Remarks on a Problem of Negation in Middle Chinese [antikvár]

REMARKS ON A PROBLEM OF NEGATION IN MIDDLE CHINESE BY B. CSONGOR Some of the Chinese texts from Tun-huang written in a foreign script offer quite a variety of forms in the transcription of the word The Chinese Vajra-prajnd-paramitd, written in Brahmi script [VPP, edited by P. W. Thomas in ZDMG, vol. 91) contains forms like pa, pi, hvi:, hviri, hvu:, hvu:: the Tibetan transcription of the Chinese Vajracchediha (K, edited by F. W. Thomas and G. L. M. Clauson in JRAS, vol. 1926) renders ^ as pu in twelve cases, but in four others as phu: finally, the Ta sheng chung tsung chien chieh, supplied with pronunciation notations in Tibetan writing (T, edited by F. W. Thomas — S. Miyamoto—G. L. M. Clauson in JRAS, vol. 1929), the last item in the sequence of my present investigations gives once bur and once phu as a sound notation for The glosses contained in T need still some further elucidations. The gloss hur in 1. 57.5, although standing beside IS:, obviously refers either to the preceding, or to the subsequent ^ of the context. The phu (Icyan) of 1. 80. 8 stands beside 'fill, but refers without doubt to 1. 79. 8 ^ (M.), glossed tha, the respective glosses, standing at the same height in the neighbouring lines, having been exchanged with one another. — The 'bu notations for besides, occurring in the edition of T in italics, do not exist anywhere in the original. I was able to verify these data from a microfilm of the MSS of T (and K), obtained by the courtesy of the India Office Library, London. These variant glosses are far too divergent for a possible explanation from one and the same original. In the following I wish to try to explain these forms taking them one by one. In the meantime 1 hope to give some hints referring to the problem of negation in T'ang-time Chinese. Roughly speaking, from the data enumerated above those with an initial p-, b- had a labial initial in Middle Chinese while those v/ith hv-, h-, ph-had a labio-dental one. By examining the contexts for each of these two groups, we find: VPP pa: 1.53.7, 12 Brmr-K&timr-ii^^ 55. 2 56.3, 12