The Spread of Buddhism

the spread of buddhism in serindia 91

only means that these equivalences were common to all Sogdians, not

that he or his milieu invented them.

3. Of the four faiths which yielded texts in Sogdian, Buddhism is the
   best represented in the extant manuscripts. Moreover, some of these
   manuscripts are written in a more archaic stage of Sogdian than the
   Manichaean or Christian texts (but later than the Ancient Letters). This
   argument seems decisive. However, the colophons do not mention
   Sogdiana, but rather the Turfan basin and above all China as the place
   where the manuscripts were copied.^73 All manuscripts were found either
   in Turfan or in Dunhuang, that is at least 2,000 km east of Sogdiana.
   Moreover, all identi ed Sogdian texts (except the Vessantara Jtaka and
   P.2) were slavishly translated from Chinese and contain numerous
   Chinese calques.^74


4. The Manichaean propaganda in Sogdian addressed Buddhists,
   since it mimicked the Buddhist terminology.^75 But most Manichaean
   texts were likewise written in Turfan, far from Sogdiana, in a place
   where one can expect many Sogdians to have been Buddhists.


5. Under the earliest masters and translators of Chinese Buddhism
   (2nd–4th century) not a few bore a family name referring to Samarkand
   or Kanka, a fact which seems puzzling if the Sogdians were so reluctant
   to adopt Buddhism. See, for instance, Kang Mengxiang (end
   of the 2nd century), whose family had settled in China for at least one
   generation; Kang Senghui , who was born in Jiaozhi (a
   region in the northern part of Vietnam, near present-day Hanoi), where
   his father, born in a family living in India for generations, had moved
   to, and who arrived at the capital of the Chinese kingdom of Wu
   (222–280 AD), Jianye (near Nanjing), in 247; Kang Sengyuan
   who  ed from the north of China, where he was born, to the
   Southern Chinese town of Jiankang (present-day Nanjing) shortly
   after 326; or Kang Falang (second half 3rd century) who came
   from Zhongshan , travelled to the Western Regions, and  nally
   returned to China where he settled again at Zhongshan with several
   hundred disciples.^76 These summarised biographical data clearly show

(^73) P.2 was copied in Chang’an, the “Stra upon the Intoxicating Drinks” in Luoyang,
P.8 at Dunhuang; the Berlin 74 Vajracchedik in Turfan (Tremblay 2001, p. 71).
Weller 1935ab; 1936; 1937a; 1937–1938; BST, pp. 158ff.
(^75) Asmussen 1965, pp. 136–147.
(^76) For more details, see Zürcher 1959.
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