Phonographic Characters in the Biography of Xuanzang by Hui Li

Abstract

The article discusses an interesting case of the use of Chinese characters as phonographic devices: the Sanskrit declension of puruṣa (bùlùshā 布路沙) ‘man’ as transcribed by the Chinese monk Hui Li in his Biography of Xuanzang. In particular, the analysis will focus on two aspects: the way Hui Li renders the different Sanskrit nominal endings; the evaluation of the general accuracy of these transcriptions. For the latter point, I will take as reference the phonetic reconstructions of Chinese characters proposed by Pulleyblank (1991) and Baxter - Sagart (2014).

Keywords

• Chinese Rime Tables. Chinese historical phonology. Chinese siddham studies. Middle Chinese. Sino-Indian contact