ABSTRACT

In a Buddhist treatise from around the fourth century CE there is a very remarkable story which serves as a thought experiment calling us to question the nature of self and the identity of persons. Lost in Sanskrit, the passage is fortunately preserved in a Chinese translation, the Dà zhìdù lùn. We here present the first reliable translation directly from the Classical Chinese, and discuss the philosophical significance of the story in its historical and literary context. We emphasise the philosophical importance of embedding the story in two framing narratives, and demonstrate that the story taps a range of intuitions, and indeed fears, about the survival of the self which have also played a large role in the history of the topic in the West, and which continue to be of great contemporary concern.

摘要

在公元四世纪左右的佛教论文中，有一个非常了不起的故事，它作为一个思想实验，要求我们质疑自我的本质和人的身份。遗失在梵文中，幸好有中文译本Dà zhìdù lùn保存了这段话。我们在此展示第一个直接来自古汉语的可靠翻译，并讨论这个故事在其历史和文学背景下的哲学意义。我们强调将故事嵌入两个框架叙事中的哲学重要性，并证明该故事利用了一系列关于自我生存的直觉和恐惧，这些在主题的历史中也发挥了重要作用。西方，并继续引起当代的极大关注。