Traditions of Buddhism
widespread government suppression of Buddhism, which, in the
more recent period, has given way to a more tolerant attitude.^9
The traditions of Chinese Buddhism also continue in Taiwan and
Hong Kong.
The development of the Chinese canon
When Buddhism began entering China the Mahayana was still
in its early stages of development; the writings of Nagarjuna,
Asmiga, and Vasubandhu were still to come. The most import-
ant early centre of Buddhism in China seems to have been at
Lo-yang and it is here, from the middle of the second century,
that foreign monks such as An Shih-kao and Lokak~ema (Chih
Lou-chia-ch'an) began the work of translating Indian Buddhist
texts into Chinese; these first translations included texts on med-
itation (such as the non-MahayanaAnapana-smrti Sutra or 'Dis-
course on Mindfulness of Breathing' and the proto-Mahayana
Pratyutpanna-buddha-sarJ1mukhiivasthita-samadhi Sutra or 'Dis-
course on the Samadhi of Direct Encounter with the Buddhas
of the Present') and portions of the Perfection of Wisdom in 8,ooo
Lines (A~ta-sahasrika Prajiiaparamita).^10
The manner of these early translations is characteristic of
the whole process of translation of Indian Buddhist texts into
Chinese. The Indian canonical collections were never translated
into Chinese en bloc. The Chinese Tripi taka (San-tsang) or 'Great
Treasury of S1itras' (Ta-tsang-ching) evolved over a period of
over a thousand years.^11 Rather than a strictly defined canon, the
Chinese Tripitaka represents a library containing all the Chinese
translations of Buddhist sfitras and sastras made over the cen-
turies, as well as a variety of indigenous Chinese treatises rel-
ating to Buddhism. The oldest surviving catalogue of Chinese
Buddhist texts dates from the sixth century and details over 2,ooo
works; the first printed edition, produced from 130,000 wooden
blocks and completed in 983, contained 1,076 works. Subsequent
catalogues and editions, produced in Korea and Japan as well as
China, show some divergence both in the arrangement of the canon
and in its contents. The modern standard is the Taisho edition,
produced in Japan between 1924 and 1932.1ts fifty-five volumes,