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Yogācārabhūmi-Śāstra

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The Yogācārabhūmi-Śāstra ( YBh , Sanskrit ; Treatise on the Foundation for Yoga Practitioners ) is a large and influential doctrinal compendium , associated with Sanskritic Mahāyāna Buddhism (particularly Yogācāra ). According to Ulrich Timme Kragh, it is "a massive treatise that brings together a wealth of material stemming from Mainstream as well as Mahāyāna Buddhism."

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127-522: The Yogācārabhūmi is generally associated with the Indian Yogācāra school because it contains certain unique Yogācāra doctrines, like the eight consciousnesses and the ālaya-vijñāna (storehouse or foundational consciousness) . According to Ulrich Timme Kragh, "its overall objective seems to be to present a coherent structure of Buddhist yoga practice with the Mahāyāna path of the bodhisattva placed at

254-469: 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

381-457: 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

508-510: 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

635-599: 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

762-462: 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

889-571: A complete version of the Yogācārabhūmi-śāstra (Yuqielun, 瑜伽論), an encyclopedic description of the stages of the Yogācāra path to Buddhahood written by Asaṅga, would resolve all the conflicts. In the sixth century an Indian missionary named Paramārtha (another major translator) had made a partial translation of it. Xuanzang resolved to procure the full text in India and introduce it to China. The YBh

1016-615: 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

1143-714: 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

1270-410: A crucial role in samsaric bondage and in meditative concentration ( samādhi , which is the pacification of these two factors), they are the focus of an extensive analysis in this book. This analysis is divided into five sections: This book is titled "The Foundation on Meditative Immersion" and attempts to provide a coherent and exhaustive presentation of meditation. Large parts of this book make use of

1397-571: A forerunner of the ālāyavijñāna. The Theravadin theory is also mentioned by Xuánzàng. The texts of the Yogācāra school gives a detailed explanation of the workings of the mind and the way it constructs the reality we experience. It is "meant to be an explanation of experience, rather than a system of ontology". The theory of the ālāyavijñana and the other consciousnesses developed out of a need to work out various issues in Buddhist Abhidharma thought. According to Lambert Schmithausen ,

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1524-576: 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

1651-594: A prose commentary." Among the key topics discussed here are the latent consciousness ( ālayavijñāna ), and the three kinds of religious training ( śikṣā ). Many passages from the Udānavarga are quoted, which, according to Schmithausen, shows that the canon used by the compilers of this text belongs to the Mūlasarvāstivāda sect. "The Foundation on What is Derived from Meditative Cultivation" discusses meditative cultivation ( bhāvanā ), in terms of its basis, conditions,

1778-561: A second analysis of "fivefold existence" ( astitā ) and fivefold non-existence which is more closely connected with the Yogācāra-Vijñānavāda doctrine of the three natures ( trisvabhāva ) and the three absences of intrinsic nature ( triniḥsvabhāvatā ). The fivefold existences are: The corresponding non-existences are: The third section of this book, the analysis of the teachings ( dharmapravicaya ), "consists of three passages of selected canonical and paracanonical verses accompanied by

1905-542: 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

2032-559: A seemingly innovative move, the Saṃdhinirmocanasūtra states that the alayavijñana is always active subliminally and occurs simultaneously with, "supported by and depending upon" the six sense consciousnesses. According to Asanga 's Mahāyānasaṃgraha , the alayavijñana is taught by other Buddhist schools by different names. He states that the alaya is what the Mahasamghikas call the “root-consciousness” ( mulavijñana ), what

2159-508: 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

2286-678: 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

2413-551: A systematic presentation of the ālaya-vijñāna doctrine developed over the previous centuries. It is the doctrine found in this text in particular that Tsong kha pa, in his Ocean of Eloquence , treats as having been revealed in toto by the Buddha and transmitted to suffering humanity through the Yogācāra founding saints (Tib. shing rta srol byed ): Maitreya[-nātha], Asaṅga, and Vasubandhu. While some noteworthy modern scholars of

2540-631: 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

2667-575: 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

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2794-602: 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

2921-709: Is a group of languages spoken natively by 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

3048-457: Is a real and worthy goal and thus they turn their mind towards this as their ultimate aim. The book then discusses the conditions needed for achieving meditative insight ( vipaśyanā ) and tranquility ( śamatha ). The initial necessary circumstance leading to insight is said to be reliance on a spiritual friend ( sanmitra ) while tranquility is said to require the perfection of discipline ( śīlasampatti ). The process towards spiritual realization

3175-462: Is a state in which all mentation ceases, even the latent consciousness ( ālayavijñāna ). "The Foundation on What is Derived from Listening" focuses on various issues dealing with learning, listening to, and memorizing Buddhist spiritual knowledge ( adhyātmavidyā ). "Listening" is related to processes of "listening to religious discourses, memorizing and reciting scriptures, and recollecting various points of doctrine, all of which result in knowledge of

3302-449: Is also called the "seed consciousness" (種子識) or container consciousness . According to Yogācāra teachings, the seeds stored in the store consciousness of sentient beings are not pure. The store consciousness, while being originally immaculate in itself, contains a "mysterious mixture of purity and defilement, good and evil". Because of this mixture the transformation of consciousness from defilement to purity can take place and awakening

3429-434: Is also called the appropriating consciousness ("adana-vijñana") because the body is grasped and appropriated by it. It is also called the "alaya-vijñana" because it dwells in and attaches to this body in a common destiny ("ekayogakṣema-arthena"). It is also called mind ("citta") because it is heaped up and accumulated by [the six cognitive objects, i.e.:] visual forms, sounds, smells, flavors, tangibles and dharmas. In

3556-623: Is also coarse, and progress to the second dhyāna, and so on until they reach the fourth dhyāna and beyond into the four immaterial attainments. The supramundane path meanwhile entails finding a genuine teacher, gaining knowledge of Dharma and realizing the four noble truths for oneself through vipaśyanā meditation they completely transcend saṃsāra. The rest of this text discusses the 13 requisites ( sambhāra ) needed for journeying along these paths: The second section discusses 28 different personality types and also various ways of classifying spiritual practitioners. An example of one such classification

3683-669: Is also treated as a stand-alone text, has been translated into English by Artemus Engle and is part of the Tsadra series published by Shambhala Publications. The complete YBh is often divided into the Basic Section and the Supplementary Section. The first section, which is the largest (49.9% of the work), is the "main stages division" or "the basic section" (Skt. *Maulyo Bhūmayaḥ, Ch. 本地分 Běn dì fēn, Tib. Sa'i dngos gzhi ) and contains fourteen books that describe

3810-432: Is an ethical classification of phenomena as being either beneficial ( kuśala ) or not ( akuśala ) or indeterminate ( avyākṛta ). The fourth classification includes the twelve constituents of perception ( dhātu ). This book discusses three different foundations having to do with vitarka (discernment) and vicara (discursiveness) : (1) the foundation which includes both, (2) the foundation with only discursiveness and (3)

3937-490: 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,

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4064-499: Is called the Gotrabhūmi , and it discusses, in depth, how different practitioners have different spiritual dispositions ( gotra ), which is explained as a mental potential or capacity, which is like a seed (bīja-dharma) for spiritual achievement, found in the person since beginningless time. This predisposition is at first hidden, but if a person encounters the right causes and conditions, they will reach nirvāṇa. This section also discusses

4191-465: Is called the All. [1] Anyone who would say, 'Repudiating this All, I will describe another,' if questioned on what exactly might be the grounds for his statement, would be unable to explain, and furthermore, would be put to grief. Why? Because it lies beyond range." The early Buddhist texts speak of anusayā (Sanskrit: anuśayāḥ), the “underlying tendencies” or “latent dispositions” which keep beings caught in

4318-402: Is divided into two branches, the mundane ( laukikaḥ mārgaḥ ) and supramundane ( lokottaraḥ mārgaḥ) . In following the mundane path, practitioners realize that the realm of sense desire is brutish and coarse and see that the absorption and rapture of the first dhyāna is superior and serene. In practicing this dhyāna, they achieve detachment from sense desire. They then realize that this meditation

4445-603: 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

4572-445: 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

4699-413: Is possible. Through the process of purification the dharma practitioner can become an Arhat , when the four defilements of the mental functions of the manas-consciousness are purified. Chinese language Chinese ( simplified Chinese : 汉语 ; traditional Chinese : 漢語 ; pinyin : Hànyǔ ; lit. ' Han language' or 中文 ; Zhōngwén ; 'Chinese writing')

4826-411: Is said to progress through the practice of ethical discipline and associating with a spiritual mentor, these two reinforce each other and lead to the study and internalization of the teachings, which give rise to a sense of renunciation of everything worldly and a yearning for realization. The spiritual seeker then applies all the remedies against the afflictions and achieves complete mental purity. After

4953-668: 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

5080-487: Is that of persons of different temperaments ( caritaprabheda ). These are: the temperament of desire and attachment ( rāgacaritaḥ ), the temperament of dislike and hatred ( dveṣacaritaḥ ), the temperament of deludedness and stupidity ( mohacaritaḥ ), the temperament of pride and self-conceit ( mānacarita ), the temperament of intellectuality ( vitarkacarita ), and the temperament with equal amounts [of each afflictive state] ( samabhāgacarita ). Following this exposition,

5207-489: 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,

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5334-454: Is the latent consciousness which is "the holder of all the seeds [for the mind and mental states]" ( sarva-bījaka ), "the appropriator of the [corporeal] basis (i.e., the body)" ( āśrayopādātṛ ), and "belonging to the [category of] karmic maturation" ( vipāka-saṃgṛhīta ), which refers to the fact that it is morally neutral. "The Foundation on Cognition" discusses "thought-consciousness or reflexive consciousness [ manas ] that arises subsequent to

5461-592: Is the storehouse-consciousness which induces rebirth , causing the origination of a new existence. The ālayavijñāna is also described in the Saṃdhinirmocanasūtra as the "mind which has all the seeds" ( sarvabījakam cittam ) which enters the womb and develops based on two forms of appropriation or attachment ( upādāna ); to the material sense faculties, and to predispositions ( vāsanā ḥ ) towards conceptual proliferations ( prapañca ). The Saṃdhinirmocanasūtra also defines it in varying ways: This consciousness

5588-501: 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

5715-500: 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

5842-552: 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

5969-428: 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

6096-753: 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

6223-614: The Gelug tradition (which was founded by Tsongkhapa 's reforms to Atisha 's Kadam school) assert that the ālāyavijñāna is posited only in the Yogācāra philosophical tenet system, all non-Gelug schools of Tibetan buddhism maintain that the ālāyavijñāna is accepted by the various Madhyamaka schools, as well. The Yogācāra eightfold network of primary consciousnesses –  aṣṭavijñānāni in Sanskrit (from compounding aṣṭa , "eight", with vijñānāni ,

6350-533: 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

6477-710: 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

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6604-595: 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

6731-524: The Triṃśikaikākārikā (Treatise in Thirty Stanzas). According to the traditional interpretation, Vasubandhu states that there are eight consciousnesses ( vijñānāni , singular: vijñāna ): According to Kalupahana, this classification of eight consciousnesses is based on a misunderstanding of Vasubandhu's Triṃśikaikākārikā by later adherents. The ālayavijñāna (Japanese: 阿頼耶識 arayashiki), or

6858-434: The five hindrances ( nivaraṇa ) are explained in detail. This is followed by a thorough explanation of each aspect ( aṅga ) of the four absorptions ( catvāri dhyānāni ) . Also, various related terms from the scriptures are discussed. The third section provides a classification of the various types of meditation, these types are either divided into different forms of 'observation' ( manasikāra ) or classified according to

6985-478: 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

7112-596: 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

7239-467: The "All-encompassing foundation consciousness", forms the "base-consciousness" ( mūlavijñāna ) or "causal consciousness". According to the traditional interpretation, the other seven consciousnesses are "evolving" or "transforming" consciousnesses originating in this base-consciousness. The store-house consciousness accumulates all potential energy as seeds ( bīja ) for the mental ( nāma ) and physical ( rūpa ) manifestation of one's existence ( nāmarūpa ). It

7366-498: The Abhidharma theory of atoms ( paramāṇu ) and instead posits that the seeds ( bīja , causal potential) for physical matter are in the mind stream, which suggests that matter emerges from the mental. The second group of classifications relates to causality and explains time ( adhvan ), arising ( jāti ), elapsing ( jarā ), enduring ( sthiti ), impermanence ( anityatā ) and four types of causal conditions (pratyaya). The third group

7493-546: The Basic Section which includes such seminal works as the Bodhisattva-bhūmi and the Śrāvaka -bhūmi survives in Sanskrit, but little survives from the other parts. The following list is based on the Chinese arrangement, which seems to be closer to the original order. The fourteen books of this section are: "The Foundation on the Fivefold Group of Empirical Consciousness " provides a phenomenological analysis of

7620-545: The Buddhist teachings." The book contains an outline of various basic Buddhist concepts in different sets or groupings similar to Abhidharma lists. This book also contains outlines of other forms of knowledge, such as the arts of healing ( cikitsā ), logical reasoning ( hetuvidyā ), and linguistic knowledge ( śabdavidyā ). "The Foundation on What is Derived from Understanding" deals with understanding ( cintā ) which refers to when "the practitioner based on his or her studies of

7747-535: The Chinese and Tibetan translations which survive in full, at least 50% of the text survives in nine extant Sanskrit fragments. A translation project is currently underway to translate the entirety of Xuánzàng's version into English. It is being carried out by the Bukkyō Dendō Kyōkai society and the Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research. The Bodhisattva-bhūmi , a subsection of the work which

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7874-576: The Hearer". This book focuses on practices associated with "hearers" or "disciples" ( śrāvaka ). Lambert Schmithausen , Noritoshi Aramaki, Florin Deleanu and Alex Wayman all hold that this is the oldest layer of the YBh. The Śrāvakabhūmi is divided into four sections called yogasthānas (yogic foundations or topics) and is the second largest book of the YBh. The first subdivision of the first yogasthāna

8001-565: 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

8128-525: The Mahīśāsakas call “the aggregate which lasts as long as samsara” ( asaṃsārikaskandha ) and what the Sthaviras call the bhavaṅga . The store-house consciousness receives impressions from all functions of the other consciousnesses, and retains them as potential energy, bīja or "seeds", for their further manifestations and activities. Since it serves as the container for all experiential impressions it

8255-728: The YBh may have subtly influenced other North Indian Buddhist works such as the Abhidharmakośa and the works of the Sautrāntika school. The YBh also exherted a strong influence on the later works of the Yogācāra-Vijñānavāda school, such as the Mahāyānasūtrālaṃkāra , the Abhidharma-samuccaya and the Mahāyānasaṃgraha . Finally, the YBh also exherted a clear influence on the tantric tradition of Indian Buddhism of

8382-529: The basis of straightforward cognition in combination with inferential cognition , is asserted, uncommonly, in Yogācāra . Deluded awareness Tibetan : ཉོན་ཡིད་རྣམ་ཤེས་ , Wylie : nyon-yid rnam-shes This Eighth Consciousness , posited on the basis of inferential cognition , is asserted, uncommonly, in Yogācāra . "Storehouse" or "repository" consciousness Tibetan : ཀུན་གཞི་རྣམ་ཤེས་ , Wylie : kun-gzhi rnam-shes 種子識 , 阿賴耶識 , or 本識 The first five sense-consciousnesses along with

8509-527: The book discusses practical advice related to the attainment of meditative immersion ( samādhilābha ), covering topics such as living with others, finding and learning from a teacher, material affairs, one's environment, sleep and eating patterns, practicing asceticism, etc. Then, the fulfillment of meditative immersion ( samādhiparipūri ) is discussed, which refers to the process in which a meditator goes deeper into samadhi and achieves mastery of meditation, experiencing five stages of fruition. "The Foundation on

8636-462: The canonical sutras of "conservative Buddhism" (i.e. non-Mahayana). The first section of this book gives a general overview of meditation using four terms: meditation ( dhyāna ), liberation ( vimokṣa ), meditative attainment ( samāpatti ), and samādhi . The second section of this book provides an extensive presentation of meditation ( dhyāna ). First, five positive states to be cultivated and five negative states to be abandoned are explained. Then

8763-418: The circle of samsara. These potential tendencies are generally seen as unconscious processes which "lie beneath" our everyday consciousness, and according to Waldron "they represent the potential, the tendency, for cognitive and emotional afflictions (Pali: kilesā , Sanskrit: kleśāḥ ) to arise". The Sautrāntika school of Buddhism, which relied closely on the sutras, developed a theory of seeds ( bīja , 種子) in

8890-399: 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

9017-484: 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

9144-576: 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

9271-1178: The first four Nikāyas of the Sutta Pitaka  – the second division of the Tipitaka in the Pali Canon  – as first committed to writing during the Theravada school's fourth council at Sri Lanka in 83 (BCE). Both individually and collectively: these first six, so-called "common" consciousnesses are posited – in common – by all surviving buddhist tenet systems. Eye Consciousness Tibetan : མིག་གི་རྣམ་ཤེས་ , Wylie : mig-gi rnam-shes Ear Consciousness Tibetan : རྣའི་རྣམ་ཤེས་ , Wylie : rna’i rnam-shes Nose Consciousness Tibetan : སྣའི་རྣམ་ཤེས་ , Wylie : sna’i rnam-shes Tongue Consciousness Tibetan : ལྕེའི་རྣམ་ཤེས་ , Wylie : lce’i rnam-shes Body Consciousness Tibetan : ལུས་ཀྱི་རྣམ་ཤེས་ , Wylie : lus-kyi rnam-shes Mental Consciousness Tibetan : ཡིད་ཀྱི་རྣམ་ཤེས་ , Wylie : yid-kyi rnam-shes This Seventh Consciousness , posited on

9398-528: The first mention of the concept occurs in the Yogācārabhumiśāstra , which posits a basal consciousness that contains seeds for future cognitive processes. It is also described in the Saṃdhinirmocanasūtra and in the Mahāyānasaṃgraha of Asaṅga . Vasubandhu is considered to be the systematizer of Yogācāra thought. Vasubandhu used the concept of the six consciousnesses , on which he elaborated in

9525-413: 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

9652-408: The first six primary consciousnesses (Sanskrit: vijñāna , Tibetan : རྣམ་ཤེས་ , Wylie : rnam-shes ). The internally coherent Yogācāra school associated with Maitreya , Asaṅga , and Vasubandhu , however, uniquely – or "uncommonly" – also posits the existence of two additional primary consciousnesses, kliṣṭamanovijñāna and ālayavijñāna , in order to explain

9779-415: The five sensory consciousnesses (the visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, and tactile forms of consciousness), in terms of five points, their bases ( āśraya ), nature ( svabhava ), foci ( alambana ), accompanying mental states ( sahaya ) and functioning ( karman ). Sense perception is said to have both material basis (the physical sense faculty) and a mental basis (the ālayavijñāna ). The mental basis

9906-439: The five sensory perceptions", in terms of the same five points outlined above. It also explains citta , manas , vijñāna , the ālayavijñāna and the afflictive cognition (kliṣṭaṃ manaḥ), using the schema of the eight consciousness. This book also explains the 51 mental factors (caittasikā dharmāḥ), "agreeing with the arrangement that is also seen in the first chapter of Asaṅga's Abhidharmasamuccaya ." An explanation of

10033-467: The foci for meditation are the four noble truths. Eight Consciousnesses The Eight Consciousnesses (Skt. aṣṭa vijñānakāyāḥ ) is a classification developed in the tradition of the Yogācāra school of Mahayana Buddhism . They enumerate the five sense consciousnesses, supplemented by the mental consciousness ( manovijñāna ), the defiled mental consciousness ( kliṣṭamanovijñāna ), and finally

10160-491: 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

10287-482: The foundation that has neither of these. According to Ulrich Timme Kragh "discernment is said to be the cognitive operation that is responsible for ascertaining what is perceived by the senses by initially labeling it with a name, while discursiveness is explained as being the subsequent conceptual operation of deciding whether the perceived sense-object is desirable and what course of action one might want to take in relation to it." Because these two cognitive factors play

10414-457: The fourth century CE. Traditional sources name either the Indian thinker Asaṅga (ca. 300-350) or the bodhisattva Maitreya as author, but most modern scholars hold that it is a composite text with different chronological textual layers and various authors, though this does not rule out the possibility that Asaṅga was among them. According to scholars such as Changhwan Park and Robert Kritzer

10541-470: The functioning or operation ( karman ) of cognition is also given which includes an extensive overview of death and rebirth , as well as an exposition of Buddhist cosmology and 24 typologies which discuss many modes of existence. The rest of the book discusses various classifications of dharmas (phenomena), the first of which divides phenomena into physical ( rūpasamudāya ), mental ( cittacaitasikakalāpa ) and unconditioned ( asaṃskṛta ). This exposition rejects

10668-400: The fundamental store-house consciousness ( ālāyavijñāna ), which is the basis of the other seven. This eighth consciousness is said to store the impressions ( vāsanāḥ ) of previous experiences, which form the seeds ( bīja ) of future karma in this life and in the next after rebirth . All surviving schools of Buddhist thought accept – "in common" – the existence of

10795-618: 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

10922-416: The images that are to be relied upon ( pratiniṣevaṇīyaṃ nimittaṃ ). The images to be abandoned are: dimness ( laya ), restlessness ( auddhatya ), distraction ( vikṣepa) , and attachment ( saṅga ). A further 32 meditative images are also enumerated in this section, as well as how to enter the four meditative absorptions. The fourth section is a summary of how meditation is explained in the sutras. The topics of

11049-410: The inner and outer causes for spiritual development have been explained, this section then discusses the actual practice of meditative cultivation. This is explained through a list of ten types of remedies or antidotes ( pratipakṣa ) applied to counter the numerous afflictions and adverse inclinations ( vipakṣa ) that are also explained here. The ten meditative antidotes are: Following this presentation,

11176-586: 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

11303-528: 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

11430-407: The meaning of what they have learned in solitude. The second section provides an analysis of what is to be known ( jñeyapravicaya ), which is divided into what exists and what does not exist. What exists is analyzed by various categories, such as their specific characteristics ( svalakṣaṇa ), general characteristics ( sāmānyalakṣaṇa ), and causal characteristics ( hetulakṣaṇa ). The book also presents

11557-408: The meditative liberations ( vimokṣa ) and the various types of samādhi are outlined, such as the emptiness ( śūnyatā ), wishlessness ( apraṇihita ), and imagelessness ( ānimitta ), as well as samādhi with and without vitarka-vicara . This book, "The Foundation on Being Without Meditative Absorption", lists 12 states that remain devoid of meditative absorption, such as a mind that is engaged in

11684-457: The mindstream ( cittasaṃtāna , 心相續, lit. "mind-character-continuity") to explain how karma and the latent dispositions continued throughout life and rebirth. This theory later developed into the alayavijñana view. The Theravāda theory of the bhavaṅga may also be a forerunner of the ālāyavijñana theory. Vasubandhu cites the bhavaṅgavijñāna of the Sinhalese school ( Tāmraparṇīyanikāya ) as

11811-455: 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

11938-407: The mundane path, meditation focuses on seeing the realm of existence one is currently on (e.g. realm of desire) as coarse, while the realm which is immediately above (i.e. first dhyana) is seen as peaceful. Then once one has attained the higher realm in meditation, one continues this process (i.e. one sees the first dhyana as coarse and the second dhyana as peaceful and so on). On the supramundane path,

12065-425: 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

12192-583: 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

12319-417: The non-conceptual image , śamatha practice is said to progress through nine "mental abidings" (S. navākārā cittasthiti , Tib. sems gnas dgu ), leading to the state of śamatha proper, and from there to a state of meditative concentration called the first dhyāna (Pāli: jhāna ; Tib. bsam gtan ) which is often said to be a state of tranquillity or bliss. The Nine Mental Abidings are: The foci for purifying

12446-547: The notion that certain beings did not have the gotra , or spiritual disposition, to attain awakening. By the end of the Sui dynasty (589-618), Buddhism within China had developed many distinct schools and traditions. In the words of Dan Lusthaus : [ Xuanzang ] came to the conclusion that the many disputes and interpretational conflicts permeating Chinese Buddhism were the result of the unavailability of crucial texts in Chinese translation. In particular, he [Xuanzang] thought that

12573-538: 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

12700-435: The path ( avatīrṇāḥ pudgalāḥ ). The third foundation of the first yogasthāna is "The Foundation of Going Forth" ( naiṣkramyabhūmi ). Going forth is a term which implies the abandonment of the household life and becoming a monastic but can also generally refer to entering the spiritual life. This foundation could technically be seen as covering the rest of the entire Śrāvakabhūmi and covers the entire path of practice. The path

12827-544: The pinnacle of the system", but substantial parts also deal with non-Mahāyāna " mainstream " practices. The text also shows strong affinity to the Abhidharma works of the Mainstream Buddhist Sarvāstivāda school, adopting many of its technical terminology and classifications of phenomena ( dharmas ). While it likely contains earlier materials, the YBh is thought to have reached its final redaction in

12954-623: The plural of vijñāna "consciousnesses"), or Tibetan : རྣམ་ཤེས་ཚོགས་བརྒྱད་ , Wylie : rnam-shes tshogs-brgyad  –  is roughly sketched out in the following table. Each of these Six Common Consciousnesses  –  referred to in Sanskrit as pravṛttivijñānāni  – are posited on the basis of valid straightforward cognition , on any individual practitioner's part, of sensory data input experienced solely by means of their bodily sense faculties. The derivation of this particular dual classification schema for these first six, so-called "common" consciousnesses has its origins in

13081-490: The power to give rise to the six primary consciousnesses. According to Gareth Sparham, The ālaya-vijñāna doctrine arose on the Indian subcontinent about one thousand years before Tsong kha pa. It gained its place in a distinctly Yogācāra system over a period of some three hundred years stretching from 100 to 400 C.E. , culminating in the Mahāyānasaṃgraha , a short text by Asaṅga (circa 350), setting out

13208-426: The practice of yoga and its results. First, the right circumstances needed to encounter the teachings and practice them are explained, which include being reborn as a suitable sentient being, being born in the right place and so on. Then an explanation of how to listen to the true teaching is given, mainly, one must listen without disdain, distraction or faintheartedness. This leads the practitioner to trust that nirvāṇa

13335-412: The practitioner's temperament ( caritaviśodhanam ālambanam ) contains extensive explanations of five contemplative objects: The third type of foci, which are also termed the foci [for developing] expertise ( kauśalyālambana ), refers to the following: The fourth meditative object is the foci purifying the afflictions ( kleśaviśodhanaṃ ālambanam ). This is related to the mundane and supramundane paths. In

13462-471: The qualities of persons that are "not predisposed" for awakening, which are persons that lack the qualities needed to attain nirvāṇa. The different types of predisposed persons are also discussed. The second subdivision is called the Avatārabhūmi and it focuses on how different types of persons enter ( avatāra ) into the path as well as the characteristics of these different types of persons that have entered

13589-404: 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 ,

13716-483: The realm of sensual desire ( kāmāvacara ) or the mind of a beginner meditator that suffers from distraction ( vikṣepa ). This book, "The Foundation on Having Mentation and Being Without Mentation", examines the notion of 'mind' or 'mentation' ( citta ) in relation to meditation and other doctrines" and discusses different states that are with or without citta . States without citta include the meditative attainment of cessation ( nirodhasamāpatti ) and nirvāṇa , which

13843-552: 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

13970-509: 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

14097-517: 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

14224-555: The sixth consciousness are identified in the Suttapiṭaka, especially in the Sabbasutta, Saṃyuttanikāya 35.23 : "Monks, I will teach you the All. Listen & pay close attention. I will speak." "As you say, lord," the monks responded. The Blessed One said, "What is the All? Simply the eye & forms, ear & sounds, nose & aromas, tongue & flavors, body & tactile sensations, intellect & ideas. This, monks,

14351-509: The sixth to fourteenth centuries (and the works of exegetes like Ratnākaraśānti), and the YBh is itself aware of the use of mantras and subjugation rituals that would become common to the tantric tradition. The YBh was studied and transmitted in East Asian Buddhist and Tibetan Buddhist translations. In China, it was the work of Xuánzàng (玄奘, 602?-664) that introduced the YBh in full. It caused many debates, particularly around

14478-561: 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

14605-419: The successive seventeen levels ( bhūmi ) , which cover the entire range of mental and spiritual stages of practice for the Mahāyāna bodhisattva. However, according to Ulrich Timme Kragh, "in the present context, the word bhūmi appears in many cases to imply a 'foundation' in the sense of a field of knowledge that the Yogācāra acolyte ought to master in order to be successful in his or her yoga practice." Most of

14732-403: The teachings arrives at a singular 'view' or philosophical outlook of reality along with knowing the religious path that leads to the eradication of misconceptions of reality and the inner realization of this view." This presentation is divided into three sections. The first section explains how one internalizes what one has heard or studied. The practitioner is supposed to contemplate and analyze

14859-623: 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

14986-547: 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

15113-512: 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

15240-446: The various foci ( ālambana ) on which one concentrates, which are called the 'images' ( nimitta ). Forty types of meditative observation are listed and explained in detail in this section. Meditative images are presented in terms of four aspects: (1) the image as the meditative focus ( ālambananimitta ), (2) the image as the basis for meditation ( nidānanimitta ), (3) the images that are to be abandoned ( parivarjanīyaṃ nimittaṃ ), and (4)

15367-417: The various meditative foci ( ālambana ) are explained. It is in this section that concrete meditation techniques appear in this treatise. These meditations are divided into four kinds: (I) general [types of] foci, (II) foci purifying the practitioner's temperament, (III) foci [for developing] expertise, and (IV) foci purifying the afflictions. There are four types of general foci ( vyāpyālambanam ): Regarding

15494-452: 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

15621-613: The workings of karma . The first six of these primary consciousnesses comprise the five sensory faculties together with mental consciousness, which is counted as the sixth. The kliṣṭamanovijñāna is described as an afflicted consciousness, which exhibits an ongoing subtle clinging to self that provides the basis for the ego and disturbing emotions . Based on the Kangyur , the Kagyu scholar 3rd Karmapa, Rangjung Dorje additionally points out that it must also have an immediate aspect, with

15748-517: 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

15875-453: 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,

16002-485: 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

16129-438: Was translated into Tibetan in the ninth century at Samye by Ye shes sde and Cog ro Klu'i rgyal mtshan working with the Indian paṇḍitas Prajñāvarman, Surendrabodhi, and Jinamitra. The YBh remained influential in these traditions (for example, it is a major source of meditation instruction for Tsongkhapa's Lamrimchenmo ), however, perhaps because of size and complexity, it was eventually abandoned in monastic seminaries. Besides

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