Rethinking Xuanzang’s “New Translation” Style: A Corpus-Based Analysis of Three Chinese Translations of the Vimalakīrti Sutra
Abstract
In the history of Chinese Buddhist translation, Xuanzang has conventionally been associated with a “new translation” style, indicating a departure from earlier “old” translations. This study reconsiders the nature of this “newness” through a corpus-based comparison of Xuanzang’s translation of the Vimalakīrti Sutra with two earlier versions by Kumārajīva and Zhi Qian. The analysis reveals greater textual continuity between Xuanzang and Kumārajīva, with a higher LCS retention rate (61.68%) than that between Zhi Qian and Kumārajīva (48.71%). A symmetric LCS check preserves the direction of this result but substantially narrows the contrast. That said, textual continuity should not be equated with direct borrowing. Xuanzang often reworked inherited formulations through expansion and lexical revision, producing a translation marked by greater semantic and conceptual precision. This study argues that Xuanzang’s translation strategies were jointly shaped by target cultural norms, ideological and textual contexts, and his own translation poetics. The “newness” of his translation thus lay less in a complete break with earlier versions than in the selective preservation, expansion, and reconfiguration of inherited textual resources.