Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v2.c12.s1.66

v2.c12.s1.66

In terms of folk proverbs, there were a large group of new words and phrases emerged in China because of the introduction of Buddhism. These words and phrases had become a national language in China, and were used extensively in daily life. Some of them were translated from Sanskrit pronunciation such as *Buddha*, *Sangha*, *Dharma*, *Yama*, *Bodhisattvas*, *Arhat*, *Mara*, *Rakshasa*, *Yaksa*, *Ksana* and so on. Some of them were translated from Sanskrit literally. For example world, hetu-pratyaya, cause and effect, dignity, Dharma-treasure, wisdom, role and Riddhi-saksatkriya, etc. Some of them were idioms used by Chinese Buddhism. For example, “founder of a religious sect”, “keep one's mouth shut”, “bread and cheese”, “categorical with grim determination” and so on. A large number of them were folk proverbs related to Buddhism. For example, “luck from triple world”, “visiting monks give better sermons”, “little monks chanted Buddhist scripts without thinking”, “three monks go thirsty”, “small temple cannot hold great Bodhisattva”, “the devil never think ghosts are thin”, “ghosts don't participate in the opening ceremony of the devil”. Apart from that "If one respect his parents, there is no need to burn incense afar", "Keeping vegetarian fast is better than chanting the name of the Buddha for 1000 times, and 10,000 incenses burnt are useless if one does evil" and so on were also used.