Fànyǔ zámíng 梵語雜名
Miscellaneous Sanskrit Names by 禮言 (集), with collation by Zhēnyuán of Mount Ruì
About the work
A single-juan late-Táng Sanskrit-Chinese vocabulary handbook, organized topically (body-parts, plants, animals, foods, household items, ritual objects, etc.), compiled by Lǐ-yán 禮言, fān-jīng dà-dé 翻經大德 (Great-Virtue of the Translation Bureau) and Hàn-lín dài-zhào 翰林待詔 (Hàn-lín-Academy Court-Awaiter), śramaṇa of Guāng-dìng-sì 光定寺, of the Kucha Country (歸茲國 = 龜茲, Kuchá in the Western Regions). Collated by Zhēn-yuán 真源, śramaṇa of Mount Ruì 睿山. The byline reads Fān-jīng dà-dé jiān Hàn-lín dài-zhào Guāng-dìng-sì Guī-zī-guó shā-mén Lǐ-yán jí, Ruì-shān shā-mén Zhēn-yuán jiào 翻經大德兼翰林待詔光定寺歸茲國沙門禮言集，睿山沙門真源較. Preserved in the Taishō canon at T54 no. 2135.
Prefaces
The text has no preserved auto-preface. The body opens immediately under the heading Yǒu-qíng shēn-fēn 有情身分 (“the body-parts of sentient beings”), giving paired vocabulary entries: tiān 天 (heaven) = sūra (素羅) or deva (泥嚩 / nirva); rén 人 (person) = manuṣya (摩拏史也) or nara (娜羅); zhòng 眾 (multitude) = jana (誐儞難) or gaṇa (若曩); ròu 肉 (flesh) = māṃsa (麼娑); pí 皮 (skin) = carma (折嚲麼); xiě 血 (blood) = rudhira (嚕地羅); nóng 膿 (pus) = pūya (布野); jīn 筋 (sinew) = snāyu (薩曩庾); etc. The work proceeds through topical fields of body, family, society, nature, and ritual.
Abstract
Authorship and provenance: Lǐyán 禮言 (DILA A001880; lay surname not preserved) was a late-Táng monk-translator of Kucha (Guīzī 龜茲, in the Western Regions, modern Kuchá in Xīnjiāng) origin. He held the imperial-establishment titles Fānjīng dàdé (Great-Virtue of the Translation Bureau, an honorific position attached to the imperial translation establishment) and Hànlín dàizhào (Court-Awaiter of the Hànlín Academy, a junior-rank imperial-secretarial position). His monastic residence was at Guāngdìngsì 光定寺, an imperial monastery in or near the capital. The collator Zhēnyuán 真源 of Mount Ruì 睿山 (a place-name appearing in late-Táng Esoteric / Tiāntái contexts; tentatively the same Mount Ruì = Bǐruì 比叡 = Mount Hiei in Japan if a much later Japanese collation is in play, but more likely a Chinese Mount Ruì within the Esoteric circuit).
Dating is uncertain. Lǐyán’s titles place him in the imperial translation establishment of the post-Bù-kōng era — broadly mid-to-late Táng. notBefore = 750 (after Bùkōng’s establishment of the imperial Esoteric translation bureau); notAfter = 850 (broadly the late-Táng bracket). Catalog dynasty 唐.
The work is structurally similar to but topically more comprehensive than Quánzhēn’s Táng Fàn wénzì (KR6s0023). Where Táng Fàn wénzì is structured for Esoteric ritual practice, Fànyǔ zámíng is more nearly a general Sanskrit-Chinese encyclopedic vocabulary — opening with body-parts (a standard Sanskrit-grammar pedagogy starting point) and continuing through the categories of nature, society, ritual, and so on. The work is one of the principal late-Táng survivals of the Kuchean monastic translation circle in the Chángān imperial bureau — Kucha having been a major Buddhist center on the northern Silk Road and a longstanding source of monk-translators (Kumārajīva 鳩摩羅什 having been the most famous earlier example).
Translations and research
No substantial dedicated Western-language secondary literature located. The work is occasionally cited in:
- R. H. van Gulik, Siddham (Nāgpur, 1956) — passing reference.
- Antonino Forte and successor scholars on the late-Táng imperial translation bureau — context.
- Hidas Gergely and the Tantric-Buddhism research group — for dhāraṇī vocabulary cross-references.
Other points of interest
The Kuchean origin of the compiler is one of the few late-Táng witnesses to Western-Regions monk-translators continuing to operate at the metropolitan court after the Ān Lù-shān rebellion (755) had nominally severed Tang’s connection with the Western Regions. The work testifies to the continuing presence of Sanskrit-trained Kuchean monks in the Cháng-ān imperial bureau into the second half of the Táng. Its topical organization — body, society, nature, ritual — is the standard Indian-grammar-pedagogy structure of the Aṣṭādhyāyī / Amarakośa tradition, suggesting Lǐ-yán’s knowledge of canonical Indian Sanskrit-grammar pedagogy.