Chapter 7 China 269Asia. He introduced Madhyamaka philosophy and joined forces with disciples
of the Chinese monk Dao’an in the greatest effort of translation in history. A
single translation often took four people to divide the work: an Indian monk to
orally recite the Sanskrit; another to write it down; another to translate the San-
skrit into oral Chinese; and a fourth to record the text in written Chinese.
When Xuanzang returned from India in the seventh century, there was another
round of vigorous translation, for by then there were many written texts in
India for him to collect. By the eighth century there was a canon of over a thou-
sand Buddhist texts in good translations, which emperors ordered to be copied
by official bureaus set up for the purpose. This became easier after the eighth-
century invention of printing. It was first invented to reproduce charms and
images cheaply and quickly, but its potential was quickly grasped. In 972 the
first printing of the entire Buddhist canon was done by imperial order. The Dia-
mond Sutra of 898 still exists in the British Museum (see chapter 2).
Religions grow out of the soil of indigenous social patterns and do not
transplant easily. In China, the integration of religion and the sociopolitical
order had been refined over a millennium. Buddhism was, first of all, a barbar-
ian religion filled with bizarre notions. What did an Indian sage, this Buddha,
have to teach a civilization that had Confucius and Laozi? Confucius had
placed all emphasis on human life in society. Each person had one life to live,
to be fulfilled in the community of family, lineage, and the state. He had
refused to speculate on the gods, on Heaven, on the fate of the soul, or whether
ancestors were actually sentient and capable of enjoying the gifts that must nev-
ertheless be offered them. But here were Buddhists, denying the existence of all
the here and now, proclaiming the utter unreality of all phenomena, plus a host
of other outlandish ideas.
Monasticism was particularly un-Chinese. A monk was guilty of cutting off
the family line, a sin against the ancestors and the height of social irresponsibil-
ity. The exemplary Indian story of Prince Sudana shocked Chinese. Prince
Sudana, like the Buddha himself, renounced his kingdom by giving his father’s
property away, giving the war elephants to the enemy, and putting his wife and
son into the care of others. The Chinese viewed this as not filial, not li, and not
ren. Interpreters tried to explain: Sudana realized the world is transitory and
wealth and properties do not truly belong to the self, which, incidentally, does
not really exist, either. By giving all away and seeking enlightenment, he
reached the point of becoming a Buddha. Then, through his enlightenment, he
brought salvation to his parents, brothers, wife, and son. Is this not the epitome
of filial devotion and humaneness?
The idea of reincarnation was particularly troublesome. The Chinese felt
the soul was too tied to the body to survive its death. Further, the idea of rein-
carnation was a big problem for ancestor worship; how could an ancestor
return as someone else’s descendant? The concept of the Pure Land eventually
solved that problem; instead of reincarnation into a new existence, one was
reincarnated into the Pure Land, Heaven, a suitable abode for ancestors.