Oldal 216 [216]
OCR
EKATERINA SOBKOVYAK The Mongolian translations of the Bhiksu- and Bhiksuniprätimoksasütra are demonstrative examples of a very specific language worked out in Mongolia for the translation of the Buddhist treatises from Tibetan. This artificial language is characterized by the limited choice of lexemes, the usage of grammatical constructions which are not natural for Mongolian, and the consistent breaking of the syntactic rules of Mongolian in favour of the exact reproduction of the Tibetan syntax. As a result, the Mongolian translations are of low comprehensibility. They could possibly be better understood by monks with a good knowledge of the Tibetan counterparts. No tendency towards improving the texts’ intelligibility can be observed in the versions included in the later xylographic redaction. Although the Mongolian text of the Bhiksuniprätimoksasütra has been significantly changed in comparison with the variants found in the Saint-Petersburg, Hohhot and Ulan-Ude manuscripts, the changes did not positively influence the text’s potential for being properly understood. On the other hand, the tendency to give up language’s communicative function for the sake of closer formal correspondence to the original seems to have progressed over time, as the earlier redaction presents a higher level of comprehensibility than the later redaction. The Mongolian translators have not intended to make the Mongolian text comprehensible and informative, i.e., to turn it into a potential object of cognition. The intention was rather to bring the translation into closer alignment not with the Tibetan text’s content, but its form. Literal translation in the case of the Bhiksunipratimoksasiitra, although present, is much less prevalent than in the case of the Bhiksupratimoksasitra. The language of the translation is less standardized and unified, which makes it more chaotic and lively at the same time. The Mongolian translation of the Pratimoksasitra represents, thus, an interpretation of the Tibetan text, but not a semantic one. I would rather call it a ‘grammatical’ interpretation, as the translation seems to have been directed more at the conveying of the grammatical structure of the Tibetan source than conveying the meaning of the text. Strictly speaking it cannot even be called ‘a translation in Mongolian’ because the language into which the sutra is translated is not Mongolian proper. It uses the lexis and selected grammatical features of Mongolian, but at the same time the lexicon of the translation is unnaturally limited, the structure of the language is often violated, and the phrases and clauses which are constructed properly from the point of view of grammar are often incomprehensible nevertheless, as they are exact literal translations from Tibetan. Coming back to the canonical status of the Kanjur collection it should be noted that the formation of the canon appears to be a dynamic process that does not stop even when the canonicity is already established. The examples of the Mongolian translations of the Bhiksu- and Bhiksuntpratimoksasiitra included in the Kanjur show that the stability of the content of the Kanjur texts has not been given paramount importance. The differences between the manuscript versions at our disposal are quite considerable and seem even more striking if we agree that all the manuscript versions of the texts represent the same redaction — the one prepared under the auspices of Liydan gayan in 1628-1629. 214
