Abstract
When we review the history of translating the Buddhist scriptures into Chinese, we find that there was a long history of controversy between meaning-based translation and literary translation. When tracing the whole history of Chinese translation discourse, we cannot ignore the role of Liu Xie (劉勰) and his work Wenxin Diaolong or The Literary Heart and the Carving of the Dragon (文心雕龍). Liu Xie had remarkable influence on the composition of the book Records on Publishing Buddhist Scriptures (出三蔵記集). Moreover, he explained why writing in literary language is necessary and explained how to write in literary language in his book.
Wenxin Diaolong had further influence on the history of translation of the Buddhist
scriptures. Around 600 A.D. Yangcong (彦琮) wrote a book on translation theory and insisted
on what is called Eight prerequisites and ten guiding principles. We see considerable
similarities between what he wrote and Wenxin Diaolong.
