Project

Ru Shi Lun, Second Earliest Chinese Text on Buddhist Logic: Philosophical and Philological Analysis

Program

The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Research Fellowships in Buddhist Studies

Department

Linguistics (affiliate with Philosophy/East Asian)

Abstract

The aim of the project is to provide a philosophical and philological analysis of, as well as an English language translation of, the second of the earliest two logic texts in Chinese Buddhism, Ru shi lun. This text, said to be have been written by the great Indian Buddhist thinker, Vasubandhu (4th to 5th century ce), exists only in Chinese. Yet, despite its importance to the study of Buddhist logic, Indian and Chinese, it has never been translated into a European language, though it has been translated by Nakano (1936) into Japanese and rendered into classical Sanskrit by Tucci (1929), an early pioneer in the field of the study of Indian and Chinese Buddhist logic. Nor has the text been subject to careful philosophical and philological analysis.