Buddhist Chinese () is a specialized written form of Ancient Literary Chinese that is main literary language of East Asian Buddhism and the Chinese Buddhist Canon.Zhu 朱冠明, G. (2022). The Sinicization of Buddhist Scriptural Language. In: Ye, Z. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Chinese Language Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-6844-8_18-1ZHU, Q. (2017). Buddhist Chinese (Buddhist Hybrid Chinese). In R. SYBESMA, W. BEHR, Y. GU, Z. HANDEL, C.-T. J. HUANG, & J. MYERS (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Chinese language and linguistics (Vol. I, pp. 318-330). Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/2210-7363_ecll_COM_00000047 As such it is also called the "language of the Buddhist classics" (), as well as "Buddhist Hybrid Chinese".Zhu 朱冠明, G. (2022). The Sinicization of Buddhist Scriptural Language. In: Ye, Z. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Chinese Language Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-6844-8_18-1
Throughout the pre-modern history of Buddhism in East Asia, Buddhist Chinese served as the main written lingua franca for educated Buddhists in China, Japan, Vietnam and Korea. Buddhist Chinese developed from the extensive historical efforts to translate Indic Buddhist texts into Chinese. This unique register of Literary Chinese is a significantly different from Classical Chinese and modern Literary Chinese, with a unique vocabulary influenced by Indian terms and vernacular Chinese, as well as unique grammatical features and styles. Unique features include numerous compound terms which serve as translations for Buddhist terms, and Chinese transliterations of words from Indian languages (mainly Sanskrit, and Prakrits like Gandhari).
The most active period of direct translation of Buddhist Chinese texts was the period from the end of the Han dynasty (202 BCE–220 CE) to the Song dynasty (960–1279 CE).Long, Darui; Chen, Jinhua. Chinese Buddhist Canons in the Age of Printing, Introduction. Routledge, May 21, 2020 During this period many important original Chinese Buddhist texts were also composed in China that became part of the Chinese Buddhist Canon. These original compositions include the foundational works of the main schools of Chinese Buddhism, such as the Platform Sutra (for Chan/Zen), the works of Zhiyi (Tiantai), Fazang (Huayan), and Shandao (Pure Land). They also include other genres, such as biographies, travel literature, Zen sayings (), popular narratives () and vernacular poetry (). Modern scholars sometimes make a further distinction between "original" Buddhist Chinese, which refers mainly to canonical translations of Indic works, and "evolved" Buddhist Chinese, which refers to the written Buddhist Chinese found in the Buddhist literature composed in China.
Buddhist Chinese had an impact on the development of secular Chinese literature as well as influencing the development of modern Chinese vocabulary and syntax. As such, Buddhist Chinese had an impact on the development of Chinese language as a whole. Contemporary Mandarin's abstract vocabulary include many words coined in Buddhist Chinese translation, including words for consciousness and psychological states, time, and cosmology. Examples include , and .Shi, Xiangdong, 'The Influence of Buddhist Sanskrit on Chinese', in William S-Y. Wang, and Chaofen Sun (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Chinese Linguistics, Oxford Handbooks (2015; online edn, Oxford Academic, 5 May 2015), https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199856336.013.0069, accessed 14 June 2026.
History
Buddhism began to arrive in China along the Silk Road and the Maritime Silk Road sometime during the Eastern Han dynasty (25–220 CE). The process of the transmission of Buddhism immediately turned to translation of Indic and Central Asian source texts.
The majority of translators of Buddhist texts into Chinese were foreign monks from India or Central Asia, like the Parthian An Shigao, and the Kucheans Lokakṣema (fl. 147–189 CE) and Kumārajīva (343– 413 CE).Lock, Graham; Linebarger, Gary S. Chinese Buddhist Texts: An Introductory Reader, p. 2. 2018 Some later figures were also native Chinese who traveled to India and studied Sanskrit texts there, like Faxian (c. 337–422 CE) and Xuanzang (602–664 CE). Most translators who produced significant translations did not work alone however, making use of teams of translators and scribes. Thus, even though most translators were not native Chinese speakers, they worked as part of translation teams which included native speakers and learned literati who edited and polished the translations.
As explained in Graham & Linebarger:For example, a translation of the Madhyama Agama or ‘Middle-Length Collection of Sutras’ () made during the Eastern Jin (317– 420) is attributed to Sanghadeva from Kashmir. An account of the translation process by one of the participants, a monk called Dàocí (), says that it was produced by a team of two Indian monks and three Chinese Buddhists. One Indian monk read out the text from a manuscript, Sanghadeva translated it orally into Chinese, Daoci wrote it down and the two others prepared the final version.Lock, Graham, & Linebarger, Gary S. (2018). Chinese Buddhist Texts: An Introductory Reader, p. 3. Routledge.As such, the texts of the Chinese canon were translated by many different figures from different source texts (in different Indic and Iranian languages). This process happened over around 1,100 years and thus the various texts of the Chinese canon reflect different genres and translation styles and philosophies. A Yuan dynasty catalogue lists 194 known translators who worked on about 1,440 texts in 5,580 fascicles (juans).
According to Zhu, this multi-generational project of translation "represents one of the most significant examples of language contact in the history of mankind, juxtaposing some structurally very different Indo-European languages and varieties of Chinese." Before the development of Buddhist Chinese, contact between India and China was minimal. The advent of this literary language enabled significant cultural contact that had a profound and lasting effect on Chinese culture, popular or colloquial Chinese and popular Chinese literature. By the Tang Dynasty, Buddhist Chinese had emerged as a respectable literary language that stood side by side Classical Chinese.
The modern Chinese thinker Hu Shih described the process by which Buddhism influenced Chinese culture as "Indianisation", which he compares to the Christianization of Europe in the extent of its impact.Lai, G., & Wang, Q. E. (2023). Buddhist literature in Chinese history—Editors’ introduction. Chinese Studies in History, 56(1), 1–4. https://doi.org/10.1080/00094633.2023.2188048 Hu Shih argued that this process occurred over four main phases: 1. the phase of mass borrowing and mass translation; 2. resistance and persecution which Buddhists responded to in various ways; 3. domestication, which saw Buddhism sinicized and transformed into a Chinese religion as Chinese Buddhists felt confident to compose their own original works and express original ideas; and 4. appropriation of Chinese Buddhism into other Chinese sub-cultures and literatures".Hu Shih (Shi), English Writings of Hu Shih, ed. Chih-p’ing Chou, vol. 2 (Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 2013), 147–64.
Modern scholars also distinguish between three main periods of translation:
Ancient translation (Guyi , c. Han dynasty to Western Jin): Includes vernacular influenced translations by An Shigao and Lokakṣema, the more formal written register translations of Kang Mengxiang () and Kang Senghui, and the translations of Zhi Qian and Dharmarakṣa which contain elements of both vernacular and literary Chinese. Old translation (Jiuyi , Late Qin Kingdom c. 384–417): A form exemplified by the works of Kumārajīva (344-413) and those who follow his mature style which hybridizes vernacular Chinese with formal written Chinese and contained a mature vocabulary of translated and transliterated Buddhist terms. Kumārajīva's style was free and liberal, as he held that translations should follow the characteristics of the Chinese language first as long as it also retains the meaning of the source text. He thus emphasized comprehensibility (), elegant writing and fluency rather than literalness. New translation (Xinyi , Tang dynasty and Northern Song): A highly technical register which was promoted by figures like Xuanzang (602–664), his students and later translators like Dānapāla. Xuanzang emphasized the quality of faithfulness () to the Indian source texts. To remain as close as possible to the original, Xuanzang developed a set of standard translations for terms, expressions and even whole sentences. As such, Xuanzang's translation is highly technical and stylized, appearing abstract and artificial in comparison to the more natural translations of Kumārajīva.
Buddhist Chinese also influenced the development of new literary genres, including the Chinese novel, which is particularly prominent in Wu Cheng’en’s (c. 1500–1582) Journey to the West, sinitic Buddhist genres like the Zen koan and travelogues like The Great Tang Records on the Western Regions which chronicles Xuanzang’s pilgrimage. The rise of the Chan school saw a return to popular vernacular and natural language, perhaps as a reaction to the technical and abstruse Buddhist Chinese of Xuanzang. This can be seen in the genre of the , the recorded sayings of the Chan masters.
Buddhist Chinese writings in turn influenced other genres of Chinese literature unrelated to Buddhism. For example, the genre of which developed in Chan Buddhism influenced similar texts on the sayings of influential Neo-Confucian scholars. Buddhist Chinese language also influenced the literati, as can be seen in the poetry of Tao Yangming who uses numerous Buddhist Chinese terms even though he was not a Buddhist per se. Various scriptures of the Daoist Canon, especially the Lingbao scriptures, also show significant influence and borrowing from Buddhist Chinese scriptures.Kohn, Livia (2008). Introducing Daoism, pp. 69-72. New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-43998-5.
The most important impact of Buddhist Chinese on broader Chinese language was that it influenced the revolutionary development of , Written vernacular Chinese. Buddhist Chinese influenced the development of secular vernacular Chinese literature.
As is now well known, numerous words entered vernacular and literary Chinese from Buddhist Chinese. These loanwords include common religious terms like for ‘bodhisattva’ as well as words that are now used without specific religious connotations, such as from the translation for upaya, , originally the translation for kleśa and , from the translation for acintya.
Linguistic features
Buddhist Chinese is unique due to its hybrid character, which consists of two main types of hybridization:
A blending of Chinese and non-Chinese language elements from Sanskrit, Prakrtis and Iranian Languages like Khotanese A hybridization of classical written Chinese () and colloquial Chinese ()
Non-Sinitic elements The Buddhist texts translated into Chinese from non-Chinese languages include a large amount of elements that were created during the process of translation. These elements include a large number of phonological transcriptions, transliterations and calques. These texts also included new rules for creating compounds and phrases unknown in Classical Chinese. These influenced the development of numerous disyllabic words, and four-character idioms, which are now common in modern Chinese.
Vocabulary