Chinese Buddhist mentational terms

Looking for translations, or for help with translations and transliterations? This is the place.
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tingdzin
Posts: 1933
Joined: Fri Feb 15, 2013 7:19 am

Chinese Buddhist mentational terms

Post by tingdzin »

I am looking for a digital table of Sanskrit Buddhist terms dealing with the mind ( citta, manas, skandha, vijnana, etc.) with their Chinese equivalents in both phonetic English and Chinese logographs/ideographs, a la Soothill, which is probably long out of print anyway. One that included *reconstructed T'ang pronunciations would be ideal, but this is not necessary. I have at hand Park's "How Buddhism Acquired a Soul on it's Way to China" which is useful but not systematic for my purposes.
zhufawuwo
Posts: 6
Joined: Mon Mar 19, 2018 2:09 pm

Re: Chinese Buddhist mentational terms

Post by zhufawuwo »

I have two pdf dictionaries that might help. One is translations of Chinese terms into Sanskrit, Tibetan, and English. The other is a glossary of Sanskrit terms with English and Chinese glosses. However, both assume reading knowledge of Chinese, so neither has phonetic equivalents in either pinyin or Wade-Giles. If you're interested, send me a private message and I'll drop them to your e-mail.

It might easier to just provide a list of the terms you need and ask people here for help. Terms like "manas" and "citta" can get complicated when translating into Chinese. They all relate to 心, but beyond that the rabbit hole is deep.

The rest have fairly straightforward equivalents, for example, skandha is 蘊, though sometimes you will see an earlier term 陰. (In modern Mandarin, these are read yun4 and yin1.) The character for "five" (wu3) can be added at the front, 五蘊, much like in Sanskrit.

Vijñāna is 識. (In Mandarin, shi4 or shi2, depending on which side of the Taiwan Strait you live.) Of course, when you start splitting consciousness up, again, it gets complex.
tingdzin
Posts: 1933
Joined: Fri Feb 15, 2013 7:19 am

Re: Chinese Buddhist mentational terms

Post by tingdzin »

Thanks very much. As soon as I have time, I will get back to you with some specific stuff.
tingdzin
Posts: 1933
Joined: Fri Feb 15, 2013 7:19 am

Re: Chinese Buddhist mentational terms

Post by tingdzin »

Thanks for the link. I missed that thread
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