early buddhism in china: daoist reactions 205
rst lay followers^11 as well as that of Yasa, son of a wealthy merchant
from Benares, his father and his four friends, all belonging to the vessa
(Skt. vaisya, merchant) caste, who converted to the new movement.^12 An
analysis of the 75 names of the Buddha’s most important disciples^13
revealed that those originally belonging to the caste of the merchants
represented by far the largest share, namely 44%.
Of cial accounts of early Buddhism in China are notoriously scarce
and they begin to make their appearance when Buddhism already had
gained a footing in China. However, they attest its presence in the
area of Pengcheng in Chu , a ourishing centre of commerce
and the eastern extension to the continental silk route,^14 in 65 AD. It
is here that the rst known Buddhist community was to be found,^15
and it is also from this place that we have the earliest description of a
Chinese Buddhist “monastery”.^16 The large distribution of iconographic
testimonies on Chinese soil, on the other hand, makes it plausible that
some form of Buddhism must have started to intrude into this country
already during the rst century BC.
Initially, Buddhism must have been the denomination of the foreign
merchants coming to China for business. They may have learnt some
stras and may have listened to some jtakas at home, they need not
necessarily have brought with them any written texts. Even if they had,
there was certainly no need to translate them into any other language.
All that changed when, due to individual contacts between foreigners
and their Chinese trade partners, some Chinese became personally
interested in this alien tradition. At some stage they must have felt it
necessary to have rst hand information at their disposal, especially
after their trade partners had returned home and were no longer
available as primary sources. So, only when a Chinese audience had
to be served did translations become a necessity. As this rst Chinese
audience consisted of lay persons, the most suitable texts were those
Buddhist stras which originally had been composed on behalf of a
Buddhist lay community: Mahyna texts.
(^11) Mahvagga 1.4.
(^12) Mahvagga 1.7–10.
(^13) Aguttaranikya 1.14.
(^14) Zürcher 1959, p. 26.
(^15) Maspero 1934, p. 106.
(^16) Zürcher 1959, p. 28.