India in the Chinese Imagination: Myth, Religion, and Thought (Encounters with Asia)

India and China dominate the Asian continent but are separated by formidable geographic barriers and language differences. For many centuries, most of the information that passed between the two lands came through Silk Route intermediaries in lieu of first-person encounters—leaving considerable room for invention. From their introduction to Indian culture in the first centuries C.E., Chinese thinkers, writers, artists, and architects imitated India within their own borders, giving Indian images and ideas new forms and adapting them to their own culture. Yet India's impact on China has not been greatly researched or well understood. __India in the Chinese Imagination__ takes a new look at the ways the Chinese embedded India in diverse artifacts of Chinese religious, cultural, artistic, and material life in the premodern era. Leading Asian studies scholars explore the place of Indian myths and storytelling in Chinese literature, how Chinese authors integrated Indian history into their conception of the political and religious past, and the philosophical relationships between Indian Buddhism, Chinese Buddhism, and Daoism. This multifaceted volume, illustrated with over a dozen works of art, reveals the depth and subtlety of the encounter between India and China, shedding light on what it means to imagine another culture—and why it matters. **Contributors:** Stephen R. Bokenkamp, Bernard Faure, John Kieschnick, Victor H. Mair, John R. McRae, Christine Mollier, Meir Shahar, Robert H. Sharf, Nobuyoshi Yamabe, Ye Derong, Shi Zhiru.

India and China dominate the Asian continent but are separated by formidable geographic barriers and language differences. For many centuries, most of the information that passed between the two lands came through Silk Route intermediaries in lieu of first-person encounters—leaving considerable room for invention. From their introduction to Indian culture in the first centuries C.E., Chinese thinkers, writers, artists, and architects imitated India within their own borders, giving Indian images and ideas new forms and adapting them to their own culture. Yet India's impact on China has not been greatly researched or well understood.

India in the Chinese Imagination takes a new look at the ways the Chinese embedded India in diverse artifacts of Chinese religious, cultural, artistic, and material life in the premodern era. Leading Asian studies scholars explore the place of Indian myths and storytelling in Chinese literature, how Chinese authors integrated Indian history into their conception of the political and religious past, and the philosophical relationships between Indian Buddhism, Chinese Buddhism, and Daoism. This multifaceted volume, illustrated with over a dozen works of art, reveals the depth and subtlety of the encounter between India and China, shedding light on what it means to imagine another culture—and why it matters.

Contributors: Stephen R. Bokenkamp, Bernard Faure, John Kieschnick, Victor H. Mair, John R. McRae, Christine Mollier, Meir Shahar, Robert H. Sharf, Nobuyoshi Yamabe, Ye Derong, Shi Zhiru.

Cover 1 Half Title 2 Series Page 3 Title Page 4 Copyright Page 5 Dedication 6 Contents 8 Introduction 12 Part I: Indian Mythology and the Chinese Imagination 22 1 Transformation as Imagination in Medieval Popular Buddhist Literature 24 2 Indian Mythology and the Chinese Imagination: Nezha, Nalakubara, and Krsna 32 3 Indic Influences on Chinese Mythology: King Yama and His Acolytes as Gods of Destiny 57 4 Indian Myth Transformed in a Chinese Apocryphal Text: Two Stories on the Buddha’s Hidden Organ 72 Part II: India in Chinese Imaginings of the Past 92 5 From Bodily Relic to Dharma Relic Stupa: Chinese Materialization of the Asoka Legend in the Wuyue Period 94 6 “Ancestral Transmission” in Chinese Buddhist Monasteries: The Example of the Shaolin Temple 121 7 The Hagiography of Bodhidharma: Reconstructing the Point of Origin of Chinese Chan Buddhism 136 Part III: Chinese Rethinking of Indian Buddhism 150 8 Is Nirvana the Same as Insentience? Chinese Struggles with an Indian Buddhist Ideal 152 9 Karma and the Bonds of Kinship in Medieval Daoism: Reconciling the Irreconcilable 182 10 This Foreign Religion of Ours: Lingbao Views of Buddhist Translation 193 Glossary 210 Notes 228 Bibliography 280 Contributors 310 Index 312 In This Collection Of Original Essays, Leading Asian Studies Scholars Take A New Look At The Way The Chinese Conceived Of India In Their Literature, Art, And Religious Thought In The Premodern Era.