[Buddha-l] Lamas and such

[JKirkpatrick]

On Dec 5, 2009, at 6:01 PM, Weng-Fai Wong wrote:

> And by the way, it is still standard terminology (in Chinese -
in 
> China, Taiwan and elsewhere) to refer to Theravada Buddhism as
"xiao 
> cheng"
> (Hinayana).

The Chinese term is no offensive. "Xiao" means small. It is not a
translation of "hīna," which means "discarded, thrown away,
abandoned, rubbish."

Richard
=================

Interesting....when I first ever heard about the three yanas,
Hinayana at that time was translated as the "Lesser" Vehicle.
Nicer than "small" I guess. But does this mean that Chinese has
no way to express comparatives, as in bigger or lesser? or might
it have more big, or more small-- than whatever.

JK





_______________________________________________
buddha-l mailing list
buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com
http://mailman.swcp.com/mailman/listinfo/buddha-l