Free Chinese & Japanese Online Dictionary

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Mandarin Chinese information.
Old Wade-Giles romanization used only in Taiwan.
Japanese information.
Buddhist definition. Note: May not apply to all sects.
 Definition may be different outside of Buddhism.

There was no single entry for the characters you entered, so my system has broken them down into definitions for individual words or characters...
You searched for:
小乘阿毗达磨
My system broke these into the following words, and cobbled together results for you:
(小乘)(小)(乘)(椉)(阿毗)(阿)(毗)(毘)(達磨)(達)(磨) 
Characters shown in parentheses are variants of the characters you searched for.
These results are a best guess using an algorithm that I wrote which may still have a few bugs.

Characters Pronunciation
Romanization
Simple Dictionary Definition

see styles
xiǎo
    xiao3
hsiao
 shou / sho
    しょう
small; tiny; few; young
(n,n-pref) (1) smallness; small item; (2) (abbreviation) (See 小の月) short month (i.e. having fewer than 31 days); (n,n-pref) (3) (abbreviation) (See 小学校) elementary school; (prefix noun) (4) smaller (of two things, places, etc. with the same name); inferior; (prefix noun) (5) younger (of two people with the same name); junior; (6) (archaism) unit of field area (approx. 400 sq m); (surname) Hamako
Small, little; mean, petty; inferior.

小乘

see styles
xiǎo shèng
    xiao3 sheng4
hsiao sheng
 shōjō
Hinayana, the Lesser Vehicle; Buddhism in India before the Mayahana sutras; also pr. [Xiao3 cheng2]
Hīnayāna 希那衍. The small, or inferior wain, or vehicle; the form of Buddhism which developed after Śākyamuni's death to about the beginning of the Christian era, when Mahāyāna doctrines were introduced. It is the orthodox school and more in direct line with the Buddhist succession than Mahāyānism which developed on lines fundamentally different. The Buddha was a spiritual doctor, less interested in philosophy than in the remedy for human misery and perpetual transmigration. He "turned aside from idle metaphysical speculations; if he held views on such topics, he deemed them valueless for the purposes of salvation, which was his goal" (Keith). Metaphysical speculations arose after his death, and naturally developed into a variety of Hīnayāna schools before and after the separation of a distinct school of Mahāyāna. Hīnayāna remains the form in Ceylon, Burma, and Siam, hence is known as Southern Buddhism in contrast with Northern Buddhism or Mahāyāna, the form chiefly prevalent from Nepal to Japan. Another rough division is that of Pali and Sanskrit, Pali being the general literary language of the surviving form of Hīnayāna, Sanskrit of Mahāyāna. The term Hīnayāna is of Mahāyānist origination to emphasize the universalism and altruism of Mahāyāna over the narrower personal salvation of its rival. According to Mahāyāna teaching its own aim is universal Buddhahood, which means the utmost development of wisdom and the perfect transformation of all the living in the future state; it declares that Hīnayāna, aiming at arhatship and pratyekabuddhahood, seeks the destruction of body and mind and extinction in nirvāṇa. For arhatship the 四諦Four Noble Truths are the foundation teaching, for pratyekabuddhahood the 十二因緣 twelve-nidānas, and these two are therefore sometimes styled the two vehicles 二乘. Tiantai sometimes calls them the (Hīnayāna) Tripiṭaka school. Three of the eighteen Hīnayāna schools were transported to China: 倶舍 (Abhidharma) Kośa; 成實 Satya-siddhi; and the school of Harivarman, the律 Vinaya school. These are described by Mahāyānists as the Buddha's adaptable way of meeting the questions and capacity of his hearers, though his own mind is spoken of as always being in the absolute Mahāyāna all-embracing realm. Such is the Mahāyāna view of Hīnayāna, and if the Vaipulya sūtras and special scriptures of their school, which are repudiated by Hīnayāna, are apocryphal, of which there seems no doubt, then Mahāyāna in condemning Hīnayāna must find other support for its claim to orthodoxy. The sūtras on which it chiefly relies, as regards the Buddha, have no authenticity; while those of Hīnayāna cannot be accepted as his veritable teaching in the absence of fundamental research. Hīnayāna is said to have first been divided into minority and majority sections immediately after the death of Śākyamuni, when the sthāvira, or older disciples, remained in what is spoken of as "the cave", some place at Rājagṛha, to settle the future of the order, and the general body of disciples remained outside; these two are the first 上坐部 and 大衆部 q. v. The first doctrinal division is reported to have taken place under the leadership of the monk 大天 Mahādeva (q.v.) a hundred years after the Buddha's nirvāṇa and during the reign of Aśoka; his reign, however, has been placed later than this by historians. Mahādeva's sect became the Mahāsāṅghikā, the other the Sthāvira. In time the two are said to have divided into eighteen, which with the two originals are the so-called "twenty sects" of Hīnayāna. Another division of four sects, referred to by Yijing, is that of the 大衆部 (Arya) Mahāsaṅghanikāya, 上座部 Āryasthavirāḥ, 根本說一切有部 Mūlasarvāstivādaḥ, and 正量部 Saṃmatīyāḥ. There is still another division of five sects, 五部律. For the eighteen Hīnayāna sects see 小乘十八部.

see styles
shèng
    sheng4
sheng
 jō
(archaic) four horse military chariot; (archaic) four; generic term for history books
Yāna 衍; 野那 a vehicle, wain, any means of conveyance; a term applied to Buddhism as carrying men to salvation. The two chief divisions are the 小乘 Hīnayāna and 大乘 Mahāyāna; but there are categories of one, two, three, four, and five sheng q.v., and they have further subdivisions.


see styles
chéng
    cheng2
ch`eng
    cheng
old variant of 乘[cheng2]
See:

see styles
ē
    e1
o
 a
    あ
(literary) to flatter; to curry favor with
(1) (See 阿字・あじ) first Sanskrit alphabet letter; (2) (abbreviation) (See 阿弗利加・アフリカ) Africa; (3) (abbreviation) Awa (old province of Japan); (prefix) (4) (familiar language) (archaism) prefixed to names to show intimacy; (surname) Hodo
M077477 羅陀補羅 Anurādhapura, a northern city of Ceylon, at which tradition says Buddhism was introduced into the island; cf. Abhayagiri, 阿跋.; M077477 樓馱 v. 阿那律Aniruddha.; a or ā, अ, आ. It is the first letter of the Sanskrit Siddham alphabet, and is also translit. by 曷, 遏, 安, 頞, 韻, 噁, etc. From it are supposed to be born all the other letters, and it is the first sound uttered by the human mouth. It has therefore numerous mystical indications. Being also a negation it symbolizes the unproduced, the impermanent, the immaterial; but it is employed in many ways indicative of the positive. Amongst other uses it indicates Amitābha, from the first syllable in that name. It is much in use for esoteric purposes.

阿毗

see styles
ā pí
    a1 pi2
a p`i
    a pi
avīci, 阿毘 (阿毘至) cf. 阿鼻.

see styles

    pi2
p`i
    pi
to adjoin; to border on


see styles

    pi2
p`i
    pi
 bi
variant of 毗[pi2]
Contiguous; surrounded; hemmed in; liberal; to aid; manifest; translit. v, vi, vai, vya, ve, pi, bh, bhi. Cf. 鞞, 鼻, 吠.


see styles

    da2
ta
 dachi; dachi
    だち; ダチ

More info & calligraphy:

Dar
to attain; to reach; to amount to; to communicate; eminent
(colloquialism) (abbreviation) (kana only) (See 友達) friend; (given name) Tooru
Permeate, penetrate, reach to, transfer, inform, promote, successful, reaching everywhere; translit. ta, da, dha, etc.

達磨


达磨

see styles
dá mó
    da2 mo2
ta mo
 daruma(p); daruma
    だるま(P); ダルマ
(1) (kana only) daruma; tumbling doll; round, red-painted good-luck doll in the shape of Bodhidharma, with a blank eye to be completed when a person's wish is granted; (2) (kana only) Bodhidharma; (3) prostitute; (personal name) Daruma
dharma; also 達摩; 達麼; 達而麻耶; 曇摩; 馱摩 tr. by 法. dharma is from dhara, holding, bearing, possessing, etc.; and means 'that which is to be held fast or kept, ordinance, statute, law, usage, practice'; 'anything right.' M.W. It may be variously intp. as (1) characteristic, attribute, predicate; (2) the bearer, the transcendent substratum of single elements of conscious life; (3) element, i.e. a part of conscious life; (4) nirvāṇa, i.e. the Dharma par excellence, the object of Buddhist teaching; (5) the absolute, the real; (6) the teaching or religion of Buddha; (7) thing, object, appearance. Also, Damo, or Bodhidharma, the twenty-eighth Indian and first Chinese patriarch, who arrived in China A.D. 520, the reputed founder of the Chan or Intuitional School in China. He is described as son of a king in southern India; originally called Bodhitara. He arrived at Guangdong, bringing it is said the sacred begging-bowl, and settled in Luoyang, where he engaged in silent meditation for nine years, whence he received the title of wall-gazing Brahman 壁觀婆羅門, though he was a kṣatriya. His doctrine and practice were those of the 'inner light', independent of the written word, but to 慧可 Huike, his successor, he commended the Laṅkāvatāra-sūtra as nearest to his views. There are many names with Dharma as initial: Dharmapāla, Dharmagupta, Dharmayaśas, Dharmaruci, Dharmarakṣa, Dharmatrāta, Dharmavardhana, etc.

see styles

    mo4
mo
 migaku
    みがく
grindstone; to grind; to turn round
(given name) Migaku
To grind, rub, polish; a mill for grinding; translit. ma; cf. 摩.

Entries with 2nd row of characters: The 2nd row is Simplified Chinese.

This page contains 11 results for "小乘阿毗达磨" in Chinese and/or Japanese.



Information about this dictionary:

Apparently, we were the first ones who were crazy enough to think that western people might want a combined Chinese, Japanese, and Buddhist dictionary.

A lot of westerners can't tell the difference between Chinese and Japanese - and there is a reason for that. Chinese characters and even whole words were borrowed by Japan from the Chinese language in the 5th century. Much of the time, if a word or character is used in both languages, it will have the same or a similar meaning. However, this is not always true. Language evolves, and meanings independently change in each language.

Example: The Chinese character 湯 for soup (hot water) has come to mean bath (hot water) in Japanese. They have the same root meaning of "hot water", but a 湯屋 sign on a bathhouse in Japan would lead a Chinese person to think it was a "soup house" or a place to get a bowl of soup. See this: Japanese Bath House

This dictionary uses the EDICT and CC-CEDICT dictionary files.
EDICT data is the property of the Electronic Dictionary Research and Development Group, and is used in conformance with the Group's license.

Chinese Buddhist terms come from Dictionary of Chinese Buddhist Terms by William Edward Soothill and Lewis Hodous. This is commonly referred to as "Soothill's'". It was first published in 1937 (and is now off copyright so we can use it here). Some of these definitions may be misleading, incomplete, or dated, but 95% of it is good information. Every professor who teaches Buddhism or Eastern Religion has a copy of this on their bookshelf. We incorporated these 16,850 entries into our dictionary database ourselves (it was lot of work).



Combined, these cover 1,007,753 Japanese, Chinese, and Buddhist characters, words, idioms, names, placenames, and short phrases.

Just because a word appears here does not mean it is appropriate for a tattoo, your business name, etc. Please consult a professional before doing anything stupid with this data.

We do offer Chinese and Japanese Tattoo Services. We'll also be happy to help you translate something for other purposes.

No warranty as to the correctness, potential vulgarity, or clarity is expressed or implied. We did not write any of these definitions (though we occasionally act as a contributor/editor to the CC-CEDICT project). You are using this dictionary for free, and you get what you pay for.

The following titles are just to help people who are searching for an Asian dictionary to find this page.

Japanese Kanji Dictionary

Free Asian Dictionary

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Chinese Words Dictionary

Chinese Language Dictionary

Japanese Chinese Dictionary