The Conception Of Karma And Adaptation Of Buddhism For Chinese Society

Retribution for sin and virtue was one of the most important faiths in Chinese traditional ethic and morality, which had helped to maintain social stability for thousands of years. In fact, its ideological root could be traced back to Buddhism. Retribution for sin and virtue was a basic conception of Buddhism and called as Karma in Sanskrit, which played an important role in introducing Buddhism to China in Eastern Han Dynasty and in adapting Buddhism to concrete historical conditions of Chinese society. That's to say, the conception of Karma had a close connection with Buddhism adapting for Chinese society, to which scholars always show insufficient concern and herein my thesis addresses itself. Commencing with this point, it tries hard to make up the deficiency of previous research and dig further into Chinese ancient thoughts.Having a world of difference with Chinese traditional ethic and morality, the conception of Karma was a paramount philosophy about life in Buddhism and thus convulsed most vehemently the mental world of Chinese people when Buddhism was introduced into China. Due to its enormous and unique ethic value, Buddhist of all past dynasties always turned to Karma for help while promulgating Buddhism, which played a crucial role in adapting Buddhism for Chinese society and could be confirmed in many historical documents and records.Buddhist got an extraordinarily efficient tool in promulgating Buddha, because conception of Karma had something in common with Chinese traditional thoughts, particularly with the faith of"Heaven-man Interaction", which was put forward by a famous thinker Dong Zhong-shu. Ideologically, he created an ontological world of"Tian"and applied its conversion law of"Yin and Yang"and material outlook of"Wu Xing"to formulating nature and situation of the world, explaining cause and consequence of hominine activities and demonstrating the rightness and justifiability of political and ethic life at that time. These ideas once formed, they started to penetrate deeply not only into polity, ethic, literature, philosophy and history, but also into character, mentality and thinking of the Han nationality. Inevitably, Buddhist had to adjust their sermon to the faith of"Heaven-man Interaction", which was embraced by government officials. Whereas the conception of Karma was compatible with Dong's thought, it was easier for them to converge upon folk faith of retribution for sin with dense Chinese characteristics. This folk faith was the fruit of Chinese traditional thought in assimilating Indian ancient religion and proved that conception of Karma had accelerated the adaptation of Buddhism to Chinese society greatly.The thesis is composed of four parts. In foreword part, previous research on the connection between Karma and adapting Buddhism to Chinese society is reviewed briefly, and the deficiency is made clear as well as where my innovation lies. The first chapter focuses on the basic thought of Karma and Buddhism while putting stress on summing up points close to the faith of"Heaven-man Interaction", which was expounded in the second chapter with concentration on gathering up something common to the conception of Karma. The last chapter discourses on compatible parts of them: the core of Karma was eventually sucked into"Tian"thought contained in"Heaven-man Interaction"; both of them fell on positive mundane life and reconciled with each other in view on environment; the conception of Karma in Buddhism exerted notable influence on adapting the latter to Chinese society.