Silk Road transmission of Buddhism

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Silk road routes from India to China; image from Metropolitan Museum of Art

Buddhism entered China via the Silk Road, beginning in the 1st or 2nd century CE.[1][2] The first documented translation efforts by Buddhist monks in China (all foreigners) were in the 2nd century CE under the influence of the expansion of the Kushan Empire into the Chinese territory of the Tarim Basin under Kanishka.[3][4] These contacts brought Gandharan Buddhist culture into territories adjacent to China proper.

Direct contact between Central Asian and Chinese Buddhism continued throughout the 3rd to 7th century, well into the Tang period. From the 4th century onward, with Faxian's pilgrimage to India (395–414), and later Xuanzang (629–644), Chinese pilgrims started to travel by themselves to northern India. Much of the land route connecting northern India (mainly Gandhara) with China at that time was ruled by the Kushan Empire, and later the Hephthalite Empire.

Beginning in the 7th century, the Silk Road transmission of Buddhism began to decline with the Muslim conquest of Transoxiana, resulting in the Uyghur Khaganate by the 740s.[5]

By this time, Indian Buddhism itself was in decline, due to the resurgence of Hinduism on one hand and due to the Muslim expansion on the other.

Further reading:

References

  1. ↑ Zürcher (1972), pp. 22–27.
  2. ↑ Hill (2009), p. 30, for the Chinese text from the Hou Hanshu, and p. 31 for a translation of it.
  3. ↑ Zürcher (1972), p. 23.
  4. ↑ Samad, Rafi-us, The Grandeur of Gandhara. The Ancient Buddhist Civilization of the Swat, Peshawar, Kabul and Indus Valleys, p. 234
  5. ↑ Oscar R. Gómez (2015). Antonio de Montserrat - Biography of the first Jesuit initiated in Tibetan Tantric Buddhism. Editorial MenteClara. p. 32. ISBN 978-987-24510-4-2. 


Sources

  • Hill, John E. (2009) Through the Jade Gate to Rome: A Study of the Silk Routes during the Later Han Dynasty, 1st to 2nd Centuries CE. BookSurge, Charleston, South Carolina. ISBN 978-1-4392-2134-1.
  • Saunders, Kenneth J. (1923). "Buddhism in China: A Historical Sketch", The Journal of Religion, Vol. 3.2, pp. 157–169; Vol. 3.3, pp. 256–275.
  • Zürcher, Erik (2007). The Buddhist Conquest of China, 3rd ed. Leiden. E. J. Brill. 1st ed. 1959, 2nd ed. 1972.
  • Zürcher, E. (1990). "Han Buddhism and the Western Region", in Thought and Law in Qin and Han China: Studies Dedicated to Anthony Hulsewe on the Occasion of His Eightieth Birthday, ed by W.L. Idema and E. Zurcher, Brill, pp. 158–182.
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