[Buddha-l] Lamas and such

[Dan Lusthaus]

Hi James,

> This reminds me of that wonderful term of Chinese historical
> periodization, "San guo wei jin nan bei chao" (and its variations),
> "Three Kingdoms-Wei-Jin-Northern and Southern Dynasties."  Just pick
> the terms you want to include and string them all together -- problem
> solved!

In this particular case, the stringing together is far from arbitrary, and 
serves a purpose. When the Han dynasty collapses, political chaos and 
decentralization took over, so that for several centuries -- until the Sui 
reunified China -- multiple, simultaneous "dynasties" were in power in 
dfferent regions of China. The Chinese language has the advantage that each 
word, and hence each dynasty name, can be written with a single character 
(ok, sanguo is a binomial), so simply stringing their names together 
immediately announces to the reader that one means this complex period of 
overlapping and contentious dynasties, a "period of disunity" (one Chinese 
nickname for the period). Name-strings like this are economical, quickly 
evoke multiple implications (e.g., one is speaking about history, and of a 
particular time-frame, with certain characteristics).

A string of Buddhist school names would not be that economical.

Dan