科目:佛學英文
日期:106/05/12 10:30~12:00
I. Please translate the following passages into Chinese. (40%)
A.
If there has been a long tradition of aspiration to Buddhahood, then it is not really possible to state that the bodhisattva ideal is not found in the Burmese Theravāda tradition. Yet, such a contradiction is not easily noticed as long as we are misled by the assumption that the Buddhist traditions fall into two distinct institutional categories, of which in principle only one advocates the bodhisattva path. This is to fall prey to what I would call the“Hīnayāna fallacy, taking polemical arguments as if they were accurate descriptions of historical facts. (from "Hīnayāna fallacy")
B.
Two points come to mind as being important to the discussion of soteriology in this causal sense. The first has to do with the unitarity of the nature of the purificatory path. It is not the case, at least in the Indo Tibetan setting, that there are many different ways of achieving nirvana. Neither faith, nor works, nor knowledge alone will do. The path is a systematic, arduous, and complex process of study and meditative practice, and it is unique. Despite the fact that various Buddhist thinkers in this tradition have different notions of what the path is, and despite the fact that different individuals will travel this path in different ways, there is a sense in which the path traveled is considered unique—there is only one. It is in this sense that I call it unitary. (from "Liberation: An Indo-Tibetan Perspective")
II. Please read the following passages and give your comment in English. (30%)
Still, it must be granted that, whether due to its relative youth or not, Buddhist Studies today seems particularly hodge podge. This is due in part to the intemational composition of the Buddhist Studies community, and in part to the heterogeneous nature of the object of our study, Buddhism itself (on the latter, more in a moment).l° But there are other factors—institutional ones—that also contribute to the diversity that exists within the field. It is often the case that a common pattem of institutional support provides a discipline with homogeneity. This is lacking in Buddhist Studies. True, in many Asian countries Buddhist Studies finds consistent institutional support from religious circles, but here sectarianism leads to heterogeneity of a different kind. Outside of Asia, moreover, a department of Buddhist Studies is rare. Instead, buddhologists find themselves with homes in area studies centers (South Asian, East Asian, Uralic-Altaic); in centers and institutes for the study of languages, cultures, history or a combination of these (Asian, South Asian, Indian, Sanskrit, in order of ascending specificity, just to take one series of actually instantiated examples); in departments of religious studies, and even in schools of theology. Unlike other disciplines—even ones that are structurally homologous to our own, like Judaic Studies—Buddhist Studies has few secular institutional homes that it can call its own. (from "Buddhist Studies as a Discipline and the Role of Theory")
III. 在"Perspectives in the Study of Chinese Buddhism"這篇文章中,提到了三個重點。請就你的記憶所及,以中文說明這篇文章中所描述的 一些例子。 (30%)
Let me present the gist of what I have to say in the form of three paradoxes. First, that our view of Chinese Buddhism as a historical phenomenon is greatly obscured by the abundance of our source materials. Second, that if we want to define what was the normal state of medieval Chinese Buddhism, we should concentrate on what seems to be abnormal. Third, if we want to complete our picture of what this Buddhism really was, we have to look outside Chinese Buddhism itself.