Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v1.c7.19

v1.c7.19

During the period of the Eastern Han, Indian Buddhism began to enter China’s interior area. The Chinese saw India as the “Buddhist country in the West.” There is a famous legend about the entry of Buddhism in China. It tells that one night in the seventh year of Yongping of Emperor Ming of the Han (64 CE) was keeping vigil at his mother’s ancestral tablet in his palace in Luoyang. In a dream he saw a spirit who came flying in the sunlight in front of his palace. The next morning he gathered his important ministers in front of the palace and he held a meeting inquiring which spirit was the spirit of his dream. Great minister Fu Yi bravely stood up and explained: “I have heard it said that someone who has obtained the path in India in the West, is called “Buddha”. He can fly in the sky and his persona has the light of the sun. I am afraid that the spirit in your dream was “Buddha”!” When Emperor Ming heard this, he was very glad. He decided to send the envoys, Cai Yin and Qin Jing, to India. The envoys met eminent Indian monks She Moteng (Kāśyapa Mātaṅga) and Zhu Falan (Dharmarājan/Dharmaratna) in the country of the Greater Yuezhi in Central India. They returned together with them to Luoyang using white horses to carry Buddhist scriptures and a Buddha image. Four years later, Emperor Ming ordered the construction of the Baima (White Horse) Temple in the capital Luoyang, bringing worshippers to the Buddha image and to the eminent monks. Furthermore, in Luoyang they translated the first Buddhist scripture, the *Sishier zhang jing* (*Sutra of 42 Sections*). Introduced to China because of the dream of Emperor Ming of the Han, Buddhism to a great extent, transformed the spiritual and the cultural lives of the Chinese.