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Running head: RISE OF BUDDHISM IN CHINA

The Rise of Buddhism In China
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RISE OF BUDDHISM IN CHINA

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Introduction

Buddhism is one of the major world’s religion with a global adherents’ base of over 500
million people which makes it the fourth largest religious community in the world. The religion
traces its roots to the ancient Indian and South Asia regions around Nepal. The religion arose due
to the human need to seek eternity and remove the impermanence in life. People crave instant
gratification and pleasures that are temporary in nature and do not fulfil the person in the long term
(Gethin, 2011). Real happiness is the single most important pillar of Buddhism and asserts that

nothing in life is permanent and therefore transitory.
As a result of the impermanence of the cravings of life, Buddha teaches its adherents to
seek liberation from the endless cycle and find peace of mind. In the latter centuries of Buddhism,
it began to spread eastwards towards China through emissaries and along the trade routes that
existed. The silk road provided a means through which the religion could spread to mainland
China. Buddhism first arrived in China in the first and second centuries CE during the Han dynasty.
It was a period of great socio-cultural changes with Daoism and Confucian ideas taking over the
main political and religious thinking.
The religion was to spread faster as a result of its embrace to the two ways of thinking.
Additionally, the translation of the first Buddhists into Han Chinese led to a further embrace of
the religion in China. This research article seeks to review the growth and spread of the religion
in China with an insistence on its effect on the value chain of Chinese life, politics and ways of
life (Harvey, 2010). The religion underwent great upheavals often tied to the politics of the day
and the views of the leadership at any point in its history.

RISE OF BUDDHISM IN CHINA

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First Emergence Buddhism in China
Two theories first emerged regarding the spread of Buddhism in China. The first one stated
that the religion came to the region vie the maritime route while the second one asserted that it
followed the ancient trade route along the silk road. The former hypothesized that the religion
emerged from southern China in the areas around the Yangtze River. However, based on recent
research by X...