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How did Buddhism first affect Chinese literature during the Six Dynasties period?
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Chinese literature
Zhang Fei on the Long Sloped Bridge Turning Away One Million Wei Troops with a Powerful Stare, woodblock colour print by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, 1884. It depicts a scene from the novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
During the Six Dynasties period (220â589 CE), Buddhism significantly influenced Chinese literature through several key developments:
- Linguistic and Tonal Awareness: The introduction of Buddhist religious chants and Indian music helped attune Chinese ears to the finer distinctions of tonal qualities in their own language, which influenced the development of Chinese prosody.12
- Translation and Literary Focus: The massive effort to translate Buddhist sutras into Chinese focused scholarly attention on literature and calligraphy. Early translations often utilized a Daoist vocabulary to make complex concepts intelligible to Chinese readers.23
- New Literary Subjects and Genres: Buddhist themes began to permeate creative works. Writers like Yang Xuanzhi produced records of Buddhist temples, which served as both historical accounts and artistic storehouses of folklore. Additionally, between the 4th and 6th centuries, Chinese Buddhists adapted Indian fables and began incorporating traditional Chinese stories to illustrate Buddhist doctrines.425
- Intellectual Integration: In the South, Buddhism penetrated the literary and philosophical circles of the gentry, becoming a powerful intellectual force that helped shape the era's focus on individuality and grace in writing.23