論佛經語言研究的「以經證經」

讀佛經的困難源於語言的障礙，一般提到「佛經」，總會想到「宗教的」、「思想的」、「哲學的」、「義理的」一面。除此之外，就是注意到「文學的」一面，看作是「翻譯文學」。然而，另一個重要的層面——佛經語言，卻長久被忽略了。漢文佛典的數量，及其保存的完整，遠甚於各種其他語文，從東漢至宋代一千年間，完成了無數的佛典翻譯工作，不同的階段摻雜著不同時代的俗語詞彙，反映著各時代的社會口語。因為佛經是要給大眾讀誦的，不是少數學者高僧用來孤芳自賞的，所以佛經所用的語言是大眾的口語，必然為一般民眾能懂得的，這樣佛教才能藉以深入社會、傳播於社會。然而，活語言又是傾向於變遷的，今天我們讀佛經感到困難，其實大部分原因在語言的障礙。有些詞彙，今天習用，佛經中也常見，可是意思卻不完全相同。佛經語言學利用了既有的聲韻學、文字學、訓詁學、詞彙學、語法學的知識，去讀懂佛經。利用既有的中古漢語知識去理解佛典。筆者在2011 年7 月〈論佛經詞彙研究的幾個途徑〉曾提出「以經證經」的方法，認為在研究方法上，我們古代的語言學家、訓詁學家累積了很多研究心得和研究經驗，但是傳統的訓詁學都是為儒家的經典服務的。雖然做出了很好的成果，佛典訓詁的研究還是比較缺乏的。所以我們研究佛經語言，傳統的訓詁資料、傳統的工具書、訓詁成果給我們的幫助比較有限。我們必須採用「以經證經」的研究方法。也就是說，利用佛經來研究佛經。用佛經的語境、上下文來探索某個詞語的意義、語法等各種問題。這樣的研究，在今天來說，特別得到電腦資料庫的幫助很大，對需要探索的詞語，透過檢索系統，很快就能列出大量的語境資料，使我們能在這樣的基礎上進行客觀而細緻的觀察分析。本文認為通往佛經語言研究的六條大道包括1.由聲韻學角度研究佛經。2.由文字學角度研究佛經。3.由訓詁學角度研究佛經。4.由詞彙學角度研究佛經。5.由語法學角度研究佛經。6.由梵巴藏研究佛經。佛經語言的以經證經的方法，就像我們從事田野調查一樣，在大量例句的基礎上，我們可以做進一步的分析研究。有了大量語境的幫助，不論我們的探索目標是詞彙還是語法，都能顯現出它原始的語言風貌。

關鍵字

佛經語言；中古漢語；詞彙學；聲韻學；文獻語境

並列摘要

During the thousand years from Eastern Han dynasty to Song dynasty, there was lots of Buddhist scriptures have been translated into Chinese with venerable lexicons, which reflects the spoken languages in different era. Also, the quantity of well-preserved Chinese Buddhist texts is much more than any texts in other languages. Due to the function of Buddhist scriptures is for popular to read, not for scholars or monks to study, the languages in Buddhist scriptures must be the spoken language which publics could understand, so that Buddhism can be accepted by public. Yet, a living language tends to be changeable with time; some lexicons which can be found in Buddhist scriptures are still using nowadays but with different meaning. This situation results in the linguistic obstacles, and that is why we feel difficult to understand Buddhist scriptures. The Buddhist linguistics uses the knowledge of phonology, etymology, scholium, lexicology, and grammar to study Buddhist scriptures; and use existing Middle Chinese knowledge to understand Buddhist scriptures. Chu （2011） once proposed a method of ＂manifesting the scripture by scripture＂. Considering that even ancient linguists and scholiasts accumulated many research findings and experiences, those studies of traditional scholium were mainly focus on the classics of Confucianism, the scholiastic studying of Buddhist scriptures is insufficient. And using the traditional data, traditional reference books or scholiastic results to studying Buddhist linguistics helps little. Hence, to use the method of＂ manifesting the scripture by scripture＂ is necessary. That is, using the Buddhist scripture to study Buddhist scripture; discover the meaning or grammar of one word through the context of Buddhist scriptures. Nowadays, the computer database especially helps a lot to this kind of researches. Through the retrieval system, it takes a little time to list amounts of contexts of one word; and base on these data, the observation and analysis could be objective and detailed. This research findings show that there are six main ways to study Buddhist language: first, through a phonological way; second, through a etymological way; third, through a scholium way; fourth, through a lexicology way; fifth, through a grammatical way; and the last, through the way of Sanskrit, Pali, and Tibetan. The method of manifesting the scripture by scripture of Buddhist linguistic studying, which is like field studies, does further analysis on the basis of considerable sentences; and whether the target is lexicons or grammar, the original linguistic feature can be revealed through the numerous contexts.