• Journal of architectural history
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.47-60
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• 2023

Due to a mistranslation of Sanskrit to Chinese, East Asian Buddhist community misunderstands the original meaning of the fundamental word, 'sachal(寺刹)'. Sanskrit chattra, a parasol on top of a venerated Indian stupa buried with Buddha's sarira, became the symbol of majesty. The Indian stupa was transformed into a pagoda in China, and the highlighted parasol on the summit was transliterated into chaldara(刹多羅), an abbreviation for chal (刹), and finally designated the whole pagoda(塔). Sachal consists with lying low monastery and high-rise pagoda. Tapsa(塔寺), an archaic word of temple, is exactly the same as sachal, because chal means tap, pagoda. However, during the 7th century a Buddhist monk erroneously double-transliterated the Sanskrit 'kshetra,' meaning of land, into the same word as chal, even despite phonetic disaccord. Thereafter, sutra translators followed and copied the error for long centuries. It was the Japanese pioneer scholars that worsen the situation 100 years ago, to publish Sanskrit dictionaries with the errors insisting on phonetic transliteration, though pronunciation of 'kshe-' which is quite different from 'cha-.' Thereafter, upcoming scholars followed their fallacy without any verification. Fallacy of chal, meaning of land, dominates Buddhist community broadly, falling into conviction of collective fixed dogma in East Asia up to now. In the Buddhist community, it is the most important matter to recognize that the same language has become to refer completely different objects due to translation errors. As a research method, searching for corresponding Sanskrit words in translated sutras and dictionaries of Buddhism is predominant. Then, after analyzing the authenticity, the fallacy toward the truth will be corrected.