Xitan is pronounced xī tán. Also known as Sidtan. It means the transliteration of the Sanskrit Siddanta, which means achievement. Explain the transliteration of Sanskrit Siddanta, which means achievement.
1. Definition
An ancient Indian script. It dates back to the seventh and eighth centuries BC. It may have been influenced by the Aramaic alphabet in the Middle East and was the predecessor of Devanagari and other scripts. Syllables are written from left to right.
2. Source
1. Volume 15 of "Fayuan Zhulin": "Western writing of scriptures has the same ancestor as Sanskrit."
2. Tang· Xu Hun's poem "A Presentation to Master Yuan Fu from Kaiyuan Temple in Xuancheng in Winter": "Sanskrit civilization is translated, and the Zen is warm when the time is warm."
3. Qing Dynasty·Wang Shizhen's "Chibei Occasionally Tan·Tan Yiwu· "Hetao Lama": "There are three volumes of Sutra, all in Sanskrit, and can be recited in hundreds or thousands."
3. Spelling rules
1. Sanskrit has been used since the 12th century In Devanagari letters, each consonant letter contains a fixed short vowel a sound. When spelling consonants with other vowels, the vowel symbols are written in front, behind, above or below the letters.
2. Use symbols when expressing pure consonants, nasal sounds or expiratory sounds.
3. Use independent vowel letters when a vowel appears in front of a word.
4. There is a horizontal line at the top of each Sanskrit letter to connect the letters together when spelling.
The development and influence of Sanskrit:
1. In India, the choice of Sanskrit writing system is affected by the region where the copyist lives. With different times and places, calligraphy and fonts gradually differ. Around the first century AD, the Sanskrit characters in the north gradually changed into square fonts, and the Sanskrit characters in the south gradually turned into round fonts. By the fourth century, the differences between the two had become extremely obvious, and they eventually evolved into various languages ??belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch.
2. Modern Sanskrit is a pinyin script written from left to right. In the early 19th century, European scholars developed Devanagari into a standard script for mechanical printing. Its alphabet consists of 48 symbols. Composed of 34 consonants and 14 vowels or diphthongs.
In the late 18th century, Sanskrit had been transliterated using the Latin alphabet, and the most commonly used system today is IAST (International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration). With the development of modern computer technology, standardized Sanskrit can not only be easily input into computer systems, but can also be translated into and out of multiple languages, providing convenience for the study of linguistics and religion.