Yadan (野壇) means "a platform raised outdoors," and beopseok (法席) means "the seat from which the dharma is preached." When a sermon drew more people than could ever fit inside a temple hall, monks had no choice but to set up a platform in the open air. The Buddha is said to have preached the Lotus Sutra on Vulture Peak before an assembly of three million, and it was such a vast open-air gathering that came to be called yadanbeopseok. The word, then, originally pointed to a solemn and majestic religious occasion. But how could a crowd that size ever stay quiet? Over the centuries the meaning tilted toward "a state of many people gathered in a din," until "to make a yadanbeopseok" became a byword for sheer uproar. A different Chinese rendering, 惹端法席, even emerged to play up the rowdiness.