Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v2.c10.s1.t1.2

v2.c10.s1.t1.2

Despite a combination of Buddhist and Daoist influence and a purpose to advocate thoughts of these two schools, these tales, in fact, have a greater tint of Buddhism. During this period, a great number of monks left from India and the Western Regions to go to China and Chinese monks also went to India to collect sutras and study Sanskrit and they collaborated and translated many classic Buddhist texts including Buddhist literary works. At that time Buddhism was popular among nobles, officials and literati in China and was widely disseminated among ordinary population. Men of letters, mentally and socially, were ready to write down such supernatural tales. Buddhist texts gave them a new outlook of time and space and aroused a kind of amazing imagination. For instance, *Zhi Guai* and *Youming Lu* all contained a tale about “kalpa-ash” and “*kalpa*” is a Sanskrit expression and a concept of time, borrowed from India. Another example, according to Book 10 of *Shiyi Ji*, Kunlun Mountain could be divided into nine layers and obviously, this three-dimensional portrait of the universe had the influence of Buddhism. Buddhist texts also brought a new outlook of life and morality and people thus became aware of this world, the afterworld and karma. Zhiguai Xiaoshuo call for “no killing” which, clearly, originated from Buddhism and their descriptions of hell, basically, also came from Buddhist texts. For this reason, Lu Xun called them “books of secondary education for Buddhism”.