is a

Buddhist Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...

priest (in charge of a temple);''Kenkyusha's New Japanese-English Dictionary'', Tokyo 1991, honorific title of preceptor or high priest (especially in

Zen Zen ( zh, t=禪, p=Chán; ja, text= 禅, translit=zen; ko, text=선, translit=Seon; vi, text=Thiền) is a school of Mahayana Buddhism that originated in China during the Tang dynasty, known as the Chan School (''Chánzong'' 禪宗), and ...

or Pure Land Buddhism). The same

kanji are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese and are still used, along with the subsequ ...

are also pronounced ''kashō'' as an honorific title of preceptor or high priest in

Tendai , also known as the Tendai Lotus School (天台法華宗 ''Tendai hokke shū,'' sometimes just "''hokke shū''") is a Mahāyāna Buddhist tradition (with significant esoteric elements) officially established in Japan in 806 by the Japanese m ...

Kegon The Huayan or Flower Garland school of Buddhism (, from sa, अवतंसक, Avataṃsaka) is a tradition of Mahayana Buddhist philosophy that first flourished in China during the Tang dynasty (618-907). The Huayan worldview is based pri ...

Buddhism and ''wajō'' as an honorific title of preceptor or high priest in

Shingon Shingon monks at Mount Koya is one of the major schools of Buddhism in Japan and one of the few surviving Vajrayana lineages in East Asia, originally spread from India to China through traveling monks such as Vajrabodhi and Amoghavajra. Kn ...

, Hossō, Ritsu, or Shin Buddhism.

Etymology

''Oshō'' is the Japanese reading of the Chinese ''hé shang'' (和尚), meaning a high-ranking

monk or highly virtuous Buddhist monk. It is also a respectful designation for Buddhist monks in general and may be used with the suffix ''-san''. According to the Kōjien Japanese dictionary and the Kanjigen dictionary of Chinese character source meanings, it is originally derived from the

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural diffusion ...

upadhyaya Upadhyaya is a Brahmin name from Sanskrit ''upādhyāya'' "teacher" (from ''upa'' ‘with, under’ + ''adhyāya'' ‘studying’).https://www.ancestry.ca/name-origin?surname=Upadhyay Notable people *Amar Upadhyay, Indian model, film and telev ...

'', meaning "master" in the sense of "teacher". The literal meaning is "self-taught Buddhist monk/teacher"Oshobob, ''What is an Osho?''
/ref> The Chinese term "he-shang" is derived from the Sanskrit word upadhyaya or acharya: The standard English translation of ''oshō'' has become ''priest'', it has a somewhat different connotation in Zen: According to the Kōjien, the two characters making up the word are actually pronounced ''oshō'' only in the

and

Pure Land A pure land is the celestial realm of a buddha or bodhisattva in Mahayana Buddhism. The term "pure land" is particular to East Asian Buddhism () and related traditions; in Sanskrit the equivalent concept is called a buddha-field (Sanskrit ). The ...

sects. For example, they are read ''kashō'' in the

sect and ''wajō'' in the

sect.

History

Oshō became an honorific title for Zen-masters", meaning "harmonious respect": An example of its use is in Rinzai's teachings:

Sōtō Zen

Sōtō Sōtō Zen or is the largest of the three traditional sects of Zen in Japanese Buddhism (the others being Rinzai and Ōbaku). It is the Japanese line of the Chinese Cáodòng school, which was founded during the Tang dynasty by Dòngsh� ...

Zen, to become an ''oshō'', teacher, two more steps are to be taken after

dharma transmission In Chan and Zen Buddhism, dharma transmission is a custom in which a person is established as a "successor in an unbroken lineage of teachers and disciples, a spiritual 'bloodline' (''kechimyaku'') theoretically traced back to the Buddha himse ...

, namely ''ten-e'' and ''zuise''.Muho Noelke, ''Ten-e and some words about Zui-se''
/ref> ''Ten-e'' means "to turn the robe": After ''zuise'' one becomes an ''oshō'', whereafter one may become the resident priest in one's own temple. Hereby one can gain the highest rank: To supervise the training of monks, further qualifications are necessary:

Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh

The term became well known in the West when

Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh Rajneesh (born Chandra Mohan Jain; 11 December 193119 January 1990), also known as Acharya Rajneesh, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, and later as Osho (), was an Indian godman, mystic, and founder of the Rajneesh movement. He was viewed as a controv ...

started to call himself ''Osho''.

References

Web references

Sources

* * * *

External links

* Muho Noelke: What does it take to become a full-fledged Soto-shu priest and is it really worth the whole deal? Par
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The Formation of Soto Zen Priests in the West, A Dialogue
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