How Did China's Growth Have Contributed To The British Museum

Buddhism for centuries, has long been influencing the population all over the world, specifically in China . Buddhism first came to China as a result of merchant traders from India. From there it spread within the merchant community. It mainly expanded because it gave people a sense of hope and faith with the chaos they were experiencing from the collapse of the Han Dynasty. It also spread because it covered what Confucianism lacked; a more spiritual and emotional approach that appealed to many people of different classes. It is because of this that Buddhism spread and was able to influence and greatly affect China during the period of 300-900 CE. Buddhism influenced philosophy and moral teachings, kept the Chinese society peaceful and orderly, as well as affecting the overall economy. Buddhism had strong religious teachings that appealed to the lower class with the idea of afterlife and nirvana as well as an emphasis on following your own path that transformed Chinese beliefs causing a large portion of the population to convert (doc’s 1,4). Buddhism kept the Chinese society orderly by reminding all of Buddha’s life and teachings with statues and the influence it had on monks to spread charity and missionary work (doc’s 2,3,6). Buddhism also had an effect on the economy of China. As it spread from other regions, it caused more farmers and silk producers to convert and spread the religion as monks and nuns. (doc 7,5).

The emperor Taizong gave money to monasteries, sent for more Buddhist books, and created art and statues honoring the Buddhist religion. The empress Wu compose the ultimate dedication to the new faith. She not only created more Buddhist artifacts, but she gave monk more political and social power and requested different scholars to come and teach more of this religion. Wu also injected a law which made Buddhism supersede any other beliefs. So based on the information presented in this paragraph, you can clearly see the political influence on Buddhism and China. Now let’s go over some social effects that helped with the continuous spread of Buddhism through China and central Asia.

Siddhartha Gautama, or the Buddha, founded Buddhism once he reached a state of dharma at age twenty-nine. Once he founded Buddhism, he travelled the world trying to spread his philosophy. Buddha preached that the biggest hallucination in life is the tangible world. While spreading Buddhism, he converted a small portion of South Asia. Buddhism was developed throughout South Asia by the main political powers of Aśoka and the Tang Dynasty.

A Chinese monk named Xuan Zang spent his years translating the Buddhist documents. He promoted his faith in Buddhism. People were attracted to this religion because of its morals and teachings causing it to spread throughout the region. Leaders made Buddhism a big part of everyone’s life. They encouraged Buddhism by sending money to monasteries, collecting Buddhist texts, and building Buddhist statues across the region. Through traders and merchants traveling along the silk road many of them heard about Buddhism and spread it throughout the region. In China Buddhist monasteries loaned farmers money and people put their money in the monasteries for safe keeping. Buddhist temples and monasteries provided medical care, charity, ran schools and

This facilitated the increasing practice of Buddhism in Southeast Asia attributable to influences from foreign Buddhist merchants to the nations thus integrating itself into civilization and daily life (Adler and Pouwels 2008, 64).

Ashoka’s conversion to Buddhism transformed his personal life and empire from one of death and destruction to one of peace and tolerance. Ashoka Maurya was a ruler of the Mauryan Empire, in India, who was famous in the earlier parts of his rule for being particularly violent and intolerant. However, his acceptance of Buddhism changed that. According to one of Ashoka’s many Rock and Pillar

In the third century BCE, Buddhist art emerged due to the patronage by King Ashoka, the founder of the Mauryan Dynasty. In an effort to spread this new religion, the emperor created grand stone pillars and other shrines inscribed with teachings from

In the first century China, a new ideology called Buddhism, originally in India, was introduced during the Han Dynasty through merchants from South and Central Asia. However Buddhism started becoming more popular after the fall of the Han Dynasty. Eventually leading into the Tang Dynasty, which started in 618 and ended in 907, Buddhism started to experience some problems. It had to compete with well-established philosophical and religious traditions such as Confucianism and Taoism. The influence Confucianism had on the government in China during the Tang proved to detrimental to the position of Buddhists. Nevertheless, Buddhism was already embedded into China and attracted followers. In China, the spread of Buddhism had evoked both positive

Founded in the sixth century BCE, Buddhism soon began expanding northwards from the foothills of the Himalayas. In the third century BCE, Buddhism was dispersed by missionaries across Central Asia from within India, where it remained dominant for about a thousand years. When it was brought into China, new Buddhist monks emerged. Some of them went onto become valued as palace advisors. This transmission of Buddhism also occurred with the help of the Silk Road.

Dropping out of society seemed to clash with filial piety, however, as time passed nomadic leaders started to appeal to Buddhism. For instance, “ As Buddhism traveled, it merged with many non-Buddhist ideas that made the new faith more appealing to China. Regional heroes, mythical characters, and local deities became bodhisattvas, allowing people to continue worshipping the same spirits while adding another dimension to their power.” (Johnson 56) The number of monks started to grow in China and stimulated contact with India and many wanted to acquire Buddhist scriptures. Due to the impact of syncretism, Buddhism was able to have a strong impact in China resulting in many converts and new leaders to spread Buddhism to other countries. However, another religion that was also in its first phases known, as Christianity was a successful universal religion as a result of syncretism.

There were numerous religions that were rehearsed among the general population of central Asia back in the early second and third hundreds of years and forward. Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism were among the principle three religions rehearsed then. Buddhism has been around since 273 B.C. It began in India and went into central Asia and proceeded into Korea and Japan getting to be one of the real religions in all of central China. By the ninth century nine-tenths of the populace in northwest China was changed over to Buddhism.

From the beginning of the fifth century to around the sixth century northern and the southern came up with separate ruler’s. When buddhism came to china and entered, many chinese thought it to be a variation of taoism.Buddhism is very alike to diosm, same process,calmness,sanctity, way of living.But buddhism had twist and buddhism had a different god.In the northern china except for two short periods of prescription.Buddhism flourished under the royal protange of the ruler’s who favored the religion.By the later half of the sixth century,monks were even employed in government posts.During this period buddhism arts flourished especially in caves.Many buddha images were carved out of rocks .

In spreading Buddhism, Buddhist ideology became more Chinese than Indian, and this is so called “Sinification of Buddhism;” however, Buddhism also influenced Chinese culture. Therefore, the mobility of Buddhism into China is a process of the interaction between Chinese culture and Buddhism in the aspects of politics, education, conventions, and trade.

Mahayana Buddhism spread throughout China from trade routes with India. The factors that allowed Mahayana Buddhism become so popular was that the religion focused on personal enlightenment and salvation rather than focusing on the problems of government (von Sivers, Desnoyers, and Stow 266). Secondly, Chinese rulers soon adopted the religion to strengthen their power (von Sivers, Desnoyers, and Stow

Amongst the pages of ancient Buddhist legend, a prophecy was told of a great king who would reign a hundred years before his birth. In his previous life, Ashoka the Great was said to have met the Buddha as a young child, and having nothing else to offer, placed a handful of dirt into the Buddha’s begging bowl, with the sincerest of intentions. Seeing this, the Buddha prophesized that in the next life, this young boy would be a legendary king, who would spread Buddhism all throughout the lands. As the prophecy came to fruition, the emperor of India, Ashoka the Great would spread Buddhism across the globe, but for almost two thousand years, the history Emperor Ashoka remained largely forgotten. (Charles, 2012) This was until inscriptions on