In the early Eastern Han Dynasty (25-206), Buddhism was introduced into China from India and many Buddhist books were translated into Chinese. Since Buddhism is a complete foreign religious system, many contents do not have equivalents in Chinese dictionaries. In order to solve this problem, many new characters were created. As a result, many coinages were added to the Chinese vocabulary.

People nowadays do not have any idea about genesis of these words. For example, in Chinese, the character ( fo , Buddha) means assisting a ruler in governing a country and the word ( fang fu , as if) has nothing to do with ( fo , Buddha) in Buddhism. While  ( fo tuo , also Buddha) is usually used as the honorific title of Sakyamuni in Buddhism and is the shortened form of .

( shi ) came from Sakya (Shijia in Pinyin) in Sanskrit and is a clan name. After the Eastern Jin Dynasty (317-420), Chinese Shamans were all surnamed ( shi ) and thus ( shi zi ) and ( Sijia Zi ) became the collective name of Buddhism adherents.

( fan ) was simplified from the pronunciation of Brahman in Sanskrit.  originally meant quiet and away from desires and later referred to objects related to Buddhism such as  ( fan dian , Buddhist books ) and  ( fan cha , Buddhist temples), and objects in India such as  ( fan tu , Indian land) and  ( fan zi , Indian characters).

Other words include ( tan ), which was from Dharma in Sanskrit;  ( mo , devil), from Mara in Sanskrit;  ( ta , tower), from Tupa in Sanskrit; ( bi an , Faramita) from Para in Sanskrit; and so on