Latin and Sanskrit

Abstract

Neo-Latin (post-Renaissance Latin) has played a significant role in scholarly fields in Japan such as medicine, botany, zoology, and astronomy. The first speakers of Latin arrived with the Jesuit missionary Francis Xavier in 1549. Classical Latin is studied in universities, theological seminaries, and academic societies. Church Latin is found in Catholic liturgy and secular music. A macaronic form of crypto-Latin was used in the recitation of Medieval Latin prayers—orasho—by underground Christian communities in Kyushu whereby Latin mediated memory, sacred space, and solidarity. Sanskrit is a symbol of Japan’s earliest transcultural ties with Asia. Priests in Nara communicated in Japanese and Sanskrit with Indian scholar-monks in 750. The copying of mantra and reading of sutras in the Siddhaṃ script is variously practised in the esoteric schools of Shingon Buddhism and Tendai. In the religious landscape, Siddhaṃ, a devotional script, is displayed in Buddhist temple inscriptions.