8 ann heirman and stephan peter bumbacher
Ann Heirman also raises the question of the in uence of the Sin ha-
lese Theravda School in China. Except for some particular cases, such
as the introduction of monastic life for nuns, this in uence remained
very meagre. Translations of Theravda texts were of a relatively late
date. Only at the end of the fth century and in the beginning of the
sixth century a few texts were translated in the south of China, at a
politically very unstable time. Moreover, although Hnayna vinayas were
kept in honour by the Chinese monasteries, thus providing the Buddhist
community with a proper transmission of the ordination since the time
of the Buddha, at the time of the translation of the Theravda texts
Mahyna ideas were already rmly established in the whole of China.
There was no need for a new vinaya, nor was there a lot of interest in
Hnayna philosophical ideas.
When Buddhism arrived in China, it came into contact with long
established modes of thinking, cultural traditions and philosophies.
Among the adherents of Chinese religious traditions mainly Daoist
practitioners got interested in the new ideas introduced by Buddhism,
being attracted by some apparently striking similarities, such as medi-
tation techniques. In his paper on early Buddhism in China, Stephan
Peter Bumbacher focuses on the reception of Buddhism in Daoist circles.
While it is a well known fact that Buddhist supporters at rst made use
of Daoist concepts when translating their texts into Chinese to facilitate
the spread of the new doctrine in China, Stephan Peter Bumbacher’s
contribution examines how Daoist disciples in the rst centuries AD
borrowed Buddhist practices and features. In this context, the Queen
Mother of the West, Xi Wang Mu, played an intriguing role. By the
time Buddhism began to gain popularity in China, she had become
a deity who would save people from danger and, more importantly,
could bestow upon them immortality. It seems that the population of
the Han dynasty at rst attributed a similar role to the Buddha. On
the other hand, iconographical representations of the Queen Mother
borrowed some striking features from the Buddha’s iconography, such
as shoulder- ames. Mythology, too, was a eld in which adaptation
of foreign elements took place. Laozi’s birth story, for instance, clearly
imitated crucial topoi of the birth story of the Buddha, and the very
popular Daoist meditation technique in which deities are visualised
goes back to the Indian practice of the visualisation of a Buddha. In
the same way, the Daoist reverence for books, seen as holy objects or
even as gods, may very well be borrowed from Buddhist Mahyna
practices.