Chinese Buddhism - THE BUDDHIST CONQUEST OF CHINA
The present study is an attempt to describe the main aspects of the particular type of Buddhism which developed in Southern and Central China in the fourth and early fth century AD.
It must be remarked at the very outset that early Chinese Buddhism is a system sui generis, the result of an independent development which can only be studied and understood in connection with the cultural environment in which this development took place and against the background of the Chinese world-view prevailing at the period in question. Consequently we shall have to pay due attention to various cultural and social factors which have contri buted to the formation and stimulated the spread of Buddhism in early medieval Chinese society, before the purely doctrinal aspects of the creed can adequately be described.
It is this social aspect that will claim most of our attention in this study, but whenever possible we shall try to correlate thisup to now rather neglectedside of Chinese Buddhism with contemporary developments in the eld of doctrine.
This stress upon the social environment is not merely a result of the author’s conviction that no religious movement, however unworldly, can possibly be studied as a “history of ideas” pure and simple. It follows logically from the nature of Buddhism itself. Buddhism is not and has never pretended to be a “theory”, an explanation of the universe; it is a way to salvation, a way of life. Its introduction into China means not only the propagation of certain religious notions, but also the introduction of a new form of social organisation: the monastic community, the sa1ngha. To the Chinese Buddhism has always remained a doctrine of monks. The forces and counter-forces which were evoked by the existence of the Buddhist Church in China, the attitudes of the intelligentsia and of the government, the social background and status of the clergy and the gradual integration of the monastic community into medieval Chinese society are social phenomena of fundamental importance which have played a decisive role in the formation of early Chinese Buddhism. If the study of the social aspect is essentially a study in acculturation, this is even more true for “purely” religious developments. Due to lack of material, we shall not be able to follow more than part of these developments, for in spite of the fact that the amount of data contained in the translated Buddhist literature seems at rst sight enormous, still, for an investigation of typically Chinese phenomena in the eld of the doctrine we have to depend on a rather small number of indigenous texts. The ideas to be found there will strike the s tudent of Indian Buddhism as highly rudimentary and strange, and often as even hardly Buddhist. Small wonder, because adaptation implies selection. From the very beginning, the body of the foreign doctrine was reduced to those elements which by their real or supposed congruence with pre-existing Chinese notions and practices were liable to adaptation and incorporation. The result of this intense and continuous process of selection and hybridization is widely divergent from the contents of the imported foreign scriptures which were so faithfully copied, memorized and recited by Chinese devotees. These scriptures merely formed the raw material on which Chinese Buddhists founded their free speculations, and the many hundreds of early Chinese versions of Buddhist scripturescapital sources for the history of Indian Buddhismteach us disappointingly little about the ways in which their message was reinterpreted.
It must be remarked that even the Chinese monks themselves at this early date were never confronted with Buddhismof one school or anotheras an organic whole, a coherent discipline. The integral transplantation of an Indian school to China (as happened with Yog®c®ra Buddhism in the 7th century) is a much later phenomenon. The early Chinese monks, forced to be eclectics by the circumstances under which the doctrine was presented to them, had to base their opinions on a bewildering variety of Mah®y®na and Hin®y®na sûtras, monastic rules, spells and charms, legends and scholastic treatises of dierent epochs and schools.
The heterogeneous nature of the doctrine as introduced into China was of course coupled with an all but complete ignorance about the cultural milieu in which
the scriptures had originated. One of the most serious problems was of a linguistic nature: only a few foreign ®c®ryas could freely express themselves in Chinese, whereas before the late fourth century no Chinese seems to have had any knowledge of Sanskrit.l Thus the doctrine was only accessible to the Chinese clergy through the distorting medium of free, lacunose and often hardly understandable translations, the misleading eect of which was enhanced by the use of Chinese terms which already had a denite philosophical value and which consequently possessed a wide range of non-Buddhist associations. All these factors must have contributed to the thorough sinization of Buddhism even in clerical circles, to the formation of a Buddhism in Chinese guise, digest ed by Chinese minds, translated into Chinese patterns of thought.
One would be tempted to call this creed “early Chinese Buddhism” pure and simple, as is generally done. But if we consider the nature and limitations of the sources at our disposal, this appellation, however convenient, appears to be a gross generalization. Like practically all works of medieval Chinese literature, the early sources (to be mentioned below) were written by and for literati, and deal only with one niveau, one segment of the immensely complex phenomenon which was early Chinese Buddhism. As is proved by the very nature of the doctrine which they contain, by their subtle and abstruse speculations on philosophical and moralistic subjects and by the rened and highly articial, over-stylized language in which these are expressed, their range of circulation must have been restricted to a distinct, highly important but relatively small part of the Buddhist population: the cultured upper class and those monks who
had obtained a literary education which enabled them to take part in the cultural life of this class. It is a discouraging fact that hardly anything is known about other, equally important, manifestations of Buddhism on Chinese soil during the period in question. The earliest development of popular Buddhism in the various regions of the empire, the growth of locally dierentiated popular beliefs and cults, the ways in which the doctrine was preached among the illiterate population, the status of the individual priest, the social and economic functions of the Church in rural communities and so many other subjects of vital importance for the study of early Chinese Buddhism are hardly ever mentioned. The few pieces of information which may be extracted from the stubborn material are too vague and too fragmentary even for speculation. The earliest phase of popular Buddhism has not left any documents or scriptures of its own, nor has it given rise, like Daoism, to any spectacular religious or semi-religious massmovements strong or dangerous enough to be recorded by Chinese ofcial historians.2
Thus the scope of any study on early Chinese Buddhism is unavoidably narrowed down by the nature of the source material. Unless an unexpected discovery, like a second Dunhuang, comes to shed a clear light upon the life and practice of the Buddhist Church and its lay devotees in the fourth century, we must face the fact that we possess nothing but a torn-out chapter, the loose leaves of which are lying pellmell before us: scholastic speculations of learned monks and cultured magistrates of Buddhist inclinations; a few polemic treatises testifying of the clashes between the growing Church and the governm ent authorities; recorded fragments of elegant conversation and spirited debate between clerical and non-clerical literati; standardized biographies of famous monks; polished introductions; a considerable amount of bibliog raphical information; a few letters and poems.
This fact, once realized, necessarily points to what seems to us the only methodical approach to the study of the social side of early Chinese Buddhism. Given the basic fact that the Buddhist Church from the beginning seems consciously to have directed itself to the governing classthe central or local authorities which the sangha 1 had to persuade either to help and patronize the clergy, or at least to tolerate its existencewe shall have to focus our attention in the rst place upon the process of the penetration of the Buddhist Church and its doctrine in the higher and highest strata of medieval Chinese society. We shall have to investigate the various reactions which it caused in these circles, to dene the pro- and anti-Buddhist attitudes and practices prevailing among the leading groups and to trace, in this perspective, the doctrinal developments which, as a matter of necessity, bear the stamp of the special circumstances under which this penetration took place. We shall see how the beginning of this process, which is of paramount importance for the history of medieval China, may be dated around the beginning of the fourth century AD, and how from that time onward the inuence of Buddhism gradually manifests itself in many elds of Chinese culture.
It is in the course of this struggle for recognition that this form of early Chinese Buddhismthe creed of the Buddhist intelligentsiaacquired its characteristic form. Chinese Buddhism forms an extreme example of the general phenomenon that new religions, especially if they are of foreign origin, are never accepted as a new creed, completely replacing the old belief: it was superimposed upon and amalgamated with the main currents of contemporary Chinese thought, i.e. Confucianism and the gnostic and ontological speculations known as xuanxue 玄學, “Dark Learning”, to the Chinese (and, most wrongly, as “Neo-Daoism” to Western scholars).3 As we have said above, this applies to the cultured clergy as well as to the high-class laymen. On the other hand, the opposition against Buddhism among the Chinese intelligentsia prompted the defenders and propagators of the faith to devise apologetic arguments tending to reconcile the Buddhist doctrine with traditional Chinese thought, thus intensifying and stimulating the process of amalgamation. Later on we shall have the
opportunity to speak about the difcult question whether and in how far this latter process represents a conscious application of apologetic devices. It is not only practical considerations of space which have led us to concern ourselves mainly with the development of Chinese Buddhism in the South, i.e. in the central and southern part of present-day China, then ruled over by the Chinese Jin 晉 dynasty. Since about 310 AD the whole of the North was under the domination of non-Chinese dynasties, some of which strongly stimulated the prosperity of Buddhism within their domain. But it is just because of the close ties between these “barbarian” rulers and Buddhism, that in the North Buddhism, both as a social phenomenon and as a creed, developed forms of its own and went its own ways, resulting in a picture which diers considerably from that presented by the penetration of its beliefs in the gentry society of Central and Southern China. On the other hand, the isolation of Chinese Buddhism, which in the South is one of the main reasons for the radical “sinization” of the doctrine, was far less complete in the North. Especially at the Buddhist centre of Chang’an, situated as it was on the Chinese branch of the transcontinental silk-road, this contact with “the West” (a vague indication for the huge area between Dunhuang and Kashmir) was very intensive. The result of this situation is that an adequate description of Buddhism in the North cannot be restricted to China alone, but that it must take thoroughl y into account all that is known concerning contemporary developments in Central Asia and in North-Western Indiawith all the thorny problems this entails. In order to limit the scope of this study in a manner which is justied not only from the point of view of chronology but also from that of geography, we have decided to make the development of gentry-Buddhism in the Chinese South our main concern, paying only attention to the North whenever this seemed necessary for a better understanding of events in the South.
“Gentry” and “Gentry Buddhism”
Not without hesitation we have decided to use the much-debated but conveniently short term “gentry” when speaking about the cultured upper class in medieval Chinese society, and to label the type of Buddhism described above “gentry Buddhism”.4
English readers must be warned not necessarily to associate the term “gentry” with large landownership. We dene the members of the gentry as those individuals who were entitled to ll the ranks in the magistracy, which implies that they had had the opportunity to obtain the traditional literary education which qualied them for an ofcial career and, consequently, that they belonged to a family of some wealth and standing which could aord to have its young male members devote several years to literary studies.
It is reasonable to suppose that practically all gentry families were to some extent landowners: in China, landed property has always been the normal and favoured form of investment. It would, however, be wrong to regard landed property as the exclusive source of income of the gentry as a whole. Those who try to picture the gentry as a kind of feudal aristocracy do not realize that those features, which they regard as characteristic of the whole upper class, actually hold only good for a relatively small part of the gentry: the menfa 門閥, the Great Families. These were the actual masters of the empire, the ancient feudal clans which during the whole medieval period virtually monopolized all political and economic power in the state: the Wang clans from Langye and Taiyuan, the
Xie clan from Yangxia, the Yu clan from Yanling, and many others. These families owned ancestral domains and estates of impressive size, cultivated by slaves and various kinds of serfs and clients who were inscribed in the local registers of the population under the name of their lord to whom they owed taxes and labour service. Already about the beginning of the third century we hear about several estates of more than 10.000 people, and their numbers were furthermore increased by vagrants (liumin 流民) who secretly sought refuge to the feudal domains without being inscribed (wuming 無名). These consisted mainly of “drifting families” (liuli zhi jia 流離之家), i.e. small peasant families which had been forced to give up their lands under the pressure of war, encroachment by great land-owners and the burden of state-taxes and labour services which naturally kept increasing in proportion to the loss of taxable land. However, the number of
these great families was restricted. No more than 68 families are included in the genealogical tables of Wang Yitong’s extensive study on the menfa in medieval China,5 and the total number of members of these great gentry clans who approximately belong to one and the same generation constitutes only a small portion of the enormous body of higher and lower ofcials with literary education which in the same period formed the bureaucratic apparatus of the empire. The gentry was, in fact, anything but a homogeneous group. It was divided in a number of well-dened classes, from the ancient families ( jiumen 舊門, gaomen 高門, haozu 毫族), which formed the highest nobility, monopolized the top functions and maintained a strict exclusivity, down to the members of cultured but relatively poor families, upstarts who seldom were admitted to the company of the old gentry families and had to ll the lower ranks in the magistracy. It would certainly go too far to regard the middle and lower grade ofcials (who naturally constituted the majority) as members of an élite of feudal land-owners. Even
if the family possessed a considerable amount of landed property, the frequent shifts from one local post to another often at enormous distances from the family base without any adequate means of money transfer and, since the beginning of the fourth century, the occupation of Northern China by non-Chinese rulers which virtually secluded those magistrates who had ed to the South from their ancestral domains make it very probable that a great number of the magistrates mainly or exclusively depended upon their ofcial emoluments and the numerous other, less ofcial, ways to enrichment which stood at the magistrate’s disposal.6 The basic characteristic of the whole gentry class is and remains the more or less standardized classical literary education (during this period not coupled with any kind of literary examination), qualifying for (but not necessarily leading to) the career of a government ofcial. Consequently we shall make use of the words “gentry” and “intelligentsia” as almost synonymous terms, the only difference in connection with our subject being that “intelligentsia” includes the cultured members of the clergy, whereas the term “gentry”, referring, by denition, to those who lled or were entitled to ll posts in the ofcial hierarchy, naturally does not. But at this point another problem arises.
The cultured clergy
As we shall see, the late third and early fourth century AD witness the form ation of a wholly new type of Chinese intellectual élite, consisting of cultured monks who, by a fruitful combination of Buddhist doctrine and traditional Chinese scholarship, were able to develop the particular type of Buddhism which spread among the upper classes and which we therefore have called “gentry Buddhism”.
Must we not assume that the cultured members of the fourth and early fth century Chinese clergy actually belonged to the gentry in spite of their special social status and function, simply on account of the fact that their literary education (irrespective of the way in which they had acquired it) enabled them to share in contemporary gentry culture and even profoundly to inuence that culture? Must we not even suppose that the learned “Master of the Law” who preached the doctrine in gentry circles and created an atmosphere favour able for the spread of Buddhism in these circles actually was a member of the gentry, a potential magistrate from a good family who, after having obtained the usual classical education, for some reason or other had chosen not to enter the ofcial career but to become a jushi, a “retired gentleman”, of a new type: a scholar-monk, nevertheless remaining in touch with the members of his social class, extolling in their midst the doctrine which had given him the opportunity to withdraw from the bustle of the world? Or was he rather an upstart, coming from an illiterate milieu, who somehow, in or outside the monastery, had acquired a degree of literary education which brought him on a par with the cultured laity, and thus enabled him to include the gentry in his missionary activities? To put the problem more concisely: was the Chinese clerical intelligentsia originally recruited from the gentry and consequently a part of it, or was it a kind of “intellectual proletariat” and consequently its counterpart?
For an answer we have to turn to the “Biographies of Eminent Monks”, the
Gaoseng zhuan 高僧傳 (compiled ca. 530 by the monk Huijiao 慧皎)a work which, in spite of some evident shortcomings, remains the most important source for the history of early gentry Buddhism.7
The rst fact to be noted is that many among the famous monks of the period in question are said to have lived in rather poor and difcult circumstances before entering the order. Huiyuan 慧遠 is unable to buy candles and other requisites for his study.8 Daoheng 道恆 lives in great poverty, sustaining himself with painting and embroidery.9 Sengzhao 僧肇 works as a copyist in a bookshop;10 Huirui 慧叡 is kidnapped, becomes a slave and is ransomed by a merchant.11 Tanyong 曇邕 has been commander in Fu Jian’s army and becomes a priest after having escaped from the massacre at Feishui 淝水 in 383.12 The up®saka Wei Shidu 衛士度 comes from a “cold family” 寒門,13 Tanjie 曇戒 is said to have lived in great poverty.14 Sengdu 僧度 comes from a “poor and insignicant (family)”,15 and Zhu Fakuang 竺法曠 works in the eld to sustain himself and his stepmother.16
But let us be careful. Poverty is one of the virtues of the priest, and, like the biographies of magistrates in the ofcial Chinese histories,17 the Gaoseng zhuan shows a tendency to standardize the lives of its heroes according to traditionally xed patterns. The ideal monk is poorin fact, he calls himself “poor monk” 貧道, an appellation which does not seem to have any Indian counterpart. At the beginning of his career he is despised, until an important layman or Buddhist master recognizes his unusual talents. His knowledge and wisdom grow fast, and seem to contrast with his insignicant bodily appearance. He is able to memorize in a very short time stupendous amounts of texts without forgetting one syllable. He develops supernatural powers such as knowing future or distant events, taming ferocious animals and conversing with spirits and other non-human beings. He knows the date of his death beforehand; his passing away is accompanied by visions and other supernatural events. Hence we must take care not to attach more importance to general statements about a monk’s poverty than to the arcadic simplicity of the scholar’s life which is one of the stereotyped themes in traditional Chinese poetry.
However, even if we take no account of the trappings of hagiography and stylistic enbellishment, we must still make out what is meant when the texts say that a certain cultured monk came from a poor family. Is it the utter paup erism of a vagrant peasant family or the relative poverty of a small ofcial? Wei Shidu comes from a “cold home”, but the term hanmen, frequently used in secular biographical literature, denitely denotes a relatively insignic ant gentry family. In the same way Zhu Sengdu, who is said to have come from a destitute family, was before his entering the order engaged to a daughter of a member of the local gentry (衣冠之家) named Yang Deshen 楊德慎. Tanjie who was “dwelling in poverty” actually was, according to the same biography, a younger brother of a prefect of Jiyang 棘陽 called Zhuo Qian 桌潛.
At least in the cases of these three individuals it is clear that the statements concerning the poverty of their families must be taken cum grano salis and that we actually have to do with members (or rather ex-members) of modest and relatively poor gentry families. Secondly, it may be of some importance to note that a conspicuously large number of monks entered the monastery as orphans.18 The way in which this fact is usually stated suggests a causal connection between the orphan’s helpless condition (which would certainly not be the case if the child came from a rich family) and its entering in the order.
Thirdly, an argument ex silentio which, however, in this connection is of great importance. Of more than 80 of the Chinese monks whose biographies are contained in the Gaoseng zhuan the original (non-clerical) surname (and, in a great number of cases, also the place of origin) are unknown. It is highly questionable whether this would have been the case if many among them would have belonged to illustrious families: in fact, the Gaoseng zhuan devotes a whole paragraph to a certain monk Daobao 道寶, who seems only to have been mentioned there because he was a younger brother of the prime minister Wang Dao 王導 (267339).
In the fourth place: among the ca. 80 fourth century Chinese monks who gure in the Gaoseng zhuan we nd only eleven individuals who appear to have belonged to gentry families; in only six cases the family relation with a certain magistrate or scholar is specied.
(1) Bo Yuan 帛遠 and his younger brother
(2) Bo Fazuo 帛法祚 (ca. 300 AD) are sons of a Confucian scholar named Wan Weida 萬威達 (not mentioned in other sources).
(3) Zhu (Dao)qian 竺[[[道]]]潛 (286373) is a brother of the minister and rebel Wang Dun 王敦 (266324).19
(4) Shi Daobao 釋道寶 is a younger brother of the minister Wang Dao 王導 (267330).20
(5) Tanjie 曇戒 is a younger brother of a prefect of Jiyang 棘陽 (Henan) named Zhuo Qian 桌潛 (not mentioned elsewhere).21
(6) Senglue 僧 is the son of an intendant of the Palace Gentlemen (郎中令) named Fu Jia 傅假 (not mentioned elsewhere).22
(7) Zhu Faya 竺法雅 (1st half 4th cent.) “as a youth excelled in secular learing, when he had grown up he became well-versed in the princ iples of Buddhism” 少山外學.長通佛理.23
(8) Zhi Dun 支遁 (314366), the greatest propagator of Buddhism among the gentry at the Southern capital, before he entered the order had already connections with members of the highest families, notably with Wang Meng 王濛 (309347).24
(9) Shi Dao’an 釋道安 (312385), came from a family of Confucian scholars.25
(10) Shi Huiyuan 釋慧遠 (334416) went in 346 together with his maternal uncle to Xuchang and Luoyang where he spent seven years in literary studies.26
(11) Shi Huichi 釋慧持 (337412), younger brother of Huiyuan; excelled in historical studies and literary composition.27
This short list of the exceptional cases of monks who are known to have belonged to the gentry includes practically all of the most illustrious names of the history of Chinese Buddhism in the 4th century AD, and this fact allows us to dene more clearly the way in which Buddhism conquered the higher and highest strata of medieval Chinese society.
The spread of Buddhism among the gentry was an almost exclusively Chinese affair, in which the foreign missionaries hardly took part. It was accomplished in the course of the fourth century by a restricted number of Chinese monks of great fame and standing, whose names occur again and again in contemp orary literature. Bo Yuan, Zhu Daoqian, Zhi Dun, Zhu Faya, Shi Dao’an, Shi Huiyuan and Shi Huichi are exactly those masters who have played a leading role in the propagation of Buddhism in gentry circles; our list proves that all of them actually came from gentry families. They con stituted, so to say, the cultural and social vanguard of the Church, consisting of learned and highly respected “gentlemen-monks” who, whilst freely moving in the milieu that was theirs by birth and education, could preach their version of the doctrine with the authority of a Chinese scholar and with the polished eloquence of a qingtan adept. Traditional Chinese scholarship functioned as a medium to bring the gentry in contact with the Church and its doctrinea fact which helps to explain much that is peculiar in early gentry Buddhism.
However, the data which we have mentioned above seem to indicate that provenance from gentry families was exceptional, and that the majority of the most illustrious monks (even those whose lives were deemed worthy to be included in the Gaoseng zhuan) was of rather lowly origin. The cultured clergy differed from the rest of the Chinese intelligentsia in that it was relatively free from class discriminationa fact which is of considerable interest for the social history of class-ridden medieval China.28
In this, the Chinese sa1ngha was in accordance with the Indian Buddhist tradition. Those who have accepted the tonsure and donned the monk’s cloak have become “ascetics belonging to the son of the ˆ®kyas” (˜rama)n®Ω ˜®kyaputr¬y®Ω) for whom all worldly distinctions, including those of caste, have ceased to be.29 The existence of castes in the world is regarded as a purely secular and social institution, a hereditary division of tasks and labour which had become necessary in the distant past; it does not possess, as in Brahmanism, a religious signicance or justication. A famous passage compares the sa1ngha, in which all caste distinctions have vanished, with the ocean in which the waters from the ve great rivers lose their identity.30
We may therefore assume that the monastery, as soon as it became a centre of learning and culture, must have been highly attractive to talented members of lower class families whom it enabled to share to some extent in the cultural life of the gentry. There is ample evidence to the fact that in the fourth century the monastery developed a secondary function as an institute of secular learning and education. Dao’an, who in 323 became a novice at the age of eleven, must have obtained at least part of his education in the monastery.31 When Tanhui 曇徽 at the same age became a novice under Dao’an, the latter ordered him to study the secular literature: “during two or three years he studied the classics and the histories”.32 Another of Dao’an’s disciples, Daoli 道立, became a novice as a young boy; since later in his life he was known as a specialist on Laozi, Zhuangzi and the Yijing, we must conclude that he studied these works (and expounded them) in the monastery.33 The same holds good for Senglue, who “mastered the six classics and the Tripiflaka” after having joined the order,34 and for Daorong 道融, who after having become a novice at the usual age of eleven was ordered by his Buddhist master to devote himself to secular studies (外學).35 Sengji 僧濟, one of Huiyuan’s disciples, studied under his guidance Buddhist and non-Buddhist scriptures36 at the great Buddhist centre on Lu Shan where Huiyuan is known to have expounded the Confucian Rites and the Odes.37
We may conclude that the new intellectual élite, the cultured clergy, was a group of a very heterogeneous nature. During the fourth century the actual leaders of the Church were almost without exception converted members of gentry families; the majority of the cultured clergy may, however, have come from the lower strata of society. This means a novum in Chinese cultural history: the monastic ideal which Buddhism had introduced into China as part of its Indian heritage had created a new form of social organisation in which the rigid class boundaries of medieval China were effaced, and in which persons of the most diverse origin were enabled to engage in intellectual activities. The development of the monastery as a centre of learning and culture is closely connected with this aspect of the monastic life.
Early sources
There is no Chinese text which is wholly or partially devoted to our subject; the information concerning the penetration of Buddhism in gentry circles and the development of gentry Buddhism has to be assembled from a great variety of sources. Contemporary information is scarce, and for most of it we have to depend upon the compilations of Liang and early Tang authors, i.e. of the sixth and seventh century.
The early Buddhist literature pertaining to our subject may be divided in two classes:
historical-biographical works and works of an apologetic-propagandistic nature.
A. Historical-biographical works
(1) The Gaoseng zhuan 高僧傳 (T 2059), 14 ch., is by far the most important work dealing with the early history of the Church. It was compiled probably around 530 AD by Huijiao 慧皎 (497554), and contains 257 major and 243 subordinate biographies of eminent monks from the middle of the rst century down to the year 519 AD. On account of its excellent qualities, both as a historical work and as a literary production, the Gaoseng zhuan has become the prototype of all later Buddhist biographical compilations. It must, however, be used critically. The author has largely drawn upon earlier collections of popular legends and tales; historical facts are often embedded in a mass of hagiographic material and must, wherever possible, be conrmed by external evidence preferably from non-Buddhist sources. For all data concerning the GSZ, its author, its sources and a survey of modern oriental and occidental studies on this subject the reader may be referred to Arthur F. Wright’s excellent study “Huijiao’s Lives of Eminent Monks” in the Silver Jubilee Volume of the Zinbun-Kagaku-Kenky‚sho, Ky¨to University (Ky¨to 1954), pp. 383432.
(2) The Chu sanzangji ji 出三藏記集, “Collection of notes concerning the translation of the Tripiflaka” in 15 ch. (T 2145; hereafter abbreviated CSZJJ) by Sengyou 僧祐 (435518), rst published in 515, and revised by the author shortly before his death.38 Among the eighteen works which Huijiao in his postface to the GSZ mentions as his sources, this is the only one which has been preserved intact. As the title indicates, it is basically a description of the formation and the contents of the Chinese Tripiflaka, in which the author has combined the information from various older bibliographies, notably the Zongli zhongjing mulu 總理眾經目錄 compiled by Dao’an (314385) in 374 AD. In the last three juan Sengyou gives 32 biographies of famous monks, mainly translators and exegetes. Huijiao has drawn upon these biographies in compiling the corresponding sections of the GSZ to such an extent that large parts of many biographies show a practically verbatim correspondence. Valuable, often contemporary, information is found in many prefaces and colophons which Sengyou has included in the other chapters of his work. Ch. XII contains the table of contents of a now lost collection of Chinese Buddhist literature, the Falun 法論, compiled shortly after 465 by the scholar Lu Cheng 陸澄 (425494),39 in 103 ch.
(3) The Biqiuni zhuan 比丘尼傳 (hereafter abbreviated BQNZ), the “Biographies of nuns” in 4 ch. (T 2063) was compiled by Baochang 寶唱 in 517 AD. It contains the lives of 65 famous nuns, covering the period from the middle of the 4th century down to the year 516.
(4) The Mingseng zhuan 名僧傳, one of the main sources used by Huijiao in compiling the GSZ, was also written by Baochang. The original work, soon supplanted by Huijiao’s more extensive and better organized compila tion, has been lost. It was begun in 510 and completed in 519. A number of excerpts have been preserved in the Meis¨densh¨ 名僧傳抄 by the Japanese monk Sh‚sh¨ 宗性, who made these extracts in 1235 from a Mingseng zhuan manuscript in the T¨daiji at Nara, and in the same author’s Miroku-nyorai kann¨sh¨ 弥勒如來感應抄. The value of these works as historical source material is diminished by the fact that Sh‚sh¨ in the selection of his topics was led by his interest in certain religious themes, notably the manifestations of the merciful power of the Bodhisattvas. The Meis¨densh¨ has been published in the Zoku-z¨ky¨ (T¨ky¨), II. 2, 7.1; all excerpts made by Sh‚sh¨ have been collected and discussed by Kasuga Reichi 春日禮智 in his “J¨doky¨-shiry¨ to shite no Meis¨den-shishich¨ Meis¨den-y¨bunch¨ narabi ni Miroku-nyorai kann¨sh¨ dai-shi shoin no Meis¨den ni tsuite” 浄土教史料としての名僧傳指示抄名僧傳要文抄並びに弥勒如來感應抄第四所引の名僧傳に就いて, Sh‚ky¨
Kenky‚ 宗教研究 XII (1936) 53118; cf. A. F. Wright, op. cit. p. 408 sqq.
B. Early apologetic and propagandistic literature
The penetration of Buddhism in gentry circles gave rise to a body of apologe tic and propagandistic literature, some specimens of which have been preserved. These treatises, in which gentry Buddhism reveals its most characteristic features, are generally of a rather poor literary and philosophical quality, but of great value as contemporary documents bearing witness to the impact of Buddhism on Chinese medieval thought and society.
The points of controversy were not the same in Indian and in Chinese Buddhism. In Indian Buddhism a host of fundamental notions are simply taken for granted: conceptions like karman, rebirth, universal suffering and impermanence as well as the ideal of the religious life as a way to escape from it, the cyclic development of the universe in terms of cosmic periods (kalpa) and the existence of innumerable worlds (lokadh®tu), the efcacy of meritorious works etc.all these belonged to the general Indian worldview of the period and were in no way characteristic of the Buddhist doctrine. However, in China these points became strange innovations, often incompat ible with well-established traditional notions in Chinese thought. The Chinese devotees had to build up their own defense and did so, on the whole, with great ingenuity.
On the other hand, the theory which in Indian Buddhism constitutes the very essence of the doctrine by which it is most sharply distinguished from other schools of thought, viz. the doctrine of the non-existence of the permanent ego (an®tmya) was completely misunderstood by the Chinese, monks and lay men alike, before the 5th century AD. The Chinese (not unreasonably) were unable to see in the doctrine of rebirth anything else than an afrmation of the survival of the “soul” (shen 神) after death (神不滅). Thus we nd the queer situation that in the 4th and early 5th century the Chinese Buddhists defend the immortality of the soula monstrous form of satk®yad$r◊fli against the attacks of traditionalists who hold it to be “annihilated” 滅 or “transformed” 化 at the moment of physical death.40
In general the argumentation in Chinese apologetic literature is stereotyped: we nd the same answers to the same questions repeated ad nauseam. The stan dard form is that of a dialogue between imaginary opponents; on the other hand an important role is played by correspondence on doctrinal subjects. The authorsquite often cultured laymencarry out their “lay apostolate” not by proving the superiority of the Buddhist doctrine and the monastic life on their own grounds (their rather scanty knowledge of the doctrine makes it improbable that they even could do so), but by trying to harmonize Buddhist notions and practices with pre-existing Chinese conceptions. It is very difcult to make out in how far the text of these apologetic treatises represents the author’s own ideas and convictions, and whether they really reect the level of their own understanding of the foreign doctrine. Generally speaking, we may assume that the extreme hybridization displayed in this type of literature was the result of a general process of borrowing and adap tation which was not consciously realized by the individual writers. Even Chinese monks, for reasons which have been mentioned above, could only have a vague notion about the original and (from an Indianist’s point of view) “pure” message of Buddhism, so that they, when preaching or defending the doctrine in a literate milieu, could show their partisans or antagonists no more than the same faint shadow of Buddhism which they had perceived themselves.
There are, however, denite indications that at least in some cases sync retism was consciously applied as a tactical device to elucidate the foreign doctrine for the literate Chinese public through the medium of traditional Chinese philosophy and literature. The various treatises in which Huiyuan (334416) explains the meaning of karman, rebirth and the immortality of the soul and defends the rights of the clergy (see below no. 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13) teem with quotations from and allusions to Laozi, Zhuangzi, the pseudo-Wenzi, the Yijing and other works of classical literature. But in his extensive correspondence with Kum®raj¬va41 one looks in vain for even one allusion to any Chinese scripture or the use of any terminology current in Chinese
his article “Ein Dauist im chinesischen Buddhismus” (trsl. by W. A. Unkrig, Sinica XV, 1940, pp. 114129). When still a disciple of Dao’an (312385), Huiyuan was especially authorized by his master to use Zhuangzi in explaining the meaning of certain Buddhist terms,43 whereas Dao’an in doing so merely allowed his favourite pupil to continue the practice of geyi 格義, i.e. elucidating Buddhist terms, notably numerical categories (shu 數), with the help of notions extracted from tradi tional Chinese philosophy. It is expressly stated that this method, which Dao’an himself had inaugurated together with Zhu Faya 竺法雅44 but which he abandoned at a later date,45 was created for the sake of “scholars of distinguished families” 衣冠士子, i.e. the cultured laymen.
One may even think of the words of Mouzi, who, when asked why he only quotes Chinese texts instead of Buddhist sûtras in support of his arguments, answers: “It is because you know the contents (of the classics) that I quote them. If I should speak about the words of the Buddhist s‚tras and explain the essential meaning of Nirv®&na (無為), it would be like speaking about the ve colours to the blind, or playing the ve tones to the deaf”.46 Most works of an apologetic and propagandistic nature are contained in the collections Hongming ji 弘明集 (T 2102, compiled by Sengyou 僧祐 probably between 515 and 518;47 hereafter abbreviated HMJ) and Guang hongming ji 廣弘明集 (T 2103, compiled by Daoxuan 道宣 in 664; hereafter abbreviated GHMJ). The following treatises and documents are the most important early specimens of this kind of literature. (1) Mouzi 牟子, Lihuo lun 理惑論; HMJ I 1.27.1.
A polemic treatise consisting of a supposedly autobiographical preface, thirty-eight short sections of dialogue and a concluding paragraph in which the imaginary opponent acknowledges the superiority of Buddhism. According to Yu Jiaxi (in his article on Mouzi mentioned below) the original title of the treatise was Zhihuo lun 治惑論, 治 having been changed into 理 on account of a Tang taboo. According to its preface the Mouzi (as it usually is called) was written at the end of the second century AD by a Chinese scholar-ofcial of Buddhist inclinations in the extreme South of the empire (Cangwu 蒼梧 in Jiaozhou 交州); its authenticity forms an almost insoluble problem. The early history of the text (if it had one) is wholly obscure; the treatise is neither mentioned nor quoted anywhere before the second half of the fth century, when Lu Cheng 陸澄 (425494) included it in his collection of Chinese Buddhist literature, the Falun 法論 (compiled shortly after 465; table of cont ents preserved in CSZJJ XII 82.3.29 sqq). From that time onward the Mouzi enjoys a great popularity. Some leading
scholars have rejected the Mouzi as a spurious work, e.g. Liang Qichao 梁啟超48 (“a forgery made by someone of the Eastern Jin or Liu-Song period”), Tokiwa Daij¨ 常盤大定,49 according to whom the treatise has been concocted by the monk Huitong 慧通 (ca. 426ca. 478). The rst scholar who denied the authenticity of the present text was Hu Yinglin 胡應麟 (born 1551) who in his Sibu zhengwei 四部正偽50 supposed it to be “a forgery made by a scholar of the Six Dynasties, the Jin or the Song” (cf. P. Pelliot in TP XIX, 1920, pp. 279280). Other scholars, far more numerous than these, are convinced of its authenticity and regard it as an invaluable source of information on the earliest history of Chinese Buddhism: Sun Yirang 孫詒讓,51 Yu Jiaxi 余嘉錫,52 Hu Shi 胡適,53 Tang Yongtong 湯用彤,54 Henri Maspero55 who has discovered an unmistakable correspondence between the story of the Buddha’s life as given in the Mouzi and that found in the Taizi ruiying benqi jing 太子瑞應本起經 (T 185, trsl. in 222229) and who consequently assigns the work to the second quarter of the third century; P. Pelliot in the introduction to his annotated translation of this treatise.56 Finally most of these theories and opinions are compared and re-examined by Fukui K¨jun 福井康順 in an extensive study on Mouzi.57
Mr. Fukui comes to the conclusion that the treatise was written around the middle of the third century AD. This is not the place to repeat the many arguments pro and contra the authenticity of the Mouzi, a very complicated problem, the difculty of which is greatly enhanced by the remarkable fact that both parties are able to adduce rather solid and convincing arguments in support of their conicting opinions. The most important fact which pleads in favour of the authenticity of the present text is constituted by the historical information contained in the Preface, which exactly agrees with the account of the same happenings in the Hou-Han shu and Sanguo zhi without any trace of textual borrowing: two persons involved (the prefect of Yuzhang and the governor of Jiaozhou)
are not mentioned by name in the Preface, but there they are said to be brothers; as has been ingeniously demon strated by H. Maspero (op. cit.) these magistrates occur separately in the Sanguo zhi and Hou-Han shu under the names of Zhu Fu 朱符 and Zhu Hao 朱皓. These sources say nothing about their family relationship, but the identity of the surnames combined with the information furnished by the Preface of Mouzi makes it very probable that they were brothers. Personally we cannot share Pelliot’s optimism in regarding this as a con clusive proof of its authenticity. It is true that “les faux chinois se dénoncent le plus par leurs incohérences”, whereas “la préface est au contraire d’une exactitude rigoureuse” (op. cit. p. 264), but this holds only good for clumsy forgeries like those mentioned by Pelliot (ib. p. 265): if several modern scholars have been able to connect the happenings described in the Preface with corres ponding passages in the SGZ and HHS, there is no conceivable reason why a Buddhist scholar of the fourth or fth century would have been unable to work the other way round and build up a narrative based upon various data extracted from these well-known sources.
In any case, the Mouzi did exist around the middle of the 5th century; it is, moreover, one of the most detailed and interesting specimens of early Chinese Buddhist apology. We shall therefore make use of it, gladly leaving the nal verdict as to its authenticity to other investigators. In our (provisional) opinion the treatise was written considerably later than the second or even the third century ADthe general nature of the work with its systematical and highly developed argumentation (elsewhere only to be found in much later specimens of this genre) points to the fourth or early fth century as the date of its
production. Of the many anachronisms I may mention the following: (1) in section V the “opponent” speaks about the enormous size of Buddhist scriptures, no doubt referring to extensive s‚tras of the vaipulya-type, but the earliest specimen of these s‚tras known to the Chinese is Dharmaraksa’s translation of the Pañcavim˜atis®hasrik® & of 286 AD. (2) Section XV contains an allusion to the Vessantara-j®taka, the earliest Chinese version of which is contained in the Liudu jijing 六度集經 translated some time between 247 and 280. (3) There is abundant evidence that Mouzi in the account of the introduction of Buddhism is inspired by the anonymous introduction to the “S‚tra in Forty-two Sections” (CSZJJ VI 42.3), and although there is no way to dene the exact date of this introduction, the opening words (“Anciently, the Han emperor Xiaoming
saw at night a divine man in his dream” 昔漢孝明黃蒂夜夢見神人) clearly demonstrate that it was written after the Han. But the author of the Mouzi seems to have been aware of this, and in reproducing the opening lines of the “Introduction”, he has taken care to omit the word “Han” (4) In section XXXV the opponent says to have visited Khotan and to have conversed with Buddhist monks and (other) priests; apart from the utter improbability of this story in view of the political situation in China and in Central Asia in this period, it is highly questionable whether Khotan was already known (in Southern China ) as a centre of Buddhism as early as the second century AD.
One more remark about the Preface. Tokiwa Daij¨ has expressed the opinion (op. cit. p. 95 sqq.) that “Mouzi” is an imaginary gure created by a later author (according to him this was Huitong, see above) who provided this person with an historical background by linking him up with some events and personalities known from other sources. I believe that this view is corroborated by the fact that the Preface is denitely not autobiographical but of an eulo gistic nature. Who could believe that a Chinese scholar in writing a preface to his own work would compare himself with Mencius, “refuting the (perverse doctrines of) Yang Zhu and Mo Di”, that he would say that he was entrusted with a mission to Jingzhou “on account of his wide learning and great knowledge”, that he “has a complete understanding of civil as well as military affairs, and the talent to react independently (to any situation)”? The Preface is, in fact, an idealized description of the scholar-ofcial who leads a retired life far from the bustle of the world, repeatedly declines the ofcial posts which are offered to him, nally feels constrained on moral grounds to accept a honoric mission, giving it up again when his mother dies, to spend the rest of his life in study and meditation.
(2) Zhengwu lun 正誣論, anon., HMJ I 7.19.1.
A refutation of a series of anti-Buddhist arguments from a lost polemic treatise which is partly incorporated in the text. The “capital Luo(yang)” is mentioned (京洛, p. 8.2.22) which would point at a date before the transfer of the capital to Jiankang in 316 AD. However, in one of the last paragraphs (p. 9.1.3) the death of Zhou Zhongzhi 周仲智 is referred to; Zhongzhi is the zi of the magistrate Zhou Song 周嵩 who according to his biography in JS 61 2a3b was executed ca. 324 AD, which date consequently forms the terminus post quem for this treatise.
(3) Mingfo lun 明佛論 by Zong Bing 宗炳 (375443), HMJ II 9.216.1. An important treatise, partly in the form of a dialogue. In a colophon at the end the author declares to have based his treatise on the ideas of Huiyuan 慧遠 (334416) with whom he had stayed during fty days on the Lu Shan.58 However, the Mingfo lun was written a considerable time after Huiyuan’s death: at the end of his rst letter to He Chengtian (see below, nr. 5), p. 19.1.6, Zong Bing says that he is just writing this treatise, which consequently dates from ca. 433 AD. It has partly been translated by W. Liebenthal.59
(4) Yu Dao lun 喻道論 by Sun Chuo 孫綽 (ca. 300380), HMJ III 16.217.3.
(5) Correspondence (ve letters) between Zong Bing (see above) and He Chengtian 何承天 (370447) pro and contra the ideas of Huilin 慧琳 as displayed in the latter’s Baihei lun 白黑論;60 HMJ III 17.321.3. The letters have been written ca. 433 AD, cf. Tang Yongtong, op. cit. p. 422.
(6) Shamen bujing wangzhe lun 沙門不敬王者論 by Huiyuan 慧遠 (334416), HMJ
V 29.332.2 = T 2108, Ji shamen buying baisu dengshi 集沙門不應拜俗等事 II 449.1.1 451.2.10. An important treatise in which the author defends the right of the clergy not to pay homage to the secular r ulers. It was written in reaction to Huan Xuan’s anticlerical policy. The work consists of an introduction, ve sections (the last of which has hardly any connection with the problem in question, being an elaborate demonstra tion of the immortality of the soul) and a colophon (not reproduced in T 2108) in which the work is stated to have been composed in 404 AD “during the disgrace of the Son of Heaven”, i.e. during the short reign of the usurper Huan Xuan (Jan. 2Aug. 18, 404). An outline of the contents is given in GSZ VI 360.3.19 sqq; from the words in which the fth section is summarized it may be inferred that the present text of this section is incomplete. Some parts have been translated by W. Liebenthal;61 in the Liebenthal Festschrift, Sino-Indian Studies Vol. V, Leon Hurvitz has given a complete translation of this treatise under the title “‘Render unto Caesar’ in Early Chinese BuddhismHuiyuan’s Treatise on the Exemption of the Buddhist Clergy from the Requirements of Civil Etiquette”.
(7) Gengsheng lun 更生論 by Luo Han 羅含 (second half 4th cent.), HMJ V 27.2.3. A treatise on reincarnation, followed by objections by the historian Sun Sheng 孫盛 and an answer to these objections by Luo Han. W. Liebenthal62 suggests 390 AD as the latest possible date. We must certainly go farther back. In Sun Sheng’s biography63 it is said that he served Tao Kan 陶侃, who died in 334, as an administrator (參軍). At that time he was already an adult (cf. the words at
the beginning of his biography: 及長博學善言名理 etc.), and had, moreover, previously lled another ofce under Yin Hao. We may therefore assume that he was not born after 304.64 Sheng had “crossed the Yangzi” (no doubt between 310 and 315 when the Northern provinces were conquered by the Xiongnu and a wholesale migration to the South took place) when he was ten years old, which again yields 300305 as the period in which he was born. This, combined with the fact that he died at the age of 7165 proves that this correspondence cannot be later than 376, and most probably dates from before 373 when both Luo Han and Sun Sheng were in ofce under the general Huan Wen 桓溫 (312373).66
(8) Shamen tanfu lun 沙門袒服論 by Huiyuan 慧遠 (334416), HMJ V. 32.233.2. A short treatise “on the ˜rama)na’s dress which leaves (the left shoulder) bare”; objections by He Wuji 何無忌 (?410); answer by Huiyuan. The fact that He Wuji is referred to as “the (General-) Commander of the South” 鎮南, proves that the letters were written between 409 when He obtained this title67 and his death in 410.68 (9) Ming baoying lun 明報應論 by Huiyuan 慧遠 (334416), HMJ V 33.234.2. A treatise on karmic retribution, written in answer to a letter of Huan Xuan. Translated by W. Liebenthal in JAOS and Mon. Nipp., see above, note 61. (10) Sanbaolun 三報論 by Huiyuan, HMJ V 34.2. On the three types of karmic retribution. The treatise seems partly to be based on the Apitanxin lun 阿毘曇心論 (? Abhidharmah)rdaya˜®stra) translated in 391 by Sa1nghadeva (= T 1550) on Lu Shan at Huiyuan’s request. English translation by W. Liebenthal, see above, note 61.
(11) Correspondence between Huan Xuan 桓玄 (369404) and Wang Mi 王詸 (360407) about the right of the clergy not to pay homage to temporal rulers, 論道人應敬王專 (eight letters). HMJ XII 80.383.2. Written early in 402.
(12) Correspondence between Huan Xuan and Huiyuan on the same subject (cf. GSZ VI 360.3.4), HMJ XII 83.384.2. Three letters written in 402. (13) Letter of Huiyuan to Huan Xuan “On the examination and selection of the clergy” 論料簡沙門書, HMJ XII 85.3. Written ca. 402 (cf. GSZ VI 360.2.18). (14) Letter (said to be of Zhi Daolin 支道林, i.e. the famous Zhi Dun 支遁, 314366) to Huan Xuan about the provincial registration of monks, Zhi Daolin fashi yu Huan Xuan lun zhoufu qiu shamen mingji shu 支道林法師與桓玄論州符求沙門名籍書 dated May 25, 399, HMJ XII 85.3. Of course the letter cannot have been written by Zhi Dun to whom it is attri buted in HMJ. This, however, is no reason to regard it as a forgery:69 the letter itself does not contain any allusion to either Zhi Dun or Huan Xuan. It even begins with the words: “(We), the monks (plural 沙門等) in the capital respectfully report”, whereas (in col. 4) the writers refer to themselves as “(we), poor priests” 貧道等.
(15) Fengfa yao 奉法要, “Convert’s Vademecum” (title wrongly translated as “Presenting the Essentials of the Dharma” by W. Liebenthal, The Book of Zhao p. 156 note 678). A kind of compendium of lay Buddhism by Xi Chao 郄超 (336 377), HMJ XIII 86.189.2. See the Appendix to ch. III, where a translation of this treatise is given.
(16) Correspondence between Dai Kui 戴逵 (?396), Huiyuan and Zhou Xuzhi 周續之 (377423) about Dai Kui’s treatise “On the resolution of doubtful (points)”, Shiyi lun 釋疑論; the text of the treatise is followed by eight letters, GHMJ XVIII 221.3224.1. Zhou, who was one of Huiyuan’s lay followers on Lu Shan, cannot have been more than 19 years old when he wrote these letters. This is by no means improbablehis companion Lei Cizong 雷次宗 who took the Amit®bhavow in 402
(GSZ VI 353.3.18) was born in 386 and consequently was a sixteen years old boy when he joined the circle of lay devotees on Lu Shan.
To sum up: The basic sources consist of historical works, apologetic treatises and letters on doctrinal subjects; the last two categories are made up by the forty documents listed above under sixteen headings. Most of these belong to the period 380433. Of the sixteen documents or groups of documents described above only seven (nrs. 5, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14) have wholly or partly been written by monks (leaving aside the problem of the authorship of the Mouzi). One (nr. 2) is anonymous; all other treatises and letters have been written by laymen. Not listed are our additional sources: numerous works of secular Chinese literature which in some passages, sometimes only in few words, contain information on our subject. The titles of these works will be found in the bibliography.
