in the south, and to Agra in the east, and even China had hostages at his court. Kanishka was a zealous Buddhist of the Northern school, and held a council of five hundred monks. If this council had settled the text as the Council of Asoka at Pataliputra did, we should now have in our possession the canon of Northern Buddhism as we have the Three Pitakas of the South. But Kanishka 's council satisfied itself with writing three commentaries only, and Northern Buddhism drifted more and more from its primitive form, and assumed different aspects in different lands.
As early as the second century b. c., Buddhist books were taken to the Emperor of China, probably from Kashmir. Another emperor, in 62 a. d., procured more Buddhist works and Buddhism spread rapidly from that date until it became the state religion in the fourth century.[1]
From China the religion spread to Korea in 372 a. d., and thence to Japan in 552 a. d. Cochin-China, Formosa, Mongolia, and other countries received Buddhism from China in the fourth and fifth centuries; while from Kabul the religion travelled to Balkh, Bokhara, and elsewhere.
Buddhism must have penetrated into Nepal at an early date, although the kingdom did not become Buddhist until the sixth century, nor did the first Buddhist King of Tibet send for scriptures from India before 632 a. d.
- ↑ For an account of the introduction of Buddhism into China see vol. ii, pp. 231-234.
