Posts written by Bill M. Mak

Confucius Museum, Qufu

Five days reading Sanskrit and Chinese Buddhist texts flew by quickly. Mahāsiddha and I left Jiangxi, and arrived in Qufu, the hometown of Confucius and Mencius, by high-speed rail in the same evening. This was my first time visiting the “Confucian city”. My plan was to also meet up with scholars and students from the Wenli Academy, who moved there not long ago. I stayed in Qufu for about a week, and truly felt the astounding cultural development in China in the past decade. The Confucius Museum, opened in 2019, was almost as extravagant as the Hong Kong Palace Museum. It seemed unreal that Confucius these days has a celebrity-like status here in China, at least here in Qufu. What’s more interesting is the passion for traditional Chinese learning that is evident everywhere — from dainty little tea houses to a guqin studio I randomly walked into. While some might worry that this cultural fad may lead to excessive commercialization, the serious and genuine scholars and artists throve at the same time. To be honest, I worry not so much about how this cultural awakening may unfold in the Mainland, what worried me more is the general decline of cultural awareness or cultural education in general in Hong Kong.

My former Chinese students now in Qufu, in front of the Confucius Museum

Confucius Museum (2)

Confucius Museum (3)

Visiting a traditional academy in Qufu

江西寶峰寺2023年梵語研讀班

中科大夏季課程結束後，我和大成助教馬上啟程到江西寶峰寺。2007年，當我在北大讀博時，得到方丈衍真法師支持，在馬祖道一的道場寶峰寺，開辦了第一屆的梵語夏令營。事隔十多年，寺院再次主辦梵語研讀班，這次以《八千頌般若》為主題，主要配合我跟大成同學的對勘進工作。我和大成爭取在年底前，完成梵語《八千頌般若》的對勘與現代漢語翻譯。研讀班為期五天，參加人數約十五人，內容包括梵文誦讀、古譯對勘、今譯校對等。這次參加的法師與學員，十分精進，為我們的對勘提供了不少幫助。梵語讀頌部分，完成了整篇《序品》；對勘部分，則完成了《序品》與《帝釋品》第二。本年九月，我們計劃每週週日晚上，繼續研讀《八千頌般若》。聽說已經有十多人報名參加，都是梵語有一定程度的學員。再次感謝衍真法師支持！

《八千頌般若經》梵本校勘

參加五天梵語研讀班的法師與學員（1）

參加五天梵語研讀班的法師與學員（2）

寶峰寺景

Sanskrit retreat @ Baofeng Temple, Jiangxi

After the summer semester in UTSC, Mahāsiddha and I immediately headed to the Baofeng Temple in Jiangxi. Almost 15 years ago in 2007, while I was pursing my PhD in Peking University, I organized the very first Sanskrit summer camp in this temple, with the support of the Abbot Venerable Yanzhen. This time, the temple organized a Sanskrit reading seminar, with the important Mahāyāna Buddhist text, the Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra (“Sutra of the Perfection of Wisdom in 8000 verses”), a text which Mahāsiddha and I are currently editing and translating into modern Chinese. Our goal is to complete the collation and the complete Chinese translation of the Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra in 8000 verses in Sanskrit by the end of the 2023. The seminar lasted 5 days, with around 15 participants. It consisted activities such as Sanskrit texts reading, comparison of various translations, and proofreading the modern translation. We managed to read through the first, introductory chapter of the text, which is the core of Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā, or described by some scholars as the Urkanon of the Prajñāpāramitā. In addition, we covered also the content of Chapter 2, titled śakra. The current plan is that the seminar will continue in an online format every Sunday night from September onwards. I learned that ten, fifteen people have signed up already, all have learned some Sanskrit in the past. I would like to thank Venerable Yanzhen once again for his support!

Editing the Sanskrit recension of the Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā based on the historical Chinese translations

5-day Sanskrit seminar in Jiangxi

Seminar @ Baofeng Monastery