Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v1.c7.s7.t1.7

v1.c7.s7.t1.7

As a first step, the Buddhists had to learn each other’s languages. They wrote elaborate articles on systematic learning of Sanskrit or Fan wen 梵 文 as it is called even today. They compiled specialised dictionaries to translate Sanskrit and Pali works into Chinese and Tibetan. For that, Chinese phonetic parallels for Sanskrit words were selected. The very first such attempt is seen in Faxian’s writings. He left China in the late 4th century CE to reach India in the early 5th century CE. As translation activity gained momentum dictionaries were composed. ‘Mahāvyutpatti’ ie Fanyi mingyi da ji 翻 譯名義大集 (collection of translated names), is a 9th century Sanskrit-Tibetan dictionary; during Song Dynasty in the 12th century Fa yun 法雲 compiled a Sanskrit-Chinese dictionary. Fanyi mingyi ji 翻譯名義集. There is also a work by Li yan 禮言 viz Fan yu za ming 梵語雜名 (miscellaneous nuances of Sanskrit). These dictionaries are part of the canonical literature.