Chung-hwa Agama Dictionary
(中華阿含辭典)

      Agama Sutras are so comprehensive that they consist of a complete path of Buddhist practice as well as the step-by-step process for one to transform to be a Buddha. They are the foundation of all sects of Mahayana and Theravada Buddhism, the original source of Buddhism. However, when modern-day people want to learn Buddhism through the Four Agamas, they might encounter various difficulties such as vocabularies, doctrines involving numbers, translated terminologies, the evolution of terms, etc due to changes in space and time. As a result, this Chung-hwa Agama Dictionary will be the best tool book in solving the problems described above.

      Professor Yang Yu-wen has been studying the Agamas for over 5 decades, he is the most famous Agama expert in Taiwan. While serving as a research fellow in CHIBS, he also taught courses on Agama. The intention of collating Chung-hwa Agama Dictionary is to help readers advance in comprehending the Four Agamas and subsequently, understand the Panca Nikaya better. Other than explaining the meaning of those terms, this dictionary also includes aspects of academic research and actual practices. On the one hand, this dictionary serves as an index to the Four Agamas and the Panca Nikaya. On the other hand, it hopes to serve as a beacon to guide readers on their way of practicing Buddhist teachings all the way to their ultimate goals.

      Different from most dictionaries that are collated by multiple experts, Chung-hwa Agama Dictionary is nearly accomplished solely by Professor Yang himself. It took Professor Yang over two decades to complete this compendium of over 30 thousand listings in over 6.5 million characters. This dictionary is comprehensive and detail-oriented. By analyzing, listing, and explaining terminologies painstakingly, Professor Yang deliberates differences and connections of relative terms to save readers from wasting time exploring blindly by themselves. Chung-hwa Agama Dictionary is the epitome of Professor Yang’s research which is an ongoing project.

Further reading: http://www.chibs.edu.tw/ch_html/chbj/16/chbj1603.htm