Home > Explore Content > All Issues > Article View
A Study on Chinese Terms Related to ‘佛’ and ‘魔’, and Buddhist Culture
Cross-Cultural Studies
2019,
56(), pp.151-172
DOI : 10.21049/ccs.2019.56..151
Publisher : Center for Cross Culture Studies
Research Area : Literature
DOI : 10.21049/ccs.2019.56..151
Publisher : Center for Cross Culture Studies
Research Area : Literature
-
When Buddhism was introduced in China, Buddhist Scriptures were translated by Chinese people from Sanskrit into Chinese. In this process, many new Buddhist terms began to be secularized and used in daily life. This was a fusion of Indian Sanskrit and Chinese, where the Buddhist cultures of India and China were combined to produce a unique Chinese Buddhist culture. The mutual exchange of vocabularies and cultures between the two countries has greatly influenced the current Buddhist vocabulary in China. Through the analysis of meanings in Chinese and Buddhism of terms related to 佛 and 魔, this study determined that those terms contain abundant Buddhist culture and deep teachings of Buddhism, and, in a reverse way, that those words and Buddhist culture and teachings make abundant the vocabulary contents and improve the effects of the expression. Further, this kind of analysis is helpful in understanding the origin development processes of such terms as well as the Buddhist culture contained in those words. Through corpus-based analysis, this study calculated the frequencies of use in ancient and modern Chinese societies, and suggested reasons for the differences in the two societies regarding words related to 佛 and 魔. In addition, through linked word analysis, this study found the words that are most frequently used by the public, which contributes to the understanding of the customs and the thinking methods of the Chinese.
176 Viewed
Print this page
Download PDF