..续本文上一页e Tripitaka was first put forward by a scholar named 蔡运辰Cai Yunchen from Taiwan island. In 1956, the committee of compiling and editing the Chinese Tripitaka was established in Taiwan and 26 years later (1982) the Taiwanese edition of the Chinese Tripitaka was published. In the beginning of the 1960s, Buddhist monks from mainland China also proposed a project of re-editing the Chinese Tripitaka and Mr. Lu Cheng 吕澄wrote a book entitled 《新编汉文大藏经目录》(The index of the new edition of the Chinese Tripitaka), but the Cultural Revolution occurred and this project was not carried out.

　　After making a comprehensive observation on different editions of the Tripitaka from both home and abroad, one can notice that all these editions have some flaws such as: fragmentary collection, disarranging typesetting, etc and are not ideal editions.

　　2. The propagation and translation of the Chinese Buddhist Tripitaka

　　The Chinese Buddhist Tripitaka is a whole collection of Sutta-pitaka (The Basket of Buddha”s discourses), Vinaya-pitaka (The Basket of Disciplines) and Abhidamma-pitaka (The Basket of commentary) which experienced a long-term process of translation, compilation and composition after Buddhism was first entered into China. It is largely circulated among the Chinese Han ethnic group, Mongolia, Korea, Japan and Vietnam, etc. The earliest Buddhist scriptures translation activity was taken during the reign of恒帝Emperor Heng (147-167) and 灵帝(168-189) Emperor Ling of the late Han dynasty and the pioneering translators were安息国的安世高An Shigao of Parthia and 月支国的支娄迦谶Lokasema of Kusana who left their home countries to China. The following dynasties (Wei, Jin and Northern and Southern Dynasties) witnessed a golden age of the development of Chinese Buddhism and the translation project took place on a large-scale and the quality of the translation works improved. In the dynasties of Sui and Tang, the translation project was supported by the ruling class and the imperial state organized an official译场 Yichang (a place where Buddhist scriptures were translated) and a strict set of rules and regulations of translation was established. The sequences of a translation work were arranged in nine steps: reading the Sanskrit text, meaning research, textual research, examining the sound, oral instruction, composing the Chinese, consulting other translations, 刊定、polishing the final work, in this way, the quality of a translation work was guaranteed. The Sui and Tang dynasties witnessed a golden age in the translation of Buddhist scriptures, but this situation declined in the following dynasties. In the Northern Song dynasty, though the Buddhist scriptures translation project was not interrupted, only a few groups or inpiduals engaged in this work. In its two thousand years, a massive volume of Buddhist scriptures were translated and a large number of translators were trained. According to statistics, the living Buddhist scriptures which were certainly translated from countries of the Indian subcontinent are around 1482 scriptures, (5702 volumes) Besides those re-translated texts, there are 4400 volumes, among these 1400 volumes belonged to Theravada, 3000 volumes to Vinaya-pitaka, Sutta-pitaka and Abhidamma-pitaka which are Mahayana”s, these scriptures are equal to 2.5 million Sanskrit odes. From the late Han dynasty to the end of the Northern Song dynasty (2—12 century), around 150 people directly participated in this translation project during the past 1000 years.

　　Among these translators, there were 71 Buddhist monks and scholars who came from the Indian subcontinent, 鸠摩罗什Kumarajiva, 真谛Paramattha, 玄奘Xuanzang and 不空Amoghavajra were regarded as “the four giants” in the history of Chinese translation.

　　3. The Characteristics of the Chinese Buddhist Tripitaka

　　Fir…

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