Initials In Ancient Chinese Recorded By Experts Of Siddham In Japan

Siddham is the transliteration of Sanskrit "siddha?" and its meaning is accomplishment. It is a kind of Sanskrit character. Siddham letters are widely used in sutra.We can not find works of Siddham in China and the existent is mainly kept in DaZhengZang in Japan. Works of Siddham recorded a lot of important sound information,but was seldom used because of its complexity. According to the time order, we make The Meaning of Sanskrit and Siddham Letters, which is written by Kong Hai, Siddham Zang and Twelve Examples of Siddham, written by An Ran, A Short Note of Siddham, written by Xuan Zhao, A Mass Note of Siddham, written by Chun You, The Essential of Siddham, written by Ming Jue, Recorded by Pattra, written by Xin Jue, The Secretly Coming Down Records of Siddham, written by Xin Fan, A Picture and Copy of Siddham Wheels, written by Liao Zun and A Secret Copy of Siddham, written by Jing Yan,the document of Word and write the Siddham letters into spelling of Rome,Then divides them into three phases including late Tang, as well as the WuDai dynasty, Song, as well as the Yuan dynasty, and Ming ,as well as the Qing dynasty. With the Method of DuiYin HuanYuan, we discusses the characteristics of initials in late Tang,as well as the WuDai dynasty, and five dialects of India.The characteristics of initials in late Tang, as well as the WuDai dynasty reflected from Japanese works of Siddham are as follows:(1)Fully voiced initials are unaspirated.(2)Fully voiced and voiceless initials are different,Some become voiceless gradually, but they are still different from the voiceless initials of the same position.(3)The tone colour of voiced stops is found in nasal initials疑,泥,娘,明and日.(4)The differentiation of the labial initials has appeared.(5)The difference between initials of泥and娘is also distinct(.6)The initials of groups of庄and章are becoming the same and have not finished at last.(7)The initial of匣turns voiceless. The differences of dialects of India reflected from Japanese works of Siddham are as follows:(1)Usually ZhongTian dialect can pronounce Sanskrit correctly according to HanYin, while NanTian dialect can pronounce Sanskrit correctly according to WuYin. There are also exceptional examples.(2)There is nasal final endings in ZhongTian dialect such as "?a ?a ?a na ma". In ZhongTian dialect the nasal characters are used to transliterate the voiced stops in Sanskrit while it is found in neither NanTian dialect nor DongTian dialect.(3)BeiTian and ZhongTian dialects are voiced and NanTian dialect is voiceless. When pronouncing the na or ma in Sanskrit, the pronouncation of initials in NanTian dialect is different form BeiTian and ZhongTian dialects. Moreover, no nasal final ending is found in NanTian dialect or BeiTian dialect.