Chapter 535 - Sanskrit Proficiency!
Chapter 535: Chapter 535 – Sanskrit Proficiency!
“Moreover, the books on the third floor only have value as antiques. If you truly want to read them, then head out the door, turn right, and walk 800 meters. There is a specialized Shaolin bookstore. They have all kinds of Buddhist texts. If you see uncle master Yong Ping personally, you can get a 50% discount or even for FREE!”
Before Wei Xiao Bei could speak, Shi Yan Ping began grumbling some words, using them to attack Wei Xiao Bei.
Wow!
Wei Xiao Bei began pondering whether he should drag Shi Yan Ming back with him. If he placed him with Andre, he wondered who would win in the war of chatting.
Although Shi Yan Ming was a chatterbox, he did, in fact, speak the truth.
Wei Xiao Bei also came to an understanding. It was truly as Shi Yan Ming said. The Buddhist texts on the third floor could also be bought in bookstores.
It was no longer the ancient times. There was no such thing as a monopoly of knowledge, especially for things like Buddhist texts. The Shaolin Temple might even want people to buy these texts to increase the number of believers.
However, Wei Xiao Bei had a slight premonition that if he walked away and went to use modern printed Buddhist texts, he would miss a good opportunity.
With this being the case, Wei Xiao Bei did speak with Shi Yan Ming any longer and insisted to go to the third floor.
Shi Yan Ming had no choice. In the end, he could only agree. However, after calling another monk, Shi Yan Ming himself accompanied Wei Xiao Bei upstairs.
He simply did not believe that Wei Xiao Bei could truly take in the Buddhist texts.
He was someone who had studied it with great difficulty but always felt that reading manga was a lot better than reading Buddhist texts. Amithaba Buddha, every time he read Buddhist texts, he would feel dizzy and sleepy.
Luckily, he was a martial monk. He only needed to force himself to understand the Buddhist texts. If he had to participate in Buddhist texts, this would simply be like asking him to kill himself.
They both went up the stairs to the third floor.
The third floor was sealed by steel doors that Wei Xiao Bei had already seen when he came up before.
Although he could store the steel doors in his storage bracelet, it was impossible to restore them once he did so.
Additionally, the ventilation duct in that place was quite narrow. Wei Xiao Bei had never learned Bone Contraction Arts, but even a practitioner of it would have great difficulty in passing through the duct.
After opening the doors, the smell of dust hit him in the face. He was already prepared for it, and he used his hand to cover his mouth.
On the contrary, Shi Yan Ming had been caught off guard. He sucked in a breath and choked on it, causing him to go into a coughing fit. Afterward, he could only smile awkwardly and fully open the door, allowing the impure air to come out.
The third floor was the floor that Shi Yan Ming was responsible for, but because there were only a few people going up to it, Shi Yan Ming could be a bit lax.
Luckily, the Buddhist texts had already been treated. Not only were they treated with medicinal water, but liquid plastic had been sprayed on every single page of the book, creating a layer of plastic protection.
If it wasn’t for this Shi Yan Ming’s way of handling the books, they might’ve already been covered with dust or destroyed.
Although a layer of dust had already covered the books, a light wipe was enough to make the books bright and clean again.
After Wei Xiao Bei looked at the books, his eyes lit up. His heart jumped and did not even pay any attention to Shi Yan Ming who was dealing with the dust. He walked forward a few steps and took an old book. He wiped away the dust and turned the pages.
However, after flipping the pages, Wei Xiao Bei could not help but feel awkward.
The reason was very simple. The Buddhist text that he picked up was not written in Chinese but in Sanskrit.
Let alone the content, he simply could not even understand the cover.
Wei Xiao Bei did not understand Sanskrit!
In truth, Wei Xiao Bei was genuinely stunned.
Shi Yan Ming appeared to be quite smart, could he understand some Sanskrit?
Thinking about this, Wei Xiao Bei immediately pulled him to the side, not knowing whether to laugh or cry.
I already feel a headache from reading the Chinese version of the Buddhist text. Sanskrit? Please spare this small monk!
Seeing that Shi Yan Ming did not understand Sanskrit, Wei Xiao Bei also felt a headache.
Luckily, there was such a thing called the internet. Without hesitation, he took out his phone. Although he had been staying cooped up inside the Sutra Depository Pavillion every day, he still charged his phone to maintain a connection with others.
He immediately looked up Sanskrit.
After looking at the information, Wei Xiao Bei found out that unlike Chinese with many characters, Sanskrit was an alphabet, but there were differences with the Western alphabet.
In simpler terms, the Sanskirt alphabet had 47 letters.
This number of letters was already considerably more than the English alphabet, but even more terrifying, unlike the normal alphabet which consisted of vowels and consonants, Sanskrit was composed of words with more than two consonants in a row.
There were more than 1000 consonant-only strings, but learning Sanskrit required one to learn all these 1000 consonant strings!
This was not even considered much. The worst part was that every single noun had eight different formats. The so-called format was similar to the subject-verb-object pattern in Chinese. Other than that, there were also singular, plural and even dual forms for the noun.
In other words, every single noun in Sanskrit could be shown in 24 different forms.
Naturally, some of these changes were normal to Chinese.
It was said that in Chinese level 8 tests, there were some questions that could make foreigners puke blood.
About 98% of foreigners are said to not even be able to pass the second question.
Additionally, it was said that Sanskrit could harness mysterious powers and produce miraculous effects.
For example, one famous phrase, Om Mani Padme Hum. This phrase was made of six Sanskirt letters. Because there were differences among sects, there were different effects when different senior monks chanted it.
The most genuine incantation was the innermost heart of the Bodhisattva of Compassion. Saying this incantation could cleanse one’s desires, anger, arrogance, envy, and even greed.
On the other hand, the Tibetan incantation was used to get rid of damage from evil spirits, diseases, clearing away fatigue, and many others.
Naturally, Wei Xiao Bei had never truly seen the effects of these words, but he had a little belief in them at that moment.
After all, he had already entered the Dust World. It should be a bit normal for Sanskrit to be miraculous, right?
After understanding the situation of Sanskirt, Wei Xiao Bei spent 20 minutes on the web trying to find a specialized online shop that sold learning material on Sanskrit.
Learning Sanskrit? Other than senior monks who specialized in researching them, only a few people would actually dig deep into them.
The heavens had mercy as there actually was an online store like that.
The main reason it was able to survive was because Wei Xiao Bei had spent 10,000 yuan.
Since there was only one store on the internet like that, it held a monopoly and he had no choice.
But then again, the material provided was actually decent.
At the very least, Wei Xiao Bei did not have a hard time learning Sanskrit. Naturally, his [Ten Line At A Glance] skill and his high learning attribute were put to great use.
Whether it was the 47 letters or the 1000 consonant string letters, as long as he used a bit of time to mechanically memorize them, he could roughly understand.
This was only the basics of the basics. The next problem was that learning just the letters would not be enough.
Afterward, he needed to familiarize himself with some Sanskrit nouns, and try to form sentences from them.
After looking at the material for an hour, Wei Xiao Bei impatiently researched the Buddhist text in his hand.
After researching for more than half an hour, he roughly understood Sanskrit writing.
The book was called Vajracchedikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra, or in simpler terms the Diamond Sutra. The contents were the ideology of Mahayana Buddhism.
The so-called Prajñā was the Sanskrit word for wisdom, great wisdom, and wondrous knowledge.
After looking at the Diamond Sutra, Wei Xiao Bei roughly understood its contents.
The text mainly consisted of the Buddha answering questions of his disciples to display the essence of his knowledge.
In other words, the Diamond Sutra was of the same status and significance as the Analects of Confucius in Confucianism.
Before Wei Xiao Bei could reflect on the question and answer the text, he raised his eyebrows and became happy.
It appeared that his status panel had changed after reading the Diamond Sutra.
The branch skill Sanksrit had appeared in his [Language] skill!
Language: Chinese (Proficient), English (Proficient), French (Proficient), Spanish (Proficient), Danish (Proficient), Western Divine Language (Basic), Sanskrit (Basic)
At the level of basic Sanskrit, Wei Xiao Bei was similar to someone who could engage in daily conversations. He would not be able to speak or understand deeper words.
For Wei Xiao Bei this was not an issue.
He looked at his evolution points and saw that he still had 1851 points.
He focused on Sanskrit, consuming 200 evolution points and advanced Sanskrit from basic to proficient.
Afterward, Wei Xiao Bei read the Diamond Sutra and felt that it was a lot easier to read, but after looking at the text again, Wei Xiao Bei was puzzled at why there were some bits that he could not understand.
It must be known that his Sanskrit was already at a proficient level!