Interpretation On The On The Journey

Timothy Richard, the Protestant missionary in late Qing dynasty, made a great contribution to the Christian-Buddhist dialogue of that time. He was one of the few missionaries that were of positive opinions on Chinese Buddhism then. Besides studying Buddhist teachings, he also translated many Chinese Buddhist scriptures seriously. However, influenced by the Fulfillment Model of religious dialogue, Timothy Richard insisted that Christianity be absolutely superior to other religions and regarded Chinese Buddhism as the expression of Christianity in Asia. Consequently, he strategically used Christian ideas to interpret Buddhism in translation practice. This dissertation chooses Timothy's translation of Journey to the West (Timothy named it A Mission to Heaven: A Great Chinese Epic and Allegory) as the object of our study, which was the only Literary translation that Timothy had ever translated, and pays special attention to the translation structure, the characterization, and the Domesticating Translation in A Mission to Heaven, attempting to reveal the detail application and its effect of Timothy's translating strategy. In this process, Timothy Richard's many viewpoints of Christianity will also emerge between the lines, which will make us completely understand Timothy's apprehension and translation of Journey to the West.This dissertation is divided into three chapters. The first one starts with the historical context of understanding and chronologically analyzes the historical background of Timothy Richard's translating of Journey to the West, which includes Christian-Buddhist dialogue in late Qing dynasty, religious dialogue of Fulfillment Model and preaching strategy of Indigenization. The second one starts with the translation motivation and analyzes Timothy's whole apprehension of Journey to the West, including whys of his translating and his misunderstanding of the author of the original work. The third one starts with the text of translation itself and analyzes Timothy's translating strategy of Journey to the West from structure to content.