early buddhism in china: daoist reactions 241
of the Xu family—a family of high-ranking of cials—, Buddhism had
already taken rm root in at least the upper classes of the southern
Chinese society. Yang Xi who also worked for a ruler with Buddhist
interests, had to take this into account. As a Daoist introducing a new
denomination that distinguished itself from the Celestial Masters’
tradition on the one hand, and Buddhism on the other, he could not
openly criticise Buddhism. However, by introducing immortals who had
started as Buddhists but later turned Daoist he indirectly made clear
that his denomination was superior. Precisely to this end he chose the
Buddhist text Forty-two Sections of Buddhist Stras and had it revealed by
members of his Daoist pantheon in a revised form, that is to say, he
had it transformed into a Daoist, and thus a superior, text.
Yang Xi’s intention turned into a veritable programme when the
author(s) of the Daoist Lingbao corpus, which began to appear in about
400 AD or roughly a generation after Yang Xi in the same area, wrote
their texts to supplant Buddhism. In order to do so they copied whole
parts of Buddhist scriptures as translated by Zhi Qian, Mokala and
Kang Senghui and, by rewriting them, integrated them into
their own scriptures.^176
- Conclusion
The interactions between the developing Daoism and the in ltrating
Buddhism were quite complex and their nature changed with time. The
Queen Mother of the West as a saviour goddess residing in remote
western areas paved the way for the Buddha as initially just another
saviour god from the west. On the other hand, once in China, his ico-
nography irreversibly changed that of the Queen Mother. The earliest
notions of the dei ed Laozi in uenced the earliest known Chinese
concepts of the Buddha. When the more sophisticated Lives of the
Buddha had been translated they in turn informed the later vitae of
Laozi. As far as meditation in the form of visualisation is concerned, the
texts analysed so far seem to indicate that it originated with Buddhism
and later found its way into China to enlarge the Daoist “supply” of
meditation techniques. Similarly, it seems that the Daoist book cult was
an adaptation of an older Buddhist concept.
(^176) Bokenkamp 2004, p. 324 and especially note 23 on pp. 334f.