1.
Pali
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Pali is a Prakrit language native to the Indian subcontinent. It is widely studied because it is the language of much of the earliest extant literature of Buddhism as collected in the Pāli Canon or Tipiṭaka and is the language of Theravāda Buddhism. The word Pali is used as a name for the language of the Theravada canon, Childers translates the word as series and states that the language bears the epithet in consequence of the perfection of its grammatical structure. However, modern scholarship has regarded Pali as a mix of several Prakrit languages from around the 3rd century BCE, combined together and partially Sanskritized. The closest artifacts to Pali that have found in India are Edicts of Ashoka found at Gujarat, in the west of India. There is persistent confusion as to the relation of Pāḷi to the vernacular spoken in the ancient kingdom of Magadha, Pali, as a Middle Indo-Aryan language, is different from Sanskrit more with regard to its dialectal base than the time of its origin. A number of its morphological and lexical features show that it is not a continuation of Ṛgvedic Vedic Sanskrit. Instead it descends from one or more dialects that were, despite many similarities, however, this view is not shared by all scholars. Some, like A. C. Woolner, believe that Pali is derived from Vedic Sanskrit, Paiśācī is a largely unattested literary language of classical India that is mentioned in Prakrit and Sanskrit grammars of antiquity. e. Evidence which lends support to this interpretation is that literature in Paiśācī is fragmentary and extremely rare, many Theravada sources refer to the Pali language as Magadhan or the language of Magadha. This identification first appears in the commentaries, and may have been an attempt by Buddhists to associate more closely with the Maurya Empire. The Buddha taught in Magadha, but the four most important places in his life are all outside of it and it is likely that he taught in several closely related dialects of Middle Indo-Aryan, which had a high degree of mutual intelligibility. There is no attested dialect of Middle Indo-Aryan with all the features of Pali, Pali has some commonalities with both the western Ashokan Edicts at Girnar in Saurashtra, and the Central-Western Prakrit found in the eastern Hathigumpha inscription. In Sri Lanka, Pali is thought to have entered into a period of decline ending around the 4th or 5th century, the work of Buddhaghosa was largely responsible for its reemergence as an important scholarly language in Buddhist thought. Another scholar states that at time it was a refined. Modern scholarship has not arrived at a consensus on the issue, after the death of the Buddha, Pali may have evolved among Buddhists out of the language of the Buddha as a new artificial language. According to K. R. Norman, it is likely that the viharas in North India had separate collections of material, in the early period it is likely that no degree of translation was necessary in communicating this material to other areas. Around the time of Ashoka there had been more linguistic divergence, following this period, the language underwent a small degree of Sanskritisation
2.
Sanskrit
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Sanskrit is the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, a philosophical language of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, and a literary language and lingua franca of ancient and medieval South Asia. As a result of transmission of Hindu and Buddhist culture to Southeast Asia and parts of Central Asia, as one of the oldest Indo-European languages for which substantial written documentation exists, Sanskrit holds a prominent position in Indo-European studies. The body of Sanskrit literature encompasses a rich tradition of poetry and drama as well as scientific, technical, philosophical, the compositions of Sanskrit were orally transmitted for much of its early history by methods of memorization of exceptional complexity, rigor, and fidelity. Thereafter, variants and derivatives of the Brahmi script came to be used, Sanskrit is today one of the 22 languages listed in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution of India, which mandates the Indian government to develop the language. It continues to be used as a ceremonial language in Hindu religious rituals and Buddhist practice in the form of hymns. The Sanskrit verbal adjective sáṃskṛta- may be translated as refined, elaborated, as a term for refined or elaborated speech, the adjective appears only in Epic and Classical Sanskrit in the Manusmṛti and the Mahabharata. The pre-Classical form of Sanskrit is known as Vedic Sanskrit, with the language of the Rigveda being the oldest and most archaic stage preserved, Classical Sanskrit is the standard register as laid out in the grammar of Pāṇini, around the fourth century BCE. Sanskrit, as defined by Pāṇini, evolved out of the earlier Vedic form, the present form of Vedic Sanskrit can be traced back to as early as the second millennium BCE. Scholars often distinguish Vedic Sanskrit and Classical or Pāṇinian Sanskrit as separate dialects, although they are quite similar, they differ in a number of essential points of phonology, vocabulary, grammar and syntax. Vedic Sanskrit is the language of the Vedas, a collection of hymns, incantations and theological and religio-philosophical discussions in the Brahmanas. Modern linguists consider the metrical hymns of the Rigveda Samhita to be the earliest, for nearly 2000 years, Sanskrit was the language of a cultural order that exerted influence across South Asia, Inner Asia, Southeast Asia, and to a certain extent East Asia. A significant form of post-Vedic Sanskrit is found in the Sanskrit of Indian epic poetry—the Ramayana, the deviations from Pāṇini in the epics are generally considered to be on account of interference from Prakrits, or innovations, and not because they are pre-Paninian. Traditional Sanskrit scholars call such deviations ārṣa, meaning of the ṛṣis, in some contexts, there are also more prakritisms than in Classical Sanskrit proper. There were four principal dialects of classical Sanskrit, paścimottarī, madhyadeśī, pūrvi, the predecessors of the first three dialects are attested in Vedic Brāhmaṇas, of which the first one was regarded as the purest. In the 2001 Census of India,14,035 Indians reported Sanskrit to be their first language, in India, Sanskrit is among the 14 original languages of the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution. The state of Uttarakhand in India has ruled Sanskrit as its official language. In October 2012 social activist Hemant Goswami filed a petition in the Punjab. More than 3,000 Sanskrit works have been composed since Indias independence in 1947, much of this work has been judged of high quality, in comparison to both classical Sanskrit literature and modern literature in other Indian languages
3.
Devanagari
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Devanagari, also called Nagari, is an abugida alphabet of India and Nepal. It is written left to right, has a strong preference for symmetrical rounded shapes within squared outlines. The Nagari script has roots in the ancient Brāhmī script family, the Nagari script was in regular use by the 7th century CE and it was fully developed by about the end of first millennium. Nagari has been the primus inter pares of the Indic scripts, the Devanagari script is also used for classical Sanskrit texts. The Devanagari script is closely related to the Nandinagari script commonly found in ancient manuscripts of South India. Devanagari script has forty-seven primary characters, of which fourteen are vowels, the ancient Nagari script for Sanskrit had two additional consonantal characters. The script has no distinction similar to the capital and small letters of the Latin alphabet, generally the orthography of the script reflects the pronunciation of the language. Devanagari is part of the Brahmic family of scripts of India, Nepal, Tibet and it is a descendant of the Gupta script, along with Siddham and Sharada. Medieval inscriptions suggest widespread diffusion of the Nagari-related scripts, with biscripts presenting local script along with the adoption of Nagari scripts, the 7th-century Tibetan king Srong-tsan-gambo ordered that all foreign books be transcribed into the Tibetan language. Other closely related scripts such as Siddham Matrka was in use in Indonesia, Vietnam, Japan, Sharada remained in parallel use in Kashmir. Nāgarī is the Sanskrit feminine of Nāgara relating or belonging to a town or city and it is a phrasing with lipi as nāgarī lipi script relating to a city, or spoken in city. The use of the name devanāgarī is relatively recent, and the older term nāgarī is still common, the rapid spread of the term devanāgarī may be related to the almost exclusive use of this script to publish Sanskrit texts in print since the 1870s. As a Brahmic abugida, the principle of Devanagari is that each letter represents a consonant. This is usually written in Latin as a, though it is represented as in the International Phonetic Alphabet, the letter क is read ka, the two letters कन are kana, the three कनय are kanaya, etc. This cancels the inherent vowel, so that from क्नय knaya is derived क्नय् knay, the halant is often used for consonant clusters when typesetting conjunct ligatures is not feasible. Consonant clusters are written with ligatures, for example, the three consonants क्, न्, and य्, when written consecutively without virāma form कनय, as shown above. Alternatively, they may be joined as clusters to form क्नय knaya, कन्य kanya and this system was originally created for use with the Middle Indo-Aryan languages, which have a very limited number of clusters. When applied to Sanskrit, however, it added a deal of complexity to the script
4.
Bengali language
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Bengali, also known by its endonym Bangla, is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in South Asia. With over 210 million speakers, Bengali is the seventh most spoken language in the world. Dominant in the last group was Persian, which was also the source of some grammatical forms, more recent studies suggest that the use of native and foreign words has been increasing, mainly because of the preference of Bengali speakers for the colloquial style. Today, Bengali is the language spoken in Bangladesh and the second most spoken language in India. Both the national anthems of Bangladesh and India were composed in Bengali, in 1952, the Bengali Language Movement successfully pushed for the languages official status in the Dominion of Pakistan. In 1999, UNESCO recognized 21 February as International Mother Language Day in recognition of the movement in East Pakistan. Language is an important element of Bengali identity and binds together a diverse region. Sanskrit was spoken in Bengal since the first millennium BCE, during the Gupta Empire, Bengal was a hub of Sanskrit literature. The Middle Indo-Aryan dialects were spoken in Bengal in the first millennium when the region was a part of the Magadha Realm and these dialects were called Magadhi Prakrit. They eventually evolved into Ardha Magadhi, Ardha Magadhi began to give way to what are called Apabhraṃśa languages at the end of the first millennium. Along with other Eastern Indo-Aryan languages, Bengali evolved circa 1000–1200 AD from Sanskrit, for example, Ardhamagadhi is believed to have evolved into Abahatta around the 6th century, which competed with the ancestor of Bengali for some time. Proto-Bengali was the language of the Pala Empire and the Sena dynasty, during the medieval period, Middle Bengali was characterized by the elision of word-final অ ô, the spread of compound verbs and Arabic and Persian influences. Bengali was a court language of the Sultanate of Bengal. Muslim rulers promoted the development of Bengali as part of efforts to Islamize. Bengali became the most spoken language in the Sultanate. This period saw borrowing of Perso-Arabic terms into Bengali vocabulary, major texts of Middle Bengali include Chandidas Shreekrishna Kirtana. The modern literary form of Bengali was developed during the 19th and early 20th centuries based on the dialect spoken in the Nadia region, a west-central Bengali dialect. Bengali presents a case of diglossia, with the literary
5.
Burmese language
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The Burmese language is the official language of Myanmar. Although the Constitution of Myanmar officially recognizes the English name of the language as the Myanmar language, Burmese is a tonal, pitch-register, and syllable-timed language, largely monosyllabic and analytic, with a subject–object–verb word order. It is a member of the Lolo-Burmese grouping of the Sino-Tibetan language family, the Burmese alphabet is ultimately descended from a Brahmic script, either Kadamba or Pallava. Burmese belongs to the Southern Burmish branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages, Burmese is the most widely spoken of the non-Sinitic Sino-Tibetan languages. Burmese was the fifth of the Sino-Tibetan languages to develop a system, after Chinese characters, the Pyu script, the Tibetan alphabet. However, several dialects substantially differ in Burmese with respect to vocabulary, lexical particles, the standard dialect of Burmese comes from the Irrawaddy River valley. Regional differences between speakers from Upper Burma, called anya tha အညာသား, and speakers from Lower Burma, called auk tha အောက်သား, occur in vocabulary choice, minor pronunciation differences do exist within the Irrawaddy River valley. For instance, for the term ဆွမ်း food offering, Lower Burmese speakers use instead of, the standard dialect is represented by the Yangon dialect because of the modern citys media influence and economic clout. In the past, the Mandalay dialect represented standard Burmese, moreover, with regard to kinship terminology, Upper Burmese speakers differentiate the maternal and paternal sides of a family whereas Lower Burmese speakers do not. Spoken Burmese is remarkably uniform among Burmese speakers, particularly living in the Irrawaddy valley. The figure would have much higher if non-Bamars were excluded. For the whole country, the rate was 49% for men and 5. 5% for women. The migration of Burmese speakers of Bamar descent to Lower Burma is relatively recent, as late as the mid-1700s, the Austroasiatic language Mon was the principal language of Lower Burma and the Mon people who inhabited it. After the Burmese-speaking Konbaung Dynastys victory over the Mon-speaking Restored Hanthawaddy Kingdom in 1757, by 1830, an estimated 90% of the population in the region identified themselves as Bamar due the influx from Upper Burma, assimilation, and intermarriage. In the British colonial era, British incentives, particularly geared toward rice production, as well as political instability in Upper Burma, more distinctive non-standard varieties emerge as one moves farther away from the Irrawaddy River valley toward peripheral areas of the country. These varieties include the Yaw, Palaw, Myeik, Tavoyan, despite substantial vocabulary and pronunciation differences, there is mutual intelligibility among most Burmese dialects. Dialects in Tanintharyi Region, including Palaw, Merguese and Tavoyan, are conservative in comparison to Standard Burmese. The Tavoyan and Intha dialects have preserved the /l/ medial, which is only found in Old Burmese inscriptions
6.
Chinese language
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Chinese is a group of related, but in many cases mutually unintelligible, language varieties, forming a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. Chinese is spoken by the Han majority and many ethnic groups in China. Nearly 1.2 billion people speak some form of Chinese as their first language, the varieties of Chinese are usually described by native speakers as dialects of a single Chinese language, but linguists note that they are as diverse as a language family. The internal diversity of Chinese has been likened to that of the Romance languages, There are between 7 and 13 main regional groups of Chinese, of which the most spoken by far is Mandarin, followed by Wu, Min, and Yue. Most of these groups are mutually unintelligible, although some, like Xiang and certain Southwest Mandarin dialects, may share common terms, all varieties of Chinese are tonal and analytic. Standard Chinese is a form of spoken Chinese based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin. It is the language of China and Taiwan, as well as one of four official languages of Singapore. It is one of the six languages of the United Nations. The written form of the language, based on the logograms known as Chinese characters, is shared by literate speakers of otherwise unintelligible dialects. Of the other varieties of Chinese, Cantonese is the spoken language and official in Hong Kong and Macau. It is also influential in Guangdong province and much of Guangxi, dialects of Southern Min, part of the Min group, are widely spoken in southern Fujian, with notable variants also spoken in neighboring Taiwan and in Southeast Asia. Hakka also has a diaspora in Taiwan and southeast Asia. Shanghainese and other Wu varieties are prominent in the lower Yangtze region of eastern China, Chinese can be traced back to a hypothetical Sino-Tibetan proto-language. The first written records appeared over 3,000 years ago during the Shang dynasty, as the language evolved over this period, the various local varieties became mutually unintelligible. In reaction, central governments have sought to promulgate a unified standard. Difficulties have included the great diversity of the languages, the lack of inflection in many of them, in addition, many of the smaller languages are spoken in mountainous areas that are difficult to reach, and are often also sensitive border zones. Without a secure reconstruction of proto-Sino-Tibetan, the structure of the family remains unclear. A top-level branching into Chinese and Tibeto-Burman languages is often assumed, the earliest examples of Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones from around 1250 BCE in the late Shang dynasty
7.
Pinyin
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Pinyin, or Hànyǔ Pīnyīn, is the official romanization system for Standard Chinese in mainland China, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan. It is often used to teach Standard Chinese, which is written using Chinese characters. The system includes four diacritics denoting tones, Pinyin without tone marks is used to spell Chinese names and words in languages written with the Latin alphabet, and also in certain computer input methods to enter Chinese characters. The pinyin system was developed in the 1950s by many linguists, including Zhou Youguang and it was published by the Chinese government in 1958 and revised several times. The International Organization for Standardization adopted pinyin as a standard in 1982. The system was adopted as the standard in Taiwan in 2009. The word Hànyǔ means the language of the Han people. In 1605, the Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci published Xizi Qiji in Beijing and this was the first book to use the Roman alphabet to write the Chinese language. Twenty years later, another Jesuit in China, Nicolas Trigault, neither book had much immediate impact on the way in which Chinese thought about their writing system, and the romanizations they described were intended more for Westerners than for the Chinese. One of the earliest Chinese thinkers to relate Western alphabets to Chinese was late Ming to early Qing Dynasty scholar-official, the first late Qing reformer to propose that China adopt a system of spelling was Song Shu. A student of the great scholars Yu Yue and Zhang Taiyan, Song had been to Japan and observed the effect of the kana syllabaries. This galvanized him into activity on a number of fronts, one of the most important being reform of the script, while Song did not himself actually create a system for spelling Sinitic languages, his discussion proved fertile and led to a proliferation of schemes for phonetic scripts. The Wade–Giles system was produced by Thomas Wade in 1859, and it was popular and used in English-language publications outside China until 1979. This Sin Wenz or New Writing was much more sophisticated than earlier alphabets. In 1940, several members attended a Border Region Sin Wenz Society convention. Mao Zedong and Zhu De, head of the army, both contributed their calligraphy for the masthead of the Sin Wenz Societys new journal. Outside the CCP, other prominent supporters included Sun Yat-sens son, Sun Fo, Cai Yuanpei, the countrys most prestigious educator, Tao Xingzhi, an educational reformer. Over thirty journals soon appeared written in Sin Wenz, plus large numbers of translations, biographies, some contemporary Chinese literature, and a spectrum of textbooks
8.
Japanese language
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Japanese is an East Asian language spoken by about 125 million speakers, primarily in Japan, where it is the national language. It is a member of the Japonic language family, whose relation to language groups, particularly to Korean. Little is known of the prehistory, or when it first appeared in Japan. Chinese documents from the 3rd century recorded a few Japanese words, during the Heian period, Chinese had considerable influence on the vocabulary and phonology of Old Japanese. Late Middle Japanese saw changes in features that brought it closer to the modern language, the standard dialect moved from the Kansai region to the Edo region in the Early Modern Japanese period. Following the end in 1853 of Japans self-imposed isolation, the flow of loanwords from European languages increased significantly, English loanwords in particular have become frequent, and Japanese words from English roots have proliferated. Japanese is an agglutinative, mora-timed language with simple phonotactics, a vowel system, phonemic vowel and consonant length. Word order is normally subject–object–verb with particles marking the grammatical function of words, sentence-final particles are used to add emotional or emphatic impact, or make questions. Nouns have no number or gender, and there are no articles. Verbs are conjugated, primarily for tense and voice, but not person, Japanese equivalents of adjectives are also conjugated. Japanese has a system of honorifics with verb forms and vocabulary to indicate the relative status of the speaker, the listener. Japanese has no relationship with Chinese, but it makes extensive use of Chinese characters, or kanji, in its writing system. Along with kanji, the Japanese writing system uses two syllabic scripts, hiragana and katakana. Latin script is used in a fashion, such as for imported acronyms. Very little is known about the Japanese of this period, Old Japanese is the oldest attested stage of the Japanese language. Through the spread of Buddhism, the Chinese writing system was imported to Japan, the earliest texts found in Japan are written in Classical Chinese, but they may have been meant to be read as Japanese by the kanbun method. Some of these Chinese texts show the influences of Japanese grammar, in these hybrid texts, Chinese characters are also occasionally used phonetically to represent Japanese particles. The earliest text, the Kojiki, dates to the early 8th century, the end of Old Japanese coincides with the end of the Nara period in 794
9.
Romanization of Japanese
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The romanization of Japanese is the application of the Latin script to write the Japanese language. This method of writing is referred to in English as rōmaji. There are several different romanization systems, the three main ones are Hepburn romanization, Kunrei-shiki romanization, and Nihon-shiki romanization. Variants of the Hepburn system are the most widely used, Japanese is normally written in a combination of logographic characters borrowed from Chinese and syllabic scripts which also ultimately derive from Chinese characters. It is also used to transliterate Japanese terms in text written in English on topics related to Japan, such as linguistics, literature, history, and culture. Rōmaji is the most common way to input Japanese into word processors and computers, all Japanese who have attended elementary school since World War II have been taught to read and write romanized Japanese. The word rōmaji literally means Roman letters, and in Japan it is often used to refer to the Latin alphabet itself than to any specific form of romanized Japanese. The earliest Japanese romanization system was based on the Portuguese orthography and it was developed around 1548 by a Japanese Catholic named Yajiro. Jesuit priests used the system in a series of printed Catholic books so that missionaries could preach and teach their converts without learning to read Japanese orthography. The most useful of these books for the study of early modern Japanese pronunciation and early attempts at romanization was the Nippo jisho, in general, the early Portuguese system was similar to Nihon-shiki in its treatment of vowels. The latter continued to be printed and read after the suppression of Christianity in Japan, the Hepburn system included representation of some sounds that have since changed. The Nihon-shiki romanization was an outgrowth of that movement, several Japanese texts were published entirely in rōmaji during this period, but it failed to catch on. Today, the use of Nihon-shiki for writing Japanese is advocated by the Oomoto sect, during the Allied occupation of Japan, the government of the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers made it official policy to romanize Japanese. However, that failed and a more moderate attempt at Japanese script reform followed. Hepburn romanization generally follows English phonology with Romance vowels and it is an intuitive method of showing Anglophones the pronunciation of a word in Japanese. It was standardized in the USA as American National Standard System for the Romanization of Japanese, Hepburn is the most common romanization system in use today, especially in the English-speaking world. The Revised Hepburn system of romanization uses a macron to indicate long vowels. For example, the name じゅんいちろう, is written with the kana characters ju-n-i-chi-ro-u, without the apostrophe, it would not be possible to distinguish this correct reading from the incorrect ju-ni-chi-ro-u
10.
Khmer language
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Khmer /kmɛər/ or Cambodian is the language of the Khmer people and the official language of Cambodia. With approximately 16 million speakers, it is the second most widely spoken Austroasiatic language, Khmer has been influenced considerably by Sanskrit and Pali, especially in the royal and religious registers, through Hinduism and Buddhism. The vast majority of Khmer speakers speak Central Khmer, the dialect of the plain where the Khmer are most heavily concentrated. Within Cambodia, regional accents exist in remote areas but these are regarded as varieties of Central Khmer, outside of Cambodia, three distinct dialects are spoken by ethnic Khmers native to areas that were historically part of the Khmer Empire. The Northern Khmer dialect is spoken by over a million Khmers in the regions of Northeast Thailand and is treated by some linguists as a separate language. Khmer is primarily an analytic, isolating language, there are no inflections, conjugations or case endings. Instead, particles and auxiliary words are used to indicate grammatical relationships, general word order is subject–verb–object, and modifiers follow the word they modify. Classifiers appear after numbers when used to count nouns, though not always so consistently as in languages like Chinese, in spoken Khmer, topic-comment structure is common and the perceived social relation between participants determines which sets of vocabulary, such as pronouns and honorifics, are proper. Khmer differs from neighboring languages such as Thai, Burmese, Lao, words are stressed on the final syllable, hence many words conform to the typical Mon–Khmer pattern of a stressed syllable preceded by a minor syllable. The language has been written in the Khmer script, an abugida descended from the Brahmi script via the southern Indian Pallava script, approximately 79% of Cambodians are able to read Khmer. Khmer is a member of the Austroasiatic language family, the family in an area that stretches from the Malay Peninsula through Southeast Asia to East India. Austroasiatic, which also includes Mon, Vietnamese and Munda, has been studied since 1856 and was first proposed as a family in 1907. Despite the amount of research, there is doubt about the internal relationship of the languages of Austroasiatic. Diffloth places Khmer in a branch of the Mon-Khmer languages. In these classification schemes Khmers closest genetic relatives are the Bahnaric and Pearic languages, more recent classifications doubt the validity of the Mon-Khmer sub-grouping and place the Khmer language as its own branch of Austroasiatic equidistant from the other 12 branches of the family. Khmer is spoken by some 13 million people in Cambodia, where it is the official language and it is also a second language for most of the minority groups and indigenous hill tribes there. Additionally there are a million speakers of Khmer native to southern Vietnam and 1.4 million in northeast Thailand, Khmer dialects, although mutually intelligible, are sometimes quite marked. The dialects form a continuum running roughly north to south, the following is a classification scheme showing the development of the modern Khmer dialects
11.
Korean language
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It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture and Changbai Korean Autonomous County of the Peoples Republic of China. Approximately 80 million people worldwide speak Korean and this implies that Korean is not an isolate, but a member of a small family. There is still debate on whether Korean and Japanese are related with each other, the Korean language is agglutinative in its morphology and SOV in its syntax. A relation of Korean with Japonic languages has been proposed by linguists like William George Aston, Chinese characters arrived in Korea together with Buddhism during the pre-Three Kingdoms period. Mainly privileged elites were educated to read and write in hanja, however, today, the hanja are largely unused in everyday life, but in South Korea they experience revivals on artistic works and are important in historic and/or linguistic studies of Korean. Since the Korean War, through 70 years of separation, North–South differences have developed in standard Korean, including variations in pronunciation, verb inflection, the Korean names for the language are based on the names for Korea used in North Korea and South Korea. In South Korea, the Korean language is referred to by names including hanguk-eo Korean language, hanguk-mal, Korean speech and uri-mal. In hanguk-eo and hanguk-mal, the first part of the word, hanguk, refers to the Korean nation while -eo and -mal mean language and speech, Korean is also simply referred to as guk-eo, literally national language. This name is based on the same Chinese characters meaning nation + language that are used in Taiwan and Japan to refer to their respective national languages. In North Korea and China, the language is most often called Chosŏn-mal, or more formally, the English word Korean is derived from Goryeo, which is thought to be the first dynasty known to Western countries. Korean people in the former USSR refer to themselves as Koryo-saram and Goryeo In, the majority of historical and modern linguists classify Korean as a language isolate. Such factors of typological divergence as Middle Mongolians exhibition of gender agreement can be used to argue that a relationship with Altaic is unlikely. Sergei Anatolyevich Starostin found about 25% of potential cognates in the Japanese–Korean 100-word Swadesh list, a good example might be Middle Korean sàm and Japanese asa, meaning hemp. Also, the doublet wo meaning hemp is attested in Western Old Japanese and it is thus plausible to assume a borrowed term. Among ancient languages, various relatives of Korean have been proposed. Some classify the language of Jeju Island as a distinct modern Koreanic language, Other famous theories are the Dravido-Korean languages theory and the mostly unknown southern-theory which suggest an Austronesian relation. Korean is spoken by the Korean people in North Korea and South Korea and by the Korean diaspora in countries including the Peoples Republic of China, the United States, Japan. Korean-speaking minorities exist in these states, but because of cultural assimilation into host countries, Korean is the official language of South Korea and North Korea
12.
Sinhalese language
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Sinhalese, known natively as Sinhala, is the native language of the Sinhalese people, who make up the largest ethnic group in Sri Lanka, numbering about 16 million. Sinhalese is also spoken as a language by other ethnic groups in Sri Lanka. It belongs to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages, Sinhalese has its own writing system, the Sinhalese alphabet, which is one of the Brahmic scripts, a descendant of the ancient Indian Brahmi script closely related to the Kadamba alphabet. Sinhalese is one of the official and national languages of Sri Lanka, Sinhalese, along with Pali, played a major role in the development of Theravada Buddhist literature. The closest relative of Sinhalese is the language of the Maldives and Minicoy Island, Sinhala is a Sanskrit term, the corresponding Middle Indo-Aryan word is Sīhala. The name is a derivation from siṃha, the Sanskrit word for lion Siṃhāla is attested as a Sanskrit name of the island of in the Bhagavata Purana, the name is sometimes glossed as abode of lions, and attributed to a supposed former abundance of lions on the island. According to the chronicle Mahavamsa, written in Pali, Prince Vijaya, in the following centuries, there was substantial immigration from Eastern India which led to an admixture of features of Eastern Prakrits. An example of an Eastern feature is the ending -e for masculine nominative singular in Sinhalese Prakrit. There are several cases of vocabulary doublets, e. g. the words mässā and mäkkā, some of the differences can be explained by the substrate influence of the parent stock of the Vedda language. Sinhalese has many words that are found in Sinhalese, or shared between Sinhalese and Vedda and not etymologically derivable from Middle or Old Indo-Aryan. Common examples are kola for leaf in Sinhala and Vedda, dola for pig in Vedda, Other common words are rera for wild duck, and gala for stones. The author of the oldest Sinhalese grammar, Sidatsangarava, written in the 13th century CE, the grammar lists naramba and kolamba as belonging to an indigenous source. Kolamba is the source of the name of the commercial capital Colombo, however, formal Sinhalese is more similar to Pali and medieval Sinhalese. g. I do not know whether it is new, as a result of centuries of colonial rule, modern Sinhalese contains some Portuguese, Dutch and English loanwords. It is now spoken by a few families in Macau and in the Macanese diaspora, Sinhalese shares many features common to other Indo-European languages. For native speakers all dialects are mutually intelligible, and they might not even realise that the differences are significant, the language of the Vedda people resembles Sinhala to a great extent, although it has a large number of words which cannot be traced to another language. The Rodiya use another dialect of Sinhalese, Rodiya used to be a caste in Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka no longer recognizes castes, in Sinhalese there is distinctive diglossia, as in many languages of South Asia
13.
Standard Tibetan
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Standard Tibetan is the most widely spoken form of the Tibetic languages. It is based on the speech of Lhasa, an Ü-Tsang dialect, for this reason, Standard Tibetan is often called Lhasa Tibetan. Tibetan is a language of the Tibet Autonomous Region of the Peoples Republic of China. The written language is based on Classical Tibetan and is highly conservative, like many languages, Standard Tibetan has a variety of language registers, Phal-skad, the vernacular speech. Zhe-sa, the spoken style, particularly prominent in Lhasa. Chos-skad, the style in which the scriptures and other classical works are written. In scientific and astrological works, the numerals, as in Vedic Sanskrit, are expressed by symbolical words, Tibetan is written with an Indic script, with a historically conservative orthography that reflects Old Tibetan phonology and helps unify the Tibetan-language area. Wylie transliteration is the most common system of romanization used by Western scholars in rendering written Tibetan using the Latin alphabet, Tibetan pinyin, however, is the official romanization system employed by the government of the Peoples Republic of China. Certain names may also retain irregular transcriptions, such as Chomolungma for Mount Everest, the following summarizes the sound system of the dialect of Tibetan spoken in Lhasa, the most influential variety of the spoken language. These sounds normally occur in closed syllables, because Tibetan does not allow geminated consonants, the result is that the first is pronounced as an open syllable but retains the vowel typical of a closed syllable. For instance, zhabs is pronounced and pad is pronounced, but the compound word and this process can result in minimal pairs involving sounds that are otherwise allophones. Sources vary on whether the phone and the phone are distinct or basically identical, phonemic vowel length exists in Lhasa Tibet but in a restricted set of circumstances. Assimilation of Classical Tibetans suffixes, normally ‘i, at the end of a word produces a long vowel in Lhasa Tibetan, in normal spoken pronunciation, a lengthening of the vowel is also frequently substituted for the sounds and when they occur at the end of a syllable. The vowels, and each have nasalized forms, and, respectively, in some unusual cases, the vowels, and may also be nasalised. The Lhasa dialect is described as having two tones, high and low. However, in words, each tone can occur with two distinct contours. It is normally safe to only between the two tones because there are very few minimal pairs that differ only because of contour. The difference occurs only in words ending in the sounds or, for instance
14.
Thai language
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Thai, also known as Siamese or Central Thai, is the national and official language of Thailand and the native language of the Thai people and the vast majority of Thai Chinese. Thai is a member of the Tai group of the Tai–Kadai language family, over half of the words in Thai are borrowed from Pali, Sanskrit and Old Khmer. It is a tonal and analytic language, Thai also has a complex orthography and relational markers. Spoken Thai is mutually intelligible with Laotian, Thai is the official language of Thailand, natively spoken by over 20 million people. Standard Thai is based on the register of the classes of Bangkok. In addition to Central Thai, Thailand is home to other related Tai languages, Isan, the language of the Isan region of Thailand, a collective term for the various Lao dialects spoken in Thailand that show some Siamese Thai influences, which is written with the Thai script. It is spoken by about 20 million people, Thais from both inside and outside the Isan region often simply call this variant Lao when speaking informally. Northern Thai, spoken by about 6 million in the independent kingdom of Lanna. Shares strong similarities with Lao to the point that in the past the Siamese Thais referred to it as Lao. Southern Thai, spoken by about 4.5 million Phu Thai, spoken by half a million around Nakhon Phanom Province. Phuan, spoken by 200,000 in central Thailand and Isan, Shan, spoken by about 100,000 in north-west Thailand along the border with the Shan States of Burma, and by 3.2 million in Burma. Lü, spoken by about 1,000,000 in northern Thailand, and 600,000 more in Sipsong Panna, Burma, nyaw language, spoken by 50,000 in Nakhon Phanom Province, Sakhon Nakhon Province, Udon Thani Province of Northeast Thailand. Song, spoken by about 30,000 in central and northern Thailand, Elegant or Formal Thai, official and written version, includes respectful terms of address, used in simplified form in newspapers. Rhetorical Thai, used for public speaking, religious Thai, used when discussing Buddhism or addressing monks. Royal Thai, influenced by Khmer, this is used when addressing members of the family or describing their activities. Most Thais can speak and understand all of these contexts, street and Elegant Thai are the basis of all conversations. Rhetorical, religious, and royal Thai are taught in schools as the national curriculum, many scholars believe that the Thai script is derived from the Khmer script, which is modeled after the Brahmic script from the Indic family. However, in appearance, Thai is closer to Thai Dam script, the language and its script are closely related to the Lao language and script
15.
Vietnamese language
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Vietnamese /ˌviɛtnəˈmiːz/ is an Austroasiatic language that originated in the north of modern-day Vietnam, where it is the national and official language. It is the language of the Vietnamese people, as well as a first or second language for the many ethnic minorities of Vietnam. As the result of Vietnamese emigration and cultural influence, Vietnamese speakers are found throughout the world, notably in East and Southeast Asia, North America, Australia, Vietnamese has also been officially recognized as a minority language in the Czech Republic. It is part of the Austroasiatic language family of which it has by far the most speakers, Vietnamese vocabulary has borrowings from Chinese, and it formerly used a modified set of Chinese characters called chữ nôm given vernacular pronunciation. The Vietnamese alphabet in use today is a Latin alphabet with diacritics for tones. As the national language, Vietnamese is spoken throughout Vietnam by ethnic Vietnamese, Vietnamese is also the native language of the Gin minority group in southern Guangxi Province in China. A significant number of speakers also reside in neighboring Cambodia. In the United States, Vietnamese is the sixth most spoken language, with over 1.5 million speakers and it is the third most spoken language in Texas, fourth in Arkansas and Louisiana, and fifth in California. Vietnamese is the seventh most spoken language in Australia, in France, it is the most spoken Asian language and the eighth most spoken immigrant language at home. Vietnamese is the official and national language of Vietnam. It is the first language of the majority of the Vietnamese population, in the Czech Republic, Vietnamese has been recognized as one of 14 minority languages, on the basis of communities that have either traditionally or on a long-term basis resided in the country. This status grants Czech citizens from the Vietnamese community the right to use Vietnamese with public authorities, Vietnamese is increasingly being taught in schools and institutions outside of Vietnam. Since the 1980s, Vietnamese language schools have been established for youth in many Vietnamese-speaking communities around the world, furthermore, there has also been a number of Germans studying Vietnamese due to increased economic investment in Vietnam. Vietnamese is taught in schools in the form of immersion to a varying degree in Cambodia, Laos. Classes teach students subjects in Vietnamese and another language, furthermore, in Thailand, Vietnamese is one of the most popular foreign languages in schools and colleges. Vietnamese was identified more than 150 years ago as part of the Mon–Khmer branch of the Austroasiatic language family. Later, Muong was found to be closely related to Vietnamese than other Mon–Khmer languages. The term Vietic was proposed by Hayes, who proposed to redefine Viet–Muong as referring to a subbranch of Vietic containing only Vietnamese and Muong
16.
Buddhism
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Buddhism is a religion and dharma that encompasses a variety of traditions, beliefs and spiritual practices largely based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. Buddhism originated in India sometime between the 6th and 4th centuries BCE, from where it spread through much of Asia, two major extant branches of Buddhism are generally recognized by scholars, Theravada and Mahayana. Buddhism is the worlds fourth-largest religion, with over 500 million followers or 7% of the global population, Buddhist schools vary on the exact nature of the path to liberation, the importance and canonicity of various teachings and scriptures, and especially their respective practices. In Theravada the ultimate goal is the attainment of the state of Nirvana, achieved by practicing the Noble Eightfold Path, thus escaping what is seen as a cycle of suffering. Theravada has a following in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia. Mahayana, which includes the traditions of Pure Land, Zen, Nichiren Buddhism, Shingon, rather than Nirvana, Mahayana instead aspires to Buddhahood via the bodhisattva path, a state wherein one remains in the cycle of rebirth to help other beings reach awakening. Vajrayana, a body of teachings attributed to Indian siddhas, may be viewed as a branch or merely a part of Mahayana. Tibetan Buddhism, which preserves the Vajrayana teachings of eighth century India, is practiced in regions surrounding the Himalayas, Tibetan Buddhism aspires to Buddhahood or rainbow body. Buddhism is an Indian religion attributed to the teachings of Buddha, the details of Buddhas life are mentioned in many early Buddhist texts but are inconsistent, his social background and life details are difficult to prove, the precise dates uncertain. Some hagiographic legends state that his father was a king named Suddhodana, his mother queen Maya, and he was born in Lumbini gardens. Some of the stories about Buddha, his life, his teachings, Buddha was moved by the innate suffering of humanity. He meditated on this alone for a period of time, in various ways including asceticism, on the nature of suffering. He famously sat in meditation under a Ficus religiosa tree now called the Bodhi Tree in the town of Bodh Gaya in Gangetic plains region of South Asia. He reached enlightenment, discovering what Buddhists call the Middle Way, as an enlightened being, he attracted followers and founded a Sangha. Now, as the Buddha, he spent the rest of his teaching the Dharma he had discovered. Dukkha is a concept of Buddhism and part of its Four Noble Truths doctrine. It can be translated as incapable of satisfying, the unsatisfactory nature, the Four Truths express the basic orientation of Buddhism, we crave and cling to impermanent states and things, which is dukkha, incapable of satisfying and painful. This keeps us caught in saṃsāra, the cycle of repeated rebirth, dukkha
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Dharmachakra
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The dharmachakra is one of the Ashtamangala of Indian religions such as Jainism, Buddhism and Hinduism. It has represented the Buddhist dharma, Gautama Buddhas teaching of the path to Nirvana and it is also connected to the Noble Eightfold Path. The Sanskrit noun dharma is a derivation from the root dhṛ, which has a meaning of to hold, maintain, keep, and takes a meaning of what is established or firm, and hence law. It is derived from the Vedic Sanskrit n-stem dharman- with the bearer, supporter in the historical Vedic religion conceived of as an aspect of Ṛta. The wheel is also the main attribute of Vishnu, the Vedic god of preservation, madhavan and Parpola note Chakra sign appears frequently in Indus Valley civilization inscriptions, on several seals. Notably, a sequence of four signs on the Dholavira signboard, common Dharmachakra symbols consist of either 8 or 24 spokes. Unicode Symbol, ☸ According to the Puranas of Hinduism, only 24 Rishis or Sages managed the power of the Gayatri Mantra. The 24 letters of the Gayatri Mantra depict those 24 Rishis and this is a quote from the Mundaka Upanishad, the concluding part of the sacred Hindu Vedas. The one who does not follow the wheel thus revolving, leads a sinful, vain life, the Dharmachakra is one of the ashtamangala of Buddhism. It is one of the oldest known Buddhist symbols found in Indian art, the Buddha is said to have set the dhammacakka in motion when he delivered his first sermon, which is described in the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta. The wheel itself depicts ideas about the cycle of saṃsāra and furthermore the Noble Eightfold Path, Buddhism adopted the wheel as the main symbol of the chakravartin wheel-turner, the ideal king or universal monarch, symbolising the ability to cut through all obstacles and illusions. According to Harrison, the symbolism of the wheel of the law, the image, having been found in antiquity is referred to as Rimbo is an accepted symbol used in Nichiren Shoshu Buddhism, along with the Swastika. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, first Vice President of India has stated that the Ashoka Chakra of India represents the Dharmachakra, in Jainism, the Dharmachakra is worshipped as a symbol of the dharma. Other cakras appear in other Indian traditions, e. g. Vishnus Sudarśanacakra, the former Flag of Sikkim featured a version of the dharmachakra. Thai people also use a flag with a red dhammacakka as their Buddhist flag. The emblem of Mongolia includes a dharmachakra together with some other Buddhist attributes such as the padma, cintamani, a blue khata, the dharmachakra is also the insignia for Buddhist chaplains in the United States Armed Forces. In non-Buddhist cultural contexts, an eight-spoked dharmachakra resembles a traditional ships wheel, as a nautical emblem, this image is a common sailor tattoo. In the Unicode computer standard, the dharmachakra is called the Wheel of Dharma, Buddhism for the West, Theravāda, Mahāyāna and Vajrayāna, a comprehensive review of Buddhist history, philosophy, and teachings from the time of the Buddha to the present day
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History of Buddhism
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This makes it one of the oldest religions practiced today. The religion evolved as it spread from the region of the Indian subcontinent through Central, East. At one time or another, it influenced most of the Asian continent, siddhārtha Gautama was the historical founder of Buddhism. He was born a Kshatriya warrior prince in Lumbini, Shakya Republic, the dates of his birth and death are still a point of controversy but most scholars suggested that the Buddha died within approximately a few decades on either side of 400 B. C. His particular family of Sakya Kshatriyas may have made claims of belonging to a Brahmin lineage, as indicated by the family name Gautama, 19th-century scholars, such as Eitel, connected it to the Brahmin Rishi Gautama. While some Buddhist texts, use the epthet, Angirasa, which refers to the Brahmin Sage Angirasa, siddhartha Gautama attained enlightenment sitting under a peepal tree, now known as the Bodhi tree in Bodh Gaya, India. Gautama, from then on, was known as The Enlightened One, Buddha found patronage in the ruler of Magadha, emperor Bimbisāra. The emperor accepted Buddhism as his faith and allowed the establishment of many Buddhist vihāras. This eventually led to the renaming of the region as Bihār. At the Deer Park near Vārāṇasī in northern India, Buddha set in motion Wheel of Dharma by delivering his first sermon to a group of five companions with whom he had previously sought enlightenment. Together with the Buddha they formed the first Saṅgha According to the scriptures, later, after an initial reluctance, fully ordained Buddhist nuns are called bhikkhunis. Mahapajapati Gotami, the aunt and foster mother of Buddha, was the first bhikkhuni, for the remaining years of his life, the Buddha is said to have traveled in the Gangetic Plain of Northeastern India and other regions. Buddha attained parinirvāṇa in the jungles of Kuśināra. Just before Buddha died, he told his followers that thereafter the Dharma would be their leader. The early arhants considered Gautamas words the source of Dharma and Vinaya. Nonetheless, no ungarnished collection of his sayings has survived, the versions of the canon preserved in Pāli, Sanskrit, Chinese, and Tibetan are sectarian variants of a corpus that grew and crystallized during three centuries of oral transmission. Early Buddhism remained centered on the Ganges valley, spreading gradually from its ancient heartland, the canonical sources record two councils, where the monastic Sangha established the textual collections based on the Buddhas teachings and settled certain disciplinary problems within the community. The objective of the council was to all of Buddhas teachings into the doctrinal teachings and Abhidhamma
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Gautama Buddha
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Gautama Buddha, also known as Siddhārtha Gautama, Shakyamuni Buddha, or simply the Buddha, after the title of Buddha, was an ascetic and sage, on whose teachings Buddhism was founded. He is believed to have lived and taught mostly in the part of ancient India sometime between the sixth and fourth centuries BCE. Gautama taught a Middle Way between sensual indulgence and the severe asceticism found in the śramaṇa movement common in his region and he later taught throughout other regions of eastern India such as Magadha and Kosala. Gautama is the figure in Buddhism. He is recognized by Buddhists as a teacher who attained full Buddhahood. Accounts of his life, discourses, and monastic rules are believed by Buddhists to have been summarized after his death, various collections of teachings attributed to him were passed down by oral tradition and first committed to writing about 400 years later. Scholars are hesitant to make unqualified claims about the facts of the Buddhas life. Apart from the Vedic Brahmins, the Buddhas lifetime coincided with the flourishing of influential schools of thought like Ājīvika, Cārvāka, Jainism. Brahmajala Sutta records sixty-two such schools of thought, thus, Buddha was just one of the many śramaṇa philosophers of that time. The times of Gautamas birth and death are uncertain, most historians in the early 20th century dated his lifetime as circa 563 BCE to 483 BCE. These alternative chronologies, however, have not yet accepted by all historians. It was either a republic, or an oligarchy, and his father was an elected chieftain. He obtained his enlightenment in Bodh Gaya, gave his first sermon in Sarnath, no written records about Gautama were found from his lifetime or some centuries thereafter. One Edict of Asoka, who reigned from circa 269 BCE to 232 BCE, another one of his edicts mentions the titles of several Dhamma texts, establishing the existence of a written Buddhist tradition at least by the time of the Maurya era. These texts may be the precursor of the Pāli Canon and they are written in the Gāndhārī language using the Kharosthi script on twenty-seven birch bark manuscripts and date from the first century BCE to the third century CE. The sources for the life of Siddhārtha Gautama are a variety of different and these include the Buddhacarita, Lalitavistara Sūtra, Mahāvastu, and the Nidānakathā. Of these, the Buddhacarita is the earliest full biography, a poem written by the poet Aśvaghoṣa in the first century CE. The Lalitavistara Sūtra is the next oldest biography, a Mahāyāna/Sarvāstivāda biography dating to the 3rd century CE, the Mahāvastu from the Mahāsāṃghika Lokottaravāda tradition is another major biography, composed incrementally until perhaps the 4th century CE
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Dharma
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Dharma is a key concept with multiple meanings in the Indian religions — Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism and Jainism. There is no single word translation for dharma in western languages, in Buddhism dharma means cosmic law and order, but is also applied to the teachings of the Buddha. In Buddhist philosophy, dhamma/dharma is also the term for phenomena, Dharma in Jainism refers to the teachings of tirthankara and the body of doctrine pertaining to the purification and moral transformation of human beings. For Sikhs, the word means the path of righteousness. The Classical Sanskrit noun dharma is a derivation from the root dhṛ, the word dharma was already in use in the historical Vedic religion, and its meaning and conceptual scope has evolved over several millennia. The antonym of dharma is adharma, the Classical Sanskrit noun dharma is a derivation from the root dhṛ, which means to hold, maintain, keep, and takes a meaning of what is established or firm, and hence law. It is derived from an older Vedic Sanskrit n-stem dharman-, with a meaning of bearer, supporter. In the Rigveda, the word appears as an n-stem, dhárman-, figuratively, it means sustainer and supporter. It is semantically similar to the Greek Ethos, in Classical Sanskrit, the noun becomes thematic, dharma-. The word dharma derives from Proto-Indo-European root *dʰer-, which in Sanskrit is reflected as class-1 root √dhṛ, etymologically it is related to Avestan √dar-, Latin firmus, Lithuanian derė́ti, Lithuanian dermė and darna and Old Church Slavonic drъžati. Classical Sanskrit word dharmas would formally match with Latin o-stem firmus from Proto-Indo-European *dʰer-mo-s holding, were it not for its development from earlier Rigvedic n-stem. In Classical Sanskrit, and in the Vedic Sanskrit of the Atharvaveda, in Pāli, it is rendered dhamma. In some contemporary Indian languages and dialects it occurs as dharm. Dharma is a concept of central importance in Indian philosophy and religion and it has multiple meanings in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. It is difficult to provide a concise definition for dharma, as the word has a long and varied history and straddles a complex set of meanings. There is no equivalent single word translation for dharma in western languages, there have been numerous, conflicting attempts to translate ancient Sanskrit literature with the word dharma into German, English and French. The concept, claims Paul Horsch, has caused difficulties for modern commentators and translators. Dharma root is dhri, which means ‘to support, hold and it is the thing that regulates the course of change by not participating in change, but that principle which remains constant
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Four Noble Truths
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The Four Noble Truths are the truths of the Noble Ones, the truths or realities which are understood by the worthy ones who have attained Nirvana. The truths are dukkha, the arising of dukkha, the cessation of dukkha, the four truths express the basic orientation of Buddhism, we crave and cling to impermanent states and things, which is dukkha, incapable of satisfying and painful. This keeps us caught in samsara, the cycle of repeated rebirth, dukkha. But there is a way to real happiness and to end this cycle. The meaning of the truths is as follows, Dukkha, incapable of satisfying, Life in this mundane world, with its craving and clinging to impermanent states and things, is dukkha, unsatisfactory and painful, Samudaya, the origination or arising of dukkha. Dukkha, and repeated life in this world, arises with taṇhā, thirst, craving for and clinging to impermanent states. This craving and clinging produces karma which leads to renewed becoming, keeping us trapped in rebirth and renewed dissatisfaction, Nirodha, the four truths provide a conceptual framework for introducing and explaining Buddhist thought, which has to be personally understood or experienced. The formulation of the four truths, and their importance, developed over time, in the sutras, the four truths have both a symbolic and a propositional function. They represent the awakening and liberation of the Buddha, but also the possibility of liberation for all sentient beings, the four truths are of central importance in the Theravada tradition, which holds to the idea that insight into the four truths is liberating in itself. They are less prominent in the Mahayana traditions, which emphasize insight into sunyata, the four truths are best known from their presentation in the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta, which contains two sets of the four truths, while various other sets can be found in the Pali Canon. According to the Buddhist tradition, the Buddha first taught the four noble truths in the very first teaching he gave after attaining enlightenment, as recorded in the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta. According to Norman, the Pali canon contains various shortened forms of the four truths, the mnemonic set, the earliest form of the mnemonic set was dukkham samudayo nirodho magga, without the reference to sacca or arya, which were later added to the formula. This full set contains grammatical errors, but were considered correct by the Pali tradition, as opposite to sukha, pleasure, it is better translated as pain. S. Cousins notes that the four truths are not restricted to the form where dukkha is the subject. Other forms take the world, the arising of the world or the āsavas, according to Cousins, the well-known form is simply shorthand for all of the forms. The world refers to the saṅkhāras, that is, all compounded things, the Pali terms ariya sacca are commonly translated as noble truths. This translation is a convention started by the earliest translators of Buddhist texts into English, Norman, this is just one of several possible translations. According to Paul Williams, here is no reason why the Pali expression ariyasaccani should be translated as noble truths
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Impermanence
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Impermanence, also called Anicca or Anitya, is one of the essential doctrines and a part of three marks of existence in Buddhism. The doctrine asserts that all of conditioned existence, without exception, is transient, evanescent, inconstant, all temporal things, whether material or mental, are compounded objects in a continuous change of condition, subject to decline and destruction. The concept of impermanence is also found in schools of Hinduism and Jainism. Anicca or impermanence is understood in Buddhism as the first of three marks of existence, the two being dukkha and anatta. All physical and mental events, states Buddhism, come into being, human life embodies this flux in the aging process, the cycle of repeated birth and death, nothing lasts, and everything decays. This is applicable to all beings and their environs, including beings who have reincarnated in deva and this is in contrast to nirvana, the reality that is Nicca, or knows no change, decay or death. Impermanence is intimately associated with the doctrine of anatta, according to which things have no essence, permanent self, the Buddha taught that because no physical or mental object is permanent, desires for or attachments to either causes suffering. Understanding Anicca and Anatta are steps in the Buddhist’s spiritual progress toward enlightenment, the Pali word anicca is a compound word consisting of a meaning non-, and nicca meaning constant, continuous, permanent. While the word Nicca refers to the concept of continuity and permanence, Anicca refers to its exact opposite, the term appears in the Rigveda, and is synonymous with Anitya. The term appears extensively in the Pali canon, Impermanence is one of trilakshana of existence. Everything, whether physical or mental, is a formation, has a dependent origination and is impermanent and this impermanence is a source of Dukkha. This is in contrast to nirvana, the reality that is Nicca, or knows no change, decay or death. The term Anitya, in the sense of impermanence of objects and life, appears in verse 1.2.10 of the Katha Upanishad, one of the Principal Upanishads of Hinduism. It asserts that everything in the world is impermanent, but impermanent nature of things is an opportunity to obtain what is permanent as the Hindu scripture presents its doctrine about Atman, the term Anitya also appears in the Bhagavad Gita in a similar context. Even in the details of their respective impermanence theories, state Frank Hoffman and Deegalle Mahinda, Buddhist, the Nicca in Buddhism is anatta, the Nitya in Hinduism is atman. The five aggregates, monks, are anicca, impermanent, and what is the all that is impermanent. The eye is impermanent, visual objects, whatever is felt as pleasant or unpleasant or neither-unpleasant-nor-pleasant, born of eye-contact is impermanent. All formations are impermanent Akio Jissojis Buddhist auteur film Mujo owes its title to the doctrine of Impermanence
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Karma in Buddhism
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Karma is a Sanskrit term that literally means action or doing. In the Buddhist tradition, karma refers to action driven by intention which leads to future consequences and those intentions are considered to be the determining factor in the kind of rebirth in samsara, the cycle of rebirth. Karma is a Sanskrit term that literally means action or doing, the word karma derives from the verbal root kṛ, which means do, make, perform, accomplish. Karmaphala is the fruit, effect or result of karma, a similar term is karmavipaka, the maturation or cooking of karma, The remote effects of karmic choices are referred to as the maturation or fruit of the karmic act. The metaphor is derived from agriculture, One sows a seed, there is a time lag during which some mysterious invisible process takes place, Karma and karmaphala are fundamental concepts in Buddhism. Rebirth, is a belief in all Buddhist traditions. It says that birth and death in the six realms occur in successive cycles driven by ignorance, desire, the cycle of rebirth is called samsarā. It is a beginningless and ever-ongoing process, liberation from samsarā can be attained by following the Buddhist Path. This path leads to vidyā, and the stilling of trsnā, hereby the ongoing process of rebirth is stopped. The cycle of rebirth is determined by karma, literally action, in the Buddhist tradition, karma refers to actions driven by intention, a deed done deliberately through body, speech or mind, which leads to future consequences. The Nibbedhika Sutta, Anguttara Nikaya 6.63, Intention I tell you, is kamma, intending, one does kamma by way of body, speech, & intellect. According to Peter Harvey, It is the impulse behind an action that is karma. Actions, then, must be if they are to generate karmic fruits. According to Gombrich, this was an innovation, which overturns brahmanical. Its a rejection of caste-bound differences, giving the possibility to reach liberation to all people, not just Brahmanins, Not by birth is one a brahmin or an outcaste. How this emphasis on intention was to be interpreted became a matter of debate in, Karma leads to future consequences, karma-phala, fruit of action. Any given action may cause all sorts of results, but the results are only those results which are a consequence of both the moral quality of the action, and of the intention behind the action. According to Reichenbach, he envisioned by the law of karma encompass more than the observed natural or physical results which follow upon the performance of an action
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Buddhist texts
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They can be categorized in a number of ways. These religious texts were written in different languages and scripts. Even after the development of printing, Buddhists preferred to keep to their practices with these texts. The Mahāsāṃghika and the Mūlasarvāstivāda considered both the Buddhas discourses, and of his disciples, to be buddhavacana, a number of different beings such as buddhas, disciples of the buddha, ṛṣis, and devas were considered capable to transmitting buddhavacana. The content of such a discourse was then to be collated with the sūtras, compared with the Vinaya and these texts may then be certified as true buddhavacana by a buddha, a saṃgha, a small group of elders, or one knowledgeable elder. In Theravada Buddhism, the collection of buddhavacana is the Pali Canon. Some scholars believe that some portions of the Pali Canon and Agamas could contain the substance of the historical teachings of the Buddha. In East Asian Buddhism, what is considered buddhavacana is collected in the Chinese Buddhist canon, the most common edition of this is the Taishō Tripiṭaka. Then these sutras may be regarded as buddhavacana. Sometimes texts that are considered commentaries by some are regarded by others as Buddhavacana, in Tibetan Buddhism, what is considered buddhavacana is collected in the Kangyur. The East Asian and Tibetan Buddhist canons always combined Buddhavacana with other literature in their standard collected editions, however, the general view of what is and is not buddhavacana is broadly similar between East Asian Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism. The Tibetan Kangyur, which belongs to the schools of Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhism, in addition to containing sutras and vinaya. Doctrinal elaborations were preserved in Abhidharma works and later Karikas, as Buddhism spread geographically, these texts were translated into the local language, such as Chinese and Tibetan. The Pali canon was preserved in Sri Lanka where it was first written down in the first century BCE, the Sri Lankan Pali tradition developed extensive commentaries as well as sub-commentaries for the Pali Canon as well as treatises on Abhidhamma. Sutra commentaries and Abhidharma works also exist in Tibetan, Chinese, Korean, important examples of non-canonical Pali texts are the Visuddhimagga, by Buddhaghosa, which is a compendium of Theravada teachings and the Mahavamsa, a historical Sri Lankan chronicle. Sanskrit Buddhist literature later became the dominant tradition in India until the decline of Buddhism in India, around the beginning of the Christian era, a new genre of sutra literature began to be written with a focus on the Bodhisattva idea, commonly known as Mahayana sutras. Many of the Mahayana sutras were written in Sanskrit and then translated into the Tibetan, some 600 Mahayana Sutras have survived in Sanskrit, or in Chinese and/or Tibetan translation. In the Mahayana tradition there are important works termed Shastras, or treatises which attempt to outline the sutra teachings, the works of important Buddhist philosophers like Nagarjuna, Vasubandhu and Dharmakirti are generally termed Shastras, and were written in Sanskrit
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Mahayana sutras
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The Mahayana sutras are a broad genre of Buddhist scriptures that various traditions of Mahayana Buddhism accept as canonical. They are largely preserved in the Chinese Buddhist canon, the Tibetan Buddhist canon, around one hundred Mahayana sutras survive in Sanskrit, or in Chinese and Tibetan translations. The origins of the Mahayana are not completely understood, the earliest views of Mahayana Buddhism in the West assumed that it existed as a separate school in competition with the so-called Hīnayāna schools. These views have largely dismissed in modern times in light of a much broader range of early texts that are now available. The old views of Mahayana as a separate lay-inspired and devotional sect are now dismissed as misguided. The early versions of Mahayana sutras were not written documents but orally preserved teachings, the verses which were committed to memory and recited by monks were viewed as the substitute for the actual speaking presence of the Buddha. The earliest textual evidence of the Mahayana comes from sutras originating around the beginning of the common era. There is also no evidence that Mahayana ever referred to a formal school or sect of Buddhism, but rather that it existed as a certain set of ideals. This continues today with the Dharmaguptaka ordination lineage in East Asia, therefore, Mahayana was never a separate rival sect of the early schools. Those who venerate the bodhisattvas and read the Mahayana sutras are called the Mahayanists, much of the early extant evidence for the origins of Mahayana comes from early Chinese translations of Mahayana texts. These Mahayana teachings were first propagated into China by Lokakṣema, the first translator of Mahayana sutras into Chinese during the 2nd century CE, others such as A. K. Warder have argued that the Mahayana sutras are not historical. Western scholarship does not go so far as to impugn the religious authority of Mahayana sutras and it is widely accepted that Mahayana sutras constitute a body of literature that began to appear from as early as the 1st century BCE, although the evidence for this date is circumstantial. This picture may be qualified by the analysis of early manuscripts recently coming out of Afghanistan. In effect we have a vast body of anonymous but relatively coherent literature and this suggests that Mahayana was not simply an accretion of fabricated doctrines, as it is sometimes accused of being, but has a strong connection with the teachings of Buddha himself. However weak the claim to historicity that the Mahayana sutras hold, then these sutras may be properly regarded as the words of the Buddha. Some teachers take the view that all teachings that stem from the insights of Buddha constitute the Buddhas speech. There are scriptural supports for this even in the Pāli Canon. There the Buddha is asked how the disciples should verify, after his death and his statement is neither to be approved nor scorned
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Tibetan Buddhist canon
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The Tibetan Buddhist canon is a loosely defined list of sacred texts recognized by various sects of Tibetan Buddhism. In addition to texts from Early Buddhist and Mahayana sources. The Tibetan Canon underwent a final compilation in the 14th century by Buton Rinchen Drub, all texts presumably have a Sanskrit original, although in many cases the Tibetan text was translated from Chinese or other languages. Tengyur or Translated Treatises, is the section to which were assigned commentaries, treatises, the Tengyur contains 3626 texts in 224 Volumes. The Kangyur is divided into sections on Vinaya, Perfection of Wisdom Sutras, Avatamsaka, Ratnakuta and other sutras, when exactly the term Kangyur was first used is not known. Collections of canonical Buddhist texts already existed in the time of Trisong Detsen, the exact number of texts in the Kangyur is not fixed. Each editor takes responsibility for removing texts he considers spurious or adding new translations, currently there are about 12 available Kangyurs. These include the Derge, Lhasa, Narthang, Cone, Peking, Urga, Phudrak and Stog Palace versions, in addition, some canonical texts have been found in Tabo and Dunhuang which provide earlier exemplars to texts found in the Kangyur. The majority of extant Kangyur editions appear to stem from the so-called Old Narthang Kangyur, though the Phukdrak, the stemma of the Kangyur have been well researched in particular by Helmut Eimer and Paul Harrison. A team of Indian and Tibetan scholars was assigned for the purpose, as a major step in this remarkable attempt at literary standardization, the bi-lingual glossary known as the Mahavyutpatti was successfully accomplished in the Tibetan horse year. The earliest catalogue compilation was recorded from the manuscript of the collection housed in the palace- pho-brang ‘phang-thang ka-med kyi gtsug-lag-kang in the Tibetan dog year. This cataloguing work became famous by the name of the palace, dkar-chag ldan-dkar-ma was compiled in the dragon year. Among these three catalogues, ldan-dkar-ma, included in the volume Jo of sna-tsogs in sde-ge bka’-bstan, is believed to be the only surviving so far. But recently a manuscript of dkar-chag phang-thang-ma is discovered and published from Tibet and it contains 961 titles listed under 34 subject headings with additional information of numbers of verses that contains in each text. The ldan-dkar-ma catalogue comprises 735 titles and listed under a category of 27 subject headings. of words, verses, canto, thus today we have a record of 73 million words contained in the bka’-’gyur & bstan-’gyur collection. According to the latest edition of Dharma Publication, the bKa’-‘gyur contains 1,115 texts, likewise, the bsTan-gyur contains 3,387 texts using 127,000 folios amounting to 850,000 lines and 48 millions words. The sum total of both these collections is 4,502 texts in 73 millions words, by fixing bampo to verses and to words of each of the textual contents, the individual works are interpolation and alteration. This further strengthened the authenticity of Tibetan Buddhist literature, Tibet, thus, becomes the earliest to accomplish catalogue as inventory in the history of evolution of catalogue
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Chinese Buddhist canon
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The Chinese Buddhist Canon refers to the total body of Buddhist literature deemed canonical in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese Buddhism. The traditional term for this canon is Dàzàngjīng, which means the Great Treasury of Sūtras, the Chinese Buddhist canon includes Āgama, Vinaya and Abhidharma texts from Early Buddhist schools, as well as the Mahāyāna sūtras and scriptures from Esoteric Buddhism. There are many versions of the canon in East Asia in different places, an early version is the Fangshan Stone Sutras from the 7th century. The earlier Lung Tripitaka, Jiaxing Tripitaka, and Zhaocheng Jin Tripitaka are still extant in printed form. The complete woodblocks are the Tripiṭaka Koreana and the Chenlong Tripitaka, the Tripiṭaka Koreana or Palman Daejanggyeong was carved between 1236 and 1251, during Koreas Goryeo Dynasty, onto 81,340 wooden printing blocks with no known errors in the 52,382,960 characters. It is stored at the Haeinsa temple, South Korea, one of the most used version is Taishō Shinshū Daizōkyō. Named after the Taisho era, a modern standardized edition originally published in Tokyo between 1924 and 1934 in 100 volumes and it is also one of the most completely punctuated tripitaka. The Zokuzōkyō version, which is a supplement of another version of the canon, is used as a supplement for Buddhist texts not collected in the Taishō Tripiṭaka. The Jiaxing Tripitaka is a supplement for Ming dynasty and Qing dynasty Buddhist texts not collected, and a Dazangjing Bu Bian published in 1986 are supplements of them. There are newer Tripitaka Sinica projects, the Mi Tripitaka is the Tangut canon. Eric Grinstead published a collection of Tangut Buddhist texts under the title The Tangut Tripitaka in 1971 in New Delhi, the Taishō edition contains classical Japanese works. The Dunhuang edition contains some works in old Western Regions languages, the Tripitaka Sinica mentioned above features a Tibetan section. Modern religious and scholarly works are also excluded but they are published in book series. Pali Canon Tibetan Buddhist canon Sanskrit Buddhist literature
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Refuge (Buddhism)
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Buddhists take refuge in the Three Jewels or Triple Gem. The Three Jewels are, the Buddha, the Dharma, the teachings, Refuge is common to all major schools of Buddhism. Pali texts employ the Brahmanical motif of the refuge, found in Rig Veda 9.97.47, Rig Veda 6.46.9. Faith is an important teaching element in both Theravada and Mahayana traditions, in contrast to perceived Western notions of faith, faith in Buddhism arises from accumulated experience and reasoning. In the Kalama Sutra, the Buddha explicitly argues against simply following authority or tradition, there remains value for a degree of trusting confidence and belief in Buddhism, primarily in the spiritual attainment and salvation or enlightenment. Faith in Buddhism centres on belief in the Three Jewels, for someone who wishes to study and practice Buddhism, the five ethical precepts encouraged are to voluntarily undertake the practice to, refrain from killing. Note, The precepts may be listed in order of the gravity of harmful actions guarded against, improper sexual conduct can roughly mean hurtful or harmful sexual conduct. Refrain from sleeping on high and luxurious beddings Sanskrit version, बुद्धं शरणं गच्छामि। धर्मं शरणं गच्छामि। संघं शरणं गच्छामि। Buddhaṃ śaraṇaṃ gacchāmi, I take refuge in the Buddha. I take refuge in the Dharma, I take refuge in the Sangha. Pāli version, बुद्धं सरणं गच्छामि। दम्मं सरणं गच्छामि। सङ्घं सरणं गच्छामि। Buddhaṃ saraṇaṃ gacchāmi, khmer characters, ទុតិយម្បិ ពុទ្ធំ សរណំ គច្ឆាមិ ។ ទុតិយម្បិ ធម្មំ សរណំ គច្ឆាមិ ។ ទុតិយម្បិ សង្ឃំ សរណំ គច្ឆាមិ ។ For the second time. Khmer characters, តតិយម្បិ ពុទ្ធំ សរណំ គច្ឆាមិ ។ តតិយម្បិ ធម្មំ សរណំ គច្ឆាមិ ។ តតិយម្បិ សង្ឃំ សរណំ គច្ឆាមិ ៕ For the third time, the Outer form is the Triple Gem, the Inner is the Three Roots and the Secret form is the Three Bodies or trikaya of a Buddha. These alternative refuge formulations are employed by those undertaking Deity Yoga, happiness is temporary, lifetimes are impermanent and ultimately refuge is taken until reaching unsurpassed awakening. Ceremony for Taking Refuge and Precepts by Ven, thubten Chodron A Buddhist View on Refuge Refuge, A Safe and Meaningful Direction in Life by Dr
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Buddhist Paths to liberation
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The Buddhist tradition gives a wide variety of descriptions of the Buddhist Path to liberation. The classical description is the Noble Eightfold Path, described in the Sutta Pitaka and this description is preceded by even older descriptions in the Sutta Pitaka, and elaborated in the various Buddhist traditions. A number of paths have been developed and described within the various traditions. A standard sequence of developments can be found in the Nikayas, for example the Tevijja Sutra verse 40-75, Verse 40, A Tathàgata is born into the world, who makes his knowledge known to others. Verse 41, A householder listens to that truth, acquites faith, Verse 42, He passes a life self-restrained, good in his conduct, guarding the door of his senses, mindful and self-possessed. Verse 43-75, This results in, The confidence of heart that results from the sense of goodness, the way in which he guards the doors of his senses. The way in which he is mindful and self-possessed and his habit of being content with little, of adopting simplicity of life. His conquest of the five hindrances, each with the explanatory simile, the joy and peace which, as a result of this conquest, fills his whole being. The Noble Eightfold Path is widely known as the description of the Buddhist path, in the Sutta Pitaka it is summed up as follows, The Blessed One said, Now what, monks, is the Noble Eightfold Path. Right view, right resolve, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration. The Atthakavagga, one of the oldest books of the Sutta Pitaka, contained in the Sutta Nipata, does not give a goal such as Nirvana. This ideal person is especially characterized by suddhi and santi, commentaries on the Atthakavagga, namely the Mahaniddesa and the commentary by Buddhaghosa, show the development of Buddhist ideas over time. Both commentaries place the Atthakavagga in their frame of reference, giving a system of thought far more complicated than the Atthakavagga itself. The classical outline of the Theravada path to liberation are the Seven Purifications, the emphasis in this system is on understanding the three marks of existence, dukkha, anatta, anicca. This emphasis is recognizable in the value that is given to vipassana over samatha, Mahāyāna Buddhism is based principally upon the path of a bodhisattva. Mahāyāna Buddhism encourages everyone to become bodhisattvas and to take the bodhisattva vows, with these vows, one makes the promise to work for the complete enlightenment of all sentient beings by following the bodhisattva path. The path can be described in terms of the six perfections or in terms of the five paths, the six paramitas are the means by which Mahayana practitioners actualize their aspiration to attain complete enlightenment for the benefit of all. The Five Paths are, The path of accumulation, persons on this Path, Possess a strong desire to overcome suffering, either their own or others, Renunciate the worldly life
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Buddhist ethics
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Buddhist ethics are traditionally based on what Buddhists view as the enlightened perspective of the Buddha, or other enlightened beings such as Bodhisattvas. The Indian term for ethics or morality used in Buddhism is Śīla or sīla and it has been variously described as virtue, right conduct, morality, moral discipline and precept. Sīla is an internal, aware, and intentional ethical behavior and it is an ethical compass within self and relationships, rather than what is associated with the English word morality. Sīla is one of the three practices foundational to Buddhism and the non-sectarian Vipassana movement — sīla, samādhi, and paññā as well as the Theravadin foundations of sīla, Dāna and it is also the second pāramitā. Sīla is also wholehearted commitment to what is wholesome, two aspects of sīla are essential to the training, right performance, and right avoidance. Honoring the precepts of sīla is considered a gift to others, because it creates an atmosphere of trust, respect. It means the practitioner poses no threat to another life, property, family, rights. Moral instructions are included in Buddhist scriptures or handed down through tradition, the source for the ethics of Buddhists around the world are the Three Jewels of the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. The Buddha is seen as the discoverer of liberating knowledge and hence the foremost teacher, the Dharma is both the teachings of the Buddhas path and the truths of these teachings. The Sangha is the community of noble ones, who practice the Dhamma and have attained some knowledge and can provide guidance. Having proper understanding of the teachings is vital for proper ethical conduct, the Buddha taught that right view was a necessary prerequisite for right conduct. A central foundation for Buddhist morality is the law of Karma, Karma is a word which literally means action and is seen as a natural law of the universe which manifests as cause and effect. In the Buddhist conception, Karma is a type of moral action which has moral consequences on the actor. The core of karma is the intention, and hence the Buddha stated ‘It is intention, O monks. Therefore, accidentally hurting someone is not bad Karma, but having hurtful thoughts is, ones past actions are said to mold ones consciousness and to leave seeds which later ripen in the next life. The goal of Buddhist practice is generally to break the cycle, the root of ones intention is what conditions an action to be good or bad. There are three roots and three negative roots. Actions which produce good outcomes are termed merit and obtaining merit is an important goal of lay Buddhist practice, the early Buddhist texts mention three bases for effecting karmic fruitfulness’, giving, moral virtue and meditation
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Buddhist meditation
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Buddhist meditation refers to the meditative practices associated with the religion and philosophy of Buddhism. Core meditation techniques have been preserved in ancient Buddhist texts and have proliferated and diversified through teacher-student transmissions, Buddhists pursue meditation as part of the path toward Enlightenment and Nirvana. The closest words for meditation in the languages of Buddhism are bhāvanā. Buddhist meditation techniques have become popular in the wider world. Buddhist meditation encompasses a variety of techniques that aim to develop mindfulness, concentration, supramundane powers, tranquility. For those seeking school-specific meditation information, it may be appropriate to simply view the articles listed in the See also section below. While there are some similar meditative practices — such as meditation and various recollections — that are used across Buddhist schools. Most classical and contemporary Buddhist meditation guides are school specific, only a few teachers attempt to synthesize, crystallize and categorize practices from multiple Buddhist traditions. The earliest tradition of Buddhist practice is preserved in the nikāya/āgamas, Right Concentration – culminating in jhanic absorptions through the meditative development of samatha. And implicitly in regard to, Right View – embodying wisdom traditionally attained through the development of vipassana founded on samatha. Classic texts in the Pali literature enumerating meditative subjects include the Satipatthana Sutta, in the Satipatthana Sutta, the Buddha identifies four foundations for mindfulness, the body, feelings, mind states and mental objects. Meditation on these subjects develops insight, in the Four Ways to Arahantship Sutta, Ven. In the Pali canon, the Buddha never mentions independent samatha and vipassana meditation practices, instead, samatha, nonetheless, some meditation practices favor the development of samatha, others are conducive to the development of vipassana, while others are classically used for developing both mental qualities. Buddhaghosas forty meditation subjects are described in the Visuddhimagga, almost all of these are described in the early texts. Buddhaghosa subsequently elaborates on the forty meditation subjects as follows, ten kasinas, earth, water, fire, air, blue, yellow, red, white, light, and limited-space. Ten kinds of foulness, the bloated, the livid, the festering, the cut-up, the gnawed, the scattered, the hacked and scattered, the bleeding, the worm-infested, and a skeleton. Ten recollections, Buddhānussaṭi, the Dhamma, the Sangha, virtue, generosity, the virtues of deities, death, the body, the breath, Four divine abodes, metta, karuṇā, mudita, and upekkha. Four immaterial states, boundless space, boundless perception, nothingness, according to Pali commentaries, breath meditation can lead one to the equanimous fourth jhanic absorption
