A Comparative Study Of The Japanese Monks Coming To China In Tang And Song Dynasties

Buddhists in China during the Tang and Song dynasty played an important role as a link connecting the Buddhism communication between China and Japan. But the impact caused by them is more than a link. They came to China to learn Buddhism, seeking to release themselves from purgatory. Because of their particular identities, they played a very important role in the political and social innovation of Japan.In spite of the occasional restrictive policy on Buddhism, the mainstream policy aimed to stimulate the development of it. So Chinese Buddhism maintained a steady development before An Lushan Rebellion, which peaked during Wu Zetian’s rule. Japanese envoys to Tang dynasty are the continuations of those to Sui dynasty. And the earliest monks from abroad were a fixed part of the missions to China in Sui and Tang dynasty. The missions at this time came to China with certain political purpose. Besides learning Chinese Buddhism, the monks learned advanced Chinese political and economic policy as well.After An Lushan Rebellion, the development environment of Chinese Buddhism was damaged. Then the Japanese government stopped sending envoys to China and the Buddhism exchange between China and Japan changed from the official to the folk. During this period, most of the monks smuggled into China by taking Chinese merchant ships. And the number of them decreased greatly. During the five dynasties, State of Wu actively promoted the cultural communication between China and Japan in order to develop the relationship with Japan. Although it didn’t make formal diplomatic relations with Japan, it in some way promoted the Buddhism exchange between China and Japan, which, as a result, left the record of the backflow of Buddhist classics from Japan.In Song dynasty, there was also not formal diplomatic relations between China and Japan, but because of the open foreign policy, the economical communication between the two countries developed rabidly. The merchant ships going to Japan increased steadily. Moreover, the Ritsu and Zen developed well in Song dynasty and the new Buddhism contributed a lot to the new development of politics and society in Japan at that time. During that time, after the political revolution, the Japanese government actively promoted the open policy, which made a great increase on the number of Japanese monks who came to China by taking merchant ships from Song dynasty. Travel notes in Tang Dynasty for learning Buddhism by Yuanren and Towering machine wutai mountain by Chengxun are called the double-wall dairies writing by the Japanese monks. In this thesis, the author took these two books as examples to analyze. In chapter two, it summarized the context, purpose and experience of Yuanren and Chengxun. Because they came to China in different times, so their experiences are different as well. Although it is somewhat thin to summarize the differences between the monks in different times by using only two examples, it is in some way convincible because their dynasties are representative and the materials are limited.Buddhism, which was introduced to China from India and mixed with the Confucian culture, Taoist ideas and other folk ideas, had become the unique Chinese Buddhism. Buddhism played a very important part in the historical revolution of Japan. First, after the monks went back to Japan, they not only propagandized Buddhism, but also played as the think tank for the governors, making guidance for policy making and implementing. Secondly, Zen Buddhism had great impact on the Bushidao spirit, which lasts until nowadays. At the same time, as the Chinese Buddhism was introduced to Japan, the Chinese character, culture, art as well as the agricultural production technique, astronomy, geography, medicine ect. were also introduced to Japan. The introduction of new culture has made profound influence on the development of society in Japan.From the exchange between the two countries, it is easy to see that it is the continuous communication between the monks in the past2000years, which formed the core of friendly communication between China and Japan.