Korea Journal of Buddhist Studies ISSN:1598-0642(Print) 불교학연구

This essay aims at disclosing why the Buddhism, which believes in salvation by faith in Maitreya and Amitabha, spread widely in China and Chinese intellectuals interested in the immortality of the human soul in the early period of Chinese Buddhism. The belief in salvation by faith in an absolute god and the immortality of soul are non-Buddhistic ideas that cannot be found in early Buddhism in India. This tells us that the Buddhism transmitted in China in early days was a Buddhism greatly transformed. In terms of the history of Buddhism, the very transformed Buddhism was a central Asian Buddhism in the period of the Kushan Empire. This is the reason that we should examine the cultural characteristics of the Kushan Empire in order to understand how Buddhism was transformed before its transmission in China. It should be noticed concerning to this subject that the Kushan Empire was ethnically an Aryan state rooted in the nomadic Yuezhi culture. However, they succeeded and fused the cultures of the states that previously existed before their conquering. Those are the cultures of Persia, Greek and India. The cause of the transformation of Buddhism in the Kushan Empire period can be traced back to a Proto-Aryan Zoroastrianism. This trace might be accomplished by two ways of approaching method that is, an approaching by way of its popular religious characteristics and another by way of its theoretical characteristics. First, the most distinct religious characteristic of Zoroastrianism is the strong belief in Ahura Mazda, who is the absolute God, to realize his goodness in the universe and to defeat the evil god like Ahirman in the end. This belief might give a great influence on the formation of idea of Buddhist absolute god like Maitreya and Amitabha. This kind of central Asian Buddhist god was introduced to the Chinese people in the early days of Chinese Buddhism and the belief in this Buddhist god have still exists in China and Northeast Asia. Second, the shamanistic idea of soul shown in Aryan tradition is believed to have developed into a theoretical concept of an immortal soul like Amesha Spentas in Zoroastrianism. It is highly possible that the concept of immortal soul prevalent in Central Asia Aryan culture stimulated the Sarvātivāa and the Sautrātika to focus on the concept of pudgala as an internal subjective being that is temporal or eternal. Therefore, the theory of immortality of the human soul discussed actively among early Chinese Buddhists can be regarded as an religious phenomena that was greatly influenced by Central Asian Buddhism in the Kushan Empire period. The Kushan Buddhism that had religious characteristics as described above is supposed to have had a great influence on the formation of Chinese Buddhist discourse. This means that the characteristics of the Buddhism in Kushan Empire period should be considered when we want to analyze and understand properly the various Chinese Buddhist theories like the theory of Buddha-dhāu or of Buddha-kāa, etc.