We can sum up here the similarities and differences of the terms 'sutra' and 'bhashya' between Sanskrit text and Chinese text. In Brahman' literature, 'sutra' has the sense of thread in the Atharvaveda. In the sense of a book of rules' for the guidance of sacrificers and so forth, the world occurs in the 'Brhadaranyaka' Upanisad. Thus'sutra' refer to Aphorisms, just as a thread binds together a number of beads in a rosary, to outline the essential aspects of a subject. In 'Pali', 'sutra' is written as sutta, and Chalmers says the title of sutta was reserved from the outset for any consecutive thread of argument or narration continuously strung together and coherent. In Chinese Buddhist texts 'sutta', is used as a general term for the divine religion; the Chinese transliteration is always given as the Ch'i-ching 契 經. which in Buddhist canon menas the Four Agama especially. But in Chinese classical texts, Ching 經 donotes the general way 常道, which is also a common term for books. Yet both in Sanskrit and Chinese, the primary meaning for the world is to sew. As for the term bhashya, it is understood that 'sutra' and bhashya in Sanskrit are compiled together as one single issue since 'sutra' are so difficult to understand on account of their brevity which may lead astray the original subtle meaning. But in Chinese, 'sutra' and bhashya can be split up into different volumes, the bhashya is even originally edited independently without the 'sutra'. Yet both in Sanskrit and Chinese, the original meaning of this term is commentary: chu 注 is to annotate the 'sutra', whereas bhashya is a further interpretation of the annotation. Moreover it would be quite clear there is a point in common, that is, the dialogue form appears both in the Buddhist bhashya, and Chinese Shu.(疏).
