唐代漢譯摩尼敎殘卷 - 心王、相、三常、四處、種子等語詞試釋 -

Abstract

Manichaeism, with the Gnostic dogmatic system as its basis, is conventionally characterized as a syncretistic religion. The main purpose of the present article is to re-examine the uses of a few problematic technical terms, borrowed from the Chinese Buddhist vocabulary and integrated into the Chinese Manichaean texts of the Tang dynasty. The article begins with a review of the progress in researching the main Chinese and Iranian Manichaean texts found from Dunhuang and Turfan during the past century. In light of these achievements which have clarified many dubious points at issue, the Chinese longer texts -- 殘經/Traité/SLN and 下部贊 /Hymnsroll -- as the primary sources of Chinese Manichaeism merit a closer re-examination in the Chinese context. When the Manichean missionaries came to China Proper, they were exposed to the influence of a new world under Buddhist dominance. Absorbed in their translation work and inspired by the Buddhist scriptures already done into Chinese, they rendered some Manichaean abstruse terms or concepts in imitation of Buddhist patterns or in Buddhist disguise. As these terms were progressively incorporated into the Manichean glossary as its own components, they must be understood or re-interpreted in the Chinese Manichean contexuality. The character '相' (xiang), among others, is a most noteworthy instance. It seems appropriate to use this character to translate the original meaning of the term 'shine, splendor, glory' figured in the Syriac or Iranian texts. But when we look more carefully at the very character '相' (xiang) in conjunction with other Chinese conceptual character, such as in the term '性相 /nature and characteristics' for example, this adapted new term seems to have derived from the Buddhist vocabulary and the match of this term with its correlate figured in the Yogācāra Vij&ntilde ; aptimātratāsiddhi/ 唯識 literature has some phenomenological comparability. A semantic or doctrinal comparability of such a Manichean term with its Buddhist terminological 'counterpart' would offer more illumination into its interpretation and intrinsic connotations in the Chinese context without loosing its Manichean identity. Such is also the case with the notions '三常 /Three Constancies' and '四處 /Fourfold Divinity'. The article ends with an attempt to identify the extant text of the 殘經 /Traité/SLN with a lost apocryphal Buddhist work, the title of which was mentioned in a few Buddhist catalogues compiled during the Tang dynasty.