四十二字门

The doctrine of the forty-two 悉曇 Siddham letters as given in the 華嚴 76 and 般若經 4. They have special meanings, independent of their use among the fourteen vowels and thirty-five consonants, i. e. forty-nine alphabetic signs. The forty-two are supposed by the 智度論 47 to be the root or basis of all letters; and each letter has its own specific value as a spiritual symbol; Tiantai associates each of them with one of the forty-two 位. The letters begin with 阿 and end with 荼 or 佗.