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92-538: The Amitābha Sūtra ( Ch. : 阿彌陀經, pinyin: Āmítuó Jīng , or 佛說阿彌陀經, Fóshuō Āmítuójīng ; Jp. : Amida Kyō , Vi.: A Di Đà Kinh ), also known as the [Shorter] Sukhāvatīvyūha Sūtra ( Sanskrit , The Array of "the Blissful Land ", or The Arrangement of Sukhāvatī ) is one of the two Indian Mahayana sutras that describe Sukhāvatī , the pure land of Amitābha . The text was translated into Chinese in 402 by Kumārajīva ( Taishō Tripiṭaka no. 366) and it

184-469: A nucleus that has a vowel (which can be a monophthong , diphthong , or even a triphthong in certain varieties), preceded by an onset (a single consonant , or consonant + glide ; a zero onset is also possible), and followed (optionally) by a coda consonant; a syllable also carries a tone . There are some instances where a vowel is not used as a nucleus. An example of this is in Cantonese, where

276-456: A saṅgha of śrāvakas and headed by a chain of bodhisattvas will stand before them and they will die with an undisturbed mind. Having died, they will arise in the world system Sukvāvatī, the buddha-land of just that Amitāyus Tathāgata.  Therefore, then, O Śāriputra, seeing this intention, I thus say: a son of good family or a daughter of good family should devotedly make vows of aspiration towards that buddha-land. The Buddha then describes

368-457: A subject–verb–object word order , and like many other languages of East Asia, makes frequent use of the topic–comment construction to form sentences. Chinese also has an extensive system of classifiers and measure words , another trait shared with neighboring languages such as Japanese and Korean. Other notable grammatical features common to all the spoken varieties of Chinese include the use of serial verb construction , pronoun dropping , and

460-510: A Chinese character is the morpheme, as characters represent the smallest grammatical units with individual meanings in the Chinese language. Estimates of the total number of Chinese words and lexicalized phrases vary greatly. The Hanyu Da Zidian , a compendium of Chinese characters, includes 54,678 head entries for characters, including oracle bone versions. The Zhonghua Zihai (1994) contains 85,568 head entries for character definitions and

552-599: A Shanghai resident may speak both Standard Chinese and Shanghainese ; if they grew up elsewhere, they are also likely fluent in the dialect of their home region. In addition to Standard Chinese, a majority of Taiwanese people also speak Taiwanese Hokkien (also called 台語 ; 'Taiwanese' ), Hakka , or an Austronesian language . A speaker in Taiwan may mix pronunciations and vocabulary from Standard Chinese and other languages of Taiwan in everyday speech. In part due to traditional cultural ties with Guangdong , Cantonese

644-418: A Tathāgata, an Arhan, a perfect Buddha, proficient in knowledge and conduct, a Sugata, an unsurpassed knower of the world, a driver of tameable men, and a teacher of devas and men, as this exalted Samitāvin now is. May I become endowed with the thirty-two marks of a Great Man, and my body adorned with his eighty minor characteristics. May I have the eighteen distinctive attributes of Buddhahood, and be strong with

736-417: A bodhisattva by taking the vow and giving rise to bodhicitta in a ceremonial setting. Indian Mahāyāna Buddhists often accomplished this through a ritual called the "seven part worship" ( saptāṇgapūjā or saptavidhā anuttarapūjā ), which consists of: vandana (obeisance), worship, refuge , confession, rejoicing, prayers and requesting the buddhas to remain in the world. Fourfold bodhisattva vows (that is,

828-462: A central variety (i.e. prestige variety, such as Standard Mandarin), as the issue requires some careful handling when mutual intelligibility is inconsistent with language identity. The Chinese government's official Chinese designation for the major branches of Chinese is 方言 ; fāngyán ; 'regional speech', whereas the more closely related varieties within these are called 地点方言 ; 地點方言 ; dìdiǎn fāngyán ; 'local speech'. Because of

920-615: A compromise between the pronunciations of different regions. The royal courts of the Ming and early Qing dynasties operated using a koiné language known as Guanhua , based on the Nanjing dialect of Mandarin. Standard Chinese is an official language of both the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China (Taiwan), one of the four official languages of Singapore , and one of

1012-714: A corresponding increase in the number of homophones . As an example, the small Langenscheidt Pocket Chinese Dictionary lists six words that are commonly pronounced as shí in Standard Chinese: In modern spoken Mandarin, however, tremendous ambiguity would result if all of these words could be used as-is. The 20th century Yuen Ren Chao poem Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den exploits this, consisting of 92 characters all pronounced shi . As such, most of these words have been replaced in speech, if not in writing, with less ambiguous disyllabic compounds. Only

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1104-576: A millennium. The Four Commanderies of Han were established in northern Korea in the 1st century BCE but disintegrated in the following centuries. Chinese Buddhism spread over East Asia between the 2nd and 5th centuries CE, and with it the study of scriptures and literature in Literary Chinese. Later, strong central governments modeled on Chinese institutions were established in Korea, Japan, and Vietnam, with Literary Chinese serving as

1196-542: A secure reconstruction of Proto-Sino-Tibetan, the higher-level structure of the family remains unclear. A top-level branching into Chinese and Tibeto-Burman languages is often assumed, but has not been convincingly demonstrated. The first written records appeared over 3,000 years ago during the Shang dynasty . As the language evolved over this period, the various local varieties became mutually unintelligible. In reaction, central governments have repeatedly sought to promulgate

1288-657: A set of three vows. According to the Buddha in this sutra, "just as all forms are contained in space, so likewise the bodhisattva vows, which are as numerous as the sands of the Ganges River, are all contained in these three great vows". The three vows are: In East Asian Buddhism , the most common bodhisattva vows are a series of "four extensive vows" outlined by the Tiantai Patriarch Zhiyi . According to Robert F. Rhodes, Zhiyi presents two versions of

1380-717: A set of vows with four main components), are found in numerous Mahāyāna sutras . According to Jan Nattier , there is a set of four bodhisattva vows that appears in various sutras including the Ugraparipṛcchā Sūtra , the Lotus Sūtra (in the Dharmaraksa and Kumarajiva translations) , the Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā (in the Chinese translation by Lokaksema and Chih Ch'ien), the Avadānaśataka and

1472-508: A similar way to the use of Latin and Ancient Greek roots in European languages. Many new compounds, or new meanings for old phrases, were created in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to name Western concepts and artifacts. These coinages, written in shared Chinese characters, have then been borrowed freely between languages. They have even been accepted into Chinese, a language usually resistant to loanwords, because their foreign origin

1564-678: A single language. However, their lack of mutual intelligibility means they are sometimes considered to be separate languages in a family . Investigation of the historical relationships among the varieties of Chinese is ongoing. Currently, most classifications posit 7 to 13 main regional groups based on phonetic developments from Middle Chinese , of which the most spoken by far is Mandarin with 66%, or around 800 million speakers, followed by Min (75 million, e.g. Southern Min ), Wu (74 million, e.g. Shanghainese ), and Yue (68 million, e.g. Cantonese ). These branches are unintelligible to each other, and many of their subgroups are unintelligible with

1656-631: A unified standard. The earliest examples of Old Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones dated to c.  1250 BCE , during the Late Shang . The next attested stage came from inscriptions on bronze artifacts dating to the Western Zhou period (1046–771 BCE), the Classic of Poetry and portions of the Book of Documents and I Ching . Scholars have attempted to reconstruct

1748-575: A variety of Yue from a small coastal area around Taishan, Guangdong . In parts of South China, the dialect of a major city may be only marginally intelligible to its neighbors. For example, Wuzhou and Taishan are located approximately 260 km (160 mi) and 190 km (120 mi) away from Guangzhou respectively, but the Yue variety spoken in Wuzhou is more similar to the Guangzhou dialect than

1840-691: A vow in front of a living Buddha (and receiving a prediction), just like Sakyamuni had done, was the only way to become a bodhisattva. This view remains the orthodox understanding of bodhisattva vows in the Theravada tradition. According to the Mahāvastu, Shakyamuni Buddha's first vow to become a Buddha was made under another past Buddha also called Shakyamuni. The vow is reported as follows: When (the Bodhisattvas) have laid up an abundant store of merit, and have body and mind well developed they approach

1932-675: A widely chanted sutra in Buddhist temples and monasteries. The influential Japanese Pure Land thinker Shinran (1173- 1263) also wrote a series of notes and marginalia to a copy of the sutra, which is now known as the Amida-kyō chū (阿弥陀経註). Later figures continued to comment on the sutra. Yunqi Zhuhong (1535–1615) for example, composed a commentary which explained it from the perspective of Huayan's teaching of principle and phenomena. Another Qing era commentary by Ouyi Zhixu (1599–1655) has been translated into English as Mind Seal of

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2024-602: Is Taishanese. Wuzhou is located directly upstream from Guangzhou on the Pearl River , whereas Taishan is to Guangzhou's southwest, with the two cities separated by several river valleys. In parts of Fujian , the speech of some neighbouring counties or villages is mutually unintelligible. Local varieties of Chinese are conventionally classified into seven dialect groups, largely based on the different evolution of Middle Chinese voiced initials: Proportions of first-language speakers The classification of Li Rong , which

2116-690: Is also known in Chinese as the "Small Sutra" ( Xiaojing ). The Amitābha Sūtra is highly influential in East Asian Buddhism , including China, Korea, Japan, and Vietnam since it is considered one of the "Three Pure Land" sutras which are the key scriptures in Pure Land Buddhism . The Amitābha Sūtra was translated from an Indic language into Classical Chinese by Tripiṭaka master Kumārajīva in 402. The original Sukhāvatīvyūha sutras may have existed in India as early as

2208-490: Is called either 华语 ; 華語 ; Huáyǔ or 汉语 ; 漢語 ; Hànyǔ ). Standard Chinese is based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin. The governments of both China and Taiwan intend for speakers of all Chinese speech varieties to use it as a common language of communication. Therefore, it is used in government agencies, in the media, and as a language of instruction in schools. Diglossia is common among Chinese speakers. For example,

2300-471: Is commonly taken in a ritual setting, overseen by a senior monastic, teacher or guru . Whereas the prātimokṣa vows cease at death, the bodhisattva vow extends into future lives. The bodhisattva vows should not be confused with the Bodhisattva Precepts ( Skt . bodhisattva-śīla ), which are specific ethical guidelines for bodhisattvas. The sources of the early Buddhist schools , like

2392-603: Is often described as a 'monosyllabic' language. However, this is only partially correct. It is largely accurate when describing Old and Middle Chinese; in Classical Chinese, around 90% of words consist of a single character that corresponds one-to-one with a morpheme , the smallest unit of meaning in a language. In modern varieties, it usually remains the case that morphemes are monosyllabic—in contrast, English has many multi-syllable morphemes, both bound and free , such as 'seven', 'elephant', 'para-' and '-able'. Some of

2484-445: Is only about an eighth as many as English. All varieties of spoken Chinese use tones to distinguish words. A few dialects of north China may have as few as three tones, while some dialects in south China have up to 6 or 12 tones, depending on how one counts. One exception from this is Shanghainese which has reduced the set of tones to a two-toned pitch accent system much like modern Japanese. A very common example used to illustrate

2576-719: Is quite possible to identify clear antecedents of these vows in pre-Mahayana literature" and thus it is likely that these fourfold vows evolved from earlier passages (found in the Digha Nikaya and the Majjhima Nikaya as well as the Chinese Agamas ) that describe the activity of the Buddha. One such passage states: Awakened, the Blessed One teaches the Dhamma for the sake of awakening. Disciplined,

2668-668: Is specifically meant. However, when one of the above words forms part of a compound, the disambiguating syllable is generally dropped and the resulting word is still disyllabic. For example, 石 ; shí alone, and not 石头 ; 石頭 ; shítou , appears in compounds as meaning 'stone' such as 石膏 ; shígāo ; 'plaster', 石灰 ; shíhuī ; 'lime', 石窟 ; shíkū ; 'grotto', 石英 ; 'quartz', and 石油 ; shíyóu ; 'petroleum'. Although many single-syllable morphemes ( 字 ; zì ) can stand alone as individual words, they more often than not form multi-syllable compounds known as 词 ; 詞 ; cí , which more closely resembles

2760-489: Is the largest reference work based purely on character and its literary variants. The CC-CEDICT project (2010) contains 97,404 contemporary entries including idioms, technology terms, and names of political figures, businesses, and products. The 2009 version of the Webster's Digital Chinese Dictionary (WDCD), based on CC-CEDICT, contains over 84,000 entries. The most comprehensive pure linguistic Chinese-language dictionary,

2852-435: Is the most difficult to accept by all the world." Multiple English translations of the various editions (Chinese, Sanskrit, Tibetan) have been completed and published. Chinese language Chinese ( simplified Chinese : 汉语 ; traditional Chinese : 漢語 ; pinyin : Hànyǔ ; lit. ' Han language' or 中文 ; Zhōngwén ; 'Chinese writing') is a group of languages spoken natively by

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2944-501: Is used as an everyday language in Hong Kong and Macau . The designation of various Chinese branches remains controversial. Some linguists and most ordinary Chinese people consider all the spoken varieties as one single language, as speakers share a common national identity and a common written form. Others instead argue that it is inappropriate to refer to major branches of Chinese such as Mandarin, Wu, and so on as "dialects" because

3036-500: Is used in education, media, formal speech, and everyday life—though Mandarin is increasingly taught in schools due to the mainland's growing influence. Historically, the Chinese language has spread to its neighbors through a variety of means. Northern Vietnam was incorporated into the Han dynasty (202 BCE – 220 CE) in 111 BCE, marking the beginning of a period of Chinese control that ran almost continuously for

3128-552: Is used in the Language Atlas of China (1987), distinguishes three further groups: Some varieties remain unclassified, including the Danzhou dialect on Hainan , Waxianghua spoken in western Hunan , and Shaozhou Tuhua spoken in northern Guangdong . Standard Chinese is the standard language of China (where it is called 普通话 ; pǔtōnghuà ) and Taiwan, and one of the four official languages of Singapore (where it

3220-428: Is very complex, with a large number of consonants and vowels, but they are probably not all distinguished in any single dialect. Most linguists now believe it represents a diasystem encompassing 6th-century northern and southern standards for reading the classics. The complex relationship between spoken and written Chinese is an example of diglossia : as spoken, Chinese varieties have evolved at different rates, while

3312-637: The Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā (in the Chinese translation by Kumarajiva), the Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā and in some Lotus Sutra translations. Nattier translates this other fourfold vow as follows: vayaṃ tīrṇāḥ sattvāṃs tārayema, muktā mocayema, āśvastā āśvāsayema, parinirvṛtāḥ parinirvāpayema Having crossed over [myself], I will rescue [others]. Liberated, I will liberate [others]. Comforted, I will comfort [others]. Having attained paranirvana, I will cause [others] to attain paranirvana. Nattier further notes that "it

3404-753: The Qieyun rime dictionary (601 CE), and a late period in the 10th century, reflected by rhyme tables such as the Yunjing constructed by ancient Chinese philologists as a guide to the Qieyun system. These works define phonological categories but with little hint of what sounds they represent. Linguists have identified these sounds by comparing the categories with pronunciations in modern varieties of Chinese , borrowed Chinese words in Japanese, Vietnamese, and Korean, and transcription evidence. The resulting system

3496-599: The Compassionate Lotus sutra. Nattier translates this fourfold vow as follows: The unrescued I will rescue The unliberated I will liberate The uncomforted I will comfort Those who have not yet reached paranirvana , I will cause to attain paranirvana Nattier also notes that a similar set of four vows (with small differences in wording) appears in the Dipankara Jataka , the Mahavastu ,

3588-533: The Korean , Japanese and Vietnamese languages, and today comprise over half of their vocabularies. This massive influx led to changes in the phonological structure of the languages, contributing to the development of moraic structure in Japanese and the disruption of vowel harmony in Korean. Borrowed Chinese morphemes have been used extensively in all these languages to coin compound words for new concepts, in

3680-710: The May Fourth Movement beginning in 1919. After the fall of the Northern Song dynasty and subsequent reign of the Jurchen Jin and Mongol Yuan dynasties in northern China, a common speech (now called Old Mandarin ) developed based on the dialects of the North China Plain around the capital. The 1324 Zhongyuan Yinyun was a dictionary that codified the rhyming conventions of new sanqu verse form in this language. Together with

3772-595: The National Language Unification Commission finally settled on the Beijing dialect in 1932. The People's Republic founded in 1949 retained this standard but renamed it 普通话 ; 普通話 ; pǔtōnghuà ; 'common speech'. The national language is now used in education, the media, and formal situations in both mainland China and Taiwan. In Hong Kong and Macau , Cantonese is the dominant spoken language due to cultural influence from Guangdong immigrants and colonial-era policies, and

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3864-586: The Theravada Buddhavaṃsa and Nidanakatha (Prologue to the Jatakas), as well as the Mahasamghika Mahāvastu , contain stories of how in a previous life, Sakyamuni (then known as Sumedha) encountered the previous Buddha, Dīpankara , and made the vow to one day become a Buddha. Dīpankara confirmed that he would become a Buddha in the future. All early Buddhist schools held that making

3956-478: The oracle bone inscriptions created during the Shang dynasty c.  1250 BCE . The phonetic categories of Old Chinese can be reconstructed from the rhymes of ancient poetry. During the Northern and Southern period , Middle Chinese went through several sound changes and split into several varieties following prolonged geographic and political separation. The Qieyun , a rime dictionary , recorded

4048-596: The phonology of Old Chinese by comparing later varieties of Chinese with the rhyming practice of the Classic of Poetry and the phonetic elements found in the majority of Chinese characters. Although many of the finer details remain unclear, most scholars agree that Old Chinese differs from Middle Chinese in lacking retroflex and palatal obstruents but having initial consonant clusters of some sort, and in having voiceless nasals and liquids. Most recent reconstructions also describe an atonal language with consonant clusters at

4140-633: The 12-volume Hanyu Da Cidian , records more than 23,000 head Chinese characters and gives over 370,000 definitions. The 1999 revised Cihai , a multi-volume encyclopedic dictionary reference work, gives 122,836 vocabulary entry definitions under 19,485 Chinese characters, including proper names, phrases, and common zoological, geographical, sociological, scientific, and technical terms. The 2016 edition of Xiandai Hanyu Cidian , an authoritative one-volume dictionary on modern standard Chinese language as used in mainland China, has 13,000 head characters and defines 70,000 words. Bodhisattva vow The vow

4232-406: The Blessed One teaches the Dhamma for the sake of disciplining. Calmed, the Blessed One teaches the Dhamma for the sake of calming. Having crossed over, the Blessed One teaches the Dhamma for the sake of crossing over. The Avataṃsaka Sūtra , a large composite text , contains various passages discussing the practices and vows that bodhisattvas undertake. One example can be found in book 18 of

4324-685: The Buddhas by J.C. Cleary. A study of both the Amitabha and the Amitayus sutras (known as the "longer" Sukhāvatīvyūha in Sanskrit) was published by Luis O. Gomez in 1996. The bulk of the Sukhāvatīvyūha Sūtra , considerably shorter than other Pure Land sutras, consists of a discourse that Gautama Buddha gave at Jetavana in Śrāvastī to his disciple Śāriputra . The teaching concerns

4416-565: The Latin-based Vietnamese alphabet . English words of Chinese origin include tea from Hokkien 茶 ( tê ), dim sum from Cantonese 點心 ( dim2 sam1 ), and kumquat from Cantonese 金橘 ( gam1 gwat1 ). The sinologist Jerry Norman has estimated that there are hundreds of mutually unintelligible varieties of Chinese. These varieties form a dialect continuum , in which differences in speech generally become more pronounced as distances increase, though

4508-776: The Tathāgata Amitābha shines unimpeded throughout all buddha realms". The text also describes what one must do to be reborn in Sukhāvatī. In the sutra, Śākyamuni teaches that one must vow to be born in Sukhāvatī and single-mindedly focus on Buddha Amitābha, and then after death they will be reborn in the pure land. The key passage which describes these instructions states (translation from the Sanskrit edition): Moreover, O Śāriputra , beings should make vows towards that buddha-land. Why? Because, indeed, they come together with good people of such forms. O Śāriputra, beings do not arise in

4600-414: The beautiful Buddhas and turn their thoughts to enlightenment, (each vowing). "By the merit I have formerly laid up in store, may I have insight into all things. May not my vow come to naught, but may what I vow come to pass. "May my store of the root of merit be great enough for all living beings. Whatever evil deed has been done by me, may I alone reap its bitter fruit. "So may I run my course through

4692-592: The bodhisattva Siddhartha (before becoming Sakyamuni Buddha) is said to have taken the following vow: I will attain the immortal, undecaying, pain-free Bodhi , and free the world from all pain. The Sanskrit Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā sutra states that a bodhisattva should train themselves with the following thought: ātmānaṃ ca tathatāyāṃ sthāpayiṣyāmi sarvalokānugrahāya, sarvasattvān api tathatāyāṃ sthāpayiṣyāmi, aprameyaṃ sattvadhātuṃ parinirvāpayiṣyāmīti My own self I will place in Suchness, and, so that all

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4784-531: The buddha-land of Amitāyus Tathāgata by insignificant wholesome roots. O Śāriputra, whichever son of good family or daughter of good family, will hear the name of that bhagavān , Amitāyus Tathāgata, and having heard it will think of it, or will think of it with a mind that is undistracted for one night, or two nights, or three nights, or four nights, or five nights, or six nights, or seven nights, when that son of good family or daughter of good family will die, at their time of death, that Amitāyus Tathāgata, surrounded by

4876-399: The different spoken dialects varies, but in general, there has been a tendency to a reduction in sounds from Middle Chinese. The Mandarin dialects in particular have experienced a dramatic decrease in sounds and so have far more polysyllabic words than most other spoken varieties. The total number of syllables in some varieties is therefore only about a thousand, including tonal variation, which

4968-484: The difficulties involved in determining the difference between language and dialect, other terms have been proposed. These include topolect , lect , vernacular , regional , and variety . Syllables in the Chinese languages have some unique characteristics. They are tightly related to the morphology and also to the characters of the writing system, and phonologically they are structured according to fixed rules. The structure of each syllable consists of

5060-576: The end of the syllable, developing into tone distinctions in Middle Chinese. Several derivational affixes have also been identified, but the language lacks inflection , and indicated grammatical relationships using word order and grammatical particles . Middle Chinese was the language used during Northern and Southern dynasties and the Sui , Tang , and Song dynasties (6th–10th centuries CE). It can be divided into an early period, reflected by

5152-663: The ethnic Han Chinese majority and many minority ethnic groups in China , as well as by various communities of the Chinese diaspora . Approximately 1.35 billion people, or 17% of the global population, speak a variety of Chinese as their first language . Chinese languages form the Sinitic branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. The spoken varieties of Chinese are usually considered by native speakers to be dialects of

5244-413: The first one, 十 , normally appears in monosyllabic form in spoken Mandarin; the rest are normally used in the polysyllabic forms of respectively. In each, the homophone was disambiguated by the addition of another morpheme, typically either a near-synonym or some sort of generic word (e.g. 'head', 'thing'), the purpose of which is to indicate which of the possible meanings of the other, homophonic syllable

5336-547: The first or second centuries CE (during the Kushan era ). They may have been composed Gandhari or some other Prakrit language. A later translation of this sutra was completed by Xuanzang (602-664 C.E.), but it is not as widely used as Kumārajīva's, which is the standard edition in the East Asian tradition. The sutra was commented on by numerous East Asian authors. The 7th century Pure Land patriarch Shandao commented on

5428-545: The following verses attributed to Sumedha (the past life of the Buddha) when he made his vow to become a Buddha under the past Buddha Dipankara : As I lay upon the ground this was the thought of my heart, if I wished it I might this day destroy within me all human passions. But why should I in disguise arrive at the knowledge of the Truth? I will attain omniscience and become a Buddha, and (save) men and devas. Why should I cross

5520-491: The form of a word), to indicate a word's function within a sentence. In other words, Chinese has very few grammatical inflections —it possesses no tenses , no voices , no grammatical number , and only a few articles . They make heavy use of grammatical particles to indicate aspect and mood . In Mandarin, this involves the use of particles such as 了 ; le ; ' PFV ', 还 ; 還 ; hái ; 'still', and 已经 ; 已經 ; yǐjīng ; 'already'. Chinese has

5612-400: The four vows into five vows (go sei) which are seen as the vows of Mahavairocana which include all bodhisattva vows. These five vows are the following: The Tibetan Buddhist Tradition widely makes use of verses from chapter three of Shantideva's Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra , which is entitled Embracing Bodhicitta. Various forms of these verses are used to generate bodhicitta and take

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5704-491: The four vows. The first one is taken from the Chinese version of the Lotus Sūtra and states: The second set of vows is original to Zhiyi's corpus and states: Zhiyi explains that these vows correspond to the Four Noble Truths and that these vows arise with the four truths as their basis. The following table presents the fourfold bodhisattva vow in various languages: Shingon Buddhism edits and expands

5796-618: The government of the People's Republic of China, with Singapore officially adopting them in 1976. Traditional characters are used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and among Chinese-speaking communities overseas . Linguists classify all varieties of Chinese as part of the Sino-Tibetan language family , together with Burmese , Tibetan and many other languages spoken in the Himalayas and the Southeast Asian Massif . Although

5888-456: The lands of the Buddhas; (6) they vow to be of the same essence as all enlightening beings; (7) they vow to enter the door of realization of thusness and comprehend all things; (8) they vow that those who see them will develop faith and all be benefited; (9) they vow to stay in the world forever by spiritual power; (10) they vow to fulfill the practice of Universal Good, and master the knowledge of all particulars and all ways of liberation. These are

5980-586: The language of administration and scholarship, a position it would retain until the late 19th century in Korea and (to a lesser extent) Japan, and the early 20th century in Vietnam. Scholars from different lands could communicate, albeit only in writing, using Literary Chinese. Although they used Chinese solely for written communication, each country had its own tradition of reading texts aloud using what are known as Sino-Xenic pronunciations . Chinese words with these pronunciations were also extensively imported into

6072-528: The late 19th century. Today Japanese is written with a composite script using both Chinese characters called kanji , and kana. Korean is written exclusively with hangul in North Korea, although knowledge of the supplementary Chinese characters called hanja is still required, and hanja are increasingly rarely used in South Korea. As a result of its historical colonization by France, Vietnamese now uses

6164-455: The more conservative modern varieties, usually found in the south, have largely monosyllabic words , especially with basic vocabulary. However, most nouns, adjectives, and verbs in modern Mandarin are disyllabic. A significant cause of this is phonetic erosion : sound changes over time have steadily reduced the number of possible syllables in the language's inventory. In modern Mandarin, there are only around 1,200 possible syllables, including

6256-425: The mutual unintelligibility between them is too great. However, calling major Chinese branches "languages" would also be wrong under the same criterion, since a branch such as Wu, itself contains many mutually unintelligible varieties, and could not be properly called a single language. There are also viewpoints pointing out that linguists often ignore mutual intelligibility when varieties share intelligibility with

6348-583: The nasal sonorant consonants /m/ and /ŋ/ can stand alone as their own syllable. In Mandarin much more than in other spoken varieties, most syllables tend to be open syllables, meaning they have no coda (assuming that a final glide is not analyzed as a coda), but syllables that do have codas are restricted to nasals /m/ , /n/ , /ŋ/ , the retroflex approximant /ɻ/ , and voiceless stops /p/ , /t/ , /k/ , or /ʔ/ . Some varieties allow most of these codas, whereas others, such as Standard Chinese, are limited to only /n/ , /ŋ/ , and /ɻ/ . The number of sounds in

6440-481: The ocean resolute but alone? I will attain omniscience, and enable men and devas to cross. By this resolution of mine, I a man of resolution, will attain omniscience, and save men and devas, cutting off the stream of transmigration, annihilating the three forms of existence, embarking in the ship of the Truth, I will carry across with me men and devas. In the Mahayana Lalitavistarasutra ,

6532-538: The other varieties within the same branch (e.g. Southern Min). There are, however, transitional areas where varieties from different branches share enough features for some limited intelligibility, including New Xiang with Southwestern Mandarin , Xuanzhou Wu Chinese with Lower Yangtze Mandarin , Jin with Central Plains Mandarin and certain divergent dialects of Hakka with Gan . All varieties of Chinese are tonal at least to some degree, and are largely analytic . The earliest attested written Chinese consists of

6624-404: The rate of change varies immensely. Generally, mountainous South China exhibits more linguistic diversity than the North China Plain . Until the late 20th century, Chinese emigrants to Southeast Asia and North America came from southeast coastal areas, where Min, Hakka, and Yue dialects were spoken. Specifically, most Chinese immigrants to North America until the mid-20th century spoke Taishanese ,

6716-552: The related subject dropping . Although the grammars of the spoken varieties share many traits, they do possess differences. The entire Chinese character corpus since antiquity comprises well over 50,000 characters, of which only roughly 10,000 are in use and only about 3,000 are frequently used in Chinese media and newspapers. However, Chinese characters should not be confused with Chinese words. Because most Chinese words are made up of two or more characters, there are many more Chinese words than characters. A more accurate equivalent for

6808-509: The relationship was first proposed in the early 19th century and is now broadly accepted, reconstruction of Sino-Tibetan is much less developed than that of families such as Indo-European or Austroasiatic . Difficulties have included the great diversity of the languages, the lack of inflection in many of them, and the effects of language contact. In addition, many of the smaller languages are spoken in mountainous areas that are difficult to reach and are often also sensitive border zones. Without

6900-517: The six official languages of the United Nations . Standard Chinese is based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin and was first officially adopted in the 1930s. The language is written primarily using a logography of Chinese characters , largely shared by readers who may otherwise speak mutually unintelligible varieties. Since the 1950s, the use of simplified characters has been promoted by

6992-561: The slightly later Menggu Ziyun , this dictionary describes a language with many of the features characteristic of modern Mandarin dialects. Up to the early 20th century, most Chinese people only spoke their local variety. Thus, as a practical measure, officials of the Ming and Qing dynasties carried out the administration of the empire using a common language based on Mandarin varieties , known as 官话 ; 官話 ; Guānhuà ; 'language of officials'. For most of this period, this language

7084-623: The sutra in his Fashizan 法事讚 ( Praise for Dharma Rites ), which focuses on the rites associated with the recitation of the sutra. It was also commented on by Sengzhao (384–414), Zhiyi (538–597 CE), Wohnyo , Huijing (578-645 CE) and Kuiji (632-682 CE). The work of these figures raised the status of the Amitābha Sūtra , and it became a central text in Chinese Buddhism . Today, it remains very popular sutra in East Asian Buddhism . Its short length has also contributed to it becoming

7176-455: The ten powers of a Tathāgata, and confident with the four grounds of self-confidence, as this exalted perfect Buddha Samitāvin now is. Having crossed over, may I lead others across; comforted, may I comfort others; emancipated, may I emancipate others. May I become so for the benefit and welfare of mankind, out of compassion for the world, for the good of the multitude, for the welfare and benefit of devas and men. The Theravada Nidanakatha has

7268-694: The ten pure vows of enlightening beings. In the Avataṃsaka Sūtra , Samantabhadra makes ten vows which are an important source for East Asian Buddhism . Samantabhadra's vows also appear in the Samantabhadra-caryā-praṇidhānam, which is often appended to the end of the Avataṃsaka but originally circulated as an independent text. Reciting these ten vows is also promoted by Shantideva in his Śikṣāsamuccaya. The ten vows of Samantabhadra are: The Śrīmālādevī Siṃhanāda Sūtra contains

7360-487: The text, which contains the following ten vows: Enlightening beings have ten pure vows: (1) they vow to develop living beings to maturity, without wearying; (2) they vow to fully practice all virtues and purify all worlds; (3) they vow to serve the Enlightened, always engendering honor and respect; (4) they vow to keep and protect the true teaching, not begrudging their lives; (5) they vow to observe with wisdom and enter

7452-623: The tonal distinctions, compared with about 5,000 in Vietnamese (still a largely monosyllabic language), and over 8,000 in English. Most modern varieties tend to form new words through polysyllabic compounds . In some cases, monosyllabic words have become disyllabic formed from different characters without the use of compounding, as in 窟窿 ; kūlong from 孔 ; kǒng ; this is especially common in Jin varieties. This phonological collapse has led to

7544-547: The traditional Western notion of a word. A Chinese cí can consist of more than one character–morpheme, usually two, but there can be three or more. Examples of Chinese words of more than two syllables include 汉堡包 ; 漢堡包 ; hànbǎobāo ; 'hamburger', 守门员 ; 守門員 ; shǒuményuán ; 'goalkeeper', and 电子邮件 ; 電子郵件 ; diànzǐyóujiàn ; 'e-mail'. All varieties of modern Chinese are analytic languages : they depend on syntax (word order and sentence structure), rather than inflectional morphology (changes in

7636-512: The use of tones in Chinese is the application of the four tones of Standard Chinese, along with the neutral tone, to the syllable ma . The tones are exemplified by the following five Chinese words: In contrast, Standard Cantonese has six tones. Historically, finals that end in a stop consonant were considered to be " checked tones " and thus counted separately for a total of nine tones. However, they are considered to be duplicates in modern linguistics and are no longer counted as such: Chinese

7728-517: The various buddhas of the six directions and how they also teach the same teaching on rebirth in Sukhāvatī in their own buddhalands. Hence, the Buddha explains how an alternative title to this sutra is "Embraced by all Buddhas", since all Buddhas expound the teaching of faith in the pure land. The sutra ends with the Buddha stating that this teaching is actually very difficult to believe, calling it "the most difficult of difficulties" and "the Dharma which

7820-461: The vow: "We, coursing in the practices of a Bodhisattva, shall set going on their way to full enlightenment many hundreds of living beings, yea, many niyutas of kotis of living beings. We shall hold up perfect enlightenment to them, instigate, encourage and excite them to win it, help it to come forth, help them to get established in it, help them to become irreversible." In later Indian Mahāyāna Buddhism (and in modern Mahayana as well), one can become

7912-529: The wonderful adornments and features found in the buddhafield (or "pure land") of Sukhāvatī ("the Blissful"), including jeweled ponds, colorful jeweled lotuses, raining flowers, jeweled trees that make Dharma sounds, and so on. It also discusses the beings that reside there, including the Buddha Amitābha (meaning "Measureless Light" or "Boundless Radiance"), who is said to be so called because "the light of

8004-452: The words in newspapers, and 60% of the words in science magazines. Vietnam, Korea, and Japan each developed writing systems for their own languages, initially based on Chinese characters , but later replaced with the hangul alphabet for Korean and supplemented with kana syllabaries for Japanese, while Vietnamese continued to be written with the complex chữ Nôm script. However, these were limited to popular literature until

8096-477: The world as He whose mind is rid of attachments does. May I set rolling the wheel of dharma that has not its equal, and is honoured and revered of devas and men." The Mahāvastu depicts Shakyamuni taking other vows under other past Buddhas. When he meets the past Buddha Samitāvin, the text also contains another vow which is similar to the "fourfold vow" found in Mahayana sources: May I in some future time become

8188-411: The world might be helped, I will place all beings into Suchness, and I will lead to Nirvana the whole immeasurable world of beings. The sutra further states that "with that intention should a Bodhisattva undertake all the exercises which bring about all the wholesome roots. But he should not boast about them." Another passage also states: Because in my presence, face to face with me, they have uttered

8280-517: The written language used throughout China changed comparatively little, crystallizing into a prestige form known as Classical or Literary Chinese . Literature written distinctly in the Classical form began to emerge during the Spring and Autumn period . Its use in writing remained nearly universal until the late 19th century, culminating with the widespread adoption of written vernacular Chinese with

8372-453: Was a koiné based on dialects spoken in the Nanjing area, though not identical to any single dialect. By the middle of the 19th century, the Beijing dialect had become dominant and was essential for any business with the imperial court. In the 1930s, a standard national language ( 国语 ; 國語 ; Guóyǔ ), was adopted. After much dispute between proponents of northern and southern dialects and an abortive attempt at an artificial pronunciation,

8464-485: Was hidden by their written form. Often different compounds for the same concept were in circulation for some time before a winner emerged, and sometimes the final choice differed between countries. The proportion of vocabulary of Chinese origin thus tends to be greater in technical, abstract, or formal language. For example, in Japan, Sino-Japanese words account for about 35% of the words in entertainment magazines, over half

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