Vernacular Buddhist Preaching during the Tang period had a remote connection with its precedent—the Buddhist Lecture and Preaching of the Six Dynasties. They were closely related in their derivation. Since 1934, when Professor Xiang Da wrote a pioneering paper to elucidate the term changdao (“vernacular Buddhist Preaching”) of the Tang dynasty, many scholars have kept up an ardent interest in studying this term and the Buddhist activities related to this subject. Despite this continuous and laborious research, however, the explanations of the meaning and implications of the term are confusing, and some ambiguity remains to be properly clarified. What was the orthodox way in which changdao activities might be precisely and repeatedly shown and demonstrated during the Six Dynasties? Was it to preach and chant in a clear voice, or simply to give oral preaching to guide sentient beings? Were there other different ways of changdao? What is the main reason that eventually results in ambiguity of the term changdao? This article focuses on the above-mentioned questions and, in addition, gives an explanation of the quantifier qi for the Buddhist sutra chanting.
