 When the Chan and Zen practice of the "katsu" first emerged in Jiangxi province in the south of Tang dynasty China in the 8th century CE, the word was pronounced roughly as /xat/, a pronunciation that is largely preserved in the Japanese "on'yomi" ("Sino-Japanese") reading of the character as , as well as in Cantonese and Southern Min Chinese.The "katsu" shout, insofar as it represents a kind of verbal harshness and even violence, can be considered a part of the Mahāyāna Buddhist doctrine of "skill-in-means" (), which essentially teaches that even an action or practice which seems to violate Buddhist moral guidelines—in this case, the Noble Eightfold Path's injunction against "abusive speech"—is permissible, and even desirable, so long as it is done with the aim of ultimately putting an end to suffering and introducing others to the dharma, or teachings of Buddhism.The most celebrated and frequent practitioner of the "katsu" was the Chinese master Línjì Yìxuán (?–866), and many examples of his use of the shout can be found in the "Línjì-lù" (臨済錄; Japanese