從“布施”與“檀越”看譯詞的歷時之變

The Diachronic Change of Renderings: “Dāna” and “Dana-pati” as Examples

Abstract

LANGUAGE NOTE | Document text in Chinese; abstract also in English.

施捨行爲的認知框架是“施事―動作―與事―受事”，表施捨行爲的“布施”是佛教修行法門，做出施捨的是施者，佛教稱爲“檀越”或“施主”。通過探討布施場與檀越場成員在中土的發展，逐一分析17個成員翻譯形式，考察該詞在歷代譯典、佛教撰述、世典的分布，可檢視其演變過程。經過綜合評估，發現二場成員以意譯詞較具優勢。同時，所謂“單音詞是多音詞節縮”不可盡信，時代與分布指明“檀”不是“檀那”節譯，“檀越”亦非全譯形式的節譯。與其他音譯相比，“檀”的演變快，發生語素化，有較强構詞力，但語料分布廣度有限，有宗教色彩，故不宜高估其影響力。古人主張“檀越”有意可解，然實爲典型的音譯。最後，施捨框架中，動作的顯著度高於其他要件，故轉喻方向以“從施捨到施者”爲常。

The cognitive frame of almsgiving behavior is: doer ― action ― giving ―object. The Sanskrit term dāna refers to the action of almsgiving, which is an important practice of Buddhism, and almsgivers are called dana-pati. This study looks into the development of dāna and dana-pati members on the central plain of China, analyzes 17 respective members’ translation forms, and examines the distribution of the terms in translated Buddhist scripture in the past dynasties, Buddhist writing, and secular canons in order to analyze the evolution of these terms. The findings of our analysis serve to cast doubt on the assumption that “a single syllable word is the contraction of a multisyllabic word.” Time and distribution reveal that dan is not the abbreviation of dāna, nor is dana-pati an abridged translation. In a comparison with other transliterations, the evolution of dan was fast because it became a morpheme, which formed the root of other new words and phrases, but the relevant source-text distribution was not broad and was religiously-oriented. Thus, one should not overestimate the effect of the terms of dan. In addition, the ancients argued that dana-pati carried a substantial meaning and could be construed, but as the author of this essay points out, it is a typical transliteration. Finally, in the framework of almsgiving, the action of giving alms is more significant than the other elements. Therefore, the metonymy direction starts “from almsgiving to alms giver.”