Why not Buddha’s Mother Tongue

Why not Buddha’s Mother Tongue

How did Buddhism sutra preserved so well in China? I mean, why did the early masters translate so many Buddhist texts into Chinese, more than that of any other language? Of all the languages in the world, why did they pick Chinese, not Sanskrit, a language used during Buddha’s time, Buddha’s mother tongue? For years, I pondered.

Then it come to my when I was reading “The Mother Tongue” by Bill Bryson, in which he commented on the a admirable quality of Chinese character (Kanji)- if Confucius is back to live today, though we cannot understand him verbally, we can still understand him through writing - a vital quality necessary to preserve the meaning and authenticity of Buddhist scripture.

Chinese is largely different from Sanskrit in the way it is written. Like English, Sanskrit is written in alphabets; Chinese is written pictographically and ideographically, that is Chinese characters are made up of pictures and ideas. As a result, the complexity of Chinese character allows you to express versatile ideas, feelings, and join hidden and intricate Buddhist ideas into just few syllables, which may require up twice of the amount in other language. For instance, in Sanskrit it is lengthy Tathagata; in Chinese it is ru lai, which means enlightened one.

Because of fewer syllables per word (in fact, one syllable per word) in Chinese, monks would have no trouble in memorizing the sutra by heart. This is also an advantage in teaching, where students can pick up the Sutra with speed. It is like the reason that law started with French, and Medicine and Physics with Latin in Europe. Chinese character is simply user friendly, succinct, clear when it comes to record Buddhist sutra.

Translating into Chinese also means that Buddhist Sutra is not affected and drifted because of regional dialects; and its center ideas are kept away from individual dialect’s influence and hence preserve its authenticity and originality. Dialect, a trouble in so many parts of European regions, hardly is trouble at all in China, because Chinese character is the same even if two dialects are vastly different. In Belgium, for example, you need to have two types of signage: French and Dutch; but for Spain and Portugal, although they have different ways to speak, their writing is essential the same and can read each other’s newspaper.

It also is clear that Chinese Buddhist Sutra can survive better than Sanskrit Sutra, because Sanskrit becomes obsolete today: although it was popularly used in Buddha’s time and generations later, no one uses it today even in India. According to Bill Bryson, author of "The Mother Tongue", Sanskrit is retained only in the sacred hymns of Vedas, which makes no discernable meaning today. In another word, if Buddhist sutras were recorded in Sanskrit two thousands years ago, no one would understand them today.

In short, for succinctness and clarity, or for educating and memorizing, Chinese is just a more reliable form of record for Buddhist Sutra.