Nicky Harman on “Buddhism” a
wonderful exhibition in London’s British Library displaying Buddhist art and literature from all over East
Asia.
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All pictures are my own from the exhibition,
unless
otherwise captioned
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As a translator, I have what you could call a professional interest in
Buddhist texts translated into Chinese. This may sound odd, because I can’t
understand their meaning, let alone critique them as translations. But I am
always moved when I see the crystal-clear calligraphy of the sutras, first
written down in Chinese fifteen hundred years ago or more, and yet completely
familiar today. So I visited the exhibition hoping to find out more about some
of my favourite translators.
