Geyi

Geyi ("categorizing concepts") originated as a 3rd-century Chinese Buddhist method for explaining lists of Sanskrit terms from the Buddhist canon with comparable lists from Chinese classics; but many 20th-century scholars of Buddhism misconstrued geyi "matching concepts" as a supposed method of translating Sanskrit technical terminology with Chinese Daoist vocabulary (such as rendering Śūnyatā "emptiness" with Wu 無 "without"). This reputed geyi "matching concepts" or "matching meanings" definition is ubiquitous in modern reference works, including academic articles, textbooks on Buddhism, dictionaries, encyclopedias, and Web-based resources.

Victor H. Mair, Professor of Chinese Language and Literature at the University of Pennsylvania, has investigated geyi and found no historical evidence to support the translation hypothesis. Mair has discovered that geyi was a "highly ephemeral and not-very-successful attempt on the part of a small number of Chinese teachers to cope with the flood of numbered lists of categories, ideas and so forth (of which Indian thinkers were so much enamoured) that came to China in the wake of Buddhism". Misunderstanding of geyi, which Mair calls "pseudo-geyi," has distorted the History of Buddhism and History of Taoism; has misled countless students through "erroneous definitions and specious accounts" in otherwise generally reliable reference books; and perhaps worst of all, "has spawned an entire industry of fake philosophizing about the intellectual history of China", particularly that of the Six Dynasties period (220–598). This kind of scholarship seems to be perpetuated in the latest publications on the topic, which is apparently completely ignorant of Mair's study.