CHAPTER VIII.
THE INFLUENCE OF BUDDHISM ON THE CHINESE LANGUAGE.
I have now to show some of the effects which the introduction of Buddhism from India into China and its spread in the latter country had on the language of the people. And here also it must be premised that no more than a mere sketch or outline is pretended to be given. The student will be able to add examples and illustrations, to correct errors and supply defects according to the extent and nature of his reading. It will also be seen that no attempt is made here to give detailed information about the Buddhist persons and matters brought forward for notice. The reader is, of necessity, supposed to have access to the writings of Messrs. Beal, Edkins, and Eitel in which he will find the requisite information about Buddhism as it has grown up in China.
We have perhaps no means of learning when and how the first intercourse between China and India occurred. It is recorded in Chinese literature that in the reign of Ch‘in Shi Huang Ti (B. C. 221 to 209) Buddhist missionaries from India arrived at the Chinese capital. These missionaries, however, seem to have had little success and to have gone away without making any impression. Nor is the story of their coming supported by good authority or generally accepted. It is not unlikely that some in China had learned a little about India from natives of that or a neighbouring country before the arrival of the first Buddhist missionaries recorded in history. There is the old saying han-ch‘ien-yu-fo (漢前有佛). There was Buddha before Han, that is. Buddhism was in China before the Han dynasty. Some of the ching or sacred books of the religion are said to have been in the Palace Library of the Chow Kings.
Native scholars, however, are generally content to say that their countrymen first became acquainted with the existence of
