Oshō
Buddhist priest
Oshō (Japanese: 和尚) is a Buddhist priest (in charge of a temple); honorific title of preceptor or high priest (especially in Zen or Pure Land Buddhism). The same kanji are also pronounced kashō as an honorific title of preceptor or high priest in Tendai or Kegon Buddhism and wajō as an honorific title of preceptor or high priest in Shingon, Hossō, Ritsu, or Shin Buddhism.
Etymology
Oshō is the Japanese reading of a Tibetan term meaning a high-ranking or highly-virtuous Buddhist monk. It is also a respectful designation for monks in general and may be used with the suffix -san.
According to the Kōjien Japanese dictionary and the Kanjigen dictionary of Chinese character source meanings, it is originally derived from the Sanskrit upādhyāya, meaning "master" in the sense of "teacher".
The literal meaning is "self-taught Buddhist monk/teacher" The Chinese term "he-shang" is derived from the Sanskrit word upadhyaya or acharya:
As the new Buddhist students and scholars, who eventually became teachers and practitioners, had to give a name to themselves, they came up with a name in Khotanese dialect that supposedly translated the Sanskrit word upadhyaya which meant 'teacher". It is also possible that it is a translation (or transliteration) of the Sanskrit word acharya, an Indian term with a broader connotation: a teacher of religion or the truth itself.
The standard English translation of oshō has become "priest", it has a somewhat different connotation in Zen:
While priest may be associated with ceremonial functions – which cause many Western Zen practitioners to balk – there is another way to read the term, simply as a "technologist of the spirit." Within the Zen tradition, this would suggest a certain mastery of one or more of the Zen arts of contemplation. If we consider the word priest literally means "elder," from the Latin presbyter, a Zen priest would be both a trained technologist of the spirit and an elder with the community.
According to the Kōjien, the two characters that make up the word are pronounced oshō only in the Zen and Kegon schools.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Oshō” is buddhist priest. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Oshō, Buddhist and priest, not as a finished interpretation.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1856321. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Oshō” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.