The Chinese word "鸠摩罗什" is formed through phonetic transliteration of the Sanskrit name Kumārajīva, with each character chosen to approximate a syllable of the original pronunciation: 鸠 (jiū) corresponds to "Ku", 摩 (mó) to "mā", 罗 (luó) to "ra", and 什 (shí) to "jīva", resulting in a sound-based representation in Chinese.