The written language of imperial China: of the Confucian and Taoist classics and of the Chinese Buddhist canon.
Tagged: Buddhist
For two thousand years, educated people from Korea to Vietnam read and wrote Classical Chinese. It carries the Confucian classics, the Taoist scriptures, and the Chinese Buddhist canon — the largest body of Buddhist literature in any language.
Key Texts
Prayers & Creeds in Its Traditions
- Five Precepts (Pancasila) Buddhist — Five voluntary training rules — against killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, false speech, and intoxicants — undertaken by lay Buddhists.
- Metta Sutta Buddhist — The Buddha's discourse on loving-kindness, chanted as a blessing and a protection.
- Refuge Prayer (Tisarana) Buddhist — The formula of going for refuge to the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha — the act that makes a person a Buddhist.
Learning and Reference Resources
- Chinese Text Project Free / open access
Related Across the Site
- Classical Tibetan Language — The sacred language of Tibetan Buddhism, into which the whole Indian Buddhist canon was translated.
- Pali Language — The canonical language of Theravada Buddhism, in which the Pali Canon is preserved and recited.
- Sanskrit Language — The sacred language of Hinduism and a scriptural language of Buddhism and Jainism: Vedic first, then the classical language of Indian theology.
- St Andrews Encyclopaedia of Theology Library — An open-access, multi-author theological reference with advanced articles on Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism.
- Five Precepts (Pancasila) Prayer or Creed — Five voluntary training rules — against killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, false speech, and intoxicants — undertaken by lay Buddhists.
- Metta Sutta Prayer or Creed — The Buddha's discourse on loving-kindness, chanted as a blessing and a protection.
- Refuge Prayer (Tisarana) Prayer or Creed — The formula of going for refuge to the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha — the act that makes a person a Buddhist.
- Buddhism World View — Buddhism teaches that suffering comes from craving and ignorance; by following the Buddha's Eightfold Path, a person can awaken and be freed from rebirth.
Provenance
Classification follows Ethnologue; identifiers verified at build time.