BUDDHISM IN CHINA
Andrew Skilton
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During the 1st century CE. It came from the west,
from Central Asia, with merchants and Central Asian Buddhists. Unlike South-east Asia and
Tibet, it was not to function as the vehicle for higher culture, since China had already
acquired a high degree of literate civilization. China also had its own indigenous
religions, well established in society and which, each in their own way, had some
influence on the character that Buddhism was to take in their homeland. The older of these
religions was Taoism, associated with a founder Lao-Tzu (b.604BCE), which was primarily
concerned with the extension of life through alchemy and the worship of a pantheon of
deities. The second of the indigenous systems was that of Confucianism, itself based on
the ‘sayings’ of Confucius (551-497BCE), which stressed the ideals of social
utility, the veneration of elders, and learning. Confucianism particularly encouraged a
view of cultural superiority on the part of the Chinese, seeing no virtue whatsoever in
the import of a ‘barbarian’ religion from the west, ie. India.
The first phase of Buddhist contact, up to the 4th
century, made little impact upon Chinese religious life. The activities of the Buddhists,
the majority being non-Chinese Central Asians, revolved largely around the translation and
study of a miscellaneous stream of Buddhist texts that were imported via the western trade
routes. Up to 220CE this activity was centered on a monastery in Lo Yang, where meditation
manuals, complied by the meditation masters of Kashmir and north-western India and largely
concerned with the meditation practices typical of the non-Mahayana schools, were thought
to resonate with the indigenous. Taoist interest in mental and physical alchemical
techniques. The first sutra to be translated at this period was the Sutra in Forty-Two
Sections. Foremost among those involved in this work was An Shih-kao, a Parthian, who
arrived in Lo Yang c.148, and worked with a team of non-Mahayana monks. However, he did
have contemporaries who were engaged in translating Mahayana sutras, notably An-hsuan,
another Parthian, and Lokaksema, an Indo-scythian (post-168), eleven of whose translations
have survived. Translations from this early period all suggest a minority interest,
perhaps from amongst some fringe cult groups, and in which there was probably no clear
differentiation between lay and ordained. After the fall of the Han dynasty in 220, the
situation changed and many more translations were made, including those of numerous
Mahayana sutras. However, little is known of Buddhism in this period other than that it
was not the interest of the educated Chinese upper classes. Less still is known of the
early Buddhist centers at Peng Cheng (on the lower Yangtze River) in east China, and at
Chiao Chou in southern China (now in North Vietnam). There is little doubt that the latter
must have been initiated through sea trade contact with southern Asia, and it is possible
that the same source accounts for the eastern centre too.
A second phase of development was initiated by the
collapse of the northern part of the Chinese empire under the hands of Hun invaders,
c.320. The Chinese court fled to the south, and until the end of the 6th century China was
divided between numerous unstable regimes. In the contrasting atmospheres of these two
regions Buddhism made great advances. In the northern region, ruled by various foreign
dynasties, Buddhism, itself a foreign religion, could oppose the pro-Chinese Confucianism,
and so had considerable appeal. As a result it received royal encouragement (albeit with
the usual attendant problems of close association with the state). For this reason, in the
northern region, the foreignness of Buddhism was less problematic, and the translation and
study of Indian source materials continued, even though this emphasized the non-Chinese
origins of Buddhism. This was facilitated by the proximity of Central Asia, which still
functioned as the main route for the introduction of Buddhism to China. By the 5th century
30,000 monasteries were recorded, housing 2,000,000 monks. Particularly notable was the
arrival in Chang-an of the Kuchean monk Kumarajiva, the first translator competent in all
the necessary languages, who organized a large and prolific translation bureau and
introduced Indian Madhyamaka Buddhism to China.
In the south, however, a brilliant indigenous
cultural life, a downturn in the fortunes of Confucianism, and the growth of interest in
Taoism, combined with the physical suffering caused by the political situation, stimulated
a vibrant and open-minded intellectual life in which Buddhism became attractive to the
educated Chinese upper class for the first time. This was helped by the physical isolation
from contacts with the west via Central Asia, which discouraged any emphasis upon the
Indian origins of Buddhism (something less acceptable in the Chinese-ruled south), and
resulted in forms of Buddhism in which Buddhist doctrines had been more thoroughly
integrated with Chinese ideas. For the first time indigenous forms of Chinese Buddhism had
begun to appear. An interesting consequence of the lack of direct contact with Indian
Buddhism was that Chinese Buddhists, reading the chapter on meat-eating from the
Lankavatara Sutra, understood strict vegetarianism to be part of the Vinaya rule. By c.400
there were almost 2,000 monasteries in the south, and for the first time Buddhism began to
become the target of bitter Confucian attempts to have the ‘barbarian’ religion
expelled from the country. The high point of Buddhist popularity in the south was marked
by the emperor Wu (502-549CE) who became a Buddhist layman, banned Taoism, and forbade
animal sacrifice. It was also during this period that the Indian monk Bodhidharma, the
founder of the Chan school, came to China.
The first phase in the development of Chinese
Buddhism coincides with the reunification of northern and southern regions under the Sui
And Tang dynasties, from the 6th to the 10th centuries. At this point the two tendencies
identified in the second phase of development began to intermingle. Unification also meant
that Central Asia could once more act as a corridor for the transmission of Buddhist ideas
from the west to the heart of China, which it continued to do until this route was cut by
Muslim incursions in the mid-7th century. Overland access encouraged a resurgence of
Chinese pilgrims journeying to India, including Hsuan-tsang (629-645CE). Once the overland
route was cut, such journeys were made by sea, via South-east Asia, as did I-Tsing
(635-713CE). Whilst the end of the period was marked by a severe repression of Buddhism by
resurgent Confucian and Taoist forces, it is generally regarded as the high water mark of
Buddhism in China, during which it exercised its deepest degree of influence upon Chinese
culture, and received the greatest amount of patronage within society. It was during this
period that a number of Chinese Buddhist schools appeared. Generally speaking, these fell
into two main groupings. There were those based around the teachings (which usually meant
the texts) of Indian Buddhist schools and teachers, and there were those that were the
product of native Chinese genius.
INDIAN SCHOOLS IN CHINA
Various Indian Buddhist schools, familiar from our
discussion of Indian Buddhism, were transplanted to China in more ore less the same form
as they had acquired in India. These included the San-lun tsung, literally, ‘Three
Treatise School’, founded by Kumarajiva and based on three Madhyamaka treatises by
Nagarjuna and Aryadeva, and the Fa-hsiang tsung or Yogacarin School, founded by
Hsuan-tsang in 645 on his return from India with the Trimsika or ‘Treatise in Thirty
Verses’ of Vasubandhu. Less significant were the Chu-she tsung or
‘(Abhidharma-)Kosa School’, founded after, and concerned with, the exposition of
the translation of Paramartha, c.565, of the Abhidharmakosa, and the Lu tsung or
‘Disciplinary School’, founded by Tao-hsuan in the 7th century and concerned
with the exposition of the monastic Vinaya. The Tantra was also introduced into China by
three Indian monks in the 8th century, though it was not influential, and thought to be
indecent by the Chinese on account of the sexual imagery of the higher tantras.
INDIGENOUS CHINESE BUDDHIST SCHOOLS
One of the unique problems facing Chinese Buddhists
was the enormous influx of textual material from all periods of Buddhist development, all
claiming to represent the true, ultimate teaching of Sakyamuni Buddha. Clearly there was
an urgent need to assimilate this diverse material, to reconcile the varying and sometimes
apparently contradictory teachings it contained, and identify the one basic truth taught
by the Buddha. Unlike Tibet, China did not directly benefit from the systematizing
activities of the great monastic universities of the Pala period (c.760 onward), since
overland access to northern India was cut in the 7th century, significantly reducing the
contact it was possible for China to have with the Indian mainstream. Moreover, unlike
their Pala counterparts, the Chinese monks worked under the disadvantage of using
translations, rather than texts composed in their native tongue. The characteristic
Chinese response to this challenge tended to take one of two forms. On the one hand, some
teachers founded schools based on the teaching of a single sutra, which was regarded as
proclaiming the ultimate truth, with all the other teachings of the Buddha, regarded as
upaya, graded into a hierarchy beneath this in a schema known as a pan chiao. This
response paralleled that of the mainstream Indian schools, in that, like them, these
Chinese schools grew out of the exposition of particular sutras. On the other hand, and in
contrast to the first approach, there was the teaching of a direct path to Enlightenment
which transcended doctrinal debates and represented a radical rejection of the value of
scholasticism. The former tendency gave rise to the main scholastic schools of Chines
Buddhism, such as the Hua-yen and Tien-tai, whilst the latter is exemplified by Chan, and
perhaps to a lesser extent by Ching-tu.
TIEN-TAI
This school was named after the abode, Mount
Tien-tai, of its founder Chih-i (538-597CE). As the result of his pioneering pan chiao
work, Chih-i came to the conclusion that the Lotus Sutra was the final, ultimate teaching
of the Buddha. All sutras, he said, were propounded by the Buddha in one of five
chronological stages. The first stage was that of the preaching of the Avatamsaka Sutra,
which lasted three weeks, the second was that of the Agamas, which lasted twelve years,
the third was that of the Vaipulya sutras, which lasted eight years, the fourth, that of
the Perfection of Wisdom sutras, lasted twenty-two years, and the fifth stage was that of
the Lotus and Mahaparinirvana Sutras, which were the final utterances of the Buddha before
his parinirvana. The inclusion of the Mahaparinirvana Sutra with the Lotus Sutra was
necessary because it was by definition and by tradition the discourse delivered
immediately before the Buddha’s parinirvana.
Chih-i reasoned that, since the Lotus Sutra was too
sublime for the understanding of some disciples, the Buddha had also provided the
Mahaparinirvana Sutra. The association of these two sutras meant that something of the
latter’s Tathagatagarbha doctrine was assimilated to the principal teachings of the
Lotus Sutra, along with classic Yogacara teachings, including a version of the trisvabhava
doctrine known as the ‘threefold truth’. Particularly characteristic of the
Tien-tai synthesis was the teaching of the interpenetration of all existent things in all
the different realms. This is so because all things partake of a single organic unity,
which is the One Mind - in its defiled state producing the phenomena of the mundane world,
in its pure state Buddhahood. The ultimate conclusion to which this trend leads was
reached by the Ninth Patriarch of the Tien-tai School, Chan-jan (711-782CE), who taught
that since everything was a manifestation of the one absolute mind, all things, even dust
grains an blade of grass, contain the Buddha-nature.
HUA-YEN
The Hua-Yen School has as founder Fa-tsang
(643-712CE), who like Chih-i propounded a pan chiao schema, but in which the final,
ultimate teaching of the Buddha was the Avatamsaka Sutra. The basic teachings of the
Hua-yen School are set out in a treatise composed by Fa-tsang, entitled Essay on the
Golden Lion. This title refers to an incident in which summoned by the empress Tse-tien to
explain the teachings of the Avatamsaka Sutra, Fa-tsang used a statuette of a golden lion
to demonstrate the fundamental principles of the sutra. The gold, he explained, is like
the li, or noumenon (also identified with Buddha-nature), which is the inherently pure,
complete, luminous essence which is mind, while the form of the lion is like the shih, or
phenomenon (dharma). Fa-tsang was himself influenced by a text called the Awakening of
Faith in the Mahayana, and seems to have understood the ultimate teaching to be something
very similar to the Tathagatargarbha doctrine expounded there. The li has no particular
form of its own. It is empty of own-nature (savbhava), though it always takes some form,
in accordance with conditions, and it is these forms that are shih or
‘phenomena’ (dharmas). This means that all phenomena (dharmas), whilst remaining
distinct, are the full and perfect expression of the noumenon (Buddha-nature). Moreover,
all phenomena (dharmas) are therefore mutually identified and interpenetrated by all other
phenomena because, as all phenomena are noumenon (which is single and indivisible), it
means that each phenomenon is all phenomena, because each phenomenon is a part of
something which is indivisible. Since this is so hard to grasp, Fa-tsang illustrated this
principle with the example of a Buddha image placed between ten inward facing mirrors. The
image is reflected in the mirrors, as are those reflections, and the reflections of the
reflections, and so on, revealing an infinite, mutually interconnected web of identity.
Because Hua-yen teaches that Buddha-nature is
already present in all beings, and furthermore that, through the interpenetration and
identity of all things, Buddhahood is present right from the start of one’s spiritual
career, it also taught sudden Enlightenment. Enlightenment already exists, and is not
caused by cumulative spiritual practice. This does not mean that spiritual practice was
abandoned by followers of Hua-yen, but more that it was seen as a provisional expedient
which helped to uncover what was really there. Because of this advocacy of sudden
Awakening, Hua-yen is sometimes seen as the philosophical underpinning of Chan.
CHAN
Chan is the Chinese pronunciation of the Indian word
dhyana/jhana, ‘meditative absorption’, and the Chan School was oriented around
the practice of meditation. Whilst its inception is attributed to an Indian monk called
Bodhidharma (c.470-520CE), it traces back from him a lineage of masters, each Enlightened
by a direct, mind to mind transmission derived from Kahakasyapa, who, according to legend,
reaching Awakening when he saw Sakyamuni silently holding up a flower. Bodhidharma is
counted as the First Chinese Patriarch. The Sixth Patriarch was the famous Hui Neng
(638-713CE), who story and teachings are contained in the Platform Sutra, complied c.820.
His status as Patriarch was disputed, and it appears that Chan divided into several
lineage’s or transmissions during the Tang dynasty. The most important of these
transmissions were the Lin-chi, which emphasizes sudden Awakening and the use of kung-an
(Japanese, koan), and the Tsao-tung, which advocated ‘just sitting’ meditation
and a gradual path to Enlightenment. The kung-an, or ‘public record’, is an
account of an historical dialogue between an Awakened master and a disciple which led to
that disciple’s Awakening. Often these are highly paradoxical. In practice they are
assigned to individual students for contemplation by their master. If skillfully chosen
such contemplation can lead the student to an experience of Awakening. The Chan
schools developed a distinctive monastic rule over and above the Vinaya, which
particularly emphasized work as an integral part of the monks’ daily life. The
emphasis in Chan is on personal Awakening, less stress being placed on the Bodhisattva
ideal. Despite the emphasis on meditative experience unmediated by intellect and learning,
the Perfection of Wisdom sutras are particularly important for the Chan schools, though
the Lankavatara, Surangama, and Vimalakirti-nirdesa Sutras are also widely used and
respected, and a connection is often made between Chan and Hua-yen.
CHING-TU
Whilst the Chan traditions stressed the personal
effort or ‘self power’ required to gain Enlightenment, Ching-tu stressed its
opposite, ‘other power’. The ‘other power’ referred to here is the
effort made by the Buddha Amitabha. Ching-tu means ‘the field which purifies’
and is the Chinese translation of Pure Land. Ching-tu is the school of Pure Land Buddhism,
based upon the Sukhavati-vyuha Sutras. Its roots go back to the earliest transmission of
Buddhism to China in the 2nd century, and the practice of the worship of Amitabha is by no
means restricted to Ching-tu, but its foundation as a school is attributed to its First
Patriarch, Tan-luan (476-542CE), who was converted from Taoism by the Buddhist monk
Bodhiruci in 530. His treatises on the worship of Amitabha form the core of Ching-tu
doctrine. The goal of this school is to gain rebirth in Sukhavati, the Pure Land of the
Buddha Amitabha, so all practices are oriented towards this end. These include
prostration, nien fo, reflection upon Sukhavati and Amitabha, making the resolution to be
reborn in Sukhavati, and the transference to others of merit gained. Nien fo, the
‘invocation of the Buddha’ involves the repetition of the phrase nan-mo a mi-to
fo, ‘Homage to Amitabha Buddha’. Attention was also concentrated on
Avalokitesvara, as the Bodhisattva emanation of Amitabha, whose name was translated as
Kuan Yin, ‘The Hearer of Sounds’. By a popular confusion with his Tantric
consort, Pandaravasini, who is depicted clad in white, Kuan Yin came to be depicted as a
white clad female figure.
THE FINAL PHASE OF CHINESE BUDDHISM
The final phase of development of Chinese Buddhism
was initiated by the vigorous persecution under the Taoist emperor Wu-tsung in 845.
Neither the Tien-tai nor the Hua-yen schools survived, probably because of their
dependence on monastic specialists who bore the brunt of the persecution. Chan and
Ching-tu, with their more popular followings, survived and slowly recuperated, finding
their place in an increasingly Confucianized society, in the company of Confucianism and
Taoism, and at the popular level in a fusion of all three. During a short period of Mongol
rule (1215-1368) Tantric Tibetan Buddhism was introduced to the former Chin (northern) and
Sung (southern) courts, where it continued to be patronized (during the Ching dynasty)
after the Mongol influence had ceased, largely for the sake of political claims towards
Tibet and Mongolia. The Ming dynasty (1368-1662), initiated by Chu Yuan-chang, who linked
the new imperial dynasty with the arrival of the next Buddha, Maitreya, gave some support
to Chan and Chung-tu, and their popularization. The early Ching dynasty (1662-1911)
patronized the Tibetan Buddhism of the dGe-lugs Order, originally introduced during the
Mongol period although it remained the cult of the Imperial court. The Tai-ping or
‘Great Peace’ rebellion of 1851-64 in southern China, which espoused a form of
Protestant Christian theism was virulently anti-Manchu (the ruling Ching dynasty), and as
a result disastrously persecuted all Buddhist institutions within the territory that it
seized, with the consequence that Buddhism had to be reintroduced from Japan. The late
19th century saw a revival of Chinese Buddhism, led by Tai-hsu (1899-1947), in reaction to
contacts with modern industrial powers and Christian missions to China.
From an early period, beginning with Tao-an in 347,
the Chinese had catalogued the Buddhist texts that had been translated into Chinese.
Eighteen such catalogues survive to the present day. The Chinese Tripitaka is enormous,
since, where there were several translations of a single sutra, all would be included -
unlike Tibet, where variant translations were standardized and duplications survive by
accident rather than design. The Chinese invented printing in the 8th century, and this
was used for the reproduction of sutras. The oldest known printed book in the world is a
copy of the Diamond Sutra or Vajracchedika. The first complete printed edition of the
Tripitaka was produced towards the end of the 9th century. Texts of different classes are
arranged together in the Chinese Tripitaka, the sutras (early and Mahayana) coming first,
but no definitive organizational principle was devised for the Chinese canon.
Source: Andrew Skilton (1994), A Concise
History of Buddhism, British Library, England.
Computer typing: Lydia Quang
Nhu
Update : 01-12-2001
