A sketch of Chinese character variants in Vietnam: With a focus on the variants of ‘Buddha’

In Vietnam, based on documents researched by the author, Chinese character variants appeared and were used in writing from the 12th century at the latest, during the independent and self-reliant period in Vietnamese history, when Chinese characters were particularly prevalent among Vietnamese people. This paper analyses 14 variants of the character ‘佛’ (Vietnamese: Phật; Chinese: Fó; i.e. Buddha) and some other characters (such as ‘之’ Vn. Chi/Ch. Zhi, ‘聽’ Vn. Thính/Ch. Ting, ‘聖’ Vn. Thánh/Ch. Sheng), in comparison with variants in reference books of China, aiming at demonstrating the diversity of Chinese character variants generally and those of the character ‘Buddha’ specifically in Vietnam.