Sanskrit to confirm this. If you 
still cannot understand this explanation for Xunzang's translation, then I 
give up and leave it to others to contribute their expertise on the matter.

Best wishes,
Stephen Hodge