(Maybe this article is incomprehensible for
person who doesn't know Kanji and Hiragana.)
Why was the Japanese Buddhist sutra written
in Kanji, without using Hiragana?
Actually, I've never asked that question.
It's an ordinary thing to me.
Writing in Kanji has been the style of sutra
for a long time.
Buddhism was introduced from ancient China. Obviously, all the imported sutra were
written using Chinese Kanji at that time.Since then, Japanese sutra have been
written in Kanji.
Maybe they just never thought about writing
Hiragana. Hiragana was thought of as casual in the past.
Similar in how medieval Europe always used
Latin for official documents, Ancient Japanese used Kanji for official
documents, and sutra as well.
When they wrote official documents, they made
more complicated Japanese sentences using only Kanji.
I'm really grad that I can use Hiragana
anytime!
thank you for the correcting, S0882, Madox
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