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8/9/2019 01 - Buddhist Impact on Chinese Culture - An Outline
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Professor Guang Xing
CCCH9018: Lecture One
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Chinese culture has developed into a system of uniting the
three religions into one system of thought with Confucianism
at the centre supported by Daoism and Buddhism.
Daoism
TraditionalChinese Culture
ForeignReligion
uddhism
Confucianism
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For over two thousands years, Buddhism has interacted
with all levels of Chinese culture such as literature,philosophy, mores and behavioral norms, arts and
architecture, and religions of all classes. As a result,
Buddhism has successfully integrated into the traditional
Chinese culture and become one of the three pillars.
literature
uddhism
B u d d h i s m
D a o i s m
C o n f u c i a n i s m
Chinese Culture
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Arthur F. Wright, quoting from a French Sinologist named
Sylvain Levi, says,
“Buddhism interacted through the centuries with all levelsof Chinese culture: with literary and philosophic traditions,with economic and political institutions , with mores and
behavioral norms , with indigenous traditions in art andarchitecture , with the religions of all classes and of all thesubcultures of China.”
In this lecture I will briefly discuss the Buddhist impact on
Chinese culture from the following four points:(1) Philosophy and Moral Teaching,
(2) Popular Religious Beliefs,
(3) Language and Literature,
(4) Art and Architecture.
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Before the introduction of Buddhism, Chinese people already
had their philosophy of the world and life and moral teaching.
After Buddhism was introduced into China, Chinese philosophy
had been challenged and influenced by Buddhist thought and
ideas.
Chinese people concentrate on human welfare and do not like to
discuss metaphysical questions of the universe and after life as
Confucius said, “I f you can' t yet serve men, how can you serve the spir its
(ghosts )?” when Ji Lu, a disciple of Confucius asked about servingthe spirits.
human welfare metaphysical
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When a disciple of the Buddha, Mālunkyaputta asked him
the same metaphysical questions he explained that the
Buddhist life does not depend on these views.
Whatever opinion one may have about these problems,
there is birth, old age, decay, death, sorrow, lamentation,pain, grief , distress, “the cessation of which (nirvāna), I declare
in this very l i fe .”
metaphysical
questions???
pain
birthold age
death
decay
sorrow
lamentation
grief
distress
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However, people still wish to know afterlife, heavens and hells,
but there is no discussion of these in Chinese philosophy.
Buddhism fills a gap in this area of Chinese philosophy.
First, there are much description of heaven and hell in
Buddhist literature and Daoism has absorbed these
ideas and thought and incorporated into their system
of thought.
heaven
hell
Buddhist literature Daoist literature
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Second
, Buddhism filled a gap in Chinese philosophy regarding
next life by its teaching of rebirth as onfucius refused to discuss
after life and Daoist teaching concerning next life is also not
clear, particularly reading to one’s bad deeds.
In the Mouzi Lihoulun 《牟子理惑論》, Chinese people did not believe
in next birth at that time. “A cri tic asked: the Buddha ’s teaching that
after death people must be reborn. I just cannot believe this opinion !”
問曰:佛道言:人死當復更生 僕不信此言之審也
Meanwhile, according to theuddhist
teaching of karma and
rebirth, one may be reborn as human, gods, ghosts, or even
animals including insects depending on his or her own karma
which means intentional actions.
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Third, there is not much discussion on death in Chinese
philosophy. But there are a lot of discussion on death in
Buddhist scriptures.
A modern Chinese writer comments on both Confucian
and Daoist attitudes to death “they always talk th ings around
death but never directly discuss the matter. But Buddhism directly
points to the heart of the matter .”
Buddhist attitude to death is, just as to
all other problems in our life, to face it
rather than to escape from it.
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Fourth
,uddhist
teaching of karma is individual responsibility while
onfucian
emphasizes on family responsibility.
As it says, “those families accumulate good will have good result, those
families accumulates bad will have bad consequences.” (Buddhism and
Chinese Culture 佛教與中國文化. 164)《易經坤卦》曰:「積善之家 必有
餘慶;積不善之家 必有餘殃
」
Individual
Responsibility
Family
Responsibility
vs
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According to the Chinese thought, future generations either enjoy
or suffer the consequences of their fore fathers’ either good or bad
deeds. So Chinese people developed a theory call Chengfu承負.
In the uddhist teaching of karma, each one is responsible for his or
her own deeds. So man’s fortune in society is explained in Buddhism
by the theory of karma. This is considered more reasonable.
Confucians never really discuss man’s fortune in society,
their sufferings and their positions. All these are attributed to
heaven without explanation.
doingbad
good
receive or bare theconsequences
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uddhism teaches the equality of all people as particularly
Mahayana Buddhism teaches that all sentient beings have the
potentiality to attain enlightenment and become Buddha. It does
not depend on someone else or other outside supernatural power.
Seventh, many people think that Confucian or Chinese thought
influenced Buddhism on filial piety after the latter was introduced
into China. But it is not true because there is already a strong
teaching of filial piety in Indian. There are already at least three
important scriptures centered on the teaching of filial piety inthe earliest Buddhist.
Kataññu Sutta Sabrahma Sutta Mahāyañña Sutta
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Vincent Goossaert says in “Popular Religion” in China found in the
Encyclopedia of Religion,
With the exception of rel igions, notably Islam and Chr istiani ty,
that arr ived in China f rom elsewhere and could not become ful ly
integrated because of exclusive claims of truth, most rel igious
practices, beliefs, and organizations in China can be described as
belonging to a single system , best termed “Chinese religion”
(sometimes called “ Chinese traditional rel igion ”). This organic,
non-hierarchical system integrates traditions of individual salvation
(self -cultivation through meditation and body techniques, moral ity,
and spir it-possession techniques, including spir i t-wr iting ),
communal celebration (cul ts to local saints and ancestors ),
and death r ituals together with the three insti tutionali zed religions ,
Buddhism , Daoism , and Confucianism .
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Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism within Chinese religion
do not function as separate insti tutions that provide their
members an exclusive way to salvation, as in the nineteenth-
centur y Western concept of r eligion; rather, their purpose is to
transmit their tradition of practice and make it available to al l ,either as individual spir i tual techniques or l i turgical services to
whole communities .
Confucianism
DaoismBuddhism
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When Buddhism was first introduced into China, the Buddha was
worshipped together with other Chinese gods Laozi and Huangdi,
the two ancient Chinese sages as recorded in the Houhanshu (後漢
書), a History of Latter Han written by Fanye.
The second example is found from Sichuan that a Buddha statue
probably made in late Han to Shanguo三國 shows that Buddhist
practices were mixed with folk religious beliefs. The Buddha was
considered as a god as Xiwangmu西王母
by Chinese people.
Later as Buddhist teachings as well as many Bodhisattvas and gods
were gradually introduced in China, some became very popular and
are worshipped by Chinese people throughout the year.
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First, the most popular Buddhist bodhisattva is Avalokiteśvara 觀世音菩薩
and the Chinese name is Guanyin who is worshipped by
most of Chinese people as the goddess of mercy.
Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara is introduced from India but
it became popular from the Southern and Northern
dynasties and continues to be the most popular
Buddhist deity not only in China but in all East Asia.
Daoism also accepts Guanyin into their temples and named it as the TrueMan of Compassion慈航真人, Great Person of Compassion慈航大士.
The Daoists of the Lingbao靈寳 texts or school even created Jiuku tianzun
救苦天尊 (the Heavenly Venerable Savior from Suffering) by imitation of the
Buddhist Guanyin.
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India Style
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The second most popular Buddhist Bodhisattva is
Maitreya, Chinese translation is Milefo 彌勒佛
who became the Chinese Laughing Buddha笑佛.
He is also called:
Mile with a bag布袋彌勒
, Mile with big belly大肚彌勒
,Happy Buddha歡喜佛, Peace Buddha平安佛,
Buddha for good fortune幸運佛
and
Buddha for wealth發財佛 etc.
During the late Tang and five dynasties, there appeared
a short and fatty Buddhist monk with a big belly who
often visited and helped common people with a bag in
Southeast China. So people called him the Monk with
a bag布袋和尚. After he died he was identified as the
Maitreya.
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The third is the belief the ten kings in hells地獄十王,
the Ksitigarbha and the King of Eastern Mountain東嶽大帝 are
the chieftains who manage the hells. Here Ksitigarbha is a Buddhist
Bodhisattva Chinese named him as Dizang 地藏.
The fourth is the belief of the mother of child ghost 鬼子母
. This is also
from Buddhist tradition and according to which a female Hariti (ghost)
who has five hundred children used to eat other people’s child. Upon
hearing this Sakyamuni came and hid the youngest child so Hariti could
not find it. Then she asked Sakyamuni to help and Sakyamuni taught
her to compare herself with other women who also have children.
So she realized her wrong deeds and became a protector woman who
always protect child. She is worshipped in China as the mother who
delivers child for childless people送子娘娘
.
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First is Yulanpen Festival 盂蘭盆節 or popularly known as the Ghost
Festival which is celebrated on the fifteen of 7th month of Chinese lunar
calendar. The name Yulanpen is a Buddhist term from the Yulanpen jing
or Ullanbana Sūtra 佛說報恩奉盆經
which tells a story of how
Maudgalyayana, a disciple of the Buddha, saved his mother from hell.
So it is a good text to teach filial piety.
This festival became quite popular in the Tang dynasty (618-906) that
Daoism also created their own festival called Zhongyuan中元
celebrated on the same day with the same purpose to save all souls
from hell.
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The Second is the Laba Festival腊八 which falls on the 8th
day of the 12th month Chinese lunar calendar. According to
the Buddhist tradition, Sakyamuni attained enlightenment
on the 8th day of the 12th month by practicing meditation
under a bodhi tree after he ate congee offered by a younglady. This took place after he realized the futility of
practicing ascetic life for six long years.
Later Chinese monasteries offer congee to peopleevery year on this day and thus it became a tradition
for people to enjoy congee.
Laba congee
Shaolin monastery 2009
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[Break Time]
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From the very beginning of Chinese Buddhism in
the 2nd century, Chinese Buddhists started to
translate Buddhist scriptures into Chinese and this
activity lasted for more than a thousand years.As a result there is a large number of Buddhist
scriptures translated into Chinese.
This huge amount of Buddhist literature has had
a profound impact on Chinese language and
literature because together with the Buddhist
literature new ideas and thoughts, new concepts
and theories have also been introduced into China.
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In order to express these new ideas, thoughts and concepts,
the translators created a large amount of new vocabulary and some of
them become daily used words. The Chinese linguist Wang Li王力 has
given the following as examples.
Today we use Shijie世界 to mean “world”, but ancient Chinese people
used Tianxia天下 to mean world. Shijie世界 is originally from Buddhist
literature, shi世 denotes time, jie界 denotes space.
These new ideas and thought in turn also gave rise many new forms of
literature such as novels, Bianwen變文 (popular literature), Baojuan
寶卷 (religious literature), and Tanci彈詞 (script for singing) etc.
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First, the early Chinese literature such as Shijing詩經 emphasizes the
description of human and events while Zhuangzi莊子 was specialized
in discussion of the metaphysical thinking and Han ode漢賦
emphasized on description of natural things such mountains and rivers.
But Buddhism teaches the impermanence of everything in
the world and emphasized change as universal reality.
This enriches the thought and ideas of Chinese literati in
their writings.
As a result many literati from Tang dynasty onwards
started to criticize the nature and human life by explaining
the Buddhist thought of causality, praising the good and
denouncing the bad.
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Second, the traditional Chinese literature emphasized on the
description of actuality and was lacking in imaginative and creative
thinking that transcend time and space. Even the descriptions of
Daoist immortals are very limited in imaginative.
But the Buddhist ideas are unlimited in imaginative thinking
without limitation of time and space. In the Buddhist literatures
we often found the followings:
to describe space: “the 18 hells”, “the 33 heavens”, “the 3,000 great
chilicosmos”, etc.;
To descript time: kalpa (eons) mahakalpa (great eons) etc.;
to describe number: “as many as the sands in Ganga River”,
“infinite and unlimited” etc.
So it is a strong romantic sense and it inspired Chinese romantic
literature to develop.
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Language 1. As discussed above there are many new words introduced into the Chinese
language together with Buddhist translation.
2. With the Buddhist translation literature, there is an increase in the use of
disyllabic雙音節
and polysyllabic複音
words. But in the traditionalChinese literature, there were more monosyllabic words.
3. According to Chinese scholars, Buddhism also influenced in phonetic
syllabaries for instance Qieyun切韻 and the four tones四聲.
Chinese people became aware of the phonetic syllabaries音節文字
after theintroduction of Buddhism and the study of Sanskrit language. Sanskrit
梵文
is
a language with a strong phonetic syllabary emphasis and there was a
systematic study of it.
Some Chinese people even tried to establish a Chinese alphabet. The well
known Chinese literati, Xie Lingyun謝靈運
even wrote the Fourteen Phonetic
Sounds 十四音訓序》.
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4. Vernacular: In the traditional literature, only the literary and
refined language is used, but with the introduced of Buddhist
literature there was an increase in the use of vernacular language.
This is because there are so many difficult and new concepts and ideas
in the Buddhist literature so it is quite difficult to use the literary
Chinese to translate these ideas and thoughts.
The Chinese Buddhists freely used vernacular to express these ideas
because the Buddhist teaching allows such things as the Buddha said,
“ I allow monks to learn the Buddha’s words in his own language.”
This in turn gave rise to a huge number of vernacular literatures both
within Buddhism and in public.
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Literature
The Sanskrit phonetic study also influenced Chinese poetry.
According to Victoria Mair (1991), it was “under the influence
of the Sanskrit theory of poetic defects, Shen Yue沈約
andhis followers invented tonal prosody in order to reproduce,
in Chinese, the same euphonic effect achieved by meter in Sanskrit .”
The Buddhist monk Zhi Daolin支道林
(314-366) who was well versed inChinese literature was also a Buddhist poet. He had many friends such as
Sun Chuo孫綽, Xu Xun許詢 and Wang Xizhi王羲之 etc., who were
famous for their philosophical poems that were full of metaphysics.
They had been influenced by Buddhist teaching of emptiness.
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Chan: When Chan 禪
became a distinctive school in Tang dynasty,
it influenced many Chinese literati. They studied Chan teaching and also
practiced Chan meditation themselves. Then they wrote poems to express
their experience, their attitudes towards life and the world which are
called Chan Poems.
Wang Wei王維 (701-761 or 689-759) was the most influential
Chan poet in Tang dynasty and he was also a Chan painter and
musician. He was called the “Poet Buddha”詩佛.
Here is an example of his poems: “Empty mountain without a human,
but only heard the human voices. The sunshine penetrates into the deep
forest and reflects on the lichen.”
空山不見人
,
但聞人語響
,
返景入深林
,
復照青苔上
.
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Other Tang poets influenced by Buddhism are such as Meng Haoran
孟浩然, Wei Yingwu韋應物 and Liu Zongyuan柳宗元 etc.,
who wrote poems full of Buddhist ideas and Chan thoughts.
In Song dynasty Chan poems continued to flourish
with many new poets such as Su Shi蘇軾,
Wang Anshi王安石
, Huang Tingjian黃庭堅
,Lu You陸遊 etc., who wrote many poems with
Buddhist Chan ideas.
Su Shi
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Fourth, Buddhism also influenced literary theory criticism because
there is a close relationship between the Buddhist dialectical thinking
and intuitive realization and theoretical thinking of literature writing.
For instance Buddhist idea of “inexpressible”言語道斷,
“sudden enlightenment”頓悟 and “wonderful enlightenment”妙悟 etc.,
which are similar to literati appreciation of the beauty and the expression
of it. The above mentioned Chan poems are good example.
“Learning poetry is like learning meditation, many years practice
on mattress and bamboo bed, until one realizes the essence of it,
then one can produce the wonderful .”
學詩渾似學參禪 竹榻蒲團不記年 直待自家都了得 等閑拈出便超然
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In the Tang dynasty (618-906) the well known painter
Wu Daozi吳道子 painted numerous Buddhist paintings
and his paintings are described as 吳帶當風 which the
drawing of cloth flying up as if there is wind blowing.
Thus he created the Wu’s Model.
Zhou Fang周昉, another Tang dynasty painter, who was
specialized in figure drawing, created the first Water-
Moon Guanyin水月觀音
. Later many Chinese artists
imitated his drawing and thus Water-Moon Guanyin
became very popular in Tang dynasty.
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One of the special paintings created during the Tang
dynasty is Chan painting also known as Literati Painting.
People usually think that Wang Wei王維 was the creator
of this kind of painting.
This is a kind of painting that absorbs the Chan ideas and
thought and they are mostly paintings of natural
mountains and waters. Chan artists emphasized
directness of expression which stood for the sudden
enlightenment and insight which is the experience
most highly valued by the adherents of the sect.
It gave rise to a tradition amongst the literati in Song
dynasty who painted Chan paintings express their
ideas of life and attitude to the world.
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There are many Buddhist paintings found Dunhuang
敦煌, Maijishan麥積山 at Tiansui, [Binglingsi炳靈寺,
Yungang雲岡 and Longmen龍門] which were
created during the Tang dynasty.
Dunhuang Maijishan
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Second, Buddhist influence on sculpture. Today we find many
Buddhist images in Dunhuang敦煌, Maijishan麥積山 at Tiansui,
Binglingsi炳靈寺, Yungang 雲岡 and Longmen龍門 which show
the development of Buddhist art from imitating Indian style to
pure Chinese ones.
Maijishan
Longmen
Yungang
Dunhuang Binglingsi
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Yungang is a good example. The main Buddha statues of caves No. 17
to No. 20 display Indian style of Buddhist robe that one shoulder is
uncovered and the robe is one piece of cloth.
From Tang dynasty onwards, Buddha statues are made
with both shoulders covered.
Later Buddha statues are more of Chinesein style.
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Dunhuang cave No. 17,
early 8th century.
Thus, Buddhist sculpture enriched
Chinese sculpture in contents and
style by absorbing the Indian style
or even Greek style because
Indian Buddhist sculpture wasinfluenced by Greek style.
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Third, Buddhist influence on architecture. Buddhist architecture
is designed with its purpose of use and it can be divided into the
following three:
(1) the main hall to place the Buddha and other halls to place
Bodhisattva statues for worship,
(2) Pagoda or stupa to enshrine the relics of the Buddha or eminent
monks,
(3) Jingchuang經幢, Sutra Pillars which is a construction at the gate
or near the stupa on which there are carving of dharmacakra
(wheel of dharma), humans and animals.
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(1) The Main Hall and other halls to enshrine
bodhisattvas resemble traditional Chinese
palace architecture. Here is a picture of
Nanchan Monastery on Mt Wutai,a architecture of Tang Dynasty, one of the
few remains of early Buddhist buildings.
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This is a totally modified version of typical
Chinese stupa, Wooden Stupa in Yingxian,
Shanxi Province.山西應縣木塔
Stupa in Huayan Temple,
Chang'an, Xi'an, Shaanxi, China
西安(長安)華嚴寺
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(3) Jingchuang經幢,Sutra Pillars are
constructions at the gate or near
the stupa on which there are
carving of dharmacakra (wheel of
dharma), humans and animals.
This is Sanchi stupa in India.
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Conclusion
Over the last two thousand years of interaction and
integration since its introduction, Buddhism hasinfluenced Chinese culture tremendously at all levels
and all aspects. This is reflected in many aspects of
Chinese people’s life, particularly in their popular
beliefs in the next life connected with karma which
I will explore in the next paper.
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