This dissertation is a study of the role of literary and cultural translation in the transmission and reception of Buddhist medicine in medieval China between the second and eighth centuries. This dissertation brings to light the diversity of medical material in the Chinese Tripitaka, analyzes the central metaphors and discourses in this corpus, and examines how these foreign medical ideas were understood in their historical context. I employ methodologies from Translation Studies to reconcile the study of the transregional exchange of linguistic and cultural repertoires with the agency of individual historical authors as they retooled and adapted foreign knowledge to forward contemporary social strategies. I utilize this theoretical framework to analyze how Indian medical doctrines influenced Chinese Buddhist discourses and practices, while also emphasizing the importance of disease, healing, and the body as sites of crosscultural negotiation.

Chapter 1 introduces the transmission of Buddhist medicine to China in the context of transregional currents of crosscultural religious and medical exchange. Chapter 2 outlines the theoretical approach of this dissertation, situating the translation of Buddhist medical doctrines within the context of indigenous Chinese cultural repertoires and the local religiomedical marketplace. Chapters 3 and 4 introduce the major metaphors at the foundation of Buddhist medical discourses, emphasizing the translation tactics and strategies mobilized in rendering these in the Chinese language. Chapter 5 focuses on the work of one sixth-century hagiographer, highlighting the role of healing narratives in the Buddhist proselytism. Chapter 6 looks at the strategies of cultural translation employed by authors of a range of indigenous Chinese Buddhist compositions between the sixth and eighth centuries, identifying connections between individual translators' treatments of Buddhist medicine and their social political, and personal contexts. A brief conclusion argues that a new approach prioritizing the role of translation in the dynamics of crosscultural exchange allows scholars to jettison the anachronistic categories of “religion” and “science” and move toward a greater appreciation of the integration of Buddhism and medicine in medieval China.