Budući da je navedena literatura na engleskom nalazim da ovaj tekst i ne treba prevoditi. (M.M.)

The following were the most useful books for putting together this site:

1. "The Liturgy of the Buddhism of Nichiren Daishonin" by the Soka Gakkai. This book provides the Chinese characters for the first half of the 2nd chapter of the Lotus Sutra and the entirety of the 16th Chapter of the Lotus Sutra. The Japanese version includes many Chinese characters of key terms in the silent prayer section.

2. "A Dictionary of Buddhist Terms and Concepts" by NSIC. This is the best recent dictionary of Buddhist terms and concepts. It provides Chinese proper names, key terms, an Indic word list, Japanese equivalents, list of Sanskrit and Pali equivalents and almost all the characters that are on the Gohonzon. It also provides the best and most objective account of other sects and practices.

3. "Lecture on the Sutra" by Josei Toda. Great book by a person who lived the Lotus Sutra. It has a section of words and phrases of Gongyo as well as an interpretation of the silent prayers.

4. "Chinese Characters Their Origin, Etymology, History, Classification and Signification." By Dr. L. Wieger, S. J. This book is not as easy as a dictionary to use but it is a great source for understanding the radicals that compose Chinese characters. It has a few mistakes and virtually no understanding of Buddhist usage.

5. "A Dictionary of Chinese Buddhist Terms" by Soothill and Hodous. Great book for understanding Buddhist idioms. An understanding of Chinese is essential to using this book.

6. "The Lotus Sutra" by Burton Watson. This is the most accurate and the most readable version of the Lotus Sutra in English.

7. "Scripture of the Lotus Blossom of the Fine Dharma" by Leon Hurvitz. Prior to Watson's version this was the best translation of Kumarajiva's Lotus Sutra. Hurvitz includes a discussion of the differences between the Kumarajiva translation and Hern's translation from the Sanskrit (See below.)

8. "Saddharma-pundarika or the Lotus of the True Law" by H. Kern. I love this translation from the Sanskrit. Its language is rich.

9. "The Threefold Lotus Sutra" by the Rissho Kosei-kai. Even though this is a flawed interpetation of the LS, it is still valuable for its "translations" the "Sutra of Innumerable Meanings" and "The Sutra of Meditation on the Bodhisattva Universal Virtue".

10. "Beginners' Dictionary of Chinese-Japanese Characters and Compounds" By A. Rose-Innes. This book is probably the worst conceived dictionaries ever made. It is nearly impossible to use, but it is helpful in understanding combinations of Chinese characters. This is the book that was used to translate Chinese-Japanese Characters during World War II. If this book were essential to the war effort, we would have lost.

11. "A Japanese and English Dictionary with an English and Japanese Index" by Dr. James Curtis Hepburn. Dr. Hepburn was a medical doctor and one of the first English speaking persons to study the Japanese-Chinese language. His system, (known as the Hepburn System) though flawed, is still used today.

12. "Obunsha's Royal English-Japanese Dictionary" This book is more useful to a Japanese speaking person who is trying to understand English. But if you know the English word you can often find the Japanese-Chinese equivalent.

13. "Japanese-English English-Japanese Dictionary" by Random House. I use this book to get a second or third opinion or when I can't find what I am looking for in the other books.

14. "Analytic Dictionary of Chinese and Sino-Japanese" by Bernhard Karlgren. This is a good book if you know the sound of the Chinese characters. It has the Ancient Chinese, Mandarin, and Cantonese, pronunciations.

15. "Conversational Japanese" by R. D. Cortina. This is a great guide to the pronunciation of modern Japanese and the Japanese pronunciation of Chinese Characters.

16. "Dictionary of Spoken Chinese" by the Institute of Far Easter Languages at Yale. You must know either the Chinese sound or the English equivalent to use this book.

17. "Chinese is Easy" by Ralph E. Bucknam. This is a good intro to the Chinese language.

18. "Learn Japanese" by John Young and Kimiko Nakajima-Okano. This is a good college level introduction to the Japanese Language.