The conversation did take a speculative turn with
the tantric geographic identifications. It is unambiguous however that earlier
the Chinese and Indians were identifying China as Mahācīna and Cīna. In certain
contexts, the Chinese transcribed the sounds rather than use the character for
Qin.
The following from Huili's Biography of Xuanzang,
written contemporaneously with Xuanzang (mid-7th c reflects early Tang usage of
how Indians supposedly referred to China.
《大唐大慈恩寺三藏法師傳》卷2：「其夜眾僧皆夢神[8]人告曰：「此客僧從摩訶脂那[9]國來，欲學[10]經印度，觀禮聖迹，」(CBETA,
T50, no. 2053, p. 231,
a13-15) [8]〔人〕－【甲】。[9]〔國〕－【宋】【元】【明】【宮】【甲】。[10]經＝法【甲】。
摩訶脂那]國 = Mahā-cīna country.
Some editions omit 國 (guo / country), leaving just
摩訶脂那 = Mahā-cīna.
Li Rongxi translates this: "During that night all
the monks of the monastery had a dream in which a divine being told them, 'This
guest monk coming from Mahācīna wishes to study the scriptures in India, to
visit and worship the holy sites...'"
Later in the same text, an Indian monk is
asked by fellow monks to send a letter to Xuanzang who is now back in China. The
letter begins:
《大唐大慈恩寺三藏法師傳》卷7：「：「微妙吉祥世尊金剛座所摩訶菩提寺諸多聞眾所共圍繞上座慧天，致書摩訶支那國於無量經律論妙盡精微木叉阿遮利耶」(CBETA,
T50, no. 2053, p. 261, b8-11)
Li Rongxi's tr:
The abbot Prajñādeva,
of Mahābodhi Monastery at the Diamond Seat of the mysterious and auspicious
World-Honored One, surrounded by a multitude of learned monks, begs to send this
letter to the Mokṣācārya of the country of Mahācīna, who
is most learned in the subtle teachings of many scriptures, disciplinary texts,
and treatises, extending to him unlimited respect and wishing that he may live
in good health with least ailment and trouble.
Prajñādeva is rendered in translated
Chinese (Hui tian 慧天); Mahābodhi is transcribed (摩訶菩提); Mokṣācārya is also transcribed (木叉阿遮利耶). And China is referred to as 摩訶支那國
Mahācīna country.
It is nteresting to note that the first Mahācīna
transcription uses 脂 for the "chi" sound, while the second uses 支 (in modern
mandarin, both are pronounced zhi-first tone): 摩訶脂那 and 摩訶支那. Both 脂那 and 支那 are
recognized as old transcriptions of China.
CBETA yields 30 hits for the second
transcription 摩訶支那, all from Tang, Song, and Ming, showing that this name
for China was occasionally used long after the Later Qin.
Cīna 支那 has 534 hits, but one would have to weed
through them to see which refer to China or something Chinese, and which are
used for other transcriptions.
The first transcription 摩訶脂那, however, gets no hits
aside from the one in the Biography above. 脂那 Cīna by itself gets 52 hits. E.g.
《佛本行集經》卷11〈11 習學技藝品〉：「脂那國書(大隋)。」(CBETA, T03, no. 190, p. 703, c20), Abhiniṣkramaṇa sūtra, tr. by Jñānagupta between
587-597 CE, during the Sui Dynasty. Amongst a list of countries, it includes
"the country of Cīna" and in parentheses, "Great Sui".)
The term Cīna was not just a geographical identity,
but an ethnic one as well. The Biography of Xuanzang refers to Chinese as
an ethnic lineage thus:
《大唐大慈恩寺三藏法師傳》卷5：「又其王聰慧，建國相承多歷年所，自云本是脂那提婆瞿怛羅([26]唐言漢日天種)，」(CBETA, T50, no.
2053, p. 250, b25-27) [26]唐言明本皆作此言。
Li tr:
The king was wise and intelligent and had been on
the Throne for many years. He acknowledged himself to be a descendent of the
Cīna-deva-gotra (the Divine Stock of Han).
That is transcribed and then translated: 脂那提婆瞿怛羅
(唐言漢日天種)
脂那 = Cīna
提婆 = deva
瞿怛羅 = gotra
唐言 = "in Tang [=Chinese] language"
漢日天種 = 漢 Han [=Chinese] + 日天 = sun god + 種 =
seed.
This is interesting because we have three Chinese
references to "China": Cīna, Tang, and Han. The Chinese recognize that
foreigners call them China, they identify with their current polity, the Tang
dynasty, and ethnically as Han. Like Arjuna in the Gita they can have many
names.
So it is unambiguous that the term China or
maha-Cina was being used as self-reference still in the Sui and Tang, and
additional citations from Song, Ming, etc. sources could be easily added. It
also confirms that Indians (and others) were using the name China or Maha-China
already in the 6th and 7th centuries.
Incidentally, I have found at least one usage of
"In Qin language it would be" in a text from the late 3rd c., which would
predate the Latter QIn dynasty by nearly a century:
Chronicle of Aśoka, tr. by An Faqin 安法欽, a
Parthian, ca. 281-306 《阿育王傳》卷7：「此是兒志乃至初生。即名須達秦言善意)」(CBETA, T50,
no. 2042, p. 127, a16)
It says: "...Sudatta, in Qin language is good
intention."
The issue
as to what were the geographical entities denoted by the terms cīna and
mahācīna (at different times, mainly in Buddhist Tantric texts) has generated
quite a lot of discussion; however, I was not aware of an Eastern
Indian/Burmese identification. Here suffice it to say that Mahācīna appears to
refer to China proper in the Aṣṭasahāsrika-Prajñāpāramitā Nepalese manuscript
of AD 1015, since it locates Mañjughoṣa there (mahācīne mañjughoṣe, which
refers to Mañjuśrī at Mt Wutai).
According
to Geoff Wade, Zina was the term used by the inhabitants of Yelang (a polity
in the western Guizhou region) to refer to themselves, and is possibly the
source of Sanskrit cīna (see ‘The Polity of Yelang and the origin of the name
‘‘China’’’, Sino Platonic Papers 188, May 2009, available online).
I located the Dvivedi quote, in case anyone is interested: --“ityatra varṇitaucīnasnānanamaskārau
islāmadharmānuyāyināṃ vaju-namaj-karmaṇī anuharataḥ”- this comes from
the intro to the Śaktisaṁgama Tantra, vol.4,
p.42.
Maybe yes, my own
sense is that in this context C?na points less to a known region and more
simply functions as a place-holder for the category of the foreign; in part
I think this because the practices in the C?n?c?ratantra, which are
primarily sexual in nature, appear to be rooted in practices popular in
Bengal and Western Assam, unlike the practices associated with Eastern
Assam, Sadiya for instance, and Burma, known for human
sacrifice.
Of course this doesn’t discount your
point that C?na might have simply referred to a vague geographic region that
these writers supposed to be located where contemporary Burma, Nagaland etc
are. I suspect that the Bengali and Western Assamese writers use the term
because it already signified a functional geographic “other”, in this case
somewhat denigrated, (maybe similar to the medieval and early modern
European uses of the “orient”?), and maybe also not so different from one of
V.V. Dvivedi’s 20th century introductions where he compares the c?n?c?ra
practice to Muslim practices.
I'm an
outsider in this discussion, so pardon any naive remarks. I was under
the impression, though, from something I read somewhere (that statement
wouldn't get past Wikipedia) that C?na in Tantrika texts, especially the
Mah?c?n?c?ratantra, referred to what we today call the Assam-Burma
region. Meghalaya, Manipur, Nagaland, Tripura, Northern Burma that
sort of area.
Best,
Dominik
--
Professor Dominik Wujastyk* Singhmar Chair in Classical Indian Society and
Polity
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