From Central Asia to Southern China: The Formation of Identity and Network in the Meditative Traditions of the Fifth–Sixth Century Southern China (420–589)

Abstract

Focusing on two specific areas in southern China, Jinling and Jingzhou, this paper examines the meditation traditions in southern China during the two-century period between 400 and 600. The activities of the main meditation practitioners based in Jinling and Jingzhou are traced, for which it will be shown that most of them were related, in one way or the other, to Buddhabhadra (359–429), an Indian missionary-cum-translator who arrived in Chang’an in 404 or 408 via Kashmir. Following Buddhabhadra, several of Buddhabhadra’s disciples and second-generation disciples, also arrived in Jinling. A review of the meditation tradition in Jinling reveals that the Kashmiri meditation tradition brought by Buddhabhadra and his group formed a dominant and decisive force for the formation and development of the meditation tradition in that area. Similarly, a survey of the meditation traditions of the Jingchu and Jingzhou area shows the same dominant influence of Buddhabhadra’s Kashmiri meditative tradition. Evidence further demonstrates that throughout the four southern dynasties (Song, Qi, Liang, and Chen), the two meditation traditions in Jinling and Jingzhou maintained very close and frequent contacts. An investigation into the meditation tradition based on the Jing-Chu area evolved around Huisi and his group. Huisi seems to be a key point of connections between the Jinling and the Jingzhou meditation traditions. His influence on the Jingzhou meditative tradition is demonstrated by the fact that almost all of his disciples known to us were connected to the meditation tradition at that area. We will moreover show that Huisi’s contact with the southern meditative traditions, centered around the areas of Jinling, Mount Lu and Jingzhou, had actually began much earlier than it has been assumed. Though already forgotten in this respect, the Kashmiri meditation tradition brought to China by Buddhabhadra, when viewed in a broader context, played a surprisingly significant role in the evolution of the meditation tradition in early medieval China. Identity might have been, and was indeed, carried on defying apparently insurmountable geographic and cultural barriers, while networks were created and maintained when and where they were least expected. Finally, by calling into question the general claim for the “Mahāyānist” nature of most Chinese (or even East Asian) Buddhist traditions, this essay has underscored the necessity of broadening the intellectual perspectives for evaluating the provenance, nature, and functions of quite a number of Buddhist traditions in East Asia that have been so far uncritically subjugated to the general rubric of “Mahāyāna.”