The synaesthetic & metaphorical uses of 味 wei 'taste' in Chinese Buddhist texts

Abstract

This paper investigates the non-gustatory uses of the gustatory word 味 wei ‘taste’ in Chinese Buddhist texts, in particular, in the Āgamas. The non-gustatory uses of 味 wei ‘taste’ basically fall into two categories: the synaesthetic category and the metaphorical category. The former features the use of 味 wei ‘taste’ as an umbrella sensory term which can collocate with all the other sensory words, whereas the latter shows that 味 wei ‘taste’ can modify abstract and sublime Buddhist terms, such as 法 fa ‘dhamma’ and 解脫 jietuo ‘enlightenment’, for the sake of concretization. These two categories of uses have one sense in common: the sense of “pleasure and joy”, which can be interpreted in both mundane and supra-mundane levels, depending on the context. Moreover, we find that the versatile uses of 味 wei ‘taste’ are most likely to be influenced by its equivalent in the Pāli Buddhist texts. This finding sheds light on the history of Chinese language development, specifically, how Chinese language has been influenced by Buddhist text translation.