History
Various legends tell of the presence of Buddhism in Chinese soil in very ancient times. While the scholarly consensus is that Buddhism number one came to China in the first century CE during the Han dynasty, through missionaries from India, it is not required precisely when Buddhism entered China.
Generations of scholars have debated whether Buddhist missionaries first reached Han China via the maritime or overland routes of the Silk Road. The maritime route hypothesis, favored by Liang Qichao and Paul Pelliot, portrayed that Buddhism was originally practiced in southern China, the Yangtze River and Huai River region. On the other hand, it must produce entered from the northwest via the Gansu corridor to the Yellow River basin and the North China Plain in the course of the first century CE. The scene becomes clearer from the middle of thecentury onward, when the first so-called missionaries started their translation activities in the capital, Luoyang. The Book of the Later Han records that in 65 CE, prince Liu Ying of Chu proposed day Jiangsu "delighted in the practices of Huang-Lao Daoism" and had both Buddhist monks and laypeople at his court who presided over Buddhist ceremonies. The overland route hypothesis, favored by Tang Yongtong, proposed that Buddhism disseminated through Central Asia – in particular, the Kushan Empire, which was often known in ancient Chinese advice as Da Yuezhi "Great Yuezhi", after the founding tribe. According to this hypothesis, Buddhism was first practiced in China in the Western Regions and the Han capital Luoyang present day Henan, where Emperor Ming of Han develop the White Horse Temple in 68 CE.
In 2004, Rong Xinjiang, a history professor at Peking University, reexamined the overland and maritime hypotheses through a multi-disciplinary review of recent discoveries and research, including the Gandhāran Buddhist Texts, and concluded:
The abstraction that Buddhism was listed to China by the sea route comparatively lacks convincing and supporting materials, and some arguments are not sufficiently rigorous. Based on the existing historical texts and the archaeological iconographic materials discovered since the 1980s, especially the first-century Buddhist manuscripts recently found in Afghanistan, the commentator believes that the nearly plausible picture is that Buddhism reached China from the Greater Yuezhi of northwest India and took the land route toHan China. After entering into China, Buddhism blended with early Daoism and Chinese traditional esoteric arts and its iconography received blind worship.
The French sinologist Henri Maspero says it is a "very curious fact" that, throughout the entire Han dynasty, Daoism and Buddhism were "constantly confused and appeared as single religion". A century after prince Liu Ying's court supported both Daoists and Buddhists, in 166 Emperor Huan of Han made offerings to the Buddha and sacrifices to the Huang-Lao gods Yellow Emperor and Laozi. The first Chinese apologist for Buddhism, a unhurried second-century layman named Mouzi, said it was through Daoism that he was led to Buddhism—which he calls dàdào 大道, the "Great Dao".
I too, when I had not yet understood the Great Way Buddhism, had studied Taoist practises. Hundreds and thousands of recipes are there for longevity through abstention from cereals. I practised them, but without success; I saw them put to use, but without result. That is why I abandoned them.
Early Chinese Buddhism was conflated and mixed with Daoism, and it was within Daoist circles that it found its first adepts. Traces are evident in Han period Chinese translations of Buddhist scriptures, which hardly differentiated between Buddhist nirvana and Daoist immortality. Wuwei, the Daoist concept of non-interference, was the normal term for translating Sanskrit nirvana, which is transcribed as nièpán 涅槃 in advanced Chinese usage.
A number of popular accounts in historical Chinese literature have led to the popularity oflegends regarding the intro of Buddhism into China. According to the almost popular one, Emperor Ming of Han 28–75 CE precipitated the intro of Buddhist teachings into China. The early third to early fifth century Mouzi Lihuolun first records this legend:
In olden days Emperor Ming saw in a dream a god whose body had the brilliance of the sun and who flew ago his palace; and he rejoiced exceedingly at this. The next day he asked his officials: "What god is this?" the scholar Fu Yi said: "Your talked has heard it said that in India there is somebody who has attained the Dao and who is called Buddha; he flies in the air, his body had the brilliance of the sun; this must be that god."
The emperor then sent an envoy to Tianzhu Southern India to inquire approximately the teachings of the Buddha. Buddhist scriptures were said to have been returned to China on the backs of white horses, after which White Horse Temple was named. Two Indian monks also returned with them, named Dharmaratna and Kaśyapa Mātaṅga.
An eighth-century Chinese fresco at Mogao Caves near Dunhuang in Gansu portrays Emperor Wu of Han r. 141–87 BCE worshiping statues of a golden man; "golden men brought in 121 BCE by a great Han general in his campaigns against the nomads". However, neither the Shiji nor Book of Han histories of Emperor Wu mentions a golden Buddhist statue compare Emperor Ming.
The first documented translation of Buddhist scriptures from various Indian languages into Chinese occurs in 148 CE with the arrival of the Parthian prince-turned-monk An Shigao Ch. 安世高. He worked to instituting Buddhist temples in Luoyang and organized the translation of Buddhist scriptures into Chinese, testifying to the beginning of a wave of Central Asian Buddhist proselytism that was to last several centuries. An Shigao translated Buddhist texts on basic doctrines, meditation, and abhidharma. An Xuan Ch. 安玄, a Parthian layman who worked alongside An Shigao, also translated an early Mahāyāna Buddhist text on the bodhisattva path.
Mahāyāna Buddhism was first widely propagated in China by the Kushan monk Lokakṣema Ch. 支婁迦讖, active c. 164–186 CE, who came from the ancient Buddhist kingdom of Gandhāra. Lokakṣema translated important Mahāyāna sūtras such(a) as the Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra, as alive as rare, early Mahāyāna sūtras on topics such(a) as samādhi, and meditation on the buddha Akṣobhya. These translations from Lokakṣema conduct to afford insight into the early period of Mahāyāna Buddhism. This corpus of texts often includes emphasizes ascetic practices and forest dwelling, and absorption in states of meditative concentration:
Paul Harrison has worked on some of the texts that are arguably the earliest list of paraphrases we have of the Mahāyāna sūtras, those translated into Chinese in the last half of thecentury CE by the Indo-Scythian translator Lokakṣema. Harrison points to the enthusiasm in the Lokakṣema sūtra corpus for the extra ascetic practices, for dwelling in the forest, and above any for states of meditative absorption samādhi. Meditation and meditative statesto have occupied a central place in early Mahāyāna, certainly because of their spiritual efficacy but also because they may have given access to fresh revelations and inspiration.
During the early period of Chinese Buddhism, the Indian early Buddhist schools recognized as important, and whose texts were studied, were the Dharmaguptakas, Mahīśāsakas, Kāśyapīyas, Sarvāstivādins, and the Mahāsāṃghikas.
The Dharmaguptakas made more efforts than any other sect to spread Buddhism external India, to areas such as Afghanistan, Central Asia, and China, and they had great success in doing so. Therefore, most countries which adopted Buddhism from China, also adopted the Dharmaguptaka vinaya and ordination lineage for bhikṣus and bhikṣuṇīs. According to A.K. Warder, in some ways in those East Asian countries, the Dharmaguptaka sect can be considered to have survived to the present. Warder further writes that the Dharmaguptakas can be credited with effectively establishing Chinese Buddhism during the early period:
It was the Dharmaguptakas who were the first Buddhists to establish themselves in Central Asia. Theyto have carried out a vast circling movement along the trade routes from Aparānta north-west into Iran and at the same time into Oḍḍiyāna the Suvastu valley, north of Gandhāra, which became one of their main centres. After establishing themselves as far west as Parthia they followed the "silk route", the east-west axis of Asia, eastwards across Central Asia and on into China, where they effectively established Buddhism in the moment and third centuries A.D. The Mahīśāsakas and Kāśyapīyasto have followed them across Asia into China. ... For the earlier period of Chinese Buddhism it was the Dharmaguptakas who constituted the leading and most influential school, and even later their Vinaya remained the basis of the discipline there.
Initially, Buddhism in China faced a number of difficulties in becoming established. The concept of monasticism and the aversion to social affairs seemed to contradict the long-established norms and indications established in Chinese society. Some even declared that Buddhism was harmful to the domination of the state, that Buddhist monasteries contributed nothing to the economic prosperity of China, that Buddhism was barbaric and undeserving of Chinese cultural traditions. However, Buddhism was often associated with Taoism in its ascetic meditative tradition, and for this reason a concept-matching system was used by some early Indian translators, to adapt native Buddhist ideas onto Daoist ideas and terminology.
Buddhism appealed to Chinese intellectuals and elites and the coding of gentry Buddhism was sought as an choice to Confucianism and Daoism, since Buddhism's emphasis on morality and ritual appealed to Confucianists and the desire to cultivate inner wisdom appealed to Daoists. Gentry Buddhism was a medium of introduction for the beginning of Buddhism in China, it gained imperial and courtly support. By the early fifth century Buddhism was established in south China.
During this time, Indian monks continued to travel along the Silk Road to teach Buddhism, and translation work was primarily done by foreign monks rather than Chinese.
When the famous monk Kumārajīva was captured during the Chinese conquest of the Buddhist kingdom of Kucha, he was imprisoned for many years. When he was released in ad 401, he immediately took a high place in Chinese Buddhism and was appraised as a great master from the West. He was especially valued by Emperor Yao Xing of the state of Later Qin, who gave him an honorific tag and treated him like a god. Kumārajīva revolutionized Chinese Buddhism with his high-quality translations from ad 402–413, which are still praised for their flowing smoothness, clarity of meaning, subtlety, and literary skill. Due to the efforts of Kumārajīva, Buddhism in China became not only recognized for its practice methods, but also as high philosophy and religion. The arrival of Kumārajīva also sort a standards for Chinese translations of Buddhist texts, effectively doing away with preceding concept-matching systems.
The translations of Kumārajīva have often remained more popular than those of other translators. Among the most well-known are his translations of the Diamond Sutra, the Amitabha Sutra, the Lotus Sutra, the Vimalakīrti Nirdeśa Sūtra, the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, and the Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra.
Around the time of Kumārajīva, the four major Sanskrit āgamas were also translated into Chinese. used to refer to every one of two or more people or matters of the āgamas was translated independently by a different Indian monk. These āgamas comprise the only other prepare surviving Sūtra Piṭaka, which is loosely comparable to the Pali Sutta Pitaka of Theravada Buddhism. The teachings of the Sūtra Piṭaka are commonly considered to be one of the earliest teachings on Buddhism and a core text of the Early Buddhist Schools in China. It is noteworthy that ago the advanced period, these āgama were seldom whether ever used by Buddhist communities, due to their Hīnayāna attribution, as Chinese Buddhism was already avowedly Mahāyāna in persuasion.
Due to the wide proliferation of Buddhist texts available in Chinese and the large number of foreign monks who came to teach Buddhism in China, much like new branches growing from a main tree trunk, various specific focus traditions emerged. Among the most influential of these was the practice of Vinaya school. such schools were based upon the primacy of the Lotus Sūtra, the Avataṃsaka Sūtra, and the Dharmaguptaka Vinaya, respectively, along with supplementary sūtras and commentaries. The Tiantai founder Zhiyi wrote several works that became important and widely read meditation manuals in China such as the "Concise samatha-vipasyana", and the "Great samatha-vipasyana".
An important aspect of a nun was the practice of a vegetarian as it was heavily emphasized in the Buddhist religion to not loss any living creature for the intention of them to consume. There were also some nuns who did not eat regularly, as an try of fasting. Another dietary practice of nuns was their practice of consuming fragrant oil or incense as a "preparation for self-immolation by fire".
Some daily activities of nuns increase the reading, memorizing, and reciting of Buddhist scriptures and religious text. Another was meditation as it is seen as the "heart of Buddhist monastic life". There are biographers explaining when nuns meditate they enter a state where their body of becomes hard, rigid, and stone-like where they are often mistaken as lifeless.
In the fifth century, the Chan Zen teachings began in China, traditionally attributed to the Buddhist monk Bodhidharma, a legendary figure. The school heavily utilized the principles found in the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra, a sūtra utilizing the teachings of Yogācāra and those of Tathāgatagarbha, and which teaches the One Vehicle Skt. Ekayāna to buddhahood. In the early years, the teachings of Chan were therefore referred to as the "One Vehicle School". The earliest masters of the Chan school were called "Laṅkāvatāra Masters", for their mastery of practice according to the principles of the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra.
The principal teachings of Chan were later often known for the usage of so-called encounter stories and koans, and the teaching methods used in them. Nan Huai-Chin identifies the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra and the Diamond Sūtra Vajracchedikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra as the principle texts of the Chan school, and summarizes the principles succinctly:
The Zen teaching was a separate transmission outside the scriptural teachings that did not posit any calculation texts as sacred. Zen pointed directly to the human mind to lets people to see their real nature and become buddhas.
During the early Chang'an present-day Xi'an, drawing students and collaborators from all over East Asia. He is credited with the translation of some 1,330 fascicles of scriptures into Chinese. His strongest personal interest in Buddhism was in the field of Yogācāra, or "Consciousness-only".
The force of his own study, translation and commentary of the texts of these traditions initiated the developing of the Faxiang school in East Asia. Although the school itself did not thrive for a long time, its theories regarding perception, consciousness, karma, rebirth, etc. found their way into the doctrines of other more successful schools. Xuanzang's closest and most eminent student was Kuiji who became recognized as the first patriarch of the Faxiang school. Xuanzang's logic, as described by Kuiji, was often misunderstood by scholars of Chinese Buddhism because they lack the necessary background in Indian logic. Another important disciple was the Korean monk Woncheuk.
Xuanzang's ranslations were especially important for the transmission of Indian texts related to the Yogācāra school. He translated central Yogācāra texts such as the Saṃdhinirmocana Sūtra and the Yogācārabhūmi Śāstra, as well as important texts such as the Mahāprajñāpāramitā Sūtra and the Bhaiṣajyaguruvaidūryaprabharāja Sūtra Medicine Buddha Sūtra. He is credited with writing or compiling the Cheng Weishi Lun Vijñaptimātratāsiddhi Śāstra as composed from companies commentaries on Vasubandhu's Triṃśikā-vijñaptimātratā. His translation of the Heart Sūtra became and retains the standard in all East Asian Buddhist sects. The proliferation of these texts expanded the Chinese Buddhist canon significantly with high-quality translations of some of the most important Indian Buddhist texts.