MMW 12 Lecture Notes - Lecture 22: Emperor Wencheng Of Northern Wei, Liang Dynasty, Taoism

• School: UCSD
• Department: Making of the Modern World
• Course: MMW 12
• Professor: Richard Cohen

Document Summary

First introduced during the han dynasty under emperor ming according to legend. Probably came to china sooner, but no documentation. Buddhism came to china most probably following trade routes, and not through the dream of a king and one monk. Hard to have accurate texts because sanskrit and chinese are extremely different languages. Buddhist texts are also super meta, so it makes it even harder. Buddhism goes directly against most ancient chinese traditions (aka confucianism) You leave your family and stop contributing to society in a tangible way. Contrast between the particular and the universal. In order for buddhism to become a part of chinese culture, both china and buddhism had to change a lot. Ko-i (1st c. ad - 300) certain buddhist/sanskrit words with. Helped chinese people to understand buddhist concepts and make buddhism. A little misleading because they used words that had very strong meanings in. Chinese culture that didn"t really have the same meaning in sanskrit.