Mixing Metaphors: Translating the Indian Medical Doctrine Tridoṣa in Chinese Buddhist Sources
2010–11, "Mixing Metaphors: Translating the Indian Medical Doctrine Tridoṣa in Chinese Buddhist Sources," Asian Medicine: Tradition and Modernity 6: 55–74.
What constitutes success in the translation of a medical doctrine? Scholars have long thought that Chinese translators... more What constitutes success in the translation of a medical doctrine? Scholars have long thought that Chinese translators failed to understand or to transmit faithfully the Indian medical terminology they encountered within the Buddhist Tripitaka. This paper takes a closer look at the variations in the translation of the doctrine tridosạ in Chinese. I argue that translation inconsis- tencies reflect not confusion, but a range of strategic translation decisions. While some translators prioritised closer fidelity to Sanskrit originals, most chose to emphasise the compatibility between Indian and Chinese medical thought by glossing the tridosạ with terms that were loaded with indigenous metaphorical connotations. In a rereading of one such passage, I show that understanding so-called errors as translation tactics allows historical analysis to move beyond a limited focus on the accuracy of translations and to instead explore the cultural resonances and social logics of translated texts in their historical context.
'A Flock of Ghosts Bursting Forth and Scattering': Healing Narratives in a Sixth-Century Chinese Buddhist Hagiography
2010, "'A Flock of Ghosts Bursting Forth and Scattering': Healing Narratives in a Sixth-Century Chinese Buddhist Hagiography," East Asian Science Technology & Medicine (EASTM) 32: 89–120.
The Buddhist Medicine King in Literary Context: Reconsidering an Early Medieval Example of Indian influence on Chinese Medicine and Surgery
2009, "The Buddhist Medicine King in Literary Context: Reconsidering an Early Medieval Example of Indian influence on Chinese Medicine and Surgery," History of Religions 48 (3): 183-210.
Historians long have considered the biography of Jīvaka, the Buddhist “Medicine King” (Ch. Qiyu or Qipo) to be an... more Historians long have considered the biography of Jīvaka, the Buddhist “Medicine King” (Ch. Qiyu or Qipo) to be an important example of the introduction of Indian medicine to China. This article challenges such claims by reappraising the authorship, dating, and genre of the hagiography, and by prioritizing local processes of cultural translation in the reception of Indian religion and medicine. In Chinese translation, the Medicine King was recreated as a model Chinese physician and as the founder of a Buddhist medical lineage that could rival the classical medical tradition. The text also mobilized language from popular literature to transform the Medicine King into a familiar figure from the medieval anomaly tale genre: the miracle-healing wonder-worker. The purpose of the text was not medical but hagiographic. Employing both classical frames of medical authority and popular literary conventions, the text demonstrates the importance of medical hagiography to Buddhist proselytism and legitimation in China. Claims for the Medicine King’s supremacy and efficacy, by extension also applied to those who invoked his name, leading Buddhists to adopt Jīvaka as a source of authority for a wide range of medical activity throughout the medieval period.