In the Japanese academic circle, it has long been believed that the word Hanzi was originated in Japan. The earliest example of the usage of Hanzi appeared in Japanese was Shogonjikkyo. Shogonjikkyo was written in 817 by Saichō, a Japanese monk who came to China (Tang Dynasty) as a short-term foreign student. No scholars from China or other countries have ever expressed any objection to the opinion that Hanzi was created by Japanese. In Concise Encyclopedia Britannica, Hanzi is spelt as Kanji according to its Japanese pronunciation instead of the Chinese way. However, it was not until Saichō returned to Japan from China that he began to use the word Hanzi, and the concept of Hanzi had already appeared in China's monk circle at that time. The earliest use of Hanzi ever discovered was as early as the beginning of the 8th century, in A Thousand Sanskrit Words by Yijing, a Chinese monk. Since Yijing used Hanzi more than 100 years earlier than Saichō, we conclude that Saichō used it by following Chinese usage rather than his own creation.  In the literature of Qin and Han Dynasties, the Chinese character was called ming, shu, wen, zi and so on. In the then dominant world view of separating hua(China and its civilized people) from yi(all foreign countries and their people with lower level of education), the Chinese character that represented the advanced civilization was unique. Therefore, it was unnecessary to use han for modification. Hence, there was no such usage as Hanzi.Then from Wei and Jin to Sui and Tang dynasties, with the development of Buddhist sutra translation, Chinese traditional Confucianism and Taoism had to face enormous challenge from Buddhist culture. Under the influence of Sanskrit, the foreignized Chinese characters had to give way to Sanskrit words. For those who regarded Sanskrit words as orthodoxy, using zialone was not enough to represent Chinese characters. Then the concept of Hanzi emerged, so as to distinguish them from Sanskrit words. Besides the concept of Hanzi which came into being in the background of Sanskrit-Chinese translation, there was also the concept of Hanzi in the context of the development and evolution of Chinese written words. Hong Shi of the Song Dynasty commented on The Tablet of Mount Baishi in his Li Shi, ″The inscription on this tablet is quite different from Han Dynasty calligraphy (Hanzi), and is all similar to the tablets of Wei and Jin dynasties.″ Here the word Hanzi referred to script of Han Dynasty, or more accurately, ″official script of the Han Dynasty,″ as opposed to cursive script, semi-cursive script, regular script, which came into vogue after Wei and Jin dynasties.  There are two major sources of Hanzi in the context of China. One is the ″official script of the Han Dynasty″ in calligraphic history, which matured in Han Dynasty and was held up as a model by later generations. And the other is ″Chinese characters″ or ″written words of China,″ which was distinguished from Sanskrit words during the process of Sanskrit-Chinese translation. When Chinese characters spread to the neighboring countries, Japan, Korea and other countries also germinated the concept of Hanzi. Take Japanese for example, Hanzi was originally used to define ″Chinese characters,″ and|when kana popped up, it also related to Japanese ″kokuji″ ( Chinese character imitation)|and after Western learning spread to the East in modern times, Hanzi was used in a general sense for ″eastern characters.″ Hanzi is used to refer to ″Chinese characters ″ or ″official script of the Han Dynasty,″ each limited to the particular field. From Han Dynasty to late Qing Dynasty, almost no scholars from the scholium circle ever used the term.″In the transitional period from ancient ming, shu, wen, zito modern ″Chinese characters,″ there is a link neglected, which is connected to Huang Zunxian, Liang Qichao, Wang Zhao and other cultural figures' efforts. They went to Japan in late Qing Dynasty and in the early period of the Republic of China, and brought back to China the concept of Hanzi in the system of Japanese writing system. They brought about a modern concept of ″Chinese characters.″