Abstract: What is the true sense of “fan”and “qie”? This article comprehensively surveys such language facts as Buddhist translation of Sanskrit sound into Chinese by combining two phonemes, which developed into Chinese phonetic notation terminology of “fan qie”.It tries to distinguish the original sense of “fan” and “qie” and obtains the result that the original meaning of “qie” used in the acoustics domain was “precise, accurate” , after Mid-Tang its meaning changed and became equal to “fan”.

Key words: phonetic notation method, fan qie, name and its true sense