[SOUND] Frankly speaking, we don't know who was the first Translator of Buddhist texts into Chinese. Usually, we say that An Shigao, one guy from Parthia, was a first translator or first interpreter of Buddhist texts into Chinese language. First of all he had a very strange name, An Shigao. Some people think that he was not Chinese and actually he wasn't Chinese. He was a Parthian and Parthia in Chinese language was Anxi. So it means that his first character of his first name An Shigao came from a Parthian name. In this picture, you can see that he was dressed in the monk robe, but in reality, we don't know was he monk or just a layperson. We had not too much remains from him, especially about his life. We know that he came to the Imperial Court in the first, second century. And was the first translator of the first part of the Buddhist text, that was written in Sanscrit, in old official Indian language. He faced to the biggest problem how to translate main Buddhist ideas. And he worked out one of the way how to do it. This way we today call Ge yi. So it means to find a closest concept in Chinese language. Not to translate it but just to interpret it. So An Shigao used the Confucian and Daoist terms that already existed before. So for example in some way Buddhist [FOREIGN] was translated as a Chinese or then was used as a. So he tried to find just some meanings that it's not literally the same but close to. And that time it was discovered. It was the first step forward. An Shigao didn't translate too much text. Even today we don't know how much he translated text. Some people say that he translated more than 100 different sutras or Buddhist texts. Some people say that just 60 texts could be subscribed to him. But anyway, An Shigao attempted the first tradition of the text translation. After him, another biggest first Buddhist missionary arrived to China. He name was Kumarajiva. Kumarajiva also was not Chinese, and he came from [FOREIGN] a kingdom which is a kingdom in the central Asia. Kumarajiva was a great man. People say that even when he was 15 years old, he already started to read some Buddhist texts. And he was so wise in his readings, that even King advisors tried to advise him, and spoke with him about these Buddhist notions and Buddhist rules. Kumarajiva was so famous that according to one of the legends, that his fame arriving even to China even before him. And one of the Chinese emperor sent a special expedition, military expedition to the Kushan kingdom not just occupy this kingdom but to take to siege Kumarajiva and bring him to the Imperial court. So anyway Kumarajiva one day find himself in Chinese capital. Kumarajiva was asked to start a first big translation of the body of main Buddhist texts. Texts from the Indian part of. Kumarajiva became head of the multi-ethnic multi-language team who started this translation. One of the idea of Kumarajiva not to find a meanings in Chinese language, [FOREIGN] but maybe to create step by step a new way how to translate. Not to be based completely on the Chinese ideas, because you can mix with the [FOREIGN]. But to establish a completely independent translation and independent notions, that was hist first introduction of the initial meanings of Sanskrit Buddhism to Chinese language. Even today we still use some translation of Kumarajivva. So it was his discovery that the Sanskrit text could be translated into Chinese without losing the initial meaning. It was the first big impetus for the development of the Buddhist readings. Kumarajiva translated a lot. Some people say that Kumarajiva just abridged the text. Yes, that's correct. Kumarajiva didn't translate all text, all of this long Indian text. But sometimes, took just one part, which he considered as the most important part of the Sutras. Which was not completely correct, according to old tradition. But one of the ideas of Kumarajiva was to make this text as much popular as is possible. So in the end, these texts became popular. And a lot of people started to read about the Buddhist ideas, and first of all about the stories from the life of Buddha. So Buddhist step by step became very popular among the officials who could read this text. But finally we can find at least two more first translators which arrived much later into China. [FOREIGN] and [FOREIGN] were not Chinese. So they represented a non-Chinese or pre-Chinese period of the development of the Buddhist translations. Two other great missionaries, Faxian and Xuanzang were Chinese. Both first of all visited India. Faxian and Xuanzang had the same idea. They lived in different period of time but they had the same idea that a lot were lost during translation. And maybe to old fashion, some text that were brought from India to China with fake texts, not the real. So he wanted to understand what the real body, the genius body or the Indian text. That's why he visit India. And during his visit to India, he visit a lot of countries and a lot of small kingdoms on his way along to India. Including Territory of Bangladesh of Nepal. So he collected a lot of materials, a lot of texts, different texts, not just one batch of texts. That he step by step started to translate into Chinese. But Xuanzang, another very important Tang Monk, Monk of the Tang period, played much more important role in the establishing of the Wu and finally [INAUDIBLE] Buddhism in China. Xuanzang was a really great philosopher, great monk. He proposed to the emperor of China to sponsor the special journey to India, and to bring back to China a whole body of all Buddhist texts. So he called the or in Chinese, [FOREIGN]. Emperor supported this idea. And Xuanzang started his very long journey to India. Some people say that it took just 15 years, Siberians says that maybe took 18 years. Anyway it was a long journey. According to his journey he wrote some memories, some random notes that was finally generalised into one very huge text, the trunk journey to India, to the west region. West region, it means India. After that time, according, based on this text, another text, very popular text was written by Wu Cheng'en. It was a journey to the West. And we know today this text and it became very popular even not in China but outside China and we know it by the story about it Sun Ukung, the king of monkey monkey king, which became a popular heroes in the movies and even in cartoons. But so anyway, it was just a story. What Xianjiang really did, he introduced the idea that. All this text is not just separated text, but there is a strict rule, a strict system of Buddhist texts. And which is called Tripiṭaka. Three parts, or three main groups of different Buddhist texts that could be brought together, and should be translated step by step. So Xuanzang just fixed a new stage of the developmental Buddhist tradition. The tradition where Sanskrit texts were finally, or partially translated into Chinese. And from the time of Xuanzang, many Chinese Buddhists started to write their own texts and to put them into the so Indian was enlarged to the Chinese. And in this way, we know the Chinese and then Japanese as a combination of the Indian tradition or local Chinese or Japanese tradition. [SOUND] [MUSIC]
