CultureEast Asia
Buddhism reaches China
A foreign religion is adapted and becomes Chinese
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The translation effort was vast and philosophically difficult: Sanskrit terms had to be rendered with Daoist words, which coloured the content. Buddhism gave China something Confucianism lacked — a teaching about the individual's fate after death. The monasteries became great landholders, and the state moved against them several times, most sweepingly in 845.
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Monks from India followed the Silk Road east and brought Buddhism to China. There it met Daoism and changed — becoming, eventually, Zen. From there it spread on to Korea and Japan.
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Part of Terra Saga — the story of Earth on a timeline. terrasaga.org