C. Pierce Salguero. Buddhist Medicine in Medieval China: Disease, Healing, and the Body in Crosscultural Translation (Second to Eighth Centuries C.E.). PhD diss., Johns Hopkins University, March 2010. 395 pp. [abstract at author’s site/PDF]
Abstract
This dissertation is a study of the role of literary and cultural translation in the transmission and reception of Buddhist medicine in medieval China between the second and eighth centuries. This dissertation brings to light the diversity of medical material in the Chinese Tripitaka, analyzes the central metaphors and discourses in this corpus, and examines how these foreign medical ideas were understood in their historical context. I employ methodologies from Translation Studies to reconcile the study of the transregional exchange of linguistic and cultural repertoires with the agency of individual historical authors as they retooled and adapted foreign knowledge to forward contemporary social strategies. I utilize this theoretical framework to analyze how Indian medical doctrines influenced Chinese Buddhist discourses and practices, while also emphasizing the importance of disease, healing, and the body as sites of crosscultural negotiation.
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Sanskritic civilization · Tantric studies · Newar & Nusantaran Buddhism